Tag: General

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I rewatched Elysium the other night…

I’d seen the movie a while ago. It’s from 2013.

Matt Damon, Jodie Foster.

The first time I saw it, It was pure science fiction.

Now, well, it was unsettling to rewatch.

The premise is that the elites of the world live in a marvelous space station. They have the highest technology and medical devices that can instantly fix whatever ailment someone might have. The elites living on the space station live in opulent luxury and ease.

The folks left on Earth, not so much. That’s the set up.

It’s a typical underdog makes good despite the odds, scenario. Complete with an abusive supervisor and shitty worker safety. The movie depicts abusive police and parole officer robots and a criminal element that is generally criminal out of desperation, not any particular desire to commit crime.

The folks left on Earth are treated as if they’re unclean and generally left to squalor and hopelessness.

At the time the movie was made, It was probably a commentary on wealthy countries ignoring the poor.

Eight years later, with our current political situation, the movie has a somewhat different tone.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the older movies in my collection are changing. It’s not that the movie is being re-edited, it’s that my perspective is changing.

What was once escapist fantasy and easy to dismiss as unthinkable is becoming more thinkable, perhaps even possible.

GATTACA from 1997 springs to mind.

That movie was pure fantasy when it came out. Entry to workplaces and venues was restricted based on DNA “purity” testing. But watch it now with vaccine passports needed to enter certain venues or travel, and it’s suddenly not so fantastic.

There’ve been a number of references to Orwell’s 1984 but there are a lot of other science fiction stories & movies that are equally unsettling against the backdrop of events we’re living through.

The weird thing is that a lot of my personal collection deals with these themes. Okay, so perhaps I’m a sick puppy. Whatever!

I suppose it’s proof that whatever we as humans can imagine, we will be able to achieve.

Jules Verne in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea imagined a submarine that was powered by some mysterious power source.

We named the first nuclear submarine after Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. Verne had no knowledge nuclear power but he imagined a dangerous and unending power source.

Later, Forbidden Planet from 1956, explored the price of hubris.

The Krell, learned everything and then turned inward. They destroyed themselves in a single night accidentally, because they forgot about the darkness within their own souls.

Arthur C. Clark explored the human condition in many of his stories, I like his books, but I like his short stories more.

All these stories have at their core, kernels of much older stories. Human stories, from cultures across the planet.

Stories that at one time were teaching stories designed to instill values into whatever culture they existed in.

These stories explored right and wrong, good and evil, and I think we should listen to those ancient voices as much today.

We can and have modernized many of those stories but somehow the lessons contained in them don’t have the same impact in today’s society.

The notion that greed is a trap is explored in the story of King Midas and also in a Native American story of the eagle who became imprisoned by man because the eagle would not let go of a fish.

Two entirely different cultures separated by thousands of miles and years, and yet the message is the same. Greed leads to ruin.

We, Humanity, can no longer afford to allow hubris to blind us.

Our technology is marvelous and magical. A thousand years ago steel was the metal of the gods. Technology at any point in time is always the most advanced.

Human drives though, remain just as primitive as they were before we ventured out of the Olduvai Gorge in Africa.

I think it’s time for us to rediscover the stories our ancestors left us. There are lessons to be had, and enjoyment in learning those lessons.

Go grab a copy of Greek Tragedies. Look to Shakespeare, read Verne, or Clark, or Orwell, or rewatch any of the old movies in your library. Enjoy the entertainment and take a moment to consider the meaning behind the story.

Be warned, your pride might be bruised when you find that you’re different from your ancestors only due to your iPhone.

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Now this is a weird series of thoughts…

The following is the kind of shit I think about when I’m doing boring stuff like sanding the old paint off the trim of the house and prepping to caulk, prime & paint.

I was contemplating the latest news about the vaccine mandates. I was just randomly wondering what the difference between the vaccine hesitant and those folks who were all in with the mandates.

BTW, These mandate folks are coming awfully close to violating the terms of the Nuremberg code.

Growing up in the ‘60s & ‘70s there was always the threat of nuclear annihilation. This was courtesy of the cold war and the “bastard communists” in the old soviet union.

Every day we got up, we had our cereal, kissed our moms goodbye and we went to school. We started our day with the pledge of allegiance, had fire drills (actually hoped for those to get us out of pop quizzes), and nuclear bomb drills.

Little did we know that those nuclear bomb drills were almost completely pointless. We all knew what a civil defense logo looked like and where the nearest fallout shelter was. In the cases of the schools I attended, the bomb shelters were onsite. 

