Category: Thinking, thinking

Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

It seems like the United States’ GOP is working hard to divide the nation. Through actions like dictating what pronouns and genders must be used, and what can be read and taught in schools, they’re narrowing the boundaries of freedom and undermining intellectual thought and creativity.

Once the Republicans were happy to merely oppose the Democrats. Now they oppose personal freedom and choice, forging deeper and sharper divides based on the formulation of ‘us’ and ‘them’, far from the Founders’ vision of ‘we, the People’. Congress under the GOP, and as en extension, the Federal government, is obstructed from governing as Republicans do all they can to stop anything and everything the Democrats attempt to do, treating everyone outside of the GOP’s narrowing scope as enemies. They demand compromise while offering none. Even Republicans who do not heel hard to the line, “Our way or no way,” are ostracized as enemies.

It is one thing to disagree and debate, and another to throw tantrums and hold parts of the government hostage. Holding the government hostage is the modern Republican way, whether it’s:

  • the US military (Senator Tuberville’s ongoing blocking of senior officer promotions until they make changes Tuberville wants);
  • the Federal budget (the GOP Freedom Caucus threatening to shut down the government again and again, as the GOP has done before);
  • reading and education (the GOP embraced ‘Moms of Liberty’ and their advocacy against school curricula that mention LGBTQIA+ rights, race and ethnicity, and ‘critical race theory’, as well as Governors Abbott (Texas) and DeSantis (Florida) and their bids to ban books and forbid teaching certain aspects of history);
  • or the ability for the Federal government to execute and enforce laws (Speaker Johnson’s moves to cut funding for IRS agents and their investigations of tax fraud).

In the GOP’s latest vision of the United States, the vision of who the people are and who may vote, and what rights ‘they may have’ is diminishing in front of the GOP’s idea of God, their idea of religion, their idea of science, and their idea of culture and history.

In so doing, they drive the United States further and more deeply away from being a welcoming melting pot of freedom, independence, and equality for all. Their tools to accomplish their vision are fear, intimidation, discrimation, and bigotry, fortified and encouraged by lies and hypocrisy, often done under cover of ‘religious freedom’, citing the Bible as the source for things it never mentions, in a nation where separation of church and state are supposed to be a foundation of our nation’s existence.

Ironically, the GOP marches down a path that is directly against the words of their party’s founder. President Lincoln declared in his House Divided speech (June 15, 1858), “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”

It’s an insight which the GOP in its right-wing, short-sighted zeal, has chosen to ignore.

3

Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: ambivalent

Just the facts, folks: 47 F and sunny. This is Sunday, October 29, 2023 in Ashlandia, where the marijuana is local and above average. We’ll be in low sixties as our high point today but all that sunshine and blue sky makes it bracing and invigorating. Across the street, the huge, very old maple remains festooned with golden brown leaves. Soaked in sunlight, standing tall against blue sky, the tree seems majestic and steadying.

Stepping out with the cats, though, a determined northern wind delivers the taste and smell of winter. Papi, the ginger blade, still launches himself into the outdoors, foraging for summer for a bit before returning to the house’s protection and surrendering to the change. Tucker, the older black and white fellow, has probably felt the change in his bones and tucks for more sleep on the bed.

Once again, so many, many dreams. They leave me thinking and sometimes typing to understand what I’m thinking. Altogether, they were convulsive, erratic pastiche of experiences with a huge cast of people. What a trip they were.

After the latest US mass shooting — Lewiston, Maine, a forty-year-old shooter, 18 dead, dozens injured — I’d been thinking about the world’s state. Wars, greed, selfishness, and the rise of white supremacy, antisemitism, racism, sexism complicates our fragile existence on this rock. A small but growing number of people seem to think that the answers to our complex problems are in the past. Some claim that it’s all about God and religious and cites things like Christianity and religion as the answer, even as their behavior toward their fellow humans often stands starkly opposite of Christianity’s tenets against greed and for helping your fellow human.

Between the dreams and the the world’s state, The Neurons ended up plating up “Helter Skelter” in the morning mental music stream (Trademark comical). The Beatles wrote and released the song in 1968. One of their hardest rockers, the song became associated with Charles Manson and the murders committed in his name in 1969 in Los Angeles, CA. With that, the song has become embedded with ideas of chaos and destruction.

