Notes From A (Social) Distance

The Continuing Crisis

It's been seven months since the first quarantines were imposed for COVID-19, and not only have things gotten worse, the Orange Alert in the White House has done little about it.  In fact, he has lied about how bad the virus really is, calling it a hoax;  withheld supplies and funding from hard-hit states, saying (erroneously) that it wasn't the federal government's job to buy them protective equipment and ventilators;  ignored his medical experts and pooh-poohed their conclusions;  advised the use of dangerous drugs and home remedies as treatment for COVID;  and finally, as late as this month, responded to a question about the high death toll (165,000) as of this writing) by saying,  "It is what it is."  How this man has remained in office for four years mystifies me more than ever.

Meanwhile, people are out of work and running out of money, whether they had any savings or not.  Many are behind on bills and on the brink of eviction, and with unemployment at record highs - we haven't seen it this bad since the Great Depression - it doesn't look like things will get better very soon.

And still, Congress is dragging its feet on whether to pass a new help package, because - no surprise - the GOP believes that giving poor unemployed people more money will make them lazy and unwilling to work once things do improve.

But they were perfectly willing to bail out the airline and cruise industries, to the tune of billions of dollars;  and of course the military budget is as bloated as ever...but poor people?  Why, they should stop being such layabouts and take responsibility for themselves!

Needless to say, all this sucks.  But we Americans are tough, and the fact that so many of us are pulling together on our own to try to improve our lot gives me real hope for the future....

Who Is That Masked Person?...Why, It's All Of Us!

Since it's very hard to get a COVID test unless you're suspected of having it, one of the easiest ways to keep from inadvertently spreading the virus to others is to wear a mask.  It doesn't even have to be a surgical one;  so long as it's three layers of cloth, it will keep your possibly pathogenic emissions to yourself.

Which is why many businesses, along with all doctor's and dentist's offices, have begun requiring that you wear one while you are inside.

Recently, my county, lacking science-based leadership from our state's Republican governor, set up its own mask mandate.  County-wide, you were required to wear a mask inside any restaurant, store, or medical facility.  At first, it was only for a month...but when our curve flattened by half, they extended the mandate for another month.

Mind you, this met with resistance from the Trumpster crowd, as well as the cranky people who swear up and down that it's all media hype. 

The masks are too hot, they say, or hard to breathe through, or it's a pain to carry one everywhere...excuses abound.  And yes, all these things are true.  But doing the right thing even when it's hard and inconvenient is part of being an adult!  And when it's something that will help your whole community, refusing to take this simple precaution is downright criminal.  (One of these alt-right wags at my workplace joked that he shouldn't have to wear a mask because he was diagnosed with CS...and don't ask what it is, because medical conditions are personal!  The initials turned out to mean "Common Sense."  Sorry, no:  common sense is when you listen to the scientists and doctors and then do what they tell you.)

One of our neighboring counties decided to follow our example.  Unfortunately, their population is even more cranky than ours:  they're actually suing the county health department for "infringement of rights."  I don't know about anyone else, but it seems to me that another person's "rights" end where my health and safety begin.  I mean, it's against the law to urinate or defecate in a public place.  Why?  Because human waste is a health hazard to other humans!  And why take the chance when there are public toilets you can use?  Same with masks--most places will give you a disposable one for free if you don't have one or left yours on the kitchen counter at home!

So c'mon, folks...wear the mask.  Either that, or call ahead and get your groceries, fast-food meal, or hardware brought out to your car.  Which brings us to....

The Curbside Culture

Businesses have been remarkably adaptive during this unhappy time;  one of the ways they've coped with COVID has been to offer curbside service.  This has been done with restaurant food, groceries, veterinary supplies, clothing, and even hardware!  Our store offers this option, particularly to elderly folks who need stuff but don't feel comfortable going among other people (masked or not).  Under special circumstances, we'll even deliver.  In fact, we've stayed open through the entire quarantine period, since farmers still have to feed their livestock, plumbers still have to patch up leaky pipes, and electricians still have to rewire stuff.  One happy result of our dedication is that more people have discovered that we're a pretty damn good local business, and so we've had the opportunity to actually expand our reach beyond our normal clientele!

Another local business, a small restaurant run by a friend of mine, had to close during quarantine...but she knuckled down and made arrangements with the city government to designate a couple of her front parking spaces as "pick-up" points, since her place didn't have its own parking lot.  Having done that, she was able to offer not only curbside service, but also actual delivery to homes, although she had to charge a rather high fee for the latter service.  Her loyal customers, however, paid gladly, and when the curbside business grew faster than the deliveries, they were okay with curbside only (delivery could still be arranged if the customer was in self-quarantine).

In some cases, curbside pickup has become so popular that I won't be at all surprised if it continues long after we're all vaccinated and herd-immune, because it's so convenient!

Wash.  Your.  Hands!!!

Here's a little secret:

Janitors know what you do in the bathroom...and what you don't do.

Especially when a restroom has power-flush toilets and auto-dispensers for paper towels.

So if you go into the restroom, and after a few silent minutes you come out again,  we know that you a) did not flush the toilet and b) didn't wash your hands...all because of the sounds you didn't make!  And lest you think that's creepy, be aware that those power-flushes and dispenser motors are pretty loud;  I can hear ours from a couple of aisles away.  If I'm in the area and fail to hear the important sounds of flushing, water running, and towels dispensing, I will drop whatever I was doing, grab my cleaning supplies, and give that restroom a thorough going-over once the customer has left...whether I was just in there five minutes ago or the next cleaning round is due.

Why?  Because unflushed toilets and unwashed hands are also carriers of COVID!

(Flushing a toilet with the lid up also spreads the virus, BTW...we already knew that particulates fly upward into the air every time a toilet is flushed.  That doesn't mean you shouldn't flush--just close the lid first.) 

For some weird reason, pandemic or no pandemic, there is a large segment of our population who feel they don't need to wash their hands, or that all they need do is wet their hands briefly and shake-dry them.  

But make no mistake:  if you have been using the toilet for any reason, you need to wash your hands.  With soap.  Scrubbing thoroughly for 20 seconds.  Drying hands completely before leaving the room, and do feel free to use the towel to grab the door handle.  Because even without COVID, your unwashed hands can spread disease to whatever--and whomever--you touch!  Even if it didn't, the idea of shaking your hand after you've spent a hot minute holding on to a part of your anatomy that normally gets all hot and sweaty under your clothes...ew.  Seriously, dude...if you took off your shoes and rubbed your feet, then tried to shake my hand, I'd feel exactly the same way.  And ladies...you just spent a hot minute wiping that region.  So for heaven's sake, everybody...wash your hands before leaving the restroom!

Keeping Our Distance...

The third point of the COVID-prevention triangle is commonly called social distancing.  This means that you keep six feet apart from other people whenever possible, in order to reduce the possibility of either unknowingly spreading the virus or of catching it from someone else (since it's mainly spread by airborne particles).

It's astonishing how fast the "six feet apart" rule has become the new normal;  stores have marks on the floor in their check-out lanes to help you comply, and for the most part (except for the Trumpy Grumpies) everyone does.  Even on my town's narrow sidewalks, people veer to either side to pass each other--it's like a choreographed dance move!

