Remarks about ear wax, cotton swabs

I've spent a lot of time mastering the art of ear cleanliness. I'm no slouch where the cotton swabs are concerned, no, I wield them like a samurai's sword hacking away at the rich, creamy wax which daily accumulates in my ear canals. There are just no words to properly describe my skill. I used to trumpet the fact on my resume, bragging to the world, "behold, here is a man who knows a thing or two about proper ear hygiene." I often catch myself smiling at the thought of my inimitable ear-cleaning talents. I feel that all is right in the universe, that I've found my true calling. While my teeth may be caked in butter-yellow tartar, my nostrils overgrown with raggedy clots of hair, my nails frayed and caked with dirt and oils, I never worry about the state of my ears; they gleam and glisten like ceramic cylinders, at a certain angle the light which reflects from their sheer, unblemished surfaces can blind a person. Watch out ye who gapes at the angelic purity of my ears.

It's not just my severe standards which make me so great at ear cleaning but the style, the flick and twitch of my wrist which mark me as a true master of the form. Someone happening to watch the spectacle would be taken unawares, perceiving only a slight breeze as I deftly probed the folds and creases, spinning my swabbed spear like a cotton candy vendor at a carnival. Before they knew what had happened I would display the swab proudly, a large quantity of brown paste artfully gathered at its tip. "Can I try?" they would instinctively ask, and I would answer, "No! You fool, the harvesting of ear wax is for the seasoned veteran, not a wide-eyed fledgling like yourself. Give me your ear!" They would do so, the authority vested in my unique skills compelling them like a cobra hypnotized by the flitting notes of its charmer. Clasping their head in my hand, I would retrieve a fresh cotton swab from my holster and with not a moment's hesitation mount a frenzied attack on their wax-infested corridors. First one swab, then another, indeed a third I would employ to carry out the job, each collecting an equal share of moist, amber ear sap. The job done, the unexpecting patient would rush to pay me for this service, but would refrain after noticing my somber grimace, which states more clearly than words: "An artist scorns your filthy lucre."

In my dreams, cotton swabs march before me in a long procession. I can hear no music to keep them in time, yet they move in perfect order much like the walking hammers in a Pink Floyd video. Like scissors connected at a fulcrum they march along, one pair after another in a seemingly endless chain. I feel the emotion swelling up inside me, I stare in wonder at the profound functional beauty of these simple implements of ear upkeep. Suddenly I taste salt and I realize that I'm quietly sobbing, and for some reason this causes me to break into a terrible wail, the tears and snot flowing down my face like flooded rivers. Out of the depths of the dream silence my sobbing becomes increasingly audible, and as this happens I begin to wake. I am awake, and am sobbing, my pillow and blankets are soaked in tears and sinus mucous. Without a conscious thought I throw off the blankets and race to the bathroom. There, mounted as always on its special shelf is my home-made cotton swab box. I urgently but gently draw its lid open and look in rapturous joy at the abundant columns of neatly arranged cotton swabs. Carefully, I take one from its place, and though my vision is clouded by tears, I stare at it gratefully. I clutch the slender be-cottoned tool close to my chest and return to bed and there return to sleep, cradling my Q-tip like a child does a teddy bear.

Sorry about killing all of you

The massacre at My Lai in March 1968 has often been mentioned in these ramblings. It stands as an obvious example of how barbarity knows no bounds, is not kept at bay by abstract ideas of civilization and religion. American soldiers swept into the Vietnamese hamlet and destroyed everything and everyone; men, women, old people and children - even livestock - all were treated as "the enemy." For good measure "the enemy" was demoralized as much as possible before it was extinguished, thus rape before death in the case of the women, and better still, the murder of her children before the rape, before the death. That'll teach 'em to be the enemy! Oh, it was an excellent tactic, the American military was doing its best to keep Red China from taking over the world. Massacres, rapes and toddler beheadings are all in a days work when fighting these high-concept mega wars.

