I was talking with one of the guys I work with yesterday, and he brought up the subject of high speed pursuits by the police.  He had watched something on TV about them the night before, and told me almost 1,000 people die each year as a result of a high speed car chase going horribly wrong.  I glossed over the fact that he was almost surely watching "homeland security" propaganda designed to play off his human empathy and emotions, and said while admittedly tragic, I was curious about a few things:

1. "How many of those 1,000 are the nozzles that were fleeing the police in the first place, and not innocent bystanders?"  He didn't know, because that figure was oddly left out.  Red flag.
2. "What were the individual situations that led these people to think fleeing was preferable to just stopping?  Why were the police so intent on catching them that they would risk life and limb, and subject the public to extreme danger?  Were they rapists, murders, auto thieves, victims of police harassment?"  Again, he didn't know.  For me, this is an important question and needs an answer.  Red flag.
3. "So what do you think the solution is, then?"  This he had an instant answer for..."Put GPS tracking devices in every single car."

*sigh*

Let's, for a moment, forget completely the enormous privacy and governmental abuse issues this  radical solution raises and focus on the practical.  There are 765 motor vehicles (car, van, truck, motorcycle, etc.) per 1000 people in the US alone.  That's 1 vehicle for every 1.3 people, and since there's approximately 304,995,000 people in the US as of 2008 that comes up to almost 234,611,539 vehicles.  I checked with Amazon, just to price GPS units to see how much they even cost anymore, and found a price range of $100-1,500.  Now, this was for units like you see in the picture to the right...if you want to talk OnStar, that's a whole different kettle of fish, and also requires a subscription that can run several hundred dollars or more per year.  So let's shoot the middle on our Amazon units, say $700 is the average, go with that figure and assume that each person has the ability to install it themselves (thus not incurring an installation charge, as well), carry the one...that's $164,228,077,300 to self-install an average priced GPS unit from Amazon into every vehicle in the United States.  $164 BILLION.  For GPS units in vehicles.  That figures out to $164,228,077 per life potentially saved;  not saved, potentially saved and all this for an issue that affects 0.00000327% of the populace.  Wow, talk about a metric ton of cure for a microgram of illness.

Who's going to be responsible for paying all this money to put in, and maintain, a piece of equipment that MAY save the lives of approximately 1000 people per year?  I'm sure old Uncle Sugar would be more than happy to pass that cost off to each of us.  How motivated do you think a guy with a rust bucket of a 1977 Chevy Nova is going to be to put a piece of equipment into his car that's worth more than car itself?  I think on just 1 of the practical issues alone it's safe to say this is a stupid, knee-jerk reaction and a wholly unworkable solution, don't you?

To put these numbers and dollar amounts into a real perspective, consider this:  2.5 million Americans die each year from some form of malignant cancer.  We are not, nor would we ever dream of, spending over $164 million dollars on each one of them, and this is a disease that kills about 1% of the population yearly.  It would come out to a economy crushing $411 TRILLION a year.  Perspective, not histrionics please.

"All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse. "

Benjamin Franklin

But let's touch briefly on the privacy issue, and how easy it would be for government over-reaching to seriously endanger our privacy and thus our liberties, as well.  Someone has to monitor all these GPS signals.  Let's, for the sake of simplicity, say it's one lone guy sitting in a dark, windowless room somewhere in Washington D.C.  Let's further postulate that he has radio contact with every law enforcement agency in the US.  They (the cops) contact him in the case of a high speed pursuit so that he can monitor the vehicle's position (how he would determine which signal, out of 234,611,539 individual signals to monitor is beyond me, but I digress) remotely and in real-time and the police then back off.  Now we know that about 1000 of these high speed chases ends up in a death, but how many don't?  Let's just assume that out of every 1000 chases, only 1 results in a fatality.  I think that's a fairly liberal number and would leave us with 10,000 high speed pursuits per year, or 27 pursuits per day (or just over 1 per hour in a 24 hour period), nationwide.  Let's assume that because the police aren't chasing them, on average our bad guys stop after 10 minutes to find someplace to hide out.  That leaves our new Beltway Bandit monitoring bad guys for about 2 hours and 20 minutes of his 8 hour shift.  What do you think our 1 guy will  be doing the other 5 hours and 40 minutes?  Playing online Mahjongg and sipping Darjeeling?  Just keep in mind, the more people you add to the "monitoring" process, the more time they each need to burn up doing something other than monitoring bad guys; there's only, on average, a total of 270 minutes worth of potentially high speed pursuits to watch out of 1,440 minutes in every given day.

I guess what I'm saying is, "Where does it stop?"  How much time, money and resources do you think the government would spend to realize that GPS is just a stop-gap for the problem?  If the bad guys abandon the vehicle, and the police aren't around to see where they run off to or catch them, they get away.  So what, then, was the point of "following" them in the first place?  I guess we should abandon the GPS idea and go straight to the RFID chip, installed in every single person's body.  That way, we can track every movement anyone ever makes, anywhere and know exactly who they are at all times.  Or we could collectively decide that, while not a perfect solution, the way the cops handle things now isn't all that bad and leave it at that.  Just a thought.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. "

Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790)

I was chatting with a friend yesterday, and we got on the topic of the reasons we each dislike porn.  Like her, I find the "actors and actresses" less than believable for one, and that alone turns the whole situation into a comedy.  Just look at their faces; you can see they're completely disengaged, and yet screaming their fucking heads off...it makes you want to bust out laughing.  It's the look you'd expect from someone assembling the same widget day in and day out on an assembly line somewhere in Bangladesh, not from two people having sex.  "Are you done yet?  I want to get my paycheck and go buy some new Crocs, dammit!"

It goes deeper for me, though.  As I told her, it's much like going to the strip club:  it's all window shopping.  I still have work to do, but here's a reminder that I get to do it by myself.  I can get the job done without torturing myself with what I'm not getting and besides, the stuff I have up in my head is much more interesting than the mutual masturbation session they have going on in any porn flick.  At the very least, my partner and I were really enjoying ourselves.  I don't need to visualize someone else's fantasies or horrendous acting.

After spending the day thinking about it (I did other stuff, too...get off me), I found a deeper level still and I would suggest there is a more sinister and cynical agenda where porn is concerned.  As some of you already knew, I was an active part of or had knowledge of some of the darker things the military was involved in when it came to intelligence and such.  One of the most important facets of intelligence is what's called PsyOps, which is short for Psychological Operations.  As you may have deduced from the not-so-clever name, it's warfare but instead of using bombs and bullets to kill and maim, you use things you know will demoralize your enemy and degrade their ability to fight back.  Dropping leaflets telling them their cause is futile and they're doomed, blasting music 24/7 at people who are holed up where you can't do a frontal assault on them and even carpet bombing an area can be used as a PsyOp.  And yes, porn is an extremely effective means to demoralize and degrade a population as well, and is used extensively by intelligence services the world over.

