|
|
 |
|
| | |
| | On The Brink Of It All Going Down The Sink | | | | Saturday, July 5, 2008 (6:54 AM) | | As I was contemplating the eventual strike Israel will inevitably have to launch against Iran, I recalled the following entry from my blog almost two years ago. While Iran having nuclear weapons presents an untenable situation, it will not be without dramatically high economic costs to the world. Given recent predictions for the price of gasoline for the next year peaking to $7.00 per gallon, imagine if supplies are disrupted from the Persian Gulf from war, and the truly cataclysmic consequences for the world as a whole. We may thank our Presidents Carter, Reagon, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II for complete and utter abysmal failure at recognizing the geo-political consequences for Carbon based fuel reliances...and the potential for calamity for life as we've come to know it with NO practical universal alternatives for the forseeable future. Whilst thanking, remember to thank the three "dessert religions" for centuries upon centuries of needless, senseless unending war, all in the name of "their" God, who hasn't gone the way of the worship for the Sun, Moon, and Greek/Roman Gods soon enough.
Aug 5 2006, 12:42 PM
On The Brink Of It All Going Down The Sink
One word, one concept, one life blood for modern civilization: Oil. Without it, nations court certain calamity and slide closer to barbaric savage prehistoric times-the spawning origins and era of this “Black Gold” (“Texas Tea”-sorr
y, couldn’t resist). Our entire way of life is predicated upon the simple notion, without energy a society is without life-certainly as we’ve come to know it.
So let’s review: Has anything lately been occurring, say overseas, maybe in the Middle East that might impact upon both the price and availability of petroleum crude oil? Why yes, and perhaps the most recent flair up between Muslin Extremist Fascists and the nation of Israel might be a good place to consider. At war’s outbreak, the price of a barrel of crude hovering near 80 buckaroos a barrel, sending the stock markets into wild flurries of fluctuation and disquietude. While any reasonable thinking person-rooted in reality, might easily pull for the decimation and complete abject destruction of the Iranian-Syrian sponsored terrorists, Hezbollah, there may very well be a heavy priced to be paid for the necessary elimination of the savage vermin.
Anyone living in the Seventies, remembers the “stagflation” coupled with eventual catastrophically exorbitant high interest rates and the effect they had on the quality of life during most of said era. While numerous causes accounted for this, the catalyst most responsible was both oil crisis/embargos occurring respectively in 1974 and 1979. Prices shot through the roof (several), long gas lines, but the greatest damage was the escalating, spiraling inflation! This rampant and aberrant “inflation” belied the normally accepted economic rules known at the time (Inflation would offset unemployment-unemployment offsets inflation), and as prices rose, goods and services applicable demand fell, while unemployment rose as well. Consider the following table:
Year Inflation Unemployment
1974 11.0 5.6 < First oil crisis
1975 9.1 8.5
1976 5.8 7.7
1977 6.5 7.1
1978 7.6 6.1
1979 11.3 5.9 < Second oil crisis
1980 13.5 7.2
1981 10.3 7.6
1982 6.2 9.7
1983 3.2 9.6
1984 4.3 7.5
The devastating effects from just this one commodity’s diminished supply, clearly demonstrates how addictive and reliant we’ve, as a nation have become. The economic zeitgeist, of the day, viewed oil as an elastic demand item. As prices rose, demand would fall as the populace would seek out other alternatives. Yeah right! Oil is in fact, INELASTIC and our fervor as a nation to acquire it suggests one simple tourniquet, a dark dirty room, and a syringe heading for a mainline. Yet things are much more unstable and are much more volatile in today’s world. The adage: “everything affects everything” reigns as the supreme truth when discussing oil. While the future remains as yet unknown for the current Middle East’s malaise, and it would take literally volumes to provide a fair and reasonable understanding for the dynamics involved, suffice it to say, if this war escalates as it might very well do, “Katy bar the door”, Oil Industry experts have proposed the price for a barrel of oil might very well double,…..might triple or more, as supplies become increasingly limited. Juxtapose this, to the record settings for increased demand (see-China and India), and the prescription is born unto calamity.
