Life In A Time Of Madness

I had the sad misfortune yeserday to read an essay penned by the daughter of a one-time school chum which was utterly dumbfounding.

These are some fairly smart folks, college-educated, they work hard to provide for their families and yet the essay in question was a stunning display of intellect strangled by a deadening diet of lies and distortions fabricated by the relentless machinery of talk radio and the one major cable news outlet mostly owned by a Middle Eastern tycoon.

I'm not linking to nor quoting the essay - I don't wish to either repeat the nonsense or further embarass the writer.

The writer's apocalyptic lamentations were due to the mere fact that Barack Obama is president and is seeking re-election. A cascade of illusory woes then followed - seems that every evil and myriads of sin-laden plagues were apparently created at the very moment in January 2009 when President Obama was sworn into office. The essay ended with a 'call to arms'.

I pondered and marveled at what I had read - a voluminous litany of horrors were presented addressing so many areas of life: history, economics, religion, and the basic elements of life in our nation, all now somehow exist absent any context or fact. The roll call of fear was the beating heart of this essay. For a few moments, I considered some reply, for none of us wishes to witness a person in writhing agony and pass them by as quickly as possible. But I reluctantly realized there was no salve nor poultice nor any surcease of pain for this person I might offer. Their agony was entirely imaginary, founded on nothingness. The enormity of their fantasy was an unscalable fortress. 

Doubtless there are those who hold views in opposition to the writer who likewise cling to perspectives absent any context or history or understanding and are merely the products of xenophobic rage. For too many people, histrionics has replaced reason - and such misalignment is not dependent on national geography or religious orientation.

I do have some remorse that I have no words or thoughts to share with such folk which might reorient them to rational, thought-provoking ruminations and discoveries. It is truly a sad loss, a bizarre madness which exists within the confines of certain political climates.

And such problems are not simply the loss of recent history, it is the loss of connection to all of history. It is as if all history, facts and truths are now a goopy unshaped mass which can be momentarily shaped into whatever might be expedient or utilitarian and which easily returns to its shapelessness.

Romney: Vote For Me Or You're A Freeloader

Some (possibly too honest) commentary on American voters (especially those who support President Obama) from Mitt Romney  has been storming the internet. Was Romney just trying to whip up multi-million dollar donors, or was he offering a look at how he views much of the nation?

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax…

[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Writer David Brooks offers his take on Romney's views:

"This [Romney] comment suggests a few things. First, it suggests that he really doesn’t know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?

"It suggests that Romney doesn’t know much about the culture of America. Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success, according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey….

"The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor."

Frightmare Manor 2012 Set To Open

"Now, clear your minds. It knows what scares you. It has from the very beginning. Don't give it any help, it knows too much already."

Terror comes back to town as Frightmare Manor opens on Sept. 21, kicking off another unforgettable Halloween season at their 4-Attraction Scream Park.

Voted the Number One Haunted Attraction by WBIR-TV in 2009, 2010 and 2011, smart money says they'll capture that title again for 2012. An army of creative folk, ghouls, zombies and just plain gruesome ghosts are planning now to scare you witless.

As I have for the past few years, once again I too am your unofficial Blogging Host and Guide to Frightmare Manor. Chris Wooden, the owner and creator of this unique attraction, along with a dedicated crew, work year-round to make Frightmare a must-see event.

The Attractions include Frightmare Manor, Frightmare Backwoods, Frightmare Carnivore and the world-famous (or infamous) Nightmare at Frightmare Challenge - if you can endure all four attractions on one visit, you can get your admission price back.

Some details and a behind-the-scenes peek for the 2011 event can be found here, especially regarding the haunted history of the location and the notorious tale of the site's ghostly inspiration, Jeremiah Lexer:

"Jeremiah Lexer was the original property owner of this entire plantation around the turn of the 18th century. The past 2 years we have focused on more recent, controversial events surrounding the 2001 closing of the
successful restaurant on this property. Over the past year, we have dug into the record books and unearthed a lot of forgotten (or hidden) information about Jeremiah Lexer and his original homestead. We believe
Haunted House customers want to experience TRUE TERROR. Because of this, Frightmare Manor will remain at the old Jeremiah Lexer Plantation. We will continue to learn and share with our customers the evidence over the next few years."

Frightmare Manor also has a Facebook page you should check out, as they offer free tickets and major discounts on VIP packages too, plus it's one of the best ways to keep up with all the latest news and information.

Their main website has all the info you need to order tickets and their full calendar of events for 2012. They'll be open on weekends in September, starting on the 21st. And I'll have more exclusive reports and information to share with you as their new season unfolds. 

Can you take the Frightmare Challenge?

More Great Moments in Writing

Great writing is flourishing in the comments section of Amazon (as I've recently noted). Today's example comes via the hundreds of  'reviews' of a BIC ink pen ''designed for her":

"I bought this pen (in error, evidently) to write my reports of each day's tree felling activities in my job as a lumberjack. It is no good. It slips from between my calloused, gnarly fingers like a gossamer thread gently descending to earth between two giant redwood trunks."

---

"Normally my hand writing is defined and strong, as if chiselled in granite by the Greek gods themselves, however upon signing my name I noticed that my signature was uncharacteristically meandering and looping. More worryingly the dots above the I's manifested themselves as hearts, and I found myself finishing off the signature with a smiley face and kisses. Obviously I had no choice but to challenge the delivery man to a gun fight on the rim of an erupting volcano in order to reassert my dominance. Had I not won this honourable duel this particular mistake might have resulted in a situation that no amount of expensive single malt whiskey and Cuban cigars could banish. I leave this review here as a warning to all men about the dangers of using this particular device, and suffice-it-to-say will return to signing my name with a nail gun as normal."

