A Bad Case of Disillusionment

 

Got to admit, I'm dealing with a pretty big wave of disillusionment with the nature and behavior of the United States. No, this state of mind was not brought on by the Orange Buffoon, although he is more of a symptom of how things have gone wrong. No, I do not consider Joe Biden a failure, but events do seem to have moved faster than his administration has been able to anticipate. Long story short, things are still going to shit and I coming to think there is nothing the sane and rational people can do.

My one real criticism of President Biden is that he seems to be trying to play the normal game of American politics while Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republican power structure have gone full kleptocracy/Authoritarian dictatorship. Giving the Son of a Bitch McConnell his due, the bastard has played corrupt politics like a master. All the while mouthing off asinine statements about everyone needing to respect the rules of the senate with a straight face.

If history ever needs a face to identify the individual who did the most to destroy the United States it will be Mitch McConnell. But I honestly can't say McConnell is the only reason for my disillusionment.

The majority of the people on the right of the American political spectrum are simply insane. Listing all the ways those people have lost their minds would take too long and I simply don't have the energy to rant about it anymore. Here's where I would normally say that I know there are good people on the right. But while they are out there, their numbers are vanishingly small to the point of insignificance.

My one sentence explanation for this situation is that right-wingers have become addicted to fear. They fear the “other” and want desperately a return to a white dominated America. They'll betray every facet of American ideals and principles to see that happen.

But never fear, the left of American politics is as usual lost and without a true game plan. To a far lesser extent, they are just as beholding to their money masters and their own antiquated behaviors. But given how American politics are run, they are the only reasonably sane people in the game.

Most of all, the young people of the country, those that will need to find the strength and knowledge to fix the problems seem adrift. From what I read, many have given up and surrendered figuring they will never be able to own a home, raise a family under the same conditions as their parents, or even retire.

Still rambling here but in a way I think the overall problem can be summed up in that the complexities of life in the twenty-first century have outpaced the intelligence of the general American public. We do not have the education, the energy, nor the ethics anymore to answer to the challenges we face as a nation.

I hope I'm wrong but as of right now and the foreseeable future I think we're massively screwed.

The Backdoor to a Dystopian Nightmare

 

Way back in the early 1980's I remember watching Carl Sagan giving a hypothetical lecture on the nature of other intelligent species. Several of the illustrations he used on that episode were like cheat cards or cliff notes on various aspects that made up those hypothetical aliens and the nature of their civilizations.

Most of the made up “facts” on these cliff notes dealt with the chemical, biological, and physical nature of those species. For example one of Carl's fictional species were “electrovores” implying that they consumed electricity to sustain life. I can't describe how that concept blew my little mind, and still does. These cliff notes were included in the companion book to the series and if you have a copy of Sagan's Cosmos they're still fascinating even today.

Now Carl included a cliff note on humanity, listing the same information on it as the others. And like the others there was a short segment giving some details on our civilization. Mainly that the species was divided up into over two-hundred political entities, six global powers. In this same section it was mentioned that cultural and technological homogeniety was underway. In other words, the “intelligent” species of the planet was undergoing a type of global unification.

On a side note, in the same section our chances for long-term survival were also mentioned at less that fifty-percent per hundred years. Given the nature of the Cold War at the time and Carl's fixation on it as a threat, there was only the smallest mention of the destruction of the planet's biodiversity or climate change.

In the last few years my attention has drifted back to the homogeniety of our civilization. Forgive the implied American imperialism, but for years I didn't have a problem with the world more or less unifying into something like a United States of Earth. That is, a loose global federation made up of self governing political entities whose underlying framework revolved around democrat values and egalitarian principles.

My vague notions of global unification were essentially the ideals of a center-left vision of no person or group having a codified or economic advantage over anyone else. Inequality would exist with some being richer and some being poorer, but that the national and global institutions would attempt to referee the playing field and work to give a hand-up to those born disadvantaged.

Of course, the Cold War ended with a total crash and burn for the only other economic system that seemed a viable alternative to the wrestling tag team duo of democracy and capitalism. Okay, let me go ahead and clearly say I am not here to praise communism, it's dead and has dissolved into a stinky dust.

On the other hand in the years since the end of the Cold War, the tag team duo of democracy and capitalism has broken up with the latter now a legitimate threat to the former. It's a problem all over the world but particularly here in the United States the amount of money in a person's bank account generally means he or she are more equal than another with less money.

The situation has gotten so bad some of these rich folks openly talk about having more votes for elections than us common folks because they have more invested in society. Then there is this Republican/Libertarian fixation that corporations should be considered “people.” From what I learned that only was suppose to mean that they could be sued in court, not hold some position of power in society or representation in government.

This brings me to a concept that I had long since recognized but didn't have a solid idea about until I discovered a book by the British cultural theorist, Mark Fisher. Fisher had coined the term“Capitalist Realism” defining it as the widespread belief that capitalism is not only the only viable political and economic system but that it also now impossible to imagine a viable alternative. That since the fall of the Soviet Union this lack of an alternative to capitalism has a set a limit to political and social life with the effects reaching into education, mental health, and even pop culture and methods of resistance.

So you might be thinking just what does this all mean and how did the collapse of a discredited and evil system like communism screw over the liberal democratic world?

Well, it should be easy to realize that economic inequality all over the world, but especially here in the United States has grown considerably since the end of the Cold War. That this ties in nicely with the collapse of the labor movement here in the United States. Labor unions being the one strong and dependable counterweight to the power and influence of the rich elites who all always looking for ways to increase profit, even at the expense of the dignity and lives of their workers. 

With capitalism looking like the only viable alternative anything that even slightly differentiates from philosophy of increasing profits begins to smell like communism. Remember folks, good old capitalism of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth didn't have a problem with sending kids younger than ten years-old into dangerous factories and mines.

I think maybe the most insidious thing about Capitalist Realism is its effect on pop culture. Going real loosey-goosey here but since we've been left with no real alternative everything in our society seems to be viewed in a monetary value. Fisher writes:

Capitalist realism as I understand it ... is more like a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action.

My takeaway being that as long as you can make a buck off something it's not only a worthy project but an admirable one. Take this idea to the extreme and I can see the justification of everything from driving up the price of insulin to outrageous prices and no-talent skanky publicity sluts making their fortunes selling sex tapes. (The Kardashians are the biggest but there have been others.)

The penultimate and most dangerous result has to be the belief that the government can be run like a business. That the privatization of essential government services can be beneficial saving the ever precious taxpayer from the burdens of having a decent society. Because of this mindset we now have for profit prisons where it can be argued that we have backdoored a return of slavery. Yes, the inmates have committed crimes against society but to use them in commercial ventures that make millions in profits for stockholders and CEO's is just “slavery with extra steps” to use a term from a recent television show I like.

In the long run the United States may have defeated the existential danger of Marxist-Leninist communism, but the price for the win was the soul of our society. Another way to look at this is that we have bought our way into a real dystopia. 

 

 

You Can't Fix this Level of Stupid

 

We are so doomed!!!!

 

 

 

 In all the annals of stupid that I have been exposed it was this week that I saw something so strange that it defied all my expectations. I stumbled upon the meme to your left accidentally as I was wasting time at home watching the grass and weeds in my yard grow. See the fun part is seeing my neighbors drive by and give me dirty looks for not having a seamless carpet of deep green in my front yard.

