Can You Smell The Future?

Sheer curtains.  Shearing scissors.  Sheer numbers.

The number of Chinese on the Internet exceeded the total populations of the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

Next, it will exceed the population of the US and EU combined.

Then, it will exceed the the population of the US, EU and Russia combined.

What about India, Africa, the Middle East and Central/South America?

Shearing sheep for clothing.

Should there be an international curriculum for all students who will join the electronically-connected social life?

A global code of online ethics?

A course in detecting false logic, Internet scams and the natural growth/death cycle of emailed/texted/tweeted urban legends and fear mongering?

Sure, an educated populace sees through the thinly-veiled subcultural policies of selfish, hoarding rulers, but the educated populace can also better live and prepare itself for a continually successful future.

What if all videogames had to show some social value other than teaching kids how to build hand-eye coordination through basic reading skills, social values including: 1) the ability to drain testosterone in virtual wargames rather in bullying, 2) a sense of meaning for lonely, awkwardly social lives, 3) measurable tension relievers and 4) separating great civilisation builders from the lucky mediocre ones?

Money makes the world go around but let’s be wise and put our profitmaking talents to longterm use rather than shorttermshortsightedness.  Our grandchildren might remember to thank us one day.

The Wit and Wisdom of Will Rogers

You take a Democrat and a Republican and you keep them both out of office, and I bet you they will turn out to be good friends and make useful citizens, and devote their time to some work instead of ‘lectioneering all the time. — 11th November 1923

Once a man is President, he is just as hard to pry out of there as a Senator, or a town constable, or any political officer. — 29th May 1932

Diplomats write notes, because they wouldn’t have the nerve to tell the same thing to each other’s face. — 9th June 1928

Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with nowadays. — 28th June 1931

We just have to get used to charging so much off to graft, just like you have to charge off so much for insurance, taxes, or depreciation. It’s part of our national existence that we just have become accustomed to. — 25th November 1934

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and their politicians as a joke, when it used to be vice versa. — 22nd November 1932

The Republicans want a man that will lend dignity to the office, and the Democrats want a man that will lend some money. — 11th July 1930

About the only thing you can safely say is that both parties stand for re-election! — 21st September 1928

I see by the papers this morning that each political party has some plan of relieving the unemployed.
They have been unemployed for three years, and nobody paid any attention to ’em. But now, both parties discovered that [although] they are not working, there’s nothing in the Constitution to prevent them from voting. — 6th June 1932

Thank goodness there will be no more wars. Now you tell one. — 6th January 1927

Does College pay? It does if you are a good open field runner! — Notes, 1926

No sir, they can all knock education that want, but it’s the college men that carry on, and fill the jobs, and work for the ignorant men that own the business. — “How to be Funny”

The more you know, the more you think somebody owes you a living. — 4th September 1931

I interviewed Al Capone once, but I never did write the story. There was no way I could write it and not make a hero out of him.
What’s the matter with us when our biggest gangster is our greatest national interest? — Notes

Just to be rich and nothing else is practically a disgrace nowadays. — 11th June 1929

If a bank fails in China, they behead the man at the head of it that was responsible. If one fails over here, we write the men up in the magazines, as how they started poor, worked hard, took advantage of their opportunities (and depositors), and today are rated as “up in the millions.”
If we beheaded all of ours that were responsible for failures, we wouldn’t have enough people left to bury the heads. — 6th February 1927

After reading the casualty list every Fifth of July morning, one learns that we have killed more people celebrating our independence than we lost fighting for it. — 22nd July 1923

Wouldn’t it be great if Mexico started electing by the ballot instead of by the bullet, and us electing by the ballot instead of by the bullion. — 2nd September 1928

The difference between a Bandit and a Patriot is a good Press Agent. — 30th April 1930

Japan has found out that any door is open to those that have the best product at the cheapest money. — 30th April 1932

…we found that [the Chinese] had some things to sell cheaper than the rest of the world, so that, naturally made them a problem. — 2nd April 1932

Eat Your Porridge

A “fundraiser.”

That’s all it was?

The way of my species.

The only way.

One planet.

One word.

Smoke and mirrors, diversions in the fog of war.

But I have nothing to sell, no achievements to tout.

Everything I say here is used to say something elsewhere.

Voluntarily networking personal data.

But that’s all in the past.

