When gas goes up a dime, it is hardly worth noting. It becomes burdensome only in the aggregate as when gas go up a dime every several weeks. However, I do think that gasoline is not overpriced at $3.15 a gallon. I subscribe to the notion that cheap gas means never having to think about alternatives to the infernal combustion engine.
I refuse to wring my hands or otherwise worry about it. Sweetie says that despite the problems, the internal combustion engine has been a good thing. Machines are worked to death, not horses or mules or dogs or oxen or people. Air pollution stinks and is unhealthy but streets filled with horse shit and urine were nasty and spread tetanus. A solution to this current crisis will occur, bringing with it new and different problems.
I have returned to reading In a Mirror Darkly and am in the chapter titled The Papal Schism. The century was plagued with by the Black Death, constant warfare, marauders, insecurity and the Inquisition. The Church was corrupt and heedless of the needs of the peasantry, concerned only with acquiring riches and the status quo. Royalty was concerned with acquiring territory and riches and succession of their own genes. Towns were concerned not with cooperation but rather with competition and the destruction of other towns. Families took care only of their own. In the case of the Plague, even family mattered not, only one's own survival. During the Papal Schism, there were two popes, one in France and one in Rome, and each described the practices of the other as illegal and heretical. "You can't excommunicate me! I excommunicate you!" Many were sure that the Apocalypse was just around the corner.
My point? Don't worry. Be happy.
Sweetie noticed this black/brown/milk/cow type snake yesterday,
crawling up the tree we were sitting under. It is amazing how he can go vertical! Can you see him? Here he is in a closer view.
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