After discovering this meme, I was enthralled at the interlocking levels of stunning stupidity and brazen incomprehension that one person can possibly endure and still be able to remember to breathe. I say that because Jesse here is legitimately saying that he could do the following:

1. That he could force his way into an international airport with just a good old American AR-15 while carrying his sick son.

2. That they could then force their way onto a fully fueled plane with a pilot.

3. That this pilot would then fly across the Atlantic Ocean and land in Italy.

4. Then Jesse would fight his way off the plane, with his son and then to a hospital.

Those were just the most basic steps since anyone who has read something more that the infantile propagandize drivel of your average conspiracy-plagued Fox News host knows you can't readily hijack a plane like you might a car driving down a deserted street. Now I'm sure in Jesse's armchair commando mind he's probably recruited a number of like-minded individuals all armed themselves to carry off his plan. Hell with a big enough circle lunatic friends he may even have a pilot friend or two.

Still though, Jesse's statement was so bleeding stupid I have heard five-year old kids who still believe in Santa say things more rational. After my initial discover I looked Jesse up on Twitter. It's almost like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram made the nasty and the child they created was exponentially more crazy than them both.

Enough of the stupid, lets now explore the incomprehension. Jesse here is proposing that he would marshal all his God-given American manhood and using his AR-15 force his way to Italy so his child could be saved by socialized medicine. Yes, good folks whether Jesse know it or not Italy, along with all other Western nations, has some form of evil, communistic, socialized medicine. While the United States is still mired to privatized medical system where insurance companies decided whether or not your family will go bankrupt due to a sick family member. Remember Sarah Palin and the evil of rationed health care she talked about during her bizarre time as the Republican vice president nominee?

Rationed health care has existed for as long as insurance companies and many times they have allowed darling grandmothers to die because of some cost/benefit analysis.

So this begs the question, instead of attempting an improbable hijacking wouldn't it be better to just work together and bring some form of socialized medicine here to this country? 

 Unrelated to Jesse, here's some more stupid. This good American is praying to Donald Trump to save him from the police. This country is doomed, get out if you can!

 

The Paradox of the McMansion Versus the Tiny House

 

Few things signify the gross excess and outright waste of our current society like the modern suburban home. There are entire industries catering to the American middle class desire to own the biggest house possible along with a yard that usually must look like a miniature copy of an aristocratic English estate. The only purpose for this waste of resources and abuse of the land is for a shallow pursuit of status among equally superficial individuals.

The term “McMansion” was in fact coined to signify a house considered ostentatious and lacking in architectural integrity. The lack of architectural integrity coming from the addition of secondary spaces that are essentially empty voids, internal areas of the house that serve no purpose other that an attempt at decoration. The best example off the top of my head would be a house I saw once with a foyer that had twelve foot ceilings. Right next the ceiling were three windows that had absolutely no useful purpose. Yes, they let in extra sunlight but with the ceilings in the rest of the house the normal distance from the floor the “grand foyer” as the homeowner described that space was utterly ridiculous to me.

The same goes for another McMansion I visited once during a pool party my family had been invited. The party had already started by the time I arrived with my wife talking to the hostess and my son playing in the pool with other kids. The husband of the hostess came over and greeted me and for some reason ushered me up to the master bathroom so I could change. Yeah, everything about that house screamed useless space designed to give the impression of a grand palace from the outside and inflate the importance of the owners inside. But it was the master bathroom that defied normal standards. The total square-footage of the bathroom was easily greater that my living room. Now it did have and oversized bathtub and a extra-large shower stall, and of course a toilet but the overall floor space was ridiculous.

It has been my observations that these McMansions tend to breed a contempt in their occupants towards anyone else not perceived to be of equal status. My recent post about the utter panic that erupted in local McMansion dwellers around me about the proposal to build affordable Section Eight housing in the general area shows how much humanity has to be surrendered just to protect things like a “grand foyer” and a master bathroom larger than living room.

It's a given that one of the worst problems we have here in the United States is the lack of affordable housing. Billions of dollars are spent annually to build these suburban McMansions and other houses that sit just under this definition. But actual homes that the poor can afford, allowing them to break the cycle of poverty, are exceedingly rare jewels. Such people are supposed to hide away in Sections Eight apartments deep inside the darker corners of cities whose only real purpose to allow rich developers to get even richer off government subsidies.

Even when something like Sections Eight housing is available, there are still legions of homeless men, women, and families floating around our streets like human flotsam in a vast ocean of apathy.

Here's where my bewilderment at our stunted society reaches critical mass. A type of residence that has become popular among some people are called “Tiny Homes.” These structures have an internal space ranging from one-hundred square feet to around four-hundred. But they can still provide the comforts of larger homes like full or even queen-size beds, a bathroom, along with a kitchen and living room.

While houses greater than four-hundred square feet don't technically fit the description as a tiny home, going up to eight-hundred square feet to accommodate families don't break the spirit of the idea.

Here's part of the problem as to why we're not solving the affordable housing problem by building whole villages of these tiny homes.

First is the obvious zoning issues, especially when upper scale neighborhoods just happen to be relatively nearby. The right-wing, self-righteous zealots in my area lost their tiny minds at the idea of affordable housing in the form of apartments being built. I can only imagine what they would think if a subdivision or two made up of Tiny Houses were proposed.

More than likely since Tiny Houses are required to be mounted on wheels, like trailers, they would be equally upset saying such residences draw crime, drops in property values, and overburden already crowded schools. Now it would be great if Tiny Houses could be built on permanent foundations but there are scores of vague regulations that prevent the creation of such villages. I'm sure some of these regulations stifling Tiny House creation have solid, legitimate reasons but I can't help to think some of them exist because typical homes owners fear their property values being hurt. And from my experience absolutely nothing defines the perspective of the vast majority of middle class Americans than how something or someone might hurt the property values of their houses.

Sliding slightly into the metaphysical but McMansions to me violate basic decency and shows an almost malevolent disregard for other human beings and the environment. The amount of resources in lumber and wiring and plumbing used to build such monstrosities could have gone to several much smaller houses. And as for the beautifully green lawns the chemicals used to create and maintain them have severe environmental problems that literally flow all the way down to the ocean.

I love how conservative suburbanites lament about “the good old days” were so much better all the while forgetting that their grandparents homes had a square-footage running around fourteen-hundred square feet at best. Full disclosure here, my current house (money pit) is a hair or two under twenty-one hundred square feet and I pretty much despise it.

Going full metaphysical, along with bleeding heart, high spending liberal. But with millions of folks in America going homeless, I can't help but think that with Tiny Houses we are looking at one facet of a solution for huge chunk of our society's problems. I actually believe we should build entire villages of Tiny Homes and give them away to homeless families, at first, and eventually down to single individuals. Payment for these homes would require troubled individuals to be part of anything and everything from mental health counseling, job training, substance abuse treatment, and basic upkeep of their homes. That failure to actively participate in treatment and training and upkeep would mean eviction.

The problem with my proposal is twofold. First being the mindless conservative reaction at the idea of their precious tax dollars being wasted on some liberal program. These God fearing, gun-toting real Americans have priorities and helping those less fortunate is just socialism.

The second being the mindless liberal reaction that the poor are just victims and shouldn't be expected to focus on their recovery and development. There's a great documentary on YouTube about Seattle's response o the homeless crisis is how it is actually hurting the people they are supposed to be trying to help.

