nobody asked…

Dateline: Franklin, Tennessee, March 14, 2013

Today in a remote area of southeastern Williamson County, a ceremonial cutting of the last tree in the county was attended by a large supportive contingent of political, business, and religious leaders. As the Chairman of the County Commissioners wielded the axe to make the first blow, the small group of protestors could barely be heard from their position a few hundred yards away. The pesky protestors, estimated at about 30, were the vestigal remains of the Sierra Club, Green Peace, and several local advocacy groups that had fought valiantly over the years to protect the green spaces and environment of Williamson County to no avail. To paint a face of unity and decorum for the media, the protestors had been held at bay far from the ceremonial site by a uniformed and armed group identified by the crosses on the armbands of their all white uniforms as the “God Squad“, members of the Citizens Committee for Christ militia that had policed and ruled the county for the last several years, terrorizing and driving out non-Christians.

This lone remaining tree symbolized all those who had stood in the way of progress. Ridding the landscape of it clears the way for the last major planned development in Williamson. It will be the last because there is no more space.

The new development will include over 3,100 single and multi family housing units starting at UNAS$1.25 million, and will feature its own utility systems infrastructure, fire and militia squadrons, K-12 Christian school system, and one of the largest shopping and entertainment spirals in the South. Everything will be within a short stroll of everything else, or as the marketing literature claims, “Easy Stroll on Easy Street”. Excavation for the 117th Walgreens in the county has already begun and can be seen about 1/4 mile to the west of the ceremonial site, and adjacent to the site of Williamson’s 325th StarBucks. The Mayors of Franklin, Brentwood, Fairview, Spring Hill, and Nolensville were joined on the podium by the Village Meisters of West Haven, Umberland Estates, and Prince Georges. Each in turn offered congratulations and welcomes to this new development, Charlemagne. Global Development Corporation (GDC) is expected to appoint a Village Meister for Charlemagne within two weeks.

As late as the mid-1980s, Williamson County, which lies across the Southern border of Nashville/Davidson County Metroplex, consisted of rolling farm land and forested hills, with a couple of small lazy Southern towns breaking the green monotony. Completion of Cool Springs Galleria on a remote rural cow pasture (”the nowhere mall” as it was called back then) in the early ’90s heralded the beginning of an economic and population boom unequaled in the Unified North American States (UNAS) and its predecessors: Canada,  Mexico, and the USA. Since 2008, Williamson has been recognized as the wealthiest county/parish in the UNAS. Unemployment for the past 5 years has been non-existent at 0.1%. The average level of education for voting age adults hovers around 17.5 years as more and more major corporations have relocated their global headquarters and research facilities and staffs to Williamson.

The Mayors and Village Meisters in attendance today were of one voice on the taking of the last tree. They spoke in glowing economic terms of the significance of eradicating the green wasteland. Likewise, they praised God and the GDC for its diligence in helping to make this happen.

There was also a rumor circulating through the crowd that a breakthrough had been made in negotiations for Williamson to acquire and annex all contiguous counties other than Nashville/Davidson Metroplex. It is generally believed that this would be a good invesment utilization of the several UNAS$ billions in present cash reserves, and would provide ample green space to be converted and developed for the next 25 to 30 years. Efforts to buy Nashville/Davidson Metroplex were thwarted last year when Williamson Country’s bid was topped by DCM, the mega-glomerate of Dell, Chevron, and Mitsubishi. In addition to the N/D Metroplex, DCM, or just “Dell” as most locals still call it, owns three other counties in the UNAS plus the country of Yemen.

The last tree has fallen. The protestors have been silenced and have disbanded. The exuberant crowd has dispersed, leaving gratified and hopeful. It has been an excellent day for Williamson County! Praise The Lord!

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If the future portrayed in this tongue-in-cheek commentary seems to be patently absurd, you have not been paying attention. We are almost there. I am not against progress, development, and growth. I do object loudly to uncontrolled devastation of almost all green space. I object to the multiple, massive planned developments with thousands of residents, but with no plan for how to move them to and fro, leaving our arteries choked, stretching our rush hour into an all-day ordeal. I object to the de facto merger of church and state that our conservative national and local office holders seem hell-bent to make happen.

