Why Are Cops Always Innocent? 

In light of several recent grand jury decisions to not bring any form of indictment against police officers who commit homicide, many are wondering:

“Well, gee! How come cops always seem to be innocent of any thing and everything whenever they kill or maim someone?”

Just to reassure readers that our justice system really works, and that citizens of our great nation have nothing to fear from a self-absorbed fraternity of uniformed individuals wielding the highest technology military weaponry your tax dollars can buy, we’ve provided:

 Top Eleven Reasons why Grand Juries Always Decide that Cops are Innocent. 

1. "I was just following orders" deemed good enough justification for homicide, genocide, whatever. 
2. “I saw something shiny in his hand” traditional OK for use of automatic weapon (if "shiny object" clearly seen at the last moment to be ballpoint pen, then maybe taser).
3. Fighting real bad guys like murderers and terrorists way too scary.
4. Statement that “I feared for my life” always overwhelmingly convinces jurors that using a Glock 45 to blow two-inch holes in a mentally-ill teenager capering around with a butter knife is understandable.
5. Use of occasionally fatal choke-holds on helpless people is a tacit but long-accepted PD SOP
6. Not generally known that talking back to or sassing police officers carries an automatic death sentence.
7. Have to express themselves somehow now that Gestapo and SS have been disbanded.
8. What is the point of giving them all these super-expensive high-tech weapons if they don't make use of them?
9. Most non-white people are basically liberal communists anyway who just don’t understand who’s in charge here.
10. Shooting people to death still only a poor substitute for really cool ISIS techniques like public beheading.
11. If you serve on a Grand Jury, once your decision is made…they know who you are. 

GALACTIC COUNCIL FINAL DECISION -  VOTE IS UNANIMOUS:

HUMANS TOO VIOLENT AND PRIMITIVE TO BE ALLOWED TO EXIST - CONSTITUTE A SERIOUS THREAT TO INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

Supercluster 11B News Service
21 Derlopshin AG 20145642
(Translation by Emini Hefaabizib)

By a unanimous vote today the galactic council passed a resolution stating in part that the semi-evolved apes currently dominating the third planet in the Sol system have consistently demonstrated an utter inability to attain any degree of moral or ethical civilization, constitute a grave threat to intelligent life in the universe, and should be eliminated.

Recent reports from the Centauri 11 survey suggest that after two million years of species integrity and approximately five thousand years of communal living, humans are now murdering each other and destroying their environment at an almost unprecedented rate.  Most disturbing to the council was evidence that they have actually begun to regress to the extent that helpless children, elderly people and the disabled are now murdered and maimed by laughing imbecilic apes possessing weapons so sophisticated that no species should have access  to them.

Secretary Yag Cwefmio noted pointedly that "...their technologically superior nations have ramped up a policy of slaughtering utterly innocent civilians without expressing the slightest concern about doing so; as long as it serves their military or political aims.  Worse, their people and news services have become so inured to the constant obscenities of human life that the terminology used to describe the endless horror has become weak and ineffectual..."

The council expressed universal disgust that such a crude and destructive species has been allowed to exist as long as it has and approved termination "...at the chairman's earliest convenience..."

Other non-human species on the planet are to be preserved in hope of a later development of group intelligence which will eventually lead to civilization.

Twitter Haiku 

She tweets me when she has nothing to say. 

I tweet her when I don’t know what to do. 

We sit back to back, Staring at small screens.

 Donald Sterling's Hideous Sin

30 April 2014

In a civilization as violent, ugly, shallow and disorganized as this, blatant racism in any form is repugnant. 

However, a cursory review of comments posted to virtually any internet news story suggest strongly that a sizable chunk of our population would find itself likewise banned, branded and possibly incarcerated if more wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, mistresses, concubines, etc. also got mega $$$$ for secretly recording private conversations.

Washed-up rich guys pushing 90 are not too threatening.  The real fun would begin when boudoir chats involving certain other multi-billionaires with political ambitions hit the net.

Bugs ready?

