Thanks for Your Time

 

You could have been making out,

making love, scoring the big one.

You could have gotten some cleaning done,

or gone to the grocery store to stock up,

you could have called your mom,

your dad, your aunt or uncle.

You could have read up on Coronavirus,

gone to the Web MD’s and educated yourself.

You could have just sat and read a book,

your favorite sci-fi, mystery, or romance novel…

You could have browsed Facebook, Twitter,

even checked out some new jobs on LinkedIn.

You could have polished up your resume,

made phone calls, located contacts…

You could have done so many things,

but instead here you are, reading these lines.

A big waste of your time?

A colossal blunder of time management?

Perhaps not.

Because I’m here to tell you you are special,

you are a unique human being,

with cognitive powers above all others in the animal kingdom.

You have many innate abilities,

unique, special qualities to

touch other people’s lives.

Who knows, you may have said just the right word,

made just the right gesture,

performed just the right act,

to set in motion a chain of events that led

humanity to achieve greater heights than would have

been possible without your one act,

your link in the chain of humanity that elevated us all.

And if you did not know that,

or perhaps forgot,

then today you got reminded of just how

wonderful, special, and unique you are.

With that “heads-up” then just maybe,

reading this was not such a waste of time after all.

Thanks for reading it in any case,

and warmest regards to you, fellow human!

Unleashing the Tech Tornado

 

Can words even describe the awesomeness of

figuring out a relatively new technology,

and taming it for one’s own personal pleasure?

Time was, when you bought a cassette playing boombox,

two speakers and one or two cassette players,

you were really living it up.

Those decades are long past.

Now for a relatively small sum,

you can get a player for your CD’s

and MP3s and internet streaming too.

Just pair it via Bluetooth with a smartphone,

and presto, you have virtually unlimited music.

Not eight or twelve or sixteen tracks,

not even a few gigabytes of MP3s,

No-sir-ree.

Now you have massive amounts,

any kind of musical genre you want.

Just have to hunt it down online,

and link it up with your device.

You see, nowadays we have to think,

interact with our devices,

know what we are doing more than

jamming in a cassette or CD.

We have to work, but are rewarded commensurately…

How do stoned teenagers even manage nowadays???

Sure feels good to pair a phone with a boombox,

when you have never done such a thing before!

Time to go to bed, and dream about 1’s and 0’s

turning into fabulous Bitcoin wealth.

Anything is possible, after all.

Happy computing everyone.

Totalitarianism lost

      All of this voter restriction taking place is just wrong.  Limiting the times people can vote, making it harder and harder for the poor, disabled, disadvantaged to vote is the antithesis of democracy.    If we look back to the countries that existed before WW II, and how they embraced authoritarianism, it is enlightening.  dictators in Germany and Italy, and Japan, all assasinated opponents, lied to their populations about how they lacked resources and living spaces, and took away democratic rights of assembly and free speech.  They burned books, and attacked marginalized groups.   Then they unleashed a war that was hell on earth, a war that killed millions upon millions of innocent people.   But in the end, the forces of democracy prevailed, and won the war.  Oh, and all of those authoritarian politicians?  Teh ones that took over by lies, deceits, and the taking away of liberty and democracy?  They all ended up dead or imprisoned, or hanged.  

     Totalitarianism, authoritarianism, the stealing of democracy with fancy words results in untold death and misery.  It does not work.  No matter who or what political party unleashes it, even now to this very day.  Take note, Republicans who would rob so many people of the right to vote.  It is on your heads, and it will harm you too.  

Oregon Outlier

Familiar yellow and blue,

large “block” letters shout

family movies, browsing heaven, and fun.

Enter and smell popcorn, glimpse new arrivals.

See the shelves laying out enticing new movies.

Once a common weekend experience,

now vanished forever – or almost.

There is one left, surviving on nostalgia.

News has spread far and wide about this

“Last video rental store standing.”

In days of streaming convenience and the

world at ones smartphone fingertips,

it is fun to look back at our entertainment 

options a couple decades ago.

Perhaps Netflix should buy the last

Blockbuster and keep it as a museum?

The Pandemic has ended so much public

interaction, turning us into 'streamers.'

Will browsing anything in person return?

Hope so – people need to be around each other.

But the old video rental stores are gone –

Now watch the nascent nostalgia industry explode.

