Cover Your Assignments

Before I completely wrap this up, I'll leave a few more observations.

"Wall Street 2" does look like a remake of "Working Girl," doesn't it, main characters being about the same, all of them talking heads on a stick?

What does green really mean? Walking Lahinch or driving an electric car?

It doesn't matter who's in charge, somebody still has to do the work.

If you put on the uniform, you commit to the task the uniform requires, taking the consequences in stride.

It's not always fun to be alive but at least you have a choice of emotions to exercise. I choose to be glad to be alive, pains and aches a temporary diversion.

It takes a lot of support to keep a team undistracted while planning and implementing deep space missions.

Can you manage to maximise discount points in equipment/support purchases and make sure projects complete within narrow constraints without stirring a feather or making your presence felt to those who don't want to know you're there for them?

Can you toot your horn by not making a sound?

Where are negotiations best made - the golf course or the office putting green?

How do you define species preservation - the LHC, the motorway network, crop fertilisation, mass inoculation, or mandatory education?

I focus on clearing a path whereby a future version of ourselves finds many ways to make living spaces across the universe as we know it, learning to "share the road" (appropriate to the situation, of course).

Won't you join me?

Note the leadership changes in places like Brasil, North Korea and the United States. What does the unrest in Ecuador and the EU tell us? Who owns the gold controls seed production, water rights and, thus, food prices.

Look to the future with gladness and a smile on your face. The wealth of difference will astound your friends and family.

Whose Sari Now?

Orange camo outfit on the lower deck and orange sari on the upper.

Native American dress in the streets and dancing on the field.

Never give up. Never surrender.

Some days the defenders win, offensive units not fully united as one.

How much Moore can you catch? How many groups can you thank in one invocation? When the name Reveiz is a better tackler than a kicker (has a Reveiz missed five in a row of anything?), then you Poole your resources, rest your aching muscles, remember you're an academic student as well as an athlete and represent yourself well.

After watching the new faces of the marching band, I rest assured that our planet's future rests comfortably in the hands of the next generation, as competent, inexperienced and young as it is.

We old fogeys had our moment to shine. Our days are tarnished, covered with the dents and dings of protecting ourselves from ourselves. Let us step aside and serve as protective guides.

We will not live forever. Our vanity, our attempts at pretending to extend our youth, what do they accomplish? Can we celebrate the wisdom and looks of old age while sharing the spotlight with the younger we're training to take over the world while they grow old, too?

I am not perfect. I am the example of myself to myself who looks down upon those who use plastic surgery and other superficial tricks to make themselves look younger than they are.

I am not wise. I simply have a bunch of experiences and knowledge at my discretion to reference when I don't understand what I seem to perceive.

While moving aside to help discover the forms/shapes we'll need to take to discover new worlds, I pass the last pages of the Book of the Future [of this world] to those who want to discover it for themselves.

I cannot be sensitive to the needs, wants, desires and demands of seven billion people while crafting a new type of "people" who will populate the solar system and galaxy in the trillions (using 3D printers and beams of energy to replicate quickly, for example (sound familiar?)).

The resources of the local environment are all we have. Wisely learn what they are and you'll use them wisely.

My "children" will make planetary conquests* look like collecting a bag of marbles.

Time to close this blog and open a new window on unfamiliar territory.

= = =
* not a carefully thought-out word. Is there any way to make benign contact with the unknown? Guess we're going to find out!

I Ain't No Saint

Memories: Popeye, Henry, and Katzenhammer Kids.

But then there was Mandy again at Bubba's, along with a North Jackson cheerleader and Auburn fans. And DeRhonda at Hampton. And Chrissy V at Applebees. From Pigeon Forge who can't help but say kite like keight, no thanks to Va boyfriend. And Jenna whose thermostat and fuel pump said, "Whoa!," for $100 (who only took 20 - glad he's family while she's working on nursing degree from Pelississippi State(sp?)). From Wears Valley and boyfriend in Madisonville.

What about the Mr. Digg truck and the folks whose niece plays futbol/soccer for UT?

What of Sonic, RFCU, car wash, Chris Berman losing weight, Vanna looking younger everyday (like Vivian of DOOL), Beckham's salaried grassy kicks, pleasing the people in Persia, healthcare hijinks, butchered English (the language, not the people), butchered Iranian (the people, not the language) Samuel Adams brewing, Jaegermeister, Goldschlager, Maker's Maker and top shelf Long Island teas?

Why does digitised music seem to skip a beat? What has the IBEW local done for you lately? Where are the smiles? Why do penguins taste like headless delights to foxes? Why does a bear bear zucchini/cougrette, regardless of Punctuation Day?

Putin, you da man for seeing Arctic solution where walruses fear to tread water. Obama and Wen weigh serious issues heavy, like, man. Merkel needs to rein in a presidential presentation getting out of hand. Netanyahu, what the hell are you thinking? Where's Menachim Begin (atrocious spelling aside) when you need him?

I am a very patient man when I need to be, jovially clownish most of the time. BUT if you ... well... if you decide that you're somehow outside the social system, then I have no choice but to rely on colleagues to bring you back to reality with no mercy.

See, I know the bare facts. It makes me grumpy when I lack adequate sleep, and when I'm grumpy, I'm sleepy, and like the rest of the out-of-work seven dwarves, I ain't pleasant when the sheep dip hits the phantasmagoric.

Play the fool and they don't know realism from Cathy Pellum or Aimee from her sheared off fingertip at Cuts By Us.

I am a happy man, well aware of what we'll do next in the name of advancing our species off this planet despite diversions that distract our discourses on new discoveries detailing data dotting lines ducking responsibilities unnecessarily necessitated disgustingly - like Alaskan marriage prospects, the odds are good but the goods are odd but so what?

Experts can also provide you with timely advice but where is an expert when the shots hit the fan?

Create content before you consume. Like having sexual relations with your loved one instead of pleasuring yourself in solo tones (NSFW: Or in other words, put masturbation last because it decreaseases your enrgy ahead of time [sic: re: whole phrase].)

Intermission

While the carpets are rolled up and floors swept, clearing the studio for the next production, let's look at what just happened.

Pink Floyd completed their moneylosing tour of "The Wall." David Lynch passed off "Eraserhead" as abstract art.

Laurie Anderson hit the charts with pop music.

Trees branched.

The Soviet Union met Ronald Reagan.

Chlorophyll shrank from view and leaves fell.

Afghanistan resisted another heartless, goalless invasion.

Japan enjoyed a lost decade.

Pinochet made his point.

More people lived and died than ever before.

The space shuttle, Mir, and Spacelab passed by.

Looks like the cleaning crew wants to turn off the lights. Time for me to stop recording thanks on this planet for an unspecified time and reconnect with my associates who have an offworld future to decide.

Events on this planet are back under automated control.

Will you recognise your children after their transformation to space-ready travelers? The first to volunteer will receive a heroic reception - the rest will step in line and follow orders well.

Time to suit up!

Felt Pads, Wires, and Fjords of the Lies

What do Wynton Marsalis and Chet Atkins have in common?  What about the new menu at Beauregard's and the regard for New Woman political candidates?

Or the movies "God Forgives, I Don't," "Bullets, Blood and a Fistful," and "The Point Men"; or the shows "Glee" and "The Choir: Unsung Town"?

Who do you like better: Eileen Ivers or Natalie MacMaster?  Claire Lynch or Rhonda Vincent?

Spiders slowly turn our cathedral-ceilinged living room into a crisscrossed, dustcollecting magical piano or harp in the sky.

Should you feed woodpeckers by letting mud-daubing wasps nest on the side of your house?

To be alive in this time (when I, as I am, can be alive in no other) is a question I cannot answer.

Are leaders leaders because of the luck of their birthday?  Are birthdays real?

Do people have a real sense of humour or do they only laugh the way they're socially-programmed to react?

Finding new ways to insightfully poke fun at what we adults call progress in order to make children think for themselves what progress will be called when they're grown up is more difficult than my trainers told me they'd be.

Amazingly we have, for the most part, the ability to take our time and consider the repercussions of our actions and the locaglobal effect on the future of this moment but we rarely do.  We enjoy being ourselves too much in the moment to consider others in moments we may or may not spend with them.

I ought to know.  I cheer for the hare more often than for the tortoise.

Therefore, let us consider the species as a momentary occurrence.

We will not live as long as a star.  We can harvest starpower but not the star's power.

What am I doing today for which I want to remember myself tomorrow?

What is happening in this moment that does not include an identity known as me to which I gladly contribute anonymously?

Can the United States become a national multiparty political system?  Can we have a permanent Comedy Party headed by the likes of the Paulsens/Colberts of the humour scene, a permanent Independent Party headed by the Palins of the nontraditional scene, and the usual extreme right/left parties trying to splinter the middle class - every one of them pulling a significant number of votes during locanational elections?

If we can't be nonpartisan, can we be a real plurality, requiring real cooperation to accomplish national goals?

Oh, wait, in this parallel universe blog, nations and corporations do not exist, being merely labels for temporary states of existence.

Be concerned that you can poke fun at your former rival/enemy without repercussion because it means the new rival/enemy taking the old one's place may be worse, less easy to convince, more willing to act unilaterally and/or more subtle in its dominance/manipulation of you.

