The last few days I became engrossed in the Hatfields and the Mccoys. Something about drunken hillbillies drinking moonshine and firing off sawed off shot guns at each others in the Appalachian wilderness kept me captivated. It's good to know that people were just as freaking crazy back then as they are now, but damn..people are crazy now! There is something in the atmosphere that is making people who are normally off their rockers even more delusional. Maybe that paradigm shift leading us to 12/21/2012. I don't know, but I'm scared and annoyed. Crazy people irritate the hell out of me. I understand conditions and the economy and whatever whacked stuff people feed their brains can affect them but I am over sympathy and compassion.
Is it possible people were less messed up 50-100 years ago? With technology and increased information and knowledge I don't see ourselves advancing as a species. If anything we are regressing into instinctual barbarians. Perhaps the internet and dripping of bad news like Chinese water torture on our psyches is forcing repression of emotions for individuals who need to lighten up. They can hide in daylight and explode in vengeance when they're perceived slights become unbearable in their deranged minds. It's bizarre. Hit the gym. Open a bottle of moonshine and get lost in the Appalachians. Find a pen pal. Don't go eating people's faces. Don't mail human body parts. Do talk to someone who isn't behind a computer screen. Do go outside and get sunshine or take a hike. Wow, it's just sad how screwed up people are today. We need to form an army to weed out the wackos before they infiltrate our lives. Who needs terrorist cells to worry about, we have the nut jobs in plain sight all around us apparently.
I personally am over analyzing why people act this way. We are not going back to dissect how someone picked on them in high school, or what their parents did to them as a child. We tend to blame the victims in our country than the criminals. Somehow this person needed help. No, what they needed was to be put down before they put any innocents down. We don't save rabid dogs with rabies by petting them. We shouldn't try to sooth psychopaths with words of condolences and remorse. The only mistake was that we let them be crazy around us too long. If we see crazy behavior we should be able to report it to authorities before they act, not only after. There should be a system in place to corral these individuals before they storm our coffee shops with their ammunition.
The news media doesn't help. They feed this frenzy cycle of tragedy in an attempt to get web views and advertising dollars to keep their word engines running, but it doesn't make it right. We shouldn't feed this culture of sensationalizing tragedy. It's like the media wants to break the next horror story first and we feed on it for days and every major outlet breaks down the reasons before they can break the next story. I don't know about you but I sure can't survive without watching another commercial about car insurance in between the doom and gloom they are spoon feeding us. Maybe that is why the Hatfields and Mccoys was such a great history lesson. They knew their enemies, by name. Now we don't know who is friend or foe, who is crazy or not, nor do we know what lunatic lurks around the corner from us.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Short fiction: Summer fling
It’s tempting to wish summer lasted forever. That the skies
always stayed a purple haze and the cool breeze caressed off the trees behind a
symphony of crickets. Their music softly echoing in the near distance like a
party but not quite next door enough to join.
The lightness of air made him float in his backyard ignoring the colder
darkness and its deeper chords soon beckoning.
His thoughts cast in midair like a baited line hovering before its
plummet into an icy river.
All he could think about tonight was the way her glow radiated across the distance. She consumed him and devastated him all at once. His mother had always told him as a little bugger when the one he loved met his eyes he would know immediately. Yet the feelings that reverberated through him morphed from giddiness to downright sickness. She was more beautiful than the brightest sunflower yet made him stomach ache like he had swallowed sour grass. She kept him up at night, her vibrant shimmering image, more frustratingly loud in his head than the mating bull frogs in the pond behind the yard.
During the day he would wallow at the lack of attention she showed him as if she were only interested in his affection when the sun fell down. At night when their paths crossed she displayed almost another personality altogether. Her beauty was even more alluring, so much so that he knew there were others who coveted her, yet he could believe none more so than he. Sure he’d heard stories from his friends of her unattainability. He had heard she was too illuminating for a rogue like him. He had a reputation himself and had certainly met other beauties who had probably crossed her path as well, but she buzzed in his head like no others.