Churches--at least mine--have also instituted social distancing and limited occupancy in the sanctuary, as well as requiring masks.  When the weather cooperates, we hold services outside, under a big tree;  you bring your own lawn chair or blanket and sit six feet apart.  Whenever there's Communion, the distributors are masked and gloved, and for the first time ever, we're using those disposable plastic individual cups rather than the heavy glass ones.

This is a Lutheran church, mind you--if you ask how many Lutherans it takes to change a light bulb, the answer is,  "None, because Lutherans never change!"  To which I would add that to a Lutheran, the only proper definition of the word "change" is a noun that describes the loose coinage she might find in her car's cup holders.  But we're not stupid;  we respect the medical field, and if taking these measures is the only way we can offer Word and Sacrament safely to our people, we'll do it.  (We're sure God approves.)

Now that the restaurants have reopened, owners and managers have had to compensate for social distancing by spreading out their seating, limiting the number of customers who can be inside, or both.  Some places have taken a cue from medical facilities by taking your temperature with one of those head-zapping thermometers before you're allowed to enter.  All to try to keep us a little safer while still allowing us to have a good time.

Social distancing has even made it into country music;  a guy named Luke Combs wrote a song called "Six Feet Apart" about how we're living through the pandemic, and as far as I can tell, he's not being sarcastic or mean--just looking forward to the day when we can just hug each other, squeeze an entire family into one corner booth, and play in front of real crowds (and be part of those crowds).

Speed that day, Luke.  From your mouth to God's ears....

They're People, Not Statistics!

People have said some dumb things to me during this outbreak.  I've already repeated a few of them.  But the all-time dumbest, most heartless thing anyone's ever said about COVID was,  "The virus is no big deal;  it's got a 99.4% survival rate."

Now, follow me here.  When experts throw out this number, they do not mean that each person has a 99.4% chance of surviving the virus;  that percentage refers to the population.  In other words, 99.4% of the people infected with COVID will survive.

That does sound good...but if the entire population of the USA catches the virus--331 million and change by 2020 UN estimates--that 0.6% who die amounts to...yikes.  How about 1,986,000 dead?  That's a lot.  That's the population of my town times 85,000.  It's roughly the combined populations of San Diego and Sacramento.  It would clear out both the Dakotas like pathogenic Round-Up, with enough left to pretty much decimate Wyoming!

But let's be real.  These are people.  They're mothers and fathers, children and grandchildren, friends and neighbors, spouses and partners.  Those who die will be teachers, engineers, cashiers, doctors, nurses, cooks, fire fighters, EMTs..."the people in your neighborhood," as that happy little Sesame Street song goes.  Those people, and many others like them, will go away and never return, if COVID is allowed to run amok as it has up to now.

Wake Up!

It is time to use whatever medium of communication best suits you to contact your lawmakers--local, state, and federal--and tell them to get back to those legislative chambers and start solving this mess.  You might have different ideas about what to do, or how to do it...but doing nothing will help no one at all.  I think the pathway is pretty clear:  mass testing and contact tracing, funding for vaccine research (with a guarantee of free distribution to the public--the virus won't go away if we're not all vaccinated), monetary relief for families hit hardest by shutdowns and lost employment, and relief for small businesses (not big corporations and super-wealthy individuals).

Like I said, you might not agree.  Still, we have to talk about it, and then take action.

But we'd better do it fast...before we lose the Dakotas.

Dismantling Straw Men

Falsehood flies, and truth limps along after. - Jonathan Swift

This just in...or is that flushed?

One of my more conservative coworkers left the following printout on an adjoining table for any passerby to read:

"I never cared if you were 'gay' until you started shoving it down my throat.

I never cared what color you were, until you started blaming my race for your problems.

I never cared about your political affiliation until you started to condemn me for mine.

I never cared where you were born in the USA until you wanted to erase my history and blamed my                     ancestors for your problems.

I never cared if you were well-off or poor until you said you were discriminated against when I was                     promoted because I worked hard.

I never cared if your beliefs were different from mine, until you said my beliefs were wrong.

Now, I care.  My patience and tolerance are almost gone.  I am not alone in feeling this way.  There are millions who do...

AND WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH."

Nota bene (please note)...

It's pretty obvious that the original author of this screed is:  a Republican, probably of the substrain conservatis norquisti;  either a white Southerner or at least a sympathizer;  a very conservative Protestant Christian, perhaps Southern Baptist;  and...clueless.

I say "clueless" because every single line of this post after the word "until" is a "straw man"--an extreme distortion of a position taken by another person.  This distortion is then misrepresented as the normal argument.  It's a mutation, in fact, and the straw men in the above document would be ridiculed if they were read by people who really know about the issues named.

But this is the Internet, remember?  Anything and everything can be put out there like so much raw sewage;  and chances are, it will gain not only serious attention, but unquestioning belief.

So here I stand, sword in hand, to take arms against these straw men and reduce them, line by line, to cattle fodder...

I never cared if you were 'gay' until you started shoving it down my throat.

I actually have several dogs in this fight, in the form of friends and a relative who are either homosexual or trans-gendered.  Some might think that disqualifies me from even speaking to this issue, but I think it gives me a better perspective on what "non-cis" folks might actually want.

In a nutshell, they just want to be treated like any other member of society.

When the writer refers to gay people "shoving it down [his] throat", does he refer to their desire to be married?  Or the desire to adopt children as couples?  How about not having to hide their sexual orientation in order to get a job or a home, or to serve in the military?  These have all been uphill battles for the LGBTQ community for a very long time now, and whatever your religion, the law of this land should not allow any law-abiding non-cis to be treated like a second-class citizen.

Maybe what upsets the writer is that the non-cis community is being represented more favorably in the entertainment industry, with more non-cis people and couples having larger roles and even being able to express their love on-screen.  If this is so, well--look at how much hetero smooching, necking, and home-run sex are all over the airwaves and movie screens!  If non-cis people are normal, and they live among us, why should they hide how much they love their wife, husband, or partner?  And if a TV show or movie is trying to show "real life," it must also show that kind of "real life" as well.  If not, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander:  we should just go back to the days of the Hayes Code, when even hetero marrieds were not allowed to lie in the same double bed and the word "pregnant" was never said out loud.

Of course, it might be that the writer had to detour around the route of his city's annual Gay Pride Parade, and he's just angry because it made him late for work.  If that's the case, I have no rebuttal.

I never cared what color you were, until you started blaming my race for your problems.

News flash:  White people are being blamed for the problems of African-Americans...because we caused those problems!

It wasn't Africans who brought other Africans over the ocean to be slaves to white people.  That started with the Dutch, and the fad spread to the English and Spanish.  As it says in the book of Hosea,  "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."  In other words, the evil done at first will create far greater evil down the road.

One of the greater evils was the erroneous idea that dark skin was a sign of inferiority, or even of subhumanity, so it was okay to enslave them.  Certain Protestant denominations even put a Divine imprimatur on the keeping of African slaves by misinterpreting the Bible story of Ham looking on his drunken father's nakedness, and his father's subsequent curse on him, to say that at that point Ham turned black!  That made the real curse--that Ham would become a servant to his brothers--an easy justification for the enslaving of black people.  And of course, there was a lot of the "slaves, obey your masters" Bible verses used to cow the slaves  (though the slaves never got to hear what followed, which was an exhortation to masters to treat their slaves well and not threaten them, since the slaveowner has the same Master in Heaven as the slave does, and He (Christ) does not show favoritism).

