Stop Listening

     No, I’m not suggesting that you stop listening to me. Why would you think that?

     This morning, Armond Boudreaux, author of the impressive The Last Revolution trilogy, presents a simple image and a poignant thought:

Most of us don’t have enough imagination to see how beautiful and precious it all is. https://t.co/N9z2DuzlRW

— Armond Boudreaux (@armondboudreaux) October 23, 2026

     It stopped me for a moment. Imagination matters, but I think something else matters more. I was put in mind of a particularly piercing moment from That Hideous Strength. Co-protagonist Jane Studdock has just had her first direct experience of God and is in the aftermath:

     Words take too long. To be aware of all this and to know that it had already gone made one single experience. It was revealed only in its departure. The largest thing that had ever happened to her had, apparently, found room for itself in a moment of time too short to be called time at all. Her hand closed on nothing but a memory. And as it closed, without an instant’s pause, the voices of those who have not joy rose howling and chattering from every corner of her being.
     “Take care. Draw back. Keep your head. Don’t commit yourself,” they said. And then more subtly, from another quarter, “You have had a religious experience. This is very interesting. Not everyone does. How much better you will now understand the Seventeenth-Century poets!” Or from a third direction, more sweetly, “Go on. Try to get it again. It will please the Director.”
     But her defenses had been captured and these counterattacks were unsuccessful.

     That beautiful, terrible phrase the voices of those who have not joy is one of C.S. Lewis’s best. I’ve borrowed it before this, and with this very application in mind.

     Not all such voices are those of demons.

* * *

     Our world is noisy. It’s probably noisier than at any previous time or place in history. The competition for your attention is particularly fierce. Let my inbox be submitted as Exhibit One.

     Let’s be candid: defining noise is a tough job. Most of us would treat it the way we treat the equally difficult subject of dirt: “I know it when I see it.” In the interests of the discussion below, let’s treat noise as anything that bids for your attention, seeking to deflect you from what really matters to you at the moment. That way, we don’t have to deal with whether a noise must be audible, or whether we might treat a particular specimen of noise as valuable under altered circumstances.

     Noise comes in many varieties. At the bottom of the distribution is “pure” noise: randomly generated by events under no conscious control. At the top is semantic noise: noise that seemingly speaks in a recognizable tongue in a meaningful way.

     Pure noise is “ground” in the “figure and ground” sense. We learn over time to filter it out. The eye sees it or the ear hears it, but our filters prevent it from consuming any of our attention. That seemingly built-in filtering ability makes it possible to endure a great deal of the noise that arises from our surroundings.

     Semantic noise is tougher. It has structure and apparent meaning. It may be relevant to you personally. It may even bear on some priority of yours that isn’t what you’re trying to concentrate on at the moment. Those characteristics make it a “teaser” that demands effort to exclude from your thoughts.

     In our time, the greater part of the noise is semantic noise.

* * *

     I could go into a long exposition here, but that’s unnecessary. Just return to Armond’s tweet above and contemplate the beauty of the sunset he depicted. Can you turn away the noise long enough to savor it? To appreciate the power and majesty of the forces, formless and formed, that produced it? To thank and praise God for the gift of such beauty?

     The noise will not cease. Indeed, it might intensify. Beauty is its enemy. The soul must be diverted from beauty. All beauty flows from the great Enemy of noise, the Creator of all things.

     It’s your job, as a soul that possesses discrimination and free will, to develop your ability to deny the noise your attention, at least for a little while. That’s not the same as “not hearing it.” You can’t do that. All you can do is fix your attention where it belongs: on the gift of beauty before you.

     May God bless and keep you all.

Some End-Of-Year Thoughts

     Janus has been prodding at my backbrain, prompting me to think those classical end-of-year thoughts. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how I’d like 2026 to differ from 2025, both for me personally and in larger ways.

     Janus, for those not familiar with the mythology of ancient Rome, was the god of doorways. He was usually depicted as two-faced, one face looking backward and the other looking forward. The passage from one year to the next was especially deemed his kind of transition. I made use of him in Doors:

     “Every decision changes us. Even the little ones. And we can’t know beforehand how much.”
     “I wouldn’t have expected you to cite chaos theory on Christmas Eve,” she said.
     “It’s not that so much as the nature of time. Do you know the myth of Janus?”
     She shook her head.
     “The Roman god of doorways. He had two faces, one facing forward and one facing back. He symbolized choices and transitions. We seldom face a choice knowing everything that will come of making it either way. We can’t avert the consequences of our choices, and we can’t undo them afterward. Once we step through that door, it locks itself against us.”