"Bee Nott On My Syde"  As Wednesday is the Bard’s 450th Birthday, it is perhaps appropriate that one of the lesser-known plays from what the French refer to as Le Folio Questionable of 1616 be at last put before the public. Here then, for the first time in print is, in two acts:

BEE NOTT ON MY SYDE 

Ye True and Tragicall Tayle of how a King, striving to doo Goode and bee Liberal, can indeed Lose a Kingdom over a Horse 

Scene: 
A Great City by the Sea 

Dramatis Personae: 
Dinken – A former King 
Giulianus – Another former King 
Bloomenborg – A Buyer and Seller of Kingdoms 
Diblasius – The current King 
Letamon – A witty but churlish fellow 
Lenos – Another witty but churlish fellow 
Finche – A motley foole 

ACT I 
Enter Lenos and Letamon, bras-en-bras 

Lenos – Why, how now master Letamon. Why stare’st thou so at thy i-pod?

Letamon - Pish for thee, thou cow-eared dog! I have just now deposited my residuals and severance checques and find me well over 100 million florins in wealth!  ...ifaith Lenos, why now twerkst thou so?  

Lenos – Easily have I outstripped thee, thou braggart vile and damned furious wight!

Letamon – Oh ho! Then shalt thou purchase yet another aged and sagg’ed waggon at king’s ransom cost?

Lenos – Not in a pigg’s eye. Now I shall purchase ALL the dregs and rinds of Chysler and rename it The Lenos! – Laughter 

Letamon – Verily, we are well away with our loot. But list! We be but mites beneath the foote of the Mighty Bloomenborg. Hee could but, if hee wished, now buy Portugal and use it only for the fishe. Betimes, how came hee by his great wealth and power?

Lenos – Ah, I heard it in this wise… In the last days of King Dinken, when all prated on how hee had squandered the City’s gold on undeserving louts, there rose up Giulianus who promised to bee a Liberal, improve ye Qualitie of Lyfe - and yet reduce taxes.

Letamon – Was his mind aright?

Lenos – I know not, but this rested not easy in his bosom and quickly made he friends with police and billionaires, and sought upon himself greater power and glory

Letamon – Lenos, thou hast spoke true; His heart is fracted and corroborate.

Lenos – Remember thou how he danced and orated upon the rubble of WTC and called for War, knowing this would both increase his glory, his power, and his appearances on CNN? Among his allies was Bloomenborg.  Already fat with gold, hee too lusted for power and knew hee had only to wait.  

Letamon – Aye, and Giulianus, lock’ed with death-grip to his lust for greater glory through more police and more Orange Alerts drew heavy laws upon the people, forsook the Law of the Land for himself and when his time was done threated the City Council to give him yet more.  But then arose Bloomenborg who quoth: “Ha, art thou bedlam? Thy time is done, base oppressor. I shall now offer the people both security and MY style of Qualitie of Lyfe.”

Lenos – And the people, seeing only “Security” bethought: “… z’blood, hee is rich so must be hee smart alike!” and readily made him king. Verily then, confusing himself with Godd, sought he to take tobacco and Large Cokes also away and made yet more cudgel-swinging police until the people groaned and cried out “enough”.

Letamon – Aye and so arose the most gracious Diblasius; calling himself again Good-Hearted and Liberal…but hold, enough of this! Let us away to the golf links at Monaco, for I fear my gold is but little used!

 Exeunt both 



ACT II 
Enter Diblasius and Finche, pushing a heavy electric car 

Diblasius – Why, beatest’s thou a dead horse Finche? My mind is firm on this matter.

Finche - Pray your Grace but clap an eye on the headlights!   In faith e’en the Blind would see them as Hong Kong Garish! Overall the waggon looketh both cheape and fake. Thinkst thou a swain and’s mistress would covet a midnight dalliance through ye park on such a thing?

Diblasius – But my heart bleeds for the poor horse who might be whipped and forced to plod this heavy trade…

Finche – Then e’n in please your grace, out of love for you, I bid thee bind up those wounds and shed not another drop of heart’s juice for these nags who, I’m told, delight in this service. Woulds’t thou have them better at the glue factory?  Their sires and grandsires did the same service and liked it well. Vouchsafe it that many now would think thee a bedlam natural, save those that curse thee a slave to the moneybagged fooles at PETA who did help make thee King.

Diblasius – But the people have had enough of Bloomenborg!  I must be a Liberal who loveth all. Have I not taken a comely Moor to wife? Dine I not with those loathe to report their dalliance in this countrie to the State?   Like I not the Spring flowers?

