Tag Archives: philosophy

Filler between adventures

Posted on January 9, 2014 by | 10 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Jeanne’s explained some of the things happening in my life at the moment, how I’m having phone and Internet access issues.  And she and I have both been sufficiently cryptic to cause some to conclude major issues are stalking around my life making nuisances of themselves.

Fact is, nothing here is all that major, nothing uncommon.  What’s going on in my life is an interlude between adventures.  A break in the plotlines to allow some breathing on the part of the author and major characters before the really juicy stuff comes trotting down the pike.  Nothing at all gloomy in this neck of the woods.  Mild anticipation, excitement kept carefully under control best describes the mood.

Hells bells I had a whatchallit, ecco or echo sonogram of my heart the other day, got to watch that poor worn out, frayed piece of meat trying to keep track of what it’s supposed to be doing, got to watch it wiggle, trot across that screen looking and sounding for all the world like the grim reaper.

If that ain’t a one-in-a-lifetime experience I can’t imagine what would be, and I was the one right there lucky enough to get to see it.  I don’t blame you folks for wishing you could be me.

But in between all the pesky details packed into the upper end of a human lifetime I’ve been seeing some pretty decent old movies I’ll be telling you about.  And reading some good books.

In a few days I expect I’ll begin a blog entry telling you about God Knows, by Joseph Heller.   So much better than Catch 22 it’s a wonder anyone even ever heard of Snowden.  If King David had written a hindsight view or review of the Old Testament, God, everything you read and passed over in the Bible without stopping to think about it, think it through and examine the implications, God Knows would have been the result.

But for some reason it took Joseph Heller to come along and actually do it.  A book you should hunt down and read if you can find one.  An important book.

I’d send you mine, but I have it earmarked for my ex-wife.

Old Jules

10 Comments

Posted in Adventure, America, Human Behavior

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

New Year Day 2014

Posted on January 1, 2014 by | 24 comments

Hi again readers:   Turned out I ain’t as tough as I believed myself to be.  I’m in the hospital in Kerrville, TX, sneaked spang in a couple of days ago through the Emergency Room.  They know a lot about what’s been going on inside me now, and all of it is interesting and exciting, though it doesn’t necessarily bode well for my continuing to post on the So Far From Heaven blog a lot longer, everything else being equal.

But I’ve refused most of the things they’d propose to do insofar as keeping me this distance from heaven, plan to get discharged hopefully today, go back out to Gale’s and digest my newfound perspectives.  Make some exciting decisions about what a guy in my position ought to be doing with himself, thinking about, spending his time and energy on.

Probably should have been doing that all along, but it wasn’t rubbing right up against it consciously and autopilot isn’t the best place to observe important, exciting events.

Happy New Year to those of you who believe this is a new year and are willing to be happy during it.

Old Jules

24 Comments

Posted in 2013, Adventure

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Man With the Golden Arm

Posted on December 9, 2013 by | 3 comments

The cats and I watched Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak fight heroin, illegal card games, manipulating faked handicap entrapping lying wives [Eleanor Parker] and a NYC when even all this was still good clean fun.

Ahhh Kim Novak.  1955.  Probably after her first film, Picnic.  Ahhh, Kim Novak, who looked so much like Noreen Nix of Portales, New Mexico, a couple of years older than me, that Noreen and Kim were of equal value in the heart-stopping beauty department.

Law law law, old Eleanor Parker managed to teach a youngster in that one movie how bolloxed up the right sort of guilt trips could send a person into a tailspin with only the most fortunate circumstances allowing recovery and survival.

But worth it if Noreen Nix was waiting at the other end.  Or even Kim Novak.

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2013, Adventure, Human Behavior, Relationships, Senior Citizens

Tagged , , , , , ,

Migration – New tire obligation – Respiration – Palpitation and Coincidence Coordination

Posted on December 2, 2013 by | 18 comments

Sheeze.  Hi readers .  Sometimes I disgust myself, make no sense whatever.

