We’ll start this rather light blog with the unexpected gift. A pump failed. I sent for parts. NO parts. Instead of getting parts, I was referred. That was about four months ago. I was referred to six or seven (maybe more) manufacturers, sellers, warehouses and, of course, any number of nincompoops. No parts anywhere. It was stupid-frustrating. The part itself is simply a conical shaped plate about six inches around. I actually found one early on in my efforts in Florida at a super plumbing warehouse for US$150.00….plus, plus, plus……I was almost sure I could make one…..I dunno.…instead I tried the next referral. I kept at it for four months. Nada.

So, I gave up. I was gonna throw the pump out and buy another. We’re talking about $600 give or take for the want of a $10.00 part. Just before I gave up, I wrote the whole boring story to the one lady who actually tried to help. I did it to get it all straight in my head and to acknowledge her help and to point out some dated information that she was operating with. We got along fine.

She wrote back and said, “You have tried hard enough. It is taking forever. I have obtained permission from the higher ups and we have sourced one in Mexico and we are sending it to you for free.”

That is fantastic service in this day and age. Sherri works for the American firm Franklin Electric and she is a Canadian in Canada. Pretty damn good, eh?

But wait! There’s more! The tides have been high. We’ve now got wood. We have more than enough and we are bringing in extra simply because it is there and we are into it. Universal largesse!

Ahhh, but for those dog physics, eh?

Sal was up at the communal dock readying to help unload the grocery delivery water taxi. She put both dogs on leashes and stood near the bottom of the ramp and, of course, chatted with a neighbour before the boat arrived.

A new and strange blue-eyed dog had ruffled a few furs earlier but nothing came of it until Sal’s attention was diverted. Two hundred pounds of our dogs leaped down the ramp to confront ol’ blue eyes who was coming for them again. Sal was jerked off her feet and landed entirely on her face on the dock’s sharp-surface hardware mesh. Blood flowed. People responded. Dogs snuck off. Sal must have flown several feet in the air. Her face took a serious blow. Eyes are already blackening up. Nose pretty swollen. I was taken up to the dock by a neighbour so that I could drive her home in her boat. Got it all together and came home. Sal’s gonna be fine. But we now know that two hundred pounds of canine should not be wrapped around her wrist.

It is hard enough having 240 pounds of husband wrapped around her little finger.

Is there a point to that story? Probably not. Accidents happen. They happen to you more and more the older you get. And we’re getting older. However, ol’ Sal is already back and doing stuff. A septuagenarian lady severely face planted on a metal clad mesh that is essentially a giant grater. That’s a punch in the face. After a bit of love and attention, she is back to normal save for a face that suggests she is studying in MMA.

Ya do get tougher out here.

Tide gets high in the evening. When the tide is high, errant logs float off the beach. Beachcombing is very much tide-based. And we really needed to do some combing. So, last night at 8:00 we went out a-hunting for some more logs.

We do not yet have enough fire-wood logs collected. I cut what we have (maybe 30 lengths) and half of it is split and my visual guesstimating suggests we are gonna be short. Actually, we are gonna be about 33% short. Two cords instead of three. That’s not good.

We took Sal’s boat because the engine is more powerful and towing logs home is a slow drag at the best of times. The ‘best of times’ means we find some logs to drag. There are fewer salvages this year. We took both dogs because Sal thinks it is fun for the dogs. We also took a chainsaw, a couple of pike poles, a lot of ropes with hammer-in spikes (also called log dogs) and some hand-tools.

The procedure is to go as far away from home as you think you can go while still being able to get home before dark towing logs. Last night that meant only two miles. We saw a few ‘consideration-worthies’ as we headed North but eventually came across a clutch of logs at the farthest point and hooked up five of ’em for the pull home. Of course, five logs, all with their own lines and minds of their own are a wrangle. And a wrangle can get messy. When a wrangle gets messy, it becomes a tangle and a tangle around the prop is especially annoying. And we had all of those.

