Friday, March 7, 2036
Spring of Discontent
Some “news crew” showed up unannounced yesterday afternoon, and demanded to speak to our guest families (aka the refugees). Maria and Guillermo were kind of groggy from their siesta, but didn’t like what they saw. They called us at the community center; Serena, Daughter Dearest, and I came as quickly as we could. We left Rene in charge of the kids — he would be the first to say I brought the big guns with me. Or they brought me with them.
The attitude of the newsies lit our flares, and we demanded their credentials. None of us recognized the New Talon News logos on the truck nor the names on their ID badges, and DD and Serena were ready to send them packing with as many dents as needed to get them going. I figured they’d make some comment about a hostile reception and threats, assuming they even were newsies, but they were rescued by the Smiths coming around the side of the house.
“Who are they?” the guy with the mike demanded.
“One of the guest families,” I said. “The parents, anyway. Their kid’s at the school. And no, we’re not going to let you browbeat a 10-year-old girl.”
“We’re not browbeating anyone,” the mike guy snapped. “We’re investigating reports of refugee abuse.”
“Abuse?” Mary looked puzzled. “Nobody’s abusing us. We probably couldn’t ask for better.” Sean nodded.
“You got that, right?” I asked the cameraman. “Of course, it’ll probably land on the cutting room floor because it doesn’t fit your preconceived narrative, won’t it?”
I got some dirty looks for that one. “Do you guys mind talking to us in private, then?” Mike Guy said.
“Sure,” Sean said.
“Good. Why don’t you show us your bunkhouse, then?” They walked off, and DD, Serena, and I all looked at each other.
“I smell a rat,” Serena said.
“A big fat one,” I agreed.
“With gas,” Daughter Dearest said with a grim chuckle.
I looked at the truck. “That name sounds familiar,” I said. “But not current.”
“Current?” Daughter Dearest said, watching the Smiths and the “crew” disappear into the apartment.
“Something from… before. Damn. I wish the Internet was still instantaneous. They’ll be long gone before we get any kind of search results.”
“What do we do?”
“Guys?” Serena said. “Why don’t you mail off a search?” She jerked her head toward the house. “I’ll wait out here for them and make sure they don’t try getting video of the doghouse and pass that off as refugee living quarters.”
DD and I looked at each other and shrugged. It would only take one of us to do the search, but I knew what Serena was really up to. We went in the house and emailed our search in: organization, individuals (Fred and Barney). It would get picked up with the next connection, and we’d get whatever was online about them in a couple of hours. Like I said, too long to provide ammunition, but maybe we’d get some idea of what they were up to.
Guillermo and Maria joined us in the living room after we emailed the search request. “Are they gone?” Maria asked, peeking out the window. “No.”
“Good call, getting us over here,” I told them. “Something’s rotten on Planet Georgia.”
“Those people,” Guillermo said. “They remind me of the ones who came looking for us that time.”
“The Riots?”
“Sí. The Patriot Clubs.” I remembered Kim giving me a panicked look as Christina wrapped herself around him, after the Riots left. I guess when you know, you know…
Serena came in as DD brought in another piece of firewood for the stove. “You send the search request?”
“Yup. I thought you were waiting out for them.”
She walked over to the stove and held her hands over it, standing to one side to let DD crack open the stove door. “Just thought I’d warm up a bit,” she said. “They’re still in the apartment. If they try going anywhere but back to the truck, the dog will let us know.”
“So… did you find anything interesting?”
She grinned and handed me a couple of business cards. “Just these. They have a box of them, I figured they won’t miss any. They’ll probably give Sean and Mary a couple anyway, but just in case.”
The cards had the usual contact info: names, phone numbers, email, fax. The usual stuff. The logo on the card matched the one on the truck, but included a slogan: “News You Need To Know.” It meant nothing to me, but felt a little… off. On the back of one, a few names and local numbers. “People hosting refugees?” I asked.
“That’s what I figure. They had the numbers on one of those note pads that stick to the dashboard, I used their pen.”
Daughter Dearest threw the stick in the stove, releasing a small plume of smoke, and took one of the cards. “News I need to know? How the hell do they know what I need to know?” She handed Serena the card. “What I need to know is, who’s giving them enough diesel to drive around half the state?”
“Y’all still smell the big fat gassy rat?” I asked. They nodded. “Me too. Let’s step back out, we need to keep an eye on them.”
“And set a trap,” Daughter Dearest said.
“Not a live trap though,” Serena suggested. Both the girls had an expression that reminded me of Mrs. Fetched when she was ready to rumble… a sort of wild-eyed axe murderer look. Lord, don’t give those guys any reason to set them off, I prayed. The carnage in progress might be entertaining, but the cleanup wouldn’t be. Maria and Guillermo saw that look too, and stayed inside.
continued…
Showing posts with label peak oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peak oil. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2009 5 comments
Monday, April 06, 2009 10 comments
FAR Future, Episode 80: White Valentine’s
Yeah, that was an April Fool’s joke on Wednesday. Ah well, I’ll have to rewrite this into a more traditional novel format before trying to pitch it anyway. Today’s post is sort of appropriate because there’s actually snow in tomorrow morning’s forecast…
Tuesday, February 14, 2036
White Valentine’s
Bobby and Martina are pretty good about not waking everyone up… they tend to be up before everyone, every morning, unless one of the adults is having trouble sleeping. But they couldn’t help themselves this morning.
I know Bobby slips downstairs a little after 5:30 in the morning, and Martina usually comes from across the driveway shortly after that. They usually don’t wake me up, but sometimes I’ll hear them. Maria wakes up for a bathroom run about 5, and if she doesn’t get right back to sleep after that she’ll hear them too. They do their homework and feed the firebox while they wait for the adults to start breakfast. This morning was a little different, since it started with 10 cm of snow on the ground… I hadn’t seen this much snow here in ages.
So when Martina stepped outside, she was the first to see it. She got all excited, and ran in to tell Bobby, and they both ran outside to play in it. They started piling it up on the slab, then got to flinging it at each other and then chasing each other around the manor, laughing and yelling. Needless to say, this woke up everyone — except Pat, who is like his mom in his antipathy toward mornings. But Ray came out and started squealing when he saw the snow, and got Pat up anyway.
Rene took one look at the fluffy white stuff and decided he’d stay inside and help his mom cook breakfast (Guillermo and Maria weren’t having any of it either). Serena, being a Wisconsin girl from way back, laughed at them and went out to play with the kids. Pat just stood gawking at the snow until Daughter Dearest and Ray started lobbing snowballs at him, then he finally got the idea. I joined the Smiths and Joneses, watching the fun and chatting. Ray and Pat challenged Bobby and Martina to a snowman contest, which gave Daughter Dearest the chance to call the neighbors to tell them that school was cancelled for the day. She gets to make the call for our school, after all.
The snowmen were interesting… none of the kids, including Pat, have ever seen enough snow to build a snowman before, and they didn’t know to pack a snowball and start rolling. I was going to give them some pointers, but Serena stopped me. “Let them do it their way,” she said. “See what they come up with.” That turned out to be… interesting. Pat (I’m sure it was Pat) got the idea to make a Snow Amazon: they piled and packed their snow, cut vertical grooves into it to look like dress pleats, then Pat boosted Ray up on his shoulders and they kept on piling. Eight feet high they went, and Pat lovingly sculpted a huge pair of boobs into it, at face level of course, while Ray etched a happy face up above.
As they were finishing up, Daughter Dearest joined me, looked at their work, and rolled her eyes. “Like grandfather, like grandson,” she said.
“You have to look up to her, though,” I said. “Or not… I could have quite a meaningful conversation with that chest!”
Tch. “Aren’t you getting a bit old for that sort of thing?”
I took a breath. “Still breathing.” Felt my chest. “Still have a pulse. Nope, not too old yet.” Sean and Mary laughed.
DD rolled her eyes again. “Yeah, but she doesn’t have a pulse. Isn’t that your primary criterion for being attracted to someone?” The Joneses joined in the laughter this time. “You. Are. Busted!”
“Ouch. You got me there… She’s probably a cold one, anyway.”
Meanwhile, Martina thought to grab a stepladder; she and Bobby were reaching for the stars. Or at least the eaves of the house. Bobby laughed at Pat’s breastworks, but they had a different idea… they were going to build a tower like the rook in our chess set. It took them a while, and they were having to scrounge for snow at the end, but I got a picture of them kneeling in the top of their tower looking down (and of course I got a pic of the Snow Amazon too).
Breakfast de las Cardenas provided a sort of halftime for the contest. Breakfast was good and hot, including plenty of hot tea and ersatz cocoa, and included a phone call from Christina.
“I heard it snowed up there,” she said on the speaker. “We got a little here in Atlanta too.”
“There’s a lot of it,” Rene told her. “Everyone else was outside playing in it while we fixed breakfast.”
“You didn’t go out in it?”
“Somebody needed to help Mama with breakfast!”
She laughed, and all of us did too. “You got pictures, right?” Kim asked.
“Of course. We’ll mail them tonight.”
“Oh yeah. They’ve de-restricted bandwidth for local access down here,” he said. “I forgot it’s not universal.”
“Yeah, rub it in,” I laughed. “They cache some of the primary news sites here, so we can get those pretty quick, but it’s like a newspaper… they don’t update through the day.”
Of course, by lunchtime the temps had climbed above freezing and the snow (especially where the kids had been scooping) was starting to melt. Pat and I were disappointed when the boobs fell off the Amazon, just as she was starting to warm up a little.
“Hey,” Daughter Dearest said, looking at the large but slumping tower. “Are you going to have any trouble getting the Heehaw around that?”
“No, it’s not in the way,” I said. “Besides, I could just back into it and knock it over. But nobody’s going anywhere anyway.”
Indeed… all of Sector 706, from reports on line and on the air, was pretty much shut down. Some of the mountain areas got 20 cm, although in most places it was 6 cm or less. It was quite the event… and Atlanta TV had people sending in photos and video. I sent a low-res pic of the kids on top of their tower, and they ran that one on the evening news (much to the delight of all). It has been a rather chilly winter; we’ve been going through firewood pretty steadily, although (like always) we’ve had a bunch of false springs that just make us wish for the real thing. Nobody knows if next winter will be like this one… again, ask 10 different climatologists what things will be like long term and get 20 different answers.
continued…
Tuesday, February 14, 2036
White Valentine’s
Bobby and Martina are pretty good about not waking everyone up… they tend to be up before everyone, every morning, unless one of the adults is having trouble sleeping. But they couldn’t help themselves this morning.
I know Bobby slips downstairs a little after 5:30 in the morning, and Martina usually comes from across the driveway shortly after that. They usually don’t wake me up, but sometimes I’ll hear them. Maria wakes up for a bathroom run about 5, and if she doesn’t get right back to sleep after that she’ll hear them too. They do their homework and feed the firebox while they wait for the adults to start breakfast. This morning was a little different, since it started with 10 cm of snow on the ground… I hadn’t seen this much snow here in ages.
So when Martina stepped outside, she was the first to see it. She got all excited, and ran in to tell Bobby, and they both ran outside to play in it. They started piling it up on the slab, then got to flinging it at each other and then chasing each other around the manor, laughing and yelling. Needless to say, this woke up everyone — except Pat, who is like his mom in his antipathy toward mornings. But Ray came out and started squealing when he saw the snow, and got Pat up anyway.
Rene took one look at the fluffy white stuff and decided he’d stay inside and help his mom cook breakfast (Guillermo and Maria weren’t having any of it either). Serena, being a Wisconsin girl from way back, laughed at them and went out to play with the kids. Pat just stood gawking at the snow until Daughter Dearest and Ray started lobbing snowballs at him, then he finally got the idea. I joined the Smiths and Joneses, watching the fun and chatting. Ray and Pat challenged Bobby and Martina to a snowman contest, which gave Daughter Dearest the chance to call the neighbors to tell them that school was cancelled for the day. She gets to make the call for our school, after all.
The snowmen were interesting… none of the kids, including Pat, have ever seen enough snow to build a snowman before, and they didn’t know to pack a snowball and start rolling. I was going to give them some pointers, but Serena stopped me. “Let them do it their way,” she said. “See what they come up with.” That turned out to be… interesting. Pat (I’m sure it was Pat) got the idea to make a Snow Amazon: they piled and packed their snow, cut vertical grooves into it to look like dress pleats, then Pat boosted Ray up on his shoulders and they kept on piling. Eight feet high they went, and Pat lovingly sculpted a huge pair of boobs into it, at face level of course, while Ray etched a happy face up above.
As they were finishing up, Daughter Dearest joined me, looked at their work, and rolled her eyes. “Like grandfather, like grandson,” she said.
“You have to look up to her, though,” I said. “Or not… I could have quite a meaningful conversation with that chest!”
Tch. “Aren’t you getting a bit old for that sort of thing?”
I took a breath. “Still breathing.” Felt my chest. “Still have a pulse. Nope, not too old yet.” Sean and Mary laughed.
DD rolled her eyes again. “Yeah, but she doesn’t have a pulse. Isn’t that your primary criterion for being attracted to someone?” The Joneses joined in the laughter this time. “You. Are. Busted!”
“Ouch. You got me there… She’s probably a cold one, anyway.”
Meanwhile, Martina thought to grab a stepladder; she and Bobby were reaching for the stars. Or at least the eaves of the house. Bobby laughed at Pat’s breastworks, but they had a different idea… they were going to build a tower like the rook in our chess set. It took them a while, and they were having to scrounge for snow at the end, but I got a picture of them kneeling in the top of their tower looking down (and of course I got a pic of the Snow Amazon too).
Breakfast de las Cardenas provided a sort of halftime for the contest. Breakfast was good and hot, including plenty of hot tea and ersatz cocoa, and included a phone call from Christina.
“I heard it snowed up there,” she said on the speaker. “We got a little here in Atlanta too.”
“There’s a lot of it,” Rene told her. “Everyone else was outside playing in it while we fixed breakfast.”
“You didn’t go out in it?”
“Somebody needed to help Mama with breakfast!”
She laughed, and all of us did too. “You got pictures, right?” Kim asked.
“Of course. We’ll mail them tonight.”
“Oh yeah. They’ve de-restricted bandwidth for local access down here,” he said. “I forgot it’s not universal.”
“Yeah, rub it in,” I laughed. “They cache some of the primary news sites here, so we can get those pretty quick, but it’s like a newspaper… they don’t update through the day.”
Of course, by lunchtime the temps had climbed above freezing and the snow (especially where the kids had been scooping) was starting to melt. Pat and I were disappointed when the boobs fell off the Amazon, just as she was starting to warm up a little.
“Hey,” Daughter Dearest said, looking at the large but slumping tower. “Are you going to have any trouble getting the Heehaw around that?”
“No, it’s not in the way,” I said. “Besides, I could just back into it and knock it over. But nobody’s going anywhere anyway.”
Indeed… all of Sector 706, from reports on line and on the air, was pretty much shut down. Some of the mountain areas got 20 cm, although in most places it was 6 cm or less. It was quite the event… and Atlanta TV had people sending in photos and video. I sent a low-res pic of the kids on top of their tower, and they ran that one on the evening news (much to the delight of all). It has been a rather chilly winter; we’ve been going through firewood pretty steadily, although (like always) we’ve had a bunch of false springs that just make us wish for the real thing. Nobody knows if next winter will be like this one… again, ask 10 different climatologists what things will be like long term and get 20 different answers.
continued…
Monday, March 30, 2009 8 comments
FAR Future, Episode 79: Letters From the Sand
Last exhortation to vote in my poll… closing time is 11:59 p.m. Tuesday. Thanks to all who have voted so far.
Friday, December 21, 2035
Letters From the Sand
What a wonderful Christmas present… a letter from The Boy came last week. Sounds like he’s doing well. I edited ever so slightly.
It’s good to know that he hasn’t opted out, and he’s doing something useful (and something he likes, although not necessarily at the same time). But it makes you wonder how many people up and down the coast are sticking to their homes. I hope he gets to see California, and maybe play his guitar on what’s left of the beach out there. He sent a picture, I guess a co-worker took it, of him sitting on a car with his guitar in his lap. The water was up to the windows on the car, with a half-drowned gas station in the background and the morning sun peeking out from behind a cloud. I texted his gadget and told him he should use that picture for an album cover. He texted back, “Yeah hahaha call it Optout Beach.”
They had a segment on “coastal salvage” on the tube last week. The Boy wasn’t in it — they were showing crews down in Florida, I guess because it’s warmer down there and the documentary crew didn’t have to get too cold. Or maybe they were just getting a tax write-off for a vacation. But like The Boy said, there’s both a financial and an environmental incentive to get stuff out of there. I told Daughter Dearest about her brother’s new occupation; she said “Don’t tell Pat, he doesn’t need any ideas.”
“I thought Pat’s been getting better lately,” I said. “He and Ray like to hang out, right?”
“Well, yeah… until something better comes along, anyway. Oh, did I tell you he wants a gadget?”
“I’m not surprised. He’s a teenager; that’s the time for ’em, right? Let him connect with some other kids, maybe he won’t feel so alienated here.”
“Yeah.”
“Besides, it can be a creative tool. Don’t the newest ones have a synth? Let him start making some music like he talked about.”
“I’m afraid of what he might start making. Remember what The Boy did with a guitar?”
“Kids are always going to look for some kind of music to piss off their parents. As long as he doesn’t go in for death country, it’ll be fine. He doesn’t have any B.F.E. or Prairie Dogs tracks, does he?”
