It's a quarter past eight and I am seated in an airport lounge, not by habit but by happenstance. To my right a man has spread his possessions across the table as though it were his home office. His bag stands open. His laptop — new, and expensive by the look of it — rests on the tabletop among a pair of headphones, an iPad, and other practical things arranged in plain sight. Then he rises, without ceremony, and casually walks away.

And I wonder: what is his relationship here that gives him the confidence that his possessions are safe from theft or abuse?

Trust is a mysterious and remarkable thing to me, akin to faith. I see it all the time when I travel. And travel is something I love and loathe simultaneously, making the whole equation that much more complicated and confounding.

I’m amazed at the number of people who will leave their belongings temporarily at cafes, lounges, airports, etc., with apparent ease. Perhaps to get a coffee. Perhaps to use the restroom. Perhaps for obvious reasons at all.

And I often contemplate, no matter wherever or how often I see this, what is the source of such trust? Is it that they feel their possessions valuable only to them and therefore no one would casually walk away with them? Is it that they the security cameras, real or imagined, serve as a strong enough deterrent or as evidence after the event of theft to keep their items safe? Is it a kind of ignorance, willful or otherwise, that makes them oblivious to the darker, more corrupt side of human nature?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines trust as a belief that someone or something is good, sincere, honest, safe, or dependable—and will not harm, deceive, or let you down.

Honest. Safe. Dependable.

These are priceless qualities. Some people seem to treat them with almost frivolous abandon. I hold them dear as they are very difficult to find and once found even rarer to remain stable over time and across environments and circumstances.

But I pretend neither omniscience nor wisdom. Perhaps those people possess some knowledge or foresight about the safety of their items that I do not. Perhaps good fortune has long been by their side so as not to diminish their confidence in their fellow humans. Perhaps I’m overly protective or paranoid, always assuming the presence of risk or danger when there is none.

Perhaps just I’m overthinking, which I’m prone to doing. A function that I can be guilty of at times of uncertainty or anxiety, though I’m unaware of such feelings at the moment.

The man returned to his seat. His items untouched.

Was it luck? Coincidence? Fate? Was it just random causality? Was it some unseen connection between things we cannot perceive or the absence of it?

I realize it is rather absurd or irrational to be thinking of these things when nothing harmful has happened. But that is why I pay attention to them. What is it that made this occasion safe when another might not have been? What is it that I read in this space as risk that he either doesn’t read or ignores?

Add to this my fascination with the tedious and mundane, the subtleness of peoples decisions, actions, and body language are more about how I see the things that on the surface appear trivial but may or may not be. Small things I notice throughout my day that may or may not be of consequence in a world where interdependence strongly suggests that everything is significant, though we may not see the progression or perceive an event as an endless web of events.

The man closed his laptop, gathered his things, and left without looking back. Whatever his trust was built on, he didn’t seem to pay it any mind. I sat a while longer, keeping half an eye on my own bag, wondering what it would take for me to leave mine so completely to the trust of things both seen and unseen.

#Excultio

---

By D. Bowman Nomina Numina is a journal of reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

260908 – Dream – Maintenance

I am changing the oil on the Mercedes ML 350. The work is routine. I degrease the engine. It worries me that the contamination is washing down the driveway.

I remove the drivers engine to repair a leak. It occurs to me that I do not known the torque specs. So I just twist the wrench. And twist and twist.

After reassembling the engine, I take the car for a test drive.

The wheels come off and go on again.

At the top of a hill sleeps a homeless woman. She sleeps on a bus bench with her back to me. I can see the skin of her lower back where her shirt has ridden up whom she sleeps. It is very pale, like it’s never seen daylight.

Looking past the camper, I see Ng. She is standing and looks lost. Across the street from her is a Carl’s Jr. behind her is an empty field. She is wearing the black and white dress I always liked. It is form fitting and flatters her shape.

It is clear that she it out of place. I drive over to offer her a ride.

“Oh! There you are, I was waiting for you.”

She gets in and we drive away.

---

what?