That’s true with me. I originally thought of it as a druggy come on about sex, based on the words about going up and coming down, then doing it again. The drug part arrives on the song’s feelig of changing moods and disorder.

And there we are: disorder. That’s how I see us now. Polarized and disordered, confused as a civilization about where we’re going and even where we want to go.

Ah, sorry for the pessimistic vibes. Maybe coffee will save me. Be strong and positive, and keep leaning forward. Here’s the music, a recording of a live version of Paul, without the rest of the Beatles. Cheers

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Tueday’s Theme Music

Mood: puzzled

I’m careening along through the year, charging toward the next month with barely time to notice this month. So it feels, and has felt.

Today is Tuesday, October 24, 2023 in Ashlandia, where cheese, bread, and wine are made locally and taste above average. Leaves with fading colors litter the ground, crowding against curbs, huddling in storm drains and taking shelter against buildins and in bushes. High cirrocumulus offerings mark the blue sky’s ceiling like small pieces of popcorn. They’re moving east at an impressive clip as more serious looking stratus flow in from the east, heading west. 52 F now, 61 F is the purported high, according to those who know. Rain showers are forecast for this evening.

Songwise, I have “It’s Ok” buzzing in my head, a gift from The Neurons. Overhearing a person actually saying those words in the coffee shop, The Neurons immediately slotted them into the morning mental music stream (Trademark fabricated).

Released by Imagine Dragons in 2021, the song is about feeling different or being different. You know that feeling, right? Probably. I think most people feel it at one time or another, a sense that they’re either lost or out of step with everyone else, maybe confused about the beat they’re marching to because no one else hears it. The song reassures us that being so is acceptable.

It’s okay to be not okay
It’s just fine to be out of your mind
Breathe in deep, just a day at a time
‘Cause it’s okay to be out of your mind, mind

I don’t want this body, I don’t want this voice
I don’t wanna be here, but I guess I have no choice
Just let me live my truth, that’s all I wanna do
Baby, you’re not broken, just a little bit confused

h/t Genius.com

Stay pos, be chill, remain strong. I believe it’s coffee time. Join me?

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: unsteady

Another Monday is about us in Ashlandia, where the rain falls mainly in the valley, and the streams and rivers swell with the results.

The weather is 52 F, cloudy and rainy. Forecasters warn that today’s high will be 65 F, with intermittent clouds, but it won’t rain. It’s a good coffee and reading day.

As for the world outside of Ashlandia, there were no overnight miracles. The news reports that the ongoing wars are still ongoing, one in Europe, and one in the middle-east. Besides those two, the GOP still wars with the GOP in the US. I don’t look for a quick or happy resolution to the war in the middle-east, but expect it to trudge on as has happened with Russia and Ukraine in Europe.

The GOP war with themselves reminds me of MAD Magazine’s Spy vs. Spy feature, with less humor.

To summarize, led by the hardline Gang of Eight, the Republicans outsted their own guy as Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, even though they’re all part of the majority party nominally known as the GOP. Since booting McCarthy, the House has not been functioning much.

Note: the House wasn’t doing much before losing its Speaker, mostly because the GOP was determined to be the Grand OBSTRUCTIONIST Party. This is largely because a Democrat is POTUS, and most of the GOP’s ideas involve stripping rights from others, banning books, and keeping fossil fuels as the nation’s primary energy source.

Steve Scalise, House Majority Leader, R-La, tried and failed to become the new House Speaker, and withdrew after that one attempt.

Jim Jordan, a hardliner from Ohio, tried and failed after three rounds of voting to become Speaker. Just couldn’t find the votes. He’s considered too hard right and has never been known to compromise. Besides that, he has a poor legislative record.

“Critics of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have increasingly pointed to this – most notably the fact that he has yet to get a bill signed into law since being elected in 2006.” h/t to UnionLeader.com.

A line during Saturday Night Live’s cold open captured the essence of Jim Jordan’s attempt to be Speaker: “I want to be Speaker so that government starts functioning again so I can shut it down.” That’s the gist of Jordan’s politics. He doesn’t like ‘big’ government.

