For God's Sake, Don't Drink the Water!

Looks like the year 9595 is arriving ahead of schedule. Instead of “panic in the streets” we have teenage girls panicking because their cellular telephone stopped transmitting. According to a reliable source, girls at school actually become hysterical upon temporarily being excluded from the web - like adults who can't find the teevee remote but worse. Also there is a segment of society who cannot go anywhere without being directed by a satellite. GPS quits, they are helpless to advance. But that's all topped by a horrific tale of suffering related to me at the Lake Lily Art Show. A man and a woman kayaking on the Wekiva River when they - imagine how scary this would be – ran out of water. Of course I thought they meant the river suddenly dried up and they were stuck on the bottom. But that wasn't it. They were talking about the water in their little bottles. Well, they had foolishly prepared inadequately for the expedition and thirst
began to overtake them, gnawing at their throats, parching their very innards.

“It was really terrible,” they said, being out there with nothing to drink, probably at least a half mile from safety.

If this had been the Cleveland River I could sympathize but the Wekiva is a clear spring. When I visit Florida springs, I always enjoy drinking the water so I said, “I have to ask you something. Why didn't you drink the river?”

They paused for a moment like it was unfair of me to ask this most pertinent question. Then the woman claimed fear of alligators, which are not known to police the river vigilantly for unauthorized drinking. The man dismissed the alligator threat, then looked a little sheepish and alluded vaguely to the possibility of germs.

I would love to know how much thirst they would have allowed themselves before caving in and chancing natural water; or if they'd have just given up and died out there. Clearly these people are adapted to life inside the house but some vestigial instinct pushed them out into nature. It's still in their genes if not their brains.

On the subject of germs, that nasty horde always waiting to swarm up and take over the world, I recommend financial investment in Purell. Going to many businesses as I do selling my books, I am in the unique position to know that every single office out there has a big old bottle of that goo sitting on the counter. I don't know what forces inspired this revolution but I believe it is just for appearances. It's hard to imagine anyone but a German standing there and squirting some into his palms. If people do actually start to bathe every time they walk into a new office, then we will see some formidable germs arise, much like the antiseptic hospital setting that gave us Mersa.

So here it is, our great society which would rather publicly debate the policy on gays in the military or whether or not there should be a new basketball stadium than the shocking scandal that across this land people have lost their minds and their independence to the degree that they tend lawns but not gardens. PERHAPS IT NEEDS TO BE A HEADLINE. Here are a few suggestions:

FLORIDA TEENAGER FALLS INTO PIT OF DESPAIR WHEN CELLPHONE QUITS

FLORIDA DRIVER CAN'T READ A ROAD MAP

FLORIDIAN WON'T DRINK WATER WITHOUT A PLASTIC BOTTLE

FLORIDIANS SANITIZE THEMSELVES ALL DAY

FLORIDIANS GROW GRASS INSTEAD OF FOOD

FLORIDIANS WATCH TELEVISION OVER AND OVER AGAIN

FLORIDIANS SEEN WALKING ON TREADMILLS

Hey – how about this one?

FLORIDIAN SEEN BREATHING FRESH AIR -

Nah – too far fetched

Golf, Anyone?

Anybody else notice how creepy the terminology is on WMMO FM radio? It seems to issue straight from the bosom of the great corporate mother, soothing and consoling her minions in their monotonous presence, the queen bee blowing her slaves a common experience in their ears, granting brotherhood in their unified purpose never to flag in feeding the beast they were born to serve.

Yes, they have music for your “drive time,” you hordes of insects on your way to work, altogether swarming from the little houses and apartments you swap your lives for. They even run interference on the highway to ensure you arrive on time. To ease you back to your “quality time” music, of course is music for the drive away from work.

They have your life fine tuned, music for every aspect of it – driving to work, driving home and the “quality time” before you go to sleep. Why do they divide your life like this? Why can't they just play the music? It's rude not to speak to those Orlandoans who don't nine-to-five, leaving them out of this mass medium of existence, alienating them from the mainstream.

