This has bad idea written all over it.

Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal ‘Synthetic Organisms,’ Molecular Kill-Switch Included

The Pentagon’s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military’s advantage, creating “synthetic organisms” that can live forever — or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating “the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.” The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to “produce the intended biological effect.” Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can “ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.”

The good boys and girls at the Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) are often wizards that have produced innovations and inventions that have been a benefit to all humanity. One of these advancements is the Internet which allows us to surf for porn 24/7. Another is the global positioning system which has been a particular boon to men since we absolutely refuse to ask for directions when we are lost and women who after receiving directions feel that they can find a better way get even more turned around. One innovation that is in the works showing real promise is using some sort of hyped-up algae to produce jet fuel. Now that is something that will really curl the toes of the high ranking fly boys and girls whose training is often curtailed by the high cost of fuel.

But this time the eggheads might have been in the lab a little too long sniffing far too many exotic fumes. Don't get me wrong, with close to seven billion people on the planet genetic engineering is a vital tool that will have to used to provide medicine and food for humanity. It's just that in this case trying to create immortal organisms and the even insaner idea of even thinking about trying to "rewrite the laws of evolution" is asking for all sorts of nasty science fiction scenarios. Somehow I see an army of biological terminators where quality control in the factory might not have been really paying attention one morning letting a batch of bad models get through. (Damn that evolutionary randomness) Sometime later on some faraway battlefield the generals sitting safely behind enemy lines drinking martinis and complaining about their golf game get word of some of our biologically engineered weapons going rogue and when they go for the kill switch, it does not work. After that somewhere in the great beyond I picture God and Charles Darwin rolling around on the clouds looking down on us having a belly laugh.

Now I know enough about how the defense agencies work that this could be a nice diversion so the people in the Five Sided Funny Farm (Pentagon) could throw several million dollars at some conventional black operation they want to be extra careful in concealing. But we are a society now that takes considerable interest in imposing our will on other countries when they have something we want. However, the thought of drafting all the precious offspring of the placid and oblivious middle class with the resulting return of filled body bags doesn't really float the boat of the powerful people hiding in the shadows. Filled body bags have a way of upsetting those that the rich and powerful want to keep blissfully ignorant. So I don't discount this being a real project, I just hope it falls by the wayside like the Hafnium bomb and Telepathic spies.

Suddenly Falling from the Sky

(((Author's note: I am taking a great online writing course right now at a local community college. As part of the course a recent lesson had us trying something called "Galumphing" as a way to free up the creative energies of the writer. Long story short it consisted of three columns divided into boxes each with some element of a story. The task was to take an element from each column and create a story around it. I hit "bank", "man's suit", and "science teacher" for elements of my story. Also added to this story is a character called "Martha" who literally caught frozen Hell as the brunt of previous writing exercises getting sprayed with slush and icy water countless times. Just to satisfy my strange mental karma I added her to the story just to give the character a major break, I think. I wrote the first draft Thursday morning and posted it to the class board with my usual multitude of famous typos. Sheer obsession forced me to do a second, then third draft. What finally emerged is something that while I'm not crazy about it I have spent far too much time on the thing for it to sit on my hard drive. Of course, such a situation requires me to inflict it on my friends.)))

Looking into the bathroom mirror Joe Brown saw the face of a man hopelessly mired in a dreary and empty life. He knew it was his reflection but it seemed different, it seemed frozen in place, its universe forever confined to the narrow boundaries of the bathroom mirror with nothing behind it but a faded tile wall. It occurred to a part of Joe’s mind that such a tight and barren existence was a far worse Hell than any fire and brimstone that any preacher could describe. But there was no denying that everything that he was and felt looked back at him from that mirror, except the eyes, they seemed to mock him. They were the same eyes that a few years ago looked upon an unlimited vista of possibilities.

Joe had been the head of the biology department at a small but respected college holding responsibilities over both students and important research far greater than many older and more established men in similar positions. Standing by his side was a supportive and beautiful wife who he had known since high school and who he thought was actually the better, more important half of their union. Her charm had opened the doors to important research grants that had once been the exclusive domain of higher-ranking universities. Those same universities, seeing a rising star, courted him on a regular basis promising him unlimited research funds, the best students, and acclaim from his peers if he only became part of their team. The man in the mirror grimaced when he thought how it had all fallen apart in the space of a few weeks.