The end of the Civil War, and the passage of Amendments 13 (freeing the black slaves), 14 (granting them citizenship), and 15 (granting them the right to vote), ought to have made things better for black people;  however, a lot of sneaky white people engaged in some nasty double-dealing to prevent blacks from moving up in society.  Black people might be free citizens, but they should remain segregated from white people (Plessy v. Ferguson - also known as the "separate but equal" decision as regarded schools).  Sure, they can vote...but they have to pay a poll tax or pass a literacy test in order to do so.  And then there was the Ku Klux Klan, which terrorized any "ornery" blacks and sympathetic whites living in their areas by burning crosses on lawns and beating or killing anyone who didn't "keep their place."  

Change to these practices came slowly;  the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned Plessy by saying that "separate" schools were "unequal" by definition, met with so much opposition that some black children attempting to go to a white school had to be escorted there by members of the military, and Alabama governor George Wallace tried to block the doors to a university to keep black students from enrolling!

Unfortunately, the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960's have not improved things much in the long run.  That's because if people really want to treat others badly, a law will not keep them from doing it.  It takes vigilance from all people of good will to both prevent the evildoers from triumphing, and also to remedy the evils already done.

Which brings us to recent days, in particular the George Floyd case and the subsequent demonstrations.

The way Floyd died was horrible.  Getting your neck knelt on, with your hands cuffed behind your back?  For trying to pass a phony twenty?!  I saw the video--the one with the narrator exhorting the kneeling officer to let Floyd have some air, that he was bleeding--and it made me sick.  Here it was, right on camera:  police brutality.  How was anyone surprised that the video went viral all over the world, rousing allies from every corner of the globe?

And why was anyone surprised that both people of color and allies took to the streets with signs that commemorated not only George Floyd, but also many other black people who have suffered and died at the hands of white officers?

"Oh, but they're committing vandalism and looting, and anyway Floyd was a criminal."  If you look at the vids of people protesting, you see more violence from the responding police units than you do from the protesters themselves.  If there is vandalism and looting, why aren't the cops trying to stop the crime, rather than stop the entire protest?  As for Floyd's criminal record...passing funny money is not a capital crime.  (In fact, in my town it would hardly be a police matter, because we would use an authentication marker, know it for a bad twenty, tell the person it's counterfeit and they can't use it, and keep the bad bill to give to the cops.  It's easy to end up with a counterfeit bill in your wallet and not know it, especially if you do any work where you get paid in cash--a phony can change hands several times among people before it ever ends up at a bank or store.)  

The marchers are right:  there must be changes in the way policing is done.  Until that happens, may God give strength to the peaceful protesters.

Here is a link to a story that I originally read in the Kansas City Star.  The particulars (which happened in 2007) still horrify me to this day;  I never found out whether Sofia Salva won her lawsuit, but I hope she did:

https://www.kltv.com/story/6028665/officers-suspended-in-case-of-woman-who-miscarried/

I never cared about your political affiliation until you started to condemn me for mine.

This statement made me blink, because as the old Billy Joel song goes,  "We didn't start the fire."

Once there was a man named Newt Gingrich, a Republican who was so famous for his meanness that his political action committee, GOPAC, produced a memo full of juicy "negative" words that you could use to describe your Democratic opponents, and lovely "positive" words to use to describe yourself.  It wasn't the first time a Republican politician had ever been mean to his opponents, but it has to mark the beginning of the present group meanness of the GOP.

Molly Ivins, whom I truly miss, had a few words to say about Newt:

https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/1998/11-12/0028_molly_ivins__the_passing_of_a_sic.html

Democrats, by comparison, will at least put lipstick on their insults;  we tell you how awful your policies are, but we generally don't insult your husband or kids in doing so...

Ooooh, I get it.  This writer is a Trump supporter, and he's upset because we don't like Trump...who, by the way, is meaner, less informed, and more inept at governing than Newt will ever be!  We see that with every tweet, every call to "Fox and Friends," and every live interview.

So, okay, fair enough:  I am condemning your politics.  But maybe you should step back and take a good look at who you're following before you get mad.

I never cared where you were born in the USA until you wanted to erase my history and blamed my  ancestors for your problems.

It took me a few minutes to parse out exactly what was being referenced here, but I finally got it:  "Those dratted Northern Aggressors are trying to say the Confederacy didn't fight courageously for their beliefs, and all the smart, brave generals who led them don't deserve to have their sainted memories honored with statues, and now we can't even use the Stars and Bars as part of our state flags!

"And who cares if they owned slaves?  It's not like the present generation of blacks are affected by it!"

 Okay, I'm being a bit harsh.  But all the claptrap about "states' rights" and "most southerners didn't even own slaves" and "but it's history!"  ignores two very important facts:  

1) The secession documents all declare their reason for leaving as Northern opposition to slavery.  It was also stated as such by the Confederate Vice President, and the right to own slaves was even written into the Confederate Constitution!

 

2) The South lost.  Losers don't get to honor generals with statues, or use an old rebel battle flag as a quartering in a state flag.  The fact that it has been done does not make it the right thing.

As to whether past slaveowners can be blamed for present problems in black communities, see above, under the complaint about white people getting blamed for black problems.

I never cared if you were well-off or poor until you said you were discriminated against when I was  promoted because I worked hard.

Jim Hightower had a funny quip about wealthy and/or privileged people who insisted they had worked hard for everything they had:  "Born on third and thinks he hit a triple."

I'm not saying this guy didn't work hard for what he received;  but saying that there is no discrimination in America's workplaces reveals real ignorance.

Women, for example, are paid about 83 cents for every dollar earned by men, in all trades.  This is white women, mind you;  women of color do even worse, while Asian women do slightly better.  But the gap is still there.

There are all kinds of excuses for this.  It's said that women don't work as many hours as men, or they choose jobs that pay less, or they do most of the care-giving at home, so of course they don't get as much!

Bullshit.

If you have a two-parent household, and both parents work, why shouldn't both parents be responsible for keeping the house, cooking, and child care?  Indeed, many modern families do just that...but that pay gap will still exist, because the woman's workplace will assume that she's the main care-giver at home and will give her fewer hours, or pass her over for a promotion because they think she won't be able to put in the time, and what if she gets pregnant?

This prejudice is magnified if the woman is raising the children alone, because if a child gets sick and can't go to school or child care, she will have to miss work to be with him.  Not only does she lose pay, but also credibility - she is considered undependable because she's choosing her child over her job.  But she can't go on welfare for more than five years, so she has to work, so she just has to take what pay the job will give her and pray they don't fire her for being absent or late too often.

Then there are the so-called "pink collar" jobs - teaching, nursing, secretarial.  These are all low-prestige, low-wage jobs, and it's just too bad that so many women choose to do that as a career, but sorry, they aren't worth that much...

And again, I call bullshit.

After many American factories upped stakes and headed for China and India and Bangladesh, many men were left without work.  They began to enter fields like nursing and bartending, which had become female-dominated jobs.  But when the men began doing the jobs, they became more prestigious, and therefore higher-paying.  But women who do those jobs are still paid less, as a rule...and it's nothing but stereotyping.

Oh, and it gets worse when we talk about minorities on the job...

