Doug's Darkworld

For the past several weeks rumours of an amazing biological discovery near the ruins of the Chernobyl reactor have been circulating in Russia and Ukraine. Today at a press conference scientists revealed that the the rumours were true. Russian and Ukrainian scientists studying the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster and its effects on local wildlife have discovered the world’s first known radioactive cat. Despite emitting dangerous levels of gamma radiation and X-Rays, the cat appears large and healthy, and does not seem adversely effected by his bizarre condition. A team of  expert Veterinarians from the international group Collies Without Borders examined him at great length and concluded he was a perfectly normal cat in almost every respect, if possibly a little overweight. This may be a normal situation for a radioactive cat though, as his appetite is described as “without end.”

Scientists studying the cat at the prestigious Жертва первоапрельской шутки Institute in Ukraine are as yet baffled as to the cause of his condition, but are limited in that scientists can only be exposed to him a  few minutes each day due to his lethal emission of radioactivity. Not only does he appear immune to his own radiation, scientists have observed that it actually aids him in hunting, as small birds and mammals that get too close to him are weakened by radiation poisoning, thus becoming easy prey for “Dr Sinclair” as researchers have named this remarkable moggie. The radiation also offers him complete protection against fleas, and at least partial protection against dogs as they too are stunned and weakened if they approach too close. And not only can he see in the dark, he glows in the dark.

Scientists are hoping they can breed Dr. Sinclair and create a whole breed of mutant moggies.  Already cat lovers from around the world have inquired about getting a “Dr Sinclair” of their own. One might think that having a pet whose litter box droppings are classified as middle level radioactive waste would be a deterrent, but it’s a little known fact that under  current international law all cat waste is already classified as middle level radioactive waste. Novelty value aside, when asked of what practical use a race of radioactive mutant cats would be, Ukrainian scientists helpfully pointed out that no one has ever found a practical use for regular cats and that hasn’t hurt their popularity one bit.

The press conference had to be ended early as reporters in the front row were getting nausea and experiencing hair loss, so further news about Dr. Sinclair will be released in future press conferences promised chief researcher Dr. Джеффри Д. Повысился.

(The above image is used with the permission of the copyright holder. Dr. Sinclair is a real cat.  He likes naps in the Sun, salmon truffles, and belly rubs. This entire post is under copyright protection: Credit and copyright © Doug Stych, all rights reserved. Have a great week everyone!)

I had the worst dream I can remember in a  long while this morning. There were these swarms of alien insects that were going to eat everyone, and people were desperately trying to patch up houses and such to make them insect proof, but it was pretty hopeless. Then this vast swarm of insects appeared in the sky and began to descend. Despair. Then suddenly this alien ray gun appeared out of the ground and started blasting the bugs, hooray, we’re all saved! Finally, a bomb people had set up to defend against the insects went off … and destroyed the alien ray gun. Despair, the bugs regroup and begin to descend again. Worse, the bomb or the ray gun or bob screwed p the weather somehow, and tornadoes and hurricanes began to appear everywhere. We’re all gonna die. Then I woke up.

Sigh. What  a way to start my weekend. The dream is beginning to fade now but I woke up pretty depressed over it all. And was certainly relieved it was a dream. At least I am assuming such, I haven’t looked outside yet. The cats went out and all they were was wet when they came back in. So maybe a quiet hurricane, but that’s about it. On the plus side, it’s a good start to my blog marathon. I only got two posts out this past week, so am going to crank out several posts today. Partly for fun, partly for practice writing, partly to amuse (I hope) my readers, and partly because there’s always stuff to comment on in the news. I apologize in advance for the off-the-cuff nature of these posts, like I said, this is an experiment.

In other personal news, I discovered that my first physical therapy session wasn’t nearly as bad as I had thought. That’s because in my second session my physical therapist revealed that she had done her internship at Guantanamo. Not in so many words of course, but how else to explain the torture devices she brought into play this session? Her: “Stand on this tilting platform with one foot, now hold this 40 pound spiked ball over your head. got it? Now hop up and down, be careful not to drop the ball on your foot.” Me: “Is this safe?” Her: “LOL, of course not, what would be the fun in that?”  On the plus side, I am making measurable progress, so if nothing else her methods are effective.