I lifted the motor and Sal hung off the end of the boat, half-hanging in the water, and unwrapped a tangle of ropes. In the meantime, we lost the pike pole over the side. And the dogs were 100% in the way all the time. We enjoyed the dimming light of our evening sunset in that romantic way for about half an hour but then – having had enough fun for the night – headed home.

We retrieved the pike pole. It sinks until the last few feet where the pole is stuffed airtight.

On the way home, we whimsically retrieved a sixth log on the beach that required letting Sal off onto the rocks to release it and then pushing the log out for me to gather. That part went well but, of course, the dogs went with her and Daisy sometimes decides NOT to come when called. Long story short: Sal was knee deep at the shoreline edge grabbing Daisy (80 pounds) and flinging her from the shore into the boat once everyone’s patience had run out. But Daisy had fun.

When we got back, I dropped Sal on our lagoon beach. She tip-toes down the gunwales of her little boat with six tow lines in her hand. She steps off onto the slimy rocks in the fading light and pulls the six logs in with her. The dogs, natch, join her. I return the boat to the dock. She ties the logs up to a shoreline anchor and I cut them into lengths the next day.

Next day: and so I did. We got about 14 lengths from the six logs, each length being 10-12 feet depending on log girth. The highline can only lift about 400 pounds per lift so I really cut them to weight rather than length. Those 14 lengths represent about 11 – 12% of the wood we need. We have 66%. Now, with the new ones, we have, say, 75%. It appears that there is more fun in store for us yet. Whooppeee

Aldo’s recently expressed view of my philosopher friend Howard’s prose is somewhat understandable. HA was a professor, after all. But I considered the comment to be a politely veiled invitation to pontificate about something philosophical. And so I thought I’d talk about grey swans.

There is nothing philosophical about a white swan and, if one reads Taleb, there is really nothing too radical about black ones (in the sense that they continue to happen). In effect, the black and white swan theory is just randomness meets Yin and Yang.

Ironically, the grey swan should also be an inevitability but it is never regarded that way…..

White swanning is, basically, how the flock flies – in unison, together, predictably. The great plan unfolding. White swan is normal. Black swans, on the other hand, are random, unexpected events that change the flight path of the flock. Black swans are a force majeure, acts of God, freak accidents or events. A flock of swans heading South for the winter is normal, a volcano erupting right in their long established annual flight path would be a black swan event for them (likely turning some white swans coal black in the process). The eruption was not expected, nor predicted and it created a major detour for the flock when it happened.

In human terms we might say the automobile, the airplane, TV, birth control, computers and Donald Trump were all black swan events. All major-change events that were unexpected and all put the status quo on its head.

Grey swans, on the other hand are those events that can be and are well foreseen, they can be predicted, can be planned for but, for some reason, are not. Why? Mostly because even though we can reasonably predict them, we also predict their occurrence as very rare. Winning the lottery might be a kind of grey swan event. We bought a ticket. We know the game. We hoped. We know that someone is gonna win. It is all predictable save for who the lucky grey swan will be. Ergo, a grey swan event.

And that brings us nicely to Climate Change. The biggest grey swan of all. There are, of course, a lot of dumb Bubbas who truly believed that climate change was a myth, fake news. So, for them, the planet broiling this summer is a total surprise (a black swan event). But, for those with more than a single digit of IQ, climate change was obviously coming down th epike but we (the white swans) thought that it’s impact would not be for some time….you know…? Like the turn of the next century?

But it is actually upon us much, much sooner than even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted. That’s makes it a grey swan event. Predictable but unpredictably so.

Grey swans are flying all around us. All the time. Throughout our lives. For example, I dated girls. I expected to kiss some, hang with some, maybe even marry one of them….but then Sal came along. WOW!! THAT should NOT have been but, well, it WAS a HUGE surprise! She’s my luckiest grey swan.

But that is on a personal level. On a socio-philosophical level we have all worked hard to eliminate grey swans from our life. Routine, religion, Laws, institutions, the Establishment…all sorts of white swan-type efforts to keep everything same ol’, same ol’. And, of course, it is the exception that seems to prove the rule so we occasionally get the depressions, wars, epidemics, Recent Republicans…you know…? Real black swan events. Surprises.

