Tail End of February

I maintain the second half of February, after Valentine’s day is just…depressing.

Above: the Author’s house back in Kentucky 10 years ago today

  1. The Superbowl is over. This year’s was a terrible game in which the Eagles ran roughshod over the KC Chiefs until the 4th quarter.
  2. College basketball’s March Madness hasn’t begun. Kentucky men’s basketball has overperformed this year, but they’re going to get slaughtered in both the SEC tournament and NCAA. Every game is usually exciting, at least. Kentucky Women’s basketball are firing on all cylinders and may be in the hunt for a National Championship.
  3. The weather is just…awful. Texas veers from 85+ one day to 25 the next. We’ve survived one cold snap in January and it looks like another coming this week. My hometown is underwater for the 3rd time in 5 years. Extesive swathes of land freeze under ice and snow.
  4. At work, we’re in the silly season somewhere between layoffs, promotions, and pay increases (if any are forthcoming). The outlook doesn’t seem great.

I’d write about DOGE and the collapse of our government, but plenty of other people are ahead of me. Seems you wring your hands, threaten revolution, or stick your head in the sand to some degree.

I’ll just say this: When the representative body of a purportedly representative government refuses to act for…carry the one…twenty five years, there’s one of: (1) A popular uprising, (2) a military coup, or (3) the executive asserts itself. We’re in the latter in a combination of:

  1. Oligarchy: The rich are ruling.
  2. Kleptocracy: The rulers stole the government.
  3. Techno-anarchy: “Libertarians” might like this one. The government is receding, and nothing will fill the vacuum but technology/corporations. Read Snowcrash and it’ll make sense.
  4. Authoritarianism: I refuse to say “Fascism,” but power flowing from a central figure looks to be the reality of 21st Century America. Bush, Obama, and Trump all practiced some flavors.

Lord willing, these words don’t earn me a gulag appointment (or worse) someday.