Tag Archives: transportation

Redacted, retracted, redux

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I don’t know what it is that puts me in a mood like this, this feeling of smugness, this desire not to believe in myself, to always be wrong, always chasing the perfect 100 on a test score as if I’ll never get it, running from my mistakes, fleeing into the cosmos.

Why?

Because of both my faith in AND my fear of our species’ imperfections.

I do not want to be successful.

Instead, always vigilant, looking for the crack in the veneer, analysing the pinhole leak in the dam, contemplating the lack of understanding everything going on in a cubic centimeter of dirt.

Why?

Because we can make films about our mistakes, films which contain their own mistakes, and we learn from neither, or the lessons we learn and the solutions we apply solve a different set of problems because time is irrelevant, only relative.

That is why we seek perfection in our theosophical beliefs.

Otherwise, tarnish, rust and decay should be taken as normal aspects of our impermanence.

I am chasing my tail in an M.C. Escher print.

News that makes no sense

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So, who is the husband of Reese Witherspoon, this J. Toth or this one?

I’m just glad I live in a world in my thoughts and that none of these intersections of similar last names is real.

Having the Internet at slow connection speeds sure is fun!

The Contrarian’s Contrarian

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Poiu spent all morning in observation of a snail glide across the backyard, grass blade to grass blade, minidirtclod to minidirtclod,  and onto the sidewalk where, in the heat of the sun, it retracted into its shell and waited for the cool of evening to return.

The armadillo passed by both of them without noticing their odd relationship.

The scientist and the experiment.

Question: does an observed snail change its behaviour?

Experiment: Pick up snail from sidewalk, move it to starting position.  Observe and record its behaviour as it heads toward sidewalk.  Return snail to starting position.  Does snail’s path deviate when unobserved the next day?  Return at end of next day and see where it ended up, check its movements.

Poiu shook his head.  Why did his parents decide to name him after a row of English letters on a QWERTY keyboard?  What were they thinking?

Poiu looked at the list of assumptions in his experiment.

At age two, his thought-t0-text rate was slower than his older sister’s but his reasoning powers were more advanced despite his mother’s measured intelligence and intellectual output greater than his father’s.

From those thoughts alone, he deduced that gender was not directly related to intelligence, given the same number of inputs and genetic propensity for logical rather than emotional thought development.

Poiu looked at the embedded display screen woven into his optic nerve and glanced at the report detailing the results of the experiment being edited by his onboard computer assistant.

The assumptions were wide-ranging, from the lack of predators to the slight change in the snail’s body weight because of growth and/or water loss to the availability of nutrition between starting point and sidewalk to the number of unseen parasites and snail pests.

What about prevailing winds or UV radiation spikes?

A snail’s central nervous system can’t be too complicated but an outdoor environment can.

Poiu proceeded with publishing the preliminary experiment results.

Within microseconds, Poiu’s playmates provided valuable criticism of the report, some he had thought of and some he would never have guessed.

Back to the drawing board, as they said in the 21st century!

Freedom to think without an assigned theme or classroom score

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Being here, with me, an Internet radio station and the sun-fed trees outside my window, I’m free to expand my thought patterns upon this blank canvas of an electronic writing pad.

Mixing metaphors if I choose.

If still waters run deep, why do oceans have waves?

Mixing media of varying density and thickness.

My father…a year ago, we were working with medical professionals to seek a path of better health for Dad, “better” being a term we wished for and hoped for more than knew was an illusive condition.

My typical reaction to “serious” situations, the result of turning nervous worry into positive joking action, constantly kept me on the edge of making comments my father, should he have been in a better mood/thought set, would not have approved.

Our senses of humour were not aligned.

I can ask myself why at this point, without tears or sadness seeping into my wonderment, why Dad did not understand or chose not to encourage my funny side.

He implied more than said that the man of laughter has a harder way to tread to the pinnacle of success than a man who treats everyone with seriousness and respect for their emotions/life conditions (i.e., the burdens they bear that are eased with sympathy and empathy).

That is, of course, my interpretation.

But I have heard others tell me that laughing at the wrong time or not taking adult responsibilities is not what my physical presence inspires others to encourage.

I have had plenty enough of what others expect.