Most days he just had to survive. The world had changed since his parents were young. The environment more threatening. Perhaps his desires were a foolish attempt to hold onto his youth the way the dusk held off the night. While the sun beat hotter each summer that passed it felt much colder. The evenings brought the familiarity of warmth and his childhood. It brought back the long games he played with his friends, the trees he climbed upon, and the wet grass he laid in. At night they hovered near a flaming barbeque or light in the backyard, the laughter of family and friends and crickets all-encompassing.
This day was longer than usual. There were less spots to hide and more trouble to hide from. All day long he could think of nothing but the shade, a breeze, and her radiance. He envisioned the pond and a festival of flickering lights around them. He knew tonight would be the night he showed her the way he truly felt. No longer would he hide in the day and be teased by her nighttime flirtations.
The weekly barbeque they both were to attend seemed as good a time as any. Their friends would congregate and he would fly in when she was free and make his pitch. His stomach once again felt like sour grass as the night approached and she glowed even more than usual. He watched as several others approached her only to get shot down in a hurry. His instincts told him to turn away but his heart would not allow him. The cool air hit him as he dived into her orbit. The beauty she possessed even warmer the closer he came. As his heart sang and his stomach hollowed he swooped in to whisper in her ear. “ZAP!” The surge ran through his body as her kiss left him cold. He crumbled to the ground lifeless one last glance at the purple sky above, her glowing orb, a giant shoe…CRUNCH….”Damn bug.”
All he could think about tonight was the way her glow radiated across the distance. She consumed him and devastated him all at once. His mother had always told him as a little bugger when the one he loved met his eyes he would know immediately. Yet the feelings that reverberated through him morphed from giddiness to downright sickness. She was more beautiful than the brightest sunflower yet made him stomach ache like he had swallowed sour grass. She kept him up at night, her vibrant shimmering image, more frustratingly loud in his head than the mating bull frogs in the pond behind the yard.
During the day he would wallow at the lack of attention she showed him as if she were only interested in his affection when the sun fell down. At night when their paths crossed she displayed almost another personality altogether. Her beauty was even more alluring, so much so that he knew there were others who coveted her, yet he could believe none more so than he. Sure he’d heard stories from his friends of her unattainability. He had heard she was too illuminating for a rogue like him. He had a reputation himself and had certainly met other beauties who had probably crossed her path as well, but she buzzed in his head like no others.
Most days he just had to survive. The world had changed since his parents were young. The environment more threatening. Perhaps his desires were a foolish attempt to hold onto his youth the way the dusk held off the night. While the sun beat hotter each summer that passed it felt much colder. The evenings brought the familiarity of warmth and his childhood. It brought back the long games he played with his friends, the trees he climbed upon, and the wet grass he laid in. At night they hovered near a flaming barbeque or light in the backyard, the laughter of family and friends and crickets all-encompassing.
This day was longer than usual. There were less spots to hide and more trouble to hide from. All day long he could think of nothing but the shade, a breeze, and her radiance. He envisioned the pond and a festival of flickering lights around them. He knew tonight would be the night he showed her the way he truly felt. No longer would he hide in the day and be teased by her nighttime flirtations.
The weekly barbeque they both were to attend seemed as good a time as any. Their friends would congregate and he would fly in when she was free and make his pitch. His stomach once again felt like sour grass as the night approached and she glowed even more than usual. He watched as several others approached her only to get shot down in a hurry. His instincts told him to turn away but his heart would not allow him. The cool air hit him as he dived into her orbit. The beauty she possessed even warmer the closer he came. As his heart sang and his stomach hollowed he swooped in to whisper in her ear. “ZAP!” The surge ran through his body as her kiss left him cold. He crumbled to the ground lifeless one last glance at the purple sky above, her glowing orb, a giant shoe…CRUNCH….”Damn bug.”
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Blogist's perspective
I’ve neglected the blog. I’ve denied its existence. I abandoned it in a field buried under mounds of debris and used lawn furniture. I’ve watched it sink to the bottom of the Marina Trench and land in the alien-like empty sea floor until James Cameron fancies himself another trip to the bottom of the ocean. At least this time he’ll find something, read it, and hire me to write the screenplay for his next film! I haven’t written in months, nor had a desire, maybe no one has noticed.