The dream begins with maintenance: changing the oil, cleaning the engine, dealing with a leak. It is ordinary work, but even in the routine parts I am thinking about consequences. I degrease the engine, then worry about the contamination washing down the driveway. I am fixing one thing while wondering what damage the fixing itself might cause.

That carries into the repair. I remove the engine to deal with the leak, then realize I do not know the torque specifications. Instead of stopping, checking, or finding the correct information, I just keep tightening. Twist and twist and twist.

That may be one of the clearest images in the dream. When I am unsure whether something is secure, I can compensate by applying more force. I may do that emotionally too. If I do not know the exact amount of pressure a situation requires, I am capable of overcorrecting, overthinking, overworking, or trying to make absolutely certain that nothing comes loose.

Then I reassemble everything and take the car for a test drive. The repair has moved from the garage back into the real world. Whatever I have changed now has to function under actual conditions.

That is when the dream stops being about machinery and becomes about people.

At the top of the hill is a homeless woman asleep on a bus bench. Her back is turned to me, and a strip of very pale skin is exposed where her shirt has ridden up. She is vulnerable without knowing she is being observed. The detail about the skin never having seen daylight makes me think of something hidden, neglected, or protected for so long that exposure itself looks unnatural.

Then I see Ng.

She is not hidden, but she is clearly out of place. She is dressed in something I remember finding beautiful on her, standing between a Carl’s Jr. and an empty field. There is almost nothing around her that fits her. She looks lost, but also recognizable and familiar.

My response to her is completely different from my response to the engine.

I do not diagnose her. I do not repair her. I do not tighten anything. I simply drive over and offer her a ride.

And she says, “Oh! There you are, I was waiting for you.”

That line changes the dream for me. Up to that point, I am the one doing maintenance, checking, repairing, worrying, testing. I am responsible for making things function. But with Ng, I do not have to make anything happen. I only have to arrive.

There may be something in that contrast for me. I spend a lot of energy thinking in terms of fixing, maintaining, preventing failure, and applying the right amount of effort. The dream may be showing me that not everything meaningful is solved that way.

Some things may not need repair.

They may only need recognition.

They may only need me to notice where they are, pull over, and make room.

In Summary: * It's a shame the Rangers lost their game to the Mariners this afternoon, but at least it was an afternoon game I was able to follow from the Pregame Show through to the final out. And there's plenty of time left in this evening to finish all my night prayers and meditations at a comfortable pace before bedtime.

The only chore accomplished today was sorting through all the correspondence that had accumulated on the desktops back here. Most of that went out with the trash.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night.

Health Metrics: * bw= 224.87 lbs. * bp= 136/80 (63)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, toe raises, wall push-ups, BP breathing exercises, pilates

Diet: * 08:00 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 09:30 – 1 ham and cheese sandwich * 12:00 – pizza * 15:35 – 1 fresh apple

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 03:30 – listen to local news talk radio * 04:50 – bank accounts activity monitored . * 05:00 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, listen to music, nap * 12:00 to 13:00 – watch old game shows and eat lunch at home with Sylvia * 13:10 – listen to relaxing music * 14:30 – tuned into 105.3 The Fan, DFW's #1 Sports Station ahead of this afternoon's MLB game between the Texas Rangers and the Seattle Mariners * 17:30 – and Seattle wins, 3 to 2.

Chess: * 10:00 – moved in all pending CC games, winning one, losing another, stumbling through in others.

I recently read this quote from Peter Thiel, cited from the New York Times in a recent article in the Guardian:

I like Star Wars way better. I’m a capitalist. Star Wars is a capitalist show (sic). Star Trek is the communist one. There is no money in Star Trek because you just have the transporter (sic) machine that can make anything you need. The whole plot Star Wars starts with Han Solo having this debt that he owes and so the plot in Star Wars is driven by money.

The whole plot of Star Wars starts with Han Solo? Did we forget the entire first act of the film, the nearly half-hour of screen time that takes place before Han Solo shows up? Then, the plot starting with “this debt that he owes.” What?