Splitting into nearly schizophrenic thought sets to accommodate others and myself at the same time is not the set of states of energy I want to maintain and nourish.

After all, the self is a self-delusional illusion, a trick of chemical reactions that has brought nature to this point, with black pixels outlined on a white-light background, to examine itself, without reproductive needs being met, to spin in place while setting conditions for the next outburst of creativity that knows no ethical/moral boundaries, no positive or negative thought patterns, simply taking the sets of states of energy as is and moving on into the next imaginary moment/time period.

While our species holds public discussions about the subcultural struggles of how to treat the non-heterosexual members, how do other species behave?

I, for one, have seven billion friends to spend time with, some I have been conditioned to treat as equals and some I have been conditioned to hold at arm’s length for at least a brief period of time because our differences are sufficient to keep me from immediately understanding what makes us members of the same species.

We invoke the ancient writings of our ancestors to protect us from having to question or having to accept that subcultures rise and fall in popularity.

We rarely see that talking about our “enemies,” whether with good or bad word patterns, gives them validity.

Memes…

Symbols…

From the 10,000 year/mile distance, the memes and symbols merge into bigger patterns.

Tempests in the teapot of a planet, barely making waves in a solar system, practically invisible in a galaxy, hardly discernible in a supercluster.

Entertaining, nonetheless.

Because I am comfortable in the meaninglessness of my insignificance, the self a temporary confluence of states of energy, I have found the longer view a driving force in my writing, in my [non]existence, seeing 13528 days, rotations of Earth upon its tilted axis, into an imaginary future while having fun laughing about the tragedies of the moment, including my own.

It is, at the same time, a self-examination of one as a member of a species.

Is it not statistically normal to want to reproduce and provide shelter for one’s mammalian offspring, the majority of whom are right-handed, heterosexual, male, dark-haired and dark-eyed non-alpha primates?

I am left-handed, heterosexual, male, red/white-haired, green-eyed and non-alpha, without children.

Thus, statistically, not normal.  Abnormal.

Why, then, am I here recording my presence for the majority to, perhaps, read?

Why, indeed.

The confluence of states of energy, this “me” that “I” say does not exist, is the answer.

Avoiding the messy, daily adult responsibilities of an almost 51-year old man, that’s who and what.

Long ago mentally prepared to die at any time, having successfully achieved the goals of my childhood desire to be a published author.

The rest is an endless buffet of desserts filled with laughter and inappropriate humorous thoughts, thankful that the rest of the species is here to support me with characters and scenes to write during the remainder of my life.

More about Dava Newman’s BioSuit

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History is historic.

To put it in perspective, the goal is to combine a viable space suit and prosthetics to reduce the need for a fully biological human to participate in space exploration missions.

Thus, the bombs at the end of the Boston Marathon are part of the greater mission.

Putting the blame on some person or persons is a secondary function required to give Earthlings a feeling of justice served.

Anything else — fertilizer factory fires, earthquakes, etc — is a diversion to feed the various subpopulations their needs and wants — emotional attachment, hero worship, and so on.

Surrounding the barn with farmhands after the horses have escaped…

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The problem, Guinevere found, was deciding whether she was in a game or whether she was the game.

That’s the problem.

But then what about her status as a muse?

Hadn’t she posed for a set of photographs?

Those are the questions.

Who was the artist who would make her as permanent a fixture in history as any muse before?

What is art?

Are the men who bombed a marketplace considered artists?

What about the huge explosion in West, Texas?  Is that art?

Were the designers of the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima artists?

Is surburban sprawl art?

A mud puddle covered with a sheen of oil has artistic lines, does it not, even if the oil will kill the bird soaked to death in oil’s gooey grip.

Dava Newman BioSuit

Guinevere looked up at the Martian sky once more.

She checked her internal calendar, verifying that the 4th of May was not that far off.

Then what?

Why did she keep comparing her days on Mars to an Earth-based calendar?

Hadn’t she left all that behind?

Decades ago, by Earth standards.

Guinevere kicked one boot against another and leapt into the air, arching over the outpost, heading out to a hillside, a secluded place of meditation, a luxury that she shared with a few, a xeriscaped garden of peace and quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of the colony.

What does it take to be a muse these days?