A promising but undisciplined and unethical student had been for months altering the data on a series of important experiments to achieve the results wanted. Peer review discovered the discrepancies and the resulting investigation destroyed his reputation. Joe was relieved of his duties as department head and upon further investigation was removed from the college for not providing better oversight of his students.

Joe, still looking into the mirror, had long ago accepted that he had let his ego get in the way of proper procedures allowing his favorite students to run far too much of his department while other universities stroked his ever growing ego. As his life collapsed his wife, stunned by this change of fate, revealed that her feelings for him had died years before. She told Joe about the affair she had been having with another professor for almost a year and with this turn of events it was time for her to leave. After the meteoric rise, then fall the best Joe could do for work was a position as a science teacher at a second rate private high school teaching spoiled rich kids that had been tossed out of every other private school and whose rich parents just couldn’t see them being forced to attend public school with all the lower dregs of society. Joe’s days were spent giving lectures to disinterested scions of the school’s wealthy benefactors who at best ignored his monotone speeches by either sleeping or talking on their cell phones.

After work he would board a bus for his apartment and let the drone of the wheels rolling on the pavement lull him into a stupor. In his trace-like state Joe was almost able to ignore the faces of those who rode the bus with him. Very often when his consciousness wouldn’t slip into oblivion for his ride back home those disinterested faces would morph into those of ex-wife, former friends, and students who would all begin to remind him of how his inflated pride had destroyed him.

At night sitting on the small patio attached to his apartment his only relief was the comforting conversation of his neighbor as she sat on her patio next his. Her life had fallen apart in its own right and during those melancholy evenings they would each help the other hold onto a small measure of sanity in the mist of a cold, indifferent world. While they did provide a measure of comfort for each other to make it through the long days and nights, they also knew that they held each other back. Neither felt free to make more of their strange and lonely friendship but neither could find the strength it took to face life again and move on. Each night as they retreated to their separate apartments they both hoped something might drop from the sky to free them from their barren reality. Only time could help them both now and they prayed that they could last long enough for help to come.

The months continued to roll by and Joe could feel his life slipping away. Another winter had arrived and the cold gray sky above him was threatening to unleash an icy storm. Standing at his bus stop the wind whipped across his chest feeling like the bony fingers of the Grim Reaper trying to claw inside his cheat. He had long since come to the point that he would welcome such a cloaked specter as long as it he came with the offer of sweet oblivion.

Right before he bordered the bus for the ride back to his apartment he stopped into the nearby dry cleaner he used to pick up his suits. The small man at the counter who was the owner was an ill-tempered sort who thought his clientele were all out to get him. Sometimes the little man would rave about grand conspiracies between his them and his competition, which was always lurking in the shadows spying on him. About the only reason any of his customers stayed with him was because of his cheap prices, semi-decent service, and convenient location next his bus stop. Given the aggravation with the man, when Joe found that mixed into his cleaned and pressed suits was a suit that did not belong to him he resigned himself to the unwanted addition and made plans just to find another dry cleaner soon. Upon returning home Joe hung the unwanted suit up in his closet and planned to ignore it hoping that the owner of the dry cleaner might realize the mistake allowing him to return it without issue.

A few days later a particularly troublesome student spilled chemicals on his clothes two days in a row forcing Joe to pull out the misdirected suit, which at least did fit him. As he slipped on the jacket the next morning Joe felt the strange indentation of some object sown into the liner of the jacket. Unable to concentrate as the day progressed because of the item he took a moment between classes to cut a small hole in the liner and pulled it out. The item easily slipped free from the secret pocket with Joe realizing it was a safety deposit key for the main branch of the bank that he passed by on his bus ride home. The rest of the day he pondered what it meant with his curiosity reaching such an extreme that he got off at the bus stop in front of the bank to go find out what was inside the safety deposit box. His curiosity was reinforced by the simple fact he had nothing to lose.

No questions were asked by the bank employees and within minutes he was sitting inside a small room with the large deposit box on top of a table in front of him. The key easily turned and Joe opened the lid to find thousands of dollars jammed tightly inside. Along with the cash were account books from overseas banks with a small fortune in everyone. The answer to the question about who had sown the key inside the suit was also found inside the box. Instructions from a now deceased mobster to his equally deceased son, Joe remembered reading both were killed in the same “accidental” explosion several years ago, told of how to access the money using the passwords and numbers without having to reveal himself.

