{"id":6338,"date":"2020-11-04T10:44:34","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T15:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=6338"},"modified":"2020-11-04T10:46:15","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T15:46:15","slug":"episode-157-future-looks-grim-maybe-i-will-have-to-keep-sending-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=6338","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 157   future  LOOKS GRIM&#8230;MAYBE I WILL HAVE TO KEEP SENDING  STORIES"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> EPISODE 157     FUTURE LOOKS GRIM\u2026MAYBE I WILL HAVE TO KEEP SENDING STORIES<br \/>\nalan skeoch Nov. 4, 2020<br \/>\n    Just when I believed our existence on planet earth could not get worse\u2026things did  get worse, far worse. The leader  of the western world  has  devolved into chaos.  Neighbour hating neighbour.  Violence on the horizon. My only answer is writing these stories.  Originally I planned  to write 14 stories to help us all through the two weeks of self-isolation in March.  Those two weeks became 8 months and the stories are now numbered Episode  157.   A lot of stories.  Trying to write one each day.   Two emergency visits to the Trillium hospital broke the sequence but I managed to keep the stories coming\u2026even a story about my amusing Morphine trips while huddled in pain at the base of my hospital bed\u2026then another when I had an anxiety attack in the empty emergency ward.<br \/>\n Covid 19 kept our lives in a kind of suspension between isolation and re-emerging into the  embrace of routine daily life.<br \/>\n   I kept the stories pouring out\u2026some trivial, some weighty, some beautiful as the fall season of 2020 was prolonged.<br \/>\nBut last night I thought story time would be over as life would return to normal.   Maybe we could  get back to figuring out how to handle Climate Change which  threatened our world with the Sixth Extinction. That was enough to worry about.<br \/>\nWhat a fool I was.  I came to  believe the pollsters and journalists and the dreamers and my friends\u2026I came to believe all would  be well if Trump was defeated  and  Americans began to let go of hate for one another and embrace the philosophy of Rodney King who  asked long ago, \u201cWhy can\u2019t we all get along?\u201d (while at he same time being beaten up).   Hope would  replace hell.   Now the reverse seems  to to be happening with hell replacing hope.<br \/>\nAs if to confirm this grim reality I turned by  chance to a short news release of the far right wing fringe Americans. Too many of these deadly serious Americans were strutting around with machine guns in their arms and revolvers strapped to their camouflaged pant legs.   Who were their enemies?   It was  a shock to realize that I was the enemy.  A middle of the road believer the good will triumph over evil.  A believer in gun control.<br \/>\nSo the stories will keep coming.<br \/>\nKeep a stiff upper lip folks.<br \/>\nalan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EPISODE 157 FUTURE LOOKS GRIM\u2026MAYBE I WILL HAVE TO KEEP SENDING STORIES alan skeoch Nov. 4, 2020 Just when I believed our existence on planet earth could not get worse\u2026things did get worse, far worse. The leader of the western world has devolved into chaos. Neighbour hating neighbour. Violence on the horizon. My only answer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}