A number of studies have been done, the first in the early 00's, in which resumes were sent out in response to newspaper ads for job openings.  The resumes were given either a "black" name like Jamal or LaKisha, or a "white" one like Greg or Emily.  Regardless of the quality of the resume itself - which might include school honors and a degree, or only a high-school diploma and a recent return to the work force - the white names tended to get more callbacks.  The original researchers admit that this is as far as they went; there were no face-to-face interviews, so there was no finding on whether a well-educated Jamal would get the job over an average Emily.  But for snap judgments based on perceived race, it doesn't look good for black employability, especially since the same study has been repeated, with in-person applicants thrown in for good measure, and the results are pretty much the same!

So the author might have gotten his promotion because he worked hard...but being named David instead of De'Kwan probably didn't hurt, either.

I never cared if your beliefs were different from mine, until you said my beliefs were wrong.

This country isn't supposed to be a "Christian" country.  It's not supposed to be partial to any religion.  Yet there are still lots of Christians in the USA who think that if there are more Muslims or Hindus or even neo-pagans in the neighborhood, the country will fall to pieces.  I believe that's because they've never actually talked to anyone who follows these religions.

Well, I have.  And I can say with the authority of experience that the only religion I've ever encountered that habitually tells people of other faiths that their beliefs are wrong...is Christianity.  None of the Muslims I know have ever tried to convert me to Islam, or even expected me to live the way they do;  ditto for Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, or any others.  But Christians do it all the time, most often to other Christians!

So, sir or ma'am, if someone's telling you your beliefs are wrong...ignore your critics.  Faith is personal, and unprovable.

Just don't ignore facts in order to support your beliefs.  That's just crazy.

Now, I care.  My patience and tolerance are almost gone.  I am not alone in feeling this way.  There are millions who do...

AND WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH.

Okay, I get it.  You're pissed off because of all the things you wrote above, which are apparently piling up and appearing every time you turn on the news or go outside.

But you might consider how it feels:

...to get made fun of when you're a gay or trans-gendered teen;

...to be the grieving black mother of a son killed by a trigger-happy cop;

...to be a Democrat who gets called "traitor" or "un-American" by the other party;

...to get yelled at for wanting the battle flag of a failed rebellion taken down;

...to be a woman or minority who can't even get a job at the same pay scale as you;

...or to be a Muslim in a country that thinks your faith makes you a terrorist.

If your patience and tolerance are near depletion, do you really think theirs is in any better shape?

Nerdy Bits: Revelations From A Native Geek

I was nerdy when nerdy wasn't cool...

When I was a kid, the word "nerd" was an insult.  And I heard that insult a lot.

Actually, there were several synonymous epithets that I heard as well:  Teacher's pet.  Brown-noser.  Bookworm.  Geek.  But they all, along with "nerd," meant the same thing--loser.

A nerd was a person that got laughed at, tripped in the hall, tormented, shut out from normal kid society.  If there was more than one nerd in a school, they tended to group together in an anxious cluster--sort of like a herd of cattle just before a severe storm.  And there was always a storm coming, no matter where a nerd went to school.

My, how things change!

With the advent of home computers, the popularity of the Star Wars and Star Trek movies, and the growing importance of a college degree to a person's employability, nerdiness began to lose its stigma.  Movies like Police Academy and Revenge of the Nerds, which depicted how various groups of "losers" use their unique skill sets to prove themselves in a hostile environment, broke down more barriers (the sequel to ROTN even has one of the "hostiles" joining the Lambda frat after a harrowing shared experience).  When Al Gore helped fund the shift of the military Arpanet to the public sector (where it became the Internet), the change had truly come:  anybody could be a nerd...and if you mastered the simple skills required, you would be!

Now, that doesn't mean there weren't still "elite" nerds;  there were, and are.  Those are the ones who can write code from scratch, scrub the malware out of your operating system, and program your DVR so you record "Game of Thrones" instead of the PGA tournament (or vice-versa...thanks to Tiger Woods, golf became cool, too).  But the gaps between them and a garden-variety nerd like me aren't of quality, but of quantity.  It's all in how much know-how you have, and it's surprisingly easy to acquire more knowledge these days, thanks to the Internet!

In short, nerds aren't losers anymore.  They're just people with more knowledge.  And the very words "geek" and "nerd" have become compliments instead of put-downs.

Nerds 2:  The New Batch!

So yeah, it's cool to be a nerd now. 

Which is why I feel totally comfortable sharing some of my own nerdy coolness with you.  So here goes....

1)  The Music Scene

As a nerd in high school, I listened to Rush, Yes, Pink Floyd, and the Moody Blues while everyone else (depending on their clique) was into new wave, heavy metal, and country.  (There wasn't much jazz on any airwaves reachable by me, so I had to wait for college to hear Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis for the first time.)

Oh, I liked some of what was on the average AM stations;  it's just that I preferred stuff with some meat on its bones.  Complex musicianship, interesting lyrics, style mash-ups...give me a group that did one or more of those things, and I was happy.  Groups like that have staying power, as well;  there is a whole new generation of young people who hear Emerson, Lake and Palmer for the first time and wonder why the radio doesn't play bands like that anymore.  Heck, I recently had the unique pleasure of introducing a young piano major to the Beatles' "A Day In The Life."  When the song was over, he said he was sorry it wasn't longer!  And when music hits you like that, you listen to every song you hear afterwards with an ear to finding something that matches that first time.

Yes, you're right.  It is like a drug.  But it's a healthy addiction.

Okay, here comes the nerdy bit:  Just what was it about that music that made me so happy that to this day my best memories of my school days all have a soundtrack from "Fragile" or "The Wall" or "Moving Pictures"?

I think it boils down to one thing:  I wasn't ruled by a peer group.  I had no "flock" of like-feathered birds.  I could count on one hand the number of nerds in my entire school, and not one of them was in my year.  And although I knew them in passing, none of them shared the same interests, with me or with each other.  This absence of peer input on which items were "cool" meant that I could examine everything I saw and heard without bias, and from there choose what I liked, just because I liked it.

It also helped that I came from a diverse musical family--Mom loved country and 50's rock'n'roll, and Dad liked 40's big bands and crooners.  He was also interested in world music--he had tapes of traditional Mexican dance music and Bavarian yodels (no, I am not kidding!), and both my parents played guitar and sang.  Somewhere out there are reel-to-reel tapes of us kids singing Christmas songs and hymns along with my parents' accompaniment.

So with that kind of input, it's no surprise that my taste in music would also be unique and diverse.  

Here is a sample.  Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIFBpn7_uBQ

2)  Art Imitates Dreams...

I saw my first Rene Magritte paintings in one of my grade-school reading books.  It was a "fact" article on Surrealism, and along with Magritte's "Time Transfixed" and "The Castle of the Pyrenees,"  there was also a picture of Salvador Dali's "Persistence of Memory" and Yves Tanguy's "Fear."  Of the three, Magritte had the most profound effect, with his photographic realism mixed with impossible juxtapositions of people, landscapes, and things (such as the floating rock in "Pyrenees").  His light was also friendlier, as a rule;  in a Magritte painting, the sun was usually shining and the sky a cloud-studded blue.  If it was overcast, you could see the clouds.  Dali and Tanguy's paintings, by contrast, had an eerie, grayish-yellow cast, and the horizon was always fading off into darkness.  It looked, in fact, like bad weather moving in.  That lighting, plus the way both painters were always impaling things onto pointy sticks, put me off.  So I became a permanent Magritte fan.

