Tag Archives: culture

My mother’s valedictorian speech — 60 years later…

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Evelyn’s Valedictorian’s Speech

for Graduation at Everett High School

Maryville, Tennessee

May, 1952

Blount County Schools

Our schools in the past have had an important part in making our county the great county that it is.  You have heard the report from Miss Long which tells us what our schools have meant to many of our professional and industrial leaders.  It is true that we have accomplished much, but we must not be satisfied until we have made our schools meet the needs of our people.

There are many needs, but I shall discuss only a few.

It seems to me that one of the most important needs is to let our schools grow up.  The old ways of living have passed.  We are now in an electrical and atomic age.  Educational facilities of horse and buggy and dirt road days do not meet the need of our motorized and fast moving age.  Our industries have grown into adulthood and our employers are demanding that our employees have more and better training.

We must stop looking at our schools as childish toys and our teachers as baby-sitters.  We must see our schools as institutions where the lives of our youth are being molded to become leaders who will have life’s responsibilities of tomorrow.  Children are not toys to be played with, but men and women in the making.  They must be given the principals [sic] of health, honesty, moral and spiritual living.  The school environment must be such that these principals [sic] can be properly taught.  Children must not only be taught, but must see the things practiced which are taught.

In the pictures which you have seen you noticed that all lunchrooms in the old buildings were in basements where artificial light was necessary and ventilation was very poor.  In the new buildings you noticed that lunch-rooms were modern and the most attractive room in the building.  This is as it should be.  Do you know of any home where the kitchen and dining room is in the basement?  If we practice in the schools the things which are taught, teaching is much more effective.  We are taught that in order to digest our food properly we should have a cheerful and happy environment.  It is evidence of growth in our schools when we take our lunchrooms out of dingy, damp, dark basements and put them in light attractive rooms.

There is a need for school growth in our transportation system.  We teach moral, and spiritual growth in our schools, but when we get on our bus to go home, boys and girls are packed together like sardines in a can.  We have one bus which has a seating capacity of 48.  The driver says that at times he has a load of 86.  Such conditions do not teach moral and clean living.  We need to allow our transportation system to grow up so that boys and girls can ride as our adults ride.

We must see our school needs and have a desire to do something about them before our needs are supplied.

We are able to supply our needs.  We are living in one of the wealthiest and most progressive counties in the state.  In population we rank 9th.  In wealth we rank 6th.  We are rich in industries.  We have excellent farming land.  We have lumber.  We have thousands of tourists.  We have marble.  But our greatest asset is the boys and girls in our schools.  We have the material.  If we have the will we can supply our needs.  There is evidence that we have that desire.  Within recent months our County Court has appropiated [sic] an additional $3,000,000 to meet pressing building needs.  Our school should prepare students for life responsibilities whatever they may be.  We are facing many new and difficult problems which must be rightly solved or our national life, as we know it today will be in danger.  Our educational system is the key to a solution of many of these problems.  In 1941 in Blount County 1124 children entered the first grade.  In 1950 there 1307 entered.  In 1941 we had 359 entering high school.  In 1950 there were 698 entering high school.  Our county superintendent said that he expects 150 more first grade pupils next year than we had this year.  This means that we will need 5 new teachers and of course 5 new classrooms for the teachers in the first grade.  It also means more teaching material and more buses.  This is only an example to show how our schools are growing.  If our schools are to adequately prepare our pupils for tomorrow’s citizenship, these needs must be supplied.

We are building great industries where people are earning a comfortable living.  We are improving our farms so that we may have better crops.  We are building more comfortable and attractive homes and we are furnishing them with the most modern equipment.  We are building larger and more beautiful church buildings where we can satisfy the hunger of our souls with the Bread of Life.

We are making progress, but much needs to be done.  Our school buildings and grounds must be made attractive and kept that way the entire year.  We must pay our teachers so that we can get the best.  Then we must demand of them satisfactory service.  Our transportation system must be modernized so that each youth will have a place to sit in decency and comfort.