The blog however is like Michael Corleone in Godfather III. “Every time I think I am done..they pull me back in!!” They being the voices in my head telling me I haven’t written in forever and I’m verging on losing brain cells due to lack of creative activity. How much of this is intelligence, creativity, or just quieting the voices I am not sure. Painters paint, Musicians play music, Writers write novels, and nutcases like me..we pen rambling blogs. No rhyme or reason, no start nor destination, just mumbo jumbo that consumes me.
I know every artist goes through dry spells, even bloggers or a blogist. If someone who shops at TJ Maxx can be a Maxximista I can be a blogist. Let me say this as a returning blogist I am over political season. Supposedly it is just beginning but it can already end as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care who is elected, I don’t care what they stand for, I am indifferent to their policies and personal background and history, just elect one of the two and let us focus on something else. In my industry we have seem to be painted enemy #1 and I’m sick and tired of having conversations everyday about how mad they are at the process. I don’t make the rules, nor do I have a voice within my company to change the process. Too many people think that if they share their voice here we can do something, we can not. The media has fed stories placing blame on sources that are not to blame. It’s a free marker enterprise. If you are unhappy move your business, you can’t change the way a business runs.
If you don’t like a companies policy that is completely fine. When did we become a nation where everyone has to love everyone and we dance and sing in harmony? The benefit of freedom is being free to do something else. No one holds you hostage somewhere you don’t want to be. I hate that I’m even contributing to the gluttony of information on the web. Everyone thinks that their voice needs to be heard, be it a blog, on the streets, holding signs, at your desk, in the classroom. Not every voice does need to be heard or regurgitated on the blogosphere.
A friend of mine told me that an 89 year old man decked her manager in his office over a $1 fee. This is the fuse that has been lit by too much media. People have absolutely lost it. I remember listening to someone once say it is not a major event that causes someone to lose it, it is their shoelace busting. That may set them off because it builds like a powder keg inside of them. Yesterday I had a thirty minute discussion with a client upset over a $6 fee I was already reversing for him. It’s no longer the dollar amount it’s the principle he says. Everything with everyone is the principle. Who sets the principle? Network television which broadcasts commercials for many of the same companies they slander on their news shows that also help pay for the junk food television we are feeding our brains? The over-priced Iphone who are getting your daily news feed from? The local coffee shop which raised the price of flavored water?
The problem with the information age is all the misinformation it feeds everyone. Suddenly everyone is educated about everything, but they failed to learn anything in the process. They may be knowledgeable but they lack a broader perspective. They absorb news but they don’t relate it to themselves and how it truly impacts them. They want rapid responses. Just as the problem with the economy was short-term investors trying to make a quick buck and not thinking long-term, the problem with information junkies and new media is not digesting what we’ve been fed. We vomit the media’s text and words right back into society like a ten week old baby unable to digest baby food.
Frustration exists over a lot of different things but we control how we react to it and that is truly all we do control. Michael Corleone had different ways to react and I hope people realize that was a movie.
The blog however is like Michael Corleone in Godfather III. “Every time I think I am done..they pull me back in!!” They being the voices in my head telling me I haven’t written in forever and I’m verging on losing brain cells due to lack of creative activity. How much of this is intelligence, creativity, or just quieting the voices I am not sure. Painters paint, Musicians play music, Writers write novels, and nutcases like me..we pen rambling blogs. No rhyme or reason, no start nor destination, just mumbo jumbo that consumes me.
I know every artist goes through dry spells, even bloggers or a blogist. If someone who shops at TJ Maxx can be a Maxximista I can be a blogist. Let me say this as a returning blogist I am over political season. Supposedly it is just beginning but it can already end as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care who is elected, I don’t care what they stand for, I am indifferent to their policies and personal background and history, just elect one of the two and let us focus on something else. In my industry we have seem to be painted enemy #1 and I’m sick and tired of having conversations everyday about how mad they are at the process. I don’t make the rules, nor do I have a voice within my company to change the process. Too many people think that if they share their voice here we can do something, we can not. The media has fed stories placing blame on sources that are not to blame. It’s a free marker enterprise. If you are unhappy move your business, you can’t change the way a business runs.