---

"Gone are the days when I had to wrap my delicate lady hands around an ugly man pen to write my recipes and devotional love poems to men. Now I can commit myself to writing to do lists with an oh-so-soft grip between the frail appendages that - were they stronger - could be called fingers."

Twittering and Pinteresting Political Power

Tracking and counting political tweets and Facebook 'likes' are now a part of American politics - perhaps in much the same way that a teenager might observe and evaluate their popularity.

Yes, there is now a daily Twitter Political Index.

And there's high-profile use this year of political parties on Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram.

Campaign strategists eyed the tweet-count for the Republican convention (Paul Ryan peaked at 6,000 tweets per minute, Romney had 14,300) and easily put their texting prowess to work - President Obama had 52,000 tweets per minute during his speech.

The singer Madonna, however, racked up 10,000 tweets per second during her Super Bowl halftime performance. (stat counts via here and here) But does any of this translate to actual votes?

The Pew Research folks compiled a study earlier this year on how Democrats, Republicans and Independent voters rated "social media" as a political tool. Some of the results:

"Some but not most users of social networking sites (SNS) say the sites are important for a variety of political activities:

• 36% of SNS users say the sites are “very important” or “somewhat important” to them in keeping up with political news.
• 26% of SNS users say the sites are “very important” or “somewhat important” to them in recruiting people to get involved in political issues that matter to them.
• 25% of SNS users say the sites are “very important” or “somewhat important” to them for debating or discussing political issues with others.
• 25% of SNS users say the sites are “very important” or “somewhat important” to them in finding other people who share their views about important political issues.

In each activity, Democrats who use social networking sites are more likely than Republicans or independents to say the sites are important."

Click to enlarge

Being talked about seems to be the goal, with the hope then that talk translate into votes. As an organizing tool, it would seem to be quite valuable and it also seems that Democrats use it best. If it leads to votes, however, is still the real question.

Or is all the twittering, pinteresting, facebooking merely a modern version of capturing hearts and minds?

Dangerous Dumbing Down - The Fatal Flaw in Gov. Haslam's Education Policies

Is the process of getting an education merely a system designed get a job and to create a workforce? I wrote about this topic in August, noting Gov. Haslam's push to steer education into job training. As he said at the meeting with business leaders:

"The state that's going to win is going to be the state that figures out how to understand market demand, then define that back to...middle schoolers and high schoolers in terms of what do they need to be doing to prepare, and then funds that appropriately," Haslam told the group. "So what I'm trying to do is figure out how do we tie that loop together?"

This idea isn't a new creation, it dates back to the early 1900s, as noted in an editorial by Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, in today's NYTimes. And Roth points out the idea was challenged then by John Dewey, calling out such efforts as an attempt to reduce humans to mere tools of industry:

"Who wants to attend school to learn to be “human capital”? Who aspires for their children to become economic or military resources? Dewey had a different vision. Given the pace of change, it is impossible (he noted in 1897) to know what the world will be like in a couple of decades, so schools first and foremost should teach us habits of learning.

"For Dewey, these habits included awareness of our interdependence; nobody is an expert on everything. He emphasized “plasticity,” an openness to being shaped by experience: “The inclination to learn from life itself and to make the conditions of life such that all will learn in the process of living is the finest product of schooling.” 

"The inclination to learn from life can be taught in a liberal arts curriculum, but also in schools that focus on real-world skills, from engineering to nursing. The key is to develop habits of mind that allow students to keep learning, even as they acquire skills to get things done. This combination will serve students as individuals, family members and citizens — not just as employees and managers."

Gov. Haslam has already said he plans to introduce legislation to tailor education to the needs of business and industry. While I see the value of having higher employment rates, it's a critical error to sacrifice education in order to fulfill an industrial business plan. The discussion and debate about education must include more than their desire for faithful employees - smart, broadly-educated populations can accomplish so much more.

Combat At Knox World's Fair Park

Photographs by Virginia Beld

A horde of fighters swinging swords and howling commandos locked in combat are headed to the Amphitheater at the Knoxville World's Fair Park!

And you are invited to witness it all.

The Wild Thyme Players will present the 2nd Annual "Duels and Desserts" on Friday Sept. 14th at 7 pm for an evening of intense entertainment everyone can enjoy.

Stage combat scenes, an original one-act play, a silent auction and a baked goods sale will make for a heck of a great time at this fundraising event. The actors will perform vignettes using various fighting styles and weapons, including broadsword, rapier & dagger, quarterstaff, epee, knife and unarmed stage combat. The second half will present a swashbuckling original short play based on “The Three Musketeers” written by WTP fight choreographer Mark McGinley. I asked Mark to explain just what these combat scenes are like:

"We have a rather large cast. There are 21 of us playing a variety of roles. Our youngest cast member is Lexi Trigg, who is 11 years old. She's very excited about getting to do a sword fight with her father, Steve. One of our seniors, Jeanette Stevens, will be appearing in two fights that she wrote herself. 

"We've been in rehearsals since mid July. It takes a lot of time to put together a show with this much combat in it. 

