Citizen Pyromaniacs

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Where I come from, we have an annual tradition of burning everything.

We call it the Fourth of July, and it’s symbolic of something, or maybe many things, but whatever that symbolism represents is up to debate. Could be death, could be destruction. Could be symbolic of burning money. It could even be symbolic of freedom. You decide.

Whatever the metaphor is for the Fourth of July, the Fifth of July is just as important, maybe more so. The Fifth of July is when we rebuild. You see. This is why the United States are so strong. We unite in burning it all down, and then we unite in rebuilding. Figure that out. We take pleasure in destroying things, and we take pleasure in putting them right again. If you can’t wrap your mind around it, then you’ve probably never experienced a bonfire. A bonfire is where you pile everything you can get your hands on and throw it on a fire. The goal is to see how high you can get the flames. When it’s all over, the Green Thumbs come and collect the ashes. They claim ashes help the garden grow.

The goal of the Fourth of July celebration is exactly that: trying to see how high the fire can go. Oh, sure, we could talk about history and the Chinese, who invented fireworks, but that really wouldn’t catch the spirit of this idea that I’m trying to get across. For instance, people of the world, did you know that it’s unlawful for anyone in the USA to NOT set fire to something on the Fourth of July? You probably didn’t know that. It’s illegal not to burn.

For my personal flame taxation this year, I chose chicken. Now, to get the flames on the chicken just so, I soaked them in an oil for a few hours prior to adding heat. Heat and oil, as you know, makes a cool looking flame that momentarily engulfs the chicken. Before I go any further, please understand that the chicken was not living when I applied heat. It had been butchered elsewhere earlier. But yes, I seared chicken over a fire, so I’m a compliant citizen. The fire doesn’t have to burn down a field, or a forest, though some Americans seem to enjoy doing that. Some will even burn down their own house. Now that’s loyalty!

Never mind that, the important thing here is that you understand what we do the next day. As an example, my drone neighbor. He was flying his drone around last night, and it was dodging fireworks, supposedly taking video of the night. It was really fun to watch as he shot fireworks at his own drone. I’m not sure if he was trying to perfect his aim, or trying to hone his flying skills, but either way, it was entertaining for the rest of us to watch. And he must not be a very good shot, because I saw his drone out today, this morning even, flying over the battleground with all the shells scattered across the streets and fields. He flew his drone over the scorched earth. He flew his drone over the Volkswagen bus that someone “accidentally” caught on fire. He flew his drone over the grass that was only partially burned because someone last night was prepared with a bucket of water. And he flew his drone over Eddie’s garage which burned down last year, but Eddie wants to make it bigger and he doesn’t have the money, so it hasn’t actually been rebuilt—yet.

When we clean this up, it’s going to look like a place to live.

 

Writer Types

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There are so many types of writers. As a writer, you try to persuade others. In every case I can imagine, the writer’s goal is to persuade.

A skywriter’s goal is to let everyone know that Harold loves Ingrid.

The poet tries to elicit an emotion.

The spin doctor tries to confound.

The philosopher aims to awe.

The preacher tries to convert.

The scientist tries to teach, and the teacher tries to grow new scientists.

The biographer wants to define a personality, and generate love or hate for that personality.

The autobiographer wants to leave a legend.

The lyricist wants to make the song memorable.

The student essayist wants to be passing and forgettable.

The trendy essayist wants to generate a buzz.

One hundred million tweeters want to be controversial.

A graffiti artist tries to be more street-owner than the real street owners; a graffiti artist wants to be known, but never seen; a graffiti artist tries to be a terrorist with a spray paint can.

The pooch writes his name on a tree using only urine. His goal: to show the other dogs where he’s been. Few animals can write—even fewer persuade me. They might persuade each other though. (So much like the graffiti artist.)

A skywriter’s goal is to sell seats at the circus.

How many more are there?

Any tech that requires CUTTING yourself to remove it is NO BUENO.

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Remember when phones were huge? We laughed at how huge they were. The oldest satellite phones looked like an Army issue two-way radio. Of course the satellite phone was pretty neat in the right hands. People who wanted to show off. Soon after though, phones were getting smaller. It was good. You could fit a phone in your pocket, and that was definitely an advancement over having to be home to answer the phone attached to the wall. Crazy! The new small phones were amazing. If you went to the beach you could stick the phone in your shoe. It had really tiny numbers on it so a lot of people would use a pen or pencil to type on it. A finger might be too big and you’d hit three or four numbers at the same time. Then phones got even smaller and you had to have the option of the touch screen so the buttons were the right size for human fingers. And not long after that phones started getting bigger, tablets came out–and tablets started getting better. Even though the same companies making phones also make tablets, there seemed to be this competition thing going on, so phones started doing things that tablets did and tablets started doing things phones did. Then they started to look and act like each other. Gone are the days when you could fit a phone in your pocket. They’re just too big now. And now companies are trying to convince us that we’ll have tablet-phones embedded in our palms?! Ouch! I’m kidding of course. They’re actually talking about embedding chips in our hands. Forget about it! The “next great idea”? I don’t think so. I say, unless I have a cybernetic limb, or something, with hydraulic action so I can leap really high, or crush heavy metallic things, then I don’t need any internal microchips. I’ll keep the microchips external, thank you. Do I really need a chip that goes with me? No, not really. Anything that requires CUTTING yourself to remove it is obviously a bad idea.