Yes, the future is almost here. We still have time to change it… Maybe…

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So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.  – Peter Drucker

Once upon a time I discovered a wonderful writer. A wonderful writer who had a blog. A wonderful blog that made me think, expanded my horizon, stretched my intellectual existence like few others had. Day after day I absorbed her works in awe. Then as suddenly as I had found her, she was gone. The frequency of my forays into her space dwindled along with my hopes that she would return. Others also lamented her disappearance. Then she teased us a bit, peaking our interest, leaving us with hopeful expectations. Then poof, seemingly gone again.

During my stumbling around in the darkness cast by her absence, I went Downunder to see what Johnno was up to and found that Yule Heibel has returned with a vengance. Not a blog, not just two blogs, but two blogs and a wiki.

Here is the closing sentence in her current post (a great read… do it!)…

Technology is my virtual exoskeleton, and the soul of the new machine is us.

Welcome back Yule…

This woman can paint some words! Check her out…

Driving home a few nights ago I threw a belt. Not just any old belt, but THE main serpentine belt that shares the rotation of the engine crankshaft with all the little gadgets we take for granted -  alternator to supply the spark to the plugs and keep the battery charged and run the radio and lights, air conditioner without which we would all have died this summer, power steering and various pumps and other techno-gadgets that make our lives so comfy and safe while we line the Arabs pockets with $3.00/gallon petrol.

Due to a fortuitous alignment of the stars and planets, I made it home safely. But being evening, there was nothing to do but leave it in position to be towed the following morning. It (I do not name my vehicles like some do) was due for a 60,000 mile checkup anyway, so I tried to channel my wrath and rationalize this as a good thing. Did not totally succeed…

Come morning I called the local shop that was to house my wagon for a couple of days. I agreed with their advice to not try driving it to them but to have it towed. Therein lies the real crux of this story…

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Q: What was the Lone Ranger’s mask made of?

No, no, Elisson, it was not the collected, dried, and dyed foreskins of Tonto’s tribal enemies. In all my years of watching the Lone Ranger at Saturday movie matinees, I do not remember ever hearing about this. Of course, there are a lot of things I don’t remember about my childhood years. After all, it has been what… at least 15 or 20 years ago…

A: The mask was fashioned of fabric from the vest worn by Capt. Dan Reid, his slain brother.

Thanks to my trusty Page-A-Day Calendar, Trivia Edition, for this invigorating and essential information. For additional poop on Clayton Moore, who was the Lone Ranger to millions of us, check here. For the terminally curious, Jay Silverheels played the Tonto that most of us remember.

Being a teacher, JohnB. of Blog Meridian is probably accustomed to students missing deadlines, assignments being late, etc.  I’m sure he also knows how to apply appropriate disciplinary measures to those laggards who fail to understand his grand plan. I now humbly submit my assignment handed out by Mr. JohnB. on Sunday, August 13, over a week ago. Yes I am a laggard, and yes, I will accept my punishment like a man. I will not cry … for long.

The assignment was actually a tag to participate in a meme about boobs books. So here goes…

1. One book that changed my life: There have been several that met that challenge, but the one that rises above the rest is Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Yes, it was a lightning bolt moment for me, and no, I’m not going to discuss it here… I live it every day.

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On several occasions I have written about my insanity resulting from songs that play and replay ad infinitum in my head. You know the feeling … your head is going to explode on the 736th iteration … all efforts to divert your attention and shift your thinking have failed…

Now comes news from Richard Lawrence Cohen that this annoying and distracting phenomenon actually has a name … earworms. Eeeuuuwwwww… Not a very pleasant thought! Then again, it becomes quite an unpleasant experience when you’re entering your third day of continuously looping American Pie.