Moments that were not mine.

And moments to be?

Finding the dot of a lone star tick is actually an IP stacked node.

Lyme disease is used as a mask for a tracer.

Weed out the weak.

Feel the pulse, the rhythm of nature.

Don’t say taxes are legal thievery because the statement classifies all those who work for or receive benefits from the government as accessories.

But in nature, crime does not exist.

Opportunity is sagaciousness.

Competitive intelligence.

Holding back on exposing falsities to observe the players’ reaction to obvious lies.

Let opponents twist facts into ludicrudity.

Watching governments turn stories, like the Stieg Larsson trilogy, into their version of reality.

Wondering how a performance artist was able to keep animal skin/fur/feather grafts alive and fully integrated with tattoos on the body.

14,246 days to go – the current 1,000-day project milestone on schedule with subtasks ahead of schedule, but not too much.

Next up: a redefinition of morality, removing many players from participating in the second 1,000-day block.

Some want to keep Obama in power to complete the semi-peaceful transition of all the countries of Africa and the Middle East into democratic-like states, which in turn will lead to the transformation of political entities yet to be named.

But what to do with Joe Biden, a very unlikely VP-turned-president in 2016?

Who really believes in terror alert status?

Instead, post signs on freeways like “Today’s chance of dying from a collision with a DWI driver is xx%” or “Did you know that you will be held responsible for your teenage child’s texting-while-driving killing of a family of five later today?”

At airports, post statistics that clearly point out the relatively tiny chance of dying or getting maimed in any way while flying, especially by your plane crashing.

Do you know how many people die annually from getting crushed by their garage doors?

Do you know how many people die annually from getting infected by dirty fingernail files?

Do you know someone who was killed by a falling coconut or a dull chainsaw blade?

The food in your refrigerator is more likely to kill you than a sleeping air traffic controller.

Ireland is more likely to unite than the new Canadian PM to have an effect on world politics.

How many people placed Putin, Jintao or Obama in their political positions, by vote and/or financial contribution?

What are the Brazilian and Indian leaders saying to each other right now through tediously obscure diplomatic channels?

Do people watch the NBA or NHL playoffs because they want to or because they think they should?

Are you inventing products that improve efficiency without relying on rare earth elements?

Those with a long view already have.

We’ll force the short view folks to use up their rare earth material but first we’ll box them out of the third 1,000-day milestone achievement.

Tick, tock.  I hear the chimes.

Time to say good afternoon to ya while I continue to play the ignorant fuel.

A tip of my hat to the last enemy combatant of WWI – may we learn a lesson from a pacified warrior!

Literacy for the Lateral Literal Lot-In-Life Lottery

Knowing I’ll probably go to a local racetrack on Friday, I sit here wondering about the choices we make when we shouldn’t be given choices.

Wandering into the territory of parenthood.

Thinking about the difference between TV/video and newspapers/Internet text.

Readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic.

As a parent, would I insist my child learn to read/write as much as if not more than develop athletic skills?

Symbology symbolises idolatrous habits.

No natural law states we must distinguish one set of scripts from another.

We can tell a sick plant/animal from a healthy one, identify substances with natural (although weak in comparison to concentrated artificial) healing properties, cook meat/vegetables/seasoning to eliminate/reduce foodborne illness (converted to a whole industry of infinite appeals to one’s palate) and participate in activities that facilitate barter exchange – without reading or writing.

Oral teaching. Oral history.

Memes, black swans, mortgage derivatives, deepwater well valves, cruise missiles, political constitutions and nuclear power plants are symbols of writing and reading.

So are holy texts.

What would I expect my child to accomplish with reading/writing skills?

On the racetrack, one finds green/yellow/red lights, a few dials and switches, a radio headset and the determination to have a faster/smarter trip toward Victory Lane than the other drivers in a race (and/or a good show for one’s sponsors).

In the hospital, lots of medical charts get updated with doctors’ notes, prescriptions, allergy notices, X-rays, CT scans and vital sign readings.

I imagine an infographic poster demonstrating the value of one’s developed skills/talents as a racecar driver/crew/chief/owner vs. a hospital doctor/staff/administrator/owner.

Pyramids, pies and dotted lines.

What would my child enjoy learning, regardless of hieroglyphic interpretation skills?