“I don’t think so.”
We ordered his gadget, it came in the Monday mail, and he immediately started in on the synth. Turns out he’s into clatter… and he’s not bad at it. If you haven’t heard clatter, it’s 90% metallic percussion… and dang difficult to do well mixing, let alone live. Done poorly, it sounds like a drunk rampaging in the kitchen cabinets; letting the noise overcome the rhythm is the surest way to make bad clatter. Done well, the noise compliments and supports the rhythms; it’s catchy (at least for those of us who like it) and gets you moving. The best part, from Pat’s standpoint, is that Daughter Dearest has little in her bag of musical lessons that applies to clatter, so he’s getting lessons from a teacher down in Atlanta (they owed us for Serena teaching them a creative writing course, so it’s all good). Now Pat just needs a bigger battery so he doesn’t run his gadget down in the middle of the day…
continued…
Friday, December 21, 2035
Letters From the Sand
What a wonderful Christmas present… a letter from The Boy came last week. Sounds like he’s doing well. I edited ever so slightly.
Hey. Sorry I haven't wrote until now, I just started walking one day and kept going. There's still people out on the road, even when it's getting cold like now. But I was going east, so I decided to check out the beach to see how big the flood was getting.
I got to Myrtle Beach, and somebody asked me if I wanted a job getting junk off the islands that are flooding out. The pay sounded good, so I said sure. We're working off a boat, digging up storage tanks from gas stations and getting transformers off power poles and those boxes on the ground. The government doesn't want it [messing] up the water, I guess, and the crews make some money selling what we get out. There's a couple people still living in the condos on the beach, even with a foot or two of water coming in the ground floor. They said they don't want to leave, it's their place and they're not going even if they don't have electric or water. That's so stupid. One of the boat owners said if a big storm comes in, they won't be able to leave and if the building collapses they're dead. It's not like they don't have nowhere to go, they can get a place in Atlanta, Raleigh, or Columbia.
I'm sorry I can't live with you guys yet, I've got [stuff] to work out from when they sent me to Colorado. The government gave me a card that lets me get food even if I'm not working, so I don't have to worry about that. I don't have to worry about anything right now, except if something breaks while I'm working and that doesn't happen anyway. At night, sometimes I play guitar in one of the bars that the salvage people like to hang out at. It's a little extra money and I guess they like my music. It would be nice if we had some electricity for some amps and a drummer, I could play some really good stuff, hahaha. Some of the people I work with are optouts, or used to be. They say they're seeing if they can get back in. They don't talk much, but they smoke with me on breaks and come to the bar to hear me play. I wrote a song for them called I Opted Out Today and they laugh when I play it and put money in my tip jar, so I try to play it every night.
So I don't know what I'll do when this job is done. It's hard working in the cold water, but they give us heated gear and it helps a lot. I guess when we get all the toxic [stuff] out, we'll either move to another place or I'll hit the road again. I always wanted to go out to California, so maybe I'll save up some of my money and get a train ticket. Maybe I'll stop in Colorado and piss on the shale. I heard they put some of the junta people there, so maybe I'll piss on them too. Well, gotta go, playing a gig in a few minutes. Love you guys.
It’s good to know that he hasn’t opted out, and he’s doing something useful (and something he likes, although not necessarily at the same time). But it makes you wonder how many people up and down the coast are sticking to their homes. I hope he gets to see California, and maybe play his guitar on what’s left of the beach out there. He sent a picture, I guess a co-worker took it, of him sitting on a car with his guitar in his lap. The water was up to the windows on the car, with a half-drowned gas station in the background and the morning sun peeking out from behind a cloud. I texted his gadget and told him he should use that picture for an album cover. He texted back, “Yeah hahaha call it Optout Beach.”
They had a segment on “coastal salvage” on the tube last week. The Boy wasn’t in it — they were showing crews down in Florida, I guess because it’s warmer down there and the documentary crew didn’t have to get too cold. Or maybe they were just getting a tax write-off for a vacation. But like The Boy said, there’s both a financial and an environmental incentive to get stuff out of there. I told Daughter Dearest about her brother’s new occupation; she said “Don’t tell Pat, he doesn’t need any ideas.”
“I thought Pat’s been getting better lately,” I said. “He and Ray like to hang out, right?”
“Well, yeah… until something better comes along, anyway. Oh, did I tell you he wants a gadget?”
“I’m not surprised. He’s a teenager; that’s the time for ’em, right? Let him connect with some other kids, maybe he won’t feel so alienated here.”
“Yeah.”
“Besides, it can be a creative tool. Don’t the newest ones have a synth? Let him start making some music like he talked about.”
“I’m afraid of what he might start making. Remember what The Boy did with a guitar?”
“Kids are always going to look for some kind of music to piss off their parents. As long as he doesn’t go in for death country, it’ll be fine. He doesn’t have any B.F.E. or Prairie Dogs tracks, does he?”
“I don’t think so.”
We ordered his gadget, it came in the Monday mail, and he immediately started in on the synth. Turns out he’s into clatter… and he’s not bad at it. If you haven’t heard clatter, it’s 90% metallic percussion… and dang difficult to do well mixing, let alone live. Done poorly, it sounds like a drunk rampaging in the kitchen cabinets; letting the noise overcome the rhythm is the surest way to make bad clatter. Done well, the noise compliments and supports the rhythms; it’s catchy (at least for those of us who like it) and gets you moving. The best part, from Pat’s standpoint, is that Daughter Dearest has little in her bag of musical lessons that applies to clatter, so he’s getting lessons from a teacher down in Atlanta (they owed us for Serena teaching them a creative writing course, so it’s all good). Now Pat just needs a bigger battery so he doesn’t run his gadget down in the middle of the day…
continued…
Monday, March 23, 2009 9 comments
FAR Future, Episode 78: School’s In
Please take the poll (on the right).
Wednesday, November 28, 2035
School’s In
OK, Serena thinks I really am old and decrepit. She might be half-right. But thanks to everyone pitching in, including Bobby, we had the apartments ready in time for our new boarders. Seems to be a recurring theme at FAR Manor, huh? Call them… the Smiths and the Joneses. Close enough.
Speaking of Bobby, his new best friend is Martina Smith — she’s his age and he’s spent the first week showing her everything around the place. Sean and Mary (her parents) were a little apprehensive at first, but when Pat’s not in school he’s taking the day shift in the pasture, so there was plenty of firepower in case any critter (two-legged or four) were to give trouble. As for boy/girl stuff: 1) they’re 10. 2) kids these days have no modesty whatsoever anyway, so it’s not like “playing doctor” is any thrill. I guess that happens when you spend winters sharing a house with two or three families — after a while, you just stop worrying about walking in on someone… from there, it’s a short step to polite not-seeing and then to doesn’t-matter-anyway. Meanwhile, the kids all have to pile into the bathtub together (with one at a time, only the first few would get warm water), so they’ve known little different. From the privacy perspective, the new folks were thrilled to have their own apartments, even if they’re a little small. They said on the way up here, they were wondering what they might end up with — there are stories already going around about people who are making their guests sleep in tents or the living room floor, some real horror stories. I wonder how much of that is promised help not showing up (like what happened here), and how much is people just taking the government stipend and not bothering to provide for their guests.
Ray Jones is like 6 years old, so he would have been on his own except that he and Pat hit it off somehow… don’t ask me what a half-alienated teen sees in him, or vice versa, but the oldest and the youngest are buddies. It doesn’t seem to bother the Joneses, or maybe it bothers me more than it should. It’s good to see Pat taking an interest in someone other than himself; he just seemed to be pulling himself into a shell before. His homework is starting to turn around, and he’s talking about signing up for music come spring semester. Ray and Martina didn’t take long to adjust to school — their schools were very similar in structure and use the same textbooks for all but one or two courses. Bobby and Martina help each other with their schoolwork, naturally, while Pat helps Ray with reading and math. I guess they spend a lot of time out at the tree house in the pasture.
School is a lot more fluid than it used to be when I was a kid… but back then, school wasn’t taught by volunteers with the county facilitating the community centers, administering tests, and furnishing textbooks and lesson materials. Most of us rotate teaching various classes, except that Serena always does creative writing and drama (there’s some prestige for our little school, having a known playwright on the staff) and I end up doing history. Daughter Dearest, being part of the school system staff, does most of the admin work for our group and teaches music (which might be part of what has Pat alienated; he wants to take music but not from his mom). I once suggested that Luke come up and teach important skills like barbecuing and mixology, but I got voted down. Luke said he wouldn’t have the time for it anyway; even during the fall and winter he gets traffic coming through.
I got a fun handout for history on Monday, it asked me to go over a list of acronyms and phrases you don’t hear anymore. Some of them took me back:
SUV
Homeowners’ Association
Supertanker
Religious Right
Mainframe
Jumbo jet
OPEC
FedEx
Landscaping
Muscle car
Since there were ten items, and ten kids, I cut the list up and had each kid draw one. Then they had to look up the term they drew and make a short presentation about what they found (the way I teach history, the kids absorb it almost by accident — while developing research, writing, and presentation skills). We ended up in a long discussion about the religious right, their connection to the junta years (2014-2022), and why “normal” people (who were a majority) didn’t do much to stop it. That lead to a discussion of 20th-century politics, then on to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the Revolutionary War. We ran wayyyy overtime, and cut into Rene’s biochem lesson, but he’s pretty understanding about that sort of thing. The kids can cover a week or more of material during these afternoon stream-of-consciousness discussions, even if they nearly wear me out. Sometimes, I feel like a mouse on a Google hunt. But when we get to the late 1700s again, we’ll breeze right through it and Rene will catch up. But that was just the first presentation. A few of them should dovetail together (like SUV, OPEC, and supertanker), so we can do all three presentations before triggering the info-tsunami.
I asked Rene once what he thought about teaching a class using his sister’s book. “It can’t be easier,” he said. “If something doesn’t make sense, I just give Christina a call.” Lucky him — how many teachers would even think of calling Dr. Cardenas-Roszinski with a question about The Circle of Life: Elementary-Level Biochemistry (3rd ed.), even if they could hunt down her office number? Then again, they would just call the school support staff and get the question answered nearly as quickly.
Our community center isn’t terribly fancy: a hall that we use for classrooms or community meetings, bathroom, the remote medassist room with an outdoor access, a serving area that abuts the covered outdoor kitchen, plenty of insulation to keep the place easy to heat. Maybe 2000 square feet, plenty of room for a school of 10 in a community whose population breaks 60 only if you count the animals. We put it up in 2026, during the Restoration, using materials and some labor furnished by the government. The Boy, and Kim and Christina, painted two murals on opposite walls, depicting how 21st century society has developed… one from order to chaos and order again, the other from machinery to humanity. I’ve used them in the history lessons.
continued…
Wednesday, November 28, 2035
School’s In
OK, Serena thinks I really am old and decrepit. She might be half-right. But thanks to everyone pitching in, including Bobby, we had the apartments ready in time for our new boarders. Seems to be a recurring theme at FAR Manor, huh? Call them… the Smiths and the Joneses. Close enough.
Speaking of Bobby, his new best friend is Martina Smith — she’s his age and he’s spent the first week showing her everything around the place. Sean and Mary (her parents) were a little apprehensive at first, but when Pat’s not in school he’s taking the day shift in the pasture, so there was plenty of firepower in case any critter (two-legged or four) were to give trouble. As for boy/girl stuff: 1) they’re 10. 2) kids these days have no modesty whatsoever anyway, so it’s not like “playing doctor” is any thrill. I guess that happens when you spend winters sharing a house with two or three families — after a while, you just stop worrying about walking in on someone… from there, it’s a short step to polite not-seeing and then to doesn’t-matter-anyway. Meanwhile, the kids all have to pile into the bathtub together (with one at a time, only the first few would get warm water), so they’ve known little different. From the privacy perspective, the new folks were thrilled to have their own apartments, even if they’re a little small. They said on the way up here, they were wondering what they might end up with — there are stories already going around about people who are making their guests sleep in tents or the living room floor, some real horror stories. I wonder how much of that is promised help not showing up (like what happened here), and how much is people just taking the government stipend and not bothering to provide for their guests.
Ray Jones is like 6 years old, so he would have been on his own except that he and Pat hit it off somehow… don’t ask me what a half-alienated teen sees in him, or vice versa, but the oldest and the youngest are buddies. It doesn’t seem to bother the Joneses, or maybe it bothers me more than it should. It’s good to see Pat taking an interest in someone other than himself; he just seemed to be pulling himself into a shell before. His homework is starting to turn around, and he’s talking about signing up for music come spring semester. Ray and Martina didn’t take long to adjust to school — their schools were very similar in structure and use the same textbooks for all but one or two courses. Bobby and Martina help each other with their schoolwork, naturally, while Pat helps Ray with reading and math. I guess they spend a lot of time out at the tree house in the pasture.
School is a lot more fluid than it used to be when I was a kid… but back then, school wasn’t taught by volunteers with the county facilitating the community centers, administering tests, and furnishing textbooks and lesson materials. Most of us rotate teaching various classes, except that Serena always does creative writing and drama (there’s some prestige for our little school, having a known playwright on the staff) and I end up doing history. Daughter Dearest, being part of the school system staff, does most of the admin work for our group and teaches music (which might be part of what has Pat alienated; he wants to take music but not from his mom). I once suggested that Luke come up and teach important skills like barbecuing and mixology, but I got voted down. Luke said he wouldn’t have the time for it anyway; even during the fall and winter he gets traffic coming through.
I got a fun handout for history on Monday, it asked me to go over a list of acronyms and phrases you don’t hear anymore. Some of them took me back:
SUV
Homeowners’ Association
Supertanker
Religious Right
Mainframe
Jumbo jet
OPEC
FedEx
Landscaping
Muscle car
Since there were ten items, and ten kids, I cut the list up and had each kid draw one. Then they had to look up the term they drew and make a short presentation about what they found (the way I teach history, the kids absorb it almost by accident — while developing research, writing, and presentation skills). We ended up in a long discussion about the religious right, their connection to the junta years (2014-2022), and why “normal” people (who were a majority) didn’t do much to stop it. That lead to a discussion of 20th-century politics, then on to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the Revolutionary War. We ran wayyyy overtime, and cut into Rene’s biochem lesson, but he’s pretty understanding about that sort of thing. The kids can cover a week or more of material during these afternoon stream-of-consciousness discussions, even if they nearly wear me out. Sometimes, I feel like a mouse on a Google hunt. But when we get to the late 1700s again, we’ll breeze right through it and Rene will catch up. But that was just the first presentation. A few of them should dovetail together (like SUV, OPEC, and supertanker), so we can do all three presentations before triggering the info-tsunami.
I asked Rene once what he thought about teaching a class using his sister’s book. “It can’t be easier,” he said. “If something doesn’t make sense, I just give Christina a call.” Lucky him — how many teachers would even think of calling Dr. Cardenas-Roszinski with a question about The Circle of Life: Elementary-Level Biochemistry (3rd ed.), even if they could hunt down her office number? Then again, they would just call the school support staff and get the question answered nearly as quickly.
Our community center isn’t terribly fancy: a hall that we use for classrooms or community meetings, bathroom, the remote medassist room with an outdoor access, a serving area that abuts the covered outdoor kitchen, plenty of insulation to keep the place easy to heat. Maybe 2000 square feet, plenty of room for a school of 10 in a community whose population breaks 60 only if you count the animals. We put it up in 2026, during the Restoration, using materials and some labor furnished by the government. The Boy, and Kim and Christina, painted two murals on opposite walls, depicting how 21st century society has developed… one from order to chaos and order again, the other from machinery to humanity. I’ve used them in the history lessons.
continued…
Monday, March 16, 2009 3 comments
FAR Future, Episode 77: Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee
Yes, I’ve gotten older. But I have no intention of growing up…
Thursday, October 18, 2035
Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee
Holá — Serena here. Dad overdid it again; we walked him up to the community center and uploaded his vitals to the nurse in town. She had him wait 20 minutes, took them again, and said he was okay, so now he’s taking a nap. Rene and I try to convince him (and Mo-Dad) to pace themselves, but do they listen? Ha. He’s gotten more like Mom since she died, he used to try to slack whenever he could but now it’s like he’s got to take her place and push himself to the limit and beyond. Mo-Dad isn’t much better, but he’s always been like that. Rene says he’s still trying to earn his place here, even though Dad said he’d earned it many times over. Anyway, Dad was singing this old song while helping finish the new apartments, hammering to the beat — he’s always had a weird sense of humor, but I guess he’s right. Our new guests really won’t have to live like refugees, the rooms are almost done and they’ll be pretty nice. Rene and I joked about taking one of the apartments and letting one of the new families have our rooms upstairs, but we won’t do that. We like having the upstairs when Kim and Christina come to visit, the kids sleep in one room and we stay up half the night in the other like we used to.
The people they were supposed to send to do the apartments never got here; they probably drank their fuel, but with all of us working on it we’re about done. All that’s left to do is paint the walls and ceilings, then roll out some foam and carpeting. Two days of work, three tops, and the guests will be here a week from tomorrow. Dad wanted to call it “Stable House,” since it used to be a garage, but Rene suggested “Carriage House” and Dad liked that better. Bobby’s looking forward to having two more kids more or less his age at the manor, and he’s been a huge help getting their new place ready. Big Sister and her family will take over the old “studio” building when they move in, but Pat (their kid) is a teenager and is already talking about more or less permanently camping out in the pasture shelter (not likely). He and Bobby have different orbits, they get along OK but just don’t have that much in common; otherwise we’d offer to let him share Bobby’s room. Big Sister said he’s a lot like Big Brother at that age, although he’s staying out of trouble and mostly keeping up with his schoolwork.
