50 Laps…

Today marks the completion of my 50^th lap around the sun. The vehicle is showing the expected signs of wear here and there — some of the body panels are a little loose and the motor needs some maintenance… but the rear end’s still tight! ;-)

This landed in my email a day or two ago, and I thought, “how appropriate!” One of the few I’ve bothered forwarding to other people.

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.

... Uphill...

BOTH ways

Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in Utopia!

And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen!

...Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your Imagination!! And there were no
multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only m-net and there was no on screen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the Channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove ... Imagine that!

If we wanted Popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

Of course, I had to pass it on to Daughter Dearest. She replied: Hm... Well, technology definitely has its advantages... Mr. "Sent from my iPhone." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA BUSTED Yup, I’ve raised her to be a wiseacre, and in that at least I’ve succeeded.

FAR Future, Episode 61: It’s All Over, Rover

The war’s over, not the story. Just to make that clear. Anyway…

Wednesday, January 5, 2022
It’s All Over, Rover

I guess everyone will be coming home… as soon as they can get them out of there, anyway. For all intents and purposes, the war’s over, the Foxaganda has that much right. Anyone who knows what’s going on there are much less confident that we won, though. Truth be told, I think everybody lost.

Rene’s in a kind of awkward position; I don’t want to ask him for any info that will jeopardize his service record, even though he’d have to really spill some beans before they’d whack a decorated soldier who was all over the media just a couple months ago. But Rene isn’t the only soldier who isn’t fond of the junta — especially right now — and some of the others don’t have to worry about their citizenship. So, as always, Sammy has pieced a likely story together out of various reports, accidental true statements blurted by junta spokesdroids, and the like.

Rene didn’t even get to finish his mini-vacation in Dubai before things started going pear-shaped. The junta had repeatedly warned Russia and China that Iran couldn’t continue an offensive and expect the fight wouldn’t be taken to them, and the Saudis finally took matters into their own hands. They have their own jets, of course, and they started raiding Bushehr and other ports on the Iranian side of the gulf, and any oil installations they could reach. Meanwhile, our guys were busy hunting down all the Iranians that slipped across Iraq and were wreaking havoc all over the place, both in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

If anything, the war of words was even hotter — both sides accused the other of being allied with Israel, being enemies of Islam, all that happy crap. (Israel issued a statement along the lines of “a plague on both your houses” and offered to transport any Palestinians that wanted to take sides to Egypt or Jordan — one way, of course.)

Over the next few months, the land war bogged down along the Euphrates, and the Saudis and Iranians lost enough jets to redeploy what was left in a defensive posture (leaving the junta in control of the sky). Everyone’s navies were bottled up, and the Iranians made attempts to unplug the straits impossible.

Then the missiles started flying. The junta insists that Iran launched first, and Sammy hasn’t found any evidence to the contrary. The junta’s navy, stuck in Dubai, was a flock of sitting ducks. The junta pretty much had to respond, and began a bombing campaign designed to cripple both Iran’s military and oil production. So way back when, Bush-league was accusing Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran insisted they were interested only in electricity. And both were half-right: why make a nuke when you can buy one? Where it came from — Pakistan, North Korea, Russia during the collapse years — Iran wasn’t telling, and it really doesn’t matter now.

Thankfully, Rene had gone back to some nowhere in the desert — because last week, Iran nuked the big Ghawar oilfield. Even in advanced decline, it was producing a significant percentage of the world’s oil supply… but not anymore. The Saudis didn’t have their own nukes, and we weren’t about to give them any, but they did have a handful of dirty bombs. Take a big bomb, wrap radioactive material around it, set it off. All the fallout without the crater. There had been rumors since the Bush-league days that they planned to use dirty bombs to scorch their own oil fields if they were invaded or some internal group were to overthrow the Sauds, but they may well have converted them to offensive use. Turns out the Israelis weren’t the only country to have a working Masada Option… they ruined what was left of Iran’s oil fields and those in southern Iraq to boot. Iran had a second nuke, and they used it on the straits, making the UAE an unhealthy place to be.

And that must have been it. Kuwait and the rest of Iraq weren’t bombed, but they have fallout issues to worry about. Anything that’s not contaminated, or probably just a little contaminated, will have to be pipelined through Turkey or Syria from now on. The war’s over: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran have collapsed, Oman is tottering, any news coming out of Bahrain or Qatar is not exactly good, and the junta is retreating to the Red Sea to ship everyone out.

Rene was allowed to contact us with a brief message to my Gadget: I’m OK, not sure when I’ll ship out yet. Hope to see you soon.

You know the rest of the story: with a third of the world’s oil supply either turned radioactive or still burning, pretty much everything is shutting down. Russia may have won the war without firing a shot; they’re now the world’s largest producer and they have no problem throwing their weight around. For all the junta tough talk about “we’ll walk before we kowtow to Moscow,” we’re not going to be able to defend Europe very well if an invader has oil and we don’t. I suppose if Europe can string them along for a few years, Russia will run out of export capacity and they can all go back to fighting on horseback. What we’re going to do here is anyone’s guess. I certainly hope the junta grows a brain cell and realizes that a critical resource can’t depend on the market to allocate it properly.

continued…

Ripples Above

I saw this formation on the way back from a meeting yesterday.



It kind of got me wondering: do fish ever look up and see ripples on the surface of their water? What does it mean to them?

Another FAILout on the Way?

Yesterday, Mitt Romney suggested letting the auto companies die. He’s partly right: shoveling money at the automakers is not going to fix their problems. Unfortunately, doing nothing has its own set of large and highly negative consequences. While Romney (along with the rest of the right wing) seems to think that busting the unions has to be part of any solution, Mittens at least recognizes that management will also have to make sacrifices, both real and symbolic. But even that won’t be enough, especially since the managers will start the money and perq grabs again as soon as nobody’s looking. A more radical approach may not solve the problems in Detroit, but nothing else will.

There are 100 million households in the US, give or take, and around 600 million shares of GM. Pull a round figure out of my, er, back pocket, and say there’s 100,000 people working for GM. GM wants the taxpayers (i.e., you and me, if you live in the US) to bail them out… or at least their upper management flew their private jets to DC to deliver that message (OOPS!).

Maybe instead of bailing them out, we should just own them.

Run the auto companies through the bankruptcy courts, dissolve the standing corporations, then create new ones (this sidesteps the current stockholders, who would be just as screwed without a bailout). Issue 200 shares of stock to each autoworker, and 40 shares to each American household. Remove the upper and middle management structures entirely, and let the autoworkers run their companies. The people on the floor know how things work, and their neighbors are the people buying cars — they’ll have a direct line to what Americans want. If they have to lay people off or cut their salaries, then they do it knowing some fat cat on the 16^th floor isn’t pocketing a bigger bonus at their expense. Meanwhile, their neighbors are also shareholders — not only in GM, but Ford and Chrysler as well. They will be more inclined to buy a car from one of their own companies, especially if the autoworkers have been listening and deliver the cars they want.

So if we’re going to have another FAILout, we should do it right. Many people will eventually sell their stock, some dork will amass enough to force itself into the picture, and the road to FAIL will start all over again. But it could be a long time. And who knows? Maybe we’ll get it right before then.

FAR Future, Episode 60: In the Tank

Friday, August 20, 2021
In the Tank

Rene continues his story…

The major gave us orders as Manny started back on the comms: “You heard all that. Five minutes. I figure seven before the cavalry arrives. We need to stall ’em for two minutes.

“Spread out. When they start down the hill, open fire on the center tank, the one that Kittycat came out of. Aim for the tread on your own side. It’ll give ’em something to think about, anyway. He’s got to know that there’s more than two of us out here, but he doesn’t know how many. So you guys need to be firing and reloading just as fast as you can. Alternate your fire between the center tank and the one on your side, but move each time so you don’t eat return fire. We’ll beat it up the hill while you guys cover for us — we’ll go under the back of the tent, and the tent itself will keep us out of sight for a little bit — then we’ll set off the EMP when one of the tanks takes out the tent. If we’re lucky, we’ll bury the SOB. Questions?” Neither of us had any. “Good. You got four minutes to get ready.”

Sammy T and I used a couple minutes to spread out as ordered — we figured if we were going for the treads, being farther off to the side would help — and we saw the major and Manny slip under the back of the tent. They moved up the dune slowly, looking back, making sure they didn’t lose the cover of the tent. The time went fast… I checked my watch, and they gave the major all five minutes promised before revving up and starting down the hill. We opened fire, and dang if Sammy T didn’t score one for the good guys! Kittycat’s tank slewed and came down the hill at an angle, almost hitting the tank on his right but he didn’t notice. Their turrets were coming our way, but we were moving already. I got my next shot off a second or so before Sammy did, and blew a hole in the tank’s armor on my side but nothing more. Sammy missed, no score. They returned fire, toward the spots we’d already vacated, and we weren’t planning on staying in one place longer than we had to.