Here is one of my favorite Magrittes.  It's called "The Banquet."  (There are actually several versions of this painting, but I like this one best.)

There has been a kind of resurgence of that branch of Surrealism in the person of Canadian painter Rob Gonsalves, who sadly passed away in 2017.  He was only 58 years old.  His Surrealism involves a lot of things slowly morphing into other things, as well as worlds seen through the eyes of children and small spaces that become huge (room changing to sky) or vice-versa.

Here's a Gonsalves that I like--it's called "Written Worlds."  As a bibliophile, I appreciate his vision!

3)  Movies Off The Beaten Track

The two quintessential nerd movies are Star Wars and Star Trek.  The rivalry between the two has become something of a legend.

Myself, I like both series, but there are many other nerdy films to enjoy.  Here are just a few...

The Lathe of Heaven - I mentioned this one before in my post on Ursula K. Le Guin.  Produced on a shoestring budget for PBS, it still holds up after almost 40 years.  If you can find a DVD of it, lucky you.  Whatever you do, don't mistake it for the 2002 remake, which is higher-budget but unworthy of its title.

WarGames - This is actually another nerd fave because of its depiction of hacker culture.  Much, much later, a Canadian outfit did a sequel, WarGames:  The Dead Code.  Both worth seeing, though I consider Matthew Broderick's performance in the original rather wince-making in places.

The Thirteenth Floor - This one gets compared to The Matrix a lot, but that's mainly because of them being released within months of each other.  Thirteenth is actually much older;  it's based on a story called  "Simulacron 3,"  which was written in the 1970's.  Also, the plots are nothing alike, though they both take place inside computer networks.

The Time Machine - The original George Pal production, mind you.  Some of the most innovative special effects for its time, and that machine is still a beauty.  There was an ep of The Big Bang Theory in which Sheldon and his friends bought that original prop (it gave poor Sheldon nightmares).

Silent Running - This one gets dissed a lot for an explosion supposedly "heard" in space, but when I first saw the film, I considered it more a felt concussion - if you're on a ship, and another part of the ship gets blown up, you'd feel it even if you didn't hear it.  Probably one of the major players in the eco-warning genre - the bio-habitats on the Valley Forge held the last of Earth's flora, which was considered to be unneeded by everyone else.  When the main character dies, leaving the robots to care for all that plant life under artificial sunlight, and the ship to sail out of the solar system, I always hoped that long after the closing credits, humanity would realize that they missed seeing flowers and trees and would go and find the ship.  Of course, knowing what we know now, we realize we can't afford to lose all that plant life...but I digress.

Soylent Green - Too many people, too little food, and we've destroyed the ecosystem to where we're reduced to (spoiler alert!) eating our dead, in the form of protein chips called Soylent Green.  There is also some interesting social commentary on how the wealthy can still get "real" food, but for the most part, the only thing people remember about this movie is Charlton Heston screaming "Soylent Green is made out of people!"

Exam - A thriller that takes place all in one room.  People compete for a job opening by taking an exam.  There are rules they must follow...but when they turn their papers over to begin, the papers are blank!  WTF?!  The entire rest of the movie is about solving the mystery of the exam, plus revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly in each applicant.  There are a lot of red herrings in this film, but be patient;  the payoff is worth it.

Snowpiercer - You could call this a parable of poverty and privilege, set on board a train that circles the entire world once a year, in a permanent winter created by a short-sighted solution to global warming.  The poor people in the back car of the train are planning a revolution to get to the engine and control the train and its resources...but not only are there dark surprises in store, the whole point of running the train may be moot.  The further you move forward in the train, the more wealth and privilege you see;  and the end is something of a cliffhanger.

No, I'm not done, BUT...

There's lots more I could share with you, but I'm afraid this post is getting over-long.  Perhaps I can return to the subject at a later time.  On the other hand, there's more than enough here to get you started in the wacky world of nerd-dom, and from what I've given you, you can find plenty more.

So welcome, young Padawan.  Have fun!

Smokers, Chewers, And Vapers: Here's Why We "Nons" Hate Your Habit

This Really Happened To Me.

I used to work at a fast-food joint where we had a breakfast buffet on weekends.  One Saturday, a lady informed me that she had told another customer to put out his cigarette because she had seen that we didn't allow smoking in our establishment.  But her next comment revealed where her true sympathies lay:  "You won't let us smoke, but your buffet has enough fat to give a heart attack to over 50 people."

Um, Excuse Me, But...

I managed to hold my tongue, since I really did not want to lose my job.  But if I could go back and do it all again, I might have taken the chance, just to be able to say,  "Well, ma'am, that may be so--but people can't get heart disease from the smell of fried food."

Because second-hand smoke can give you cancer.  Which is why in many places, smoking is forbidden inside public buildings, restaurants, and clubs.

This has created something of a backlash.  People refuse to frequent a bar or a restaurant where they can't light up, or they follow the rules but make snarky remarks about "harassment" and "political correctness," or they sneak into the restroom to catch a few puffs, thinking nobody will find out (doesn't work;  that smell is so obvious that everyone passing by knows what's going on).

But mostly, they complain and want to know why they can't smoke anywhere they like.

And as chewing tobacco and e-cigs are growing in popularity, businesses are beginning to forbid those as well--"No Tobacco Use" is a sign I'm seeing more and more, and "No Vaping" or "No E-Cigs" started being added to that list almost as soon as doctors began reporting on vaping deaths.

Of course, the grumbling by users has increased accordingly;  they're the only ones it's hurting, right?  So nobody should be able to tell them they can't chew or vape, right?

Well...yes, we should.  And here's why.

Park Your Butts!

Part of my job is to sweep fallen/windblown debris off our parking lot and access sidewalk.

Guess what I sweep up the most?  Old receipts?  Fast-food wrappers?  Dirty diapers?  (Yep, I get a few of those; people can be such yahoos sometimes...)

Of course not.  By far, I sweep up more cigarette butts than I do any other trash.  And not just the butts;  I also get the cellophane from packets, the foil inner wrappings, and the empty packets themselves.  Not to mention the stogie ends and the plastic filters from Swisher Sweets.

Now, here's the not-so-funny punch line:  We have--not one, but two cigarette catchers right near our front door!  Plus a trash can--a big 55-gallon model--in which customers could easily throw their non-flammable cigarette leavings!

Why they don't make use of these conveniences, I have no idea.  And before you make excuses for these litterbugs, like saying, "Well, maybe the wind blew all that junk into the lot"...well, all I can say is, I've watched the people get out of their cars with their lit ciggies in hand, and as they get close to the door with its no-smoking icon, they simply fling the burning end sideways, trusting that it will simply go out on its own!  Same goes with opening a new pack:  the clear plastic comes off and gets flung aside.

These days, I'm not shy about calling out a careless customer for such actions.  Especially if our county is under a burn ban, which means nearly all the time.  If it's windy and the humidity is anything less than 100%, a tossed lit cigarette can cause a wildfire.  And while companies have changed the design of cigarettes so they are less likely to cause a fire if left burning, it's still a crap shoot, because even though that flung butt may not ignite the wet grass, it still might ignite that big round bale of dry hay, or, if the wind is gusting enough, a shed or a barn.  Honestly, why take the chance when there is a perfectly-suitable disposal option just a few feet away?

Ptooey!

Okay, I don't know about you, but I am getting mortally tired of spit.

