(A designer watch from Señor Dali’s Dadaist phase. I am increasingly convinced it makes literal sense).

I had written a story this morning, of sorts, a surreal piece of the super real of today completely by free association. It had nothing in it like the sight at Willow last night of Barrister Jerry tucking into a pepper-corn New York Strip Steak, spinach and tempura-battered string beans, nor his insistence that TLB and the Lovely Jamie share his pineapple upside-down cake to finish the presentation. It was all a little confused, since there was a traffic accident being investigated out front by an impossibly young Arlington sworn officer, a woman with some directional challenges, and two sheepish young men who had just about trashed the front end of their father’s loaner Mercedes, which they had while his was in the shop.

Chanteuse Mary’s sister Pat and her Beaux stopped for one, since they had arrived from Kazakhstan the night before and were jetting out for Beijing this morning. They say Tashkent is pretty cool, and maybe we will all have to find out one of these days.

The Barrister said he was treating himself after a stressful day with an affirmational ending. I tasted a bite of the cake- it was superb, nutty and not at all strongly tropical. Kate Jansen outdid herself on that one. I thought that if Jerry had arrived earlier, he could have provided curb-side counsel to the two kids and the trashed Mercedes.

I wasn’t tempted by Willow -fare. I had some luncheon left-overs from the Shiraz Grocery store, part of my effort to get in touch with my Persian heritage. It was quite good, and worth the stop out there in McLean. I got the Wednesday Special to go, since it looked good: slow-simmered beef in some kind of rich brown sauce with lentils, Persian flat bread, a cucumber salad and some nice yoghurt sauce over basmati rice with a little grated cheese.

I had a taste of it for lunch and saved the rest for dinner, which I got to eventually. I dozed intermittently, and recall the last dream of the night as being one of taking leave. From whence and to where I did not know, but there was a sense of ineffable sadness. When I finally pried myself out in the morning I discovered a curious harvest of alarming things. I feel a bit like a Dali Dadaist watch, my ability to process it all melting down the side of the dining table where my laptop sits.

My Turkish journalist pal generated an account of the interior maneuvering of the Erdogan government, and the resurgence of the militantly secular Armed Forces. I have no idea where it is going- my sense, based on the conduct of the Egyptian military and their response to the Muslim Brotherhood, that after suffering repression at the hands of the Islamist-leaning Erdogan, they think they can play a decisive role as street disturbances by outraged Kurds is exacerbated by the situation just across the border.

State declared that it really wasn’t a big deal if the ISIS fighters took over Kobani, and captured the 10,000 Kurds defending the place. There is a plan in place to train 5,000 new Syrian troops to fight by next year. Math was never my strong point, but I had to scratch my head. The nature of our foreign policy continues to fill me with amazement.

(Turkish PM Erdogan).

I thought this pivotal sentence from the article was dramatically on point: “Turkey is going through a decade of polarization to an extent never seen before in its republican history. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policies have divided the public and his decision to put imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan at the center of the peace process created serious controversy.”

I think I know what Mr. Erdogan was doing- but the unintended consequences could bring an authoritarian military response independent of the elected government. Is that what he wants? Could Turkey lurch back to a secular military government? Would it be a good thing? Jeese- I am still mystified by the Arab Spring, and the Turks aren’t Arabs, last time I checked.

Perhaps I too am guilty of losing the strategic picture and worrying about the politics of all this more than the overseas threat, but forgive me.

Further south and east, it appears Yemen has fallen to Iranian-backed insurgents. Where the hell is Yemen?

(EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy)

I have no idea what is going on over there- but I am comforted that I have no idea what is going on here, either. We knew the EPA had joined the IRS in the amazing ability of normal computers to mysteriously crash their hard drives on the eave of being subpoenaed by the House. We knew they had pulled a Lois Lerner over the missing emails coordinating the rejection of the proposed gold and copper mine in the Bristol Bay watershed in Alaska. Administrator Gina McCarthy apparently is about to lose all her text messages about preparing to destroy the coal industry. Apparently the Administrator thought they did not constitute “electronic communication” which is covered by the Federal Records Act.

I heard they are thinking about hiring a couple lawyers over there. I will ask Barrister Jerry about that, next time I see him.

Then there is that plague thing. They keep telling us to relax, and a country with an extraordinary health care system like ours can’t have the same problems as the impoverished countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone. It is still giving me the willies, though. Two more shoes dropped this morning, and there were quite of pile of them already next to the bed: there are ominous reports of Ebola-like symptoms in LA. Then, out of Texas was the report of Ebola-like symptoms presenting in a cop who responded to the Duncan apartment. The amplifying context for how easily this thing is transmitted is the report that the Spanish nurse who got it apparently just touched her face- once- with the gloves used on a patient.

This is apparently a little more easily transmitted than our competent professionals at the CDC were letting on.

And then there is the matter of the young man in South Saint Louis with the Ruger 9mm “sandwich.” With two casual dining pals, he apparently fired three cold cuts at an off-duty police officer during an impromptu jog, prompting an armed and lethal response from the officer. Yes, of course rioting and looting ensued by people who knew none of them.

I am not sure what other response to injustice can be imagined any more.

I feel quite literally that we are sleep-walking through a surreal landscape. I think a road trip to America is in order to clear my head, and make the watches stop melting down. I am thinking that loopy Key West, a known alternate universe all its own, might be exactly what the doctor ordered, gloves or no gloves.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303