Did not hear hurricane winds. I woke again at 3:30 AM. Too quiet. I fought off the thought that Helene had stalled just offshore and was working itself up into a 150-160 mph Category 5+, but managed to go back to sleep. My cats roused me at 6AM. A tiny bit of light from a morning that was trying to get underway, and no destruction. And no power. In my pre-coffee morning I tried to put them together: no destruction, no sign of any wind or rain, but no power.

With a gas burner I made coffee and ventured out looking for downed trees and shingles off the roof. A couple of large tree limbs but little else. I started to think I was still asleep having a good dream.

I located an old battery powered radio that miraculously worked and learned that at the last few minutes the eye which had experienced trouble maintaining itself had wobbled to the east about 55 miles east of me and south as it came ashore at Perry, Florida. Tallahassee, the state capital, was expecting devastation, but it was Perry to the southeast that took the hit.

The weather channel and the national TV networks are selling advertising. They play the hurricanes as if it is gladiators in the Roman colosseum fighting to the death against human opponents or lions. That Americans eat this up shows their enjoyment of violence. Increasingly, violence is America's entertainment. Consider the extreme violence of American movies, the extreme violence of video games, the extreme violence of politics with law used as a weapon even against Donald Trump while he was in office, the extreme violence of the US and Israel against the Palestinians, the provocation of Russia into war.

Americans are entertained by violence. That is why there are no peace movements as the world awaits the West's response to Putin's statement that missiles fired into Russia means world war.