{"id":33762,"date":"2024-10-21T19:09:02","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T23:09:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=33762"},"modified":"2024-10-22T14:25:38","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T18:25:38","slug":"the-next-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2024\/10\/the-next-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Spelling Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

I don’t understand how fascism, cultism, hate, prejudice and division is UP FOR A VOTE<\/em> in America in two weeks — and that the outcome is up in the air!<\/p>\r\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

We are in the clean-up stages of navigating the worst natural disaster (and we thought that ice storms were bad) of our 70-plus years.\u00a0 But our situation was mild compared to that of others in the Asheville area:\u00a0 yes, we lost power, data and communications for 16 days and drinking water for 21 days and counting, but our north-side-of-the-mountain location was spared the worst of the storm.<\/p>\r\n

The day Helene blew through (after we already had 12-15 inches of rain), I looked out our living room windows and thought, I’ve seen worse.\u00a0 That was the day before the day after, when we drove through the neighborhood on the windward side of our mountain only to run straight into the devastation and then struggle to back our way out of it.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/p>\r\n

We had no property damage ourselves other than a boatload of refrigerator\/freezer items and some rainwater that leaked through a poorly-caulked window.\u00a0 We were fortunate that our son found us a gas station where we could tank up and leave town, and that he and his family put us up (and put up with us!) in their Virginia home for 17 days until the City of Asheville was finally able to restore a semblance of water service.<\/p>\r\n

Now we are back home, cleaning out our fridges, waiting for our water to run clear and looking forward to one day cooking with it and drinking it again.\u00a0 The authorities claim that we can run our dishwasher on its high-temperature setting, and so we did — and my wife says our glassware and plates looked okay.\u00a0 If this happens to be my last blog post, you will know that the authorities and my wife were wrong.<\/p>\r\n

I originally thought I would forego taking showers until we had crystal-clear water, but the prospect of going to the YMCA… no thank you.\u00a0 These days, you never know when you might run into Donald Trump in a public shower, sizing you up so to speak as the subject\u00a0 of his next genitalia story<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

As it happens, Trump himself was here in Asheville yesterday, repeating the rumors that “FEMA has done a very poor job.”\u00a0 I had to make a wide circle around the Trump-created traffic jam<\/a> to visit the FEMA water tanker at the local Baptist church, where I filled several jugs for our neighbor and ourselves.\u00a0 Trump would rather serve bullshit to Western North Carolina than drinking water.<\/p>\r\n

Clearing the sediment in the reservoir so that the water can be treated seems to be a bigger challenge<\/a> than the City anticipated.\u00a0 I assume we will be on a boil-water notice for several more weeks, well past Election Day.\u00a0 The tragic part is, Trump sees all this and yet follows his basest instincts, turning our situation into yet another anti-government talking point so that he can get re-elected.<\/p>\r\n

\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

We don’t need another disaster — we need to vote against the undisciplined, unprincipled, unhinged reality-show provocateur called Trump.\u00a0 How can it be that this is even close?\u00a0 You can prevent the next storm by voting blue on November 5.\u00a0 I approve this message because things are chaotic enough for everyone already.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t understand how fascism, cultism, hate, prejudice and division is UP FOR A VOTE in America in two weeks — and that the outcome is up in the air! \u2022 \u2022 \u2022\u00a0 We are in the clean-up stages of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33762"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33798,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33762\/revisions\/33798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}