     For someone like your humble Curmudgeon, sunk deep in years and choices made along the way, it can seem unlikely that any decision I could make now would have a great effect on the years to come, whether mine or others’. (To the advanced grammarians among my Gentle Readers, if any: Is there a rule against ending a sentence with a possessive? If so, please let me know. Thanks.) But there’s chaos theory to keep in mind, isn’t there? So perhaps I should respect the unboundedness of the possibilities.

* * *

     Among my enduring resolutions is one I adopted long ago: always to speak the truth as I see it. That’s not an unmixed virtue. Truth often hurts. Many an unpleasant truth has come my way these past seven decades. On those occasions when I’ve expressed them publicly, the reaction has nearly always been fury, sometimes bordered on violence.

     In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle, he includes a quasi-religion that advocates “living by the foma:” i.e., falsehoods that give comfort rather than the abrasion of unlimited truth. It’s uncertain whether Vonnegut meant that prescriptively. Yet a lot of people do live by such falsehoods. It may be that that’s their cushion against reality’s abrasions, and that they couldn’t bear to live without it.

     I can’t go that way. I have to see what is. Having seen it, I have to live with the knowledge. I’ve often felt an obligation to pass such knowledge along, even if it will hurt the recipients.

     The awareness of the hurt I’ve caused by doing that has made me think some very dark thoughts. Paramount among them is one I’ve dwelt on to my chagrin.

     Very few of us are poised at the levers of history. Very few of us can effectuate even small changes to what is. If in expressing a painful perception or insight to someone else who has no such power, I cause him unhappiness, I’ve darkened his personal reality to no good consequence. Why do such a thing? Why not keep my dark awarenesses to myself and let him rest in his greater comfort?

     Try that one on for yourself. Warning: it will pinch.

* * *

     I have a compulsion to think about what I see, and to express my inferences here and elsewhere. I don’t know why. It probably indicates that I’m not getting enough sex. But whatever the reason, when I start thinking along the lines above, it makes me wonder whether the pain I cause is justified by the improvements I stimulate… if any. It may be that my only possibility of bringing a net benefit to others is by shutting up. It’s not possible to be certain. I can only wonder about it, and I do.

     I’d prefer – oh, greatly! – to see positive things, benign developments and possibilities, new and promising vistas. But I haven’t seen many such these past few decades. What I have seen suggests that what Robert A. Heinlein once called “the Renaissance Civilization” – i.e., the United States of America – is in terminal decline, the sociopolitical equivalent of Cheyne-Stokes respiration.

     That has colored my writing in two ways. The first affects these opinion pieces, which have grown gloomier with time. The second affects my fiction, which focuses on the decisions and actions of heroes, some of them unsung, sincerely determined to make things better for themselves and others. Which of those is the more “realistic” vision? Must one of them give way to the other?

     That’s a particularly gloomy thought.

* * *

     The Year of Our Lord 2026 is almost upon us. I don’t have any special wisdom about the year about to end, nor any insight into what will come. One of the realizations that comes with advanced age is that there’s little point in trying to foretell the future. For my part, I just hope to live through the coming year and get a few things done that I didn’t manage to finish in 2025.

     Wherever you are and whatever your station in life, I wish you, Gentle Readers, a Happy New Year. May 2026 bring you all the best that life has to offer… and may God bless and keep you all.

Thinking Outside The Box Dept.

     Great God in heaven, what a morning this is proving to be! First the Wall Street Journal tells us that “avocadoes are violent,” and now we have this:

     After decades of effort and untold millions invested in the search for an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s, the disease remains unchecked and rampant. Most recently, the New York Times reported that researchers declared defeat after the failure of yet another experimental drug designed to fight the formation of the disease’s signature amyloid plaque in the brain.

     But according to Shlomi Raz, CEO and founder of biomedical startup, Eleusis, the problem with conventional, single-target approaches to Alzheimer’s is that they don’t take into account the multiple dysregulated processes in the disease’s complex pathobiology.

     And Raz’s company’s approach to the disease is anything but conventional.

     Eleusis is investigating the anti-inflammatory potential of psychedelics as medicines, specifically the application of sub-perceptual doses of LSD in halting the progression of Alzheimer’s disease at its earliest detectable stage.

     “Forbes: Capitalist Tool!” indeed.

     I assume a “sub-perceptual” dose would not trigger the hallucinations and fantasies characteristic of an acid trip...but it’s just an assumption. The brains of Alzheimer’s sufferers could react in a completely different fashion. But considering the disorientation and terror that Alzheimer’s patients are known to experience, the trip might prove salutary anyway. Only one way to find out, as they say.

You’re Not Crazy, It’s The Rest Of The World Dept.

     This might not strike you as news, but there are...persons, many of them walking about unconfined and unsupervised, who aren’t quite aligned with reality as we know it. Most don’t commit horrific crimes, or defraud millions of people, or even run for office. Yet to encounter one of them can be a jarring experience.

