Thursday, September 27, 2018

THE QUESTION






















Something has happened
but I don’t know what it is!

Was it while I was asleep?

Did the veil between universes thin? 
 Have I awakened in an alternate existence?
Did fairies leave a changeling but left me inside?
Am I in a dream, but can’t wake up?

Something has happened
but I don’t know what it is!

I am me.  I think like me.  I feel like me.
But that person in the mirror
That’s not me!
That person in the photograph
That can’t be me!

Something has happened
But I don’t know what it is”

Was it while I was asleep?

That something stole my body and left me in an old man!



Monday, September 24, 2018

I'M SICK OF KLAVANAUGH - BUT...



Beside the point that Republicans stole the prior Supreme Court nomination, and the point that Kavanaugh's extreme conservative positions make him unfit for the office; not excusing rape charges, it bothers me we are going back to post adolescent high school time to look for inappropriate actions to use as unconfirmed accusations against Kavanaugh or any man or woman.

Now they are claiming that Kavanaugh exposed himself as a teenager.   Hell, I ran through the streets of downtown Jacksonville, Florida bare ass naked when the song The Streak was popular - and I was in my thirties.   Of course, with my background I could never be seriously considered for any major public office that would require scrutiny.  






My only reply for my actions from high school through age forty when I married my wife, is to quote Solzhenitsyn: 
"One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being." 


the Ol'Buzzard


Sunday, September 23, 2018

HOW TO SMOKE POT









I recent commented on a blog, and suggested the person smoke pot to relieve stress.   Being a Vietnamese vet from the sixties it didn’t occur to me that there are still a lot of people that have never tried it. 

I guess the cookies and such are all-right; but as an ex-smoker I find the process of an occasional tote relaxing in itself. 

I prefer a pipe when I smoke, as there is no waste and no rolling involved.   Nothing fancy, just a small metal or glass pipe.  You take a bud and crush it to tobacco consistency and fill the bowl. 



You will need a Bic lighter, as you have to relight after every draw. 

If you are a beginner, you don’t want to smoke the whole bowl.  Just light the pipe and take a small drag to char the weed, and exhale quickly.   Next take a drag and hold it in your lungs for twenty or thirty seconds – whatever is comfortable.  Wait for a few minutes then do it once more and stop.   Two hits for a beginner is enough.  You are not looking to do a bong with Cheech and Chong.    





And you definitely don't want to smoke weed with Willie!








Have some pleasant music on – relax.   You won’t feel particularly high but you will be relaxed.    When you have some down time from work or obligations do it again.   You will learn where your comfortable limit is.

If you don’t overdo, this will be a pleasant experience and a relief from stress.   You won’t get a hangover and the worst thing that will happen is you will get the munchies. 

Pot has always had a bad rap from people that haven’t smoked.  During the early twentieth century, white men who were fine with bathtub gin and probation rum were horrified that the black community was getting high on the Devil Weed.    Every since then pot has been made out to be an addictive killer that is the stepping stone to herion or worse.     And yet, nobody ever smoked a joint and then beat his wife and kids.  

There are medical applications for pot but they are being suppressed by dinosaurs like Jeff Beauregard Sessions.   There is relief for people suffering with Cancer, Parkinson’s, Epilepsy and PTSD; and this is a natural plant, not a chemical concoction.    

With this blind irrational fear of marijuana, we have also suppressed the use of hemp as a manufacturing product and a cash crop for farmers.   Hemp grows quickly and can be turned into cloth, paper, fuel pellets, rope and hundreds of other useful items. 

Just like racism, sexism and fundamentalism, a couple of older generations will have to die off before more progressive thinking can prevail.



The Ol’Buzzard




















Friday, September 21, 2018

THE RUGGED TEXAS COWBOY








From childhood, my image of Texas men has always been linked to the Cowboy.  Men who drove cattle through Indian territory; braved attacks from rustlers; forded dangerous rivers; road out deadly stampedes – men who lived rough, worked hard and partied hard when the drive was over.  





You wouldn’t disrespect these men.  You would never insult their wives or disparage their fathers or insult them to their face without expecting immediate payback: a fist fight or a gun fight. 