More than 40 years have passed since the carnivalesque slaughter so it is somewhat surprising that only yesterday William Calley, the only soldier actually charged and convicted (he served 3 years of house arrest) of anything related to My Lai, told a gathering of the Kiwanis Club in Columbus, Georgia that he was sorry for what had happened. It's the first time he's allowed this difficult admission to pass his lips. For years, in rare interviews, he has emphasized his role as that of a simple, duty-abiding soldier, "I was merely following orders," he would always say. Of course, he still says this but in his old age, as thoughts of his eternal life begin imposing themselves in his day-to-day, he's probably wondering, "hmm, will Saint Peter give me a tough time when he remembers I bayoneted that young woman after I raped her? I wonder if that'll work against me taking my seat beside the lord and savior?"

And how powerful is the idea of "sorry" even when it's apologizing for the annihilation of a village? "Oops, killed a community of folks over there. Sorry 'bout that 'n all." Apparently the old soldier, the old fighter, was given a standing ovation at both the beginning and the end of his speech. The audience was so impressed, so deeply honored that he would apologize in their meager presence that they jumped to their feet: "Thank you so much Lieutenant Calley! We'll never forget your valiant apology for events 40 years prior!" And how immensely manly William Calley is! Not only did he merely follow orders when helping guide his platoon of simpleminded barbarians against the villagers, but years later, he's got the massive testicles to say "sorry" for what has happened. That's a real man; that's a real American hero. It's a lesson to all men involved in contemporary violence: If you just wait out the storm, let some years decompose the decapitated corpses, then you too may have your chance to apologize for your actions. And you will be applauded for your manly bravery, your unflinching commitment to your principles and ideals. Praise you William Calley! Jesus awaits you in heaven, He can't wait to listen to your tales of warrior heroics. Just be sure to leave the nasty bits out!

Note: Lieutenant William Calley did not kill the children pictured.

Don't think, dumb is strength*

It's been sometime since I've last written, and so much has happened since then. Where to begin? In the first place I should mention my gratitude to the marketing firm which each morning sends me an email suggesting I enlarge my manhood. I try to keep the general status of my groin area on the low down, but these uncanny sales people over come any intuitive embarrassment in discussing the genitals of others. While the sun sits low in the eastern horizon, a steaming cup of coffee in hand, I weigh the pros and cons of purchasing penile enlargement medications. Is the treatment guaranteed? Are there any side effects? Can I use my credit card? In this day and age it's heart warming to know that there are still kind folks out there wondering about how they might help the lot of a stranger.

Another fantastic occurrence happened only yesterday as I was walking a dog. Sitting on a park bench were two disheveled middle-aged males drinking liquor from the bottle, their stolen bicycles laid against the grass. I was a little nervous. Would they pester me for money? Would they harass me, assault me and steal my empty wallet? Well, I'm happy to report that all the worst-case scenarios were just figments of my imagination because no sooner had the homeless drunkards spotted the dog, then they began suggesting ways to help the poor animal cool down in the atrocious heat. "Take 'er fer a swim, like," "Get a hose and spray 'er down eh," "She needs triple the water when it's so god damn hot, ya know." I was quite surprised. In their drunken stupors, with nothing to live for but the next chance to cook their brains with booze and drugs, their empathy for this animal remained in tact. And the whole time I was in their fields of vision, not once did they mock the tiny bulge of my groin region. Or ask for money.

Of the many other things which have passed before these observant eyes of mine, what else might I share with you, dear reader? I have it! While I'm sure you're pining for news about my ongoing battle with those miniature vikings, the fruit flies, instead I thought I'd bleat a few barks about something I've been seeing in the news recently. You know how in the United States, they cherish not so much the content of ideas as their right to think and say whatever they want? The right to say whatever one wants is guaranteed by the first amendment of the constitution, whatever that means. Anyway, as Obama's government attempts to reform health care, all sorts of "town hall" meetings have been sprouting up, where people gather to heckle speakers, chant retarded slogans and predict the coming apocalypse. Their right to freely express their feebly thought out ideas, their slander and their anger isn't enough though. Obama has already gone too far, they live in a police state now, they can feel it under their abundant and curvaceous flesh, in their guts - the location of the American god.