Went out to the tire place this morning and ordered two each 10 ply 16.5 inch tires to arrive Wednesday and have mounted before I even know whether I’m going to kick the bucket before I can wear them out.    Jumped the gun something awful, but it feels okay, me betting the Universe I can drive on those tires long enough to justify having them before the Universe can draw a tight bead on me and squeeze off a round.

Meanwhile I’m figuring to hear from the VA around Wednesday setting me up for a sawbones to look me over, poke me here and there, tell me to stick out my tongue and say “Ahhh.”  Once that’s accomplished he’ll offer up a theory of what I’d least like to hear from a person in his position and watch my facial expressions to decide whether he needs to trump it.

Generally the whole situation’s seeming better than it did a week ago, though.  Haven’t been toking the oxygen machine nights, generally been getting all the hyperventilating under control, thinking whatever it was happened was just some damned trick of anomalyism trying to rob my macho.

And hells bells, I’ve got a couple of new tires coming down the pike I have to live long enough to wear out.  Hell of a deal.

Got me and address here in Andrews, too, right here on the west coast of Texas, so’s to be able to be a Texas resident dangeriously close to the boundary with New Mexico.

Psychomosomatic heart attacks and similarly life-threatening imaginary events can be a blessing.  Boots a man off his ass and gets him out there betting against the Universe, buying tires and sneering into the future with reckless aplomb.

Old Jules

18 Comments

Posted in 2013, Adventure, America, New Mexico, NM, Texas

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Why Napoleon’s troops shooting the nose off the Sphinx with artillery in 1799 was a good thing

Posted on November 1, 2013 by | 9 comments

Hi readers.

A lot of you probably think the world would have been just as good a place if Napoleon’s troops hadn’t shot the nose off the Sphinx practicing with artillery in 1799.  You might even think if they’d just stayed home in France and shot the noses off every Frenchman they could catch the world would be better off?

In the interest of science, Napoleon's troops couldn't know what would happen up there without shooting some artillery at it to find out. Same as Hiroshima and Nagasaki later on. Theories are worthless unless they're tested.

In the interest of science, Napoleon’s troops couldn’t know what would happen up there without shooting some artillery at it to find out. Same as Hiroshima and Nagasaki later on. Theories are worthless unless they’re tested.

Well, you’d be wrong.  Napoleon’s troops did just the right thing blowing off the nose of Sphinx.

Keep in mind, these were Frenchmen. All they knew how to do at that point was try to take the heads off whatever got in the way. But they saved the Sphinx. If they'd left it alone until the British took over in 1802 the Sphinx would be in London. Housed in a wonder-of-the-world-sized British Museum. Same as everything else the British could haul off from every country they ever conquered.

Keep in mind, these were Frenchmen. All they knew how to do at that point was try to take the heads off whatever got in the way. But they saved the Sphinx. If they’d left it alone until the British took over in 1802 the Sphinx would be in London. Housed in a wonder-of-the-world-sized British Museum. Same as everything else the British could haul off from every country they ever conquered.

Once Napoleon’s troops finished nobody every had to do it again.  Anyone with half-an-eye could see what would happen if you shot the Sphinx in the nose with a piece of 1799 field artillery. 

And most importantly, Sphinx was flawed.  By 1802 when the British took Egypt they’d become selective, only stealing the most perfect artifacts.  Sphinx got to stay home in Egypt because of French artillery practice.

Which didn’t happen to the Rosetta Stone, which French troops found and got taken away from them by the British.

From the time Cleopatra offed herself with that adder, shortly thereafter, nobody knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs.  But thanks to those French troops, someone decided to steal the Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum in London today. It's been there since shortly after British officials stole it in 1802. Most likely it will continue to reside in the British Museum until US troops have finished whatever they're doing in Europe. When we finally bring the troops home from WWII the final act will be to drop the 8th Army into London, take over Heathrow Airport, and bring the Rosetta Stone and everything else in the British Museum to the United States where it rightfully belongs.

The Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum in London today. It’s been there since shortly after British officials stole it in 1802. Most likely it will continue to reside in the British Museum until US troops have finished whatever they’re doing in Europe. When we finally bring the troops home from WWII the final act will be to drop the 8th Army into London, take over Heathrow Airport, and bring the Rosetta Stone and everything else in the British Museum to the United States where it rightfully belongs.

Created 196 BC
Discovered 1799
Present location British Museum

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek. Because it presents essentially the same text in all three scripts (with some minor differences among them), it provided the key to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone

When the contents of the British Museum finally are transported to the Smithsonian in Washington DC the British Empire will finally be a footnote of history, along with Napoleon, the Egyptians, and other backward peoples everywhere.

Old Jules

9 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Education, History, Human Behavior

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Shooting 50,000 unsolicited words at the Universe

Posted on October 30, 2013 by | 16 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Jeanne tells me November’s going to have several thousand people grinding out first drafts of immortal prose again.  Poor old Universe will be ducking and dodging new characters, events, plots, subplots, trying to keep track of what’s really happening, and what someone dredged up from the imagination and stuffed into 50,000 words packed into the month of November.

I’ve wondered about this phenomenon for a longish time, several years, and honestly can’t quite figure it.  Probably tens of thousands of November novels written in past years nobody but the authors ever laid an eye to all the way through.  Pages, electrons on the screen, characters floating around in the ether wondering what the hell happened, why their pent-up events just ground to a halt.

All I can figure is those people doing that are trying to shoot down the Universe and know it’s going to take a lot of ammunition.

If a person were looking for a worthy project that would be less likely to damage the Universe he might consider taking the JRR Tolkein Lord of Rings trilogy and working it up into a second draft, which wossname, Tolkein failed to do.  At least not the part about say, cutting about 2/3 of the extraneous immortal prose, working it around so it’s tight, a pleasure on the tongue of the Universe, rather than just something out of some fast food joint.

Maybe someone everyone does what he says will think of this sometime and tell them they ought to do that instead of picking out targets of opportunity trying to shoot down the Universe.

Old Jules

16 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Books, Writing

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No heaven on earth. No utopias. Just more people

Posted on October 26, 2013 by | 8 comments
Finding stereotypes capable of holding up under close scrutiny is necessary for humans, but generally goes unrefined.

Finding stereotypes capable of holding up under close scrutiny is necessary for humans, but generally goes unrefined.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I spent a while bouncing around RV full timers forum-type discussion board-type places lately.  Curious about whether any stereotype applies.  What I found was not a single good, solid stereotype a person could hammer down to perfection, but rather a number of herds of them.

Not much of this sort of thing out there among the modern nomad population. Whether they're van dwellers or motor homesters, clean lines, shiny paintjobs and glitter are major attractions. If it ain't eye candy it belongs in a different universe.

Not much of this sort of thing out there among the modern nomad population. Whether they’re van dwellers or motor homesters, clean lines, shiny paintjobs and glitter are major attractions. If it ain’t eye candy it belongs in a different universe.

Fields of peas pretty much running with other peas, cornfields sticking with their corny neighbors, and everyone seemingly well fed.  A few farmers within each stereotype weeding and watering.

I was especially interested in Slab City and what the people who stay there winters have to say to one another.  I thought because it’s as near anarchy as a person gets in the US, it might tell some worthy things about us as a place viewing itself as a free people, thinkers, individualists.

There’s some of that on the surface.  Everyone saying to one another, you have to take whatever comes in Slab City.  Everyone celebrating and patting themselves on the backs for their rugged individualism.

But in fact there’s an undercurrent a lot less worthy of self-praise among them.  An undercurrent of bullying and intimidation hidden in the “gotta take it as it comes” platitudes.

Turns out “take it as it comes” means, “take me as I come” and don’t even think about me taking you as you come.  If you try I’ll probably slit your tires.  Or shoot your cats.

It manifests itself subtly in the matter of cats.  Seems over the past few years women visiting the slabs have had their cats killed by dogs, or shot by dog lovers.  Always women.  How about them apples?

