SNARK ATTACK

Rumbling in the west. Rain is coming. Kids slide by on push scooters. Men walk the little dogs while their women watch from their screen doors. Another rumble. Another scooter – clickity clackity, rumble tumble. Big storms come from off the prairrie. That is the direction from which the rumbling is coming. The sky between the trees is deep blue. It is getting dark. The wind is picking up. The leaves of the tall trees rustle and some flutter down. Autumn is coming. The kids have been told to come inside. Mothers call them by their full names. Richard Michael you get in here right this minute. I turn on a light and shut the front door. It starts with a slow steady pitter patter. Then it really comes down. A frog was creaking – yerka, yerka. There is a lull – no rain, no frog. Everything is quiet. Someone runs across the green holding a coat over his head. Again visibility diminishes. It begins to rain again. It is raining steadily now.

The smaller the item of production, the greater the wastage of materials in its manufacture – a computer-chip for instances requires up to a thousand times its own weight in processing materials that mostly become wastage

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) links at least 23,000 deaths per year in the U.S. to the use of antibiotics in industrial animal husbandry. That overuse of antibiotics has led to the development of immune pathogens. This situation has been know for over half a century but Congress has consistently blocked the FDA from making the linkage between its use in agriculture and our health. Now they are saying that this alone can wipe out all the medical progress of the last hundred years. But I don’t believe in progress, except when on the road and not even always then.

No it hasn’t turned violent. It has not spawned a tornado. It has become after the last outburst, a steady light rain that may last all day. There is rumbling in the east now. The front has passed over. There are no more flashes of light. There is no more crackling of electricity. It had never gotten bad enough to have had to close the windows. There is a fresh smell in the air. There is a light breeze. There is steady dripping of rain from the leaves of the trees. The frog has begun to crock again. There is no more rumbling, not even in the distance. The kids are on their scooters again. They hate to be locked up inside when there is no Internet service. If there were Internet, that would make a world of difference. There is no need for both scooters and the Internet.

And where can a dishonest person make an honest buck?

To claim to be ethically neutral and ideology free is itself an ideological claim – David Harvey – “Populations, Resources and the Ideology of Science”, 1974

Most pharmaceutical companies have now closed or have curtailed  their drug discovery programs for mental and neurological disorders. The lack of genuine innovation since the 1950s have made the outlook for future sales bleak

As a practical matter SAC’s (US Air Force Strategic Air Command) target list expanded consistent with the nation’s nuclear weapons production capacity. In the early 1950s, the Command’s air offensive called for striking some 70 targets in the Soviet Union. By 1956 with the age of nuclear plenty now at hand, the target list jumped to 2997. A year later it grew to 3261. Two years later, SAC was estimating that  it needed to destroy 8400 targets by 1963 and 10,400 by 1970 – Andrew Becvich – “Elusive Bergin”, 2005

If big people bred big people

And dumb people bred dump people

And the rich beget the rich

            (Assuming the death tax is repealed)

And old people would bred old people

            If they could

Then some day we shall all enter ourselves

In the American Kennel Show

And who will take ‘Best of Show’

Depends on who’s in bed with the judges

            It’s just the same as its ever been

But dogs don’t get to the casting couch

Some big people are just big

Others are just tall

But no short person is big

Regardless of how balloon like

            They become

There is not a store

For the short and plump

            The small can always

            Wear children’s sizes

Just as there is not a store

            For the deaf and the dumb

            Although occasionally one can

                        Find one for the left-handed

The big and the tall

            And the rich and the fair

Can all be au couture

            But to us mutts

The judge’s rear-end stinks

The cake eating problem: we are not just borrowing from them (the future generations) but we are using what we barrow to eat their cake. We are getting sick eating all this cake. The poor are starving. Bread is getting expensive. Let them eat cake, Marie says. There is cake in the dumpster but it’s locked. Health regulations and insurance risks prohibit gleaning. Wastes must be properly disposed of, but that’s another economic issue – the materials dispersal problem (a matter increasing exergy for any future extraction – all future material resources shall be more dispersed than present material resources). The cake eating problem relates to discounting while exergy is a problem of sustainability. It’s too complicated. Shut up and eat your cake. We’ll just wait for the technological fix to be in. Sit back and watch the game. Care for a piece of cake?

