What is privacy, and why would we want any of it?

The word is privacy, not piracy.

We are born naked apes. When we are young, our parents read our diaries and listen in to our phone conversations and make all our decisions for us, so where do we get the idea of privacy? The dictionary tells us that it implies seclusion.

Somehow, the idea of privacy is linked to those ideas that came from the proverbial Adam and Eve that they were nude and needed to cover themselves, naked apes no longer. This idea happened at approximately the same time that they ate of the fruit of the Tree of Life, as suggested by Satan, so that they would possess the power of self determination, knowing the difference between good and evil.

I chuckle to myself.

People are the most dangerous animals of all.

One is warned that a human bite is far more deadly than any animal bite. The good news is that I have rarely been bitten by a human, although the same goes for animals.

Still, people are very preoccupied with controlling all the species, human and animal. Radio signal collars and implants are tracking and controlling cougars, apes, and people.

You may be scoffing right now, thinking this is crazy. Can you deny that they collar cougars, and with good reason? They are dangerous. They kill people and animals, and they especially like lamb chops.

I have to pepper my grim thoughts with humor for, you see, I have this antiquated obsession with privacy, which has gone pretty much the same way as pure water.

They radio-collar gorillas too. I don't know if gorillas are truly dangerous, but they might bite if they are scared. And squirrels, they track squirrels. And people, they track people. They like to call it authenticating. I authenticate my encrypted password. Yep, it's really me.

Hunter-gathering is as old as the proverbial cave men. The urge to hunt is probably forever embedded in the human genome. Hunting differentiates in many ways such as looking for your socks under the bed when you want to go home or looking for your car in the parking lot after the bar closes. The "prey" can be elusive.

There is good hunting. There are good tracking devices. In Colorado, USA, skiers and outdoorsmen are advised to carry a tracking device that emits a signal that can be used to find a hiker lost in the woods or a skier buried under an avalanche. They can save your life.

The solution is about voluntary participation, at least for humans. Do squirrels even care?

Is heaven in our heads?

I was reading about an artist who thinks heaven is in our imagination. I saw a Book with Wings.

People who believe in angels, definitely believe in things that can't be proven. They believe in them anyway.

Angels are said to have what we rudely call a pecking order. That order requires a beak, so if you don't have one, then you're out of order. You're not even allowed in line. That doesn't sound angelic, but rather more pedestrian.

Could it be that whatever we feed our minds, whatever concepts of paradise that we imagine. that is what will be there waiting for us when we die? Could it be that all the people we miss will all be in there waiting for us if we can only remember them?

Remind me not to think of Odin's Carrion Hall complete with Valkyries. Perish the thought. Images of horned helmets, unlimited mead, and the undead could haunt my dreams.

Might it be worth investing in some furniture for "up there"? Maybe we should put a lot of good stuff in our brains for, oh, the Heavenly Choir.

I know a lot of people who have completely rejected playing a harp on a cloud for eternity, but that was before cloud computing.

What would you like to do for eternity? The question is attempting to get at what subject wouldn't bore you if you had to do it for eternity. It's much like the question of asking what book you would choose if you were stranded on a desert island and if you could only choose one book to possess, what would it be?

Choose wisely.

A psychologist once told me about research work that was attempting to locate the God Center in our brains. If it exists, I find it odd that Nuns don't seem to have it. And if the Nuns can't find it, how am I supposed to?

Henley On Thames

I am grieving for my lost family,
The husband,
The little boys and girls,
The kidnapped dog,
The house that burned to the ground.

You look at me strangely,
Because these people are all alive,
Living in other states,
The husbands married to their fifteenth wives,
The kids in the counting houses counting out the money.

The only people who are really gone
Are those who escaped to live it up in Never Never Land,
While we had to starch our clothes
And sit in wooden chairs,
Staring at paper mache dummies
The undertakers had made in the back rooms,
Snickering behind our backs
As we were sitting in those stilted slat back chairs.

You say I am being too melodramatic
With all my flowery words.
I don't answer you back,
Because I am planning my new family,
Husbands and children with more IQs
And even higher expectations.

There will be no disappointment,
Because I have written it so that this all takes place
On a mission probe to deepest space,
Where time is so badly warped
That we all live happily ever after.

January 13, 2007

The Hollow Men. The Queen of the Silver Dollar.

How many silver dollars do you have on your person right now? Check your pockets, your purse, your backpack, your fanny pack, that velvet box you carry with you that contains your jewels.

How many did you find? I didn't find any.

Silver dollars are rarely ever in circulation and given as change in ordinary transactions on a day to day basis. A collector might have quite a few, but I doubt he will be carrying them around on his person.

That is why I was utterly confused to read that US defense contractors are walking around with silver dollars in their pockets. They are not ordinary silver dollars. They are hollow and have transmitting devices and space for microfilm and such.

They look quite a lot like Hanukkah gelt. Maybe they discovered the devices when the disappointed person pried it open to get at the chocolate. No chocolate. Surprise. Surprise.

Several U.S. Pentagon contractors with high level security clearances had them on their persons. The rest is secret, because it is scary and embarrassing and has further repercussions.

I'm just wondering if, because I am not among this crowd, maybe it is typical to have silver dollars in your pocket. Otherwise, isn't anyone saying hmmm, "who is giving out loaded silver dollars?"

Right now, I'm thinking I don't want any in my pocket, dans ma poche.

I am thinking it would be more fun to think about fun, maybe do my hair up in ringlets and get out of the house for a while with my staff, go to a bull fight, basketball or hockey game or something.

Don't accept any wooden nickels, kid. Also, put a hold on the silver dollars.

I have read a lot about Snorri Sturlson. Unfortunately, this is not very important to very many people, but if anyone out there is going WOW!, I think we need to talk.

The name Snorri means something akin to "attack". I've yet to meet anyone named Snorri in real life. Without naming names, there are a lot of people who should have been named Snorri.

I was born in the U.S.A. "The U.S.A." covers a vaster area than many people realize, not all of it geographical.

For example, in my genealogy file I have an old city directory of the town where I lived as a child. Here are some sample last names chosen at random: Gudmunder, Osgoodby, and Ostrom. Here are some first names: Gustav, Ricka, Roland, Signe, Sigrid, and so on. Not everyone has such a name there, but enough do to give the city a distinctive flavor. Seriously, this had to have had left its mark on my psyche.

I am no longer located anywhere near the area where I was born. There is a huge cultural gap between that city and where I find myself now. This is a problem, I think, and I'm not sure that there is any way to solve it. There is too much distance involved.

I've heard it said that the cold causes the Northern people to be the way they are. You know what I mean, the Ole and Lena jokes.

Labels: every culture has to have one. Scandinavians are either big, blond, and hot-tubbing or slow, nebulous, and dumber than gravel. This is racial stereotyping.

Someone told me that the numbing cold caused thought processes to retreat deeper into the brain tissues which are much older and more primitive than the surface areas. Is that even scientific? They also told me that the goofy slowness only happens among friends. People will tell me anything.

Why wouldn't evolution give some people the capacity for a deeper layer of thought in the cold? The Berserker lived in a state of deep lethargy until he was called to battle. Apparently, he had to work himself up into an adrenaline frenzy, and then, of course, he went berserk.

Thus, may one access the Cave Man self. Again, the caveat, "Don't try this at home."