God had given us our beautiful country.  He has given our county more than 10,000 school boys and girls.  293 of this number are graduating from high school this spring.  We thank God for His blessings upon us.  We thank you public officials and our parents for your efforts on our behalf, but our work is only in its beginning.

Fellow Classmates!  We have had many difficult problems during the past four years.  But now payday has come.  In our joy let us not forget those who have made this day possible for us.  Jesus healed ten lepers at one time, and only one returned to thank Him.  Let us be like that one.

Parents, teachers, and friends, if it had not been for your patience, thoughtfulness, interest, and love we could not have come to this hour.  We thank you, and we promise to work with you in making our schools the best possible, and our county a better place to live.  We shall do our best to live in such a way that you will not be disappointed in life.

=======

NOTE: My mother’s school advisor for this speech was also a local minister.

The New, Reformed Catholic Church for Modern Women

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I guess we knew it was coming sooner or later.

Today, the organisation, Our Lady for the Reformation of Male-Led Religion, announced its official split from the Roman Catholic Church.

Nunneries around the world are holding secret ballots to vote on whether to stay with the Roman Catholic Church or join Our Lady for the Reformation of Male-Led Religion.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Our Lady for the Reformation of Male-Led Religion has hinted that a later announcement of a name change, possibly to the Rowomyn Catholic Church, may be possible, off the record, of course.

The Vatican has flatly denied the right of Our Lady for the Reformation of Male-Led Religion to leave the Church, citing multiple traditions, as well as possible passages in the Good Book, itself, as valid reasons why women must continue to submit to the biggest, original Male-Led Religion of them all, for now and for eternity.

The leader of Priests for Equal Pay would neither confirm nor deny whether Priests for Equal Pay were in support of nuns asking for equal religious leader positions in the Church.

Rumours spread that the rise of Our Lady for the Reformation of Male-Led Religion has increased mumblings within Islam of women seeking equal job status in the religious leadership positions of mosques and, given time, being restored to the ancient roles of gender-neutral imams again.

The European Central Bank announced that these recent events have no bearing on the decision to lean on the Vatican’s vast stores of wealth to pull Europe from the brink of disaster and return Catholicism to its primary role as a healing force in modern economic policies.

When asked for ‘is opinion, Fidel Castro held up a cigar and say, “This is for you, Señor Richard Dawson.”

A Box of Old Baby Dolls

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In the quick succession of events we call life, when we say one event or another is more memorable than the rest, do we take time to notice our thought processes and how they influence future events?

Have you ever heard a child request a toy, then you saved your hard-earned money to buy the toy and felt more affinity for the toy than the child ever did?

While butterflies chase each other through the woods and a bird tries to catch one of the butterflies in its mouth, I wonder about opportunity costs.

I finally read about the race called the 2012 Indianapolis 500 and the exciting story of dramatic turns of events during the race.

Instead of watching, on the day of the race I helped my wife’s extended family fix up the house and grounds that belonged to my wife’s mother and now belongs jointly to my wife and her brother’s children.  [I would have enjoyed watching the race in memory of my father but chose not to this year, my father having expired mere days before.  There’ll be other races during which I’ll recall motorsports events my father and I shared, shedding a tear or two of happiness AND sadness.  I could have spent time with my mother that day, also, but didn’t.]

My in-laws closely managed their finances, creating a legacy to give their children, including a box of old baby dolls that were purchased for my wife and a house left to my wife and her brother.

The dolls have lost all but their sentimental value, reaching the state where entering the city dump or landfill is their final destination.

The house retains both real and sentimental values, carrying on the legacy that my wife shares with the children of her deceased brother — her niece and nephew.

In the age-old, perennial complaints/comments about the way our children and grandchildren never completely appreciate the sacrifices made to give them the clothes on their backs and the toys in their room, my wife and I virtually face our adult-aged niece and nephew, wondering where they were when we needed them most to help them honour their father’s legacy.

The cycle of life…sigh…

Little time to mourn my mother in-law before my father died.

Now I have a wife and a mother to separately help not only with the grieving process but also the financial/legal hurdles that our society places in front of us to ensure the government gets its [un]fair share of carefully-tended legacies and insurance companies give out as little as they can to protect shareholders more than policy holders.

