Springtime Is Almost Here!

The spring has always been a favorite season for me.

Green is my favorite color and springtime is the season of green. I love it when all the trees start putting out their leaves and the flowers start blooming. It’s a time of awakening from the winter’s sleep. I think humans have it impressed in their DNA to feel joy during the spring. It’s the season that ushers in the long, productive days of summer, when game and plants are abundant for the hunter or the forager.

Of course, most of us don’t worry too much about that these days. We just go to the grocery store to hunt and forage. Nevertheless, it’s still ingrained in humans to feel more alive and positive during the springtime. Sadly, it’s a misery for those of you who suffer from allergies. The oaks will be blooming any day now here in Central Florida. Since we’ve had a very mild and dry winter, I’m sure the pollen output will be horrendous. It’ll be snowing pollen soon enough.

That, and bazillions of leaves, is the price I pay for the shade, coolness, and beauty provided by the eight oak trees in my yard. It’s a small price to pay, I feel. I love my oaks. I love my electric bill, too. My house is nearly completely in shade during the hottest parts of the day.

I’m looking forward to watching my Mexican petunias that I planted last summer come back to life and start putting out their pretty little purple flowers every morning and evening. They put a few out during the winter, but nothing like the way they were producing in the summertime.

Eventually, springtime leads to the doldrums of summer here in Florida, where hot and sticky days/nights make life miserable if you don’t have an air conditioner running somewhere nearby. That’s OK, too. I ain’t complaining. I just hope that the hurricanes pass on by again this year without visiting Florida. I haven’t had home owner’s insurance in five years. When it got to be $2400.00 a year, I cancelled it.

Springtime is almost here, folks. Dream a little. Take a deep breath. Take a moment and smell the beautiful new flowers. Life is fleeting. Slow it down a bit when you can.

Later…

~Eric

Image credits: oak pollen from Bethany Gallagher’s website –> SlowButt

Mexican petunias – from Phillip’s Natural World. Also, I recommend Phillip’s wonderful article about his own Mexican petunias experience.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – A Review

Ever wish you could turn back the clock, go back in time, change something in some way, right a wrong, maybe?

How ’bout going back in time and not being able to change anything that’s already happened? This is precisely Henry’s curse… and blessing. Henry is the time traveler in Audrey Niffenegger’s wonderful love story about Clare and Henry. Now don’t go running off just because I called it a love story. This burly biker dude don’t do romance books, you know. Don’t be afraid of this one, though. It’s unique.

And if you don’t like science fiction, don’t run off just yet, either. This book is so difficult to pigeon hole easily. It’s joyous, tragic, intense, light and airy, humorous, dark, playful, serious, happy, and sad all rolled into one extremely satisfying story. This is a story of humanity, of life, of beginnings and endings. Whether you’re an 80 year old granny or a 17 year old skateboard punk, I think anyone with a bit of humanity in them will be affected by Ms. Niffenegger’s story of Clare and Henry.

The book I actually read was from my local library. However, I liked this story so much that I ordered a copy a few minutes ago from an online seller. I will definitely be reading this book again sometime in the future. It’s one of those books that once you closed that back cover over after reading that last page, you have just such a wonderful feeling of satiation and tranquility. Any readers out there know exactly what I mean.

Many books are enjoyable, some are very good; a few, like this one, are special. We all have our favorites. It’s a subjective thing, for sure. Recommendations from readers and written reviews are usually not ironclad guarantees of similar reactions in others. They can be a starting point, though. A book like The Time Traveler’s Wife is usually not my cup of joe. If someone had recommended it or I had read a review of it, just the words “love” and “story” probably would have scared me off. I saw this book on the bottom shelf at the libary. The title intrigued me. The cover was even more interesting. I checked it out. I’m so glad I did.

Paperback: 546 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (May 27, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 015602943X
ISBN-13: 978-0156029438

Pick yourself up a copy of this little gem next time you’re at your local library or bookshop. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

Time, not the mind, puts an end to love. ~Publilius Syrus

Happy reading!