Human nature being what it is

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Watching the mob hatred build for the [what at this point we still call the alleged] Chechen men who were identified as suspects and then appear to have decided to flee Boston starting at a point not far from the original crime scene…

Well, it has my attention, the inconsistencies, that is.

As a storyteller and former jury foreman, facts never lie but people do.

In fact, people never remember the facts exactly as they were in full detail.

Our prejudices and other social filters focus us on details that we consider relevant to our personality traits.

At this point, no one has produced a purchase receipt that shows who acquired any of the following: pressure cooker(s), explosives and projectiles (nails, pellets, etc.), alleged to have been used in the attack on the Boston Marathon.

We have video that purports to connect two men to backpacks most probably containing IEDs.

We don’t have public evidence that ties the two men to the IEDs.

We have, instead, a massive rush to judgement, a lynch mob mentality that hasn’t changed in thousands of years.

I trust that the majority of people involved in the local Boston police, the FBI and other security forces are doing their jobs as honestly and lawfully as possible.

At the same time, I know that many people want justice, even vigilante justice, and there will be those who will facilitate that, providing means to justify the quick end to this terrible story, including the talking heads, the paid “experts” on the television screen and Internet popup windows.

Sigh…back to the larger story…the tale of our exploration of the solar system as we spread out into the galaxy.

I know today’s headlines will repeat themselves ad infinitum/ad nauseum, which should make me happy knowing I can write the same story over and over again without having to invent new emotions or mental states for readers to familiarise themselves therewith.

Some days the writing is easy.  Some days, I wish my robotic writing machine wrote smoother sentences and fun-to-read stories.

As far as this current story goes, I, for the sake of a plot twist, will take this in the direction of a vast coverup and conspiracy to feed one group of my readers who will believe the two men who came here as asylum seekers with their family were easy-to-use pawns with websites and online profiles set up in advance for a convincing crime drama.

Gone are the days of a smoking gun and a tattered copy of the Anarchist Cookbook found in the trunk of a car.

At times like this…

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“At times like this, I am reminded of a scene from an SNL skit.”

“Yeah, boss, which one?  The Bassamatic?”

“Nah.  But that was a good one, wasn’t it?  No, I was thinking more about the Citizen Kane parody, where the owner says, while pointing a gun out the window and shooting six times, ‘Take a headline, Bernstein: “Crazed Sniper Guns Down Six!” We’ll have the innocent men, women and children angle an offer for $10,000 for the madman’s capture!’ That kind of parody.”

“Parade?”

‘No. Parody.”

“Party?”

“No. Parody.  Parody, parody, parody.  Similar to satire.  You know, sarcasm.”

“Ahh…sarcasm.  That I understand, boss.  Kinda like the way you call me smart when you mean the opposite.”

“Kinda.  Anyway, watching the news, I see these talking heads and the puppet strings that jerk their faces around, then I imagine the producers and finally, the owners.  Take Fox, for instance.  Can’t you see Rupert Murdoch telling his minions, ‘Guys, I need a headline grabber, like this…”

[Video fades to black, cuts to scene from SNL]

Citizen Kane II

Written by: Michael O’Donoghue

Mr. Thompson…..Buck Henry
Nurse…..Laraine Newman
Jed Leland…..Chevy Chase
Charles Foster Kane…..Dan Aykroyd
Mr. Bernstein…..John Belushi
Henri…..Tom Schiller
Delivery Boy…..Garrett Morris

[ black-and-white ]

[open on the dark, moody atmosphere of Mr. Thompson’s room. He lies on his bed reading, as a knock sounds at the door. He rises to answer it, allowing a Nurse to enter the room. ]

Mr. Thompson: Yes? Can I help you?

Nurse: I.. don’t suppose you remember me, but.. I’m the nurse that was with Mr. Kane when he died.

Mr. Thompson: [ momentarily confused ] Mr. Kane?

Nurse: Charles Foster Kane – the big newspaper tycoon.

Mr. Thompson: Of course! You’re the one who told us Mr. Kane’s last word – Rosebud. Huh.. never did find out what it meant.

Nurse: Well.. Rosebud was.. one of his last words.

Mr. Thompson: What do you mean, one of his last words?

