I don’t get much into politics because, out here in space, we have little time for nonessential tasks. However, I had time to put together this itty bitty viddy for you. Enjoy!
The crew is recruiting new members all the time. Are you next?
Tag Archives: story
And people wonder why Kingsport is…
…the butt of jokes told about the Tri-Cities.
Pardon me while write a little joke of an angry rant about a place that I hope time will forget.
I grew up near a town that belched stench, polluted rivers and ruined fishing waters.
Sure, some of my schoolmates live there with their children.
My parents live not far away (take that back – they were recently annexed into the dirty industrial town).
However, little has changed in the fiefdom.
The Model City has no respect for rural landowners.
Like no many other towns in which I’ve lived in or near.
Who’s there to protect those who prefer the rural life from the flood of city/suburban dwellers with no respect for pastoral peace and quiet?
As always, I wish the fleas of a thousand camels to infect anyone associated with the government of Kingsport, especially those who impose their expansionist beliefs upon decent farmers and their families not wishing for industrial estates, interstate highway fast-food stops or other such “civilised” dis/interruptions.
May Kingsport remain the forgotten stepchild of upper east Tennessee.
May tornadoes and floods destroy the town.
May misery and disease beset the people who live there.
May Eastman Chemical Company find some other worthless place to park its enterprising headquarters.
May any chain/franchise that opens a business in Kingsport suffer bankruptcy and scandal.
May crime and drug abuse attract the children of Kingsport.
May God forsake anyone who dares step foot onto Kingsport city limits.
And if that’s not enough, may door-to-door salespeople sweep through houses and apartment buildings 24 hours a day, nonstop for years, until whole neighbourhoods are abandoned and house prices collapse precipitously because the residents have all entered the funny farm, their backs laden with magazine subscriptions to help young salesmen and saleswomen live their dream of traveling overseas.
There, I feel better.
I guess you can guess that I’ll never move back to Kingsport or anywhere near where its malodorous/cancerous fumes can reach.
Pic of the day
Across the street from me, workers walk the roof beams of a new house under construction. If I hold my fingers up and sight a worker between them, the worker is about ant-sized from here.
The house wasn’t there a week ago — the walls and roof are going up quicker than seeds in the former farm field took root.
Years have passed since the last time I heard an AgCat swoop in and out, spraying the fields full of soybean, corn or cotton.
Instead, row after row after row of suburban tracts spread east of here.
When, 1000 years from now, while we’re sitting here discussing this blog entry, will we understand the concept of suburban living?
Will we perceive a period of growth of our species when two-dimensional plans for living space were a common norm?
When did it become an uncommon norm?
Tiny bricks-and-sticks castles members of our species once called home.
I stapled sheets of galvanised metal mesh over holes under the eaves of our house to limit attic access by raccoons.
Although I didn’t mind watching the raccoons come and go, my wife couldn’t sleep at night when the baby raccoons bounced and chased each other above the roof over our bed.
Silence fills the space where the raccoons once played.
I’m sure the broad-headed skinks and bats will return to the attic and chimney, much quieter occupants that my wife will not know about — out of sight (and sound), out of mind, as they say.
When did people think grassy spaces were the preferred method of landscaping around one’s domicile that was most acceptable?
Sitting here on a celestial body devoid of ants, spiders, moles, trees, snakes, algae, fungus, ferns and mold, I wish I could explain why my ancestors let their yards grow wild.
You don’t appreciate what you had until it’s gone.
Sure, some of my workmates have found ways to play games once popular on Earth — golf, tennis, futball and such — but the dust they kick up tells the story, doesn’t it? Nothing living that disturbs which we destroy to accommodate our leisure gamespace.
That’s the thing about living here. No competitition against other species to keep us busy. No insect/rodent exterminators, no crop insecticides, no preservatives or other means of fighting back nature’s way of seeking equilibrium, inertial or otherwise.
We’re not completely sterile, of course.
We’re so integrated with each other, though, that we detect the start of pathological infectious disease infestation in one of us so quickly that we can redirect resources, both internal and external, with the tiniest of thoughts, repairing and adding telomeres as long as we want to stay alive.
At 503 years of age, I’m older than most here on this colony but still younger than some lifeforms on Earth, both mobile and stationary.
Am I wiser? I don’t think so. Ubiquity of information makes all of us as wise as another.
Well, it’s time I revert back to your chronological space and share my mortal self with you, observing your ignorance and suppressing a smile at how antiquated everything you do seems to me and others 1000 years in the future.
Don’t think of this as time travel. Think of it as me immersing myself in your historical records, becoming one of you virtually while parallel thought processes of mine live in my time, too, “earning” my place in our mesh-network society.