If you don’t like a companies policy that is completely fine. When did we become a nation where everyone has to love everyone and we dance and sing in harmony? The benefit of freedom is being free to do something else. No one holds you hostage somewhere you don’t want to be. I hate that I’m even contributing to the gluttony of information on the web. Everyone thinks that their voice needs to be heard, be it a blog, on the streets, holding signs, at your desk, in the classroom. Not every voice does need to be heard or regurgitated on the blogosphere.
A friend of mine told me that an 89 year old man decked her manager in his office over a $1 fee. This is the fuse that has been lit by too much media. People have absolutely lost it. I remember listening to someone once say it is not a major event that causes someone to lose it, it is their shoelace busting. That may set them off because it builds like a powder keg inside of them. Yesterday I had a thirty minute discussion with a client upset over a $6 fee I was already reversing for him. It’s no longer the dollar amount it’s the principle he says. Everything with everyone is the principle. Who sets the principle? Network television which broadcasts commercials for many of the same companies they slander on their news shows that also help pay for the junk food television we are feeding our brains? The over-priced Iphone who are getting your daily news feed from? The local coffee shop which raised the price of flavored water?
The problem with the information age is all the misinformation it feeds everyone. Suddenly everyone is educated about everything, but they failed to learn anything in the process. They may be knowledgeable but they lack a broader perspective. They absorb news but they don’t relate it to themselves and how it truly impacts them. They want rapid responses. Just as the problem with the economy was short-term investors trying to make a quick buck and not thinking long-term, the problem with information junkies and new media is not digesting what we’ve been fed. We vomit the media’s text and words right back into society like a ten week old baby unable to digest baby food.
Frustration exists over a lot of different things but we control how we react to it and that is truly all we do control. Michael Corleone had different ways to react and I hope people realize that was a movie.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
An acrobat, a piano, and some slots
Opening night in Vegas felt like a scene out of Cocktails. We sat in a dive bar in the casino watching some dueling piano players belting out everything from Billy Joel to Aerosmith before a highly intoxicated and adoring crowd. You saw real talent pounding away at the keys and in that packed house off the strip at 3am. And in their resignation to sing such classics as Salt N’Pepa and Def Leppard you could feel that years of lessons and practice had resulted to this pinnacle, this moment, belting out retreads and begging for tips from vacationers unable to let the music end. This is what Vegas is, both expectations and disappointment, both promise and failure. It is a loud and crazy party and a buzz that lingers but won’t last. It is time standing still and people holding on when reality bucks you from the heights of Bellagio and the Wynn to the “f*ckin Harrah’s casino."
Nothing is cheap in Vegas. Those recession specials you may be looking for…forget it. If anything you are paying more for your indulgences than less. When you ask the cab drivers for good recommendations and price, just multiply it by two. You forget you are paying their recommendation kickbacks as well. They will all recommend the same place (Rio) too and a price that sounds affordable ($25). By the time you get all the way out to the isolated fortress of a casino and walk up to the register you get blind-sided by truth ($50). What? Too hungry to fight it and too far to turn back you take the hit and expect to make it back up at the tables (-$250).
That’s the other thing; the black jack tables are abusive. The $5 black jack tables don’t exist in reality and O’Sheas doesn’t count. That place along with Excalibur and the “f*ckin Harrah’s” casino makes you feel less Vegas like the Venetian and more Vegas like the venereal..as in the diseases of people frequenting! You are more likely to find $15 dollar tables than $10 anywhere and consistently while losing money on a $15 black jack table I’d watch them hike the antes up to $25 for new players. Vegas is most definitely not in a recession.
The bars are cool and we enjoyed the ice bar in the Mandalay and the Chandelier bar in the Cosmopolitan but $10 single jack and cokes leave you wanting. The pursuit of a buzz makes you want to shell out for doubles or sit at black jack tables too long waiting for your drink. And you can taste the quality difference from a free drink at the penny machines to the free drink at the $15 black jack table. One is a single and one is some sort of bottle backwash handed around from fellow gamblers. And sadly the backwash probably has a better chance of getting you hammered.
