Jeff McFaddenJul 8, 2023
Sadly, I don't read as well as I used to. I think high energy social media has damaged my ability. This is a big loss: I am a lifelong reader.
I am able to adapt by using audio books.
Long time readers know, but for new friends here on the federation, I strongly limit non-real world video input into my mind. I haven't had a TV since I got drafted in 1967. I will not stay in the same room with a running TV if I can get out of it.
I have never seen the towers fall, or George Floyd die. By intent.
Show threadJeff McFaddenJul 8, 2023
2. I adapt by using audio books. I use Amazon's tool, because I'm one of millions of Amazon captives.
I am particularly fond of Donna Leon as an author. Having gone through her whole repertoire, I thought, I started going through them again.
I don't read climate shit. I write climate shit, and don't need any more details of the collapse to know what I think about it. I read detective fiction, and think hers is about as good as it gets.
But this one. 😳
Show threadJeff McFaddenJul 8, 2023
3. In this book she acknowledges as an empirical fact that we have poisoned the whole world.
This is one of my core beliefs: we have poisoned everything and continue to do so. But this novel. 😳
Show threadJeff McFaddenJul 8, 2023
4. This is the whole and entire point of everything I write.
We do not have to do things this way.
To poison everything is not because we're humans.
This is utter. Fucking. Madness. And voluntary.
I'm an old fart. I was one of the activists, not a special hotshot but just one of millions of grunts, letter writers, sometime sign carriers, and we got the environmental laws passed, back in (yes, really) the halcyon Nixon era.
😳
We created the EPA. We sat back on our laurels.
Bad idea.
Show threadJeff McFaddenJul 8, 2023
5. Here's what was wrong with the EPA and the whole package concept that they sold us, and we pushed for:
We let them go on making the shit.
We said, You can't dump your shit in navigable waterways.
This was a no brainer - the Cuyahoga river had caught fire and Randy Newman had written a song about it. Duh. https://youtu.be/XVNuT4fkjAs
Burn On (Remastered)

YouTube
Show threadJeff McFaddenJul 8, 2023
6. If you make the shit you've got the shit.
Everybody thinks that we can do all this techno magic without making the poison, but that's silly.
What we do is, take oil, for instance, and we take out all the parts that don't make plastic, and we make plastic with the part that does - and the parts we took out are poison. So we've got it.
There's only so long a billionaire is going to warehouse our poison before they elect a government that lets them dump it.
There is no "away". There is only here
Show threadJeff McFaddenJul 8, 2023
7. Earth is an energy based system, because it exists in an energy based universe.
Everything that ever happens happens because of energy, and all the energy in the system is going to ceaselessly move from higher to lower concentrations. Energy *always* flows, and it "always* flows downhill.
I don't remember her name - I'm new here, and brain damaged, but one of the people I've encountered here has written how many joules - it's a "zeta" number.
She sees it. It's the energy.
Raise your hand?
Show threadCynthia Thomas
@JeffAndDonkeys you're home? Didn't go to KC tonight. You ok?
Jul 8, 2023 at 2:11amMastodon for Android
Show threadJeff McFaddenJul 8, 2023
@cfthomas51 yeah, driving tomorrow for Ralph, gotta get out by 8:30, and I want to be sharp.
The wagon wreck a few weeks ago made me think I need to really be sharp to drive these mules.