These wars complicate the world’s already precarious situation. The biggest crises we face in 2023 is growing food shortages and rising food costs, per ReliefWeb. Food shortages are worsening because war is tearing up farms and arable land, and growing extreme weather is damaging crops and disrupting growing seasons.

What a mess we’re in, and so much of it is brought on by our own actions. But just as so many addicts of drugs and addictives are helpless to save themselves, so it seems, are we.

Let’s go on to more pleasant matters, like music.

My wife was telling me a story about a conversation between her and some friends. I thought, “Oh, shit, sparks are going to fly now,” as I laughed, because I knew the husband and wife involved and how they were going to react.

Boom, The Neurons pounced, delivering “Master of Sparks” by ZZ Top into my head, where it remains in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sagging). This feels like a case of needing to play it for others to unloop it from my mental music stream, so here we are, me presenting it to you as Monday’s theme music.

The song is part of the first ZZ Top album I ever listened to, Tres Hombres, from 1973. I was seventeen. My buddy, Scott, brought it into high school art class as part of the established routine of listening to music while drawing and painting. One take of that album and I was smitten.

“Master of Sparks” turned out to be one of those songs that caught my attention as I was drawing because I was struggling to figure out what it was about. “What are they singing, Scott?” I asked. He brought it in, so I thought he’d know.

Sweeping his long bangs off his face, he grinned at me with big eyes. “I don’t know. Sounds cool, though doesn’t it?”

Scott introduced me to many new rock bands during that time, and shaped my musical preferences. Highly intelligent, athletic, and creative, Scott started at our school in my junior year after being tossed out from a well-regarded prep school. We shared multiple classes and were on several sports teams together. We also were both very rebellious.

Taking the question seriously, Scott returned two days later and told me that “Master of Sparks” is telling a story about a ball-shaped steel cage that the narrator was in. My reaction was basically, “Whaaa?”

Scott explained that he and Rick listened to it again and again at Scott’s house, and decided that’s what the song was about. Thanks to the net, I know they were right.

High class Slim came floating in
Down from the county line
Just getting right on Saturday night
Riding with some friends of mine
They invited me to come and see
Just what was on their minds
And then I took my first long look
At the Master of Sparks on high

In the back of Jimmy’s Mack
Stood a round steel cage
Welded into shape by Slim
Made out of sucker gauge
How fine, they cried now with you inside
Strapped in there safe and sound
I thought, my-o-my, how the sparks will fly
If that thing ever hit the ground

Slim was so pleased when I had eased
Into his trap of death
He had slammed the door but I said no more
And I thought I’d breathed my last breath
We was out in the sticks down Highway Six
And the crowd was just about right
The speed was too, so out I flew
Like a stick of rolling dynamite

When I hit the ground
You could hear the sound
And see the sparks a country mile
End over end I began to spin
But the ball started running wild
But it was too late as I met my fate
And the ball started getting hot
But through the sparks and the flame
I knew that the claim
Of the Master of Sparks was gone

h/t AZLyrics.com

Onward, my friends. Stay pos and be strong, and let’s press forward. But first, coffee.

Here’s the music. Cheers

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Sunday’s Theme Music

Mood: glum

After greeting us with sunshine this morning, Sunday, October 22, 2023, has served non-stop rain to Ashlandia, where the fresh air is never canned and the drivers are extra-distracted.

Well, first, my apologies. I’m glum today, even irritated and moody. This is due to my illness. It’s plagued me for over two weeks. Nothing deep nor serious, just enough to be bothersome. After convincing myself I was rid of it, the sore throat, lethargy, and headache parts all stormed back. Just depressing, you know? And irritating.

And frustrating. Did I mention that? I’d entertained visions of industrious editing and revising and this damn sickness just undercut all intentions. I’ve been gritting my teeth in a struggle to will myself through it. Instead, I just want to sit back, feeling sorry for myself, reading and chilling. Heavy sigh emerges after I acknowledge and type that.

I’ve tried to edit and revise twice; it’s a challenge today. Some of this is because I’m dealing with a very abstract notion toward the novel’s end. I’m attempting to transition it from its abstract roots into something real and authentic. Patience, deep thinking, and persistence are needed, and I’m struggling to generate those today.