     As I avoid other people almost as assiduously as I skirt open cesspools, my typical day is free of such occurrences. However, as a news junkie I’m at perpetual risk of encountering a story about one of them, possibly including an unguarded statement or two the reporter thought colorful. Mostly I’m braced for such collisions, but to find one in the Wall Street Journal, of all places, threw me for a loop:

     “You can’t be vegan if you eat avocados,” said a teenage brother to his sister in a family that I know. “Avocados are violent.”

     That boy was left unnamed for good and sufficient reasons. He probably attends a government-run school. Possibly even the one that confines your spratlings several hours per day. And his parents might be neighbors to you or someone you love. Think about it.

Quickies: Trolls

     Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig enjoys it. -- from a lapel button

     I spend a lot of time thinking about motives. That’s a common thing among writers. If we’re to write plausible stories about believable characters, we need to understand why people do what they do, including people we’d regard as evil, irrational, or insane. The typical writer probably spends more time on it, over the course of his working life, than the typical psychiatrist – and there’s important information in there.

     Lately I’ve been thinking about the motives of people who troll around the Internet looking for people to insult. Just in case you’ve spent the last twenty years in a coma, there are a lot of them. There are a great many of them on Gab, my preferred Twitter-alternative. Given that Gab allows its users to block those they find intolerable, they must know that that’s the response to a blatant insult that most Gab users will choose.

     Think about the implications. The troll doesn’t convince anyone of anything. He doesn’t present an argument for any position. He certainly doesn’t elevate himself over his target. He doesn’t gain anything you or I would deem worth having. So why? What gratification does he receive from his activities?

     I’m particularly puzzled by trolls who insult on the basis of religious belief. I get a fair amount of that, being an unabashed Catholic. One jerk mocked me for “worshipping a Jew on a stick.” At least he was creative; most of the trolls rely on more conventional jabs: “weak minded,” “confused,” “believes fairy tales,” and the like. One fellow asked if I needed “the comfort of an imposed structure.” Do you think any of them seriously expected that they could get me to doubt my convictions that way?

     This might be something that only trolls are equipped to understand. It might go to some pleasure-mechanism that’s peculiar to them and alien to us. If so, it might prove a fertile field for research. For my part, I’d rather write stories, but no doubt there’s someone out there who needs a subject for his doctoral dissertation, or perhaps to hang a federal grant request on.

     All praise to Gab’s Block button! Appropriate use makes your corner of the Internet more tolerable, a wee bit more civilized. In a way, it’s like moving to a better neighborhood. And the best part? It’s free! It reduces the nuisances you must endure at no cost to you whatsoever. Alleluia!

     Hm. Maybe I should have kept that last bit to myself. I shudder to think of the implications should the administrators of Gab decide to impose a fee on its use.

Surmises About Strategies

     It’s unwise ever to assume that no one else is as perceptive – or as smart – as you are. There are plenty of smart folks wandering around. Some of them possess knowledge you don’t have. Sometimes that knowledge comes from experiences you don’t share. Sometimes it comes from information you’ve been denied.

     Concerning all such things, it’s also well to remember that smart and good aren’t guaranteed to appear in the same people.

---

     I’m a smart guy. I’d like to think I’m a good guy. I’d also like you, Gentle Reader, to think I’m a good, smart guy. It’s a combination to which every politician aspires. It would lead you to trust him. It would help to make him persuasive.

     Help. Not guarantee.

     Now add the third attribute: knowledgeable. Not everyone is knowledgeable about the same things. If Smith is generally regarded as a good, smart guy but not particularly knowledgeable about some topic, what he’ll bring to a discussion of that topic is his reasoning power, as applied to information others will supply. But he won’t have the kind of authority allowed to an expert on the subject who “has all the facts.”

     When expert Jones arrives and tells Smith that “the facts” don’t support his logic, Smith will be set back on his heels. There are, of course, possible rejoinders to Jones’s assertion. What facts? Who gathered them? Were they neutrally assembled or “cherry-picked?” If third party Davis should agree with Smith’s implication that “the facts” should be brought out and studied in the light of those questions, then Jones’s “expert” status will count for less. But if Davis should concede Jones’s “expertise,” Smith’s reasoning will be peremptorily dismissed.

     Because the domain of knowledge is so vast, very few persons know much about more than one or two subjects. Most of us are humble enough to admit this. Even a long lifetime will seldom bring a man intimate knowledge of more than one or two areas. Of course an older man’s authority can be challenged on the grounds of his “overly rosy memories” or his “obsolete perspective.” And it will be, if there are topical zealots around who promote a view contrary to his.