I was a great-nephew once, living less than 15-minutes drive from a great-aunt who could have used my assistance.  Instead, I was a frivolous college student more interested in having a good time with my friends.  Thankfully, my great-aunt changed her will and essentially cut me out, teaching me that ignoring a family member in need has consequences in the here-and-now, if not the afterlife.

Love has no price, no matter how painful the loss of a monetary inheritance may feel.

If we’re lucky, we innately know to give love unconditionally, buying toys for children who may never know the price we paid in money but more importantly in time sacrificed on the job to put toys on layaway when budgets were tight.

Hopefully, we teach our children that time spent together with family is more precious than objects like toys or houses.

Although toys, houses, and rooms full of antique furniture have their value, too.

I now own a suitcase full of shirts that belonged to my father, including his favourite blue, short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt.  I cherish them but I’d trade them in a heartbeat for another chance to sit with my father or hear him talk German with a stranger on the street.

I have a box of his unfinished balsa wood airplanes on a stack of boxes behind me.  It’s up to me to finish one of the planes and pass it on to his grandson who will never know the love of airplanes my father and I shared for the first 50 years of my life.  I know it’ll just be a toy airplane my nephew will probably think his middle-aged uncle poured a lot of old-fashioned sentiment into, wondering where he’ll put it in case I ask about it ever again.

That’s just the way life goes.

I sure miss my father today…one of his first childhood balsa wood planes sits a few feet away from me, gathering dust, its engine long since clogged with old fuel.  The only thing of his father I have is a U.S. Navy knife and leather holster.  I have nothing of his father’s father, not even memories.  I knew my father’s mother’s father but have nothing of his, either, except a story or two my father told — there are handmade garden tools and kitchen gear of his still around, though.

Otherwise, we pass this way once and are quickly forgotten.

Our business is with the living, our moments together more important than memories of those moments, which will fade soon enough.

At my funeral, will people say “I remember Rick’s blog and how it changed my life” more than “I remember Rick talking to me every day and how important he made me feel when he recalled something I’d told him in person once before?”

I have one foot in and one foot out of social media.  I don’t want to predict 1000 years from now whether our virtual lives will have stronger emotional impact than our physical connections but take me away from this computer and all the social network connections of the world quickly fade from my memory because I never held them in my hand, patted them on the back, smelled their perfume/cologne/body odours or noticed their unique personalities up close.

Will social media be like a box of old baby dolls one day, easily thrown in the trash, its opportunity cost and sacrificial price quickly forgotten?  If you ever used a BBS, you already know the answer.

A World of Ideas, or an Idea of Worlds?

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How much of what goes on in our species is necessary for you/me/us to go on?

How much more austerity is necessary for a place like Greece to endure in order to inspire real innovation for change?

Simply pouring government funds, part of which is covered in taxes, does not make those holding the vessel which collects the funds (users of the money) more efficient and thus profitable.

Terms like bonds, taxes, government treasury bills and loans float through the airwaves constantly.

And then a spacecraft, nicknamed Dragon (with many a symbolic meaning there), is grappled and floats in unison with the ISS.

Racecar mechanics race against time to prepare for the big race.

Race itself is a a term with many a symbolic meaning.

But these are words in one language.

We see terms, symbols, memes, languages, and other sets of states of energy as we see fit.

We may have a fit in the process.

The storyline of the Committee picks back up again.

We are 8.5 strong, adding PegLegs to the mix.  The 0.5 has grown into the 0.65, becoming more adultlike and responsible every day — when it reaches 1.0, we remove a member from the Committee.

Attrition may place its part ahead of time.

What’s next on the Committee’s agenda?

A balancing act, of course.

Expanding our knowledge and experience in the known universe, as usual.

Always weighed against personal loss.

Celebrating the simplest of events, like digging up an old boxwood bush with a shovel and cutter mattock.

Or welcoming the 1000th guest onboard a space hotel.

Today, we finished plans for the cruise ship that travels from Earth to the Moon and back again regularly.