Today’s theme music is “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden. I came up with this by myself, without The Neurons’ help. It came about from watching clouds move in and overwhelm the morning sunshine, undermining my enthusiasm for the day. These days come, of course. It’s not necessarily indicative of anything except a crappy-ish day. It’ll pass.

Meanwhile, I’ve always enjoyed “Black Hole Sun”. It comes across as a declaration to me. The words are sort of contradictory — “Black hole sun, won’t you come, and wash away the rain” — but that somehow springs some defiant hope in me. Perhaps it’s just the plaintive way it first comes across before exploding with brashness, a tone and mood reinforced with hard guitar chords and rolling drums. Besides those elements, weariness is wired into the verses such as this one:

Stuttering, cold and damp
Steal the warm wind, tired friend
Times are gone for honest men
And sometimes far too long for snakes
In my shoes, a walking sleep
And my youth I pray to keep
Heaven send Hell away
No one sings like you anymore

h/t to Genius.com

It’s a stream of consciousness of spent energy, which is much how I feel today. I should warn you, it’s a bizarre video.

Stay pos — at least more positive than me, please — and be strong. I’m trying to move forward; hope you do as well. More coffee, please, black as the sun, hot as ice. Here’s the music. Cheers

2

A Dark & Stormy Dream

Awakening this morning, I was surprised. Sunshine was flowing into the bedroom.

Where was the dark rain?

I listened to the house’s silence. Wednesday, I thought, considering my plans.

No, Sunday, I corrected myself.

I’d expected night, rain, and Wednesday because that’s what I dreamed. Alternatively, maybe that was a different reality embracing me — which I thought was a dream — and now I’m back here again, where it was sunny, daylight, and Sunday. It’s something to contemplate.

The dream had leaned toward the odd side. My wife and I were with many others. We’d gone somewhere where I was to receive a prize and she was to be honored at a dinner. Pretty exciting stuff.

Meanwhile, I was eager to continue writing another novel which I was working on. But first, the dinner.

We’d all parked. I had my black RX-7. It was night, pitch black, and pouring rain. Despite those circumstances, it was a boisterous crowd streaming into the festivities. I knew many and was busy waving, calling out greetings to friends, and laughing.

We got into the hall’s foyer, a lovely warm, tall, and pink marble place with thick carpeting and golden chandeliers. As I chatted with friends, my wife moved away from me, but I could still see her. I called to her so we could go in and find our table.

She turned back around. Shock was on her face. I went to her and asked what was wrong.

“Doctor D is dead,” she answered.

Others approached us, inquiring if all was okay. I explained to them what she’d told me and who Doctor D was to her. Meanwhile, I wondered how she’d received the news; I’d been watching her. Nobody talked to her and she wasn’t on the phone.

Using our coats to protect our heads from the rain, we hustled through the dark rainy night back to my black car. Many other cars were already started and moving, shiny dark shapes, filling the air with exhaust smoke and startling me, because I thought they were staying for the dinner. While wondering why they weren’t I started entering my car.

Another person called to me. Sitting in her car, her window partially down, she explained that she was trying to use her computer writing program but it was asking for a code. She didn’t know how to get a code.

“Yes, you need a code,” I said. She replied that she’d never heard of that, and I said, “I think I can get one for you.”

Returning to my car, I started it and plugged my computer in, then typed some keys.

A series of red characters came up on a black screen. I memorized them and ran through the drenching rain to the other person. “Here, put these numbers in.” When she was ready, I repeated what I’d memorized.

We had to do this twice. I worried that I’d gotten the numbers wrong but it worked after the second time. “Good,” I said, and she replied, “Thank you.”

Head and shoulders hunched, I dashed back to the car. My wife was inside it, waiting. The rain cut visibility like a sheet had been tossed over the world.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She looked at me. “You’re not wet.”

The dream ended.

First, after dreaming this and thinking about it, I eventually fired up my ‘puter. When I checked Facebook for messages from friends and family, FB showed me a post under its “Memories” category; it was the photo I shared in this post. I thought it a stretch as a coincidence to dream of a car that I haven’t owned in over eight years and see a picture of it on the same morning.

