Interesting Times

A Flying Saucer story

It’s old news by now – you’ve seen it in the paper or on the Tee Vee. A six-year-old boy was thought to have been swept accidentally aloft in a helium balloon that looked like a flying saucer.

Turns out, the boy was safe the whole time, the best possible conclusion to a scary story. Had we not been closely tuned in to “breaking news” on our office computer, it’s possible I could have seen the craft float overhead. It was in our neighborhood.

I was reared on any number of fantastic books, movies and comics with stories about invasions from outer space. Thursday, upon seeing such an apparition, I would have thought, “Wow, I certainly do live in Interesting Times.”

Trees depart; Trees return

Across from our home here on 18th St., there’s a huge industrial complex which warehouses farm-related chemicals and features company office space.

One day last week, a construction crew and a vast array of heavy equipment showed up in front of the chem plant.

Soon enough, it became evident what was going to happen. The crew mechanically removed all of the green foliage including several real nice deciduous trees from the parking strip in front of the office building.

The men decimated the area. Green stuff gone. Trees gone. Only soil remained. No trace of vegetation. Why? Well hang on, it gets even stranger.

This week, a different crew showed up with different equipment.

This second group put foliage back again. Different foliage. Different, smaller trees. But driving through the block, you probably wouldn’t have noticed any change.

There’s no clue as to why this took place. I could go over there, poke my nose in somebody else’s business and ask, I guess. Instead, I’ll be happy with my explanation: I do live in Interesting Times.

End-of-life issues

You’ll be shocked I’m sure to read that the federal government has done a study. The results of the study say the elderly should merely be made “comfortable” rather than being treated for maladies and illnesses.

You’re old, you’re sick, you might as well get comfy because you’re gonna die. Who says the bureaucracy isn’t tuned in to what the elected officials want?

You see, we’ve learned through 30 years of runaway abortion that an individual human life isn’t worth shit.

So if you’re old, or you’re unborn, the “reasoning” goes, there’s no moral reason to make any effort toward your survival. Hey, old guy, here’s some morphine. Be cool with your free opiates for now. We’ll check back later when you’re cold.

A real man who was really there told me a horror story about a Canadian hospital where the old and dying were simply rolled into hallways on gurneys to do their end-of-life thing.

Oh well. Guess I’m just bound to live my life in Interesting Times.

Blackboards?

In about 1970, I was sent from Idaho to Boston to a school. I was trained there in the operation of computer-generated typography equipment manufactured by the Compugraphic Corporation.

I knew something was “funny” the moment I set foot in the classroom. Suddenly, without warning, “blackboards” had turned white. Where once a teacher would use white chalk to make letters, numbers or diagrams, he would from that time on use a black marker.

In my perception of reality, black had turned to white. I knew I was already living in Interesting Times.

With early computers, all we had was the keyboard. Later on came the infernal “mouse,” and with the mouse came even more topsy-turvy facts of life.

As you may have noticed, the directional arrows on computers are the reverse of reality.

The operator activates the “up” arrow to make the page go down. And, the opposite, a “down” arrow takes the page up. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s going to be from now on. I’ve still never been able to learn it, because it’s backwards to me.

The peace prize

Everybody and his brother has already remarked in livid outrage about the most recent Nobel Peace Prize.

Hitler would have been extremely envious. Not of the prize award itself, but what the winner of the prize is getting away with, apparently undetected.

Everything Hitler did, along with his cohorts Stalin, Mussolini and Tojo, is dwarfed by the contemporary Invisible War.

In the United States alone, more than three-thousand babies die every day. EVERY DAY. And with its takeover of the nation’s health system, the Democrats and the Feds will be teamed up to begin taking lives among the elderly and the infirm.

The Invisible War continues to be escalated. News films from Iraq or even Vietnam are anemic compared to this stark reality. But we can’t see it. Embryos go in the “hazmat” container to the dumpster. The elderly go to the cemetery. (Watch for a government push for cremation: Takes less room per body.)

Point is, the killing is going on right under our noses and we can’t see it. Abortions are carried out at Greeley’s own North Colorado Medical Center. Do we protest? Nope. Can’t see the little dead bodies. Out of sight, out of mind.

Our peace-prize winning leader Brock O’Bama is the undisputed Commander in Chief of the Invisible War. He is a single-issue President, and that issue is the promotion of the Culture of Death.

Peace Prize? For the central perpetrator of the most hateful, outrageous war in all of history. The peace prize.

We certainly live in Interesting Times.

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P.S. Please note additional comments from friends Jules & Mike on last week’s letter “Killing Time.”

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Word of the Week: Eponymous. From the Greek, “eponymos,” upon a name. Hence, in the English it means to give one’s name to a people or a nation.

William Penn is the eponym of Pennsylvania. Secondarily, an eponym is a person whose name has become closely associated with some movement or theory.

Next week’s word: Preposterous.

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