Don't believe me?  I'll cite just one of a multitude of cases where it was used.  When the most recent Palestinian infatada in the West Bank and Gaza kicked off back in 1999/2000, the Israeli military locked those areas down tight and got control of 2 of the 3 Palestinian run TV stations in the region.  Israeli intelligence began to broadcast their own programing on those stations, and guess what the show du jour was?  Yup...hardcore pornography all day, all night.  Trust me, if anyone has a handle on how to run a successful PsyOp, it's the Israelis.  And before anyone pops off about me being anti-Semitic, I would like to go on the record again and say I hate everyone with equal measure, so fuck off and get to the back of the bus.  No soup for you!

I would go so far as to say we are being targeted; purposefully subjected to a daily dose of some of the most vile stuff conceivable, and you need to look no further than your kid's Yahoo mail account to know I'm right.  It's gotten so pervasive, a whole new multi-billion dollar industry has sprung up out of the concrete to combat it:  Spam Controls, Pop Up Blockers, Parental Controls.  But it still floods through, so after a while we hardly even notice it.  Sure, it's a nuisance, but we're used to seeing grown men and women having sex with farm animals and little kids now; we've been so desensitized it barely registers anymore.  The stuff we put up with today would have sent generations before us rioting into the streets with a collective determination to put heads on pikes.  I guess we're just more refined, huh?  *rolls eyes*

Why?  Why would someone use tactics like this to target us?  Because people are easier to control and sell shit to when they feel alone; isolated and hopeless.  It is my contention that porn is allowed to flourish because it does such a great job keeping men and women from forming real, long lasting relationships by retarding their emotional growth and health.  It tricks us into believing casual sex, meaningless and empty of emotional and familial bonds, with dozens of partners is normal and healthy behavior.  Look at how porn is framed...the guy is usually faceless, just a prop with no real meaning or consequence, a cock the size of a small school and a 3 or 4 word vocabulary (indecipherable grunts aside, of course).  The woman is a sex crazed whore who's not only eager and willing, but desperate to spread her legs for someone she doesn't even know, let alone give two flying fucks for (well she does, but she's getting paid for those flying fucks).  Most of them literally beg to be treated like a slut, slapped, choked, etc.  I have even seen "ads" in my email for movies featuring 1 girl with 150 guys taking turns bouncing on top of her - I'm hoping they're doing it one, two or three at a time, or that would make it a snuff film - hell, that's not even an orgy; it's a stress test gone completely out of control.  I'm sorry folks, but you can not get me to believe making or watching this stuff is anything like healthy behavior.  I am not a prude by any measure, but this shit just makes me sick.

Divide and conquer - getting the men to treat the most precious thing available like trash and tricking the women into seeing the men as mere play toys and nothing more - it's precisely how you get a society to sign off on bank-breaking wars and multi-million dollar congressional boondoggles, sell them cargo ships full of crap from China they don't really need anyway, and get them pay $4 a gallon for gas and piss away exorbitant amounts of their hard earned money for lousy food.  Look at the "industrialized world's" birth record in the last few decades; we have plunged well below replacement level birthrates.  What does that mean exactly?  More people are dying every year than are being born to replace them...a lot more, and no one seems to notice or care.  No wonder all the industry is moving to India and China.  We aren't going to have enough people here to do the work, but we'd be a great bunch to sell all the shit they make to, don't you think?

Tricking an organism into believing something that's bad for it is actually good for it is nothing new; it's exactly how a virus fools your immune system into letting it live long enough to make you sick until you die.  Welcome to social Typhoid the hard way.  If you don't believe we're being targeted, please go back to sitting naked on your couch, stroking your TiVo remote and watching "Forrest Hump" for the 83rd time.  For the rest of us, porn is just the tip of a very large iceberg, and we really need to figure out how to get a handle on this mess without over-reacting and making things worse.  Personally, I like the "heads on pikes" idea, but I'm open to suggestions.

On a side note - my friend brought up an excellent question:  "How much do you think it costs to do all the laundry the porn industry generates?"  LMAO!  Any guesses?

I've got my kids for the summer, so tradition states that they get full run of the computers here until I get the itch, and then their usage gets pared down so I can actually use the damned things, too.  They don't have a computer to use at their mother's house, so computer games and the Internet are all the rage.  I know...they have a Playstation 2, as well as a Nintendo Gameboy DS and PSP each, but you know how it is when you're a kid:  it's not about what you have, it's about what you're missing out on.

I was also suspecting hacker infiltration of my network, so I wound up having to tear down one computer at a time, format and reload XP on to one of them, and slave the hard drives from the other two to it to scan for any nasties.  I found a couple of obscure trojans, but nothing to get my panties in a wad about.  Now, I just need to put everything back together and hook up my network again.  I did set about hardening everything while I was at it, though -  the whole process has taken about a week or so.

Couple all that with the fact that my father and my grandmother traveled in from Detroit to visit with us, and you have chaos.  I would love to tell you that it was controlled chaos, but that would be a lie.  I have a 2 bedroom place with about 800 sq ft; so you can imagine what it was like to have 5 adults and 2 kids running around it, not to mention the gyrations involved in the sleeping arrangements.  Nobody complained, everyone had a good time...but I was secretly glad to see them pulling out of the driveway.  I love my family, I just love them a little more on the phone.

We did go as a group to see "The Dark Knight", the second Batman installment.  I have only 1 word:  WOW!  It was a top flight movie, and Heath Ledger did such a wonderful job.  I was saddened to hear of his untimely death, but the sadness was more acute while watching him in his final role.  That part was made for him, and now he won't be able to see it through in the next movie.  Don't get me wrong, Jack Nicholson played a great Joker but his was the flamboyant, over-the-top Joker.  Heath was very understated, extremely dark and the epitome of a cruel, sadistic sociopath.  He was an enigma from beginning to end, and you leave with more questions than you come in with.  If you haven't seen it, go.  Now.  It's worth the $8.

On a side note, one of the trailers they showed before "The Dark Knight" caught my attention, and 5 seconds in, I knew what movie it was going to be.  I was so excited, I shouted the name of the movie out, and got some very strange looks from those around me...not because I shouted it out, but because those around me had no idea what I was referring to or how I knew what it was.  I've tracked down the trailer for you all, and imbedded it here for your viewing pleasure.  I can't wait to see it, and I was so excited about it I wasted no time making a date with someone that very night to go see it with me on March 6th, 2009!

I know, I still have a tag to post which I will get to soon...don't worry Shupe.  I haven't forgotten you!  The boys go back next weekend, so I should be back to posting in my normally irregular fashion any time now.  *smile*

Hey all!  I just got back from Michigan a few hours ago.  I went to go see my oldest son graduate from high school.  I can hear you all now:  "WHAT?!  Y-O-U have a son that's 18?"  Yes folks, it's  true.  It's also true that I was only 7 when he was born.  No...not really.  In case you couldn't tell us apart, he's the one with the red robe on.