I simply do not believe the conservative conceit that poor folks are lazy, useless parasites looking to suck the life blood out of hardworking folks. Yes, I'm sure on an individual basis such people exist but there isn't any perfect answer when it comes to humans and the institutions they create to help govern society. Personally I'm sick of our society both ignoring our problems and refusing to do anything constructive to help fix things.

One of the reasons I question the very nature of whether or not humans are an intelligent species is our inability, or even desire in many cases, to solve the problems of poverty that has been plaguing us since our ancestors decided to give up the hunter-gathering life.

Poverty breeds suffering for which all the other corrosive agents spring forth to eat away at a functioning society. For me more importantly, Americans disregard for fellow Americans makes everything we say we believe not just a lie, but a dangerous delusion. For if whole poorer segments of our population can be written off as lost causes, there is nothing stopping the rich elites from abandoning the middle class folks if they become inconvenient.

That may have been a little too abstract for some folks so to make it clear, Jeff Bezos and other billionaires don't give a fuck for you suburbanites living in your McMansions. Bezos wants to build space colonies off Earth and every other billionaire and multimillionaire I've ever heard of has a Doomsday plan that at a minimum gets them out of the country should it collapse.

You McMansion folks keep ignoring the growing poverty here in America and one day the angry mobs could be all over your green lawns with torches looking to cook you and your family. All the while Bezos will be in orbit and the other rich folks will be in their luxurious underground bunkers sipping champagne.

Things Never Seem to Change

 

Usually I have a strong opinion whenever the subject deals with the military or politics. Combine the two and if someone asks me a question on them I can easily give a fairly accurate history lesson on how we got there and how the situation reached its current point.

My one caveat on saying I can give a “fairly accurate history lesson” is that in a country filled with experts on sports statistics and what Hollywood celebrity is sleeping with whom, I excel at knowing the past. I admit that's not hard given the idiocy running rampant among the fat, distracted masses. But by all appearances as common layman go, I'm pretty good if not respectable at understanding just how stupid and self destructive our species can be.

That being said, I'm pretty much at a loss in trying to give an opinion on the final result of the United States involvement in Afghanistan. Was the “war” worth the cost in national cash and lives? Should we have withdrawn earlier say during the last years of the Second Bush Administration or Obama's? And finally, the big question is was President Biden correct in withdrawing troops now?

If the objective of invading Afghanistan in 2001 was weeding out terrorists, then I would say yes. The leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden was being allowed refuge in the country by is Taliban buddies. After the invasion, The Taliban went running for the hills and Al Qaeda was ran out of the country. The fact that Osama slipped out of the country and spent years living in plain sight in Pakistan is a whole other issue.

But as for occupying Afghanistan and spending several trillion dollars on building its military and infrastructure, our involvement was such a catastrophic failure I'm sure it will take decades if not a century to understand its scope.

Here in the United States during all those years on involvement many called for a national health care system, A massive infrastructure project to fix...well everything that has been ignored for decades. It literally pains me to think of the Americans that money could have lifted out of poverty and put on a path to self-sufficiency.

But no, the war hawks and leaders on the right screamed. Such projects here in the United States would be disastrously wasteful, it would be far better to cut taxes and let the poor bootstrap themselves out of poverty. As for the crumbling roads, collapsing bridges, schools that look like ancient ruins, not to mention out of date airports, the rickety electrical grid, and numerous other national embarrassments well, those on the right either want to ignore it or say it can wait.

I don't mean to beat George W. Bush again, but there was no way in Hell he would have pulled out of Afghanistan. That was his one confirmed “win” and with him calling “Mission Accomplished” way too early in Iraq, he wasn't about to screw himself over.

Poor President Obama, I've read enough to suggest he wanted to withdraw the troops but politically it would have been suicide. He was barely able to end our active involvement in Iraq but had to recommit when Isis formed and about took over that country.

So we were stuck in Afghanistan, at least it was a slow bleed. But while most of the American money went to training and arming the Afghan military, some did trickle down to the common folks. Schools were built, roads paved, and a population that was living in the Middle Ages got a glimpse of modern life. There was gross waste and extravagant corruption but I have to believe some Afghans were helped.

So after twenty years President Biden pulls the plug and in less than two weeks the entire country falls apart with the Taliban once again calling the shots. Dammit, I know it was almost a certainty that the Afghan government would fall but to collapse in two weeks is something from a bad international spy thriller.

So was the Afghanistan Conflict worth the money and effort? My gut feeling is no. We did accomplish the initial mission but with the Taliban now back in charge the coming months and years are going to be just as problematic as it was before 9/11.

We did help a lot of common folks but the endemic corruption of the government and large portion of the population eager to remain in the Middle Ages, we only put those who worked with us in mortal danger.

My little essay here isn't meant to be thorough, people smarter than me will be debating this clusterfuck for decades. From the moment Bush gave the order to invade Afghanistan, there were undoubtedly thousands of decisions made that set us on the path we find ourselves now. But given Afghanistan's past history with invaders the end result would have certainly been the same.

Here's some idle speculation, but given the level of untapped resources in Afghanistan and China essentially next door, it will be interesting to see if they can resist falling into that trap.

Section Eight Housing and the Incredible Absence of Integrity

 

Shock and near panic rippled through my section of Lexington County recently with the news of a Section Eight housing project being built in an area surrounded by upper middle class subdivisions. I learned of the news from the “Nextdoor” social media app, something akin to Facebook but emphasizing local neighborhoods. Two or three years ago my subdivision's Home Owners Association started pushing for all the residents to join so we could communicate faster. Prior to last Tuesday when the Section Eight panic began I strictly limited my participation to receiving email alerts in case something other than asinine bullshit was ever shared.

What I mean by asinine bullshit involved countless garage sale notices, inspirational writings of a religious nature, along with the expected hyper-patriotic posts involving shrill civilians all wanting everyone else to know how much they truly loved America. Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing for the most part. You would be a fool to expect a duck not to quack and a cat not to go meow. It's what they do and comfy, fat American civilians who live in McMansions love their miniature English estates and get teary-eyed about a country the vast majority have never lifted a hand to serve in any capacity.

I was already at work Tuesday morning when I started checking my email and saw the fearful subject lines of the disaster that was going to befall on the perfect subdivisions near the purposed housing project. Crime, property devaluation, unruly elements that would make it unsafe for families to walk the streets at night were all common comments by the people up in arms that their area would be saddled with poor folks trying to find a decent place to live.

I'll give a few of the scared locals a little, backhanded credit. Some did couch their complaints in semi-reasonable areas such as the schools are already overcrowded and that local traffic is a damn nightmare. But the area schools have been overcrowded for literally decades with some already pushed beyond capacity the same years that start operation. The summer my daughter's middle school opened for the first time the tar on the roof wasn't even dry and the school district was already buying portable classroom trailers because they had too many students.

Describing the local traffic congestion would have me devolving into fits or rage best left untouched. Just understand it's bad and every addition of a new fast food joint, strip mall, or convenience store/gas station makes everything exponentially worse. Throw in an ambulance trying to save someone's life or a fire truck in route to an emergency and the already slow traffic can come to a confusing, messy stop.

But I'll be sickeningly honest, the majority of people against the section eight housing wrote their comments in such as way that it was painfully clear that they had particular worries about the future residents living in the housing project. I'm sure they had poor redneck white folks at least partially in mind as their fingers danced in fear over the their keyboards. But it was obvious that there was some racial and ethnic fears being stoked by those opposing the project.