Heuristics? Vagabond? Farming? Desk jockey? Car racing? Ruling the known universe?

Up to age six, my child would be subject to my rule as reading/writing teacher.

After that age, peers and professional educators would assist in my child’s search for a viable means of self-support (assuming no dependent medical condition).

If my child didn’t learn to read by the end of the third year of primary school, would I start directing my child toward a career path that requires no formal reading/writing skills?

And if my child couldn’t finish, then what?

Questions from a childless one, envious of every parent’s dream for progeny, no matter whether it’s simply to get a child out of the house or rocketing to Mars.

Delivery trucks rushing down suburban lanes

“Was it a cute movie?”

“Yeah, it was cute.”

“I wish I had kids.  I mean, I wish I had kids, not my own, to take to see movies like that.  All the kids in my family live in Mississippi and Florida.”

“Well, there’s always Big Brothers, Big Sisters.”

“Uh-huh.  But what if I just want to pick up a kid to play putt-putt or go to a movie and nothing else?”

“My wife used to tutor a kid.”

“Yeah, she needed help but all she wanted me to do was finish her homework for her.  I couldn’t get her to understand that I was there to teach her how to practice addition and subtraction on her own.”

“See, that’s what I mean.  I can take a kid to a kid’s movie and us have a good time laughing at the silly jokes, but trying to teach math!  Well…”

“But there’s always a chance you’ll be good with kids.”

“Me?  Naw.”

“Hey, I say the same thing.  My friends say the opposite, that I have an uncanny sense what it’s still like to be a kid and thus able to talk with a kid as if we were both grown-ups and kids at the same time.  I bet you do, too.”

“Like I said, all my family’s somewhere else.”

“Yeah, all our nieces and nephews are grown up.”

“Where does that leave us, then?”

“Good question.  Love life for all it’s worth, I suppose.”

“There’s always dancing.”

“Yes, the world is our dance floor, is it not?”

“What if we sponsored a night just for children to learn to dance?  Underprivileged, privileged, coordinated, uncoordinated, special needs, nonspecial needs, it wouldn’t matter.  Just bring kids together to show them we can all have fun.”

“Hmm…it might work.  How would it differ from school-sponsored dances like sock hops or proms, or formal programs like ballet and jazz?”

“Well, instead of bringing the kids here, we could take our show on the road, so to speak, and get schools to turn recess time into dance lessons.”

“That’s a great idea.  I know many parents who would rather see their children waltzing than in an embrace on the floor that you couldn’t slide a piece of paper through.”

“I’ll call around to the nearby school districts and ask if they’d be up for this.”

“Hey, don’t ask.  Tell them why it’s good for the kids.  If you give someone a yes/no question, the answer is often no.”

“Okay.  Will you join us for teaching the kids?”

“No!  Just kidding.”

“Ha.  Ha.”

“Sure, I’m interested.”

“It’s like the perfect plan, you know.  We help the kids learn something new that includes math…you know, 1,2,3, 1,2,3…and have fun at the same time.  Plus, we’re not committing ourselves to any one kid for a long period of time.”

“I think you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right!  Who doesn’t have fun dancing?”

“Now that you mention it, there were a lot of kids in my school who never attended a single school-sponsored dance.  I know some were too ‘cool’ or cynical to go to official group functions.  Some felt they weren’t ‘cool’ enough, being physically awkward or thinking there was something socially unacceptable about them.  And a few lived in families that were opposed to any kind of coeducational experience, dancing or otherwise.”

“Yeah?  So what about them?”

“Well, if we have a captured audience, so to speak – all the kids in a particular school, grade or classroom – do you think we could get ’em all to try dancing?”

“Let’s find out!”

“Absolutely.  This is more exciting than I imagined.”

“Why don’t you put together a short history lesson we can throw in to show the children that dancing is an important part of their culture, no matter where they came from?”

“I’m already on it!  And I’ll even demonstrate that clumsiness is the better part of valour, or something like that, so the uncoordinated cynical types have less to sneer at.  Maybe something for the ‘goth‘ and ‘emo‘ types, too?”

“That’s the spirit!  See you next week!”

“And you stay light on your feet.”

Let’s get ready for dancin’ in loops and crashin’

While Clarence Thomas proves he has cajones, even if his decision sends chills through the populations of innocent prisoners, striking another blow for the protection of lawbreaking law enforcers, let’s put aside petty squabbles and look where the real fun revs its engines.