It started out a beautiful 91 degree day but, being Michigan, rapidly deteriorated into a major thundershower right as the graduation ceremony broke up.  Cow-pissing-on-a-flat-rock doesn't do justice to the rainstorm that came out of seemingly nowhere, and you may be able to see that he and I are just finishing the dry off phase of the operation at the house.  Wouldn't you know...as soon as we got inside, it stopped raining.  Oh well.  I got to watch my oldest take a major step forward in life, and I didn't care if it was raining frogs.  I am supremely proud of him.

  "So how did history repeat itself," you ask?  I shall tell you:  20 years and 3 days ago, I sat in almost exactly the same seat, with a graduating class that had only 2 fewer students than his and received my diploma from the same small town school.  His mother and mine both sat in the stands cheering when they called my name, just like they did for him today.  Oh, and we both have the same name.  It's a bizarre enough feeling to watch one of your kids graduate; it adds a whole new level when you add all the other stuff on top of it.  Out of habit, I almost ran out and grabbed the diploma cover when my/his/our name was called.

So there you have it...that's how I spent a wonderfully hot, muggy day in Michigan.  I sincerely hope that each of you got to do something of equal excitement and fun with someone special this weekend!

PS - Shupe, please note the new addition to my wardrobe.  It was incorporated at your suggestion and behest.  *smile*

Fear:  [noun] an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger. {emphasis mine}

There exists within all of us 2 states of consciousness:  the instinctive and the intuitive.  Fear exists on both of these levels.  On the instinctive level, it warns us of immediate danger that has the potential to cause mortal injury to us (awareness); it's the fight or flight instinct.  It's a survival emotion that helps us to stay alive long enough to procreate before we get eaten by a dinosaur.  Once we procreate, most of us want to be eaten by a dinosaur, but that's a completely different blog altogether so let's not digress.

On the intuitive level, fear warns us of impending danger (anticipation); in other words, danger that doesn't exist yet, but may if we don't take steps to avoid it.  This is the little voice in your head that says, "Hey, riding this bike down a mountain sounds like a real hoot, but I'm probably going to end up in a gully, all busted up instead.  Fuck it...'HEY GUYS!  WATCH THIS!'" 

*9-1-1*

So what about fear of interpersonal relationships?  Where does that fear come from?  I tend to believe that this is one of many crossover fears...it actually starts off as an intuitive fear and moves into the instinctive.  We fear future relationships because our intuitive side is trying to warn us based off of past events, and it's intimate knowledge of how we each work to repeat past mistakes almost unconsciously.  When someone tries to approach us to begin a new relationship, whether as a friend or in a more romantic way, we instinctively throw up barriers and become defensive, elusive and evasive.  Fear of new people causing us pain materializes out of unhealed wounds from our past, and it puts our future in jeopardy.  I think these crossover fears are the biggest barriers we face when it comes to living happy, productive and truly free lives.  They end up causing us much unnecessary and unwanted misery, instead.

My whole life I felt that I was brave and courageous; so much so that I built a belief structure around it.  What I found was that when tested, seriously tested, those things didn't amount to anything at all.  Why would these things fail at the crucial moment, when I needed them the most to face the problems and trials life was throwing at me?  Because I had no faith in anything or anyone; I was afraid to trust so I became a force unto myself, but that only existed within the confines of my own mind.  When put under a load my courage fled, my bravery crumpled and the faith I had in myself blew away in the breeze.  Like a house of cards, the structure collapsed into a heap and all that I was left with was the fear.  I was afraid to move forward, to go backward or to stand still.  The terror of failing was tempered only by the horror of succeeding (I dunno, do I really want that?), and that was mitigated by the dread of maintaining the status quo.  After living several years of the most anxiety ridden and unproductive existence I had ever known, it became clear to me that the only thing that needed to change was me.  The only problem:  it needed to be a wholesale change.  I had to start completely over.  But how?  How do I rid myself of these fears, no matter how unrealistic or exaggerated?

I had heard it said many times, "a fear that's shared is a fear that's halved," but only recently did  I truly begin to believe it.  I've now found someone I can put my trust in and  have begun the process opening up to them about all of my fears.  What I found was the majority of them aren't real at all; they're vapor that dissipated as soon as I opened the window of faith and trust and just let it out.  Through all of this, I've learned that the opposite of fear isn't courage or bravery or intrepidity.  It's faith.  But you must have courage to have faith.  You need to be brave to believe in something or someone with no concrete proof beforehand.  You must be intrepid to trust with all of your heart and soul.  True faith is dependent on courage, bravery and intrepidity, and uses them to move you out of the darkness of fear and into the light.

So, is fear good or bad?  Well, if you're trying to avoid being eaten by a nearby predator, it's good.  If you're in a paralyzing, soul consuming fear about the possibility of being eaten by a predator that isn't even there, as I was, it's bad.  Of course, like all things, it's not a strictly black and white issue.  There's a million shades of gray.  Our job on this journey is to sort through our fears, figure out which ones are real and which imagined or exaggerated, and work to deflate those that can be deflated.

The place we begin is by trusting, by having faith in someone or something other than our own selves.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army, WWI
Written in Ypres, Belgium in the spring of 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Please take this day to remember our fallen, our veterans and those still in the service of our country.  Never forget their sacrifices.

I've been holding on to this quote for a while now, knowing that somewhere, sometime it was going to fit into a blog somehow.  My friend Raven has posted a blog on her page that I think embodies exactly what The Mahatma was trying to get us to understand, and if you haven't read it already and commented...what the fuck are you waiting for?  Follow my link, read it and take some notes.

We need to be the mirrors of what it is we would like the world to be.  I think that Gandhi knew this well and always tried to be a source of light in dark places, even at great personal risk and cost.  But even if you aren't as courageous as he was, you can still make a small contribution to this world and be those things that make it a better place to live in.  If you are joyful, content, serene, giving, understanding, humble, forgiving and selfless you draw to yourself other people with those same qualities.  All of that positive energy combines and begins to have an effect on those already around you, as well.  They will notice something's different about you, but won't be able to figure out what it is...but know this:  they will like it, and they'll want more of it.

Remember:  any change that you want to see must start within you.  Be strong, be brave, lead by example.  Those changes will come if you can make yourself into what you want to have around you.

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I had a lady come in today that's been a customer for many years now.  She told me in a half tearful voice that her husband passed away not long ago (on my birthday, as a matter of fact), and commented on how different things are for her now.  She and her husband are quite old (my guess is early 80's), and I am sure they have been married forever.  It truly broke my heart.

It seems that he came down with pancreatic cancer, and was gone within 4 weeks.  I could see in her eyes that she is still completely in shock, and she has no idea what she's going to do now.  She has lost a huge piece of her life and her heart, and can never get it back.  I wished for something to say, but what words can assuage anguish and loss so deep?  None.  All that I could muster up was an "I'm so sorry," and a "if you need anything at all, please don't hesitate to ask me."  I don't think I'm very good at that kind of thing, huh?

I think that's it from the Fort today.  I'm pretty spent.

