Story-Line for NOTEFLIX’s “Troubles in the Garden”: Our hero, The Bluebird of Happiness is still in the land of the Rooted Field of Unremoved Stumps and has come across a giant Bee. He now knows for sure he is not anywhere near home and nothing is as nice as it once was -and he is beginning to worry if things will ever return to normal. (To be continued.)
VOCABULARY REFRESHER & PHRASE PICKER-UPPERS
- “LEARN MORE”: This is internet speak for “SEE AD”…Click for dummies…
- “BANALITY OF EVIL”: Was a phrase of Hannah Arendt’s post World War Two. Today the phrase is: TERRIFYINGLY NORMAL – referring to the news of the day.
- INCOME INEQUALITY: is a nice and boring way of saying “BAD DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH”.
- ANTHROPOCENE: is the Age of Man. ANTHROENTERPOCENE is the Age of the Self-Entertainment of man – and is the the final phase of MAN.
- TOOTH TO TAIL RATIO: Military speak for the number of fighters in relation to ‘support’ personnel. For example, according to recent news reports it appears our TOOTH TO TAIL RATIO in parts of the Middle East is going up. Now you can speak as if you know something about something.
- “PHARMASCOLD”: … Is one who would take the profits out of the medicines from the Pharmaceutical Industry. This is a term of derision used by those who are enriched by said industry.
- PUBLIC CHARGE: Refers to a person who is dependent upon the state. This could be anybody and everybody, all depending upon where you sit or where you stand. Whatever it means, it is being used more and more – so now you know.
- “NO GRANDE NAVI”: (Foreign language skill uplifter: Italian) This refers to a slogan in Venice where the locals are protesting, just below riot levels, that there should be no more “BIG CRUISE SHIPS” in the region. The term is going international.
- “COMPROMAT”: (Another foreign language skill uplift: Russian) This refers to social “dirt”. Let’s say you do something you should not have done in a room or bar or somewhere dark and this thing you did was picked up somehow and recorded – well, it could become “COMPRAMAT” – which is not only a noun; but could be an economic tool, as well.
- “PREDICTION IS VERY DIFFICULT, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE FUTURE.” – -Neils Bohr, Danish Physicist …also attributed to Yogi Berra
- BASE JUMPING: This refers to the esoteric sport of jumping off of Buildings, Antennae, Spans, & Earth. In order to do this, sometimes it requires trespassing and picking locks. See ANTHROENTERPOCENE above.
AND NOW A BIT OF NEWS:
- Since the 1950’s man has produced more than 8 billion tons of plastic. Two things about this: 1) Einstein said, (and I agree with him on this) that nobody, nobody, understands the concept of a million – of anything. …So 8 billion tons is meaningless, beyond comprehension to all of us – and we are doomed. And, 2) I wish, when I saw the movie ‘The Graduate”, when the elderly man said his immortal line to Dustin Hoffman as Dustin was about to go out into the world…that he should go into “Plastics!”…I wish I had the vision to go out and buy “Plastics” stocks then. I’d be on the right side of INCOME INEQUALITY by now, by golly. But knowing what to predict about the future is very difficult, as they say.
- It turns out they have found that if kids go to school later in the morning than I did when I went to school – well, they do better in all their studies. This is not fair. I always wanted to go to school later than I had to – and now look what happened to me. Also, the kids of today have a hard time parallel parking – so in many States they do not have to parallel park when they take their driver’s license test. This is also not fair. Not only is everything changing, but it is not all changing for the better. One good thing I’ve noticed, however, is there are frequently more parallel parking spots available today than there were – because the kids do not know how to get into them. So things even out, sometimes.
Four old quotations -for your consideration:
- “Without God – Everything is permitted” – F. Dostyevsky
- “America is a Mistake – A giant Mistake.” – Sigmund Freud, Cocaine Addict.
- “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” -W. Shakespeare, McBeth; Act V, Scene 5
- “Here’s to you and here’s to me/Here’s to what we used to be/Here’s to what we might have been – and Here’s to what we’ll be again.” -old Irish toast.
You take the High road,
Best,