     The consequence is a dominance of subject-focused discussions by “experts.” The “expertise” involved is sometimes genuine...but not always, as the case of Michael Bellesiles should indicate.

---

     One of the Left’s long-term strategies is to persuade Americans that the “expertise” on various subjects of public importance is the property of the Left. For examples, consider the following subjects of intense public debate:

• Private ownership of firearms.
• Alternative educational systems.
• Medical care and medical insurance.
• The economic contributions of illegal aliens.

     On all four of those subjects, Leftist mouthpieces have bellowed that “the facts” support their positions:

• Private persons should be forbidden to own firearms.
• The “public” schools are just fine (except that they need more money).
• Government-funded, government-managed health care is superior to the free market.
• Access to the United States should be open without conditions to all immigrants to our shores.

     However, on those subjects and many others, “the facts” are not as the Left would have us believe. As Americans come to realize this, the trend toward skepticism about the claims of “experts” grows ever stronger. For the present at least, that’s a healthful trend that should be encouraged. But it does have a downside. The ultimate destination of an ever-accelerating skepticism is absolute cynicism: the conviction that “no one can be trusted.”

---

     The American Right no longer has a unitary identity...if, indeed, it ever did. Today there are at least two camps of importance on the right side of the political spectrum: the populists and the “ur-conservatives.” These two groups are as hostile to one another as they are to the Left, and on some subjects possibly more so.

     The populists put Donald Trump in the White House. If they have a coherent agenda, it’s the Trump agenda, which in essence amounts to putting American interests and the priorities of legitimate Americans above all else, regardless of the issue under discussion. We have seen elements of this agenda enacted over the two and a half years behind us. The results have been positive to date, which is the strongest honest statement anyone can make about a current in public policy. Is there a possibility of a reversal of fortune? Of course; isn’t there always? But for the moment, based on current developments, President Trump is proving to be the right man for our time.

     The “ur-conservatives” are nominal Republicans who regard the Trump shakeup of federal “business as usual” as a negative thing. Most of them don’t criticize the president’s results on factual grounds; that would be foolish. But they can natter about “institutional instability” and “public manners” as if those things were of higher importance. Their critique is thus more about style than substance. It’s focused on the continuation of existing arrangements and the preservation of existing institutions, including the “deep state.” It can make one wonder which side of their toast is buttered, and by whom.

     I’ve labeled them “ur-conservatives” because their attitude is the one that conforms most closely to the dictionary definition of conservative: “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.” It has little to do with the virtues of particular policies. It’s more about keeping existing applecarts from being upset...even if that should prevent new applecarts from being filled.

     As we would expect, these two Rightist camps have plainly opposed strategic visions. The populists point to current results and argue for their continuation. If they had a mantra other than “Make America Great Again,” it might be “why get off a winning horse?” The “ur-conservatives” lament stylistic and procedural changes and the disruption of existing institutions – especially their own – and predict calamities to come. Their mantra might be “Just wait; you’ll be sorry!”

     And both have some valid points to make.

---

     I’m an old man. I grew up in a time when we ate whatever we pleased, just about every high school had a shooting club, only boys could join the Boy Scouts, and violence was something you had to watch on TV. It wasn’t an era utterly free of problems. We had ongoing tensions with the Soviets, some degree of interracial unease, a slowly growing federal deficit, and ruinously expensive toll telephone rates. But America in the mid-Sixties was a very pleasant place to live, especially if you enjoyed Mission: Impossible and Bonanza.

     Moreover, we weren’t at war with one another: over race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious creed, or political positions. We got along. That stands out above all else.

     The conflicts of our time arise from a large number of sources and issues, but just about all of them are exacerbated by two factors: “experts” and politics. Worst (of course) are the “experts” who align themselves with specific political postures. These appear to have as their aim the precipitation of ever worse social and political strife, possibly eventuating in large-scale violence.

     Yes, the media play a part. Yes, our political differences could and should be subordinated to a freedom-of-expression ethic and a willingness to allow the other guy his right to his opinion. Yes, the “experts” would be far less toxic to public peace if they weren’t endlessly being shoved in our faces by one or another cable channel. Yes, yes, yes.

     But here we are. Every side has its strategy. Every side is in it to win it. Every side has its pet experts, whom it promotes at every turn. And every side is participating in the escalation of the combats fragmenting our society.

---

     My Gentle Readers have been writing to me quite a bit lately. The tone of the email has been trending confused, even worried, as if to say: “Are you all right, Fran? Your latest stuff has been pretty strange...well, stranger than usual.” I suppose this piece is just part of that pattern. Yet as with everything I write, it’s flowed from my personal perspective, my experiences, and my reflections on the events of the day.