Gun Smoke to Rocket Smoke

 

Rusted window frames in a collapsing wall,

Shows the same view Billy the Kid saw back when;

his memories are scattered all around Lincoln County.

Further down the highway a piece lies White Sands –

An alien landscape backdrops missile launches and

spaceport activities. Over yonder remains a

piece of the Old West, but over there lies a

gateway to the stars for humanity.

Silver darts pierce the sky, always reaching.

On the car radio some huckster is preaching,

In Alamagordo those museum people are teaching;

Through walls of belief and conviction, truth is leaking.

When will we make that hop from here to Mars, to Jupiter,

to Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and the Kuiper belt?

Proxima Centauri, Sirius, Aldebaran, the Pleadies?

Probably not as long as those wagon trains took,

wending through trails of hope across someone else’s property;

Or so it might have seemed to some swaying, sickened settlers.

We will just have to make sure the property we do plant stakes in

does not belong to someone else, or we might be the ones planted,

dying on alien soils, expiring life and hope in some vain attempt.

Humanity become extraterrestrial fertilizer? Perhaps,

if we don’t improve our ability to get along with not only each other,

but also with the greater whole out there in the universe.

The galaxy, just like the Old West, may best be settled not

just with a fast gun, but a sensible mind and calm approach.

Hope we can make it out there among the nebula,

before they come in stealthy approach to our homesteads.

multi-disciplinary gropes

 

So many brilliant scientists in various fields,

reach for new heights of knowledge.

They map the human brain,

scan the galaxy for dark matter

with enormous telescopes,

visit deep-sea vents to study those

methane-munching microbes,

ones that feed a whole tree of life.

Knowledge so vast it fills many volumes,

hard drives, libraries of science data.

But every one of those scientists will tell you,

if they are being honest,

that there is more they do not know than they do.

One mentions a potential 35 trillion microbe species,

another talks about the mass of the universe,

and oh, by the way, most if it is dark matter -

stuff we do not really understand (yet).

Smarter than the average person by multiples,

they still do not know more than they do know.

They are still primates, reaching up and groping,

finding and discovering, quantifying and studying.

Yesterday seemed so shiny when it was all there was;

today it is a yellowing, fading memory, eclipsed,

subsumed by a greater, louder, noisier more colorful now.

What will tomorrow bring?

Just wait and see - 

I'm sure it will be interesting!

What, another year of them???

 

Infection rates are dropping,

while deaths decrease daily.

Vaccinations are increasing,

Could we start to mingle safely?

Not quite, say the epidemiologists;

We must stay on guard against Covid-19!

While it feels good to be an optimist,

feels even better to keep a healthy sheen.

May have to wear those masks into 2022,

if that is what it takes to stay alive.

By then we may get used to wearing two,

put up with the inconvenience to thrive…

Anything to tamp down the rate of sickness,

keep the world healthy, and emerge strong.

I would wear three to help us regain fitness,

set new goals, and finally sing victory songs.

Another Act

 

You have had all the fun,

sexed all the good sex you want,

known and met and slept with

the glitterai and low-downers and others.

Worked all the crazy shifts,

went without sleep or slept at odd hours,

“Been there and done that” at so many jobs.

Taken orders and given orders, been trained

and trained others, worn responsibility’s mantle

that holds back so much and allows so little.

"What next?:   You ask, "where do I go from here?"

The final drop-off is drawing closer way too fast.

Need to find and live that third, fourth, fifth act

and fast, before your clock runs out entirely.

The gun we all run under – yet no less urgent.

But we will not find out by sitting at home,

explore hidden caves by hovering outside,

behold vistas of outer space by staying on ground.

Rather must push the shaking corpus out there,

yet again, to be amazed, astounded, or at least amused.

Once more to that leaden Front Door,

to cast it open and inhale the outside,

draw energy from sun and air and hope inside.

Here goes nothing –

see you on the other side.

Is it cold enough to freeze a ghost?

 If I die when it is this cold,

will my soul freeze too,

maybe shatter, fall back

to the ground in shards

that await a passer-by to step on and

crunch the essence, like others did

self-esteem when I breathed in flesh?

I can believe it. Sure as I’m shivering

right now while typing this.

The cat snuggles on the bed at night;

offers to keep me warm if I keep her warm.

I take the deal, knowing she will not stay long.

Any warmth is welcome, human or feline.