Frequent launches from our planet to the cruise ship allows guests to spend time in space, with many dropping to the Moon for extended holidays and business trips.

Sure, a few find the travel inconvenient, wasting valuable time commuting between laboratories where robotic surrogates cannot complete assignments in ways that our species can.

We have not totally given over our toughest jobs to robots.

Robots have not totally resigned themselves to being outside the realm of our species’ capabilities.

Long ago, we crossed the threshold where the difference between cybernetic humans and robots with human body parts is indistinguishable.

Still, there are areas of the human brain that have not been fully duplicated.

We no longer call the synergy of these areas intuition.

Instead, we focus on the data complexity and efficiency of neuron transmission and information storage within a single brain, as well as the meme set carrying capacity of [sub]cultures.

A brain does not operate in a vacuum.

But students at age three already know this.

Why am I repeating myself, then?

Good question.

I chose not to enhance my central nervous system.

I am an old man, willing to face the deterioration inherent in brain cell loss and reduced cardiovascular functionality associated with a naturally aging body.

I have never lost the thought set of self-importance.  There is not a point in my narrative, like retirement or worker status/title, that indicates a change in my usefulness.

I can manage a group of hackers, police officers, counterterrorism agents and freedom fighters within the same brain.  I can create crime and prevent crime in the same sentence.

I can promote diplomatic solutions and bomb innocent villages between heartbeats.

I can act the dove and the hawk, the liberal and the conservative, at the same time.

The role of the Reluctant Leader in this storyline demands no less.

Happiness is sitting quietly, thoughts spinning in and out of consciousness.

Happiness is giving orders at a rapid pace that is still too slow to keep up with the seven billion thought sets that make up our species.

Forgetfulness is part of the solution, not part of the problem, a key variable in the equation of life.

We remember so that we can forget.

We forget so that we can remember.

We create wars in order to create warriors who become heroes who create peace which fosters a need to create wars again.

Have you wondered why someone could make a profit off the taxes you have to pay your government?

Shouldn’t the profit be used to refund your taxes, not create new taxes to be paid on profit earned or siphon taxes out of your local economy?

Austerity is just a word.

Just like poverty or prosperity.

Or planetary settlements.

Ideas.  Visions.

Were Spanish missions in California a mission from God?

What’s missing in that sentence?

Have geeks already inherited the earth?

Do proofreaders with pens scratch out a living?

Who is responsible to give you a job?

What is a job?

What is a living?

If the efficiencies of modern society eliminate the need for many of the seven billion of us, what do we do in the meantime?

Are we means-tested in realtime?  How do we create the sense of wellbeing — usefulness — when contract work and part-time jobs are the norm for the majority?

How many of us can handle the day-to-day competitiveness of us not only against each other, but also against the excess capacity of just-in-time automated manufacturing?  Or hoarded profit holdings?

Can you compete against the noise of everyday life, wanting just to be able to hear yourself, let alone find something to eat, clothes to wear and a place of your own to lay down your head and sleep?

If you had ten children, would you constantly ask, “If I only had food for two of my kids to survive, which ones would it be?”  Would you love the other eight any more or less?

What about two or three billion out of nine billion?

A Planet of Self-Actualised Individuals

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First of all, a big “Thanks!” to Terry at the AT&T landline phone repair group.

Although Trish and Trina of AT&T weekend support had great phone voices when I talked to them about my home landline having problems, they simply saw (presumably on computer screens) a report that my landline was fine, which they courteously reported back to me on the AT&T mobile phone I used to report unacceptable issues with my AT&T landline.

Unfortunately, friendly as they were, it did not solve the landline problems of strange pops, clicks, hums and, intermittently, no dial tone and/or no ADSL service.

Terry drove 35-40 miles across town yesterday and investigated the problem.

It appears, from his description, that a bad card in the box down by the highway (a DSLAM, perhaps?) was the source.  In any case, he swapped the landline connection to a different port and Voila! service as clear as a bell (Ma Bell to the rescue) and quiet as a mouse (no squeaks, though) are the lack of sounds I like to hear.