The last night we checked out The Mystere at Treasure Island. The show was amazing and I’m in awe of the acrobats. They possess real talent and it seemed fitting to book end the pianos to the performers in the show. When I walked out of Mystere I had fully absorbed Vegas minus the mushrooms. I was walking on a cloud of lights and sounds. The night was mine, the last night, and I was prepared to go out with a bang…then my wallet was raped and pillaged by Pirates. The dealers in Treasure Island decided that I was carrying too much bounty in my pockets and decided to wash my good high with it. When we walked out of the casino a couple of hours after the show had ended I was ready to jump into the pirate performance going on outside and walk the plank.
The trip was great and a needed escape/birthday and one realizes how fast time can fly. I turned 21 in Vegas and had the Midas touch. Everything I touched turned to gold and I couldn’t lose. Fourteen years, two lifetimes, and twenty new casinos later I have an aluminum touch, as in collecting them to keep eating and surviving after Vegas. Sitting in a restaurant in the South Coast casino off the strip with my good friends Sam and Jess and my girlfriend I realized the important things in life are not always what we can spend or buy but what we have to lose, and I had another $100 so I stumbled to the atm and pulled up to one more black jack table. Ah Vegas, you heartless vixen how I love you.
Nothing is cheap in Vegas. Those recession specials you may be looking for…forget it. If anything you are paying more for your indulgences than less. When you ask the cab drivers for good recommendations and price, just multiply it by two. You forget you are paying their recommendation kickbacks as well. They will all recommend the same place (Rio) too and a price that sounds affordable ($25). By the time you get all the way out to the isolated fortress of a casino and walk up to the register you get blind-sided by truth ($50). What? Too hungry to fight it and too far to turn back you take the hit and expect to make it back up at the tables (-$250).
That’s the other thing; the black jack tables are abusive. The $5 black jack tables don’t exist in reality and O’Sheas doesn’t count. That place along with Excalibur and the “f*ckin Harrah’s” casino makes you feel less Vegas like the Venetian and more Vegas like the venereal..as in the diseases of people frequenting! You are more likely to find $15 dollar tables than $10 anywhere and consistently while losing money on a $15 black jack table I’d watch them hike the antes up to $25 for new players. Vegas is most definitely not in a recession.
The bars are cool and we enjoyed the ice bar in the Mandalay and the Chandelier bar in the Cosmopolitan but $10 single jack and cokes leave you wanting. The pursuit of a buzz makes you want to shell out for doubles or sit at black jack tables too long waiting for your drink. And you can taste the quality difference from a free drink at the penny machines to the free drink at the $15 black jack table. One is a single and one is some sort of bottle backwash handed around from fellow gamblers. And sadly the backwash probably has a better chance of getting you hammered.
The last night we checked out The Mystere at Treasure Island. The show was amazing and I’m in awe of the acrobats. They possess real talent and it seemed fitting to book end the pianos to the performers in the show. When I walked out of Mystere I had fully absorbed Vegas minus the mushrooms. I was walking on a cloud of lights and sounds. The night was mine, the last night, and I was prepared to go out with a bang…then my wallet was raped and pillaged by Pirates. The dealers in Treasure Island decided that I was carrying too much bounty in my pockets and decided to wash my good high with it. When we walked out of the casino a couple of hours after the show had ended I was ready to jump into the pirate performance going on outside and walk the plank.
The trip was great and a needed escape/birthday and one realizes how fast time can fly. I turned 21 in Vegas and had the Midas touch. Everything I touched turned to gold and I couldn’t lose. Fourteen years, two lifetimes, and twenty new casinos later I have an aluminum touch, as in collecting them to keep eating and surviving after Vegas. Sitting in a restaurant in the South Coast casino off the strip with my good friends Sam and Jess and my girlfriend I realized the important things in life are not always what we can spend or buy but what we have to lose, and I had another $100 so I stumbled to the atm and pulled up to one more black jack table. Ah Vegas, you heartless vixen how I love you.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Gold dust in the wind
In my third grade class we had to sing Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” song for the cities Almond Blossom Festival. I remember that song to this day unfortunately. This was one of her first songs before she became the biggest female singer on the planet and made movies with Kevin Costner. This was Whitney with hair so high it was used as flight radar for Maverick and Goose. So it is sad to see that Whitney has passed and with her another 1980’s icon. Did I mention in third grade I also wore full Michael Jackson gear, the red leather zipper jacket, the silver sparkling glove and the black zipper pants? I did. I was the most popular third-grader at Dixieland school, denying those third-grade females crushes with a moonwalk away.