Finche – Ah your Grace, e’en it all be widely known, This city hath so many more heavy-pressing issues that thy love for flowers, illegals and horses, makes thee look the foole and tyrants the like of Giulianus, who would in a moment roast and eat ye horse, seem sane.  -  Hark! while police yet beat white-maned ancients while you prate about horses another Rational Progressive leaves your army and wants not to be hailed as your ally.

Dilblasius – Watche thy tongue foole or I will have it out!

Finche – Then I leave thee thus…there is much of great Matter to be done in this evil city. Thou’rt now king. Lose not thy kingdom for a horse!

Finis

MH-370 Diary 
Day 45

I think it is Day 45.  I know it is at least 43 days that we have been here on Suluk.   All of us who are still here anyway.  If they took the old lady yesterday we are down to 63 in these three houses.  So I'm drunk, but it hasn't killed me yet.   I didn't know you could make some kind of wine out of fermented coconut milk but Agi did it.  So all right.  

I'm not embarrassed.  I don't think anyone will find these messages anyway.  There are no airplanes crossing overhead, and no helicopters.  I wonder if anyone cares.  It's OK to get drunk and makes it a little more bearable.  I'm sick of fish and these oily greens but that's all we have.  

I don't know why they won't let us go.  We don't know anything and nobody cares anyway.  Last week I heard Alahadi joking about somebody searching for us down near Australia.  So somebody cares?  But that's where that stupid decoy drone went isn't it?  Who am I talking to anyway?

Hey if anyone gets this, we're on Suluk, probably in the Andaman Islands and I'm sick of fish.  I think its April 22nd today, Earth Day.  We're still here on earth, it shouldn't be so hard.    Pleasae come and get us.

- Loosely translated from a rolled note found in a plastic bottle on an Alaskan beach July 22nd, 2021

TWENTY-OH WHAT?
Musings on Time and its Measurement

15 April 2014 AD

It’s far too late to do anything about it now, but during the past decade I found myself in a etymological back-water, excluded from the common parlance; an outcast, tragically misunderstood. 

My mistake was to suppose that when the year 2001 dawned, it would be appropriate to use the same convention in place for the past Five Centuries if not longer, and call the year Twenty-O-One.  It just seemed to make sense. When did TR assume the Presidency? Nineteen-Oh-One. When was the dwarf planet Ceres discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi? Eighteen-Oh-One. When was Captain Kidd hanged as a pirate? Seventeen-Oh-One. And so it goes on down the corridors of recorded time and honored tradition. “Twenty-Oh-Something” should have been a natural when its time finally came. Waiting in the wings, eager to flex millennial muscles, it would not only be timely, it would be ubercool.  When I was in school, anyone who said: “One Thousand Nine-Hundred and Eighty Nine” was either on heavy drugs or recently arrived from Kalashnipur, Lower Baluchistan. 

But it never happened. The stranglehold the talking heads had on our collective psyche proved Herculean. In SONY and Fox and NBC boardrooms it was decided and so decreed: The awesomeness of pronouncing: “THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND AND SOMETHING SOMETHING” in Magnificent Ten-Syllable Tones was undeniable.  It would be Policy.  Deviation therefrom would be the exclusive province of hoary pundits like Dan Rather in an oppositional/defiant mood.  It was, after all, The Third Millenium.  Any reference to twenny-oh anything would be met by confused looks and then the slow, slow dawning of understanding.  It was a battle not worth fighting.

Still, from my perspective, since the first 14 years of the long-awaited Third Millenium have proven among the bloodiest and cruelest in human history we might as well skip the histrionics. Personally, when referencing a given mass-murder, species extinction or genocide which took place in say, 2007, I still recommend avoiding the bloated pomposity of using 6 ponderous syllables when “twenny-o-sevn” does the job admirably with just 3.

Regarding the other Time issue...now filtering in from the province of Archeology...about the appropriateness of the term "B.C."  I don't have problems with the retention of antique terminology whether appropriate or not.  Antique terminology gives our culture charm and tradition. There is no need for computer programs to suddenly be called "apps" just to sound cool. Jews don't have to call a Christmas Tree a Hanukkah Bush to avoid apostasy. It's OK to refer to a freezer as an icebox. I wouldn't even balk at someone calling a CD-player a victrola. It gives us some continuity rooted in the past. 