Since it is ultimately all about maintaining the Great Work Pyramid, none of this is haphazard. And while you may have somewhat individual, if largely indistinguishable lives, you are enhanced by the same soundtrack. And what a soundtrack it is! Some time back WMMO dropped the pretense of playing many different songs, claiming no longer variety but “the best variety”, meaning a handful carefully chosen to maintain your hypnosis, recycled ad nauseum. Many of the mid-day songs are rendered by someone apparently straining his voice through the anus of a unicorn, venting for “listeners” the anxiety produced by their sensory overload of an existence. If they do play a song you love, keep “listening” – you'll soon tire of it. But to spice up life, they offer “listener rewards” and “free money!”

For sure clones of WMMO are directing lives all over the land of the free and the home of the brave, “listeners” dutifully drinking their cups of coffee so they can volunteer to be cogs in a machine, then trading caffeine for Budweiser Saturday and Sunday, stupidly being swept into that sweet goodnight, satisfied to be one small drop in the vast tide of consumers drawing ever farther from the shore to drift without landmark or foothold.

What is the meaning for the targets? I think it can be found in the language, literally true. You say you work for so-and-so. Exactly right, you do. You do little for yourself, the bulk of your life devoted to the entity you “work for,” no doubt facilitated by the human propensity for worship. Imagine allocating this much time to your family or to nature. Perhaps you would not constantly be seeking a connection. But that would be too much “quality time” which is supposed to be a rare thing that happens briefly once a day with WMMO setting the tone. You are a “listener,” not making even your own noise. What an astounding gift is time, how readily squandered when in great abundance. WMMO hides nothing in the blatant patronization of her listeners. Listen closely and you will hear the broadcasters droning as to morons.

With only one day to live, few would spend it like this. But they willingly spend thousands. I'm just waiting for unicorn anus beer.

The Econ River

Well, the Econ River, heroine of my fabulous novel Paradise Interrupted, is in the crosshairs again. This time the county commissioners uncharacteristically didn't perform all manner of unspeakable acts of passion on the developer before granting his every wish. Ah, maybe because the developer in this case is the three women who inherited the land from their father and not some big company from the charismatic "out of state". Suspiciously none of the commissioners condemned the proposal, just saying things like it's not the right time, clearly leaving the door open for future pandering. Kind of like saying it wasn't "the right time" for the Iraq war.

As always, though, the developer lawyer was bald.

Panama

I went to Panama recently and saw what a real warning label looks like on a cigaret pack. Several different images are randomly placed on all packs. One features the open mouth of someone with mouth and teeth rotted by smoking. My favorite features a dead rat beside a backstroking roach, drawing the link between ingredients in rat and roach poison and “smokes.” Perhaps in Arabian countries they depict a dead camel.

I used to be proud of United States warning labels until I saw what can be done in what they call “the developing world” where people lack our modern advantages. Before I ever saw a cigaret pack there I had noticed nobody smoked. The only people I ever saw smoking in Panama were European tourists. Guess it'll never happen here. This attack on a huge health problem is just too simple, effective and bad for business.

Blowers in the Wind

When humans wish to demonstrate that their species alone has true intelligence, then they must be very selective about the evidence they present. My case in point is the human capacity for operating a “blower” to clear leaves and dirt from pavement. Possibly even more astounding is the human capacity to pay someone else to do it.

Perhaps they never have heard about our friends “wind” and “rain” who humbly perform the task with neither clamor nor pollution. Maybe they are unfamiliar also with “brooms”. Mother nature decorates with fallen chlorophyl factories and bits of dirt the asphalt zones that defend our feet against contact with earth. This is an offense. Instead of Varoom why not a broom?

The problem is, and I truly believe this, the broom is not a stupid enough solution to their neurosis . Why can't some transient dirt and leaves lay upon the paving? And why must the space support for all time no sign of the organic? It is in the human brain that nature once vanquished shall remain vanquished. She may mount no comeback however pitiful and ineffectual.

There you have it. At any time of the day you may hear a man with a blower moving leaves off pavement as wind blows more on. Just yesterday I witnessed a man blowing leaves off a public highway. No other animal is interested in this project. It is either sheer genius and unavailable to my ordinary brain and the platypus' or clear evidence that humans actually are the only animals without true intelligence.