As for the topics of today’s posts, we’ll see. The honour killing in Florida is about the only thing I really need to vent on. There’s an interesting argument for God that needs to be deconstructed. Why are there no female Ted Bundys,  a perennial question. There’s been some fabulous space exploration news. And if anyone comes up with a challenging and or curious suggestion during the course of the day. Oh, and all the murders on my neighbourhood, that bears discussion. Or none of the above, I’m just going to start writing and see where it leads me.

Have a great weekend everyone!

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s a grey scale, low resolution copy f the original and its use here in no conceivable way interferes with the copyright holder’s commercial use of the image. Credit and copyright: James Porto/Taxi/Getty Images. Do I even need to say why I chose this image?)

Another week gone. The situation in the Middle East just gets worse. And I mean the greater Middle East when I say Middle East, including Iran and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan the situation is acutely bad. Riots and demonstrations triggered by the burned Koran incident continue. And pathetically, many Americans simply regard this as “loony” rather than try to understand the far more difficult concept that  these people are reacting in a way that is entirely consistent with their cultural and historical context. If a hated decade long occupier in the USA  trashed some of America’s most sacred relics, Americans might riot too. In just a few weeks with just two brain dead incidents, the pissing on Taliban corpses and now this burned Koran thing,  the USA has given the Taliban a huge propaganda boost and undone much of whatever good we did in the country. Smooth move.

Syria is more or less in a civil war. And in the new world order, that means intervention, IE benevolent invasion. Somalia, same deal. More drone strikes, more interventions, more inability to grasp that there are problems you can’t kill your way out of. Well, at least without killing on a scale that hopefully even the most rabid pro-war American would blanch at. One can hope at least. I think wider war in the Middle East is inevitable at this point, has been really since the USA rolled into Baghdad.

And in the USA, the Republican race to see who gets eviscerated by Obama gets weirder all the time. The Republicans are doing what the Democrats did in 2004, they seem intent on running a candidate with zero crossover appeal. The more they pander to their extreme religious base, the more they guarantee Obama’s reelection. At least that’s my take on it at the moment, could be an interesting summer.

In science news, they seem to have discovered that the faster-than-light neutrinos measurement was due to an equipment malfunction. Seem to being the operative words here, testing continues. That they can’t pin it down precisely just yet is a great illustration of just how fine scientists are slicing reality these days, we are talking extremely thin slices. Sadly, a lot of media sites pounced on this to take cheap shots at science and scientists by making this seem like it was a simple as a loose VCR cable, reinforcing the worst negative stereotypes about scientists. And these days, with massive sophisticated organized efforts under way to deny science for both political and religious reasons, I find gratuitous attacks on scientists distressing.

The myth of eight hours sleep. This one is great. There seems to be a case to be made that it’s normal for humans to sleep for two periods at night with an activity period in between. Honestly, that’s pretty much my usual pattern. Many of these blogs are written between four and six in the morning, then I go back to bed for a few more hours. There’s probably a book that could be written about things that are commonly believed to be true, with little or no scientific basis. Dogs are mammals, apples are fruit, that sort of thing.

In a last little science tidbit, research is increasingly showing that humans are naturally cooperative, not competitive. There’s actually been a lot of research like this the past few decades. It gives me hope for the species, though organized government and religion loathe research like this, don’t expect it to be getting it into school curricula any time soon. Both organized government and organized religion are predicated on the meme that without them, people would do bad things. Can’t have people doubting that, they might actually start to wonder why organized government and religion get such a big slice of the pie.

Lastly, in local news, Berkeley had its second murder of the year. Basically a lunatic attacked a man who confronted him trespassing in the man’s yard. Infuriatingly, the Berkeley police didn’t respond to the first call because they were too busy “standing by” because an Occupy Oakland march was scheduled later that night. Yerp, a massive police presence has to “stand by” when a few hundred people engage in a  peaceful and legal protest, but actually protecting the public and doing their job, that gets short shrift. The media of course is having a field day blaming the protesters! That’s right folks, don’t dare engage in peaceful and legal protests, you might get someone killed!

The founding fathers are rolling in their graves at that sentiment. Have a great weekend everyone.

(The above image is believed to be Public Domain under US copyright law, but I will gladly amend if informed differently. The wild police over-reaction to OWS is a symptom of how far down the road to a police state this country has gone, if Washington had done their job the past few decades instead of selling the country out to the highest bidder, OWS wouldn’t be happening. Attacking protesters with riot police isn’t going to fix the problem.)