This is such a small planet, a tiny fraction of the active universe.  To rule it was a goal for our species the previous xxxx thousand years and now that it's no longer a limiting factor, ruling it feels like being a big fish in a small pond.

Even so, we live nowhere else (yet).  However, I [(have thought/acted)(will think/act)] as if we already populate a wider expanse in our galaxy than one or two rocks stuck circulating around a star.

I have pointed my microtelescope at this planet for too many months now.  Time to look back out at the stars and ponder a future greater than what we've lived so far.

Does string theory have a place in a future outside the spider webs of my house?  Hmm...

Unpaid Gratitude

A thanks to those who gave up much of their personal time in order to fix what they had not broken (but may have participated in its decline).

In three years or so, with the world financial stability shifting and with its shift, drifting, we may have forgotten that wealth redistribution is the game's engine.

Like the frog said, it's never easy being green and so we say goodbye to the last of the greenbacks and hello to the smorgasbord of currency controls.

Economic recovery is a thankless job but those who know tip their hats, nod their heads and raise a hurrah to the people who dedicated themselves to plugging leaks in the sinking ship of the global economy, even if the rudder was unattended, leaving us to drift to new shores and ready for new ventures.

Thanks to Keith at Brix (formerly Luciano), Becky at Marshall's who remembers the old McClellan's and Montgomery Ward stores downtown.

Final note: Be careful letting ethnic hatred get out of hand - good to relieve some of the valve pressure but you don't want to cause an Oriental explosion, do you?  Nuclear trigger fingers get itchy for all the wrong reasons.

Sassafras and Deer Heads

In what way is your body a temple?  Do your tattoos tell a whole story?

A group of scientifically-minded friends of mine gave up on their antigravity machine.  Instead, they are taking recent data collected from a very expensive instrument to attempt to build an antimass machine.

They had successfully gotten their antigravity machine to work but it kept pushing away Earth and attracting the Moon, messing with tides and centripetal storm forces, rather than allowing my friends to float freely wherever they wished to go.

To know I do not exist is not an easy task to maintain, pretending as I do to participate in the mass hypnosis we call our culture of subcultures.  However, I cannot get to where being nonexistent is without giving up the fun of the hypnosis.

In any case, 'tis fun to have fun with the truth in plain view of those who do not know the truth and wouldn't know how to handle the truth so let them keep pretending and I'll play along 'cause I'm well-trained and easy to get along with in these conditions.

Meanwhile, the seduction of our youth in the game of who gets to claim the greatest influence of them moves forward.

Cycles within cycles neverending.

Imagine, for the sake of hypothesis, an extraterrestrial existence (EE) that encounters Earth.  The EE doesn't need our resources, finds our definition of intelligence/enlightenment hardly worth considering any different than the survival techniques developed by the other states of energy we call forms of life and thus puts us down as just another planetary example of how the universe swirls up little eddies of different but uninteresting quanta.

Perhaps you've already imagined or read of others' imaginations to that effect.

Point being we are not the center of our known universe, let alone the center of the sum total of existence of the states of energy as we know them now.

So far this morning, a chipmunk and granddaddy longlegs have darted under my chair and a hummingbird has buzzed my ears, the nearby background filled with trees, insects and chirping birds.  No more sound of private aeroplanes in the sky - a lost sound of independence.

If TV channels give way to Internet apps, what becomes of independent thinkers who want no gated communities of the thought process blocking their meandering wonderment?

And no, capitalism does not cause poverty.  The ways people quench their hunger vary considerably.  Personalities take up space comfortably in a large range of sizes.  Some are satisfied with a piece of bread and some are not satisfied with a whole planet of wheat fields and bakeries.

Labels are easy to apply and not so easy to remove.  Do not confuse capitalism and communism as distinct features of how we live.  We barter our way through life - always have and always will.  How we barter is a matter of changing tastes and survival techniques.  Our skill sets seem to change but don't - we use our bodies and the stuff around us to transform ourselves constantly.

Do you force, coerce and/or encourage those around you to increase their activity, whether "physical" or "mental," in order to increase the means of barter for you and those who you consider your personal friends, colleagues, associates and family?  How do you define the increase?: "improved productivity," "pleasing God in more ways everyday," "serving the people more efficiently," "making me richer in your honour"?

How you wish to present the emperor's new clothes to others is up to you but always, always, always be aware that not everyone is fooled.

These are ancient times.  We still live like barbarians, slaughtering each other to get ahead, cutting off deer heads to claim superiourity, and boiling sassafras roots to cure ills we know little about.

Never assume this is the age to end all ages.  Tens of hundreds of thousands of years will we continue to carve niches to call our own.

As we move into the moment when we discover we are not the center of the universe, let us pause to consider the points of view of extraterrestrial existence that knows us and the EE that doesn't.  When we successfully see those views (and we never completely will, any more than we completely know another person), we'll see ourselves in a brighter light, too.

Is our species prepared to realign its goals to show we are a totally cooperative, non self-centered species rather than a warring, cannibalistic species?

Words are meaningless, ultimately.  Thoughts are fleeting fantasies with no connection to reality.

Are you ready to have everything you know - all the plants, animals, buildings, social networks and history - change in what will feel like an instant but actually taken a longer time than you'll comparatively remember?

I do not exist.  My name and face have no place, being only a placeholder, a mirage, an image representing states of energy.

I do not own the world but this world is mine to give away or save as I please.  I choose to save the world because, although I find so much that is wrong with the way we treat one another and the other forms of life on this planet, there is so much more that is right about us and the way states of energy like us have found to exist.

How will you react when you find we are not alone?  Will you form a defensive posture?  Will you feel guilty?  Will you welcome all the unknowns, including the benign "virus" that could reconfigure all of life as we know it?  Would you accept that "alien" states of energy have flowed through us since the beginning of time, that there was never a moment we were not all part of the same universe-within-a-universe-outside-a-universe-within-...?

And if thinking was not part of what we'll do when we encounter that which we did not consciously know existed before?

What if we find our daily lives change very little by new information?  Will we feel lesser or greater, better or worse, because we aren't the only things wiggling about in space?

We want the familiar.  We want to interact the way we've been taught to interact through our socially-acceptable upbringing (according to local subcultural standards, of course), even if our interaction is considered counter- or antisocial.

These words do not exist and you might be able to see that it is so/not so.

States of energy influencing other states of energy, ad infinitum, with no end in sight.

We want levels of influence to keep increasing in order to provide our children bigger goals than the ones we accomplished in our finite lives.

What if the levels our children seek are so outside our realm of understanding we'll never appreciate what they're trying to accomplish while we're alive?

They already are.

Waiting For A Phone Call

While waiting to hear back from Euro Tech about getting my 325i serviced due to a crunching sound I can't identify, I ponder the universe and movies like "Reuben, Reuben," "Her Alibi," "Silent Movie," "Monks: The Transatlantic Flashback," and "Airplane!".

Are you Accidental, Occidental, Oriental or Confidential?

My wife and I like to listen to books on tape/CD during long automobile-based trips.  Lately, we listened to the 12-disc audio set of "A Tale of Two Cities," a sad but hopeful, triumphant but tragic story of regular lives caught in unusual times.

The narrator's voice, properly English, reminded me of the voice behind "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

In some ways, the stories are all the same: X vs. Y, taking Z into account.

Masks stacked up ready for charades.

I read war books as a child in order to study how to prevent them as an adult.

I read business philosophy books in order to study how unphilosophical we really are.

And always in the background, the steady flow of life.

I do not own the world.  The universe is but a parlor game of illusions.

These words do not exist, coming as they do out of electronic bits.

All is all.  And yet all is not as it appears.

People want a narrative, unevenly paced, exciting, tense, loving, romantic, deeply layered yet easy to understand, never sure about the ending but assured the ending indeed will occur assuredly.

Tom Swiftian in adverbial niceties.

Can a blog tell you what you cannot see in a blog?

Can the truth tell lies?

My only goal, despite appearances, is to set one word down after another to give the people what they want in batches of subcultural narratives tied into one big story about how we'll live to see another day in this forum or another form, for 'im or 'er.

Lift the blinders, unloose the leashes, release the chains, restore sanity where intolerable insanity has no place and get life as we know it moving off this planet toward the endless horizon of space in which our new forms of life will prosper in our stead.

We'll be like Sydney Carton and the young woman standing at the guillotine, giving our lives for others who will remember us in their own way.  Hopefully, our lives will end less violently but our lives will end all the same, making a little bit of room for the next lives here and yet to be.

Thus one generation thinks it lives for itself while living for all following generations, instead.

We live in this moment together, seven billion personal reasons to call this moment one's own.  Can we not see we live for one purpose only?: to ensure the states of energy we call ourselves find similarity in moments yet to be?

The religions of the world belong to all of us, whether we belong to them or not.  Our hobbies, our jobs, our businesses, our governments - all of them enhance our lives.

It is time to find out what the Book of the Future says we'll be doing in a few years hence.  Time to show you/me/us that trends trend up and trends trend down, with new trends trading places with old trends and old trends mixing with older trends to become new old-fashioned out-of-fashion fashionable trendlines.