The tide’s starting to come in, a little higher with each high tide, at least on the Atlantic side. Californians joke about how they always expected to fall into the sea anyway, but it’s not going to start affecting them much for a few more months. The surge mostly has to work its way around the Patagonian and African capes, and the Bering Straits will be impassible going north for a long time to come. Ships are having a time getting through Gibraltar, for that matter. Spain and Morocco say they’re working on transfer points for ship cargo, because ships sailing into the Med will be stuck there for a couple of years, along with the ones that are already there, unless they get a really heavy tailwind. I’m working on a new play, about some people on a ship trying to get out of the Mediterranean, but it’s taking a while. I don’t guess it’ll be ready for Thanksgiving. Dad and I will probably do a sketch about something else; I doubt the guests will be in the mood to laugh about being flooded out any time soon.
Christina said people are already moving into the high-rises they converted down in Atlanta for the Floridians. There’s been a lot of grousing about the units, especially from the geezers who Dad says like to complain about everything. I guess some of the friction involves families sharing floors with people who lived in retirement (i.e. geezer-only) “communities,” and some of it’s about all the activities they’re used to doing but can’t now. Some of them want to try life in the burbs, but only people who don’t know what that’s like would consider it. It’s like living here, a bunch of people living together in the houses that are left, and a lot of busy-work to grow food and keep the infrastructure working. I don’t think the burbers would accept a bunch of people who won’t (or can’t) pull their weight. I suppose there are a few who would enjoy pitching in and being part of a productive community, though.
It’s kind of hard to believe our 10th anniversary’s coming up already — end of the month. Just one of those things… neither one of us were satisfied with anyone else we dated, so we finally realized that we weren’t going to be happy with anyone but each other! The parents were all surprised but really happy about it… Dad suggested we get married on Halloween, since it was a scary idea anyway, and we went with it. The surprise for me came when I got pregnant almost right away. I love Bobby, he’s a great kid and a lot of help around the manor, we just weren’t expecting him so quick. Dad said the Big Brother and Sister were both surprises, so even if I’m adopted it runs in the family, ha! I’m glad we’re not like Kim and Christina though… so much drama in that relationship. So much passion. Kim jokes about how they fight just for the make-up sex. I really like it that the guy I love is also my best friend, and Rene feels the same way. But it seems to work for them, their kids (yeah, two, but as smart as Christina is, nobody worries about that), and their work.
Time to start supper here soon; Rene just went out to start the fire in the outdoor kitchen. We’ll probably start cooking inside just before our anniversary, but that’s OK. There’s not as many bugs inside, but there’s not as much room to move around. With the new families moving in, we’ll probably butcher a cow for Christmas. Dad’s stirring, guess I better send this before he wakes up and wants to add commentary!
continued…
Thursday, October 18, 2035
Don’t Have to Live Like a Refugee
Holá — Serena here. Dad overdid it again; we walked him up to the community center and uploaded his vitals to the nurse in town. She had him wait 20 minutes, took them again, and said he was okay, so now he’s taking a nap. Rene and I try to convince him (and Mo-Dad) to pace themselves, but do they listen? Ha. He’s gotten more like Mom since she died, he used to try to slack whenever he could but now it’s like he’s got to take her place and push himself to the limit and beyond. Mo-Dad isn’t much better, but he’s always been like that. Rene says he’s still trying to earn his place here, even though Dad said he’d earned it many times over. Anyway, Dad was singing this old song while helping finish the new apartments, hammering to the beat — he’s always had a weird sense of humor, but I guess he’s right. Our new guests really won’t have to live like refugees, the rooms are almost done and they’ll be pretty nice. Rene and I joked about taking one of the apartments and letting one of the new families have our rooms upstairs, but we won’t do that. We like having the upstairs when Kim and Christina come to visit, the kids sleep in one room and we stay up half the night in the other like we used to.
The people they were supposed to send to do the apartments never got here; they probably drank their fuel, but with all of us working on it we’re about done. All that’s left to do is paint the walls and ceilings, then roll out some foam and carpeting. Two days of work, three tops, and the guests will be here a week from tomorrow. Dad wanted to call it “Stable House,” since it used to be a garage, but Rene suggested “Carriage House” and Dad liked that better. Bobby’s looking forward to having two more kids more or less his age at the manor, and he’s been a huge help getting their new place ready. Big Sister and her family will take over the old “studio” building when they move in, but Pat (their kid) is a teenager and is already talking about more or less permanently camping out in the pasture shelter (not likely). He and Bobby have different orbits, they get along OK but just don’t have that much in common; otherwise we’d offer to let him share Bobby’s room. Big Sister said he’s a lot like Big Brother at that age, although he’s staying out of trouble and mostly keeping up with his schoolwork.
The tide’s starting to come in, a little higher with each high tide, at least on the Atlantic side. Californians joke about how they always expected to fall into the sea anyway, but it’s not going to start affecting them much for a few more months. The surge mostly has to work its way around the Patagonian and African capes, and the Bering Straits will be impassible going north for a long time to come. Ships are having a time getting through Gibraltar, for that matter. Spain and Morocco say they’re working on transfer points for ship cargo, because ships sailing into the Med will be stuck there for a couple of years, along with the ones that are already there, unless they get a really heavy tailwind. I’m working on a new play, about some people on a ship trying to get out of the Mediterranean, but it’s taking a while. I don’t guess it’ll be ready for Thanksgiving. Dad and I will probably do a sketch about something else; I doubt the guests will be in the mood to laugh about being flooded out any time soon.
Christina said people are already moving into the high-rises they converted down in Atlanta for the Floridians. There’s been a lot of grousing about the units, especially from the geezers who Dad says like to complain about everything. I guess some of the friction involves families sharing floors with people who lived in retirement (i.e. geezer-only) “communities,” and some of it’s about all the activities they’re used to doing but can’t now. Some of them want to try life in the burbs, but only people who don’t know what that’s like would consider it. It’s like living here, a bunch of people living together in the houses that are left, and a lot of busy-work to grow food and keep the infrastructure working. I don’t think the burbers would accept a bunch of people who won’t (or can’t) pull their weight. I suppose there are a few who would enjoy pitching in and being part of a productive community, though.
It’s kind of hard to believe our 10th anniversary’s coming up already — end of the month. Just one of those things… neither one of us were satisfied with anyone else we dated, so we finally realized that we weren’t going to be happy with anyone but each other! The parents were all surprised but really happy about it… Dad suggested we get married on Halloween, since it was a scary idea anyway, and we went with it. The surprise for me came when I got pregnant almost right away. I love Bobby, he’s a great kid and a lot of help around the manor, we just weren’t expecting him so quick. Dad said the Big Brother and Sister were both surprises, so even if I’m adopted it runs in the family, ha! I’m glad we’re not like Kim and Christina though… so much drama in that relationship. So much passion. Kim jokes about how they fight just for the make-up sex. I really like it that the guy I love is also my best friend, and Rene feels the same way. But it seems to work for them, their kids (yeah, two, but as smart as Christina is, nobody worries about that), and their work.
Time to start supper here soon; Rene just went out to start the fire in the outdoor kitchen. We’ll probably start cooking inside just before our anniversary, but that’s OK. There’s not as many bugs inside, but there’s not as much room to move around. With the new families moving in, we’ll probably butcher a cow for Christmas. Dad’s stirring, guess I better send this before he wakes up and wants to add commentary!
continued…
Monday, March 09, 2009 9 comments
FAR Future, Episode 76: Before the Deluge
Maybe we jump the gun, but things could get bad enough this century.
And a hat tip to Odin’s Raven for guessing right…
Monday, September 10, 2035
Before the Deluge
When the government called for people to take in refugees from the coast, we all looked at each other… then answered the call. It’s not like there’s no time; they estimate it will be several months before the East Coast starts flooding, but we offered to take in two families with kids. This host/guest database they put up is pretty clever. We entered a list of characteristics — families with kids, an interest in gardening, carpentry skills, some familiarity with rural life in general — and it found five exact matches. Unfortunately, we only have room for two. We picked at random.
They sent us some recycled materials (and promised some labor) to convert the detached garage to a duplex. The delivery truck seemed huge, but it certainly wasn’t as big as the trucks they used to haul freight back when. The clattering diesel reminded me of the ambulance that came for Mrs. Fetched a few years ago — sometimes I feel like it came for her last week and other times an eternity ago. She told me to remind them “no extraordinary measures,” although it was too late even for that. She died right where she wanted to, in her own bed in her own house, before the medics got here.
But I’m rambling again. There’s no telling when the labor will arrive. Rene, Serena, and Bobby are doing some of the initial stuff; we cleaned out the garage and they’ve put up some of the framing. Guillermo and I have done a little bit when they’re not looking; they think we shouldn’t be doing anything but we’re just old, not dead, dagnabbit. With any luck, things will be ready when our new guests arrive. The house is pretty well full, which is why we’re converting the garage: Guillermo and Maria are still with us and still working, although they deserve to retire many times over, and Rene and Serena (and Bobby) have the upstairs rooms. The studio is for Daughter Dearest and her family when they move back this month — with the school system facilitating volunteer schooling, rather than trying to get enough fuel to bus the kids into town, they can bring the neighbor kids into the community center and do remote hookups as needed. The Boy would have been welcome here too, but he’s gone again… he’ll come back about the time I decide he’s opted-out, he always does. Kim tells me they’re renovating some abandoned high-rises in Atlanta to take in refugees, and they’re already booked. Things will get a little crowded when they come to visit, but we’ll manage somehow. Maybe we’ll put up a straw-bale house where the cows won’t eat it.
General Freakout seems to have taken charge since that big chunk of ice in Greenland let go. Some of the more delusional types think we can build seawalls all along the coasts (hunh?), and they’re already at it on Manhattan — the game of chicken between the government and private citizens ended pretty quickly, perhaps in time to actually make it work. The running joke, outside of NYC anyway, is that piling up all their garbage along the shoreline would be enough to keep the entire metro area dry. Just about the entire world is jamming the phone lines to the Netherlands, looking for help and advice — but they’re busy trying (and only partly succeeding) to hold back the surge themselves. At this point, a middling storm would flood them out. They should be OK by spring, if they make it that long; the surge is supposed to start receding as the flood works its way around the world. After a couple years, things should settle out with sea levels up around 3 meters.
The loudest outcry for the government to “do something,” not surprisingly, comes from the general direction of private beaches. The rest of us tell them, “it’s ‘your’ beach, it’s your responsibility,” and they just don’t understand why we’re not falling all over ourselves to preserve the property they don’t want us anywhere near. As if we could, given the Restoration-era laws against providing public aid to “fenced” property. They should have gotten a clue when Hurricane Tricia wiped out Daytona Beach back in 2028, and there wasn’t a big government rush to rebuild the rich people’s exclusive playground. Some of that got rebuilt privately, but it will all be under water again pretty soon. A rather rude joke I heard is that Floridians will soon be the new Okies; instead of dust, they’ll be escaping water and wandering the nation. On the Gulf, they’re just abandoning New Orleans to the coming flood. There’s some talk about either moving the Pascagoula shipyard or surrounding it with levees, but if they’re doing to do more than watch it go under they’ll have to get started chop-chop.
The water coming in will be colder than usual — an ice cube that big is going to make a difference even in an ocean — and they’re already predicting a chilly winter. We may even get a significant (1cm) accumulation of snow here, something we haven ’t seen since [looking it up] January 2025. Beyond that, ask ten climatologists what the long-term effects are going to be and get 20 different answers. I’m hoping for the “cool and rainy” scenario, since that would fix a lot of problems much of the world has been having with climate change. One of the more troubling scenarios disrupts the Gulf Stream, bringing colder weather to much of Europe, but even that isn’t all bad… that scenario also involves a partial rebuilding of the Alpine glaciers and the Arctic ice cap. I don’t suppose we’ll have much choice in the matter, though. As the kids used to say before things changed, “it is what it is.” One thing’s probably a certainty… hurricane season will be really quiet next year.
continued…
And a hat tip to Odin’s Raven for guessing right…
Monday, September 10, 2035
Before the Deluge
Now let the music keep our spirits high,
Let the buildings keep our children dry,
Let Creation reveal its secrets, by and by…
Let the buildings keep our children dry,
Let Creation reveal its secrets, by and by…
When the government called for people to take in refugees from the coast, we all looked at each other… then answered the call. It’s not like there’s no time; they estimate it will be several months before the East Coast starts flooding, but we offered to take in two families with kids. This host/guest database they put up is pretty clever. We entered a list of characteristics — families with kids, an interest in gardening, carpentry skills, some familiarity with rural life in general — and it found five exact matches. Unfortunately, we only have room for two. We picked at random.
They sent us some recycled materials (and promised some labor) to convert the detached garage to a duplex. The delivery truck seemed huge, but it certainly wasn’t as big as the trucks they used to haul freight back when. The clattering diesel reminded me of the ambulance that came for Mrs. Fetched a few years ago — sometimes I feel like it came for her last week and other times an eternity ago. She told me to remind them “no extraordinary measures,” although it was too late even for that. She died right where she wanted to, in her own bed in her own house, before the medics got here.
But I’m rambling again. There’s no telling when the labor will arrive. Rene, Serena, and Bobby are doing some of the initial stuff; we cleaned out the garage and they’ve put up some of the framing. Guillermo and I have done a little bit when they’re not looking; they think we shouldn’t be doing anything but we’re just old, not dead, dagnabbit. With any luck, things will be ready when our new guests arrive. The house is pretty well full, which is why we’re converting the garage: Guillermo and Maria are still with us and still working, although they deserve to retire many times over, and Rene and Serena (and Bobby) have the upstairs rooms. The studio is for Daughter Dearest and her family when they move back this month — with the school system facilitating volunteer schooling, rather than trying to get enough fuel to bus the kids into town, they can bring the neighbor kids into the community center and do remote hookups as needed. The Boy would have been welcome here too, but he’s gone again… he’ll come back about the time I decide he’s opted-out, he always does. Kim tells me they’re renovating some abandoned high-rises in Atlanta to take in refugees, and they’re already booked. Things will get a little crowded when they come to visit, but we’ll manage somehow. Maybe we’ll put up a straw-bale house where the cows won’t eat it.
General Freakout seems to have taken charge since that big chunk of ice in Greenland let go. Some of the more delusional types think we can build seawalls all along the coasts (hunh?), and they’re already at it on Manhattan — the game of chicken between the government and private citizens ended pretty quickly, perhaps in time to actually make it work. The running joke, outside of NYC anyway, is that piling up all their garbage along the shoreline would be enough to keep the entire metro area dry. Just about the entire world is jamming the phone lines to the Netherlands, looking for help and advice — but they’re busy trying (and only partly succeeding) to hold back the surge themselves. At this point, a middling storm would flood them out. They should be OK by spring, if they make it that long; the surge is supposed to start receding as the flood works its way around the world. After a couple years, things should settle out with sea levels up around 3 meters.
The loudest outcry for the government to “do something,” not surprisingly, comes from the general direction of private beaches. The rest of us tell them, “it’s ‘your’ beach, it’s your responsibility,” and they just don’t understand why we’re not falling all over ourselves to preserve the property they don’t want us anywhere near. As if we could, given the Restoration-era laws against providing public aid to “fenced” property. They should have gotten a clue when Hurricane Tricia wiped out Daytona Beach back in 2028, and there wasn’t a big government rush to rebuild the rich people’s exclusive playground. Some of that got rebuilt privately, but it will all be under water again pretty soon. A rather rude joke I heard is that Floridians will soon be the new Okies; instead of dust, they’ll be escaping water and wandering the nation. On the Gulf, they’re just abandoning New Orleans to the coming flood. There’s some talk about either moving the Pascagoula shipyard or surrounding it with levees, but if they’re doing to do more than watch it go under they’ll have to get started chop-chop.
The water coming in will be colder than usual — an ice cube that big is going to make a difference even in an ocean — and they’re already predicting a chilly winter. We may even get a significant (1cm) accumulation of snow here, something we haven ’t seen since [looking it up] January 2025. Beyond that, ask ten climatologists what the long-term effects are going to be and get 20 different answers. I’m hoping for the “cool and rainy” scenario, since that would fix a lot of problems much of the world has been having with climate change. One of the more troubling scenarios disrupts the Gulf Stream, bringing colder weather to much of Europe, but even that isn’t all bad… that scenario also involves a partial rebuilding of the Alpine glaciers and the Arctic ice cap. I don’t suppose we’ll have much choice in the matter, though. As the kids used to say before things changed, “it is what it is.” One thing’s probably a certainty… hurricane season will be really quiet next year.
continued…
Monday, March 02, 2009 13 comments
FAR Future, Episode 75: Interlude (Pattern Shift)
In one brief episode, I cover nearly as much time as did the previous 74 episodes. To do it effectively, I had to step back from the first-person narrative just this once. I suddenly developed a few qualms about it late last week, after it had been patiently waiting its turn since mid-December, but couldn’t think of any better way to handle the span of time. So we’ll be back to the blog of the moment, when the episode number and my age are both 76…
2023–2035
Interlude: Pattern Shift
From the cosmic to the sub-microscopic, there are patterns to be seen everywhere. The galaxy dances with its partners in the Local Group; the sun orbits the galactic center and the earth orbits the sun. In its orbit, the earth turns on its axis: the universal tarantella. On the other end of the scale, electrons whiz about their nuclei, while sub-atomic particles dance in patterns that science has only partially mapped.