     It might seem too bizarre a tangent even for the famously erratic Curmudgeon Emeritus to the World Wide Web, but you might want to spend a few CPU cycles on this: I’ve been listening to a lot of old pop music lately. Old as in you first heard it on your AM Radio. Old as in actual melodies and harmonies, even some occasional counterpoint. Old as in no politics, no sex, and no Anglo-Saxon vulgarities. The Beach Boys. The early Beatles. The BeeGees before disco. Chad and Jeremy. The Dave Clark Five. Donovan. The Hollies. Jay and the Americans. The Kingston Trio. The Lovin’ Spoonful. The Mamas and the Papas. Paul Revere and the Raiders. Spanky and Our Gang. And my all-time favorites, The Association.

     When I arrived at college, I discovered something surprising: those groups and their music were almost uniformly dismissed as “plastic.” Why? They sounded good. They sang in smooth voices and played their instruments like musicians. They were non-vulgar. They weren’t trying to sell you on some political position or promote some trumped-up “crisis.”

     It took a while for me to realize that those were the reasons my fellow collegians dismissed them.

     It was one of the symptoms of the troubles to come, the proverbial “clouds the size of a man’s hand” on our social and political horizons. And it is difficult for me, at this remove, to believe that it had no genesis other than a change in tastes.

     There was a strategy in play even then. We were unable to see it, even as it operated on us.

     I think I’d better close now. Have a nice day.

Small, Smaller, Smallest

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. I was going to launch a diatribe about the world-shaking obscenity currently most prominent in the news, but as I set my fingers to the keys I halted myself for a moment’s contemplation. It struck me that you’ve probably seen, heard, and read all you can stand about the Red Sox / Yankees games in London these past two days. So let’s have something completely different.

---

     Every item of information usable by the human mind is a difference: a contrast between two things, usually portrayed against a background deliberately omitted from immediate consideration. We can only pursue useful knowledge by manipulating abstractions that refer to categories of things that differ from one another. Otherwise, there would be no utility to categories...or to reasoning.

     It is a striking feature of this difference-equals-information phenomenon that we work most easily with differences that are singular and dramatic: that is, when the distinction between two categories pertains to a single characteristic that differs greatly between the two, perhaps by being totally absent from one and dominant in the other.

     Yet human perceptions are remarkably acute. We can perceive tiny differences as well as giant ones. And it appears that we often find the tiny differences more disturbing than the huge ones. This is thought to be the key to the “Uncanny Valley” effect.

     That’s part of what’s motivated my most recent fiction.

---

     I’ve written about larger-than-life heroes and villains. I’ve situated their tales on distant worlds, in the distant future. I’ve given them histories few persons alive today would find possible, much less plausible. Many science fiction writers do that sort of thing.

     Moreover, most SF writers prefer the big difference: the dramatic contrast between contemporary reality and the stage on which they set their tales. Galaxy-spanning space travel. Huge technological developments. Wholly alien races with pentagonal bodies and incomprehensible minds.

     And yet it’s the small difference that most disturbs the human mind. The humanoid alien who isn’t...quite...human. The technology with the delicate side effect that might just compound over time. The aboriginal culture that doesn’t respect monogamy or recognize property rights in land. Such small differences are the ones we have the most trouble accommodating.

     So in my most recent stories I’ve explored the impact of small differences, especially small differences among people. I’ve explored the ways in which such divisions can give rise to social and political clefts. And I’m becoming steadily more convinced of a notion that’s likely to elicit a great many chuckles: Should Mankind ever destroy itself, it will be over a contretemps on the order of which fork it’s proper to use for the salad course.

---

     When a difference is confined to matters that never see the light of day, it will have no sociopolitical effect. But let that difference taste the sun even once, and the temblors will begin.

     My Futanari Saga concerns differences of that sort. Anatomical differences of a private kind, that afflict a tiny minority. Differences in sexual preferences that, unfortunately, have become grist for the political mills. And a technology that can’t make you stronger, or keener, or smarter, but that can help you to change what you want or how much you want it. Small things, really, but massively consequential to the characters in those stories.

     I managed to keep the effects of those differences confined to my cast of characters. That’s not often the case in reality. People routinely elevate minutiae to grand Causes capable of animating riots and pogroms. It suggests that we have an innate need to sort ourselves into Us and Them – and to find reasons to regard Them as an enemy to be feared. That’s not a pleasant thought, though it helps the writer of speculative fiction to create conditions for crisis and strife.

---

     There is a flip side. Sometimes small changes can bring about massive improvements in people’s lives. Example: For the average American, the single most consequential technological change of the past three decades has been the emergence of long-range digital communications. I maintain that this is a small difference from the previous state of affairs. After all, we already had long-range communications via the telephone, the telegraph, and radio. Digital comm didn’t seem (at first) to augur in a new sociopolitical orientation or a whole new range of possibilities for American society. Yet that’s exactly what occurred, and despite some undesirable effects – can’t get the kids to go out and play in the sunshine any more – on net balance we’re a richer and better society for it.