Seven billion people are all members of the world government.  Globalisation is what our species has always been about.  Sure, we'd like superheroes to come flying in to save us from the less tolerable members of our species nearby but we've got ourselves to rescue ourselves from ourselves.

Use the power of the majority to protect the beliefs of the minorities because we're all part of one minority or another.

Keep laughing 'cause none of us get out of here alive.

From lampposts to falling axe blades...

...the French know a thing or two about revolutionary reactions:

...the tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash!—A head is held up, and the knitting-women who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One.

The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. Crash!—And the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their Work, count Two.

The supposed Evremonde [Sydney Carton] descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him.

"But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by Heaven."

"Or you to me," says Sydney Carton. "Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object."

"I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid."

"They will be rapid. Fear not!"

The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom.

"Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me—just a little."

"Tell me what it is."

"I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a farmer's house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate—for I cannot write—and if I could, how should I tell her! It is better as it is."

"Yes, yes: better as it is."

"What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so much support, is this:—If the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time: she may even live to be old."

"What then, my gentle sister?"

"Do you think:" the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble: "that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?"

"It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there."

"You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment come?"

"Yes."

She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him—is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three.

---

They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.

One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe—a woman—had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these:

"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out.

"I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward.

"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both.

"I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place—then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement—and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice.

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." 

[From the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/98/98-h/98-h.htm]

WARNING: Some experts believe they are correct

A child asked me if it made sense that the proponents of Randian philosophy (the philosophy in summary: those who work hard for a living deserve to keep their earnings without having to support others) should work in an institute that siphons off money from those who work hard for a living.  In additional irony, the child asked, should those Randian com/proponents be allowed to be quoted saying that although they live off others' earnings, they feel that those who work hard for themselves should be put up on pedestals and not harassed for contributions to those who do not work for themselves.

I regret I had but one answer to give that child: we live in the age of entitlement, so, if you work, get used to carrying a harness for the other 50% who don't.

Moo-o-o-o-o.

A consultant approached me about the sensitive subject of Middle East Peace, a euphemism for the "Israel" situation that perplexes the Arab world.  The consultant asked what should be done about the settlement issue.

Seeing as how the developers do not want to stop building settlements, I suggested to the consultant (for grins) to recommend the Randian method - the settlements should be sold to the highest bidders throughout the world, regardless of race, gender, nationality, political affiliation, favourite wrestler or hated football rival.

As I walked away, I overheard the consultant talking to his banking friends in the Grand Caymans.  Sounds like the usual route to peace - undisguised bribery - will win the day.

Do we know what shapes us?  My mother told me a story about her childhood.

In primary school one year, my mother and her classmates were supposed to memorise a complex set of dance routines composed of intertwining circles probably reminiscent of reels or perhaps country, square or round dancing form.

One day that year, a substitute teacher, of stern disciplinary bent, told my mother and the other students that the teacher was stepping out of the room for a while and strictly forbade any students from getting up out of their seats while the teacher was gone.

My mother, not the misbehaving sort, decided it was a good opportunity to practice the complex dances with her classmates so she encouraged them to get up and practice their steps.

The teacher returned, saw what looked to her like children out of control, and punished the whole class by slapping every student on the palm of the hand with a heavy ruler.

My grandfather was displeased that a teacher would use a heavy stick on young people, which could have permanently damaged or broken bones and ligaments in the children's hands.  My mother never saw the teacher afterward.

However, my mother never misbehaved in school again, later graduating as valedictorian of her senior class.

I asked my mother if she thought she should consider the substitute teacher the primary reason for my mother's good grades and thus one of my mother's top inspirations for becoming valedictorian.

My mother did not think so.

However, my mother, as a teacher herself (now retired), has seen through the years many of her former first grade students thank her for being the teacher that made the most significant difference in their lives because she kept her class and students under control in order to optimise the learning environment.

Do you see the purpose you serve, the influence you have upon others?  I doubt many of us do, because we rarely understand the changing states of energy around us in the moment, let alone the changes we latently cause years later.

And speaking of campaigns...

Was it that long ago that my seventh great-grandfather, in and amongst his many adventures, marched through the hills and valleys to rightfully claim home rule?  Were he and his comrades not one of the original inspirations for the likes of the Million Man March?:

Overmountain Men March

Without our ancestors, we wouldn't be here, talking about whatever we want to talk about whenever we feel like talking.

'Tis great to be remembered, should we so choose.  We create the past in this fleeting moment.  What past are you creating right now for your descendants to remember fondly later on?

From The Department of Consistent Inconsistencies

Sad news for my campaign finance officer, who had connected a tap into the international monetary exchange system from which he had siphoned off trillions, and the many volunteers around the country who had organised launches to my presidential candidate party aboard the secret Bigelow/SpaceShipTwo joint development project I was going to announce later this week...

My campaign manager advised me, after discussion with the cackle of lawyers I intentionally overpay, that in the slate of promises I successfully used to receive a vote of confidence from the invisible board of directors for total control of the world government in hiding - especially my promise not to double-dip - I cannot serve as leader of the free world and world leader at the same time.

Therefore, with much regret at how much fun I will miss giving stump speeches about:

• requirements that all voters must cite at least five promises the candidate for which they'll vote has made, with a guess as to which four promises will not be kept, 
• selling a slew of pork barrels (containing everything under the sun but pork), in sizes from one that fits on a keychain to one that can barely roll down a six-lane carriageway, with prizes inside specially-marked packages,
• promising a pony in every garage (as soon as Ford completes its transfer of funds to my offshore account),
• guaranteeing a bottle of HFCS [a/k/a corn sugar] in every kitchen (having already received my ADM multimillion "donation"),
• warm stories recounting my childhood, including the mosquito I saved from a life of addiction to blood,
• finessing the art of heckling the hecklers,

I formally withdraw my name from the hat holding the paper slips listing pre-non-candidates for the 2012 U.S. Presidential race, with the caveat that should I desire to no longer rule the whole world under the tight control and guidance of my colleagues, associates and friends, I may at any time bribe U.S. voters to cast their ballots toward me and my as-yet-undetermined vice presidential running mate (although Underdog and Smoky the bluetick hound dog were the two likeliest running mates under consideration).

Back to putting intolerance in its place.  No matter who you are or where you live, my network is watching you and making plans on how to put you to use for purposes which you'll never be fully aware!

Commodore PET

Speaking of deals, a friend asked how many contracts he needed to get canceled with a certain chemical company located on the Holston River to prove that annexing any more property will prove unprofitable for the local municipality.  I told my friend let's wait and see. I've seen enough companies go bankrupt in that odourous town as it is, with enough mercury poisoning in the streams and creeks to make bottom-feeding politicians catfish wish they were born in a different watershed.

Like I said, give me something funny.  Watching Chinese and Japanese argue over a little fishing is about as hilarious as wondering if people driving government vehicles late at night or on weekends are really conducting "official" business.

It's getting ugly around here and I'm not just talking about my BO or my 401(k).

Don't keep me entertained and I tend to get mischievous, sticking my nose into other people's business and causing havoc in order to tickle my funny bone for absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

Think I'll announce my candidacy for the U.S. presidency.  I've got about as many credentials as the next person -- I promise I will not raise taxes, start a war or take a salary while in office.  I'll make sure members of Congress take all the credit/blame they deserve. I'll turn U.S. government office buildings into free flat rentals for those with no place to live.  They just have to vacate their flats during work hours so government employees can keep doing whatever it is they're doing now, only with soiled linens and pictures of other people's families in their cubicles (those working in outsourced customer service call centers will already be familiar with the situation).  All my speeches will be available for sale to the bidder with the largest number of comedy writers on staff.

Time to write another story-within-a-building-story-building-a-story in the parallel universe called this blog.  Hmm.... who wants to be permanent parody material on a putty pedestal?

Alcoholic Commander In The National Guard? [not for children]

Well, well, well. Another interesting situation where national security is at risk because of a drinking problem and a CYAhole. If I was a high-level leader in charge of keeping Bubba bombers out of harm's way in the outer rings of hazmat womd territorial protection, I'd make sure my subordinates could handle their drinks without getting out of control (and thus, lying through their teeth to keep their jobs - how far will they carry their lies?).

But I'm not.

Instead, I'm barraged by those who want to get the modestly conservative voice heard, as in the following quote pointed out to me today [from 1 Timothy 2]:

"9 I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety."

Thus, the Christian crowd, ultraconservative or not, is asked if it is of literalist or figurativist belief. If the former, then one cannot support Palin, Pelosi, Oprah, O'Donnell, etc., if one believes this is a true Christian nation and 1 Timothy is literally true. If the latter, the Bible is a general guide subject to personal interpretation and anything goes.

Meanwhile, I've got to go cash a reality check that's about to expire.  Somebody help me out here.  I'm walking through the county fair funhouse mirror maze carrying my corn in a jar.  Where's the exit.  I need an outhouse, quick!

Attractions and Detractions

Positive news: UT football team players keep their heads in the whole game. Next on the list will be overcoming mistakes.

Thanks to UT physical plant team; Crown & Goose kitchen staff, Scott, barman; Pizza Palace staff, Ashley.