We each got one more shot off before the major yelled, “Here’s the cavalry!” A second later, two pairs of jets zipped overhead and circled around. “Tobias! Cardenas! Regroup, back to center! Stay out of the line of fire!” I went down the far side of the dune, figuring that would get me out of the zone fastest, and then started working my way to where the major was. Long before I got there, the jets came back overhead, trailing explosions.

Sammy got there before I did, looking wild-eyed. “That was too close!”

“You shoulda gone downhill like Cardenas,” the major said. “I told you to stay out of the line of fire, right? That’s what I meant. But you done good. Both of you. Manny, ask ’em if they’re done yet.”

“Rabbit 2 here,” Manny said into his radio. “You guys about finished? Anything left down there?”

“Just some kitty litter for you guys to scoop out. Your tent is in shreds, though. Dooby’s sending an evac unit, should be here within the hour. Just part of the friendly service.”

“Thanks a heap, guys,” the major said, taking the radio. “We owe ya one.”

What parts of the tent hadn’t been shot to pieces were burning or already burned up. The Iranian tanks weren’t in any better shape. None of them had reached to where the tent stood. Sammy T and I kept an eye on the tanks, just in case one started moving or coughed up a kittycat, while Manny and the major dragged what was left of the tent out of the way. Fortunately, the hatch was still clear and we went down to bring out the most important gear and our personal stuff. It was dark down there, because the generator was probably one of the first casualties of the battle (I saw pieces of it strewn among the tanks), and we had no idea whether there was a surge. But that wasn’t so important at the moment. We each grabbed a wind-up flashlight, we kept them all around the caisson in case the power died anyway, and used them to break down the gear and box it up. We got it all topside just as the evac choppers topped the dunes and landed on the far side of the tanks.

“Need a lift, boys?” we heard one of them call over Manny’s radio. We had the gear and ourselves on board in five minutes, and the major dropped a grenade into the caisson before boarding (we didn’t want to use the EMP bomb, it would have disabled our ride out of there). It collapsed on itself as we lifted off, and the sand started filling in the hole immediately.

“Nice piece of work back there,” the pilot said over the intercom. “Holding off three tanks like that. How’d they penetrate this far without anyone else noticing, anyway? That’s what I want to know.”

“No telling,” Major Shevchuk said. “They’re probably swarming in scattered and hoping some of them get through. Won’t take many to make a lot of trouble.”

They gave us each a medal and some extra leave. I was hoping for an honorable discharge and getting sent home, but no luck with that. With the straits blocked, it’s not like we’d be getting much farther than Dooby-Dooby anyway. The major says they’ll redeploy us after our leave is up. With any luck, we won’t have to worry about enemy tanks again, but I’m afraid this is going to turn out like Iraq - the front line will be everywhere. The equipment is mostly okay, the surge took out a couple of power supplies when the generator went down, but all the collected data on the flash drives was intact. We’ll have all new gear at the next post.

Me? I’m just glad he’s OK. I had to take Guillermo and Maria to a Catholic church though; they wanted to light a few candles in thanksgiving.

continued…

Opting Back in?

In July 2007, James Kunstler wrote a column titled Thuggo and Sluggo, in which he derided the “costume and demeanor of American young men … that raises interesting questions about who we have become.” In the week-long give-and-take that is the comments section, I responded:

I can tell you exactly why people dress like they do: we've realized the "dress for success" line is a bunch of hooey … If there's a message behind those baggy clothes, it's nothing but "I'm wise to your game, I'm not playing."

Now that’s not to say I wear “the uniform” that Kunstler derides: the baggy pants, hat on backwards, and all that… although I’ll admit to leaving my t-shirt untucked on occasion. The difference between me and Thuggo is that I’m wearing what’s comfortable, regardless of how it looks; he’s making a statement with his clothing. People in the lowest and highest income brackets, it seems, like to make a statement with their clothing; the rest of us are mostly concerned with staying warm or not getting arrested, although we’ll occasionally advertise a sports team or other activity we’re fond of.

So what’s the message Michele Norris is hearing?

I've been struck as we talk about change on a big level, what I've been hearing closer to the street -- in Chicago, in Pennsylvania, here in Washington, DC -- how many young black men are talking about change in their lives. At barbershops, someone told me that twelve people have come in and cut off their dreadlocks, talking about joining the army, talking about, you know, 'forget about the saggy pants,' pulling their pants up, leading their life in a different way. I think it's really interesting because we talk about change in buildings, and this election has really inspired change on a very personal level.

So if Kunstler’s Thuggo and Sluggo are cutting their hair and pulling up their pants… indeed, what’s the message? The optimist(?) in me wants to think that the kids are saying, “well damn, maybe the casino isn’t rigged after all, I guess it’s time to get in the game.” Of course, that attitude will lead to massive disillusionment down the road… because the casino is still rigged; Obama won the election with a combination of a sterling “ground game” with campaign offices stretching from the Internet even into the craziest corners of Planet Georgia, missteps by his opponents, and sheer luck. Take away any of those ingredients, and he’d likely be heading back to the Senate in January. That’s not to say Obama is unqualified — he’s certainly at least as qualified as anyone who has sat in the Oval Office since January 20, 1981 — but the race is not always to the swiftest, nor the battle to the strong, right?

The election has unleashed a wave of hope that has apparently washed all the way into the 'hoods and trailer parks, and even into Planet Georgia. I’ve heard two local people, both righties, say they’re praying Obama can fix things in the country. I’m not sure if there’s a dog-whistle that I’m not hearing, but it sure sounds good (and a heck of a lot more gracious than I was 8 years ago). But if everyone from the 'hoods to the hollers know things need to change, maybe there’s a chance that we’ll get the changes we need.

Saturday, and I’m Parked

You would think it’s the middle of November out there: chilly? damp? windy? Check, check, check.

I dodged chicken house duty this morning, ironically after I’d “suited up” for the ordeal. After grabbing some cereal, Mrs. Fetched decided I needed to make the rounds of three banks… two deposits and one payment. The payment involved down to the next town down, where there happens to be a Best Buy. DoubleRed is having grief with her laptop (she thinks $800 doesn’t qualify as a cheap laptop, but whatever), but at least it’s under warranty and she was able to shovel her schoolwork over to her desktop system. Her preparations cost me all of 10 minutes, which was no big deal since I had to be at the last bank before noon and (even with the slight delay) I figured to make it before 11:30 anyway. So I dropped off stuff at banks, she dropped off her computer with the Geek Squad, everyone was happy. (Well, DoubleRed isn’t happy about her laptop going back to the garage, but whatever.)

We got back, Mrs. Fetched got back, then it was off to get a mattress set for the upstairs bed (in what used to be The Boy’s room). I was going to turn that room into a library, but I suppose I still could… I like to read in bed, anyway. I also went out and had a look at the tomato plant — it was pretty well dead, but there was one last handful of yellow pears on it. I’m putting in at least a dozen of these next year… since they’re a heirloom variety, I saved a few seeds already and will have at it next year.

Daughter Dearest is coming home for the weekend, although she’s getting a late start… looks like she’ll get here around 7pm. Then we’ll probably go to El Rio to eat, because that’s like her favorite place in the world and there’s no good (and cheap) Mexican restaurants around Reinhardt. Speaking of Reinhardt, she’s seriously considering transferring out after the year’s up… a couple of nearby public colleges have been named, but I think the big problem is that the music students seem to be more like the drama students (if you get my drift).

I need to start some bread tonight for a church thingie tomorrow. I’m trying to decide whether to make challah bread or rolls. Probably rolls; it’s easier to scale up and people don’t have to break off pieces that way. And P.O.D. wants me to solder the F-connector back onto his old TV tonight.

Somewhere along the way, I tuned in Obama’s first weekly address on YouTube. I couldn’t help cringing when he said “make no mistake,” because I heard that too many times from Bush-league, but after that point the address went from fluff to meat. I hope he’s serious about the energy policy… it’s good to hear a political type really seeming to get the point that we need to stop talking about the post-petroleum world and start building it (and putting people to work building it certainly won’t hurt). The question is: can we make it happen?

A Special Edition

The not-so-far future: The New York Times, Special Edition (July 4, 2009).

Be sure to read the My Times link to hear the publishers 'splain themselves.

FAR Future, Episode 59: Tanks a Lot

Guess what? Another cliffhanger!

Friday, August 20, 2021
Tanks a Lot

Yes, that was Rene’s unit that the newsies turned into celebrities. How could they resist the drama of four guys standing off a trio of Iranian tanks? But it’s Rene’s story to tell. They’ll probably hound him for interviews forever if he doesn’t tell them to slag off…

Hola, y’all. We had some excitement out in the middle of nowhere, and I guess everyone’s heard about it by now.

The Iranians sent a suicide squadron down the Basra route. It was meant to draw the bombers, and it did a fine job of that. Meanwhile, they slipped a bunch of tanks up and around, then through the Empty Quarter and into Saudi while they ran small boats across the gulf overnight. They were all over the place before we knew what was up. We were getting some chatter from our normal channels, but nothing about this. They must have figured out that we could tap their comms.

