Hidden Reality

 

Now that we know, it should have been obvious all along.  The leaders of the Greater Galaxy, meaning the Milky Way - a remote isolated sector of one of the smaller arms in which our Solar system is buried - and also meaning the representatives of the greater Culture that has gained hegemony over the millennia, has decided a few thousand years ago to place this planet of primitive, dangerous mammals under close surveillance, within the restrictions imposed by the Prime Directive of non-interference.

That decision has been proven correct over and over again as the human race gained in technical sophistication without managing to leave behind all their primitive beliefs and clannish behaviors and the religions they manufactured to support those beliefs and justify those behaviors.  There is an ongoing argument among the professionals in the Oversight department whether we will kill ourselves along with most of the other species on Earth before we wise up to reality and start cleaning up the messes we’ve made.

One side says that, in order to be scientifically pure and rigorous in the experiment, we should be allowed to go extinct as a result of our decisions, and a new and interesting species of being will take our place.

The other side says that, even though things are going bad fast, it is also true that the majority of people are not in a position to do much about it other than vote in the next election, though it must be admitted that less than half of us bother to do that, and an even smaller amount tries to work on the issues and for their solutions.  Because of them, it is pointed out, we are worth saving, and someone should step in and put a stop to our insanity before we blow the whole world up.  Not to mention that the rest of the planetary biodiversity has not been given a chance to weigh in on the situation.

The argument continues, and the betting line on the outcome has a life of its own.

And of course, in any society, even one as vast and complicated as one that spans a galaxy, there are always the outsiders, the pirates, the negative side of the equation, always working in the dark, quick to run for cover when the cops show up.

It is also true that there is one thing that a vast, complicated society loves to share among it’s elite members, that of succulent and tasty comestibles from all the remote parts of the galaxy, the more obscure the better.  A good red wine from certain areas of France, or California, is worth enough per bottle on Altair VI to buy the whole vineyard that produced it, and don’t even get them started on the idea of chocolate!

That is why, for thousands of years, especially over the last few hundreds as our culinary output grew in sophistication, the demand for Earth-made products has ensured a steady supply of smugglers and agents all scouring the planet for the next great find.  Our current economic system supports all this activity nicely.  Just try to think about how many anonymous warehouses exist all over the world into which things can go and never come back out, since they got transported aboard the cloaked vessel orbiting the planet.

This interest has also been spreading into jewelry and musical instruments.  Think about it:  We have been digging up diamonds for hundreds of years, yet the price is still so high!  Some of them are just not accountable for.  Like a ’59 Gibson Les Paul sunburst guitar, some have just disappeared, and nobody knows where they went.  Nobody on this world, anyway.

Many choice items are so highly valued, like Vincent motorcycles, Bugatti automobiles or antique firearms, that people maintain lists of every known example of the marque and speculate endlessly on the fate of the missing ones.  It should be clear that those have all disappeared off-planet.

It also tends to explain all the stories we have heard, from biblical days forward, about contact between humans and God, or Gods, or any of their related Angels and Demons.  It also explains the UFO stories, Area 51, and the rest.  No surveillance can be perfect, and crashes do happen.

So how do I know all of this, you ask?  Easy.  I made it up.  There are several layers of reality, you know.  You have Facts.  Then you have Facts disguised as Fiction, along with Fiction masquerading as Fact, quite common on Facebook.

And then, thanks to the efforts of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson in the Illuminatus Trilogy, you have facts disguised as fiction disguised as facts, masquerading as the Truth.  Only you can decide which is which, and don’t ask me to point you in the right direction.  I’ll just make something up.  :-{)}

Mathematics made easy

Mathematics starts with the concept of nothing, expressed as a zero, and continues to infinity, shown as a lazy eight laying on its side.

Since explanations are my stock in trade, I have come up with simple understandable demonstrations of these two concepts, which I am happy to share.

Zero is easy, learned as a toddler.  You have a nice piece of halloween candy in your hand, and you put it in your mouth.  Pleasure ensues, leaving a sticky residue on your fingers and face.  So you go to Mom and ask for more.  First thing she does is drag you to the sink and wash off your hands, along with your snotty nose.  The sticky residue is gone.  All gone, just like the candy.  So zero means no more, and there is no tantrum or plea that will make it come back.  A bitter lesson to be learned from something so sweet.