I can remember hearing the air raid sirens and wondering if this time we were going to feel the ground rumble like we’d seen in the civil defense films. It never occurred to me in elementary school,  that I might not ever see my parents again if the bombs actually fell, after all mommy and daddy both were wise and they would know where the bomb shelters were. After the dust settled they’d come to pick me up at school and we’d go home to watch TV.

Later in junior high school, my knowledge and wisdom increased, I realized that the bomb shelters weren’t going to be useful since by that time I’d read about the survivors of Hiroshima and seen the pictures. I was also learning about things like the half life of various nuclear material and how irradiated materials could retain dangerously high levels of radiation for decades.

Mutation, horrible death, and fear of a nuclear holocaust became elements of my daily life. The possibility was always lurking in the back of my mind. The thing is, it became commonplace, eventually it was just another stupid thing in my world. I ranked It up there with a curfew, or tardiness to school, or the school project that I didn’t want to do and was putting off till the last minute.

Nuclear destruction became ho hum, boring, just another part of living. It was like cancer or chickenpox, or the daily bully as I walked home from school.

As I became a young adult, I got busy with trying to make my way in the world. The threat of nuclear destruction took a back seat to the more immediate things like eating, living, loving, paying my bills, and being happy.

I lived through the HIV/AIDS years, and looking back I wasn’t particularly afraid of that any more than I was of nuclear bombs falling. In the case of HIV/AIDS I was pissed off about it because that hit just as I was figuring out, and getting experience with sex. All of which came to a screeching halt just when I was getting good at it. 

HIV/AIDS Poster

Don’t take that the wrong way. HIV/AIDS was a threat, it was scary, I lost a lot of good friends, including the one who said, “Dude, we medical folks don’t really know what this is, but looking at the spread pattern I think it’s somehow sexually transmitted. So just remember, no glove, no love.” He saved my life, unfortunately he didn’t take his own advice. 

Flash forward 50 or so years from my childhood, and we’re dealing with a virus that has a breathtaking mutation rate. We have misinformation and what I only think of as fear porn 24/7. Oddly, it’s reminiscent of the “Dirty Bastard Communist nukes,” news I remember pretty clearly.

Maybe it’s a fatalism that I’ve carried with me all my life that leaves me somewhat less concerned about this virus, than the younger crowd. 

I suppose I adopted a  “Live the day, you may be dead tomorrow,” kind of thing.

Then there was the first SARS which was again sort of a meh moment. No-one panicked about it, hell no-one much noticed. Although I do recall the media banging the be terrified angle pretty hard. Nobody paid much attention. We didn’t shut down anything.

SARS

In a nuclear exchange, it’s gotta be over 90% that you’re going to die. With the COVID-19 virus, there’s a better than 90% chance you’ll survive.

It’s not political, it’s not racist, it’s just another damn thing in my life.

With a better than 90% survival rate this whole virus thing doesn’t come close to freaking me out like the concept of being atomized in a millisecond.  This isn’t even in my top 10 worries.

I wonder if the “Unclean” vaccine hesitant folks in America are around my age?

Give or take 20 years. Those who are 40 something might still remember talk at the dinner table about the nuclear threat. They may have incorporated their parents lassie faire attitude. They’re quite possibly doing the math and thinking, “Eh whatever. It’s not like a fusion bomb.”

COVID-19

(While changing a sanding pad, I had this thought…)

Sonofabitch! I should thank the USSR for the cold war and the lessons of mutually assured destruction (MAD)

Were it not for my growing up under that sword I would be huddled in my darkened house with a hoard of food, ammo, and guns, muttering to my favorite knife, and twitching at every single noise I heard outside. But I’d be afraid of looking out the window to see what it was.

Instead, I’m standing here in the sun, on a beautiful autumn day, doing something that while it’s work I don’t really want to do, I’m enjoying anyway.

So thank you to all the comrades of the former USSR. Had it not been for your saber rattling I’d be quaking in my boots, in fear of everything.

The next thought that crossed through my mind was that people of my age don’t appreciate being badgered. President Biden at one point in his life had to know that. It speaks volumes about him personally and the youth of his staff that he is badgering Americans.

Most of the young probably haven’t see and certainly wouldn’t remember Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe like a hammer at the UN screaming, “We will bury you…”

Nikita Khrushchev Speaking at the UN

We all know how that ended for the old USSR.

I am still very amused that the folks who prior to COVID were against vaccinations of their children for childhood diseases, are often the same folks screaming today loudly for mandatory vaccinations for everyone.