The Twin Towers were America’s Reichstag fire

There is no where there – there is no what when – there is no how now. It makes no difference that there is a tiger behind every door

Gratuitous and motiveless curiosity (which is what afflicts the erudite) turns us into puppets, shakes us up and hurls us about, weakens our will and worse, divides and disperses us, makes us wish that we had four eyes and two heads – or, rather, several existences, each of them with four eyes and two heads - Javier Marias – Fever and Spear, 2005 p124

That’s Gary’s Balloon

The children – now young adults

Their father showed up

I said look there goes Gary’s balloon

            That silver one all by itself

How did I know – you are too literal

            I say

Its metaphorical

It was their mother’s funeral

            No time for illusions

And she wasn’t here to laugh

            At his life’s balloon

It got caught in a tree

And all the others had soared

            Straight up and disappeared

But not Gary’s balloon

I desired this road: adventure, boredom, terror. I imagine that I do with darkness and malice. Yes, I admit it, I am addicted. I do not care. I had already cast my fate to this journey. There was no going back now. It had all looked so good in the gloom. It was a grand plan when it was still tomorrow. Oh sad songs, sad songs they make me so happy. Play on your pennywhistle and on your drums. Sing me a sad song and make the world go away and make me want to stay right here until I have no more money. Oh so sad, oh so sad. The saddest music in the world. A man is singing the blues on the street holding onto a light post in order not to fall down. Now blues, that’s not the saddest music of all. I have yet to head the saddest music in when world. There is always a sadder story down the road she had said.  She had shinny bleached white teeth. If she had had a big nose or green eyes I would have jumped her on the spot. But she didn’t. And I was too drunk to care. Sad music makes you want to shit tears and piss happiness away.

Justice is not cheap in this country, and people who insist on it are usually either desperate or possessed by some private determination bordering on monomania – Hunter S Thompson – Hell’s Angels

The rule of the exception becomes the norm (what you do unto the least you do unto me)

[From] opinions come persuasion and not truth – Plato – Phaedrus

Metaphysician, heal thyself

WHO DOES THE EARTH THINK IT IS?

One wants to believe that there is a justification for organized madness (or that it is not madness or if it be so, that it is not organized), something that is of a higher order passing over (above) one’s own understanding. It is so easy to misunderstand and one so seldom knows it. We’re always looking for excuses and we’ve been trained to forgive even what we can’t understand.

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil – or else an absolute ignorance – Graham Green – The Heart of the matter

Corn

Corn and soybeans

Corn, corn and soybeans

Corn, corn, soybeans and corn

Corn fed hogs

Ham

Spam

Spam and beans

Spam, spam and beans

Spam, spam, beans and spam

It takes 7,373  kcal of fossil fuel to produce 1 liter of ethanol that has an energy equivalent of 5,130 kcal – that would certainly make it ungreen. What a rip off. And people starve as the price of corn rises.

The truth is you really don’t have a choice; the world is designed to be a function of the automobile

For in order for people to be able to give up their cars, it won’t be enough to offer them more comfortable mass transportation. They will  have to be able to do without transportation altogether because they’ll feel at home in their neighborhoods – Andre Groz “The Social Ideology of the Motorcar”

No means of escape will ever compensate for living in an uninhabitable place

If you include the time it takes to earn the money to purchase and maintain an automobile, the average speed of a vehicle (hours worked earning expenses plus driving time divided by miles driven) in the United States is three and a half miles per hour – about the same speed as that of a pedestrian.

During the past 1,000 years agriculture has degraded more productive land than is currently being cropped. Most of this damage has occurred sine the onset of industrial agriculture. Since 1960 a third of the world’s farmland has been abandoned because it was degraded beyond use

To fulfill global transportation needs with biofuels would require all of the world’s present farmland

Cantaloupes killed twice as many American in 2011 as did terrorists. Does this mark a success in security or a failure in regulation? Americans are 110 times more likely to die from contaminated food then by terrorism. We spend $75 billion a year to fight terrorism while at the same time contaminated food cost $80 billion in health care and lost productivity. With the exception of 9/11, less than 500 Americans have been killed by terrorists in the last forty years. In other words spending on anti-terrorism has had no impact on terrorism as a factor of mortality. You are just as likely now to be killed or maimed by a terrorist as you were before 9/11 and our ‘war on terror’. You need a better excuse than security for justifying it. Lets have a ‘War on Cantaloupes” instead.