Frozen in place, staring at the money and slips of paper on the table Joe knew that a crossroads had finally come to him. He could play it safe and close the box, walking away from the potential trouble it could bring and go about his life. Or he could take the money and run figuring a sudden bullet in the head a few years down the road was far better than just safely wasting away. That single sharp moment hung for almost an eternity as he came to his decision.

Joe emptied all the meaningless tests and papers from his lackluster students out of his briefcase and filled it with the money and papers. He returned the now closed and empty box, thanked the clerk for his time and strolled out of the bank oblivious to the snow and sleet that was falling.

Back at his apartment Joe waited finding it a new and unanticipated Hell; he sat on his small patio waiting for the lights in his neighbor’s apartment to come on. When they did he quickly walked back inside and out to the hallway to knock on her door. He knew she would find it unusual for him to be so excited and asking her over to her apartment. For all the time they knew each other they had only seen the inside of the other’s apartment once or twice. Their relationship was never romantic, just two people sharing the unhappiness that was trying to engulf them. But at times Joe did feel a spark of something real between them that went beyond their shared misery, or at least he hoped.

When she came to the door she was drenched from almost head to toe in icy water and he refused her pleas to be given a few moments to clean up before coming over. Moments later in his apartment he showed her all the money and explained what the account books meant. She stared in disbelief and was caught completely off guard by Joe’s next statement.

“Martha, we have both been looking for an opportunity to leave this life behind. We’ve dreamed of something falling from the sky to save us and this is it.” Joe reached out and took her hand and being stunned she said nothing.

Joe pulled her close looking into her eyes finally realizing their beauty. “This is it Martha this our chance, leave with me right now.”

In the early, dark hours of the morning

At night a hospital is an eerily quiet and seemingly deserted place. The empty hallways easily echo my footsteps as I pass through the corridors making my usual rounds and at times the stillness is uncomfortably like that of a tomb. I’ve been on night shift since October and I have yet to find, much less be invited into, the hideaways the surgical staff holds up in until they are needed. Rumors abound by those who have fallen into the good fortune of being invited into such hidden lairs that they are full of free drinks and food and furnished with comfortable chairs and huge televisions. My key card is still ignored by the security pads mounted next the doors of such suspected places with the little glowing red eye telling me the door is still locked looking like an angry sentinel. Because of this except for the two other fellow members of the hospital Engineering staff working the same hours as me much of my shift, if not all, is spent alone.

In many ways that is a good thing, I have time to perform my duties unimpaired by the usual minutia found on dayshift with people scrambling to get their needs met first or the ubiquitous workplace politics.

Another advantage is that I have time for my thoughts, free from the idle and often ignorant chatter that passes for conversation by most of the Engineering staff. Being alone with only my thoughts for company they have a habit of flying off on the wildest of fantasies but every once and awhile the outside world intrudes to remind me that I am not the only one dealing with isolation.

The surgical department where I can be usually found is located on the third floor of the main building and very late at night has a twilight-like atmosphere after the corridor lights are greatly dimmed to save money. A few nights ago while in an operating room doing preventive maintenance checks on the surgical lights I stepped outside into the corridor to take a break. That particular corridor is the main thoroughfare for patients being wheeled into surgery and after, to recovery with one side being the doors to the operating rooms and the other side being a long length of huge windows looking down to one of the hospital’s parking lots below. At night that particular parking lot is empty since it mainly serves outpatients services and several nearby doctors’ offices.

Wanting to clear my mind from all the color-coded wires I had to check along with electrical connections and relays I stared out into the night. With the dimmed lights I had an excellent view of the surroundings in spite of the fact there wasn’t much to see. The parking lot was, as usual, empty except for several decorative street lamps that emitted amber cones of light creating small islands of illumination around several parking spaces. A little further out and across the street was a small diner with one small light still on somewhere inside. And beside it was a sub sandwich place that was completely dark except for the neon “open” sign mounted in the window that continues to blink on and off all through the night like some lame practical joke.

Being on the opposite side of the main and emergency entrances there wasn’t even a few people milling about seeking relief from whatever fear or anxiety that had them at a hospital in the first place. From my view it was like the eerie quiet and stillness from the hallways had been extended outside.

As my mind drifted I did happen to notice a car pull into the empty parking lot taking a position right under one of the amber cones of light. Within moments a mature looking man got out of the car and in a clearly nervous way began strolling around the general area and looking at his watch. Nothing about the man was out of the ordinary; his car was a nondescript sedan and his clothes gave no sign of him being neither very poor nor very rich.

