MY WRITING JOURNAL

Saturday, August 21

Motion

The Most Dystopian SciFi Movie Ever

IN THE WAVE OF SCIENCE-FICTION that came just before Star Wars, the future was frightening. Films like Planet of the Apes, A Clockwork Orange, Soylent Green, and 2001: A Space Odyssey imagined bleak realities of total authoritarianism or utter barbarism.

In the future, there were either way too many rules or none of it.

Star Wars, albeit a medieval fantasy (set “a long time ago,” even), also followed suit in its story of a hippie rebellion against fascist dominance.

But with cool things like lightsabers and whirring TIE fighters everywhere, it was hard not to want to live inside George Lucas’ textured environments.

But before Star Wars, there was another science-fiction film with a far smaller legacy that also depicted a rotten-yet-appealing future.

In a twist to the usual tropes that the old maintain a vise grip over the young, this film instead mused on the values of time, wisdom, and experience. It is also eerily prescient, even if none of its “predictions” about the future actually came true.

LOGAN’S RUN, directed by Michael Anderson (Around the World in 80 Days), is the movie you need to stream before it leaves HBO Max on August 31.

Here’s why, and what you should know before you start watching. READ MORE

Lava Flow

Friday, August 20

Afternoon Thoughts

Like always, each morning since 2015, I have been watching FOX NEWS and it does not matter if I have cable or HULU... and, each morning recently, I have been amazed at how incompetent the Biden Administration seems to be in the face of one crisis after another... and, while it is somewhat of a shame how all this shit happened at once but it could not have happened to a better person, especially after hearing that Biden and his adminstration are blaming former President Donald Trump for everything that has been happening... it would seem like to me that scenario has played out enough... it is logically and statistically impossible to blame the previous administration especially since the current administration has overturned almost everything that Trump put into place... that overturning directly takes the blame off of Trump unless you are too blinded to see the obvious.

We have the following items that are becoming to cause at least half the population to be concerned:

Immigration
Inflation
Inappropriate spending
Afghanistan
Increasing crime and violence
defunding the police
unemployment benefits
Divided Americans
Critical Race Theory
Increased racism

AND... the fact remains that NONE OF THIS SHIT really has any bearing on how I enjoy my retirement... adequate monies have been set aside for unexpected expenses like:

inflation
heat pump
new pool
new vehicle
new furniture
new appliances

AND... once one has anticipated several unintended consequences, then one does not really care if those unintended consequences actually happen...

AND... see what is happening in Afghanistan, there is not doubt in my mind that terrorists will regroup in that country and that terrorist attacks will begin to take place all over the world... including the US of A believe it or not... as terrorists can either enter the USA through Canada or they can enter through our southern border like the rest of the illegal immigrants are doing.

AND... if a terrorist activity happens in the US of A, it will not happen in East TN... it will happen in much larger cities and highly populated urban areas to inflict the most damage and the most lives lost.

Many people are thinking that in 2022, the Republicans will take back the House and the Senate and in 2024, Trump will be elected to a second term... and... what I say is that I don't give a damn anymore... whatever is going on in the US of A, is going on because we did this shit to ourselves and while we have the ability to make choices, we have have the ability to live with the consequences of those choices. What we have today is exactly what we wanted to have today... WE DID THIS SHIT TO OURSELVES...

Populist Press

Save our Babies (Afghanistan)

Taliban

China Controls the USA

Truman

Education

The average annual cost to attend a Community College (2 years) is about $4,000 and if you took 5 classes each semester, each course would roughly cost $400 as compared to the average cost of a 4 year college being about $2,500 for each course.

A student's first two years are general education courses and most students do better at a Community College for these courses than at a traditional college.

So, now you first two years is under $10,000 plus you have acquired an Associates Degree.

PLUS... it is much, much easier to transfer to a traditional college in your first year than in your first year where the entry requirement are substantially HIGHER.

It does not matter what your grades are or were at a Community College, when a student is transfering all grades transfer as "C's".

I have known many people to go to a community college for their first two years then transfer to an IVY LEAGUE college or university for their last two years, and receive a degree from a school that WILL OPEN DOORS for you for the rest of your life.

Additionally, instead of having college debt in the neighborhood of $200,000, it is now only around $100,000.

Your employer is not going to look at your first two years, only that you have a 4 year degree and at what school that degree was earned.

