All the Shocks

Side-by-side books ^ I set up at work yesterday

 Future Shock (1970), by Alvin Toffler:
Future shock is a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies that arises from a perception of "too much change in too short a period of time". [per Wikipedia]

Looking this up, I came across a discussion on Future Times from 2022: "We Live in the Future: Post things that give you future shock!
Replies included killer drones. I had no idea, though I'm not surprised:

"Switchblade drones the US is sending to Ukraine are designed to attack personnel and light vehicles--they are carried in a soldier's backpack and used to take out targets from above instantly" [via Forces.net]

. . . Also,
robots made of magnetic slime! (to repair electronics in tight places, and even to find magnetic things inside people's bodies--like accidentally swallowed mini-batteries).

One of the users had this sign-off quote:

"To know is essentially the same as not knowing.
The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain."

Overheard

Which reminds me of this conversation between coworkers [CW] that I overheard yesterday:

CW1: All that king shit, queen shit, is over. I'm so glad. Every time I turned on the TV, that's all there was.
Why do we care?
But she was their queen for seventy years, so...
Seventy years! We get a new president maybe every four years.

CW2: We're the only ones that do that. Every four years. No other country does that.

CW1: That's right.

CW2: The president of Ukraine, he's been in power a looooong time.

[Ed.: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine since May, 2019]

And Putin! Way longer! He's been there since Hitler!

[Ed.: Vladimir  Putin, b. 1952; president or p.m. of Russia since 1999]

His daddy handed it to him.

[Ed.: Putin's father only a conscript in the Soviet Navy; but Putin's grandfather, Spiridon Putin, was a personal cook to Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. (So, . . .maybe?) ]

CW 1: Imagine if we had Ronald Reagan for seventy years!

Me: Or Trump!

Coworkers: laugh and groan, nooooo!

I'm not pulling on that dangling thread, it's attached to a whole garment. I pretty much never correct my coworkers' facts--they're interwoven with and arise from a whole, coherent world view, same way mine are.

Also, geez--it's complicated! Like, is Ukraine a democracy?
(And are we, the United States?) What does that even mean?

Washington Post, "Is Ukraine a democracy?", (February 24, 2022)
Their verdict:

"Ukraine is a flawed democracy — though one with aspirations to improve its standing if it is allowed to break free of Russian meddling in its affairs."

And in this case, what difference would it make anyway? Given our level of power, "To know is essentially the same as not knowing".

What is useful? What is smart?
It depends, eh?

Biking home on the Greenway path, I passed this clever contraption: the shell of an air conditioner used as a fireplace—all set for the collapse of western civilization!

Facts do matter, yeah, of course, if we're citizens of the world.
But as citizens of our neighborhood, actions matter more:
Later, one of the coworkers came into the back and asked Ms Linens for a blanket for a customer.

She gave him one, and he said, "Naw, not like this. It's for a lady sleeping outside."

And he went and found a polyester sleeping bag.
____________

Brain Shocks

bink & Sophie share a birthday-- we went out for breakfast yesterday to celebrate.
It was the Breakfast of the Brain-Injured, since Sophie had a stroke six weeks ago.
LUCKILY her brain has already rerouted itself in significant ways, though her docs say she still has a year of road work ahead. But she can read again--whew!

bink brought her newly started Eyes-Closed Sketchbook of the Concussed and sketched me and Sophie.
Penny Cooper came along too, and she invited herself to stay as a sort of Visiting Nurse with Sophie, who accepted!

bink dropped me off at work, so I took the bus home.
Frankcolumbo had come along too---she was very interested in the police technology at the blighted bus stop. That pole with the coils around to Fc's right is a ... I don't know what you call it, but it's a mobile gunshot detector.
Oh--it's a ShotSpotter to "enable rapid response to gunfire, 80% of which is not reported to 911".

 

_____________
Happy Shock

The new cashier---what shall I call her here?

Hmmmm....
Samantha.

Samantha is now doing Housewares (sorting, cleaning,  pricing, displaying donated dishware, kitchen goods, knick knacks, etc.), along with cashiering.

This is fantastic--she's a scruffy-hip local girl, used to work in a vintage store, and has an eye for cool old stuff.

"This is my wheelhouse," she said.
Yay!
Also, she reads. She told me, "Your books are one of the reasons I applied here."

Samantha also said that a customer had told her they've started reading because of my BOOK's:
"They said they never read, but the books looked so good, they started buying them."

Happy shock!

Oh--hey, it's autumn equinox tonight.

HAPPY DARK & LIGHT, you all!!!