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Here’s a Thought…

“If some rogue virus wiped out every single mammal on the planet, life on earth would proceed, largely unaffected by the loss. But if the bacteria disappeared overnight, all life on the planet would be extinguished within a matter of years.” – Steven Johson, The Ghost Map

If you are a mammal reading this, it doesn’t do much for your ego, does it? We mammals don’t like being slighted like that, do we?

In the sentence preceding the above quote, Johnson says:

“Most of [the] recycling work, in both remote tropical rain forests and urban centers, takes place at the microbial level. Without the bacteria-driven processes of decomposition, the earth would have been overrun by offal and carcasses eons ago, and the life-sustaining envelope of the earth’s atmosphere would be closer to the uninhabitable, acidic surface of Venus.”

That would be offal of awful proportions indeed!

E coli
E coli at 10,000x -Click Me!

I love the word “microbial.” It’s stately in a primitive, possibly primordial, way.

“My, Crobial… How thou hast existed from eons past! How thou wilt triumph for eons to come! How thou ruleth over the self-important, self-aware, hot-blooded mammals! Without thee, oh, Crobial, they are mere mountains of carcasses, so much offal offered up to unstoppable Evolution!”

I just made the mammals feel worse, didn’t I? I’m sorry. It is rather humbling to know that we mammals could not exist without the plethora of microorganisms that surround us, live on us, live in us. It’s also humbling to know that if a rogue virus does wipe us all out one day, the microbes will clean up our remains, recycle us, and thrive. Something to look forward to.

Carry on, mammals!

If We Could Make War Backwards

I am currently reading Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.  This passage was so good I’m going to post the whole thing:

Billy looked at the clock on the gas stove.  He had an hour to kill before the saucer [flying] came.  He went into the living room, swinging the bottle [champagne] like a dinner bell, turned on the television.  He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again.  It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them.  Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this:

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England.  Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen.  They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames.  The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted them into the bellies of the planes.  The containers were stored neatly in racks.  The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes.  They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes.  But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair.  Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals.  Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work.  the minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas.  It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids.  And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed.  That wasn’t in the movie.  Billy was extrapolating.  Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.

The Beinhas

“The Beinhas had him where they wanted and they knew it. Ex-whores always knew when they have you by the balls.”

– Tad Williams
“Otherland, Vol. 1: City of Golden Shadow”

I CAN’T SLEEP

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(Originally posted on the website Heron Flight)

I cannot sleep. I tried and I tried. I read. I tossed and I turned. I stared at the clock and watched the amount of time I had left before work shrink and shrink.

Then I got up, somewhere around 12:30 AM.

“What did you do?” you ask.

I re-potted plants.

“What? Are you crazy?”

Yes, but that’s beside the point.

I remembered that there was a “Snake Plant” that I wanted to thin out and re-pot. It was outside. So, I shuffled out there in the late October chill air, in my old sleeping shorts, a t-shirt, and my two-year-old bedroom slippers that are now splitting at the seems. To my great nocturnal pleasure, I found that the Snake Plant had produced new shoots. They were perfect!

Being that it was too chilly outside for mid-night gardening, I moved operations to the basement.

“What? Are you a doctor?”

Not those kinds of operations.

I found a partial bag of potting soil outside the basement door at the bottom of the outside steps. I dug up a couple of decent pots. Next, I disentangled the roots of the shoots. (If I were wearing boots I could make a rhyme like Seuss. But I was wearing slippers. Do you remember? Soon they will be “trippers” without a mender.)

“You ARE crazy!”

Yeah, well, it is now 2 AM. Tick tock. Tick tock. Work is inching closer.

All rhyming aside, I scooped the soil into the pots, installed the plants, and swept up the mess.

A little farming should make anyone tired. Right? But just in case, I made a cup of chamomile tea.

“Oh! Just like Peter Rabbit!”

Well, sort of. Peter’s mom gave it to him because he was a naughty, fat, little rabbit who ate Mr. McGregor’s plants (Rabbits are evil! Don’t believe me? Just watch this!). I made some for myself because it’s supposed to make you sleepy.

Poppycock (as the Brits in that video would say)! That was over an hour ago and I’m still wide awake! I’m so wired it’s as if somebody slipped me a massive load of caffeine somewhere along the way tonight. I don’t know what else to do with myself. More gardening? Mow the lawn? Watch a Monty Python movie?

Hey… now there’s an idea! Just as soon as I plaster this jibber jabber on the internet, I’m going to crank up the dvd player and watch me a good ol’ silly movie. If nothing else, it will give me a reason to smile when I walk into the office at 9 AM – something in addition to the delirious smile sleep deprivation usually plants on my face.

And now I bid you happy tidings
As in your beds you’re tucked and hiding
I cannot sleep, tis how I am
There is no sleep for Sam I Am.

AMERICAN HOLIDAY

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(Originally posted on the website Heron Flight)

Happy Fucking Fourth of July!

I tell you, I just don’t have the type of life for holidays. They just don’t fit. Every time a damn holiday comes around, I am not in any position to deal with it. This time I’m going down in absolute flames I tell you. That’s right. Fitting for a holiday that is damn chock-full of pyro-incendiary-oo-la-las. Watch me cascade in bursting colorful delights downward through the evening sky! Zip-bam-bang-poof! That’s not sulfur stinging your nostrils. That’s me! Burning out before your very eyes.