For folks who don’t have much interest nor love for cats and don’t have any desire at all in going on crusades, sacrificing the soothing rewards of rugged individualist wildass self-image community, it just flows down like Jack Daniels Black Label.  Everything bad hiding inside “taking it as it comes” harmony.

I’m figuring it would be a place I’d have to go to war if I landed there.  Can’t see myself sitting still for having my tires cut, knowing someone else who got his tires cut, me having a firm idea who did it.  And most especially knowing who some cat-shooting human was, or cat-killing dog-running-loose owner.

Sometimes wars can happen without anyone having to go looking for, drive so damned far out of the way.  I hope I don’t have anymore wars left ahead of me this lifetime, but if I do I ain’t going to drive 1000 miles to find them.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2013, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

They still want to do the Dirty Bop – And they all want to play Hamlet

Posted on October 25, 2013 by | 7 comments

I’m trying to remember my partner in disgrace.  Might have been Patsy Bohannan, maybe.  Around that time I recall we sat on opposite ends of a seesaw in the park surrounded by other kids, her singing, “Why do fools fall in love”, had me squirming something awful.  But she was a preacher’s daughter.  Not a good candidate for the Dirty Bop.

So it might have been Linda Kiker or a girl with a really bad reputation named Nancy Koch.  Seems I ought to remember, but at the time the disgrace was so overwhelming and the likely consequences so widespread, identity got swept into the grader-ditch of history.

Anyway, it was one of those Junior High School events at the Portales Memorial Building.  I’d never heard of the Dirty Bop, presumably the female side of the equation also had never heard of it.  The only time either of us had ever danced the bop was probably sneaking around practicing behind locked doors at home.

But great minds think alike, I expect, and there’s always becoming absorbed in the event, showing off, whatever.  We danced the Dirty Bop.  A Portales First, most likely.

Got our asses kicked spang out of the Memorial Building for our trouble, got to have a long prayer meeting with Mr. Livingston.  A man in authority who had a lot of familiarity with my backside with the paddle he kept in his office.

Anyway, it all worked out for the good in the end.  I eventually became me.  Likely, whomever the girl was eventually became her.  And I don’t recall ever encountering her later in any waterfront bar or strip joint somewhere.

But I guess the Dirty Bop is still around after all these years.

High school requires signed dance contract that bans twerking

http://news.yahoo.com/video/high-school-requires-signed-dance-210216483.html

Annapolis High School in Maryland is now requiring that students and parents sign a dance contract which aims to cut down on provocative dancing at the school’s next homecoming. As reported by WMAR ABC 10 News, the contract outlines the school’s policies and expected student behavior very specifically. Junior Lexi Pline said, “The first day we get it, it’s usually just kind of funny to read it because of the way, like the way they describe everything. It’s kind of hilarious.” The contract states that “sexually explicit dancing will not be tolerated,” and defines explicit dancing as “grinding,” “making out,” and “buttocks touching a partner or in the air.” The last point apparently intended to stop twerking at school functions.

Just goes to show, as Carl Perkins or someone once said, “You can’t stop Rock and Roll“.   Or maybe it was Bill Haley and the Comets.  I heard a while back he died as a street person in Alabama or somewhere.  Still dancing.  Nobody ever explained the consequences of dancing the Dirty Bop to him.

Old Jules

Afterthought:  Actually I think it was Carl Perkins talking about that British group, the Beetles or whatever, when they first showed up on the radar,  “They aren’t Elvis, but they aren’t all that bad.”

7 Comments

Posted in 2013, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Never trust a Free Mason who doesn’t look older than you.

Posted on October 24, 2013 by | 7 comments

At least don’t trust them more than you’d trust anyone else.  Josephus Minimus 

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Free Mason who didn’t look a day older than me sidled up to me in the hardware store parking lot yesterday.  “I want to sell you a ticket to a fish fry.  I hope you’ll come join us for a while.”  He gestured with a packet of tickets.  “We’ll have a lot of prizes to give away in drawings.”