If an animal dies, its soul tries to fly,

yet just may be frozen mid-air tonight.

A bit more white dust added to the flurries

that flutter down to cover windshields,

cover corpses and souls in alabaster shine.

In a few days the temps should moderate,

and the Sun will glow through the miniblinds.

Bodies and souls still intact will celebrate

with a vengeance:

Die, winter, Die! Now!

Troublesome Offspring

 

Old television shows us how far we have come;

sixty-year old computers the size of refrigerators.

Replacing the workers on an average assembly line,

or so they thought in ninteen-hundred and sixty three.

Computing, display and communication hardware

took many leaps and bounds in the interim,

so today we hold marvels of annoyance in our hands:

A world of infotainment, and a world of advertisements.

So much convenience, entertainment, humor, connection.

What could possibly go wrong, with humans directing things?

War technology has progressed apace, if not leading the way.

That GPS and Wi-Fi we use enables missiles and bombs too!

The robots are coming, already stalking around in labs worldwide.

The day may come when we lose control of everything,

and then we will see if our primitive instincts enable us to

survive the onslaught of our petulant artificial children.

Expectations and Reality

 

I never imagined it would be like this.

Is that what my parents thought? That the future would be so oddly familiar, and yet so different?

I didn’t see any discontinuous jump. No sudden rocket packs or tourist jaunts to Mars. I just experienced a day-by-day humdrum grind, or the daily push to go make a living, to get the grocery shopping and oil changes and laundry loads done, and done, and done again. Then one day it is 2021, and I’m wondering WTF happened to all of the years. Sure, some of them were spent enjoying myself. And people with kids, families, etc must have really seen time rush by, like a waterfall sped up triple-time.

A recent documentary about the Vogue magazine writer Joan Diedre (sp?) really brought it home in a way. She interviewed or wrote articles on many of the leading luminaries of the 1960s. She and her husband, also a successful writer, had dinner parties with some of the rich and famous. She seemed to live a glamorous life, almost dreamlike. But eventually it was all done, lived, used up. 

 I count myself as having many blessings, a good childhood, good experiences, lots of things. And yet perhaps I’m a bit unhappy with the fact that ‘where did that time go, and why did it go so fast, and how did I get so much older?’ But hey, I got my turn around the wheel, now it is time for someone else, or elses, to enjoy their turn. I just want a couple or three more decades to write about everything (maybe I’m greedy, but there it is.)

But back to the future. It is never what we expect. I never expected a pandemic. But my father never expected a world war to take a dump on his dreams during his first year in college. Life always has some curve balls to throw at us – never fails. Still, some wonderful things are also occurring. In the medical front, Mrna technologies and the like are being put to use in the battle against Covid-19, and necessity is driving advancement. Cars are being electrified all over the place, potentially reducing pollution and dependence on fossil fuels. Space exploration is plodding forward, and new companies are springing up to meet an increasing demand for satellites of all kinds. The Moon is in play, and a lot of entities are planning trips or bases or something there. As gloomy as things seem at times, wonders are still birthing, amazing new vistas unfolding.

The future is always a mixed bag of tricks and treats. We reach for the treats, and sometimes our hands get bitten by the tricks. Like air travel exploding in the 1930s’ and bringing about the long-range bombers that wreaked havoc in the 1940s. Like rocketry technologies now, and nuclear missiles lurking right around the corner.

Smartwatches, autonomous vehicles, and suborbital airline flights are here or nearby. But we still will need our masks, and still need to go through fine scrutiny by TSA to make sure we don’t blow anything up. The future is not what I expected. But sure is still filled with surprises. I guess that is the best one could hope for. At lest we won’t die of boredom! Stay safe everyone.

A new day's challenges

 

Restoration of dignity and reason;

Rollbacks in turn rolled back,

progress begins anew!

The old days are gone,

Our supremacy is now in question?

Every day we need to struggle forward,

“move the ball downfield,”

even if just a yard or two.

Fierce international opponents lurk,

also serious problems here at home.

Sometimes our co-workers or bosses

may be difficult problems to cope with.

Back in the early 1960s,

the Soviets were the “Big Bad Wolf.”

But we met the threat, and coped.

Look how far we have come since!

We can and will deal with present devils

of all sizes and shapes, and come out okay.

We still have what it takes to win, or

at least co-exist and prosper in peace.

