Cracks in the Stucco Façade

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While I’m focused on the income inequality that plagues every healthy economy, which often leads to resource allocation problems and eventually revolution, I look over the cleared forests of Central and South America, the toxic landfills of North America/Europe, the deforested plains of north Africa and the Middle East, and the former jungles of Asia.

How does a culture recycle itself without revolution?

Is that pop saying from the ’70s “Reuse, Recycle, Respect”?

We know what life is like 1,000 years from now and have a pretty good idea how we got there, minus a few details.

Along the way, some subcultures took to euthanising or sterilising those who used their freedoms for selfish reasons.

CEOs and executives who could afford the trip escaped Earth for Moon bases, depositing their hordes of selfishly-gained wealth in offworld satellite banking systems.

All because mobs attacked boards of directors with relish.

Researchers proved a direct connection between the number of people in prison and the rise of income inequality; thus, the more that executive salaries and high-level manager bonuses were lowered, the fewer people we had in prisons, ending in a global declaration that the highest and lowest salaries of any industry couldn’t exceed the imprisonment threshold.

Indoctrination into democratisation of former citizens of dictatorial nations included a selfishness-vs-happiness assessment test.

Finally, we perfected brain reconfiguration, requiring all children to take “retraining” surgical procedures to ensure their brains were growing into perfectly balanced free-market oriented altruists.

Adults were required to demonstrate their nonselfish behaviour on an ongoing basis or sent for their “retraining” surgical procedures.  Those who refused were either sterilised or euthanised, according to their trend chart of selfish behaviour.

To set an example, the Walton family was deported to China and required to work in Chinese sweat shops for the next ten generations.

But you’re more interested in the positive aspects of tomorrow, aren’t you?

For starters, you’re no longer allowed to make an impulse purchase because social scientists were able to convince legislators to require businesses to educate customers about the ecological impact of the goods they were able to buy, similar to the grotesque warnings on cigarette labels today.  Therefore, every purchase is predicated by a quick test of your knowledge of the manufacturing, use and disposal of the item you want to purchase.

Needless to say, this has discouraged many an impulse purchase.

The good news is that we’ve freed up time to spend with our family, now that most of us have stopped wasting our precious hours in shopping queues.

People brag more about their quality family time than about salaries, rarely-worn clothes, underused SUVs or oversized homes.

And it all started because of what you’re doing today, placing value on your selfless devotion to family rather than in idolising objects.

My Sister’s List

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A list in an email from my sister:

“1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words :’In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come…
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”

Friends are the family that we choose.

Redbud Pods

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$900M of US Treasuries for one Chinese dissident?  Hmm…

While I upload, onto the Internet cloud, photos of the USS Maryland and USS Worcester (CL144), found in my grandfather’s bosun’s locker (last looked at in 1959), I ponder the universe.

Slowly getting back to my happy states of energy.

Watching seedpods ripen on redbud limbs.

Putting aside the “variety is the spice of life” headline reading that has dominated my curiosity lately and back to reading books that captured a moment in time during the life of a writer’s/editor’s career.

To thine own serf be through, and all that.

Speaking of all that, I heard a dictator/executive producer of a movie franchise insisted the cute female star be removed from her role in the latest “as delectable and memorable as cotton candy” summer blockbuster.

Reminds me of the following anecdote from Bennett Cerf:

Arthur Meyer, author of the amusing Hollywood memoir, Merely Colossal, nominated Adolph Zukor, long-time headman at Paramount Pictures, as the politest gent in the world of the cinema.  “I have a telegram to prove it,” continues Mayer.  “It reads, ‘You’re fired. Best regards.'”

[snare drum rim shot please!  or take my wife, for instance]

Did you hear the one about the guy who hiked to Walden’s Pond and realised that he’d feel more transcendental if his family had run a profitable pencil business for a while, too?

Or the feminists who say a guy is a sex addict but a woman is a nymphomaniac and that’s okay by them?

Whatever floats your boat.

Speaking of which, here are the USS Worcester photos (taken in the 1950s, my father believes).

And last but not listing (not too much, anyway) are the USS Maryland photos (taken in the 1930s, my father believes, als0).

In a few days, I go under general anesthesia and will possibly forget who I was, all in the name of medical progress, I’m told.

More on that later.

Time to meditate on sunlight filtering through a deciduous forest.  All ashore who’s goin’ ashore!

Mermaid or Merman for president?

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Have you followed the news lately?

I’m a bit confused.

Seems like those who supported Lincoln in the 1800s want seaworthy latter-day candidates on an election ballot.

How many wives can an executive have?

Is Admiral “Lone Sitar” Rickshaw Perry a secret admirer of the YFZ Ranch?

Why is Michelle such a popular name in political news?

Time for the Committee to reveal a third-party candidate duo that’ll attract all those who don’t walk the talk of left/right turn light indicators.

How many contractors will remain in Afghanistan after the troops are safely home debriefing, detoxing and unwinding for a return to noncombat reality?