Maybe it’s a statement on the demands, or lack of them, of my job but I was fascinated with that person and why he was walking around an empty parking lot in the early hours of the morning. As I continued to watch the unknown man eventual propped himself up against his car and obviously began to wait looking off into the distance. Maybe it was my empathy working overtime but from what I could see of his face he looked lost and alone.

Despite my interest after several minutes I began to feel the need to return to work so I could finish what was left to check of the surgical lights. However, before I turned another car pulled into the parking lot and pulled right next to the waiting man. A woman dressed very much in the same style as the man quickly jumped out and rushed toward him. They embrace each other with a deep longing that was obvious even from where I stood. The kiss afterward was not one of friendship or family but of separated lovers with something illicit hanging in the air between them. I know, I should have walked away and given the two some sort of privacy but some strange and sad story was playing out before me and I was lost in the events going on as much as the two sad lovers meeting in the night.

After they parted from the kiss it was clear both were distraught and worried making elaborate gestures with their arms as they circled each other talking. More than a few times they each checked their watches giving a strong sign that someone, somewhere might soon notice their absence. Several times as they walked around talking they would fall back into each other’s arms with their embraces oozing hopelessness and a harsh sadness.

As the drama played out something was decided, the lady grabbing the man’s hand with him looking devastated as they exchanged some final words. The couple embraced momentarily one last time with the woman braking away and then rushing back to her car. Within a few seconds she was out of the parking lot and driving away leaving the man staring after her frozen in place. It may sound ridiculous but the night seemed to engulf the guy.

I watched a few more minutes half expecting the woman to return and in all honesty I guess the man in the parking lot at least hoped she would since he had not moved from the place she left him. However, she did not and even my interest in seeing this to the end was overwhelmed by my need to finish my tasks. I returned about thirty minutes later and saw that the unknown man had himself left at some point. I admit to some sadness on my part seeing that the parking lot was empty again with nothing to show that two people who desperately needed each other had apparently said their final goodbyes.

Collecting my tools back in the operating room I heard this old Frank Sinatra tune playing on the radio. I thought it fit the mood of the events I saw that night.

Master of the Sith and ultimate coolness

Tangible discourse with teenage boys is a difficult thing to achieve in the best of times. But as I listened to the video game gun and laser fire coming from the upstairs family room last Saturday mingling with the cacophonous strains of an electric guitar I didn’t even try to tell them to turn the volume down. A few hours earlier as the stream of teenagers raced upstairs carrying everything from sleeping bags, stacks of video games, and the ubiquitous snack food items I had accidentally overheard one of the boys say that Darth Spoilboy, my son, had the “cool dad.” Being that none in the small group heading upstairs openly disagreed or laughed made my day.

How such a title had come my way was a little beyond my understanding since I had never allowed much in the way of outrageous behavior and in fact had shut the breaker off one time to the family room after repeated yells for the guys to tone things down were ignored. Never the less I did take a sort of sanctimonious pride in hearing that I had been award such a title as compared to the other nearby dads who are far more conventional or, dare I say, boring being caught up in the near Stalinist conformity and regimented lifestyle of Southern suburbia.

While other dads are willingly tied down by indentured servitude to manicured lawns forever demanding more and expensive fertilizers and maintenance equipment I shrug off such bourgeois mindsets and do my best to let my lawn grow wild and free. I refuse to be condemned to mindless serfdom, forever tied to a tiny piece of land praying to the gods of mortgage brokers and real estate that my piece of the pallid and stale American Dream never declines in value. Only my lovely and charming wife forces me at least twice a summer to trim the curb and pick up the limbs from our trees that have fallen off. As for the leaves that fall from the trees during autumn I let my ally the wind blow them happily down the street and into other people yards. After all the anal retentive ones with the high tech riding lawnmowers with the super suction vacuum attachments might as well have the chance to enjoy their toys even more.

As much as it might irritate those around me I revel in my non-conformity happily embracing the liberal/tree hugging/anti-capitalist/gay marriage supporting mantle declaring my opposition to those for whom Rush “Oxycontin addicted lard ass” Limbaugh and Glenn “ insane corporate lackey” Beck are intellectual heroes. On more than a few occasions I have walked past such people and heard them whisper, “Yeah, he’s a liberal, and he was in the military, I wonder how he could have gone so bad.”

