9/11 non-insight

Like most Americans I remember that morning. I getting ready for work that Tuesday morning when my wife told me a plane collided into a building in New York. The first thing I noticed when looking at the tv was the blue sky. I told her I can't see how a pilot could mistakenly hit a building, even if he were drunk. Was this a commercial passenger flight (God I hope not!!), or was it a private jet, in which case it's possible an idiot jet owner/pilot could have incapacitated himself. I concluded it was an aircraft malfunction. I dimly recalled a collision years before in which a pilot tried to steer one way, the automated system attempted to steer a different way due to misinterpretation of whatever, and the jet hit a mountain. Maybe...

Fifteen minutes later, as I was leaving she told me the other building was hit. Instantly I knew we were at war. The US was at war with a foreign power. I overreached in concluding how different our lives were going to be. The draft will be reinstated. Gas and food would be rationed. I'm not old enough to remember WWII but I heard the many stories.

The next day at home I heard a jet engine overhead. I rushed out to see what kind of craft it was. During the abnormal silence of the skies when every flight was grounded I was curious. Not frightened, I just wanted to look but didn't see it in time. Oh well.

I was eventually relieved that American society didn't go through the same turmoil of 60 years earlier, but at the same time knew many things would be different from now on.

I hope you're not reading this thinking I have some deep insight to impart. I'm just, idk...

Imperfect resurrection dream

I miss my Snowball. He passed away two years ago from kidney failure. I still have with me his mom Easter and siblings Dude and Ladybug.

A few nights ago I dreamt he came back. Not like in Pet Sematary, something evil that only resembles my baby boy. This was really him. But like Judd Crandall (played by John Lithgow) said, "They don't come back the same."
His body was distorted with strange lumps all over and with ice-blue skin underneath. He kept trying to eat nails and other metal objects. But he still loved me, was happy to play with me. Aside from the creepy strangeness this really was my Snowball. Or as I often called him, Thnow-BEE! 

But he was with us for only a few days before kidney failure takes him again so I was devoting the time left to making all four cats as happy as I could, play and love together with Thnowie...

If you could get a loved one back, imperfectly resurrected for just a few more days, you would wouldn't you? I would too if I had assurance that such bizarre defects wouldn't cause intolerable suffering. Or damage the brain, causing such a change in personality that it wouldn't be my loved one. I believe I can look past whatever grotesqueries may manifest.

That was so intense.

Brief thought on Capitalism

I'm not at all an expert, semi-expert or any kind of literate in the area of economics. Just the bare basics. With that in mind, I do have solid opinions when it comes to capitalism, to free-market enterprise economics:

Like fire, humanity needs capitalism. It's shaped history, making possible our technologies, our well-being, our way of life.

HOWEVER!!:

Laissez faire capitalism is the permitting of large campfires haphazardly lit within a dense, tinder-dry forest. Yes, we need our food cooked, and this will most certainly happen in any widespread conflagration. As well as the burning away of human rights and dignity, creating an ashen landscape leaving only the tallest, most fire-resistant trees to flourish.
Laws and regulations, formed and strictly enforced by a democratically-elected socialist government is more akin to building carefully controlled campfires after widespread ground clearance, pit-digging and rock-hedge construction has been accomplished. In time, this will safely and effectively lead to food processing facilities, forgeries, refineries and more after sufficient clearance of trees, the building of fire-containment barriers by qualified masons, and even commitment to ensuring no live sparks escape chimneys. A society of educated electorate citizens deciding what its upgradeable government regulates and how it enforces law is what we must aspire to. And its wealthiest members are to be treated with the same respect and protections we treat any other minority groups- for that is what they really are, a minority.
I think this is the direction America was heading in, with strict industrial regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency, civil rights, unions, etc. But now... We can still correct from our downward course. Maybe.

Phoenix Knight. 19apr2019

Missing COR meeting. Phuq!!

16mar2019.sat

Neighbor's got music blaring. Spanish. I like it. Not salsa, nothing like that. Electric guitar, drums; contemporary, what kids listen to nowadays. Nice beat.

Damn, they took off. Silence again. Ok, np, I'll look for it myself.

I slept through the alarm. Again. Finally woke at 08:12, bus leaves at 08:30. The Tampa Bay Coalition Of Reason is having their meeting right now with Hemant Mehta as keynote speaker. And I'm missing it. Fook!  Gotta get a second alarm, set it across the room so I'll need to roll out of bed to shut it off. And turn on the light immediately.

Would've been a great day. Still can be.

It Chapter 2

The leper, played by Javier Botet returns! Now it's decked out in a lab coat and tie. It's pointing at the projector screen, portraying slices from a cadaver being peeled away, layer by gruesome layer. "Looks like cancer to me Eddieeeee!"

I can see why Pennywise prefers children over adults. True, having tie-wearing demons from the Internal Revenue Service flying overhead while a giant ogre points at you while laughing the word foreclosure!!! is just as terrifying as anything that scares children. But it's not the same.

WTF YouTube?!!

I did not subscribe to Pewdipie, or this anime channel (4got t name) and several others. But there they were in my sub feed. Are these honest glitches or is someone employing bots? Eh. I'm not actually upset as long as the ones I did sub to don't spontaneously unsub.

Explanations for cats- creationism vs reality.

Why are cats so adorable? Supposedly God made them for our benefit. Their fur is nice and soft for petting, which lowers our blood pressure. They're made to be affectionate companions for us, uplifting our spirits. And playful kittens fill our days with smiles and laughter.

So why the hell do they have sharp razor blades at the end of each digit? They're affectionate only when they feel like it. The rest of the time they don't give a damn about us. And the games kittens play consist entirely of pretending to kill each other. The more they enjoy chasing, pouncing, biting and fake-disembowelling each other the better killers they'll be as adults. That's what they're obsessed with- Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Seriously God, (or Yahweh, Jehovah, Vishnu, Hutta Moomoo or...) WTF??

The real explanation is far more sensible, lacking any of those eternally-unanswerable mysteries. It's an awe-inspiring story, an epic tale of survival. That's what it is to me. Whereas several of the large felines are apex predators the ancestors of our cats were both predators and prey, with the threat of violent death always near. The granaries built by our farming ancestors greatly alleviated the struggle for food, the grain storages being magnets for rodents. Those humans that saw the value of these furry non-baby-eating killers in turn repelled larger predators, increasing their chances for life. Human villages provided havens for them, and they in turn evolved and adapted to become closer to us, then more ideal as members of human families.

There is much, much more to this story, but I'll close with my observation that explanations based on scientific research, discoveries made through endless trial and error are more enriching for our minds than anything religious story tellers can make up. I love my feline family with all my heart, with full appreciation for how they came to be.