RACISM ETC

"Good taste is the enemy of comedy." Mel Brooks

aloha again, got a CT Scan is about four hours. up & restless.
been thinking of racism and spacewalking astronauts being killed or injured by speedy space junk,bad dreams apparently.
RACISM
me and Soul Mate lived in Mendocino County about five years.
beautiful country and some terrible people...my name,Jesus my name.the co founder of Kelseyville was a vicious pedophile,so terrbile that the Indians caught him and Kelsey and literally tore them apart before being massacred by american troops.
my name,my name was also being used by Klan Radio in Fort Bragg.me and SM went to Point Arena several times and the last time we were refused service at a grungy diner."You wouldn't be happy eating here." hissed the scrawny lipless female owner. we were directed across the street to another diner which was closed.went down the street to a hippy smoothie place and had a great time...parts of Mendocino County are still in the 50s.once or twice in Ukiah i was waiting for SM in our Jeep and some white women made a huge display of locking up their clunker beside me.
i frightened people in supermarkets,without intending to.it was often horrible.on the Plus side i made a good gay friend Geezer( AKA Gman),with the same acid sense of humor and the ridiculous. also i was the first chair of the County IHSS Commission and we got it off the ground safely despite me being in often unbearable pain. small town equals small minds up there except for Ukiah and Boonville and other places used to tourists.there is not much to see in Willits, the first stop light on 101 beyond Santa Rosa.met Erin Brocovich(sp?) there becasue of hex chrome poisoning & birth defects but that is another story.

Santa Cruz is cool except for one record store near Longs which jerked me around when i tried to buy a CD for SM (Marianne Faithful, smoky and cool like aged cheese) she bought the CD there herself the very next day,no problem. the record store has since been replaced by BevMo.
irony, Santa Cruz County and Mendocino County have the exact same sliver of black population with much different results.when kids point at me here it's because i resemble Santa, have a big belly or odd cane.nobody is startled to see me waddling around a corner in some store and nobody has made a display of locking their doors around me.just another FAT OLD CRIP WADDLING BY, THIS IS GOOD!

in other news,
they (Sacto solons)plan to cut the wages of ALL IHSS WORKERS BACK TO $9.50 despite the LIVING WAGE ESTIMATE OF @$20 for California.
go to http://act4ihss.blogspot.com/ for the latest news and protests.

PAGANI has invented a word SCARENALISM scare+journalism about the nauseasting trend in 'news' to emphasize gore and crime when it is actually declining.BE AFRAID,BE VERY AFRAID!!! Big Brotherism (not the TV show,no) vs tent cities and the jobless crisis et al.
PAGANI if you have a blog (s) please tell me and i'll add it to my links. anyone who likes Solaris must have a good brain,right?
later.

namaste
semper gumby
mega

TERRIBLE TIMES (sic)

"What fresh Hell is this?" Dorothy Parker

aloha again,just random grousing.

i have lived in bad places.
in the 70s i lived in Haight Ashbury after the speed freaks had chased the flower children to remote communes in the hills (many are still there) the first night i moved in a man was shot to death on the doorstep of my apartment building then Alioto cut off bus service beyond Masonic.
in the 80s i lived in SF's the Tenderloin for a decade where i had to chase whores off the doorstep from crapping or screwing so i could go home.an area so tough that a man who was killed after waving $100 bills around was ruled a 'suicide'. once,when i drove cab, a pretty blonde stew from some airline was assigned to buy drugs for the entire crew.early on sunday morning it took her less than two street converations and a housecall to find everything she wanted.
in the 90s i lived in Oakland where crips had their wheelchairs stolen as a cover for drug sales. then i lived in Berkeley where robbery and car thefts were common at the North Berkeley BART station and a downstairs nabe was carjacked at gunpoint one Christmas. on Telegraph Avenue, just blocks from UC, people are routinely harrassed,assaulted or stabbed by aggressive panhandlers/addicts from the nearby People's Park drug bazaar.

so one can imagine what i thot after first reading the almost daily rants about Pacific Avenue in Downtown Santa Cruz in The Senile (the local daily rag and apparent mouthpiece for the Chamber of Commerce) i half expected to see lil old ladies getting their eyes gouged out with dessert spoons before being ground up and sold for catfood. nope,not yet. admittedly i found black tar heroin and other sundries available for sale near the Greyhound station (that's news?) but nobody robbed or struck me. when a rare black female panhandler demanded money i replied 'i never give money to anybody who dresses better than i do'.gotcha! i then found a nice bench (since moved) by the Brazilian lingerie shop and a shoe store to people watch from.

now i admit a certain bias, i have met Robert Norris (and i have a good friend who works with him as a homeless advocate) but if Santa Cruz the City would just designate an area,like the Pogonip Wildnerness, for homeless camping and health service and the like the Downtown would be much safer and shopper friendly.this is a party hardy college/beach/tourist area and the last thing you want is to be groped or hassled while puking your guts out against some car or storefront, right?

