Geotubes for Epstein's Island
It's Epstein's world, we just mow the lawn.
(I figured out what was bothering me. I will post the audio of this essay tomorrow.)
Actions have consequences, even if you are rich.
And you live by the ocean.
Donald Trump’s greatest triumph has been the suspension of gravity for the richest of rich. A bitcoin hustler can get a pardon. An attacker on January 6 can get a job in the government that he attacked. A man can film himself shooting a mother in her car, disappear into the country, and never face the consequences for it. With enough money, you just float.
We all live on Epstein’s island these days. You are either a guest or you are the meal. Most of Donald Trump’s inner circle and most of his cabinet are stars of the Epstein files. At this point, this seems to be one of the most important requirements for the job. In other countries, inexplicable connections to Epstein have led to shame and disgrace. In America, it earns another bottle of this lovely red wine. We have a job for you in the government after you finish with that attractive…snack.
The badge of honor is placed on a golden ribbon and hung around his neck. The Epstein files set a template and a key to the Trump presidency. They want to show you, in lurid detail, how little a victim counts. Pam Bondi wouldn’t turn her head to look at the rape victims. Her arrogance is a promise; you will never get anything. Donald Trump has proven that he can rape a 12-year-old on Fifth Avenue and still win votes. Indeed, he will earn votes because he can.
On our island, a geotube has collapsed into the Atlantic. This collapse has imperiled the entire project, ensuring a cascade of expensive real estate, thoughtful home decor, and water features into the gray and implacable Atlantic. I can’t wait.
No Nantucketer should be the least bit surprised. The ocean wins. You can pour concrete, pound dozens of phone poles into the sand, and sue your neighbors, but the ocean, at high tide, will happily wash all of that lovely sand away, along with whatever debris gets dragged along with it. We have built sandcastles and watched everyone descend into three waves.
For me, the language of the SBPF has had the stink of the barnyard. The geotubes are a “temporary” structure. We’ll monitor the currents. We’ll bring in mitigation sand. And we’ll leave that nice little girl a tip on the dresser table after she finishes up.
The bad faith of the SBPF is no surprise. If anything, I am relieved that they feel the need to keep lying to us: I look forward to going out to breakfast with him. I would bet you 106,000 cubic yards of sand that the Trumpian Impunity will arise, like mold, from the papers. They won’t care what the non-club members have to say.
Today, we hear that some criminal cut the “temporary” geotube and sabotaged the project. The Trumpian beauty of this argument is that it has very little connection to what is happening. The “temporary” geotubes were never going to hold off the North Atlantic. In fact, the geotubes made the erosion worse. The beach has been hollowed so that the breakers come right up and smash against the tubes. I was out there, I saw it and took pictures. Nothing that man has created or, frankly, will create is going to hold the Atlantic at bay. But if you can blame a criminal, then you don’t have to admit to the central flaw in the whole project. “If it weren’t for those dame kids, it would have worked.”\
As with Epstein, so with SBPF. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for non-club members looking the other way. When Ashley Erisman and the rest of the Concom pointed out that the emperor had sharted in his diaper and weren’t keeping the agreement, four members of the selectboard cashiered them. The board was replaced with lackeys, lickspittles, and people who won’t count their tips until they are alone in the bathroom. Nothing about the experiment that SBPF has committed us to suggests that it needs to be expanded. But here we go, with another Town Meeting Article call for ten football fields of more geotubes.
In my memory, I remember Phil Bartlett thundering the table on Fincom for every override. I remember Desrosier and Gardner roasting lawyers at Selectboard meetings. But in the present political scene, the Selectboard has neutered most of the other boards with the right people voting the right way. If only we could get rid of town meetings and we could get those billionaires who flew to Epstein’s island to come to ours. We could get the good billionaires if we smile pretty.
As it is, town meetings are the second-to-last line of defense against the collusion and complicity of the billionaires. All of those famous loud mouths who stood up against those “good government” projects like SBPF stopped much of the stupidity in its tracks. At this point, the women with the microphones preserve some control over the tumescent wishes of rich men. Town government seems to be in a rush to serve them snacks, as Epstein did.
The women with the microphones stand only second to the true forces controlling the wishes of the rich and entitled. The Atlantic doesn’t care about your depreciation, your amortization, or your tax schedules. 105,000 square feet of sand is one trip to the store for the Atlantic. Both Epstein’s and Nantucket are islands and are subject to whatever the ocean shifts. No lawyers, no memos, no brochure is going to last long at the base of the Sconset cliffs. SBPF made sure of that.
Nantucket is only mentioned seventeen times in the Epstein files (so far). However, that has prevented the rich and their caretakers from drawing up a lesson. A rich man can do anything and not only not suffer consequences but earn honor and glory. They can act with impunity, and no person can stand up to it.
But the ocean can.
The Inn on Brant Point (Novella)
Milestone 1: The Boy Who Climbed the Windmill
Milestone 2: Remember
Milestone 3: Snitches Get Stitches
Milestone 4: Survival Ain’t Pretty
Milestone 5 Missing Julian
Chapter 2: He’s Missing
Chapter 4: A Word to the Wise
Chapter 5: Lollipop
Chapter 6: Truths without words
Chapter 7: Predators
Chapter 8: A Warning in the Night
Chapter 9: Good Man. Would Act
Some of my writing…
Barr’s For Life: A substack of essays and claptrap
The Boat at the End of Lover’s Lane
(NEW) The Girl Who Ran the Polpis Road
The Inn on Brant Point (Novella)
Her Lover on Monomoy Road. (Novella)
Her Father Came Home to Deacon’s Way (Novella)
Love Letters (Novella)
The Fisher King (Novella)
The Costs of Faith (Novella)
Winter: A Collection of Island Living Essays set between January and April 1.
The Boys: A collection of essays about my two sons, written as they grew.
Rolling in the Surf: Essays on Teaching.
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So, I read this essay by Dahlia Lithwick in Slate (subscription required, so no link) that made the case that law breaking and the destruction of the courts is the feature not the bug. that the point of the Epstein files is to illustrate how much they want to hurt others while protecting the rich. the argument was so pervasive that it begged to be applied to SBPF. Further the utter decimation of town government fit in neatly.
Interesting - googling SBPF has led me to their website with a LOT of creative writing. But excellent, and depressing, parallels to the Epstein f*ckery.