But patterns leave room for free will and chaos. In the vast middle area, weather patterns spin, some clockwise and some counter-clockwise. Biological and geological patterns respond to the weather… and vice versa. Humans continue to pump, mine, and burn fossil fuels, but less than they once did. In some places, people abandon the land and nature begins the dance of succession, reclaiming what has always been hers. The new wild nature differs from the old in some respects: some plants and animals reclaim their old niches; other niches are left empty, until another native species or an adaptable invasive claims it. Sometimes, humans attempt to help nature rebuild what they had destroyed, with varying degrees of success. In other places, they try to build a landscape that suits their needs while using the old nature as a template.
Little by little, the patterns of human civilization begin to shift, adapting to a growing understanding of what’s at stake: the species must either clean its nest or suffocate in its own waste. In the west, a new ethos is born with the speed that only a well-wired populace can comprehend.
The east becomes a laboratory for other ways to cope. Nations with high birth rates attempt to export their excess people, triggering wars and horrors that give the survivors lifetime nightmares. Large cargo ships are outfitted with sails, crammed with people, and cast off to find harbor where they may… or sink. Uncounted numbers of people die on these journeys, and many ships never reach a port. Japan’s elderly become its coast guard, proud to die defending their nation from invading immigrants — for a nation that cannot feed itself is beholden to others. India and Pakistan balkanize along ethnic and sectarian lines, but somehow manage to avoid nuclear war. Dark whispers of cannibalism are heard in both the east and west. Much of Africa returns to its past, thriving and dangerous coastal cities and a mysterious and deadly interior. But not all the news from Africa is bad: changing weather patterns create a new monsoon cycle in the west, and the desert begins to retreat in Mali and Niger.
In many places, human birth rates fall below the replacement level: those people cherish their few children, plant trees, and live as much as possible within the means of the energy nature gives them. Others live in cultures that are essentially incompatible with the new reality; the Four Horsemen ride them down until they learn a new culture. Human population spends a few years on a plateau, then begins to fall. Not quickly, nor uniformly, but one day the media reports that there are half a billion fewer people alive than 30 years ago. It’s a start.
The CO2 level reaches a plateau, but warming continues… thanks to soot from wood fires, a little slower than previously. The poles sweat, while climatologists keep a nervous eye on ocean levels and far-flung weather stations.
The patterns continue, from the cosmic to the sub-atomic. At either extreme, patterns are either static or change so slowly that humans have not detected the changes. In the middle, patterns change — usually gracefully.
But one late August night, a crack and a roar that goes on for days signals a more abrupt pattern shift.
continued…
2023–2035
Interlude: Pattern Shift
From the cosmic to the sub-microscopic, there are patterns to be seen everywhere. The galaxy dances with its partners in the Local Group; the sun orbits the galactic center and the earth orbits the sun. In its orbit, the earth turns on its axis: the universal tarantella. On the other end of the scale, electrons whiz about their nuclei, while sub-atomic particles dance in patterns that science has only partially mapped.
But patterns leave room for free will and chaos. In the vast middle area, weather patterns spin, some clockwise and some counter-clockwise. Biological and geological patterns respond to the weather… and vice versa. Humans continue to pump, mine, and burn fossil fuels, but less than they once did. In some places, people abandon the land and nature begins the dance of succession, reclaiming what has always been hers. The new wild nature differs from the old in some respects: some plants and animals reclaim their old niches; other niches are left empty, until another native species or an adaptable invasive claims it. Sometimes, humans attempt to help nature rebuild what they had destroyed, with varying degrees of success. In other places, they try to build a landscape that suits their needs while using the old nature as a template.
Little by little, the patterns of human civilization begin to shift, adapting to a growing understanding of what’s at stake: the species must either clean its nest or suffocate in its own waste. In the west, a new ethos is born with the speed that only a well-wired populace can comprehend.
The east becomes a laboratory for other ways to cope. Nations with high birth rates attempt to export their excess people, triggering wars and horrors that give the survivors lifetime nightmares. Large cargo ships are outfitted with sails, crammed with people, and cast off to find harbor where they may… or sink. Uncounted numbers of people die on these journeys, and many ships never reach a port. Japan’s elderly become its coast guard, proud to die defending their nation from invading immigrants — for a nation that cannot feed itself is beholden to others. India and Pakistan balkanize along ethnic and sectarian lines, but somehow manage to avoid nuclear war. Dark whispers of cannibalism are heard in both the east and west. Much of Africa returns to its past, thriving and dangerous coastal cities and a mysterious and deadly interior. But not all the news from Africa is bad: changing weather patterns create a new monsoon cycle in the west, and the desert begins to retreat in Mali and Niger.
In many places, human birth rates fall below the replacement level: those people cherish their few children, plant trees, and live as much as possible within the means of the energy nature gives them. Others live in cultures that are essentially incompatible with the new reality; the Four Horsemen ride them down until they learn a new culture. Human population spends a few years on a plateau, then begins to fall. Not quickly, nor uniformly, but one day the media reports that there are half a billion fewer people alive than 30 years ago. It’s a start.
The CO2 level reaches a plateau, but warming continues… thanks to soot from wood fires, a little slower than previously. The poles sweat, while climatologists keep a nervous eye on ocean levels and far-flung weather stations.
The patterns continue, from the cosmic to the sub-atomic. At either extreme, patterns are either static or change so slowly that humans have not detected the changes. In the middle, patterns change — usually gracefully.
But one late August night, a crack and a roar that goes on for days signals a more abrupt pattern shift.
continued…
Monday, February 23, 2009 10 comments
FAR Future, Episode 74: The Opt-Outs
This one’s a little long, but next week’s is a little short. It evens out.
Tuesday, July 4, 2023
The Opt-Outs
July 4 really meant something this year: for the first time in 9 years, we actually have some freedom to celebrate. There are still plenty of junta-symps around Planet Georgia, of course, and the Great Backlash against the churches isn’t exactly helping with that — but even the symps were in a festive mood this year. The President kicked off the celebrations on Saturday, and they ran pretty much through today. We spent the weekend in town again, and they had the fireworks (huge!) last night so everyone could be home before dark today. Of course, they had another “recognize the vets” moment. Rene said, “This whole war-hero thing is kind of embarrassing. Major Shevchuk and Manny Velasquez are the real heroes… they walked out and faced down the tanks while me and Sammy hid up over the dunes with RPGs.”
“You’re what we’ve got,” I reminded him. “Besides, when the shooting started, it was you and Sammy drawing the fire. It’s your day as much as theirs. Besides, didn’t Manny go to RoT?” The funny thing was, his fling-girl and the two brothers who accosted him at the chautauqua were there and cheering for him as loud as for any of the others. I guess it goes to show… well, I’m not sure what it goes to show. Maybe celebrity conquers all?
Kim and Christina set up a table where they sold a few drawings. They made more money doing portraits… I think some people paid just to watch them go at it, side-by-side, switching sides and filling in each other’s parts and blending it into a consistent whole. People were taking pictures and video, and some of them were media stringers. One video taker had release forms and even interviewed them. I had to remind myself how fascinating it was to me when I watched them work like that when they were kids. But I still thought it was funny, how the interviewer was a little taken aback when she learned that Christina the artist is also (at age 19) closing in on a Ph.D. in biochemistry. At least they don’t use their old Spanglish argot anymore (except for “Holá, y’all”); they got out of that habit after they got drafted (or signed up, in Rene’s case).
People are on the move this summer — lots of young people are taking that first summer after high school to see a little of the country before settling into college or work, as well as some older folks with no family ties or any other reason to stay put. Not many my age though… but there’s a few. I don’t see much traffic at the bicycle stop now that Luke opened up his place down at the crossroads; most people just keep rolling by and refill their water bottles there. But there are some who skip Luke’s and come up here.
We came home from town this morning; I went down to check the water jug and it was dry. When I brought it back, I saw a ratty-looking bike lying in a patch of weeds toward the road and smelled the tobacco… you don’t see many people smoking nowadays, especially travelers (who need all the wind they can get). The guy associated with the bike and smoke, nearly hidden in the shadows of the pergola, looked even rattier than the bike. He started up, and I waved him back and set the water jug next to him.
“I put this rest stop up for everyone,” I said. “Most people go on down to Luke’s now, but I know people still use it — the water jug gets emptied out.”
He nodded, took one more drag on his hand-rolled cigarette, then gently stubbed it out and pinched the end. I realized he was a lot younger than I thought at first — not much older than Kim, if that. He had aged before his time.
“Yeah,” he said finally, fishing an old pill bottle out of a pocket. He twisted the cap off, made sure the end of his cig was cold, then dropped it in and closed it up before pocketing it again. “We appreciate it.” He glanced toward the corner; I followed his cue and saw markings scratched on the post:
“What are those?”
“It means this is a safe place to rest a while.”
“Oh… like hobo symbols? From the Depression?”
“There’s a depression goin’ on now, ’case you haven’t noticed.” He shook his head. “No… sorry. I shouldn’t take it out on you. You try to help out, anyway. We know who’s good people.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
He pulled his cap off and scratched his head for a moment. It looked like he cut his own hair, as short as possible… and suddenly remembered I’d seen several people like him at the festivities over the weekend, always around the edges of the crowd. “I guess you’d call us opt-outs. We didn’t want to live under the junta, so we opted out. Then there’s the junta-symps who don’t want to reconcile. Hard life, but it’s a free life.”
“The junta’s gone now.”
“Yeah. But it ain’t that easy. Once you’ve opted out, it’s hard to come back. You got no idea how hard it can be to come back.”
“I’ve tried to help people get started back when,” I told him. “I think I have a pretty good idea how hard it could be.” I was thinking of one of The Boy ’s old girlfriends… what did I call her? (Ms. Almost Einstein, but I had to go back and look it up.) She lived with us for a bit over a year back before stuff went pear-shaped, and I figured it would take a minimum of $7000 (in 2006 dollars) to get her on her own two feet: about half of that for a decent car, deposits on apartment and utilities, gadgetry and clothing, and basic living expenses until the paycheck started kicking in. Not too many people drive cars nowadays, outside of special occasions, but you still need a good head start to get started.
“Betcha haven’t been there yourself though.” He fished the pill bottle out of his pocket and started playing with it. Probably needed more smoke.
“You’re right,” I said, “but I think I at least understand it. Here, let’s sit outside where you can smoke.”
He nodded and we carried the stools out. He lit up as quickly as he could without looking desperate. “We pretty much keep movin’, that way nobody gets tired of us bein’ around,” he said. A lot of guys go north for the summer, south for the winter. Me, I’m goin’ northwest then west this year. I figure to spend the winter out in San Diego, if I get that far. Oregon if not.”
“How do you eat?”
“However we can. One reason I’m goin’ west this year, I can forage. Stuff will be picked over pretty good if I took I-95 or US-1 up the coast, or the Nashville-Indy-Chicago route up I-65. Where foraging doesn’t work, I ’ll try to get a job on a farm somewhere. If nobody wants to let me work for my food, I’ll steal it.”
I chewed on that for a minute. “I’d rather get a little work out of you than let you steal out of my garden,” I laughed. “Not that I think you’d steal here.”
“Not here,” he agreed. “Junta-symps might do it, but most of us won’t take from someone who gives us water and shelter. The junta-symps, maybe. Not the rest of us though.”
He took one last drag on his cig, then put out the last half-inch and dropped it back in the pillbox. “We get outta the habit of talkin’ to anyone still in — in the system, I mean. Guess I’d better be goin’.”
“Take care of yourself, okay?”
“Yeah. I try. You do the same.” He wheeled his bike to the pavement and rolled on down the hill without looking back.
continued…
Tuesday, July 4, 2023
The Opt-Outs
July 4 really meant something this year: for the first time in 9 years, we actually have some freedom to celebrate. There are still plenty of junta-symps around Planet Georgia, of course, and the Great Backlash against the churches isn’t exactly helping with that — but even the symps were in a festive mood this year. The President kicked off the celebrations on Saturday, and they ran pretty much through today. We spent the weekend in town again, and they had the fireworks (huge!) last night so everyone could be home before dark today. Of course, they had another “recognize the vets” moment. Rene said, “This whole war-hero thing is kind of embarrassing. Major Shevchuk and Manny Velasquez are the real heroes… they walked out and faced down the tanks while me and Sammy hid up over the dunes with RPGs.”
“You’re what we’ve got,” I reminded him. “Besides, when the shooting started, it was you and Sammy drawing the fire. It’s your day as much as theirs. Besides, didn’t Manny go to RoT?” The funny thing was, his fling-girl and the two brothers who accosted him at the chautauqua were there and cheering for him as loud as for any of the others. I guess it goes to show… well, I’m not sure what it goes to show. Maybe celebrity conquers all?
Kim and Christina set up a table where they sold a few drawings. They made more money doing portraits… I think some people paid just to watch them go at it, side-by-side, switching sides and filling in each other’s parts and blending it into a consistent whole. People were taking pictures and video, and some of them were media stringers. One video taker had release forms and even interviewed them. I had to remind myself how fascinating it was to me when I watched them work like that when they were kids. But I still thought it was funny, how the interviewer was a little taken aback when she learned that Christina the artist is also (at age 19) closing in on a Ph.D. in biochemistry. At least they don’t use their old Spanglish argot anymore (except for “Holá, y’all”); they got out of that habit after they got drafted (or signed up, in Rene’s case).
People are on the move this summer — lots of young people are taking that first summer after high school to see a little of the country before settling into college or work, as well as some older folks with no family ties or any other reason to stay put. Not many my age though… but there’s a few. I don’t see much traffic at the bicycle stop now that Luke opened up his place down at the crossroads; most people just keep rolling by and refill their water bottles there. But there are some who skip Luke’s and come up here.
We came home from town this morning; I went down to check the water jug and it was dry. When I brought it back, I saw a ratty-looking bike lying in a patch of weeds toward the road and smelled the tobacco… you don’t see many people smoking nowadays, especially travelers (who need all the wind they can get). The guy associated with the bike and smoke, nearly hidden in the shadows of the pergola, looked even rattier than the bike. He started up, and I waved him back and set the water jug next to him.
“I put this rest stop up for everyone,” I said. “Most people go on down to Luke’s now, but I know people still use it — the water jug gets emptied out.”
He nodded, took one more drag on his hand-rolled cigarette, then gently stubbed it out and pinched the end. I realized he was a lot younger than I thought at first — not much older than Kim, if that. He had aged before his time.
“Yeah,” he said finally, fishing an old pill bottle out of a pocket. He twisted the cap off, made sure the end of his cig was cold, then dropped it in and closed it up before pocketing it again. “We appreciate it.” He glanced toward the corner; I followed his cue and saw markings scratched on the post:
“What are those?”
“It means this is a safe place to rest a while.”
“Oh… like hobo symbols? From the Depression?”
“There’s a depression goin’ on now, ’case you haven’t noticed.” He shook his head. “No… sorry. I shouldn’t take it out on you. You try to help out, anyway. We know who’s good people.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
He pulled his cap off and scratched his head for a moment. It looked like he cut his own hair, as short as possible… and suddenly remembered I’d seen several people like him at the festivities over the weekend, always around the edges of the crowd. “I guess you’d call us opt-outs. We didn’t want to live under the junta, so we opted out. Then there’s the junta-symps who don’t want to reconcile. Hard life, but it’s a free life.”
“The junta’s gone now.”
“Yeah. But it ain’t that easy. Once you’ve opted out, it’s hard to come back. You got no idea how hard it can be to come back.”
“I’ve tried to help people get started back when,” I told him. “I think I have a pretty good idea how hard it could be.” I was thinking of one of The Boy ’s old girlfriends… what did I call her? (Ms. Almost Einstein, but I had to go back and look it up.) She lived with us for a bit over a year back before stuff went pear-shaped, and I figured it would take a minimum of $7000 (in 2006 dollars) to get her on her own two feet: about half of that for a decent car, deposits on apartment and utilities, gadgetry and clothing, and basic living expenses until the paycheck started kicking in. Not too many people drive cars nowadays, outside of special occasions, but you still need a good head start to get started.
“Betcha haven’t been there yourself though.” He fished the pill bottle out of his pocket and started playing with it. Probably needed more smoke.
“You’re right,” I said, “but I think I at least understand it. Here, let’s sit outside where you can smoke.”
He nodded and we carried the stools out. He lit up as quickly as he could without looking desperate. “We pretty much keep movin’, that way nobody gets tired of us bein’ around,” he said. A lot of guys go north for the summer, south for the winter. Me, I’m goin’ northwest then west this year. I figure to spend the winter out in San Diego, if I get that far. Oregon if not.”
“How do you eat?”
“However we can. One reason I’m goin’ west this year, I can forage. Stuff will be picked over pretty good if I took I-95 or US-1 up the coast, or the Nashville-Indy-Chicago route up I-65. Where foraging doesn’t work, I ’ll try to get a job on a farm somewhere. If nobody wants to let me work for my food, I’ll steal it.”
I chewed on that for a minute. “I’d rather get a little work out of you than let you steal out of my garden,” I laughed. “Not that I think you’d steal here.”
“Not here,” he agreed. “Junta-symps might do it, but most of us won’t take from someone who gives us water and shelter. The junta-symps, maybe. Not the rest of us though.”