Negative news: personally, I spit on the folks involved in annexing my folks' area, who claim they are doing my parents and others a favour by increasing their taxes during their fixed income years. Kingsport, I will make sure I reduce my shopping in your landgrab city limits. May the fleas of a thousand stray dogs infect you city planners and others in the Model City's administrative positions!

Good, I feel better. I can look forward to a peaceful week of whatever life is supposed to be all about in the funny pages. Goodbye, Cathy, your domestic comics entertained us quietly.

When are property taxes due?

Today, this past week, probably the past few months and years, the world has not been big enough to satisfy my desire for more.

What is "more"? I do not know.

I repeat my research of subjects of interest.

I run out of curiously funny thoughts and ideas to entertain my brain.

I do not desire to end my life but I have what left to pursue to discover something new?

And yet there is nothing new.

I am tired. My body aches. I know many are in worse conditions than me but I am not them even if they would gladly be in my position.

What do connections get me? What do colleagues and associates bring to me that I don't already know in another place and time, if not now?

There is no worry about saving the species from itself. It will survive in one form or another as the global ecosystem changes.

If I - me, personally - will not live to travel to other worlds, does it matter if some other members of my species go in my place?

If I am not happy, then altruism loses its appeal.

I promote the new ways of life (equality for women, in this case) but I am also connected to the Old Guard, standing on a bridge that crosses to a previous age when a man who liked what a man liked when he wanted to like it took what he wanted without getting permission from polite society. There is that caveman in me, I know.

If the caveman thoughts still roam through my synapses and veins, then it courses through the bodies of others, too, in weaker and stronger doses.

In a world where women are becoming more assertive/aggressive, where does a man like me find a comfortable place to call his own?

I cannot see a place for me. I am trapped in a corner with no escape, my supply of oxygen and food dwindling, reducing me down to nothing, back to the basic states of energy from which I sprang.

The future belongs to the youngest generation whose members have not lived in a state between the old world and the new. They will figure out how the whole equality thing will play out.

I will continue to fade away, wandering the woods in my caveman mode, pretending I'm the king of the forest, peeing against trees and boulders to mark my manly territory while looking for submissive females who no longer exist.

My time has come and gone. I am a relic of a past that may never have existed but at least I let myself be led to believe it did.

What is virility if you can't use it? What are good looks and muscle strength if no females are looking at us strutting peacocks?

I no longer exist (if I ever existed). I am a shell of the man I might have been, lost in a world of thoughts that have no place in the new world order.

I am severing my ties to my colleagues, associates and friends because what they have to show me shows me nothing I can use for myself.

My time on this planet is limited. I want to devote that time to myself and let the rest of the world sort out all the problems that never really existed in the first place.

I am tired of living as if this world is mine because it is not mine. It is yours to do with as you please and always has been.

I'm curling back up into my shell and pretending I live in the world where warriors, cowboys and the James Bonds of the world were men who knew what they wanted and took it.

I am tired. The world goes on without me, my contribution less than an iota of an iota of difference.

This and other blogs, books, poems, etc., I've written, gave me the feeling I was part of something bigger than myself. All along, the world progressed faster and faster ahead of me until I can no longer pretend I am part of it.

I am the fossil I have bemoaned. I am the old fogey stuck in the past I always knew I was, my thoughts locked in at about age 10, listening to easy-listening music made from tunes of the '30s, '40s and '50s.

I am part of the walking dead, stuck in a kind of living purgatory, forever lost in the gee-whiz developments of new technology that pass by like UFOs.

I am tired. I cannot prop myself up any longer. I do not want to cope with or hawk changes that have no meaning to me anymore.

I am an old dog who's run out of the desire to learn new tricks.

You can bury my fossilised remains in the backyard. Maybe an archaeologist will pretend to make heads or tails of what my life was like. I sure can't.

Rumpus Room

More documents/brochures to devour with my bratwurst und bier in time for Oktoberfest:

• Course of the Rhine from Mayence to Cologne (with sidly description and auto - streets), copyright 1950s? Karl Rud. Bremer & Co. publish house, Cologne/Rhine
• Romantic Heidelberg, Speyer City of Emperors
• Germany Land of Artistic Masterpieces, Printed by Buchbender & Kroth, Bonn
• Friedberg in Hessen...die alte Freie Reichsstadt und Kaiserburg
• Alsfeld Hessen, Die Heimstatt Althessischer Bau-Und Handwerkskunst
• Upper Black-Forest Germany, 2600-5000 feet
• Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Museen Sehenswürdigkeiten - Kleinod des Mittelalters, Lebendiges, Zeugnis deutscher Vergangenheit
• Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Sehenswertes, Wissenswertes
• Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Worth seeing, Worth knowing (English)
• Bamberg
• Münchner Woche, 18.-25. März 1955
• Romantische Straβe, Täglich EB190 7.3.-26.10.92, EB190A 10.5.-4.10.92
• Frankfurt - Information and Tips For The Visitor (english), Stadt, Frankfurt am Main, as of March 1991
• Frankfurt on Main, a cosmopolitan city
• Miltenberg am Main, Hotel Riefen
• Schloβ Herrenchiemsee, Schlossbeleuchtung Mit Kammermusik, 1956
• Come and see Bavaria 
• Kleine Autokarte Durch Das Salzkammergut
• ÖCI (Österreichisches Credit-Institut) Wien (map of Vienna)
POSTCARDS:
• Gruβ aus Wuppertal - Elberfeld
• Institut Kloster Sieβen/Saulgau (Württ.), Lourdesgrotte
• Institut Kloster Sieβen/Saulgau (Württ.),Pfarrkirche

Picking Up, Nothing Down

More sticks than I can throw a thanks at:

Jordan R. at Steak Out; Theron Smith at Hilton; Annaliese and Amier at UBC; Bubba's Stephenson Dairy Bar; Pam Cooper at Dr. Pugh's office; Dan & Fay; Sweet Tooth Cafe; Rogersville Produce Market (Mountain View Bakery butter - mmmm); Pal's Sudden Service; Hobby Lobby; Angie at Cheddar's; Medical Center Pharmacy w/famous grill & sandwich shop; Drs. Velasco and Dalle-Ave (Lisa Cook, RNP); Blaine Hardware & feed; Brittany at Barley's (Cottonwood Pumpkin, Rogue Shakespeare Stout and Southern Pecan Nut Brown); Brandy and Dale at Shoney's; Alex and Chad Miller via ticketsbyphone; Janice at Walmart; Amis Mill Eatery (interesting story about finding original mill wheel in rubble of old river mill); math teacher and others, including SRO, at SCHS; Mom and Dad; Bill Lee; Mrs. B; Peggy; David and Melinda; the Jerdons

A New Hero

"This meeting is called to order."

"The Brotherhood of the Pure French Race is all present and accounted for, sir."

"Good. What is on tonight's agenda?"

"Awarding the Special Commendation of the Order of The Purist."

"For six decades you have brought up this award and offered me no candidates. It is about time we abolish this award and create one for the Not-So-Pure, is it not?"

"As direct heir to the throne of the French Empire, Ms. Bruni, sir, you may do what you wish. However, this evening we would like to nominate your 'usband."

"And what has my husband accomplished that qualifies him for this award?"

"He has started the process whereby we will rid our country of the impure. First, he transfers the gypsy population. Next he will transfer..."

"Enough! You cannot give away state secrets, even in this private of private meetings!"

"But, sir, you yourself said that the World War II was a secret plot by the French to destroy the Germans and establish the French Empire once again."

"I am surrounded by imbeciles. Why did I think that fashion magazine owners and writers could keep quiet?"

"You hired us because we are your biggest fans."

"And you have taught me that 'fan' is not the same as fanatic or fanaticism. If only Napoleon could advise me on what to do..."

"What about your 'usband?"

"He is no Napoleon."

"But does he deserve the award?"

"What? Oui, oui. Give him the award. It will make the extremists happy. The rest of the French people are apathetic and will not care. He will hold the confidence of the ones who count."

"Let the records show that the power behind the throne has selected her 'usband for the award given for the first time in sixty years."

"This meeting is adjourned. We will gather in the cabaret for our apres-meeting aperitifs. Adieu."

Say "No" To Blonde Hair Bleach

Just one more reason to show that the use of hair bleach at an early age leads to a life of danger...I mean, a life of fun.  Yes, fun...and, uh...well...  See for yourself:

http://www.knoxnews.com/photos/2010/sep/08/98331/

A Look Back For My Secondary Schoolmates

Kingsport Times-News / Saturday, March 8, 1980

Teen Scene

"Occupational hazards"

A couple of near misses occurred recently at Central High School, reports teen correspondent Karen Hamilton.

Play practices for the student production of "Hello Dolly" had been going well until Rick Hill, one of the characters in the production, accidentally bumped into a prop, a tall bookcase, causing it to fall to the ground.

Leslie Sharp and Becky Poister, playing the characters of Minnie Fay and Irene Molloy, had been rehearsing a scene under the bookcase just seconds before. Luckily, Paula Bryant, director of the play, had instructed the girls to move just moments before the bookcase hit the stage floor.