The hardest lessons are learned early.  I remember my son one time, he was about three, maybe.  We were at the store, and he wanted a treat.  I said, “No, put that back.  Payday is Thursday, and we can’t afford any treats till then.”  “But Daddy,” he said, “Can’t we just go to the Cash Machine and get more money?”  That was when I realized his understanding was that when you grew up, they gave you a magic card and you went to a machine and made it spit money out any time you wanted.  Ah, if only that were true!  The funny thing is, he’s a lawyer now, and it is.

Infinity, however, is a bit harder to grasp.  I found it in my bathroom.

Back when my illustrious wife retired the first time, before they called her up and said nice things to get her to come back as a temp, she looked around and decided the upstairs needed a bit of sprucing up.  Thirty thousand or so dollars later, one of the changes was a nice new medicine cabinet in the bathroom, which featured mirrored glass panels on all surfaces.  Behind the shelves, glass.  On either outside vertical panel, glass.  Inside both doors, more mirror.  There is no place in that room where you can’t look at the cabinet and see yourself looking back if the angle is right.  I understand what Lewis Carroll was thinking.  And here’s where infinity comes in, and you can try this at home with no danger other than to your mind if your bathroom cabinet is similarly equipped.  The doors open to the side, meaning you can stand in front over the sink and open both, then lean in to a point where you can look to either side.

You quickly realize that both doors can be gently positioned to show the reflection of the one on the opposite side, with your head in the middle, and, when you do, you are looking directly (out of the corner of your eye) at infinity.  As far as the eye can see, followed by as far as the mind can think, there it is, laid out for you to contemplate, your smiling face, and your hair, too, if any.  I’d say it was mind boggling, but I don’t know what that means.  If you could somehow magnify your vision you could theoretically look far enough down the line past all your noses to where the image would be lost in the Brownian Motion of the particles of glass, itself an extremely viscous liquid, like hair gel.

So infinity is related to hair gel, and that’s as far down that path that any sane person wants to go.  If any of you are so intrigued with this notion, but not equipped to experience it in person, give me a call.  For a small fee I can arrange a personal visit to infinity, one at a time.  :-{)}

I gotta Right!

The Constitution of the United States of America is pretty clear, considering that we have been arguing over what it means, amending it to suit the whims of the moment and filing endless lawsuits to force an interpretation that fits our particular goals since the day after it was enacted.  It all seems to boil down to one thing:  People have a Constitutional Right to be stupid.

We have a right to peaceably assemble in our multitudes, either in Church or in the town square, at a bar or a concert, or a sporting contest, and we tend to get a bit testy when someone suggests that it might be in our own best interests to stay home and avoid those multitudes, because some of them are contagious.

We have a right to do a lot of things, no matter that those things are bad ideas or might cause us injury or otherwise bad outcomes. We have a right to buy and own a handgun, whether we take the time to learn how to use and maintain it properly or be trained in all aspects of when, how and why to use it for what it was designed, or not.  For the most part, those who feel the need to strap their AR-15s across their chests and parade in front of the Capitol are living proof of this idea.

We have a right to go to school, but not necessarily to pass. We have a right to cross the street, but we give that up at busy intersections with crosswalks and lights, because we know that following the procedure greatly increases our chances of survival out on the streets. We have a right to not step out in front of a moving train, but we mostly shun that behavior unless we are heavily drugged or despondent, but most everyone would agree that it would be stupid to do such a thing.

So why is it so hard to accept the idea that we should stay home until this Coronavirus problem is under control? We have heard over and over from experts on the level of Dr. Fauci on down how dangerous this virus is, and how little we know about how it works and how to cure the disease it causes, so why are so many people shouting from the rooftops, demanding their right to be stupid?

Part of the issue, it seems, is that our economic system leaves much of the lower section of the working class with no options. Either you work, and eat, and have a roof over your head, or you don’t. If your work is hands on, you can’t do it from home.

