The Daily: 25 June 25

Well, folks… I don’t know about y’all, but I feel like I’ve used up my lifetime quota of WTF moments in these last… how long’s it been?… feels like eternal hell… but it’s only been 22 weeks. Not even six months. Less than half a year. But in those 22 weeks, there have been maybe three, five, no, probably more like two days in which the day’s events have not left me staring slack-jawed at a screen, mind-screaming (and some days actual screaming) “Did that just happen? Is that really a thing that happens? Can they even do that? What is WRONG with these people?!?”

I’m gonna blame plastic.

Or maybe this is what happens to guys who think that money and power will actually win them adoration from beautiful women. Those that aren’t being paid, that is. Or drugged. And then they get the money and power (whatever that means in this broken, depleted world; King of the Losers is still a loser, after all), and they discover that women still want nothing to do with them. (And no, it’s not your bald pates and paunchy bellies… it’s the violently sociopathic, bigoted narcissism, you complete dolts…)

I have tried to focus on what is important, what’s good, what is necessary. Being a good friend, good mother, good daughter, good sister, aunt, neighbor. Working to make my community a resilient and welcoming home for all comers. Tending to all the things that depend upon me. Staying healthy in body and mind.

And yep, that’s where I trip up.

There is no way to maintain any semblance of emotional well-being in this climate. I can’t even believe what I am seeing. That can’t be happening. Right? Am I crazy? Delusional? Hallucinating a steady stream of Fox News dystopia? (Nah… I’m not that inventive…) Or… or… or… what the actual fuck!

And then they/possibly we/definitely us bombed Iran.

Bombed… Iran…

WTF!

The most bizarre thing about this nutcase story is that the MAGA folks are all, “We don’t want a foreign war, we want to keep killing people in LA.” (And Minneapolis… and Oklahoma… and Wisconsin… but definitely keep those god-given guns firing on our own home turf.) (Oh, by the way, did you know that we’ve actually had one or two days without a mass shooting in 2025? Though the fact that we’ve racked up 200 of them in less than 180 days means the 2nd Amendment wackos are doubling down now and again… probably a Monday thing… and plastic… most definitely incel…)

I’m usually pretty good at predicting trends. I take no little pride in being able to survey the map of the territory and accurately point to where we’re headed. Turns out that only works within the bounds of rationality. I am no good at all with crazy. I sort of feel that there is no forecasting when the rules of engagement are completely broken. (Sort of like weather forecasting these days… but even climate chaos is more predictable than the fiasco in Washington DC…) Every headline leaves me feeling blind-sided and sucker punched.

Bomb… Iran…

Why?!? Well you might ask… but you are not going to get cogent answers. Because the folks in Tehran might be developing a bomb (for the last… at least… 25 years…)… because the Ayatollah sneered at Trump’s pathetic birthday parade… because Elon flaked out and now Fox News needs something new to rail on about… Might as well blame the bombs on Monday and plastic and incels, for all the coherence involved.

And then there was the whodunit debate… It started out as “the US is definitely not involved”, but… “Trump gave Israel the thumb’s up on this operation,” and… “well, turns out we supplied the weapons, intelligence, and maybe a few troops for all we know… who can keep up with these clandestine military operations…”

And now it’s “we’re all gonna die…”

What? We could no longer, in good conscience, support one proxy war against our new bestie Putin, so we had to drum up an actual conflict someplace else? (Not on this soil, of course.) Because there is literally no other sector of the global economy that is still functioning properly than that which feeds war, so we must have open conflict somewhere… Why not Iran? (Where is Iran, again? Is that the one with Baghdad? Or the oil? Or the camels and odd hats?… Never mind… doesn’t matter… it’s Over There somewhere…)

Deep breath…

I’m sure you’ve noticed the precipitous decline in my posting here since January. Part of that is that I have been very busy. We still have not hired a replacement for the last person to leave the department, and the person we did hire to replace the prior departure has no experience with any of our systems… nor with banking… so this is not particularly a relief. It’s actually worse. This new person not only can’t do the job yet, but training her is taking time away from the work.

And then there is the garden… Went from bare dirt to EVERY INVASIVE WEED IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE IS TAKING OVER THE VEG AND WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH 12 PINTS OF PEAS… Also went from an inch or more of rain every week to somewhere near Mojave Desert right about the time I planted out the last of the seeds and young transplants. So every night sees me and my watering cans clunking across the road, trying to keep everything alive (until it floods in July, of course…). And I’ve made no progress whatsoever on improving the driveway drainage. The easily dug mud transformed into baked clay (laced with gravel and crabgrass) right about the time when the intensive planting let up and I had time to dig (in between hauling watering cans).

And then there are all the normal things that still must be packed into the two days I am freed from wage work.

I’m actually getting a little annoyed with people who will go on about the demise of our culture… Because they make me believe that all this blather is a meaningful way to address things. I must constantly remind myself that this isn’t real. If things are so bad, turn off the screens and go do some real work. Not emotional work. Not community building. Not planning. Not analyzing. Go do your own damn dishes. Bake your own bread. Fix your clothes. Stop buying your needs and tend to them yourself. If you do your own work, you soon find that you are too way busy to pay attention to the nutcases. All this cultural implosion becomes so much hot air. Perhaps caustically hot… but only as real as I make it.

Plus, you personally and you as a member of your community will be better off for the actual work that is done and for disengaging with the crazy. The world will be a better place when you stop talking, get off your ass, turn off the screens, and get things done.

But people will go on about the dangers of AI or the disintegration of common sense or the price of eggs… (They are rather quiet on “bombed Iran” so far… probably also still in that slack-jawed WTF moment…) But while these are concerns, they are much less concerning when you are doing for yourself what you need done. AI is not a thing unless you make it so… which is true of much of what alarms the bloviators, on both sides of the chasm.

So, I am keeping busy… because this time of year, I have little choice… but mostly, I just shudder every time I turn on this machine. What the hell happened today? Who died? What’s on fire (besides Canada…)? What is now irreparably broken? What have we lost in the last 24 hours and how are we going to adjust to that… And then… How do I turn my basement into a fall-out shelter? (I’m sure YouTube has the answers…)

Bombed… Iran…

WTF!

My blood pressure pills are not equal to this…

I apologize. I really do. But I can’t foresee a healthy engagement with screen time for at least the next 3 1/2 years. Honestly, I never was that engaged, so it takes extra effort from me to do this, effort I am no longer quite so willing to expend… (Though I was enough of a social media mouth that Twix deleted my account. Or made it so I can’t get to it… which amounts to the same thing…) Still, by the time King Loser is dethroned (or dead) this computer might be aged out of contact with the internet, the electricity might be too erratic to waste on blogging, I might have moved to Canada (no… fire… okay, Iceland…). Or the wack jobs might have unleashed nuclear armageddon… Things happen, you know.

But the Daily is not going to be particularly daily…

I mean, how do you even write about a world in which “bombed Iran” is a thing…

But truly, this was never meant as a daily source of news and analysis. That my pontificating nature will take over is sort of a bug… This was all meant to be a map to finding local, not screen, engagement. A “daily book”, in the Medieval sense, a way to track time and act in a timely manner, so as not to waste these few hours of precious life. Yours, mine, and that belonging to all other beings…

Which waste is the central objective of our whole culture.

And nowhere is that more apparent than on a screen.

---

©Elizabeth Anker 2025