So Monday started out like any other day out here: hot, sunny, and quiet. We had a little marine radar up on one of the dunes, and it started pinging around 1000. We had to wake up Manny, and he was pissy about that, but the major got everyone at attention and reminded us that we had a plan for this. He sent me and Sammy T out to get a visual. I carried the binoculars and the radio, and Sammy got an RPG.

It was shimmery out across the dunes, like it always is, but I made out three tanks. “Hey Manny,” I said, “you think they can hear our radar? If they can, it’ll lead ’em right here.”

“Roger,” he said, and cut it off. Probably a little too late; they were either headed right for us or were going to miss close.

“Assume they’ll find us,” the major said. “Keep an eye on ’em and let me know when they get closer.” They were getting closer all the time, but I figured he meant something else.

Manny must have left the mike open, because I could hear it when he started calling Dooby on the comms. “This is Rabbit 2,” he said. “We got bogeys, three tanks incoming. Need air support chop-chop.”

“Copy, Rabbit 2,” they responded. “Your situation is Rice Cooker.” That meant it would take 20 minutes to get someone here.

“Bogeys will be here inside 10 minutes, sir,” I said. “Ask ’em if they can use the microwave or something.”

“Confirm Rice Cooker,” Manny said, ignoring me. “Might as well be forever,” he told the major. “If they advance, we got nothin’.”

“I know. Boys, get back inside, double-time. We need to charge the EMP and talk real quick.”

We ran back to the tent. Major Shevchuk told Sammy to go below, charge the EMP, and bring the remote detonator. He talked loud and down the hole so Sammy could hear. “Tobias, Cardenas, you two take the RPGs and fall back to the tops of the dune behind us. Velasquez, you and I will see if the kittycat wants to talk. We will not fire the first shot, understand? Good. Sammy, bring the evac kits and the weapons up with you. Let’s move.”

We got up and over the dune just in time, keeping the RPGs and ourselves out of sight. We’d have to get lucky to take out three tanks with RPGs, and I had a feeling our luck had run out. I figured we had about twelve minutes to wait for the cavalry. The tanks topped the dune opposite us and stopped; they were probably trying to figure out who was crazy enough to pitch a tent clear out here. That bought us another two minutes, then the commander hopped out and started down the dune.

“One walker coming down,” Sammy rasped over the radio.

“We see him,” Manny said. “We’re watching out the tent flap. Cut the chatter.”

They waited for the kittycat (Persian… army slang) to reach the bottom, then Major Shevchuk and Manny stepped out with their rifles at right shoulder arms to meet him. The kittycat looked a little startled, but not much, and loosened his sidearm but didn’t draw. He had bigger guns already pointed at our guys. But another minute had gone by. Nine to go.

“I suppose I will need to speak English,” the commander said (Manny was wearing his headset and had the gain cranked up). “Tell me, what are American soldiers doing in this part of the desert?”

“Beach party,” Manny said. “The tide went out a lot farther than we expected, though.”

The commander looked both annoyed and amused. “If you were the king,” he said to the major, “you would have a court fool at hand already.”

“But I’m not the king, fortunately. I am, as you guessed, the post commander though. Major Robert Shevchuk. This is Corporal Manuel Velasquez, our communications officer. And you?”

The kittycat gave his name, which I can’t remember. “Two American soldiers in a tent,” he said. “What do I do about this?”

“Well…” the major pulled off his cap and scratched his head, looking at the sky and buying a few more seconds. “I suppose you could go around us. It’s not like we’re any threat to a squadron of tanks, two guys with rifles.”

“You know as well as I: that is impossible. I can offer you surrender, and in return I will guarantee that you will be treated better than your people treated our brothers in Iraq.”

“Hm.” The long look at the sky again — eight minutes? seven? “Maybe you can give us like ten minutes to think about it?”

“Five. If at the end of five minutes, I do not see you coming out unarmed and hands up, we will open fire.” Kittycat about-faced and walked back up the dune, and the major and Manny went back in the tent.

continued…

All Fall Down [UPDATED - new pic]

Climate change seems to have pushed Planet Georgia’s peak color season from late October into early November. I posted some shots around Amicalola Falls exactly three years ago today, but I took these pictures a couple days ago and (much) closer to home — during my Thursday afternoon walk.

Looking north across a pasture, you can see color on the foothills… of course, the mountains themselves are hazed out.

This is really the best time of year to be outside on Planet Georgia. The temps are pleasant, there’s still some light in the afternoon, and it’s just pretty when the sun filters through the trees. If you’re doing anything strenuous, there’s usually a breeze to cool you off.

The only downside is that the days continue to get shorter, and we’ll have the stark greyness of winter.

UPDATE: Because there’s more than one day to fall…

Even closer to home — just off the corner of the house, in fact — we have a couple really tall trees that were giving us 2/3 of a stop light. There’s a Japanese maple nearby that was deep red last week, but the wind cleared most of the leaves off. But who wants to stop?

A Sour Note to End a Sweet Day

DoubleRed is, or perhaps was, all doom and gloom after the networks called the election. We got to talking, and I don’t know if she realizes how close many of her issues are to the liberal side: progressive income tax, universal health care (“but not like they have in Europe”), and energy… she realizes what a drag Bush-league has been, but doesn’t quite make the connection that electing more Republicans won’t fix the problems that Republicans caused in the first place.

So as we’re beginning to discuss the issues around peak oil and alternate energy, the phone rang. At 1:19 a.m. And I was all, “who the hell is calling at this time of night?” Turned out to be the father-in-law.

“You know what’s going down at the trailer?” (i.e. where dwell The Boy and Snippet, and P.O.D. and his girlfriend, and a couple other people)

“No.”

“Well, there was some kind of argument, and Snippet kicked P.O.D.’s girlfriend in the stomach, and she’s in the hospital.”

Aw… crap.

“Maybe you can go down there and see what’s going on,” he continued.

So I went down… to find the driveway pretty well filled with two cop cars. Great. One cop was interviewing Snippet on the porch; the other was inside with The Boy. The cop on the porch (whom I wouldn’t find her frisking me) said they’d probably be there another half an hour. I decided to scoot & see what’s what after some shut-eye.

And I need to get some sleep.

FAR Future, Episode 58: A Dispatch from the Rear

Tomorrow is The Day. If you haven’t early-voted, get out and vote.

Monday, June 14, 2021
A Dispatch from the Rear

Rene sent an email…

Hola, y'all. We're here, wherever that is. Well, we have a pretty good idea we're somewhere in Saudi, but I couldn't tell you where. Major Shevchuk would prefer nobody knows. We've gone through our evac route, not that we'd live long enough to march to anywhere from here, but there you have it.

I can tell you this much: we're in a little hollow spot in the desert. They choppered our gear in, with a big backhoe, and it dug enough to flatten out a spot for our inflatable caisson and got our cooling pipe laid. We blew it up, attached the heatsinks and re-bars, and buried the whole thing after letting it harden. The latest in desert computing technology, I guess.

So once it hardened up, the backhoe pulled enough sand off the surrounding dunes to bury it good, and we stuck an Arab tent up on top of it to hide the satellite dishes. We've got a gennie and solar panels to run air conditioning and our equipment, and the caisson has enough room for all of us to bunk in. The fan noise makes everyone sleep pretty good. So from the air, we look like some desert nomad out in the middle of wherever. It took us a day to get operational, and it's been eat, work, sleep ever since.

There's just a few of us out here. Major Shevchuk, who's our commander, I think he’s from Michigan like Farf-Dad. Cpl. Manny Velasquez, from “by God Texas,” works our comms. He’s got the attitude for Texas, alright. I think he’s trying to forget any Español he ever learned, seems to think he’s not Mexican just because his granddad slipped across the Rio before my dad did. But he knows his stuff, and he’s OK as long as you don’t try talking politics with him. Sammy T is the other grunt here besides me, he's a black guy from DC, pretty quiet but a good guy. Sammy and me swap between day shift with the Major, and evening shift. Manny takes night time. 'Course, all of us are on 24-hour call if we're needed and kind of back up the posted shift when we're not sleeping. Not much else to do out here besides study, read, or listen to music. We can pipe in whatever music we want off the satellites, and download ebooks off the Army library, but Major Shevchuk wants any of us to be able to run the whole post if we have to, so we spend a lot of time with that. The major is a wizard on a computer, way better than Farf-Dad. But by the time we get home, we'll be able to rebuild a diesel generator in our sleep without having to stop cracking enemy codes or debugging a program, jejeje.

Really, though, the post runs itself now that it's set up. Manny checks the satellite dish alignment every day, me and Sammy T inspect the EMP bomb (which we'll set off if it looks like the post is going to get captured, it will fry every chip in the bag) once or twice a week, and all of us try to keep the dust and sand swept up and out of the filters. The gear's all raised off the floor, so it would take a lot of sand to clog things up, but Major Shevchuk is used to computer labs being clean. We also inspect our arms… not like we have much, just the usual sidearms and a couple of RPG launchers, but it all needs to be kept clean and ready for action. Basic was far too easy, shower-wise. We don’t get a shower out here, we just get a “French Bath” (wipe the sweat off with a damp cloth or wet-wipe). We don’t notice the smell, but I’ll bet it makes the barracks seem like a flowerbed by comparison!