I mean, damn it! With the wilting heat and broken air conditioning system in my car, I’m a melted Yodel before I even walk into the office these days. Then it just gets hotter inside. The place is a perfect jungle anymore. The savages stalk one another. It’s not uncommon to get a machete in the back. If the betrayal doesn’t get you the quick sand of more-work-than-you-can-realistically-handle will surely sink you down into the “no raise for you next year!” pit from which there is no explanation that can avail to your escape. It’s become barbaric and hideous really. Every day is the “Lord of the Flies” and you’re the fat kid.

But I should forget about all that. It’s a holiday and I don’t have to go back to work yet. Big Corporation is patriotic enough to give us two days off for the Fourth of July. Not that that’s enough for a guy in my position to pull it all together and be ready for this holiday with burgers grilling and blankets all set for the evening fireworks. But they did at least give us two days off. I mean, we should all bow down and kiss their rich bastard asses. But who the hell are “they” anyway? The thousands of stockholders that Big Corporation is technically “owned” by? Wait! I’m one of those stockholders! And I don’t like the way things are going! I call a board meeting! Oh shit! I guess I can’t do that on a holiday! Fuck. Everybody’s out roasting their weenies. Fucking Yankee Doodle Dandies!

Don’t get the wrong impression. I love America. The theory of America is good at least. And I suppose that it is actually better to live here than some other places like, uh, Darfur, or Baghdad, or some other shit hole. But really, America in practice is a far cry from America in theory. Witness all the shit the Bush administration has gotten away with since 9/11. Hell, a warrant is practically a meaningless legal propriety anymore. “You know, I think you’re a terrorist. So, fuck your rights, and fuck the Constitution, and fuck your mother too while we’re at it! You’re an enemy combatant and you’re going to Gitmo, motherfucker!” Oh, come on! That shit doesn’t happen! Does it, Jose Padilla?

Maybe I should just shut my mouth and be a good American. Don’t question authority. This is all for our own good and our safety. Sure, come on in and search my underwear drawer! I’ll be running around in the backyard with sparklers celebrating the birth of this great experiment in freedom called America. No, no, I don’t mind if the New Jersey State Police lie to my learning disabled son and intimidate him into letting them search our home while I’m at work. No, really, I can understand how one of the State Troopers could allow his car to be broken into and his laptop and gun stolen. Really, happens to the best of us. I’ll just go set off some Roman Candles while you fuckers intrude on my privacy. Hey, what’s a traumatized boy compared to matters of state? Why don’t you guys install cameras to monitor what goes on in my house all the time? I’m sure Orwell wouldn’t be surprised. (Yeah, some of this paragraph is based on a true story. Email me and I’ll tell you all about it.)

Wait! Goddamn it! Don’t email me! I’ll tell you about it right now!

In September 2004, while I was at work, the New Jersey State Police came to my house while my learning disabled 20-year-old son was the only one at home. They descended on the place like starving vultures. Not just one or two cops but several car loads of cops suddenly appeared at my residence that afternoon. They presented my son with some shit-ass accusation of stealing a bicycle. Despite his insistence that he didn’t do such a thing, the State Police detectives insisted on coming into our home. They told him that he would be arrested and never see his girlfriend or son again if he didn’t let them in. They refused his request to call his dad before they came in. He has obvious communication deficiencies that are immediately noticeable when one talks to him. But these sharp detectives ignored that. No, they took advantage of that and abused their power in order to wiggle their way into my goddamn home! Can you imagine taking such advantage of a semi-retarded boy? Welcome to America! Have a hot dog! Light off some firecrackers! Set your damn hair on fire!

Where the hell did I start? Oh yeah, holidays don’t usually fit into my life very well. Nothing fits into the life of a single father very well really. Think about it. You have to function at 100 miles per hour 100 hours per day. No easy feat. It’s hard enough to maintain daily home life and field the occasional State Police intrusion let alone incorporate a national holiday. There just isn’t time for it. It just doesn’t fit. And it surely doesn’t mean too goddamn much, now does it? It’s not like there have been great shining incidents of democracy in my experience for which I want to use a day off in reverent worship of the U-S-A. Fuck no! I’m just happy I don’t have to sit in my goddamn cube working for Big Corp. I’d rather take my Yodel ass out into the heat and let it melt in psuedo-patriotism at the local parade while the National Guard tanks roll by and the mayor waves to phony applause and the Girl Scouts think they are trotting along in the wilting humidity because this country is great and everything is baseball and apple pie and we all live happily ever after. God bless America! God help us one and all.

I just can’t fit holidays into my life. They are awkward and unyielding. It’s hard enough to keep the normal day-in and day-out rhythm going. Then a holiday comes along and sets itself up right in the way. I have a hard enough time dealing with my kids’ birthdays for God’s sake. I can’t deal with holidays and their cookouts and get-togethers and driving here and there and everywhere. I always get stuck behind that one damn bastard who drives 10 miles per hour below the speed limit as he relishes the damn holiday and soaks in all the holidayness as he’s putzing along to Aunt Erma’s annual Independence Day shindig. I don’t have the patience or the patriotism for that. Just get out of my way, leave all the holiday nonsense alone and let’s have a normal day. Let’s just be normal and calm and pressure-free. You don’t pressure me. I won’t pressure you. Don’t worry about wearing the right colors and bringing the right food. Just relax.

Ah, who am I kidding? I gotta get going. The kids need red, white, and blue clothes. And the parade is at 1:00. And the shitty fair is waiting to gobble up my money so the kids can go on the rides. There is no resistance to it. The holiday always wins. I guess I better conform. Isn’t that what patriotism is in America these days? I’ll give in, sit through the parade. Hopefully my attitude will improve through the day.