We live our little lives

Trying to make the right choices

At least trying to avoid wrong ones

But mostly we just live

Not having any choice

            That’s our excuse

I didn’t have a choice

And so we live it

Having a choice and not knowing it

Having a choice and not taking it

Having a choice and not seeing it

Having a choice and not wanting it

Having a choice and making it to late

Having a choice and taking it too soon

But that is too complicated

So we just say

I didn’t have a choice

It is easier that way

And it not my fault

Stephen is just being Stephen. How can he help himself, being the sweet little man that he is. But yet he does not have to over do it. It’s saccharine, that’s what it is, the way he goes about it. That’s exactly the way it is. I’m a poet, he says with all the syrupiness of  last night’s lover checking up on you the morning after. But he is not making time,… he’s just being Stephen. Selling chapbooks - $8 he says - Numbers five or three? Stephen talks on - sweetly blatters on - such a sweet little man Stephen is. He says that he writes in all genders just to keep his little mind stimulated (that’s what he said). And across from me to my right in the corner next to the counter is a tall slim woman with a big nose. On the way over here on the bus I had told myself - I’m over it – me and my big nose thing. And then I look up and there she sits - pale skin, long blond hair, a dangling silver piece around her slim white neck and all dressed up in black. I’m drooling. Pavlov has rung my bell – ding-a-ling. Ding-a-ling. That’s my editor Stephen tells his new friend. He will be publishing twenty of my new poems in July. And the sweet little old lady that he has cornered struggles to get away from him. Politely of course. You’d feel such a horrid person getting angry at suck a sweet little man.  They shake hands. “Nice talking to you…chit chat, chit chat… And they shake hands again and Stephen shakes hands with everyone he knows and then some before he leaves. Me, I was paying no attention to him at the time, I was in love. She is talking and she has this cute little accent. Maybe it’s a accent. Being foreign is exotic. She is too far away for me to overhear much of what she is saying. But I can’t help myself for I’m in love. And she has green eyes. I think that’s it more the green eyes than it is the nose today. Green eyes is fetish d’jour. I’m over this big nose thing. Now it’s the green eyes that I desire.

O’Rielly’s for a Murphy’s Red. They’re playing Willie Nelson – Goodnight Irene. And the barmaids all speak in a lilt – from the ol’ country no doubt.  I’ll see you in my dreams. Sometimes I live in the country and sometimes I live in the city. And sometimes I take a notion to jump in the river and drown. I’ll see you in my dreams. Sad songs and beer in an Irish bar. Ivy climbing the wall just makes you want to wail, pound your fist down and cry. Beat your head against the bar just to feel a little pain. It gets you into the mood. Another Guinness, lass with three tears for me if you please. Tears from your green green eyes dear.

You get people to swallow anything by intensifying the details – Ray Bradbury

Between a quarter and a half-million hospital patients die each year in the U.S. due to medical mistakes. The first such estimated was made in 1999 when it was conjectured that perhaps up to 100,000 such deaths were caused by medical mistakes. The estimates keep climbing as money becomes available to rectify the problem. It’s the way of the world  - problems pursue money and not the other way around. I’m not saying that half a million Americans don’t die each year as a result of medical mistakes. But I am saying that we would not know about it except that money has been made available to study this phenomena.

80% of the funding for ‘religious’ hospitals comes from public institutions and only 0.0015% from their parent religious institutions

It no longer amazes me the number of problems for which there is no information and the number of answers for which there are no problems.

DEAR MISS LANDERS

I’m inside looking around – this is a clock escarpment, there is the constant screeching, grinding of the gears.It’s not the same as outside  looking in – tick tock – it strikes three o’clock. Wind me up, turn me loose. Nor is it the same as inside looking out – google eyes watching the hands as they tick around the clock face, as they follow the cycle of dark and light. A good observer will have seen everything while ignoring all functionality. As if looking for the fist time.  A good observer will become the clock. Gilbert and me are up her in the Tea Cup mom. Oh, Beaver how did you get up there?

Being a Marxist in the 1930s, in certain circles at least, was a bit  like being a Darwinist in the 1880s : you had to put up some pretty good reasons for not accepting anything so blindingly obvious. It’s just that this is difficult to appreciate in the 1970s, where reasonable men tend an interest in medieval gynecology – Terry Eagleton

Walk and profusely sweat

This pain in the knee is excruciating

The dog takes a pee

            At every tree

And we have have to go

            Four times a day

And just as often I have to get up

            In the middle of the night

I find business speak annoying; anything about turning a profit or rationalizing a process whether it be flipping a house or re-engineering the corporation. I used to be a participant, but now I’m on the outside looking in, it all seems so utterly childish. Eddy says that most of the time people use such jargon because it gives them power. Sort of like being a medicine man, I ask? He goes back to reading his paper. This is good because he has his own jargon and there is no power anywhere in any of it. And besides when he finishes and leaves, I can grasp his discarded Chronicle. Unlike the Journal there is no power in this paper. On the bus going to work I used to notice the pink pages of people reading the Financial Times sort of like having a Pravda neatly folded and tucked into the right pocket of one’s brown leather jacket, an emblem of one’s party membership. The symbol of power is power. Sort of like a low-slung holstered 45. Better be fast if called on (actually it was not how fast you were with it but how calm you were in its use – slow and steady was always more deadly that a quick draw). Power is being cool in situations of stress. I’m not impressed. None of them have any power over me. But I’m still outwardly differential to authority – there’s no since taking a chance. I still feel that what authority has ordained for me is right and proper. I anxiously await to be informed as to what it is exactly they have ordained. How will I be informed. Will I read it in the paper? Is it written in the Bible? Will it be transmitted via a dental implant? Yours Truly, The Beaver.