Healing

 

Pandemic –

riots,

dislocations,

unemployment,

poverty,

conflicts.

A new President,

A new administration,

A new day.

Hope blossoms.

Can it be?

Will it be?

In a hundred days,

we shall see…

A new year in

this new century.

A nation healed?

We shall see!

Bleak Days Counting

 

Try to put up a good front,

keep that stiff upper lip,

everything is fine,

Life is just a peach.

But all is not well inside;

Runny nose for, like, a year,

aching joints all over the place,

wrinkles pile up like crooked twigs.

One tries to be optimistic,

we have a new administration,

good things are happening,

new changes taking place.

The old problems just won’t go away,

and some new ones join them.

This raft of battles isn’t letting up,

even if the sky is a different color.

Others are fighting battles too,

most of us have impossible obstacles.

Slim comfort is taken by the fact

that I am not unique or alone.

Like those adventurers in the

Lord of the Rings trilogy,

what will the next turn in the trail bring?

Hoping there won’t be dragons or Black Riders –

we have had enough pestilence and

disaster in this past year!

Just a little while longer,

keep the masks on just a few months or a year

longer, and we’ll beat back the Covid-19 baddies.

Time to crawl back in the “hobbit hole,”

Over and out for another 24.

Keep Artemis on track

 

Joe Biden is going to have to decide whether he wants the NASA Artemis program to proceed, going to the Moon, or to completely outsource it to SpaceX and Blue Origin, or just cede the Moon to the Russians and Chinese, in some faint hope that we can perhaps send people to Mars. I hope that the new administration will keep the Artemis program on track, even if it means outsourcing more of the rocket technology. After all, one rocket with four scavenged Shuttle engines is not enough, on its own, to get us back to the Moon “for good.” We will have to build several more boosters at least, and solid rockets to attach, and crew capsules, etc etc. A lot of money and a long-term effort will be required. In short, a lot of national will is needed to commit to a new Moon effort.

Will it be worth it? The question to me is, can the US afford to be left behind as China, Russia and the EU pursue their own Moon ambitions? Countries like the U.A.E. and Britain also harbor space ambitions. But, of course, there are so many other demands on our budgets and wallets here in the US. Even if we have to scale back our plans, and rely mostly on robotic assistants, we should still stay in the space exploration game with humans if and when possible. The payoffs are big, and the consequences of being left behind include being relegated to a second-class nation, no longer a destination for young scientists and engineers to study. We need to do space for the long term.

Let’s go back to the Moon, Joe and Kamala. We need to, we should, and we must.

Thanks for reading.

What bright future

 

Once upon a time, I thought the future held promise. The future is supposed to be brighter, happier. Problems will get solved, new ideas and inventions will spring up. Life will get easier, more convenient, and in general, better. But past history should have taught me that sometimes, things get worse. Worse not just for one or a few people, but worse for all of us. The year 2020 was definitely one of those years.

No matter how much I tried to dismiss the bad things, they just kept popping up. A pandemic, economic upheavals, rioting. And suffusing everything, a cloud of misinformation that drifted everywhere there was an Internet connection. So many fabrications and falsehoods. One does not know who to trust anymore for news. And these virtual fabrications finally manifested themselves in an ugly physical sense, like the shooting in a pizza parlor that resulted from Qanon propaganda about some child sex ring being run out of pizza joints. Or rioters storming the US capitol building. Internet garbage is manifesting itself in real violence, and real deaths.

But the most damaging seems to be that somehow a fair vote in the election got characterized as the “big steal” and unfair. Over and over, challenges were brought against vote counts, even though many precautions were taken, and the voting was clean. The challenges were thrown out time and time again by judges and courts as frivolous, misleading and inaccurate. But our grand No. 45 kept saying it was rigged, unfair, stolen, etc. and the kook brigades ate up every word. So the culmination was a mob storming the capitol building, waving Trump signs and even confederate flags. Violence, and deaths resulted – most of them protesters, apparently. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

One can hope that the nation learns from this disaster. A big lesson is that unfettered Internet conspiracy-spewing leads to real, deadly trouble. Facebook and all the other social media giants have to police their platforms now, and remove the incendiary posts. This is a big job, considering the millions, billions of postings. But the alternative is the collapse of civilized behaviors in general, and a degradation of our society. Aaaaand that is my rant today on the Internet. Peace and out.