another true story,
in the 90s at a crip conference i was abandoned by local Paratransit (they lied & lied & lied,despite my witnesses) at Jack London Square in Oakland. so i pushed my wheelchair over to BART but of course both the elevator and escalator were broken so i had to slowly push my chair SIX MILES HOME up busy druggy San Pablo Avenue on a Friday nite (while SM was home worried sick,Paratransit lied to her too-repeatedly) all the phones had been ripped out along the way to discourage drug dealers (yeah right) and several times i was asked if i worked for Sleepy who apparently rented out wheelchairs for drug sales. now i was not just another schmoo on the street then but veep of the BCOD (Berkeley Commisson on Disability) with an annual budget of a miliion bucks to distribute for crip purposes.
i fear i was unkind to the max when Paratransit limped in to lie about how great a job they were doing serving the crip community...i actually OFFENDED them,imagine that.

in other news,
you Pagani are an optimist but maybe correct.(see Comment about immortality). as far as i know Randi Rhodes is off the air,for now .
(PS...SM wants to know how u found out about my blog? any more details u care to share???)

" i ache in the places that i used to play.." Leonard Cohen songmeister

i have another CT Scan on Monday so i am going to try and chill out until then.beautiful weather predicted...

namaste
semper grumpy
mega

CRIP SNIPS

"My country is broken." Randi Rhodes (radio host)

aloha again, just some random thots this time.

1.ABC News reports that ONE MILLION CHILDREN ARE HOMELESS IN AMERICA,most with their families. they profiled a disabled dad who had been homeless with his family for Ten Years.they moved from shelter to cheap motel to shelter.some motels were full of whores and used syringes,time to move again.the interview with the children was heartbreaking.
i am still pissed about it. collateral damage of Casino Capitalism.Billions for AIG but SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE IS "Too Complicated" or "Too Radical at this time" (meaning the venal insurance companies and campaign donors will suffer).
2.MY FIRST LOCAL CRIP
when i first moved here i was in Longs Drugstore and spotted an old white guy in tan shorts,he had a prosthetic leg, way cool. weeks later i saw him again at the Capitola Esplanade sunning his scarred stump on a bench.no biggie, i just admired his courage and self possession.CRIP PRIDE YEA!

in other news,
if you have five minutes to look at something i think is BEAUTIFUL.scroll down to the YouTube link and type in THOUSAND HAND GUAN YIN.Enjoy.

namaste
semper gumby
mega

YES PAGANI 3 DREAMS

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your own heart.Who looks outside,dreams,who looks inside, awakens." Carl Jung

namaste
mega

FREAKS OF NATURE

"The gods have their own rules." Ovid

"Ye shall be as Gods." Genesis

aloha again.
saw something disquieting on the Science channel last nite,
THE SUPERHUMANS 2 hrs long, they dressed it up in comic book graphics to possibly lessen the impact. where do i begin?

first they bred two rodent species whose DNA is further apart than man and chimps (yes they said that, 93% DNA match between human and chimp) the crossbreed experiment was sucessful. the result is what scientists call a CHIMERA,something NOT FOUND IN NATURE! (emphasis added). as usual they promised to 'cure birth defects' (as defined by who?) but the troubling part involved DESIGNER GENES & DESIGNER CHILDREN, they invoked the Digital Divide to predict there might someday be a Gene Divide between the Haves & Have Nots which might indeed lead to TWO DISTINCT HUMAN SPECIES!!!
it goes on,
RAY KURZWEIL (you've got to WIKI this dude,scroll down for the portal) wants to become IMMORTAL,no really. this guy is decribed in his Wiki bio as "a futurist and transhumanist"-TRANSHUMANIST,REALLY? now before you scoff at this i was up early this morning and figured out what this genius was up to...
think of DNA as a shoestring with a ferrule (end cap or tip) at each end of the lace,in genetics this ferrule is called a TELEMERE and as it unravels we age and become less resilient. now if you could prevent or reverse this unraveling you might indeed live forever (who would want to?). this is where stem cells come in as step one. step two is ORGAN FARMS where they would insert your DNA into a pig embryo (we're a lot alike and not just sexism wise, if a pig can eat it and not die so can you) and grow a spare kidney or lung or whatever repalcement part your body needs.they boasted "this is no longer the stuff of science fiction".

of course science fiction is based on THE LAW OF UNEXPECTED CONSEQUNECES, for example antibiotics have saved millions of lives but their overusage to fatten farm animals has lead to MRSA and other antibiotic resistant superbugs. in sci fi the problems generated by immortality lead to ennui and suicide (novel Childhoods End by Heinlein?).what if there is a caste of rich immortals over a much larger caste of poor mortals,no problems there right? let them eat Soylent Green cake?
some species of virus and micrboes are possibly immortal but should we add mankind to that list? i can think of all kinds of arguments and bio ethical treatises to keep the status quo, a natural death,versus immortality and a Utopian Society without crips & disability.where i ,for one, would've been aborted in the womb.what do you guys think?