~Eric

The Shame of Falling Into the Social Safety Net

The legions of us creep up to the counters at our local grocery stores…

… and surreptitiously reach into our wallets or purses and quickly pull out that distinctively colored food card and swipe it, all in the blink of an eye. I’ve become proficient at that maneuver myself, actually. It doesn’t matter, though. You still get the looks from the cashiers. You can see these young kids looking at you and you can practically read their minds. They’re saying, “Why don’t you get a job, old man?” or something to that effect but possibly with a nastier tone. Or is it just our own insecurities that make us think this?

Earlier this morning, I read a great article by Chris Cook of Salon.com over at Alternet.org. Mr. Cook is having some financial difficulties these days; seems that many of us are, doesn’t it? Chris writes about his recent experiences while applying for food assistance in his state of residence (California). He cites a thought-provoking statistic:

The soaring food stamp rolls, though quite predictable in the midst of a deep recession, have inspired wealthy Republican candidates for president (is there any other kind?) to brand Barack Obama “the food stamp president,” even though, according to USA Today, the rolls rose more sharply under President George W. Bush.

Roughly one in six Americans (one in five children) does not have reliable access to food. According to USA Today, citing census data, nearly half the country is poor or low-income.  Even as unemployment eases modestly in some places, the vast underbelly of America is, economically and nutritionally, underfed.

*Emphasis mine.

One in six. Amazing, huh? Here we are in America; land of the free, home of the brave, etc. Nearly 17% of our population (higher if you just count children) are going to bed hungry every evening. Something smells rotten, and it’s not all the uneaten food that we American gluttons throw in the garbage every night. No, it’s something… I’m not sure… it seems to be emanating from pretty much any government facility you drive by. Ah yes! It’s the smell of inefficient, bureaucratic waste and greed. Stephen Moore states in a Wall Street Journal article that more Americans work in government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining, and utilities combined. Gee! I wonder if any of them are on food assistance. I seriously doubt it. They’re comfortably gorging at the public trough… no utensils needed, just dig in.

Chris continues:

How have I fallen back to where I was when I was a food stamp, Head Start kid (getting, yes, free lunches)?  America is supposed to be the engine of progress, and each of us is assigned the “promise” and, effectively, the duty, of keeping up that steady march.  Even though I never bought the American narrative of progress and opportunity, I somehow feel like a bumbling screw-up for not holding up my end of the bargain.

My parents were Depression Era kids. They and my aunts and uncles were all on some sort of government assistance at one time or another back then. The times were very, very hard. My father used to say, “You young folks need a nice depression of your own so you’ll understand what it’s like to go to bed hungry and not have any money to pay the bills.” Well, dad. You got your wish, it seems. Myself, my brother, many of my friends and neighbors are all suffering to some extent through this current depression/recession or whatever the hell the talking heads want to classify it as this week. Hell, you’ve even got Dirty Harry giving halftime locker room pep talks. Makes you wonder, huh? WWHD = What would Harry do? “Feel lucky, punk?”

It’s an ugly time in America. What does the future hold? More greed? More corruption? More government bickering and gridlock? Yeah… probably. But hey, I’m a pragmatist. I’m hungry after all this typing. Think I’ll go eat a package of those ramen noodles. I can by it by the case with my food assistance card. Remember, cheap food makes FAT, sickly people. Ain’t it great? Oh, that’s a whole ‘nother topic, though.

Later…

~Eric

P.S. I don’t have anything against government workers. I’m just envious of them.

Further reading:

I’m on Food Stamps: My Shame and Pride in Signing up for the Most Stigmatized Benefit - Christopher Cook/Alternet.org

We’ve Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers – Stephen Moore/Wall Street Journal

Government Employment & Payroll – U.S. Census Bureau

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

The title to this article is a quote that was popularized in America by Mark Twain.