Nurse: Well, you mustn’t get angry.. but I just remembered a few more.

<[ theme music crescendos, as the title superimposes on screen: “CITIZEN KANE II” ]

[ Mr. Thompson sits on the edge of his bed, across from the Nurse who sits in a chair ]

Nurse: You see, he was on this all-liquid diet —

Mr. Thompson: Get to the point, woman! What were Charles Foster Kane’s last words?!

Nurse: After he said Rosebud, he coughed a few times, then he muttered: “Henri.” And then he died.

Mr. Thompson: Henri? Henri.. ah! Henri! Of course! A man’s name! Kane’s closest friend, Jed Leland, is still alive in one of those uptown hospitals. Let’s pay him a visit! If anyone knows who thie Henri is, he will!

[ Mr. Thompson and the Nurse rush out of the room, as the music crescendos again and we fade to black ]

[ fade in on the close-up face of an aged, spectacled, moustachioed Jed Leland ]

Jed Leland: [ pondering the clue ] Henri.. hmm.. Henri..

[ pull out to reveal Jed Leland sitting in a wheelchair. He turns to face Mr. Thompson, who sits with his back to the audience and obscured by shadows ]

Jed Leland: You’re absolutely sure you don’t have a good cigar? I’d give anything for a good cigar.

Mr. Thompson: Sorry, Mr. Leland, but what about this Henri?

Jed Leland: Who?

Mr. Thompson: Henri.

Jed Leland: Henri. Well, I’m afraid I don’t know any — nope.. wait a minute. [ suddenly remembering ] Why, of course. Henri. The little French man. I’ll never forget the first and last time I saw Henri. It was the day Charlie took over the Enquirer. My, what a day it was..

[ flashback dissolve to the Enquirer office, Mr. Bernstein standing alone as Charles Foster Kane and a younger Jed Leland enter ]

Charles Foster Kane: [ chuckling ] Well, Jedediah, here it is! My own newspaper, the New York Enquirer. And I’m going to turn this newspaper into something that this own will want to read. Why, just look at this dribble! [ holds up a newspaper ] “Noted Mitten Manufacturer Retires.”

Mr. Bernstein: Why, it must be a slow day for news, Mr. Kane!

Charles Foster Kane: A slow day for news, Bernstein? I’ll show you a slow day for news!

[ Kane points a gun out the window and fires 6 shots below ]

Charles Foster Kane: Take a headline, Bernstein: “Crazed Sniper Guns Down Six!” We’ll have theinnocent men, women and children angle an offer for $10,000 for the madman’s capture!

Mr. Bernstein: Right away, Mr. Kane! [ rushes out of office ]

Charles Foster Kane: Slow days for news —

[ Delivery Boy enters office ]

Delivery Boy: Did anyone order a roast beef on rye with mustard?

Charles Foster Kane: Yeah, I did. Thanks.

[ Delivery Boy distributes the sandwiches, then exits office ]

Jed Leland: Let’s see here, what am I, chopped liver?

[ Henri the printer rushes in with the new front page reading: “Crazed Sniper Guns Down Six – Woman and Children Among Victims”. Mr. Bernstein appears behind him. ]

Henri: Here’s ze new front page, Mr. Kane!

Charles Foster Kane: Well, you certainly took your time about it, boy. What’s your name?

Henri: Henri, sir.

Charles Foster Kane: Henri, you’re fired! We’re running a scandal sheet here, not a newspaper! [ starts to eat his sandwich ] Mmm.. great sandwich.

Henri: Funny.. I thought it was: “We’re running a newspaper, not a tea party.”

Mr. Bernstein: A tea party?! That doesn’t make sense! how about: “We’re running a newspaper here, not a pet shop!”

Jed Leland: Uh, wait a minute. Obviously, we’re not running a pet shop. That’s no good.

[ Delivery Boy re-enters scene ]

Delivery Boy: Who, uh, gets the tea with no lemon?

Henri: How about, uh.. police office!

Mr. Bernstein: Oh, yeah.. hey! That’s a good idea! “We’re not running a newspaper here –”

[ suddenly, Charles Foster Kane fires 5 more shots out the window ]

Charles Foster Kane: Get out an extra! “Sniper Strikes Again!” Double the reward!

