Archives for March 2020

Day 1166 – Atlantis? Our Fate? Our Destiny.

Sunday March 29, 2020

217 Days until the election on November 3rd

297 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

People are still looking for Atlantis, while the explanation is right there in front of them, but there’s something in some people’s nature to not understand or accept the obvious. Instead they stare openmouthed in disbelief. Then they move along in their fantasy world.

Let me explain. I’ve done this before in other guises and ways so I apologize if you’ve heard it before (eyeball roll please, turn the head, a little more “I’m so bored”, good good, well done.) Where was I? Oh yes, Atlantis.

As far as I know, all this stuff about Atlantis was started by Herodotus. It boils down to two sentences. One said that these folks lived beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, out in the Atlantic ocean, and that therefore he named them Atlanteans  (or Atlantans), and the second thing was that their city was 300 miles across. Why did he say this and cause all this foolishness? 

Before I explain know one other little tiny fact. From Greece to someplace in the Atlantic Ocean is 3,000 miles. This and the 300 mile wide capital city will become important (and it will be left to you – the student at lab time – to deduce what might have happened to Atlantis. Verily, I say unto you “Did.” “Did happen to Atlantis.” Hey, stop kicking my soap box.)

Herodotus never went to Atlantis. Hell, he never went to Egypt. He did interview people who had been places. In fact, he interviewed a guy who had been to Egypt, and herein is where the story of Atlantis was born. 

Question for the student – If you travel from Egypt by boat and go directly to Greece what is in the way? Or to put it another way, what might you pass by?

Ah, very good Grasshopper, you would pass by, or run into Crete, and the Greek Isles. Interesting.

Now there is one other little fact you need to know. The ancient measure in Greece and in Egypt were different but sounded about the same when spoken. Like site and sight, or pi and pie, better yet puck and … never mind.

The other thing to know is that between the two similarily sounding units of measure the difference in length was a factor of ten. So if one person was saying “cubit” and the other was saying “quebyte” and one was one mile long and the other was ten miles long then there would be a problem. 

Now think about if Herodotus misunderstood the man coming from Egypt and was off by a factor of ten. Now this place, he named Atlantis, would only be 300 miles away, and it’s city only 30 miles wide. Not the three thousand and the three hundred as he thought.

Hum. Let’s get out a map and see if there’s anything within 300 miles of Greece that might have had a city 30 miles across. What did you find? No that’s north and was not there when Herodotus was alive (dumb shit.) I’m sorry, what? I should have added “And was between Greece and Egypt?”

What? Crete, you say? Good job.

And looked there, they had a capital city called Heraklion that is about thirty miles across. “Wait, you don’t think Crete could have been what Herodotus was talking about do you? I mean if he misheard the unit of measure then it fits perfectly doesn’t it?” Yeah, I think that is exactly what Herodotus was talking about.

There was a volcano, called Santorini, that blew up in the 16^th century B.C. That sparked a massive tidal wave. Actually, a series of tidal waves. Waves tend to come in sets of seven. Santorini is 125 miles from Crete. The tidal wave that the explosion of the volcano created is estimated to have been seventy meters high. That’s 230 feet. The largest monster waves in the world are typically around 100 feet.

Imagine what you would do if you saw a 230 foot wave coming at you? I’ll tell you what you would do. You would turn like the people in the monster movies or the natural disaster movies. You would stare in wonder, not comprehending what you were seeing, or what to do. You would be a deer in the headlights.

Then bam. It would hit you and you’d be dead, and then swept out to sea. Good bye Crete. So long. But she lives again, in Herodotus’ History.

(And just in case the first wave didn’t get you remember there are six more of similar size coming, and that’s just the first set.)

Is that what we are facing with this pandemic? Is this our tidal wave?

217 Days until the election on November 3rd

297 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Homo Sapien! 

Day 1165 – We Could Be Leading the World, but Instead …

Saturday March 28, 2020

218 Days until the election on November 3rd

298 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

At the end of the book “Lost City of The Monkey King” the author talks about contracting a parasite that causes a condition called Leishmaniasis. It is a parasite that is spread by the bite of a particular sand flea that lives on The Brown Wood Rat. The parasite likes to eat soft tissue, notably the earlobes, nose, and cheeks. It can literally “eat your face off.” The cure is a medicine that is only available in one place in the world – the National Institute of Health (NIH). There’s a guy there that has raised those sand fleas and studied the parasite and come up with a cure. (The other antidote is a poison that can help, but might kill you.)

When I read about this I was quietly proud of our country that we had someone on the case. I’ve been worried ever since Trump came in that this program and others like it might be cut. I mean why bother? You can always hire or buy this when you really need it. – That’s the argument. Of course, you have to find and develop a person that would be interested in such a thing. He had ten years of work into the project when Robert Patterson came to him and was sick. “Hey bud, no problem, sit here and wait ten years.”

When Trump dismantled the pandemic response team we didn’t pay much attention. Now? Don’t you wish we had? Don’t you wish we had screamed at him? Of course, the intelligence and health communities had been doing that on Covid 19 since January. He finally, kind of did something yesterday. He tweeted that GM  better make ventilators fast because we need them. We’ve needed them since January, but he ignored the reality of the coming storm. Now, thousands will die because of his stupidity and arrogance. We really don’t know what he did yesterday, do we? Did he invoke the War Powers Act and order GM or did he just tweet that he was going to do it? With this guy you don’t know.

And therein lies one of the many problems.

Cases of Leishmaniasis have been reported in Texas. People are being infected that have never gone to remote jungles where this condition is known to occur. What can explain this? Climate change, the Brown Wood Rat is moving north with the warming climate.