Just to make things that more ridiculous, a few even began bringing up conspiracy theories involving the usual suspects on the left. One person wrote about how this was an attempt to change the voting population of the county. That person's point being that the area is so deeply politically red that some nefarious group or individual was trying to throw political blue into the area mix. Another spoke openly of another conspiracy that someone was purposely trying to damage the property values.

Just understand, the sharing of possible conspiracies got deep as the comments began to pile up in number. Not that it surprised me, for a couple of years I had a certain local lawn irrigation company help me with my troublesome sprinkler system, that is until the owner in a offhanded manner back in 2008 said he knew for a fact that Barrack Obama was a Muslim. I may live among the crazy, but I don't have to do business with them.

What actually depressed me though, was the total lack of empathy the vast majority of people writing comments had for anyone they perceived as outside their suburban socioeconomic level. From their point of view, everyone who would be living in the section eight housing would be a drag on the upper middle class area. Now about four or five brave individuals challenged the majority in the comments essentially saying, “poor folks have to live somewhere too.”

That's when the accusations of being a liberal/”libtard”, Marxist, socialists troublemaker began flying. This might make a few people reading this angry but you can't throw a rock in my area without it coming close to numerous upscale churches that in my opinion act more like country clubs and whose parking lots overflow with luxury cars. I scanned pretty hard but failed to find any individual oppose the majority and agree with the section eight housing project on the grounds of the teachings of Jesus Christ. You know, the love thy neighbor angle that was drilled into my head during Sunday School.

The few individuals standing up for the poor were strictly social justice warriors on the secular end of the political spectrum.

The only conclusion I can take away from this disgusting situation is that we have degenerated into tribalism. America and Americans don't really exist in this day and age of paranoia and extreme gaps between the rich and poor. We've long since successfully balkanized the country between the elite rich and those living in abject poverty. But the fractures have spread to the middle class with those living in comfort already turning on those who can't purchase their way into McMansions.

Hey, I don't agree with it but I can understand billionaires or multimillionaires acting like old English aristocrats consisting of dukes, earls, and barons. But it seems clear to me even a lot of middle class folks have an irrational animosity towards poor people.

Affordable low-income housing is difficult to find in the best of times. And while there would be issues with the construction of section eight housing what are poor folks supposed to do? Conveniently retreat deep enough into the shadows of society till they can't be seen by the easily disturbed middle class?

I didn't want to bring myself into this rant but I didn't spend twenty-one years in the army and National Guard to be a part of some bullshit experiment in social Darwinism. I'm no saint, but I have enough of a conscious that I can't ignore those less unfortunate than me. I just there was an easy way for me to flee this chicken shit county. 

 

 Here's an edited screen shot of one small segment of the comments

Addendum for The Tomorrow War

 

 During my rush to express my general dislike of Chris Pratt I forgot to add some important information about time travel. While the initial sloppy premise of The Tomorrow War was for the world of 2051 to ask for help from our present day world the question of changing future events was always in the background.

Speaking strictly as a curious layman when it comes to the actual implications of traveling backwards in time I believe the scientific consensus is that it isn't possible. We are naturally traveling into the future one second per second and through various means like approaching the speed of light or sitting close to the edge of a black hole “faster” forward time travel is possible.

But every reasonable science article I have read or video I watch says traveling backwards in time is problematic. Without getting deep into the mathematical weeds, which I have no ability to comprehend, I think Einstein's theories say nothing prohibits backwards time travel as far as the universe is concerned but it would take God-like powers.

The key here is that nothing outright forbids backwards time travel so various real and respected scientists have speculated on what would happen if someone or groups began shuffling through the space-time continuum.

Of course the Grandfather Paradox is the favorite with some psychotic moron going back in time to kill his grandfather before his own father was conceived. So if the father was never born how could an insane kid go back and kill his grandfather?

Some have speculated that such actions would create a temporal loop. The kid is born as he is supposed to be, grows up and builds a time machine, then goes back in time shoots his teenage grandfather in the head. Granddaddy never has a son so the kid is never born. Because the kid is never born he never builds a time machine to go back and kill his grandfather. So events proceed as they occurred with the Grandfather having a son who goes one to have a kid of his own. So once again the kid grows up, hates his Grandfather, builds a time machine and travels back to shoot him in the head. This loop presumably would continue for eternity.

Is it just me or does this put a big dent into the idea of free will?

The alternative is that instead of a temporal loop, time has a way to protect itself. Instead of backwards time travel such a homicidal grand kid would instead travel to an alternate universe set in the years during his grandfather's childhood. Killing that person would prevent your counterpart from being born but leave your own universe/timeline untouched. 

Going for shits and giggles here by throwing a hypothetical timey-wimey wrench into the time-space continuum, but what would be really wild is if we could reverse time would be to look at events on a much wider perspective. Instead of focusing our attention just on an insane genius-level kid traveling to the past to murder his teenage grandfather, look at the mundane decisions normal people make during the course of their day during that same period. 

Insane kid keeps a record of what his friends, Tom, Dick, and Harry did the day before he pops back years in the past to kill his grandfather. Insane kid then goes forward in time to that day and secretly observes his friends to see if they make the same choices. These choices could be anything from what shirt they wear, the route they take to work, or what they decide to have for lunch.          

If there is the least little bit of deviation from what they originally did that would leave open the idea of free will, I guess.

This all feeds back into the ultimate conclusion of the movie. While sending troops to the future to fight a clearly lost war just doesn't make any sense. The world of 2051 could have just sent the same group to our present with tons of information on what will happen along with the bio-weapon to make a more plausible movie.

Personally, while I have my doubts on the degree of free will humans actually have, I think the far more likely reality of backwards time travel would be sliding over to an alternate universe. But then again I'm no scientist, but goofing with the flow of temporal events just doesn't ring true in an universe that seems so highly ordered.

The Stupidity of the Carolina Squat

 For me anything that falls under the umbrella of “popular culture” is something I usually try and ignore. Whatever popular culture once was it is now overwhelmingly a banal wasteland paradoxically overflowing with lackluster personalities and social influencers who while not quite parasites on the butt of society certainly offer nothing of value to it.

Case in point has to be the Kardashians and anyone else associated with their popularity. There was a time when I thought they would fade into the static of American life like numerous others who found fame but couldn't justify it. Now, I have this strange idea that they will be remembered for hundreds of years in the future as a new type of demigods. I've got to admit, not bad for a family whose first dose of fame came from a “leaked” sex tape.

Despite my best efforts to ignore popular culture, aspects of it do penetrate my defenses making me take notice. That happened a few weeks back while I was stopped at a red light.

One of those massive monster trucks pulled up beside me. The funny thing though was that it was obvious that the front end was pointed up at a near forty-five degree angle. Like the back end of the truck was carrying a massive load weighing down the suspension. No, that wasn't the case. When the light turned green the driver of the truck hauled ass leaving me behind in all his truck exhaust glory.

Given the angle of the truck I could easily see the bed was empty of cargo. I didn't think much more of the truck until I saw another configured the same way a day or two later, then again not a couple of days later. By that point it was obvious these truck were not suffering from some sort of mechanical failure but were being alter to that configuration on purpose.

Eventually, I learned that these trucks with the front end pointed up, or the rear end modified to be lower was called the “Carolina Squat.”

Curiosity got the better of me and I did a little internet sleuthing. This trend originated in California and was used on the Baja desert racing circuit where it was called the “California Lean” or “Cali Lean.” Lowering the back end had a practical purpose in the sandy terrain and hilly landscape. When contestants hit a jump at high speed, the rear end would hit the ground first helping to avoid a crash. However this modification has no practical purpose when the vehicle stay strictly on highways and streets.