He took one last drag on his cig, then put out the last half-inch and dropped it back in the pillbox. “We get outta the habit of talkin’ to anyone still in — in the system, I mean. Guess I’d better be goin’.”
“Take care of yourself, okay?”
“Yeah. I try. You do the same.” He wheeled his bike to the pavement and rolled on down the hill without looking back.
continued…
Monday, February 16, 2009 3 comments
FAR Future, Episode 73: Serena’s Chautauqua Story
Monday, June 5, 2023
Serena’s Chautauqua Story
Here’s Serena’s chautauqua story. It’s partly about me, but I just blew her cover is all.
She ended up taking the job and I’m happy for her. She’s always loved writing plays and putting on the Thanksgiving productions. I told the troupe about those, and they offered to come this year and do a play for us. That would be nice — we didn’t have them the last couple of years, since Serena was in Germany and nobody else took the initiative. I had to tell them about The Dialogues, in which two people (i.e. Serena and I) would do the stage equivalent of flash fiction serials, and they wanted us to tell them all about that too.
So I guess our growed-up foster daughter is about to leave the nest, not too long after coming back. That’s life.
continued…
Serena’s Chautauqua Story
Here’s Serena’s chautauqua story. It’s partly about me, but I just blew her cover is all.
Hola, y'all. (I got out of the habit of saying that when I was in the service, but now that I'm home it's coming back to me.) I know Rene liked to say it a lot, and still does.
We all got home just in time to miss spring planting, aren't we lucky! I was kind of surprised that Kim and Christina made a point of spending their days with everyone else instead of each other — those two will still be going at it when they're old and decrepit like Dad (gotcha!). [Watch it kid, I’ll whack you with my walker as soon as I remember where it is. —FARf] But they fall asleep on the couch in the living room a lot, so I bet they don't get much sleep at night. It's good to have everyone home again; I missed helping Mom and Maria with the cooking, and all the other stuff. But it's different now; we're adults, done with school and all that. I guess Christina's going to be teaching at some college or another by next year, and they'll be gone. So will I. I'm not sure about Rene yet.
Anyway, we had a pretty good time at the chautauqua last week, even if Rene hooked up with an ignorama for a couple of days. I'm glad they started the chautauquas, it's a lot easier to bring culture to the people than it is to bring people to the culture nowadays. They did different things on different nights. Dad liked the drum&brass performance; he said it reminded him of the electronic stuff from when he was younger. I could tell he liked it, the way he was bobbing and twitching to the beat. There's a lot of beat in that stuff, and not much else. Give me a good marching band any day. But it was amazing how the two drummers would switch back and forth, one played while the other one rested. I never realized drumming could be so physically demanding.
I volunteered to help with security for the week, and it came in handy with Rene on Wednesday. It figures, the only time I was really needed all week and it was my own family! The sheriff was happy to have a volunteer with some MP experience, and even deputized me for the week. But I walking by the stage Thursday evening and overheard some of the troupe talking:
“Paula can't finish a line without coughing her lungs out.”
“What do we do then? Nobody else can play Susanne.”
“Well, we can't just cancel. We have a commitment.”
Curiosity got the better of me. “What's wrong?”
They looked me over, with the orange SECURITY vest and the Army patrol hat I like to wear when I'm out. “Our leading lady's sick. She can't perform.”
“That’s too bad. What were you presenting?”
“The Discomfiture of Lord Riot. We figured people would like it.”
“Oh. Um… I know that play. I did Susanne a couple of times. I'd be glad to step in.”
The guy they had playing Kip ran through a few random lines with me, and was satisfied with my delivery. “There's not going to be a problem with you doing the play and working security?”
“I'll let the sheriff know. I'll be able to see better from the stage anyway. I can probably bust a troublemaker without dropping a line.”
They laughed, and we shook on it. I went to let the sheriff know I would be sort of undercover for the play, then came back, scanned the lines just to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything, and got dressed. Paula's costume was a bit big on me, but we got it to hang all right and the show went on. I saw the family down in the crowd, grinning like a bunch of clowns.
So of course Dad and Mom came by after the play, and of course Dad had to open his mouth.
“She's your daughter?” the guy who'd played Riot asked. “She really did a great job.”
“She should have,” he said. “She wrote the play.”
“Dad!” I yelled.
“What? You didn't tell them?”
“Wait…” the guy who’d played Ronald said. “You… you're Serena Broward?”
Dad about fell down laughing, and Mom just looked at me. “I can't believe you weren't going to tell them,” she said.
The hubbub grew until Paula came out of the trailer. “What's going on?”
“Your sub,” the guy who played Farfet said. “She's Serena Broward!”
“Serena?!” she squealed like a fangirl, then started coughing and fell back inside.
How the word spread, I have no idea, but the entire troupe was suddenly out there mobbing us. I got Dad back, telling them how he'd played both Farfet and Riot in the very first production, and then the actors were all over him wanting details and critiques.
One thing led to another, and they offered me a job with the chautauqua writing new material in between acting or directing (everyone takes turns). I'm shocked; I never knew that my plays Dad uploaded to the samizdat were spread all over the place and performed so much. I figured a few people put them on, but to hear these guys talk I'm some kind of cult figure to the New Chautauqua movement.
I'm thinking about it. Dad said I should do it, and if I didn't like it I could always come back home.
She ended up taking the job and I’m happy for her. She’s always loved writing plays and putting on the Thanksgiving productions. I told the troupe about those, and they offered to come this year and do a play for us. That would be nice — we didn’t have them the last couple of years, since Serena was in Germany and nobody else took the initiative. I had to tell them about The Dialogues, in which two people (i.e. Serena and I) would do the stage equivalent of flash fiction serials, and they wanted us to tell them all about that too.
So I guess our growed-up foster daughter is about to leave the nest, not too long after coming back. That’s life.
continued…
Monday, February 09, 2009 5 comments
FAR Future, Episode 72: Adventures at the Chautauqua
Things are weird now. In a much weirder FAR Future, I wouldn’t expect that to be different.
Sunday, June 4, 2023
Adventures at the Chautauqua
Sunday, June 4, 2023
The chautauqua was in town last week. It’s a great idea, one they revived from the 19th century but without the Sunday school part (churches are somewhat out of favor these days, except in this region and a few scattered outposts). The local one is based in Gainesville, and they travel around northeast Georgia from late spring through late fall. So we got our screen tents together, loaded up the wagon, and made a week of it since the town was letting people camp in the park.
Rene got a little more than he bargained for, but I’ll let him tell the story…
Such is life on Planet Georgia. I hope Rene doesn’t have to re-up just to find a girlfriend.
continued…
Sunday, June 4, 2023
Adventures at the Chautauqua
Sunday, June 4, 2023
The chautauqua was in town last week. It’s a great idea, one they revived from the 19th century but without the Sunday school part (churches are somewhat out of favor these days, except in this region and a few scattered outposts). The local one is based in Gainesville, and they travel around northeast Georgia from late spring through late fall. So we got our screen tents together, loaded up the wagon, and made a week of it since the town was letting people camp in the park.
Rene got a little more than he bargained for, but I’ll let him tell the story…
Holá, y'all. Monday afternoon after the chautauqua troupe set up their portable stage, but before they started the performances, they asked all the former service people to come up on stage to be recognized. There were a bunch of people besides Serena, Kim, and me, and most all of us felt the same way about it — we'd had our fill of military life, but even after you're out you still have to do your duty, right? Their little band played the national anthem, everyone cheered, wave the flag, USA, USA. I guess I should be less cynical since they offered my family a lot in return for a couple years of my life (and I got out early anyway), but you could also say that the junta shouldn't have given us so much grief in the first place.
The good part, at least for me, was getting noticed by all the girls. They noticed Kim too, but he still only has eyes for Christina, and she can be a little territorial anyway. One of the girls hung onto me, it was kind of flattering and I'm not used to that. Half of my life, the only girl I knew who was my age was Serena, and she's been my best friend instead of anything romantic. I never had time to meet anyone in the army — boot camp, EDID training, deployment, then the war heated up just as I got a little leave… they say the truth is the first casualty of war, but my love life was the second, jejeje. So I palled around with Amber for the next couple of days. Farf-Mom didn’t look too happy about it; she said that Amber’s family has a long history of being troublemakers in the county. Papa just gave me The Look — the one that says, “This won't end well.” Of course, Christina might say that hormones speak louder than parents (and I would say she should know!).
Things were cool until Wednesday night. That's when the troupe's band started playing some mariachi music, and Mama and Papa got up to dance. I was about to point them out, but she was shaking her head. “Bad enough the damn wetbacks live here,” she said. “I don't see why they have to encourage them.”
I was stunned, and she was on a roll. “Stupidest thing the junta did was to let 'em stay —”
“Hey,” I said. “Those are my parents! And I'm one of those 'damn wetbacks' who took the army's bargain, if you hadn't figured it out. Does 'Cardenas' sound like a gringo name to you?”
“I'm sorry — I — but you —”
“Save it,” I told her. “I don't think I want to see you anymore,” and walked off.
Of course, she went crying to her family, and a couple “representatives” came by our tent shortly after supper. “Who's the beaner that's been messing with our sister?” Bubba One demanded.
I was still mad about the whole thing, especially not listening to Farf-Mom. I stood up and faced 'em — two big lugs, slow and not too bright looking. “That's Señor Beaner to you, Billy Bob,” I said. “And I never asked her to hang all over me, by the way.”
They swelled up at that, but next thing I knew Kim was on my right, Papa on my left, Farf-Dad had my back, and Serena walked up behind them. She’d volunteered to work security for the week, and just happened to be on duty. I know that she learned some tae kwan do when she was little, and got a refresher course with her MP training, so I don’t doubt she could have taken them both herself if it came to that.
“What seems to be the problem here?” she said. They turned and sized her up in her security blazer — she nodded at them like they were dropping by for a friendly chat, but at the same time you knew she wouldn't take any crap off them. The MPs in Dooby were like that — it didn't matter what your rank was, or how big you were; if they had to take you in, it was going to happen. Respectful and authoritative at the same time.
“Ain't no problem,” Bubba One said. “We just came to tell this —”
“Good,” she interrupted. “Because I'd hate to see you guys get hurt. This guy took on three Iranian tanks in Saudi Arabia; I don't think he'd have much trouble with two rednecks.”
I opened my mouth to say something like “Your move, bubba,” but Serena gave me one of those looks and I kept quiet. She does that authority thing pretty well, did I mention that?
“Stay away from Amber, y'hear?” said Bubba Two, already moving off.
“No problemo, niños,” I said. Bubba One paused, but Bubba Two nudged him and they kept moving. Serena shook her head at me and went back to her rounds, and she had a few words for me when she finished up for the night. She took her volunteer job seriously.
After she finished lecturing me, she, Kim, and I set night watches for the rest of the week in case they wanted to try to surprise us, but we didn’t see any of them (especially Amber, gracias a Dios) for the rest of the week. I think they just cleared out. Farf-Dad took the motorcycle back to the manor to make sure they hadn’t tried anything at home, but either they don’t know where we live or they wised up.
Such is life on Planet Georgia. I hope Rene doesn’t have to re-up just to find a girlfriend.
continued…
Monday, February 02, 2009 4 comments
FAR Future, Episode 71: When Johnny (and Kim, Serena, and Rene) Come Marching Home
Just because it’s Groundhog Day doesn’t mean I’ll be posting the same thing every day from now on…
Sunday, April 30, 2023
When Johnny (and Kim, Serena, and Rene) Come Marching Home
There’s some major downsizing going on with the military now that the Reunification is over. Kim and Serena were due to be cut loose anyway, but Rene got out a year early. Ironically, they stop-loss’ed Kim for 30 days to help with the mopping-up in Dallas, which gave Serena time to get over here on the boat, and all three of them met up in Atlanta on Thursday. They took the RoadTrain together, catching up with each other, and Christina and I met them at the stop in the old retail district. Kim and Christina had, shall we say, a joyful reunion… I offered to get them a hotel room and come back for them later, but they both wanted to get home. (Can’t blame Kim for that.) She insisted he show her the scar from the riot; it’s healed up of course but it’s still kind of ugly. He joked about getting a tattoo around it, but Christina did a very convincing imitation of Daughter Dearest and threatened great bodily harm if he did. “Yes, dear.” Smart guy.
Rene and Serena have the same mutual respect they’ve always had for each other, but now it’s an adult version. They’ve never been attracted to each other the way Kim and Christina (still) are, but they’ve always been best friends. The three of us batted things around on the way home, while the other two mostly took in each other. Rene is still pretty reticent about what he’d been up to, although he was able to say he, the major, and Sammy T defected from the junta and started listening in on their comms. Manny went to RoT, and presumably he got swept up in the amnesty (if he survived). Major Shevchuk, he said, was acting strange ever since they left Saudi… maybe PTSD. Rene and Kim both say they’re OK, and Serena is fine since she didn’t see any fighting anyway.
Not really much to say about the end of the Reunification — it was your basic street fight, block by block, building by building. I’m glad Kim wasn’t involved in the fighting. The rulers tried to keep the Rotter troops going, while they made a run for it themselves. They might have gotten away if they hadn’t used a helicopter; the noise attracted attention and the army just followed them until they ran out of fuel and had to land. They were the three televangelists that were running things from inside, and a few other high-level militia types. I dug around and found out that General Mayhem and Sgt. Pepper were killed in the fighting. :-( Col. Mustard survived and accepted the “amnesty” program: he has to do some jail time and stay out of the oil business and politics for the rest of his life. As for the televangelists — both the ones in Dallas at the time and the two aiding things from outside — I don’t know if they’ll ever get out of prison. I know their assets were seized; I wonder if they’ll do what they did to Robert E. Lee and turn their estates into cemeteries.
Now that the war’s over, I guess I can safely say that I got a “visit” from some FBI people earlier in the year, checking up on my junta connections. Just being an officer in a church is enough to make you a suspect now to begin with, but that little trip to Nickajack made me doubly suspect. Amazingly enough, they had an entire printed copy of my blog… all the way back to 2005! (Good Lord, my blog is old enough to vote?) It was much of what made for a rather thick file the junta had on me. Even using nicknames for everyone, I guess someone managed to link me and the blog… I always figured someone could make the connections if they wanted to badly enough. They told me I’d be getting an entire copy of my file pretty soon, to comply with the Personal Data Ownership Act, and then they’d destroy everything but the tax records. What it came down to was, did the blog reflect my real thoughts or was it a front? I was tagged by the junta as a “D0,” aka Dissident, Threat Level Zero (aka all talk), but that could have been part of the cover in their thinking. They left satisfied… at least I hope they did. Harboring the Cardenas family probably helped with that — as well as The Boy being shipped to the shale mines (another thing I didn’t dare mention before now). He’s been around some, but spends a lot of time down at the pasture keeping an eye on the cattle. I just hope nobody tries to steal a cow while he’s down there… I think he’d enjoy giving a junta-symp the 3 S’s.
Our church pianist works in a tax firm, and she hasn’t been to church in the last few weeks — they changed the tax code so that donations to churches (and charities) can only be written off in proportion to the percentage of money they actually disburse outside the organization, and the IRS had to extend the filing date to May 15 to give everyone a chance to figure out their donations. That’s going to whack a lot of churches, and (I hope) put an end to the charities that pocket most of the donations they get. Most churches, especially the small ones like ours, use pretty much everything they take in to keep the doors open. The mega-churches have a little more leeway, but I bet their members are going to take a really hard look at how much their preacher(s) pocket from now on… especially when they start telling everyone to kick in some more. Then again, a lot of those preachers have either been arrested for aiding and abetting the junta (aka treason, but they’re steering clear of that word so far) or are under some very close scrutiny. I doubt that being a Penitent church is going to give us any kind of lenient treatment… if it did, all the wing-y churches would claim to be Penitent too, just for the tax breaks. It’s really a shame, how those people — whether directly connected to the junta or just Satan’s Little Helpers – corrupted so many churches for their personal and political gain. Now we’ll all be paying for it, as soon as we can figure out the percentages. I’m just going to assume my donations won’t be tax-deductible from now on.
Interestingly enough, I haven’t seen any video or other missives from The Prophet the last couple of months. I hope he’s OK.
continued…
Sunday, April 30, 2023
When Johnny (and Kim, Serena, and Rene) Come Marching Home
There’s some major downsizing going on with the military now that the Reunification is over. Kim and Serena were due to be cut loose anyway, but Rene got out a year early. Ironically, they stop-loss’ed Kim for 30 days to help with the mopping-up in Dallas, which gave Serena time to get over here on the boat, and all three of them met up in Atlanta on Thursday. They took the RoadTrain together, catching up with each other, and Christina and I met them at the stop in the old retail district. Kim and Christina had, shall we say, a joyful reunion… I offered to get them a hotel room and come back for them later, but they both wanted to get home. (Can’t blame Kim for that.) She insisted he show her the scar from the riot; it’s healed up of course but it’s still kind of ugly. He joked about getting a tattoo around it, but Christina did a very convincing imitation of Daughter Dearest and threatened great bodily harm if he did. “Yes, dear.” Smart guy.
Rene and Serena have the same mutual respect they’ve always had for each other, but now it’s an adult version. They’ve never been attracted to each other the way Kim and Christina (still) are, but they’ve always been best friends. The three of us batted things around on the way home, while the other two mostly took in each other. Rene is still pretty reticent about what he’d been up to, although he was able to say he, the major, and Sammy T defected from the junta and started listening in on their comms. Manny went to RoT, and presumably he got swept up in the amnesty (if he survived). Major Shevchuk, he said, was acting strange ever since they left Saudi… maybe PTSD. Rene and Kim both say they’re OK, and Serena is fine since she didn’t see any fighting anyway.