Now there is a revival of interest in the career hits of Whitney as there was with Michael Jackson’s in 2009. The best career moves for a singer past their time apparently is an early death and I’m sure there are struggling 80’s and 90’s artists wondering how they can fake death, relocate under an alias, and live off ITunes residuals on a tropical island somewhere. The best career rebound is now a permanent grounding.
It’s hard to get rich quick these days. On the Discovery Channel we see people willing to dive into the bottom of an arctic ocean with a vacuum cleaner to pick up gold specks of dust. The Bering Sea Gold shows men and women who have decided that building their own rickety ship (which apparently lasts without a breakdown for only a few hours a day) and diving into freezing water is their path to prosperity. Unfortunately it seems all the contestants on this game show are already mired in hundreds of thousands of child support debt or medical bills. Their path to prosperity is surviving debtor’s prison. This is always an inspiring message. It’s no longer instant wealth and lottery winnings, it’s breaking even. Forget gold teeth how about just purchasing some dentures or visiting a dentist! Staying with the Kevin Costner theme and adding some Patrick Swayze this show is part Waterworld and part Road House. I am not sure if these men have fins but I know that they are at the end of the world/ Nome, Alaska. But at least it is not Greece!
Who would have thought the Greek Islands have become less desirable than the arctic frigid waters of Alaska, but in Alaska you can still dive for prosperity. In Greece you have to pay to go to work. A new austerity measure (which apparently is the counter-opposite of prosperity) requires several thousand government employees to pay back their earned income and work for free until they get their budget under control. It must be just a blast to go to work for free! At least the ruffians in Alaska are on a ship out in the water with the possibility of wealth..and death. In Greece you are only promised death and taxes. But unless you were a 1980’s pop music icon there will no ITune gold dust residuals to fill your vacuum cleaner..just rocks, dirt, and cat hair..lot’s and lot’s of cat hair.
Now there is a revival of interest in the career hits of Whitney as there was with Michael Jackson’s in 2009. The best career moves for a singer past their time apparently is an early death and I’m sure there are struggling 80’s and 90’s artists wondering how they can fake death, relocate under an alias, and live off ITunes residuals on a tropical island somewhere. The best career rebound is now a permanent grounding.
It’s hard to get rich quick these days. On the Discovery Channel we see people willing to dive into the bottom of an arctic ocean with a vacuum cleaner to pick up gold specks of dust. The Bering Sea Gold shows men and women who have decided that building their own rickety ship (which apparently lasts without a breakdown for only a few hours a day) and diving into freezing water is their path to prosperity. Unfortunately it seems all the contestants on this game show are already mired in hundreds of thousands of child support debt or medical bills. Their path to prosperity is surviving debtor’s prison. This is always an inspiring message. It’s no longer instant wealth and lottery winnings, it’s breaking even. Forget gold teeth how about just purchasing some dentures or visiting a dentist! Staying with the Kevin Costner theme and adding some Patrick Swayze this show is part Waterworld and part Road House. I am not sure if these men have fins but I know that they are at the end of the world/ Nome, Alaska. But at least it is not Greece!
Who would have thought the Greek Islands have become less desirable than the arctic frigid waters of Alaska, but in Alaska you can still dive for prosperity. In Greece you have to pay to go to work. A new austerity measure (which apparently is the counter-opposite of prosperity) requires several thousand government employees to pay back their earned income and work for free until they get their budget under control. It must be just a blast to go to work for free! At least the ruffians in Alaska are on a ship out in the water with the possibility of wealth..and death. In Greece you are only promised death and taxes. But unless you were a 1980’s pop music icon there will no ITune gold dust residuals to fill your vacuum cleaner..just rocks, dirt, and cat hair..lot’s and lot’s of cat hair.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Fire and Ice
On New Year's Day the elements reigned. One man ran through a mountain of snow. Another man lit a city on fire. Both caught the media and our attentions for the wrong reasons. Two men separated by just over 1000 miles and with back stories that loomed larger than fireworks or next-day hangovers for many celebration revelers.