The point to all this (according to Taleb) is that all the swans are predictable but with varying accuracy. White swanning is mostly predictable and grey swans are, too, but they are quite rare. Black swans seem to show up unexpectedly and we are always totally surprised and all our white swanning goes out the window. That is when things really change.

To my mind, Climate Change is turning out to be a very dark grey swan. Really dark.

It has been almost a week. My presence is lapsing, my influencer status reduced. I am shrinking into oblivion…….and it is not all bad.

Of course, it’s not me. It’s clearly the vast lack of you. Like the age-old question about a falling tree making noise in the forest if there is no one to hear it……is there a writer blogging if there are no readers save for the Magnificent Seven (a few of whom are on vacation it seems)?

No judgment, mind you. Just philosophizing.

To be fair, reading doom and gloom is no fun. Reading about old people doing chores is even less fun. Does anyone even care about the whales going by anymore? And so it segues……

Is there any fun out there anymore?

We’re still having OTG fun but more and more of it is actually less and less of it. Love seeing others socially….just don’t really wanna do much of that right now. Love a good dinner but, damn…..my appetite is half what it was and the cost of it is still twice what it was. Love a good scotch but, again, one just seems to be enough these days. I love to travel, see new places, experience new cultures, have an adventure or two…..it is just that I now hate airports, the dogs don’t travel in the car well and it seems as if YOU TUBE can at least half-satisfy my curiosity regarding Malaysia or Ecuador (two of the latest favourite travel destinations).

I am starting to like convenience, to be honest.

A few blogs back I wrote that ‘TRUMP IS DONE!’ And more and more he is looking done-er and done-er. I confess to quite enjoying that. Looks like Mitch ‘the turtle’ McConnel is done, too. And that is also good news. But, really, who am I kidding…..in a world of Yin and Yang, we are unlikely to run out of either. There are Trump-lites all over the place. Ya gotta wonder. Trump-lites still deny climate change.

I hafta point out that (gasp) the government is once again lying to us. Inflation is much higher than they state. I won’t bore you – you already know – but everything I just bought at the hardware store was not just 5 or 10% higher, it was 30 to 50% higher. A roll of hardware cloth was $165.00!!! A few years ago it was just under $80.00. Sal buys $200.00 worth of groceries (no meat) and puts them in her small, cute little backpack!! Five gallons of diesel was $40.00!

I am not really complaining. NOT really. It is what it is. But you’d think they would at least report the truth, wouldn’t you?

Anyway…I am mostly just rambling….the only real thing on my mind these days is that we lost Howard Adelman. He passed away on the 23rd. I have mentioned Howard before so I won’t add to the boredom by citing his record or even his lengthy obituary. Suffice to say, the guy was brighter than brilliant. Way better than just good. A great human being. I will really miss him.

…but it is pretty hot here and it is much, much hotter in other parts of the world. The heat will be responsible for more than just a few deaths this summer (not to mention the loss of billions of trees to forest fires). The very hottest places (such as Arizona) are daily dancing around 110F/43C (they had something like three straight weeks above 110). I mention Arizona because it is not far from Death Valley which has been hitting 120F/50C and has hit even (they say) 55C/130F a few times.

Seems somewhere in Phoenix street people were getting 3rd degree burns from the pavement.

But we have been below 30C so far this whole summer with 29C/85F as our hottest. So far, the only downside for us is NOT being able to work in the heat of the day. Kind of a good thing, really.

Could this be the heat dome before the blast furnace? Is this some kind of harbinger? Should we all be afraid?

Clearly not! This not a harbinger. This is not a warning. This is not a threat. Don’t be silly. This more than that!