Terry, you’re my wife’s Hometown Hero of the Day!

Many more to thank, but on to other matters, next…

What does it take to make you happy?

In a network of seven billion people, how many do you know who do not seek material wealth or social/public accolades, finding, instead, a deep sense of self-worth and self-satisfaction by simply living in the moment, irregardless of current circumstances?

When you tell a species, that has developed a way to externalise the internal imagery a central nervous system has nurtured through social and self education, to let loose on an individual basis, putting social conforming norms aside, what do you get?

Does the species create a new thought process that makes former definitions of success irrelevant?

What about those who still seek the old ways of defining glory?

What about subcultures that depend upon forceful means for maintaining their existence?

Some will defend their subcultures to the death.

Some will accept/believe that enough people in their subculture want to perpetuate their peaceful means/way that they feel no need to defend themselves, accepting newcomers with differing beliefs into their lives, letting their day-to-day activities, rather than words or force, serve as examples.

In fact, our personality traits define the subcultural practices to which we best belong or toward which we tend to gravitate.

We do not choose the influences upon us during our formative years.

For a few years, we are nearly helpless, defenseless, and then, as we become aware of our individual strengths/weaknesses, we not only react to our environment, we proactively shape our environment.

As a child, I was raised primarily in a suburban environment.

When I was strong enough and tall enough, my father placed me behind a lawnmower and told me to get to work.

Eventually, I performed the lawnmowing duties for my neighbours, pricing my work according to the financial means I perceived — the elderly, retired lady next door paid me a few dollars but I was more grateful for the glass of fresh, cold lemonade or iced tea she made me than the money — I was taught that mowing was not just a job but a form of social duty.

Every dollar I earned was one less dollar my parents felt obligated, up to a point, to provide me to maintain the lifestyle of a suburban teenager who liked to walk to the store and buy a candy bar, one or two bottles of soda, a pack of chewing gum and a comic book, sharing them with my friends who got their money in ways I never thought to ask.

Meanwhile, national governments motivated military troops to maneuver into position in official war zones to protect and define the lines that divided major lifestyles because the idea of global economic trade had not been fully fleshed out yet.

That was then, this is now.

Kids still mow lawns, with girls as likely to stand behind the self-propelled mower as boys.  Just as common are professional lawncare service companies that sweep through neighbourhoods, mowing grass, trimming hedges, planting flowers and rearranging topiary animal displays.

Enough profit is generated by our modern global economy to free up millions of people from work, and thus their social duty, if they don’t want to.

“Free up?”

We still have to breathe, eat and sleep so we are not free from our bodily needs, no matter how financial and mentally secure we may be.

We are free to exercise our imaginations.

More and more often, we are free to express our imaginations publicly.

In a global economy, what is the connection between the general culture where global economic activity takes places and the subcultures that were once isolated from each other when warzones were acceptable means of controlling subcultural interaction?

A popular term right now is “Internet censorship.”

Every subculture has terms and ideas that are taboo.

Hate crimes, deity insults, unapproved bombings/killings, unsanctioned robbery/theft…

We redefine our actions in accordance with subcultural rules.

Behind every wall is a person who doesn’t want to be there for one reason or another, if only for a brief moment.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

Many rules/laws define my existence at this moment — grammar rules, computer operating system rules, the law of gravity, the local/state/national/global rules/laws that govern my ability to communicate across an interplanetary electronic network…

I see friends and acquaintances come and go as Internet firewalls are loosened/strengthened because of the perception that governments feel the need to protect subcultural taboos, defending their lifestyles, including mine.

All of the actions of my species I take into account as I look back at us 1000 years from now, seeing how we became who we will be (or are, depending on perspective).

Once colonies become independent, like children, they redefine their ideas of self, sometimes maintaining previous definitions and sometimes stretching their imaginations toward something we can’t imagine today.

One day, we see the visible light and invisible energy of galaxies as the foam on the sea of the universe, and the next day, we declare that perhaps the galaxies are all there is out there — mathematical formulae created imaginatively and then tested against observation.