I have to admit that I am somewhat deeply entrenched in the lore of both Star Trek and Star Wars and so cannot be considered an “average person” when it comes to either franchise. But I also feel like it’s not outside the realm of reason to say that the average person, when thinking about Star Wars, is not under the assumption that those films are about Han Solo and money. Luke Skywalker is the hero of the franchise (sorry, George, you’re wrong in thinking that you could make Star Wars to be about Anakin). His story is about putting others ahead of himself.

Peter Thiel, it seems, conveniently forgets that the opening scenes of Star Wars (what has since been retconned into A New Hope) involve a superior military killing and abducting dissidents in order to silence them. Han Solo’s debt is only a tangential part of the story (it’s the motivation that gets him wrapped up in the whole thing, sure). The plot of Star Wars starts with Princess Leia discreetly sending the plans of a secret super weapon (the Death Star) to a backwater planet where she knows an old Jedi—a religion of essentially space wizards who’ve been eradicated by the Galactic Empire—is in hiding, in the hopes that he’ll get those plans to the leadership of the Rebel Alliance so they can put a stop to mass murder. This happens as Darth Vader, the right-hand enforcer of the Emperor, has boarded her ship and massacres her crew. It is, quite famously, one of the most historically thrilling opening scenes in the history of cinema.

I once knew a couple, youth group leaders at an upstart church in the Orlando area, who did Star Wars cosplay and said “we’re more into the military/tactical part of Star Wars, not so much the mystical/Jedi stuff.” This is only to say that, yes, I get that there are people who enjoy Star Wars who don’t really go for the “Jedi stuff.” But you’d think that the guy who’s recently made it part of his brand to be an expert on the Antichrist would focus on Luke, the messianic figure, and not Han, the greaser who makes no secret of the fact that he believes in nothing.

***

I recently wrote a piece wondering about the phenomenon of me and Christian Nationalist types reading the same Bible but coming away with vastly different views on those texts. This kind of questioning applies to other stories and shared mythologies. In that same aforementioned Guardian article is a note that Stephen Miller, the cruel and ghoulish advisor to the Trump White House, claims to be a fan of Star Trek. Years back we learned that, infamously, Paul Ryan (Mitt Romney’s running mate in the 2012 presidential election) claimed to be a fan of the notoriously anarchist band Rage Against the Machine. This lead to memes involving people wondering what “machine” Paul Ryan thought Zach and Tom were raging against (was it a faulty Maytag?).

Again, how does this happen?

I was recently reminded of a story shared by Dr. Randy Richards and Brandon O’Brien in their truly great book Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes. They recall a story related by Mark Allen Powell in his essay “The Forgotten Famine” where he had different groups read Luke’s account of the Prodigal Son story.

Powell had twelve students in a seminary class read the story carefully from Luke’s Gospel (sic), close their Bibles and then retell the story as faithfully as possible to a partner […] Later, Powell had the opportunity to try [this] again, this time outside the United States. In St. Petersburg, Russia, he gathered fifty participants to read and retell the prodigal son story.

The story goes that Powell noticed that none of the 12 American seminary students mentioned the famine that is referenced in Luke 15:14. He finds this interesting and decides to have a hundred people do this exercise, out of which only six mention the famine.

The group was ethnically, racially, socioeconomically and religiously diverse. The “famine-forgetters,” as Powell calls them, had only one thing in common: they were from the United States.

As already mentioned, he has the opportunity to try this experiment with fifty Russians and out of that group “an overwhelming forty-two of the fifty participants mentioned the famine.”

The authors postulate that for the Russian participants, the memory of the Nazi siege (when St. Petersburg was known as Leningrad), which resulted in three years of famine and around 670,000 deaths, was a key component to the story. The purpose of sharing this story, the authors state, is “to raise this question: if our cultural context and assumptions can cause us to overlook a famine, what else do we fail to notice?”