The warning came with Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring back in 1962. GreenPeace began singing from the same hymn sheet shortly after. And the Sierra Club. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came a bit late to the party (1988) but they’ve been bellowing as only scientists can do – ineffectively. We’ve enjoyed a plethora of harbingers since then. Dead canaries, bleached coral reefs, whales, spotted owls, threatened species, droughts, increased forest fires. And do not forget #1 – altered weather patterns. This is NOT a threat. This is a clear and present danger. The days of doubt and wondering are over. Welcome to Hell.

“But, Dave, If this is Hell, we can survive this. And anyway, the winters are cooler. Don’t panic.”

My response to that is our water is just beginning to boil and we are just now feeling it. Soon it will be roiling. Then it will vaporize into steam. Then we all evaporate (they are even calling it the Great Sixth Extinction). Just ’cause this summer isn’t bad enough to kill us, does not mean it won’t get worse.

It will get worse.

“Dude, don’t bum me out!”

OK, there is a bright side. The truth is, with all five previous extinctions, some of the species survived (alligators, snakes, cockroaches, mosquitoes, ferns, climbing vines). I doubt very much all the humans and all the trees and all the animals will die. Extinctions, it seems, leave some remnants behind to start over. So, the good news is we ALL won’t die. The bad news is MOST of us will.

And this is the point of the blog: change is coming. We can’t stop it. We didn’t even really try. So, if we cannot stop the change, we may as well try to adapt to the change. Plan A: try and be a successful remnant. Make some changes so as to increase your chances. Jus’ sayin’.

Sadly, moving off the grid is not enough (is MY face red or what?). It may buy a little time but it is not gonna address the basic, core danger. The danger is still coming. So, what to do? Interestingly, a lot of people are making big personal changes and I am quite sure they would NOT attribute any of those changes to survival plans – not directly, anyway. They may call it going on ‘retreat’, ‘giving up’ or even ‘living different’. Some may even call it working from home……or early retirement……

A lot of peeps have kinda checked out…….

I am struck by the number of mainstream ‘Mericans leaving the USA. They are moving to cheaper, simpler, safer, freer countries (Malaysia, Vietnam. Thailand, Philippines as well as Mexico, Costa Rica and places European). I am also quite surprised by the increased nomadic phenomena of people living in vans, RVs, and boats – they may not have given up on the ‘Merican Dream but they are currently looking elsewhere.

Of course, some poor doofus moving into his Chevy and driving it to a levy to drink whiskey and rye is not really doing that as a well-thought-out-and-executed survival plan. Neither is the Wonder Bread couple from Wisconsin moving to Ecuador doing their relocation just to survive – they enjoy it. Good for them!

But, at some level, these folks are also ‘sensing’ something is a’ changin’ and they are taking off in their own way. These folks are the real-life equivalent of Canaries in coal mines. They may even be rats leaving a sinking ship. They are just a slightly better capitalized version of migrants leaving 3rd world countries-at-war. Put more succinctly, the species is on the move.

Unconsciousness is like that. You do things and you don’t really know why. These folks are not yet really THINKING outside the box but they are, in fact, MOVING outside of it. The species is unconsciously or even semi-consciously reaching out for an alternative……maybe…..

I like that….

My son and his family have arrived for their summer visit. He has a wife, two perfect little boys and two dogs. One of the dogs is mucho Chihuahua-like (80% Chihuahua, 20% Rat Terrier, 100% insane), the other is an older, long suffering, 120 pound Coon Hound who somehow makes it through each day. ‘Hang dog‘ is the term that comes to mind. Our dogs are thrilled all to bits to have such good company as dogs and boys. We are relaxing in 84 degree (26C) temps with 200 pounds of excited dog(s) that rarely shuts up. This is summer fun sit-com style.

If we compare life forms by weight, Cheeto (2lbs) is the smallest (but the loudest and most shrill) and the two boys are next in size (small and small-medium – total weight of all three is maybe 50 pounds combined – all equally as shrill). Daisy is 75 pounds – one and half the weight of the two boys and Cheeto. And she can get worked up if all around her are losing their minds. So….she’s worked up now, too!

