The mountain moving at Refuge Farm continues in a period of transition. The Writer’s Section worked on the Weather Report for this week, attempting to assess the aftermath of the climate crisis engagements at the G20 Meeting in Rome, and the COP26 UN deliberations which will not conclude until Friday. Dropping into the fray was the House passage of what they call the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill,” a large piece of legislation that will spend a Trillion dollars on some things they earnestly proclaim will fix roads and bridges.

It might do that, but the Fire Circle subsection laughed and asked if they were “shovel ready” like the last time we were asked to accept a huge bill without much in terms of specifics. DeMille looked at the piles of paper stacked up, ready to burn. That was part of the downsizing effort- there is paper that can go direct to the wheeled trash can, and other financial and real estate paperwork that properly needs incineration to ensure old mistakes and miscalculations are dispensed freely into the atmosphere.

Which is part of the general sense of unreality. Former President Obama was in Glasgow to give a barn-burner of a speech on the imminent catastrophe of Climate Change. It may be too late to salvage much from the conference, since teen-wonder Greta Thunberg has declared it a failure as a public relations exercise, and that the Global North needed to fork over more trillions of dollars to ensure equity for the Global South. What that equity actually is remains a little unclear, and polls this morning continue to indicate that the Climate Crisis is near the bottom of the long list of issues in current crisis.

The Interns have tired of parading the Footnote placards unless there is someone important to actually see them, and Loma waved languidly. “We all believe in Climate Change. That is what is does. But is the world going to end in nine or ten years? They have been saying that since I was a teenager, and it seems like a nice Piedmont Day again.”

“According to the Scientists, this pleasant morning is just weather. “Climate” is considered to be trends of at least thirty years. That puts this morning in the context of the last 10,950 days would have to be averaged for evidence of a trend in nice mornings.”

“Stop. We all agree that humans are contributing to whatever is going on, but with other natural factors and multiplied by ten thousand spins of the globe. The fact that most people in America prefer to worry about gas prices, supply chains, food production and inflation is one of the problems with Build Back Better. The Congress doesn’t seem able to even read the laws they are passing, so you can understand a bit of their confusion gets passed along.”

“Did you seen Energy Secretary Granholm laughing about gas prices? She said she didn’t have a magic wand to fix it.”

“That was good. The laughter seems to be part of crisis management now. I prefer Mr Biden telling us we don’t understand supply chains or how they work. I am glad I didn’t have to rely on him to get parts to fix a broken jet on deck in the North Arabian Sea with a supply chain involving little cargo airplanes and slow moving supply ships.”

“Veteran’s Day is still not until Thursday, so hold on to your just outrage. What it seems to mean is that people are tired of the panic. We understand that ‘fear’ is a critical component in the legislative process, and can be used to move complicated things along with minimal discussion. The problem is that every issue starts with that, and then the panic seems to edge over into everything else. There was Covid panic and the lockdowns, and people started to act out irrationally about being locked down, masked up or jabbed with vaccines that actually don’t meet the old definition of what they are. We are now told the unvaccinated are a danger to the vaccinated, who are also a threat unless they are masked, and everyone who has already been jabbed needs to get a booster.”

“Just part of the process. No one said an international pandemic was going to be easy.”

“True. But this one has some pretty unusual aspects that are making some people extraordinarily wealthy.”

“Just stop. We will get through this and things will get back to normal after we fire everyone who doesn’t get vaccinated after Christmas.”

“Christmas? We haven’t even started watching the Hallmark Channel yet.”

“There will be panic enough for that. Let’s get through Thanksgiving first.”

Splash rose dramatically from his stone and made a dramatic gesture. “I am prepared to panic about everything. I will not tire, and will not act out irrationally as a result of the constant barrage of panicky stuff.”

DeMille smiled. “I am glad you are retaining your right to rationally act out.” Rocket and Mel grinned and waved for more coffee. “Emergency rule is pretty cool,” he said. “All you have to do is keep everyone alert and prepared for change. The only problem with that is keeping the emergencies going. Otherwise, we might concentrate on individual issues, fix them, and then move on down the list.”

Splash sat down again, exhausted from his declaration of preparedness. “What I think we need now is a panic about panic. That should get everything settled down.”

Rocket turned on his rock and produced a battered sign, smaller than the ones we use for the Footnotes. There was a youthful man in the center with a confident smile and an air of optimism. The folds and tatters gave it a certain authenticity, though the nature of that must have passed a half century ago. He held it up, briefly, before sailing it over to smolder on the coals. “Don’t worry. Someone will be along presently with all the answers.”

Loma laughed. “Should we start to panic about that?”

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