I Want - Theme Fridays
Posted on August 22, 2008 - Filed Under Deep thoughts, Dreams, Life, future
I want to feel safe in a world gone prefectly mad. I want people to recognize that we are all here together and it could be an amazing adventure if we let it. I want people to be kinder to each other, to pass on the opportunity to have the upper hand and not have to always be right.
I want music, poetry and art to be created from the heart again, without a thought given to the demographics. I want children to go to sleep on full stomachs in warm, clean beds. I want to quit being manipulated by groups with vested interests, especially the ones who tout their ‘good causes.’ I want people who play games to move to their own island and leave the rest of us alone. I want people to value themselves and others more. I want natural disasters to just be the result of weather with no political affiliations.
I want chocolate for breakfast and for men to see all women as the lovely creatures they are and to cherish them. I want women to stop wanting to be men and to give the balls back to their rightful owners.
I want technology to stop - and take a breath - so that we can. I want teenagers to find meaning in books and art and personal relationships instead of their cell phones. I want old people to be respected and revered for their wisdom and experience. I want humor to be funny without being mean.
I want leaders who lead because they have the best interest of their citizens at heart instead of just the ability to talk a good game. I want children to have parents who love them and keep them safe but also teach them the lessons of life. I want every human being on this earth to feel happiness and joy and to put that above things and power.
I want people to say what they mean and mean what they say. I want anyone who can talk out of both sides of their mouth to go work for the circus, not my government. I want to fight the good fight when I have to but I don’t ever want to have to.
I want us all to realize that we are sentient beings and that the way to change things is by changing ourselves - that the answers are not ‘out there’ but rather ‘in here.’
And Christine wants and Jess wants
Can You See Me Now?
Posted on July 27, 2007 - Filed Under WTF?, brain farts, future, i dunno, my opinions, really stupid shit
Newsflash! Apparently, as of 18 February 2009 a lot of televisions will go dark. Why? Because all the broadcasts will be switching over to digital signals. So, any television (remember that awesome deal you got on a 27 inch screen t.v. at Circuit City?) that doesn’t have a digital receiver will not receive.
You might say, ‘So what? I have cable, no worries.” And that would be true - if you’re willing to pay $30-$100 a month for television it won’t really matter to you. Even if your set doesn’t have a digi-receiver, the cable companies can somehow magically transmorph the signal so that you get it - though likely they’ll just give you a converter box and all will be well with the world. You’ll still get your 227 stations of high grade digitized entertainment.
But what about us schmoes who refuse to pay for television (like me). I have an antenna on the top of my house and I get the broadcast channels, thank you very much. And really I don’t want anymore than that because I actually have to get something done - with 227 channels my ass is glued to the barcalounger and only moves for snacks. What about us? Well, we get a $40 coupon from the government (or so they say) with which to buy the converter box which will likely retail for $60. Though something tells me, that if you’re not low income or can’t prove you’re needy you’ll end up paying the full $60 out of your own pocket. Just a feeling I have so don’t quote me.
Apparently the ‘air” they now use to broadcast television signals the old-fashioned way will be auctioned off for other use. Now, don’t you have to wonder who is going to bid on that air and what the heck are they going to do with it? It seems to me that every square inch of space doesn’t have to be used. We could just let it be, couldn’t we? Nope, it’s going to be auctioned off and it wouldn’t suprise me is Lil Kim of Korea or Imajihad of Iran or Chubby Chavez bought it all up and piped in subliminal messages to us yuglee Americans.
Can you see it now. We won’t have any television reception but strange foreign music will play whenever we turn on the set. Heck, maybe they will even turn on by themselves and order us around. Make us write checks to non-profits for foreign orphans schooling. Suddenly we’ll have the urge to pay $5 a gallon for gas, women will be demanding burkhas from fashion designers and those Eloton John big bug eyeglasses will become all the rage.
Could happen.
If you want to read more about this, you can find it here.
How Does It Dream To You Now?
Posted on April 5, 2007 - Filed Under Dear Readers..., Deep thoughts, Just For Fun, Life, Writers, breathe, double yoiks, future, imagination, in my head, joy of creating, kindred, reflections, writing
When I was a little girl, a very little girl, I wanted to be a ballerina. I could envision the stage, the music and my perfect, graceful body flying through space. But how did a three-year-old know about such things? My family came from farmers, people of the earth, not artists. What weird reconfiguration of fate placed me there? What master plan was in play?