Dancing Girl

A New Force

Harry Cliff, a Cambridge particle physicist writes...

After years without particle physics making the news, recent announcements suggest a breakthrough. Could a new fundamental force also explain the mystery of the three generations of matter? Harry Cliff weighs up the case.

Most of my colleagues would probably admit, at least in private, that it’s been an anxious time to be a particle physicist. Thirteen years ago, when the world’s largest (and most expensive) scientific instrument, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), fired up for the first time, hopes were high that we would soon discover new particles and forces that could help address some of the most profound mysteries in science.

Things got off to a spectacular start with the discovery of the long-sought Higgs boson in 2012, but momentous as its discovery was, the Higgs belongs to the well-established ‘standard model’ of particle physics, which took shape more than half a century ago in the 1960s and 70s. Now, I don’t want to do the standard model down. It is without a doubt the most successful scientific theory ever devised, describing everything we know about the fundamental building blocks that makes up the world around us with stunning precision. You could make a good case for it being the greatest intellectual achievement of humankind. But we know it can’t be the end of the story.

The standard model has no solutions for numerous thorny problems, including how matter survived annihilation during the Big Bang, or indeed why we observe the set of particles that we do. Perhaps its most glaring omission is its failure to account for a whopping 95% of universe, which astronomy tells us is dominated by enigmatic substances known as dark matter and dark energy. So, when the LHC switched on in September 2008, particle physicists like me were itching to see something altogether new, something that might show us the way to an expanded picture of the subatomic world.

Yet almost a decade later, after literally thousands of searches performed by the four big LHC experiments, nature has stubbornly refused to give up its secrets. After the discovery of the Higgs, the LHC experiments continued to verify the predictions of the standard model, while ruling out a whole host of speculative new theories that were intended to extend it into new territory.

Some began to talk about a crisis in particle physics. Could it be that the long quest for an ever-deeper understanding of the fundamental constituents of our universe had reached a dead end? However, amid the gathering gloom, a series of unexpected chinks of light were beginning to appear.

Once again, particle physics made headline news around the world. Major discoveries seemed to be arriving like buses.

The LHCb experiment, one of the four giant detectors that study particle collisions produced by the LHC and the experiment on which I work, was reporting a growing number of ‘anomalies’; measurements that seemed to be in tension with the predictions of the standard model. While intriguing, for a long while these deviations were too subtle for physicists to have much confidence that they were anything other than random statistical wobbles in the data. That is until the 23rd March of this year.

On that day, my colleagues at LHCb announced they had found firm evidence for exotic particles known as beauty quarks decaying in ways that the standard model can’t explain. If borne out, these results suggest the existence of a brand-new force of nature, which would make it arguably the most momentous scientific discovery of the 21st century so far. The story broke out into the mainstream media, quickly making it one of the most widely covered particle physics stories since the discovery of the Higgs in 2012.

Then, just two weeks later on the 7th April, a completely different experiment at Fermilab in the United States announced a second result that seemed to suggest that fundamental particles called muons were also experiencing the tug of a hitherto undiscovered force. Once again, particle physics made headline news around the world. Major discoveries seemed to be arriving like buses. READ MORE

A Conservative Liberal's Opinion

I was raised a Democrat by my Democratic parents and I remained a Democrat until 1980 when I earned an MBA from the Babcock Graduate School at Wake Forest University and realized that the economic policies of the Democratic Party were not conducive nor were they in line with our Free Market Enterprise System and Capitalism.

Yes... it is true that Capitalism has created a multitude of Millionaires and Billionaires but it has also created the most POWERFUL ECONOMY in the world and that is not an easy task...

However, I still hold onto many of my liberal beliefs that have nothing to do with the economy because I believe that people have RIGHTS that should not be enfringed... like the right to choose or the right to own a firearm or the right of free speech and religion.

Most Importantly, I believe that our FEDERAL GOVERNMENT should NOT TELL its citizens what they can or cannot do. I also believe in a small government, low taxes, a strong military, and a viable educational system that is focused on the retention of knowledge and not on grades. I am totally opposed to debt or increasing the debt to provide services to the citizens just because a group of people think we should regardless of the cost.

We should provide only those services that we can afford and as long as we can afford them, then we should provide as much as we can, to show the rest of the world that the USA is a great place to live, work, raise a family, and retire in.

