Pioneers Come and Go

Goodbye to another pioneer who lived in my hometown.

Hello to a new sports figure hoping to pioneer a trail to championship glory with a clean program and a focus on academics, who will create well-rounded, successful student-athletes, we hope.

Two bits (0, 1) on the same book of information.

Girls are setting standards like the old Sons of the Pioneers.

We leave this hour with a classic tune, Ghost Riders In The Sky, and a medley, if you want a little more cowboy music melody.

And a nod to a family favourite by Tennessee Ernie Ford, Shenandoah.

And finally, the song that introduced my loved one and me to waltzing.

Choosing Not To Force Myself To Write

Watching others find ways to live, and watching myself reach out to the world through the cold, unloving connections of bits and bytes, I wonder…

While keeping the research of the particles of life moving forward, just so we can reach a milestone 14,284 days from now…

I wonder.

The old ways are still valid comparison points, I tell myself.

Political boundaries were meaningful at some point in time.

Every supercivilisation concedes old economies of scale to the previous generation.

I wonder why parents force so many structured activities on their children when children will become better adults if given time to explore subjects their parents don’t care to know about or simply don’t know exist.

How much of a general education is good for one person?

In sixth grade, I’ve said here at least once, I learned about the Soviet Union making students choose the direction their education would take at around age 10 or 11 (my same age at the time), and about Germany giving students the Gymnasium route, if they chose, after their primary school years were completed.

In secondary school, I could choose a vocational/technical program, a college preparatory program or a general education program for my high school diploma.

Specialisation divided me from my primary school classmates at age 15.

My observations about life in general began to take a new direction at that age, despite my desire to learn about all ways of life.

I lost track of the thought patterns of students outside the college preparatory track.

Yet, I still kept trying to apply my theories about general personality types to a smaller population.

Thus, at university, my theories were destroyed.

Was it inevitable?  For me, obviously, yes.

Snobbishness did not equate to applied intelligence as it had amongst my friends in secondary school.

People with a so-called redneck personality were just as likely to pursue a career in engineering or science as a person who had never seen a can of PBR beer.

And in the streets of downtown Atlanta, those who never completed a formal education were just as likely to drink high-shelf liquor and drive expensive cars as those who had PhDs and invented the Next Big Thing.

The Internet, a general means of access to self-education, did not exist in my youth.  Television, films, books, magazines, newspapers and contact with other people were the limited means to teach oneself.

I couldn’t instantly tweet with a person on the other side of the globe but I could exchange letters with an international penpal.

Ham radio gave some semblance of tweeting/texting.  Both provide no clear understanding of body language (but voice-based ham radio communication did provide intonation (Morse code was the tweeting/texting of its day, of course)).

But one body is still one body, subject to circadian, natural wake/sleep cycles.  Despite external devices and integrated prosthetic body part advancement, we chiefly depend on the speed of our central nervous system to process stimuli.

We may have speeded up the ability to herd our species but we are still flesh-and-blood states of energy.

Enlightened youth want more and they want it now, while older people want to keep their well-established lifestyles.

In general.

I enjoy watching the misdisuninformation cycles that those with something to sell/tell start by dropping a pebble, the concentric circles distorting and being distorted by all the competing messages vying to become stimuli to individuals and groups.

I have nothing to sell or tell.

I want to live a life that is amenable, even if “amenable” is a word I have to look up its meaning to determine if I’ve used its definition in the right context here.

So far, I’ve enjoyed the luxury of sharing my observations freely, keeping myself from succumbing to the temptation of luxury.

As we become more fully aware that consciousness is a deception that can fool us into a self-destructive supercivilisation, we will give more and more thought to the fact our bodies are made of competing subsystems working for the greater good of the body.

Nurture creative criticism in our children so they will understand friendly competition is the route to a world of competing subcultures working for the greater good of the body.

Cutting off negative pathways is painful but so is removing a gangrenous body part for the sake of the body.

There is no ultimate solution.  Life goes on.

We adjust to the changing times or we don’t – either response is acceptable.

Give room for the voices to be heard – the best solution in the moment often comes from a place we won’t know existed because a parent gave a child time for self-education outside the prescripted norm.

The size of the pathway or nervous system pipeline is key to understanding how to read the health of a subculture.  Overcrowd the pathway or overclock the pipeline speed and you create side effects that quickly turn into pathological terminators.

Are any of these theories universally valid or have I created a thought set that applies to a limited population?

Beanpole Twist ‘n’ Shout

Lord, have mercy, it was a fun time last night.

Smacking boot heels on old wood floors.