All that wasn't enough you see. It wasn't enough to derail these meetings with references to Nazism and similar deeply uninformed commentary, now America's sons are bringing their firearms to the show! How they love the idea of "firearms" it's like an arm except that it can fire bullets! Terrific! So at these meetings, especially the ones where the president himself is in attendance, a few brave monkeys paint their incoherent signs and arm themselves, because what debate can be had without weapons present? It started with a monkey who stood outside such a meeting with a leg holster (just like Laura Croft the Tomb Raider!), now there are other monkeys who are excited by the new behavior and are mimicking the first monkey. So now all sorts of weaponry are being spotted at these meetings, including automatic weapons. It's hard for me to express the profound stupidity of the people who do this and the society which allows it. It seems pretty hopeless to me. If a man feels that he needs his gun to protect himself from something which exists only within his skull, what solutions are there?

*Title is a lyric taken from Pearl Jam's Glorified G: "Got a gun, in fact I got two, that's ok man cause I love god."

'As Real as the Hand in Front of my Face' Part III

Of course, none of these events occurred, at least in this realm. Truly, this story was a cop out- a dream which happened a week ago. Everything about it was very real to me, and I woke up feeling nothing but terror and confusion. My heart was racing, sweat had perspired on my forehead, and each small detail and aspect of this dream was as clear and fresh in my mind as if it had actually occurred. It was as real as the hand in front of my face.

A dream can be many things, as real as life itself. For a period of my life, I dreamed on a daily basis, but recently, the only dreams that I can recall are ones which are highly real, or my problems seeping out through my unconscious.

For me, the unconscious mind is as conscious as the- well, conscious mind. Many times, I have awoken from a dream in which a friend treats me terribly, only to find that I am naturally cautious of that person for the remainder of the day. Some would say that this is a form of insanity. Perhaps. The ability to distinguish the real from the rest is something that most people have learned from a very early age. Personally, I like to have my moments of ambiguous clarity.

Would I ever tell this story as if it was true? Probably, but by the time I get to the zoo, I would hope that my listeners would be able to distinguish the nature of the story. And politely keep the truth to themselves so as not to disturb the other listeners.

'As Real as the Hand in Front of my Face' Part II

First senses are a troubling thing. The first one to kick in is smell. It takes a moment to realize; but when you sense it after unwilling unconsciousness, it hits hard. Before my eyelids could peel open I could smell the heavy scent of freshly cut grass. Next comes the sensation of touch. I felt earthiness, and my brain made the connection that I was lying on my back on a patch of lawn. There was no uncomfortable aspect to my state that I could suss out at the time. When my eyes finally decided to open, an overwhelming amount of light was clearly observed. Pain started to drift into my nerves, something had obviously happened. How strange it is that we cannot comprehend our state of mind until out eyes are open; for a moment I envied the blind. A form began to take shape; It must be a tree. It must. It was. Pale green, sickly green with leaves flirting about with the wind. Taking a moment, I suddenly recognized my breathing was slow- grasping a meditative rhythm. It was time to move something requiring more than just my normal motor functions.

Sitting up felt labored. It was almost as if my spine was being ratcheted up by each individual vertebrae. A flurry of colors overwhelmed my brain before each individual object began to take shape, as if being snapped into focus by a rusty shutter. Yes, grass- moist to touch but still shaved down and groomed. I must be somewhere where people are welcome. My arms began to move now, I felt my body and knew that I was still around and more importantly; intact. Something was still wrong with me, for my hands seemed before my eyes, to grow and shrink in size. A byproduct of my previous treatment at the hands of a man. Not a man; somebody that I knew once before, somebody familiar to me. As if in a single simultaneous loop my memory remembered everything that had happened before being struck by the handle of a handgun.

