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 Eternal Refrigerator

 

It goes without saying that the selling and/or the purchase of a house is a time-consuming and exhausting endeavor. For my wife and I back in 2000 we were lucky enough to be the exception to the first half of that rule. However the purchase of our new home was not smooth and seamless. To put it bluntly, it was a huge cluster fuck unparalleled in scope and repercussions. We spent years cleaning up the mess and dealing with the items the previous owners left behind.

Boiling everything down to the basics my spouse and I were in the closing stages of adopting our daughter from China. One of the requirements to satisfy the adoption agency was that the baby had to have a room to itself. Our first home had three bedrooms, enough for us, one for our son, and one for the baby. But my wife felt we needed a fourth bedroom for family and friends who would visit.

So we painted and repaired our old house until it just about shined. Then we went about looking for a new house that had the right number of bedrooms and met my wife's other personal requirements like location, good school district, and distance from her work. The housing market at that time was on the side of the sellers and we immediately ran into some issues. Things got worse when the first family that looked at our home made and offer and we accepted. The clock began ticking for us to find a suitable replacement and get out before the deadline. We had less than two weeks left before we found a house that while meeting all the requirements had several issues.

Namely that the family selling the house we wanted to buy wasn't ready to move. Their replacement house they were building was livable but they wanted more time. It's been over twenty-years now and all I remember was that as far as they were concerned they wanted all the bells and whistles in their new home fully installed and connected. They wanted at least another two weeks before surrendering the house.

That was a no-go for us because the adoption agency had to evaluate our new residence and then send confirmation to the Chinese governmental agency so the adoption could go forward. If we weren't in the new house by the time of the evaluation we could lose the little girl picked for us who was still in a Chinese orphanage.

So the selling family blinked and moved out before their new place met their standards. It was either get out or we would have rescinded the offer leaving them with two mortgage payments. As a Plan B my wife and I had talked about looking at apartments and just staying there until the adoption was over where we would then have a new house built.

The old owners were not happy with the situation and in typical Lexington county passive-aggressive behavior they moved out leaving the house trashed. As we moved in my wife and I were shocked to see dozens of holes in the walls in every room that had been cleverly hid by the selling family. Most were from pictures but no attempt was made to repair any of them. During this bullshit the house inspector somehow didn't warn us about a multitude of issues that the sellers were supposed to fix. Off the top of my head the report that asshole gave us didn't mention a word about the broken burner on the stove; the interior doors that weren't square with the frames; and most of all the stains on the kitchen floor.

I honestly believe the selling family slipped the house inspector money to overlook these issues. I mentioned as much to a few of our new neighbors and I'm sure my suspicions were relayed to the selling family. I have another suspicion that the selling family was friends with many of those people and my accusations colored my relationship with those living around me.

But in true passive-aggressive style it was the refrigerator they conveniently forgot to load up that still makes me harbor ill feelings about those assholes.

Adding icing to the already difficult cake of moving I had National Guard duty on the weekend we took up residence in the new house. And for reasons I never understood both the CO of my unit and the First Sergeant refused to cut me some slack and allow me to slip out to help with the move.

By the time I arrived home late in the afternoon the majority of the moving was finished. My wife and in-laws were still dealing with the shock of the condition of the house. I, in turn was flaming pissed and wanted to kick some ass. Especially when I opened the doors of the refrigerator they left behind.

My dad-in-law knew something about kitchen appliances and guessed that it had to have been twenty-years old back in 2000. While still functioning properly the inside had obvious wear, to the point rust was showing through on some exposed metal parts. Shelves were bent and glass panels cracked making it look like a real backhanded insult to us demanding they move before they were ready.

But most worrisome was the brown sticky stuff at the bottom. Partially covered by the crisper section for vegetables, it looked like a Coke or Pepsi had leaked and they never cleaned it up. I wanted to move that refrigerator out the garage and bring in ours from the old house but by that time my wife was on the verge of a nervous breakdown while my in-laws compassion and love of family were exhausted.

So we assembled beds to sleep, the in-laws went home, and we order pizza from what I was now calling a glorified redneck trailer. Later that night as I lay in bed and fumed we then discovered the marooned refrigerator made some of the god-awful noises. The sounds it produced were like a combination of it about exploded and a plea to end its miserable existence.

Weeks rolled into months and we slowly made our new suburban trash heap a home. That included taking all the insides of the refrigerator out and cleaning them. And yes, I personally cleaned out the brown sticky stuff at the bottom.

The trouble was that a week or two later I noticed the brown sticky stuff had reappeared at the bottom and it was growing. I think the brown stuff reappeared after each cleaning for about a year. It never entirely went away but we learned to live with what little bit we couldn't kill off.

The adoption moved forward and the years came and went but we never pulled the trigger on getting rid of that nightmare refrigerator. We talked about it many times but with a new baby and other issues the fact that it still kept food and drinks cold always prevented us from really doing anything. I even learned to take comfort at night with its strange sounds.

That refrigerator lasted another fourteen years before it had its version of a stroke and died. So if my late dad-in-law was correct, and the old bastard was smart, that refrigerator lasted north of thirty-five years. Here's the real kick in the ass, its replacement died in less than five due to a lightning strike. And its replacement, an expensive Samsung with all the bells and whistles lasted two years before the ice maker on it utterly quit.

We called in the company-approved technician and he isolated the problem to the touch screen controller or the water filter assembly that had its own little micro-controller. He couldn't isolate the issue to a single cause and to fix both electronic components would cost over five-hundred dollars.

We instead bought six plastic ice trays for fifty-cents each from the Dollar Store and called it a day.

I still believe the selling family left the old refrigerator here as a form of insult. A small dig at the ungrateful family that wouldn't give them enough time to move out on their timetable. But I'll be damned as much as anyone can think fondly on a kitchen appliance that bad boy was tough.

Random Brain Droppings

 

Late Saturday and early Sunday are the best times for me to write. That is until we have a bit of an emergency here at the house like we did last Sunday morning. Long story short, neither my wife nor I had heard from our daughter up in Clemson since last Thursday. Being out of contact with our daughter for a couple of days is no big deal, she's busy studying or doing other college stuff. But by Sunday morning with no answer from our texts and our calls being sent straight to voice mail we were getting worried, if not scared.

No worries, my wife and I found out while we were on the way up to Clemson that our daughter had lost her cell phone that Thursday. We learned this after the on-call person at the dorm went to her room and knocked on the door two different times. After knocking at the door for the second time our daughter finally woke up to explain the situation with her phone and that her friends only talk to their parents like “once every week or so.”

Since we were already speeding up to Clemson, my wife, the custodian and master of the family cell phones, did what needed to be done to get her a replacement. So the really great story I started writing Saturday afternoon died a slow death of forgotten ideas and plot points. So instead here's some random brain droppings to make up for it.

Random Dropping One

Several days ago I caught a McDonalds commercial on the radio as I was driving home. This commercial was geared towards African-Americans the way McDonalds often does with hip hop music in the background and voice actors with noticeable accents so you understand they don't come from some upper middle class white neighborhood.

The narrator of the commercial went on to say in a happy and jovial voice something about how when you're driving from your second job to your side hustle you need something quick and good to eat. That you need to be in and out quick so you can have a few minutes to relax.

First of all having a second job means you have a first job that takes up a good part of your day. I know LOTS of people that have second jobs because their first job doesn't pay enough to make ends meet. These honest and hardworking folks don't work that second job because it's fun or they need something to take up all their free time. For one of the two-job working people I know a vacation to her is having an entire Saturday and Sunday at home being left alone.

Rich and well off folks really need to develop some sort of empathy because at some point the overworked and underpaid masses are going to lose their patience and come after them.

Random Dropping Two

Directly related to first dropping, I've heard numerous employers bitching on the business channels that they can't get anyone to apply for the jobs they offer. That many of these jobless folks would rather just sit at home and draw unemployment.

Finally a few people are replying to these asshole captains of industry that they need to pay enough where a person would make more working for them than sitting home on unemployment.

Random Dropping Three

Jim Caviezel is a superbly talented actor who has been in numerous hit movies and successful television series. He is also a conservative Christian who has been vocal about how his beliefs don't mix with the majority of people in Hollywood.

I can respect his views and actually understand to a certain point. I'm an extreme liberal bordering on Sanders/AOC progressive living in a heavily red state. I have to daily keep my mouth shut and do my best to live among people who I consider borderline fascists. It sucks hind tit but, as far as I am concerned, there is no point to whine about it.

What I'm saying is that I never cared what political or religious views Caviezel held. He's a great actor and I would readily watch anything he might appear. That is until now, to put it bluntly the dude has lost all his marbles.

Caviezel recently appeared at a conspiracy convention and told folks that he not only believes crazy shit about vaccines and the Covid Pandemic, but goes even further out into crazy land. He believes babies are being kidnapped and tortured to death so the “Elites” can harvest some sort of compound from their innocent blood.

Final Brain Dropping

For a long time I've wanted to write something meaningful about George Floyd and all the other victims of police violence but I find myself unable. There is no outrage I could write that better, more articulate people haven't already put to a page. There is no other way to say it but that African-Americans are being hunted in this country, both by racist civilians and especially by cops who can somehow peacefully apprehend gun-totting white folks but shoot black people on sight.

Back in 2015 a piece of South Carolina shit by the name of Dylann Roof walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston and killed nine people in cold blood. A virulent racist, he wanted to start a race war here in the United States. I'll be damned but there seems to be a lot of people like him doing their to make such a war happen.

Side note, after being arrested shit bird Dylann Roof whined about being hungry and the cops taking him back to South Carolina pulled into a Burger King and bought him a Whopper. Motherfucker kills nine people and gets feed. George Floyd just passed a fake twenty-dollar bill and got a knee on his neck for over nine minutes.

Shocking the Monkey

 

 Since the beginning of the Trump era far too many people have been struggling to reconcile the hateful nature of MAGA supporters with their common beliefs about the general goodness of human nature. This extends even to myself because during the initial phases of the 2016 presidential campaign I would have never believed such crude and corrupted individual as the Orange Buffoon would be nominated by the Republican Party, much less actually become president.

Understand, way back before the 2008 election both my stomach turned and my eyes rolled whenever someone spoke dreamily about the glorious nature of a “post-racial America” since Barrack Obama was heavily favored to win that election.

To assume centuries of racial discrimination and oppression would suddenly evaporate with the election of the United States' first black president definitely leaned heavily into the realm of fantasy. However, it did seem unthinkable to me that anyone would seriously consider a clearly immoral and outright racist individual as the Orange Buffoon occupying the highest office in the United States.

In short, I fully expected that Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz would have been the 2016 nominee. The former a simple but dependable rehash of his father and brother. As for the latter, I thought he was the absolute outer edge of the rancid Republican value of profit over people and the party's hateful and skewed societal views.

Recently though I was reminded of the experiments performed by Professor Stanley Milgram at Yale University in the 1960s. These experiments involved how people look at authority and obedience.

In fact Milgram's research can, in my opinion, best be summed up in one of his quotes from 1974. “The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not such much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he acts.”

His experiment involved the recruitment of individuals using newspaper ads which each person was paid $4.50. These recruits were then told they would take the role as a “teacher” who would be asking a series of questions to a “student” in another room they could not see.

On a table in front of the teacher would be an intimidating device that Milgram said was a shock generator with the student in the next room attached to the business end of the machine. The teacher was told to give the student a shock every time they gave the wrong answer to the asked question . These shocks started at 30 volts and increased in 15-increments for every wrong answer going all the way up to 450 volts.

Increasing the stress on the teacher, the switches on the shock device were labeled with terms such as “slight shock,” “moderate shock” and “danger: severe shock.” The final two switches were labeled with nothing but “XXX” suggesting something darker.

Understand, while these teachers believed they would be applying an electric punishment for wrong answers, the students in the next room were perfectly safe and just play acting at the direction of Milgram.

As the experiment progressed the student's reaction to the electrically shocks got increasingly more desperate. The teacher would hear the student in the next room pleading to be released or even that he had a heart condition. Once they reached the 300 volt level the student would bang on the wall demanding to be released. Beyond that point the student went silent and refused to answer any more question. The teacher was instructed to treat the silence as an incorrect response and deliver further shocks.

At that point the teacher would ask the controller of the experiment if they should continue. The controller would respond with a series of commands to prod the teacher to continue:

1. “Please continue.”

2. “The experiment requires that you continue.”

3. “It is absolutely essential that you continue.”

4. “You have no other choice, you must go on.”

You'd think a normal person playing the role of teacher would at least stop shocking the student once the supposed test subject started pleading that the voltage was too painful. But in reality 65 percent of the teacher participates continued to apply the maximum shocks to their unresponsive and unseen students. It was noticed during the experiments, that many of the teachers became extremely distraught and angry at the controllers but continued to follow orders all the way to the end.

The immediate question has to be why did the teacher-participates continued applying painful shocks to an unseen student? The general answer is that the presence of an authority figure (controller) increased compliance. The fact that a trusted academic institution, Yale University sponsored the experiment lead many of the participants to believe it was safe, even after the student became unresponsive.

Milgram summed up his experiment with this statement: “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work becomes patently clear, and they are asked to carry out action incompatible fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.”

So you might be wondering how all this ties into my point. Having the Orange Buffoon as president clearly gave license to the worst aspects of human nature. The natural authority that comes with holding that office allowed the Buffoon to give voice to all those barely hidden hates and fears, giving them an environment they could easily thrive. Sort of like the way mold loves to grow in wet and humid places.

For me, the worst aspect of having to live through such a repugnant individual's reign is that the damage the Orange Buffoon's done will not whither away with him out of office. Because once a mold like him takes hold in a house the repair work to get rid of it will be extensive and costly. Truthfully, taking the mold analogy further, Lincoln warned us of a house divided being unable to stand. The Orange Buffoon's mold might have already metastasized to the point the house is now contaminated beyond the ability of anyone to save it.

Nothing proves this point more than all the Republican congressmen who signed on in support of the Texas lawsuit attempting to overturn the election results in critical swing states. This was nothing less than an attempted coup to reinstall a delusional thug who harbored dreams of authoritarian power. Even after the Texas lawsuit was struck down, numerous fools in the Republican party started speaking about their states succeeding from the Union.

Even if the Orange Buffoon is in jail or dies between now and 2024, there are plenty of others who will take up his debauched mantle. 

 

Source:

Milgram's Experiment and the Perils of Obedience, VeryWellMind.com, September 16, 2019

 https://www.verywellmind.com/the-milgram-obedience-experiment-2795243

Maybe It's Aliens, If We're Lucky?

You know we live in interesting times when legitimate reports involving UFO's hit the mainstream media and they aren't the top stories in the evening news. But that is the case with both a New York Times report and the one Huffpost uploaded on their webpage.

On the surface both reports sound like the usual highly dubious and easily dismissible stories espoused by countless nutcases and con men for decades. The trouble though is that this time we have official statements from both the U.S. Navy and the Pentagon that yes, there have been sightings of strange aerial phenomenon displaying capabilities outside the abilities of current technologies.

More to the point, a few years back the Pentagon once stated that its covert program to study unexplained aerial phenomenon had been disbanded. Now real news outlets have discovered that this program was just renamed and moved to the Office of Naval Intelligence. Not exactly something an organization would do if there wasn't a reason to keep information hidden.

Those reason appear to be that these unknown craft have the ability to perform extreme maneuvers that defy known physics. One such unidentified vehicle was observed dropping from 60,000 feet to 50 feet in a matter of seconds. You don't need a degree in physics nor human anatomy to understand such maneuvers would destroy any known craft and turn any human pilot to chunky salsa.

Despite the possible crazed hoopla about aliens and first contact scenarios the more chilling possibility revolves around either Russia or China secretly developing technology that puts out best, most advanced planes on par with WW2 aircraft. Why Russia or China as possible boogeymen? Because they are the only countries with the money and/or technological clout to make such a breakthrough.

For the most part I despise Russia, but they do produce some seriously world class engineers and theoretical physicists. Their one drawback is money, it's one thing to produce fancy blueprints and maybe a prototype. It is another to have the money and industrial capabilities to turn such dreams into reality. China on the other hand does have the money, engineers, and the industrial might to possibly produce such revolutionary aircraft. What both countries do share is a grudge against the United States and an overwhelming desire to be the global top dog and remake the world pecking order.

Another possibility worth mentioning is that this release of information about UFO's is just a disinformation campaign by the United States Government. That our country has actually made a massive breakthrough in aviation technology and that we are just acting stupid to throw off our adversaries. Such possible advanced aircraft have to be tested and with surveillance what it is these days someone is bound to catch sight of these vehicles. At least that is my best case scenario when it comes to this situation.

Touching back on aliens, no I do not believe these UFO's are extraterrestrial in origin. The idea that an advanced alien race would travel hundreds, if not thousands of lightyears just to play aerial chicken with the primitive natives is just a bad science fiction movie idea. I've got admit though, given how supremely nightmarishly fucked up 2020 has been, we probably can't discount Little Green Men entirely.

See:

Explosive UFO Report In NYT Mentions ‘Off-World Vehicles Not Made On This Earth’

Life Goes On

The smell of the freshly brewed coffee in my cup was already weaving together the synapses in my brain as I plopped into the chair in front of the television. As I settled in with my caffeine and listened to the overly attractive and surely focus group-tested lady read off the leading news, I could feel my consciousness asserting itself even though my body wanted desperately to crawl back into bed. Sleep offered nothing but a pleasant postponement of having to listen to the long worn out machinations of men who are playing a game whose purpose they can't fathom beyond the pursuit of blatant self-gratification.

As the same stories that had dominated the news for days and even weeks were read off there was a bit of perverse comfort in knowing that the shit pile called current events hadn't drastically changed since the night before. A sad commentary on life for sure, but with the nation and world being held essentially hostage by people whose psychologies never rose above that of the average schoolyard bully you take comfort in whatever form available.

The leading story that morning was the super-hurricane that had just run over the island Puerto Rico with all the compassion the current occupant of the White House can muster about anyone outside his family. Funny thing about that hurricane, being the latest in a strange line of “Once in a lifetime weather events,” a person might begin to wonder if some outside force might be amplifying them. Its almost got to the point that our elected leaders should call upon the highly educated and professional men and women who have studied climate and weather for years to look into the matter. If this change in climate is because of something humans have done it would seem a good idea to stop it and work to repair the damage.

Just as soon as the last pictures of tropical destruction faded off the screen the news lady appeared saying she would be back soon after this commercial break. That's when the nausea struck causing me to put down my coffee cup.

“This is my hair!” The now middle aged, former child television star exclaimed as if he had just discovered the location of the fountain of youth. Call it a bizarre notion given our culture, but its always bothered me that many celebrities can't seem to walkaway from the limelight even though the basis of their fame had long since faded into oblivion. This particular individual, the middle boy child of a late 1960's and early 1970's merged television family has tenaciously fought to keep some aspect of his fame. He's no lone ranger with several others in his television family going to equally awkward levels to stay in the public mind.

“I can wash this hair, I can style this hair, this is my hair!” He continued with all the zeal of someone who just a personal one-on-one conversation with God. I could feel the bile in my stomach bubbling as this washed up actor turned reality star talked about how much better he looked and felt since undergoing the the procedure that restored him to a full head of hair. In normal times such enthusiasm would have been reserved for developing a vaccine for polio or finishing a project that brought fresh water to a third world village.

As a middle aged man myself who is severely follicely challenged, I know all the reasons that commercial justified for males having their hair restored to improve appearance or regain confidence is a thinly disguised lie. If the true reason for hair restoration was just for confidence, there wouldn't have been a need for the company to pay a twenty-something, bikini wearing lady to sit in a hot tub beside the grinning fifty-something man sporting an abnormal amount of hair on his head. As a book I just finished stated, our civilization is based on clever fictions we convince ourselves are true. But at some point men should just own up and admit that no matter our age, our chief goal never drifts far from wanting to get laid. I truly feel we would all be mentally healthier in the end if we faced that truth.

Speaking of delusions or grandeur, when the news lady returned her story was about the various speeches given at the opening of the United Nations Assembly earlier this week. Sure enough a video soon began showing America's latest joke on civilization and history at the podium wildly gesturing while exclaiming how he would totally destroy the country lead by the only other individual who rivals him at being a dangerous stooge. It is my sincerest hope that at some point in the future humans will have advanced enough to recognize the aberrant behavior in children that leads to narcissistic megalomania.

From there hopefully they could either correct it or prevent such individuals from ever holding any position of power greater than a city employed gardener. How far should societies go to prevent such maladjusted individuals who crave power like plants need sunlight from pursing their goals? While civilized people like to say the ends never justify the means, depending of how much our personalities are govern by genetics, I'd have to say pretty damn far to prevent anything similar to “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” from ever coming to power again.

Faced with a growing weather apocalypse, crass commercialism promoted by washed up actors, and the immediate threat of nuclear Holocaust perpetrated by mutant trolls, I turned off the television and went outside to sit on my backyard deck. While I was physically able to settle in my chair my mind was still reeling from the complexities of a civilization where the various leaders are acting instinctively instead of intelligently. Seriously, it should totally freak out any reasonably sentient person that the Catholic Church has a better scientific understanding of many of the global problems we face than the leaders of most twenty-first century nations.

That was when I saw the bird feeder my wife had just purchased and had hanging for one of the backyard trees. A bird I couldn't identify and a squirrel appeared to be in some sort of staring contest on either side of the large feeder. With the feeder slightly swinging from their small jerky motions I expected one of the two to leave while the other gorged out on the seed supply. Instead they both pigged out on the seeds for several seconds before both leaving. My sighting of the two animals sharing the bird feeder wasn't anything profound but it did allow me to brush off the residual anxiety from my mistake of watching the morning news. Essentially it showed me that worrying about things won't help the situation and that despite it all life will go on. After that revelation I made another cup of coffee and enjoyed the day.

A Short Buffett Interlude

Like an idiot, after a long and much needed hiatus I attempted to write some fiction this weekend. After pounding out over a page and a half of lackluster prose I realized it was so bad that I physically began to smell something akin to a long neglected cat's litter box coming from my laptop. So between trying to salvage that disaster and watching Hurricane Irma coverage on CNN I wasted the entire weekend. So instead I will offer up a small Jimmy Buffett video interlude.

While I'm still a fan of Buffett, I've got to admit I ain't feeling the same thrill anymore. Especially since he appears to have mostly transitioned from tropical vagabond singer/song writer/author over to some sort of high rolling resort/real estate developer going as far as offering up retirement homes to aging Baby Boomers. I guess my disappointment in Jimmy's embrace of gross capitalistic endeavors that probably threaten coastal environments that inspired his songs is a minor form of whining. But still, that makes Jimmy more part of the establishment now than the free soul whose songs once told everyone life should be taken at face value because none of us were going to get out of it alive.

Be that as it may, this seems fitting given what people in the Caribbean, Florida, and Texas have endured.



Now how about a little mid-life reflection:



Word of warning, when listening to this song with the volume up DO NOT have your car windows down while as you drive through pickup loop in front of your daughter's school. The attractive 40-something teacher directing traffic in her sundress that spring day didn't appreciate the apparent but totally unintentional  innuendo.



And finally, something to remind everyone life is short and often tragic, so we need to be nice as possible to each other and not get caught up in the bull shit.



  

Lawn Care Ruminations

Sunday morning began with me looking out my kitchen window and struggling to convince myself that my backyard didn't need cutting. Usually this early in the summer I can get away with cutting one yard a weekend and I did the back just last Sunday. Unfortunately something is different this year, not sure if it's the heavier rainfall we've had but as I walked outside on my deck to take a closer look, it was apparent that if I didn't cut the backyard I'd have a jungle the following weekend. A further mystery is the fact that except for a few dandelions, my front yard didn't need to be cut although its already been two weeks it was mowed.

So like a good suburban drone I inserted the headphones attached to my MP3 player into my ears, cranked up the mower, and proceeded walk up and down my yard pushing a ridiculous device that I am sure will be a joke to future generations. I'm sure climate change and simple innovation will eventually make gas powered lawnmowers antiquated relics. Battery powered lawnmowers are already for sale and if I had five hundred dollars I could risk on such a new technology, I'd already have bought one just so I would not have to deal with the frustration of their gas powered counterparts. I know the problems I've had with lawnmowers are from a lack of proper care on my part, but I'll be damned those things weren't as complicated back when I pushed my Granddad's around the neighborhood to earn a few bucks cutting other peoples' grass.

Ideally, and call me insane, I'd like to see the demise of the modern subdivision and have them replaced with a more communal lifestyle. I've heard of a few places like that already exist, it's not an apartment nor condo situation because these new neighborhoods are made up of individual, freestanding family homes but the green spaces have a more open, park-like feel. The homes in these new types of neighborhoods are also much smaller than the Mcmansions many Americans have come to believe are rights enshrined in the Constitution. That right there will have some running off screaming socialism but if I could buy into such a place go ahead and start addressing me as comrade. 

Yes, this means lawn care of the grounds would be relegated down to a contractor or in the future, battery powered robots that would perform their duties without human interaction. Yes, all this pondering is just me whining about having to take care of something I bought back when I was too stupid to realize how demanding lawn care could be.

All told it only took me forty-five minutes to cut the backyard and the small segment on the other side of the fence. Yes, I did come away with a small feeling of accomplishment. Both the backyard and side yard looked better but any satisfaction was short lived, because as I kicked back with a cold soda I realized that I will most certainly have to do the same damn thing next weekend.

It has been said that the definition of insanity is to perform the same act over and over again expecting a different result. How lawn care plays into that idea I'll leave that to each individual to decide. I'm sure everyone can already guess where I fall on that answer.

Glacial Home Renovations

Home renovations are proceeding at the expected glacial pace with the biggest problem for me being that the kitchen table is filled to overflowing with stuff and I don't have a reliable place to write. At least we're down to having the kitchen cabinets remodeled and painted to the color my wife wants. The new carpet was installed about a month ago, which was a huge relief since after having removed the old stuff in two rooms, we were walking on rough plywood boards. Other finished projects include repairs to the backyard deck, remodeled master bathroom, and the room over the garage having been transformed into a habitable living space.  

There is actual hope that once everything is either back in its proper place, or thrown away, or donated to charity we might be able to use the dining room again. It should go without saying I am truly sick of having to think about anything to do with home improvements. Thankfully, my lovely spouse has refrained from bringing up the outside projects she wants done to the front and back yard. I am seriously not in the mood, especially with my wife and daughter planning their summer trip to London, England while I stay here at the house.

Forgotten Warning

“The Collapse of Civilization” by Steve Thomas

Predicting the future is truthfully a fool's errand. Recent societal changes have taken the most astute observers of culture by surprise and technological advancement over the last sixty years would probably seem like magic to those born at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, I remember a report published when I was a kid that was scary accurate in how the future unfolded.

Back during the last year of the Carter Administration a report came out painting a dim view of the future stretching from the last two decades of the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first. I forget the author of the report, some government agency I believe, but it made the case that the coming years would see countries across the globe dealing with increasing pressures from worsen pollution and swelling populations exacerbated by basic resources becoming scarce. This would lead to an increasing of international tensions, terrorism, and outright war. This report went as far as to state that this would ultimately lead to the introduction of authoritarian governments in normally democratic countries. That last item was something that both puzzled and worried me since this report came out before the end of the Cold War. At the time I just couldn't imagine Western countries willingly surrendering the principles that made them special enough to stand against the communist nations.

The main reason I remember this report was that it ran counter to the general optimism inherent to the late 60's and early 70's, the years that, for a lack of a better term, I essentially became conscious. To my young mind, after having been tainted with the philosophy of Star Trek and being influenced by the Civil Rights struggle, the future was supposed to be one where things got progressively better. Yes, during the late 1970's I was a serious science and science fiction nerd who ate up any literature attempting to describe what the lives of human beings would be like in the coming decades. Sure, there would be setbacks, but the view of the futurists I read in magazines like Analog and the now dead Omni said we were on the road to far better things for everyone on the planet.

While I have forgotten most of the details, I do vaguely remember this report spelled out the reasons why things were going to get bad and they mainly centered around far too many people basically wanting the American lifestyle. To meet this desire already threatened resources would be stripped further increasing their costs, which would push the poorer among us down the socioeconomic ladder straining civil society. Authoritarian leaders would then appear to quell the uprising of the poor, denied masses and protect those of property or conversely, to overthrow the existing unfair status quo.

It was an exceedingly dark and dystopic future whose only meager silver lining was the vague suggestion that technology might remedy the situation by the middle of the twenty-first century. The last thing I remember about this report was that it made enough of an impact that the Reagan Administration instantly countered it as soon as they came into the White House with their own pollyannaish version. It claimed everything in the future was going to be hunky-dory and anyone that said different was a lying commie.

The troubling aspect of that forgotten, pessimistic report for me was even at that young age it clearly spelled out the troubles we were to face. As opposed to the Reagan version that gave vague assurances that everyone should just buy sunglasses because the future was going to be so bright.

As fate would have it the intervening years were seemingly not as dire as first predicted. The looming Soviet Empire collapsed almost overnight freeing dozens of nation from its oppressive grip. Democracy and free market capitalism were proclaimed by nearly all as the natural state of human affairs. And finally, the United States became the sole global superpower whose destiny was to expand its way of life to every person on the planet. Then there was the unparalleled expansion of electronic technology that took the computer from a device the size of a room to one that could fit in a pant's pocket and act as your telephone, high quality camera, universal information almanac, personal assistant, and thousands of other things. Among all this unbridled freedom and pursuit of new markets and technology things were slowing going to shit.

The first thing that has to be mentioned was the growing web of free trade treaties that on the surface are a great idea. That being rising global trade and open markets promote higher living standards which in turn increase stability and prosperity for everyone taking part. The problem with this good idea was that international corporations decided the economic bottom line dictated that manufacturing-- i.e. good paying jobs—had to migrate to countries where the pay was far less than what the average worker got in the United States or any other First World country. Now this was fine for the Elite and those running the corporations, their wealth not only stayed the same but grew almost exponentially since workers in China only got paid cents on the dollar compared to their American counterparts.

As for middle class American workers this has meant a long slide downward as jobs that allowed a newly married couple to buy a house, raise kids and put them through college, while saving for retirement began dissolving like smoke caught in a breeze. With good jobs disappearing credit cards became the way the middle class kept up the facade of a prosperous lifestyle. During my grandparents' time debt was a shame and something that was taken on only with great reluctance. I remember one occasion when my grandparents television had a permanent and irreversible meltdown requiring that they go out and buy a replacement.

Today such a shopping trip can be executed in one afternoon, but for them that meant waiting for several weeks as paychecks built up and a few other bills were paid off. Then there was the shopping around trying to get the best deal since back then the purchase of a television was much the same as buying a car. Once the new television was delivered, I remember my grandfather working overtime at the local paper mill so it could be paid off as quickly as possible.

Today it is nothing for the average family to make a similar purchase on a whim all the while having no tangible monetary savings. Sure they “own” a house that over time should increase in value and some sort of retirement savings account that takes the place of the long dead workplace pension. But these folks are permanent riders on the credit merry-go-round and subject to the shifting temperament of those that manage the stock markets and banks.

Needless to say, since the 1970's economic equality in the United States and around the world has suffered terribly with a tiny percentage of the super-rich controlling the vast majority of global wealth. To the modern wealthy Elites, their status is as natural as eighteenth-century aristocrats thought their own position was during that that era of hereditary kings and dukes. However, like the peasants that eventually wised up and killed off many of those aristocrats, there are those of us that have become aware very little of the post-Cold War expansion of wealth is trickling down to those of us on the bottom half of the economic ladder. But instead of forming coherent groups to address this equality, populist leaders have stepped forward who appeal to the worst in our nature. They promise utopia but upon closer examination are only spewing hate-filled rhetoric while scapegoating people and institutions and that while flawed, are not the true source of their problems.

There is absolutely no doubt that capitalism, when compared to the command and control economies of the post-WW 2 communist nations is both more efficient and takes into consideration the basic human right that someone should be able to reap the benefits of their idea or invention. That being said, capitalism has similar tendencies like communism in that it eats the unfortunate and poor. The simple fact that corporations almost daily abandon longtime and loyal employees and relocate to countries that pay significantly less and do not have troublesome institutions like labor unions shows a contempt for the individual that I frankly find psychotic.

One of the central parts of the pessimistic Carter report was how pollution in the coming years was going to become worse. This was another aspect that puzzled me since the 1970's was the decade that the Clean Air and Water Acts passed by the United States Congress had gone along way to reducing and reversing industries affects on the environment. Of course, Ronny Reagan wasn't long in the White House when his administration began reversing as much of those vital reforms as it could get away with. Later administrations would go even further all in the name of slicing through “Red Tape” that hampered economic development.

Since the end of the Cold War massive industrialization along capitalistic principles by former-communist and third world countries have assaulted the global environment all in the supposed name of raising living standards for the less fortunate. That does occur in a limited fashion, some places more than others, but in actuality the level of environmental destruction, climate destabilization, and worker abuse at the hands of monolithic corporations is so bad you could debate whether or not any positive short term gains are equal to the long term negatives. In short, while working in some third world sweatshop does provide a narrow avenue for some to escape grinding poverty, if that person and his or her family have to drink polluted water, eat tainted food and then suffer through a drought one year and unprecedented and destructive floods the next are they truly any better off? This ignores the possibility that these sweatshop workers are near slaves being forced to endure soul crushing hours while working in dangerous conditions.

This being the late 1970's, I don't remember anything about climate change being mentioned in that pessimistic report. However, I learned recently of a 1950ish video that shows two science types talking about how industrialization was spewing untold amounts of pollution into the atmosphere and how that it could, and would eventually alter the global climate for the worse. The fact that huge numbers of people absolutely refuse to accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that human actions have severely damaged the planetary climate does not say anything good about the chances of our species long term survival.

In all the years that have passed since I became aware of this report, the one aspect that I took some relief in was that the Western nations hadn't succumbed to the siren call of authoritarian demagogues, now even that has come true. At first it was newly freed Eastern European countries like Hungary and Poland electing individuals who have no dedication to the principles of freedom their nations dreamed about while under Soviet domination. Then this contagion spread to Western countries rightly worried about the power of uncontrollable multinational corporations, fears over economic globalization, and outright racism spawned by uncomfortable changes in internal demographics. Sorry Brits, while you guys and gals have every right to worry about how globalization is effecting your country, your recent vote to leave the European Union was packaged in ways less than honorable given your country's traditions.

Now even the United States has succumbed to the trends that long forgotten report predicted. The American public has just elected a man who has never held public office and whose temperament and behavior suggests the absolute last job he should hold is one where the lives of literally billions of people are in his hands. Furthermore, his admitted admiration of authoritarian tyrants in other countries as well as his reluctance to steadfastly condemn racist supporters frankly scares the hell out of many Americans. Trump's criticism of the American free press and threats to curtail its ability to do its Constitutionally mandated job by all rights would have immediately eliminated from presidential consideration if a majority of the American public were true to the principles the United States was founded upon.

Personally I believe these trends go beyond the report saying all this would be brought on by dwindling resources. While capitalism is a better economic system than the one used by the now dead Soviet Union, it nonetheless has its own inherent flaws. Namely that expansion must be constant and that efficiency and profit must come before people and the environment. These flaws, for the most part, could be overlooked in a world with far less people but that is simply the not the case anymore. Ignoring economic globalization alone for the moment, just having over seven billion people on a small planet all demanding access to food, water, and something more that makes life worth living would strain resources beyond the breaking point.

I absolutely hate sounding like a New Age guru, but I can't escape the conclusion that our current global structure of competing nation-states and massive corporations that answer to no regulating body is unsustainable. As for the report's suggestion that technology might ultimatly save us from the mess we have created, that is the one aspect I believe it will get wrong. The only thing that will save not only our global civilization, and maybe our species itself, is the realization that no nation, religion, corporation, or ethnic group can continue to look to the past as some sort of lost golden age of greatness. Simply put, our numbers and demands on the planet and each other will not allow it. It's a tired cliche but there is in reality no great savior that will solve all our problems, only fools believe such a thing. What will save us is the awareness that the ideas, superstitions, and institutions that divide into conflicted and selfish groups are foolish and worn out relics from previous ages that we best discard, not just for the betterment of ourselves but for the very lives of our children.

Author's note: If anyone can direct me to a link or even an article to that report published during the Carter Administration I would greatly appreciate it. I'm probably not phrasing my internet searches correctly so I'm not finding any mention of it even through I know it was real. 

Why Sheriff Andy Taylor is a Hero to Me

Going to the local drug store to pick up my wife's prescription isn't my favorite chore, but at least it's fairly straight forward and quick if the pharmacist on duty is in a good mood. There is one lady who works behind the counter that seems to have a grudge against me, so much I figure I must look like a former boyfriend or ex-husband that treated her wrong. I take such incidents in stride now but something else happened yesterday as I walked into the drug store that exemplifies the nearly psychotic times we find ourselves living.

While the drug store in question will go unnamed, just know it is one of those ubiquitous national chains that tries to act like a mini-grocery store as well as having whole aisles dedicated to things like Halloween costumes and even cheap toys. As I walked through the automatic sliding doors I passed one of the store clerks stocking a shelf with colorful boxes. Wasn't really paying attention to the writing on the boxes but I did notice they looked rather heavy. As I turned a corner and started walking down another aisle, out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of another person walking through the sliding glass door entrance.

Quick impressions are easily subject to misinterpretation but the guy seemed even more rushed than me as well as slightly perturbed. An idea reinforced when I started hearing an impatient voice whose volume was higher than anything used in a normal conversation. Whatever the case, I had my own task to accomplish and didn't think anymore of it, until I heard a seriously loud bang coming from that direction a second or two later. Being upfront, my first thought was that the guy I believed to be upset had pulled a gun and fired off a shot. At who, I had no idea but naturally the clerk innocently stocking shelves was high on the list.

The sad thing in all was that instead of just blowing off the noise, I instead stopped in my tracks and waited a few seconds to see if anything else happened, like more shots being fired or people beginning to scream in panic. Thankfully, except for the normal noise associated with a business, it was all quiet. Minutes later on the way back out I noticed that one of the shelves the clerk had been placing the heavy boxes on had broken or collapsed. As for the guy who seemed perturbed, I saw him at the general merchandise checkout with an armload of school supplies as I walked out the door.

Yes, this all ended uneventfully but the nasty bug in the societal system is that given the number of mass shootings this country has, sometimes on a monthly or even weekly basis, the possibility the dude buying school supplies was a deranged nutcase sporting a high-capacity firearm was real. At times I really hate all the trash comments I make about the area I live, but to be honest earning your concealed carry license for a handgun is one of the ways guys here earn their man card.

What it all boils down to is that I remember a time when I was a kid that while owning firearms was cool, the idea that you would carry one around in public was crazy to the general population, even here in the American South. This attitude was best exemplified by the ancient Andy Griffith Show where the fictional Sheriff Andy Taylor made a point of not wearing a sidearm because he wanted people to respect him and his authority, not the weapon he carried. That example a little too abstract, well my own grandfather once verbally jumped all over my twenty-something ass in the 1980's when I attempted to carry my own .45 automatic inside a public place.

Understand, my pistol was unloaded and my reason for carrying it was because I didn't want to leave it in my car since one of the door locks was busted, but my grandfather looked me dead in the eye and said only morons walk around with guns in public. Back during those years my enthusiasm for firearms extended to the ownership of an assault rifle as well, which when I look at the pictures of myself taken with it seem really creepy now. To complete this story I sold both the assault rifle and that .45 when I became involved in SCUBA diving and wanted to buy my own equipment.