Not really much to say about the end of the Reunification — it was your basic street fight, block by block, building by building. I’m glad Kim wasn’t involved in the fighting. The rulers tried to keep the Rotter troops going, while they made a run for it themselves. They might have gotten away if they hadn’t used a helicopter; the noise attracted attention and the army just followed them until they ran out of fuel and had to land. They were the three televangelists that were running things from inside, and a few other high-level militia types. I dug around and found out that General Mayhem and Sgt. Pepper were killed in the fighting. :-( Col. Mustard survived and accepted the “amnesty” program: he has to do some jail time and stay out of the oil business and politics for the rest of his life. As for the televangelists — both the ones in Dallas at the time and the two aiding things from outside — I don’t know if they’ll ever get out of prison. I know their assets were seized; I wonder if they’ll do what they did to Robert E. Lee and turn their estates into cemeteries.
Now that the war’s over, I guess I can safely say that I got a “visit” from some FBI people earlier in the year, checking up on my junta connections. Just being an officer in a church is enough to make you a suspect now to begin with, but that little trip to Nickajack made me doubly suspect. Amazingly enough, they had an entire printed copy of my blog… all the way back to 2005! (Good Lord, my blog is old enough to vote?) It was much of what made for a rather thick file the junta had on me. Even using nicknames for everyone, I guess someone managed to link me and the blog… I always figured someone could make the connections if they wanted to badly enough. They told me I’d be getting an entire copy of my file pretty soon, to comply with the Personal Data Ownership Act, and then they’d destroy everything but the tax records. What it came down to was, did the blog reflect my real thoughts or was it a front? I was tagged by the junta as a “D0,” aka Dissident, Threat Level Zero (aka all talk), but that could have been part of the cover in their thinking. They left satisfied… at least I hope they did. Harboring the Cardenas family probably helped with that — as well as The Boy being shipped to the shale mines (another thing I didn’t dare mention before now). He’s been around some, but spends a lot of time down at the pasture keeping an eye on the cattle. I just hope nobody tries to steal a cow while he’s down there… I think he’d enjoy giving a junta-symp the 3 S’s.
Our church pianist works in a tax firm, and she hasn’t been to church in the last few weeks — they changed the tax code so that donations to churches (and charities) can only be written off in proportion to the percentage of money they actually disburse outside the organization, and the IRS had to extend the filing date to May 15 to give everyone a chance to figure out their donations. That’s going to whack a lot of churches, and (I hope) put an end to the charities that pocket most of the donations they get. Most churches, especially the small ones like ours, use pretty much everything they take in to keep the doors open. The mega-churches have a little more leeway, but I bet their members are going to take a really hard look at how much their preacher(s) pocket from now on… especially when they start telling everyone to kick in some more. Then again, a lot of those preachers have either been arrested for aiding and abetting the junta (aka treason, but they’re steering clear of that word so far) or are under some very close scrutiny. I doubt that being a Penitent church is going to give us any kind of lenient treatment… if it did, all the wing-y churches would claim to be Penitent too, just for the tax breaks. It’s really a shame, how those people — whether directly connected to the junta or just Satan’s Little Helpers – corrupted so many churches for their personal and political gain. Now we’ll all be paying for it, as soon as we can figure out the percentages. I’m just going to assume my donations won’t be tax-deductible from now on.
Interestingly enough, I haven’t seen any video or other missives from The Prophet the last couple of months. I hope he’s OK.
continued…
Monday, January 26, 2009 5 comments
FAR Future, Episode 70: Not a Bang, but a Whimper
A while back, Yooper pointed out that the “FAR Future” is not even 15 years from now. It’s like that Don Hendley song, In a New York minute, everything can change. Sounds implausible, even… FARfetched? [sorry, couldn’t resist] But things elsewhere have changed even faster and more drastically, even in modern history: Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984 and was Hell on Earth by 1993.
Monday, March 6, 2023
Not a Bang, but a Whimper
The Final-We-Hope-Offensive is underway. The Rotters have been pushed out of Fort Worth and Grapevine, and the airport is no longer surrounded. Fort Worth fell so quickly that some thought perhaps the Rotters had been bluffing all along, but Arlington was the other think coming. They might not have much of an air force (a few choppers), or more armor than what they were able to loot from the TX National Guard, but they do have artillery and trained (and motivated) grunts. Lots of ex-army and ex-Marines, some of them active duty until late last year. It doesn’t help that our side is trying to minimize the ever-euphemistic “collateral damage” (i.e. “oops, we scrogged some civilians”), and the Rotters know that, and are taking advantage. The air force will still splatter an artillery placement in some neighborhood even if the explosion takes out a few houses, but they try really hard not to miss and follow up with fire-suppression choppers. But if we try not to damage people’s houses, the Rotters try not to damage the freeways. That gives the good guys an advantage too… we have tanks placed on their southern flank (I-20), and eastern and northern flanks (I-635) — blocking major in/out routes, and they’re not taking any artillery fire.
As they did in Houston, the Guard is in Fort Worth to heal various battle scars and get the lights back on. If the Rotters have electricity now, they’re generating their own… one of the first things a reunified neighborhood gets is electricity, and that makes most of the people there pretty happy to be back in the USA. The broadcast TV is being jammed right now; the self-styled Minister of Moral Values was clogging up all the Dallas stations anyway, exhorting people to fight on for the glorious “Christian Republic” and (worse) recommending stuff like “all Christians across America who support the traditional values taught by the Bible are to rise up and take their country back.” I guess they can still exhort their grunts on cable, but at least the real world is left out of it. I think they were saying something about re-opening a station in Fort Worth, but maybe they’ll just have the cable on there too.
Kim’s still in Tulsa. He called us on Friday for his normal chat with Christina and the rest of us. Mrs. Fetched asked him if things were getting any better there, and to our surprise he said they were. “I went into a coffee shop yesterday to get our morning joe,” he said, “and a couple of the locals were in there talking with the barista. They let me get my order in, then one of them offered to help me carry it out. He said the preacher asked them in a prayer meeting that if God wanted the Rotters to win, why are they losing? So maybe things are starting to look up.”
Amazingly enough, I got an email from Col. Mustard over the weekend too:
Yeah, we all said a prayer for them, and I emailed him back saying we did pray for them and I hoped to see him as well. We also prayed that their leaders will come to their senses and surrender, but I didn’t bother telling him that — he probably knows. Heck, for that matter, he might just be hoping for the same thing himself. Like I said, those guys weren’t stupid, even if they had some far-out ideas about how things work (or should work). I hope the guys I was with that day are all smart enough to stay alive. But when I showed Mrs. Fetched the message, she looked at me and said, “You’re not thinking about it, are you?” I wasn’t… at least for more than a couple seconds, anyway. 64 is too old for that kind of stuff.
Farming is getting to be a reasonable way to make a living again. We’ve already taken enough orders to account for all the herbs we plan to grow this year. We’ve got our own garden started in cold frames… and wouldn’t you know it, Mrs. Fetched has a flock of chickens again. At least it’s only a dozen or so, a few layers and a few broilers, instead of 80,000. And a rooster to keep them reproducing. We had to fence in a place for them, because the dogs kept wanting to chew on them. At least we can move the fence around; we have them in the garden beds now where they can scratch out the weeds and eat all the bugs (and fertilize it). We’ll probably have to move them in a couple of weeks and let the poop mellow with age.
Heh. If things had gone the way everyone expected them to (i.e. endless growth), I’d be retiring this year. I gave up on retirement long ago, but with Guillermo and Maria to help, it’s not terribly hard work. But we’re all getting older, and Christina’s work is too important to throw it all on her, so we’ll probably have to get some younger faces in here eventually. Maybe Kim and Rene will take over once they get out of the army.
continued…
Monday, March 6, 2023
Not a Bang, but a Whimper
The Final-We-Hope-Offensive is underway. The Rotters have been pushed out of Fort Worth and Grapevine, and the airport is no longer surrounded. Fort Worth fell so quickly that some thought perhaps the Rotters had been bluffing all along, but Arlington was the other think coming. They might not have much of an air force (a few choppers), or more armor than what they were able to loot from the TX National Guard, but they do have artillery and trained (and motivated) grunts. Lots of ex-army and ex-Marines, some of them active duty until late last year. It doesn’t help that our side is trying to minimize the ever-euphemistic “collateral damage” (i.e. “oops, we scrogged some civilians”), and the Rotters know that, and are taking advantage. The air force will still splatter an artillery placement in some neighborhood even if the explosion takes out a few houses, but they try really hard not to miss and follow up with fire-suppression choppers. But if we try not to damage people’s houses, the Rotters try not to damage the freeways. That gives the good guys an advantage too… we have tanks placed on their southern flank (I-20), and eastern and northern flanks (I-635) — blocking major in/out routes, and they’re not taking any artillery fire.
As they did in Houston, the Guard is in Fort Worth to heal various battle scars and get the lights back on. If the Rotters have electricity now, they’re generating their own… one of the first things a reunified neighborhood gets is electricity, and that makes most of the people there pretty happy to be back in the USA. The broadcast TV is being jammed right now; the self-styled Minister of Moral Values was clogging up all the Dallas stations anyway, exhorting people to fight on for the glorious “Christian Republic” and (worse) recommending stuff like “all Christians across America who support the traditional values taught by the Bible are to rise up and take their country back.” I guess they can still exhort their grunts on cable, but at least the real world is left out of it. I think they were saying something about re-opening a station in Fort Worth, but maybe they’ll just have the cable on there too.
Kim’s still in Tulsa. He called us on Friday for his normal chat with Christina and the rest of us. Mrs. Fetched asked him if things were getting any better there, and to our surprise he said they were. “I went into a coffee shop yesterday to get our morning joe,” he said, “and a couple of the locals were in there talking with the barista. They let me get my order in, then one of them offered to help me carry it out. He said the preacher asked them in a prayer meeting that if God wanted the Rotters to win, why are they losing? So maybe things are starting to look up.”
Amazingly enough, I got an email from Col. Mustard over the weekend too:
Typing this on a cellphone. Dont know if youll get it or not. I guess you know whats going on down here. Me and a couple of the guys were talking about Nickajack last night, and we were joking about getting you down here to film the final battle. They probably wont let you in though, haha. I know you didnt support us, but hope youll pray for us anyway. You were an ok guy. Got a war to fight, hope Ill see you again.
Yeah, we all said a prayer for them, and I emailed him back saying we did pray for them and I hoped to see him as well. We also prayed that their leaders will come to their senses and surrender, but I didn’t bother telling him that — he probably knows. Heck, for that matter, he might just be hoping for the same thing himself. Like I said, those guys weren’t stupid, even if they had some far-out ideas about how things work (or should work). I hope the guys I was with that day are all smart enough to stay alive. But when I showed Mrs. Fetched the message, she looked at me and said, “You’re not thinking about it, are you?” I wasn’t… at least for more than a couple seconds, anyway. 64 is too old for that kind of stuff.
Farming is getting to be a reasonable way to make a living again. We’ve already taken enough orders to account for all the herbs we plan to grow this year. We’ve got our own garden started in cold frames… and wouldn’t you know it, Mrs. Fetched has a flock of chickens again. At least it’s only a dozen or so, a few layers and a few broilers, instead of 80,000. And a rooster to keep them reproducing. We had to fence in a place for them, because the dogs kept wanting to chew on them. At least we can move the fence around; we have them in the garden beds now where they can scratch out the weeds and eat all the bugs (and fertilize it). We’ll probably have to move them in a couple of weeks and let the poop mellow with age.
Heh. If things had gone the way everyone expected them to (i.e. endless growth), I’d be retiring this year. I gave up on retirement long ago, but with Guillermo and Maria to help, it’s not terribly hard work. But we’re all getting older, and Christina’s work is too important to throw it all on her, so we’ll probably have to get some younger faces in here eventually. Maybe Kim and Rene will take over once they get out of the army.
continued…
Monday, January 19, 2009 4 comments
FAR Future, Episode 69: Besieged
Tomorrow, a rotter rides off into the sunset. And America rejoices. In 2023, it’s taking a little longer.
Friday, January 27, 2023
Besieged
I expected this to be over by now, but I don’t guess it will last until spring. It looked like it would be over in a week at first… the feint from Oklahoma drew the Rotters north and gave the Navy SEALs and Marines pretty much free rein for the landing parties all up and down the coast. Houston saw some fighting, a few oil rigs got sabotaged, but by the end of the week the Rotters had retreated to the maze of freeways that make up the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Another contingent of Marines secured the DFW airport, but in a telephone interview one jarhead described it as “a siege within a siege.” I can imagine that’s got to be hairy… you’re surrounded by enemy troops who are in turn surrounded by your guys. I don’t think either side wants to see the airport take a lot of damage, which might explain why there hasn’t been an effort (yet) by the Rotters to re-take it.
Our guys are allowing in food and water shipments, some of which come in through the airport. Some people thought that was a bad idea, and would let the Rotters hold out longer, but the way I see it you don’t starve out your own citizens. We’re also allowing them a few hours of electricity per day, and broadcasting offers of amnesty for Rotter troops who want to surrender. Those that slip out to the perimeter get processed, put on a bus, and shipped up to Tulsa. Kim is still in Tulsa, thank God… bad enough, but starting to get better. He told us a couple weeks ago that the people there are behaving (they started cutting off water and sewer for a day to any neighborhoods that make trouble, and word got around quick); all they’re doing is debriefing ex-Rotters and sending them on their way. The grunts get a ticket to wherever; officers have a do a little jail time and sign an agreement to stay away from the oil industry and politics for life.
The Reserves are doing a lot of rebuilding work in Houston right now. People whose windows got broken during the skirmishes, for example… a team comes, assesses the damage, and brings repair materials. Lots of abandoned houses have been torn down, and glass is glass. It also seems to go a long way toward reconciling the residents with being part of the USA again — the President of late has been hammering the message “we take care of our people” on the airwaves. I know a lot of people on Planet Georgia have reconciled too; even here, a lot of people had gotten frustrated with the stupid maneuvers of the junta in general and the ham-handed antics of the Pat-Riots in particular. There was some Riot-cleansing in Atlanta, but The Prophet spoke against it: “Forget not the words of the Lord, therefore forgive your oppressors. Do not lift your hand against them, but pray for their salvation that they might be reconciled with God.” His chroniclers posted a video showing two of the guys who tried to trick him a few years back, going to Corettaville and accepting his baptism. They claimed to have been changed by what they saw that day, and perhaps they were. Up north, it was a different story. Not even a Prophet can be everywhere, I guess, but I suspect if Riots on the run asked him for sanctuary they’d get it.
The new Congress got sworn in, and after some getting-acquainted time they’re starting to hit their stride. A lot of the old staffers were still around the DC area, and got pulled back into a new version of their old jobs. The President met with them all, as a body and in small groups, and now the reps are starting to form caucuses… both by region and by interest (with the lottery-based House election, there’s a pretty broad base of interests and skills). This might evolve into the old committee system, or it might turn into something new, an ad hoc committee system where members either know or are interested in the subject matter. The administration was letting them get their bearings before sending legislation, but the newsies tell us he sent them a huge stack of bills today, collectively titled the Restoration Acts. It’s not really an omnibus; the various caucuses will be looking at relevant parts of the stack and working with the administration to modify them. One exception: the Latino Repatriation Act was repealed pretty much right away. One caucus is looking over the legislation passed by the junta’s rump Congress, and recommending changes or repeals as needed… if I were there, I’d propose repealing everything they did and starting over from scratch. Fortunately, though, my name wasn’t drawn for the job. “FARf Goes to Washington” would be an OK name for a blog, but I ’m glad I don’t have that issue. Those guys (minus the Texas contingent, which will be drawn after the Reunification) are plonking away at legislation, but nobody’s paying attention. I suppose if something controversial comes up, with a close vote, they’ll revisit it once the Texans are seated.
Anyway, we got a call from Serena yesterday. There was some kind of incident last week — junta plants were plotting to steal a bomber and aid the Rotters — but they got caught before they had a chance to try it, and Serena was one of the MPs in on the arrest. Ironically, none of the Texans she mentioned before were part of the plot, but they were all figuring they would be implicated. In fact, several of them simply walked into the MP post and said, “arrest me if you’re going to.” Much to their pleasant surprise, they were sent back to their barracks.
Now if we could get the kids sent home…
continued…
Friday, January 27, 2023
Besieged
I expected this to be over by now, but I don’t guess it will last until spring. It looked like it would be over in a week at first… the feint from Oklahoma drew the Rotters north and gave the Navy SEALs and Marines pretty much free rein for the landing parties all up and down the coast. Houston saw some fighting, a few oil rigs got sabotaged, but by the end of the week the Rotters had retreated to the maze of freeways that make up the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Another contingent of Marines secured the DFW airport, but in a telephone interview one jarhead described it as “a siege within a siege.” I can imagine that’s got to be hairy… you’re surrounded by enemy troops who are in turn surrounded by your guys. I don’t think either side wants to see the airport take a lot of damage, which might explain why there hasn’t been an effort (yet) by the Rotters to re-take it.