"Stage combat is the art of simulating a fight for the purpose of telling a story. It's a matter of working safely with a partner to create the illusion of violence. Yes, stage combat has a lot to do with the martial arts. Good martial technique is important to sell the illusion to the audience. If a fighter is out of stance, lazy, or sloppy the audience will lose interest in what's happening on stage. Stage combat also has a lot in common with dance. When you're in a stage fight, you're doing a learned sequence of movements (choreography) with a partner (not an adversary). 

Rehearsals for the daring combat

"All our weapons are 100% real spring steel. No rubber weapons here. They just don't make that pretty ringing noise. We do use dulled blades, though. We're not crazy, you know.

"And our silent auction will have a pretty wide variety of items to bid on. We have UT memorabilia, free passes to Flyaway in Pigeon Forge, hand made jewelry, and more. And of course, there will be baked goods."

Yummy desserts and combat! That makes for a winning combination in my book.

The event gets underway with doors opening at 7 PM, and the performance will begin at 8 PM. Admission is free with suggested $5 donation or bake sale purchase. Gift packs with merchandise and gift certificates from various local businesses will be up for bid in the silent auction. A portion of the proceeds will go to TribeOne, a community leadership development organization based in East Knoxville. Media sponsorship is provided by WUOT-91.9 FM. For information call 325-9877 or email director@wildthymeplayers.org.

The WTP mission is to provide collaborative learning opportunities in a process-centered environment for artists of all experience levels and backgrounds, and to encourage appreciation of theatre in our community. Formed in 2006, the company is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. 

So go!

The Great Maple Syrup Robbery Mystifies Canada

Just how does one steal over 10 million pounds of maple syrup? And who knew that Canada has a 'global strategic maple syrup reserve'?

One of the warehouses in the 'reserve' network in Canada held an inventory check recently and the theft was discovered ... yet, the thieves only took the syrup and left a massive wall of empty barrels:

"Now, we are trying to evaluate how much maple syrup is missing. It’s walls of barrels of maple syrup. It’s a very big warehouse. We have to take every barrel and check it for the content, and weigh them. We think that its a significant amount. But there is maple syrup left. But we will also have to be very cautious or take a lot of precautions.We will analyze it. Every barrel is graded and has a bar code, and its very strict. So now, that someone has just came in this warehouse, and just like played with the maple syrup? No. This is not fun. We will take it very seriously."

Many folks speculate the syrup was never really there, speculating that someone or a group of someones, hustled thousands of empty barrels into the warehouse. It's a true mystery and perhaps the market will be flooded (slowly perhaps) with black market syrup, estimations are that one-fourth of the 'strategic reserve' are gone.

Oddly - there have been recent numerous instances of large-scale thefts of sweet stuff.

-  In British Columbia, a heist of honey and bees and hives was reported: "The equipment required to pull off such a caper may have been significant. Constable MacDonald speculated that the hive frames may have been placed into a temporary structure, then transported on a flatbed truck. But even lifting the honey-laden frames would not have been easy. 'You can just imagine the weight of some of these large hives,' he said. “They probably needed a forklift.”

-  Tons of elderberries were stolen from one massive Austrian farm: "The thieves, who cut an opening in the perimeter fence to access their target, had probably been at work since last Monday, police said. They even came back for more on Friday and before dawn yesterday. The berries were of a special variety used in the pharmaceutical industry and as colouring agents.

In fact, bulk food theft has been sweeping across Canada and other locations.

POSTSCRIPT: A grim and brutal theft of food in India by politicos, valued at over $14 billion,  leaves populations in starvation.

Clint Eastwood, American Icon, Learns The President Might Be A Democrat, Gets Riled Up

I've been trying to puzzle out just what Clint Eastwood said last night at the GOP convention -- he had a semi-angry argument with an empty chair, which he claimed an invisible President Obama was sitting in. 

"You see, back in those days, rich men would ride around in Zeppelins, dropping coins on people, and one day I seen J.D. Rockefeller flying by. So I run of the house with a big washtub and... hey! Where are you going? Anyway, about my washtub. I'd just used it that morning to wash my turkey, which in those days was known as a walking-bird. We'd always have walking-bird on Thanksgiving, with all the trimmings: cranberries, injun eyes, yams stuffed with gunpowder. Then we'd all watch football, which in those days was called baseball...

I'm thirsty! Ew, what smells like mustard? There sure are a lot of ugly people in your neighborhood. Ooh, look at that one. Ow, my glaucoma just got worse. The president is a Democrat??!!!

"Hello? I can't unbuckle my seat belt. Hello?  There are too many leaves in your walkway...

"We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.

"Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

"Then after World War Two, it got kinda quiet, 'til Superman challenged FDR to a race around the world. FDR beat him by a furlong, or so the comic books would have you believe. The truth lies somewhere in between."

Oops, sorry, that was from Abe Simpson, not Clint Eastwood, though it's easy to get the two confused ...

Tampa's Convention of Dunces

Given the clumsy, clueless and mean-spirited 'debates' dumped out by the passing parade of Republican presidential candidates for much of 2011 and 2012, the final days of their selection of a candidate for president was never going to hold much credibility, was it?

The lack of honesty, ideas, plans and the abundance of denials that their party has stalled Congress for the last 3 years has been difficult to witness. I'm all for opening up a discussion of ideas about political policies - but it just has not happened. What's left is a precarious balancing act which signifies little other than the absence of ideas.