Accordion, washboard, guitar, drums, bass…like an ol’ bayou Saturd’y night getdown.

‘Memberances of N’awlins, crawfish boils, jazz fests, New Year’s Eve on the Riverwalk, ESPN settin’ up for the national championship.

Louisiana hot sauce or, when that’s not available, habanero squeezin’s on the chicken sandwich at Beauregard’s, the ever resourceful Antonio givin’ us the extra onion rings.

Dance lessons a’fore hand – “just remember, it’s not the exact steps that counts, it’s keepin’ time with your partner that makes it zydeco!”

One, two, three four.  Five, six, step back.

My partner – my rational, logical engineering wife – dissecting the steps ’cause we already know how to keep time.  This ain’t work, honey, it’s the weekend!  😉

Sippin’ whiskey from a flask – Bushmills Black Bush.  A little Sprite for the missus.  A swig of ginger ale for her male.

My, oh my, does the zydeco bring out the bee-yout’uhful ladies?!

Like the cream o’ the crop, they were, a’dancin’ with their beaus or choosin’ more experienced partners to learn a new move or two to spice up their relationship on the dance floor and off.

I felt like someone wound my clock back, and we were back at the ol’ Chicken Shack down by the river, a jug of hooch bein’ passed back and forth while bodies spun ’round and ’round like the storm clouds that swept past over and over again.

Lightnin’ never strikes the same place twice unless the dance floor’s on fire, my grandpappy used to say.

Reckon he’s right.

Zydeco lessons at the Eagles Club tonight, folks.  Don’t miss it!

A nod to Jessica at Arby’s, the behind-the-scenes folks at Lowe Mill, and Yuri Ozaki, whose quiet happiness blesses us all – may your country find peace during this difficult recovery period.  Cat, we’ll fill up on Happy Tummy the next go-round.

Take a day off, then my wife and I are hittin’ the dance floor again, this time shufflin’ our feet to swing music.

No offense to you bowling fans but between drinkin’ beer at the bowling alley or hoppin’ on the dance floor with my wife, I’ll take the parquet.

Or is it butter?

One day, our dancing will be as smooth as such.

More future news for you to use…

  • Two years from now, all new government employees will not be eligible for pension and will get no more than 10 days off for holidays.
  • Current government employees who did not save sufficient personal funds for retirement are out of luck – your pension has just been reduced by 50%, including all retirees backdated to the last 10 years, and will be reduced another 10% every quarter for the next year.
  • From the end of the following year to the end of the fiscal year after that, employees with more than 20 years working for the government will be given a lump sum of $20,000.  Employees who’ve worked less than 20 years for the government will be given a handwritten sign that reads, “Will work for food”.
  • New government motto: “If you don’t like this government, go off and form your own.
  • Government-based medical care has been reduced to the issuance of a home emergency medical kit, which includes a box of adhesive bandages, a bottle of aspirin, a tube of antiseptic ointment, a placard that states, “We feel your pain, but realise there’s always someone who has it worse off than you do,” and a list of phone numbers for out-of-work medical personnel willing to examine/operate on you and/or your family/dependents on a low-cost cash basis (at your own risk, of course).
  • Government subsidies are only available for those motivated and inventive enough to write a proposal for a business idea that has already been proven to be unprofitable without government support (including most art and pure science projects).
  • Convicts will be given consideration for parole after their work in prison factories has shown to increase the bottom line in a meaningful, measurable manner.
  • Because of the elimination of all government-based social services, private industry is not allowed to enforce a mandatory retirement date.
  • Workers may quit their jobs any time they feel they have put away enough for living a life without depending on benefactors such as the stalwarts, titans, giants, and creative minds of industry who sacrificed themselves for the sake of society in order for you to have that cushy job you constantly complained about.
  • Public educational institutions have been converted to youth-based work study programs.  Children have the option of learning under the youth-based work study programs or the prison factory system.
  • Young vagrants who have refused to work for either system will be rounded up and recycled for food sent to our off-world colonies.
  • Vagrants past the age of eligibility for the work study/prison factory system will be given the choice of going into the medical guinea pig program or accelerated reeducation system (in either case, automatically giving permission for their personalities to be erased), the latter making them eligible for the benefitless government or private industry job.  They, too, may opt to become off-world menu items.
  • As always, dissidence is an official function of society – unapproved dissidence qualifies you for vagrancy status.
  • If you question the validity of any of the above news items, you will be classified as a vagrant – unlike what your former liberal educators may have told you, there are no exceptions to these rules: win, lose, and die.

Anything you say can and will be used to improve the efficiency and profitability of the species’ primary functions.

