Friday, May 27, 2005

Boring New World

I miss the future that we were supposed to have. In the twenty first century, among other fabulous promises, we were all going to fly around in hover cars while wearing silver jump suits with big shoulders. The last time I looked in my garage my car had four wheels and never left the ground (well, not on purpose) and in my closet there is not one shiny silver outfit.

When I was a kid there was a show on called The Twenty First Century. It was sort of a science fiction type genre with predictions about what the future of the next generation would look like. I don't recall too much about it, but I remember one episode where they talked about how
everyone would have computers and how useful they would be - and I just didn't see it.

I have a lot of fun watching old Science Fiction movies. The one that I just watched that inspired me to write today was ... one of the Planet of the Apes movies. I think it was Return to the Planet of the Apes. The movie opens up with a futuristic cityscape, like about 1980, with
chained monkeys in orange cover-alls being led by sadistic, fascist overseers (with whips). They show you a little bit of this, then underneath they put up the words: "Los Angeles. 1991."

Beautiful! Does everybody remember just fourteen years ago when we had monkey slaves in California? Whatever happened to them? Oh, I miss my monkey butler so much!

An earlier and better example of the future that never wasn't is the novel 1984. It's pretty dated now, but the novel was written by George Orwell in 1948 and was about a dystopian future under a totalitarian system much like we believed Communism was at the time. When the year 1984 did come, all the news magazines and TV shows went nuts with articles
and shows about how close we really were to 1984. Not really. There were some handy comparisons between the technology that Orwell speculated about and emerging technology for keeping track of other humans. But that was about it. In America. Elsewhere in the world in
more totalitarian countries the comparisons were closer.

When I was a kid I used to love Star Trek, the original Star Trek. God, when I watch it now, though, I almost want to cringe. For one thing, the special effects are so dated. It was cutting edge back then, I know, but these days even crappy Sci Fi can do so much better. And then its
almost hilarious how little they imagined for the future. I keep thinking about their picture phones, each with a huge cathode ray tube in back.

Perhaps my favorite episode for silliness is Spock's Brain, which is actually a rather infamous one with fans - they don't like it - but I find it hilarious. In Spock's Brain, Spock's Brain is stolen, and the crew of the Enterprise (their space ship) track it down to a planet where women
rule everything. These women dress in mini-skirts, go-go boots, bouffant hair-dos and long fake eye-lashes.

Yes. If women could run their own planet this is exactly how they would dress.

Now, I started out originally with Planet of the Apes and I'm a fan. Not of the sequels but of the original. Charlton Heston really did some of his finest acting in that movie and I still have some lines memorized word for word. ie, "Take your stinking paws off of me, you damned, dirty ape!"
"It's a madhouse! A madhouse!" and "You maniacs! You finally did it. You blew it up. You blew it all up. Ahhh, damn you! Damn you all to Hell!" That last line is delivered in the shadow of the ruins of the statue of Liberty and sent a chill up my spine when I first saw it. It is really a
shame that he has Alzheimers and almost certainly will never act again. Boy, he was on the wrong side of most issues, but I don't care so much. It didn't have a lot to do with his acting.

How this affects the apocalypse: Predicting the future is hard. There are so many possibilities and they all have to do with free will and if people decide they don't want an end of the world, then they don't have to have it.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Potent Pachyderms

Right now there are four ads on TV that feature elephants. One is a tap dancing elephant that's advertising - I don't know what -another advertises a financial firm, another something about Africa and the last one is for cookies, oreos with peanut butter filling. The thing is, I just get the feeling that this is some sort of ploy to appeal to the conservatives in America, you know, using this potent Republican to sell you stuff. Well, I got news for all these advertising firms, I ain't gonna eat no damn Republican cookies or Republican anything else. So cut it out, already.

Anyways, all of these elephants remind me of my own terrifying encounter with an escaped circus elephant. It happened about two years ago when I was still living in the Twin Cities. I was in Wisconsinfor the Weekend visiting my father and I had gone out for a jog. As I was returning from my jog, I saw, about a block away in the park, a circus elephant. My first thought was that I didn't know that elephantsneeded to be walked but it must be what they were doing. Elephants need exercise don't they? Makes sense. Right?

I jogged a little closer and saw that the elephant was being escorted by two men. One was a trim older fellow with silver hair who seemed to have a sort of patient, business-like air about him while the other guy was a young hillbilly with a mullet and a pot-belly. They were guiding the elephant with sticks underneath her tusks. The men stopped a woman passing by and it looked like they were asking directions, as she then gestured towards the University, which is the direction they then turned.