Cyberwarfare 2.0

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In more humour news, rolling blackouts swept across Chinese metropolises and countrysides today, local police and citizen guardians arresting or killing anyone making comments, affirmative or negatory, in regards to the rumours that China was under cybersiege.  In related news, U.S. securities shot up in value, with the dollar reaching a new high against all major currencies.  The Federal Reserve used the higher dollar to cancel debt owned by China, Japan and several other sovereign nations, allowing the U.S. to make immediate and drastic diplomatic relationship changes.  India and Brazil once again found themselves caught in the cold grips of a virtual war of words in which they were sideline commentators unwilling to put their nuclear arsenals on full alert lest they interfere with upcoming cricket or futbol matches.   The World Court declared China’s hoarding of special chemicals and minerals illegal, opening the U.N. debate on sanctioning and declaring 21st June 2011 the official start date of World Cyberwarfare 2.0 Day.

Scientists announced the recreation of a comedian, W.C. Fields, whose body had unknowingly been well-preserved through alcoholism and available for DNA analysis and reconstruction lo these many decades.  Sales of pure grain alcohol skyrocketed, with buyers claiming they were preserving their bodies for future revivi..vivi…[hiccup!]
vivification, whatever that means.

After the recent devastating earthquakes rocked Haiti, U.S. researchers there found the secret formula for zombification.  Today, U.S. drones dropped silent “bombs” of zombification fluid in several major cities, primarily near the fortresses, palaces, resorts, getaways and government buildings where prominent entertainers and military/political leaders work, reside or hide.

Therefore, any local/regional/global news you see or hear, where popular talking heads are babbling on about subjects of little to no interest to most of us, is probably under the direct mind control of the extraterrestrial aliens operating the U.S. government in bunkers deep beneath the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court buildings and operating the world governments in shelters deep beneath the U.N. Building.

Contrary to popular rumours, the bombing of the World Trade Center was not a terrorist act but rather the continuing intergalactic battle for control of Earth.  In the aftermath of the WTC/Pentagon attacks, aliens from Sector W2II3 of the Uncategorised Quadrant took over Earth because the aliens from Sector WVB1991 and their world-control equipment were effectively wiped out of commission.

Yes, the Soviets may have been part of Area 51 but Area 51 was always supposed to be a ruse devised by the Cold War leaders to divert the attention of humans not yet under zombie control or under the influence of expanding mass media hypnosis.

World governments have still not been able to locate the invisible alien control center in Afghanistan, despite millennia of deciphering hieroglyphic markings found in that part of Earth.  Legend has it that the invisible alien control center will give not only eternal life but also the ability to move galaxies at will, making domination of this planet seem like a kindergarten sandbox fight.

That’s all the humourumour news not fit to print in grocery store rag mags or professional comedy websites.

We ARE AT WAR!!!!

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A little bird told me that the U.S. has been at war for about 10 years now.

First of all, my thanks and prayers to all of those who have given their lives and careers to the propagation of the American way of life, which is an extension of cultural archetypes many believe are the best, safest forms of subcultural living available, primarily Western in bureaucratic management style with heavy influences from Eastern and Southern Hemisphere styles going back-and-forth across cultural meme boundaries.

But those labels aren’t why I’m here.

A bit of humour: the Joint Chiefs of Staff today took over the White House and announced a preemptive strike on Chinese military, taking out Chinese submarines, military bases, missile installations, cyberwarfare IT departments and satellites in a fast sweep across the globe.  We watch as the Chinese wage a counterstrike by refusing to manufacture any more goods for the nondomestic market.  Stock prices barely registered a blip in response, with stockbrokers more concerned about each other’s insider opinions than about any connection to the real world.

I grew up under the ghost of the Korean War and in the shadow of the Vietnam War.  I saw the U.S. participate in counterinsurgencies in Central and South America as well as invasions of countries like Grenada and Iraq.

So I’ve grown a little weary, maybe leery, possible wary, of what a “war” really is.

I know many a father wants a son or two or three to grow up in the military and receive ribbons/honours on the fields/oceans/skies of battle.

And we realise that only one to two percent of those in today’s U.S. military are actively entangled in battlefronts.

What about the other 98 to 99 percent of U.S. military personnel?

What about military personnel in other cultures?

Let’s say we abandon the battlefields we created in Afghanistan.  Let’s say we disengage our military entanglements in Iraq and Pakistan.

What about our mindsets in regards to raising little warriors?

What are the cultural implications for the future?

Who or what will fill the vacuum we leave behind?

How do we retrain our youth to “fight” for reviving the U.S. economy through innovation and domestic production?

What is the cost of crosstraining and retraining the hundreds of thousands currently devoted to U.S. military-based economic output?

Will the new retirees, many of them raised to believe in American military superiourity, watch as their resources – their savings, their pensions, their government welfare – are spent on raising the next generation of Americans unlike them?

What will the next generation call uniquely American?

Space exploration?

New technology development?

Medical miracle workers?

Something we haven’t dreamed of yet?

Will the next generation think of themselves as Americans or as members of a global economy much like many youths in countries like Ireland think of themselves as Europeans today?

How much can a middle-aged guy like me be torn apart and recast in the mold of whatever shape the next generation will look up to as wise leaders with a clear vision of what tomorrow will be, with new problems to solve and new problems that won’t go away easily, just like today?