He attributed the original quote to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Unfortunately, there is dispute about the accuracy of that attribution. That’s neither here nor there, though. The fact of the matter at hand is that statistics can be manipulated, fondled, and caressed into looking a lot like factual data. The result is often bad science. It happens daily in many fields of endeavor. In some, as with pharmaceutical science, results can be deadly. The rush to get something on the market to make the almighty buck is often the driving factor behind this.

Earlier today, Tony Shin of clinicalpsychology.net emailed me with an interesting graphic that he thought I might like to share with my readers here. He was right. I did find the information that he provided (along with source links) to be quite interesting. I don’t trust experts just because they are experts. Humans are fallible. Of course, we have to trust to a certain extent. I don’t have the funding to open and staff my own labs to test medications before I take them. I have to rely on BIG Pharma and its bedmate BIG Gov to watch out for my safety. HA! I’m in trouble, huh?

Anyway, Tony provided me with this impressive graphic, but space constraints won’t allow me to post it here in full size mode. I’ll post a thumbnail that you can click on to see the full-sized graphic.

Created by: Clinical Psychology

I’m sure Tony would have no issue with you embedding this image on your own site, as long as you attribute it properly and link to his site. He provides the HTML code on that page for you to do so. Check out clinicalpsychology.net while you’re at it. It’s an interesting site. If you have an interest in that sort of thing, there is quite a bit if information there for you to peruse.

A favorite quote:

Tantum eruditi sunt liberi – Only the educated are free ~Epictitus

Later…

~Eric

Image credits: Bad Science graphic provided by Tony Shin of clinicalpsychology.net and used here with permission.

Alan Turing – The Genius Who Sinned

The Catholic church finally got around to apologizing to Galileo for condemning his then blasphemous support of Copernicus’ idea of a heliocentric system.

You’d think that the modern British government would cut Alan Turing a little slack. Who is Alan Turing, you might be asking? Well, Mr. Turing was a genius of the Newtonian caliber who lived in the last century (1912-1954). He was a mathematician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was an extraordinary man. He was also gay.

Without Mr. Turing’s accomplishments, you might not be sitting in front of a computer right now reading this. You might not be living in the country you’re living in. You might be speaking German. You could very well not be here at all. Who knows how different things would be right now if Turing had not been the man he was back then?

During WWII, Alan Turing worked as a codebreaker for the Brits in the now famous Bletchley Park facility. He helped to break the Nazi codes and cyphers during the war. Thanks to Turing, the allies were able to “read their mail”; the Germans’ mail, that is. We used this information to ultimately defeat Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Yet, Alan Turing was convicted of being a homosexual and actually castrated. The world was very different then, friends. The British government recently had the opportunity to pardon Mr. Turing. They failed. Their excuses are lame; based on silly legal technicalities. This man literally SAVED THEIR ASSES, yet they cannot see their way clear to forgive him his one sin. A sin which is only a sin as dictated by some silly religion. How sad for us all.

Why can we not judge people by their accomplishments, their compassion, their moral goodness? Why must we continue to judge people by their skin color, their belief system, or their sexual orientation? As long as we continue to place people in pre-made pigeon holes, there will always be strife between us. The world full of “us and them” will eventually lead to a world of ashes and dust.

You Brits need to get your government to take the high ground on this topic and forgive Alan Turing his trespasses. The man’s been dead for 50+ years; he won’t really care one way or the other. However, how we the living choose to act on this will make a difference to us.

Later…

~Eric

Image credits: Turing plaque courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, a worthy Internet site. Help if you can.

Further reading:

No Pardon for Turing, English Gov Avers

Alan Turing – Wikipedia

The Alan Turing Home Page

Proficient Killers

It never ceases to amaze me at how proficient humans are at killing; be it plants, animals, or themselves.

Since that hairy-knuckled ancestor of yours climbed out of the tree on the African savannah and took to inhabiting those caves uptown, he’s honed his killing skills to a fine razor’s edge. And as good as humans are at killing, with the help of technology, there’s even more room for improvement.