And that's about it from here. Love you guys.

I'm sure glad he's out of the main action. The news was all over the Iranian sea invasion getting repelled last week; they must have decided the best defense was a good offense and got their war on. I suppose the overland route through Iraq is coming next, especially since the south is pretty friendly with the Iranians anyway, although they’ll likely get bombed into the sand going that way. The Russians and Chinese are threatening the junta with “an attack on Iran is considered an attack on us,” with the junta responding, “if that’s the case, then you’ve attacked us first — stop it or we’ll make it stop.” But the only way you would know that the Iranians sunk a couple of their rented tankers in the Straits was that gasoline is suddenly becoming unobtanium. The SPR is probably wide-open for business now, but if the junta has any sense they'll focus on producing enough diesel to keep the farmers and trains going. The gas they'll grab for themselves and their cronies, as always. There are rumors that the Saudis have a pipeline running clear across the country to a mothballed terminal on the Red Sea, and they’re supposedly opening it up now, but I’ll believe it when the imports start coming in again.

Serena and Kim lucked out — she’s now an MP at Ramstein in Germany: vulnerable to terrorist attacks, but you could say that about anyone. Kim is still stateside, and he got the job Rene wanted, teaching English to Hispanic recruits. Seems that the junta extended the service-for-citizenship plan to anyone south of the border, they’re signing up in droves, and the junta wanted a white guy who is fluent in Spanish. When Rene found out about it, he demonstrated his abilities in Standard Military English (nod to David Brin on that one) and laughed his skinny butt off. Kim gets to call Christina a few times a week, and Christina says she’s working on a hormone that can be dispersed over a wide area to make people rational for a change and put an end to this war and junta nonsense. I think she’s joking… I think. But if anyone could pull off a stunt like that, it would be Christina.

continued…

Charge It!

After church this morning, I got accosted by one of Mrs. Fetched’s cousins. “I hear you’re supported Obama,” he growled. “What of it?” I shot back. “Blah blah smear, blah blah talking points, blah blah I don’t see how you can support Democrats and be a Christian.” At least he didn’t trot out the “he’s a Muslim” bull$#!+.

“I don’t see how a Christian can support the party of the Pharisees and money changers,” I said, with more than a little heat. I’m not good at confrontation, and the in-laws are Olympic Squbbling Team gold medalists. “Remember who Jesus threw out of the temple.” He sputtered and tried to turn it around, and I just walked away. I wish I would have just laughed in his face when he started. I let Mrs. Fetched know about it; she said, “he’s so much like his dad” (who was a old white rural Georgia boy, need I say more). I have an idea who put his wind up about me, but with no proof I don’t need to name names in public (or even blog-ic). Look, if you really believe that the other guy is the better choice for rational reasons (i.e. no fear & smear), whether for the country or even your own wallet, I don’t have a problem with that. But if you want to question my patriotism (or my Christianity) for my choice, we have nothing to say to each other.

Another fun-filled afternoon at the manor. But instead of chickens, I had some wood to split (which was therapeutic) and load up. Two huge trees went down in her dad’s pasture, and we’re getting firewood. We didn’t even have to cut the first couple loads… her dad and a guy living in one of the rentals (the one who just got carted off to the Cinder Block Resort) left it there for us to just pick up. Mrs. Fetched came down to help load up after I finished splitting; we looked at what hasn’t been cut yet and I said, “this could last us all winter if we can get it cut up.” She nodded.

Since we’d had a big breakfast late, we didn’t get around to lunch until 3:30 or so. We finished up at 4, and we had Charge Conference at church at 5. In a Methodist church, Charge Conference is when the congregation officially approves the next year’s budget, appoints new officers (or re-elects the old ones, dangit)… and of course, it’s an excuse to go downstairs and eat. Being the lay leader, I get to deliver a “lesson” (mini-sermon). I quoted John the Baptist telling people to share their extra coats and food with people who didn’t have any, and — given the economic situation — challenged everyone to “share their stuff” with people who didn’t have it. To my surprise, everyone applauded… first time that ever happened. Probably because I kept it much shorter than my typical blog post.

Long Day

Too long. Good thing we turn the clocks back tonight; I needed even more than the 25 hours we get today.

After Mrs. Fetched’s helper ended up “forgetting” about a minor detail like keeping up with his probation, he got carted off to jail. Smooth move, Ex-Lax… you got a wife with a baby on the way and you pull that kind of stunt? Forget about The Boy helping; on Saturdays even the crack of noon is a little too early for him. So… “all we have to do” (a phrase I absolutely dread hearing from her) “is open up the half-houses.” This took us well past noon, then her dad decided he needed to do some miscellaneous stuff — which for him means a stream-of-consciousness waste of several more hours. By 4 p.m., I suggested lunch would be a good idea and he agreed.

Meanwhile, there was a bunch of wood cut up in the pasture, waiting for “someone” to gather it up. Mrs. Fetched needed to do something else in the chicken house, so she suggested I start loading up the wood and she would join me when she got finished. So… about an hour later, DoubleRed came down the chicken house road in her little Rio. She asked me if I needed help; I said, “sure, park your car across from the gate and come on over.” We didn’t get all the wood, but we’d got as much as we could deal with at the time, so we ran up to the house and unloaded it. One piece was a little large, and I got the splitter. DoubleRed was telling me a story of how her mom tried to get her to split some firewood once, and rescinded the idea after she nearly chopped herself and her brother. I drew a bead on the log, took one whack, and it came apart.

“Show-off,” she said.

“I got a lucky shot that time,” I reassured her.

This picture isn’t all of what we got — we put some in the garage to save a little time for the night-time armloads — but some of the stack was already there. (The top of the stack comes about to my chin, for perspective.) This should last us at least a week, maybe two, and there’s plenty more where that came from. Our burn rate averages about a stick an hour.

As we were on our way back to get DoubleRed’s car, we saw it coming up the road the other way. Mrs. Fetched had finally remembered that we had to shoot a community chorale — singing an English version of Brahms’s A German Requiem — and we had about two hours before it started. We got showers, fresh clothes, the cameras, and away we went. We managed to get through it without changing tapes… but we were down to the last one or two minutes. Whew! Supper, groceries, putting Crissy the Complete PITA Dog back in her pen (and blocking her wormhole she’d dug to get out)… and here I am.

Maybe if she doesn’t have another chicken house freakout tomorrow, I’ll be able to bring more wood home (and split the larger pieces).

Can we set the clocks back… oh, 24 hours? I want a real Saturday, the kind that doesn’t involve chicken houses.

Mid-Week Mid-Life Crisis

I was feeling a bit depressed yesterday. I didn’t have the opportunity to apply my particular brand of catharsis — play Skillet’s Comatose album at high volume and let it all out — but I did take the time to try to figure out what I was trying to tell myself. In the end, it was something like I don’t want to be here… but I don’t want to go anywhere else in particular. Perhaps if I’d had a destination in mind, I might have told my boss to look for the three people they’ll need to replace me and acted on it. I don’t know, and now I’ve more or less gotten beyond it. Maybe I’m starting my mid-life crisis; I’ve been waiting for it to start. Unless embracing trance and other high-energy electronic music is it, and I kind of doubt it.

Another thought that bubbled to the surface was: “Even God Himself must struggle with false witness and willful ignorance” (and I might have that made into a bumper sticker). There’s some of the former and plenty of the latter on Planet Georgia at any time; both get an order of magnitude worse in an election year. If it wasn’t so maddening, it would be amusing how people can completely shut out facts when they conflict with one’s mindset, and embrace even the most transparent lie if it agrees. It gets tedious just having to be around it, let alone trying to combat it. I’ve taken to carrying the earbuds for my iPhone with me when I go to the in-laws’ place, because I know I’ll need them to shut out O’Liarly. But it batters at you… even if you don’t hear the lyrics, the oppressive beat continues to vibrate its way into your psyche. You can’t shut it out completely.

I’m hoping it will go away temporarily after election day. God willing, we’ll have government moving in a completely new direction. Of course, the pod people will crank up the false witness generator to maximum power and bombard us with ever more outlandish crap. I hate to accept that people actually believe the crap they forward around in email. That’s depressing in itself, and literally bearing (as in transporting) false witness.

Escaping into FAR Future has been a little difficult lately, perhaps because the mental atmosphere has been so oppressive, or maybe just because it’s crazy-busy October. At least I have the next 12 or 13 episodes written, and lately what I’ve been able to write freely has been the parts close to the end… but there’s another 12 or more episodes to come between what I’ve finished and the ending series of episodes. If I get into another good tear like I had last month, I could wrap the whole thing up in two or three weeks.