Book of the day
:The Culture Code: an ingenious way to understand why people around the world live and buy as they do, by Clotaire Rapaille, with a new chapter on global branding
Ponderables of the day
1. A reader responds to the article, “The blue-state trap,” with a strong personal opinion:
- Amity, Monday, January 23, 2012 at 8:0011 pm
Articles like this annoy me. The United States has been profoundly divided politically for nearly a quarter of a millennium. We have never not been violently at odds. I mean, red states and blue states used to go to war with each other. Elected representatives fought each other physically in the halls of Congress. [note: pre-U.S. neighbours fought and killed each other during the American Revolutionary War]
Spare us the weepy sad sorrow for the bygone days of halcyon bipartisanship. When were these days of golden unity? They never existed.
And as for the idea of a “missing center,” I can explain the apparent conundrum very easily. The urban centers of America are the center. Some go center-left, most swing center-right. The reason why you all can’t find the common ground that doesn’t consist of going further right is that from here, from where you all are, there is nowhere left to go but further and further right.
The Democratic Party is by any sane application of the terminology a center-right party. The Republican Party is far right — more or less fascist in practice, if not in principle.
The actual American left, such as it is, consists mostly of a small number of miscellaneous Occupy protesters, shivering in the cold.
Oh, and also, spare us the horseshit about homogeneity in liberal enclaves. There are few American cities with more fractured politics than San Francisco.
2. An ode to the Gulag Archipelago – Love, American-style.
3. Aurora forecast.
4. A nod to the new director of UAF’s Geophysical Institute, Robert “Bob” McCoy. Tell us more about the importance of thermokarst lakes, why dontcha?
5. A nod to Christian Schrader, a geologist from NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, who helps find meteorites in the Antarctic.
Someone told me it’s 2012
Well, right on schedule, it’s 2012. You know what that means.
The Motion Picture Academy has finally decided to issue awards to fans for being the best twits (at least that’s what the MPA thinks twitterers are called who tweet excessively about motion pictures). Word on the street is that they’ll also issue a lifetime achievement award to the fan who follows or has followed one particular actor, director or other member of the motion picture industry fanatically but is not a stalker or paparazzo/paparazza.
They tell me you’re experiencing a general warming of our home planet.
I don’t know about that.
Here in the outer reaches of the solar system settlements, “warming” is a luxury we can barely afford. Thank goodness we gave up on underarm deodorant and other niceties associated with a society of surplus production capabilities and learned to enjoy the odor that a warm body emits.
In any case, a friend sent a few photos from my former neighbourhood of north Alabama to show it is a weird winter there, what with daffodils, crocuses and vinca blooming at the same time this year:
Hey, E-Buddy, what do you think?
Just what I thought! Crazy, huh?
Oh well, I’ve got a planet to manage 1000 years in the past. Hope you guys enjoy what we have planned for you next. It means the world to us here in 3011.
And kids, you keep practicing your interplanetary management skills. You’ll be adults before you know it and traveling to places you can hardly imagine habitable in 2012.
Word
So we “cancel” Greek debt with no hope the Greek government/private sectors will ever pay back what they owed?
Hmm…
What does that tell us about the rest of the EU/world?
Warren Buffett can play guitar, for beginners (or is that starters?).
Telling us we’re all just regular people in one way or another.
Okay…
I agree.
However [scratching head while two cats warm my knees and crawl space crickets sprout after a midwinter rain], it’s not us creditors I mull over.
Which reminds me. Ever wonder why you can buy cold beer and hot chocolate at an outdoor sports event but not hot fermented beverages? What about warm, spiced beer at the next football or hockey game, huh?
Anyway, debt is the word.
The question.
The answer.
Cyclical crises are perennial and require perennial solutions, don’t they?
Or do they?
Is Bloomberg still taking programming lessons?
Does the Panic of [1819/1837/1873/1893/1907] have any relevance today, despite nomenclature games that this one has to be different because we’re so much more modern in our economic understanding, etc.?
Change is change even when you end up with no pocket change to speak of.
Next, we’ll go from an anonymous Netizen Manifesto to a Netizen Bill of Rights to a group of people declaring themselves members of no country except the virtual/online one in which they elect their nongeographical solar system representatives.
So, yes, let’s cancel Greek debt but at the same time declare Greece is no longer a real country in the old sense.
A tourist attraction, perhaps.
Other than that, its people are free to join the new Netizenry, subject to crowdsourced laws and regulations, few as they are (governed mainly by gravity and other natural laws).
The cats say it’s time for bed and sleep.
I agree.
G’night.
Two video data points
Just a position – Juxtaposition
[One more break before the story recommences]
A nod to the family of Flo Trotter, a dear friend who corresponded with me years ago, sharing her strong belief in the Christian Bible by writing letters to me containing Bible verses upon which she expanded her lifeview — Flo, you will be missed greatly.
Sitting with three cigars in front of me and a 1pint-6oz bottle of brown ale by Legend Brewing Co. of Richmond, VA, I nod, also, to the ball coach of a little university in the state of Pennsylvania, who died of lung cancer — may your children and grandchildren outlive the highs and lows of your reputation.