Our guys are allowing in food and water shipments, some of which come in through the airport. Some people thought that was a bad idea, and would let the Rotters hold out longer, but the way I see it you don’t starve out your own citizens. We’re also allowing them a few hours of electricity per day, and broadcasting offers of amnesty for Rotter troops who want to surrender. Those that slip out to the perimeter get processed, put on a bus, and shipped up to Tulsa. Kim is still in Tulsa, thank God… bad enough, but starting to get better. He told us a couple weeks ago that the people there are behaving (they started cutting off water and sewer for a day to any neighborhoods that make trouble, and word got around quick); all they’re doing is debriefing ex-Rotters and sending them on their way. The grunts get a ticket to wherever; officers have a do a little jail time and sign an agreement to stay away from the oil industry and politics for life.
The Reserves are doing a lot of rebuilding work in Houston right now. People whose windows got broken during the skirmishes, for example… a team comes, assesses the damage, and brings repair materials. Lots of abandoned houses have been torn down, and glass is glass. It also seems to go a long way toward reconciling the residents with being part of the USA again — the President of late has been hammering the message “we take care of our people” on the airwaves. I know a lot of people on Planet Georgia have reconciled too; even here, a lot of people had gotten frustrated with the stupid maneuvers of the junta in general and the ham-handed antics of the Pat-Riots in particular. There was some Riot-cleansing in Atlanta, but The Prophet spoke against it: “Forget not the words of the Lord, therefore forgive your oppressors. Do not lift your hand against them, but pray for their salvation that they might be reconciled with God.” His chroniclers posted a video showing two of the guys who tried to trick him a few years back, going to Corettaville and accepting his baptism. They claimed to have been changed by what they saw that day, and perhaps they were. Up north, it was a different story. Not even a Prophet can be everywhere, I guess, but I suspect if Riots on the run asked him for sanctuary they’d get it.
The new Congress got sworn in, and after some getting-acquainted time they’re starting to hit their stride. A lot of the old staffers were still around the DC area, and got pulled back into a new version of their old jobs. The President met with them all, as a body and in small groups, and now the reps are starting to form caucuses… both by region and by interest (with the lottery-based House election, there’s a pretty broad base of interests and skills). This might evolve into the old committee system, or it might turn into something new, an ad hoc committee system where members either know or are interested in the subject matter. The administration was letting them get their bearings before sending legislation, but the newsies tell us he sent them a huge stack of bills today, collectively titled the Restoration Acts. It’s not really an omnibus; the various caucuses will be looking at relevant parts of the stack and working with the administration to modify them. One exception: the Latino Repatriation Act was repealed pretty much right away. One caucus is looking over the legislation passed by the junta’s rump Congress, and recommending changes or repeals as needed… if I were there, I’d propose repealing everything they did and starting over from scratch. Fortunately, though, my name wasn’t drawn for the job. “FARf Goes to Washington” would be an OK name for a blog, but I ’m glad I don’t have that issue. Those guys (minus the Texas contingent, which will be drawn after the Reunification) are plonking away at legislation, but nobody’s paying attention. I suppose if something controversial comes up, with a close vote, they’ll revisit it once the Texans are seated.
Anyway, we got a call from Serena yesterday. There was some kind of incident last week — junta plants were plotting to steal a bomber and aid the Rotters — but they got caught before they had a chance to try it, and Serena was one of the MPs in on the arrest. Ironically, none of the Texans she mentioned before were part of the plot, but they were all figuring they would be implicated. In fact, several of them simply walked into the MP post and said, “arrest me if you’re going to.” Much to their pleasant surprise, they were sent back to their barracks.
Now if we could get the kids sent home…
continued…
Monday, January 12, 2009 8 comments
FAR Future, Episode 68: Starts Off with a Bang
This one’s a little shorter than usual, but that’s how they go sometimes. There’s a longer one coming up that will partially make up for it. :-)
Sunday, January 1, 2023
Starts Off with a Bang
On Planet Georgia and other places, there’s a tradition of shooting off fireworks to begin the new year. I guess they couldn’t get fireworks in Tulsa this year, so they firebombed two refineries instead. The fire department managed to get the Conoco fire under control pretty quickly. Sunoco… not so much. Kim texted us before we even knew anything had happened: OK here, wasn't anywhere close. Christina is still worried sick. The rest of us… we’re just worried.
Of course, most of the nation got the word when they went to watch the first Rose Parade since 2015, and were instead treated to night video of a raging refinery fire and the President blaming Rotter terrorists for the incident. The news ran an interview with a refinery employee who said something along the lines of “a bunch of guys in masks came in, pulled guns on us, then drove us outside the fence and set off their bombs.” They also said that the army has imposed a 72-hour curfew in both Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and various curfews in other cities around the country — Atlanta’s is fairly minimal, midnight to 6 a.m., but they have checkpoints and random searches for anyone crossing I-285 in either direction right now. (Which makes the “Perimeter” truly a perimeter, at least for now.) Local media are broadcasting contacts for anyone who needs food (in the total clamp-down areas) or emergency services. As a “balance,” they provided a press release from the Rotters denying responsibility for the bombing.
Some Rotter-symp blogs are claiming it’s a false-flag incident — in other words, the government bombed the refineries to have an excuse to clean out the RoT. Um… you mean, like trying to assassinate the President and inciting riots isn’t reason enough? Putting any kind of crimp in the flow of what little fuel we’re getting would be grounds for violent overthrow, and insta-polls are suggesting that nuking the Rotters outright wouldn’t be considered objectionable at the moment, even in the more junta/RoT-tolerant parts of the country like here. The news isn’t carrying much of anything but the refinery fire and the reactions, but I’ll bet the columns are already rolling toward Texas.
Rene is incommunicado — probably working double shifts — and Serena was able to get a quick email to us: Calls home suspended for a few. Sorry. Hope Kim's OK. I'll call when they let me.
Anyone else remember a book called The Texas-Israeli War: 1999? Only 24 years behind schedule, and Israel has too many problems of its own to be doing mercenary work for anyone else. At least they got the oil part right.
continued…
Sunday, January 1, 2023
Starts Off with a Bang
On Planet Georgia and other places, there’s a tradition of shooting off fireworks to begin the new year. I guess they couldn’t get fireworks in Tulsa this year, so they firebombed two refineries instead. The fire department managed to get the Conoco fire under control pretty quickly. Sunoco… not so much. Kim texted us before we even knew anything had happened: OK here, wasn't anywhere close. Christina is still worried sick. The rest of us… we’re just worried.
Of course, most of the nation got the word when they went to watch the first Rose Parade since 2015, and were instead treated to night video of a raging refinery fire and the President blaming Rotter terrorists for the incident. The news ran an interview with a refinery employee who said something along the lines of “a bunch of guys in masks came in, pulled guns on us, then drove us outside the fence and set off their bombs.” They also said that the army has imposed a 72-hour curfew in both Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and various curfews in other cities around the country — Atlanta’s is fairly minimal, midnight to 6 a.m., but they have checkpoints and random searches for anyone crossing I-285 in either direction right now. (Which makes the “Perimeter” truly a perimeter, at least for now.) Local media are broadcasting contacts for anyone who needs food (in the total clamp-down areas) or emergency services. As a “balance,” they provided a press release from the Rotters denying responsibility for the bombing.
Some Rotter-symp blogs are claiming it’s a false-flag incident — in other words, the government bombed the refineries to have an excuse to clean out the RoT. Um… you mean, like trying to assassinate the President and inciting riots isn’t reason enough? Putting any kind of crimp in the flow of what little fuel we’re getting would be grounds for violent overthrow, and insta-polls are suggesting that nuking the Rotters outright wouldn’t be considered objectionable at the moment, even in the more junta/RoT-tolerant parts of the country like here. The news isn’t carrying much of anything but the refinery fire and the reactions, but I’ll bet the columns are already rolling toward Texas.
Rene is incommunicado — probably working double shifts — and Serena was able to get a quick email to us: Calls home suspended for a few. Sorry. Hope Kim's OK. I'll call when they let me.
Anyone else remember a book called The Texas-Israeli War: 1999? Only 24 years behind schedule, and Israel has too many problems of its own to be doing mercenary work for anyone else. At least they got the oil part right.
continued…
Monday, January 05, 2009 9 comments
FAR Future, Episode 67: Letters on the Eve of War
Funny how this episode mentions Detroit, with all the Detroit-related chatter on some of the blogs I read. But I wrote this one in mid-October. Go figure.
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Letters on the Eve of War
I suppose the government was willing to ignore the “Texas oil is for Texas” rhetoric coming from the Rotters — that kind of thing is often meant for “domestic” consumption, and a recent Gallup poll suggested that even Texans would be willing to ride the train and drive fuel-efficient cars if exports meant lower taxes for them. The government was probably willing to overlook their keeping a “little” extra oil for local consumption.
What they aren’t willing to overlook is an attempt to assassinate the President, and their agents provocateurs torching off riots in Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Detroit.
Things got a little tense at FAR Manor last week: Kim got re-assigned, sent to St. Louis to help restore order, and got wounded in the riots over the weekend. “Not much,” he said, “shot in the arm, a little flying glass, it looked a whole lot worse than it really was.” Christina was halfway to hysterical, but Mrs. Fetched and Maria got her calmed down. He was able to call and let us know what happened, so we knew he wasn’t seriously injured, and that was probably the point the ladies hammered on until it got through to her. Christina is in better spirits now, fortunately. This morning, she told me, “As soon as Kim gets home, we’re going to have a baby. I’m not going to pass up another chance.” I think she was joking. Rene is still doing whatever it is he’s doing, probably cracking Rotter traffic. He sent us a text message the other day: Holá, y’all, we scored a big one for the good guys! Later! We’re guessing they intercepted some chatter about the assassination attempt, which make Guillermo and Maria really proud of their son. Heck, we’re all proud of him. And Kim, Serena, and Christina, in no particular order.
We’re all worried about Kim right now… after the frying pan of St. Louis, they’re sending him into the fire of Tulsa. Tulsa and OKC are both Rotter-symp, and Kim tells us:
The Rotters want a fight, and it looks like they’re about to get one. I wondered whether they were going to bring in some of the bomber groups from Europe, but Serena tells us there isn’t any activity like that over there. Just a bunch of guys wanting to get in on the action, and a few Texans more than a little conflicted. We have plenty of Air Force bases in the country if it comes to that, anyway. Speaking of Serena: I had one of those dreams where I’m wandering down hallways and through endless doors and rooms, trying to get somewhere. In this one, I was in a theater or some other kind of venue, and trying to get to the stage. These dreams always feature me talking to someone I can’t see, and this was no exception. Somehow, I ended up down on the floor, looking at rows and rows of empty seats and a stage raised too high to climb onto. “So what’s the sense of getting on stage if there’s no audience?” I asked my invisible companion, then woke up. I emailed Serena about it, figuring it would amuse her. She replied, “You’re having acting withdrawal because I haven’t been there to put on the Thanksgiving skits! I’ve got something this year for when I’m home.” Obviously, she’s doing well.
Rene sent a pretty funny message too:
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of activity in and around local churches. The Rotters, so say the rumors, have turned a lot of the more conservative ones into a fifth column and using them as recruiting centers and command posts. It does seem like a lot of the people caught trying to sabotage infrastructure and the like are affiliated with a right-wing church. At least none of them (that I’m aware of) are associated with Penitent churches like ours. Unfortunately, it looks like a major backlash is building — and I hope it doesn’t turn into full-fledged persecution. There have already been cases of arson against certain churches on nights when nobody is around, and tires being slashed (or outright car-B-ques) in parking lots during services. We haven’t seen any problems yet, but we’ve started to assign people to watch the parking lot during services or meetings. In some places, congregations have added “A Penitent Church” to their signage… no telling if it will be the pass-over sign or not.
We’re worried for our kids, especially Kim, and praying for them all. Christina stays worried these days.
continued…
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Letters on the Eve of War
I suppose the government was willing to ignore the “Texas oil is for Texas” rhetoric coming from the Rotters — that kind of thing is often meant for “domestic” consumption, and a recent Gallup poll suggested that even Texans would be willing to ride the train and drive fuel-efficient cars if exports meant lower taxes for them. The government was probably willing to overlook their keeping a “little” extra oil for local consumption.
What they aren’t willing to overlook is an attempt to assassinate the President, and their agents provocateurs torching off riots in Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Detroit.
Things got a little tense at FAR Manor last week: Kim got re-assigned, sent to St. Louis to help restore order, and got wounded in the riots over the weekend. “Not much,” he said, “shot in the arm, a little flying glass, it looked a whole lot worse than it really was.” Christina was halfway to hysterical, but Mrs. Fetched and Maria got her calmed down. He was able to call and let us know what happened, so we knew he wasn’t seriously injured, and that was probably the point the ladies hammered on until it got through to her. Christina is in better spirits now, fortunately. This morning, she told me, “As soon as Kim gets home, we’re going to have a baby. I’m not going to pass up another chance.” I think she was joking. Rene is still doing whatever it is he’s doing, probably cracking Rotter traffic. He sent us a text message the other day: Holá, y’all, we scored a big one for the good guys! Later! We’re guessing they intercepted some chatter about the assassination attempt, which make Guillermo and Maria really proud of their son. Heck, we’re all proud of him. And Kim, Serena, and Christina, in no particular order.
We’re all worried about Kim right now… after the frying pan of St. Louis, they’re sending him into the fire of Tulsa. Tulsa and OKC are both Rotter-symp, and Kim tells us:
Maj. Buckley was in Iraq, and he said it’s a lot like Baghdad was. Most of the time, the civilians just glare at us, if they pay any attention at all. But every once in a while, someone will throw a Molotov cocktail or just a brick or something. We’ve got orders to not retaliate for bricks or rocks, but if there’s ever gunfire, look out. You get the sense that things could boil over at any time, for no good reason, and everyone’s on edge. Everybody knows that when we go after the Rotters, we’ll be using Tulsa as a staging point. We expect trouble, and lots of it, when the roll-out orders come.
We’re all on edge, and not because of the rock-throwers. Nobody really wants to shoot at our own people, as the junta found out, but now it’s working against us instead of them. We’re enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew, and we have to disperse assemblies of more than five people. It got really tense the other day when we had a couple dozen peeps gathered in front of a theater. I thought it was going to turn into a firefight for a minute, but then they finally broke up.
The Rotters want a fight, and it looks like they’re about to get one. I wondered whether they were going to bring in some of the bomber groups from Europe, but Serena tells us there isn’t any activity like that over there. Just a bunch of guys wanting to get in on the action, and a few Texans more than a little conflicted. We have plenty of Air Force bases in the country if it comes to that, anyway. Speaking of Serena: I had one of those dreams where I’m wandering down hallways and through endless doors and rooms, trying to get somewhere. In this one, I was in a theater or some other kind of venue, and trying to get to the stage. These dreams always feature me talking to someone I can’t see, and this was no exception. Somehow, I ended up down on the floor, looking at rows and rows of empty seats and a stage raised too high to climb onto. “So what’s the sense of getting on stage if there’s no audience?” I asked my invisible companion, then woke up. I emailed Serena about it, figuring it would amuse her. She replied, “You’re having acting withdrawal because I haven’t been there to put on the Thanksgiving skits! I’ve got something this year for when I’m home.” Obviously, she’s doing well.
Rene sent a pretty funny message too:
Holá, y'all. Sammy T got picked to be one of the Congresscritters from DC, so he got a discharge! Lucky SOB! Another EDID unit lost their commander (retirement), so they reassigned them to us. Maj. Shevchuk made me his second, so I ’m getting promoted to corporal. At least I won’t be a grunt for my last year in, jejeje.
Other than that, we’re still doing our thing here. Very busy! Will write more when I can.
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of activity in and around local churches. The Rotters, so say the rumors, have turned a lot of the more conservative ones into a fifth column and using them as recruiting centers and command posts. It does seem like a lot of the people caught trying to sabotage infrastructure and the like are affiliated with a right-wing church. At least none of them (that I’m aware of) are associated with Penitent churches like ours. Unfortunately, it looks like a major backlash is building — and I hope it doesn’t turn into full-fledged persecution. There have already been cases of arson against certain churches on nights when nobody is around, and tires being slashed (or outright car-B-ques) in parking lots during services. We haven’t seen any problems yet, but we’ve started to assign people to watch the parking lot during services or meetings. In some places, congregations have added “A Penitent Church” to their signage… no telling if it will be the pass-over sign or not.
We’re worried for our kids, especially Kim, and praying for them all. Christina stays worried these days.
continued…
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 13 comments
My Predictions for 2009
Jim Kunster posted his “Forecast for 2009” on his blog Monday morning. What follows is based on a comment I left in response, with my own predictions. I’ve done some rearranging and expansion on that original comment.
January → March
The year will likely begin with a quiet period, relative to the rest of the year, after the inauguration euphoria. Retailers are declaring bankruptcy (Circuit City, KB Toys) now, so it would be inaccurate to say the implosion starts early next year. But it will start picking up steam. The Obama administration, even with a high initial approval rating, will dribble out bad news slowly to prevent panic.
Most everyone will admit that the auto manufacturers, currently on life support, won’t recover. GM will break up, maybe voluntarily, into three companies: budget/consumer/sport (Chevy/Pontiac), luxury (Buick/Cadillac), trucks/industrial. Auto workers will own a significant portion of the companies, which will help with wage concessions (the best way to bust a union, after all, is to turn the workers into owners). Ford will swallow some of Chrysler, the rest will wither and die. The Japanese companies will scale back their operations. The job losses will ripple through the supply and dealership chains, and outward from there. Herculean rescue efforts will slow but not stop the hemorrhaging.
