Under the Oak

I have a special place in my heart for the nation and people of Jamaica. I have friends, brothers, and sisters down there. Pray for them. Things are going to be rough.

Police and soldiers were deployed at what the government called “strategic” locations across the Caribbean island to quell any violent protests.

Political parties in Jamaica are little more than gangs. As you drive around (away from the tourist areas) you can clearly see the spray painted territories of the main political parties. With the rise of more traditionally criminal gangs as well (e.g., Stonecrushers in St. James), this economic situation could blow up into something very bad very fast.

Meanwhile, the French who know a thing or two about bloodletting, are said to be on the brink as well. I’d heard an NPR report within the last week or so that talked about how high school students in France pretty much run the schools and stage lockdowns whenever they feel like making a political point. Now, it seems that the power company workers want a raise and are willing to risk starting a revolution to get it.

“The Government is losing control,” he said. “So now is the moment to push back the capitalist logic which has crept into the company.”

Heaven forbid some capitalism should creep in.

“There is a risk of revolution,” Dominique de Villepin, the former prime minister, said.

Of course, it is yet to be determined who the two sides will surrender to in a civil war.

And here is an interesting technique. Wouldn’t you all like to hold your boss hostage until he promised you a raise?

“Bossnapping” has become a popular technique in French labour disputes. Striking workers take their bosses hostage until they agree to demands

As messed up as our country is, I think we’ve still got a few years without a serious threat of revolution. I can’t say the same for many other countries.

President Obama is alleged to spend time reading 10 letters from ‘ordinary people’ each morning, and sometimes writes a couples sentences back!. Shocking!

I know. I know. Presidents can’t read all the mail. Ten letters is probably pretty good for someone who is so busy ‘changing’ the foundation of our country every day. I suppose it is the article itself that irks me. I seriously doubt that O’Donnel, who uses words for a living as I do, accidentally implies that Barack Obama is something other than an ‘ordinary person’. I couldn’t help but chuckle at this short paragraph:

He enclosed a photo of his dad. It was returned in a sealed plastic bag with Obama’s reply, he said.

This mentality is part of the reason I don’t believe that Communism is where we are headed after our pitstop at Socialism. In Communism, there is at least the vocabulary of equality (Comrade Obama doesn’t have near the ring that Mr. President does). Fascism is more likely.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would weep.

Of course, the first thing I see after reading that sickening article is another in which we are informed that the elites wish to have the federal government ‘rescue’ a failing industry – the newspaper industry.

You’ve got to hate it when something unexpected happens and people get hurt, but every now and then the story that goes along with it is just too funny to pass up. Such is the case with a couple in Naperville, AZ who were pulling out of the parking lot when *wham* – Ronald McDonald attacked.

Seems that it was a bit of a breezy day and a certain sign forgot its place in all the excitement. The SUV in which the couple were making their escape was crushed and both occupants injured. The man suffered head trauma and the woman is in ICU at a hospital in Pheonix (both senior citizens).

Daughter-in-law Ann Janke is none too pleased with the incident:

“How could that sign not be properly secured? That’s what I want to know,” she said. “I’m mad. You don’t think you park under a sign . . . and giant golden arches are going to come smashing down on you.”

A good question, Captain Obvious. If the wind there is anything like Clovis, NM, where I lived for 2.5 years, then the sign would need to be able to handle persistent winds much higher than what the story said was blowing.

As for the company, well…they’re not sure what happened.

Talker also said, “Without having all the facts, it would be inappropriate to speculate on what may have happened.”

Uh…I’ll just inappropriately hazard this speculation: Your giant sign boasting about how many gazillion calories you’ve dished out to five year olds over the last 50 years attacked some old people in a car leaving the parking lot.

Someone’s grandma is gonna be loaded if she can ever get out of the hospital and over to the lawyer’s office.

The moral of the story, of course, is that once you’re in, you ain’t getting out. Or perhaps ol’ Ronald McDonald is going to get you under the arches one way or the other, so you’d better come on in peaceful like and stay there until you’ve had a McFlurry.