"The factory of the future will have only two employees,a man and a dog.The man will be there to feed the dog.The dog will be there to keep the man from the equipment." Warren G.Bennis

"Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons."
R.Buckminster Fuller

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE???

namaste
semepr grumpy
mega

YES PAGANI 2 PREDATORS

"Drama is life with the dull bits taken out." Alfred Hitchcock

aloha,
i really should look for Comments b4 i write some of this stuff.
Pagani has corrected me on my sloppy observation about choosing the twisty path, for example serial killers & sociopaths.
i will not use the excuse of being addled diabetes,saving that for a bigger screw up.

okay, i will concede that Nature needs predators to thin the herd -raptors,hawks,lions,wolves,jackals etc etc. had a dream about Jack the Ripper recently,so this is in my thots.

does karma decide who becomes a serial killer or not? the whole Psych debate about Nature or Nurture rises its fuzzy head.when do we decide to break the Social Contract and run amok? the brother of Richard Alan Davis (the killer of Polly Klass) is a judge and his sister a social worker.
i grew up in Harlem ,most of my cohort either died in Nam,got hooked on heroin in Nam or wound up in prison. i didn't and neither did my friend Popsy who became a cop, my BFF Mike and his sister Alice were lost to smack long b4 Nam and it was not unusual for a teen to disappear awhile (not pregnancy related) and rumors surface of them hooking near Times Square,usually the ultra seedy Eight Avenue.the son of my next door nabe,a tainted NYPD cop, went that route and so later did his younger sister.
on my last trip to NYC as younger friend K,whom i used to play Doctor with, was off smack after hooking and asked me if i wanted to have sex. she meant well but i declined anyway. was she destined to be a heroin addict or were shabby schools,an alcoholic mother and permissive father part of the equation?

let me redefine my position Pagani, among Seekers & the spiritually restless,there is a choice of which twisty path to choose. among the numb,church haunted,soul dead,drug fried and sociopathic, not so much.
is that better? glad u care.
write on.

namaste
semper gumby
mega

DISABILITY DAZE 2 RUR

"Capacity is its own motivation." Henry W.Nessen
one of my fave quotes,a guideline.

aloha again.
not a good nite 4 sleeping.

just a thot, science has proved that both dolphins and neanderthals have bigger brains than modern man.all cultures have a creation myth.how well did the neanderthal creation myth fare when they met Cro Magnons??? neanderthals were highly adapted to the Ice Age climate then the climate changed dramatically and they couldn't...now we face a massive climate change,can we adapt in time?

ROSSUMS UNIVERSAL ROBOTS
in the same vein the finale of BSG (Batlestar Galacticva) was last nite.
in BSG robots become self aware and decide to end mankind.
in Terminator (movies & TV) robots become self aware and decide to end mankind.
in I,ROBOT (the movie not the novels) robots become self aware and decide to end mankind.
off screen workplace robots run amok and accidentally kill humns,nobody knows why.
in Japan they had a plan to outsource their elderly and disabled to cheaper locales,it caused general outrage,now they are developing nursing home robots...
Carl Heyek (sp?) invented the word "robot" i think its Czech for slave or thrall, in I,Robot the short stories & novels the brilliant Isaac Asimov,author and scientist developed the Five Laws of Robotics which were so all inclusive AI scientists today use them,cautionary note-in the novels the robots become self aware(sigh).
now i am a science and sci fi buff and when i heard in TV the prediction (Moore's Law) that within a human generation robots will be building themselves and eventually be smarter than humans,oh big whoop.
now we are an imperfect and often violent & irrational species.what if robots decide,logically, to put us down or imprison us for our own protection? how would we stop them? should we? is robotic eveolution the cure for our human catastrophe? to the Earth were are a spreading toxic cancer,would not a more logical species do a better job of conservation & popluation control et al?

as usual the Japan robots will tend to the disabled and frail elderly, who by some definitions would be viewed as imperfect or broken.
how do we explain disability to a logical mind?
how do we explain saving the life of a preemie or Down Syndrome infant? if someone becomes a para or quad or TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) by accident or disease,how do we explain keeping them alive? and don't get me started on robot assisted suicide,where would that logically end?

these are things i think about when i cannot sleep (from new meds i hope)

in other news,
we are in the 4th World of the Hopi.the previous three worlds were destroyed by fire,ice and water. survivors fled underground for safety.the Blue Star of Hopi prophecy announcing the arrival of the 5th world is ,by some definitions , visible now in the night sky -just in time for the 11-21-2012 date of Mayan and Egyptian prophecy.sheer coincidendce?
sweet & sour dreams?

namaste
semper grumpy
mega