The quakes are increasing in both frequency and size along the Rim. The news from all over the world is becoming more and more awful. No-one seems to be connecting the dots publicly, which is something of a concern because if enough people connected the dots "out loud" we might have a better chance of surviving what is coming.

I asked my roommate last night what he would do if the power grid went down-permanently.

He did not get it at all, and talked about using his car battery until it came back up.

I think the infrastructure all over the world is crumbling, and I am totally angry that pissants like my ex, my former employers, and those whom my father called outlanders are obstructing any effort to prepare.

Been there, done that. I can tell you when and how it began, I can tell you what is going to happen. Been there, done that, so many times. This was supposed to be a good and peaceful life for me and mine; instead we are scattered and face the coming horror without the comfort of trusted companions.

The ex used to say that he wanted to be at ground zero when the bomb went off. Knowing what I do about radiation sickness, I used to hope that for him too, since if he survived the initial blast while I was still chained to him, I would have to take care of him.

Trust me, you have to REALLY love someone to nurse them through death by radiation sickness.

Then the Cold War 'ended' and he stopped talking about ground zero. We divorced in '99 and since then I have spent too much time praying for the strength not to hope that he is in the wrong place at the right time, and thus suffers terribly before death.

I come from a warrior people, I come from a people that KNOWS it is better to die free than to live in dishonour.

We don't love war, but we recognize that there truly are times one MUST pick up a hard weapon, and fight for home and hearth.

Every life I have lived has been a training ground for making hard choices in times of war. I have walked all the days of this life in the total horror of knowing I would have to make some of those choices to save the lives of my people.

I have struggled to arrange my life so as to preclude the making of some of those hardest ones; worked with my every breath to make those choices un-necessary.

Still it comes.

A man once said, and I paraphrase, that prudence overdone becomes cowardice.

It could have been so different, but petty bullies unchecked WILL grow in their capacity to inflict suffering as the bully ever strives to prove his or her power.

I work in the same room as an Iranian girl. She is very nearly insufferable in her arrogance, yet I watch her, and she could be such a nice person.

But as things hot up between Iran and the rest of the world, her rudeness increases; remembering lives lived in Persia, how savage Persians can be in victory OR desperation, I know another hard choice will have to be made that some will record in history as our brutality. I hurt for the commander who will have to make that choice; I pray that he will remember who and what these people are; I pray that he will remember to open his heart to God.

It could have been so different, but petty bullies WILL have their wars...

Meanwhile, those of us who have been trying to remind the rest that Earth is a geophysically unstable planet are in a dead-on panic, myself included.

Damn you Crusty, damn you for what you think you have done to my house. May you live long enough to see with living and knowing eyes your utter defeat.