The Standard Bearer Bear Bares All: Chapter Barely There

Looking back at the last half of 2011, I should have seen this coming.

Hi? I’m the ghost of the ‘bar’ (bear) killed by your frontiersman years ago.

My spirit is slated for an upgrade.

In the meantime, I can report the past, my past, to you as if it’s your future.

First of all, after Apple and other tech companies convert their factories to robotic automation, they move out of China and into their local, domestic markets to appease isolationist customers whose children have technical robotic maintenance degrees and no jobs.

Next, I am amazed to tell you, Arizona and Alabama, in a legislative inspirational action accredited to Denmark, set up border patrols and checkpoints along their state boundaries, including roads, sea/river ports, railway stations, IP addresses, cell towers, satellite TV receivers, telephone exchanges and airfields.

In a show of solidarity, 25 states join the immigration embargo, installing facial recognition software in all electrnic devices and facial recognition devices at all border crossings.

Internet-based tax collection soared.

Because Washington D.C. was virtually surrounded by border guarding states, D.C. leaders instituted their own stricter form, forcing members of Congress to scramble to find legal help to clean their homes, cook, and serve as nannies for their kids.

Meanwhile, Jerry Brown broke California in two, offering refuge to all “illegal” immigrants in the new country of Nuevo Angeles.

If I have stopped bringing hope to the youth of this era…

What is comfort food?

I sit here, alone and lonely, a prisoner of my subculture, trapped in time…

No reason for me the individual to live, so I hoist a rope over my shoulder and pull an imaginary cart called life with me wherever I go, even when I go nowhere.

A character in the drama of real life.

On a tiny planet, aware that others pretend to be gods because there’s no one but ourselves to prove otherwise.

That, and the perspective that the passage of time provides.

A hermit dragged out of his meditative slumber in order to tell other people’s story in his voice.

Beware the sleeping giant who likes to be left alone.

Otherwise, he may stir up anger to start a war just to reduce the number of people and animals who could interrupt him in the future.

Or organise the hordes of the meek – the under- and unemployed – to do more than bang on the poorly-guarded gates, walls and back doors of the current aristocracy.

Or provoke to violent action the meagre trolls hiding in forums and news article comments.

When cornered, they are what they say.

However, I am tired of hauling storylines around.

My death, like that of my predecessors, draws near.

I have trained no replacement.

Therefore, I cannot guarantee someone will have the message to pass on that reveals the reason for spreading life in this solar system.

Others will pretend it is our manifest destiny, or invoke the “white’s man burden,” and act like prophets.

Vanity is the very reason I wish to remain anonymous, despite temptation, or to spite it.

Better for those after me to operate in silence, whispering to you in your sleep, than let anthropomorphism exist where it does not need to be.

Sweet dreams, daytime or night.

Time for my peaceful, nonproductive, nondestructive, nonsocial nap where I can be whomever I imagine, and not spend a dime supporting the lives of owners hidden behind franchise fees or stock/futures speculation, or buffered by reelection/slush funds.

Don’t worry. You’ll hear from us soon, even if it’s just a remnant of a dream you can barely recall…

I’m moving on, hoping to find a personal life worth writing about.

Or have a heart attack hefting my big body down the street trying.

==> THE END <==

Candid Soup for the Soul: Chapter Tree

“Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Prebyterian rebellion.” — Anonymous Hessian officer, 1778

The past is behind us is a phrase that’s behind us.

Birds drink and bathe in the shallow plastic bowl on the glass topped table on the back deck.

Chickadees and tufted titmouses together, always alert to predators.

The goldfinch looks for seed and flies on.

Late afternoon sun.

The cats asleep in the bedroom.

My wife surfing TV channels for mind-numbing programmi to watch while she handmakes greeting cards.

For how many of us are blogs flat files, containing every outburst of thought, organised,disjointed, observations, grocery lists, book chapters, lyrics, travelogues, critiques, DIY instructions, secret codes, adverts, ASCII art,…?