The details missed seem to be informed by cultural and economic contexts. Those Russian students knew famine, so they were primed to see that detail. We in the US are prone to say “I’m starving” after only a few hours after a meal, so we’re less inclined to pay attention to the detail of the famine. But, regardless, the famine is an essential part of understanding the story. The famine is what prompts the “prodigal” of the story to return home.

As Richards and O’Brien note, American Christians tend to see the story of the Prodigal Son as being about the wasteful kid getting his comeuppance, facing the reality of lying in the bed that he’s made, and being surprised at his father’s mercy. But the Russian readers (and plenty of others outside of the West) see the story differently: “The boy’s problem is not that he is wasteful but that he is lost.” Not noticing the famine changes the tenor of the story quite dramatically.

***

I don’t know Peter Thiel, so I can only speculate about his thoughts. But it seems likely that a man of his wealth is primed to see both Star Trek and Star Wars in particular terms. Namely, he sees both as being about money. In order to do this, Thiel has to ignore basically the entire actual story of Star Wars.

It’s interesting that he views Star Wars as a story about Han Solo when comparing it to Star Trek. I say this because there is an oft-made comparison between Han Solo and James Kirk in popular culture. Both are considered to be “shoot-first” rogue like characters who live and act based on their gut feelings, causing women to swoon and men to fall-in-line behind them. But the reality is that neither image is accurate to either character.

In the actual Star Trek show Kirk is rarely depicted as a swashbuckling womanizer. Rather he’s described as “a walking stack of books” back in Academy days. He strictly adheres to rules and protocol, deviating only when it seems necessary and called for, and gets laid far less in the show than you’d be primed to think if you’ve never watched it. I think marketing execs created this image for Kirk in order to try and sell the show to a world that had never heard of Star Trek and it wound up sticking in people’s minds—to the point that the Kirk of the movies (particularly from Khan onward) is more like the imagined idea of Kirk rather than his actual depiction in the show (and I say this as an avowed lover of the Star Trek films).

Additionally, Han is a kind of comic-relief character. He’s what’s known as the “audience surrogate,” the character who sits on the outside of the main narrative action to help translate the in-universe events for those who aren’t part of it. His line about “hokey religion” being no substitute for a blaster is meant to be a wink for all the 1970s Boomer dads in the audience for whom laser swords and droid banter is a bit too much. Their kids see themselves in the princess and the would-be knight. The guy who owes people money, drinking at the bar, racing around in a junker that he fixes up himself? Pure 1970s dad fantasy.

Han is also kind of an idiot. His entire “shoot-first” approach winds up both condemned and seen as a failure by the end of the film (which further makes George Lucas’ changes to Han’s shooting of Greedo all the more egregious). Han’s arc is literally that of a rambling man out on the road with no one but his dog, looking for quick bucks, coming to the realization that there’s things more important than money and that he is a better man with friends at his side. Lest we forget, Han Solo gets the winning shot against Darth Vader(!) and only after he decides to make a u-turn and deal with the bounty on his head for another day. He makes a selfless decision to save his friends from what he had already acknowledged was a suicide mission. The end of the movie is, in terms of Han Solo, quite overtly a rejection of money. So if money is at all part of what Star Wars is “about” it’s in terms of money’s limits. It’s corny and cliché to say (but George Lucas is openly playing with corny cliches in this series of films) but Han’s story really ends on “the real wealth is the friends we’ve made.”

***

Is Star Trek communist? Communist is a particular thing, so I won’t say that. Star Trek is decidedly socialist though.

The “transporter machine” that Thiel refers to is likely the replicator, a piece of technology that only started to show up in Star Trek: The Next Generation (set a century after the events of Kirk and his crew). What’s interesting to me about the lore of Star Trek is that the utopian vision of the Federation of Planets is something that begins to come into being before there’s been a post-scarcity society. Gene Roddenberry depicted a future where humanity matured beyond the pettiness of political boundaries and wealth-hoarding. Later iterations of the series would depict the catalyzing event of this as humanity’s first contact with alien life, which elevates our consciousness. But the actual original series of Star Trek doesn’t go that deep into the history. Rather it takes for granted that we humans were just simply destined to reach such a place by virtue of our continued growth as a species. Star Trek (the original series) indicates that there are other wars between the Federation years and ours (World War III, the Eugenics Wars), all with the implication that we eventually come to see the absurdity of war among ourselves and choose to work as one species for our betterment.