One nice thing that happened today: I got “boo’ed” at work. There’s been this thing going around: someone leaves a treat and a copy of this “Boo” poem at your desk when you’re not looking. You then make two copies, put together some kind of treat, and “boo” two other people (and tack up your copy so you don’t get repeat boos). I was kind of late in the week, the last one on my cube row, but some entire rows don’t have any boos at all… so I’ve got the stuff in the car where I won’t forget it tomorrow.

So that’s been my last couple of days. Could have been much worse. Could have been better (e.g., drinking on a warm beach somewhere).

FAR Future, Episode 57: Marching Orders

Happy Hallowe’en!

Friday, March 5, 2021
Marching Orders

Rene said it was like hitting five numbers in the Lotto — not the jackpot of teaching English to other Latino recruits stateside, but he won’t be on the front lines either.

He got assigned to an outfit called EDID (Enemy Data Interception and Decryption), which is a fancy term for military intelligence (yeah, I know, I know). There isn’t a lot more he can tell us, which I suppose is SOP for these folks. He did say that they only do the decryption part; they bounce the rest stateside where they have experts in Farsi and Arabic who can translate what’s actually being said. But he said they’re training him in computer tech (which he seems to be good at), conversational Arabic, military Arabic and Farsi (if things get closer than they expect), and “a bunch of stuff I’m not supposed to talk about.” At least he’ll have email.

As for Kim and Serena, they both got their draft notices today. Since I was the one who hiked down to get the mail, I seriously considered tossing them in the wood stove — but that would only bring the recruiter out here to pick them up. It must have been on my face when I came in the door though, because Serena just looked at me and said, “It came, didn’t it?” I nodded and handed her the envelopes.

“Two?” she asked. Then, “Oh. Kim too.”

Christina cried when she found out. Kim and I tried to cheer her up by pointing out that the married guys should get first dibs at the non-combat positions, but she pointed out that it didn’t seem to make a difference in Iraq. As it is, they have a couple of weeks before they have to report — I guess it doesn’t matter if they give draftees a little time to settle their affairs. Volunteers though, especially ex-fugitives like Rene, they don’t want to give any time for them to change their minds (especially after their family has residence permits). I suppose if this drags on for a while, Christina will have to register… and I don’t think they do student deferments anymore. Dean feels bad for the kids, and Daughter Dearest has threatened him with great bodily harm if he enlists in sympathy (she really doesn’t threaten his life twice a day, even if I tease her about doing just that… maybe just once a day).

“Maybe I’ll write a play about Army life,” Serena mused at supper this evening. “Maybe a musical. If it’s good enough, they’ll have to throw me out.”

“Yeah,” Kim said. “Maybe call it Hamlet in Dubai or something.”

This, more than anything anyone else said, seemed to cheer Christina up finally. “Ha. Wasn’t there some song about being waist-deep in the big muddy something? You could have an idiot General Mayhem that leads everyone into something ridiculous.”

“Waist-deep in the Big Muddy, and the dang fool said to push on.” I quoted. “But I knew General Mayhem — or one of the junta people I called that back when. He’s not that stupid, but he also isn’t in command. Maybe General Confusion is the guy you’re thinking of.”

“That’s the song! But hey, if you’re doing it to get kicked out, make it obvious. General Junta has a nice ring to it, no?”

Maria shook her head. “Sobrina, do not make grande gestures. They probably put you in jail instead of send you home for… for…”

“Sedition.” Guillermo suggested.

“Sí, sedition. You be good, sobrina” (which is both Spanish for “niece” and a long-standing and, at first, unintentional pun on Serena’s name). “You are a talented girl, maybe they put you on a nice base and you write the instructiones for the machines. Or you write for their newspaper. You make us proud of you.”

“Too bad Rene’s gone,” Daughter Dearest said. “You could have let him knock you up, and then you could get a deferment.”

I snickered and Mrs. Fetched rolled her eyes, the other adults (including Dean) gaped, Serena blushed and Christina giggled. I never know when DD is going to come out with something like that, but I can always count on her to lob a verbal smoke-bomb when it’s really needed.

Serena recovered quickly. “I guess it’s your fault,” she said, looking at me. “If we didn’t live with a known troublemaker, I probably wouldn’t have gotten drafted.”

“Blame the dog,” I said. “He brought you home and wanted to keep you.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” DD said. “Blame the dog. He ain’t even here to defend himself now.”

“Yeah… but he could loft some serious hang time! Remember?” I waved my hand in front of my nose.

Guillermo spoke up after we stopped laughing. “Isn’t there an organization that performs entertainment for the soldiers? Serena could produce theater for them, maybe, then she would be safe.”

“The USO,” I said. “But I don’t know if they’re a part of the military, or a civilian organization that does things for the military. But maybe she could write telenovelas for Armed Forces Radio.”

“Telenovelas on the radio?” Maria asked. “That would be interesting. I used to watch El Mundo del Amor… all the time.” She sighed. “I miss seeing it… but our home is here now. Our son has bought our place here, perhaps at a terrible price, and we will not dishonor his sacrifice.”

However it pans out, the nest is going to be a little less crowded now. I just hope they can all come back in one piece… and with all their pieces.

continued…

Weekend Cinema

Even if there was anything good on at the theater, you don’t have time for it… so Weekend Cinema brings the free and fast to your computer screen!

I got this one from Faboo Mama, who posted it on her blog, and it’s too hilarious not to share. Turn up your speakers, the dialog is a bit soft and pretty funny too…

The First Ever Presidential Dance-Off

Can’t You Smell That Smell?

OK, yeah, goplets stink anyway. But now I smell fear. Not the manufactured fear of black people, brown people, people wearing turbans, or (God forbid) of having to drive a smaller car. It’s the thing they’re afraid of most — losing big in just under two weeks. It’s kind of interesting, seeing yet another thing I wrote in FAR Future (Episode 22, April 7, 2013) happening well ahead of schedule:

The right-wing spins one way or another these days, like an old Chevy stuck in the mud, looking for traction wherever they can find it so they can get back in the race. They end up slinging mud everywhere, spinning their wheels, and sliding around. Their talking points still work with the most delusional among us, but not even their old crazy base is safe territory anymore.

Daily Kos calls it “Divide and Flail™.” Whatever you call it, it’s something I despaired of ever seeing happen: all the squealing about flag pins, the smears, the fear, the making crap up when they can’t find anything real… it’s not gone, it’s still happening every day, but only the delusionals and the crazies are listening. I’m sure it’s horrendous in the various swing states (and is from what I’ve heard); but here on Planet Georgia, we’re spared the worst of it. But even here, there are signs. Literally: someone posted a Jim Martin yard sign at an intersection where a Saxby sign stood just a few weeks ago, and some Neanderthal taped a “Vote for Socialism” tag over the big M on the sign. The Saxby yard signs have all but disappeared since the FAILout vote less than three weeks ago; I see a very real chance that enough wingnuts will vote for Buckley (the Libertarian), pulling down “Ignorance is” Chambliss and letting Martin into the Senate through the back door. That’s fine… whatever the reason (excepting death), fewer goplets in office is a Good Thing.

Nationally, the goplets have gone nuclear: their mouthpieces are trying to rip open the divide they’ve helped to create, separating their supporters into “the real America” and the rest of us… well, let’s feed them some rope:

Michele Bachmann (R-MN):
Then: “I’m very concerned that [Obama] may have anti-American views. … I’m focusing on Barack Obama and the people that he’s been associated with and I’m very worried about their anti-American nature.”
Now: “I never called all liberals anti-American, I never questioned Barack Obama’s patriotism, and I never asked for some House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunt into my colleagues in Congress.” (Um… you been punk’d and debunk’d!)

Robin Hayes (R-NC):
Then: “Liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”
Now (after repeated denials, then confirmed by audio): “I genuinely did not recall making the statement … there is no doubt that it came out completely the wrong way … this is definitely not what I intended.”

And there’s the “socialist socialist socialist!” huffing and puffing from Palin and McCain’s staff… reminds me of the “n----r n----r n----r!” chants from an even uglier part of our history. Not to mention repeated attempts to selectively disenfranchise voters in Montana, Michigan, Indiana, and God knows where else. But both campaigns are fielding “armies of lawyers” to provide on-the-spot aid for any voter challenged at the polls, so even that tactic (which helped in Florida and Ohio the last two elections) may come to naught.

I just hope that another echo of FAR Future doesn’t come to pass. But I wouldn’t put it past them.

FAR Future, Episode 56: A Letter from Boot Camp

Pretty weird: wandering around at Gold Rush, I saw a booth emblazoned with “Georgia Department of Defense NOW RECRUITING!” Turns out not to be a militia, it’s actually a part of the state government. Whew.

Speaking of recruits…

Saturday, February 20, 2021
A Letter from Boot Camp

Rene gets to write home on occasion. At least we know he’s doing more or less OK.

Holá, y’all. I told Farf-Dad if he wants to put this on the blog, that’s fine.

