The Cold War

"Naturally timid in all things that related to her own advancement, and especially so when without power or resource, her craving for pleasure was so strong that it was the one stay of her nature.  She would speak for that when silent on all else"--Sister Carrie

John's been renovating the sun room. (When he's finished, Father will have a downstairs shower!) Just now he's digging in the foundation to make it less mouse-friendly, with Moira and I toting the dirt and rocks to the back yard. There's now the sort of big, low space there where people would hide from the Nazis in a war movie.

I was thinking about the Cold War. Remember the ending of The Maltese Falcon?  Sam Spade hands Brigid over to the cops and they take her down the elevator (whose cage closes on her like prison bars), while Sam takes the stairs down.  Someone said the subtext is that they both go to hell, but Brigid goes there directly while Sam takes the longer route.

Anyway, I was thinking that applies to the post-1980s situation.  Russia went straight to hell in the early '90s with an economic downturn as severe as the Great Depression, while the US has finally reached hell this year.  The Cold War's real "winners," it's now clear, were the Chinese.  They not only reinvented communism, they've reinvented capitalism!

And Reagan didn't even end the Cold War, let alone winning it.  On the contrary, he turned it into something permanent that only needed a new enemy in the form of the Moslems.  His foreign policy decision with the greatest long-term importance was arguably reflagging the Kuwaiti oil tankers just to get in Iran's face and show that Washington was still regionally powerful in the wake of Iran-Contra. This was the first step on a road that led to the 1991 war with Iraq (which I for one consider to have been a contemptible exercise in "power without responsibility"), 9/11, and the ill-starred occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.  But I think I said that before...

Finally got my Cipralex and Robutrin prescriptions refilled.  I had to message my shrink and it was a bit complicated, so I went without for several days and my dreams got vivid again.

I just bought the Ebook of the first reprint of the manga version of Dragon Ball. (Just finished watching the first anime series--am I ready to take on Dragon Ball Z?)