Thwarted walk, timely reminder

You live on an island for years, there are certain things you should know, right? Maybe not.

With our Friday walk approaching, I sent Joe a text Thursday evening to say I quite fancied a water view this week and suggested we do the beach walk not far from his place. Now I do know that part of this walk is submerged at high tide, so I did actually check the tide tables before I sent the text. Low tide was at 11:20am yesterday, so everything should be fine for a 2pm walk – information I also shared in the text.

This is a walk we’ve done before, the one that includes this money shot.

Yesterday was overcast, so it was unlikely I could get this particular photo, but that was fine.

As we were walking up the cliff trail before heading down to the beach, it was impossible not to notice, looking down through the trees, that the tide did not look particularly low. A bit further along the trail it was obvious that the beach portion of the walk would indeed be impassable. Dang.

That’s when Joe (whose house is on the waterfront and who thus is more familiar with the tides) looked at his phone to consult the tide chart. It seems that summer low tides are a lot lower than winter low tides. I did not know that. And felt rather foolish that I did not know that. I live on an island. I should probably know that. On the other hand, Joe lives on the waterfront, did know that and didn’t double check when I suggested the walk. (Okay, in fairness, maybe he assumed I did know that and was doing me the courtesy of not double checking.)

Beach walk abandoned – although I did still clock 3,500 steps and the equivalent of six flights of stairs. Considerably more than I’d done any day since the previous Friday.

Walk rescheduled for a non-tide-dependent trail on Sunday after the auditions.

Instead of a walk we had a beer and a long chat about the awful state of the world. The term hell in a handbasket was bandied about – a phrase his mother used to use when he was a kid and he’s only recently begun to appreciate. Being of Italian heritage, he has his own nickname for the current US president: Mango Mussolini.

Unlike me, the glutton for punishment who watched both the town halls the previous night, he’d watched neither, although he’d caught the highlights (or, in the Wankmaggot’s case, the lowlights) yesterday morning.

Of course everyone was talking about the Wankmaggot’s response to being asked to denounce QAnon, the most ridiculous of the many batshit crazy conspiracy theories ever created. His initial response? Something along the lines of “I don’t know anything about them except they want to protect kids from paedophiles and that’s good isn’t it?” In case you missed it, as reported in the Guardian and everywhere else, he was then pressed further about one of his mad tweets.

Later Guthrie asked Trump why he had retweeted a QAnon Twitter account which baselessly claimed that Joe Biden had had a Navy Seal team killed.

“That was a retweet! People can decide for themselves!” Trump said.

Guthrie responded: “I don’t get that. You’re the president, not someone’s crazy uncle.”

Mary Trump’s response to someone taking exception to this comment was priceless.

Anyway, suffice to say the conversation, as conversations on this subject always do, led to the fervent hope that this dangerous farce will soon be over.

Back home there was an email waiting for me from The Atlantic, to which I’ve recently subscribed. The email contained a link to this alarming June 2020 story about QAnon. “To look at QAnon is to see not just a conspiracy theory but the birth of a new religion.” Yikes.

The email also contained a reminder to take mental health breaks from the news. One of the suggestions for doing so was to watch Aaron Sorkin’s new film, The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix. Interesting.

Although I was a kid then, I am old enough to remember the appalling footage on the news of Chicago police officers beating anti-war protesters during the 1968 Democratic national convention. I also remember that seven of the “leaders” were subsequently put on trial, although for the life of me I couldn’t remember what the outcome of said trial was.

So I sat down with a bowl of popcorn last night and watched the film.

Holy fucking moly. The Atlantic describes the film as “the right story for the right moment.” and it definitely is. A reminder that fifty years ago there was another paranoid president and another corrupt attorney general who were more than happy to misuse the justice department to put down the “radical left”.

Seriously, watch this film.