Farf-Dad says about writing stories, sometimes, it’s best to begin at the beginning, so that’s what I’ll do. I signed the papers, the recruiter swore me in and gave me the residence permits for my family, we went to the courthouse and got Kim and Christina a marriage license, then ran to the church and got the wedding done. Next morning, the recruiter put me on the RoadTrain to Atlanta, and told me to show my papers to any soldier at the station and they’d tell me where to go next. So I got put on the bus to Fort McPherson, which is in Atlanta, and they swore me in (again) and put all of us Latino ex-fugitives in our own barracks. I didn’t really get to know any of the other guys, but some of them had lived with citizens like I did, and most were part of an underground that none of them wanted to talk about. They also gave us our uniforms and a duffel bag for our “civvies” (civilian clothes) and anything else we brought with us. I have a notebook to write in, a few pens, and that’s about it. Most of the other guys didn’t even bring that much.

They hauled us out of bed really early, like 4 a.m., and took us to the Amtrak station. They had a special car for recruits, and a guy gave us a run-down of what we’d be going through at boot camp. It didn’t sound like fun, and the reality is even worse, but that’s getting off-track (jejeje). He asked us in Spanish, how many of us didn’t speak English. There were eight or ten who didn’t. They asked us how many of us hadn’t gotten the bad flu in the last two years, and there were maybe twenty. Then some medics came in and gave all of us shots for stuff and took blood, they told us that they’d quarantine and care for all of us if anyone had the flu now. The guys who didn’t know English got taken out to get some lessons, enough to get them through their first day of camp anyway — one of the Army people said they’d be doing all the training during the day and get English lessons in the evening, so they would have it pretty hard. It turns out we all get English lessons, whether we need them or not.

It took most of three days to get to where we were going, somewhere out west in the desert. They said they wanted us to get used to the desert, because we’d be seeing a lot of it in the next two years. While we were on the train, they took us in groups to another car where they had exercise machines set up — weights and treadmills and so forth. They said they wanted to get an idea about how good of shape we were in so they knew what they had to work with. I’ve been doing farm work since I was little, so I expected to do pretty well. Most of us did, naturally — fugitives don’t get the cushy suburban life, not that the suburbs are a decent place to live anymore anyway.

So we got to Camp Baker (that’s what the sign said, I guess it’s because they’re baking us “raw” recruits into soldiers), and the drill sergeant started screaming at us before we even got off the bus. The usual boot camp greeting I’ve seen in movies. Push-ups, marching, bellowing Yes, SIR! back at him (no Español allowed in boot camp), drilling, handling our guns… trying not to nod off in English lessons, because I think I speak English better than some of the non-coms (and I hope they don’t read that!). One morning, on a rare break, I heard a couple of them complaining about a computer not working. I asked if I could look at it, they said permission granted, and I got it fixed.

Christina talked about the wallyworld being smelly; I can’t imagine it smells any worse than this barracks we sleep in. We each get like three minutes of shower time a day, they said so we get used to not wasting water in Saudi Arabia, but if you’re not done when the water cuts off you’re done anyway. Some of the guys are taking their showers only every other day so they have more time, but when you’ve been sweating outside all day that doesn’t help the rest of us. Farf’s daughter would just say “It’s a guy thing,” and laugh at us I guess. She liked to say things like that a lot, anyway.

We’re supposed to be done with Basic week after next, and then we’ll get our postings. I’ll be surprised if we’re not all assigned to the front lines, but we can always hope. They need people to teach English to the rest of the recruits, so maybe I’ll get lucky. Sgt. Gonzales says we’re the sorriest bunch of Mexicans he’s seen come off the train, but I guess he says that to all the guys, jejeje. They just called five minutes to lights out, so I need to finish this. I love you guys. No regrets here, I’m doing this so my family can be free and legal, and so Kim and Christina could really be married. Whatever happens, I’ll be OK. I’ll let you know when I get my posting.

continued…

Sins of Omission… and The End Is (NOT) Near

The Boy has sort of settled down lately… if he’s having the kind of blow-ups he used to have, we’ve been insulated from them by his residency away from FAR Manor. We know he chugs more beer than he really should, but if he isn’t doing it in public (or at FAR Manor, which he does if he thinks he can) there isn’t a whole lot we can do about it.

So it’s the sins of omission, not commission, that get on people’s nerves these days. He’s not working; no hanging offense in this economy but it would be nice if he’d try harder. 'Course, that should mean he’s more available to work with Mrs. Fetched in the chicken houses — a little money is better than none, but there’s no commute involved and he’d get lunch out of the deal — and that’s where things start getting a bit hairy.

Since the Pontiac has multiple issues (starter’s shot and the muffler came off — that’s the car he was working on), I let him borrow my Civic with the understanding that I’d need it Friday since we’ve got rain in the forecast. I came in from choir practice last night and found my key on the kitchen table (with no car outside… odd). Mrs. Fetched was in bed and suddenly started fuming. “We’re not helping him anymore, since he can’t help me! No taking Snippet to work,” etc. Turned out he took his buddy and ex-boarder J to Roswell to pay a speeding ticket (J seems to have this issue with a lead foot); they picked up J’s dad, who presumably was just along for the ride, and drove down. Doing this instead of helping with the chickens is not the way to endear oneself to Mrs. Fetched, needless to say.

I worked at home today, and Daughter Dearest took me down to the trailer to get my car — the windows had been down all night, and a heavy dew was all over the interior… not The Boy’s fault since Mrs. Fetched grabbed the key last night. But then The Boy called around 3 p.m. “Can you take me to [our renter]? I need to get my hair cut [the renter cuts hair] so I can get a job at Wendy’s or something.” Run for the hills, it’s the Apocalypse!!! While it’s best to take Mrs. Fetched’s pronouncements literally, I wasn’t about to impede his efforts to either clean up his appearance or find a job. He walked back to the manor while I was working, grabbed his old trick bike, and was gone before I could get a look at The New And Improved Boy.

Come to think of it, he trimmed up his beard earlier this week too… The End is truly near!

UPDATE: Meh. Call off the Seventh Trumpet. He got a couple inches trimmed off his ponytail, and that’s it.

Good Times, Bad Times, You Know I’ve Had My Share

In some parts of the country, the financial meltdown was well underway long before the rest of us got the idea. James H. Kunstler, on his blog, may have been the one to coin the term “Yard Sale Nation.” On a recent road trip through Pennsylvania and Ohio, Nudge (who is kind enough to read FAR Future and other things here) gave us an excellent write-up of her encounter with Yard Sale Nation — where recreational equipment and other merchandise with for-sale signs share road frontage with yard signs for the Republican candidates that brought the country to this fix in the first place. (Irony? What’s that?)

Sector 706 of Planet Georgia has never been part of Yard Sale Nation, perhaps because the region was traditionally impoverished… that is, until recently, most people never really had the means to collect all the toys that are supposed to symbolize the realization of The American Dream. Yard Sale Nation is usually found in the former industrial areas, usually in the north, where sons (and recently, daughters) would follow their fathers in working at the same factory. It was reliable work for reliable workers, usually well paid (union scale)… if it offered limited opportunities for advancement, at least it meant that if you showed up on time and sober and did your job, you could raise a family in your own house and enjoy a decent retirement. At least until globalization took over and the factories (and the factory jobs, naturally) moved to Mexico, China, or even Pakistan. By contrast, Sector 706 was one of those places that didn’t quite fit the stereotype of hillbillies living in shacks — although the moonshine trade thrived well into the 1970s, and if you know the right people you can still find it — but it was agrarian, poor, and kids with any prospects moved to Atlanta or even farther away to find their niche… and returned only for visits. The population decline had just started to reverse by the time I moved here, and only recently has the county I live in returned to its population levels of the early 1900s.

The prosperity that has come to Sector 706 is broad and shallow… it’s not the kind of prosperity that comes from the work of families with roots. Rather, it’s the prosperity of gentrification and suburbanization. The newcomers are solid middle-class people, nothing wrong with that, but they came here only because land was relatively cheap and the commute to Atlanta is barely tolerable (I came because I was in love and didn’t know better). An old joke about some of the first gentrified communities, much closer to Atlanta, was that “half the people drive Volvos and the other half wonder why they named a car after a woman’s anatomy.” But the old farming families with deep roots, even deeper than Mrs. Fetched’s family, have prospered… by selling the land (that has been in the family for generations) to developers. The brothers who sold a farm just down from FAR Manor got $3 million for 300 acres last year, and it’s a good thing they didn’t hold out because the housing crash finally caught up to Planet Georgia soon after. The place still looks pretty much like the picture I posted over a year ago.

So if the jobs in Atlanta go away, the newcomers will soon go away themselves… and it won’t take 25 more years for the county to lose the population it gained in the previous 25. But Mrs. Fetched remembers crossing a foot-log to get to the outhouse (shades of Barney Google! and there’s some more irony for you) as a little girl, so the dirt-poor days are well within living memory of the forty-somethings. If things really do go to Hell in a handbasket, the real losers may be the people who sold their farms.