So why does this make me the “cool dad”? Because I believe the younger generation understands that the residual traits from an even earlier period, which today are called modern political Conservatism, are the dying embers of a fading fire flaring up one last time before the more tolerant and progressive younger generation and simple demographics assign them to the dustbin of history.

Never the less as Saturday went on I did have to run interference for the various young Sith Lords saving or maybe enslaving the galaxy. My daughter, Miss Wiggles, had a few friends of hers over and they took an interest in what the boys were doing upstairs. Several times I had to pull the girls out after they snuck up to where the boys were and tried to stage a coup by grabbing the controllers for the X-Box360 wanting to play the games themselves.

Only using the ultimate, urbane coolness of the “Cool Dad” was I able to play the peacemaker separating the two groups and restoring balance to the house. Well, ultimate coolness and the fact that I agreed to play tea party with them, complete with me wearing a seriously floppy hat, plastic jewelry, and day-glo pink feather boa. I drew the line at the matching pink tutu, even though I was shocked that my daughter had one I could even wear. Oh yeah, any pictures that might surface of me attending such an event dressed in floppy hat, plastic jewelry, or feather boa are pure fabrications created on the computer by my enemies….or my wife.

However the day was climaxed late in the evening when I decided to go to bed early. Nothing was on television that I wanted to see, the boys were in full swing with their activities, Miss Wiggles was in bed and I figured I would read until I dozed off. Though sometime after 11:00pm I was awakened by voices in my room.

“Dad?” I heard my son say in the darkness next to me.

“What’s up dudes?” I responded using the ultimate coolness lingo to him and his cohorts lingering in the background. Now I was a little worried. The last time my son had woke me up on a weekend while he had friends over was when he had broken the two month old 40” high-definition LCD by banging into it with the controller from his last X-Box360. That legendary calamity will be remembered alongside my wife turning the wrong way down a crowded one-way street in Washington DC, me gouging a four-inch strip on the bumper of the brand new Corolla by bringing the garage door down too early, and Miss Wiggles taking a bottle of red hair dye to the dog.

“Dad, someone coming to the door in a few minutes, can you let him in? We’re in the middle of an important part of the game.” My loyal son said with such earnest. But I was tired and didn’t want to be disturbed. So what did these fine examples of young men do? They all grabbed my feet and arms and bodily lifted me out of the bed carrying me to the couch. Only such a Cool Dad would receive such treatment and I was honored, except for the part when the tossed me the last couple of feet. However, when duties calls I have always been one to answer.

I didn’t really have to ask about, or wait very long for, the person they wanted me to let in. I saw the pizza guy coming up the steps and intercepted him before he had a chance to knock or ring the doorbell alerting the boys. This wasn’t the first time for such an occurrence, last summer the boys had ordered food without telling me and its wasn’t until I had an irritated delivery guy on my doorstep demanding money for the six pizzas he was holding did I know anything about it.

This time it was only two large pizzas and a couple of sodas, which I paid for and then hid after grabbing three slices for myself. Being caught up in the game it was a good while before the boys realized they should have long since received their pizzas.

They apparently suspended their efforts to save or enslave the galaxy and raucous guitar playing long enough to come down in mass searching for their delivered booty. Shock flashed across their faces as they saw me finishing the last of my three slices and gulping down their precious soda.

“Dad, when did the pizza guy come?” My Sith Lord son Darth Spoilboy asked. I actually heard a few grumbles from his friends who over the years I had given Sith titles to as well. Which is something they thought was a laugh riot.

“Oh, almost an hour ago,” I said smiling knowing what I was going to make them do for pulling the pizza trick again.

They didn’t like it but I made them bow down and declare their allegiance to the ultimate master of the Sith, Darth Cooldad, and to forever abandon all attempts to order pizza unless I have a chance to add to my own pizza to the purchase. After they all agreed and I received the tribute of another slice and more soda I then released my young Sith apprentices and started watching Saturday Night Live and reveling in my greatness and power.

Late night health care musings

The professional practice of politics to me is a putrid affair best left to those gifted examples of humanity who can do something even more fantastic that walk and chew bubble gum at the same time and that is to kiss someone’s ass while stabbing them in the back. Has politics in general and American politics specifically always been such inherently diabolical statement on human nature?