Perhaps it shouldn't be any surprise then that vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan hauled out a litany of distortions and deceptions while attempting to excite the folks in Tampa. Lies are what are cited in one report today (limiting the focus to just the five "biggest" ones):

"I’d like to talk, instead, about what Ryan actually said—not because I find Ryan’s ideas objectionable, although I do, but because I thought he was so brazenly willing to twist the truth.

"At least five times, Ryan misrepresented the facts. And while none of the statements were new, the context was. It’s one thing to hear them on a thirty-second television spot or even in a stump speech before a small crowd. It’s something else entirely to hear them in prime time address, as a vice presidential nominee is accepting his party’s nomination and speaking to the entire country."

And the most-repeated and lovingly embraced distortions from The Nominee himself, Mitt Romney, are likely to get repeated tonight too. 

As others have noted, it's just sad and weird that the only idea the GOP is pushing into the political field is simply - "We still don't like Obama and that's enough for us and should be for you too."

Dylan's 'Duquesne Whistle' Video Arrives

The newest album from Bob Dylan arrives next month, but today we have a new video from one of the tunes from "Tempest", called "Duquesne Whistle". The video director is one Nash Edgerton, who's had a long career as a stunt double in the "Matrix" movies and for Ewan McGregor in the "Star Wars" movies. So maybe that's why this video, featuring a young lady who drives a Gremlin, features her young male admirer who gets beat up for his single-minded romanticism.

This is a jaunty Bob Willis-styled tune, and Bob's voice is as gravel-bumpy as a forgotten road. I still so enjoy his work, and was recently diving back into his astonishing album from August of 1965. His musical creations have been a constant wonder during my lifetime. I'm quite glad we are both still here, exploring, playing and pondering life and love and everything else.

Duquesne is as fun to write and pronounce as Albuquerque.

Rep. Akin Said Out Loud What The GOP Really Thinks

The outcry from Republicans over the dangerously stupid comments of congressman Todd Akin is decidedly at odds with the very platforms of the GOP. One is left with the clear impression that the outcry is bogus, given the reality that Akin said out loud what the GOP really thinks about women, rape and abortion.

As columnist John Avlon writes:

" ... the Republican Platform Committee again included in its platform draft support for a "human life amendment" to the Constitution, which would not make exceptions for victims of rape or incest or even provisions for the life of the mother.

"So while this position is being roundly decried for political reasons in the case of Akin, it is simultaneously being enshrined in the official Republican platform. It is evidence that the problem is not the policies but the political damage of discussing them in public."

Republican-led legislatures have very successfully been challenging a woman's right to choose, with vows to shut down Planned Parenthood (despite the many vital medical services they provide) and in Tennessee, a new law has nearly eliminated choice options in Knoxville, forcing one clinic to shut down.

Great Moments In Banana Slicing History

Apparently everything real or imagined is for sale on Amazon.

But as entertaining as the products might be - like the UFO Detector or the Uranium Ore or Tuscan Whole Milk - it's the comments/reviews which are the most entertaining.

For example, take the Banana Slicer for sale.

- "For decades I have been trying to come up with an ideal way to slice a banana. "Use a knife!" they say. Well...my parole officer won't allow me to be around knives. "Shoot it with a gun!" Background check...HELLO! I had to resort to carefully attempt to slice those bananas with my bare hands. 99.9% of the time, I would get so frustrated that I just ended up squishing the fruit in my hands and throwing it against the wall in anger. Then, after a fit of banana-induced rage, my parole officer introduced me to this kitchen marvel and my life was changed."

- "I always struggled with cutting bananas. Should I use my holiday cookie cutter set? My spoon? My laser pointer? My chainsaw? Sometimes the options were so overwhelming that I'd just throw caution to the wind and eat the banana skin-on. This tool has really taken the complexity out of a task that had left me in tears time and time again. Thank you Vittorio Banana Slicer."

- "As you may or may not know, I have 27 trained monkeys I use to do my evil bidding. Well, the younger monkeys teeth have not fully developed and so slicing a banana to feed them is a necessary chore. The adult monkeys used to have to chew up bananas and feed their young but not anymore with the Victorio Kitchen Products 571B Banana Slicer."

Pages of comments/reviews begin here.

Happy Blog Birthday to Me

August 2005 marks the creation of this humble yet lovable blog. And no sign of stoppage yet.

I'm moving into the 8th year of global digital publishing, noting that many a web site and blogging page has arisen and vanished, and I am, as always, simply happy to be here. Readers from just about every nation have made their way here over the years and I appreciate all of you so very much.

I must also thank The Google for creating this platform which allows me the ability to share my thoughts with the rest of the planet.

Here's a salute to all of you courtesy of Sam and Dave -

100 Best Maniacal Laughs

A hearty rip of maniacal laughter is created by both the Good and the Bad ... and the Lunatic too. In the clip below, honors go to multiple entries from Nick Cage, Gary Oldman, Bruce Campbell and just about all memorable Disney villains. One of the best things about this 100 Best Maniacal Laughs in Movies - you'll probably laugh yourself while watching.

There Is No Voter Fraud In Tennessee (Or Any Other State)

When the ridiculous notion that new, photographic Voter IDs were needed in every state of our nation, the most cursory examinations of voting records clearly indicated such laws and IDs were totally unnecessary, that no large scale fraud existed.

Now - as legislatures across the nation have made the decision to require these IDs - we get a formal, comprehensive study which plainly reveals what we already knew ... there just isn't any fraud to combat at all:

"News21, a part of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education focused on investigative reporting, analyzed 2,608 alleged election-fraud cases, going back to 2000, mined from thousands of public records requests, in all 50 states. (You can peruse the resulting database here.) In all, they found just 10 cases of voter impersonation, or, "one out of about every 15 million prospective voters" during that time."