FAR Future, Episode 55: Caught in the Draft

Monday, January 11, 2021
Caught in the Draft

With last year’s Really Bad Flu getting people to take a real close look at the junta, they needed a spectacle to distract everyone… so naturally they jumped into another oil war. The Saudis have asked the junta flat-out to defend against an Iranian invasion, and the junta is only too willing. The Wahabbi yahoos have issued a fatwa to the effect that “all men, even the infidel, willing to defend the Holy Land from invaders may enter, only that non-Muslims must not enter the holiest cities” (Mecca and I think Medina). I suppose it was a matter of time, what with the two largest population centers having broken off (and the Midwest seriously considering it), until they ran out of willing cannon fodder. But the neocon way of thinking has always been, “We just start the wars, let someone else do the fighting.” So the next logical step was a draft. They may have held the Midwest by promising them priority shipments of heating fuel, although I wonder if it will stick.

Kim and Serena are known residents, so there really wasn’t any question about their registering… in fact, a Pat-Troll paid what they deemed a “courtesy call to help them fill out the paperwork.” They gave Kim the big stink-eye when he checked “M” on the Marital Status line; I confirmed that he’d been married nearly a year (first anniversary next month!) and they rolled their eyes and got on with things. But the junta threw in a little wrinkle for Rene: they’re offering amnesty for any “fugitive Latino” volunteering who’s not wanted for violent crime. Even bigger is the promise of immediate citizenship upon honorable discharge (or KIA) and residence permits for family members while serving. Of course, a citizen’s family gets to stay in country permanently. We tried to talk Rene out of the idea, but (as he writes):

Holá, y’all. If you’re breathing, Uncle Sam needs you. And he’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse. Not only that, Sammy says the junta is actually keeping their word about amnesty for us fugitives. All the adults think I’m crazy, but I’m doing this for my family — I mean, we all like living at FAR Manor (especially Christina, jejeje), but it would be nice if we didn’t have to hide. Besides, I got it in writing that Farf-Dad gets the amnesty for helping us too, so he or Farf-Mom won’t get in trouble either.

I’m also doing it for Kim. He’s probably going to get drafted soon; if Christina has a residence permit, they can get married for real and maybe they won’t put him in the combat zone. Farf-Dad thinks that’s where they’ll send everyone like me first thing, though. But I’ll make sure they have all the papers for everyone before I sign. I don’t totally trust these guys, even if they need to be trustworthy this time.

And that’s that. Rene is going to sign up tomorrow and they won’t wait to ship him to boot camp, even if his sister is going to be married. But we’re not going to waste time getting Kim and Christina hitched “for real,” either. In fact, we’re making the arrangements, and we might be able to take Rene to sign up, go to the church to attend the wedding, then he can leave in the morning. I guess there are advantages to being the go-to guy in a church; when you really need something done you can call in a lot of favors.

Guillermo and Maria are proud of Rene, of course, but very worried that they’ll never see him again. But they’re also excited about being able to move around freely (not that there’s much moving around these days). Their existence and location have been more or less an open secret for a long time now, but as long as we didn’t openly flaunt it…. Anyway, all that’s going to be over with soon. 'Course, if the war drags on for a while, which neocon wars always do, Christina will likely get drafted as well. I don’t know how the Army deals with biochemistry geniuses; they’ll probably put her in some bio-warfare research unit.

Christina, of course, is really excited about the wedding. Kim, too, from the way he’s been acting. Serena and Rene will stand with them tomorrow, and we’ll keep the ceremony short and low-key. I know it will be easier for her to do her biochem research when she doesn’t have to hide, but she’s done a lot of work here at the manor — she’s been compiling a set of school textbooks, and a publisher has expressed interest in what she’s put together so far. I helped her out a little with the layout and formatting, but the coup de grace is the illustrations she’s including in the lessons. The publishers thought they were great, especially since they didn’t have to pay someone else to do that work.

Kim and Serena both dread seeing the mail come in on Fridays; they know that they’ll be getting the “report for duty” notice soon or sooner. Serena was pretty upset about Rene leaving, even though they never got past the “friends” stage (that I’m aware of). She said her next play is going to really rip the junta a new one for this.

Dean’s in a bit of a quandry though: he hasn’t registered for the draft (not being a junta subject), but if he and Daughter Dearest get married then there will be questions about citizenship and the like. I suspect that, even with his papers, trying to return to Pacifica would just get him diverted into boot camp. So… Guillermo’s family will soon be free to move around, but our newest guest won’t. One thing after another at FAR Manor, huh?

continued…

An LOLboy and His LOLdog

The Boy seems to be having trouble with the starter in his car. It rolls off easily enough, but turning the key doesn’t even produce a click. He brought it up to the house, where we have a paved driveway and a couple of ramps to put it on… but Butthead decided to get all cuddly with his hooman before The Boy had a chance to get started.

I had to get a picture…

We Pause for a Cloud Break

I really didn’t want to write more about the Big Gooey Kablooey today. Fortunately, after a rainy day (the first in at least two weeks, so it has been seriously needed), God gave me something else to post this evening:



I was admiring the sculpted clouds among the puffballs, when I reached a place to pull off and get a picture. I see a big arm coming out of the sky, either pointing south or offering up The Mother of all Spliffs. :-P

Heh… I suppose that was appropriate, given that I thought of a Crosby, Stills, and Nash song when I saw the cloudscape:

How come I have to explain,
People are worth all the pain?
I just wanna see the love in your eyes
After the storm has passed you and gone.

Slip-Slidin’ Away

The credit meltdown continues with the occasional temporary break in the action. Looking at the 5-day Dow(n), it looks like the shorts temporarily took over yesterday — running prices down through the day, with a partial recovery in the last hour or so as they unwind their positions and get out. Today, though, the minor blip up turned the other way and down she went. Another 500-point drop. OUCH.



The bailout package, as I expected, has done little to fix the problem — or even calm the “markets,” which I expected it would for a couple of weeks. It seems that CEOs don’t like the restrictions on their salaries or golden parachutes, so many have decided to “tough it out” and not take the bailout money. After all, the companies they run can go to hell as long as their own prosperity is ensured. The occasional punch in the face is small potatoes compared to leeching $300 million out of the company treasury, right?

In 1969, we fought the Vietnam war, sent some people to the moon and back — and balanced the budget. Of course, the highest income tax bracket at the time was 70%. If you look back, the most prosperous years of American history (that is, low unemployment, high savings, the most good for the most people) coincide with high taxes on excessive incomes. We lost our way, partly because we reached national peak oil in 1970–1 and became a net oil importer about the same time, and partly because we embraced this Randroid notion that wealth somehow equates to virtue. Then Reagan blew “morning in America” sunshine up our pants, and we took our eye off the energy ball.

Over the next few decades, wages essentially stagnated (except for the top execs, of course) and debt became a way of life for both individuals and the government. There was a brief period in the 1990s (the Clinton years), when the tax structure temporarily got saner, wages and employment improved markedly, and we had several years of budget surpluses. But that blip was followed by Bush-league and his record deficits and declining wages (almost as if he was trying to make up for lost time). So now we’re facing a huge glut of debt.

There are essentially two ways to destroy the excessive debt clogging the economic pipes: hyperinflation and outright cancellation (we can assume, probably correctly, that expansion is no longer an option). I don’t expect hyperinflation, as it’s a good way to destroy the wealth of rich and poor alike. Cancelling debt sounds like a messy affair, but in fact it can be done with much precision. It’s quite likely that they will cancel some debt (theirs) while leaving some other debt (ours) intact.

The guerilla war that the rich have been waging on the middle and lower classes is about to become an all-out war. Fortunately, some people have found a way to fight back: when you get the foreclosure notice, pay a lawyer $100 to write a letter asking for proof that they hold the note. Several people have said after that, they haven’t even been contacted for over two years! I suspect that, barring legislation that is extremely unlikely under an Obama administration, this ploy will work for a long time — to defeat it, they would have to detach the loan from the CDOs and all the other instruments that it’s a part of, which would mean all the mortgages would likely have to be unwound, and they don't want to do that.

At least for right now though, peak oil is no longer an issue. The entire world is staring at an oncoming major recession, maybe even a depression. Fewer jobs → fewer people commuting → less fuel being used → falling oil demand. We’ll go from just barely having what we need to having plenty, although most of us won’t be able to enjoy it. The question is, do we go down; and if so, how fast? Can we forestall, or even slow down, the decline by putting an end to telephone-number salaries?

James Howard Kunstler thinks we’ll go quickly now that (in his opinion) the decline has started. His theory is “The Long Emergency” — the combination of declining energy resources and the suburban lifestyle (long solo commutes from “McMansions” in oversized, inefficient vehicles) has irrevocably sent us over a cliff, where we’ll land with a messy splat in a de-industrial world. On the other hand, John Michael Greer espouses a theory of “catabolic collapse,” and backs it up with several historical examples. The word “catabolic” means to break down from a complex to simpler state; he envisions a long decline with occasional partial recoveries, or a drop to a level that might come to be thought of as “the new normal” until the next crisis sends the world down another stairstep. Eventually, we could (after several centuries) recover and invent an “ecotechnic society” in which technology combines with sustainable sources of energy and material. Such a society would support much fewer people than the current one, which is partly why it would take several centuries… the population would have to decline to a sustainable level first.