My plan when I launched this site was to have lots (daily?) posts touching on all sorts of topics – serious or not-so-serious. So far, it has been little more than pointing you to a news story here or there. In general, I have more time to post stuff at the beginning of the week (for obvious reasons).

This past week in particular has been somewhat rough not because I’ve been especially busy, but rather because my mattress hates me and I’ve been in a semi-comatose state and incapable of any kind of critical thinking or creative writing exercise. On the other hand, I suppose my posts would be a lot more entertaining if I were to make all of them without having slept any. The mattress culprit is an old full sized mattress that was given to me by some of the members out in Clovis, NM where I was before I came here to Mobile. I’ve been a bit rough on it, I suppose, but that is no excuse for torturing me with bad springs in all the wrong places. I’m pretty sure the egg crate mattress pad is an accomplice. 

Another reason I haven’t posted in this past week is that I’ve gotten caught up in reading Herodotus. I know, I know…my nerd rating just shot through the roof, but I’ve always loved reading history and I’d bought The Histories a year or two ago when I was on my “buy as many classical works as possible” kick. I’d just finished reading the Ender Series by Orson Scott Card and books aren’t in the budget for this month, so I figured I’d pick something off the shelf to read. I expected Herodotus to be dry and very difficult to read (non-English classics tend to be translated by strange people from academia who have limited contact with contemporary English); I was wrong. I’ve been thoroughly entertained so far. Any book that starts off by carefully noting how the ancient equivalent of a World War was sparked by a dispute over who stole whose women first is my kinda book. I’m also intrigued by the various oracles that are given from Delphi and the struggles of kings and cities to understand what they mean. How convenient that few of the oracles are understood until after the event in question.

And how blessed we are that Yahweh didn’t speak to us in gibberish and nonsensical riddles.

John Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, offers some insight into the kind of things being contemplated in the shadowy corners or our nation’s home office (bearing in mind that this is the politics-free branch of the West Wing).

“We’re talking about all these issues in the White House,” Holdren said. “There’s a very vigorous process going on of discussing all the options for addressing the energy climate challenge.”

Oh boy. Here we go. The Cult of Green strikes again, right? Oh, it gets better. You see  the “these issues” that he refers to are the questions that…you know…kinda crop up surrounding the use of climate altering technology to drastically cool the earth.

The concept of using technology to purposely cool the climate is called geoengineering. One option raised by Holdren and proposed by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.

That’s right. We are going to tax farmers for cow farts and when that doesn’t work, we’ll…shoot pollution particles into the upper atmosphere? I’ve obviously missed some important bit of information between “burping worms are destroying the atmosphere” and “well what if we do this stuff…like…on purpose?”.

I suppose we can expect to see a lot of crazy stuff from folks like this, right? I mean sure, it sounds totally idiotic and counter-intuitive, but its the White House! These people are smart, politics-free, totally unbiased scientists, right? How could they be wrong?! And besides, even if they are, what harm could possibly come out of it?

But he said there could be grave side effects. Studies suggest that might include eating away a large chunk of the ozone layer above the poles and causing the Mediterranean and the Mideast to be much drier.

Or, if you will allow me to paraphrase the wording of the stuffy news guy on NPR this morning: “However, Holden did say that there could be permanent, predictable side effects including massive holes in the ozone layer and drastic global cooling.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t actually fear that these nuts are going to blast a hole in the ozone (what incredible arrogance it must take to make these predictions about the effect of human actions). What I do fear, however, is that the people advising the most powerful man in the world are totally insane. Combine that with the unavoidable impression since he took office that Obama hasn’t the foggiest idea what he is doing and is relying heavily on advisors like Holdren, and your initial chuckle upon hearing about a mad scientist in the White House will transform itself into a knot in your stomach as it did for me this morning as I lay in bed listening to the news.

How long before the Cult of Green gets really panicky and decides to start pushing for interplanetary colonization as a means to escape the warming monster? Before the end of the Obama administration is my guess.