You would think that with a pandemic in full swing, people would lay off the chaw and the Snus, especially since one way COVID-19 is spread is through liquid secretions from infected persons...but no.  Expectoration, alas, is still everywhere.  People still spit on sidewalks and even on floors and shelves, as well as into trash cans, urinals, and--I shit you not--drinking fountains!  Can I get a good, loud "EEEWWWW"???

And that doesn't even count the actual used wads and Snus packets that are also deposited, directly from people's mouths, in all the places I find the spit!

Besides being nasty and unsanitary, this is just plain rude,folks.  If you can't refrain from your chewing habit for the half-hour you plan to spend in a store, or the hour you'll be spending in a restaurant, then your addiction is out of control.

Oh, and BTW...that cup or bottle you think is fine for spitting into?  Even grosser than the free-range spitting.  Because if you set that open container down, and it spills...sweetie, just leave your Copenhagen can in your car, okay?

At least think of the danger to the front-line people who have to clean up after you.

Ah, Sweet Smell Of...

I understand that e-cigarettes were first created as an aid for those trying to quit smoking, not as a "clean" substitute for regular cigarettes...but here we are.

An electronic cigarette, or "e-cig," uses a rechargeable battery to heat up liquid to create vapor, which you then inhale through a little mouthpiece on one end.  It's kind of like a little hookah, but without water, and the liquid comes either in a bottle from which you resupply your e-cig, or a disposable cartridge that you insert--depending on the brand.

The way they were first advertised, it would be a wonderful thing.  No more worries about second-hand smoke pollution.  The "cigarette" was reusable, so no more litter.  And the liquid came in nice scents, so no more complaints from the "non" sitting near you.  Terrific, right?

Sure.  Except this technology was so new, it hadn't been regulated yet.  Even kids could buy the things at first, and since e-cigs still had nicotine in them--and in some cases, more nicotine than a traditional cigarette--we now had children getting addicted to the stuff.  Then somebody invented a tiny e-cig called a JUUL, which looked a lot like a computer flash drive and had little disposable pods instead of being refilled from a bottle, and the problem exploded.  Parents began putting pressure on governments, and finally, state and federal laws were passed that placed e-cigs under the same regulations as regular cigarettes.  This meant that you had to be 21 to buy any vaping supplies.  And stores, restaurants and bars began to outlaw vaping inside their establishments.

Companies tried to get sneaky;  their newest trick has been to sell liquids and pods with no nicotine at all in them, so they would technically be okay for any age.  Nice...except there are still no regulations for the quality and compositions of these products!  Analyses have shown that the liquids contain heavy metals and chemicals that can actually damage a person's lungs, sometimes in a matter of days...and sometimes fatally.  If a federally-illegal drug like THC--the active ingredient in marijuana--is present in the pod, it can be even worse.

And as if that weren't enough, the e-cig can explode, causing injury.  Face burn, anyone?

Oh, and hey...I'm now starting to find spent e-cig pods among the litter I sweep up.  Just what we need--more trash.  *Sigh.*

The Problem Here...

...isn't actually your habit.

It's how you use it around others. 

Thoughtless littering, blowing smoke or vape into our faces when we ask that you not smoke in our vicinity, spitting everywhere (either with or without the "solids")...really, folks, these are not the actions of mature adults.  It's what little mean kids do when told they should be polite and considerate of others.

Smoking and chewing tobacco have both been proven beyond doubt to cause cancer (lung cancer for smoking, mouth and throat cancer for chewing).  Vaping is even worse in that a bad batch can destroy your lungs and kill you in days.

This isn't "political correctness,"  or the "nanny state"--it's people who decided they were tired of the mess and the fire and health hazards and the lack of consideration.  Those people bucked the tobacco companies' ad campaigns and lit a different kind of fire under the feet of those who represent them.  And for once, the reps listened.  We are slowly moving toward a culture in which nicotine may no longer be considered an acceptable social pastime.

And that would be a good thing.

Stay Tuned...

I'm predicting that it won't be too long before I have to write a sequel...a few months after my state legalizes recreational marijuana.  But maybe not.  Maybe we'll lean more toward pot chocolates and Alice B. Tolklas brownies.  We'll see.

Short Stories, Part 2

...Aaannd...We're Back!

I promised to highlight some of my favorite short stories this time around;  sorry it took so long to get around to it, but what with a root canal, sine-curve weather (as in, crazy stupid cold, then mid-50's, then repeat), and waves of insanity out of D.C., I've been slightly distracted.  But here I am at last;  so, if you're as ready to lose yourself in a good story as I am, then read on!

(Oh, and by the way...these stories are not in any particular order of preference or genre--I'm just writing them down as I think of them.  Enjoy.)

Our Fair City (Robert Heinlein) -  What do you get when you combine a corrupt mayor and his pet police force, an idealistic op-ed journalist, an elderly parking-lot attendant, and a sapient, mischievous urban whirlwind?  An amazing fantasy by the amazing Robert Heinlein, that's what.  And that's all I can say without spoiling the story, other than read it for yourself!

Sredni Vashtar (Saki) -  "Saki" was the pen name of H.H. Munro, and you may remember him as the author of "The Open Window."  But this tale of a boy under the thumb of a domineering relative, and his curious escape therefrom, is my favorite.

The Big Flash (Norman Spinrad) -  It's hard to believe this story was written in 1969, because the author could have been talking about 80's heavy metal and Reaganesque Cold War maneuvers, plus the whole M-TV revolution.  I still find this a scary story.

Battleground (Stephen King) -  I hate bad guys who get away with shit, don't you?  Well, so does King, apparently;  because not only does the bad guy in this story get his just deserts, he gets it in a really cool way.  I wouldn't mind congratulating that "Number 1 Idea Gal" myself.  I have often wondered what happened after the story's end....

Anything by NK Jemisin -  I can't say enough good things about this lady's short fiction.  Her anthology is called How Long 'til Black Future Month?, and there's not a dull story in it.  "The City Born Great" was nominated for a Hugo, and after reading it, I could only think,  "Wow, did she get robbed."  But just pick any of them--"L'Alchimista," "Cloud Dragon Skies," "The You Train"...heck, just buy the anthology and keep a talented author in business, okay?

Or The Grasses Grow (Avram Davidson) -  Another story where karma bites the bad guys in the cojones, this one by an author who never got enough credit for his work while he was alive.  It's one of those short stories that you read at open-mic night, and when you're done, you get silence...until the audience realizes that the story's over.

Blossom And Fruit (Stephen Vincent Benet) - Remember "The Devil And Daniel Webster"?  How about "The Sobbin' Women" (hint: there's a song with that title in the musical made from this story)?  Or "By The Waters of Babylon" (often seen under the title "The Place of the Gods,"  because reprint editors can't leave well enough alone)?

Well, this story is by the same author, but it's a much quieter tale: a man reflects on his life, wondering about the nature of love.  My description is deceptively dull, but once you start reading, you won't be able to stop until the end.

Time Considered As a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones (Samuel R. Delany) -  Okay, this is a long one, I admit.  But it's action-packed, well-rounded, and a ton of fun.  The protagonist's description of stolen goods as "things that are not mine" gives you an idea of Delany's mastery of writing...but just a taste.  Read the rest of the story for more.