Either way, we’re still a superset of states of energy that calls itself a species that depends on other species that live on/in us to give us the freedom to say we’ve reached the state of self-actualisation, happy to do whatever makes us happy in the moment, socially connected/defined or purposefully isolated individually.

Or, for some, a happy moment in the future we believe will exist for us, if we just work harder/smarter for ourselves and/or for the social good/[sub]culture to which we say/believe we belong.

As Joggers Pass by the Cedar-Sided House in the Woods…

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Working with my cadre of computer coders to gather data from (i.e., infiltrate) the apps most commonly downloaded by the hapless, in order to prepare a future of inexactitude.

The Chinese and [some] African national leaders say they are preparing a future that corrects the mistakes of Western foreign policies of the past.

Former enemies, the Brits and the Spaniards, approach a nearterm future of recessionary policy correction.

How long can we continue to suffer the pains of governments shrinking their influence upon the economy until the next breakthrough occurs?

Do we reword our headlines to say high unemployment rates are the goals we are achieving?

How do we prove to the restless youth that we’re encouraging them to think for themselves, outside the cereal box of toys and teeth-rotting sugary substances that drain their futures?

You are challenged to create the future in your own image.

You don’t have to depend on mass media portrayals of backyard BBQs, retirement accounts, jogging baby strollers and mobile phone technology implants because you need to communicate your thoughts before you think them.

Rushing into the future is no rush.  The highs get duller and duller.

Crime is a matter of perspective.

As joggers pass by the cedar-sided house in the woods, they burn energy, converting their sets of states of energy into portable heaters.

That’s the future you want to concentrate on.

The one that matters most.

After all, what distinguishes a natural-born member of our species from a cybernetic simulation?

Is it the jogger, the cedar siding, the house, or the woods?

A question posed 1000 years from now on a celestial body far from Earth.

That’s your future we derived from your app data.

Deal with it.

Image Du Jour

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A picturegram speaks a thousand languages:

Thanks to: http://hatcherscreative.com/portfolio/soyuzmultfilm-t-shirts/

Series of T-shirt designs with famous Soviet cartoon characters for Souzmultdesign. Goal of the project was reinvention of these characters into modern style. Challenging project as these characters are well-known to anybody from post-Soviet countries, stereotypical, associated with childhood and Soviet past.

The Wisdom of Southern Football

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Well, what do we have here today, young’ns, to stick between our teeth and gums, salivating over a big wad of molasses-soaked tobacco chaw, counting back the days of our youth when life was simple again?

Seems like only yesterday I was working amongst the wee people of the Emerald Isle, they being mostly Catholic in the southern part of the country.

And there I was, standing tall in their misty midst, wearing a shirt that proudly proclaimed the colours of [one of] my alma mater(s).

The University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Not far from Pigeon Forge, near to the place where adults and children alike enjoy the entertainment of Dollywood, named after Dolly Parton, who has one of the straightest, flattest roads in the county named after her, not to mention the cloned sheep, Dolly, also named in her honour but not for her road-worthiness.

‘Twas my boss, a fine fellow of the name of John Curran, if my memory serves me correctly (and after many a tiny sip of poteen, I can’t say my memory is what it was or or will be), who pointed at my shirt and asked what I was trying to provoke.

Were there rivals of the SEC (Southeastern Conference) there in our Shannon office I didn’t know about?

“Provoke?”

“Yes,” he said, half-angry, half-mockingly, “that jersey of yours is worse than anything you could put on to rile up the Munster or Leinster fans…you know that, don’t you?”

“I can’t say that I do. Is there something I’m missing here?”

“Missing? Yes! Eight hundred years of oppression! Have you not heard of the Orange marching down our streets, looking for trouble? Do you not know you’re working in Catholic country?”

I looked at my orange-and-white striped shirt, with a emblem showing an overlapped U and T. “It’s the colours of the University of Tennessee.”

“Not around here, it’s not. You might as well say you don’t want to work here. If you wear that shirt again, I’ll have to fire you. I’d suggest you go back to the hotel and change. Otherwise, I can’t promise what some of the guys here’ll do to you when no one’s looking!”