I heard this song back in 2005, and while musically and lyrically one of my favorites from these guys, I never really felt the message that Mr. Jones was trying to put forward until just recently.  I guess it's one of those things that until it's time for you to understand, you just can't understand.  He basically begins by asking, "Are you happy with the way you've lived your life?"  He then throws out the eternal question that has plagued mankind for millennia:  "If you could go back in time, would you make changes where you think you made mistakes?"  Yes, this is the question that has kept billions living and re-living their own past, making the same mistakes over and over and never fully enjoying the present.

His message finally touched a nerve in me, and I got to thinking about the chorus specifically; "If you could rewind your time, would you change your life?"  I know that I have wished hundreds, maybe thousands, of times throughout my life that I could have a do-over.  Oops, fucked that up.  Can I try that again?  Sometimes my mistake was small, or the person I wronged was understanding, patient and forgiving and I did get to try again.  More commonly, though, my mistake was too big or the other person too hurt for another shot.  As have so many others, I have even taken on the burden of someone else's mistake; "they hurt me, but it must have been something that I did, or worse, something that I am that made them hurt me, right?"  Too often, these negative experiences are the moments that we let rent space inside our heads.

I think we all know what happens then.  No sooner does the ink dry on the lease agreement, these memories and old hurts invite all their friends over and throw a wild party...night after long night.  Pretty soon the neighbors are bitching, the cops are giving you warnings and the health department gets an "anonymous" call.  There's roaches everywhere, dirty dishes stacked all over, empty gin bottles and pizza boxes in the hallway, the smell could (and quite possibly will) raise the dead...and even though it's a rent controlled building, they never intended to pay any rent.  Ever.  It's a mess, and soon you find yourself somewhere between thinking that you just knew you shouldn't rent to these guys, and looking forward to what things will be like when you can finally have them evicted.  The problem?  Because you were so busy "what if-ing" yesterday's mistakes and dreaming of a brighter tomorrow, you forgot to file the paperwork today to have the court kick these bums out.

"Ok, Steve.  We were with you until right after the video.  What in the hell are you talking about?"  Ah, my good sirs and gentle ladies, now is when we come to it.  At first blush, we are finite beings and thus aren't equipped to live in multiple "times" at once.  That leaves us with the option to live in the past, the present or the future;  but in only one "time" at a time.  Notice I said, "option," because that is the key word in that sentence.  Surprisingly, we get to choose when we live and it's this choice, more than any other, that defines who we are and determines the level of our appreciation and joy.

• Living in the past is a lot like opening up your fridge, finding it way too full of food and half of it is rotten.  You can either stand there feeling sorry for yourself that half of your food has gone bad, or you can pull it all out, inventory it, throw away what's no good and use the food that's still edible.  Just remember that if you wait too long, the rotten stuff starts to affect the good, and ruins it too.
• Living in the future is like opening up that same fridge to find it empty.  If you stand there wishing for food to appear out of nothing, you'll probably starve to death long before anything of substance arrives.  Maybe if you sit down, plan a menu, write a grocery list and then head to the store, you'll actually get what you need.

Not long ago, I spent some time with a very good friend looking at the stars.  There were several moments where we didn't say anything at all to each other, and something happened to us both simultaneously that I don't think either one of us expected.  We experienced that, as small and alone as we may feel most of the time, we are actually a part of that hugeness and the past and the future just melted away.  In those few moments, we just were and we realized that we're not alone, that we aren't separate beings at all, but are connected to everything in the universe all at once.  It was a powerful feeling, and the only way that I can describe it is this:  it was both a physical and emotional sensation...it felt like goose bumps, over every inch of the inside of me.  I think it's what a lot of smart folks call a spiritual experience.

And there in lies the paradox, as most things of a spiritual nature are.  If you can just learn to live in the present, the past and the future blend together and become a part of your present, without the negative things that they normally bring.  If you truly are in the present you're able to just be, you're able to see the past and the future with out passion or hurt; you can simply observe it for what it was or what it will be, give your passion to the present and let the hurt disappear like the vapor it really is.  That's also when you realize, possibly for the first time, that we are really infinite souls that are experiencing a finite existence here on Earth.

To put it another way:  if we're always looking back at our past and forward to our future, the richness of our lives will always be in the periphery of our vision.  We will never be able to truly see and appreciate our treasures, except maybe as small blurs every time we snap our heads around to look in the wrong direction.

Yeah, yeah, I know...I think too much.

I have a lot of time on my hands, what can I say?

Well, right as I was getting ready to post my last installment, some nozzle pulled up into the apartment complex parking lot behind my house and unloaded a 9mm pistol (that's approximately 15 rounds) into my house and the house next door.  "How do you know it's a 9mm, Steve," you ask?  Because I found one of the God damned slugs in my closet before I went to work!  I didn't realize last night that the person in question was actually shooting at my house, and didn't see the hole in my walls (yes, walls...it passed through the siding and 2 sheet rock walls before bouncing to the floor) until late this morning.

It's a bit freaky, because I went and stood where the shooter was when he opened up and if he had moved his arm about an inch left and down, he would've blown my fucking head right off.  That would've been unfortunate timing, because I was about 3 minutes from posting and you wouldn't have gotten my Cinco de Mayo addition.

This used to be a pretty good neighborhood.  *sigh*

PS - Yes, I do realize that I'm quite the goofball, but this actually did happen just as I said.

*editor's note - Steve wrote this blog earlier Sunday afternoon, but because of fact checking, cross referencing, smoke breaks, cuts, nit-picking, more smoke breaks, dinner, phone calls, computer crashes, earthquakes, monsoons, tsunamis, rioting, looting, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria and more smoke breaks, we weren't able to make the late edition and this blog had to be pushed to the early morning run.  We apologize to all that were inconvenienced and/or confused by the title of this blog.*

Well, I made it home alive and in one piece from the Motor City.  No one got arrested (that I know of), nothing got broken, no farm animals were molested and yet fun was had by all.  "Steve, how is that possible?  It's like you're from a completely different planet or something!"  I know, I know.  It took me years to realize that fun wasn't measured solely by how early in the night the cops showed up.  Although...I have always wanted to try out a good tazing.  I mean, how cool would that story be?  Huh?  Huh?

Anyhoo, it was my buddy D's world famous Cinco de Mayo party this weekend and it had been 2 years since I had seen him or his wife, not to mention the 4 years it had been since I had seen the rest of my crew.  Before you ask, yes.  They are all crazy and slightly warped, just like me.  I'll give you a quick rundown of those closest to me that were there last night.

The Cast:

Darren & Tawanna - The party host and hostess.  First let me start by saying that Tawanna is pronounced Tania...her mom is weird, so don't ask and don't, for the love of all that's holy, pronounce her name like it's spelled.  I met Darren when I started working tech support for MediaOne Cable's internet division in 1999.  He and I hit it off immediately, and I found a whole group of folks just like the ones I had left back in EOD:   funny, dedicated, smart, loyal and just a little bit (or a lotta bit) off.  These two have been like a slightly older brother and sister to me since day one.

