RANTS & RAVES
There's just a few things I have to comment on today - my apologies to anyone who enjoys reading my blithe and extraordinary blogs about writers and other fools.
But today when perusing the news I came across two items that made me wonder if writers aren't the only fools in today's world. It seems like the more technologically advanced we've become, the more our idiocy is revealed. 1st Example:
The brainiacs at NASA just had to find out why when you shake a bottle of ketchup it goes from a paste to a liquid so they sent some up with the ill-fated Columbia and lo and behold - now years later, after finding the damaged hard drive scattered somewhere across Texas where the Columbia broke apart killing all 7 astronauts - they have their answer. I won't go into all the gory detail of how they know - you can read it for yourself if you're curious enough. The point is, who gives a rat's butt why ketchup turns to liquid when you shake it? And why are we spending a gazillion dollars (that's a lot of money in Gazill, by the way) to find something like this out when there are a lot bigger problems facing us - like poverty, disease, broken bridges, lost jobs and the price of fuel?
But I'm not surprised that NASA is spending their time researching such inane things; hell, they want to spend more millions (these the same guys who just got caught using their government credit cards to buy iPods et al) - er, gazillions - crashing space crafts into Mars to find out if there is ever been water there! Water! Is knowing if there has ever been water on Mars, or that there might have once been some form of life there, or could be, like in a gazillion (again, a lot of numbers in a gazillion) years really important in the scheme of things - like the crazy mullahs in Iran getting nuclear weapons? And, Hello! Like haven't we already sent up rovers that have shown that there's nothing on Mars but red rocks. Got news for you boys, you can go to Northern Arizona or Southern Utah and find all the damn red rocks you want. Personally I think NASA is one of the most wasteful government programs ever created and now with this latest scandal, it sort of renews my faith about them being nothing more than a huge money-pit of pure waste.
Okay, enough of that rant, now for the next one: Neanderthals.
Anthropologists in Argentina - sort of has a nice alliterative ring doesn't it? - have come up with some sort of flow chart to prove that we humans are not directly related to Neanderthals - they're like some sort of cousin or ours. Well, hell, again I could have saved those boys a lot of time and research dollars by telling them about my cousin Vinnie - who the whole damn family knows is a Neanderthal, and not one of them claim to be directly related to him. But the point is, again, who gives a big rat's ass, and how does this piece of knowlege affect any of our lives to know this? Isn't anybody working on cures for AIDs, MS, MD, Cancer? I mean we've got all these computers and shit, let's put them to some good use instead of this folly that will garner headlines in Yahoo - whose stock by the way tumbled this morning after Microsoft withdrew it's bid, and who I predict will crash and burn due to the greed of whatever dudes are making the decisions over there. Glad I didn't have any stock in that company, ain't you? Well, I don't have any stock in any company anymore after the brainiac at Edward Jones talked me into losing 10% of my life's savings.
Who knows, maybe there is a research group out there right now trying to figure out why men and women have different body parts. Let's hope so. I mean, Christ, my life's in the toilet as it is since I found out from reading God is Not Great, and, The God Delusion - a couple of depressing manifestos declaring that there can't be any God, or if there is, he's a pretty capricious cat that stands by and lets innocents be slaughtered, and old men marry teens and a whole lot of other stuff they put people in jail for. I'm screwed!
Okay, now on to some Stuff that happened on this day in History.
The first of the Marx brothers - Karl - was born this day in 1818. His mother wasn't sure she wanted anymore kids after Karl, who was always complaining about "the system" - but later she had Groucho, Harpo, Gummo, Zeppo and Chico.
It is also the birthday of Howard "Butch" Komives, who played in the NBA for several teams after being a high school phenom and a classmate of mine at Woodward High School in Toledo, Ohio.
The first train robbery took place in North Bend, Ohio (1865)
John Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee (1925)
Today is Cinco de Mayo - which has nothing to do with mayonnaise but with a Mexican victory over the French in Puebla Mexico in 1862.
Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile. It is widely believed that the reason he suffered his famous defeat at the battle of Waterloo (not the place in Iowa) was because he suffered from hemorrhoids and could not sit a horse for too long at a time and thus could not properly survey the battlefields and command his troops. Shoulda used Preparation H (all that itching and burning)...
And now from the vault whose keeper of the key - Big Sal - let me have at my own collection of loosely called "poems" -
Let’s Go Down To the Lake Today
Let’s go down to the lake today and
Rent a boat and row out to the center
Of the universe and pretend we are on a
Long journey across the ocean returning
Again to our ancestral home, going as
Our grandfathers and mothers did, full
Of hope and heart and bravery as they
Pushed against the tide of their fate.
Let’s go down to the lake today and
Rent a boat and row out to where the
Ducks paddle silently one following the
Other, all in a line and toss them bread
Crumbs and pretend we are on a lake
Somewhere in Paris, or perhaps Italy.
Let’s go down to the lake today and
Rent a boat and row and row and row
Until we fall off the edge of the earth
And into unknown void of imagination.
Just you and I, let’s go down to the lake today.
Let’s go down to the lake today and
Rent a boat and row out to the center
Of the universe and pretend we are on a
Long journey across the ocean returning
Again to our ancestral home, going as
Our grandfathers and mothers did, full
Of hope and heart and bravery as they
Pushed against the tide of their fate.
Let’s go down to the lake today and
Rent a boat and row out to where the
Ducks paddle silently one following the
Other, all in a line and toss them bread
Crumbs and pretend we are on a lake
Somewhere in Paris, or perhaps Italy.
Let’s go down to the lake today and
Rent a boat and row and row and row
Until we fall off the edge of the earth
And into unknown void of imagination.
Just you and I, let’s go down to the lake today.
do well, kiss whoever will let you, drink no more than you must and read the Desiderata at least once in your life.
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