Another week gone, another week older. Still, another week without World War Three, another stroke, or a gunfight outside my door. Not complaining, still blogging. Hopefully I didn’t alienate too many readers this past week, but there’s always a few. And hell, if I’m not occasionally pissing someone off, I have failed at my task. I learnt as a young man that if something pissed me off, not  a bad idea to examine my preconceptions about the topic. Sometimes I’m mad because in my heart I know my thinking about something is screwed up, and my annoyance is about being forced to confront and admit the error of my ways. This is how I went from being in a right wing militia to being a blogger for peace and tolerance.

Moving right along, no war in the Middle East yet. On the one hand the US and its allies love the endless war scares, brought to us non-stop since 1979 by the annoying folks in Iran and Washington. On the other hand, they don’t really want or need a war. Israel on the other hand would love to have the right war, a war that would give them the pretext to “transfer” the Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank. The rest of the world would call it ethnic cleansing. Or worse. Still, not happening yet, maybe cooler heads will prevail. And in Syria, I have become so suspicious of what we  are being told that I don’t want to comment at this juncture.

A US appeals court struck down California’s prop 8, a proposition that limited marriage to a man and a woman. And they did so in a way that will likely make it though the Supreme Court. I don’t really grasp why anyone would care about two people they don’t even know getting married, but humans get their dander up about all sorts of  stuff other people do that really is none of their business whatsoever. I’m pretty sure religion is involved. Times change people. Does anyone know what they call gay marriage in Canada now? Marriage. People got used to mixed race couples, they will get used to this. And the minority that doesn’t, I’m sure there’s people who still foam at the mouth when they see an interracial couple, their problem. Chillax people, you will be able to better deal with it when one of your kids says: “Um, mom and dad … “

I’m considering post about Ayn Rand. A child murdering sociopath was one of her idols, so it’s going to be a tough row to hoe. The submarine conspiracy is coming up. I have another mystery picture. I might just do an Expanding Earth post, it really is kind of an interesting theory with some fascinating historical antecedents. More space exploration posts. Oh, yeah, I don’t have a grammar checker on my computer. If I make egregious grammatical errors, I would be happy to have them pointed out. Conceptual errors too, but of course those are extremely rare. Snort, I wish. Spelling errors, check your Canadian dictionary first.

In last late breaking news, a cure for senile mice as been found. Um, why are scientists trying to cure senile mice? Wouldn’t it make more sense to give mice senility? Kidding aside, this is a very promising study, and might lead to a cure for senility. Hopefully at a minimum it will lead to a better understanding of the condition. At worst it will accidentally release some senile zombie mouse plague that will jump the species barrier and kill 99.99% of the human race before Christmas.

Have a great weekend everyone!

(The above image is being used legally in accordance with the copyright holder’s requirements. Credit and copyright: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA; Colour Composite: Gordan Ugarkovic It’s an image of Saturn’s Moon Enceladus, lit by the reflected light of Saturn, giving it the golden hue. At the lower left ice volcanoes are visible, an indication that Enceladus may have liquid oceans under its icy surface. It’s only a little over 300 miles in diameter, with a surface area somewhat larger than Texas. Click on the image for the full size version. Why did I use this image? Because the fact that humans have had a nuclear powered robotic camera platform orbiting  Saturn for years is still mind blowing, and under appreciated I believe. When it comes to space exploration, human’s rock.)

One of the things I  thought was interesting about last week’s shooting near my home is that as far as I know, I am the only one to take cover, at least of people in my building. Most people didn’t even realize it was gunfire. My next door neighbour was out on the deck looking around while I was still laying on my floor waiting to make sure it was over. I wasn’t being overly careful, I knew it was wild shooting close by, and a single stray bullet can be a life changing experience. More than one person has died in some random shooting because they didn’t take cover when they could have. Better to take cover when one hears what might be gunfire and look a fool rather than stand there and look, well, shot.

In the shooting above, this woman got behind a metal statue and stayed there for over an hour. In the hot sun. Yes, she looks damn uncomfortable. She walked away though, I don’t know about the fellow laying in the background. I hope he’s taking cover too. This was the 1966 Texas Tower shooting, 16 killed outright, 32 others shot. One of the victims died 30 years after being shot. The last person shot was a guy who was in a hurry to get home. His truck was parked on the other side of the street. He was over 400 yards from the tower, what the hell, he would be running, what were the chances the shooter would get him? We don’t know what his last thought was as he bled out onto the road, but it was likely something along the lines of “That was the stupidest thing I ever did in my life.”