Our Gus is easily six to eight times our youngest grandson’s weight. Then, the heaviest by maybe a kg, comes their Hound. She (the hound) and Gus are about the same size and temperament – they are pretty chill. Then comes Sally (but only by about five or ten pounds). Any two the non-insane dogs outweigh Sal. But Sal, Thank God, is unflappable.

Fifty pounds of little boy is quite a force to be reckoned with. Irresistible force most of the time. They are curious, active, full of beans and have learned their communication skills from the hysterical little Cheeto. When the three smallest entities are in full throat, it is absolute bedlam.

My youngest grandson (three years old) has taken to oft-repeating a joke he made up…. “Grandpa! GRANDPA!! GRANDPAAAAA!!!!!”

“What?”

He grins at me. Looks me in the eye and says, “……..NOTHING!!” And then flips out howling at his own joke. The kid is a riot.

“Why don’t you and Cheeto go play in traffic for awhile?”

“But, Grandpa, there is NO traffic out here!”

“……yeah. I’ll see what I can do…….”

“Grandpa! GRANDPA!! GRANDPAAAAA!!!!!”

“What?”

“……..NOTHING!!”

….or eclectic, anyway. I generally write about whatever I am currently thinking about and, to be honest, I have not been thinking about much of anything these past few months. Nothing is really ‘grabbing’ me these days (I thought). But therein lies the lie….

There are a few things that are on my mind but they are not so much front and centre and I guess I have just kinda been ‘putting ’em out of my head’ for awhile. Busy, I guess. I think I am not thinking but, in fact, I am thinking but just not finishing any of the thoughts.

Fascinating, eh?

The biggest one, of course, is the increasing effects of aging on my and my neighbour’s health. I mean, all that growing disability is a new thing for us and we’re are all getting somewhat preoccupied with it. This has been a year of unfortunate revelation. Still, old people complaining about aches and pains is boring for everyone else so that thought rarely goes anywhere. But, for the record, Sal and I are doing basically fine except for a few new aches and pains.

However, not all my contemporaries are doing as well. Once one hits 70, things begin to wear out and, like all things working in concert with other things, one of those components inevitably goes wonky first. And, it seems, we are all wonking out a bit more these days. Hearing is a common failure. Prostates, of course. Balance. But the one that seems to be showing up for me is diminishing muscle mass. I am still very strong but I know that I am not 2/3s as strong as I was just a few years ago.

Still, none of that is news for readers. Except, perhaps, in the way it all affects those who live Off the Grid. You know…as in the title of this very blog? So here’s an example: yesterday I had to go to the neighbouring island. When I arrived at my car, the battery was dead. Because of the ‘rough’ parking area, Sal had parked the car with the front end hanging over a cliff. The front wheels were inches from going over the edge. Access to the engine bay was nearly impossible. I popped the hood from the side using a stick on the mid-point release. I removed the battery with straight extended arms (not easy) and then I went back to the boat (200 feet away at a 30 degree angle) and removed one of my boat batteries and carried it back up the hill. 60 pounds. Then, using the straight extended arm method, replaced the battery.

Difficult? Yes. Do able? Still yes. Doable in five years? Probably not.

And so that brings me to whatever little point I am trying to establish here…..not only are we getting older but I am now planning and building to accommodate that inevitable ongoing reality of diminishing ability. Part of our most used walking path is quite irregular. I built a wooden bridge over that last week to make it safer and flatter. Part of our storage space is under the various outbuildings but I only had one set of stairs to get there. Now I have three sets. The last one was finished the week before. The cable on the lower funicular is old and rusted. That chore is very hard and so it is better to replace it now (while I can) than in a few years when doing so may be too challenging. Same for the electric winch.

And all that applied to the big set of front stairs already written about.

An older friend is having similar problems and so Sal and I are building him a small highline to get groceries and such up his steep incline.

The point? Well, as we personally age and deteriorate, so do our household systems. And surprisingly, we have to actually STEP UP our pace on those systems BECAUSE our own physical systems won’t be working so well in the near future. You’d think that, as you age, you’d just do less. NOT SO! Not when living OTG. As we age, we seemingly have to do more!!