Leave it to the unrepentant ignorant rednecks of the American South to grab onto this trend in an attempt to impress someone. It was bad enough when years ago they started raising the wheel-bases of their trucks to the point small step ladders were needed to climb up into the cab. Throw in chrome rims that can run into the thousands of dollars alone and the American South once again can be thought of as a backwards bunch of idiots desperately attempting to overcome some perceived shortfall in manhood.

The shortfalls of the Carolina Squat include a total loss in towing capability, a dangerous reduction in proper handling along with simply being unable to see the road. Mainly because the truck's headlights will be pointed up and not down at the road ahead.

Leave it to Southerners to lead the charge into another level of stupidity.

You Know This is Coming

 For reasons that usually escape me I'm a fan of most of H.P. Lovecraft's stories. Cosmic horror filled with powerful entities totally ambivalent to humanity's existence is a level of science fiction that may have a closer approximation to reality than I'm comfortable with. 

 All that is beside the point with the key idea here being horror, painful intense dread of something perceived as bad or evil. Humans excel at horror, we are adept at torturing and killing each other on industrial-sized scales. As recent science podcast I listened to said ants are another type of animal that will wipe out an entire competitor population. Then again ants aren't sentient while we have plenty of religions and beliefs that say killing each other is bad. So on a certain level between ants and humans I'm not sure who has the moral high ground.

It appears humans have begun to reach for a new level of horror with the possibility of an "Ethnic Bioweapon" that could be designed to eliminate inconvenient populations of fellow humans. As the picture says, it might be possible to design a virus that targets specific genotypes. A terrifying prospect to say the least, but honestly you know Old Adolph Hitler would have jumped for joy to have such a weapon in his inventory.

And as you can already guess, human wisdom and morals has not advanced at all sense the end of the Second World War. I'd even go as far as to write that here in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave" our moral high ground has greatly eroded in recent years. And well, you know there were those little oopsies with how we treated the Native Americans and the African slaves. Given the fear and anger oozing like a newly reopened sore from the crowd wanting to Make America Great Again I'm sure a few of the more rabid members would love to have an ethnic bioweapon. 

The following source is unknown:

 U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen considered such a "genetic weapon" plausible, and believed the former Soviet Union had undertaken some research on the influence of various substances on human genes. In its 2000 policy paper Rebuilding America's Defenses, think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC) described ethnic bioweapons as a "politically useful tool" that US adversaries could have incentive to develop and utilize. This weapon could be used to kill people with a specific code in their DNA essentially and effectively whipping them from the face of the earth.

 

The Trolley Dilemma-- My View

 

Here's the situation, you are on a nature trail walking next a trolley track minding you own business. Out of what seems nowhere, you see the local dastardly villain running off and disappearing into the nearby woods. You hear the villain laughing and see him twirling his heavily waxed mustache as he runs off and instantly know he was up to his usual evil schemes.

So you run ahead to find five people tied to the main trolley track and one person tied to a secondary track that branched off a little further down and then runs parallel to it. All six of these people are tied down to the tracks with strong chains and heavy padlocks. Alone and without any tools, you simply have no way to set them free.

Things immediately get worse when you see a speeding, unmanned trolley heading down the tracks about a minute away from running over the five individuals tied down on the main track. There is simply no way around it, five people will die horrible deaths when the trolley runs over them.

But wait, there is a lever where the secondary track branches off that would send the trolley down that alternate track. You can save the five people tied together but condemn the one person on the secondary track to death.

Feeling the weight of the decision you have to make bearing down on your shoulders you run up to the lever. Do you save five people by sending the trolley down the secondary track but assure the death of one innocent victim? Are do you let the trolley continue and have it kill the five allowing the lone person on the other track to live?

Which is the more ethical choice?

This moral philosophy problem was reintroduced to me recently by one of the podcasts I listen to while on the way to work and going home from. Even though it is an unrealistic problem I, of course, was drawn back into the workings of this dilemma.

Just from the information I've given of six random individuals tied down to trolley tracks my instincts tell me to throw the lever and save the five at the expense of the one. On the outset that makes my moral philosophy Utilitarian in nature in that I want to maximize happiness and well-being for the most people. So in this case I'm a hero to the five people tied together because I condemned one innocent person to death.

It's insanely easy even for me to see how this way of thinking could lead to monstrous crimes against humanity if taken to an extreme level. For example let's say cops in a city start playing a kinder, gentler versions of Gestapo tactics in a black neighborhood to prevent the people living there from going into a nearby white subdivision.

I have no doubt that many of the white subdivision residents could happily justify such actions because it would, in their minds, lessen the crime rate. To hell with the ideas of being a free country of individual rights and human dignity, the average paranoid white resident would think. He doesn't want any strange looking, undesirable types walking through his subdivision. He and his neighbors have families and property values to protect.

Getting back to the Trolley Dilemma, I can see, but not agree, with the viewpoint that making any life or death decision on the part of the people tied to the tracks makes the person at the lever morally culpable. The person at the lever has been forced into a nightmare scenario where there is no real moral choice. Given the situation, someone will die it's just the degree of death that's in question. No, the person at the lever would not save anyone by throwing themselves on the track ahead of the unmanned trolley.

From what little research I've done, the variations on the Trolley Dilemma run straight into the absurd. A good number revolve around the group of five being strangers while the person tied to the secondary track being the free individual's child or spouse.

You might be surprised to know one of my biggest issues with the Trolley Dilemma is that our society makes similar decisions constantly. Oh, we cover them up in deep, detached layers of responsibility but we're always making decisions that affect the lives of others.

The easiest one off the top of my head is how Americans love bargains. We flock in mass to places like Walmart because of the low prices allowing the customer to save money. The connection to the Trolley Dilemma is that Walmart and others buys most of their products overseas. This practice destroyed millions of manufacturing jobs in America degrading the living standards of the workers. Walmart loving Joe and and Janet Blow may have a great large screen television for an insanely cheap price. But the factory where their parents may have worked building Magnavox televisions decades ago is now a decaying, empty ruin.

So whats my answer to the Trolley Dilemma? For the five people tied to the track, I'd have to save them at the expense of the one. But for the other, more abstract versions that occur, I don't have a clue.

Cardiac Status Update- Cardioversion Fun

 

Two weeks ago the messaging service for my cardiologist left a voice mail on my phone saying they needed to talk with me. That at my earliest convenience they would like to setup a video chat between me and their boss. This messenger had a cheery voice that did not convey any urgency nor the reason my cardiologist might need to talk with me. In fact, it was heavily implied that the purposed of the video chat with just a routine followup concerning my chronic heart condition.

The best description for the messenger tone of voice would be something akin to the pleasant, laid back way a commercial airline pilot gently tells passenger and crew to return to their seats and buckle up during mid-flight. That the air ahead is going to get a little choppy and that an ounce or prevention is worth a pound or cure.

I've never been scared of flying, but I've sat next people on planes who heard the captain utter those same words and instantly turned a bleached white filled with existential dread.

Got to admit, I can relate to that sense of impending doom.

As I reported in my last post, I have a chronic heart condition that is genetically based. One little gene in my genome mutated essentially making my heart a biological time bomb. Long complicated story short, this mutation prevents my heart cells from properly making a protein which for me means my ticker can develop an electrical short circuit sending it racing uncontrollably. It that wasn't bad enough, it also means that in the long-term I have to deal with it wearing out due to cardiomyopathy.