Moving right along, no news about the shooting in Bekeley last week.  A $17,000 reward has been offered. The rumour is definitely that a women is involved, it’s some stupid personal thing. Stupid is the word for it.  “It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.” In future stupidity, there is a report out that Israel is going to attack Iran this spring. I’ve blogged about this before, the whole thing would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so deadly serious. I can’t believe the Israeli government really thinks Iran is a threat, but I dunno, they seem to have painted themselves into a  corner where they can’t relate to anything except as a threat. A road the USA has gone down too far itself.

Problems continue in Egypt and Syria. That kind of says it all. I have a friend in Egypt so I’ve sort of kept up on it. What a mess, and now this soccer deaths thing. Basically the religious parties did well in the recent election because they were organized and focused and had established organizations. The secular groups weren’t as well organized and didn’t do so well. And the USA continues to meddle, to the benefit of no one, the USA included. Of course the US media coverage of all this including the Iranian mess is laughable, even the liberal take on it is pretty ugly. The mainstream left is now just another war apologist party, and many (most?) mainstream progressives buy right into it and approve of the USA’s bombings and wars, it’s weird and creepy.

A space exploration post coming up soon. More on cult beliefs. Alien abductions, one of the more bizarre aspects of human behaviour. A tank battle where one tank blew up dozens of tanks, fun to be had there. I might finish the Athenian thing some day, but there hasn’t been a ground swell of interest. I’m going to try and keep up the five days a week thing, four dedicated posts and one catch all post like this. Lastly, I’m running a contest on the blog. Winner gets a free blog post on a topic of their choice, within reason. Or a free beer or two if they are ever in town. It’s pretty simple, maybe too simple. The first person to figure out the winning word and post it in a comment below wins. A clue: This is not a word play riddle, you won’t find the winning word in this paragraph nor be able to parse this paragraph in some clever way to  divine the word.

Have a great weekend everyone!

(The above image is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It’s not being used for profit and is arguably an historically important image. Credit and copyright: Bettmann/Corbis. I believe the woman in the photo is still unidentified. That happens in old photos. Yet anther potential blog post. It seems like every time I write a post these days, I think of at least two other posts I want to make. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.)

Gentle readers, I apologize for my long absence. It’s easy to explain, I had a stroke some four months back. I’m getting back into my stride now, which means that at the end of a long day of work, physical therapy, and side effects from my medications … I crawl up the last few steps of my building’s stairs, stagger into my apartment, and collapse in a quivering nauseous exhausted heap. Surrounded by whining hungry cats and weeks of deferred housecleaning. It did not leave me in much of a mood for blogging. It usually didn’t even leave me in much of a mood for continued consciousness.

However, I have regained much of my strength and stamina now, and am launching into the new year with vim and vigor. In fact I renamed my cats that to keep me focused. I have a number of blog topics that I have been reviewing in my head. I will be writing more about the after effects of my stroke, which were worse than expected. I had severe Blunted Effect I think it’s called for example, IE I was not having emotional responses to anything. I was basically a psychopath, that was interesting. It should have been very upsetting, but, well, it wasn’t. There was and is other stuff too, having part of one’s brain die tends to stick in one’s mind.

I’d write a review of the past year, but it would be too depressing. There’s been good news in space exploration and medicine, but otherwise it was a pretty grim year. I’ll cover a few highlights in upcoming posts. The rout from Iraq. Citizens United. OWS. Ron Paul Haters. Lincoln enslaving people. Kecksberg debunked. Then of course there’s the upcoming year. Much of the same, plus an election campaign that is going to break all the records, starting with being the most over-hyped and utterly meaningless election in history. Global warming hasn’t gone away. And just in general a lot of things I said ten and twenty years back are coming true in front of my horrified gaze. I was such a  negative person back then too, maybe if I had been more optimistic the world would be a nicer place now. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Happy New Year everyone.

(The above image is used with the permission of the author. Credit and Copyright: Christian Damian © 2011, all rights reserved. This image may not be reproduced without the permission of the artist. She’s a great artist, she welcomes commercial and non-commercial inquiries, and can be contacted at: chessdryad@sbcglobal.net I will be posting more of her work as time goes by. And yes, I am working hard to minimize the chances of another stroke. Dying would severely compromise my evil plan to blog forever.)