Three dollars a gallon translates into a “pain in the ass”. Five or six dollars (maybe less) a gallon “kicks our ass” and into certain recession. Eight or nine dollars a gallon, brings back a circa 1930s depression, and a horrible story to lay witness to for your grandchildren (maybe even great-grandchildren). Well you might say, Europe has had to endure price levels of 5 or so U.S. dollars a gallon for a time, as it is. I say, and despite other factors of overly obtrusive government regulation, artificially high minimum wage levels, and ridiculously higher taxation, France, Germany, and Italy have double digit unemployment levels in national economies (for years) that remain stagnant (no growth!). The U.S. economic downturn would spell even greater disaster for the entire continent of Europe, as it would for the world as a whole.
So one might ask, sure, but how likely is all of this? Wars/conflicts have broken out before, and most certainly in the Middle East, yet largely we in the U.S. remained unaffected. What has changed is the stakes. Islamic Fascist Extremism has influenced to greater severity and degree, higher levels of Middle Eastern governments. It’s no longer just a case of a particular Islamic country’s “self-interest”, but concerns for following to a greater magnitude, the prescribed articles of the Muslim faith. One of the greatest mistruths about Islamic Extremists” is that they are crazy. The “extremists” in actuality, are the better practicing “good Muslims” who are more closely aligned, more insistent on following the fundamental dogmas that mark their faith. When they crash planes into buildings, have their children and women strap bombs to themselves and blow up crowded marketplaces, chop off heads, there is always appropriate text cited in the Koran for dealing with the infidels….death!! The radicalized Muslim common man (growing in greater numbers daily) affects his government-threats of unrest and expulsion, while the government stokes and conjures the fires of hatred with education indoctrination schemes of its very youth, while marginalizing/subverting/exaggerating “Western Truth” to the adult population in the state influenced/sponsored media. The vicious circle knows no end. All the Middle Eastern citizenry cares to know is that Israel must be destroyed, and it is the “Great Satan”, the United States who bears responsibility. This Islamic “hatred” possesses resolute resolve, and places prudent, responsible self-interest, to an ancillary concern. Oil commerce and trading may not happen, or be able to happen for long periods at a time, if things become too untethered or cataclysmic. It only takes a few, well organized, steadfastly determined “tempests” in the Middle East, to upset what once went for rationality and propriety self interest.
Does all this eventually play out? In degrees? I don’t think so (hope?), but at the same time I caution, we are much closer than is realized, to a dramatically altered way of life with egregious unsettling consequences that reach over to us all, from “Mohammad’s” long extending tentacles. | | | 118 Views | 8  Thumbs Up | 4 Comments |  |
|
|
| | Hey, It's Frank! | | | | Sunday, June 29, 2008 (4:14 PM) | | Hey, It’s Frank!
About 20 or so years ago, I was standing in a nightclub, it was called the ‘Safari Club’, minding my own business, hunting women, when I feel a tugging on my arm. I turn to find a “tipsy”, shapely woman, with ample cleavage, in a tight dress (up to her waist) engaging me in conversation. After the “I won the lottery dance” subsided from within my mind, we began to converse. She called me by some other name, Frank I think it was. Well, I’m one always up for the role of a “joker”, and I follow up on her leads with general and basic appropriate responses for several minutes, concerning the people we supposedly both know and times she believes shared. She still believes I’m this ‘Frank’, and it’s becoming quite apparent by her continual gestures (playfully tugging at my arm, swishing of her head/hair, and her continual giggling over my numerous babbled inanites) she and this (real) Frank, are VERY, VERY good friends. A moral dilemma ensues upon my ever diminishing conscience. I look down unto the lonely ice cubes, of the very last vestiges of the drink-of many drinks, from within the very glass she’s loosely holding. Just then, two translucent animated figures, right out of a Warner Brothers cartoon rest upon the air, just above both of my shoulders. To my left, a surly reddish figure with protruding horns. To my right, an angelic whitish seraph with a halo above his head. Mr. Horns takes the lead, “What are you waiting for, get her another drink, and fast!” Mr. Halo gently retorts, “you mustn’t take advantage of her inebriated condition, for you’ll not be able to respect yourself in the morning, my son”. Mr. Horns leaving no second to waste chimes, “this chick has more moveable parts than a well engineered Swiss Watch, what are you crazy??? Bartender, over here bartender!!!” Mr. Halo attempts to speak, when Miss Swiss Watch takes hold on my arm and interjects, “let’s get out of here, Frank”. The “holy crap” alarm is ringing wildly in my head. I am quickly succumbing to base animal weakness, as if in a trance, when suddenly wholesome morning sunshine envelopes the smokey dim lit club into bright heavenly light, a harp begins to sound, and Mr. Halo calls out, as if the voice of God himself (or even Mom) were loudly commanding…”DAVID”…”DAVID”…”DAVID”. I answer in the same voice of my former 7 year old self, upon hearing once again, he couldn’t have ‘that toy’. “Ok, alrighty then”, all in my very best Jim Carey voice. I proceed to tell Miss Swiss Watch numerous times, I’m not the one she thinks I am, and she begins disagreeing with me. The debate finally ends upon the display of my ID from within my wallet, and the adventure abruptly ends. (Audience applause light now on!) Ok, ok, I know it’s a story that doesn’t exactly end up in Penthouse Forum or even Reader’s Digest, while even much less, a story with a woman less the proverbial and prurient “happy ending”.
