Last New Moon of the Year Edition, December 2025
I met a neighbor the other day while walking through the new part of town where we now live. A retired Forest ranger who has lived and worked all over the country during his career, the subject eventually turned to grizzly bears, which we had encountered at fairly close range, he in Alaska and I in Montana. He said the grizzly along the coast are little threat to humans because they’re so well fed. Those inland where resources are scarcer are much more aggressive and territorial in competing for food. Creatures in their territory, including people, can suffer that aggression. So, beware.
The correlation we might make with human behavior is only partly applicable, since hungry humans no doubt are prone to aggressive behavior but the truly prosperous among us ironically are even more hostile to any and all intrusions on their turf. No less a mega than mighty Elon Musk has declared empathy to be the weakness of the West, a malady he never suffered. Is it any wonder the rich won’t pay their taxes?
They are appalled we want to tax their wealth and give it to the poor so they can pay their rent and feed their families, and maybe see a doctor to mend their broken bones. The rich call funding the safety net redistribution of wealth, but money flows from the poor to the wealthy. That’s where all those dollars come from and the wonderful thing about the destitute is if you give them more money, they’ll spend it on necessities so the rich will get it all back anyway. They just have to work a little harder for it. Too bad.
The trouble with stuff, as George Carlin advised, is once you have it, you need a place to keep it. Then you have to protect it in case someone wants to take it from you. Elon and his ilk have lots and lots of stuff. In their fever dream, they fear we want to take it from them. They spend a lot of time and effort finding grandly gated places to keep it and a whole lot more keeping it safe from our grubby hands. Security, you know.
You’d guess they might think twice about hoarding all that stuff, even tone it down a little and fly under the radar for a while. But the truth is acquisition is intoxicating. The only thing Elon and the rest of the thriving 1/10th of one percent truly want is more. More and more. Obtaining it is what they’re especially good at and it makes them if not necessarily happy then at least entitled to do with it whatever the hell they please, which they do with alacrity. If it seems they’re lording it over you, well, duh!
Many the currencies that float their boat, money and power being foremost, but what matters above all is being among the privileged class that decides things. Being in charge is the milk and honey of money. They are elite, the best of their kind, human beings of which the rest of us are lesser considerations in life’s decision tree. It’s not that we don’t matter; rather, we matter to the degree that advances the interests of the deciders. They know their place and they know ours. How comfortable the crown.
It’s the holiday season after all, despite this rant about the time of the kleptocrats. So, what kinda stuff are you after this year? Maybe a Tesla? Please NOT! Perhaps no longer hip those electric beasts, although they still string the streets like ornaments to our collective stupidity, as if we can ignore that the CEO of their manufacture is in fact the pollution of greater consequence than the carbon he claims to scrub.
This last newsletter of 2025 is stained with the residue of the year we’ve just lived through, one of such unadulterated abuse of the least among us (and nearly everyone else, as well) by the wealthiest and most powerful. It’s open season on fairness and decency, a shameless trophy hunt by the big guns shooting willy-nilly from elevated blinds in the forest of their wealth, a blazing, shameless declaration of privilege and rank by people determined to excise and dispose of anyone who can’t afford cover.
Unless you make stuff yourself, gift giving means gift purchasing. What to do about it without further enriching the elite? My savvy spouse has always said that shopping someday will all be one big store, and perhaps that day has arrived. Jeff Bezos, lofty proprietor of the jungle-like Amazon, will gladly sell you damned near anything your heart desires. Let’s make it as little as possible, shall we? Save the big buys for your local merchants while some few of them still exist. They are an endangered species who deserve your support. Happy the holidays and better the new year, let us hope!