The funny thing is, if you’re one of those workers whose wages stop the minute you can’t work anymore, the profit that your employer earns from your efforts also stops the minute you’re not there to do it.  Extrapolate this from the lowest burger flipper at McStarches to the highest level of employment, and it is easy to see why the Ruling Class, from their climate-controlled purified ivory towers, are so eager to get the rest of the proletariat back on the job.  The Mayor of Seattle just gave up her paycheck, along with a bunch of football coaches with nobody to coach.  The longer this goes on, the more people will see the rock and the hard place getting closer.

But the problem is we still don’t know how many of us are infected.  This is because we still do not have enough test kits to test everybody.  It is just as important to know who is not infected as who is. And when we do, we still do not have a vaccine or a proven treatment. This also tells me that most of the ones who are bad mouthing the Public Health people are either paid trolls or obviously conflicted financially, like a preacher desperate to get the butts back in the pews because her Cadillac payment is due.  Either that, or they’re stupid, which explains Fox News, for the most part.

So this means, for everyone out there demanding the right to go back to work, that the Powers That Be have decided that we are going to be the guinea pigs in this little experiment.  See how many will die, and how many will get sick, then if it gets worse we clamp down on them again, and if it doesn’t we don’t.  We are the expendable elements in this test.  Look around as you go back to work and see how many high level executives continue to work from home, and how many Senators.

And that’s the thing:  Those of us who can, the retired ones with pensions coming in every month can afford to be smart and stay home for at least a couple more weeks after the all-clear has sounded.  Let the young ones and the dumb ones and the poor ones who have no choice go out and test the waters for us and see how it goes.  We are the ones who are mostly in the high-risk group, anyway, so a little extra caution is reasonable.

We also have a Constitutional Right to sit on our asses at home. It should be obvious to most of us that any of our public officials who are telling us to do that are working in our best interests, and those who are taking the opposite tack are not. :-{)}

Quarantine

Quarantine

I drove through White Center today, like I have done so many times before.  The streets were empty, but the sidewalks were full.  I came through on the main drag, past all the boarded up shop fronts, the closed taverns, and the empty parking stalls on both sides.  Waiting at the light at Roxbury, I saw a young man sitting on the curb outside the empty bank, all folded in on himself in a way that can only mean a major rush on heroin.  I passed on, did an illegal youie at a four-way stop and backed in to a stall outside the smoke shop, which was boarded up, but open.  I noticed as I backed in a young man advancing up the sidewalk with a peculiar dancing gait, with a look on his face as if he was so blissed out on whatever he ate that his joy could not be contained in just a smile.  He went into the shop next door as I stepped into the smoke shop for a pouch of American Spirit and some papers.  I was on an errand of mercy for a shut in with vices.  They quickly ejected him and he wandered off back down the street, full of bliss but without purpose..

As I drove through town, I realized one thing.  When the Coronavirus Quarantine hit, everybody who had a home went there and stayed.  Who is left on the streets are the people who have nowhere else  to go, and I’m here to tell you there are a lot more of them when all of “us” are out of the picture.  The parking lots along 15^th Ave, the bus stops and the alleys are busy today.  There is a line outside the food bank.

On the other side of town, there is a line to get into Costco.  Since everyone stands six feet apart, the line stretches from the entrance out to the far exit from the parking lot.  The difference is in the clothes.  The people in line at Costco are clean and well-dressed.  The people on the streets of White Center, and Burien, and Renton, and Kent, and anywhere else you want to look are scruffy and dirty, wearing the clothes they slept in last night, maybe on that bus stop bench.

Since I like to stay off the freeway, I take the back roads through the neighborhoods on the way home.  I see them, and I thank my lucky stars, and I scan the faces for one of my old childhood buddies.  I grew up in White Center.  Smack took a lot of them.  The ones that lived didn’t go far.

When the full realization of the damage done by a virus to our world sets in, there is a strong chance we will not be able to get back to where things were before.  It’s going to take time, and effort, and collective energy.

There is also a chance we could fall apart badly and take everyone back to the ‘30s for a while.  Or back to the Stone Age. One thing that is made clear by this crisis is that many people are living right on the edge, where one false move or missed payment will put them out on the street with everyone else, to prey or be preyed upon.  This is what income inequality means at street level.

But there is also a chance, just maybe, that we could learn our lesson from the last few years and band together with our fellow American Citizens and put this country back on track towards a progressive vision of fairness and equality that up to now has only been talked about.  We need to get it done.  It will take all of us working together.  :-{)}

Silence

This is a combination of an observation and a suggestion.