Thiel cannot imagine a scenario where humanity becomes collaborative and communal without some kind of technological catalyst.

He sees Star Trek as presenting a world where people refuse to accept the monetization of technologies that people like him envision themselves inventing. He’s likely terrified of the idea that he and his friends’ inventions will be taken from them and used in ways that won’t make them both rich and powerful. And so he has to dismiss the relatively hard sci-fi Star Trek as a kind of fantasy while reinventing the decidedly fantasy-set-in-space Star Wars as a more “realistic” story—conveniently ignoring the vast majority of the story in order to do so.

The funny thing is that, everything considered, both Star Wars and Star Trek depict the same thing: once we put aside the pursuit of wealth in exchange for collaboration, community, and working toward a more open future for everyone that’s when we really begin to shine.

That’s when we really get to live among the stars.

---

The Rev. Charles Browning II is the rector of Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church in Honolulu, Hawai’i. He is a husband, father, surfer, and frequent over-thinker. Follow him on Mastodon and Pixelfed.

#StarWars #StarTrek #Bible #Theology #politics

Our Father Who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!

Notes Toward a Profane Theology of My Own Making

Sin: a fail towards the joy of living, a distraction from the delight Sacred: a belonging to the realm of subjectivism, whatever moves you. Gods: beings capable of making or unmaking the world, and therefore untouched by the pleasure of desire. Generation: age clusters destined to fail better than those who came before.

/Sep26

I won this CC tournament game a few minutes ago with a Rook-Queen Combination Checkmate. While my Rook's 41...Rd1# delivered the mating move, all the White King's possible flight squares were covered by that Rook or by my Black Queen at f2. This game began on 27 July, was played with a comfortable 2 days per move time control, and ended, as I said above, a few minutes ago.

The position of pieces at game's end is shown in the graphic above, and our game's full move record is below:

1. e4 a6 2. Bc4 e6 3. Qf3 f6 4. Qh5+ g6 5. Qf3 Bg7 6. g4 b5 7. Bd3 Bb7 8. g5 Nc6 9. gxf6 Nxf6 10. e5 Nd5 11. c3 Nxe5 12. Qg3 Nxd3+ 13. Qxd3 O-O 14. Ne2 Qf6 15. c4 Nb4 16. Qb3 Qxf2+ 17. Kd1 Bxh1 18. Qxb4 Qf1+ 19. Kc2 Be4+ 20. Kb3 Qf3+ 21. Nec3 c5 22. Qxc5 Rf5 23. Qc7 Qd3 24. Na3 bxc4+ 25. Ka4 Bc6+ 26. Kb4 Bf8+ 27. Qd6 Qxd6+ 28. Kxc4 Rf4+ 29. Kb3 Rb8+ 30. Kc2 Be4+ 31. Nxe4 Rxe4 32. d3 Re2+ 33. Bd2 Rc8+ 34. Nc4 Qc5 35. Kd1 Rxh2 36. Kc2 Bh6 37. Rd1 Bxd2 38. Rxd2 Rxd2+ 39. Kc1 Rxd3 40. b3 Qf2 41. Kb1 Rd1#

And the adventure continues.

Over a year ago, I didn’t know who this man was and how much he would impact on my thinking. If you didn’t know, Wendell Berry recently passed away on August 31st at the age of 92. He was a writer, farmer, and conservationist.

The first essay I read was Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer. It made me think of all the electronic devices I’ve used. The constant recharging, letting it run out of juice regardless if I used them or not, and finally leaving them in my drawer not used for months.

But it also made me rethink my writing. The countless hours of leaving my laptop and whatever writing app on but not a single word typed, the distractions of email and YouTube, and all the numerous electronic devices that supposedly helped me write whereas I could get a lot more done with just paper and pencil.

