Money Follows Money

 

Girlfriends of Republicans can date Democrats too!

When you are a member of the elite,

the well-placed degreed wealthy ones;

then you get to cross many social lines.

Quips are traded, barbs for sure,

tidbits and nuggets of information.

So those at the top become in the know.

A secret cabal in total control?

Not really – just a lucky moneyed class

with chins held high and superiority in play.

They are in the know and on top and so

they are, in a sense, in greater control...

Control of us poor uneducated workers who

swallow the sound bites and slog on in our jobs.

Who try to be nice to customers and do the dirty

work, and hang on to the weekend and consume...

Consume the spun half-truths and do what we should,

even do our patriotic duty and vote for stooge A or stooge B,

tweedle dee or tweedle dum presented to us as a solution.

Solution to problems intractable as the flawed human race.

The flawed human race that gave rise to them all to begin with.

We are the problem our mothers warned us against.

We are the alien invasion that we fear.

We are the source of all good, and all evil.

We may be the end of ourselves yet!

Happy election year everyone!

Strange Human Behavior

 

Remembering a strange movie I saw once. It was about this guy in his late teens, who requested that this older couple, in their twenties, would “help him commit suicide” by dragging him along with a rope, and beating up on him. It was so odd. Eventually, the older guy got tired of it, and the woman too, had second thoughts. The older guy took off, and the woman nursed the beaten young man to health, then they had a mini-affair. The End. It reminds me a little of the current situation in AI and robotics.

On the one hand you see some shrill post about the US needing a “Manhattan Project” effort to develop AI even more. On the other hand you hear people cautioning against the takeover of the machines, and that we will end up at war with them. So you have one faction almost demanding more research into machine learning, AI and robotics. While others fear an inevitable coming war with the robots. Kind of like us beating ourselves up and wondering why.

I, too, have mixed feelings. A personal assistant robot would be a nice luxury. It could mow the lawn, clean, cook, etc, and be a companion. But then again, if it decided to be mean to its squishy human owner, there wouldn’t be much one could do. Just know where the emergency power off switch is, I guess.

Just another aspect of the bifurcated human mental landscape. We should be careful what we wish for. The more we do in AI research, the more other countries will feel they must do to keep up. Guess there is no stopping this AI race. The motto of it all is “Make damn sure there is a prominent power-off button somewhere!” Happy Monday everyone.

Soon to Exit Route 66

 

Route 66 was a fabled automotive corridor,

where young folks drove to “get their kicks.”

Cheap hotels and roadside attractions mingled

with bars and clubs of various persuasions.

For some of us 66 is the number of age,

Making retirement or relaxing from a career.

One more than the retirement number of yore,

that twentieth-century bellweather signpost.

Any more it is just another number to pass

on the superhighway of technology (and always-on.)

The cloud remembers everything, and we can look back

any time we wish, travel in the “wayback machine” of the Net...

But when one passes it in age it seems a bit jarring,

getting closer than ever to the big “70” and wondering

where it all went, and why so darned fast?

But others are leading the way there,

looking back wistfully on their 60’s.

So here I come too, up on them fast, too fast.

As long as I stay healthy and busy, think I’ll last

even to 70 and beyond. The past seems so vast now.

“One foot in front of the other,”

is what dear old dad used to say.

So that will be the grand plan now,

hoping to see some sights along the way.

Maybe I’ll see you there too, and

give a smile and a wave.

Typos No Longer Allowed

 

“Freudian slips” were once a dip in everyday conversations,

a brief embarrassing chuckle and then resumption of relations,

before keyboards and screens proliferated all over the place.

Now we often rush to type our thoughts into cyberspace.

The helpful spell checker becomes the word replacer,

and at times a built-in laugh-track chuckle creator.

Though the typist may curse and want no distractors

from the AI intruders, they get it anyway, a humor factor.

Not much consolation to those frustrated fat fingers,

when timely communications keep getting hindered.

At least a manual typewriter didn’t change before our eyes,

mistakes were our own and made us more careful and wise.

Someday we will live inside these new AI computers,

maybe then get our revenge on the arrogant intruders!

Some Parties Never Die

 

Those wild, legendary Hollywood parties,

big names letting their inhibitions down;

Escapades out of view of the cameras

were not just buried in 1950’s papers.

Now you can watch them play out again,

in most of their sordid details (not all).

The people involved are now deceased,

but YouTube serves up the scandals fresh.

Errol Flynn’s weird soirees?

Jayne Mansfield’s unfettered orgies?

The Rat Pack’s Vegas getaways?

Joan Crawford’s unleashed energies?

They can all be heard about and ogled

once again, not in any gossip column;

no, with pictures and voice-overs.

The next best thing to being invited!

They never knew that their last big roles

would be in small-screen gossip specials.

Everyone lives forever on the Internet,

our own version of eternal life experienced.

Multi-Level Madness

 

It seemed so magical,

The great product and easy plan,

the motivational books and tapes.

Fix your ambitions on big dreams of wealth,

then set your plan into motion.

Write down a list of everyone you know,

your family, your friends, people at work.

Any one of them could be your ticket to wealth.

Just get them signed up underneath you,

buy and use the product every day (it is fantastic!)

Sing the praises of the product,

motivate your downline levels,

hold weekly meetings and watch

your net worth shoot upwards.

Inevitable failure was not just my fault.

Many others also fell short of the dreams;

after all, it is virtually impossible to get rich

from a pyramid scheme disguised as a business.

Anyway you analyze it, it was not going to work.

Now I am on the only level that counts – well-grounded reality!

Creative Frosting on the Human Cake

 

It seems important to try ones hand at

lighter pursuits, happier engagements.

After taking care of survival needs,

to focus the mind and self on beauty.

To draw or paint a picture,

to write a bit of happy poetry.

To plant some seeds or flower cuttings,

put your touch of color on the world.

Is there any greater expression of the

highest aspiration of humanity?

To leave the world a bit brighter,

more beautiful, enhanced, fine-tuned?

A day in June is a thing to be enjoyed,

celebrated and added to by some artworks.

Performance of higher artistic expressions,

emotive twists and turns atop physical reality.

For we human baskets of fluids and tissues,

cravings and desires and fears and hopes,

are also capable of mental greatness!

Join the highest flickering of intelligence,

indulge yourself in some artistic expressions today.

Happy June – Happy Summer – Happy Pride!