A little while ago, I finished listening to a live performance by the organist Gail Archer, as part of Covenant Presbyterian Church’s Covenant Concerts, in concert with the Greater Huntsville Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. The program included pieces by Buxtehude, Bach, Schumann, Hensel, Tower and Liszt.
I took notes during the concert but left them in another room of the house where my wife sleeps.
Summary: Archer provided the right articulation and emotional input to make every piece of music a joy in itself. I thank her for promoting the art of organ playing — I’ve waited 25 years to hear an organ concert in the Covenant Presbyterian church sanctuary and it was well worth the wait.
I listen to her An American Idyll CD while composing this journalistic blog entry.
Meanwhile, bulky guys with uniforms bounce off each other during an NFL playoff game of little to no interest to me (Ravens and Patriots). I’ll wait until this evening’s game to sit and eat chips, drink beer and veg out during the Giants-49ers game.
Is public education ever going to keep up with the changing economy?
Or do children, like always, find a way to make a living despite an incomplete/inappropriate childhood education?
What is Russia doing to prevent meaningful military intervention in Syria’s internal strife/killing spree between two equally brutal forces? Better yet, why, Russia, why? Putin, I think better of you than this. You, too, Medvedev.
Well, commercialised football viewing calls my name. Talk with you tomorrow, when the hesitant leader of the Committee picks up the pace of making sure the scheduled event taking place 13,984 days from now goes off without a hitch.
Like the label says, “FRESH BEER – KEEP COOL”!
Sketching some detail into the background image
[Feel free to skip this entry — setting up future entries with some questions]
Two kids, bundled up in the cool north Alabama winter weather, ride by on an ATV. A father and daughter ride by on their bicycles.
Do you attempt to control the number of people who want to love you or love the people around you?
Do you accept that whoever wants to like you and/or your presence, your mannerisms, your actions, your work, your friends, your ideas, your passions, your dislikes, can and will like all that without your permission?
So, then, what is poverty?
If no one told you you were poor, would you know it? If you didn’t have all the stuff that nonpoverty purports to provide — telephone, television, motorbikes, automobiles, paved roads, public transit, sanitised water, pasteurised milk, meat byproducts, mass-produced clothing, literacy, manufactured medicine, Internet 24/7 — would you feel any less yourself?
Are you naturally predisposed to move around? Are you athletically inclined? Or would you rather sit and minimise your physical movements, passively involved in the world around you?
What are you primary activities? How do they compare to your subculture and the population at large?
Do you stand more than sit?
Do you sleep more than sit?
Do you spend more time eating while sitting or standing?
Is your physical activity integrated with your primary activities or do you set aside time to “exercise” because your primary activities are mainly sedentary?
Should radio/TV/Internet call-in shows no longer accept calls from drivers using their mobile phones?
What is a hobby? When does the line blur between hobby and occupation?
On a personal note, why have I, who grew up attending and actively participating in weekly religious rituals, found group-based religious ceremonies fairly uninteresting in my adulthood, no matter how familiarly old-fashioned or modern they have been? [Answer: because none of them allow me to silently meditate upon the solemnity of reason for the process; rather, I am forced to stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, sing with and listen to others, interrupting my train of meditative thought.]
Poverty of possessions is not a sin or a crime. A short life expectancy is not, either.
Being organic beings (as opposed to all those inorganic beings out there [wink, wink]), we are subject to the frailty that flesh and blood makes us.
The thousands-of-years-old question: does civilisation make us less or more of what we once were?
A two-story house under construction one street over gives the occupants of the second story a clear view of me sitting in front of the window in my study.
I don’t like being watched. No particular reason why or, rather, a multitude of reasons why. First, I like to change my personality frequently and don’t like people watching me during the transition. Second, I change my chameleon personality to adjust to people around me and when unknown people are watching, I’m unsure what specific traits I should best display.
As a person who likes to record his personalities and observations via the process of writing, I am often wearing the cloak of a personality I’m trying to understand before describing it with words. Letting strangers watch the intermediate stages of personality development is not something with which I’m comfortable.
In this day and age, I value my privacy during the moments of character development.
Should I?
Is privacy a right best enjoyed in poverty or wealth?
If people want to like or love me even when I’m wrapped up in a new character coming to life, should I stop them or let them see what they want, despite the incomplete message they may receive (and I’m all about projecting a message, or the semistereotype that most of us, as characters in our own drama/comedy, display on a daily basis)?
I am behind in my thanks, including to: Stain/Miranda at Beauregard’s (now back in business); Jordan at Publix; Mr. Donut; China Cook; Joe, Harold and Jenn at KCDC; Taylor at Krystal; Tuesday Morning; Michael’s; multiple Internet service providers and Web content developers; Richard J. Quintana of Missing Link Records (thanks for selling me a box of Deutsche Grammophon records for $10); Fred Bread.
treetrunkdings 