Doom and Gloom

In the comments on my glib screed against the lack of priorities in today's media environment yesterday, smjayman made the following observation:

I suspect if much more of this goes on, we'll encounter riots and protests all over the globe. Everything will become more expensive, and eventually there will be food shortages. (Which is really one of the only important things, if you think about it. Food. Who cares if you can't drive up the street? If you can't eat, things are dire.) I figure it is a matter of when, not if, for us to see such things here in this country.

This is one of the things that flemco would get himself worked into a lather over, the coming social meltdown here in the US of A. I'm hardly Pollyanna, but, listen: we produce enough food here that we export it to just about every other industrialized nation, and a whole bunch that aren't. It's going to take something like the Yellowstone Caldera going off to push this country to the point where there are actual food shortages.

That said, there is plenty of potential for a spike in food prices to make a lot of desperate people more desperate, and plenty angry. There are a lot of causes for this, most of which piss me off and make me want to stab rich fuckers in nice suits (the fact that most of them probably work or vote for, the GOP is coincidental - the underlying issues are social and economic, and I think their stance is pretty comprehensively incorrect across the board):

- Farm subsidies, especially for the corn industry (paying people to not farm, or grow stuff that isn't needed; assume there is a thousand-word screed about Monsanto and commercial farming tucked in here, too)
- Systemic erosion and undermining of social programs that provide the basic necessities for folks in need, veterans, and so on. I don't think we are in any danger of becoming a welfare state or are anywhere near the actuality of Socialism (or even the bogus "socialism" trumpeted by the current crop of propagandists). It is my opinion that the function of government is to provide a framework within which their citizens can survive and prosper, and I think that too many people have forgotten this, if they've ever considered it at all.
- Racism. It's alive and well and thriving and pervasive. Just because we don't want it to exist means fuck-all.
- Income inequality. This is one part racism and eight parts political bullshit. The richest keep getting richer, and the rest of us keep getting fucked. Take a look at how well that's playing out for the rich fuckers who were in control in northern Africa (and now Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the middle east).

Aerosmith said "Eat the rich," but, frankly, they've probably got a worse nutritional profile than pen-raised, corn-fed beef.

Subconscious in overdrive

Notably weird dream sequences the last week, despite, until the last two nights, utterly miserable quality/quantity of sleep.
( weird and gross dream imagery below the cut. )

The other was just as weird, a bit more violent, but way less gross. I was sitting next to matociquala in a lawn chair (aside: for someone i've never actually met in person, she sure shows up in my dreams a lot) beneath some large shade trees on a grassy verge between the only street in a two-stoplight town that was, literally, two stoplights and a long, skinny park that occupied an island on the other side of the road from where we were. There were a couple of very large alligators in the water in front of us. unexpectedly, an enormously fat female 'gator breached out of the water towards eBear, who got out of the way, but her wooden rocking chair was crushed. the alligator was so fat that it couldn't roll back over, and eBear was about to smack it with a baseball bat, when I said "here, use this" and handed her an antique potato hook.

She raised it aloft, and smote the alligator a mighty blow... in the vulva. Yes, I know alligators are reptiles. yes, i know they have a cloaca. this one had rudimentary labia. obviously, it hurt about as much as you'd expect, since the beast convulsed, flipped into the air, and landed on its back in the water. I never figured out if it was able to right itself or not, because i woke up from the splash.