If you believe any of this has been written in a sarcastic or satirical tone, it is clear evidence that you are in the middle of your accelerated reeducation process.  Your personality is now disappearing before your eyes.

Welcome to the new you!

More Unintended Consequences

From Ralph Nader’s suggestion for eliminating athletic scholarships to those who consider initiating an unprovoked attack on Libya is full cause for impeachment proceedings, the 1,000-year view will give you what you want, as always.

Herding cattle or herding our species, the Committee takes nothing personal.

Should the organisation of a government (which, remember, is little more than another form of business) be heavily weighted toward one branch or another?

Some of the next few decisions are not easy for me to make because they do affect me personally.

Leadership can be fun but changing the lives of others drastically against their wishes is not the part I consider to be fun.

Just like they told me, “We wish a third party candidate would win control to prove the system is greater than ideology.”

Seven billion views that differ except for the fact they belong to beings that all lived, no matter how their definition of normality can or can’t compare…

A personal journey I asked for and a personal journey I got, where I often don’t get what I wish for but always get what I basically need…

Tree leaves grow bigger every day as the ambient temperature generally increases.

Waves of denser air push water droplets to the ground gravitationally, flooding big creases and low-lying areas in the landscape.

14,286 days – where does the time go?

Oh well, just stay focused on saving the species and/or the ecosystem to which it belongs.

Having grown up in one dominant subculture and used to responding to the habits of those within that subculture is a curious phenomenon to observe while knowing that subculture nor any other is the best one for nurturing children.

Yet, it shares features with other successful childrearing subcultures that are worth preserving.

Features that are shared across species and with all living things, too.

Not to forget its relationship to states of energy.

Will we see our planet is a relay beacon before it’s too late?

I used to ask about how we keep theists, atheists, extraterrestrialists and everyone else happy in their beliefs while putting them to work on a big project that is neutral about human-based belief systems.

Then they put me in charge of the Committee so I would set aside conjecture and get busy with the task the Committee members saw was the most important of all the tasks assigned to us.

It’s really up to me how much I want to get involved in the local/regional a/political activities of my species now that I know how much/little those activities in/directly impact the task at hand.

The simple fact is the easiest to explain – every individual must be given a feeling of being involved in its life, which can include the feelings of being in control or out of control of one’s life.

We can force people’s beliefs in one direction or another or we can lead by example.

Some subcultures use thought police and some use peer pressure.

Some celebrate every ability to excel, regardless of gender, and some separate skill/talent development by gender.

I am 100% a member of my species, at least as much as we understand the composition that states of energy constitute.

I defend all our actions as the ways in which we define living, regardless of how little I can justify what many of us do.

In 2011, I am learning to identify the worldview that I built to justify my actions on a daily basis as well as learning that a universal view can include an absence of not only my species but life as we know it on this planet (it can also include a reconfiguration of what I think is a universe).

In 1,000 years, how will this 1-acre tract of land I call my own have changed?

It is no longer a part of undeveloped country or land on the edge of farm fields.  It is an established portion of the suburbanised landscape, evidence of increased population density by my species.

We build and rebuild and rebuild urban population centers, finding many ways to justify their existence – increased efficiency, the interconnected sets of idea generation, glorious architecture, etc.

We hypnotise and mesmerise ourselves with our cleverness.

As we attempt to find the next superbrain construction means that is sustainable, many parts (e.g., urban centers) have failed and more parts will fail.

Do we step out of this moment and into the future by admitting nothing is permanent and our structures should be put together on the assumption we’ll need to take them apart and recycle the components for the next round of temporary construction?

How can we convince all seven billion of us that life is sustainable engineering?

If my regional government, the state of Alabama, is too backward to recognise the need to set aside undeveloped land for the future of its citizens, should I care if its existence is temporary, and its leaders, no matter how filled with self-importance they may be while they pursue lucrative business relationships in their brief lifetimes, are quickly forgotten and their fortunes quickly dissolved because of their short-sightedness?

Whether we came from the cosmos, lightning striking ocean goo, or melding volcanic spew, we are here together.

Together, we make a difference.

The power of suggestion is a tool few use wisely.

That’s why I’m returning to my task of turning the planet into a relay beacon, letting the Committee, the programmers/scientists on retainer and other members of my team keep our species and our daily lives running on automatic, repeating cycles that intersect spirals they don’t remember seeing generations ago.

If I don’t keep us on schedule, who will?

If the FCC and regulators won’t put the consumer’s interest in the forefront of the at&t/T-mobile profit-making business megamerger, who will?