What I am observing, as the national election gets closer, is a marked increase in hysteria contained in the frequent e-mails and Facebook pages I see every day.  I know there are many other venues, like Twitter, Instagram, et. al., but there is a limit to how much information I can take in without suffering overload, so I’m just talking about the two.

The hysteria comes from both sides, in many forms, all of which seem to be formulated by experts in crowd psychology and weasle-wording, who I expect are also making money on their output, which gives them a fatal conflict of interest in my book.  They always want money, and they often want us to do this survey or sign this petition, which really means they want us to supply more personal data that can be packaged and sold on the open market.  More and more, they want us to line up on one side or the other of President Trump.  He is either our Savior or the Devil, depending on who you talk to, and everyone wants to know whose side we are on.

I expect this trend to grow exponentially through November.  Millions of dollars will change hands between now and then, as ads are bought, TV spots are filmed and articles are written and published.  I’m surprised there is not a stock market index following the various companies that generate all these billings.  Since the product is mostly hot air I would think the markups are quite generous for the principals.

Out of all this comes the germ of an idea:  Why not go silent on them?

I have already suggested that there are no minds left to convince, no voters who have yet to decide, and therefore nothing left about which to argue, but I don’t see much evidence that that particular seed fell on fertile ground.  But, think about this:  Nothing else matters but the vote on November 3^rd.  Like many on the Democratic side of things, I have deliberately avoided endorsing a particular candidate until the Convention rolls around, to give all of them the chance to explain their thoughts and talk about their plans for our money and society.  I know I don’t need to worry about who the Republican candidate will be, that’s all set, unless somebody dies, so I stay focused on the Dem side.

So, why not lull the other side into a sense of complacency?  On Facebook, I just block the trolls as soon as they pop up, without responding to their bs or engaging in any way.  Just shut them down.  I don’t need to listen to their shit.  There is an argument that the election will be won by whoever stimulates the most voters to get off their butts and vote, and the most effective strategy, especially on Conservative types, seems to be stoke their fears of imminent Lib takeovers and gun grabs.  So stop talking about it.  There is certainly no use arguing with an idiot.  It only drags you down to their level where they beat you with experience.

So, don’t answer any emails from strangers, don’t take any polls, just fade into the background in silence.  On November 3^rd they will find out who has been paying attention, and there is absolutely no need to say one thing until then.

Of course I will continue to ask questions and point out things that don’t make sense, and laugh at all the nonsense (while avoiding their hooks).  I will slip an occasional donation to a campaign I like, but you will never see me announcing it and suggesting you should do likewise.  It’s none of my business.  I will vote in our state primary, probably for someone who will not win, but nobody will know, because it’s none of their business.

I will continue to pay attention to what’s going on, of course.  At some point, we may all be out in the streets again.  Until then, I’ll just shut up and vote.  :-{)}

My car, the snitch

As motorcycle riders, we must occasionally pull our heads out of our garages and smudged parts manuals to look around and wonder what the heck those yahoos are up to these days, the yahoos in question being our elected representatives in the Legislature.  It's like, you can't take your eyes off them for a minute, they're always looking for ways to nick us for little things that add up.  For example, who knew that a bill was put in play last session that wanted all of us with Collector Plates on our bikes to pay an annual fee for them?  It did not pass, but next time it might.  Apparently, some folks were complaining that the collector plate was designed for bikes that are only ridden occasionally, as in to a Vintage Motorcycle event or a swap meet, but some folks are abusing the privilege and putting them on their daily rider bikes that just happen to be old enough to be allowed one.

Now here's another one I stumbled across, and bring it to your attention in the same spirit of public awareness, since how many of us have the time and the inclination to pay attention to those idiots in Congress.

You must dig through the flood of information we get every day, and be paying attention to little bits that flit by - buried in the back pages of the daily paper or popping up in your news feed for a brief moment - in order to stay on top of what is coming down in this country, if not world-wide.

A small piece in the back pages of the Seattle Times caught my attention, saying the State was studying a pay-per-mile scheme to replace the gas tax.  A quick Google search showed that the concept has been talked about for some time, and trial balloons are being sent up regularly all over the state to get people used to the idea.