218 Days until the election on November 3rd

298 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Say Yes to the Dress!

Day 1164 – Failure Mode, How well does the system work?

Friday March 27, 2020

219 Days until the election on November 3rd

299 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

I can’t remember when I first heard the question, “How well does your system work in failure mode?” Nor do I remember the system in question, but I remember the statements leading up to that question. The argument commenced with the idea that it didn’t matter how well the system worked when it was working the way it was supposed to work but rather how well it worked when it was broken (or not working). Seems silly, but that’s where we are.

I saw a recent post asking who had the guts to repost a statement that said vote the straight Republican ticket. I asked myself, “What have the Republicans ever done?” 

If you list all the government programs that you and I depend on and like, by and large they were all Democratic initiatives. 

It got me to thinking about the Great Depression, which was kicked off by the stock market crash of 1929. However, what really hurt and extended the depression was the credit squeeze of 1932. That’s a polite way of saying the banks wouldn’t lend money. Obama learned this lesson when he bailed out the banks and they didn’t lend the money to people and small businesses but rather gave themselves fat bonuses and bought stock back.

The crash of ’29 was preceded by some good times, and a giant flu pandemic. Calvin Coolidge was president and he famously said, “The business of business is business.” A man of few words, this was a mouthful. The other thing Coolidge did was to sign into law a bill that allowed Immigrants to get screwed over and not allowed into the country. This is the law that prevented a ship at the beginning of WWII to not dock on our shores that was loaded with Jews trying to escape Germany. Instead they went back to Europe and their almost certain death. 

I remember reading an article on one of the famous professors at my alma mater, Johns Hopkins, who got his start around the time of the Second World War. The alumni mag published one of his letters of recommendation. Basically, it said, “He’s a Jew, but he’s smart.” OMG. Yeah. There is a lot of prejudice out there. Not that the Jewish traditions don’t bring some of it on themselves. 

I wish I had that flash device Men in Black use to wipe out one’s memory of certain things. I’d wipe out a lot of bad stuff. 

Ah me.

We are watching the leaders of our federal government screw up. Not once, not twice, but so many times it’s hard to know where to start counting. And someone posted, “Let’s vote the straight Republican ticket?” Are you kidding me? What have they ever done? 

We will see how well our country responds to the failure mode of our nation. Just before I started writing this piece a buddy of mine sent me an email that pointed out if we all sheltered in place for two weeks at the same time this thing would be over. Think about that.

219 Days until the election on November 3rd

299 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Goat!

Day 1162 – Suffer the Fool, Shelter in Place

Wednesday March 25, 2020

221 Days until the election on November 3rd

301 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

Yesterday I had a vision. Mr. T. The original Mr. T. Not that pretty-boy in the remake. The angry Mr. T. He was asking me, “Have you had enough of these fools?”

Then my daydream morphed into Jeff Foxworthy of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. You know the man who asked, “You might be a redneck if …” Except, this time he was saying, “You might be listening to fake news if …” This quickly morphed into, “You ARE listening to fake news if …”

Some of my right wing friends have gone back to their old targets. One is attacking George Soros. That man had the temerity to give money to political people and causes he believed in. 

There are new attacks on the Democrats in Congress because they wouldn’t pass a Republican bill, sight unseen that was giving the Foreclosure King of California 500 billion dollars to spend anyway he wanted and not tell anyone until months later. The Dems didn’t even get the Repugnagans’ bill from them but from lobbyists on K Street. In other words, the Republican lawmakers told their corporate cronies to write something up and they’d try to pass it. Essentially, the bill was 12 cents to the workers of America and the hospitals and 88 cents per dollar to corporations.

When the president was asked who was going to be providing oversight he said he would be the one. Yeah, right. Lemme see how this would work. “Hey Steve, you got $500 Billion right?” “Yes” “Give it to me – for my failing hotels.” “Okay, Mr. President, but can I keep a little for myself?” “Let’s negotiate that amount. Boy, am I a deal maker or what?” “Yes sir, you certainly are.”

Vlad would be so proud of you. Not even he has stolen money from his country in such a blatant way.

Meanwhile the Governor of New York is asking for supplies. These are supplies the Federal government has. What does Trump do? He belittles the governor. 

We have maybe two weeks before the bodies start piling up in New York.

Stay Home, Wash Your Hands.

We are in for something the likes of which the modern world has never seen.

221 Days until the election on November 3rd

301 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

PS Temple of The Seven Dolls, Dzibilchaltun, Mexico

Day 1161 – The Chickens Are Getting Ready to Come Home

Tuesday March 24, 2020

222 Days until the election on November 3rd

302 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

When I grew up Eisenhower was President. Talk about the Depression and World War II (WWII) were common. There was hope. There was optimism. We were the greatest nation on Earth (or so we told ourselves.)

Kennedy got shot and we said, “How can it get worse?”

Vietnam. Inflation,The Draft. Stagflation. Mass protests and we said, “How can it get worse?”

Then Reagan and there was optimism. Then the unions got busted and we’ve been on an economic downward spiral ever since.

Then Bush I

Then Clinton who tried to stem the tide.

Then Bush II

Then Obama and there was optimism.

Then Trump and we said, “How can it get worse?”

We are on a pace to loss four times as many people to the Corona Virus as we did in World War II. 

Will we make it to the next election?

“How can it get worse?”

PS Eclipse

PPS I’ll get back to my usual bithchin’ tomorrow.

WASH YOUR HANDS!

STAY HOME!