My amusement at their hypocrisy is that they don’t see it as hypocrisy. Some them have gone so far as to use the line, “Its for the children…”

Original AntiVaxers

I get that everyone has the capacity to change their mind or opinion. That’s totally cool, it means folks are learning.

What I don’t get is some folks ability to hold diametrically opposed thoughts in their heads at the same time and claim that all are true.

Call me binary. (Yeah, that’s a no no today, isn’t it?)

Where ever you come down on the vaccination issue, please at least have thought it through.

Do your own research, make an informed choice.

But under no circumstances should you just bow to the whims of the mob. You are and should always be in inviolate control of your own body and that includes what you allow to be put into it.

Hmm. Another weird thought is this one. How can the European Union which has so very publicly, over the past decade been against GMO foods and grains be so draconian about vaccine enforcement now?

Yeah, I know that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines aren’t technically GMO organisms. But given that the spike protein in question is a direct result of genetic modification doesn’t the EU stance seem just a bit odd?

It was at this point that the second battery died on the power sander, and my knee started killing me.

I came inside and other things beside random thoughts occupied my attention.

Now you know where some of this blog comes from. Sometimes it’s just the product of me having something boring to do.

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Ever feel like you’re waiting…

…for the other shoe to drop?

I’ve been feeling like that for months.

It feels like being a kid waiting for your Father to get home to beat your ass for doing something you shouldn’t have done.

I suppose a more polite way of saying that would be a reference to the sword of Damocles. (If you don’t get that one look it up.) Perhaps a reference to Poe’s Pit & Pendulum would work better?

To be sure, this summer has been a pain in my ass personally. But it’s also been a mess nationally and internationally.

Hurricanes, Floods, Continuing and mutating pandemic, The show trials over the Jan 6th (mostly peaceful protests, hey they didn’t burn the capital down. Just sayin.), Afghanistan (Now we know why Biden has kids, he didn’t know how to withdraw… I couldn’t resist,) Poor economy, Rising Prices, etc. etc. etc.

Tuesday morning there was a report in Breitbart where an epidemiologist reviewed grants associated with St Fauci of the mask, and concluded that in fact some 600K did fund “Gain of function” research in Wuhan. The material was released under the FOIA.

Technically, this information is a smoking gun. Fauci broke the law. Federally, gain of function research is forbidden.

It’s possible, Fauci may have skirted the law, by approving grant money. Then Fauci lied to Congress about it, denying that any funding went to Wuhan for such research. He’d have been better off simply admitting that without his knowledge, the funds were misused and that the grant had been terminated.

Fauci has always been about gain of function research throughout his career.

On the one hand I can kinda see it from the standpoint of learning what may happen, and then doing the research to have countermeasures in place. On the other hand, I think I agree more with folks who say that gain of function is simply too dangerous. If COVID-19 is any indicator, I’d say that we have proof of the latter point.

I hate like hell that I believe Fauci will skate on all of this. I no longer have faith that our Justice system is remotely impartial. It’s been made very clear if you’re a darling of the administration (or a family member) there are no consequences. If, on the other hand you’ve demonstrated any opposition to the administration you’re going to be hunted down like a rabid dog.

Yet, with all this, it still feels like I’m in the corner of my bedroom waiting for Dad to come home. “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you son…” I knew that was bullshit at 8 years old, it’s no less bullshit now.

In fact my Dad and I had a good healthy laugh over that particular comment as adults sipping scotch. I told him I called bullshit, and he just laughed.

“Yep Son, it was bullshit, but your ass was such a small moving target I’d end up with strap marks on my legs too. You’ve got to nonetheless, concede that you’re the man I’m proud of today in part because of me busting your butt.“

He was right. I admitted it to him right then and there. We poured another drink and talked about all kinds of things as Men, not father and son.

God, how I’d enjoy talking with him now! If only to hear his take on why I’m feeling like I’m waiting for doom.

Thinking about that conversation though, still puts a smile on my face. The hangover the next day was even worth it.

I just wish I could get past this feeling…

As we come up on the 20th anniversary of September 11, I find myself wondering if that’s the thing. Perhaps it’s just that it’s been 20 years.

I’m sure Biden will attempt to make some speech. Sadly, no matter how well written that speech will be, if he goes off the rails, or if some jackasses shoot up a crowd or set off a bomb to mark the date, I wonder if that could simply be the flashpoint of what’s bugging me.

