The flooding of Houston and thoughts about how it might be rebuilt take me back to The Long Descent, a book by John Michael Greer that I reviewed in 2010. Greer argues that civilizations decline not day-by-day, but in a sporadic series of disasters that they never quite rebuild from. A rising civilization meets its disasters head-on and rebuilds bigger and better, but a declining one can never manage to find the resources to maintain what it has. I’ll discuss what that has to do with us in “Houston, New Orleans, and the Long Descent”, which should be out before 9 EDT.
The other featured post is my protest against all the articles that talk about “Trump’s agenda”, as if fully-formed programs were waiting for congressional approval. But all I see is a shopping list of phrases like “tax reform” that have no clear meaning and won’t mean anything until Congress does the work to flesh them out. That’s not a presidential agenda. I make that case in “Trump has no agenda”, which should be out around 10 or so.
The weekly summary will cover the aftermath of Harvey, North Korea’s continuing weapons tests, developments in the Russia investigation, DACA, and a number of other things, before closing with Lisa Simpson’s union song. Look for it before noon.
The Weekly Sift 