What are we headed for?

The Wisconsin recall election has me very worried, no matter what the outcome is. The state is in an almost perfect condition of polarization. Neither group of adversaries will tolerate victory from the other side. Progressives made giant concessions to conservatives, but that is over. The reactionary conservatives have proved that they can't be trusted, because they are conditioned to believe that they must win every point and crush their adversaries. They will lie, cheat, spend huge pots of money in order to prevail  Progressives have their backs to the wall and will be forced to fight. I predict escalating unrest, not just in Wisconsin but everywhere.

My mood is not enhanced by reading a terrifying article in the London Review of Books by Jonathan Littel about Ciudad Juarez:

‘Over Sixty Hours without an Execution.’ When PM, the biggest tabloid in Ciudad Juárez, can’t find a corpse to put on its front page, it has to come up with something. On 21 November last year it announced that ‘the city has just experienced an unusual outbreak of peace … the longest for three years. Newspaper statistics show that from 29 December 2008, fifty hours passed without a killing. From 29 October 2009, Juárez recorded 41 hours without any violent deaths.’ Luis, a local journalist who meets me at El Paso airport, across the border, jokes about it: ‘Today, Juárez is very calm. Boring even. We used to have fifteen or twenty deaths a day. Now it’s just three, five, seven.’

That's a place where murder is just a kind of h0-hum everyday occurrence. 1/5 of the population are heroin addicts. The best job for women is part time prostitute. The traffic rolls, kids go to school and work and shopping and that's just how it is:  proving that we humans are very adaptable and can get accustomed to any circumstances, even living in a nihilistic void. (I subscribe to the LRB on my Kindle.)

Luckily in my life there is Sharkey's.  He sells his own coffee and chocolate. He and his wife were at Jim's birthday party. He and Jim go way back. His wife is a sculptor and I would love to have talked to her but she was on her weekly day of silence. (!) I don't need that kind of strategy with Terry, who is quiet and easy to be around, but I guess living with exuberant and outgoing Sharkey would call for some sort of retreat strategy like hers.

Here is his place on Wainuenue in downtown Hilo and closeup of the mural over the kitchen entrance:

 I don't see how Starbuck's can compete!

Comments

[gigi-hawaii]

Interesting people you mingle with, Hattie. Never heard of a day of silence. Lol. What next? Disappear from home for a week?

[Rain]

We're headed for trouble and it appears to be around the world. There are positive lights in it all though like Clinton going to Wisconsin.\

And I like your new photo with the wind blowing your hair, a very healthy and lovely look. Positive

[cloudia]

we do live in perilous times, not the least because there is so much erxpen$ive obfuscation abroad!

Enjoy your weekend!
Aloha from Waikiki
Comfort Spiral
>

[Kay Dennison]

I think it's all pretty scary. But here in my neck of the woods it's pretty calm -- so far. I spent part of this evening at our city's monthly First Friday celebration of the arts recruiting volunteers for Obama and most people were pretty nice whether they like Obama or not.

[Hattie]

Gigi: It seems like a way to create some space for yourself. Relationships can get too heated up, and silence could have a cooling effect, I guess.
Rain: Thanks. I am healthy but big! Tall, not fat but "family size," as my daughter puts it!!
Cloudia: Indeed, the money madness is amazing.
Kay: I'm glad to hear that. We get along around here, too, so far. I'm going to a voting registration drive/event tomorrow, mostly to network, because as a League member I am not willing to register voters. We could get sued, as the Florida League was, if registration forms are found to be "improper," but we are having two county-run drives in the coming months, where we will be trained and vetted.
Nice weekend, everyone!!!