Sheesh. No wonder I am not thinking about it very much. Too much to do.

The government wants to send a social worker to our neck of the woods. And the social worker wants to come. It is now known that we have a large ‘cohort’ of old folks out here and many of them are poor or marginal in some sort of way (usually income, sometimes the little grey cells).

And, to be fair, some of them are in a bit of actual, real need.

But need is an odd word for these people. They have never been in need before and, in their own eyes, they aren’t now. Mind you, they are feeling their years quite a bit lately. So maybe a minor bit of need here and there, perhaps, on a bad day. But, by modern, whacked out urban, standards, they are wanting for everything and are now in desperate need.

Some of them aren’t even aware of their own dire situation.

And therein lies a bit of irony. Virtually no one has TV. Many do not have internet. Some do not have phone service. Many do not have good phone service. And so they do not even know how much they are lacking. Poor souls.

The social worker is jus’ gonna tell ’em, I guess.

She was going to arrive with the doctor on his monthly clinic. I always pick him up. It’s free to them. Community service. But the government would not allow her to travel the same way as the doctor. Apparently NOT safe enough. Government policy. The social worker was obliged to use a water taxi. Water taxis cost a minimum of $250.00 an hour. So her visit would cost thousands (the taxi sits and waits for her to see the poor people).

There is no public transport on the islands so the social worker would have to oblige the poor people to go to her. She’d sit in our little clinic (free to them) and do interviews, I guess. That would not help those who really are in actual need as getting into the clinic for a nice chat is way too much effort, time and gasoline.

Many would have to come by small boat. You know…? The same kind of small boat that is too dangerous for the social worker to use.

So, it is our government’s policy to pay this woman upwards of $100K a year which costs another $28K in benefits and another $75K in supervisors, rent, expenses and support staff. And her job is to help poor, old, marginal people who live a bit differently out in the remote boonies.

I spent half my working life in the helping professions and, to be blunt, they don’t work very well at the best of times and they cost too much. Even back then. But, in my time, we at least had a sense of ‘can-do’ and felt called to the mission. We earned little, worked hard and plied our trade on the ugly mean streets of Vancouver’s Downtown eastside. If you were good at your work, you were in danger at least weekly. You were also underpaid and unsupported. You did it anyway.

Not today. Now the dedicated social worker needs more structure, more rules, more regulation and can’t really do the real work that is needed WHERE it is needed.

I say all this because I wrote the supervisor who was following policy and pointed out that a good social worker needs to first establish rapport to have any kind of chance of helping people but street cred is earned by getting your hands dirty. It is a hard entry at the best of times. Showing up in a $250.00 an hour water taxi without a clue as to how to get about from that point will erode credibility and make her job harder. It is just not a good idea.

Generally speaking, I am not one to rant about the colossal waste of tax dollars so evident so much of the time. To do so is crazy-making. But this one hits close to the bone. That was my kind of work. This is my community. I still pay taxes and this is a waste of them. This is all ‘in my face’ and so I spoke up.

The supervisor thanked me for my input and is going to do it her way.

Sometimes Sal and I sit on the deck, drink wine and wonder if we didn’t get out far enough.

The challenges this day are plentiful. Lookin’ for water. We are 3/4 full on the cisterns but there is no water in the lines. The creek is low and getting lower. We SHOULD have some water, tho, but at this end, there is none coming through. Might be a broken pipe but there is very little water in the creek anyway. And we (Sally, dogs, neighbours) walked the line yesterday and found no leaks.

And this is still JUST June. We can likely stretch our storage till the end of July (maybe) but July is rarely a wet month….we may just face a water crisis by then. Imagine that? The BC WET West coast going this long without rain. And forest fires becoming all-the-rage these days doesn’t help.

And the blog? The poor bloody blog. Hardly a comment in sight, hardly a reader getting counted on the stats sheet. Mind you, WdG wrote to ask if my blog is being blocked due to the previous one posted about Russia. Untidy even had to try twice. Maybe I have raised the ire of Russian/Trump AI bots…? But, I really doubt that. A blog with seven readers is no threat to anyone save for the now Hapless Seven.