Therefore, I write with my notepad/notebook with pencil before typing my draft on my phone or laptop. I sharpen my pencils with a hand-cranked sharpener or pocket knife. I write during the daytime only and don’t sacrifice sleep. And I don’t fall for the next latest app or device that will supposedly help me be a “better” writer.

I bought the two Library of America volumes of Mr. Berry’s essays and hope to read all of them. I might buy his fiction and poems although I’m not a fan of the latter. While I’ll never have as much of his pinky of talent I’ll always remember to use technology judiciously and that paper and pencil/pen is best when starting to write anything.

Rest in peace, Mr. Berry.

#writing #rip #wendellberry

One of my friends introduced me to 'Dungeon Crawler Carl'. My number finally came up with the libraries on my Libby. (Yes, I most enthusiasticlly participate with as many that will allow me to.) The series is quickly becoming a guilty pleasure. It's cheesy, quirky, filled with nuanced wit, and damn, I love that cat.

Alas, my writing here is likely to be very random for a while. This book makes me grin and laugh, there's a whole series, and it's definitely not AI slop. It's a nice escape from the current idiocy that has become reality.

I have the sound of rain playing throughout my apartment today. I'm working, taking a break to read, and allowing the soothing noise to calm my nerves. The unknown anxiety has really ramped up this past week. When I get like this, something very big usually hits the fan. I'm trying to ignore it since these days that could literally mean anything, and with the state of “leadership” at this time... I am most grateful for the distraction.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

Conditional friendships and those arrangements...

Simply put: THEY DO NOT WORK. It's like supply and demand. And it's just produce endlessly but nothing is ever coming back to me. Not just the simplest thing that I want: an ear to listen back to me, NOT just me constantly listening and providing.

I always leave these dynamics because friendship (to me) is showing reciprocity, curiousness in the person's situations and mutual respect for one another. If that is not present, it just never works for me...

It's a chronic imbalance.

Drafting tomorrow's newsletter. Not ideal, because today has announced itself to be Migraine Day. The cause, I know; woke up yesterday at 6:00 am and didn't get to bed till 3:00 am! Despite which, I awoke today at 7:30 am! Running on little over than 3 hours of sleep here and cannot shut my eyes no matter how hard I try.

There really was no burning reason for me to pull a 21-hour day yesterday, it just sorta happened.

I may be stressing over the abhorrent amount of dough I dropped on a massive Ikea order the other day. But, I have been without a sofa or reading chair or adequate lighting or storage solutions for well over a year now and I just can't take it anymore. It's true that I may have promised myself to shun Ikea, but it still offers the fastest and most practical solutions to too many things, and Egyptian craft/handy men have broken me good.

In other news, I am officially a cat daddy now. Little fucker wouldn't stop following me around, crisscrossing between my legs and often tripping me in the process. So I figured: fine, I'll let him inside. But not before bathing him which I figured would make him hate me to death till the end of time.

Nope, he made himself comfortable in my arms and let me lather away without the slightest bit of resistance. Even purring in the process! At which point, I completely gave in to the prospect of being his obedient slut for life. Because if you know anything about cats, you know that that level of trust seldom comes easy.

#journal

Why do you not like the USA?

120 kids, poof. If you ever wonder why folks hate us, that’s a good start. I looked at AP headlines with coffee and saw the remnants of a school we bombed. I saw pictures of the services, the rubble, the grief. Iran is difficult. Since the early 50’s, We have routinely screwed them over. We act indignant if they seem upset about it. It never ends. Now 120 kids.

How does no one see themselves when they carry mirrors around everywhere?

We have a looking at ourselves problem because we look at ourselves all the time. I have witnessed many folks receiving new information, and reducing it to their preferences as if the information itself depended on it. “120 kids killed today by a US bombing on an Iranian school” is deep. Many folks say, “not in the mood.” Those kids and parents probably feel the same on that.

Kris says..