I honestly feel it has except that for most of our history the federal government was never was such a direct influence on our lives as it is today. While I’m no expert on history I have read enough that back in the day the federal government was at best some far away place that was spoken along the same lines as some mythical kingdom full of fantastic and strange people and incredible places. In this long ago and lost time the main concerns of most Americans were of working to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads to a far higher degree than we do in this time of relative plenty. I can imagine the greatest concern most people had about the federal government since its creation until say the early 1930’s was that the mail would be delivered in a timely fashion.

No matter how much many, including myself to a certain extent, might want to go back to a simpler time it just isn’t going to happened. The United States is a far more complex place requiring the government to expand its scope of operation and regulation of many activities or entities that the framers of the Constitution just never could have imagined. The ideas of many Libertarians and conservative Republicans that our complex society could be handled strictly through the free market or through self regulation of these evolving entities is as delusional and wrong as the Communists who thought the almighty state could control everything.

This battle between the forces of free market anarchy and stifling control in the complex times we find ourselves living in has made American politics a far more polarizing affair. Various minions scramble to shape and spin complex issues into convenient sound bites so the masses whose attention span has been whittled away by such highlights of American culture like reality television and journalism that dwells on the latest antics of narcissistic celebrities can be carefully herded into the right direction. Not only lost in this shuffle but blatantly ridiculed by the polarizing forces is the truth about our society, its failings, and the understanding of what it will take to fix the things that need attention.

The point in my extremely long winded and rambling post is that after the debacle of the recent Massachusetts vote to fill the seat long held by Teddy Kennedy a completely different approach to health care reform will have to be taken. In my ever humble opinion the Democratic sausage makers residing the halls of congress have painted themselves into a corner. The loss of the 60 seat majority will allow the Republicans an orgasmic opportunity to filibuster the current complex and greatly deficient bill to death.

Not to sound partisan but fear monger acolytes of various special interest and business groups have twisted and turned the facts about the undeniable need to restructure our health care system. Many who would benefit from a fair reorganization are now willing to live with possible denial of coverage because of preexisting conditions and ever skyrocketing premiums over fears of the devil they don’t know as compared to the devil they do.

Long story short the tidal wave of the 2008 election that elected Barrack Obama president has been spent. And to be honest while he is doing his best the dynamic campaigner seems to have been replaced with an aloof and unemotional “Spock” who leaves far too much to the sausage making denizens on Capitol Hill. Joe Scarborough irritates the Hell out of me at times but on Wednesday morning while glowing in the victory of the Tea Bagger who won the Massachusetts senate seat he did say something I had to agree with despite how much it pissed me off. He said the president’s leadership in the health care debate has been extremely lacking and that previous presidents, he mentioned Johnson, would have long since forced an agreement.

The advantages the Democrats gained with the seats they gained in both 2006 and 2008 has been pissed away like a drunken sailor drinks away his paycheck with him waking up the next morning wondering where it all went. During this time the Republicans have reorganized and frankly ju-jitsu our asses. Whining and self defeating in-fighting by the Democrats will only keep us boxed and our options restricted. So what are we suppose to do now?

A Democratic "rope-a-dope" strategy is needed and I heard Mike Barnicle say something Wednesday morning that needs to be thought about.

While Joe Scarborough was smugly sitting across the table talking trash about the Democrats, some rightly so, Mike said that the Democrats need to drop the current bill and bring one up that only eliminates preexisting conditions and makes health insurance portable. Then defy the Republicans to vote against it.

Yes, it wouldn't have a public option but after this election disaster I say again I don't believe the current bill will pass. And using the senate nuclear option will, in my opinion, only blow up in the Democrats faces.

But back to Barnicle's suggestion, I would also add a segment removing the anti-trust protection from the health insurance companies. I’d like to see Republicans try to explain why the big boys making billions on the back of people while denying coverage and raising premiums need to be protected.

I figure we can continue or current fighting for something that will never pass or we can put the Republicans into a position that will force them to show where their loyalties really lay, the people or big corporations.

That's it I'm done with politics for awhile.

Echos from the frontier past

My gunner was fast asleep in the passenger seat of the humvee I was driving as the convoy leader in his vehicle began to slow down and lead the rest of the convoy off the pavement and stop on the side of the road. It was the middle-of-no-where southeastern Colorado in the last hour of daylight and I had been driving since the last rest stop outside Pueblo. After two hours at the wheel my knees were aching from sitting in the restricted confines of the two seat model of the military utility truck.