I guess Texas men have changed.   It seems they are willing to vote for a yellow, sniveling coward: A man that Donald Trump called to his face - Lying Ted; insulted his wife insinuating she was ugly; lied about his father calling him a terrorist involved in the assassination of a President.  And yet, a man who is willing to drop to his knees anytime Donald Trump reaches for his zipper. 




It seems the new Texas man standard must be:  you can spit in my face, disrespect my wife, disparage my father and I will still kiss your ass as long as you let me keep my job... and I'm just fine voting for a man like that.

What happened to the Cowboys?
the Ol’Buzzard




Friday, September 14, 2018

BACK TO THE FUTURE








The book Future Shock by Alvin Toffler proposed that mankind was psychologically and emotionally unable to adjust to rapid change; that change, to be comfortable, must happen over an extended time. 

Boy was he wrong. 

Change did come slow when knowledge was acquired by trial-and-error. 

At the time of Jesus, the wheelbarrow was cutting edge technology.   The world prodded along for centuries until the invention of the printing press in the 1400’s.   The printing press allowed the mass sharing of information including the technology of the day.

By the early 1900’s the T-model Ford and primitive airplanes were cutting edge technology.   Changes were happening, but they were still slow.   

In 1976’ computers were in their infancy and the Apple-2 with 4 Kb of ram, 5 ½ inch floppy disk and a monochrome monitor that wrote in upper case only was available for home computing for around a thousand dollars. 

Now in only forty years we have gone to hand held gigabyte computer phones with hundreds of apps available.   My GPS has the address, maps and driving directions for everyone living in the United States and Canada.  NASA has probes hurling into deep space and the internet has connected almost every person on earth.

This is only the beginning.  Computers are changing our world at such a pace that it is hard to keep up with new innovations.   We are on the cusp of artificial Intelligence (AI) where computers will learn and think for themselves.   It is almost unimaginable where technology will have taken us by the turn of the 22nd  century.  

The book is outmoded 
But still a good read
If only to see 
Where we have come from.

the Ol'Buzzard

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

NATURE'S GIFT TO DONALD TRUMP








What could benefit Donald Trump more than a major hurricane hitting the east coast just days after the release of Bob Woodward's book?   What could have been weeks of detrimental headlines will now be buried in the storm. 

And one hell of a storm.
the Ol'Buzzard




Monday, September 10, 2018

HAPPY TIME MURDERS




We live in a great town: good restaurants, play houses, a University, low property taxes and reasonable real estate prices 

We have a seven theater multiplex theater here.  Tickets are $4.00 for seniors and college students can attend on Wednesday nights for $2.50.   A medium popcorn in $2.50 and a small coke is $1.50.   

My wife and I can attend a movie for $12.00 including a buttered popcorn and a drink.  

Tomorrow we are going to see Happy Time Murders.  Check it out on YouTube: 








the Ol'Buzzard


Sunday, September 9, 2018

FINALLY, A HERALD OF FALL








20015 was the hottest summer ever recorded in Maine; broken a year later in 2016.  Now, 2018 is the hottest summer ever recorded in Maine. 

Maine normally has between three and seven days in the summer with humidity above 70% - this year that record was smashed by 36 days of 70%+ humidity – another record. 

This has been one of the most miserable summers here in Maine in my memory.  We have never needed an air conditioner in the Western Mountains; but I fear that if the last four years are establishing a new norm, we may have to consider purchasing one.

The good news is that Fall is dawning.  We are starting to see patches of color in the trees.  This morning the outside temperature was 54 degrees and the inside temperature was 62.  I went out and turned on the oil tank and kicked on our Monitor heater.   Except for a couple of days this week, the ten-day forecast is highs in the sixties and lows in the forties and fifties.  

WE LOVE IT!

The republicans and the flat earthers still deny climate change is the result of human pollution and population explosion, so the trend will continue.  Perhaps we have already reached a point where the change is not reversable; if not, that time is not far away.  

What will be the final results when ocean currents shift, ocean salinity is diluted and ocean water rises?   I won’t be around to see it; but I don’t expect a good outcome for the human race.   

In the meantime, I will revel in the approach of fall and anticipate the first snowfall of winter.


And so is the new season of Game of Thrones



the Ol’Buzzard