Sean - My best friend since third grade.  I'll do the math for you, folks...that's 29 years, and I don't think that either of us will ever forget the day we met.  It was late January of 1979, and I was coming back to school for the first time since before the Christmas break.  I had contracted chickenpox and broke out the day before we were supposed to go back, and in those days you had to stay out for a week after all the pox disappeared.  Just as I was getting ready to go back, I got sick again with the measles; so I didn't see anyone from school for over a month.  Upon my triumphant return from death's door, everyone was very excited to tell me about the "new" kid that had started after the break, and how weird he was.  Embracer of the freakish that I am, I had to talk to this new guy, who just happened to be standing by the front door to the school.  I walked up, gave him a good looking over and said, "Hi.  I'm Steve.  You look pretty cool...let's go to the library and look up dirty words in the dictionary."  The rest is history, and we have been best friends ever since.  I gave him the idea to apply for tech support at MediaOne (now Comcast) right after I quit in 2000, and told my old boss to keep an eye out for him.  He got the job, and has been steadily marching his way up the ladder...he's now one of their divisional marketing guys, and I couldn't be more proud!  Father of twins, and husband to one of the best women I have ever met in my life.  I've warned Sean on many occasions that if he isn't careful, I'm gonna steal her away and lock her up in my lab (I don't think she'd go willingly).

Kathy - My oldest friend.  I have known Kathy since kindergarten (that's almost 33 years), and although we didn't always hang out together at first (she was a girl, and thus had cooties), we were friendly at school.  We really began to spend time together right before our freshman year of high school, in the summer of 1984, with a bunch of my other friends, including Sean.  Her mother was on a bit of the lax side, and would let us all party and what not at their house.  Kathy, Sean and I have been very close ever since.  As a parent, of course I can see how this would be viewed as a bad thing, but as a teenager it was cool beyond all levels of coolness.  This is the spot where many evil plans were hatched and carried out from, and was the ground zero of my world for my high school years, even after I moved away to the other side of Michigan.  Kathy is one of the smartest people I know, but so down to earth that if you're not paying attention, you may miss how smart she really is.  She's also a great mom to 4 great kids.

Jason - Friend since approximately 4th or 5th grade.  Sean and I had a large circle of friends, and we varied our time between them all.  Jason was one of the guys that hung out with me and Sean off and on, but he really became one of the regulars in 1984 and has been in the inner circle ever since.  Jason was one of the quieter ones in our group but, like they always say, it's the quiet ones you have to watch out for and he had a penchant for trouble just like we did.  Smart, very funny (in an understated way), and a fiercely loyal friend to us all, I think he was the one that helped to bring the schemes into focus and gave us the framework to carry them out.  Freshly married to a great lady that he had dated for 7 years, he's about to celebrate his 1st anniversary.

Paul - One of Kathy's two younger brothers.  Paul was pretty young when we were all hanging out at Kathy's, and he got a front row seat to all of the shenanigans that we pulled over the years.  Sean and I joke with him all the time that back then we saw him, quietly sitting in the corner taking notes on what worked and what didn't.  He got a first rate education on women, partying, pool, cards...you name it.  I think that he and his brother Carl (who couldn't make the party) are proof positive that brains start in the genes, because like Kathy, these 2 guys are very intelligent and extremely funny.  When they get going, they make me laugh until I cry...for hours.

That's only 6 of the many guests that were at the party Saturday and, believe me, I could go on and on.  I can honestly say that of those 40+ people, 30-35 were all friends of mine and that is a really great feeling.  It felt like coming home, and was a great party with a house full of really wonderful people, tons of great food, lots of laughter and stories galore.  I even got to hear a great one about me...one of the guys that was there pulled me aside and told me that he had heard I had left and went to go live with the Amish.  I looked at him and said with a completely straight face, "Gene, you've known me for years!  Does that sound even close to right?  I was in an insane asylum."  THAT, I think he believed.  *laugh*

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend, whether you were celebrating Cinco de Mayo or just in general.  I had a blast, and I got to reconnect with some of the best folks that my life has to offer me!  Now, it's back to work...*sigh*

I heard a song at work not that long ago that helped me to bring some other thoughts into focus, and I felt that an improved blog might be in order today.  Please note that I did not say new and improved, as something that's new can't also be improved; and something that's improved, by it's very nature and definition, can not be new...but I digress. </englishlesson>

The song's chorus:

"Here's a riddle for ya,
Find the answer...
There's a reason for the world:
You and I."

Through a confluence of recent events and conversations, I was able to understand the song writer's message more clearly and I completely agree with the sentiment.  Life is all about our ability to form and maintain relationships (friends, family, romantic, spiritual) both long and short, and what we give to and receive from those relationships.  Personally, I think that it's the answer to the "why" that we as humans have been searching to find for time eternal.  Our relationships help define the depth and scope of our lives, and give them meaning.

"What in the blue fuck does all that blibbity blab have to do with beaten tracks," you ask?  Untwist yer panties...I'm going around the world, but I'll get there.

In my life, I have been truly blessed with a number of relationships that have made me who I am today and I wanted to show my gratitude to two of these wonderful people here with you.  It is, in part, because of these two individuals, and my friendships with them, that I regained the courage to reach out to those that were once important in my life.  For better or worse, I fell completely off the grid about 2 years ago, but I have now reconnected with several old friends that I had lost touch with.

Shupe, Raven....you two ladies have been a godsend to me and, although I have told each of you this privately, I felt that a public acknowledgment was needed.  Your kind words, gentle natures, genuine care and the laughter we've shared have helped me in ways I can barely get my brain around at this point.  In a very short period of time, we have formed real friendships with one another, and you both have reminded me how much I need and cherish that.  It was your collective influences that have helped to make my upcoming trip back to Detroit a reality, and I sincerely thank you both from the bottom of my heart.  My only hope is that you have benefited from our friendship as I have.

Ok folks...did you finally get the point of the blog title?  For those of you that said, "Wow! You are showing gratitude instead of sarcasm?  It's like a miracle!" you win the prize.  I'll be the first to admit that publicly, I'm not normally the warm-fuzzy-touchy-feely type.  I save that for private moments.

For those of you that missed it, please go and ignore the safety warnings on your toaster ovens.

Oops...forgot to mention: TIME IN!

Credit where due...the song info is as follows:  "Five For Fighting - The Riddle".  It's off of their 2006 album "Two Lights".

I disappear for a few days, and what happens?  I get tagged.  I usually just ignore these things, but seeing as The Stupendous Raven did the tagging (it was more of a very erotic groping, really), I felt obliged to play along.  Like Mizz Shupeskin boots, however, I won't tag anyone else in turn.  We must take a stand against this evilness, and that stand shall continue here!

The Rules Are:

1. Link the person who tagged you - CHECK

2. Mention the rules in your blog - CHECK

3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours - CHECK

4. Tag 6 new bloggers you know and leave a link to them in your space - UNCHECK

5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger's blog letting them know they've been tagged - N/A (See 4 above)

Alrighty, here we go...