     Perhaps we should have expected it. After all, Daniel Black turned a whole coven of beautiful witches into his eternally adoring love-slaves by giving them a hot tub. But then, the world of physics is at war with itself over tiny differences between Standard Model quantum theory and certain recently observed properties of the photon. There’s also the lowering of the pitcher’s mound and the shortening of the power alleys to consider. So perhaps I should stick to fiction for the immediate future. And continue to go armed, but that’s an “of course” matter, isn’t it?

Some Innovators Should Be Hanged

     …perhaps with a noose made from their “innovations,” if that can be managed.

     We’ve known for centuries that “newer” isn’t always “better.” When Robert Owen first proposed socialism in the early 19th Century, it was newer than the free market, at least as an abstract conception. It certainly wasn’t better, as the endless attempts at it have demonstrated. Neither is the “smart home,” a clever scheme for implementing universal surveillance, better than the “un-smart home,” even if you have to open the refrigerator door to compose a shopping list, program the microwave from the touch pad, and laboriously turn the thermostats up and down by hand.

     Yes, I have a tale of woe for you today. Most ironically, it centers on Joy, my 2009 Corvette convertible that I love dearly.

     At some point in the 2000s, the folks who run the Corvette subdivision of Chevrolet decided to embrace a curiously seductive idea: the “drive by wire” automobile. Microprocessors and the actuators they can control had become very inexpensive, the notion of a central command and control system for all of a car’s functions seemed worthy for diagnostic purposes, and wasn’t everything on Earth going digital anyway? Perhaps it also simplified a lot of the design decisions to have the whole car, instead of merely part of it, controlled and monitored through a single master computer. I have no insight into that set of considerations. So they designed the 2009 Corvette, and possibly other cars, along those lines.

     And lo! The 2009 Corvette was made entirely “drive by wire,” just like the Space Shuttle. You remember the Space Shuttle, don’t you? Before NASA retired that design and all its instantiations, it managed to kill fourteen astronauts. Couldn’t keep the heat-ablation tiles attached to the fuselage, but there were computers everywhere. Great design.

     Not to go too far afield….I was on my way back from Mass yesterday morning when I stopped at a local convenience store for a half-gallon of milk. You remember milk, don’t you? The perfect food! Makes ice cream possible and cold breakfast cereals scrumptious! It’s also arguably responsible for the radical reduction in infant mortality in the early decades of the Twentieth Century. Never mind about your “lactose intolerance.” Ignore the cows lowing about how we should “eat mor chikin;” they’re always cranky at this hour of the morning.

     Whoops, there I go again….To return to the main drama, I paid for my milk, got into Joy, closed the driver’s side door snugly behind me, fastened my seat belt – always fasten your seat belt before burning rubber out of a convenience store parking lot – and pressed the Start button. Nothing happened. Not even a click to indicate the engagement of the starter motor. I tried again. Same result.

     I muttered an oath, released myself from the embrace of the seat belt, and let myself out of the car. That is, I tried to let myself out of the car by pressing the button that releases the door latch. Nothing happened. I tried again, and again, and again. No dice.

     The doors are “drive by wire” too. Whatever had failed had operated just long enough to let me into the car before it crapped out. My Corvette had imprisoned me.

     No, the convertible roof wouldn’t retract. It’s as “drive by wire” as the rest of Joy. I could release the interior latch – that, at least, is a manual operation – and push the roof back about eight inches. That was all.

     A relevant digression: I hate cell phones. I absolutely loathe and despise them. But I have one: an old flip-phone my wife insists I carry. It can take and make calls and nothing else. I just about never turn it on. Who would want to communicate with me through an antediluvian device that can’t even receive a text message?

     I fished that old flip-phone out of my pocket and called my preferred mechanic. I described my plight to him and pleaded for rescue. Fortunately, he likes me. When he got there he diagnosed a complete electrical failure. But he was as defeated by the problem as I. What could he do? The hood release seemed not to function, though that later proved to be because of an error on my part. He went back to his shop for a 12-volt adapter, in the hope that by pumping current in through a convenience outlet he could get Joy’s systems to respond.

     There are many motivators in a man’s life. Some are more immediate than others. In that time and place the one that loomed largest in my priority scale was an ever more urgent need to pee.

     I became desperate. I released the roof latch, forced the convertible roof back as far as it would go, and forced myself through the opening. It was a near thing, but I made it. I clambered out onto the hood and breathed a sigh of partial relief. (Partial because the convenience store had no rest room.)