From Susan Montoya Bryan | Associated Press – 2 hrs 30 mins ago via Yahoo! News:

Figuring out how to pack a processor and other electronics into a machine gun bullet has been a challenge for engineers at Sandia National Laboratories, so weapons experts say the miniature guidance system the lab has developed is a breakthrough.

Three years in the making, the bullet prototype represents another step toward a next-generation battlefield that scientists and experts expect to be saturated with technology and information.

Oooh, boy! A guided .50 caliber bullet… you can run, but you can’t hide. The Browning M2 machine gun fires 1/2″ diameter bullets at a prodigious rate downrange. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of this devestating weapon. And while the weapon itself is not new, these spiffy guided slugs sure are.

Ms. Bryan continues:

More than $1 million in research and development grants have taken the project this far.

A million is a tiny drop in the ol’ piss bucket, I admit. However, one has to wonder what the world would be like if we stopped spending so much on improving our killing skills and instead invested in our living skills.

Defense department researchers and contractors are already developing flying nano-bots that can stream live video, contact lenses that would allow soldiers to focus simultaneously on virtual digital images and their surroundings, and smartphone apps that help with tactical operations.

Killing seems to be our business. We’re good at it… always have been.

Have a great day!

~Eric

Motel Ticks – We’ll Leave the Bug Spray Out For Ya’ (Revisited)

Did you come home from that recent vacation or business trip with some hitchhikers in your luggage?

We’re seeing more and more news stories on TV, at online news sites, or in the papers talking about the comeback of the BEDBUG. ARRRRRRRGH! Amazing how just mentioning that lowly little critter can make one start itching. I’ll be perfectly honest with you here, folks. I’ve never even seen bedbug that I know of. I remember my mom and dad, who were kids during the Great Depression, talk about bedbugs. They were the scourge of the poor back then, along with lice and an assortment of other unwholesome critters.

Well, guess what? They’re BA-ACK! A recent ABC News story gives us the scoop on these disgusting little blood suckers. Read The Down and Dirty: What’s In Your Hotel Bed? Blech! Good graphics along with that article, too. Oh, and for a more technical view of the bedbug… like you needed that, right? …here’s a detailed and educational dissertation on the bedbug from University of Florida: Bedbugs – Cimex lectularius (Cimicidae). That’s odd. I would have thought that Harvard Law School would be the place to go to learn about parasitic blood-sucking creatures.

A snippet from the ABC article to whet your appetite:

There’s no definite way to know how often bed spreads get washed, but according to Moore, they don’t get washed after every guest. She suggested taking it off the bed right away and keeping it off. If you get cold, it’s a better bet to ask room service for more blankets.

EWWWWWW! You can’t even use the bedspread on the bed in the hotel room? Man! I remember going on trips when I was a kid with my parents and brother. We stayed in Holiday Inns and Ramada Inns and many other no-name motels from Florida to Colorado and everywhere in between. I always remember those rooms being spotlessly clean. This was in the early 60s or thereabouts. Have we become a nation of slovenly scum buckets? Sheesh!

Speaking of hotels, I remember at the ’03 State Rally for my biker club, we leased out 95% of the Cocoa, FL Econo Lodge. There were about 400 of us there for the weekend. We had an absolute blast. I don’t really remember much of it, except for the miserable four hour ride home on the HOT Sunday afternoon at the end of the weekend. I wasn’t really worried too much about bedbugs that weekend. If one had bit me, he would have died almost instantaneously of alcohol poisoning. Heh! Good memories.

I’ll leave you with a little saying mom always used to say to me when I was a kid…

Good night… sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.

~Eric

Note: This article originally appeared on my Nocturnal Slacker/Lockergnome blog (now defunct).

If It’s Black and White… (Revisited)

… it’s got to be good! Classic movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s… do you have any favorites?