B.C. however was always a little weird since it was English whilst AD was Latin, but never mind that.  When thoughtful archaeologists, striving to do good, changed it to B.C.E. (before Christian Era) they unwittingly implied that the Christian Era was the only one worth establishing as a boat-anchor for Time.  The next iteration kept B.C.E. but changed its meaning to "Before Common Era" which in a way was even worse because it directly implied that all other Eras were either Uncommon or by inference, Abnormal.  Thus, Buddhists are left with the suggestion that the saintly Siddharta Gautama attained parinibbana not in the Blessed Year 1, but in the year Negative 545 of the Abnormal Era. 

My suggestion is that we return to B.C. but change AD to A.C. (and add the periods for uniformity). However, since this gives an air of presumptive and arrogant English Chauvinism, how about we keep AD and start referring to the Year Zero on back as AnDi (ANte DominI)?  Things are consistent, the language is the same used during the epoch we are fretting about and everybody is happy.

Lunchtime in America 

1 April 2014

Despite the date, I kid you not about the content below. This is a real story reported by actual talking-head reporters on multiple websites (e.g. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/man-sues-mcdonald-napkin-article-1.1708068)

The problem is that in its telling and retelling, the rapidly narcotized, minibyte attention span, e-reading public in the U.S. and internationally is led to accept nonsense like this as just another story, rather than proof that civilization is just about done for.  I think it's time to correct this wearying trend by re-writing stories like this accurately.   What follows is the original version (from a deliberately unidentified website which nevertheless shares verbiage with the identified website because coherent prose is so f-ing rare nowadays) which got published in...of all places...Japan!

What follows that is the Emails From Earth version, lightly edited for enhanced versimilitude to actual events.
 

The Original Version That Got Published in Japan:
How many napkins are you offered with your order at McDonald's? Do you think it's enough? One man is suing the Golden Arches for a lack of napkins after only receiving one at his local McDonald's. According to TMZ, Webster Lucas was unhappy with his local McDonald's in Pacoima, CA after he received just one napkin. When he asked for more, Lucas claims he was denied. That did not sit well with Lucas, who told the manager on duty, "I should have went to eat at the Jack-in-the-Box because I didn't come here to argue over napkins. I came here to eat." According to Lucas, who is African American, the manager then made a racially-motivated remark, allegedly saying something about "you people." (The manager is reportedly Latino.) After the verbal disagreement, Lucas emailed the general manager of the McDonald's to say that Napkingate caused him "mental anguish," which has prevented him from working. The general manger offered Lucas free burgers, but Lucas instead decided to sue McDonald's for $1.5 million. Based on this account, do you think Lucas deserves compensation?

The Revised Version:
How well do you understand life in America? Do you think it's enough? One man saw an opportunity to make some BIG Money in the typical American Way. Webster Lucas saw his chance at a local McDonald's in Pacoima, CA. After he allegedly received (according to him) just one napkin, Lucas cried out publicly that he needed more and could not get them - even though they are dispensed free and without limit at every McDonalds on the planet. Since the typically Spanish speaking, probably-minimum-wage, quasi-legal, Hispanic menial he was dealing with could probably not understand what he was ranting and raving about, Lucas, who has some partial African ancestry, then cried out that a McDonalds Manager had muttered something about "you people". Seizing this opportunity, the eager Lucas ran to a delighted California lawyer who also saw a chance to make REALLY BIG Money by creating an otherwise non-existent "incident". The lawyer instantly labelled what Lucas thought he heard as a "racially-motivated remark" knowing this would attract intense news coverage. At the lawyer's urging, Lucas emailed the general manager of McDonald's to say that the manufactured "incident" caused him "mental anguish," which prevented him from going to work. Regardless of how idiotic this was, the general manger, awed by the great edifice of Justice in America, offered Lucas free hamburgers. Having no interest whatsoever in food, the excited Lucas and his equally breathless lawyer are suing McDonald's for $1.5 million. Based on this account, do you think Lucas and the lawyer should be tried and executed for diverting important attention away from the serious problems which truly plague our people and our planet?

MH 370 Diary: Three Weeks Gone Today

29 March 2014

We have become very good fishermen!  The 20 or so natives who are with us here are good with nets and they have been bringing us food and clothing regularly.  We built a palm frond fish roaster and so we've had enough to eat.  I hope the people on the other island are doing as well.  We cannot understand them though and Tagluk, who seems to be their boss, gets angry and shakes his gun whenever we ask about when the rescue boat will come.

