Surviving Sandy…

Dear Friends,

I am writing to let you all know that I have survived Hurricane Sandy. Despite reports in the region’s papers and other media, I have not perished in a flood such as we have not seen in Western Mass in half a millennium. Indeed, it was touch and go with the unseasonably warm evenings and a slight drizzle. But, the full Moon peeking through the hazy clouds offered reassurance that the Universe had not ceased to exist and I still survived to ponder and distress at the dreadful news floating through the wires and air waves that still worked with the electricity that continued to surge miraculously to power my computers, cell phones and television sets proclaiming the horribility and certain doom that had beset me.

I enjoyed a cold seltzer from the fridge that amazingly still had a light on inside it. Between commercials on the cable news, I repeatedly checked on the status of that light. I finished the chicken salad and sat in the bath tub with a door torn from its hinges for some hope of safety in the ongoing apocalypse. Then it stopped drizzling and my wife knocked on the busted door and asked me to go to the store for some ice cream. I brazed the nonexistent storm to find a young lady from Pakistan tending the counter at the 7/11. She surely is made of sterner stuff than I. Yes, those people know the difference between drizzle and a monsoon.

Of course, I understand that folks just to the south of my home got a bit of a whacking from Mother Nature. I’m sorry for your troubles. I must, however, point out that if you live in a place with Ocean or Beach in it’s name, or if you are on an island in the middle of the second largest body of water on the planet, you will get wet and inconvenienced when a hurricane blows in. Oh, and try not to put your trains in tunnels next to rivers adjoining the 17,543,940,979,332,434 gallons of water weighing 170,543,940,,979,332,434 pounds (give or take an ounce or two). Don’t expect your power to stay on when your power stations are down by those rivers and in bunkers below sea level. If at all possible, try not to drive down a darkened street flowing with a torrent of waist high water as fallen electric lines spark and arc across the hood of your car. If you are in a basement apartment and tidal waves are crashing against your windows, pray later and run away immediately. These are just a few suggestions that I can offer in service to public safety.

Thirty-five folks perished as Sandy loped with predictable and lazy determination to expend her surfeit of global warming energy upon the East Coast. Meanwhile in the time she took to do her work, about a thousand folks died in America from less foreseeable circumstances; car and industrial accidents.

In conclusion, I will implore my many concerned friends across the globe to relax. I am safely ensconced in my lair one-hundred-thirty-eight feet above sea level and a good piece from the river. What we just experienced with this hurricane was not the worst storm in my own short memory of fifty-seven years on the planet. It was not even close. It was more an amalgam of poor engineering, poor preparedness and plain old dumbosity. Oh, and thank you to our regional and national media for killing millions of dollars in business and ruining the education of our kids for two days while you sold hemorrhoid medications and comfy soft toilet tissues every seven minutes between blasting the networks with made up news.

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

SCS

Ad Astra George McGovern

Dear Friends,

We lost George McGovern last night. The guy was a true hero in war and for peace. Like so many of his comrades, he did not speak much about what he did to earn his medals of valor in WW2. He did not, however. discount the record that he once brought home in one piece the crew of the B-24 Liberator bomber that he piloted with one engine shot off and another aflame, 110 bullet holes drilled through the craft. But, he did not make much of that.

He did describe his time in war a hell, and by his subsequent devotion to peace and giving food and care to those that suffered in war, in poverty, in hunger, I surmise that he was conscious of not only the hell he endured, but those caught up in all the world's wars.

He went on to endure a second hell, going toe to toe with the most ruthless President our nation has yet known. He dared a man with atom bombs and the world's biggest secret police to an honest fight. His opponent was so cowered by McGovern's courage that he resorted to dirty tricks and thievery to win the battle and thus ultimately lost everything. In the course of this domestic battle, of course, Nixon plunged an entire region of Asia into war and killed more than 4 million innocents. Nixon delivered the very hell that McGovern had warned of and knew too well.

But, George never expressed bitterness about that defeat. As in WW2, possibly the only war that we might generously call a good war in our recent history as a nation, McGovern was clad in the armor of humility and a good sense of humor as he returned from the battlefield. This guy George was, indeed, a hero and he dared against all odds. We lost a good one last night. I'm very grateful to have been around in his time.

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

SCS

Senator and Hero George McGovern

Kindness and Attention…

Dear Friends,

This has been a sort of heavy day. See, I've had a few folks pass on in the recent months; down and outers and bounders and such sort that I know perhaps too well. 

Anyhow, if you got some time, take a walk down the street and toss 

a dime or two to folks that might be asking. Maybe drop them a loaf of bread or candy bar. It doesn't matter if they are really vets or not, if they claim to be pregnant and are likely not or if they are how they got into such a fix. Whatever. If you live in a town with a Ferry Street (most do), head down to the river or the shore.

You'll see tents and sleeping bags in the scruff of the woods. Throw some more bread around if you got it to spare. Maybe give one of those folks down by the water some due; just a hello. That will matter even more than a quarter or a piece of bread. You likely won't get hurt and it will be the best thing you can do for yourself all day.

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

SCS

Spiritual and Cranky!

Dear Friends,

I got pretty cranky yesterday morning when I encountered a commentary by this yutz, Alan Miller, on CNN calling folks who were "spiritual but not religious" lazy and timid. Hey, boss, you take a look at a Universe that stretches from before the beginning of time and all the way to the end of time. See a universe that is one of an infinite variety and multitude but has perfected itself to create Human eyes and Human minds that seek to comprehend it and all the other possible creations in every possible dimension within and without time. Look into the near emptiness of space and see Reality being born out of that emptiness adjacent to dark stars that drink up even the aether of light born out of nothingness.

In this Universe matter is mostly unseen and most light dark, most truth must left be unspoken about the hidden mysteries on worlds beyond our dreams begging to be revealed in a place where Space and Light bend and few so-called facts can be trusted from our vantage. We cannot know where and how fast It becomes new or old or not at all; no more than that cat in a box that has puzzled us since those cats Heisenberg and Schroeder dreamt it up or not. The end of the story of that cat does or does not forever live in a book that has no beginning nor end.

So, stand there at the edge of a sky with new stars birthing new planets and look at them. Stand alone without some old man in a throne above the clouds of our piece of lint in the Cosmos, this pale blue dot, our home world circling an unremarkable star at the tenuous fringe of one galaxy swirling amongst a trillion others. Now, tell me that I am lazy and timid. Brother, what I just described is where I live and it is not a place for the timid. To you I say, welcome home.

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

SCS