What the Democrats are doing is not just WRONG but economically FOOLISH...
What the Democrats did in Afghanistan tells our allies that the USA cannot be trusted...
What the Democrats are doing by allowing illegal aliens to enter the USA shows a complete disregard for our laws...
What the Democrats have done when it comes to defund the police is idiotic but moronic as well and shows a complete lack of judgement and insight...
What the Democrats have done with Critical Race Theory has and will continue to increase the bitterness and divide that already exists between blacks and whites in this country...
What the Democrats are doing by using Capitalism to pay for Socialism is irresponsible given that no socialistic country has ever been successful...

It is doubtful that the Democrats will ever change their mindset of their party platforms... so, my return to the Democratic Party will never take place in my lifetime...

It is a shame that I feel this way because I affiliated with the Democratic Party not because of my parents influence on me but because of John F. Kennedy... the democratic party today is not anywhere close to the democratic party of JFK... and that mistake will never be corrected as long as its present leaders continue to believe the way they do.

Waterfall

Greek Mythology

According to ancient Greek mythology, the Muses are the sources of inspiration for all of the arts and of knowledge. The daughters of Zeus and Mnemosine, they were the romantic companions of Apollo’s entourage of gods.

The Muses began their lives as nymphs that manifested as whispers in the ears of those that invoked them. The ancient writer Hesiod describes how Osiris, the god of fertility, then called upon them to travel across the world as the nine muses:

Calliope

Clio

Erato

Euterpe

Melpomene

Polyhymnia

Thalia

Terpsichore

Urania

The Muses were integral to the artistic development of ancient Greece. The poets attempted to summon the Muses, who they believed would respond by giving them inspiration for their work. The ancient Greeks worshiped the Muses until Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe.

Each of the Muses is associated with her own unique form of art and knowledge. READ MORE ABOUT EACH MUSE

City Fog

The Survival of Stonehenge

Much of Stonehenge has remained almost unchanged since Stone Age builders erected its massive sandstone boulders, or sarsens, 5,000 years ago on England's Salisbury Plain.

A new study reveals how the monument has stood the test of time so successfully: The quartz crystals that make up the sarsens form an interlocking structure that makes the boulders nearly indestructible.

"Now we've got a good idea why this stuff's still standing there," David Nash, a professor of physical geography at the University of Brighton who co-authored the study, told Insider. "The stone is incredibly durable — it's really resistant to erosion and weathering."

The study also revealed that some of Stonehenge's sarsens contain grains of rock that are between 1 billion and 1.6 billion years old.

The new research was born out of an act of repatriation.

In 1958, a team was repairing a cracked chunk of sandstone, and a driller named Robert Phillips took a 3-foot-long piece of Stonehenge.

He eventually brought the relic to his home in Florida, but after 60 years, the Phillips family repatriated it to English Heritage, a charity that preserves Stonehenge.

The rock's return offered Nash's team an opportunity to investigate the monument's geological origins. Stonehenge is protected by law, so it's impossible to extract new samples for study. READ MORE

Starting Over

Thursday, August 19

Our Second 2021 Vacation

Today is a final relaxing day for me as tomorrow (Friday) I have to get the house and yard ready for us to go on vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC... Leaving Saturday and returning the following Friday. So, tomorrow is the day for mowing the yard, weed eating, putting extra water in the pool, vacuuming the pool, gathering up everything that I want to take with me, and then packing it all in the car, so that all that needs to be done on Saturday, is having a relaxing morning with coffee and breakfast... as we plan on leaving around 1:00 pm.

Should we have any concerns about COVID?

We should not have any but we do... even though both of us have had our vaccines... there is still concern about catching the virus and having to experience some sort of ill side effects as a result of our age and health situation where we both have compromised immune systems.

SO... we will probably avoid elevators where there is more than the two of us... being out on the beach will not be a problem... but, when we go grocery shopping or shopping in general, then we will wear our masks and make sure to sanitize our hands often...

We typically eat out at the beach but I doubt we will do much of that... mostly take out I would think...

LIfe must go on for us and everyone else... we should not have to hide away inside but when outside we should be smart... it is uncomfortable being smart but that no longer matters when it comes to protecting one's health...

This will be our second vacation in 2021 and probably our last although we have been invited to the Gulf of Mexico in September but I am not sure if we will go... we usually have at least 6 vacations each year now that we are retired, but COVID has completely altered those plans.

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Saturday, August 21

Friday, August 20

Thursday, August 19