I try to learn about our victims. I don’t know how I could ever be truly sorry if I didn’t. But there’s so many! Kris Kristofferson said it is important to know victims. I see it. It means, “never again.” Folks here aren’t scared of the mental drag, they’re afraid of commitment.

One thing I have noticed since no phone and social media is what a commitment everything is. If I just want to look up headlines on Google, I get questions now. I get articles from 2020, 2025. It doesn’t know what to do with me. We are not in a committed relationship. I’ve lost my Google. lol.

Have a spreadsheet for user/passwords? Not me. I can tell you it is wonderful.

I would have to make user/passwords over again to get the service I have grown accustomed to. It isn’t just Google, either. Just about any store, even music ones, and even apps like “Music” or “Canva” don’t have much to go on if they can’t gather data to cater to. So they suck now too.

The worst has to be voice to text. I am not sure what is going on there. But it is unusable at the moment. Would it be better if I logged in? As near as I can figure yes, but possibly not. Apparently it is a dark age for voice to text, even though it worked fabulously just a year or two ago. But they are not getting the data from me that it needs to work well. I have read I would notice improvement, logging in.

Bad spouses and enemies always go for memory. They really do!

We are committed to these broken things like we are committed to bombing schools in Iran. No one thinks they could do anything to change status quo, so they just go with the flow. Good job, Americans. They attacked the memory so hard from Silicone Valley, we’ve forgotten who we are, all from logging in.

Historically, we are assholes to Iran. We robbed them of their Prime Minister in the early 50’s who was to nationalize their oil, nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize. (A great book is out about that, “All the Shah’s Men” by Stephen Kinzer.) But Truman and Churchill had other plans. They installed the shah. Iran suffers for an eternity, but at least we still got their oil.

But if it isn’t oil these days, what is it?

Now, oil isn’t even the world’s number one commodity, data is. If the same kinds of folks, (or worse), are in power now, what do you think they have their eye on? Oil? Small potatoes these days. It’s the narrative. The USA is barely holding on to its own narrative to its own people. It doesn’t fight for truth, or justice. It fights to control the narrative. A huge reason for such data bullshit isn’t to control what you think as much as it is to control what you have access to for helping you think better. If everyone knew the truth about USA foreign policy history, no one would like the USA. Simple as that.

I am at the best place mentally and financially I have ever been in my life. I feel super fortunate for lots of reasons. I am giving to someone in Iran today because my heart yearns to help somehow. Also, I hope to start a fad. I think if tons of US citizens give to Iranians, the government knows they lost narrative there. People win to live to fight another day. I think that’s the least I owe them kids. I am committed to that.

Kelly Kintner, Editor, Producer

The Horse’s Mouth Magazine (Linktree)

The Kintners (Subvert)

Djembe Funk (Subvert)

Nous avons enfin accompli ce prodige moderne : transformer la guerre en contenu.

Un président publie une menace. Un ministre lui répond par un montage. Une armée diffuse ses frappes comme des bandes annonces. Les partisans ajoutent une musique épique, quelques drapeaux, une plaisanterie humiliante, puis regardent les chiffres monter. Le soldat reçoit l’ordre. Le civil reçoit l’explosion. Le dirigeant reçoit les statistiques d’engagement.

On appelle cela la communication de crise, comme si la crise était un problème d’image.

La guerre n’est pourtant pas devenue virtuelle. Une jambe arrachée ne repousse pas lorsque l’on ferme l’application. Une mère ne retrouve pas son enfant parce que le sujet cesse d’être tendance. La faim ne connaît pas les algorithmes. Le feu ne fait aucune différence entre une propagande brillante et une propagande médiocre.

Ce qui est devenu virtuel, c’est la conscience de ceux qui regardent.

Les dirigeants ont toujours vécu loin des champs de bataille. Mais leur éloignement possède aujourd’hui une perfection presque artistique. Ils voient des cartes sans entendre les cris. Ils déplacent des unités sans sentir l’odeur d’un corps brûlé. Ils parlent de fermeté depuis des pièces climatisées, protégées par des hommes dont le métier consiste précisément à leur éviter le réel.