Respectable enough looking guy, but too damned young to be a Free Mason, thinks I.  For something to say courteous to him, “What’s the cost?”

He told me and I’d run spang out of conversation pieces.  There’s a fish fry I might attend for the Harper Fire Department in a week or so, but I didn’t figure I’d care to drive to Kerrville for one.  “So when is it?”

“Ah.  That’s the catch.  It’s in March.”

“March?  I figure I’ll be dead or somewhere else in March.”

He shrugged.  “I wish I could join you.”

Two things seem clear to me. 

  • The guy was older than he looked.  A lot older, assuming he’s a Free Mason.  Probably uses some kind of Free Mason black magic keeping himself looking young like regular people. 
  • Secondly, he was trying to trick me into having to stay around here until March, 2014.  Likely has some sort of Free Mason conspiracy doings.  Wanting to tanglefoot me into them.

Anyway, having deftly sidestepped the Free Mason Conspiracy I had a good trip to town, generally.  Got me a water pump to get water from a container on the ground up into the RV tank.  Impeller with hose bibs on each side, shaft to turn it fits into the chuck of an electric drill.  Moves 250 gallons an hour.  That thing’s going to save me some heavy lifting in the future. $6.95 US.  2013 dollars.

Also picked up a set of fancydancy 21st Century screwdriver heads of all different shapes and sizes to foil the efforts of engineers everywhere.  And a damned cheapass volt meter.

Then down at the Dollar Tree store picked up all manner of things a person needs to get by in this life, each for a dollar.  A person can spend a $20 bill in there and come away with $100 worth of groceries anywhere else.  [32 oz box-like containers of MSG-free beef or chicken broth for $1 US each.  I bought 128 oz, two of each.  Stocking up for The End of Life as We Know It – TEOLAWKI.  MSG free TEOLAWKI won’t bring back telephones, computers and radiation levels people can survive in, but it beats boiling 2-headed mutant horses to add flavor.]

Stopped on the way home to talk to the guy up the hill.  He told me about the Marfa Lights, which I’ve heard of over the years, but never seen.  Came away entertaining the thought I might swing out that way and have a look when I get out of here.

Lessons in life, flashes of insight about things I haven’t done yet, and busted a Free Mason conspiracy.  All in one day.

Life is good.

Old Jules

7 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Human Behavior, Texas

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Recognizing those space aliens who’ve been selectively breeding our species

Posted on October 23, 2013 by | 3 comments

Allofus 1954 1955

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

A lot of you have probably been wondering how you can identify the space aliens who have been selectively breeding human beings to create more palatable cuisine for so many generations.  And the people who’s minds are controlled by space aliens to assist them in their husbandry efforts.

This morning I’m going to take a few minutes to explain for those who haven’t figured it out yet.

  • First off, you need to keep in mind that space aliens don’t want to be recognized, don’t even want most of humanity to know they exist.  So the obvious and most easily recognized trait of a space alien is denial.  Anyone who smirks, postures, declares space aliens don’t exist is almost certainly a space alien, or mentally the puppet of space aliens.
  • Secondly, in the US, particularly, political office holders are almost universally either space aliens, or persons under the bizarre and sometimes contorted thumbs of space aliens.  In fact, anyone who has a strong opinion about one political party or the other and gets noisy about it insisting this or that candidate or office holder’s better than the other side.  Lead-pipe cinch the space aliens have him in a mindlock.
  • Then of course, there’s the 87 layers of cops now firmly entrenched in US operations furthering the interests of space aliens.  No point even going into that.
  • But the most subtle these days are the online dating services.  Now that the Internet is matured the whole focus is getting people together to propagate who will have tastier children.

I hope this helps. 

[If you missed the earlier posts explaining about selective breeding humans by space aliens you can search the blog using the bar in the lower right side-bar.  ‘Space aliens’ ought to do the trick.]

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Government, UFOs

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,