1. I hate working out of or even seeing a cash drawer that has the bills all rammed in, upside down and in all different directions.  All neatly stacked, facing UP and either all left or right facing please, or I KEEL YOU!
2. I have a laugh that others either love or hate.  It's so "unique" that I even have friends that like to have "Steve's laugh sound-alike" contests.  I'm never sure whether to be flattered or offended by that.
3. My desk at home is generally a bit of a mess, but my desk at work absolutely MUST be clean and orderly.  If someone at work comes in to my office and throws something on my desk, I push it off on to the floor and there it stays until they pick it back up and hand it to me.
4. As a general rule, I don't sleep.  I guess that all those years of combat naps have made me a bit unbalanced in that area, and I usually can only sleep a couple of hours at a time.  As hard as I've tried to remedy that, it always seems to come back.  I do manage one or two full nights sleep every week.
5. I tend to dislike everyone until I get to know them.  It eliminates the trouble of coming up with pesky reasons not to like them after the fact, and has already saved entire minutes of my precious time from being wasted throughout my life.  It's a kind of "Seven Minute Abs" approach to social interactions.
6. I quit drinking a couple of years ago, because it turns out that I'm allergic to the stuff.  I know it's hard to believe, but every time I go near it, I break out in felonies.

Well folks, there ya have it.  It took a bit of brain rattling to come up with those, being as I'm so perfect and all.  Who knows...I may have actually made them all up!

I leave you to guess if they're true or not.  And to those of you that already know me:  no helping the noobs!  We now return you to our regularly scheduled program, which is already in progress...

Hey all.  I know, I know...it's been like a month since I posted my last installment.  Stop your whining and deal with it.  When I have something to say, I do.  When I don't, I just sit back and listen for a while because I've found that I learn a hell of a lot more when my lips aren't moving.  I have been spending a considerable amount of time recently just taking inventory of myself, and deciding what needs to get heaved in the trash and what needs to be polished up for use.  It can be tiring work, but needs doing every once in a while.  Hey, it's spring...so what better time, huh?

So I had my kids here for their spring break.  Luckily for me, my ex-wife and I still get along for the most part, so I can usually have them whenever I want...within reason, of course.  It would be a helluva lot easier if they didn't live 2 hours away and if gas weren't $3.50 a fucking gallon (it cost me $80 just to get 'em and take 'em back!), but that's a completely different kettle of fish there.

I even got to have them here for my birthday, which is always a very nice bonus.  We had a good dinner, and they got me a cake and a CD, which they all chipped in to buy.  After the fire alarm got ripped off the wall and thrown into the yard of the overly safety conscious neighbors that called 9-1-1, we all snuggled in and watched a movie.  So all in all it was a nice, quiet day with my boys and I just don't seem to get enough of those these days.  They're growing up so fast.

I do have to say that them being here on that day can be a bit of burden, as well, because I actually have to remember my birthday then (the song-filled phone call at midnight was much appreciated, though *wink*) and that seems to get lost in the shuffle most years anymore.  Of my last 7 birthdays, I've celebrated 3 on my actual birthday and simply remembered the other 4 at least 2 days later.  Oops.  We won't even talk about the advanced math that I have to perform when someone asks me how old I am...it's not that I'm old, it's that I have that much trouble subtracting 1970 from the current year nowadays.  I've started writing it in India ink on my palm, and when someone asks I just hold it up and say, "I'm thith many!"  Pretty pathetic, I know, but what I lack in mathematical prowess I make up for in...ummmmm...oh, shut up.

Anyhoo, that's about it from the Fort for now.  I have a little bit more to share, but if I do it all in one long blog, you'll have nothing to look forward to, now will you?  Be patient...I'll get to the rest soon enough.  I was going to post some pictures I took of the boys while they were here, but it seems that I lost the damned transfer cable somewhere between here and Salt Lake City.

I'm thinking Shupe may have nicked it, the little scamp.  I caught her trying to make off with a pair of my socks, too.  Predictably, she tried to blame her cats...

"So who is this woman that you've been talking about," you ask?  Ok, for those of you who are still out of the loop on this one, I am talking about Shupe.  She and I began talking when she wandered over to my tech blog from one of her other friends pages, and after talking to each other for a while, she surprised the shit out of me by inviting me out to Utah to visit her.

So out I fly, on leap day 2008, to go meet this incredibly brave or incredibly crazy woman.  We made very few concrete plans as far as what we would do once I arrived, but the 2 plans that we did make came off without a hitch...well, almost anyway.  *Author's note - For those of you that don't understand the idea of a dramatic build-up, this is where the story gets interesting, so you won't want to leave just yet.*

One of the things that we actually planned and carried out was a trip to Capitol Reef National Park near Torrey, UT.  We drove down the day after I arrived, rented a cabin to stay in for a couple of days and proceeded to run all around the inside and outside of the park snapping pictures.

On our way back to civilization on that bright, sunny Monday morning we were driving one of the US highways that cuts through that area, passing through a small town whose name I don't recall.  What I do remember is that while I was trying to figure out one of the settings on my camera, I suddenly heard Shupe say, "Shit," and she pulled the car over to the side of the road.  Yes, you guessed it...when I looked back through the rear window, there was a cop sitting behind us.  Now before you ask, let me just state for the record that she is an excellent driver.  A bit of a lead foot, maybe, but at no time that she was driving did I ever feel unsafe.

She was obviously and visibly distressed, as anyone that's being pulled over is bound to be.  I told her not to worry, that everything would be fine...and we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

When it became apparent that this peace officer wasn't going to get out of his car, I got out to see what the situation was.  Having my camera in hand, it occurred to me to take a couple of shots...to have a visual record, just in case.  It was about this time that it dawned on me that it was very, very strange not only for the cop to continue to sit in his car after he pulled us over, but that he wasn't making a move even though I was standing there taking photos.  So I started walking to the squad car to ask him what the story was.

As I got closer to his car, I began to realize that something was very wrong.  The car, though you can't see it well in the pictures, was dusty.  Very dusty.  The windows were as well.  I was thinking to myself, "Self, how do you think this cop sees through those dirty assed windows?  There's a service station just down the road...doesn't he know how to use a squeegee?"  The answer to that question would come to me momentarily, and it was a most bizarre answer, indeed.

Imagine, if you will, that you are under the assumption that the car that you're traveling in has just been pulled over by a police officer.  You rightfully assume that the driver of your vehicle is being pulled over for some citable offense; in this case, most likely speeding.  You get out of the car to go back to the police cruiser because it seems the officer isn't going to come to you.  You get back to his car and notice that it's quite dusty and the windows are hardly see-through.  It's then, just then, that you completely understand what's happening, but you can scarcely believe it.