Sixteen tons ain’t much

            To steam shovel

But you’re another day older

            Anyhow

And the little train that could

Keeps on hauling it all away

I’m keen on women with big noses this morning. This is something new. It’s my fantasy of the day. Not just any big nosed woman but tall lanky ones. I check out all the women I see. One by one I scrutinize them – eliminating the short ones and the chunky ones and the older ones. Then I look at the noses of those that remain. Twice this morning I have sighed with ectachy. As I enter the coffee shop, I sneeze. “God Bless You!” someone says. It’s one of them. “Thanks”, I reply but I want to tell her much her nose means to me. She goes back to writing in a notebook. She has her back to me now. There are no more opportunities for any chance encounter.  I still have my private reveries. And that is probably better anyway because tomorrow I shall have some new fetish. I sit and daydream. The morning goes by quickly. I keep my eyes open, watching all the women passing by outside. Some days its redheads. Some days its tattoos. Eddy say that I’m weird. He is one to be talking.

Did Larry’s mother really know Batman? Gosh Aunt Harriett! Oh Robin, I declare! Well maybe. Both shows were in re-runs at the same time. Can characters from different shows and in different eras be aware of each other. It was not inconsistent with anything that the Beaver was knew. He didn’t know everything.  It might be possible. He would really really like to meet Batman. Larry he thought get his mother to introduce him. A visit by Batman to his class would be much better having Ward tell about his boring job. That would shut Judy up. Miss Landers would be impressed. Maybe he should ask Gus. Gus was very wise. Gus told him all about the Purple Rose of Cairo. The Beaver had once brought Gus to class. Being a fireman was exciting. Being a crime fighter was even more exciting. Why was Robin called Batman’s Ward. They were nothing alike. He wished he were the Boy Wonder.

Preferential parking ordinances proliferate mainly in neighborhoods with three car garages – Mike Davis

Dirty dishes

A little bleach

Rinse water

Cut the grease

Stay fit

            Avoid parasites

Shower, shave

            And put on clean underwear

            Tighty whities reduce the sperm count

                        They say

Live right

            Be uptight

If you ask me, I’d tell ya       

            That’s might white

                        Of ya  

Bo-log-na – I carefully attempted to pronounce the name – BO-LOG-NA. I stared at the label again. Strange I’d never noticed that spelling before. I’d always called it Baloney. When did they change the name? Bologna (I pronounced it with a hard ‘g’) uh! I know it is a city in Italy. When did they rename it that – the sausage not the city. I am aware that lots of food products are named after their place of origin (Burgundy,, Cheddar, Swiss and American cheese). I had never noticed the word “Bologna” before. It has Champaign always been ‘Baloney” hasn’t it? I’m sure that I’d never seen it labeled Bologna before. Had I just never paid any attention? Can I be than unobservant?  I am not paranoid. I know no one had changed all the labels just to confuse me. I had just take a toke. Going shopping was not proving to have been a good idea. Stay home and listen to some music. Lay down with head phones on and turn The Stone up loud. It’s normal to discover strange new meanings in rock lyrics but not on grocery store labels. I wanted to tell her all about it, but I knew it wouldn’t make any sense. It didn’t make any sense to me.  It didn’t have a context. It didn’t related to anything else. I knew that much. She continued to fill the cart. She asked me something. I sort of nodded my head. At the check-out counter I was marveling at how all these things could be translated into a single number. I swiped a piece of plastic and signed my name. Just like magic. I was still able to function. I could do this much. I was still able to perform tricks. Was I able to drive? She got in on the drivers side. I got in on the passenger side.  Live is beautiful. Now all this stuff is ours. We could do with what we want. We got home. I stared out the window. Is this our house. It’s a nice house. Could be someone else’s house. She unpacked the groceries. I was ravenous. I wanted a fried baloney sandwich with fried onions on a toasted sesame seed bun. She laughed and told me to go and lie down while she put the stuff away. I was evidently in her way. I could not get my mind off of BO-LOG-NA. God, it’s hard to get my skull around this. When did they start calling it that. Honey, I’m starving, I exclaimed. She brought be a bag of Bar-B-Que potato chips and a can of Bud. I liked the way it popped when I pulled the tab. Watch it, it’s easy to cut yourself on them.  I lay back on the sofa. She said, can you turn the music down. When I woke up it was getting dark. On the TV Ed Sullivan was talking to a mouse.

Gertrude Stein supposedly passed out black-bordered calling cards. On them was printed the single word “woe”. As she gaily handed them out she would say, “Woe is me”