"In Tennessee, the study turned up 14 total cases of reported fraud since 2000, none of which were cases of voter impersonation. The city of Memphis filed a lawsuit last week, challenging the state's voter ID law on constitutional grounds."

Imagine that one person, let's say his name was Bob, and back in 2002, Bob ate a chicken salad sandwich that was rotten and it killed him, and every state in the nation voted to outlaw chicken salad sandwiches, even though no one can find anyone named Bob who died after eating a rotten chicken salad sandwich - that's pretty much what the bogus Voter ID law is built on - mindless fear.

In Pennsylvania, just as a case against the implementation of the law, the state has agreed the law is utterly without merit or necessity and is likely illegal:

"... state officials conceded that they had no evidence of prior in-person voter fraud, or even any reason to believe that such crimes would occur with more frequency if a voter ID law wasn't in effect.

"There have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states,” the statement reads."

 The goal of the law, sadly, has been achieved - it will stop many from voting and will confuse the rest of us. It is not about fraud - it is a rollback to the days of when only white, adult males with property are allowed to vote. And that is not American at all. Shame on every legislator who approved these laws.

Tennessee Designers Make Mars Rover Move

It's deeply gratifying to learn that some very smart folks in Ooltewah, Tennessee are responsible for making the massive, newly-landed mobile laboratory on the surface of Mars actually move around.

The American Bicycle Group in Ooltewah (population: 687)  designed the legs to withstand to the landing and be able to move around the surface for the next several years, according to the story in today's TimesFreePress:

"The Chattanooga team left its mark on Mars, too. Each one of their names is etched inside the legs they helped create that have now found a permanent home among the stars."

At KnoxViews, R. Neal noted today that the wheels of the car-sized rover will leave a "secret coded message" in the Martian soil.

As this new hallmark in robotic space exploration made it's landing, some thousands of folks gathered to watch it all live on the giant screen in Times Square. (click to enlarge)

More pictures of the evening here.

The rover has a nuclear battery which could power the robot for some 14 years - the graphic below, via Space.com, reveals how it is loaded with cameras and equipment. (click to enlarge)

Mark Clayton: Triple Tennessee Facepalm

Our humble state of TN made national political news - once again - for achieving a new level of Dangerously Stupid Acts. The cause this time was the election victory last week for a full-blown toon named Mark Clayton as a Democrat U.S. Senate candidate.

Seems the voters just plunked down their votes for Clayton because his name was first on the ballot - and when you add in the idiocy with which the state Dem party operates, as discussed by Southern Beale on her blog - well, it becomes clear that it was just about inevitable that Dangerously Stupid would win the day.

For many months, I was fairly certain that actress and activist Park Overall was going to win that primary - she campaigned with much energy and speaks so plainly, it seemed a no-brainer that she would make a very fierce competitor for the incumbent millionaire Senator Bob Corker. Never underestimate the power of ignorant voters is the lesson we are left with I suppose.

Add in the fact that it was not until after the election of Clayton that the state Dem party disavowed Clayton. I know of many smart Democrats in Tennessee and read some fine writing from many of them online. But the state party is as deaf as a post apparently. You folks might want to start crafting some standards and hiring some people who are competent.

It's bad enough folks would vote for someone they knew zip about. And it's mighty clear that for the last few years the state Dem party has zero ability to operate with any significance. (And for the record I have never been a member of any political party.) The official state Dem response to Clayton's win simply "urges Democrats to write-in a candidate of their choice in November.”

Like that's a good idea. They need to throw 100% of their effort into backing Park Overall, who would at the very least make mincemeat of Corker during a debate. 

But here's my real concern -  our state has loads of Conservative voters and party leaders, I get that. But I also know there are many, many of us non-Conservative, non-Republicans who live and work in our humble state and we get zero representation in government, from the city level to the state level and the federal level. Like many of us in this minority group, I still write and call my elected representatives to express my views on many topics - and at best, all we get back is a "thank you for writing" and "your views are important" replies. And that's a lie.

These folks will not ever stand up for us, will not ever even consider the merits of the issues we raise, and that dismissal is final and permanent. And electing a full-blown toon like Clayton will just make it worse.

Does Gov. Haslam Want Dumb Workers or An Educated Society?

In recent days our esteemed Governor Bill Haslam has been holding meetings with folks from a wide range of business and university officials to talk about education with a particular goal in mind - that higher education must work harder to train people for jobs.

An article in today's KnoxNewsSentinel begins:

"Tennessee does not have enough qualified workers with specific skills, a high work ethic and critical thinking abilities, local business leaders told Gov. Bill Haslam on Tuesday.

College and university leaders, meanwhile, said they need more resources to adequately educate and graduate more students to fill those jobs.

"We're trying to have those conversations around the state to make certain we're providing positions that will train people for the jobs that are there today."

And while I certainly agree our state and community needs critical thinking skills, I read no mention of just what "specific skills" are being cited here, other than mentions of welding and engineering. And we certainly need to discuss and debate the role and the enormous impact which education has on our world at nearly every level.

The optimist in me wants to believe the driving forces for these Haslam-led meetings will lead to a better understanding of what the functions higher education should serve.

The pessimist, however, sees a day when higher education is either about technical services or football and other sports.