| | | | 113 Views | 8 Thumbs Up | 4 Comments | |
|
|
| | Ode To A Young Tom Sawyer In Training | | | | Tuesday, February 26, 2008 (6:55 AM) | | Dateline: Augusta, Ga. while 9 years old; (Often referred to as the Bible Belt)
A young boy with an itching for trouble, rounds up his sister and a couple of their friends. He eagerly directs them all, to fetch and empty out dishwashing liquid containers, and meet back "on the double" with their plunder. A nearby hose called out to the innocent little boy, and before he knew it, the containers were each filled with water.
Now as fate would have it, this brother and sister lived on a fairly busy corner in the suburbs. Poised to stand above, while crested upon a small knoll just over an intersection laden with passing autos, each bottle was ordered by the young boy to be placed between each of the "youngins" respective legs as all were instructed to partially crouch forward. Aimed at each passing car, hands were brought in front of their flys, as if relieving themselves while the ersatz bladders were primed to squirt water in an inglorious, celebratory “whiz”.
Brakes would screech! Cars would almost run off the road in "just missed" accidents! One “red faced” lady saw fit to march on up the front door step of the young trouble maker, speak sternly with his mother about "decency" and other words the young boy hadn't any idea of, After the requisite trouble gotten in, the young boy laughed all the live long day. | | | | 167 Views | 8 Thumbs Up | 4 Comments | |
|
|
| | Just Another Night | | | | Monday, February 25, 2008 (5:48 PM) | | Just Another Night
Martha Reeves is playing in the background and is sweetly keeping company to an ever aging man losing patience for propriety, with the world he inhabits. So many times prior, he’s “has it made” has spit from so many lips, and I in fact have, did, and do…for if they only knew… /I’m drinking beer tonight, and they’re going down fine and easy, and after 50 years I’m still only a willing beginner./
Here’s a toast to “time”, oh ever elusive minx, why do you tease me to catch up to you-and toy me with your history? There’s no touching you with my outstretched fingers, as try I may, I come up only with specualtions for what might be, and memories for what once was….where is the boy of 18, lying on the bed of his room throughout the entire night, kept company by a platter full of vinyl on a slowly spinning turntable, welcoming the dawn with his complete, blessed irresponsibility…where is the man, sipping his Cabernet Sauvignon>non-vintage, and reading Hemingway-a personal, erstwhile guide (you may call me Bawana) unto the imaginings of an African Savannah, on into the days when a man could be bold, strong, and swagger, and not feel ashamed nor embarrassed for the providences bestowed upon him…where am I, but out somewhere chasing shadows in the hills of heather, masquerading as just another grieving “Heathcliff” looking for his halo. (Now, just where could one have placed it?) If you happen to see “her”, ask her kindly if she would give it back. /You see, I have loved her always, though we’ve never met…/
| | | | 150 Views | 6 Thumbs Up | 3 Comments | |
|
|
| | It's All For the Lulz | | | | Friday, February 22, 2008 (11:26 AM) | | ‘It’s All For The Lulz’
There is a spectre looming, that while having always been here, is growing, and I don’t see the possibility for it’s abatement. For the ugly truth of it all is, LV is no more than a microcosm of our (largely American) society, and as our culture has accutely become corrupted over the years-it would stand to reason, so would some numbers of the “L-vitizenry”.