I liked that car a great deal, owning it for almost twenty years. A 1993 Mazda R1, it’d been bought as a gift to myself in 1996 after I’d retired from the military in 1995 and landed a good-paying job with a civilian company, a medicial device startup in Silicon Valley. The car reminded me of that life era, and how much my life changed at that point.

All that rain and darkness intrigued me. Despite that, we’d been very happy. I was getting a prize, and my wife was being honored. The mood quickly changed with news of a doctor’s death, but I don’t know of that doctor in real life, so that left me puzzled.

Overall, I don’t have any strong grasp on any insights about the dream. As always, it could be Neurons just having fun, or some weird neural scrambling brought on by unknown causes.

That’s how it goes with my dreams. If anyone can tell me what it means, it’d be appreciated.

2

Mild Rant

Mindlessly net surfing, I encountered stories that mildly attracted me, just to see what they were about. They were probably among twenty stories of this kind that I encountered. These two, though, pressed my Rant button.

Take One: Atlanta home demolished

That’s what it says on the Bing search page. MSN, AP News, USA Today, and others are covering the tale with headlines like this one from AP.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

Woman returns from vacation to find Atlanta home demolished

Makes it sound to me as if the destroyed home was the place she was living in. But no.

From the article: ‘“It’s been boarded up about 15 years, and we keep it boarded, covered, grass cut, and the yard is clean,” she said. “The taxes are paid and everything is up on it.”’

It’s been vacant and boarded up for fifteen years. While I admit that someone made a big mistake and demolished a vacant, boarded up home by accident, and that would be upsetting, I think the way the story is projected is wholly misleading.

Take Two: Former Teammates Now Opponents

Yes, this is what’s on ESPN/NFL’s page: a story about two NFL quarterbacks.

TEAMMATES TURNED OPPONENTS

DOLPHINS-EAGLES: 8:20 P.M. ET

Inside the complicated rivalry of Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts2dTim McManus and Marcel Louis-Jacques

The way this story is presented, they make it sound as if the NFL isn’t full of college teammates who get drafted by NFL teams and end up playing against one another.

This article focuses on Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa, quarterbacks who played at Alabama. Hurts was the starter. With a record of 28-2 and a national championship, he was highly regarded and respected, and definitely capable. But Alabama was being shut out. So he was pulled and Tua was put into the game.

Gosh, that never happens in a football! Coaches are always very careful about these things, putting players’ feelings and reputations above winning (yes, that is snark). I can’t think of any other time that a player who wasn’t doing well was benched so another player could be tried, neither in college or the pros. (Yes, that was more snark. It’s a snarky kind of day.)

Fast forward to this year. Hurts now plays for the Eagles and lost in the last Superbowl and Tagovailoa quarterbacks the Miami Dolphins. The two will meet again when their teams play today. Hence, the story.

Yes, I read both stories. Fortunately, they’re not major events. Sure, it’s upsetting to the woman to lose her vacant other home this way; I’d be pissed, too, if someone went to the wrong address and tore the place down. And the way the company has handled it (so far) does nothing to redeem them. But no one was hurt.

Likewise, the football story was a small distraction in an otherwise war-weary and politically numb world, a story significant or meaningful to some serious fans of the teams or players involved, but net fodder for the rest of us.

And yes, in a way, I’m doing the same thing: posting net fodder. But I’m doing it to distract myself from doing other things.

Hope it wasn’t too boring. Cheers

1

Another Driving Dream

In this dream, I’d driven to a pre-arranged place where I met up with friends.

I was younger, in my twenties, I think, and the others’ age was in that same realm. While I knew everyone in the dream and considered them a friend, only one was a real life friend. This was my sister-in-law, B, who I’ve known since I was in tenth grade in high school.

We were meeting as a group to decide where to go. A brief discussion led to someone suggesting, “Let’s go to southern California.”

“Yes, let’s go to San Diego,” another said.

Further discussion changed our destination to La Jolla.

Pushback rose. “La Jolla? It’s nice but there’s nothing there.”

“There’s the ocean,” others answered. La Hoya was confirmed as where we were going.

I’d been to La Jolla a few times. Once on vacation with my wife, and three other times when my employer, US Surgical Corporation, sent me for trade shows. I like the small and picturesque place. Going there pleased me.