Presumably, this is happening because of the advent of electric vehicles combined with the increasing fuel efficiency in newer cars (not to mention motorcycles) has been dropping the state’s income from the gas tax, and they’re looking for ways to replace the lost money.  The Washington State Transportation Commission’s final report on the plan is available here:  https://waroadusagecharge.org/

Without getting too deep in details, the basic question is “How will you know who is driving how many miles?”  The answer could come from voluntary reports quarterly from each driver (think of the bureaucracy that would generate), up to a dongle you could plug into your data port (you’d have to take out the one that your insurance company is already using to track how fast you go and stop), or a built-in GPS that reports your whereabouts continually to the appropriate authorities.  This last option appears to be the most painless for them, if not for us, and I believe many new cars already have this installed.  I do see a few mouthed concerns about privacy in the articles, but no details yet.

It’s not too hard to see what’s coming and imagine the implications.  For one obvious thing, what if they institute the mileage fee, but never quite manage to drop the gas tax?  Raise your hands, all those who see this as inevitable.

But the big thing is the data that will be generated about our individual movements, and how that data can be exploited both by government and companies.  Have you ever walked into a restaurant and had your phone chime in with the specials of the day?  How soon before the restaurant does a quick credit check to be sure you can afford to be there?  How long before an automatic charge is levied every time you cross a state border, or a county?  How long before, in the name of convenience, we will be signing up for a new, expanded Good-To-Go pass that pays your tolls on all freeways (what a silly name, free-ways) and can be used to pay your customs fees while leaving or entering the country, or a park, or a tunnel.  Counties will quickly see the benefits of a very small fee levied on all vehicles that pass through, especially those who are not owned by one of the few voters in the county.  The smart ones will find a way to cut the voters a discount, if not a free pass.

But wait, further ramifications are in order here!  If you have one of those new cars or bikes (?) that sounds an alarm if you get too close to the car in front of you, and even hits the brakes if you don’t slow down fast enough to satisfy your car, does that not serve as a training tool for habitual tail-gaters?  So why not also tag along a small fee every time the system engages, not to mention a copy to the insurance company, which will rack up another point on your record?  How long before they all do it?

Since these vehicles will already be equipped with front, rear and side cameras, they can also send video to the authorities, who can review the data with computers who will assign a traffic citation to you for the infraction, even if it does not result in a collision.

The last time I rented a car with a video display for navigation, I quickly realized it included a camera pointed right back at me, which meant the rental agency staff could probably have a look at me any time they wanted, just to be sure who was driving.  So much for deniability.  Can automatic speeding tickets be far behind?  We already have photo-op cameras that ding us for $125 or more if we go through a school zone too fast at the wrong time, regardless of the presence of children, or fail to completely stop in the right place at an intersection.  This service is provided by an out-of-state company that is paid by the ticket, plus a large minimum for each camera.  In the future, our own car will rat us out.

Bit by bit, hook by crook, Big Brother is creeping into our lives.  In the name of stability, and the tyranny of very large numbers, the United States of America is following China and the other authoritarian countries down the path of control, which leads to hell for anyone who doesn’t meet the requirements.  The only reason we are not all out in the streets right now demanding the closure of all the existing detainment camps is that we have been reassured they are not for us, this time.

What can we do about this?  For one thing, buy, restore and drive old cars and bikes, at least until they pass a law requiring us to install the tracking equipment.  Think that can’t happen?  What did California do to bring old cars in compliance with their smog control laws?  What happened to the aftermarket motorcycle exhaust industry?

But above all, we must stop leaving to other people the oversight of our government, beginning with the most local levels.  It is no longer possible to relax and leave it to others and not wind up regretting it as our costs go up and our control goes down.  As American Citizens, we do have the Bill of Rights in our pockets, and, as our own history shows us, we can take to the streets, man the barricades, and fight!

Before we open any door that can’t be closed and might let in something we didn’t want to deal with, we can talk.  We can stand up and speak our minds.  We can educate the misinformed.  We can speak truth to power.  And we can vote like our lives depend on it, because they do.  :-{)}

Things and Stuff

We grow attached to our things, over time.  Stuff grows on you.  Stuff piles up, especially in corners, or basements.  A garage, if left empty of parked vehicles, becomes a vacuum that sucks in stuff from all over, sometimes even other people’s stuff, which can be especially dangerous.

