Cylindrical file time

I’m spending less time on social media these days. Elon is busy trashing what used to be a decent online place to hang out and Mastodon, my alternative, needs more curating than I’m willing to put effort into. I’m also spending less time checking the news. Star Tribune is hiding behind a paywall and I refuse to subscribe. The Guardian is repeating many stories for several days in a row so I don’t check in there as often as I used to. If I manage to keep weaning myself from doomscrolling, I could end up spending more time living my own life rather than reading about other’s. That’s likely to be an improvement.

“The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something
today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”

― Gaylord Nelson

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, as I work on organizing and purging years’ worth of neglected files, both computer and physical, I keep finding stuff I had completely forgotten I have. Much of it is offering ideas for new or revived projects that I can work on with the time I no longer spend on social and news media. The hangup involves making an educated guess at what I would find satisfying to do, particularly regarding writing poetry and/or creative nonfiction (that’s what this blog is, as far as I’m concerned). For now, I’m foregoing decisions as I work through piles of files, organizing, deleting or shredding as we go.

Despite being a college graduate, I don’t recall ever being offered a course in how to organize files nor any  explanation regarding what files need to be kept for how long. Meanwhile, congress and state legislatures waste time and energy (theirs and ours) fiddling with laws that are too often poorly conceived and all too often not considered from a systemic perspective. Instead of the almost constant battles and impending government shutdowns over appropriations bills and continuing resolutions, should we, as citizens, require a constitutional amendment that mandates that agencies will continue to be funded at current levels until a new appropriations bill is enacted? Political fights should be kept among politicians. Those of US in the real world should be held harmless. At least that’s my opinion of a key element of good governance. I refuse to support a politician or party whose primary strategy or objective is to break things.

Open Memo To The Congressional Appropriations Committee And The Military Department Of Defense 

By Sandra Maria Esteves

To Whom It Does Concern:

 

        Could we please have just one space flight,

           one nine-million dollar adventure into the great breath,

           so that we could divide the loaves and fishes

           and put 900 more people to work for a year.

 

           Or could we please have one nuclear missile,

           so we can difuse it, sell the used parts

           for one-point-ten billion worth of more than just

           rice krispies breakfast-lunch-dinners.

 

           What if we could exchange an M-1 rifle for a solar reflector

           so that our building could have heat all the time,

           not wait for avaricious gun-toting landlords

           to remember to call the oil company tomorrow

           for the child next door with pneumonia today.

 

           We would even accept a leftover bomber,

           or one two-million dollar high tech space suit,

           however patronizing it may seem,

           or a decommissioned aircraft carrier to relieve tight housing

                problems.

 

           Its not much, is it?

           When you add it up, pull together the sum total

           of the four billion dollars-a-day catastrophy fantasy,

           the whole is worse than its parts.

 

           So to continue our list,

           could you please refund on our next tax return

           the difference between the limousines you drive,

           and the tokens we do not have

           to build our nation strong.

 

                                        Signed,

                                        The People of the Rest of the World

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