This probably happens to me about once every couple of months and lingers for a couple of days. The song may be anything - current pop, 80s country, an old hymn sung by my grandma as she busied herself with household chores, the melody from a Vivaldi classic. I usually have no idea what the trigger point was, or what dark corner this particular song was crouched in, waiting for me to show a vulnerability, a moment of distraction, allowing an opening for it to crawl into my head and become an … earworm …

Some songs revisit from time-to-time, while others once gone, have never returned. No log has been kept, but I remember the most frequent visitors as Rainbow Connection (sung by Kermit, hisownself), Old Rugged Cross (gotta be Grandma), Don McLean’s American Pie, Jim Croce’s Bad Bad Leroy Brown, anything from the Beach Boys, and Marilyn Monroe crooning Happy Birthday Mr. President to JFK. With this little bit of information, an analytical advocate of abnormal psychology can most likely write my one-way ticket to the state home for the terminally baffled.

What are your experiences with earworms? What song or songs do you most often hear? Share your tricks for finally ridding yourself of an occurrence and returning to your own edition of reality.

(… and he ambled on down the street, singing screaming far too loudly and with no sense of melody, ” … drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry…”)

The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. — Mark Twain

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you. — Oscar Wilde

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. — John Keats

All great truths begin as blasphemies. — George Bernard Shaw

Time magazine has an excellent article on the current state of stem cell research in the August 7, 2006, issue. The article entitled Stem Cells: The Hope and The Hype by Nancy Gibbs, with reporting by Alice Park/New York and Dan Cray/Los Angeles, is available online. The entire article is most informative and is anchored by statements such as:

When it comes to such an impossibly complicated matter as stem cells, the best role for legislators and Presidents may be neither to steer the science nor to stall it but to stand aside and let it breathe.

Whatever your political or scientific views of this controversial issue, this article will most likely deliver a morsel you did not know.

My own view is not important, but I strongly support accelerated funding for public and private funded stem cell research. Yes, there need to be controls and checks and balances. We have the technology to begin to develop not only cures, but preventive measures for many of the horrible ravages that plague humankind. To not try is a crime against humanity. For those who profess to believe in sin and eternal damnation, blocking such research and development is a one way ticket to their own personal hell. That bus is already heavily loaded and is being driven by one G.W. Bush.

Before the echoes of the sabre rattling have died down over Big Brother Microsoft jumping into the anti-virus business with their Windows Live OneCare, comes this little announcement that will probably go unnoticed by the populace as a whole:

MICROSOFT BLOG TOOL ENTERS BETA
Windows Live Writer has the feel of a word processing program

By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
August 14, 2006

Both of these links are worthwhile reads, but all bloggers are urged to devour the InfoWorld article on Microsoft’s blog tool, dubbed Live Writer. Then go hide in a dark corner and think… and become afraid… very afraid. Close your eyes and envision a future in which all blogs are done through Microsoft’s BillyBlog service on their “pay-per-post” plan. All posts and all comments will become the property of Microsoft to do with as they please, including suing my ass for making these comments.

In fairness, I’ll reserve final judgement until I see the product. Many of us could use a good WYSIWYG editor for our blog bubblings, especially one that also spoke a bit of HTML, CSS, and such. My greatest fear is that this new editor from Billy G and the Redmond Banditos will be just good enough to make me want to use it…

Our friend Yaakov Kirschen through his Dry Bones Blog in Israel has once again distilled a drop of pure truth from the morass of mis-information in which we are drowning. Visit Dry Bones for a daily dose…

(Thanks to Bonnie Aycock for sending along these obviously bogus Windows error messages.)

In my recent post about comics that had a profound effect on the face of American comedy … and on me … I mentioned Newhart, Berman, and Carlin. That was by no means an exhaustive list, and indeed, some of you mentioned others in your comments. One that did not come up, but one that helped to paint the bawdy face on modern comedy, carrying on the edge-cutting tradition of Moms Mabley, is the inimitable Rusty Warren, full-bodied and with knockers up. For those not familiar with Rusty, that phrase, knockers up, became her signature line, along with her theme song, Bounce Your Boobies.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Ms. Warren is still knockin’ ‘em down with her knockers up, though she is apparently a bit tamer, or maybe we’re just more open and accepting. She calls herself Formerly Controversial … Now Classic. Rusty now lives in Hawaii so she doesn’t have to shovel snow, makes public appearances, and entertains audiences. Knockers up!