While the army had certainly bought an excellently designed and rugged vehicle for just about any terrain it might find itself operating in the humvee, for me, had one major engineering flaw. They did not take into consideration anyone taller than six-foot having to drive or ride in the vehicle for extended periods of time. While the driver seat could be adjusted somewhat it simply wasn’t enough to alleviate the cramped and awkward position someone my height had to deal with on such long trips. The passenger seat was even worse with no adjustments which was the reason my gunner, a kid named Pulaski from Wisconsin, was snoozing instead of driving himself.

The young lieutenant who was convoy leader quickly ran down the length of the trailing vehicles obviously just to stretch out his own legs. “Thirty minute rest stop,” he yelled along the way. Get water, eat, and take a piss but be ready to move out when I call.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice and I was out the vehicle before my gunner was fully awake. I had slapped the young kid hard on his Kevlar helmet to wake him up before opening the flimsy vinyl door and stepping outside. It was early February and a freezing wind was blowing damn near parallel to the state road we were driving on which would eventually bring us to our destination, the Pinion Canyon Maneuver site for a three week field exercise.

It was a terrific relief to be out the vehicle but as I stretched looking northward it was nothing but flat plains with a few rolling hills. The hard asphalt of the road stretched off into the distance either way, empty of any other travelers giving the impression that the road might be some forgotten relic of a lost time.

Clumps of dried brown grass waving in the wind and sinister looking scrub bushes with plenty of thorns in an otherwise barren landscape were the only evidence of any life that I could see. The sky was empty except for a few small clouds that were a dark golden hue as if the setting sun was roasting them. The only sound, besides the blowing wind whipping through the prairie grass, was the voices of my fellow soldiers enjoying the momentary break from the tedium of the long drive.

I didn’t see the ruined homestead until I went around to the other side of my vehicle. I don’t really know why I didn’t see it from the first, it may have been my initial desire just to get out and give my near throbbing knees a break or that my brain was scrambled due to the drone of the engine and the near absence of any sensory input on the road. But once I did notice it immediately fascinated me sitting all alone in the middle of that silent desolation.

It was a little over a hundred yards off the road and a few other soldiers in the convoy were already ambling in its direction. Unable to control my curiosity, and with no desire to try and communicate with the “white-boy rapper” from Wisconsin I was teamed with I began walking that way myself.

This being the beginning of a major field training exercise we had all been issued our rifles, and along with wearing our Loading Bearing Equipment around our chests and kevlars helmets on our heads, had to keep our weapons with us at all times. For the five guys and me walking toward the ruined homestead it lent a surreal air to our exploration as if we expected to be fired upon. Adding to the atmosphere was the crunching sounds of our footsteps on the pebbles and dried branches littered about the ground that had somehow broken off the thorny bushes in the area. Everything was just too still and except for the wind and our footsteps, too quiet.

The roof to the house had been destroyed sometime in the past exposing the inside to the elements but the four walls were still standing. We all were approaching the front of the house which was marked by a door way and a small, single window. Both were wood framed but whatever actual door and windowpanes that might have fitted in those spaces had long since been lost.

Right from the first, our small group scouting the area were wondering how old the place was, the house looked to be constructed of mud bricks and after we stepped inside the walls showed no evidence of any electrical outlets or wiring. The floor was packed stones or hard earth with weathered pieces of finished wood that may have come from the roof or abandoned furniture scattered about the floor. Once inside it became clear how small the house actually was with the total area being about that of a large modern living room.

“Jesus, my backyard storage shed is bigger than this place. I can’t believe people actually lived here.” One guy said whom if I remember right came from an upper middle class family somewhere in California.

“Nope, I bet this was a pioneer home,” the lieutenant, who was the convoy leader said coming in the doorway. “Probably ranchers, maybe sheep herders but I sure as Hell would bet they weren’t farmers. I don’t believe you could grow anything in this godforsaken area. I’d say this homestead dates from the mid to late nineteenth century although you might be surprised how many people lived like this well into the twentieth.”

I was quiet; through this exchange all I could think about was the utter desolation that was about the only defining characteristic of this area even now. The nearest town was about thirty miles behind us and from all I could see it consisted of a post office, a small store, and a couple of small homes. While certain aspects of such a life appeals to me even now I had enough empathy and prior knowledge to understand the Hell it might be to some.