Sproul Plaza, Tuesday Night, 15 November 2011. These are Americans, not Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partiers, Liberals, etc. Our leaders, the Republicans and Democrats, have sold us out. If the Republic is to be saved, it’s up to the American people. This is what the Occupy movement is all about.

That’s what I wrote last night, it’s now Wednesday morning. A commenter below suggested that as a member of the 99%, they would like a say in who represents them. Exactly, said commenter should be in the front lines of the Occupy movement, because that’s what it’s all about. The two mainstream parties stopped representing the 99% decades ago, and have spent the past 30 years enabling the largest upwards transfer of wealth in history. Anyone who thinks that the Republicans or the Democrats are going to fix the mess they have made is living in a dream world. And the Tea Party is part and parcel of the Republican Party.

Speaking of the Tea Party, where the hell are they anyhow? Across the land Americans are assembling in peaceful protest, a constitutionally protected activity, exercising a right that our founding fathers fought and died for … and are being attacked by riot clad police. I thought the Tea Party was all about exercising our  Constitutional rights? I don’t hear any of them condemning the police actions or supporting people’s right to peacefully assemble? Silence is consent.

The media in particular, both left and right, is unseemly in their support of the status quo. The Drudge Report in particular is wallowing in filth in its effort to demonize the OWS movement. I suspect Fox News is no better, but I only watch it when forced to. Even here in “liberal” Oakland, the first thing the reporter on TV did last night was try and ask members of the OWS if they were going to pay for all the expense their movement had caused? This of course is completely the wrong question, the question is why the hell are cities across the country treating peaceful protesters as rioters, and confronting them with expensive ranks of cops?

And yes, there have been some cases of vandalism and such. Such acts are rare, and do not even begin to represent the average OWS supporter. And back on point, if you treat people as rioters and confront them with riot police, a few of them are going to over react and throw things. This doesn’t justify treating the protests as riots, in fact the opposite, it shows that treating the protests as riots is going to cause some of the problems it is purporting to prevent.

I don’t know how this is going to all turn out. This is the first real populist movement in decades, not since the sixties has there been a grass roots movement to force real change on the establishment. And sadly despite a few limited gains, the establishment has retrenched and is more powerful then ever. And tens of millions of Americans have been propagandized into supporting a system that has stolen everything from them and left them with debts their grandchildren will be paying off. Not to mention a bizarre system of perpetual war, where corporations are people, and all freedoms are to be sacrificed in the name of “security.”

The Occupy Movement is first crack in the dam in the USA, and it has the powers that be running scared. Maybe it will inspire real change in Washington and Wall Street. Maybe it will result in the USA making the final transformation into a dystopian police state where freedom is just a memory. Maybe something else will happen that no one saw coming, that’s always a safe bet. Whatever happens, it’s going to be a hell of a ride.

Doug Stych 16 November 2011

(Image published with permission of the photographer, all rights reserved.)

Saturday I was having a normal day, puttering about my apartment, being berated by my cats, playing around on line. At around one o’clock I got up, and my legs were like rubber, it was weird, I’d never experienced anything like it before. Denial of course immediately kicked in, and I decided I was just suffering from stress, and I ordered a burger from across the street and went to pick it up.  I made it across and back a busy street, but it was scary. And in retrospect,stupid. After eating I decided to take a little nap, and hoped my legs would feel better when I awoke.

Nope. When I awoke an hour or so later I could still barely walk. I realized this could be very serious, I grabbed my cell phone and charger, stuck a key and a note under a neighbour’s door asking them to feed my cats if I wasn’t back that evening, and went outside. Even then, clinging to the building’s gate to stay upright with passersby staring at me, I still wasn’t quite ready to dial 9/11. I staggered into the furniture store on the first floor of our building, collapsed into a chair, and accepted my fate. I handed my phone to the concerned store clerk, and asked her to call 9/11. Minutes later I was surrounded by concerned EMTs, and a few minutes after that I was in the ER at Highland Hospital. It was the first time I’d ridden in an ambulance in 35 years. It was about as fun as I remembered it from the first time.

In Highland a couple of increasingly puzzled doctors examined me. My heart sounded fine, I didn’t have any obvious stroke symptoms, there didn’t seem to be anything to explain why my legs were rubber. After a couple of hours they decided I had pinched a nerve somehow, told me to stay off my computer chair for a few days, and come back if the symptoms didn’t improve. I was a little dubious, but along came a nurse and I staggered towards the hospital exit. The nurse watched me walk maybe twenty feet, if balancing on two rubber stalks as I careered down the hall can be called walking. Then she said “Did the doctors see you trying to walk?”  Well, no, they hadn’t actually taken that particular diagnostic step. She took me back to the nurse’s station and asked some doctors there to watch me walk. I staggered passed them … and five minutes later I had wires attached to every part of my body as I was strapped to a gurney and wheeled into a giant humming machine.