I asked, “Are we all driving?” Because we’d all driven cars there. It seemed to me that one reason we’d met was to share cars, letting us share driving, too, and cutting cost, not just in money, but in what our driving did to the environment. My car was a large black BMW hybrid sedan.

Nobody seemed to hear my question. All seemed busy just gabbing. I called, “Does anyone want to go with me?” Again, there wasn’t any response.

I went to my car to prepare to leave. Part of that was trying to attach an fabric doughnut pillow to my car’s rear. Even in the dream, I wasn’t sure why I was doing this, but, paradoxically, it was important to me in the dream.

The doughnut was attached. Onlookers were impressed, and thought my solution clever. Worries were rising for me that the doughnut would be dragged along the roads and ruined. So I worked on it more, becoming satisfied at least.

Returning to my group, I asked once again, “Does anyone want to ride with me?”

Damian, a young man, said, “I will, if you’re offering.”

“Great,” I replied. “I’m over there.”

I was walking, talking, and pointing as this went on. Damian was on his back. I noticed several others in the group were on their backs, awake and talking, but looking up. Possessions and cluttered surrounded them.

Eager to get on the road, I went to my car, slid into the driver’s seat, and waited for Damian to appear. Impatience growing, I finally got out and went looking for him.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said after I found him. “I’m going to drive myself.”

Exasperated, I called out, “Does anyone else want to ride with me?”

“I will,” my sister-in-law answered. “Where you parked?”

After showing her, I headed back to my car to wait. I was pleased she was going to ride with me because I enjoy her company.

That’s where the dream ended.

My first thought was that the BMW isn’t a cheap ride. But does that signify anything? No, The Neurons replied, except is has value.

Most of my focus went to the frustration of trying to get the seven of us moving. Why seven, I wondered, and why my sis-in-law.

My SIL is someone who I respect. Things weren’t going well for her after high school graduation, but she changed directions and reinvented herself. I admire the willpower and determination she asserted in those years. She’s a confident and charismatic person.

As for seven, I undersand it’s supposed to be one of those spiritual, powerful numbers. Doing some research on the net, I saw that it can mean you’re on the right path.

From all this, I created an explanation that I’m on the right path for what I want to achieve, but I’m exasperated by my slow progress, and that it’s messier than I like. But if I focus, as SIL did, I can make it.

Either that, or The Neurons are playing mind games with me again.

0

Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

I saw a photograph of a USPS envelope in an online post today.

The photo was supporting a story about the first female postmaster in colonial America. First thought: I didn’t know they had cameras capable of doing such clear, detailed photographs in colonial America. The colonists were more advanced than I thought. (Yeah, that’s snark.)

Second thought, looking at the envelope in the photo, what is v-mail service?

As it was part of the return address for the War & Navy Departments, I figured it was related to WWII, and the v probably meant victory. I looked it up online and verified that. But there was more to the story:

“Generative AI is experimental. Info quality may vary.

“V-mail, short for Victory Mail, was a mail service used during World War II to expedite mail service for American armed forces overseas. The Post Office Department officially inaugurated V-Mail service on June 15, 1942. 

“V-mail worked by: 

  • Letters written on pre-printed forms were photographed and reproduced onto microfilm.
  • The rolls of microfilm were transported overseas.
  • The letters were printed again at one-quarter size and mailed to their destination.”

They were using microfilm to transport letters in WWII.

I’ve only been alive for almost 68 years, and wasn’t alive during WWII. In all that time, I’d never heard or seen v-mail service referenced anywhere. Maybe it just flew over my head. I don’t know.

It’s really surprising as Mom was a little girl living in a small rural town in Iowa during WWII. She had brothers who served in the US Navy, as did her friends and classmates. Stories from the fronts transfixed her. I thought she would have mentioned v-mail service. That causes me to wonder if she is aware of it. It’s something to ask her.

What’s more astonishing is that the v-mail service wasn’t original. This system was based on a British service called “Airgraph”. Giving me another pow-pow moment of discovery, Airgraph was developed by the Eastman Kodak Company in conjuction with Imperial Airways and Pan-American Airways in the 1930s.

Pow. I’m knocked down in amazement.

Once again, learning something new and astonishing. It makes me smile.

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