At least that explained why it appeared the waiter had spit into my Irish breakfast that morning.

So, you see, that’s the way it goes. We never know what kind of cud others are chewing on and mulling over.

A few days ago, I stopped at a petrol station to fuel my car and put food in my belly.

I parked next to a caravan full of young women who looked like they were on their way to a rally of some sort.

Pasted across parts of their vehicle were stickers that looked like a curly, capital letter – “A”.

Figuring them to be members of a sports team associated with the University of Alabama, I asked if they were fans of the Crimson Tide.

“Huh?” the leader asked me.

I pointed at the stickers on the caravan.

“Oh, those!” She and the other women laughed. “No, we’re not fans of the Crimson Tide. You see, it’s our symbol.”

I nodded, my turn to look confused.

“You know,” she said, and planted a big kiss on the lips of the woman next to her.

I might be dense at times but I can see Lilith Fair groupies when they spell it out for me. “But…”

“Yes, we know what you’re thinking. We were tired of the same old stickers that implied our gender preference. We heard that gay men now put Auburn stickers on their cars and wear Auburn colours to indicate their preference. We figured that we’d wear the colours of the rival to Auburn — the University of Alabama — to indicate ours.”

And I thought my orange jersey stirred up controversy.

Oh well, next thing I know, it’ll be the Manchester United scarf that represents the whole LGBT community.

Or that the 2012 London Olympics symbology is a cover for British members of al Qaeda, Red Guard and other gangs vying for “baddest of the bad” designation in mass media portrayals.

BTW, according to a journalist friend of mine, the government’s royal guard is secretly training an elite corps of prostitutes to act as supplemental entertainment for the Inner Circle and an outer line of protection against prying journalists and indiscreet hotel employees.

Happiness, Amalgamated

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Soon enough, while Mr. Gibbs stomachs colorectal cancer, I return to the imaginary future.

All the time, my father spends his days and nights in unknown cognitive condition.

The EU squanders. Or flounders.

Useful youthful years are spent away from dedication to full employment by/for the global economy.

Whose vision is here for me?

I write here, right here, where goals and victories are created by us for us.

Subcategories of subcutaneous subcultural attributes gain strength in building buildings, gilded, geldings waiting by the bay.

This moment is my future. Was. Will be.

I compete with/against my former dreams.

Listening to the likes of Claire Lynch, Ben Bosco, April Taylor and the Lunabelles; pump/reed organs; piano; mobile phone ringtones in sync with automobile brakes and squeaking steering wheels.

Thanks to Robert, Tracy, Kelly, Jody, Eloise, Rick, and Wendy today at the VA. [Yes, it was windy today, too.]

I write as if the future already happened [it did].

That’s the way it was.

Doesn’t matter who, when or where.

The future has a way of controlling its destiny [in retrospect, of course].

A class of ’82 SCHS graduate behind the counter at DQ.

Leaving the farm at 18 only to return and buy the one next door.

Do you know who’s going to Germany?

Who’s been to Myrtle Beach?

Whose father owned a TR3 and then a Porsche?

Who knows the best SNFs in town?

Does anyone want my father for a guinea pig for ALS/dementia/depression brain enhancement research, getting his professorial input via scribbled one-word responses to start with?

How will we deal with autism/dementia in solar system colonies not equipped for nonessential task assignments?

How far do I stretch my thought set to truly take in all seven billion of us, completely attached to the global economic employment model or not?

Every one of us is a data point in the scheme of turning carbon-based lifeform equivalents back out into the galaxy.

Your future has been plotted and trended.

Time to tell you what you’ll be thinking/doing next.

The reluctant leaders plods on in his clodhoppers…

Gender in the news

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Putting aside the issue of nontraditional gender roles, on a basic level of two genders in our species, here’s some interesting data to crunch for today:

  • Gender in the U.S.
  • Gender by age in the U.S. — interesting trend by age and by decade, isn’t it?  Those baby boomers are bulging in more ways than one, it appears: