Weird Scenes -OR- Just A Bozo On This Bus

"Look! The pyramid is opening."
"Which one?"
"The one with the ever widening HOLE in it!"

Clever dialog like this drew me to the Firesign Theater albums. The above is neither my favorite FST exchange nor
particularly relevant to this missive. It's a drop-in. An aside. Bait. Chum. Bits and pieces.

I haven't played a FST album in many years. No "Waiting For The Electrician or Someone Like Him", No "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers", No "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus". No "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once"... No need. The tracks are indelibly etched into my brain.

"Shoes for Industry Compadre."

Around the FST phase of my education there was another comedy troupe known as "The Congress of Wonders" who released an album titled "Revolting". I've encountered other Firesignians over the years, but rarely encounter a fellow Wonderer. I'm sure they exist. They must. It's the only explanation for finding "projects" based on "Revolting" on YouTube.



The plot of "Star Trip" is simple. While traveling through space, the starship collides with a Space Turkey which knocks it off course. The off-course distances grow rapidly.
May I remind you that since we are traveling at a rate of Warped Factor 3, that our collision with that turkey, thirty-eight seconds ago, has put us 13 billion miles off course.

15 billion...

SMOCK
23 billion miles off course now, sir, if my calculations are correct. And they always are.

...(Much corny comedy brilliance)...

Damage estimate?

SMOCK
Well, Captain, it?s easily $27,000,000 worth of damage.

KWIRK
Uh...$27,000,000 worth of damage?! Grrrr!

SMOCK
Well, actually, it?s only one tube that costs fifteen cents, but the service charge is enormous since we're so many light years away from the service area. That is provided and they can find us anyway seeing us we're 200 billion miles off course.

If you've followed this at all, you now know how I feel on most days as I read, watch and listen to the growing absurdities of life. Hurtling off course through time and space.

And now a word from our sponsors?
and you eat it every day




And that's why I take... Damnitall!

It's Ratings Gold I Tell Ya -OR- Untold Stories of Untold Bad Ideas

Breaking News...

We have weather. Thanks to climate change, and other factors, we have enough weather to fill large blocks of airtime on the dozens of 24/7 newsfotainment outlets. Yesterday, in Illinois, it was tornado weather. Today, nationwide, the images and sounds of devastation have been gathered, edited, colated, then interspersed with live, on the scene, remotes, we Americans are being "informed". By now you've seen the pictures of the carnage. The Aftermath.

It's a matter of some debate whether the path the November, 17 2013 storms followed is part of "Tornado Alley". The title, introduced into the American lexicon in the science-heavy post-war 50s, describes

an area that experiences frequent weather events that spawn funnel clouds that chew up anything in their path when they transition from airborn funnel cloud to ground-contacting ones. The map has grown significantly over time to include most of the middle of the country.

Proof positive of climate change? A reflection of our induced obsession with weather and weather related phenomena? A large chunk of both along with many other factors? How should I know, I'm a blogger, not a meteorologist, climate scientist, storm chaser or weatherguesser. Well, okay, I'll plead guilty to the last.
Through casual observations of exterior signs and a calendar, I'm able to discern the general conditions and guess the weather outside without having to actually go outside, and certainly without tuning into the weather report from the experts "every 10 minutes on the nines". Admit it you do too.

The maps and charts and radar and trained professionals can be helpful. They can add to your personal observations and aid your ability to plan outdoor oriented activities in advance, but on a daily, hour by hour basis, they are of minor consideration. But that's a rant for another day. Today's puzzler is the seemingly exponential growth of weather-related gut-punches to America's mid-section. For me the area of piqued interest is localized to the "Six-county Chicago Metropolitan Area" which also covers a lot more ground than it did in the 1950s.

Through both casual and careful observation from my position in an inner-ring "First Suburb" of Chicago, I know that territories and settlements north, south and west of the big city have grown out, creating easily identifiable urban sprawl. Lesser urban areas of the state have experienced the same. Ever since my wayward youth, I've known about city, near suburbs, far suburbs, boonies and rural. I've marveled at the nomadic lifestyles constantly urging folks not to settle for green grass when there were cornfields to develop into greener grass utopias. Looking for wide-open spaces then insisting that they provide all the convenience and resources of more densely populated areas. Driven by more land for less money even if it meant a longer commute, urban sprawl invaded the rural landscapes. During the irrationally exuberant boom times, the "Uboughtdafarm" developments, divisions and sub-divisions ran amok and continue, only slightly tempered by the housing meltdown they helped fuel.

In 1990, the Plainfield Tornado exposed the downside of building large tracts of housing out in the boonies. In 1980, that F5 twister would have churned up cornfields, uprooted fence posts and caused power outages to several farms. In 1990, it took 29 lives. spurred a brief discussion of "urban planning" and brought a new focus on weather prediction and warning models that have only improved over time. Does it help to know when thousands of homes and the people who inhabit them are threatened? Of course it does, but when it was known and predictable that those thousands of home were in the very likely path of destruction...?

It didn't slow the developers. It didn't diminish the sprawl. Many millions of dollars were made moving many thousands of people into the known, but unprotected, path of future storms. The crop of new homes were bigger, went up and sold faster than before. Planning was limited to maximizing profit, embracing "growth" for growths sake and all the economic prosperity that came along with all the new residents expanding the tax base. The sales brochures didn't advertise the geographic and topographic downsides. The buyers were looking for utopia and that's the illusion they were shown.

Nowhere in the 24/7 reporting on tragic devastation have the developers been discussed or their wisdom questioned.
What's up with that?

I feel for the victims. I truly do. I can't stop progress. I also can't feign shock and surprise at these recurring nightmares. I suppose that makes me a terrible person... been there; done that. Premise accepted. That still doesn't make ME the bad guy.

It's Called Ballast... Until It Takes Over -OR- It's Still The Same Money Tricks

Once more down the rabbit hole? into the breach? on a quest for something solid to hang on to. The curse of Diogenes?? Sisyphus? Scooby-Do? Trying to find some sense in it all. Again. Hitting a wall of fucknuttery. Again.

It must all weave together into something recognizable. Right?

It's an international challenge with serious local impacts. At its root, in the larger sense, it's a shipping crisis. It's about the movement of product without concern or a plan to deal with the by-products until they become a visible, active nuisance. Ship "ballast" is recognized as the main source of the problem. From Wiki: Cruise ships, large tankers, and bulk cargo carriers use a huge amount of ballast water, which is often taken on in the coastal waters in one region after ships discharge wastewater or unload cargo, and discharged at the next port of call, wherever more cargo is loaded. Ballast water discharge typically contains a variety of biological materials, including plants, animals, viruses, and bacteria. These materials often include non-native, nuisance, and/or exotic species that can cause extensive ecological and economic damage to aquatic ecosystems. Illegal immigration?




Shipping companies shouldn't be held responsible for the non-native species they carry in their ballast tanks? That's why they pay taxes and fees, so the government can deal with the problem. Oh, but wait, like all good corps, shipping concerns have accountants and attorneys and lobbyists whose sole function is the reduce the corp's taxes to the absolute "legal" minimum. Captains navigate the seas, while the legal department navigates the loopholes. After all, ballast is not technically cargo.

Just another gray area to be exploited.

I think what scares me most is that I'm more right than even I have considered. That the blatant nonsense driving our debates at the expense of deliberately ignored/downgraded important issues is the actual battle plan. Not that race/racism, gun-control, gun rights, TIA/ PRISM, Wiki-leaks, Snowden, Manning are trifles. Only that War/Peace, Life/Death, Heaven/Hell on Earth things get buried from view and thinking about and resolving major challenges become afterthoughts.

Worse, prevailing "wisdom" and leanings lock onto pseudo-factual perceptions in such limited windows that they obscure the big picture. Unless/until these falsified ammyl-nitrate caps stop being snapped under our noses
"Poor people caused the housing bubble to burst. Ronald Reagan was IS a small government conservative deity. The 1st amendment applies to today's corporate owned "Press" without exemption. The 2nd amendment is absolute; inviolate. The American Health Care system is the finest in the World. Pharmaceuticals have greatly reduced disease. Coal is clean. Genetically modified agriculture is good. Every sperm and embryo are sacred. A college degree is proof of an educated mind"... These packaged and merchandised beliefs are far from universal and far from universally true. Your interpretation and perspective really does matter. Common knowledge, like common sense, can be oxymoronic. If you listen you'll hear channeling of these prevailing wisdoms, to the exclusion of uncertainty regarding their provenance, on every channel.

Those tracks you cross in your travels are NOT the railroad. Each section of rail, each tie, each crossing, gate, engine, boxcar, tankcar, flatcar, depot, spur and yard combine to form an elaborate, complicated, interdependent and connected transportation system. If the crossing you regularly encounter is dangerously bumpy, it doesn't mean that every crossing is so screwed up that you have to creep across it. Yet almost universally, you see cars slow to a crawl at crossings. Not every car does, but enough do to affect every other car on that stretch of road at that point in time. Vehicles have suspension systems to absorb impacts. We're not riding around in wooden-wheeled buckboard wagons.

When Citi rewrites our banking regulations, When Exxon rewrites our energy policy, When the NRA rewrites our gun laws, When ADM/Monsanto rewrites our farm bills, When Big Pharma writes our prescription drug program. When the Health Care Corps writes our health care. The defense industry our military priorities, When those who get ahead by leveraging the pooled resources of our 401Ks, 403Bs, IRAs, Money Market accounts into their own income generating playgrounds, we have positively entered an alternate unnatural reality. How did this become the American Way?
How do we make it stop?

Preserve The Core -OR- Fuck The Extremities

Warning: What follows may ramble.

In many ways and forms over these years, I've tried to present my observations in a somewhat linear manner. And failed; semi-miserably, but I have tried; in my ways... What can that say to anyone except in the unlikely case that their POV aligns with mine own? Addressing inculcated systemic infections -that have lopsided effects- through anecdotal examination of a singular example can be fun, but it's unlikely to solve the problems, or even shed light on the larger influences. Trying to debate a single issue within the carefully constructed, over-riding framing applied to ALL issues is a folly I cannot abide. Especially when that framework is pure falsehood, bolstered by decades of agitprop, defining our situation exclusively, with no allowance for potential errors in structure. Relying on meaningless "Either/Or" options of good and bad.

The proof of my postulate, for me, displays in the near absence of deviation from these norms. Not all that long ago, we very briefly considered the very real possibility of something resembling PEACE on this rock. Long standing impasses were bridged, obstacles were overcome, enemies dealt with and among the populace there was an expectation of real, tangible societal progress. It was short-lived. The so-called "peace dividend" was scuttled, in part, by the policies through which it was connived.

Historians might be tempted to point out that we've been here before. That over the arc of history, we humans have survived far darker days. That is undoubtedly true. What historians are reluctant to say is that we've been damn lucky to have survived. That despite surviving, we've never actually come out on top. That the forces that have plunged our planet into cyclical dark ages have emerged from such times diminished, but intact in both position and belief. Only rarely have the architects been led to the gallows, put up against the wall, or summarily executed. Never eradicated, only pushed back. Excesses tamped down beneath a threshold of tolerable. To do otherwise almost surely to fulfill the post-apocalyptic wastelands of fiction.

Up in the masthead, I placed a seemingly random quote from a lesser known novel by Frank Herbert, "Whipping Star". Herbert, author of DUNE, creator of several fictional universe, entered my life in high school. His fiction was wildly dark and speculative, yet optimistic. His disruptors stood apart, typically detached, from the ruling elite. This was by design and was recognized as essential to long-term sustainability. The balance of power was constantly adjusting, internally, via intrigue, succession, violence and inner manipulation. Externally, another type of elite with no interest in rule, applied needed corrections when the internals missed something important and the pendulum swung to an extreme. Herbert's heroes simply shifted the balance of power, leaving the masses free to live in relative tranquility. It's Speculative Fiction. What if?

Bildoon shook his head. "What Abnethe's doing - it's impossible!"

"If she does a thing, how can it be impossible?"

"They have to be somewhere!" Bildoon snapped.

"I find it very strange," Tuluk said, "this trait you share with humans of stating the obvious in such emphatic fashion. "

"Oh, go to hell!" Bildoon said. He turned, slammed out of the lab.

Tuluk, racing to the door after him, opened it and called at the retreating back, "It is a Wreave belief that we already are in hell!"

He returned to his bench, muttering. Humans and PanSpechi - impossible creatures. Except for McKie. Now, there was a human who occasionally achieved analytic rapport with sentients capable of higher logic. Well . . . every species had its exceptions to the norm.
- Frank Herbert in "Whipping Star"

Synopsis:
In the far future, humankind has made contact with numerous other species: Gowachin, Laclac, Wreaves, Pan Spechi, Taprisiots, and Caleban, and has helped to form the ConSentiency to govern among the species. After suffering under a tyrannous pure democracy, the sentients of the galaxy find the need for a Bureau of Sabotage (BuSab) to slow the wheels of government, thereby preventing it from legislating recklessly. BuSab is allowed to sabotage and harass the governmental, administrative, and economic powers in the ConSentiency. Private citizens must not be harassed, and vital functions of society are also exempt. Jorj X. McKie is a born troublemaker who has become one of BuSab's best agents. Drafted for the impossible task of establishing meaningful communication with an utterly alien entity who defies understanding, McKie finds himself racing against time to prevent a mad billionairess from wiping out all life in the ConSentiency.

Ah, the incongruities of life on a single planet without benefit of airlocks or jumpdoors or the BuSab agency minding the bigger picture. We don't live in such a world. We continue to live in Opposite World.

Where is our Bureau of Sabotage? Is it the tea-party standing four-square against everything? Well, no, of course not, since preventing movement of any kind only assures the continuation of current policies. Was the U.N. conceived as our planetary BuSab? A structure to manage ambitions and expectations? What has prevented it from achieving its mission? How did it become the target, rather than the solution?

The world is round. We'll get there eventually. I'm still optimistic. Still sad that we're guided and ruled by fear. Finding little substance to maintain a rosy outlook. Heartened only by successive generations of malcontents taking up the cause of a sustainable place. Patiently waiting while impatiently urging that we get down to our real business in being here. Wherever and whatever here is.