New Years, Old Years

 

It has been a very long slog,

through this chaotic maelstrom.

But we made it at last, at last.

In misery, time flows like molasses.

The days begin to lengthen now,

sun brighter by degrees, wow.

Resolutions take shape and guide

our directions, before we back-slide.

Did it all really happen?

Pandemic, economic crash, riots?

Did anything get solved, or just

the wealthy getting more super-rich?

A lot of people died, more are dying,

so it was definitely not business as usual.

Young and old alike crowded most hospitals;

testing and vaccines overshadowed any new fads.

Mother Nature weighed in heavy and hard,

murderous forest fires, hurricanes, a Derecho too.

Our nation took too many hard hits to count,

other nations were not immune to disasters.

As we hobble into this new year, lick our wounds,

gradually recover from all the serious grievances

visited on our bodies and minds and economies,

let us hope we have learned some things along the way.

Useful things, whatever they may be.

We’ll need every ounce of competence and perseverance

to pull ourselves out of all the past disasters,

as well as any new ones that pop up along the way.

Never count out the human race...

We are tough survivors,

history has shown us that.

Be well everyone.

Nine inches, ready or not

 

“It’s not February yet!”

first thought that came to mind,

along with “Tournaments are months away!”

Nevertheless, central Iowa got socked in

with 9.6 inches of fresh, unwelcome snow.

“Should be able to go to work,”

was the second genius idea I had.

After all, I shoveled two hours earlier,

at 1:30 PM last Tuesday afternoon.

By 4:30 there were five more inches

on the driveway, car, and street too.

“Hmm, may be time to text the boss,”

the third, and truest, impression formed.

She was sympathetic, and even offered

to give me a ride into work.

Silly me, I walked through three blocks

of the white sh*t, even slipping and falling,

before meeting up with her at the arranged spot.

Fortunately, the night passed reasonably well,

and with no parking in sight, a ride turned out

to be the best choice one could make.

When I disembarked from my boss’s 4 X 4,

clambered over snowbanks to get to my jobsite,

the last, most unerringly accurate thought of all:

“Next time I’m gonna call in sick, dammit!”

But I’ll see just how accurate when “next time” indeed rolls around.

We know that minds, like the weather, are subject to frequent change.

 

The meme that conquered the galaxy

 

Lots of memes come down the aisle,

all crowing with clever words and photos.

Drunken lady pointing at white cat,

lecturing some finer point, getting

stuck by the kitty with salacious smile.

Movie stars grin or leer or smirk,

point or pose or strut and impart

clever truisms or false-isms.

They jostle and posture and posit superiority.

Too bad they have all been defeated,

wiped out before they had a chance,

beaten right out of the gate...

One overwhelming Super-meme came before all.

Star Trek and the starship Enterprise!

Anyone alive not know the Enterprise?

Any person on Earth never heard of such a

fine ship that various captains profess “her”

as their first and/or only love?

How many iterations, versions of a starship,

from Warp 5 to warp umpty-whatever,

have graced television screens and computer monitors?

How many games, contests, books, even action figures?

Star Trek may be a long-running theme,

but the Enterprise is an infectious meme,

her warp engines thrumming our brains

like a flamenco guitarist evoking flames.

Sorry, wannabe brain candies;

The Enterprise got there first,

and is still resident,

will never leave us,

ever, ever, it seems.

“Aye, laddies, and time for a wee

bit o brandy” and reflecting on

past times with the Enterprise kicking ass,

all over the galaxy – and beyond.

Sleep well, space cowboys – and everyone else.

(Merry Christmas too.)

To my poet friends

 

To try and scrape up some rudiments of verse,

from my tired brain some lyrics to rehearse.

A chore at times on par with unplugging the toilet,

Some distraction yanks attention, surely spoils it.

But then I check my mailbox, and a light emerges,

cards from the Alpha contingent that I can submerge

in, creativity be reignited, my keyboard get warmed

once again, fingers trying to capture new ideas born.

This holiday season I am so grateful for those

faithful folks who inspire with poetry and prose;

you inject love into my dreary winter picture,

infuse black and white with color-hued tincture.

To one and all I bid you Happy Holiday wishes.

Merry joyous celebrations and many tasty dishes.

Enjoy everyone!

A good visual metaphor for my poet and writer friends.