In a separate incident, band Director William Canny was conducting the Jazz Band in a particularly intense piece of music when a flag pole hanging from the wall and a picture fell, "as if on cue," and narrowly missed Canny's head.

Canny, "in his true professional style," continued conducting through the "close encounter."

First Grind - Shaping

Ever watched two hummingbirds fight over a feeder?

I have watched the Kashmiri violence ignited, so I'm told, by a man of the Christian faith who said he was going to burn a copy of the Koran.

Are we not men and women of intelligence as well as deep emotional beliefs?

Are we no more than two birds quarreling over a small container of sugared water?

Are we easily swayed to act rather to seek understanding?

I am an old, tired man, weary of the repetitive ancient ways of our species.

You tell me we live in the dawn of the new age, well into what I think you call the Anthrocene period, epoch or era.

Are we living fossils, unable to overcome the mass violence of our ignorant ancestors?

Do I always believe what I'm told? No. I hear words and phrases, then ponder the possible reasons for their existence.

Are my conclusions sound, correct, clearly thought out? Sometimes.

Do I injure or kill others in order to exclaim my beliefs? Only, it appears, through the actions of my seven billion kin who I wish would take the time to think rather than to instantly react.

Birds of a feather flock together. This is our planet. Let us choose wisely, regarding our species as one in which we find positive, light-hearted, humourous solutions to our problems rather than act hastily and destroy our brothers and sisters and their hard-earned property.

Do not assume the worst of our behaviours accounts for all of us.

For my part, I would rather we eliminate the chaotic destruction and violence wrought by the drug cartels and replace it with legitimate, peaceful, logical business practices rather than launch a full-scale, legitimate, military invasion of Mexico in order to protect the interests of the United States and secure a peaceful existence for Mexican families and others from countries further south.

But I don't always get what I want.

If I did, UT players would have acted like men for 60 minutes and finished off Oregon on the playing field rather than take out their frustrations in drinking establishments. Dooley has a lot to learn in how to grasp the emotions of young men and point them in the right direction at a moment's/momentous notice.

Have you figured out the universe in which we think we live is not the universe in which we live? Let's save that thought for another moment. I have a spot of Justice to attend to, scrutinise more closely.

Beans and Cole Slaw

Dry autumn day, chickadees looking for seeds or water where none exist.

I imagine I am one of seven billion, do I not? I have no proof otherwise, do I?

I sit here, literally surrounded by wood - in living trees, house siding, books and furniture.

The universe is not only about me.

With hundreds of languages available to me, I am running out of word combinations to make myself feel unique.

Why is the universe not about me? Because it will exist after this "I" with which I am familiar no longer exists.

What of me, this "I"?

Do I know what I think I know? I will only ever think so.

How can I take seriously what I know is what it is without qualification?

The birds are here because it is the time of day they choose to be here. Perhaps I should remove the empty bird feeders and make the birds spend their energy looking at actual food sources rather than dried-up hulls of thistle/nyger seed and dry bird baths.

No matter. They will leave soon as our planet rotates into and out of the light of our star.

I am unimportant. I have no talents or gifts to give my fellow species. My melancholy will end when I will be no more, my bonded energies free at last.

I am tired of spending every morning finding an excuse to be alive. Time has not healed the wounds of natural loss, only twisted them into creative output in outlets like this blog.

I already know the big picture. I know I will not pretend to aspire to dreams in my thoughts of taking trips around the moon in a travel cruiser. I am not enough of a megalomaniac-type to force/bend the world of my species to my will.

I am a simple man, with simple needs and an idle brain, happy to let others carry on, to bother with the pretense there is more here than meets the interaction of states of energy.

I am an amateur humourist reflecting the zeitgeist in inexact terms.

I have found no way out of the moment. History books, war books, fiction or nonfiction, are still books. Reality does not go away regardless of the promise of technology to get us away from it all.

In other words, time to get away from technology and enjoy the real world again. Feel dirt under my feet. See unusual lichen patterns. Listen to the crunch of the forest floor.

Pardon my silence. I want selfish time to myself - stop pretending that I have some important place in new social media - and breathe the dust and pollen of fall air.

Heaping Helping of Mal Architecture

'Tis quiet here in the hinterlands. The stories are piled high in Rick's for winter reading, honest fuel for thought.

A lazy old fool am I. Could be shaping the forms into which concrete pours, hardening plots and climaxes permanentlike.

The clean purity of a blank slate sets my gaze afixed, instead.

The world 'tis what 'tis.

Despite our anger in misunderstanding caused, we guide ourselves using words and ideas like intelligence.

The motions, imperpetual, perpetuate.

Untroubled, relying upon the undertow and counterflow to float scales between the midpoints of the midpoints, I rest.

My time is gone. Youth has to dispose of disposability now.

Wisdom is not mine, only contradictions and contraindications.

The stage is set, all seven billion characters casted.

This is what I call peace.

Home on my home planet, happily anonymous in the stirred up crowd of people whose emotions cover the spectrum of states of illogical states of energy.

The unremarkable moment, indistinguishable.

No separation of you from me.

Do you see its blurry borderlessness, too?

Trois Twangy Twigs

55. Great American Race Drivers by Bill Libby (c) 1970, Cowles Book Co., Inc.
56. The Complete Illustrated Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (c) 1976, Castle Books
57. See It and Say It in German by Margarita Madrigal and Inge D. Halpert (c) 1962, Signet Language Books
58. Washington And His Comrades In Arms by George M. Wrong (c) 1921, Yale University Press
59. Minor Poems by John Milton (c) 1930, MacMillan Company
60. Black Beauty by Sewell, Western Printing & Lithography Co., Racine, Wisconsin, "[to] Ralph Eldridge from Thelma Xmas 1923"
61. Richard's Cyclopedia Volumes Five and Six (c) 1937, J.A. Richards, Inc., Kingsport Press
62. National Geographic Magazine, Vol. 38, July-Dec 1920 (c) 1920, Nat'l Geographic Society
63. The Halliburton Second Reader by M.W. Halliburton (c) 1912, "Thelma May Eldridge Age 7 yrs."
64. History Stories for Primary Grades by John W. Wayland Ph.D. (c) 1919, MacMillan Company
65. As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, "'We may not know what the future holds but we know who holds the future.' May He be ver near to you. Always, Maneta & Tom Boyd"
From the MacMillan Pocket Classics [books 66 to 81]:
66. The Last Of The Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 by James Fenimore Cooper (c) 1889, "Thelma Eldridge, [Knoxville] Central High School, Junior - 1928 & '29"
67. The House of the Seven Gables: A Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne (c) 1905, "Thelma Eldridge"
68. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (c) 1901, "Thelma Eldridge"
69. A Christmas Carol and The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens (c) 1903, "Thelma Eldridge"
70. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (c) 1906, "Thelma Eldridge"
71. Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (c) 1908, "Thelma Eldridge, Ralph Eldridge, Central High School, Fountain City, Tennessee"
72. Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (c) 1899, "Thelma Eldridge"
73. Tennyson's Idylls of the King (c) 1912, "Thelma Eldridge"
74. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (c) 1904, "Thelma May Hill, Sunset Trail, Knoxville 18, Tennessee / Richard Lee Hill, Sunset Trail, Knoxville 18, Tennessee, Fountain City Grammer [sic] School"
75 and 76. The Sketch Book by Washington Irving (c) 1900, "Thelma Eldridge" [book 75], "Ralph Eldridge" [book 76]
77. Ivanhoe: A Romance by Sir Walter Scott, Bart. (c) 1910, "Ralph Eldridge, Central High School"
78. The Man Without A Country and Other Stories by Edward Everett Hale (c) 1910, "Thelma Eldridge"
79. Shakespeare's The Tragedy of MacBeth [copyright page missing], "Ralph Eldridge"
80. The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale supposed to be written by himself by Oliver Goldsmith, Sperate miseri, ravete felices (c) 1899, "Thelma Eldridge"
81. Selections from Twice-Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne (c) 1901, "Ralph Eldridge"

We Are...Marshall

Enjoyed the Surgoinsville Riverfront Festival. Thanks go out to many today: Jonathan at Advance Auto, Jennifer/William at Walmart, Dairy Hart (what are "beaners"?), Carolyn at Ben Franklin, a former West Virginia resident working at Big Lots.

More books to list later...