24 hours of CAT scans, ultrasounds, blood tests, X-Rays, and various other tests followed … and the now team of doctors assigned to me still didn’t know what was wrong. Between tests I lay on a gurney in the ER listening to people scream as various medical procedures demonstrated the limits of human pain. I didn’t sleep well. And I still couldn’t walk. Monday morning they got me into an MRI, a far more unpleasant experience than I had imagined, and we finally had our answer. A one cm piece of my brain had died, I was now officially a stroke survivor. Even better, Sunday night they had finally assigned me a room and I was no longer living in the ER.

Monday and Tuesday I spent slowly recovering in my room, talking to my roommate, and still wired up like a Christmas tree. I learned a lot being there. For example if they announce a “Code Pink” over the PA, it means a baby is missing. And all the interior doors close and lock. And a “Code Grey” means a combative patient. There were  several of both while I was there, I guess hospitals are as exciting as they show on TV. I’d be upset about being prematurely discharged, but it was an understandable mistake under the circumstances. I didn’t have any of the classic stroke symptoms, and I had confused the issue myself by thinking both of my legs had turned to rubber. By Monday I realized that my right leg felt fine, and likely had all along. It had just felt so weird losing the use of a leg that I’d thought both legs were malfunctioning.

I’m home now, slowly but surely getting better. And I’m lucky as a stroke survivor, my speech and cognition are fine (or as fine as they ever were,) and there’s every reason to believe I will make a full recovery. Well, most of me, the 1 cm part of my brain that died is going to stay dead. And I will be with me the rest of my life. I can’t help but wonder, does this mean that I’m now part zombie?

(The above image is Public Domain under US copyright law, as its creator has been dead over 500 years. It’s a woodcut called “Dance of Death” by Michael Wolgemut in 1493. I’m the one laying helplessly on the ground. I chose it for many reasons, mortality has become a much bigger issue for me the past week.)

I was wandering around the Internet the other day and decided to look up my old friend Hunter from the USMC. I’d lost touch with him in the mid-eighties when my life Chernobyled after an ugly divorce. I’d periodically looked for him on-line since the late nineties, but with no luck. He was a pretty active guy, not someone who would spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer, so no surprise. Well, a few nights ago I finally located him on-line. Or to be more accurate, I located his obituary. He died in 2009.

I was devastated. Hunter was one of those people who was larger than life, in every sense of the word. We shared a barracks room for the better part of a year while we served in the USMC at El Paso in the late seventies. Hunter was always up for a road trip or a camping trip or an adventure of any kind, and we had many. Everyone liked him, and those who got to know him, admired him. He was a force of nature, and one of the most honest forthright people I ever knew. He was a good man.

We were sent to different bases in California after missile school, and some time passed before we ran across each other again on a training exercise. That night we stayed up half the night drinking beer on a golf course and catching up, he was that kind of friend, someone you knew would be a friend for life. I saw him a few times a year after that, spent some time visiting him in Pasedena. Hunter’s love of live was infectious, a lesson I am still learning from him.

I last saw him when we (me and my then wife) drove him and his motorcycle from California to the East Coast. A trip not without its’ tale. He was a friend who had my back, he showed it on that trip. Then our lives took different paths, but I never forgot him. And in fact figured that some day our paths would cross again, we’d hoist a few brews, and catch up. Not gonna happen now.

Now I know why the afterlife life holds such an appeal for people. I’ve lost loved ones before, but never lost one where I felt that I’d do anything to see them again. I don’t think there’s another side, but if there is, I know the big guy is holding a good seat for me at the bar. And while I don’t believe in an afterlife, we can keep those who have passed alive in our hearts and minds. As long as I live, I will keep Hunter’s memory alive. He deserves no less.

“Hunter Lydiard Bargeron….1955-2009….he was fun while he lasted”

That was his self chosen epitaph. It fits. Skol my old friend, you left a hole that can never be filled.