I always felt just a little outside the family. As though I wasn’t really there. I was in a physical sense of course. I was the one with the blonde curls and soulful eyes. I was the wise child who didn’t say much but seemed to know plenty. The one who always wondered if the stork had made a wrong turn because of a snow storm or earthquake. The others fit into each other like puzzle pieces. They made a picture that made sense. I was the piece that no one could find the niche into which I belonged.
The next dream was to be a fireman. Then a teacher. Then a doctor. A bon vivant who strolled the streets of Paris singing out ‘bonjour, bonjour!’ My mind couldn’t settle on just one, I wanted to be them all. Perhaps that is how I came to writing. There are no limits there, you can be whoever and whatever you want to be. Just put the pen to paper and voila you are there, you are it. Simple. Easy. Well, not quite.
My head was in the clouds or off on some distant planet. My heart was wrapped in the colors of my imagination - such vibrant, dimensional colors that I never longed to be back on Earth. Yet, time and again I would be pulled back to perform a mundane task; laundry, cooking, making my bed, homework, going to work. And each time the me inside of me would protest, pout a little and carry on like the martyr I was. ‘It’s not fair,’ I’d mutter to myself. ‘I don’t want to do this.’ At which point the practical me would surface and scold. I had to work hard, I had to carry my weight, fulfill my obligations - life was expecting it of me and I acquiesced. Damn it! Damn it all to hell!
I comforted myself with the dream that one day I would have my dream. That one day I would finish all the chores and work and obligations and then I could really live my dream. Even though my dream was constantly shifting and changing shape and no matter how much I chased it, it could never be caught, I still dreamed of living my dream.
Is it an inherent quality of writers that they are never satisfied? Is it part of the spiritual and mental makeup of the scribe? Or is it that we can so easily assume the viewpoint of anyone and anything? That is a quality that has always annoyed many in my life. I can pick up an identity and be it - like that. I always have wondered if it’s a charm or a curse. I’m not sure I will ever be able to answer that question and maybe I prefer to have it lurking around in my psyche to tease and taunt me like a naughty lover who won’t commit. Meanwhile, half the time I feel like I should be committed.
So here I am, all grown up as they say and I’m still chasing the dream of the living the dream and I have to ask myself, ‘What is it?’ So many answers pop up, like impatient school children flailing arms in the air when they are sure they know the answer to the teacher’s question. But only answer that rings true is, writing. I want to write. I want to spend the rest of my life writing. And if I’m lucky I will die in front of my computer or at a desk with pen and pad in hand, in the middle of thought that was so pure and perfect that I had to get it down before I lost it. I may never amount to anything, be a someone, be sought after by fans or groupies or even get any of my books published BUT I will always write. And that makes me a writer because a writer writes. And so I am living my dream. So, it dreams to me now pretty damn fine.
Tell me your dreams.
WC
Must See TV - Are We Being Scammed?
Posted on March 24, 2007 - Filed Under Current Events, Life, Tall Tales, WTF?, acts of idiocy, adventure, algore, bloviating one, dasterdly deeds, double yoiks, evil bloodsuckers, future, global warming, my opinions, philosophy & politics, rat bastards, video
This is a long vid, folks - and if you’d prefer you can go to youtube and watch it in parts - but I would highly recommend you settle back and watch it all in one sitting.
While the Global Warming debate rages and the ‘greenies’ get more and more whacko, this documentary offers some rational and sane facts and opinions. If only for the sake of balance, you owe it to yourself to watch it. And don’t go to that ‘I don’t have time place’ because we all know that we waste endless hours on video games, and other dumb crap that has no importance whatsoever.
(HT to mbatm27 )
WC
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/XttV2C6B8pU]
Turn the Magic Ear to the ‘On’ Position
Posted on February 27, 2007 - Filed Under Deep thoughts, Humor, Joke Time, Just For Fun, acts of idiocy, adventure, boomers, brain farts, classics, clueless, funny bone, future, hysterical, laughs, loving it!, my opinions, really stupid shit, smells, that's class
I have seen the future and it looks like this. LOL. Oh yes it does. 
WC 
Wrong on Climate Change?
Posted on February 12, 2007 - Filed Under Current Events, Deep thoughts, Life, Opinions, WTF?, What If?, adventure, algore, amazing, back to work, brain farts, double yoiks, future, global warming, i dunno, possibilities
(Here is a compelling article published in the Times Online, that challenges, conventional wisdom on the issue. WC)
February 11, 2007
An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change
Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged
When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.
The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.
Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.
Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.
So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.
That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.
Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.
The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.