Which models of the past do we melt?

Which ideas from the past do we no longer perpetuate?

Yes, we are at war with ourselves, ever-vigilant,  on the lookout for those who push forward images of hatred and destruction that lead to deadends.

And now, back to reality, leaving subcultures to themselves and their comments.

Point, Counterpunch

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  1. Lack Beed Foop
  2. Rich, Thick and Bonus-Free Shipping!
  3.  Give me liberty or give me dearth!
  4. All in the thoughts, if you don’t mind.

Happy is what happy does.

Me, I’m speechlessly delirious.

Thanks to Jason and Danielle for their patience, Hank at Zaxby’s, readers who know the difference between blogged facts and storytelling.

College football season inches closer in this country, BCS or not.

Congrats to the new UT [temporary] athletic director.

Wife is glad that Bo and Hope are back, evil twin story lines or naught.

Me, I’m spuriously ductless.

Oh, one last thing – the U.S. and Germany made a bargain behind the EU’s back, selling Greece to China in exchange for reducing the U.S./EU debt load and permanent access to the BRIC market.  Either that, or the U.S. will give South China Sea access in exchange for North Korea market development.  Where is Noriega when you need him?  Mourning the loss of Clarence Clemons or Ryan Dunn?

Did You Hear About the Northern Irishman Who Won the U.S. Open?

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Thanks to Juliet at Carson’s Grille, my parents, my mother in-law, Ingle’s, Bimbo Fireworks and gas station…

Where did I leave off while talking to myself the last time?  Hmm…

Oh yeah.  Growing up in Colonial Heights.

I’ve never been a member of the Southern Baptist Church.

Not that the church is a bad place, but I never felt the need, like schoolmates and their parents, to belong to an organisation that prided itself on its exclusivity – “we’re the only true believers,” “we have the most missionaries,” etc.

Every one of us is motivated to overcome entropy with our states of energy in different ways.

Some people want…well, like my sister in-law, who is a member of the Southern Baptist Church, told me, “I’m not the adventurous kind of person…  I’ve raised two great kids.  I work for the church as a bookkeeper, which doesn’t pay a lot, but it’s a steady job.”

In other words, her subculture – her church – provides her the social web of protection that lets her sleep soundly at night while dreaming of grandchildren.

Some prefer chaos and anarchy.

Some prefer no large social web.

And yet, here we are, all seven billion of us sharing this planet interconnectedly.

A friend told me about her antibucket list – her, if you’ll pardon my non child-friendly phrase, fuhket or fuhketaboutit list.

  • Item no. 1 – no more making food for church socials – she was tired of preparing casseroles or other dishes for people she rarely hung out with or who didn’t appreciate her gourmet taste.  Artichoke-and-anchovy dishes were for family gatherings from now on.
  • Item no. 2 – no traveling with strangers who have no sense of direction or desire for adventure – she’d just completed a trip to the Big Apple and, although it provided many funny moments to talk about, the minidisasters along the way almost overran the few good times she had.
  • Item no. 2 – she didn’t have to make a long list, just start the list and let the rest of the world add to it.
= = = ++[{}]++ = = =
Some Irish golf humour to end this blog
After a particularly poor game of golf, a popular club member skipped the clubhouse and started to go home. As he was walking to the parking lot to get his car, a policeman stopped him and asked, “Did you tee off on the sixteenth hole about twenty minutes ago?”
“Yes,” the golfer responded.
“Did you happen to hook your ball so that it went over the trees and off the course?”
“Yes, I did. How did you know?” he asked.
“Well,” said the policeman very seriously, “Your ball flew out onto the highway and crashed through a driver’s windshield. The car went out of control, crashing into five other cars and a fire truck. The fire truck couldn’t make it to the fire, and the building burned down. So, what are you going to do about it?”
The golfer thought it over carefully and responded…
“I think I’ll close my stance a little bit, tighten my grip and lower my right thumb.”
= = =
Fred got home from his Sunday round of golf later than normal and very tired. “Bad day at the course?” his wife asked. “Everything was going fine,” he said. “Then Harry had a heart attack and died on the 10th tee.”
“Oh, that’s awful!”
“You’re not kidding. For the whole back nine it was hit the ball, drag Harry, hit the ball, drag Harry.”
= = =
After an enjoyable eighteen hole of golf, a man stopped in a bar for a beer before heading home. There he struck up a conversation with a ravishing young beauty. They had a couple of drinks, liked each other, and soon she invited him over to her apartment. For two hours they made mad, passionate love. On the way home, the man’s conscience started bothering him something awful. He loved his wife and didn’t want this unplanned indiscretion to ruin their relationship, so he decided the only thing to do was come clean. “Honey,” he said when he got home, “I have a confession to make. After I played golf today, I stopped by the bar for a beer, met a beautiful woman, went back to her apartment and made love to her for two hours. I’m sorry, it won’t ever happen again, and I hope you’ll forgive me.” His wife scowled at him and said, “Don’t lie to me, you sorry scumbag! You played thirty-six holes, didn’t you?”