There are just so many division points between so many groups in America today. Those points are in my mind metaphorical powder kegs. Half the country seems to be violently opposed to the other half of the country for one reason or another. Is what I’m feeling a subconscious recognition of how angry, stressed, and ready to blow, we as a people are?

Or is this feeling simply a sign of my frustration at the job search and my worry over paying my bills?

I’ll admit I think we should flatten Afghanistan with carpet bombing.

I’d love to see this administration and much of Congress on trial for corruption and wrongdoing. But I’m not ready to join a militia, white supremacist group, or do anything that is outside of the laws that we’re all supposed to abide by. I keep hearing my Mother, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.“

I keep hearing in the back of my mind, “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen. Although I like the rendition by Sigrid better than the original.

"Everybody Knows"

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded 
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed 
Everybody knows that the war is over 
Everybody knows the good guys lost 
Everybody knows the fight was fixed 
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich 
That's how it goes 
Everybody knows 
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking 
Everybody knows that the captain lied 
Everybody got this broken feeling 
Like their father or their dog just died 

Everybody talking to their pockets 
Everybody wants a box of chocolates 
And a long stem rose 
Everybody knows 

Everybody knows that you love me baby 
Everybody knows that you really do 
Everybody knows that you've been faithful 
Ah give or take a night or two 
Everybody knows you've been discreet 
But there were so many people you just had to meet 
Without your clothes 
And everybody knows 

Everybody knows, everybody knows 
That's how it goes 
Everybody knows 

Everybody knows, everybody knows 
That's how it goes 
Everybody knows 

And everybody knows that it's now or never 
Everybody knows that it's me or you 
And everybody knows that you live forever 
Ah when you've done a line or two 
Everybody knows the deal is rotten 
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton 
For your ribbons and bows 
And everybody knows 

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming 
Everybody knows that it's moving fast 
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman 
Are just a shining artifact of the past 
Everybody knows the scene is dead 
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed 
That will disclose 
What everybody knows 

And everybody knows that you're in trouble 
Everybody knows what you've been through 
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary 
To the beach of Malibu 
Everybody knows it's coming apart 
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart 
Before it blows 
And everybody knows 

Everybody knows, everybody knows 
That's how it goes 
Everybody knows 

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows 
That's how it goes 
Everybody knows 

Everybody knows

Written By
Sharon Robinson & Leonard Cohen

The weird thing is that I haven’t heard that song in a while. Let’s face it, it’s dark and not something that anyone who’s the least bit depressed should listen to. It is however, a good song.

I guess I’ll go back to banging my head against the employment wall and just wait & see what happens next.

When the wheels come off this bus, it will be spectacular.

I am curious to see what happens in the Newsom recall. I have no doubt that he’ll retain office. I’m absolutely sure that we’ll never know if he retains office legally or by nefarious means.

I say that, because these days who do you trust?

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Yawn…

Hope everyone had a good Labor Day.

It was quiet here, thankfully. We didn’t even have the usual garage sales. That was a bit strange, but it meant that the neighborhood was quiet.

Even the crazy folks on the next block weren’t screaming obscenities or arguing with the voices in their heads.

I was forced to be quiet because I’m nursing a bum knee. It’s getting better but only incrementally. On the plus side, if I stay off it I’m not in pain. That means I can, in a mostly guilt free way sit on my butt. Even the dog has figured out that something is very wrong with dad.

Yesterday, I got antsy and used my chain saw to help a neighbor, (who’s just recovered from knee surgery,) thin out some plants that grow between our properties. I heard him trying to get his chain saw running several times, to no effect. He was grumbling but not cussing about it. I figured that the neighborly thing to do was help out.

It was nice, he totally got that I’d be moving slow and was content to point out what he wanted to cut down, then let me get situated and do the cutting. He handled removing the material.

It worked out well. I really needed to be outside being productive, if only for a short while. I only paid a small price for being up and active. Spending the rest of the late afternoon with my knee up.

I know, we’re not supposed to “work” on Labor Day but ehh I needed to do something.

We’re already seeing signs of Fall. Some of the trees are just starting to change. On the one hand that’s nice because it means that it will start cooling off and usually brings the fire season to a close. On the other hand, it means time’s getting short for me to get summer projects done that have been delayed due to various injuries and disasters here at home.

I’ve got maybe another month and a half to get some caulking & painting done before the paint won’t setup correctly due to temperature swings. Much as I hate to do it, I may have to force the knee into service a little before it’s ready.

Have a good short week.