I just finished watching a great old movie with Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Raymond Massey. I’ve seen it before, of course, but I love these old flicks. I can watch them over and over again. This one I’m talking about here is called The Woman In the Window. It’s a great suspense yarn about a professor (Edward G.) whose family is out of town. After leaving his club for the evening, he meets a woman (Joan Bennett) who inadvertently leads him into misadventure and well… more misadventure. Ain’t that just like a mysterious broad?

This movie is just one example. I love old black and white movies. I guess it comes from growing up with depression era parents who grew up watching these movies at the theater in town every Saturday. My father often told me stories of going to the matinee with his brother Pete on Saturday afternoons in New York in the 30s and early 40s. He had to shine shoes to earn the quarter that it cost for the movie, a drink, and a candy bar.

Another favorite of mine is The Maltese Falcon, with Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Mary Astor. It’s absolutely outstanding. I’ve probably seen this movie twenty times or more, but then… I’m a Humphrey Bogart fan from way back. I love anything with Bogie in it. Just last Saturday night, I watched To Have and To Have Not, with Bogie and Bacall. It don’t get no better than that. Well, sure it does, actually. There’s Bogie and Bette in Dark Victory. Don’t miss it!

Sorry you young whipper-snappers (under 45) out there. There isn’t any computer generated special effects or high speed chases or blood & gore in these flicks. Back then, they had to depend on good stories and great acting to make a movie worthwhile to watch. Some of the best movies were filmed on one or two studio sets. Direction was critical. There were some great directors out there, too… Howard Hawks, John Huston, Frank Capra, etc.

Lastly, one of the greatest movies ever made, in my humble opinion… King’s Row, with Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Ann Sheridan, and Claude Rains. It was based on the book of the same name by Henry Bellamann. I’ve read this book and the sequel written from his notes by his wife Katherine Bellamann. Both were excellent, but the movie is just peerless.

If you ever get the chance to see any of these movie or the hundreds more classics out there like Casablanca, Angels With Dirty Faces, The Treasure of Sierra Madre, etc., I think you’ll begin to see how we connoisseurs of black and white have come to love them so much. Watch with an open mind. Remember, this was back when actors acted. That world has moved on, I’m afraid.

Well, gotta’ go make some popcorn. Another classic is coming on in a few minutes.

Until next time, folks…

~Eric

Note: This article originally appeared on my Nocturnal Slacker/Lockergnome blog (now defunct).

My First Car… 1977 (Revisited)

It was the hot summer of 1977. I was 15 years old and dreaming of hot rods, motorcycles, and girls… probably in that order, too.

I was in between 10th and 11th grades that summer. I was sporting a cool set of “Elvis” sideburns and had a tape box filled with the latest and greatest Rock and Roll 8-track tapes. All I needed was some wheels. No. Not a bicycle. I needed some big boy wheels… a car, a motorcycle… something with a motor. I dreamed about a ’57 Chevy or a cool Harley-Davidson raked out chopper, like Cap’n America’s bike in the movie Easy Rider.

That was also the summer that my mom and dad let me know that I was going to be getting my very first (official) car in September, once I passed my operator’s license test. I only had a restricted license up till then. My mother was in a hurry for me to get my license and car because, as she said then, “I’m tired of carting your ass around.” Mom was a plain-spoken country girl from Avon Park, Florida. She usually told you like it was; no BS from momma.

I say “official” because my first “unofficial” car was actually a 1963 Pontiac Catalina Safari station wagon real similar to THIS tank. It was originally our family car, but my dad sold it to his and mom’s business a few years earlier. It was recently retired and sitting in my yard. I adopted it. I started working on it and tinkering with it till one day when my father asked me what I was doing. He and I had a bit of a round and round over that car. He was for selling it. I was for keeping it. He won the debate. That was the end of my hot rod station wagon dreams.