I can see now. My vision snapped back to normal. Everything was back to normal; and the rapidity of my cause to regain my senses was somewhat startling. So startling that it was all that I could focus on. Once I had been able to get myself back on my feet, I took stock of where I was.
Instantaneously, I realized that at the trunk of the tree that I had first noticed when my vision came back; was a Leopard. And it was staring at me. It wasn't alone, there was another tree not too distant, and another chained Leopard. Without thought, I darted back as fast as I could from the large cat. Once at an appropriate distance, I became immediately confused. Removing my gaze from the Leopard for a moment I looked behind me, and could clearly see that it was morning, and I was at the zoo. A zoo. But the only occupants of the zoo at this time was me and two Leopards chained to large trees. We were unwilling company.

Perhaps the Leopards were as confused as I was, for they did nothing. In a way, I was sure that they felt sorry for me, and they merely basked in the early sunlight. Myself, I could do nothing but feel embarrassed. Without a single thought, I relieved myself from the Leopards' presence and ducked into the nearest building that I could find. There was no respite in the exhibit, it was full of nothing but jabbering monkeys and primates; who seemed to be mocking me and feeling sorry for me being outside of an enclosure.

I left the place fast. Walking in no determined direction. Looking to neither left or right, I just walked. My hand happened to make it's way into my back pocket, obviously looking for the wallet I keep there. Pulling it out, I unfolded my wallet and could see that all but forty dollars had been stolen. This was somewhat shocking to me. Perhaps my former clients hadn't recognized me. Perhaps they had just taken me as an accessory, mugged me for a small amount of three hundred dollars and dumped me in a zoo.

Sounded reasonable. Anything sounded reasonable in this fucked up situation; how much more strange could it get?

Eventually, I reached the gates of the zoo. For embarrassments sake, I was thankful that I had not encountered a single soul since regaining consciousness. Hastily, I breached my way past the gates and down a corridor before reaching the zoo's parking lot, which was completely empty something was not right. Nothing had been right for a long time. The situation with the Rap group that had loathed me, the drug deal that was in progress, the chained Leopards. None of it made any sense to me, but I couldn't help but feel that I had some part in all of it. Nothing actually fit. And I stood, in a parking lot; a space that had been so cruel to me before, but seemed somewhat redemptive at this moment.

End Of Part II

'As Real as the Hand in Front of my Face' Part I

The evening was winding down. Having finished a full days filming, I had just stopped by my favorite bar to drink a cold English bitters. My weekend had been long, three hard days of filming, with some minor disappointments along the way. But I had finished filming for the day and was preparing myself for having to return four hundred dollars worth of equipment at eight in the morning, cash on the barrel-head. It was already midnight.

There were a few customers in the bar, I leaned around my bar stool to have a look at the patrons present. In the corner, I was able to spot three gentlemen sitting alone by themselves, appearing somewhat sinister. Two of them stirred me in the wrong way. The third figure was beyond my recognition. One of them looked up and our eyes met for a single moment. Like lightening, my chest seized up in knowledge of who they were. At one point I had done several music videos for a hip hop group for a few years. Things turned sour between the group and I, two years back. At one point they threatened violence against me and I refused to answer their calls or emails. The last email I received had ended with the warning that '...we could do something that you would regret, but we wouldn't." I took the threats seriously, one of the members of the group had been shot five times and lived. This man was the one whose eyes had met mine.

Reverting my gaze in front of me, a flood of questions filled my mind. Had they recognized me as well? Were they there for me- had they found me somehow? How long had they been in the bar. Sweat immediately began pumping from my pores. Instantaneous reaction. The bartender inquired what was up; apparently I was white as a ghost. Thinking became hard. Fight or flight kicked in and the latter seemed more apt to me. Kicking the stool away from me, I bolted to the back of the bar, to the storage area. Grim thoughts only seemed to grow faster when by yourself in the back of a bar. Lighting a cigarette, I opened the back door to let the smoke out, and provide myself with an escape route should they attempt to find me. There came a sense of inevitability in my mind, the nicotine was working. I put my back up against the storage room entrance door and prepared myself for any sort of pushing, ready to leg it out of the room as fast as I could. Minutes passed and nothing happened. Perhaps things had not been as bad as I thought.