What does the Intergovernmental Panel do with such emphatic evidence for an alternation of warm and cold periods, linked to solar activity and going on long before human industry was a possible factor? Less than nothing. The 2007 Summary for Policymakers boasts of cutting in half a very small contribution by the sun to climate change conceded in a 2001 report.
Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.
He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.
The only trouble with Svensmark’s idea — apart from its being politically incorrect — was that meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation. After long delays in scraping together the funds for an experiment, Svensmark and his small team at the Danish National Space Center hit the jackpot in the summer of 2005.
In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.
Thanks to having written The Manic Sun, a book about Svensmark’s initial discovery published in 1997, I have been privileged to be on the inside track for reporting his struggles and successes since then. The outcome is a second book, The Chilling Stars, co-authored by the two of us and published next week by Icon books. We are not exaggerating, we believe, when we subtitle it “A new theory of climate change”.
Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out.
The reappraisal starts with Antarctica, where those contradictory temperature trends are directly predicted by Svensmark’s scenario, because the snow there is whiter than the cloud-tops. Meanwhile humility in face of Nature’s marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.
Writer Chick Predicts…
Posted on January 5, 2007 - Filed Under Current Events, Deep thoughts, Fat Ass, George W Bush, Humor, Just For Fun, Life, Opinions, Random Thoughts, WTF?, What If?, acts of idiocy, adventure, bloviating one, clueless, dasterdly deeds, double yoiks, drama queen, funny bone, future, global warming, i dunno, in my head, laughs, little rants, my opinions, possibilities, presidents, really stupid shit, reflections, satire, temporary insanity, voices in my head
You know when I was a kid I used to love to read or hear about all the crazy, whacko predictions the psychics of the day would make about the coming year. What was really hilarious was how they would (later) try so hard to make the facts of something somehow mold into a prediction they’d made.
So in the spirit of that - I, Writer Chick, shall also make a few predictions sure not to come true - and if any do, it will be purely accidental.
I predict that in 2007:
- Fat people will be outlawed in NYC and if apprehended with a box of oreos, booked for possession of trans-fats.
- Teddy Kennedy will become the new spokesperson for Jenny Craig (maybe Kirstie will lend him her old body shapers?).
- Global warming will cause hot, fresh pizzas to rain from the skys during hurricanes that rail for 30 minutes or less.
- Britney Spears will create her own underwear line called Now you see it - Now you don’t.
- In a tell-all book, Madonna will reveal her favorite moisturizer is embalming fluid.
- Al Gore will invent a hybrid vehicle that runs on gas and electricity and call it the Priestess.
- The ACLU will file a class action lawsuit against the State of Texas in behalf of beef cows, citing slavery and wrongful death as key points.
- Apple will unveil its latest innovation, the BlogPod.
- Stem cell researchers will successfully replicate a conscience and offer it to Hillary Clinton for beta testing.
- Arnold Schwartzeneger will ‘come out’ as a Democrat.
- Rosie O’Donnell will admit on Oprah that she is the victim of a botched sex change operation.
- The first transexual Miss America will be crowned.
- The New York Yankees will win the World Series - by accident.
- Scientists will discover that land masses and ice masses surrounded by water experience erosion, thereby diminishing the size of said mass.
- Inexpicable accidents and scandals will befall any opponents to Senator Clinton in the bid for the Democrat candidacy.
- Barak Obama will blame his ears on President Bush (why not? everything else is his fault.)
- In a daring move, CBS will replace anchorperson Katie Couric with Barney the purple dinosaur - hoping to capture the heretofore untapped demographic of oversized stuffed animals everywhere.
- The medical community will unanimously agree that living is dangerous to one’s healthy and Congress will pass a law that all newborns henceforth will be tatooed with the Surgeon General’s warning of same.
- Michael Moore will premeire his first film based on fact in his biopic called Fat Like Me.
- Maureen Dowd will marry Jim Gilchrist and become a born again Libertarian and start her own newspaper called North of the Border.
- Bob Woodward will admit on 60 Minutes that everything he has ever written is lies and promote his upcoming book, All I know is I Can’t Tell the Truth.
- In an attempt to increase environmental awareness, major designers will develop a machine that can make fabric out of matter recovered in landfills. And use the fabric in their new spring lines. (clothes pins will be issued to all attendees at the Spring showing.)
- Jimmy Carter will become the new spokesperson for Jiff peanut butter, making the claim that it has a little known use as mortar (as demonstrated in the habitat for humanity model homes).
and finally….
We’ll all be going to Hell in a handbasket.
Okay, those are my predictions…anyone care to offer some of theirs?
Live for the Moment?