In 2020, as in 2100, as in now, life is familiar.

Surface features change.

One-hit wonders fill the airwaves and thought patterns of the idle young/old.

Peace and war are abstract terms at odds with each other.

Fossils fascinate us.

Wrens call out from the top of deck umbrellas.

Life goes on.

Spiders are spiders.

The sun shines.

We perceive change because this part of the universe doesn’t sit at absolute zero or below.

And I, carrier of thousands of years of wisdom, carry on.

Traditional values are always relative to the environment in which they were conceived and carried out.

Today’s radical, you know, is tomorrow’s traditional value.

We use solar power the old-fashioned way – trees – to cool our house.

No need for fancy automated heat exchange units, solar panels or electric air conditioners.

The pure, unregulated essence of nature/God/gods in action.

States of energy changing shape.

(And sometimes changing states!)

We can’t imagine ourselves as a temporary species giving rise to som thing/one else.

The wind blows in the galaxy, not a single coyote’s voice calling out.

The thing about holding the past and future in your hands is seeing how little any one moment is but how ultimately important a moment becomes.

We lost our last fearless leader so I have picked up the pieces and am moving us forward (as if we have anytime else to go!).

The last leader was under the influence of the god of comedy.

I don’t yet know who influences me.

However, I am much more serious in advancing our revolution, using the people for and against themselves as it suits me to achieve our ends.

Wrath and love are just words to me.

The means justify the end.

All for the sake of the cross-species entities that will wipe us all out on their way into the galaxy and beyond.

I am but a temporary vessel.

I do not exist.

I carry the traditions, memories, desires, disappointments and dreams of our ancestors to compute the futures for our descendants, direct or derived.

You read these phrases translated into your language.

My language you cannot understand because your bodies have not been modified for such.

Some with neuroenhancing accelerants might barely understand me in the nanosecond it took to compose this letter to you in your century.

Time travel is an illusion between a simple and complex society.

I am you, the person you imagine is watching yourself from an omnipotent position.

Vellum Velorum: Chapter Rusticated

Here at Gulla Bull Connect-a-Life, we work hard to make sure our e-dating site records all the minutiae about your life that no one else cares about.

Using an electronic calculator cobbled together with some old RCA 1802 microprocessors we found in one of our attics, we compute the odds of you matching anyone anywhere, in our database or otherwise.

“The odds are good, but the goods are odd.”

Most importantly, we do our best to connect the 95% of women to the 5% of men who want to get married, knowing in reality that we’re matching the 95% of men to the 5% of women who just want to have sex.

Sorry, we don’t deal in fantasies.

And if you aren’t interested in an old-fashioned heterosexual relationship, don’t worry.  Most of the other people who think they can’t find the perfect mate aren’t, either.  [Shh, it’s a secret!]

The Available Spoon: Chapter Horselover Fat

“Mon Dieu, Lee!”

“Yes, humble worshipper. You called?”

“Lee, you are noy my god…”

“And yet, you put my name in a sentence as if I am.”

“Like the short painter, you have nothing, Toulouse.”

“And I suppose you pretend to be Camille or Adriana…”

“Polyangle.”

“I see. So this is a word game on ‘Midnight in Paris’?”

“Non.”

“Aussi.”

“Oui. These americains. They…uh, their Pure-rhetoricalisms…it is…how do you…”

“Puritanism, perhaps?”

“Huh?”

“Do you mean they have strict religious beliefs like their founding peres et meres?”

“Pourquoi? Qu’est-ce que c’est, pears and mares?”

“You are impossible. Did you hear the American government, always dominating the foreign news service by blowing a lot of hot air, has decided students are like food crops and must file a five-year university plan with their application for a student loan?”

“Non!”

“Oui. Any deviation from their studies results in jail time. No more Apples or facebooks without government approval.”