They passed by my Dad's house at the same time I got there and I yelled out to them: "Hey, is the circus in town?" The Hillbilly replied in a grumpy voice: "It was." And then seeing that he seemed out of sorts, I let him be. I kind of wonder how many times he'd heard that question already - or was about to. Later I found out that a couple of elephants had run amuck from the Shrine Circus, which had indeed been in town.

Not too long ago I was on a PETA website (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and I noticed that they had an article about the Shrine Circus and their mistreatment (alleged. reputed) of elephants. Elephants are generally social and peacable animals and tend not to misbehave unless things are really bad. That is female elephants. I guess male elephants aren't usually used because they're just SOBs and no one wants to deal with them. They're necessary to make more elephants, but that's about it. That pretty much holds true for the males of many species, too, by the way. Unless you neuter them, then they're just pussycats.

My problem with PETA is that they seem to have the attitude that they're right and everyone who doesn't agree with them is Hitler. Hey, PETA, even Hitler had his okay points. He was a vegetarian. Bet you don't disapprove of that. And I saw a video of Hitler once where he was petting a dog's head. True, the dog was cowering in abject terror, but Hitler was smiling and he was nice to the frightened dog for at least as long as the camera was rolling. So you got to give him that.

You know, PETA, if you want to sell somebody on something - including ideas - the first thing you've got to do is build some rapport with them. When you're throwing paint on someone you're not building a lot of rapport with them, unless perhaps, they're also someone who likes throwing paint on people. Then you're on solid ground.

How this affects the Apocalypse: There'll probably be lots of elephants at the end of the World.

Monday, May 02, 2005

Wisconsin Cat Hunt

A friend of mine in Minnesota asked me recently about the feral cat hunting proposal in Wisconsin and whether feral cats were such a problem here that we needed a special law about it. Feral cats are not 'wild cats', per se, but rather house cats gone wild, that is feline domesticus (I'm pretty sure that's the correct latin designation) or as they're more colloquially known 'barn cats'. Or maybe just homeless cats would be a more fitting designation for these animals.Are they a problem in Wisconsin?

Well, I'd never heard they were before this and frankly most farmers who have problematic barn cats just take care of them without bothering to worry about a hunting license.Cats are - of course - the only domesticated animals that did not start out originally as either a pack or herd animal. They were domesticated by the Egyptians aeons ago for the purpose of taking care of vermin in grain silos. Possibly the pro-cat-hunting lobby here was concerned that these wild house cats were themselves vermin, representing a disease vector, since they tend to still hang around with humans and aren't so clean.

Or there could have been a concern that these feral house cats were now part of the Wisconsin eco-system and represent a new species with nonatural predator and thus could overwhelm its fragile balance. Although, I can think of plenty of animals out here in the woods that would find them a wholesome snack - wolves, hawks, eagles, maybe bears. (oh my)

What I really think is that these hunters figured that these cats are animals, they're out in the woods, so why not hunt them? You need a little target practice between all the other hunting seasons, don't you? And, I don't know this first hand, but I hear that cats are real yummy if you cook them right.

I've never been a hunter myself and will never get exactly what's 'fun' about hunting. There's something atavistic and chemical that must happen in most male brains that seems to be entirely absent in mine. I can understand it from the aspect that it's sort of a coming-of-age male bonding type thing and you're going out and enjoying nature and most often drinking- which I've also heard can be fun. But other than that, it holds no interest for me.

Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against hunters. I know far too many people that I respect that also hunt. So, even if I don't understand why it's enjoyable for them and doesn't seem like it would be a good time for me, I can still accept this difference of opinion. And I do appreciate the aspect of them getting potential road hazards out of the way (deer, wild turkeys, ducks, etc). Thank you for that, Hunters.

My only real problem is that since I live so far out in the woods, there are certain times of the year that I can't safely go out of my house wearing my favorite antler hat and brown furry suit. Also, there's this rumor that certain twisted multimillionaires in Minnesota have been buying up land in remote areas of the state and then kidnaping famous sports figures and hunting them down as human game. I'd definitely draw the line there.

That's only a rumor, though; If I hear anymore about that, I'll let you know. By the way, the Governor of Wisconsin said that he would veto any bill like this that came his way. I'm not even sure that this was a bill thatwas actually introduced as legislation or just a proposal that was floated around somewhere. It got a lot of national attention and tended to makethe whole state of Wisconsin look real silly, when it was only a few people who thought it was a great idea and I'm not sure why they did.

Maybe if I heard their reasoning they could convince me.

How this affects the apocalypse: God likes animals more than he likespeople, because we disobey him and eat his apples and they don't. The last time he destroyed the Earth he made a special point of sending out a boat to pick all of the animals up. Perhaps this time around he'll do the same thing.