Now in many ways I am lucky, my ailment, the LMNA mutation, was only identified in the late 1990s. At least now I can receive treatment in the form of medicine and my Cardiac Resynchronization Device which acts as both a defibrillator if I get in trouble and a pacemaker. Side note, having my CRT does officially make me a cyborg and when you throw in my mutation, I'm over halfway to being a comic book hero or villain. All I need now is some exposure to a metaphysical or mystical energy to push me over the edge.

Honestly, dealing with question of being either a hero or villain I'm leaning towards the latter these days.

Getting back to that video chat, when my doctor and I finally got around to it I was informed that my heart had slipped into an atrial fibrillation rhythm. And that he wanted to do a cardioversion to try and get it back into rhythm.

He played the pleasant, laid back doctor saying it was no big deal but I should still get it done relatively soon. This is where the existential dread enters my head and makes itself comfortable like some rich bastard taking up residence in a Manhattan luxury condo. Nothing concerning my condition has ever been easy nor normal. I would have loved for my heart issues to have been a “simple” heart attack where I get my pipes cleared out, been forced into a mandatory super-healthy diet, along with stern talks about losing weight.

But no, I got a mutation that can literally cause individuals anywhere between their late-teens and forty to suddenly drop dead. Yes, if you make it past your forties a person moves into the territory I now reside.

So with no other option in the matter my doc and I scheduled the cardioversion for last Thursday.

Thursday morning comes and my wife and I drive to the hospital for my procedure. I report to one of the administrative desk jockeys who quickly ushers me up to cardiac holding. I am told to strip down to my birthday suit, put on the gown, and to lay down on a stretcher and cover up. Luckily, the desk jockey remembered to pull the exam curtain closed around me before leaving.

This is when the waiting begins. Due to covid, my wife was escorted to the family waiting area where she had access to the morning snack bar. Even with the pandemic raging the family waiting snack bar was a borderline breakfast buffet. The two compromises with Covid-19 being that everything is prepackaged and the closure of the self-serve waffle maker.

I in turn wouldn't be allowed to eat until after the procedure. And with my wife required to drive after we leave the hospital, we were sure to hit one of her favorite eateries that served English teas and finger sandwiches. So in frustration I laid on the stretcher and played with my phone listening to everyone passing by. Just for shits and giggles I cued up Highway to Hell by AC/DC on my phone and let it play at full volume.

I work at that particular hospital so I wasn't really worried about any possible bad reaction to my music. Several people passing by did stick their heads into my area with one being a truly gorgeous blonde nurse who shook her booty at me for a couple of seconds before leaving. No, I had never seen the woman before and I regularly go through that area during my normal duties.

Within an hour my stretcher and me were wheeled into a nearby procedure room. It was there that I learned a different cardiologist would perform the cardioversion. My usual heart doctor was in another area turning another patient into a cardio-cyborg. The one disturbing feature of this new doc was his age, or lack of it. This guy looked so young shaving to him would be a semi-annual event.

The new doc informed me that before we could begin all the hair on my chest had to be shaved. No problem, but I would be lying if I didn't say I had a sudden fantasy of that beautiful blonde nurse returning to take care of that chore.

No luck, it was an old male nurse with a stern, Germanic disposition who seemed immune to the idea of smiling. The last step before we got down to the shocking business of giving my heart an attitude adjustment was them placing two huge conducting pads on me. One went on the front of my chest and the other on the back, trailing from both were cables that connected to the medical version of “Old Sparky.”

With cables connected and everyone in the procedure room getting ready to begin I suddenly got nervous about one crucial element.

“You guys going to knock me out right.” I said looking around at them suddenly wondering if this might be the reason my usual doctor was busy. Let the young, new doctor deal with the patient flopping around like a caught fish.

It was then that the Germanic dude actually smiled and began hooking up my IV which would supply the sleepy juice. Must admit I didn't appreciate their attempt at humor.

The Life of Gebelein Man

 

One of my enduring curiosities is trying to relate to the people who lived and died in the distant past. There's no limit to my fascination having read books and articles along with viewing numerous documentaries on human development. The only problem I have with this interest is that I have to sort through a near unlimited supply of pseudo-scientific crap about ancient civilization like Atlantis. Or the misnamed History Channel's pushing of the idea “ancient aliens” hanging out with the Egyptians or Sumerians or any other culture that built great structures or pushed the bounds of human creativity.

Luckily, I stumbled upon a podcast that is now in the middle of a series detailing the development of humanity from the deepest parts of prehistory to the collapse of the the Bronze Age civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean. That podcast is called Tides of History and it is hosted my a guy named Patrick Wyman. The most recent episode dealt with predynastic Egypt and the rise of the Pharaohs.

My post isn't about how incredibly more complicated the unification of Egypt appears to have been. In that episode Wyman details how unification of that ancient land wasn't a given. That even after the traditional history of Narmer ( or Menes) conquering Lower Egypt things were still in flux. Truthfully, I won't relate anymore of the overall episode because I need to listen to it again.

What I want to concentrate on is the discovery of the six Gebelein predynastic mummies. And one in particular who carried the nickname of “Ginger” until recently.

Dated to around 3400 BC, the hot sands and heat of Egypt naturally mummified these six individuals. Excavated at the end of the ninetieth century by Wallis Budge, these bodies were the first complete predynastic bodies to be discovered. These bodies were found in foetal positions lying on their left sides along with a few grave goods like pots, the remains of wicker baskets, along with pieces of linen.

Two were identified as male, one female, with the other two undetermined genders. But it is the one nicknamed “Ginger” because of his red hair that fascinated me. Because of 3D medical imaging, Ginger, now just called Gebelein Man was between 18 and 20 and in good health when he died. His cause of death was from a copper or stone blade penetrating his left shoulder blade that shattered the rib beneath sending bone fragments into the surrounding muscle and lung. It is generally believed Gebelein Man was taken by surprise because there is no evidence of defensive wounds.

There are many situational possibilities concerning the reasons for his death. Gebelein Man could have been a foot soldier of some petty king or warlord that made up predynastic Egypt. Or Gebelein Man could have been the victim of his own ambitions involved in criminal activity that ran afoul of the local authorities or another, bigger crime lord.

Here is where my fascination ramps up to high gear. From what little we're certain of the circumstances of Gebelein Man's death isn't all that different the untold number of souls that ave died all through history, even up to present. It is all too common for an unnamed soldier to die for the glory of some transient leader or political entity that itself will disappear far sooner than later. And how many millions have died through the ages working every legal and illegal angle to make a buck?

While the possible commonalities of Gebelein Man's death are all too familiar, his world, life, beliefs were as alien to us as they come. There is no way Gebelein Man had any true concept of the world beyond his small village on just a section of the Nile River. While in excellent health, his life was always libel to be cut short from any number of diseases that could sudden strike. As for his beliefs, time has wiped away his culture and the society that fostered it. Remember, he lived long before the pyramids were built and Egypt was united.

So it's the juxtaposition of those two differing elements of Gebelein Man's existence that fill me with wonder. The fact that we have his well preserved remains makes him more than some abstract idea floating in the sea of time. He was completely as human as anyone alive today. Ultimately, his life should remind all of us that our own existence is tenuous at best.