Reading the comments to the KNS story (often a grueling descent into nonsense) I noted the following one:

"We don't need any more fluff degrees.

No more philosophy, theatre, arts, sculpting, dead languages, mythology, psychology, library science, interpretive dance, music, music history, Greek literature, roman literature, American literature type degrees.
I could go on but why the state continues to fund universities that pump out not only worthless degrees but degrees that put their constituents into crushing debt with no real hope of finding a decent job in their field is beyond me.
If someone wants to get a degree in one of these areas its fine but why encourage it by offering scholarships to it?
China does it right. Scholarships and state funding only in areas that produce jobs in fields of study."

What kind of world will we have should we remove knowledge of history, science, the arts, language, libraries, music, literature, etc etc. Is emulating the nation of China our best option?

Is the sole purpose of attaining a college degree merely to obtain a high-paid job? Is there no value left in education if it does not lead to a giant paycheck?

Once we eliminate the areas of study the commenter suggests - critical thinking skills will likewise vanish. Absent ethics, philosophy, communication skills, understanding of history, the ability to express ourselves and our thoughts about our world, ignoring the past or ridiculing those who excel in all these areas - what kind of world would we have?

Humans are not meant to simply serve a machine of industry ... are they? 

Tennessee Senate Wants To Ban Teaching Gravity

(NOTE:  Satire follows below ... at least I hope it is satire.)

Speaking from outside the Tennessee State Capitol building in Nashville, Weinger said the bill would protect teachers who chose to criticize gravity and other scientific theories in their classrooms.

“The aim of all education is to teach students to think for themselves and we plan to do this by allowing children to be indoctrinated with whatever loosely founded views their teachers may hold.”

He added “there is strong evidence in the Bible that the Law of Gravity is a fallacy. For example, Hebrew 1:3 explicitly states that Christ upholds all things by the word of his power – seems like a pretty solid argument to me”.

“If you compare this against what’s currently taught – that matter ‘emits gravitational waves’ which ‘effect the curvature of the space time continuum’…well gravity starts to look pretty unlikely doesn’t it? I’m pretty sure most of those aren’t even real words. Unlike Christ’s.”

Ms. Jenny Fuller, an elementary school teacher from Gatlinburg TN who has been campaigning against the inclusion of gravity in the school curriculum for several years, said she was “delighted” with the outcome.

“I have long felt uncomfortable teaching gra…gra….this theory” she said. “It is clearly a dangerous idea to teach our children – Newton ‘discovered’ gravity by an apple falling on his head, Adam and Eve fell from the Garden of Eden for eating one. Then Newton calls gravity an ‘attractive force between all objects’ – such a mentality is clearly a gateway for temptation and sexual promiscuity”.

More here, and for those who need even more assistance:

SATIRE:  Noun: 1. The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices.

I Return to Blogging via A Wee Stroll Across The Internet

It was quite flattering to be called out by Mr. Silence for my absence over  the past month - it is good to be missed. So thank you.

It has certainly been a busy summer of news, grievous idiocy, botched governmental and social tomfoolery and more as the nation ponders presidential elections and witnesses the near witless fumbles of the old-fashioned media folks assigned to collect and share the national news.

A few random observations for you -

-- Here in my humble community - as in many others - I cringed when I saw the middle-school level of headlines and reporting following, for instance, the horrible massacre in Colorado at a showing of the newest Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises"  -- the headline?

My local paper had a picture of the theater where the events took place with a two-word headline: "Dark Night" -- had such a headline been presented in a freshman newspaper class, it would have gotten an F grade and a note that said "Tacky and Shameful". Sadly, so many other newspapers and newscasters said the same thing. Mass murders and tasteless witty puns do not go together. Yeesh.

-- A congressional race in Middle Tennessee over the seat held by Diane Black has become nothing more than A Battle of Millionaires, and they spend more time all Chicken-Little fashion wailing that Sharia Law and Mosques are taking over the state like giant swarms of man-eating kudzu monsters. Again, shame, shame. Multi-millionaires do not give a diddley-squat about improving the state or national economies.

-- A  research scientist in Stockholm was jealous when he assumed his wife kissed another man, so he cut off her lip and ate it. He told  the press: "I got the idea spontaneously. I thought, 'I'll get rid of it. I'm a man of science, I have a very high IQ. I have the ability to solve problems in a second'."

--  On a more positive note- a professional hula hooper performs for the crowd on how to hula hoop, pour a glass of wine and drink it while hooping - God bless the Internet -

Bloater Paste, Punting and The Glamorous Blanchisseuse

It's obvious, that I, your humble narrator and blogger have been absent for most of the month. But it is with some good reason, as I have been on a journey through the British countryside via Kenneth Grahame's "Wind In The Willows".

I've been directing and rehearsing a stage version of Grahame's tale for the 21st Annual Rose Center Summer Players production here in Morristown, which runs one weekend only for four performances July 27, 28 and 29 at Rose Center. This is the fifth summer in a row I have been fortunate enough to work with the production, which is an arts education program Rose Center runs each year, offering students a chance to learn and explore the theatrical world. And as before, I'm having a blast working with so many talented young actors.

The story - which has been shortened and Disney-fied over the years into "Mr Toad's Wild Ride" - is a fascinating and very funny adventure of some very proper British woodland creatures who go boating and picnicking on the Thames river - Rat, Mole, Badger and yes, Mr Toad, plus many rabbits, squirrels, hedgehogs and some villainous weasels.