Yesterday’s most recent abominable act, addressing one Denalynnn in either a bulletin or email, with a website with her name in it (the bait), bringing bright flashing lights and distorted music only to be met with after the requisite “click” of the mouse, is one of the lowest, cruelest acts I’ve seen perpetrated on LV, ever! This act, crossed the normal lines of “fun and games”, and is the epitomy of deplorability, amongst an already widening sea of “bad taste” and “vulgarity”. Ms. Denalynnn’s epilepsy is well known, this was clearly an attempt to aggravate and exacerbate her condition. I know, ‘it’s all for the lulz.’ If nothing else, I’m sure it was a frightening and traumatic experience that she needlessly was put through. Just one question: why?
I should say, I’m completely impartial for serving as any kind of advocate or apologist for Denalynnn, as we are not actively friends, whatsoever. I often don’t agree with her opinions, tactics, or supported allies a great deal of the time. But none of that matters. What is being lost in all this, and especially to the responsible (responsible?) party(s), is this is a “human being”, completely with her own set of feelings, concerns, desires, good and bad traits, like ANY of the rest of us. Denalynnn is just a person, like any other here, with the sole purpose of coming to this site in an obvious effort to socialize, express in an artful manner through all the afforded media, and simply “have fun”! Nobody deserves or “has IT coming to them”…nobody to the extent of their health!
Who did it? I’d be surprised if the answer ever avails itself, but given the palpable atmosphere for “outing” oneanother, nothing would surprise me. It all goes further, as there is a plethoric “climate” set by many of the more prominent, the influential, and “self annoited” more well known members, that base either a portion, half, or all their content on public derision and ascerbic character assination. The only changes ever being, are only the variables as to whom his/her turn will be. Once the “victim” has been chosen by the self-ordained “pipers”, a righteously good public e-flogging awaits, and then it’s time to play the tried and true standbys of: let’s “drop docs”, photoshop images out of context, harass in the comments of an unrelated video, post bulletins to openly disparage, alter “victim’s” videos, incessantly flag, take over or “hack” a channel, publish embarrassing photos and emails written from an earlier time when the victim was once (drumroll) “a friend”, and then best of all-get all your friends and “pile on” with pejoratives and heinous insults. Then a grand celebration of great triumph can be found from within the shark tank's frenzy, as the eventual intimidation becomes ultimately their “removal”, after the “victim” can stand no more. Look, a lot of times this can be just in fun, but just maybe it’s time to reconsider these prospects-to re-think one’s hurtful actions, for such can be unduly harmful-while contributing additional excrement to an already, increasingly sullied waters as it is. Within this ubiquitous murky terrain, it isn’t difficult to imagine a “younger” or “weaker” mind, being led to attempt an even greater infliction of damage as that attempted yesterday. Sometimes, the “lulz” aren’t quite so funny afterall.
| | | | 172 Views | 20 Thumbs Up | 12 Comments | |
|
|
| | It's Been A Hard day's Year | | | | Thursday, February 21, 2008 (12:40 PM) | | A Hard Day’s Year –alternate title-Falling
2007 was a great year, one of the best I’ve had ever. It’s been an all too sobering “hangover” in these first couple of months, and if given a choice, I’d just as soon sit the remaining year out, within some solitary safety realm afforded in a novel idea for “human hibernation”. Just lock the door, curl up (with a “super model”-the fate of karma surely must owe me (chuckles), and place a “do not disturb” sign on my front door. To quote South Park’s Cartman-“screw you guys, I’m going home”. Accompanying background music-“Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me”.
2008, in an exponential counting scheme, the following “highlights” have recently transpired:
• At year’s outset, two stock analyst reports have called for the company responsible for my employ to “pull out” of the United States altogether, as since our merger in year 2004, we’ve only managed to lose no less than several billion U.S. dollars in sum total. The parent company located in Germany, understandably, is more than willing to comply with said proclamation-and who could blame them? One thing is certain, the company I work for today, is destined to look radically different by year’s end-many, many, many will no longer be employed. A couple of weeks ago, 3% of the workforce was lopped off to cries of “blood running in the streets”. This, just in time, for the eventual prognosticated recession many economists continue to insist is looming in all our futures. Pass the Alka seltzer, please.
