Resist despair.
Don’t yield to resignation.
Do not withdraw into the safety of some privileged, private life.
Now is the time to learn from 1933 and organize help for those who are the most vulnerable.
Support education so rising generations have the tools to deal with the life long fall-out of this catastrophe.
And now we wait.
All arguments (or the absence thereof) have been offered, inspected, weighed, and, one fears, often dismissed.
A wonderful painting by Richard Caton Woodville, Politics in an Oyster House (1840), shows how that went on in the 1840s :
From the Walters museum website:
Woodville adopted the subject of newspaper reading seen in works by his Düsseldorf contemporaries Johann Peter Hasenclever and Wilhelm Kleinenbroich, placing it in a distinctly American interior, described by a contemporary critic as “one of those subterranean temples devoted to the immolation of bivalves . . . vulgarly known as oyster cellars.” After their meal, the younger of the two figures, bearded and wearing his top hat indoors, leans across the table, counting arguments off on the fingers of one hand and clasping the newspaper that fuels his opinions in the other. The older man, balding, ruddy-faced, and red-nosed, warmed by the liquor in his half-empty glass, looks out with amusement at the viewer. The booth in which they are seated, with its red privacy curtain pulled aside, creates a shallow proscenium stage for this scene of intergenerational argument. The characters are engaged with the politics of their time, on which Woodville, characteristically, takes no stand.
Woodville exhibited a copy of this work with the title A New York Communist Advancing an Argument to some acclaim at the Royal Academy in London, where he was then resident, in 1852. A woodblock print of the painting illustrated the review of the exhibition in The Illustrated London News, which called it “a spirited little piece . . . of more than ordinary merit.” The lithograph of the picture, produced by Fanoli, printed by Lemercier, and distributed by Goupil & Co. included a “dedication to John H. B. Latrobe, Esq.” (see fig. 38 and checklist no. 21). It was offered in a full-page advertisement, along with several prints after works by William Sidney Mount, in the December 21, 1850, issue of The Literary World as “a most exquisite representation of American politicians.”
And here is the contemporary ending of that argument:
(from a rehearsal by the Jewish Theatre Collaborative – oh how I miss them!)
Let us hope that the social realistic art of Ben Shahn, depicting a demonstration in 1933, does not presage the next couple of days, months or years… 
Remember the old Mark Twain adage “Water, taken in moderation, has never hurt anyone?” That’s no longer funny when considering how many people in the world experience water shortages, or are forced to migrate because there is no longer enough water to sustain human dwellings.
Here are some predictions from the UN:
And I quote: “The figures continue to be staggering: despite improvements, at least 663 million still do not have access to safe drinking water. And projecting into the future, the United Nations says an estimated 1.8 billion people – out of a total world population of over 7 billion – will live in countries or regions with water scarcities. The crisis has been aggravated by several factors, including climate change (triggering droughts) and military conflicts (where water is being used as a weapon of war in several war zones, including Iraq, Yemen and Syria).”
One often neglected factor in water scarcity is also land grabbing – buying inexpensive swaths of land in developing nations and using it for agricultural production. If the land is in an area with heavy rainfall, then irrigation is no problem. But if the land is in drought afflicted regions, investors will tap into water supplies from the ground, depriving the native population of an already scarce resource. Saudi Arabia, for example, has bought tons of land in Africa to grow all of its wheat, using their water, thus protecting its own resources.
Simple conservation won’t do – global political solutions are necessary to prevent catastrophe. And lest you think we, in this country, are somewhat safe, here is an eye opener:
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/megadroughts-arizona-new-mexico/503531/
I am writing this about an hour before the presidential debate – you will be reading this the day after. Any of today’s photos of animals preparing for the season could have a different meaning, depending on the debate outcome.
Sheepish, bullish, lies multiplying like rabbits, pecking, pouncing like a praying mantis –
take your pick.
I think that’s what we call ambiguous pictures ….. which is fine as long as the debate outcome is unambiguously in favor of a candidate who is not racist, not scheming, not narcissistic, not mendacious, and above all able to handle a world in turmoil with sufficient intelligence, information and respect for the facts that we will not descend into further wars and inequality.
Postscript, the morning after: Wasn’t prepared for the sniffles. Ever heard a boar sniffling and grunting through the brush?
When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.
-Stephen Jay Gould
A.k.a. pulling the wool over your eyes – possibly the intended, certainly the effective outcome of not investing in public education….
-Your’s Truly
Now the bricks lay on Grand Street
Where the neon madmen climb
They all fall there so perfectly
It all seems so well timed
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
― Isaac Asimov
What’s wrong with phrenology and divination? Let’s shred the lab reports and turn to intuition!
– Your’s Truly (paraphrasing certain political candidates.)
We’ve got ballots flying around, being counted by hand, arriving by truck and in God knows whose custody.
– David Axelrodt
Never mind voter suppression, re-districting efforts, hanging chads, closed voting stations and potential cyber manipulations from foreign powers.
– Your’s Truly
A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.
-H. L. Mencken
Orange-haired clowns need not apply.
– Your’s Truly
All politicians should have 3 hats – one to throw into the ring, one to talk through, and one to pull rabbits out of if elected.
– Carl Sandburg
All of them preferably without a logo about making America great again.
– Your’s Truly