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.

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.

Picture Stand

Alone with myself for the most part of the day going on three years now.  Recalling memories more than making them.

This morning, I hang in mid-air, my tinnitus acting like an antigravity medium or viscous fluid with me colloidally suspended.

I remember, because of an audiocassette tape labelled "POWER DIVISION SALES PRESENTATION (c) 1983," the summer I visited Abraham Lincoln's law office in Springfield, IL, with future lawyer Rodney Pillsbury; walked alone through Hannibal, Missouri, home of memories belonging to Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens.

Other names: Og Mandino, Dave Dean and Zig Ziglar.  Nashville.  Iowa.  St. Louis.

Farm fields.  Subdivisions.  Rivers.  Towns.  A flat tire.  Sleeping in basements or attics to save money.  Killing a jackrabbit with my car.

Lonely elderly ladies wanting to talk for hours about their dogs or African violets.

Country roads.  No.  Closed door.  No.  No soliciting.  Not interested.  We don't take kindly to strangers in these parts.

These memories come back to me through my brain, I suppose.  I don't think muscle memory recalls walking door-to-door in the summer heat, my jaws clacking while I recited a sales pitch in hopes of getting a person interested in a two-volume "encyclopedia."

I'm getting older, my mental dictionary growing yet shrinking, suddenly realising that I meant "droves," not "troves," in a previous blog entry (although troves gave the sentence another meaning just as interesting).

And I had such high hopes for "Inception," expecting more than "Jacob's Ladder II."  Maybe we need another Ring Cycle from a great composer/director to tell all there is to tell in the telling.

If you told me that the conservative right-wing political movement popular in my part of the world was led in part by a woman who quit her high-profile political job to pursue a selfish career in public speaking and has a daughter who conceived a child out of wedlock, I'd think I was in some sort of Inception deception, that's for sure.

And this is the real world, right?

High drama.  Low-brow comedy.  We...

I remind myself to say I don't know anything.  I am a robot whose only function is to encourage us to get a small population of our re-engineered species off the planet.

Just because reality appears to beat any comedian in acting out a great farce doesn't mean I should write skits for the sideshow acts, does it?

If I already know what's going to happen next, then anything I do or say should not have an effect on the outcome.  But I know that's not true.  The world isn't draining the U.S. of its resources in order to drive it into a downward-spiralling depression - this country's economic input/output is essential to global commerce, is it not?  Surely we're past the days of national-level revenge, when the new bullies on the block got to push has-beens around for fun and increased earnings?

My colleagues tell me to be quiet, that I talk too much.  Their investments are much more important than my humorous musings.

I don't know what to say.  I wanted to say that I value the idea of freedom that this country once represented.  But if a court of judges in our country can declare that only the rich have the right to privacy in their own yard/driveway, then where can I turn to declare our species has the natural right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?

This is no longer my country.  It was taken over by conspiracy theorists and overzealous defenders against global terrorism long ago.  J. Edgar Hoover would be proud.  Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin not so much.

Why work my brain over to discover new ways to combine words if we assign corporations and governments the right to control our societies?  What happened to the right of the individual, innocent until proven guilty and all the other ideals handed to me in my youth?  Why my struggle to defend our species against ourselves for little or no reason, a hand trowel trying to hold back a tsunami wave?  Why not just hand over my whole body to be plugged into the "anything you say, I'll do" machine and get it over with?

I'm tired.  I'm older in thought than I thought possible.  I live only in this moment and this moment is so twisted out of shape, I'm afraid I can't find my way out.

Now that's comedy worth writing, an endless loop of endless loops of improbable contradictions, expressed not so much visually but in all states of energy at once in a single moment, revealing the levels that my colleagues don't think the mass-hypnotised masses are ready to see yet.

I wonder if this audiocassette tape still works.  Maybe there's a worthwhile message in it that I've forgotten.

Goulash in the Gulag

Government versus Corporation.  An endless debate, involving words.  Are there not more important issues to discuss?

Perhaps he knows:

Neither a martyr nor an enemy of the state, says he

Let's get back to the country life, where we can watch the crops grow and discuss science and math on a casual, cool basis.

Readin', writin', and 'rithmetic - what else can we ask of our kids?