The Mindworm (Cyril Kornbluth) -  You don't see the ending coming until it smashes right through your brain!  But when you're finished, you can't help thinking,  "Oh, so that's how you write it as SF."

Harrison Bergeron (Kurt Vonnegut) -  Equality gone mad:  not only is everyone equal, but everyone is forced to be average--or at least as much as can possibly be accomplished by lead weights, weird glasses, and earpieces that produce loud, distracting noises.

I'd have to say that the moral of the story is, if everything is reduced to the lowest common denominator, that denominator will only sink.  But you may feel differently.

"East Wind, West Wind" (Frank M. Robinson) -  This one scared the shit out of me when I first read it.  It still does, because we are just like the uncaring people who insist on their creature comforts even as the world goes to hell on a greased rail.  The story was written about 1971; it feels more like 2019.

The Initiation (Barry Longyear) -  A short-short story.  'Nuff said.  Read it.

The New One (Fredric Brown) -  Another master wordsmith.  Great description, deadly peril, a captive in a desperate struggle for his soul...and a nice dose of WW II patriotism, liberally sprinkled with humor.

Stubborn (Stephen Goldin) -  Another short-short story, told as a morality tale for kids...and if I were them, I'd listen!

The Rocket (Ray Bradbury) -  A classic author who could write just about anything.  And this story, so happy and gentle and magical...I still cry at the end of it.  If you have ever dreamed of having or doing something impossible, you will, too.

The Advent On Channel Twelve (Cyril Kornbluth) -  The best SF story disguised as an anti-television rant ever written.  Or maybe it's the best anti-TV rant disguised as a SF story....

...And That's Just A Few!

I've read probably thousands of other short stories in my lifetime, and I'm not even close to finished.  But hopefully, this list will help you get started...and the next time you're in a library and you see a book subtitled "Stories,"  or another titled "The Best [pick a genre] Stories of [pick a year],"  perhaps you'll try it out.  You never know what gems you'll find.

Short Stories, Part I

I Blame My School...

I love short stories.

Recently, I tried to define why, and I concluded that my grade school was to blame.

That was the place, after all, that loaned me textbooks titled Rainbows, and Kaleidoscope, and Serendipity, which, along with lessons in pronunciation and vocabulary, also contained all sorts of wonderful short stories.  There were short poems, too, and the end of each unit featured a chapter from a longer book;  some of these were "meh," but others inspired me to seek out the original.

But oh, those stories!  Whenever I would get my reading book for the year, I would start reading.  The lesson parts were boring, so I would always skip that stuff and go right for the short stories.  I was usually done with my reading book before anybody else in class, but I never minded going back and re-reading the assigned story for the day.

Here are some of the stories I remember from those old readers.  I don't remember all the titles, or even all the authors, but the stories themselves are still vivid after all these years:

The Talking Wire (author unknown) - A boy goes to stay with an older relative, who is a telegraph operator for the railroad.  The old man demonstrates the Morse code for the station where he works (FS, for Fir Spring), and explains that if that signal ever comes over the receiver, it means someone on the wire is trying to get the operator's attention for something important.  The man leaves to do something, and the boy sits and listens to all the clicks and clacks coming over the wire, and suddenly the FS signal comes through, again and again!  The boy runs for his...uncle? Grandpa?...and convinces him that he really did  hear the signal, and when the old man goes in and answers, it turns out that something has happened to the track ahead, and an approaching train must be stopped.  The old man sets up a signal, the train stops, the boy gets kudos and the promise of real lessons in Morse starting the next day.  Hurray...but I always wondered why it couldn't have been a girl doing that.  A lot of these stories are like that.

The Fun They Had (Isaac Asimov) - This one's a classic.  In a future where each child has his own computerized "teacher," a boy finds an actual, physical book in his attic and brings it to a girl's house, where they puzzle over words that stand still, classrooms with lots of kids (the book is about school as we would understand it), and human teachers (everybody knows that a human isn't knowledgeable enough to teach each child at his or her optimal level)!

Here's one I don't remember author or title for:  A boy sets off on a "magical journey,"  in which he encounters danger, has adventures, and finally returns home...but the pictures for the story reveal that he is walking through an ordinary town, seeing an old tree, stopping for ice cream, etc.  The magic is all in his mind!  I read this story and came away with the sense that the author knew me, because I spent half my childhood overlaying imaginary landscapes and adventures over my ordinary environment!  (Just as an example:  our water tower had a red top.  Naturally it became a volcano.  And because of the way my mind worked, it was a pet volcano that would never erupt so as to hurt anyone!)

Evan's Corner (author unknown) -  A boy in the inner city, who lives in a small apartment with a large family, can't have his own room.  So he chooses a corner of the living room and tells everyone, "This is my corner."  Everybody respects this.  Evan decorates his corner with a plant (the corner is by a window), some pictures, books, etc. ...but once he gets his corner just the way he likes it, Evan still feels that something is missing.  The missing thing is other people to share the corner.  A nice lesson, but I remember feeling sad at the poverty of that family (the pictures showed them as black).

Another one without any identifiers:  A boy (again, a black kid) wants a guitar.  He tries making his own by nailing a slat onto a shallow wooden box, then stretching rubber bands over it.  The results, as you can guess, are terrible--one of the illustrations shows the boy playing his homemade contraption, with one of his older siblings wincing at the noise!  The boy is advised to earn money and save it for a real guitar (pic of kid writing "GUITAR MONEY" on the label of an empty tin can).  The boy succeeds in his quest, of course; the final illustration shows him playing his instrument on his porch steps.

This Was Just A Sample.

If you ever get your hands on any of these books, look for the stories I just recapped, and see if I'm not right about how awesome they were.  Next post, I'll list some of the stories I've read since then!

The Apocalyptic Rock Fight, Part 3: Revolution, Revival, and Retaliation

Kids Say The Darndest Things...

When the Baby Boomer generation got into its teens, a lot of stuff was either happening or about to happen.

Rock and roll had taken the world by storm;  there was just no way to stop it anymore.  Cars were becoming more a part of the teen scene, even if it was just the newly-minted driver borrowing the family wheels for a Friday night date.  And television was replacing radio as the entertainment medium of choice, at least in the realm of the dramatic arts.  Except for variety shows hosted by people like Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan, music was still more a radio thing--especially if Dad's car had a radio built in!

We were finished in Korea, but Vietnam would be in full swing by the mid-60's.  Freedom Rides, bus boycotts, and lunch counter sit-ins were highlighting uncomfortable questions about the civil rights of people of color.  And the threat of nuclear war loomed just at the edge of everyone's thoughts.  The USSR's first Sputnik was launched into Earth orbit, soon to be followed by American satellites, with President Kennedy pledging to actually send a human to land on the moon.

Scientists were discovering new things all the time, and many older folks were feeling overwhelmed by it all.  But just as it is today, so it was then:  the kids jumped in with both feet.  Young people are quite adaptable, and they took to all the changes around them like ducks to water.  Which might have been okay, except that the young people also had more money, independence, and knowledge than their parents, raised during the austerity of the Great Depression, could ever have dreamed of.

Also, these teens had questions.

Like:  Why are we fighting far-away people who have never hurt us?  Or:  If God created the world and everything in it, where does evolution fit in?  Or even:  Why shouldn't black people be allowed to eat in the same restaurants or use the same bathrooms as white people?