Outside of Seattle the remnants of a New Years celebration were marred by gunfire. There a 24 year old former Iraqi war veteran unleashed gunfire before heading off to Mount Rainer that bitter morning to hide out. He was locked and loaded. His car filled with ammunition and body armor. His head wrecked from combat. The war had left him damaged goods mentally, or perhaps had allowed a mentally damaged man to learn the power of semi-automatic weapons. He bore them in photos shirtless like an action figure. Only no one buys action figures of murderers and when he gunned down a female park ranger and mother of two he became that. His service to the country became a detriment and military training a liability instead of a virtue. Men chased him through chest-deep snow two hours behind him and unsure of what other damage he had in mind. There were hikers and people left on the mountain and a desperate man willing to kill anything in his way to get away.
Meanwhile down the I-5 corridor in a different eco-system in Los Angeles warm weather was a petri- dish for an alarming number of arson fires, over 50 of them. Cars and buildings burned. People laid awake at night unable to fall into a sleep as their eyes focused for any glow and their smell for smoke. The rash of fires took place over three days causing $3 million in damages and countless nightmares for those they affected, yet thankfully no lives. There were no clues nor suspects. It made a city famous for riots unsure what message they were receiving. Was this a multiple act by many? Or a deranged act by one? It turned out to be the latter, a 28 year old German nationalist, in a dispute over immigration. His message was he hated America and wanted to watch it burn.
Hours after the German was captured the American soldier was found face dead in snow. Both men, under 30, who reaked terror on New Years day were finished a day after. A day of fresh starts and new beginnings for many was left with unanswered questions and heartache for others, leaving charred buildings and scarred lives as their hangover.
Outside of Seattle the remnants of a New Years celebration were marred by gunfire. There a 24 year old former Iraqi war veteran unleashed gunfire before heading off to Mount Rainer that bitter morning to hide out. He was locked and loaded. His car filled with ammunition and body armor. His head wrecked from combat. The war had left him damaged goods mentally, or perhaps had allowed a mentally damaged man to learn the power of semi-automatic weapons. He bore them in photos shirtless like an action figure. Only no one buys action figures of murderers and when he gunned down a female park ranger and mother of two he became that. His service to the country became a detriment and military training a liability instead of a virtue. Men chased him through chest-deep snow two hours behind him and unsure of what other damage he had in mind. There were hikers and people left on the mountain and a desperate man willing to kill anything in his way to get away.
Meanwhile down the I-5 corridor in a different eco-system in Los Angeles warm weather was a petri- dish for an alarming number of arson fires, over 50 of them. Cars and buildings burned. People laid awake at night unable to fall into a sleep as their eyes focused for any glow and their smell for smoke. The rash of fires took place over three days causing $3 million in damages and countless nightmares for those they affected, yet thankfully no lives. There were no clues nor suspects. It made a city famous for riots unsure what message they were receiving. Was this a multiple act by many? Or a deranged act by one? It turned out to be the latter, a 28 year old German nationalist, in a dispute over immigration. His message was he hated America and wanted to watch it burn.
Hours after the German was captured the American soldier was found face dead in snow. Both men, under 30, who reaked terror on New Years day were finished a day after. A day of fresh starts and new beginnings for many was left with unanswered questions and heartache for others, leaving charred buildings and scarred lives as their hangover.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
And the vault door swings open...
What if it were empty? What if your dollar bill was worthless? What if we are exchanging monopoly money under the guise of real currency? What if we found out we were no longer a superpower country? That we were merely another tourist destination like Greece, desperate for foreign investment and holiday travelers? What if instead of a wrapped present the box was empty, and that we would be lucky to have coal in our stockings to burn for heat?
