Nov 29, 2023
(Oh hey, mention of a transmutation circle. That's one more anime we have in common.)
It is quite a country we live in, isn't it? A while back in the HF discord, some of us were talking about that US urban-rural split. I was posting maps to show how over half of Oregon's population lives in just a tiny area in the northwest of the state, and although it dominates state politics, you don't have to drive that far east to start seeing the stars and bars.
The "all of these existed in the same country as East Eden" line really brought me back to Chapter 3 and the line about Super Fortresses and Spongebob coming from the same country. The way we live, our daily experiences, the way we see the world, we're not at all united as a country. At the same time, we are united as the greatest military power the world has ever known, and if that ever completely breaks down, things are going to get real bad, real fast. Hopefully, it won't come to sides.
Reading this chapter, I like to think Lucille is just being overly dramatic. The woman had a Bernie shirt. The man was playing a pro-union song. They're probably good people. But then again, media literacy being what it is in this country, maybe they didn't know the meaning of the shirt or the song.
(I've done the California north to south. Not fun. I-5 has a lot of lanes and very, very long straight sections. There's nothing to do except continue moving forward. Maybe there's the occasional slight turn, but it can lull you into a sense of boredom. You can't help but retreat into your own mind a bit while driving, and that's scary, because it slow your reaction times, and the reaction times of the drivers all around you. and because it's straight, the speed limit is very high, so everyone's moving very fast with these slow reaction times.)