The cop is a dummy.  No, not an idiot, not a moron, not an imbecile; although all those things are entirely possible.  A dummy as in not-a-real-person dummy...a bunch of fabric sewn together and stuffed with something to look real.  It even has a hat, sunglasses, hair and a mustache.  I think to myself, "What the hell made her pull over to the side of the road then?  There's no way this "guy" motioned her over."  So I go back to ask:

Me - "Sweetheart, why did you pull over?"
Shupe - "Well, I saw him sitting on the side of the road, and looked to see how fast I was going.  I was going way over the speed limit, and I figured he'd be less pissed if he didn't have to chase me down.  Doesn't he want to talk to me?"
Me - "Well, while he and I both applaud your integrity and thoughtfulness, it really wasn't necessary this time.  There's no one in the car except a mannequin."

Folks, I can honestly say that not only is she the bravest, most delightful, easy-going, spontaneous, funny, intelligent and charming woman I have ever met, she is also the safest and most honest driver I have ever had the privilege of playing co-pilot to!

Oh, and she's not the least bit crazy, either...at least not in a bad way!  *wink*

Good evening all!  I just wanted to put up a little something for that wonderful lady I spoke of before.  I felt that something funny and something that shows her many facets was the best choice to make.  Since Bugs does that so well and on so many levels in this particular episode, I just knew this was the one!  Sit back and enjoy, "The Rabbit of Seville"!

Before you ask, the answer is yes.  She is a stinker and, strangely enough, a "rabbit" as well! *wink*  I'm just wondering if I can get her to do that foot massage thing on my scalp!  And the ear thing, too!  Very nice!

Lena brought up a great point in her comment on my last blog.  When these sensational stories hit, we need to look to see what it is that 'they' don't want seen.  Her words got me thinking about most recent events, and what kind of "ground softening" we were given years ago that could help point to the answer.  I asked myself, "What would a government, or other ruling body, do to start laying the groundwork for a massive turn of events?  Something huge, even earth-shattering in proportion."  Well, they would use all means available in the mass media to begin to anesthetize people to the very thing that would happen...they would immerse the public in fictional "what-if" scenarios to get them so used to seeing what the actual events might look like, and thus desensitize them to it.

So what's been all over the news in recent years, sensationalized and beaten in to the ground to the point where everyone has tuned it out?  What movies have been showing in the theaters that would make people completely numb to what would normally be an event of such horrific proportions as to stagger the imagination?  The answer I came up with?

Population thinning virus stories, and of particular note...the killer flu pandemic.

Were you aware that American virologists were actually able to resurrect the 1918 "Spanish" flu virus that killed anywhere from 40 to upwards of 100 million people around the world at the worst possible time...during WWI?  Yes, they actually found a corpse in the arctic of all places; a soldier that was infected with and subsequently died from this killer flu, and was somehow preserved in that frozen climate.  They went in and grabbed a relatively good sample of the virus from his lung tissue, and began to reconstruct it; the official story for why was, "We want to see why this strain was such a bad ass muddafukka."  No, they didn't really say bad ass...I just made that up.

Although the rates are a bit sketchy, those 40-100 million people represent an up to a 20% mortality rate of the infected, and anywhere from 20-50% of the world's population at the time was infected by this strain.  To give you an understanding of how significant that mortality number is, normal influenza related deaths are around 0.1%...that's a tenth of 1% folks.  But the strangest thing of all?  Most of the dead, in fact 99%, were under 65 and half of those were between 20 and 40; almost every other flu kills the very young (under 2) and the very old (over 65).  Now that, to me, is a truly population thinning event!

How long do you think it will be before they "lose containment", and this thing sets off to kill at least one tenth of the planet?  Just so you don't have to do the math in your head, let me do it for you:  that would amount to 500,000,000 people dead.  Yes, you read that correctly...five hundred million.  Dead.  You must remember that in 1918, we didn't have high speed, long distance passenger air travel.  It was more difficult for bugs like this to just hop wherever, whenever and back again.  That isn't the case in our world today.  You can jump on a plane and fly completely around the world in a little over a day or so, making a few stops in major city airports along the way.  The incubation time for most flu strains, including the Spanish flu?  A few days.  That means that from first exposure to the onset of symptoms is about 2-4 days.  You can spread that bug from here and back again in no time, exposing pretty much everyone you meet along the way and they, in turn, infect pretty much everyone they meet, and quicker than you can say VO5 shampoos and conditioners...the human race is toast.

This is exactly what I mean when I say that you can not afford to be tricked in to looking the wrong way by the sensationalistic, gut-check-type stories like, "OH MY GOD!  THERE'S POSSIBLY PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS MAKING IT IN TO THE WATER TABLE IN THE PARTS PER TRILLION RANGE!"  All I have to say to shit like that is, "Well, duh."  If you do see one of these kinds of stories, be sure to look in the other direction, because that's where the real story is going to be happening.

I'm actually starting to wonder if this latest flu epidemic wasn't just some unplanned happenstance, but an intentional probe; a way of testing virulence or exposure patterns.  I had it, and I can tell you with no reservations at all that I have never been so sick in all of my life.  I've had Scarlet fever, measles, chicken pox and double pneumonia twice, and this bug knocked my dick in the dirt like nothing else ever has.

So do I think that the US government has been, for some time, softening the ground for an event like this?  Yes, I do.  Do I think that the US government is capable of releasing something like this back in to the wild, either by accident or on purpose?  Again, yes.  I most certainly do...on both counts.  I worked for good ole Uncle Sugar, and on some of the darker projects and missions.  I know first hand what he is capable of.

I just hope that I'm wrong.

Just an update to my last blog:

Stop the presses!  The whole "pharmaceuticals in the drinking water" story that those uber-geniuses at the AP broke wide open has been taken up by the Senate.  Oh, glory hallelu!  We're all saved now that Senators Boxer and Lautenberg are on the case!  Never wanting to miss a news cycle of this magnitude or seem like they don't care (especially when they DON'T), the Senators didn't miss a step and have called on the EPA (who has known about this problem for quite some time, I'm sure) to "study" this issue and report back with any findings that will require legislation.  Fuck me, problem solved!  People, in no time at all we will be drinking water so crystal clear from the tap, we'll swear it came straight off a glacier!  You heard it here first!

"What about all the other, more deadly and serious pollutants in the water," you ask?  Didn't you just read what I wrote?  The Senate and the EPA are on it!  Let me spell it out in plain Engrish:  Der ain't gonna be nun dat der pullushun in are wahtur no mo! *rolls eyes*

Anybody want to bet on how long (or short) a time it will take these nozzles to either:  1) completely bury this in some sub-committee hearing before sweeping it under the rug, or 2) introduce some completely toothless piece of legislation designed to make it look like they're doing something without pissing off the pharmaceutical lobby (which is fucking HUGE)?

My bet is by this time next Tuesday, you won't see a single story about this from ANY major outlet ever again.

Any takers?

Well, it's been quite a while since my last blog but what's a month and a half(ish) between friends?  Hey, I've been busy so cut this old boy some slack!  I met a very nice woman, and have been spending a lot of my free time talking to her.  I also took a little vacation to go visit her and the beautiful place that she lives in.  Strangely enough, I'm 37 and I have never gone on a vacation before that was all about seeing someone and someplace new, so this was extra special for me!  I could go on for pages about how great she was and how much fun we had, but I know the American attention span and if I don't change it up here soon you're gonna leave without reading the rest of this, so...

