Hilton Head Island: Ordinary Men; broken; shot; written on water

I watched ORDINARY MEN, an extremely disturbing documentary on Netflix the other evening and highly recommend that you do, too.  In fact if I could I would make viewing compulsory for everyone everywhere.

The documentary is about how and why Germans in special units murdered more than a million Jews.  The Nazis murdered at least six times more than that, but the documentary is only about those police units.  It is disturbing for the footage showing some of the mass murders and because as the title states most of the murderers were not fanatical Nazis or sadistic killers.  They were ordinary men such as are in the majority of every society I have experienced in person or have read about.

I increasingly believe our extreme summer heat has broken.  Long before climate change, the Low Country was too damn hot in the summer.  The marsh has now been pleasant for several days.  I am routinely breakfasting on the screened porch and having a drink there or on the deck in the evening.  High temperatures have been in the high 70s and low 80s F/ mid-20s C.  It is no longer necessary to engage in outdoor activities only in the early morning.  I went for a walk today starting at noon and hardly broke a sweat.  Two weeks ago I would never have even considered a walk at noon.  The marsh is again becoming paradise.

I have two slightly sore arms.  Yesterday I biked four miles to a Walgreens and got the latest COVID and flu shots.  My appointment was at 10:30.  That, too, meant biking later in the day than I would have wanted to not long ago.  

I am not certain how many COVID shots I have had.  Four or maybe five.  Whatever the number I am not susceptible to conspiracy theories and will keep on getting them whenever advised to do so by the CDC.

My main site is back online.  That loud sound you hear is the world’s collective sigh of relief.

It was down for four days.  I was told by various members of the webhost’s support team that a server became corrupted—I expect by spending too much time on social media—and that all the data on it had to be transferred to another server.  In doing so they messed up the connection to mine. After several futile phone calls, eventually I reached a man named Roger who fixed it.  I thank him.

I have the site on an old laptop that I keep just for that purpose, but uploading it presents technical difficulties that are not of much interest.

There is a lot of me in that site.  Perhaps more than any other single place.  And I realize how dependent it is on factors beyond my control.  I have been thinking about what to do about that.

When I was in Fremantle, Australia, now more than twenty years ago during my fifth circumnavigation, some Buddhist monks went to the shore at low tide and drew elaborate and beautiful designs in the sand, knowing they would be erased in a few hours as the tide rose.