Meddling Metal Middling

28. Look at Finland, travel round-up (c) 3/1972
29. days in Finland by Osmo Thiel (c) 1970, Otava Publishing Company, Helsinki, 1972
30. Tampere: the city of lakes and parks, picturebook ~1972
31. The Twilight of Steam Locomotives by Ron Ziel (c) 1970, Grosset & Dunlap, New York
32. Dreadnought: A History of the Modern Battleship by Richard Hough (c) 1975, MacMillan Publishing, Co., Inc.
33. Heroes & Aeroplanes of the Great War, 1914-1918 by Joseph A Phelan (c) 1968, Grosset & Dunlap, New York
34. Strategy by B.H. Liddell Hart (c) 1967, Book Club Edition
35. The War In The Air: The Royal Air Force In World War II, edited by Gavin Lyall (c) 1968, Book Club Edition
36. Dual For The Sky: Fighter Planes and Fighting Pilots of World War II by Herbert Mason, Jr. (c) 1970
37. A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan (c) 1974, Book Club Edition
38. Log of the Liberators by Steve Birdsall (c) 1973, Book Club Edition
39. Flying Fortress: The Illustrated Biography of the B-17s and the Men Who Flew Them by Edward Jablonski (c) 1965, Book Club Edition
40. Airwar: An illustrated history of air power in the Second World War, volume I by Edward Jablonski (c) 1971, Book Club Edition
41. Airwar: An illustrated history of air power in the Second World War, volume II by Edward Jablonski (c) 1971, Book Club Edition
42. Mustang at War by Roger A. Freeman (c) 1974, Book Club Edition
43. German Air Force Fighters of World War Two, Volume I by Martin C. Windrow (c) 1968, Doubleday & Co., Inc.
44. German Air Force Fighters of World War Two, Volume II by Martin C. Windrow (c) 1968, Doubleday & Co., Inc.
45. Afrika Corps by Lt. Col. A.J. Barker (c) 1978, Bison Books Limited
46. A History of the Darlington Raceway and the Joe Weatherly Stock Car Museum by Jim Hunter, published in late 1960s?
47. Patton: A Study In Command by H. Essame (c) 1974, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
48. "Liberty or Death!" The Northern Campaigns in the American Revolutionary War by Gregory T. Edgar (c) 1994, Heritage Books, Inc.
49. War In The Desert: the Eighth Army at El Alamein by James Lucas (c) 1982, Beaufort Books, Inc.
50. Eisenhower: Portrait of the Hero by Peter Lyon (c) 1974, Book Club Edition
51. Sinkings, Salvages and Shipwrecks by Robert F. Burgess (c) 1970, Ameritage Heritage Press
52. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Illustrated Classic Editions by A. Conan Doyle (c) 1983
53. Shining Armor by Edna Ewing Kelley (c) 1937, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee
54. The Kingsport Strike by Sylvester Petro (c) 1967, Arlington House

Current Catalogue: Part I of III

Skip/skim at your leisure. Simply recording signs of the tomes.

1. Deutsch für Amerikaner, 2. Auflage (c) 1964, American Book Co.
2. America's Historylands: Landmarks of Liberty (c) 1962, National Geographic Society
3. Journey Across Russia: The Soviet Union Today (c) 1977, Nat'l Geographic Society
4. Great Religions of the World (c) 1971, Nat'l Geographic Society
5. The Best Stories of Bert Vincent, Sage of the Smokies (c) 1968, Brazos Books
6. Gettin' It On, A Down-Home Treasury by Lewis Grizzard (c) 1989, Galahad Books
7. It Wasn't Always Easy, but I Sure Had Fun, the Best of Lewis Grizzard (c) 1994, Bad Boot Productions
8. Roget's Thesaurus in dictionary form (c) 1962, Albert H. Morehead, The Nat'l Lexicographic Board
9. Wolf Cub Scout Book, 1970 printing (c) 1967, Boy Scouts of America
10. Bear Cub Scout Book, 1970 printing (c) 1967, BSA
11. Scout Handbook Eigth Edition, First Printing (c) 1972 BSA
12. Pamphlet, Jump Right In - To The Fun At Camp Davy Crockett, Sequoyah Council, 1976, Charlie Sipe, Chairman Boy Scout Committee
13. Scoutmaster's Handbook (c) 1972, BSA
14. BSA Merit Badge Series: American Heritage, 1976, BSA
15. BSA Merit Badge Series: Plant Science, 1975, BSA
16. BSA Merit Badge Series: Orienteering, 1974, BSA
17. BSA Merit Badge Series: Skating, 1973, BSA
18. Leadership Corps (c) 1972, BSA
19. Garrard Laboratory Series Auto Turntable Type A Mark II Instruction Manual w/Magnavox radio unit
20. The American Heritage Picture History of World War II by C.L. Sulzberger (c) 1966, American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc.
21. magic moments - Walt Disney (c) 1973, Walt Disney Productions
22. The Collected Works if Buck Rogers in e 25th Century (c) 1969, Chelsea House Publishers
23. Free as a Running Fox by Wing Commander T.D. Calnan (c) 1970, Book Club Edition
24. General Ike, A Biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower by Alden Hatch (c) 1945, Henry Holt and Co., Inc.
25. The Battle for North Africa by John Strawson (c) 1969, Book Club Edition
26. You're On Your Own, Snoopy - Selected cartoons by Charles M. Schulz (c) 1972, United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
27. modern organizations by Amitai Etzioni (c) 1964, Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Sir, you only gave us twenty-seven dollars.

Restocking my shelves with old stock from my childhood library (transferring books from my parents' house to my house, in other words), exposing my eyes to words and images I may or may not want to see again, due to the knowledge of their pebble-in-the-pond effect stirring up settled matters.

Eighty-one portable thought sets rambling on subjective objectives from military to business to religious to geographical to Scouting.

Details in another place and time?

Thanks to Angie and other smiling faces like a Turkish server in Colonial Heights. Did I mention Neel or Stan?

The silence speaks voluminous yawnings. Should I listen or snooze?

Patience, Rick. Let ignorance and superstition fade without offering resistance or excuses for the defensive supportive posture. I am one in a long line of deliverers of a partial message. I don't know the message I string along to those who will also attempt to decipher the indecipherable.

Fall, Fall, Fall

Talked with friends at the U-Save pharmacy yesterday while medication information was computerised.

Learned that end-stage lung cancer does not end a mother's love of life and concern for her children.

Heard that in times past you could just tell the local Ford dealer you were ready to take delivery of whatever the latest model is that's equivalent to the last one you bought; they'd drive the new car to your house and take a check, no stack of paperwork or six-month waiting list for factory order required.

Local "boys," long since retired, sitting on a bench in the town square, remembered my 93-year young mother in-law teaching them a sixth grade subject in 1954. They were curious as to her dietary secret (no alcohol, no tobacco, small meals, no heavy stress on the musculoskeletal system, weekly bridge club, active religious life (multiple daily readings of familiar religious text, lots of praying and no worries)).

Times change. The perspective of better or worse belongs to those who think perspectively.

The faces of small towns change, often imperceptibly. Relatively quick changes cause consternation when seen as incomprehensible.

I can't go back to another time, not only because it's impossible but also because it never existed the way I imagined it did. All I want are the happy conveniences that we shared, modernised, of course.

We're locavores because we eat food off this planet, nourished for the most part by our local star.

I have the highest expectations for our youngest generation because they're lucky enough to live in the best of times and the worst of times during their formative years (or close thereafter).

How many of you have a 100, 500, or 1000 year plan? I'm telling you it's about time you did. Then you'd see that a 10,000 or 100,000 year plan is not that impossible to imagine setting up and implementing.

Landfills are gold mines, my friends. Nuclear waste is unharvested energy. Solar flares are reset buttons. Getting a living idea of us away from this solar system (and surviving) will take all of our coordinated efforts. Hindsight is time wasted regretting lost opportunities.

Prove to me you see the bigger picture, no matter who you are, and I'll support you. Otherwise, you're a pawn willing to be used in the game of life played by others looking for short-term profits taken at your expense. Either way, all of us equally important and taken into account.

Life doesn't change but your perspective can.

Moore's Law of More Notes to Self

I am transparent so I can write here and pretend no one but I/me/myself will read these words.

Network analysts interpret bandwidth variations.

I have crushed cockroaches that fell down the back of my work coveralls while I climbed down a sewer chimney.

I have never seen a king coronated.

Do you talk to yourself in relatively rarely-used conversational tools like mathematics or computer code?

Sometimes I do, subjecting my personality to bizarre subjugation.

Then I forget the rules of writing in this language (IF I ever knew them in the first place).

I maintain the mask of sanity for your sake. In reality, I have no rational bounds that define me as separate from you.

In my thoughts there are no rules, no common agreed-upon conditions that allow stored distinctions to recall later on.

There are no exceptions that create external versus internal politics.

Although species do not exist concretely, I'll play along with others to get the illusion known as us and our required ecosystem partners extended beyond the solar system.

The crucial discoveries made while developing entities like us that will represent us remotely tell me we will not exist much longer in serial recursive reiteration.

Autonomy = ...?

I keep coming back to the thought of "letting go" - let the unknown be the unknown.

This is my world on which I juggle jigsaw puzzle pieces as delicately as an enthusiastic ruffian like me can.

I want to but can't ignore the concepts of intelligence and emotion.

As many Europeans, Africans and native Americans desired the start of an autonomous political entity on this continent as didn't. The rest had no interest either way.

Mlodinow and Hawking share space on a book title. Is theoretical physics dead? Popular science books live in the marketplace of Ikeas. Is M really a reference to the head of a spy network?

Can we stop being a murderous species? Can we stop distracted vehicle operators from killing others? Can we eliminate the causes of diseases we know about without creating treatment-resistant causes we can't eliminate?

Can a solar system society create a living wage (above poverty) for all interplanetary citizens?

Hope and change for all seven billion of us - I was used to that idea the day I was born. Fear of the fear of the unknown keeps me from shedding my last transparent protective shell to show you how easy it is for us to get along.

Should I share with you the secret(s) others think you aren't ready to see as a whole species at the same time?