Posted on January 2, 2007 - Filed Under Deep thoughts, Dreams, I gots to have it, Life, Rants/Opinions, WTF?, What If?, acts of valor, adventure, bad hair day, double yoiks, future, head exploding, i dunno, in my head, introspection, little rants, my opinions, possibilities, reflections, voices in my head
Remember when you were a little kid and you were so full of plans you could barely sit still? You could hardly gulp down your dinner you were so looking forward to running across the street to play with your pal Suzie or Joe? How you fell asleep dreaming of being a superhero, the Lone Ranger, Wonder Woman or maybe even Richard Simmons? You just couldn’t wait to get to tomorrow.
Then what happened? You grew up, right? Suddenly you were living for today. You couldn’t bear thinking past the here and now. Too many things could go wrong, the job sucks, you’re not doing what you want to do, you’re not living your dream…maybe you don’t even think about your dreams that much anymore. And maybe even your dreams have diminished - you no longer dream of making the world your oyster - you’d be happy if you were a couple of payments ahead on the mortgage and if you could go a whole month without car trouble. Sound familiar?
Living life takes so much time and trouble, there is little room for the dreams big or small. You’re stuck. You’re here and that’s pretty much all you can deal with. And maybe you don’t mind too much - you’ve grown up now - the dreams well…they were kidstuff - not realistic - a lot of trouble for too little return. You’ve found a comfortable spot in the present and now take that familiar ride day in and day out.
But you know…I think that’s what’s wrong with most of us. Why we’re so damned tired at the end of the day. Why life’s ups and downs drive us nuts. We’re stuck in the present. We’re neurotic. We obsess, we worry, we fret, we bitch, moan and complain. There isn’t enough time in the day, enough days in the week, enough weeks in the month, enough months in the year to really get to anything done that hasn’t posed itself as some sort of daily emergency.
Tune ups, parent-teacher meetings, grocery shopping, meal cooking, child care, laundry, dental appointments and more eat up the day and keep us stuck. In our heads, in our lists, in our never-ending tedious day to day lives. There’s just nothing left at the end of the day.
But I don’t think it’s supposed to be that way. Seriously, when you think about it, isn’t life really about the future? Isn’t it about the plans we make to conquer this or that? Own this or that? Master this or that? Be this or that? Even if you break it down - why are you working today if not to at least put food on the table tomorrow? Why are you getting up today if you aren’t planning to go from point A to point B as the day progresses? You eat so you’ll be alive tomorrow, you exercise so you can fit into that pair of jeans tomorrow or next week or next month, yes? I think you do. I think you have to. I think that if one doesn’t have the purpose of creating tomorrow there is no today or maybe there is only today.
So I have to disagree with all those nifty greeting cards and posters and cardboard characters in movies that laud the philosophy of living for the moment - live for today - carpe diem and all that crap. If you live for the moment then what happens to you when the moment has passed? Ah…right you go on to the next moment - and that is the future, isn’t it?
By and large, I think that’s what’s been bugging me lately. I’ve been so stuck in the here and now that thinking about tomorrow hasn’t even been an option. So worried about this thing or that thing that even thinking got to be too painful. It’s just been all about getting through the day or the moment. Making it through with minimal damage, injury and disaster. And frankly, that ain’t no way to live - I think it’s a trap. I think that there are people out there who want to convince you and me that living for the moment is all we get. All we’re entitled to.
Now why would someone want that, you’d probably ask. Good question. Simple answer could be power. There are people in the world who want to control things, people, events. Some do it on a grand scale and some on a small scale but they do it. The boss that is hypercritical until you are so apathetic and co-dependent that thinking an original thought much less saying it out loud never happens anymore. The nagging spouse who thinks every creative thing you want to do is stupid or crazy. The friend who tells you to get a grip when you voice one of your whacky ideas. Yeah, they all want you to live in the moment - they want you to stay stuck in each and every moment - because if you don’t why hell you might actually create something - might actually cause some effect on the world. Which of course might give you some control of your own life.
I admit it’s not easy to live for the future. It’s hard work to battle all the resistance and inertia that abounds all around you. Just think back on last week during the ‘holiday’ did you try to get something done? Did it feel like you were dancing in peanut butter? There you go. It’s tough - people get grumpy - you get grumpy but you have to do it. If you don’t the future, just happens to you and when that happens it’s never a future of your making - it is the future that has been made for you.
Personally, I prefer to make my own. So, I’m going to give that a whirl. I’ll probably fall flat on my face because between you and me I’ve been at this a long time - but if I’m going to fall flat on my face I want to be the one who put me there. Wish me luck.
WC