Greenland-- A Movie Review

 

 Being married almost always mean compromise, as for those rare times it doesn't my wife is usually the victor in whatever discussion or choice that has to be made. Last night was one of the extra ordinary, “Blue Moon” circumstances where I won out on the choice of television programming we watched. That left me in sole command of the television remote and access to Amazon Prime.

As you might expect for the average American male, I picked something with no redeeming qualities nor any artistic significance. My Friday night viewing choice was the new disaster flick called Greenland staring Gerard -”This is Sparta” - Butler and the lovely Morena Baccarin. The trick I will try to perform for you today is to squeeze some philosophical thoughts out of this review. Yes, in the course of expressing my verbal pomposity I will be revealing spoilers.

As the movie starts, Butler, who plays the Scottish-born John Garrity is on a high-rise construction site in downtown Atlanta doing his structural engineering. His face is a mix of emotions as he glances at his phone and sees a picture of his now estranged wife and young son. Garrity and his wife are having marital problems but for the most part it's clear he still deeply loves his spouse and is a dedicated father. Also, understand the reason John Garrity is emotionally upset that day is because it's his son's birthday and that the boy is suffering from diabetes.(1.)

Their difficulties take an immediate backseat to the fact a massive comet is going to skim very close to our Big Blue Marble. Don't worry, just like the pandemic government officials have assured the public all is well and that the dirty iceball will not ruin everyone's lives or businesses. It during this part of the movie I had a momentary nightmare about Trump appointing Ivanka, Jared, or Don Jr. to the top seat at NASA.

As you can guess, the shit hits the fan when it's discovered by the public that the comet, named “Clark” is not in one piece but is actually thousands of shards, with some as big as football stadiums. The other oopsy moment showing Trump-level government incompetence is that one of the shards instead of landing “harmlessly” in the ocean off Bermuda smacks into downtown Tampa, Florida.

Truth be told, there is an earlier scene where Garrity and his kid are in a grocery store parking lot after picking up birthday supplies and look up to see hundreds of American military cargo planes flying off in the same direction. So the bigwigs knew all along that Clark just wasn't going to just whiz by before leaving the solar system.

With Tampa a flaming crater the public learns that the biggest shard of Clark, nine-miles in diameter, is going to hit the Earth in a few short days. And that certain people in the United States have been unknowingly chosen for evacuation to top secret shelters in sunny Greenland.

It's all about the skills and with John Garrity a structural engineer, he gets a literal robo-call during his son's birthday party telling him that he and his family have tickets to Greenland. No one else, not grandparents, uncles, aunts, nor cousins and especially not any of Garrity's neighbors and their children who all in his house about to cut the birthday cake.(2.)

Seriously awkward moments ensue when your neighbors learn they are going to face a planetary extinction event while you, your wife, and son will be chilling in a deep bunker.

No, it wasn't that easy for John Garrity and his family. As they leave behind their neighbors, all slightly disgruntled and totally terrified, lots of bad stuff happens. Garrity and his family reach the Air Force base where they will depart for Greenland but at the last minute lose their son's insulin supply. John has to quickly run back to the car they abandoned at the gates to grab the medicine. During this time John's wife inadvertently spills the beans of their son's diabetes. The military, who didn't know about the boy's condition boots the wife and child out of the line causing the first of several separations.(3)

At one point John's wife and son hitch a ride with a seemingly nice couple heading to Lexington, Kentucky where her father lives. This nice couple learn of their evacuation status, kicks John's wife out of the car and kidnaps the boy with the idea the will assume the Garrity family identity.(4) The nice couple makes it to another Air Force base with the boy who promptly tells the security folks he's been kidnapped and told to lie about them being his parents. The nice couple is taken into custody and never seen again.

Through a couple of favorable events John's wife is reunited with her son and again makes her way to her father's house.

John learns of his wife's destination and hitches a ride on a farm truck heading in that general direction. As you can expect, base level human behavior shows itself with John having to kill a certified redneck who somehow believes, that like the nice couple, he can lie his way into a super secure doomsday bunker. However, while on the farm truck John learns about a Canadian airport where civilians are being flown to Greenland.

The Garrity family eventually links back up, grabs a trunk and defying time and space make it to the Canadian airport to catch the absolute last plane out before the comet hits.

As you can expect with such movies, the Garrity family makes it to the safety of one of the bunkers with only minutes to spare. The comet Clarke then impacts Western Europe sending untold tons of flaming rock and debris all over the world.

The movie ends with the Garrity family and about a couple of hundred others standing in front of the massive bunkers doors as they open. It's at least several months later, if not a year or two, and as you can imagine the world is wrecked. The survivors see the sun and a couple of birds flying among the wreckage.(5) From there the scenes drift from various locations around the planet showing devastated cities and other bunkers making radio contact with other groups.

Observations and thoughts:

1. The character of John Garrity is not some dumbass mechanic, he's a highly competent professional engineer and has a lifestyle to match his education. That being said I can't help but feel this movie plays to the insecurities and irrational fears of the white American middle class. The Garrity house shown in the movie is more than just some McMansion. Set in a truly upper middle class suburb outside Atlanta the Garrity family has never really struggled in the same way a lower income family might. Well, there is John and his wife's marital problems because for some loony reason he decided to have an affair with other woman.

   Since I believe movies like this play on white fears of someone or thing taking away their material lifestyle and affluence, I can't help but wonder how the audience would relate if John Garrity and his family were black.

2. During this scene with Tampa getting hit everyone attending the birthday party learns how bad the situation is globally. Of course you're happy that John Garrity and his family are on the list to be saved. How would such lucky people react to the knowledge that their long time friends and their children will die? Especially heartbreaking is that minutes later the Garrity family is leaving the driveway in their luxury SUV but are stopped by one of their best friends pleading for them to take her small daughter with them to perceived safety.

   The movie scared me in way because I truly do not know how I would react in put in a similar situation. Would I take the little girl knowing it was expressly forbidden by the authorities, or could I drive away leaving her behind to die?

3. As the audience understands, John Garrity was picked for the Greenland bunkers because he had skills needed to rebuild the world. Upon arrival at the Air Force base the authorities learn that John's son is diabetic, which to them is a deal breaker. I had a problem with this since at this point were a couple of days away from the comet hitting the Earth.

   Yeah, ideally you would want healthy people without chronic medical conditions in the bunkers but at that point are you really going to kick out a structural engineer because his young son is diabetic? I highly doubt such a vital professional would be kicked off the list during a literal planetary disaster where the continued survival of the human race is in question.

4. You can't have a disaster movie without some reference to mans inhumanity to each other. You could also frame this as a question of pure survival with the nice couple and the certified redneck just trying to stay alive.

5. This brings up something I noticed during the movie concerning the main characters, John and his wife. Whenever anything bad happens both characters expect everyone else to immediately stop and help them through their troubles. I understand the idea of self-preservation but with the world ending there are millions of individual tragedies occurring. This could also feed back to white privilege with the Garrity couple.

6. You don't have to be a Biblical scholar to understand the birds the bunker survivors saw as the doors to the outside world slide open. I immediately thought of the bird Noah released during the later stages of his floating zoo resort. Don't know the details, but I believe the birdie brought back a twig to show the waters were residing.

Greenland is not a perfect movie but the plot is sound and the acting is better than average. I don't believe I would have gone to a movie theater to see it. But as a pay-per-view film in the middle of a pandemic I'd have recommend it. Going by the five star system, I'd give it a 3.5.