This island - I think it is near Batti Island in the South Andamans - is a new one they took us to and there are some old American Quonset huts here, probably from WWII.  Tagluk knows a little English and keeps saying "One week go home" but he has been saying that for what seems like a month.  

My friend, who knows a little about commercial aviation, says the small flash we saw about 2 hours before landing was probably a small decoy plane with one of our transponders or ACRS.  His rationale is that if the pilot was going to confiscate all our electronics and then turn off all of our flight's communication devices, why would he risk being detectable by satellite?

I agree.  If this airplane has been sold for nearly a half-billion dollars (as he thinks) it would be nothing for them to introduce a decoy to fool the satellites.  Anyway, after the initial shock it was amazing to see the decoy (if that's what it was) slowly flying away from us and due south toward what must be Antarctica or southern Australia.

Well, that's all for today's news.

- From a note found in a plastic juice bottle on a beach in Sri Lanka , January 7th 2015

MH370:  Wouldn't it Be Nice For a Change....

We live in a world dominated by the unrelenting grim realities of intentional international murder, destruction and evil.  We are almost certain that Flight MH370 lies in pieces somewhere with the precious lives of its passengers just as scattered.

But maybe, instead, for once,  THIS could be what happened...

March 15th 2014  AP - Sources in Thailand's vacation island of Phuket report that the remains of a hot-air ballon have been found on a beach containing a note from one of the passengers on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that the note was written two days before and was a secured to the home-made balloon - which was then released by someone with knowledge that the primarily easterly winds would carry the fragile craft to a landfall in Thailand.

Although the translation remains unconfirmed, the note reads in part:

"...I was a passenger on Flight MH 370....we were told we had to make an emergency landing and all our cell-phones were confiscated.  We were blindfolded and taken in several boats away from the landing field.  We have been stranded on this beach for three days with very little food and water.  We think this is a small Island somewhere near the Andaman Islands.  There are over 230 people here and we have very little shelter.  Please send help...."

I'm sure the reality will prove to be much more dreadful, but we can hope, right?

High Noon on Titanic Beach
18 February 2014

Getting away from New York and Connecticut for a while may be a good idea in this weather.  How about Saturn?

The Cassini-Huygens probe launched by NASA and the European Space Agency in late 1997 went into orbit around Saturn in 2004 and has been returning stunning data and pictures ever since.   In December 2004 the satellite released a sub-probe called Huygens which soft landed on Saturn's giant moon Titan a few weeks later.
 

Titan has since become famous as the only OTHER place in the solar system where waves gently lap the shores of remote beaches and gentle rains wash down from the mountains in chuckling rivulets, emptying into peaceful lakes.  

Before planning your next vacation though it's instructive to look more closely at this promising vacation spot:

• 1. It's a bit chilly: -290oF 
• Leave the shades home.  The sun looks like a very bright star at high noon.  That's about it. 
• The lakes and seas are not water; they are crystal-clear liquid methane - Natural gas. 
• Sure, go for a swim - but since liquid methane's not particularly buoyant you'll sink like a stone. 
• Want to build sand castles?  Fine, but since the sand on Titan is a weird hyper-solid water ice, watch where you put the grill!  "Oh no!  Dad melted the beach!" 
• Better forget the grill altogether since the atmosphere's mostly nitrogen.  Add enough O2 to get a good flame and the lakes explode (Right. Natural gas)

Bon Voyage!

A Seasonal Carol for Atlanta 
...and Tuscaloosa, and Tel Aviv, and Leningrad, and Mumbai...  
Think: "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!"
12 February 2014

It’s beginning to look a lot like Norway, 
Here in Tel Aviv,
There’s already a foot of snow, And everyone wants to know,
 
Can we ski the Pyramids on Christmas Eve? 

 

It’s been hotter than hell in Novosibirsk,

For a month at least …but tovarisch, don’t you know? 
To Siberia I’d go - Just to catch a breeze!

 






Glaciers retreating and subartic heating 
The jetstream’s out of control… 
Carbon emissions confirming suspicions
The ozone’s peppered with holes;

  

But Eskimos are fi-nally enjoying guacamole!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Moscow, 

Here in old Bombay, 
For a change it is very nice, 
But my curry has turned to ice, 
and they’re skating on the Ganges, so they say;

 
They used to have sun in Ala-bama,
Not so long ago,

 

But the funniest sight to see 
Are the “experts” that will be
There on Fox TeeVee,

Climate change it’s NOT, 

It’s a Liberal Plot!