So anyway, September rolled on by. I passed my operator’s license exam. And within a couple days, was driving my first “official” car, a hand-me-down (from mom) 1969 Plymouth Valiant. It was just like the one pictured here, but mine was monkey puke green. OK, it wasn’t no cool hot rod. It had a six cylinder; not a speed demon. However, I actually wish I had that car nowadays. That 225CI slant six Mopar engine was one of the best plants to ever come out of Detroit. It got 35mpg on a bad day. I installed some coax speakers in the back deck and a hand-me-down 8-track tape player and off I went… a 16 year old with the world in the palm of his hand.

I didn’t drive that ol’ girl for that long. I was into a real hot rod shortly thereafter. The Valiant was given to my uncle Aaron, my mother’s brother. He drove it for about  a month till some idiot turned left in front of him one day. The ol’ girl was totaled. Uncle Aaron was alright, though… just car-less again. A sad ending for such a great little car. Oh well, that’s the way it goes sometimes.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!

Till next time, folks…

~Elvis, er… I mean Eric

Note: This article first appeared on my Nocturnal Slacker/Lockergnome blog (now defunct).

“…Who are you better than?” by Jinx (Revisited)

I have been getting more and more disgusted with the behavior of some of “my fellow Americans” over the past year or so.

The bile and hatred spewed forth by previously mild mannered grandmas and quiet every day Joes and Janes is just amazing to me.

One of the members at my Out of the Woods board posted a link to the following post that I’m going to tease-quote here in a minute. Beware! It has some harsh and non-G-rated language in it. It should be read, anyway. The poster, Jinx, is trying to explain why there has been this increase in hatred and even violence of late. It’s an enlightened post, in my opinion. I wish I had written it. Read it. Tell me what you think about it.

Originally posted at the Adventure Rider forums.

“…who are you better than?”

______________________

Quote:

“You know when I was a little boy, there was an old negro farmer that lived down the road from us, named Monroe. He was … (subtle laugh), I guess he was just a little more luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule.”

“It was a big deal in round that town. Now my daddy hated that mule. Cause, his friends were always kidding him about, ‘They say Monroe out plowing with his new mule and Monroe is going to rent another field now he had a mule.’”

“One morning that mule showed up dead. They poisoned the water. After that, there wasn’t any mention about that mule around my daddy. It just never came up. One time we were driving down that road and we passed Monroe’s place and we saw it was empty. He just packed up and left, I guess, he must of went up north or something.”

“I looked over at my daddy’s face, I knew he done it. He saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and said, ‘If you ain’t better than a nigger son, who are you better than?’” – Agent Anderson, Mississippi Burning

______________________

And welcome to the Tea-hadist mindset. With Barack Obama in charge…who are you going to be better than?

And don’t think some of us recognize the symptom because we are a pack of condescending know-it-all asshats. We are…but that has fuck-all to do with the observation.

It’s just that we have seen this before. Up North…in our so-called “enlightened” neck of the woods.

Want to know the difference between North and South? Well, a man once told me that up North, it is OK to have a Black as your boss, but you will be damned if you will have one for a neighbor. Down South, it is OK to have a Black neighbor…but you will damned if you will have one as a boss.

So we went through all this Tea Party nonsense up North, about 35-45 years ago. And the reaction was just as vehement, inarticulate, and dumb as what is being spewed now. If you want to see hate and spittle, you should have seen how South Boston reacted to school integration.

But you would not have seen it 24/7 as you do today. It happened…but not in a perpetual echo chamber. And thank Christ for that.

Please follow this link to read the rest of this interesting and though-provoking post at the Adventure Rider forums. Sorry, link no longer works.

Hate brought us The Inquisition. Hate brought us Nazi Germany. Hate brought us Uncle Joe Stalin and the 20 million he sent to oblivion. Hate currently drives misguided people to put high explosives in their Fruit-of-the-Looms in order to blow up jet liners full of innocent people. Don’t hate. Life’s too damned short to be spending it hating one another.

Rock on!

~Eric

Note: This article originally appeared on my Nocturnal Slacker/Lockergnome blog (now defunct).