A friend/partner’s health requires a 100 foot highline installed so that is the current most-pressing chore. Of course, I am cobbling most of it from left-over materials save for the cable and winch but it is still a chore. So that is something……you know, to keep idle hands busy. My welding skills are sub-par but things stay stuck together and that is what counts.

We had a nice week-of-whales last week. Orcas by the score. The odd Humpy. Very nice.

Some other chores getting done but we are still not on-schedule. Boat still uncared for. Life just keeps getting in the way. Dog hair keeps growing, too. Naps need taking. Dinner is always a priority. Not to forget the wine! And a few too many community commitments always seem to show up in summer.

Life is a crapshoot, eh? One more urban friend has just discovered rats in their walls and roof. That makes drought and highlines seem easy. The friends are less-than-happy about the situation. “I may just have to dynamite the whole place.”

“Dave? You upset?”

Nah. This really is just life. Things happen. Rats and dog hair happen. It’s really just the way it all goes. This is what the wine is for.

Putin seen fleeing Moscow just a few hours ago. His generals either hiding, running or already captured in or near Rostov-on-Don inside Russia. All of this happening at the hands of Moscow’s own highly regarded ‘private army’, the mercenary Wagner Group. And all of this, presumably, within the last 36-48 hours.

Surprise? Not really. Moscow’s regular army was not doing well conducting their part in the Ukraine invasion and so Putin contracted Wagner’s mercenary brigade a year ago that promptly emptied jails and prisons to expand their numbers of soldiers at the front. Thousands of those convicts (some likely innocent given that they were sent there by Putin) were then deployed by Wagner on the front lines at Bakmut (Ukraine) and vast numbers were killed in that incredibly hard-fought battle. Wagner blamed Moscow for their difficulties in Bakmut and accused the generals of depriving them of support, food and bullets. Bad blood brewed amongst the Russians.

That little internal conflict began months ago. Recently a bunch of Russian missiles were dropped on a concentration of Wagner’s forces. That made matters much, much worse.

Yevgeny Prigozhin is the head of Wagner and he got really mad at that deadly recent debacle. Oooh… and he said few days ago that he was going to turn around from fighting Ukrainians and go on a March of Justice back to find the top generals, Shoigu and Gerasimov, to give them a piece of his mind and, well, maybe chop them into smaller pieces as part of his angry expression.

That statement and subsequent 180 turnaround put Wagner fighting the Russian army. Like, yesterday! Putin called in some favours from neighbouring countries (Chechnya, Belarus, etc) asking for more fighters and, since no favours were actually owed, he got no support there. So Putin called on his existing army to stop and arrest Prigozhin as a traitor. That has not gone well, either. Thousands of Russians troops have turned their backs, a deaf ear and closed their eyes as Wagner drove by. Prigozhin is moving North out of Ukraine towards Moscow unhindered.

As it was so well put by Beau of the Fifth Column; “….a year ago, Russia had the second strongest military force in the world. Six months ago, they had the second strongest military force in Ukraine. Today, they have the second strongest military force in Russia”.

But, think about it….the last seven or so years have been history changing. The world has gone through massive upheaval. A spoiled brat, ignorant, bigot ascended the presidency of the United States and succeeded in dividing it and alienating most of the US allies. He lied, cheated, stole, grifted, groped and golfed his way through four years of incompetence at everything he touched. President Pig was and still is popular. And, in my opinion, he did a lot of that with the help of Russian money and what has come to be known as trolling-the-net. Basically, an internet-based form of the Cold War.

Trump, as the worst president in the history of the United States has, despite that, made one of the biggest impressions on the world, his own country and he almost destroyed it all. Trump made evil but still massive history. There will eventually be more words written about Trump than that of any five or more other presidents combined. Maybe Putin……

My point: evil and incompetence also makes history. Trump and Putin. Tweedle Trump and Tweedle Putin. Dumb and Dumber. These guys made an impact. A HUGE impact.