JUDICIAL EXECUTION OF CONVICTED FELONS
5 February 2014

I'm not against capital punishment for heinous criminals and murderers.  On the other hand, executing someone after 10 or 20 years in prison is barbaric.  

In one sense, the Chinese are not too far off the mark here.  They convict someone.  They take them out back.  They shoot them in the head.  The end. 

Here in the U.S., where we damn other countries for human rights violations, we convict someone and then...

• We keep them in prison for many years at huge taxpayer expense.
• We let them reform and find religion.
• We let them dedicate their lives to helping other felons 
• We encourage them to find aspiration, education and purpose
• We let them hope and pray for life
• We tell them all appeals have failed and we are going to kill them.

 And then, we give them another few months to think about this after which we dramatically lead them to horror-movie rooms where they are either slowly electrocuted or to strapped to tables surrounded by poison-containing machines.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment?  The Chinese may occasionally execute the innocent and harvest the organs, but at least they do it without 20 years of psychological torture.

Turkeys in de Road!

29 February 2014

We live in a part of New England where it is not uncommon to find large families of these throwbacks to Cretaceous theropods lazily walking down minor highways, scavenging for nuts and roadkill offal.  They were so happy and lazy about it this morning I thought the incident should be commemorated in song.  

You all know the tune.......:

Whi-le driving back from bus-stop I saw Turkeys in the road, 
So I slowed right down and went to CAUTION mode,
But another guy was coming fast and wanted to get there,
So I put on my flashers and I yelled: BEWARE!

Turkeys in de Road...
Up Ahead!

Turkeys in de Road..
Doan make dem dead!

Let them walk about, get fatter now, without no fear,
Thanksgiving isn't coming until late this year. 

Turkeys in de Road...
Up Ahead!

Turkeys in de Road..
Doan make dem dead!

Let them walk about, get fatter now, without no fear,
Thanksgiving isn't coming until late this year. 

etc. etc.   Thank you and good night.

Dying to Prove a Point 
25 January 2014 

OK.  Today it was a little warmer, only -11oC.  My friends in Indonesia glaze over just hearing me talk about it.  So what’s with these middle-aged dimwits who start running around in Bermuda shorts?

Actually, this bizarre practice began along with the start of the severe flu season in November.   I mean..what's the rationale?

"Hey, Death!"  " Look at my legs. Nya Nya, Nya Nya!"  

It's 2 degrees Fahrenheit but I see them on the train:  "Nya nyah. nya nya."  "Betcha I won't be the one hacking up pieces of lung and bloody phlegm!"  

Like, WTF?

Black Widows and Other Invertebrates 
23 January 2014 

Why are we still calling suicide bombings “terrorism”?  The term implies some sort of political agenda associated with the act; innocent people terrorized for some constructive reason. The classical terrorist terrorizes people to compel them to do something they otherwise would not do. 

Huh? 

No no no. This is 2014. As Volgograd and Boston and Madrid and now Cairo prove, this is just brainless killing for no apparent reason. Suicide bombers do not leave notes. The lunatic organizations they belong to generally do not issue manifestos before or after the explosions. Nobody says: "...do x immediately or else y will happen." 

No. We are in a new era. 21st Century humans are spectacularly comfortable with simply slaughtering and maiming as many of their innocent neighbors as possible for no particular reason. 

We should stop using the term: “Terrorist”. We should start using the term: "Insane Mass Murderer".

Another Morning in America: 
Three More Shootings Today
14 February 2014 

Several Fatal Again - So What's the Takeaway?

1. 1. Guns don’t kill people
2.  
3. 2. Americans with guns kill Americans without guns
4.  
5. 3. More guns will help those Americans to kill more of the previous Americans before they kill them
6.  
7. 4. Some other Americans will be killed in the process.

• Makes sense.  Welcome to America. Vote Republican.

Life in New York

11 January 2014

Has anyone else noticed how "Have a good day SIR!" has now become a form of attack, especially following a negative interaction with some wetware consumer interface?