You can stuff a turkey, and the stuff with which you stuff it is called “stuffing”, and then, by the time the feast is over you put both hands on your belly and announce, “I’m stuffed!”  That does not make you a turkey, however.  What you said does.

So some stuff is good even if you’re not going to keep it very long, unless you forget it in the back of the fridge and it turns into weird stuff, or gloopy stuff or gross stuff, and it becomes bad stuff.  That kind of stuff is easy to be rid of.  Other stuff is more deeply attached, and harder to shake.

What kind of things do we tend to keep?  It’s different for each one of us.  Mostly, it seems like all those things have one thing in common, that they all have a story attached that explains why we still have that thing.  When the story attached to a thing falls away from that thing, as often happens when people die, the value disappears along with it, in many cases where the intrinsic value of the thing by virtue of it’s essence (think gold and silver) is not a shared thing.  In other words, if someone does not have a thing for that thing, it is nothing.  Does that even make sense?

But the main reason we love our stuff is because it’s our stuff.  We get to decide where to put it, how to protect it, and when and how to let it go.  We can write our names on it, or we can give it away.  We found it, bought it, stole it, begged it or otherwise obtained it because we decided we needed it, or it was a good deal and we never turn down a good deal, ideally.  And this is not to deny that some stuff shows up and you never quite figure out why or from where, like old broken kids toys or Styrofoam coolers split down the middle that all it needs is a dump run but who has the time right now to get around to it.  That kind of stuff is a drag.

And we like to do stuff with our stuff from time to time.  This is known as “doing my thing”.  That usually requires tools and expertise, if not just a large plate, so we tend to get more of those things that we need to do stuff with our stuff.  That is where the danger comes in, when we accumulate more stuff than we can store at any given time in our available space.  Or we bring in more things to which we plan to do stuff, but we can only do one thing at a time, so we wind up with too many things to do, mostly involving stuff.

I recall the story of the guy who owned too many vehicles, and he lived in a North Seattle neighborhood where parking was hard on the best of days, and when you saw the chalk mark on your tire it meant you had 24 hours to move that vehicle to a different spot.  So this guy was in so deep that once a week he would have to go out through the whole greater neighborhood and find all the cars, trucks and vans that he owned and, one by one, move them to a new spot somewhere else.  Quality of life tends to regress when we let our stuff get the better of us to the point of obsession.  It’s a bad thing.

I have philosophized in an earlier story that everything we possess has a hook embedded in our shoulders with an invisible line attaching us to that thing, and the more important that thing is to us, the stronger is that line and the deeper is that hook.  When things are ripped away from us against our will the hooks cause pain as they are yanked out, but the loss still has the effect of lightening our load a tiny bit.  But when we voluntarily exchange one of our things for money, or pass it on to an heir or give it to a good cause, we not only lighten our load, we lighten our mood as well, due to the relative heft of our wallet, or just the good feeling that comes with removing one more hook from our shoulders.

It is slowly coming clear to me as I get closer to that mythical checkout time that much of my stuff of which I am so fond may not be seen in the same light by whoever is stuck with getting rid of all that stuff if I’m not there to make sure it goes to the right person at the right price.  That’s why I have embarked on a project to lighten my load by finding a new home for some of this stuff.

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, when we lived in the same neighborhood as today, but a few blocks down the hill, we used to walk our dogs down the end of the block where the orchard used to be before the houses came in.  The old split cedar posts had rotted off at the base, and the last fifty feet or so of the woven wire fencing was coiled and tangled enough to be a problem, so I cut it off and coiled it up and brought it home, where it followed us here, because you never know when a nice chunk of spring steel fencing wire will come in handy, and there was a place on the garage wall where it hung all these years.  Well, just the other day I pulled down one of the remaining coils of this wire and gave it to a friend to reinforce a section of fence, which felt real good when I realized I had stored that wire for thirty years only to put it back to work doing what it was supposed to do, hold up a fence!  Now that is a good thing.

If I can only come up with something to do with all the rest of this stuff, that would be an even better thing.  :-{)}