Some thousands of people will be caught out without converter boxes when the analog broadcast TV signals are turned off in February. There will be much noise made, and much pressure put on the FCC to push out the date. Eventually, the networks and local stations will dish out freebie converter boxes. But some people will find out they really don’t miss TV at all.
April → June
Fox Spew will begin referring to the “Obama depression.”
While mortgage resets continue declining to a summer 2009 minimum, job losses in retail and (later on) auto sectors will lead to increased defaults. The Obama administration will likely enact a law requiring the actual owner of the mortgage to initiate foreclosure, so there will be a mad scramble to figure out just who the heck owns the paper on all those houses.
Republicans will obstruct, spin, and do anything they can to tear own Obama (and the country be damned). Obama and a mob of angry constituents will begin forcibly implanting a spine in congressional Democrats.
July → September
The first steps toward universal healthcare will be taken. We won’t get there immediately, or even quickly.
Rolling blackouts may begin in isolated regions, but they won’t be seen nationwide until around 2012 (see FAR Future #1). A lot of people will leave their A/C off as much as possible to save on electric bills. There may be some spot gasoline/diesel shortages in various regions, like the upper Plains saw last summer (and the Southeast in the fall), based more on refinery or pipeline issues than any kind of crude shortage.
Through the summer, some dozens of unemployed bloggers will take cross-country road trips, talking to people and photographing the economic devastation. They will travel by various means, including hitchhiking or just hiking, and eat from government-supplied food pantries (below). One of them will break through to a book deal, and be hailed as “the 21st century Kerouac.”
Mortgage resets bottom out and begin the next wave in late summer. A foreclosure moratorium will be imposed, probably 60 or 90 days, followed by tax incentives for surviving banks who voluntarily refrain from foreclosing (with partial success). Squatting in abandoned houses will be widespread, but most squatters will keep up the properties they occupy and nobody will worry much about it. There will naturally be a few druggies and bangers taking over abandoned houses, and they’ll get all the media attention.
The government will either buy or seize food stocks in response to reports of small pockets of hunger/starvation. Agribusiness will take a big hit, and perhaps be nationalized to prevent an ongoing food crisis. The “victory garden” concept will make a comeback, under a new name like “food security garden,” and people will be attending classes and gathering information and tools for spring planting.
October → December
Argentines will begin consulting with unemployed American laborers, explaining how they took over shuttered factories and began producing things of value. It will mostly stay under the media radar in 2009, though.
There will be a mad scramble to ensure people have enough heat to survive the winter. Some low-income northerners may be relocated south and installed in otherwise abandoned dwellings for the winter, triggering howls of outrage from right wing locals.
General Economic trends
Inflation? Fuhgeddabotit. Whatever money is printed to keep the economy afloat will follow the old money right down the rathole. There’s just too much money evaporating in the finance sector to worry about inflation. The only way inflation will be an issue in 2009 is if Obama declares it a Jubilee Year and wipes out all debts, public and private, with the stroke of a pen. That would free up all the money going to service debts for buying stuff — and is about as likely as commercial fusion power being deployed next year.
Part & parcel with (lack of) inflation will be a more stable oil price regime, compared to 2008. OPEC will continue to chase demand down the price curve; whether they actually catch up is the question. Cash-strapped producer nations might tell OPEC to go pound sand (not oil sand though) and keep pumping. Leaving out so-called Black Swan events, as the 800-pound consumer gorilla (the US) continues to lose weight, oil prices might fluctuate between $40 & $80/bbl (you may remember me saying we’d probably never see oil under $100/bbl though, so add salt as needed). Spot shortages will have external causes such as refinery fires.
…and Beyond
Mortgage rate resets, according to a couple graphs I found online, will be less widespread in 2009 than in 2008. Last year was the year for major sub-prime resets; 2010 will see the Alt-A and Option ARM resets balloon though, and mostly keep climbing until autumn 2011, dropping off precipitously by summer 2012.
Given the current lower demand for oil, new sources won’t be developed and the more exotic sources (tar sands, deep water) will be too expensive to continue producing. Production cuts are currently aimed at a stable market; in the next couple of years it will shift to an economic base (i.e. uneconomical to increase production) then hit physical constraints (the whole point of peak oil). The initial parts of FAR Future are merely extrapolating current trends a few years ahead.
January → March
The year will likely begin with a quiet period, relative to the rest of the year, after the inauguration euphoria. Retailers are declaring bankruptcy (Circuit City, KB Toys) now, so it would be inaccurate to say the implosion starts early next year. But it will start picking up steam. The Obama administration, even with a high initial approval rating, will dribble out bad news slowly to prevent panic.
Most everyone will admit that the auto manufacturers, currently on life support, won’t recover. GM will break up, maybe voluntarily, into three companies: budget/consumer/sport (Chevy/Pontiac), luxury (Buick/Cadillac), trucks/industrial. Auto workers will own a significant portion of the companies, which will help with wage concessions (the best way to bust a union, after all, is to turn the workers into owners). Ford will swallow some of Chrysler, the rest will wither and die. The Japanese companies will scale back their operations. The job losses will ripple through the supply and dealership chains, and outward from there. Herculean rescue efforts will slow but not stop the hemorrhaging.
Some thousands of people will be caught out without converter boxes when the analog broadcast TV signals are turned off in February. There will be much noise made, and much pressure put on the FCC to push out the date. Eventually, the networks and local stations will dish out freebie converter boxes. But some people will find out they really don’t miss TV at all.
April → June
Fox Spew will begin referring to the “Obama depression.”
While mortgage resets continue declining to a summer 2009 minimum, job losses in retail and (later on) auto sectors will lead to increased defaults. The Obama administration will likely enact a law requiring the actual owner of the mortgage to initiate foreclosure, so there will be a mad scramble to figure out just who the heck owns the paper on all those houses.
Republicans will obstruct, spin, and do anything they can to tear own Obama (and the country be damned). Obama and a mob of angry constituents will begin forcibly implanting a spine in congressional Democrats.
July → September
The first steps toward universal healthcare will be taken. We won’t get there immediately, or even quickly.
Rolling blackouts may begin in isolated regions, but they won’t be seen nationwide until around 2012 (see FAR Future #1). A lot of people will leave their A/C off as much as possible to save on electric bills. There may be some spot gasoline/diesel shortages in various regions, like the upper Plains saw last summer (and the Southeast in the fall), based more on refinery or pipeline issues than any kind of crude shortage.
Through the summer, some dozens of unemployed bloggers will take cross-country road trips, talking to people and photographing the economic devastation. They will travel by various means, including hitchhiking or just hiking, and eat from government-supplied food pantries (below). One of them will break through to a book deal, and be hailed as “the 21st century Kerouac.”
Mortgage resets bottom out and begin the next wave in late summer. A foreclosure moratorium will be imposed, probably 60 or 90 days, followed by tax incentives for surviving banks who voluntarily refrain from foreclosing (with partial success). Squatting in abandoned houses will be widespread, but most squatters will keep up the properties they occupy and nobody will worry much about it. There will naturally be a few druggies and bangers taking over abandoned houses, and they’ll get all the media attention.
The government will either buy or seize food stocks in response to reports of small pockets of hunger/starvation. Agribusiness will take a big hit, and perhaps be nationalized to prevent an ongoing food crisis. The “victory garden” concept will make a comeback, under a new name like “food security garden,” and people will be attending classes and gathering information and tools for spring planting.
October → December
Argentines will begin consulting with unemployed American laborers, explaining how they took over shuttered factories and began producing things of value. It will mostly stay under the media radar in 2009, though.
There will be a mad scramble to ensure people have enough heat to survive the winter. Some low-income northerners may be relocated south and installed in otherwise abandoned dwellings for the winter, triggering howls of outrage from right wing locals.
General Economic trends
Inflation? Fuhgeddabotit. Whatever money is printed to keep the economy afloat will follow the old money right down the rathole. There’s just too much money evaporating in the finance sector to worry about inflation. The only way inflation will be an issue in 2009 is if Obama declares it a Jubilee Year and wipes out all debts, public and private, with the stroke of a pen. That would free up all the money going to service debts for buying stuff — and is about as likely as commercial fusion power being deployed next year.
Part & parcel with (lack of) inflation will be a more stable oil price regime, compared to 2008. OPEC will continue to chase demand down the price curve; whether they actually catch up is the question. Cash-strapped producer nations might tell OPEC to go pound sand (not oil sand though) and keep pumping. Leaving out so-called Black Swan events, as the 800-pound consumer gorilla (the US) continues to lose weight, oil prices might fluctuate between $40 & $80/bbl (you may remember me saying we’d probably never see oil under $100/bbl though, so add salt as needed). Spot shortages will have external causes such as refinery fires.
…and Beyond
Mortgage rate resets, according to a couple graphs I found online, will be less widespread in 2009 than in 2008. Last year was the year for major sub-prime resets; 2010 will see the Alt-A and Option ARM resets balloon though, and mostly keep climbing until autumn 2011, dropping off precipitously by summer 2012.
Given the current lower demand for oil, new sources won’t be developed and the more exotic sources (tar sands, deep water) will be too expensive to continue producing. Production cuts are currently aimed at a stable market; in the next couple of years it will shift to an economic base (i.e. uneconomical to increase production) then hit physical constraints (the whole point of peak oil). The initial parts of FAR Future are merely extrapolating current trends a few years ahead.
Monday, December 29, 2008 8 comments
FAR Future, Episode 66: Farewell, Sammy
Back to work, shortly after this post goes up. Happier times in the FAR Future?
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Farewell, Sammy
Summer’s over, no doubt about it. We’re back to sleeping inside. At least it won’t be just us next summer… Kim and Serena at least should finish up their hitch(es) and come home this spring. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss having the house full of people. OK, I’ll be honest: I wish they were here to help cut firewood. Does that sound more like me? ;-) But that’s only half-honest. I expect Kim and Christina will be moving away next year, probably to Atlanta or maybe Athens (GA) or some other college town. Mrs. and Mr. Daughter Dearest are already out — they grabbed a place in town so DD can walk to school and teach. They’re talking about moving back to Seattle, but with fuel the way it is Dean has to do his training gigs remotely — and as long as he has a lectern, a video camera, and a decent Internet hookup, he can do that from anywhere.
The publishers are getting ready to start printing Christina’s biochem textbook. It will be available for the next school year, which is really something… and has already garnered her several assistant professorship offers from various colleges. Having done some work for Corettaville, which is probably going to take the first “Enclosed Community of the Year” award from ECHO this year, she’s also getting a lot of queries about doing consulting work for other wallyworlds. She’s not all that interested in consulting for a living, although she could certainly swing it, given the number of queries she’s had. Still, she would like to do occasional side jobs like that… she thinks it would help her keep her research practical and give her a chance to get out and see a little of the country (once things get a little more stable, of course).
With the junta gone, there’s suddenly more traffic than you’d expect going east and west on the highway just down from FAR Manor — mostly bicycles and walking tourists, but you see the occasional scooter. Someone opened up “Luke’s at New Hope Corner” — a sort of combination tavern and hostel for travelers who want some food or a place to rest — at the crossroads. Since it’s a 2-minute walk from the manor, Guillermo and I are getting to be “the regulars” there — Luke buys food from us (except beef, not too many people can afford that) for the business, so we have a good excuse to walk down there in the evenings and get the order together for the next day. He also brews a pretty good hooch, but we haven’t told the ladies of that reason to visit. As if they haven’t seen their two old men come wobbling through the door, with the evening’s revelry on our breath? Our old Happy Hound gives us an escort there and back, and enjoys the attention from the travelers (not to mention the scraps he gets from Luke).
Of course, the shale mining prisoners have been freed and sent home. I hope the people running the camp (and the rest of the junta, for that matter) are put to work mining shale themselves, under the exact same conditions they provided for the prisoners… yeah, vindictive. But we need to make an example of the junta, so nobody else ever gets any stupid ideas, which I suppose would mean we’ll have to go into Texas sooner or later. I understand that the cheerleaders at Fox Spew, and even a lot of the DC punditry, have bolted for their various ratholes or “gone to RoT,” as they say. I’m not sure where Shotgun Sam got himself off to… maybe he’s gone to RoT too, or he just wasn’t all that important and isn’t being bothered. Asset seizures have taken the place of taxation, at least for a few months.
The President and his caretaker government have been scrambling to get things to the point where we can have elections in two weeks, but now they’re talking about having a lottery: all registered voters ages 25 to 70 (you have to be 25 to be a reprehensible, so says the Constitution) get thrown into a hat and the “winner” gets to spend the next two years in DC, but I don’t know if they’d do the Senate that way or not. The election date isn’t specified by the Constitution, so as long as the elections happen soon enough to get the votes counted and the new congresscritters sworn in by January 3, no harm no foul. A lottery just seems a little drastic, but it would give the new reps a couple months to get their affairs in order and get on a train. As for the President himself, everyone seems to be content to let him serve out the current term (through 2024).
With the junta no longer a problem, outside of one (large) place, Sammy has pretty much stood down. Of course, there will still be samizdat for the Rotters who want it, but Sammy is redundant in the rest of the country since there’s a free press once again. Still, I wouldn’t mind if we keep an underground press in this country; Lord knows how quickly things can change. I think the new Congress will be doing a lot of clean-up, and it’s going to be important to have a news source that isn’t too chummy with either the old old gang or the new old gang. I just hope the new government can look beyond the junta’s trainwreck and start moving us toward some kind of civilization that doesn’t involve heavy dependence on fossil fuel.
continued…
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Farewell, Sammy
Summer’s over, no doubt about it. We’re back to sleeping inside. At least it won’t be just us next summer… Kim and Serena at least should finish up their hitch(es) and come home this spring. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss having the house full of people. OK, I’ll be honest: I wish they were here to help cut firewood. Does that sound more like me? ;-) But that’s only half-honest. I expect Kim and Christina will be moving away next year, probably to Atlanta or maybe Athens (GA) or some other college town. Mrs. and Mr. Daughter Dearest are already out — they grabbed a place in town so DD can walk to school and teach. They’re talking about moving back to Seattle, but with fuel the way it is Dean has to do his training gigs remotely — and as long as he has a lectern, a video camera, and a decent Internet hookup, he can do that from anywhere.
The publishers are getting ready to start printing Christina’s biochem textbook. It will be available for the next school year, which is really something… and has already garnered her several assistant professorship offers from various colleges. Having done some work for Corettaville, which is probably going to take the first “Enclosed Community of the Year” award from ECHO this year, she’s also getting a lot of queries about doing consulting work for other wallyworlds. She’s not all that interested in consulting for a living, although she could certainly swing it, given the number of queries she’s had. Still, she would like to do occasional side jobs like that… she thinks it would help her keep her research practical and give her a chance to get out and see a little of the country (once things get a little more stable, of course).
With the junta gone, there’s suddenly more traffic than you’d expect going east and west on the highway just down from FAR Manor — mostly bicycles and walking tourists, but you see the occasional scooter. Someone opened up “Luke’s at New Hope Corner” — a sort of combination tavern and hostel for travelers who want some food or a place to rest — at the crossroads. Since it’s a 2-minute walk from the manor, Guillermo and I are getting to be “the regulars” there — Luke buys food from us (except beef, not too many people can afford that) for the business, so we have a good excuse to walk down there in the evenings and get the order together for the next day. He also brews a pretty good hooch, but we haven’t told the ladies of that reason to visit. As if they haven’t seen their two old men come wobbling through the door, with the evening’s revelry on our breath? Our old Happy Hound gives us an escort there and back, and enjoys the attention from the travelers (not to mention the scraps he gets from Luke).
Of course, the shale mining prisoners have been freed and sent home. I hope the people running the camp (and the rest of the junta, for that matter) are put to work mining shale themselves, under the exact same conditions they provided for the prisoners… yeah, vindictive. But we need to make an example of the junta, so nobody else ever gets any stupid ideas, which I suppose would mean we’ll have to go into Texas sooner or later. I understand that the cheerleaders at Fox Spew, and even a lot of the DC punditry, have bolted for their various ratholes or “gone to RoT,” as they say. I’m not sure where Shotgun Sam got himself off to… maybe he’s gone to RoT too, or he just wasn’t all that important and isn’t being bothered. Asset seizures have taken the place of taxation, at least for a few months.
The President and his caretaker government have been scrambling to get things to the point where we can have elections in two weeks, but now they’re talking about having a lottery: all registered voters ages 25 to 70 (you have to be 25 to be a reprehensible, so says the Constitution) get thrown into a hat and the “winner” gets to spend the next two years in DC, but I don’t know if they’d do the Senate that way or not. The election date isn’t specified by the Constitution, so as long as the elections happen soon enough to get the votes counted and the new congresscritters sworn in by January 3, no harm no foul. A lottery just seems a little drastic, but it would give the new reps a couple months to get their affairs in order and get on a train. As for the President himself, everyone seems to be content to let him serve out the current term (through 2024).
With the junta no longer a problem, outside of one (large) place, Sammy has pretty much stood down. Of course, there will still be samizdat for the Rotters who want it, but Sammy is redundant in the rest of the country since there’s a free press once again. Still, I wouldn’t mind if we keep an underground press in this country; Lord knows how quickly things can change. I think the new Congress will be doing a lot of clean-up, and it’s going to be important to have a news source that isn’t too chummy with either the old old gang or the new old gang. I just hope the new government can look beyond the junta’s trainwreck and start moving us toward some kind of civilization that doesn’t involve heavy dependence on fossil fuel.
continued…
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