     The one remaining trick available was the “trunk bypass.” It’s possible to release Joy’s driver’s-side door latch from the trunk, if one can open the trunk. To do that, one must use the “emergency” key in the smart-fob to open the trunk, using the secret passage concealed in the license-plate indentation. Inside the trunk is a pull-tab that opens the driver’s-side door.

     Once released from durance vile I was able to crawl far enough under Joy’s dashboard to find the proper lever and open the hood. My mechanic arrived with reinforcements shortly thereafter.

     What had happened to my beloved Joy to cause it to imprison me? Why had it threatened to embed me in automotive history as the first man ever to starve to death inside his own Corvette? Quite simply, the positive-side battery cable had come loose. It seems a pair of minuscule nuts responsible for maintaining the cables’ grip on the battery terminals had been omitted at the factory. A UAW member went on break and forgot to install them when he returned, no doubt.

     Imagine the above scenario with either of two variations:

• A fixed hardtop rather than a retractable roof;
• No cell phone.

     As the title says, some innovators should be hanged. But not drop-hanged; strangle-hanged. With a rope long enough that their toes can brush the ground. In public. Complimentary lawn chairs and free refreshments to be provided to all attendees.

     And how was your Victory in Europe day?

A Model For Aspiring Tough Chicks

     I don’t know many men of any age or size who’d have the balls to attempt this:

     A woman saved her dog from a cat-astrophe.

     A 30-year-old Idaho woman thought she was breaking up a fight between two dogs, but it turns out one of the opponents wasn’t even a dog at all — it was a cougar, according to a press release from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

     The woman witnessed her dog fighting with another animal outside of her home in Mackay. Initially she suspected it was another dog, but when she pulled the two apart, she realized one was a young male mountain lion.

     She restrained both her dog and the wildcat as she called for her husband to come outside with his gun. Her husband quickly killed the mountain lion as she held him.

     Lara Croft, eat your heart out. Yeah, Hubby did okay, but he had a gun. The Mrs. had her bare hands plus enough brass to make 1,000,000 rounds of .223 Remington and a big honkin’ cannon for the courthouse lawn. I’d look her up and propose to her, but luckily for her, we’re both married.

Quickies: Hold The Outrage, Please

     Via the invaluable Knuckledraggin’ My Life Away comes a story that requires more than a cursory glance:

     The operation was serious and Anna felt relieved when her mother was moved from Intensive Care. But all that ended when the caring daughter found duct tape fixing her mom’s bandages. The ensuing scandal saw the head doctor sacked.

     Although Anna, from Blagoveshchensk in Russia's Far East, knew that her 63-year-old mother’s operation went well and that she was transferred from Intensive Care. But there was no way she could have predicted that a routine visit to her mom’s ward at the city’s clinical hospital would end in such drama.

     When Anna examined her mom, she was stunned to see that “the stitches were well-tended, but the bandages were attached to the body with duct tape instead of special medical adhesive plasters.”

     Where’s the scandal? Duct tape is versatile stuff! It adheres to surfaces that reject just about everything else, up to and including soldering and welding. Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest that it could infect a wound in human skin – assuming that it were used as the primary bandage, rather than as the anchor for a bandage as in the story above.

     The incident calls to mind a scene from one of John Campbell’s “Lost Fleet” books. Admiral “Black Jack” Geary, the hero-protagonist of the series, has just taken in flagship through a skirmish in which personnel were injured, equipment was damaged, and the hull of the ship suffered minor punctures. His damage control team patched all of these people and things with duct tape. It was what they had, and the nearest resupply point was most of a galaxy away. So they made do.

     But there were some aliens on board: diplomats Geary was ferrying to Alliance space, to make first contact with our civilization. The aliens noticed...and they immediately started negotiations with Geary to purchase the secrets of this “universal fixing substance.” I can’t remember exactly what Geary purchased from the aliens with duct tape, but it was rather valuable.

     Just another of the modern miracles we take too easily for granted, I suppose.

Conversations

     This one took place after this morning’s Mass. It is not funny:

FWP: How are you today?
Other Parishioner: Do you get this Hallowe’en stuff?

FWP: Well, it’s based on a custom from medieval Europe—
OP: No, I mean what’s with all the decorations and lights?

FWP: People like special occasions. It’s an excuse to dress up in costumes and have a party.
OP: I think it’s just more commercialism.

FWP: Well, if businessmen see a chance to make a buck—a
OP: I just don’t get it. People treat it like Christmas!

FWP: It had a serious purpose back when—
OP: I don’t want an education!

FWP: You just want to complain?
OP: Yeah.
FWP: Have a nice day.

     I have to tell you, Gentle Reader, that shook me a little. Have you ever experienced anything like that?