Chaos and misinterpretation happen all the time. Why worry that a few basic facts will make the situation any more or less confusing?

Glad I had this time to myself to let out some steam, get some weight off my shoulders, etc.

Sure, the truth will set you free but it also will...nope, my lips are sealed. I promised ones in power and ones who want to be in positions of power to keep quiet a little longer.

If you knew how much of what you were led to see as drastically different was really all the same, would you? Yes, you would. Yes, you can.

I hope you will. The window of opportunity is small but we can all squeeze through.

Atlas may have shrugged but I'm willing to hold the windowpane up as long as necessary for those who know what the future already is.

Ignore the labels. Use humour as a shield against, and eraser wiping out, the intolerances of the perceived past/present.

Expect us to take two steps forward and one step into a roundabout.

We are Devo, EVDO

Sitting next to Shannon, her husband Mike, and their son the other day, listening to the conversations wrapped around the collection of names, physical features and hometowns of players far below us on fancy artificial turf, I remembered the stats that counted the numbers, physical features and home areas of those involved in the events we call here the American Revolution.

I remembered the complaints/protests/strikes of those opposed to mechanisation during the long early years of the Industrial Revolution.

I saw the current day as if I was looking back 100 years later, all the small details available - in the form of archived emails, blogs, websites, texts, videos, games and ebooks - to historians wanting to tell contemporaries what we thought we knew we were doing in the moment we didn't know we were participating in historically.

Does anyone have a working 8-inch floppy disk drive or audiotape player so we can research the obscure research of the mid- to late-century that started the Electronic Revolution?

And then I woke up from the dream that was kicked off by the hypnotic primate training of my species.

I was no longer me in that brief respite/repose.

Reality is only what I focus upon. Hocus pocus.

Back to what I keep telling myself I was told to go back to.

It is not my place to sit here and tell you what we'll be remembered for in the next century. Prepositions and propositions are yours to arrange how you wish.

I'm plugged in but disconnected. Backing away from the houses and trees for personal edification. Stuck to paperbacks despite this ebook reader's convenience.

In the transition...from/where/to you'll never know for sure. It's a place from/to which I've gotta go on my own.

The fact is sometimes I feel I've still got something to prove to myself despite knowledge to the contrary. Ain't no big thang.

A Disaster Full Of Headlines

Formulaic. That's what she wanted me to believe she saw in the patterns outside the portal.

For weeks we'd argue about the meaning of one word, all the while creat8ng log entries of our thoughts.

Curry. Celticism. One well-discussed word per maintenance cycle.

We are the new breed, skinless yet skinned.

Our reports will reach you 6000 years from now. Will you know what our communication method, our language, intended?

Probably not. Give yourself another 6000 years to figure out.

We did. We will. We're the relay runners for a team you and we remember nothing about.

Armed By Being Informed

The grave aspects of gravity weighing heavily on the speed of light.

Heavy, man.

If George Lopez is a result of Cheech and Chong, who follows Harold and Kumar?

While working to cZech the pOpuLation, the voices in your thoughts are yours to follow as they command/demand/beg/plead/argue/rationalise.

To answer a question anonymously posted/posed, I have no evidence that the Fermilab, Fermi satellite and/or LHC are directly [re]training your thoughts. Instead, they inspire creativity.

A guitar heroine in the aisles makes you wonder if strummed strings cause natural disasters. What can I say that string theory hasn't yet been able to prove?

You/We depend on labels. Just so you know that I depend on those dedicated to the "holistic" use of science to keep track of the interdependence of it all. Arthritic disease research is just as important as investigation into the latest inks/dyes for body tattoos.

Which matters more: how much we repeat or how much we don't know we repeat? Repeat: those who don't know history are doomed to follow those who know how to repeat history effectively.

An ant wasp lands on my arm. If I brush it off, what do I tell another living thing?

If you eat a venison burger with bacon, what is your connection to a scorpion cook? If a cannibal eats a vegan, what do we call the oak tree that fed the squirrel that shorted the power line?

Assumptions are presumptions, I have the gumption to presume.

A knitted tablecloth is a net in the right context, the convict texted in a reconned recounted contested contest.

Is a pansy a pansy? Is a cow a cow? Is a legend a legend? Is a chair a chair? Are seats of power seats of power? Can a light alight? Can a note note?

These and other questions are without a doubt without a doubt. Undoubtedly redoubtable.

The grass withers and the flowers fade. Bones ossify and calcify, telling the dead like tea leaves.

The Book of the Future has no future. We can't see we're all in the past.

We're Gonna Find You

In my backyard, a viral (not aviral) video gone global. No cute cats or laughing babies.

A father's legacy performing well on the field.

Ringing ears. Hoarse voice.

Bistros and Bubba burgers.

Squeaky teeth and onerous onlookers.

A clean bill of health and a bill for poor health.

Acting out a public role to draw attention away from the players in play.

Happy and tired family.

Forty-year anniversary and another Kindle 2, too.

Crown and goose and checkerboard, Jennie and royal stout on a long weekend.

Montreat and PC in a small world after all; pretty eyes, adopted or otherwise; soccer, lacrosse or other sports. Ocean crossings and practical jokes.

Playing DJ for mother and her new family. Tackling pillows in slo mo like the pros.

Sleep...much needed sleep...too worn out to proofread or re-edit...nighty night.

Why?

A friend, who promised to fix the economic woes for a favour, asked me to solidify the voting base for Sarah Palin.  I have honoured the request and wait for the favour to be returned.

Now, it's up to the other side to show me what they can offer in return.

Remember, I play both sides against the middle, hoping compromise puts the economy in this sector of the world in a state where more people are actively using their capabilities for improved self-esteem.

Otherwise, the world is a grand comedy to my sense of humour.

Time to sit back and enjoy the show!

Once More Into The Great Outdoors

In putting together a report for the T'ursday night club meeting of the Inquisitive Believers, I found myself staring at a stack of research papers assembled by "publish or perish" pariahs.

My report was supposed to summarise the thousands of subtle methods for 'bringing up baby"; in other words, how do we carefully prepare children during their formative years to optimise their performances as adult contributors to society, ensuring that we have a sufficient mix of scientists, doctors, lawyers, athletes, soldiers, sailors, pilots, mothers, fathers, alcoholics, schizophrenics and antisocial types to keep a modern civilisation going?

Some Internet news articles help, like the one on future outdoor scientists.

What about humourists, writers, comedians, philosophers and others who see the clouded, astigmatic lens through which others view life?

I'm stumped.  I'm at a standstill, a deadend.

I can't find the one paper I need to justify the various inspirational teaching methods to create those with the insight to be funny.

Without that paper, how can I create a parallel universe of atoms, molecules, politicians, musicians, dung beetles and street cleaners?

I mean, shouldn't the parallel universe contain all the same stuff ours does, but just gets skewed in places where we see straight-and-narrow roads here?

I think back to the time a career counselor suggested I be either a chemical engineer or a priest, based on a quadrant of plotted points derived from a set of questions I answered.  There wasn't a place on the test that stated, "Don't answer these questions facetiously."  Instead, it said to answer the questions to the best of your ability, based on what you currently believed.

I look up into the clear, blue sky and want to see rain but I don't, the ground dry despite my wishes.

Time's a wastin'.  Closer and closer the clock gets to the moment for my presentation and I don't have the missing puzzle piece my colleagues expect me to elaborate upon.

Shall I, as always, ditch the prepared teleprompter speech and talk from my mental notes extemporaneously, relying on my dry wit and reading of the crowd to elicit laughter and squeeze out tears like ghosts of tragicomedians past?

I am neither a professor nor just another pretty face.  I am plain ol' me, here for all to see, humbly walking the local shops and watching live sporting events anonymously.

I vaguely remember the speech patterns of my great-grandfather but I can fairly easily recall the speech patterns of all my grandparents.  None of them were Yale grads or Rhodes scholars.  Instead, they were my down-to-earth family, working in the local factory, teaching at the local schools, or working as a chief warrant officer for the Navy.  All of them raising children on low-scale salaries.

Happiness is what you make of the moment, not what you collect or buy to temporarily satisfy a never-satisfied craving.

But do we want happiness?  That's a question I can't answer because I'm always looking for the next gentle poke at our seriousness, knowing death (which I can't find funny) is never far away from any of us.

I don't have the research paper in hand that I wanted to reference, but I have a feeling I can talk about my experiences with tragedy to place in front of my colleagues the supposition that comedy and tragedy have been and always will be intricately linked.  If we want more funny people, let tragedies run their course and comic voices will rise up to help heal the pain.

Just as not everyone will become scientists or understand the results of scientific research, not everyone is cut out to be naturally funny or understand every joke.

Will I ever give myself complete permission to be myself, knowing that I sometimes offend those I wish not to offend?  Find the answer to that question and I have created the research paper for which I have searched in vain.

I grew up with the likes of Flip Wilson, Henry Gibson, Andy Griffith and Jerry Clower setting examples of what's funny.  There never were any purely scientific types who rode the comedy circuit, were there?

Are there?  Maybe not, because professional science practitioners compose such a small percentage of paying audiences, it would be a starving comic artist who could thrive on speaking at scientific gatherings.