With lights turned off and back to the door, my only visual perspective was out the storage room exit; into the parking lot, and through a small crack in the wall. I kept my eyes out into the parking lot and waited. Abruptly, the three men that I had been trying to avoid entered the parking lot. I held my breath and remained still. They entered a dark car in the lot. I took a small lungful of air and waited for the car to start. It didn't. It merely sat in it's spot, with the three figures lingering inside. My mind shifted to atrocious thoughts once more. Ten minutes passed and the inertia draped me with a near death inducing atmosphere.

Voices. Movement. But not from the car, to my right, through the hole in the wall, I could see two other figures conspiring. Their words were inaudible to me, but it did indeed seem like something illicit was transpiring. To my reckoning, it appeared as if some kind of small drug deal was taking place in the near area of the parking lot. For a few moments, my attention was taken away from my former disgruntled clients, and on the two other shadowy members of this twisted circus.

Without warning, I heard profane screaming and my attention was drawn back to the car. The three men were outside of their car, holding hand guns pointed directly at the other men. I fell to my knees and attempted to get as low to the ground as possible. The screaming continued. Something terrible was happening right before me. Whether it involved me, I still didn't know. The question was quickly answered. One of my former clients suddenly noticed the open storage room door. The former client who had previously felt five small segments of blazing lead rip into his body. And he noticed me. Or did he really. He noticed my person, but perhaps not my identity. Maybe in the thick of things, he really didn't care. My mind was half way to shutting down completely. What happened next only occured to me in segments. I could see him approaching me with gun pointed, I could sense the other two men still shouting profanities as they moved towards their target, and I could hear my aggressor telling me to turn around, which I did. On my knees, I could see the door that I was previously leaning against. The paint had faded, there were scratches. No conclusions to my situation could be drawn. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I was living every single second. Each sensation felt new, fresh. I could sense somebody close behind me, somebody who I had once put in front of my camera; somebody who paid me money to make them look good. It's hard to make a thug look good.

A crushing force impacted the back of my skull. I was surprised how little pain I felt as the butt of his hand gun struck me. Truthfully, I sensed very little as I slumped against the door. Being knocked unconscious isn't nearly as frightening as expected. It lasts a few seconds, before everything gets extremely hazy and mellow- and uncertain.

End of Part I

Lament it backward

An enormous billboard near where I live ecstatically declares: Joy it Forward. In a color scheme obviously referencing that somehow famous Red-White-N-Blue (like, those are the like national colors, like) Obama poster, the ad campaign calls on one and all to take up their Pepsi, hold it high in the air and in unison call forth an unprecedented era of peace, prosperity, happiness and beverage imbibement. Joy it Forward everyone! The campaign's website entreats us to "glimpse into the world of joy," invites us to take part in some sort of ritual of good cheer, which Pepsi Co. calls "Joygles." I think their intending "joygle" to remind people of giggle, but whatever their intention it's lost on me. The term throws me into a spinning vortex of the deepest uncertainty, I'm left floating in mid air, no sense of earth or sky, order and reason have fled me, I'm lost in the netherworld of vacuous, well-financed advertising.

What could they possibly mean? Sugar soda is everywhere available all the time, there's nothing new in this. According to some raw data that I've been crunching on the ol' computing apparatus (don't worry, it's lubricated), in the US alone, 56,763,900,000 litres of soda beverages were consumed in 2008. That's a lot of litres. So it's probably safe to say that Coke and Pepsi are, like, everywhere in our culture. The paunches on our children and the blood-sugar readers pricking their fingers also corroborates this carefully uncovered fact. So soft drinks are basically as common as blankets and pillows, pretty much everyone has used them at one point or another. So what's so joyful about something so utterly familiar and commonplace? I understand that marketing divisions have to come up with some slogan or another every couple years, so to keep their stale products fresh, but "Joy it Forward"? Come on!

As with so much which is all veneer and no substance, I'm left feeling the opposite of the slogan's friendly imperative. The "rebranding" (another nonsensical modern farce) was carried out by BBDO Toronto, where it's all about The Work. The Work. The Work. That's where, like, all of the creativity happens. Joy it Forward you say? I'll joy it forward around your throat as we plunge down into the depths of hell together. I'll joy it forward with my furious scowl as I picket beneath your mighty signage, with a placard that warns, "The end times are nigh, nay they've arrived and are almost unpacked! Look to asinine, inane, yes, retarded, marketing slogans as a sure sign that the world has unraveled to its end. Fear not religious, economic or military tensions, Joying it Forward tolls the devil's bell."