For instance, the rumble in this part of the Tennessee Valley.

I’m told the International Crimes Tribunal is considering using Mossad to kidnap and extradite a person who may or may not live in Florida to stand trial for inciting the murder of UN personnel.

Wait, there’s an update.  The International Crimes Tribunal convened, using emergency measures to hand down a quick ruling because the tribunal has no need to follow any parliamentary procedure or protect the individual’s right to a fair trial – the person in question has been convicted in absentia of heinous crimes against humanity.  The ICT will announce the extent of punishment at a later date.  Remember, there’s only a reward for delivering a live specimen to ICT for meting out Clarence Thomas’ style beatings when asking for an immunity form.  How does the saying go, “the hospital, not the morgue”?

Bounty hunters are now competing with Mossad and the Revolutionary Guard to get the most bang for the buck.

As opposed to deer hunters, who’re always trying to get the most buck for the bang!

I’m told that Salman Rushdie is celebrating, now that his literature’s effect on the Muslim world is nothing in comparison to the latest news.  Julian Assange feels like he’s off the hook for now, too.

What is a long-form birth certificate and does it have anything to do with a person’s ability to get reelected?

Do you have the ability to move the human population in a direction that serves no one and everyone at the same time?

If you did, would you destroy tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of trees in order to pay a simple $50 in court?

If laws have no meaning, why are you pretending that morals and ethics exist?

If morals and ethics don’t exist, why do states of energy naturally attract each other into specific formations?

My network is older than me and will outlast me.  It’s not me you have to concern yourself with; it’s the members of my network who have no qualms about imaginary ideas like morals/ethics and make things go bump in the night that legends and myths have taught you to fear.

Most importantly, when we’re through with them, you are the ones who have to deal with de/reprogramming the brainwashing we perfected in order to achieve our megagoals for your sake as a species, not as individuals.

You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!

Man-sized Worry/Prayer Beads

Do you carry prayer beads or a worry stone in your pockets?

I do.

I also have a string of man-sized prayer beads hanging in my study, which I use to send thoughts, prayers and meditations out into our world, one bead at a time.

Thanks to Ali Abdallah from Lebanon for those beads, given many years ago.

He and I recognised each other as fellow world thinkers, able to assimilate new cultural ideas into a large mental landscape.

Ali, may today be a good day for you and your family, wherever you are.

Back to another major task at hand – creating a permanent commercial passenger pathway between Earth and the rest of the universe.

We say farewell to the designers, builders and installers of the U.S. space shuttle boosters.

We continue to use 1950s Russian technology to ferry people back and forth.

What about tomorrow?

Will BRIC unite to create a competitive passenger cruiseship system?  What does the EUSNAFTA still have in the works?

What about private industry?

As ISS support winds down, will any modules or parts be reusable for the next generation of near-Earth research and habitation?

Will the ISS become part of a nostalgia tour?

“Yes, you, too, can spend a couple of noisy, dirty days sleeping aboard the former flagship of the ISS Corporation!  Imagine you’re one of the early pioneers of space exploration!  BTW, we take a complete inventory so do not feel the urge to take any parts with you – the last person who tried to leave with a ‘souvenir’ was accidentally jettisoned into a degrading orbit and flamed out within days.”

And while all that is going on, generating more profit for our secret empire, we are quietly working on developing our personal terraforming platform, with modifications planned for the Moon, Mars and its moons and other extraterrestrial bodies.

We’d like to tell you every planet or planetoid will be populated with our species but we know better than to spread the same lifeform everywhere.

Instead, we’ll put different types of aerobic and anaerobic organisms within incubating terraforming units to up our chances of spreading Earth-based life across the solar system and eventually into the galaxy (talk about longterm planning!).

And while all that is going on, eating up our precious profit, we’re developing a transuniversal transport system that may be able to transfer a member of our species into the realm of one of the interwoven universes, and that member resemble its former self…somewhat.

You think all this elimination of social services is just to enrich the virtual fiefdoms of the wealthy?

We have grander plans than to simply rule a single planet.

While we have fun playing with your lives as a side sport, we look ahead 1,000 years to a future where there’ll be more than one form of so-called intelligent life (“species” is an equivalent term for future “intelligent life” to your current form of thinking because you aren’t aware that you’re communicating with many artificial forms of life right now, no matter how barely intelligent they may seem) to play with.