When Geraldo Rivera swung open the vault on national television in 1986 to broadcast Al Capone's secret hidden vault he was left holding a broken bottle of moonshine as his prize. Could Fort Knox's vault filled with the US gold supply seized by the US government be just as empty? Is that the reason we have no audit on the contents of this vault since 1974? This was the premise of the show Decoded I watched last night and I have to wonder if our whole economy is one big ponzi scheme generating value in our currency in the world markets that our government knows is non-existent.
Meanwhile earlier this year over $20B in diamonds, gold, and other treasures were discovered in a 16th century Hindu temple in southern India. Nice to know southern Hindu temples are better at protecting their assets than our government. Most recently here in the US a man purchased an abandoned storage unit for $1,100 and inside it was discovered to have of $600,000 of gold and silver coins. This was the great find that now may be not because the man who abandoned the unit is in jail awaiting federal charges of identity theft and the government may seize the loot based on the possible illegal means the former owner took to maintain it. Tough luck for the guy who thought he won a jackpot. More than likely it will be seized and never heard from again. If it is claimed eventually through legal channels the fees the guy will have to pay for a lawyer to seize it back will clean him out. If it is not the government secretly spending your tax dollars and gold reserves it is the lawyers we hire to defend ourselves of these ventures that do so boldly in our faces.
The lack of accountability and truth forthcoming from our government makes the days of pirates on open seas seem not only ideal but actually virtuous. They may have more honestly and ethics as they rob a ship's treasure face to face then the way our assets are robbed from us in the dark of night. This is why when we watch movies nowadays the bad guys are the guys chasing the supposed criminals. We've given up hope on the truth being fed to us we automatically assume the crimes don't fit the punishment and are even justified to begin with.
If they do open that vault at Fort Knox and we find it is empty what do we do? Will it be the wild west all over again? Do we start making decisions based on need rather than want or desire? It's a dark question four days before Christmas I know and maybe a time to start reflecting on more than the shiny present under the tree...unless it is gold bullion, but let's be realistic...we don't live in India..or China.
When Geraldo Rivera swung open the vault on national television in 1986 to broadcast Al Capone's secret hidden vault he was left holding a broken bottle of moonshine as his prize. Could Fort Knox's vault filled with the US gold supply seized by the US government be just as empty? Is that the reason we have no audit on the contents of this vault since 1974? This was the premise of the show Decoded I watched last night and I have to wonder if our whole economy is one big ponzi scheme generating value in our currency in the world markets that our government knows is non-existent.
Meanwhile earlier this year over $20B in diamonds, gold, and other treasures were discovered in a 16th century Hindu temple in southern India. Nice to know southern Hindu temples are better at protecting their assets than our government. Most recently here in the US a man purchased an abandoned storage unit for $1,100 and inside it was discovered to have of $600,000 of gold and silver coins. This was the great find that now may be not because the man who abandoned the unit is in jail awaiting federal charges of identity theft and the government may seize the loot based on the possible illegal means the former owner took to maintain it. Tough luck for the guy who thought he won a jackpot. More than likely it will be seized and never heard from again. If it is claimed eventually through legal channels the fees the guy will have to pay for a lawyer to seize it back will clean him out. If it is not the government secretly spending your tax dollars and gold reserves it is the lawyers we hire to defend ourselves of these ventures that do so boldly in our faces.
The lack of accountability and truth forthcoming from our government makes the days of pirates on open seas seem not only ideal but actually virtuous. They may have more honestly and ethics as they rob a ship's treasure face to face then the way our assets are robbed from us in the dark of night. This is why when we watch movies nowadays the bad guys are the guys chasing the supposed criminals. We've given up hope on the truth being fed to us we automatically assume the crimes don't fit the punishment and are even justified to begin with.
If they do open that vault at Fort Knox and we find it is empty what do we do? Will it be the wild west all over again? Do we start making decisions based on need rather than want or desire? It's a dark question four days before Christmas I know and maybe a time to start reflecting on more than the shiny present under the tree...unless it is gold bullion, but let's be realistic...we don't live in India..or China.
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