Tell me an escalator doesn’t look like a playground and I’ll tell you how boring you are.

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How to ride an escalator:

  • Approach confidently, do not hesitate.
  • Step onto the first available tread.
  • Grasp the handrail firmly.
  • If you’re escorting children, lift them and place them squarely behind your belt or suspenders, or store them in your purse. Children have been known to slip between the treads of escalators. Children who get caught there are never the same. They’re scarred for life. Some have limbs severed. Others, the ones who see the formless, shapeless, transcosmic abyss on the other side of the escalator, always turn out bad. They get wicked ideas in their heads and start right away on acting out their criminal impulses. Soon they’ll be trading bras from the women’s clothing section with boxers in the men’s. They’ll spray paint the lenses of security cameras. They’ll write obscene things on every poster and advertisement everywhere. They’ll find an animal somewhere and try to mutilate it. They may even try to mutilate themselves. It’s really quite hopeless. The best solution is to put these escalator-crack-babies down. The lame horse method is considered the most humane.
  • Do not run.
  • Do not allow loose strings on clothing to become entangled in the handrail or the treads.
  • Do not leap from the down-escalator to the up-escalator. Leaping from up to down is okay though.
  • Never, ever, ever grab the handrail with both hands and pull it in the opposite direction of travel with all your might to see if people on the other end of the escalator get discombobulated and fall over.
  • Running in place is a weird thing to do on an escalator. It’s not a treadmill. But then again, who am I to stop you?
  • Wearing a swimsuit on an escalator is also weird, but who am I to stop you?
  • Walking like an Egyptian? I can’t comment on that.
  • Pets should never be taken on escalators.
  • Senior citizens should locate the elevator.
  • Introverts should also locate the elevator.
  • Robots and personal cybernetic assistants should stay behind and monitor a person’s behavior for documentation purposes only.
  • When you see the transition platform at the end of the escalator, don’t get off, see how long you can stay on without touching the platform. If you touch it, you’re out of the game.
  • Walking the opposite way on a moving walkway may be prohibited, but on an escalator it’s encouraged.
  • “Surfing” on the handrail is prohibited. Don’t even think about it.
  • Sliding on the divider between an up- and down-escalator could be fun. Watch out for nasty obstructions that uncaring maintenance persons have put in the middle of the slide. A collision will ruin your day.
  • Lastly, remember that if the power is somehow interrupted to the escalator, it can still be used like a normal, non-electric set of stairs. (You’re not stuck.)

Milk the Research Funds

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I don’t want to give you any ideas, but there’s probably some money in this idea. Not necessarily good money either. It’s more like the stinky, dirty government grants for scientific inquiries that don’t play a tune in a logical mind. You know what I’m talking about, we hear about them all of the time, like when we heard about the non-scientist who won a government grant so he could test to find out if subway stair rails carry germs. Did he actually do the research, or did he just cotton swab the bottom of his shoe and submit the sample he found there? Or how about the other non-scientist who supposedly did a study on whether homelessness was healthy or not? (Turns out it’s not as healthy as we all thought. ) Or what about the study that discovered laughing can make a person with an illness feel better? A lot of these, you hear them, and you immediately realize that the joke IS the punch line.

Seriously though, I don’t know if any of these studies were conducted using government funds (which is another way of saying “money out of YOUR pocket”). When you hear about studies like these, do you even care where the money came from to make it happen? The money was wasted, no matter where it came from.

Sarcasm aside, this idea of mine, or rather, this question of mine, is not nearly as silly as some of the examples above. At least not to me.

What I really want to know is: why does milk taste better out of a glass than out of, say, a plastic cup?

And that brings to mind another question: can you see how I got here? I was wondering why milk tastes better out of a glass, and then I thought about how I would figure that out, and I imagined pouring milk into several different types of materials like plastic, or wood, or metal. I thought about measuring the amount of material that leaks in to the milk from the container, or the amount of good tasting probiotics versus bad tasting ones. I considered how to do any of that on my milk-drinking budget, and I realized I needed the government to intervene, to supply the resource of cash. I needed to do some serious research, and I would need…

“Nah!” I told myself. “Just enjoy the moo, and if you’re feeling festive, add chocolate.”