Looking at Poverty

 

 Recently stumbled across an obscure website that offered up philosophical questions for people to write about. A lot of the questions, while interesting were a bit too abstract to really affect how most people live in the present. For example there was a questions asking if the human species will still be around in a thousand years. My short answer is yes, but the circumstances of that existence will depend greatly on how things go for the next forty years.

There was one question though that struck home with me:

“What life-altering things should every human ideally get to experience at least once in their lives?”

Right off the bat my first thought would be that everyone should somehow experience poverty. I'm talking the full-blown belly hungry, wearing rags, homeless, cold, and hopeless poverty that millions of essentially invisible people suffer through everyday. Just to get the full scope of the condition this experience would include living in a third-world slum being terrorized by drug gangs whose product invariably makes it way to the streets of America. Where things get so dangerous that Central Americans pack up their meager belongings to make a desperate trip to the believed safety of the United States.

I've seen the reports of whole families, moms with small children, to kids no older than twelve fleeing for their lives. It goes without saying that untold thousands die during that passage while others face exploitation that borders on slavery. Even if these refugees are extremely lucky by making it to the United States to find jobs and a home, they often have to face conditions ranging from indifference to outright hate from Americans.

You can guess they types of Americans I'm talking about. These monsters range from the semi-literate blue collar type who hates anyone with a darker skin tone. Then there are the uppity suburbanites who live in their protective two-thousand square feet cocoons and bitch about tax dollars going for foreign aid all the while clutching their Bibles signed by some mega-church preacher who drives an Italian sports car. (I'm talking Joel Olsteen and anyone else pulling this shit or close to it.)

I figure the average middle class American needs to spends anywhere from two weeks to two months in the shoes of a Central American refugee. Let's go whole hog and include in the experience the backbreaking, dangerous, and disgusting labor they provide so Americans won't get their hands dirty. The middle class folks love their cheap, year-round fruits and veggies never once thinking how they got to Walmart.

Ideally, after the average blue collar to middle class American survived this experience they would come to realize that they are far closer to being a refugee than ever joining the rich elites. That all it takes to fall down into bankruptcy and then poverty is for a recession to hit, or have a family member come down with a debilitating illness. That they can spend decades playing the accepted game of going to work everyday, paying taxes, never taking a handout, to one major disaster leaving them destitute and homeless.

For me, one of the bizarre aspects of our time is how the rich elites have deluded working class folks into believing they are on our side. That billionaires and multimillionaires gave a shit about the people who have to struggle with mortgages, pay bills, put food on the table, then deal with hospital bills and sending their kids to college. That a legion of welfare deadbeats and illegal aliens are going steal your precious lifestyle.

I don't come to my opinion just on a whim of bleeding heart liberal guilt. My mom was a mentally disturbed alcoholic who looked for companionship from similar individuals. I've experienced poverty of varying degrees and at times the uncertainty that comes with not knowing where you'll sleep some nights. Luckily, I only spent a few years in that situation before I went to live with my grandparents.

So poverty is not some abstract concept for me, when I see someone on the street I at least feel a hint of what they're going through. One of the major problems with our society is that many others can't, or simple refuse, see how others are forced to struggle.

Agent of Chaos

 

 

 The absolute last thing I wanted to do was write another political post. It was my hope that with January 20^th drawing near the crisis that had began back in November 2016 would be drawing to a close. But the sacking of the United States Capitol last Wednesday by nothing less than insurrectionists out to overthrow the United States Government made that impossible.

Make no mistake, the sacking of the Capitol was something that was destined to happen. Mainly because a deranged narcissist was able to slime his way to power while stoking age old fears and prejudices.

But also because there is a huge segment of the American population that neither understands the concept nor principles of democracy. To these people, the vast majority being white, believes democracy and freedom means getting what they want before anyone else. And that if they are not eligible for some service or benefit, it is either a waste of “taxpayer dollars” or being abused by segments of the American population they consider alien or unworthy.

It was easy for the white majority of America to ultimately, but reluctantly, acquiesce to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s because they felt on top of the world. Factory jobs were plentiful, there was a growing economy, and as far as they were concerned they understood society and had it firmly under their control. During these times, white folks were fat and happy with beer in the fringe, a boat in the backyard, and a color television in the living room. During such times it's easy to talk shit about spreading freedom and democracy and being the “Shining City on a Hill.”

But the world got complicated with new groups demanding a voice in society. Nothing scares white folks like their preconceived notions of what is normal and moral being challenged. But most of all it was the American economy showing signs that it wasn't necessarily the unstoppable force it was at the end of the Second World War.

Such things as Japanese cars became dependable and cheap along with the manufacture of heavy duty items like televisions and washing machines were completely moved overseas taking the good paying jobs with them. What manufacturing jobs that remain here in the United States became excessively streamlined with benefits and pay for blue collar types cut to “help the company.”

Blue collar workers accepted such compromises becoming something akin to willing serfs while the professional suits up in the swanky offices exponentially increased their salaries and gave themselves fantasy-level bonuses. The most amazing thing about this development was how the blue collar types came to believe the rich suits were on their side. That it was the poor and disadvantaged who are the ones wrongly sucking the life out of the economy.

What we ended up with is a white American underclass frustrated and unable to understand why the Hispanic, African-American, Asian, or any other group not them was moving up in the world. It was an easy recipe for societal estrangement and for a narcissistic demagogue to use to his advantage.

It's a historical given that past societies often sow the seeds of their own destruction. That the very strengths and actions that once made them successful turn sour over time and bring about their downfall. In my opinion, we are in just such a situation and whether we can weather this storm is open to question. The most dangerous aspect we face is the monster we let inside the heart of our government. He's very much a cornered rat possessing a disgruntled army of people all too willing to commit atrocities..

 

After the Ball Dropped

 

Back in January of 2020, there were a lot of people posting stuff on the internet about how that year would be the start of a new decade of hope and understanding. It was troubling and unrealistic display of unbridled optimism and deranged good cheer in the face of numerous warnings that a massive amount of human waste had hit the tabletop air recirculating device and was flying our way.

I wasn't having any part in that internet delusion. On New Year's Day 2020, I posted an essay saying we were already FUBARed and that things were going to get worse. I can't fully describe how much it sucked to be right beyond my worst nightmare. No, I didn't see the pandemic coming, although do I vaguely remember hearing several news stories in December of 2019 about a troubling outbreak of a flu-like illness in China. I remember reading about those stories the same time my ass was living it up on an all inclusive Caribbean cruise.

No, my reoccurring nightmare last January revolved around the Orange Buffoon and the November election. This is where I could also mention how back in November of 2016 I wrote that OB would burn the country down if he lost in 2020, and dammit I was right again. The Orange Buffoon has engaged in an actual coup to overturn what his own people have called the most secure and fair election in recent memory.

Proving that we are in a definite low-point in American history and courage, the vast majority of Republican senators and congresspeople are going along with OB's attempt at wrecking the United States Constitution.

The little good news I can manage in this ongoing clusterfrak is that OB will fail and that President Biden will be a reality at noon on January 20^th. The overwhelming bad news that I can't shake is that despite being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people from the pandemic, the Orange Buffoon almost won the reelection. No the election wasn't as close as it was in 2016 with just seventy-something thousand votes in key swing states giving OB an electoral college win. But given the Buffoon's behavior and open misconduct, it should have been far more of a landslide for Biden than it was in reality.

So here goes my prediction for the new year. It's going to seem a lot like 2020 for several more months. After that who the Hell knows, although I'm not feeling any warm fuzzies.