Needless to say, mass shootings back in the 70s and 80s when I was a kid and young “adult” were outrageously rare occurrences but since then popular culture has made carrying a gun almost a prerequisite for some to have self respect for themselves. Many disagree, but I have had discussions with gun enthusiasts and their denials of that idea always have the ring of drug addicts or alcoholics swearing up and down that they don't have a problem, that the issue is with everyone else. Throw in unstable individuals with easy access to some serious firepower and you get mass shootings and a lot of innocent people dead, including small children. While I had long since moved on to other more constructive activities, that particular event ended the lackadaisical attitude I had towards letting gun nuts have their fun as long as I didn't have to hear them speak.

Gun nuts will skip over this sentence but I'm not calling for the ban of civilian ownership of firearms. I own another .45 automatic, although it spends most of its existence locked up inside a box in my closet. But I don't believe you can rationally say the saturation of guns in our national culture is healthy. Instead of having the calm and cool fictional Andy Taylor saying he wanted people to respect him personally, you have types like Eastwood who made his fame playing a character that asks if some punk is feeling lucky while he points a .44 magnum at his head. Excuse me for picking on Eastwood because he has plenty of company, but people tend to copy what seems reasonable and when countless movies suggest that you need to carry a firearm to solve issues, especially difficult ones involving troublesome people you're creating an atmosphere where civil society can't function.

Yes, there are numerous instances where someone with a gun protected their lives and those of their families, that is not an issue. The issue is that the United States has exponentially more mass shootings than any industrialized western country. Of course, I am not including such third-world countries such as Somalia or any other where civil society has broken down completely. If the widespread ownership of all sorts of weapons promoted peace, like gun enthusiasts say they would here, shouldn't those countries be law-abiding garden spots?

I'll write it one more time, I'm not talking about banning civilian ownership of guns. But in a rational society there should be enough common sense that laws and regulations could be enacted to where mass shootings are once again relegated to the rare, bizarre occurrence like it was when the fictional Sheriff Taylor's attitude was widespread among the public. My general idea is that you have to be trained and then licensed to drive a car, seems reasonable to suggest that something like a gun might require similar procedures. I'll throw mandatory liability insurance as a requirement as well, although the first two things I mentioned sends the average gun nut into seizures. I've noticed the barest mention of forcing gun owners to carry liability insurance turns them into enraged, petulant, mindless zombie children out for blood.   

As for those who may think I am living in fear of some unknown madman, maybe I am making more of the incident in the drug store than I should. But, then again I'm not the one who feels defenseless if I'm not walking around in public with a loaded concealed weapon.

I'm still here-sort of-and should be fully functional by October

Time, or the lack of it, totally sucks. The main reason I decided to take a break was because, quite frankly, whenever I tried to sit down at the kitchen table to write several members of my family would invariably rush in and begin some complex project. The usual suspect being my wife who with the assistance of her god-awful expensive blender, made enough noise to wake the dead. The curious counterpoint to making enough noise to trigger a zombie apocalypse is that her blender makes actual human thought impossible when it is used. 
Another issue was a total breakdown in what could be called my creative instinct. I simply couldn't think of a damn thing to write that was even halfway original or interesting. Not that any of my stuff has ever been that inspired to begin with, but even crappy middle age dudes like me would one day like to reach the status of hack writer.

This morning though I reached a bit of a breaking point. I was cutting the backyard feeling disgusted that I was wasting my life in a never ending battle with mother fraking grass. Don't get me wrong, I've never like cutting grass but it's damn near the end of September and I'll probably have to do this shit again one more time before the weather gets cold enough to make my lawn go dormant for the winter.

Somewhere in the back of my head I have this fantasy of buying a fifty-five gallon drum of the most toxic weed killer and spraying it all over my lawn. After that I would burn the now dead grass residue and dance around in the flames laughing like a madman. Some might worry what the neighbors would think if I actually got around to doing those things but they are already working under the assumption that I'm crazy and for better or worse I'm actually okay with them having that opinion of me. They're just a bunch of Trump-loving, semi-suicidal morons deluded enough to think that narcissistic bastard won't frak the country to advance his own interests. My wife on the other hand is another matter, she demands I act civilized and decent in front of the sorry a-holes I am forced to live around. So, that leaves me little else but to take up my writing again and essentially live in the bizarre world that exists between my ears.

I'll leave you with this for now:


      

Thoughts on Childhood's End

One of the laziest tropes in science fiction is the sudden and unexpected arrival of gigantic alien spaceships above the cities of Earth. The most notable example of this sub-genre is the 1990's movie Independence Day where such ships are part of a grand invasion scheme to strip our planet bare of resources. Other than an extreme form of xenophobia that views all other intelligent life as a danger, Independence Day never really explains why these aliens with super engineering skills just don't go around harvesting asteroids, rich in vital strategic metals and frozen water, which are literally floating around in space free for the taking.

A simple cost benefit analysis would show how that instead of attacking and then moving into new planet-side territory, they could easily gobble up what asteroids they need and then head back out into deep space. And if these pesky aliens still felt the need to kill off humanity, all they would have to do is toss a half-dozen ten kilometer asteroids towards Earth and it would be totally game over for us hairless primates. Pretty much all that would be left after such a bombardment would be cockroaches, a few ants, and assorted slime molds and bacteria. Remember, it took just a single ten kilometer asteroid or comet to send the dinosaurs off into eternity.

Honorable mention for this story line has to go to the 1980's television series entitled “V”, where seemingly human looking aliens arrive and proclaim they come in peace and friendship only to once again be after some terrestrial resource, this time it's Earth's water. Never mind that water is abundant all over our solar system, with most of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn being really big snowballs. And I'm not even going to mention the Oort Cloud way out past Pluto which could contain trillions of icy comets, with more than enough water for dozens of thirsty evil alien armadas. Whatever the case, along the way during the “V” series we discover that these aliens are just wearing a human-looking disguise and are in fact quite reptilian in actual appearance.

Unless someone can correct me, the best story involving the sudden arrival of several dozen alien starships above human cities comes from the Arthur C. Clarke book entitled Childhood's End. It would be an awkward but accurate pun to say Clarke's novel leaves both Independence Day and “V” lightyears behind in simple story telling. Which is not hard since this is Arthur C. Clarke I'm talking about, the man was a true visionary. My one problem with him though is that he didn't really look favorably on what he considered science fantasy, (Star Trek, Star Wars) his stories had to have at least some basis in our current understanding of physics and the universe.

Childhood's End was published in 1953 and I read the book probably in the early 1980's. In fact I believe it was quite close to the time Carl Sagan's Cosmos aired on Public Television, and yes, the two did a number on my small brain that I have never really recovered from since.