Crisis brings predictable folks out of the woodwork:

• The “imminent Rapture” crowd — but there’s no mention of the US in the Bible, unless you reeaaaaaaally stretch the interpretation. Nothing about “from across the Sea,” or “the uttermost west,” or any such. So if you buy the literalist End Times interpretation, we pretty much have to be removed from the scene before the Tribulation.

• Gold bugs — their disdain for “fiat money” is so obvious you can almost see them sneer as they type the phrase. Which is silly. Gold & silver have been one form of money — but so have pretty pieces of paper, cattle, and big stone discs with a hole in the middle. Money is basically whatever enough people say it is; if things collapse suddenly I’d rather have the food than the gold… if I really wanted gold for something, I could trade some food for it.

• Survivalists — beans and bullets, all too often with a terrible attitude about community.

Most of these folks tend to be “doomers” — the type who say disaster is imminent, billions of dead, etc. Whatever floats their boat, I guess. Doomers are saying that this is the week where “it all begins,” but I would have to disagree. It all began in the latter half of the 19^th century, when we became dependent on fossil fuels to run our civilization. “It will run out some day, certainly,” they might have said, “but we’ll find something else long before then.” This might be the week that it becomes obvious, but I rather expect that “bargain hunters” will create a minor rally later this week or early next.

FAR Future, Episode 54: Iraq and Ruin

Wow. How could I have missed the Great Financial Meltdown of 2008? Some prognosticator am I, huh? ;-)

Thursday, September 17, 2020
Iraq and Ruin

The right wing still cringes at the mention of Iraq, their crowning achievement. When some wingnut starts yammering about what a horrible job the “librul socialist gubmint“ was doing and how much better off we are under the junta, I just laugh and say, “Right. So say the folks that gave us Iraq.” They usually screech something about Bill Clinton and walk away at that point. You name it, Iraq went w0rNg for them — the outright lies they used to get us in there, the way it went sour on us, flowers and chocolates, letting museums and military bases get looted — all of it. Even the real goal (grabbing the oil) didn’t work out. I always wonder how things might have gone had Bush-league just admitted that invading Iraq was the only way we could put off making huge, painful changes in our way of life for a few more years. The people who opposed the war from the start wouldn’t have come around, but I suspect that a lot of others would have decided war beat walking (or riding a bus). Honesty is the best policy, something Bush-league and the junta have never learned.

We left Iraq one huge mess, but al-Sadr agreed to cover our exit in 2010 and he kept his word while we “declared victory and left.” And things did get a little better for a little while. He had close ties with Iran, of course, and the Sunnis were suspicious, but al-Sadr learned pretty quick that it's one thing to whine from the sidelines and quite another to call the shots. They all mostly kept things pasted together — and Iraq actually exported more oil than Saudi Arabia last year — but some suicide bomber got al-Sadr on Friday and chaos rules once again, especially in Baghdad and Kirkuk. The Iranians have already sent a “peacekeeping force” to Basra and southern Iraq… and I agree with the junta analysts that they won’t be leaving any time soon, if ever… and to the wingnuts that it’s a pretty transparent oil grab (they should know, after all). The Kurds and Sunnis have told Iran to stay out, but they can’t do much more than hold their own turf. Kurdistan has been quasi-independent since before the invasion, and have been inching toward full independence ever since. This will probably be the final push.

It was an obvious move for Iran, though — their exports have been dropping fast the last few years, they’ll be a net importer in a year or two, and they want the oil as much as we do. They thing is, they’re slightly more welcome there than we were. They’ve mostly secured the oil fields around Basra, but (sound familiar?) are having issues with pipeline sabotage.

The junta brought back Shotgun Sam, and he’s having a conniption on the air, resurrecting the Domino Effect (“Iraq now, then Kuwait, then Saudi — and they’ll own all the oil!”) and saying we have to do something. I wish he was still taking callers; I’d have asked him if he would set an example and be first in line for an “expeditionary force.” Of course, he would have hung up, mumbled a few excuses, and gone to commercials. I'm old enough to remember what Reagan killed that Jimmy Carter started, and how much better off we’d be now if we’d stayed the course to energy independence… but nobody can call in anymore, and they probably would have blocked my number anyway. Oh well.

Kuwait may be a different story… rumor has it that they’ve quietly asked for a buffer force “to preserve stability in the region.” As if Americans with guns would be considered a stabilizing force these days! The Iraq adventure pretty much killed that one. The Saudis haven’t objected to having a carrier group docked at Dubai (the troops call it “Dooby-Dooby”), either.

The Prophet had something to say about the matter earlier in the week: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but do not be afraid; for such things must happen, but the end shall not be yet. Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in different places, and there shall be famines and troubles.” Straight out of Mark. “And do not say to yourselves, ‘Where is God? He has abandoned us,’ for it may be His will that we endure the results of our folly, but be very sure! He has not abandoned us, nor has He deafened His ears to our prayers! Hold fast, Jerusalem, to the hope we have in His salvation! For as He chose to raise up our nation, if it is His pleasure to raise up Persia, who brought His people out of captivity in the days of old, then it shall be done. For who can stand against the Lord our God? Who among us can tell the Lord, ‘this You shall not do,’ and command the obedience of his Creator?”

Needless to say, that hasn’t gone over too well with the junta mainstream. “America has been God’s nation for over 200 years, and if that’s no longer the case, look no farther than who was running things until recently,” goes the Baptist honcho downtown. Quoth the head of a Pentecostal mega-church, “My spirit of discernment is troubled when I see this man shouting on a street corner. It is troubled when I see the crowds he draws. The devil can speak with words of honey, and attract the unwary.” Attendance is waaayyy down at the mega-churches, but The Prophet draws a crowd every time he sets down his cardboard box and begins to preach. Jealous much? Well, I shouldn’t talk: I haven’t had The Prophet’s sermons take a shot at my worldview yet. I might feel the same way when that time comes, and if he’s really preaching God’s word then that time will come. I don’t doubt that I’m flawed in my way as much as the guys on TV are in theirs.

But if there’s not a war, there’s rumors of wars. From Sammy and everyone else. I worry about Kim and Rene a lot these days.

continued…

The Great Gas Panic of 2008 Winds Down

Some stations have their pumps bagged, but more stations than not have gas to sell now. The lines have faded away and the four-lane was choked with day-trip traffic. Tourism-based businesses are undoubtedly breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Yet Matt Simmons speaks of low nationwide inventories and warns that a run could deplete the system again — and not just in the southeast.

Something I thought I’d mentioned in earlier gas panic posts, is that gasoline and diesel distribution is very much a regional thing. We don’t have a nationwide grid of pipelines for fuel like we do for electricity, so when the southeast (or west coast, or upper plains states, etc.) has a problem, there’s not a whole lot that other regions can do to pick up the slack. We saw this earlier in the year in the plains, where several refinery problems led to acute shortages much like what we saw here on Planet Georgia… but being “flyover country,” you may not have seen much coverage unless you live there or follow the peak-oil news.

So why is it even a problem? For starters, refinery margins have been exceptionally tight — if they’d had the same margins now as just a few years ago, we would have been paying $5/gal instead of $4 this summer. For whatever reason, probably political, they were eating some of the increased costs this summer. However, some of them tried to squeeze expenses out of their system to make up for it… thus the spate of refinery fires and explosions we’ve seen this year. There also isn’t much incentive for them to increase capacity — given the world is at or near the maximum production rate now, by the time they finish a new refinery or expanding an old one, they might not be able to get enough oil to take advantage.

So with margins tight, refineries have been producing just enough gas to keep things going — if they start getting better margins (and probably will after the elections), they can ramp up production to rebuild inventories. But under the current circumstances, inventories declined to 40-year lows just before the hurricanes hit (graph from TheOilDrum.com:



Had inventories continued to drop, we may well have seen spot shortages (or outright panics) even without the hurricanes.

Now that our regional gas crisis is starting to recede, we can start dealing with the worldwide financial crisis. In some ways, we’re in a similar situation: the entire financial system is seriously shaky, and a few bank runs could easily bring the whole thing down. But that’s the way it’s always been — banks take your deposits and lend them out, making money off the difference in interest they pay you (if any) and the interest they charge their borrowers. Great racket if you can get into it — but most of us don’t really care so long as the ATM spits out twenties, the checks don’t bounce, and the credit cards continue to work. But in the end, all banks only hold markers and a certain reserve cushion (usually 10%–20% of total deposits) to cover problems. The next couple of weeks could be very interesting, as major banks totter on the edge and nervous depositors try to reassure themselves that the FDIC won’t run dry.