“Theze is a miracle. Next, they shall make the UN charter all over again, declaring countries cannot join the UN if they are tax shelters, forfeiting their sovereignty if they do not join.”

“Oui?”

“Bitte. Hai! Mon petit doigt me l’a dit.”

“Peu importe.”

“La, vous touchez du doigt le problème essentiel.”

“Mais, ce vieux reglement est toujours en vigeur?”

“Nn…oui.”

“C’est un peu violent!”

“Non, c’est dommage.”

“Then next we will see a virtual takeover of Norway by right-wing ‘protectors’ to prevent the very violence they never officially approved nor disapproved.”

“Oui, no different than americains electing a man with a Muslim name after Muslims were blamed for 9/11. A saudi conspiracy, no doubt, with one man in mind.”

“Il connait tous les dessous?”

“Oui. La nouvelle s’est répandue comme une traînée de poudre.”

“Ne faites pas trainer votre histoire en longueur; venez-en au fait.”

“Shall I spill the beans, or the peas, as it were?”

“Oui. Il faut absolument le faire dans les formes.”

“Le plus fort, c’est qu’ils croient avoir gagné!”

“Non!”

“Oui!”

“Ses anciens associés le faisaient chanter.”

“Ha ha. ‘Qu’est-ce que vous me chantez la?'”

“C’est du propre et du joli!”

“Il à pris le décision de partir de son propre chef.”

“Non?!”

“Oui. Il à avale sa bière s’un trait.”

“Ses camarades lui ont bourré le crâne et il ne voit plus ses limites.”

“Boucle-la!”

“Il est bouché à l’émeri!”

“Vous avez le front de me dire cela?”

“Oui. Mais, il faut que nous fassions front ensemble aux critiques.”

“Voilà le hic.”

Avouant son impuissance, il à levé les bras au ciel.

Ils se disposent déjà a partir.

Vous pouvez disposer.

“Au revoir, Docteur Marron.”

“Non, non. Say, ‘Docteur Brown.’ Less meaning but with meaning, all the same.”

“D’accord!”

Il se retournait constamment pour voir s’il était suivi.

“Cette seule erreur ne doit pas mettre en cause dix ans de travail!”

Au moment des élections, plusieurs des députés ont tourné casaque. Leurs projets grandioses ont tourné court.

Il se recueillit un moment avant de donner sa réponse.

“Ils sont en réclame pendant toute la semaine.”

“Non. Maintenant! Cesse de faire le veau et met-toi au travail!”

“Okay. Mais, la droite faisant ses choux gras du désarroi de la gauche.”

“À la guerre comme à la guerre.”

En posant une question innocente, il est tombe dans la gueule du loup.

“Oui. En fin de compte, cela m’est égal.”

On n’a jamais su le fin mot de cette histoire.

“C’est seulement grâce a son argent qu’il a voix au chapitre.”

“Il fait du volume pour masquer son insignifiance.”

“‘Au voleur!'”

“Tu es grand maintenant; tu peux voler de tes propres ailes.”

“Mais, il n’en fiche pas la rame.”

“…mmm, c’est mon dernier mot.”

“Oui. Au revoir.”

“A demain matin!”

“A même temps?”

“Oui.”

Read Between the Lions: Chapter Fuzzy Math

While we arrange the second preschooler behavioural test results report for release, in order to change education as we know it forever, eliminating liberal arts completely (except for trust fund kids, of course), we have found a small line item in the upcoming legislation package.

All corporations will be required to reduce their cash holdings to a percent, on an individual level determined by the Treasury Department, generally in reverse proportion to lobbying efforts.  Any excess cash above that amount must be distributed as dividends by the end of the fiscal year or become payments toward reducing the national debt.

More as it is unveiled to us by our crafty interns wandering the halls of your clueless leaders.

