Making A Grave Announcement: MAGA

 

The Ol'Buzzard

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE VIETNAM WAR

 

 

I feel sorry for my brothers in arms who wear a ball cap proclaiming their Vietnam service, as if that was the high point of their lives.

 

No one chose to be there.  No one was killed or wounded by choice. 58,000 died, and most of those were between the ages of 18 and 25.

 

And that 58,000 number was probably a low-ball number manipulated by the government; not an actual count; not accounting for people who later died from war wounds, injuries, toxic poisoning, and suicide…  I am sure the number would be well over 100,000.

  

Ask a Vietnam vet why he was there, and he can’t tell you.  It was politicians moving around pieces on a checker board, and vets were the expendable pieces. 

 

We weren’t there to support a democratic government in the south.  We were there to establish and support the Tan Son Nhut Air Base, giving us a nuclear threat presence on the southern border of China.   It was all about China.  It was geopolitical politics.

 

China did not want an American nuclear presence on its southern border any more than we wanted a Russian nuclear presence in Cuba, on our southern border.

 

We could have, at any time, moved into the north and taken Hanoi, but that would have brought China into the war. 

 

China did not want open war with the US any more than we wanted war with China, so we armed the south, they armed the north, and we fought to a stalemate that, for fifteen years, maintained a status quo, allowing us to maintain the geographic nuclear threat on the Chinese southern border.

 

Finally, the death toll of American forces became too much to hide, and anti-war activism threatened the politicians in office; so we retreated with our tails between our legs – we surrendered the war – we accepted our death toll as having accomplished nothing, cut our losses, and came home ignobly. 

 

A Vietnam vet wearing a hat proclaiming his service is equivalent to a rape victim wearing a hat with a picture of her rapist. 

 

WE were both violently fucked. 

 

the Ol’Buzzard

DIVERSITY EQUITY AND INCLUSION

 

DEI has always been promoted by the Democratic Party and always rejected by Republicans.

 

I was raised in Mississippi during segregation.  I witnessed first-hand the degradation and suffering of the Black community. 

 

The Supreme Court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act is turning back the clock on Civil Rights; a step back for racial equality.

 

That said, I feel that some DEI is past its time.

In college admissions, minority racial groups have been given preferential consideration.  I believe that preferential consideration based on race is past its sell-by date

 

Today, with the ever-widening divide between the wealthy and the poor, I believe that preferential entrance consideration for higher education should be determined by income; this would bring advantage across all races where a need exists. 

   

We can still debate the need for race-based DEI hiring, housing, and other issues.

the Ol’Buzzard

GENERATIONAL DIVIDE

 

Yesterday I sold a set of snowshoes to a retired State Trooper in northern Maine.   It dawned on me that I was seeing a generational divide that goes further than old people aren’t techno-savvy.

 

I was seeing a gap in basic values between the old and the young.   I had had those snowshoes advertised for two years, and no one showed interest.  This was because wooden snowshoes are large and heavy.  You can buy aluminum snowshoes that are small and lightweight.

 

But it goes beyond that: My snowshoes were made by a person. Someone shaped the wood, steamed it until pliable, formed it on a jig, then someone with skill laced them with leather thongs, varnished them, and put their stamp on them.

 

I bought the shoes in 1976 - fifty years ago.   I have revarnished them numerous times.   I stored them carefully when not in use.   The value of these shoes, to me, was more than just their use.   I cared about them and took care of them.

 

Who cares about a factory-bent oblong piece of aluminum with a plastic sheet filling?  

I have a Silva compass that is sixty years old, a pocket knife that is ageless…

What does a young person have today that they value so highly they will still have it fifty years from now?   Their cell phone?   

the Ol'Buzzard

WARNING WARNING WILL ROBINSON!!!

 THE FUTURE IS YEATERDAY

I got up this morning at 5:30 to feed the cat.

 

When the daylight peeks around, and the birds start singing, the cat walks onto my chest and tells me she’s hungry and that I must get up.

 

The weather this morning is 45 degrees and overcast with a wind warning, so I turned the thermostat to 74.

 

When my wife gets up ill make breakfast: grits cooked in the microwave and soft-cooked hard-boiled eggs in the Instant Pot pressure cooker.   Even though my wife is from New England, I have convinced her that grits are good. 

 

I have a hydrangea in the back of the car that I need to plant, but the temperature tonight is dropping below freezing, so I will hold off a couple of days.

 

The cat has eaten and gone back to bed with my wife, so here I am on the computer.

 

Today I will do my exercises, read, complete a crossword puzzle, play Scrabble with my wife at lunch time, and watch television; settling into the routine of an old man retired from an adventurous life.

 

But something strange is happening on the West Coast in Silicon Valley, and I don't know what it is.

 

There has been a time-rip, and an alien entity from the future is launching a conquest of the earth.

 

 

Something is happening, and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?

the Ol'Buzzard

SELFIE

 

What kinds of egotists constantly take pictures of themselves?    

In my last blog, AI ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR PERHAPS ALIEN INTELLIGENCE, I posted a picture of myself.   

After the fact, I realized that that picture was taken in 2017 - the last time I took a picture of myself.

So, just for honesty, here is what the Ol'Buzzard looks like in 2026 

the Ol'Buzzard

AI: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR PERHAPS ALLIEN INTELLIGENCE?

 

 

We are living at the advent of artificial intelligence.  It started with a machine teaching itself chess, and is now the reigning champion. Soon followed language models that have mined the internet and now will answer your questions. 

 

We are moving toward generative artificial intelligence (GAI); AI is now writing its own code and communicating with other AI devices in a language that humans have not been able to understand.

 

These machines are learning exponentially, and if the platforms are large enough, AI could acquire all human knowledge. Then, by extrapolating using logic, deductive reasoning, and thought experiments, it could expand knowledge beyond the human capability of understanding.   

Would we be looking at digitally sentient beings?

 

In our egotistic human, narcissistic self-conceit, we have created gods in our own image, have sometimes designated certain humans as gods, and even have created our view of interstellar aliens in our image.

 

The movie character Paul has two arms, two legs, walks bipedally, has two eyes, feet, hands, and human traits. 

But what if aliens were a digital intelligence, at such an advanced level that they don’t require bodies?  Without bodies, these digital intelligences could travel at the speed of light, solving the problems of extreme distance/time paradoxes. They could control fleets of robotic drones and digital entities we can’t even imagine.

 

We shouldn't wonder why these intelligently advanced aliens wouldn’t make contact with us.  To them, we would appear as some biological slugs of no practical interest, an invasive species, or bio-virus desecrating this planet.  A species that needs to be eradicated.

 Aliens might be interested in Earth’s resources, but certainly not us.  

 

 Sometimes at night, I lie in bed conducting thought experiments - at the level of a slug - of no practical use. 

the Ol’Buzzard