A few years before I had joined the army I had watched a PBS documentary about life on the open prairie. The first part of the show delved deep into the early history of those pioneers who settled the plains. However, the most poignant segment dealt with life on the plains in the early years of national radio. The documentary explained starting in the late twenties all the way to the fifties various soap companies sponsored a sort of radio variety show that had everything from what we would describe as mini soap operas, comedy, music, recipe, and simple music segment among others. These shows became vital lifelines to lonely women living out on the plains for which any neighbors could far too distant to supply any real company or companionship. Many of these listeners would write extremely personal letters to the radio show personalities they only knew as voices coming from a small box describing the utter desolation and loneliness. Many letters read on the documentary spoke of regret for coming out west. Some were stories of mental, emotional, and physical abuse in a time when such things were never mentioned. Most though were just conversational letters written to the radio personalities by women who just didn’t have anyone they could talk with at all.

With the missing roof and just looking at the four standing walls I could imagine life confined to such a small area during the winter months. Even with a radio to provide a very tenuous link to the outside world such an existence would be Hell. Looking around the ruins we stood that may have predated the invention of radio it was even harder to fathom such a life.

Stepping out the opposite doorway to the rear of the property brought more in the way or evidence of human habitation. Some sort of framed construction was jutting two feet up from the ground that everyone took to be the final remnant of a windmill. The same could be said with a line of what remained of fence posts that stretched off in the distance. Scattered around were isolated pieces of rusted metal and broken wood that’s original purpose could only be guessed at.

“Holy shit!” I remember one of my buddies in the group saying that had drifted over to what could be described as either a pathetic example of a small tree or a large bush. “LT, come look at this,” we all immediately walked over to the other side of the small tree wondering what had been found.

Someone had used small rocks, now firmly embedded in the ground, to create three five-foot by two-foot outlines. At what I’ll guess was the head of the graves was a larger slab of stone, also partial buried, that had what appeared to be letters and numbers carved into them.

Soldiers are a lot of things but all of us upon realizing what we had found removed our helmets out of respect. It was a heartbreaking sight being next those forgotten people buried in such a deserted place but adding to it was that someone had, using the same type of material as the head stones, constructed a crude bench at the foot of the graves. The entire scene spoke of some tragedy with one person left behind who continued to pursue some sort of existence at the homestead. The lieutenant, feeling that some sort of words should be spoken in honor of these people tried to read the words carved on the head stones. But they had long since weathered away to point that even that small memorial was lost.

“Alright people, we’re about to lose the sun, time to move out,” the lieutenant said a few minutes later donning his helmet with the rest of us following quickly behind. We were loaded up and moving down again before long with my gunner now driving. In the passenger seat of the humvee my thoughts were still with those souls that had tried to scratch out an existence on this land only to become part of it and then forgotten.

I marvel at the determination that those people had to muster to attempt such thing. What circumstances could have possibly pushed them to such poor land on the frontier or, I wonder, did they even have a choice? Whatever the reasons they braved the hardships and while in this case appearing to have lost others succeeded and built this country.

Many today wrap themselves in the American flag and speak of how proud and brave they are except that they largely live safe and mundane existences living off the glory and past efforts of others. About the only thing that will anger Americans these days is having to deal with whatever trivial inconveniences the modern world throws our way. We have even fallen to the point that we will sacrifice each other as long we stay warm, healthy, and happy. But when a real challenge does present itself we all too often find reasons to ignore it, or push it off on others or blame somebody else.

That is not the characteristics of a great people. The type of people that built this nation lay in those three forgotten graves in a desolate part of Colorado. It is they who rightly deserve to be remembered.

Haitian Disaster relief

“There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell”

Edgar Allan Poe

Ignoring recent stupid and insensitive comments by Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh it is my sincerest hope that we Americans could set aside our petty and ridiculous differences long enough to help the people of Haiti in this darkest of times.

Despite our advantages many Americans have a talent for seeing the world only through their narrow perceptions of reality. We often overlook the struggles others face for the very basics of survival on a daily basis in the best of times. The reverse is also true in that we Americans can rally and move mountains to bring hope and comfort to those who have lost everything.

Here is a convenient link supplied by Google for two relief organizations. Unicef and Care

More charitable organizations from the Morning Joe website.

My personal donation I just gave was small but I plan on donating more as quickly as possible.