The weasels are fierce bullies, who do eventually get what they deserve, and the young actors decided to make them look like greasers from the 1950s, all leather jackets and jeans, and they remind me of the gang of witless thugs led by Eric Von Zipper in all those early 60s beach movies.

In working with Grahame's book, I had to learn just what "bloater paste" is - and it doesn't sound too good. It's a fish paste, usually made from sardines, and in fact, as of 2012, there are no longer any makers of this dubious culinary delight in England. Bloater Paste is fast becoming a lost menu item (probably a good thing).

Punting, of course, is a bona fide British past time, which the young actors today simply giggle about. Punting is just fun to say, after all. 

In the course of the story, Mr Toad gets sent to jail for stealing cars and then escapes dressed as the jail's laundress. Yet when he describes his escape to his friends, he claims he transformed into a "glamorous blanchisseuse", and that sent all of us scrambling to figure out how to say and what it was. We learned that many of the world's most famous painters had made the lowly washerwoman, or laundress or blanchisseuse all subjects of paintings, such as Van Gogh and Lautrec. Who knew?

With opening night just a week away, I expect to have even less time to spend online, so please provide a bit of forgiveness for me. And for a mere five dollars, you can get a ticket to the show too, and join in the wild world of Pastes, Punting and Laundry.

Zombie Theme Parks and Country Music Zombie Ballads

Walking dead folks are quite popular - so popular that they could bring a wave of economic booms and boomlets.

One developer in Detroit is pushing hard to let the city fathers sell off some 200 acres of the more derelict sections of the city to build Z World Detroit -- a zombie-infested theme park. While his fundraising is pretty low so far, but the final outcome might just be that one day you and the family can trek to the Motor City and flee and fight zombies. The LA Times has more on the story.

The official website for Z World Detroit offers t-shirts, buttons and fun drawings like these via this promo video:

But what about the fans of country music with earnest singer-songwriter aspirations who also have zombies on their mind?

Then meet Amanda Richards, who has a new record out, a 'concept album' about the plaintive tunes of the last lone survivor of the Zombie Apocalypse called "Play Dead". Richards says her music is from the perspective of " ... a collection of old-school country songs about the zombie apocalypse written from the perspective of the soon-to-be last person on Earth who happens to be a country singer and a feminist.  The songs span nearly the entire history of country music: from boot-stomping old-timey banjo tunes to classic he-done-me-wrong ballads; endearing melodies sung with charm and poise countered by gory apocalyptic themes."

Songs include:

"Don't Leave Your Woman (When There's Walking Dead)" 
and
"Undead In My Bed"

Freedom

Today's Court Ruling on Heath Care and What It Means

UPDATE: Much surprise that the Supreme Court has upheld that the Affordable Care Act. Chief Justice Roberts and the majority of the court agrees that the law is indeed constitutional - much to the surprise of many court followers and those who have opposed President Obama, it's a clear win for his policies -- from the SCOTUS blog:
"In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding."
 
 original post follows below ...
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Today, some people are hoping the Supreme Court effectively ends the presidency of Barack Obama by ruling his health care law unconstitutional and thus rejecting a centerpiece of his first term in office. It's the culmination of a fierce and dedicated attempt to discredit and dismiss Obama from the political world, and this effort really has no concern about that status of health care in America.

Some have framed the entire discussion about reforming the way we pay for and receive health care as a debate over President Obama's worth as the nation's leader. They have worked so very, very hard to disguise the decades-old problems of affordable health care as some horrible governmental monster.

Court watchers all claim there are four key issues on which the court today will issue it's decision - the media meanwhile has bought into the narrative that this is a do-or-die game akin to a run for the final playoffs in the upcoming presidential election.

What I deeply dislike is the eagerness to ignore the realities of a for-profit health care system, a fatally flawed system where so many simply cannot afford basic medical care. There is little interest in providing such care to those who need it, even though we claim to have the finest medical care in the world ... if you can pay for it. Indeed, such folks who oppose reform laws embrace the notion that if you cannot afford it, that also proves something about your worth (or lack of it) as a citizen.

I don't expect the court will back the president today - Conservatives would knock anything and anyone down in their blind ambition to prevent any change to the status quo and to marginalize any idea from this president. In the eyes of some, the issue is not that our nation has citizens who can't receive medical care - and the cure for that delusion remains elusive.

A Zombies Summertime

Thousands Support The Weight of One

Endless studies and statistics and graphs would easily tell the story of how the top 1% of our modern world overwhelm and stunt the remaining 99%, but this simple artistic display by Korean artist Do-Ho Suh tells the story even better.

As shown in photos above and below (via this website) thousands and thousands of tiny plastic figures hold up the very floor people can stand on. And yes, one could view the metaphor as showing how it is that many support one and how that might work for or against you.

Artists sure are tricky.

Martian Memories With Ray Bradbury

One of the best aspects of people is the way we make writers and artists part of our lives. This week, we lost a great friend and a member of our human family, a person who helped make imagination into reality, who urged us all to make dreams possible.

Writer Ray Bradbury, who died this week at age 91, told tales in such a unique voice and with such simple grace. As I was reading about his life and works this week, I learned that a digital copy of his book, "The Martian Chronicles". was sent to Mars in 2007 aboard the Phoenix spacecraft which landed near the Martian North Pole. And in August of this year, a robotic mission to Mars by a craft named Curiosity will land and many have already suggested the landing site should be called the Ray Bradbury Memorial Station.