Ceux qui décident qu’une ville peut être sacrifiée dorment rarement sous le toit qui tombera.

La distance entre la décision et sa conséquence est devenue si grande que la cruauté peut désormais se prendre pour de l’intelligence. On appelle stratégie le fait de prévoir combien d’inconnus devront mourir pour obtenir un avantage. On appelle dommages collatéraux les enfants qui empêcheraient la phrase de passer à la télévision si on les appelait par leur prénom. On appelle courage politique la capacité d’envoyer les fils des autres accomplir ce que l’on n’aurait jamais le courage de demander aux siens.

Mais il serait trop facile d’accuser seulement les puissants.

Les dirigeants ne sont pas déconnectés par accident. Ils ont appris à nous donner exactement ce que nous récompensons. Nous prétendons vouloir comprendre, mais nous voulons surtout savoir qui applaudir et qui haïr. Nous voulons un gentil assez pur pour nous dispenser de réfléchir, un monstre assez absolu pour nous autoriser à jouir de sa destruction, et une guerre assez lointaine pour que notre indignation ne trouble ni notre sommeil ni nos achats.

Nous condamnons la propagande adverse tout en partageant la nôtre.

Nous rions d’un mème montrant l’humiliation d’un peuple, puis nous nous demandons comment les sociétés deviennent barbares. Elles ne le deviennent pas en une nuit. Elles le deviennent plaisanterie après plaisanterie, simplification après simplification, lorsque la souffrance de l’autre cesse d’être une tragédie pour devenir un argument.

Le mensonge contemporain n’est plus seulement de prétendre qu’une guerre est juste. Il consiste à la rendre agréable à regarder.

Il faut une esthétique. Des images propres. Une musique grave. Une formule mémorable. Il faut que la destruction possède une identité visuelle. Il faut pouvoir soutenir un massacre avec la même facilité que l’on soutient une équipe de football. Peu importe que la vérité soit complexe. La complexité fait peu de vues et se vend mal entre deux publicités.

Alors les morts deviennent des symboles. Les vivants deviennent des audiences. La vérité devient une arme parmi les autres. Et chacun se croit résistant parce qu’il a correctement choisi son camp depuis son canapé.

La sagesse ne consiste pas à prétendre que tous les camps se valent. Ils ne se valent pas toujours. Il existe des agresseurs, des victimes, des crimes, des mensonges et des responsabilités que le confort moral ne doit pas dissoudre. Mais la sagesse commence lorsque nous refusons de transformer cette lucidité en permission de perdre notre humanité.

Elle commence lorsque nous regardons un mort sans demander d’abord s’il appartenait au bon camp.

Le véritable scandale n’est donc pas que les dirigeants soient coupés de la réalité. Le véritable scandale est que nous leur avons construit un monde dans lequel cette coupure devient une compétence. Nous élisons ceux qui simplifient, suivons ceux qui provoquent, partageons ceux qui humilient, puis feignons de découvrir qu’ils gouvernent comme ils communiquent.

Ils ne gouvernent plus le monde. Ils gouvernent sa représentation.

Et pendant qu’ils se battent pour posséder le récit, la réalité poursuit son travail silencieux sous les décombres. Elle enterre les morts que l’algorithme a déjà oubliés.

La prochaine barbarie ne portera peut être pas un uniforme inquiétant. Elle aura un compte certifié, une équipe de communication et un excellent sens de la formule.

Et nous lui mettrons probablement un cœur.

I feel like my sleep schedule has definitely been lacking recently. I find myself more and more staying up to chase, temporary dopamine, whether it’s through gaming or watching YouTube, or scrolling on my phone. I’m not proud of this. But I guess I want to try to look at this with as a little shade as possible, because I think that a shame is only something that makes it harder to make meaningful differences with. I feel like this is one of those habits, like waking up early, or not using my phone in bed. The more I normalize, and I expect watching YouTube before bed, the harder it is to stop and the more I do it. I think I could benefit from being more disciplined with this again.