Oh, I'm only kidding. Why not relax and enjoy a Pepsi Cola? Don't the sweet bubbles make your nose tickle? Hey, I can see you're getting a lot of joy out of that can of pop. Have you thought about spreading some of the good cheer around? Why not Joy it Forward!? Everybody's doing it!

They couldn't kill Harry Patch

The Radiohead have brought down the hammer, arching it like a rainbow, slamming it hard against my hibernating torpor. Of course, they hadn't planned on knocking the summer doldrums out of my cobwebbed melon, but it was a secondary effect nevertheless. Their purpose was to write a song, a ballad, which commemorated the life of the last British veteran of World War I. The first European world war is the most upsetting of the two when you look at it. Bloated and ignorant empires, overreaching their hands, caught between the old world of aristocratic politics of honour, and the new world of bourgeoisie liberal capitalism. In any case, the great men on both sides of the aristocrat/bourgeoisie divide saw no choice but to settle their differences over great swaths of the globe's territory, using that immortal, alas deeply mortal, currency of human life. Everyone knows, or at least has a sense, of how these old guys saw things; Hindenburg or Churchill, each leader saw himself as overlord of a great human conflagration, it would only take several hundred thousands dead, several millions dead, and the world would be set aright. "For the homeland lads! Whichever your homeland may be!"

Radiohead, that British band who - love them, hate them, shrug them - do not posture themselves to the interests of market trends, yet marketers will study them for generations, asking, "how'd they do it?" Though there is virtually no end to the quantity of bands struggling for relevance, Radiohead has been from the start the sort of band which looks away from the cameras, turns around when they appear. For all Radiohead's great fame and unique stature as that one band whose members have waned into years of life by definition uncool, they still manage to exude an importance even a vitality. Though they are indeed a hugely popular band, even the most cutting-edged musical tastes are not so jaded with the concept of "pop" not to appreciate the singular path Radiohead has made for itself.

Everyone dies, just so you know, and it's foolishness and romanticism to hold the deaths of some as being of more significance than the deaths of others. Nobody's fault to have lived; nobody's fault to have died, it just is. Yet I can't help feeling a little sad about the death of Harry Patch. I love the idea that the violence and madness of that first European war could not kill him, and despite his acquaintance with the hell and hopelessness of such unrelenting mechanical barbarism, he continued on through the decades and centuries; nothing could kill him! Like a wise tortoise who's seen the beginning, and the end, and the beginning again, Harry shuffled off to sleep beneath an ancient fern, its overhanging fronds shade him from the sun, deflect the bullets and chemical poisons meant to kill him. I'm grateful to Harry Patch for living through the madness, and to Radiohead for capturing the sadness and injustice of humanity's unremitting plague of male violence.

How I feel about the Iran situation today...

The protests still continue... And the Chihuahua's relax their sphincters...

Operation braying donkey

In an earlier bleating I remarked about the idiocy and deceit at play when journalists, police and other incident-public mediums refer to the murders and abuses of solely one half of the gendered divide as happening to "people." No doubt women are people, but in the event that they are systematically targeted by males (also people I admit), we are done no favors by glossing over the implicit misogyny at play in these daily tragedies. So following the breaking story of the man who went into a Pittsburgh fitness center and shot several rounds at an aerobics class attended only by women, I was curious whether even when the gendered aspect of the viciousness was so blatant, would our unthinking, droning media employ their usual boilerplate terminologies? Would this be an incident where "people" were massacred, the massacring also done by a "person?" Or would news agencies find it in themselves to call it like it was: A man massacring females.