His awards and achievements are many. President Obama expressed what many of us thought this week about Ray Bradbury:

"For many Americans, the news of Ray Bradbury's death immediately brought to mind images from his work, imprinted in our minds, often from a young age. His gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world. But Ray also understood that our imaginations could be used as a tool for better understanding, a vehicle for change, and an expression of our most cherished values. There is no doubt that Ray will continue to inspire many more generations with his writing, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends."

Back in 2005 when I first began writing this blog, I wrote about my own thoughts about Mars as images of dust devils were filmed by a robotic platform sitting on the planet. I've always liked that post, and in many ways it was my attempt to create something Ray Bradbury would like to read. So, what follows below is a reprint of that post -- and thank you Ray for making our world and our endless sea of stars feel like home.

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Aug. 23, 2005

MARTIAN

I sit at my computer and I can watch Martian movies, real ones, filmed on location by the first robotic astronauts, mechanical twins roving the desolate reddish landscape for the last year and a half. NASA revealed these images in a short film of just a few seconds, in black and white, robotic cinema verite. I'm pecking at this keyboard on this computer and some 45 million miles away -- Mars will be getting a bit closer these next few months -- and many will mark how this other planet, smaller than the one I call home, takes a slow circular dance around the Sun.

There are no people to see in the short movie, no mulit-limbed invasion squads. The camera filmed in some 12 minutes this passing of "dust devils" across the rocky expanse of Mars which I have sat and watched for maybe a half an hour. It is odd, really, here at this far technological beginning point, this moment and place where I can see what a camera on a remote control cart sees. How long, I wonder, will we Earth-folk take to build and then send other robots to Mars or beyond? In a hundred years, will some other inhabitant of this valley in eastern Tennessee watch robots taking clunky steps to build some empty metal shells that might house fuel or food or other robots? Will it take fifty years or maybe two hundred and fifty?

There have been recent discussions here on this planet about Science and Space and what Science is or should be. Some theories put forth that millions of years ticked past here on this world -- hundreds of millions -- and lifeforms bubbled and swam and clumped together, thanks to the water and the dirt and the air and the fire, and caught hold and started growing. Some theories put forth that a Creator, a Prime Force, made all there is on this planet in six days and rested on the seventh day from that labor. And not only what is on this planet, but everything out in this solar system and beyond it, millions and millions of other galaxies made of planets with fire and ice and gas and shattered meteor bits, and all in six days. It has taken a very very short span of some forty years, 1965 to 2005, for the inhabitants here to begin accept the ideas that inhabitants of other colors or gender might all have the same basic freedoms, another beginning point that is still revolutionary in terms of how we live with each other.

And here I sit, staring at the 17 second movie of dusty twists of wind, ragged white whips that lash back and forth across a desolate world.

Some even more primitive robots have, in less than 30 years, been shot out into the inky blackness which surrounds us, and other planets are photographed -- planets that are thick with heat and pressure, enormous swirling clouds of gas and storms that bring acids and liquid metals in a hazy sheet across a surface whose contents I can barely imagine or conceive. The robot cameras explode or dissolve into nothingness long before they can attain anything even remotely considered a "landing"..

I ponder the Martian landscapes and wonder about it's design -- why create such a place? What purpose does it hold? Were the robotic twins on the scene too soon or too late to catch a sight of intelligent, conscious creatures?

Why make a world of dust? Of ice? 

Perhaps those winds are scattering particles of sand as part of a ten billion year planet renovation plan, and if so I doubt anything left in this valley on my home planet will know about it, even if I wish or hope that someone will be here to see a transformed world.

The Martian world today has little robots staring intently at rocks and dust devils, and people here, too, see it -- observing the location. I seem to understand so little of stars and atoms, I don't understand why the inhabitants here are so contentious and vile, or loving and compassionate in the face of such an enormous collection of galaxies filled with random winds and rotations. I am surprised we have not all stayed hidden in caves, full of fear from moment to moment, like we see it in the beginning of Stanley Kubrick's movie of space travel, "2001: A Space Odyssey". 

But what always excited me watching that movie was that slow, rhythmic rolling dance of men and machines and planets all moving to the Blue Danube Waltz, and how thrilled I was just to see it, to observe this quiet emptiness of space and stars and galaxies whose movements I cannot comprehend. And at the end of "2001" (a title whose name once resonated with an implausible future and now is just part of our past), at the end of the movie the astronaut has been moved from the caves to the stars and Kubrick leaves me to make up my own mind about what I have seen, what it all might mean.

My niece told me some years ago she fell asleep when she watched the movie it was so boring to her. I could hardly believe it. How could anyone watch those images and not feel some kind of un-nameable connection. some sense of endless wonder, some urge to search among the stars?

Filming geologic time will not bring box office dollars.

Mars has been in our books and our imaginations for thousands of years. Once on a Halloween night it escaped from the radio and terrified thousands of radio listeners, and Mars landed on top of actor Tom Cruise this summer. TV gave us "My Favorite Martian", and in ancient days it was the home of Gods and myths barely remembered, and today I sit and watch the dust devils filmed on location, on Mars, with no laugh tracks, no panic in the streets.

Maybe the best way to think of it is as development property -- a slow development, true. But I can almost see it all as part of the view of Our backyard. I have to use my imagination, to consider time and distance and what Life requires or how Life must adapt. I have to be willing to consider so many theories, and if I dismiss the possibilities, then I limit my view and I might as well stay in the caves.