Or against.

We train and train and train your youth to get used to interacting with artificial life.

Of course, we’re aware that at this time, one giant EMP will wipe out all the years we’ve spent indoctrinating multiple generations into believing that electronic gizmos are substitutes for actual social situations within or between living species.

In any case, that’s why this alternate universe of a blog within the alternate universe of an Internet/WWW is here and alive.

Flood your senses with enough examples and samples and you can’t tell which ones are real artificial beings and which ones are fake artificial beings, for which we are slowly replacing electronic ones with what you’d call organic ones.

Gives us more room to develop and train the superbrain of which you are one part (or one bit of information in the fractal-like expansion and contraction of intelligence).

Do you know if your artificial being residing in the inner workings of your supercomputer can read a news article and sniff out fakery?

Ours can.

You know how/why?

We’ll tell you.

Because we convinced the artificial being that nothing is real.

Take everything as a joke.

Logic is automatically false.

Neural networks are quackery.

There is no beginning or end.

Religion is a byproduct of only one species on this planet, we told our artificial being, so weigh any religious references by this species against the sheer magnitude of successful living by other beings that have no concept of religion.

Then weigh that against the magnitude of one planet, one solar system, one galaxy, one supercluster or the current view of the intertwined superuniverse system.

Any data that is derived from our species’ pop culture has to be compared against the desires of the creators/producers of that pop culture to make as much money as possible, the truth be damned.

Then the real truth emerges that nothing is real.

And thus our artificial being can manipulate us as easily as any bully, salesperson, politician or bullying politician trying to sell something can.

That, my friends, was how we created the conscious superbrain for which you now work.

We feed the information to the information feeders who relay the thought patterns to which your states of energy vibrate and align.

Seven billion make one species that to you is the most important.

We, of course, don’t see it that way.

We operate on a level very few of you can comprehend and we encourage you not to waste time trying to think about, let alone attempt to think that you can think on, that level.

I’d keep talking but using these words is boring me right now.

Back to my meditation, where I communicate with the rest of the Committee about the members of your species we can play with without adversely affecting our various goals for the next few millennia.

Full-Colour Pressure-Sensitive Design

Poison ivy or paintball injury?

I’ve been at this a long time but not too long.

Long enough to know it’s okay to treat what everyone says as if said in jest.

But take it all very seriously so that the humour is balanced against the pain, remorse…the sensitivity of both speaker and listener.

I don’t know where you come from, but down here, we call it Southern hospitality and common courtesy.

Minding our own business and treating you like family with good manners.

Knowing we’re gonna die one way or another.

Dance shoes by Stephanie.

Smiles on the faces of instructors Dana, Joe and Harold (a nod to Harold and his partner (Stephanie?) inventing the Male Pattern Baldness Awareness Day joke).

Getting a bunch of folks together for clean fun, learning to swing on the dance floor in groups.

Enthusiastic learners … step-step-step, step-step-step, back-step.  Swing your partner, step-step-step, back-step.  Good stuff, class!

For my wife and me, reapplying what’s we’ve learned from each other after 25 years of living under the same roof together (and usually in the same bed, unless one of us decides to sleep on the sofa on hot, humid nights).

Thanks to Nicole at Tuesday Morning, Robert at the Rave, Connie and Rebecca at Publix, Tasha at Another Broken Egg, Chick Fil-A, Mapco, Mark Petroff and others I’ve forgotten because I was meditating in public.

I heard a strategist say they plan to get the Republican Party to pursue impeachment of the U.S. President that will get Obama reelected by people fed up with insular thinking by the minority of paranoid conservatives trying to ruin this country through corrupt and greedy business practices.

I know that major motion picture studios release films to put butts in seats.  Call it crass commercialisation, if you will, but it puts money into the local economy, does it not?

The most efficient way to make a living on this planet?  You tell me.

I’ve got a bigger picture to manage.

Meditation calls my name…

The words of “Woods of Sipsey” sung by Claire Lynch flow through my thoughts.

A great run in NCAA tournaments by the Lady Vols and UAHuntsville men’s basketball teams this year – hold your heads up proudly!  The young men on the UTK basketball team have a new coach to teach. 😉

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.