An Extended Retreat: A Midweek Rumination

     On November 1, I will have been retired for six months. So, being an impatient sort, and aware of how dramatically these past months have differed from the decades that preceded them, I’ve decided to get a head start on my semiannual “performance review.”

---

     The most significant immediate change in the life of a retiree is the sharp reduction in his face-to-face contact with others. Being a natural isolate, for me the change approached its theoretical ultimate. At this point, except for my wife and the occasional retail clerk or artisan, I conduct nearly all my interactions with other persons through email. Nor am I particularly distressed about that, as it relieves me of many burdens and affords me time to read, write, and think.

     My sense for my relations with others has sharpened. I’ve become aware, rather uncomfortably so, how difficult to bear my company can be. Given my tendency to jabber uncontrollably when in company and the lack of success I’ve had at curbing it, I doubt this will change. However, now that I’m alone nearly all the time, I can take solace in having minimized the irritation to others.

     The gift of time has also enhanced my prayer life. I attend Mass on average six days per week. I spend a bit of each day in contemplation, and I offer a prayer of gratitude before I close my eyes at night. These are unalloyed blessings. Among the benefits that flow from them, this is not the least: I have become more aware of how much I have to be grateful for...and how blindly I once took so much of it for granted.

     Am I improving in any sense? I doubt it. But then, I’m hardly the best person to ask, as I’m “with myself” all the time. Persons who connect with me at longer intervals would be better equipped to judge, and at this point there aren’t any. My hope is that when I’m brought to the Bar of Judgment, God will decide that my good points outweigh my bad ones. That’s all I’ve ever hoped for.

     All of the above are the sort of benefit one would hope to derive from a retreat. Sadly, not many persons indulge in such a thing any more. We’re all too damned busy.

---

     Have there been other developments? Of course, but they’re trivial. How interested are you, Gentle Reader, in how much of my day is spent playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare? I mean, really! All the significant stuff is in the segment above; the rest is merely the putterings of an old man straining to stay out of others’ way, and occasionally do something of value, during his final years in the flesh.

     I don’t think God begrudges us decrepit sorts our putterings, or our trivial amusements. The closing stanza of a life must include some amount of pleasant distraction, if only to keep us from annoying others. The reverse would leave us frenzied and exhausted, of no good to others and possibly more of a burden on them than we would otherwise be. We who’ve left off with economic activity must fill our remaining time somehow, and surely keeping pleasantly amused is among the criteria.

     I worry about the rest of you. Many persons I’ve known have led lives so overfull with obligations and so short of time for rest and thought that I can’t help but wonder how they’ve borne it all. That’s not a criticism, merely an observation. For most of my life, I was like that too.

     It was a great part of why, when I was a young man obsessed with “making my mark,” I drifted away from faith.

---

     Recently there’s been a commercial on television for a drug / alcohol rehabilitation center that emphasizes that “you can bring your cell phone and laptop!” (I’m pretty sure it caters solely to the very well heeled.) The possibility that being continuously available and perpetually connected, via one’s cell phone and the Internet, might have something to do with one’s dependencies on drugs or booze should be of interest to the proprietors of such an establishment. I do hope they know what they’re doing.

     I mention this because of a bit of knowledge that seems to me to fall into the “obvious / overlooked” category:

To the extent that one concentrates on worldly things, he neglects his own mental and spiritual health.

     In “worldly things” I include the bulk of our interactions with others.

     We need time to ourselves – time during which we let the rest of the world spin past on its own. But the percent of his time the average adult American spends that way is growing perilously small.

     Having time each day merely to amuse oneself, or just to sit and think, greatly improves one’s life. Yet we’re practically taught to avoid such periods – to stay as busy as possible virtually all the time. The emphasis on work, on “multitasking” (which, as a former expert in the architecture of multitasking operating systems for embedded devices, I can assure you is always an illusion) and on achieving ever more per unit time is using us up in ways we don’t always perceive and even less often appreciate. You’d almost suspect that time spent in introspection had been deemed an offense against the social norms.

---

     If our steady advances in productivity should bestow any particular gift upon us, it should be a fund of personal discretionary time. The irony of having to forgo that fund until retirement should be lost on no one.

     We are intended to be more complete than we have lately become. We are not merely nodes of production and consumption. But we cannot be more unless we contrive to find the time for it...and learn not to fear what a little self-examination might teach us about ourselves.

     God loves us, each and all, but not because we’re so efficient. It’s because we are made in His image: creatures with immortal souls of infinite value. Remember that even He took a day off after He’d completed his best-known project.

     May God bless and keep you all.

I Promise You Won’t Believe This...

...unless you view it for yourself:

And cleanliness is next to godliness, you know.