[ everyone but Kane and Leland clear the room ]

Jed Leland: You know, since you took over, you certainly have changed the Enquirer, Charlie.

Charles Foster Kane: Change the Enquirer.. change the newspaper.. I haven’t changed anything, Jedediah. I’ve only changed the front page. What about its heart, its soul, its very being? That’s why I’ve set out this Declaration of Principles. [ posts card on the wall ] 1. Sell millions of newspapers by any means possible. 2. Make that billions of newspapers.

Jed Leland: Can I keep that, Charlie? I have a hunch it could turn out to be pretty important some day.

Charles Foster Kane: [ reflects ] Important someday. Yeah. [ looks out the window ] Jedediah, do you think I can hit that organ grinder down there, from this far away? He looks to be about.. oh.. one-hundred, two-hundred yards. Let’s see if I can get a beat on him. [ fires a shot ] Damn! Bernstein!

[ Mr. Bernstein re-appears ]

Mr. Bernstein: Yes, Mr. Kane!

Charles Foster Kane: Get out an extra! “Sniper Kills Organ Grinder’s Monkey, Not Even Pets Safe in Weird Murder Spree.”

Mr. Bernstein: Sure thing, Mr. Kane!

[ Kane admires the copy of his newspaper, as he flash-dissolve back to the aged Jed Leland in the hospital ]

Jed Leland: Yeah.. Henri. That’s who Henri was.

Mr. Thompson: He doesn’t really seem important enough, somehow. I mean, why would Kane’s last words be about some printer he fired fifty years before?

Nurse: Oh, wait.. I’m sorry. I just remembered that Mr. Kane said one more thing before he died. He said: “Rosebud”, coughed a few times, muttered: “Henri”, and then he turned to me and whispered: “With Mustard.”

Mr. Thompson: Wait a minute.. let’s put this all together: “Rosebud.. Henri.. With Mustard.” I wonder what it means.

Nurse: Beats me.

Jed Leland: Well, maybe it was a horse he bet — [ Chevy Chase suddenly cracks up ] It could’ve been a horse he bet on!

Mr. Thompson: Yes, that might be amusing if it were.

Nurse: Maybe a woman he knew.

Jed Leland: Might be.

Mr. Thompson: I guess we’ll never know.

[ dissolve to a fiery incinerator. The door is pulled open, and a hand inserts a menu into the flames that read: “Roast Beef On Rye With Mustard” ]

[ fade to black, up on SUPER: “The End” ]

[ dissolve to SUPER: “Introducing The Cast” ]

[ dissolve to “Laraine Newman as the nurse.” ]

Nurse: You see, he was on this all-liquid diet.

[ dissolve to “Chevy Chase as Jed Leland.” ]

Jed Leland: I’d give anything for a good cigar.

[ dissolve to “Buck Henry as Mr. Thompson.” ]

Mr. Thompson: What do you mean, one of his last words?

[ dissolve to “John Belushi as Mr. Bernstein.” ]

Mr. Bernstein: How about: “We’re running a newspaer here, not an ant farm!”

[ dissolve to “Tom Schiller as Henri.” ]

Henri: Here’s ze new front page, Monsieur Kane!

[ dissolve to “Garret Morris as the delivery boy.” ]

Delivery Boy: Who gets the roast beef on rye with mustard?

[ dissolve to “Dan Aykroyd as Charles Foster Kane.” ]

Charles Foster Kane: Mmm.. great sandwich!

[ fade to black ]

“I don’t know boss.  It’s awfully complicated.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.  But I wouldn’t put it past Murdoch to fund a few fundamentalist groups and keep their leaders on speed dial when he needs to up his viewership and advertising rates.  Oh, just forget it.  Let’s watch a rerun of ‘The Americans‘ and call it a day.”

Moving the plot to the next scene

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The question for anyone who has achieved the primary objective is…

  • Go down in a blaze of glory?
  • Eat a bullet in private?

And then…?

Well, life goes on.

The Antares rocket team members want to complete their mission.

Planet searchers want to focus on life elsewhere.

Habitat builders want to use local material to establish colonies on distant shores.

These are the times that try our belief sets.

Stay focused.