The Last Survivor of the 19th Century

10 January 2014

Soon now, we hope not for a while, but probably soon, we are going to lose the last people who have lived in the 19^th Century.  Depending on your viewpoint, that means either before 1900 or before 1901.  I prefer the former.  It’s just neater.  Currently this includes, in addition to several Americans of dubious documentation, Ms. Misao Okawa, of Osaka, Japan who by virtue of enduring calmly in a state of rural wa for 115 years AND being born on March 5^th 1898 is now the oldest fully-documented living person on the planet.  Incidentally, Ms. Okawa is also the only person left who was my current age on the day I was born.

So, assuming you were paying attention, and not peacefully allowing the decades to drift by as a lesser function of the rice harvest, when the last minutes of 1899 ticked away (or 1900 if you’re a strict “0 AD was a year too” believer) - and Ms. Okawa was just learning to toddle - where were we?

1. There were no other galaxies known except ours.
2. The number of Civil War Veterans still living?  Most of them.
3. We knew about the electron but just just. We did not know about the proton. 
4.  People who were as old as Ms. Okawa is now - were born in 1784 
5.  Passenger pigeons were not yet extinct, nor were dozens other species, but there were only 971 American bison left alive. 
6.  There were no antibiotics, a cold could prove fatal and often did.  The average lifespan in the U.S. was 47 years. 
7.  There was no subway system in New York (work was just about to begin). 
8.  Most of Europe was ruled by kings and the sun never set on the British Empire - which will invade China the following year. 
9.  Women and children were still considered noncombatants in most wars, and terms like “ethnic cleansing”, “terrorist” and “genocide” were virtually unknown (although practiced avidly against tribal Africans, aboriginal Australians and Native Americans). 
10.  Coca Cola still featured that “special” ingredient. 
11.  If you wanted to bad enough in 1899 you could drive a car, listen to the radio, make a (relatively) long-distance phone call, play your favorite record, take a trip in an airship, mail a letter that would get there in 3 days maximum and have an afternoon of fun at Coney Island for under a dollar. 
12.  It was popularly believed, thanks to Lowell, that there was intelligent life on Mars.

Now it is 2014, over a year after the Mayan Apocalypse, (which still is depressing a lot of people because it didn’t happen).  Miley Cyrus dominates the news because we have a juvenile fascination with antics of pointlessly famous mental midgets.  The New York Public Library has become the Stephen Schwartzman New York Public Library because money apparently buys the right to stick your name wherever there’s a free expanse of marble or wall.  But apart from that let’s take a look at where we are now:

1. There are billions and billions of other galaxies.  Ours is a relatively minor dot in the local group. 
2. The Civil War has been over for almost 150 years and its last verified veteran died in 1956. Nevertheless, you will still be taking your life in your hands if you yell out “God-DAMN Jeff Davis!” at a truck stop in Alabama.
3. We now know about quarks and neutrinos, and maybe, just maybe, we’ve caught a Higgs boson
4. Babies born today who will live as long as Ms. Okawa, will be strapping on their anti-grav walkers in the Mars retirement colony each morning in the year 2128.
5. Amphibian species continue vanishing worldwide due to water contaminated with very, very bad things.  Those who don’t vanish are routinely born with six legs and three heads.
6. There are lots of antibiotics, but since hospitals in China and elsewhere are prescribing them wholesale to get kickbacks from the manufacturer, there’s now so much acquired resistance that they’ll soon be as useful as mud for the next H5N3 killer virus
7. There is now a nice functional subway system in New York.  Pretty much the same one as in 1939.
8. Much of Europe is now broke.  China is considering buying large parts of the former British Empire.
9. Genocide and ethnic cleansing has become a way of life in many parts of the world. No one is a noncombatant and children are regularly, and savagely, murdered.  A lot of us think that kids dying in Syria is somewhat OK, because they’re foreigners.
10. Coca Cola no longer has that "special" ingredient
11. In 2014 we can listen to the radio, make a phone call, thumb-diddle a text and get down with i-tunes WHILE driving a car - frequently into someone or something else.
12. While we now know there is no intelligent life on Mars, there’s very little of it on Earth either.

So on March 5^th, happy 116^th birthday to Ms. Okawa-san.  Hang in there a little longer and perhaps soon those little green men who only seem to visit places in rural Arizona will take pity on us all and bestow the gift of civilization.