To the New York Times I clicked, and there on the front of its digital page I spied an article. In it one learns that "A man carrying guns and a gym bag walked into a busy fitness center... opened fire, killing at least three people and wounding nine others." Hmm, from this sentence one could infer that a busy gym might be filled with both examples of the gendered divide. "People" suggests a gender-neutral status, right? But further on our exacting journalists chisel their subject down even finer, carefully exhibiting yet another aspect of this deeply complex story: "Three women and one man were dead. The police believe he was the gunman. The rest of the victims were all women." It seems to me that if we subtract the man - who "police believe was the gunman" - from the list of "victims" the only victims remaining are women. Therefore, using my powerful command of semantic logic, I shall conclude that women were the sole victims of the violence of a single man. And I'm not even in Pittsburgh, couldn't find it on a map, and yet here in my underwear I can offer a detail reluctantly given by the news outlets breaking the story. A man targeted women, shot as many as he could, then killed himself; no need to use the insidious, distracting term "people" when the event cuts along such explicitly gendered lines.

In the coming days I suspect it will be uncovered that the gunman, George Sodini, was a deeply disturbed, unhappy man. I wonder if he blames women for his troubles? It appears he did. Scratch that, he DID blame women for his troubles, the use of "appear" is another insidious qualifier used ubiquitously to convey an impression of caution by the journalist. It is not difficult to know very well that old Georgie hated the ladies, in the first place he left a long and rambling webdiary where he regularly rants against "hoes and bitches" for failing to notice him, about the fact that he hadn't had sex since he was 29 years old. It's all here. He began his diary in November of last year with the words, "Why do this?? To young girls?" He says he had planned a massacre earlier in the year but chickened out. Here's this fact in contemporary newspeak: "The gunman appears to have made plans to carry out a shooting at sometime earlier in the year. It is unclear if he had specific targets in mind or what, if any, his motives may have been." It couldn't be as simple as yet another mentally unstable male reaching for weapons to slaughter women. No, probably not, it's more complex than that. Alas, another profound mystery.

Loopier than a bucket of eels on a Farris wheel*

Ernst Haeckel looked into microscopes and drew what he saw. These pictures show two of his drawings. The colored one is of sea anemones, the black and white one is of slime molds. Don't miss your chance to see some slime mold congeal in this video. There is a ton of eukaryotic life out there and he looked at some of it and drew it afterward. He was really good at this. That's great. I can't say enough about how great he is, Ernst Haeckel I mean. He also wrote stuff about it too, so he could write and draw. You can bet he had lots to say about the development of organisms, probably very important things which went on to steer future learning in these subjects. He loved to spy the bustling activities of overlooked animals.

Another treat, something else that is good (I'm not sure if it's great, I will hold off making a decision about this until later) is journohistorian Niall Ferguson's 4-part series on money, after his book The Ascent of Money. It's really interesting stuff, the history of economic theories and actions. You'll learn about the basic outlines of certain commonplace ideas, such as that the word "bank" stems from an Italian word meaning bench. At the bench the deals would be made, the money lending, perhaps just a little usury, operating fees really and hands shaking. Probably other business was conducted at the benches, advice about things and stuff. Some people are beginning to suspect that the key to a smoothly operating economy is income not home-ownership. I'm sure that not home owning and no income incoming are neither a shard of a scrap of the economy, let alone (put it down at once) a key. It's agreed, not working and not owning is bad for the economy.

There's another super important thing to blog about. What is it though? Oh yeah, nope I still forget. Just a second. No, it completely escapes me. Uh. One more minute, just a second more, sorry about this, thanks a lot, uh. Oh yeah, I remember. I found this really weird link to Mumbia-Central website about the oldest mammal fossil ever found! In the history of the world! It's the oldest one! But this exciting, difficult to verify, bit of trivia is doubly weird because it was published on Sept. 11, 2001. What could it all mean? The oldest mammal fossil and the violent farce-making of passionate non-thinkers, one ancient the other squarely in the center of the now past present, combined on one fateful internet post. What wonders there are for us to look at and think about? There are lots of them, I'm sure.

*The title of this "post" owes its origin to the penetrating and poetic prose of Rex Murphy, who is, in this particular, keeping in view the parameters of the question, keeping in mind the particulars of the instance, as it were, one of a kind. He was dismissing conspiracy theories at the time.