• I haven’t been to work, short two days Thanksgiving Week, since 6/15/2007. In a “waiting game” of Worker’s Compensation “Mumbly Peg”, I wait (3 months and counting) for additional treatment approval for a twice injured knee to eventually be approved. There are three professions I can’t fathom why a reasonably moral, sentient, human being would partake. 1. Bill collector, 2. Prison Guard, and 3. Worker’s Compensation Insurer Agent. In an acknowledged “open and shut” case, of which the “insurer” has neither contested and previously offered compensation prior to mid November, I find myself more than ready for a scheduled hearing next week. Worker’s Comp Insurers don’t make money by paying claims, and often resort to playing the “waiting game” in an effort to dispirit and disparage the claimant, to either “giving up” or “moving on”. I’m sure, as Kurosawa noted in his 1960 entitled movie, “The Bad Sleep Well”.
• The union pension, the very same one that has kept me at my “train wreck” of a feckless company all these years, intends on “freezing” future contributions for an unspecified time. This is done to comply with recent federal legislation and “cover” bad investments the plan has made. I know, just give me back what’s been placed in it, and we’ll call the deal “even”, ok?
• The “bloom” of a 14 month romance has worn off.
• And so it goes…I’ll have to stay away from tall buildings and sharp objects till things settle.
So why write this? Haven’t we all problems of our own? The “human experience” is rife with platitudes ostensibly offered as advice to “keep it in”, “suck it up”, and “big boys don’t cry”. I’ve played those roles often enough in the past, and to those viewing me in “real life”, I think some/most would be likely to believe this dude’s going to be alright. Indeed, no doubt for I will. Yet, when the “messenger of misery” comes to your door, in unending succession in the continium of “time concentrated”, it can be a bit overwhelming, not in the very least. I’ve concluded, even if no one reads/listens/knows this, and my voice is no more than a faint, inaudible resonance-as if emanating from the depths of some darkened and vast underground cave, the “act” of expression for fears and concerns accompanied with liberal doses of healthy vexation, can at the very least, be liberating as it can be cathartic. The “trick” as it were, is NOT to resist or avoid the problems life may so offer. The “trick” rather, is to accept and “bend”, as reeds in a pond, and still maintain one’s roots and foundation. It is in the realization for the connectiveness of each’s own existence to one another, that redemption may have a chance at suceeding within all of life’s eventual challenges. John Donne once penned, “no man is an island”, as none of us is isolated from one another. My problem is your problem and in reverse. The responsibility for it however, ultimately rests upon myself. Interdependence upon one another, is ultimately the cure for any malady that can befall one.
So, what to do? I’m endeavoring to utilize this “time off” as an opportunity for additional career training in the event my job no longer exists once I’m able to return. I’ve updated my resume, have outlined a series of moves and contingencys, should the need to employ such be called upon. I’ve networked several potential job prospects, should the situation present itself with limited time. I’m comitted to divesting myself, of a few valuable possessions should that need arise. The BIGGEST thing I’ve done, is get over the unfairness, the disappointment in well laid plans having gone awry (you see, another 4 yrs. 10 mos.-and I need never work another day in my life), and realizing no matter what one has done or not done, “there isn’t always a payoff” to be exacted in life. There is only effort, planning, and skill to ensure a greater reliability for such. I continually forget, time and time again, “life isn’t fair”….but soon realize, it’s a lot worse and even more “unfair”, and on many deeper levels, for so many others than-myself! Life has afforded me my share of excrements to be endured, but what is often lost in the moment, life has bestowed me with riches and treasures I couldn’t have reason to have expected either.
I look out my window, and the sun is shinning softly on a freshly fallen snow. Somewhere, at this very moment, lovers are meeting for the first time. Babies are being born, and the aged need suffer no more. Fortunes are being made, academic degrees achieved, and scientifc discoveries offer entreaty for the unknown future. Somewhere down the road, I don’t know where and I don’t know when,while just around a bend or two, there lies a well manicured lawn, with birds singing a melodic tune, with a gentle breeze and soft pastel sunlight gracing over the confines of the pastures within my mind. I know, for I’ve been their often enough, previously.
| | | | 136 Views | 4 Thumbs Up | 2 Comments | |
|
|
| | |
| |
|
|
|