Science just becomes another prop in the clown's box of general sight gags, I suppose.

Maybe.  Hmm... I think I'll title tonight's diarrhea of the mouth, "Parsimony - can you parse any money out of it?"

Is Buddhism Pseudo-Christianity or the other way around?

Experts outside my network have informed me that Buddhism performed its usual role of absorbing and becoming part of the societies that argue about who has the best religion, overcoming Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism as the religion of choice amongst the world's youth, where peace rather than war is the word du jour.

Meanwhile, the Interplanetary Youth Brigade announced that all local, national and international political candidates and government workers on Earth must take the Turing Test in order to separate the robots from the real to properly point out who has been making decisions about how to wisely redistribute the people's public monies and who has been simply following preprogrammed instructions.

Friends reminded me they have fun with my light-hearted poke at conspiracies, showing me that the first generation of "discovered" artificial lifeforms is still under investigation by skeptics and believers alike, whilst I point out the youngest generation of our species continues working on the latest regeneration of artificial life.

A German reminds the Americans what they're supposed to be made of.

The Book of the Future has not stopped predicting that our species will merge with an artificial lifeform yet to be.  The witch doctor warns us to be prepared for this transition period in which the old species will fall behind and use barbarianism to attempt one last defense of its existence, "losing" in the end (the witch doctor won't say why "losing" is in quotes, which could mean the old species won the war but lost the fight?).

Some of my colleagues, during post-processing of photographs of artifacts under glass, showed me the messages we were expecting in the 360-degree view we had been advised to look for.  In a reflected image, using infrared and ultraviolet light filters, one finds much that the human eye cannot.

We shall respond to these messages when the prime opportunity presents itself shortly.  Here is the code key we were asked to show at this time [you must use an amber CRT at 60 Hz refresh rate to decode it]:



Global empirebuilding creates no favourites, only flagrante flavours of the moment.  Of course, since/because we live in the moment, we can't see anything but what we see.

Unless you knew the moment doesn't really exist.

Let's say you knew who was handholding the handholders who were leading the majority down the rosy path of living in the moment.

Let's say you were able to unplug the youngest generation from massively maneuvered mass media movements.

Let's say you were willing to face a high level of chaotic noise for something better, if not quieter.

Let's say you knew there was something and nothing more to know than what is there before you.

Very few could handle the destruction of all the self-deceptive veils that surround us.

If it's for the few that the rest of the species lives, then would you be okay with that?

Or would you rather believe that every individual reserves the right to become part of the few?

Should I say more?  Certain colleagues say the precious cargo I carry is not ready for primetime.  Best stick to humour and let the preplanned scenarios continue to play out.

Am I a player or the amateur professional amateur wondering wanderer I profess to be?

Those who put the moment to their best advantage are those to whom you'll pay attention the most.  Why should I bother to divert your attention from simple gaze-based programming already built into us?

My friends in the drug cartel business are thrilled that Paris Hilton is getting so much attention with her [alleged] cocaine and marijuana use, hoping she'll get more attention, no matter whether it's because she received no jailtime or she received hard jailtime.  Either way, it's free publicity for them!  They thank my friends in the mass media business for continuing to promote freewheelers like Ms. Hilton - they say there's plenty money in the slush fund (in the guise of behind-the-scenes perks and overpaid adverts) to go around, now that one of their major distributors is in the hands of U.S. authorities, lowering the number of players and thus increasing their profitable slice of the pie.

Taking down a criminal is never the answer.  Changing how the system works is.  Do you know how?

Hand Sanitiser

Sitting here watching the homely homage full of fromage called "Inglorious Basterds," I contemplate many things, such as a runaway jury, the wonder of it all, a family named Chobey allegedly building a "mother in-law" garage apartment to attach within five years to a main house (to which their neighbours will hold them, barring lawsuit activity in the interim) and Maggie working at a Ben Franklin store while Nicholas considers his college's consideration of abandoning the coast for safer turf inland and Chestney completes her senior year.

Never underestimate underestimation's power to underwhelm swimmingly underwater.

Is a Star Wars exhibit a place for science fiction or fictional science fiction?  Where do you leave messages in plain public places in the arrangement that was gently suggested to occur randomly?

I don't care what happens today or tomorrow - it's what's planned for 1000 years from now that my associates have their claws into.  Are you a dinosaur?  A condor?  An eagle?  A hawk?  A rat?  A species that doesn't exist yet?

Ah, but you don't know what I'm talking about, do you?  I haven't kindly shared the Book of the Future's view of us as the past recently, have I?

Shame on me.

It's a shame you don't know what's going to happen next.

Did you know there are young people who've connected via the Internet to create what I'll loosely call an invention but will better serve as a precursor to a new species in the near-term capable of surviving short-term exposure in the long-term vacuum of space?

Living, but not breathing.

Thinking, but not independent.

Beautiful, but not gorgeous.

Can you imagine being a being with hand sanitiser in your "veins"?

Can you imagine yourself merely existing in a high-pressure place like Earth but thriving elsewhere?

Would you believe the disposable income you give them will fund the greatest invention known to our species, all the while assuming you're paying for iPads, jeans and music/movie/game downloads?

Is it possible that the youngest generation will pool their resources to usurp the squandrous spending of their short-sighted parents?

You mean you don't understand the full power of, or the real reason for, the invention of the Internet?

You really thought it was just an exercise in military research funding?

Don't tell me your plots and charts and trends leave out the branches that branch out of and into the Law of Unintended Consequences?!

See what happens when you teach your children to think for themselves.  They no longer bah like sheep, seeing social media for what it is and never will be.  The power of the crowd is slumbersome.  The independent thinkers who wear sheep's clothing lead the way quietly, transparently and for the lives of those living thousands of years from now.

Go back to sleep now.  We don't want to disturb your cumbersome dreams.

Heard another rumour, that hand sanitiser contains the nanotechnology we wanted to implant in you but wanted to do it with your ready compliance and full cooperation, in order to test a theory that a species can be transformed to another species through artificial environmental conditioning, only if the species is not stressed in the process, having already accepted fluoridation and chlorination without question.

Now who would spread rumours like that?  Bring them to me immediately!  We shall give them big salaries, large offices and extra-long, important-sounding job titles.

Ninety Years Later

Did you celebrate on 26th August 2010?  If anyone made a big deal of 90 years of women's suffrage in the United States, I missed it.  And yet...

Yet, here we are, contemplating a not-so-unique-anymore idea in 2010 - Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Ann Dunwoody on the 2012 Republican Party ticket, switching Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin over to the Tea Party nomination to keep people in suspense for the runup to the runoffs.

Meanwhile, Steve Jobs does his job getting the Apple faithful excited about the new iPod changes, after talking about gaming and iOS 4.2.  First the shuffle, and then...

Where would we be if we didn't have something interesting to bite our teeth into?

What if "What if?"?

The curios* implore, "What is the bigger picture?"

An ant explores the ceiling fan light globe.

Having no vested interest in the outcome of local/national political elections around the globe, I turn my gaze toward what the corporapolitico types could/will do for the species.

It is the end game I was raised/trained to play effectively. Ultimately, a zero-sum game, with daily winners/losers.

It is about neither treehugging nor total wilderness wipeout. It involves both.

It is providing a path for the hungry to get to food and a path for the wealthy to get richer - limitations, built into the way our planet works, restrict both paths.

It is not about these words although the words here describe the process at a high level thinly.

Proverbially, the pendulum swings to all points on the compass. In other words there is hope for everyone.

Thus, those who serve the people first and by permission of the people then benefit transparently (amazing, what a large number of transparent steps ahead will do for those who attract others willing to play along) win the most.

Do closed-door deals go away? Of course not. This is the real world, after all, not some utopian paradise where our personalities and family histories become one noncontroversial ode to joy.

In my part of the world, there appears to be a conservative "back to basics" movement gaining traction. Pop culture personalities, conservative or not, are working within the moneymaking system to take advantage of this moment.

I know that people are asking themselves, "If an SNL actor/writer/comedian can serve in the U.S. Capitol, then why can't a talk show host or resigned Alaska politician serve in the White House, especially if an actor/governor already has?"

Hope. That's going to underscore many a speech leading up to November elections in this country. The rhetoric will flow like New England maple sap in the fall. Politics as usual will rule the airwaves.

Now, I'm nothing special, a former restaurant kitchen dishwasher and Appalachian Trail hiker, so what am I doing here pretending to know anything about politics?

I don't. But my network does.

We don't predict elections. Instead, we survey the landscape to determine what makes candidates tick. Political favours never go out of style.

The likely voters will likely vote for whom they like.

After the elections, the select few will be selected to be let in on how true transparency works.

The rest will follow their whims and, where they think it best works politically, the wishes of the people.

Complications arise out of ignored eddies and backwaters.

Governing seven billion people is not an exact science. That's why our network doesn't get involved directly in politics. Our goals are too general, unable to be translated into local politics on an easy changing basis to keep the elected and the voters happy constantly.

The system's not rigged but it's tested all the time, to divide truth from rhetoric for use later on - to benefit all seven billion of us ultimately.

Like I said, you'll see. It's you who runs the network, after all!

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*What a difference "u" makes.