"What brings you back out," you ask?  Well, I have been contemplating a new blog for a bit but every time a new idea came up, I was unimpressed with the subjects and my writing so I dumped them all in the circular file where they belong.  It was a confluence of news, other blogs that I read and talking with some friends here that made me decide what this new one would be about.

Now, I'm usually not one to watch or read mainstream news because the reporting and English skills are so atrocious and no matter which major outlet it is, there is no moderation; it's either slanted right or it's slanted left.  In a previous blog I told you that I'm about as moderate as you can get and still have a palpable pulse, so the news usually leaves me pissed off and ready to rant...sometimes that's good, other times not so much.  I end up sounding like an asshole that's always pissed off, which is so far from the truth.  I not pissed that much! *laugh*

So what really brought it to the forefront for me was an AP story that I read on Yahoo! news on Saturday talking about all the pharmaceuticals that they're finding in the drinking water of pretty  much every single community in America.  I work in the water purification industry right now, and just knew that this story would have the widest possible dissemination by late Sunday.  As I suspected, it did and oh, the questions I got at work today!  It was a M-A-D-H-O-U-S-E!  I just wanted to slap all these people and ask them, "NOW you care what's in your water?  Because the AP wrote a sensationalistic, piece of shit, story?  You must be kidding me!"  But alas, they we're not.

My dear readers, please...have a thought of your own.  I know that the school systems and mass media have failed us miserably, but you must learn to reason deductively with your head and not your heart or gut.  Turn off the TV, put down the newspaper, get off of CNN.com.  Go read things on the internet that you wouldn't normally, read views that are opposite of your own, debate people you have never talked with before.  It will expand your horizons and you'll hear things you would normally never hear, especially in a political debate which is where these things should be talked about, but I digress.

Our water is heavily poisoned.  Our air is heavily poisoned.  Our soil is heavily poisoned.  Our food supply is heavily poisoned.  Those are the facts, and there's no debating it.  If you need proof, look to your 7 year old daughter that has just recently started her period, or the 11th grade basketball star who is 6'7" tall and will continue to grow for at least 2 more years, or the spike in every form of cancer, MS, autism, mental disease, autoimmune disease, etcetera that there is.  The funniest part is, you can trace all of it back (if you do a little research) to Standard Oil.  Yes, you read that right...Standard Oil.

Standard wasn't just about oil, oh no.  Old JD has his mittens in everything he could have them in:  oil, petrochemicals (the "petro" part of that should give it away), plastics, "modern" medicines (for both humans and animals), the mass media, politics, banking (National City and Chase Manhattan are both Rockefeller-owned and massive)...the list goes on and on and on.  In fact, it was him that started the American Medical Association to start shilling for the new medicines his pharmaceutical companies were making.

The AMA in turn ran all of the "natural" medicine practitioners out by lobbying Congress and saying that if "doctors" weren't prescribing allotropic remedies, they were guilty of fraud and practicing medicine without a license.  Was there fraud in the naturopathic practices?  Yes, just like there is in the allotropic (modern medicine) practices.  Think Vioxx if you need a frame of reference, but that isn't even the tip of the iceberg where the pharmaceutical companies are concerned.  Off the subject slightly:  one of the largest pharmas in business at the time of WWII?  I.G. Farben of Germany, makers of Zyclon B (among other things), and US-based Standard had a big stake in that company.  If you don't know about I.G. Farben or Zyclon B, now is your chance to do some exploring...type either in to Google and learn, my grasshoppers.

My point?  Well, it's like the title of this blog stated; just be sure to add a large sigh and a head shake at the end of it when you try to picture me saying it out loud.  Everything in the environment is a mess, completely and utterly polluted, and yet we're going to collectively set our hair on fire and run around screaming because (surprise!) there are unused, unmetabolized drugs in the water?  Please, spare me the histrionics.  Let's keep our perspective about us folks, and start working hard together to clean up the whole environment...air, water, soil and food.  And we need look no farther than the oil industry (and it's many branches) to get a really big start on it.

It occurred to me that, based of of my first and last blog at least, you all might be wondering where on the ideological scale I fall.  My first would appear at first blush to be right tilting, and my last one would seem to lend itself to the left.  Well, that should give you a good idea of me.

I would have to say that I'm a moderate Republican with some liberal beliefs.  For instance, I don't particularly like the idea of abortion, but I don't feel that I have any right to push my beliefs on to anyone else, and it surely isn't an issue that belongs among the serious discussions of my government.  This, along with most of the issues that come in to our political debates anymore, is smoke-and-mirrors politics at its worst.

If you pay close attention to the news, you'll see our leaders (and I use that term in the loosest sense possible to maintain a straight face) debating all manner of social issues that belong in a church or a living room.  Politicians should not be debating any of that, so why do they?  It's to take your attention away from the things they aren't talking about:  balancing the budget, foreign policy, domestic policy, etc.

They pick these hot-button topics to get everyone all fired up, fighting amongst themselves and looking in the wrong direction.  In the military, we called that strategy divide and conquer.  If we're all busy bemoaning this or that social issue in the national discourse, we aren't taking our leaders to task for fucking up the monumentally easy task that we assigned to them:  Collecting money in the form of taxes, and distributing that money in the form of roads, schools, foreign aid, the military, a leg up to the poorer among us and on and on and on.

That's it.  Collect money, and distribute money.  And make sure the lights work, and that our military can kick a few cans, if it's absolutely necessary.  So what's all this other crap that the talking heads are yammering about?  Exactly that:  crap designed to take your mind off the fact that our elected officials are failing miserably at their clear-cut duties to our country.  They don't want you to notice that they're all idiots, liars, thieves, warmongers, evil to the core and in the pockets of the "special interests".

Some of you are probably  thinking quietly that I'm unpatriotic.  Well, for those of you that are, I would task you to find someone more fiercely patriotic than I am.  And don't bring me some slack jawed, flag waving cretin that hasn't bothered to venture out of his hometown, either.  I've done my duty to King and  country, and it wasn't just a couple of years in and out to go to college.  I was in for almost 10 years, discharged honorably with a chest full of medals, a couple of "Airman of the Year" awards ('92 and '94) and a couple of public speaking awards.  I graduated near the top of my EOD class and at the top of my Leadership School class, protected 2 Presidents and Vice Presidents (and their families) as well as countless domestic and foreign dignitaries (including Pope John Paul II twice, Defense Secretary William Cohen [see picture above], President Boris Yeltsin of Russia and President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan), worked with the CIA, DEA, FBI, IRS, State Department, Secret Service, Customs Service, and tons of state, county and local police departments, deployed to numerous combat zones overseas...oh, and I defused bombs for a living.  There's a whole lot more, but for those of you in the above mentioned category, a question:  what have you got?  Answer:  a yellow ribbon on your car. *balloons and confetti fall from the ceiling*

Anyway, I just wanted to clear that up a bit.  Any questions?