A Nod to Spike Lee, Woody Allen and the Extreme Leftists/Rightists: Chapter Bamboozled and Hoodwinked

“The best way to fool the people was delay passage of lobbyist-packed legislation until the last minute so that nobody really knew what just happened to the wallet/purse or who got a knife in the back,” wrote Honourable Shirupenski on the cover of Terraform Corp’s annual business report in the year 2376, commemorating the end of the last political-based chamber of elected officials.  “From now on, you vote with your Milky Way tokens!”

Shirupenski laughed at the fact that, with the end of the concept of “governments,” all taxes collected by Terraform Corp stayed in the coffers of Terraform Corp, allocated to communities based on sales forecast needs for distribution centers, call centers, training centers, transportation systems, and online/brick-and-mortar shopping centers, rather than on wasteful social needs concocted by legislators keen on getting elected.

Communism, democracy, socialism, republicanism – these political terms had all but vanished from the modern language.

Opposition was alive and well and constantly reborn for every minigeneration, to give Terraform Corp 100% coverage of the solar system’s physical and mental needs.

Shirupenski gave thanks to ancestors and descendants, both natural and artificial, for making this moment complete.

All states of energy in this universe had been given a useful purpose.

The time was now.

Shirupenski pressed a button and disappeared into an adjoining thread of a nearby universe, carrying out a long tradition set by the founders of Terraform Corp many centuries ago.

Arduino Programming for Preschoolers: Chapter Skipped

Using a classic postSkinnerian behavioural model test, we divided a group of preschoolers into those who had the ability to read (group A) and those who didn’t (group B).

From each group, we pulled 29 children, put the two (labeled subgroups A and B) in separate but identical rooms and allowed the children to play with the same set of toys, books, etc.

The remaining children (subgroups labeled A’ and B’) were put together into a supersubgroup labeled C, placed in one room, handed childsafe-plastic Arduino programming guides that resembled reading lesson books and given military-grade tablet computers to play with.

The programming guides provided instructions for accessing interactive versions of themselves on the tablet PCs.

Furthermore, the programming guides included lessons for wirelessly programming the Arduino-based toys in the rooms of subgroups A and B.

By default, the toys had built-in functions for memory games – Simon Sez (repeating lighted button patterns), Concentration (recalling pairs of matching images) and Singalong (humming sets of playful musical tones).

The children in subgroup C were rewarded for writing programs that created games with the toughest learning curves on the toys.  On a side note, some of the children tended to teach the nonreaders how to read in order to increase overall subgroup success.  The few nonparticipating readers and nonreaders were pulled out after three weeks and placed in subgroup E (see below).

The children in subgroups A and B were rewarded for solving the new games the fastest.  The ones who, instead of playing with toys, chose to read and thus solved the riddles that described Arduino programming problems in “plain” word/sentence form, were removed and put in subgroup D that wrote new problems/games for subgroup C to program.  The children in subgroup D were rewarded for the most number of problems that subgroup C chose to program.

A subset of children in all subgroups shied away from toys, books and/or tablet PCs, breaking up into small social groups or going off singly.  They were pulled out after three weeks and put together as subgroup E in a room that was connected to an outdoor playground which included a maze that exited into a tetrahedron-shaped room of mirrors with a hidden microphone connected to a voice-activated parroting system that repeated the last 20 seconds of spoken/sung sounds.

We now have children in subgroup C who speak and act “Arduino” as extensions of themselves.

The children in subgroups A and B speak and act as extensions of subgroup C.

Subgroup D overtly but unknowingly controls subgroups A, B and C.

Subgroup E was observed for potential future preschooler test scenarios.

Due to the nature of the experiment, no control group was set aside, because no proposed outcome had been established ahead of time.  The only assumption was that no physical harm should befall the children.  Longterm mental effects were undefined and not speculated about.

More as it develops in this postmodern preapp programming generation.

We are part of Experiment Set Class Group AG Subgroup 0030, rewarded for the quickest and most profitable contribution of preschoolers to functioning society.