And, to be fair, I didn’t see it…….

….well, of course I SAW it. And I also kinda didn’t. I knew Putin corruptly presided over Russia. I knew Russia was trying to screw everyone over the internet trolls. Everyone saw Putin jail Navalny, throw people off balconies, Oligarchs buy yachts, Russia bully and fight with Ukraine. The world watched as dark, evil Russian influence expanded and worse, gained some semblance of acceptance.

And we all saw a lazy, corrupt, narcissist grifter in the White House for four years. We all saw lying, cheating, criminal behaviour becoming normalized. I watched the crap flow, the ugly enablers hang on. I watched them all get rich. I watched them flaunt their crimes. I watched them attack democracy. I watched their nation divide.

But, basically, I just watched the madness continue. I did not foresee the end game. To be fair, I was openly hoping the whole time for a comeuppance, a reckoning, a final and just outcome. Just one small victory for good over evil would help. But I was not holding my breath. I just saw no light at the end of the tunnel. De Santis went after Disney. George Santos won a seat in the house. Harlon Crowe and Clarence Thomas slid out from under a rock along with Alito and other Supreme Court Justices. Fox News got richer. Turkey’s Erdogan shone. The House of Saudi did business with Jared Kushner. Xi rattled swords over the South China Sea and Taiwan. It all just seemed as if the world was getting darker.

And then…..and then…..well……I still don’t know……but Jack Smith and the DOJ give me hope. Putin fleeing Moscow gives me hope. China will likely tone it down a bit as Russia implodes. NATO might breathe a bit easier….so might Ukraine. The mini-tyrants will shut up for awhile. I think Trump will go to jail or die soon……DeSantis is done. So is Santos. So may be the current GOP. Crooks will go to jail.

I dunno….the last seven or so years was more than just interesting times…don’t you think?

And, well, the surprises just keep coming…

Late this afternoon, Wagner stopped their march on Moscow (125 miles from the city) and turned for the more ‘neutral’ Belarus. The president of Belarus (Lukashenko), acting as a mediator, brokered a deal wherein Wagner gets away free, no charges will be brought to Prigozhin or his forces by Putin. And, well, peace reigns once again….or peace between the Russians, anyway. I suppose Putin will continue to prosecute the war on Ukraine but, well, Putin was starting to lose that war when he HAD Wagner. Now he does not have Wagner. Maybe Putin does a re-think?

Ukraine’s Zelensky, on the other hand, is a tad disappointed in this new twist. “What, Yevgeny?! You get to within the Moscow city limits and you quit?”

Smarter strategists than me opine that Wagner, for all their fighting superiority compared to the regular Russian army, simply do not have the numbers to take on Russia. They are far too outnumbered. So, citing the desire not to slaughter fellow Russians (or be slaughtered by fellow Russians) Wagner took the face-saving route west to Belarus.

What do I think? No idea….Fred K thinks Putin still controls Russia and it is hard to ignore the reality of that…but, gee, can any leader (ruthless or otherwise) not see the writing on the wall? There is a significant disgruntlement amongst Russians. Their neighbours are not happy. Their economy is struggling (less than it should) and they have lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers in a globally condemned war with Ukraine….not to mention starting to actually LOSE that war with Ukraine. Now they have significant if not crippling division within their ranks. Russia does NOT look like a winner.

Speaking of which, Fred also suggested that Trump ain’t done. And, again, I can see why that is still a fair observation….but, but, but….I think Jack Smith and the DOJ are gonna drop another indictment soon. This one will be bigger. This one has the ‘fake electors’ scheme. Fanni Willis (Georgia) will indict and E. Jean Carroll will continue to whack away at his dwindling fortune with lawsuit #2 – should get huge damages. His cronies are going down. Hard. Methinks some in his family may face charges, too.

I dunno, I am no seer. I see fog looking at Putin but I see conviction when looking at Trump.

Seven years of ‘interesting times’ looks like only 70% of what is to come.