(I’m pretty sure it’s OK to use Hunter’s image above, but the usual claim to Fair Use under US copyright law is made. There will likely be a future post or two where I write about Hunter and his time out west, it’s what I do.)

Part of the reason my blogging has slowed down recently is that so much of what is going on today makes me mad. So I decided to vent about it, maybe it will be cathartic, maybe it will just make me madder. In no particular order, and in no way comprehensive, here are ten things I spend my time seething about. Be warned, I may use some harsh language as the situation warrants.

1. The rich are ass raping us all, and tens of millions of Americans are clamouring for more. The rich have been getting richer in the USA since the 1970s, while the middle class has slowly and steadily lost ground. This is not debatable. They’ve moved our factories to foreign lands, slashed their taxes, taken over our government and mainstream media, and stolen trillions from the public till. And most Americans are so brain-washed and propagandized that they blame immigrants, liberals, conservatives, atheists, shriners, whatever. Anyone but the people who have actually gotten us into this mess.

2. The debt, an extension of number one. The Federal government  has been running in the red a record breaking 33 months now. State and local governments are no better. How in the name of God did the richest country the world has ever seen run up debts so insane that there is no conceivable way to ever pay them off? The infinite greed of the rich and the apparently infinite stupidity of the great unwashed masses is my guess.

3. The Pentagon. There was a reason the founding fathers were adamantly opposed to a standing army. Armies get involved in politics, and then get the country involved in wars. All of which costs the country blood and money. And it just keeps getting worse, while tens of millions of Americans regurgitate the crap that our legions overseas are fighting to “defend our freedoms.” No, they are fighting and dying to make the rich richer and create endless new enemies for the USA. Frankly the US army needs to be disbanded it’s so out of control.

4. The historic last flight of the space shuttle. Good riddance. The space shuttle was one of the biggest boondoggles in history, it should never have been built in the first place, and it most certainly should have been canned after the first one blew up. Yet Americans are celebrating the lives lost and the billions wasted on this flying cash cow.

5. Iran is going to have nukes soon! Yes, another right wing think tank claims that Iran is going to be building nukes soon! Yes, the exact same claim that has been made by Israeli and American war mongers since the 1980s! Yes, for nearly thirty years Iran has been “just about to” build nuclear weapons! Meanwhile Israel and the USA have massively increased their war spending, including the creation of an Israeli nuclear arsenal. The USA spends more money on air conditioning for its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than the entire Iranian military budget, yet we are supposed to quail in our boots because Iran might someday acquire a few fifties era nukes?

6. Casey Anderson. A woman was acquitted of a terrible crime in a fair trial … and millions of Americans are braying for her blood. Literally. How does this make them any different than stone throwing Muslims? It doesn’t.

7. Health Care. France spends 11% of its GNP on health care, and provides everyone in France with cradle to grave health care of the highest quality. The USA spends 16% of its GNP on health care and provides its citizens with the worst health care in the industrialized world. Anyone who isn’t mad about this is a fool.

8. Fucking the globe. From climate change to deforestation to over-fishing humans are making widespread and unprecedented changes to the surface of our fine planet. Humans are now the greatest force for change operating on the surface of the Earth in numerous realms, in most cases either ignorant of what the end result will be, or worse, deliberately proceeding even though our best minds say the end result will be catastrophic. Collectively we are no smarter than ants.

9. Religious nuts. Even the Romans understood: “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” – Seneca the Younger (4 B.C. – 65 A.D.) And here we are two thousand years later blowing each other up, destroying the planet, and breeding like rabbits because people think it’s a great idea to do stuff because of what someone’s imaginary friend said. Jesus wept.

10. We’re all little better than monkeys. Yes, science has now shown that our brains are hard wired to be stupid. When most people are confronted with logical and scientific evidence that refutes some stupid idea they have, it reinforces their beliefs! This wouldn’t be such problem if our leaders weren’t all too eager to promote dumb fuck ideas because it makes them richer and more powerful.

In conclusion, speaking globally, this isn’t going to end well. Speaking locally, despite a missing lime and a recalcitrant pull tab, it’s going quite well and will end up nicely. And when I wake up, maybe the last 31 years will have all been a nightmare. A man can dream.

(The above image is of a painting made in 1562, so it’s currently Public Domain under US copyright law. I expect that to change soon as corporations twist the law to their own purposes. It’s titled “The Fall of the Rebel Angels” by Pieter Brueghal the Elder. I believe it’s self evident why I thought this was an appropriate image for this post.)