After The Alphabet

After The Alphabet 

Rhetoric, 

The caustic sauce 

That forges words 

Into swords, shields,

Weapons for the 

Wily to wield.

Lacking kennings

Or couplets,

Metres or feet,

Jests for jousts

Then do without.

Seldom are the 

Silent trumped in 

Eloquence or 

Accused of sitting 

On the fence. 

Alternative Lifetimes

If I could have chosen when and where I was born, it would have been in one of five (or four of five, if it could have been gotten away with) chrono-geographic locations. Actually, I'm not going to list the birth years but, instead, the years that I would like to have been 18 years of age in. 1) London, 1818, in about the middle of the Romantic period of the arts. 2) London, 1850, in the full flowering of the Industrial Revolution, when change, innovation and exploration were at a peak and your local chemist had all manner of nifty substances for sale OTC. 3) Paris, Left Bank, 1927, among the artists of the Lost Generation. 4) San Francisco, 1948, as part of the Beat Generation. 5) Toronto, 1965, just 10 years prior to my "real" year, in order to take the fullest advantage of the "hippie era."

Now, I'm not saying that coming of age in the first half of the 70's was unfortunate, just that there have been other eras in which the possibilities for intellectual stimulation, as well as a wider range of planes of pleasure, were more abundant.

End The Debate Already!!

Ok! Enough already! Stop the crap! We don't have to stop global warming in order to save the planet, we want to save OURSELVES. Earth did just fine when the only life was plankton, and it'll keep revolving with or without us until the sun explodes. Earth isn't in danger, WE ARE!!

Your Host of Ghosts

Ghosts of Darkness, 

Ghosts of Light, 

Ghosts that hunt you 

Day and night. 

Ghosts of the mind,

Ghosts of the heart,

Ghosts eager and hungry 

To shred your soul apart.

On DNA

(A DNA documentary: https://youtu.be/whVhdj2Yn0Q )

This whole topic is as sensitive as an open wound and there are things that we are not allowed to say, even if they are simply facts. For example, a person with Down's Syndrome is a mutant. They have one more chromosome than a standard human and this deviation is a mutation. The stating of that fact is morally neutral, it is not a judgment but it's just the way it is. Somehow the word "mutant" has gotten a pejorative connotation in society, a connotation that the meaning of the word does not have. What if a mutation causes some sort of improvement over the standard model? Well, then we just call it evolution, accept it and move on. DNA does change over time and that's what evolution IS. Why don't we act rationally and deal unemotionally with genetic changes, with mutations, whatever direction they may take? Because, while individuals can be rational and dispassionate, societies seldom, if ever, are.

The Log In Your Eye Is Trump

Trump has been a godsend to the publishing industry. Yes, Trumpism is tearing America to pieces and, yes, it will negatively impact the rest of the world but, that's hardly the most deadly foe we face. America has to deal with Trump but the world has to deal with global warming, which is a much graver threat. 

However that's not the impression one would get if you looked at the window display in any given bookstore. Books about a failed President outnumber books about our collective suicide, as we continue to murder Earth's biosphere, by my guesstimate, 100 to 1.

That disparity is much deadlier than Trump could ever hoped to have been, short of initiating a nuclear war. 

So, stop looking at the glitter that is being dangled in front of your eyes and look past it to see our real enemy: ourselves.

The Span of a Man

Think not upon  Selbstmord for we're all mortal and born to die, by and by, and centuries hence we'll be forgot as 'neath the earth we lie.