Parents--even churchgoing parents--had no answers to these questions, or at least none that could be intelligently discussed.  The same old boilerplate statements, such as the one for evolution ("Evolution is a lie of the devil")  weren't going to cut it anymore;  it was rather the same as when a kid asks "Why?"  and is told  "Because I said so."  The older the kid gets, the less satisfactory that answer becomes.  The older kid needs more explanation.

But this new world was too big for most parents, and they weren't equipped to move around in it as easily as the younger generation was doing.  And because of the automobile, the teens weren't always under the supervision of the adults anymore.  And when the kids got to college...

You Say You Want A Revolution?

As I have pointed out before, college is a much larger world than the one most kids grow up in.  You are exposed to more opinions, facts, people groups, and societal mores than you've ever seen before.  Suddenly you're reading Marx's Das Kapital and considering its pros and cons, or debating the merits of laissez-faire capitalism (of which Ayn Rand would approve).  You're learning that you don't need to conform to traditional gender roles.  You're learning uncomfortable things about the way our government works, which looks very much like a bunch of old men deciding that young men have to go fight somewhere else to defend our freedom here (yeah, doesn't make sense to me either).  There are all kinds of new forms of art and music.  And check it out--here are some folks who aren't even Christians, and they seem like kind, friendly people!  Faced with all this, it's no wonder many of the collegiates of that era began to think it was time for a change.

And once you mixed in a little botany and chemistry, why, then you had the perfect recipe for revolution...or at least the kids thought so....

Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out...

About the mid-60's, LSD began gaining steam as an experimental drug among younger members of American society.  Along with marijuana (which had been illegal since 1937), pills such as amphetamines and barbiturates, cocaine, and heroin, it made for quite a colorful--or should I say psychedelic?--medicine cabinet.

If you believe the media on this subject, drug use exploded during the last half of the 60's, but many of the drugs mentioned either had legal uses or had been criminalized under false pretenses.  Marijuana, for example, was demonized not because of its true effects, but because it was used mainly by Mexican immigrants of the early 1900's.  Use  of pot spread to jazz musicians and aficionados, and because white kids and women liked jazz, the ugly rumor was started (and eagerly spread by the Hearst newspaper chain) that marijuana caused kids to go crazy (Reefer Madness did a lot to legitimize that lie), caused white women to desire dark-skinned men, or dark men to rape white women...or, worse yet (?!?), made "darkies" think they were as good as white men!  The Marihuana Tax Act of '37 was the noxious weed that grew out of this bullshit pile of rumor.

But I digress.  Give me a few deep breaths to lower my BP...

Anyhoo...

Because of the questions their elders either could not or would not answer for them, and because they were learning that the things they had been taught could not always be trusted, many of the college-age kids decided to find a new way of life on their own.  They were helped along by such "fly-high" teachers as Timothy Leary (who first spoke the "turn on, tune in, drop out" catchphrase at San Francisco's Human Be-In, held in 1967 in Golden Gate Park), Ken Kesey, and Hunter S. Thompson; musical groups such as Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, and the Grateful Dead; and alternative religionists such as Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, both of whom founded American spin-offs of Hinduism (the Hare Krishna movement and Transcendental Meditation, respectively) which are still operating today.

There were any number of expressions of this "new rebellion"--communes, nomadism, protests (nuclear war was, quite rightly, seen as insane by people of all ages, and Vietnam was unpopular even before the Pentagon Papers were leaked), and music festivals (Woodstock wasn't the only one--it just got more media attention).  The young people, along with some older folks who were also sick and tired of the status quo, wanted change.  But what kind of change?  Should it all be burned to the ground to make way for something new?  Should small changes be introduced into the existing system, making way for larger changes later?  Should people just abandon the cities (symbolic of the ugly, polluted, corrupt status quo) and go back to living off the land?  No one really agreed, even within supposedly like-minded groups, and a lot of those groups failed to have any impact at all and eventually fell apart.

Meanwhile, Back In the Studio...

The counterculture spawned an incredibly diverse array of musical forms.  The Doors, the Airplane and the Dead were the vanguard of the "psychedelic" movement.  My best description of this music is that they already recorded the drug trip in their songs, so all you have to do is listen and ride along!

Folk music was already a staple of the hippie movement, but Bob Dylan, the Mamas and the Papas, and Peter, Paul and Mary offered a pot-laced twist to the mix.

Heavy metal, with its pounding guitar riffs and wailing vocals, had its roots in some of the "bad-boy" blues of the 30's;  bands like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, the Jeff Beck Group, and later lights such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath, embodied both the sound and the lyrical double entendres of those early (alas, often uncredited) blues pioneers.

Then there was art rock, also known as progressive rock, with such groups as the Moody Blues, Yes, the Nice (whose keyboardist eventually became one-third of Emerson, Lake and Palmer), and King Crimson (ditto for their vocalist).  These groups were strongly influenced by classical music, and the resulting sound was more ornate.  There was a lot of chemical influence as well, but again, they already took the trip so you don't have to!

Call Out the National Guard!

Needless to say, all this experimentation--societal, chemical, and musical--alarmed the people in power.  The FBI gathered data on various groups, most of whom were not worth the time or the money;  the police began cracking down on the "freaks,"  who, in turn, returned insult for insult by referring to the cops as "fuzz" and "pigs";  and the Church?  Well, some of them got their own weird ideas...

More on that later.

(Note:  I am indebted to Amy Hart's paper,  "Religious Communities in 1960s America,"  for much of the "Anyhoo..." segment in this post.  Find the complete paper here:

https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&context=forum

Something Stupid!

Saturday Morning...

Here I am, writing in my blog when I ought to be at work.

So, why is that?  Did I get fired?  Am I sick?  Am I playing hooky?

Nope.  None of the above.

The reason I'm at home on my computer, sipping a hazelnut latte and writing in this blog, is because somebody did something stupid.

Breaking News!

We've had some new construction going on nearby for a few months now.  They've got the building mostly up, the parking lot asphalted, the enclosure for the Dumpster built...and this week, they started laying some underground power lines.  This morning, they'd gotten to right in front of our building when one or more of the diggers hit a gas line.  Not a minor one, either--one of the biggies.  The fire department showed up, inspected, and finally told us to clear out.  Which we did.  According to the firemen, somebody's going to have to come from the city to make the repair, after which we have to wait for the gas in the air to dissipate.  They'll notify us when it's safe to come back.

Now, I've had minor gas leaks in my home before, primarily due to changes the gas company has made from time to time--such as replacing a gas main or installing a higher-pressure meter.  I am quite familiar with the smell of mercaptan.  But the little whiffs I've encountered were nothing compared to the miasma I walked through as I left the store at my fastest walking speed.  It's not a good atmosphere for lighting a cigarette,  I can tell you.

Aren't Builders Supposed To Call First?

Here's the thing.  When a project like this is going on, all the utility companies are supposed to be notified ahead of time, so they can mark where all their lines are and how deeply they're buried.  I never saw any of those bright paint arrows on the ground, at least not where they dug this morning.  No marker flags, either.  So somebody screwed up, and badly.

Meanwhile, our store loses business, and the workers lose wages.  All because somebody didn't call before they dug.

Oh, well...

I don't get paid for this mini-vacation.  I'll be behind on all my tasks when I get back today (provided there are no complications that prevent us from returning).

But oh, well...at least I had a great story to tell on my blog.  Happy 2020. everybody!