In the book dozens of alien starships arrive and take up positions above terrestrial cities. But instead of looking to cause death and destruction one of the aliens, named Karellen proclaims to the world they have arrived to prevent humanity from committing suicide and are here to guide us to a more stable, peaceful, and sustainable future. Naturally, humans are suspicious but over the course of a few decades these aliens, called the Overlords, pretty much end human suffering. All during this time, the Overlords don't physically reveal themselves to us humans but hide behind barriers saying that until our species has matured, we would find their form extremely disturbing. Instead they work through one person, the Secretary General of the United Nations, who eventually smuggles a device aboard the alien craft that should allow him to see Karellen's true form. The Secretary General succeeds in his attempt but decides not to tell anyone else what Karellen looks like.

With the aid of the Overlords, humans enter a Golden age but there is a price. First off the Overlords put a stop to human space exploration with the only exception in the book being a manned base on the moon for astronomical research. Secondly, with all the humans on Earth fat and happy not only have all our cultures have become stagnant but technological research has almost stopped completely. I have to chalk that one up to the idea that with the Overlords several thousand years technologically ahead of us there isn't much sense in devoting time to engineering a better coffee maker or television. But things aren't all bad, with everyone getting a decent education no one freaks out when the Overlords finally reveal themselves to the public fifty years after their arrival. Turns out the Overlords look exactly like Christian-themed demons or Satan himself. They are bipedal creatures with cloven hooves for feet along with leathery wings on their backs, long barbed tail, and horns coming out of their heads.

While the Overlords were truthful in that they came to save humankind for our destructive ways, they didn't tell us the entire story. Turns out they are a sort of cosmic midwife for something referred to as the Overmind. See, in the novel we learn that nearly all intelligent species in the universe have to eventually evolve to a higher plane of existence and be adsorbed by the Overmind. An entity that seems to be the Grand Poo-bah of the cosmos. There is simply no choice in the matter, and for humans the first signs of this ascendancy comes from young children who develop telepathic, telekinetic, and a type of collective consciousness that totally freaks out their uncool H. sapien parents. Matters are only made worse when Karellen reveals to the world that because of this change normal humans won't be able to have anymore children. No, the Overlords are not responsible for that side effect, it is either the Overmind being a total dick and preventing conception or just something systemic to the whole process because the kids are on the verge of jumping dimensional planes.

As you can imagine, human civilization falls apart after this with everyone blaming the Overlords for this development. Throw in a human, Jan Rodricks, who stowed away aboard an outbound Overlord starship before the kids got seriously weird and you have the setting for the final act of the novel. By the time Jan comes back from his sightseeing adventure on the Overlord's homeworld normal humans are extinct. The kids are still around but you can't really say their human because they are in the final stages of joining the Overmind.

The Overlord's are cool with Jan permanently staying with them but he declines and offers to go planet-side to record the final moments of the kids linking up with the grand cosmic entity. Jan made this offer mainly because the Overlords occupy an evolutionary dead end and will never be able to make the jump to higher existence like us humans. But they would very much appreciate any information he might be able to discern from the event. But before he departs for Earth's surface, Jan makes an assumption and asks the Overlords about the traumatic encounter they must have had with humanity in the distant past for our species to base our idea of evil on their form. Jan learns from Karellen that the human fear of their form is not based on a past event but a racial premonition that echoed back down through time to the very beginnings of our species.

With Jan planet-side, he radios ups reports of a vast burning column going up into space, which is probably the kids. Afterwards the Earth itself begins to dissolve into transparency, including Jan whose last report mentions a final sense of fulfillment.

Yes, in Childhood's End the author does appear to break his rule about staying as close to real science as possible. Not only that, a reader would have to be pretty low on IQ points not to see the Christian imaginary inherent to the story. It goes beyond the Overlords looking like Satan, and by no fault of their own playing a part in the downfall of Man, and extends to the Overmind standing in for God and the evolved children linking up with it sounds a lot like the Rapture.

Given that I came from a moderately religious family who were regularly exposed to preachers that based their careers on End Times prophecy Childhood's End was an eye opener. Up until that general moment after finishing the book, the ultimate fate of the world and human destiny had been spelled out to me in such exacting details during certain church sermons that in hindsight it almost seems that those preachers were in on the planning of Jesus coming back to Earth. To not only have the creatures standing in for Satan and his fallen angels seem sympathetic along with the Overmind being seemingly less than a benevolent entity was a lot to handle.

As the years have gone by, both the book and the recent miniseries, which is what spurred this post, offer up some intriguing questions about the nature of the universe. For me the first mystery is the nature of the Overmind, I came away both times believing it was neither benevolent nor malevolent, just an inherent function of the universe trying to achieve some sense of itself. All I can say is that if Clarke ever decided to write a prequel to explain the Overmind's “birth” I surely would have bought the book the second I knew of its existence. Secondly, it would have been just as interesting to know the origins of the Overlords and how it was determined they could never evolve to join the Overmind. The Overlords existence also brings up the possibility that there are other species like them in different parts of the universe that occupy similar evolutionary dead ends.

Additionally, I have huge questions as to the nature of the utopia that the Overlords helped us develop here in Earth. Both the book and miniseries strongly suggest that removing all immediate concerns like poverty, hunger, political oppression, and outright fear would not create a culturally dynamic society. That the chief human response to such a condition might be for people to fall into a lowest common denominator situation where everyone just lays around and watches stuff like lowbrow reality shows. Think I might be overstating the case a little? Well, just look here at the good old United States where intelligent and thought-provoking PBS specials only rarely draw any significant attention while such moronic stuff like Duck Dynasty, Real Housewives, and numerous other "reality based" shows are cultural mainstays of popular attention. In short, here in the United States there are numerous ways for a person to develop and enhance themselves both mentally and physically but for Western industrialized societies we are, quite frankly, lazy, fat and embarrassingly ignorant fuckers.

Someone once said that surest way for humans to drive themselves mad and go extinct would be to impose some sort of utopia on us where I every need and desire was met. Unfortunately, I believe that might be the case, which is quite depressing to me since I would prefer to believe we humans might one day mature enough to rid ourselves of the scourges that have held us back since we became self aware.   

       

I suppose Childhood's End can be summed up as a book, and miniseries, that deals with Homo sapiens' place in the greater scheme of the universe and here on Earth. Are we the creation of some supreme entity or just a random accident of evolution? Ignoring the two possibilities of our origin for a moment I think the greater question we face in real life is what is our ultimate destiny. It actually scares me sometimes when I deal with people who just can't see past their own noses and have the imagination of your average rock. All too often our response to seeing our society and world change under our feet is to pull back in fear. You get enough people to do that and all sorts of human-made hell can easily be unleashed.

While the absolute last thing in this real life universe we have to worry about is gigantic alien spaceships turning up above Earth's cities we do have problems staring our species in the face that many just refuse to acknowledge. How and when we ultimately face the issues that threaten the lives of our children will signify our growth as a species, or truly show that we are indeed just a random accident that nature or a very silent and absent God will eventually wipe out of existence.