New Clear Days in Jah Pan...

As if it wasn't enough to hear about the devastating number nine Richter scaled earthquake in Japan last year and the resulting decimating tidal waves washing away 3000 plus people then depositing their dead carcasses back on the shores a day later but to add insult to injury the extreme likelihood of genocidal nuclear radiation fallout because of core meltdowns in the reactors of ultra modern power plants along the shores affected by the natural disasters! This possibility really doesn't make much sense because the plants were built tough enough to withstand the earthquake and did so as planned. The safety structures in place correctly and in timely fashion shut down the fission reaction and pushed the Uranium rods back into their protective primary containment vessels. But, the cores began to heat up and melt down because the pumps supplying cooling water to them stopped working when the external electrical systems failed. Huh..! External electrical systems..? Doesn't a nuclear power plant make and provide electricity? And don't they have some storage ability of said electricity even when the fission reaction is temporarily shut down for cleaning or maintenance or some other unpredicted work stoppage? Why in the hell are their water pumps powered by fossil fuel burning external power plants? To contra-distinguish here isn't that a bit like a hybrid car in that it's an electric vehicle but it still needs gasoline to run? What is the point of risking cancer causing nuclear radiation if conventional power is required to make it all work? Come on man you're supplying your own electrical energy; you don't need an extension cord to power your pumps!

One would think a nuke plant would be off the grid except for the power it forces back into it. Sadly this entire fiasco will probably result in the shutdown of existing nuclear reactors the world over even though the majority of them already have in place gravity fed cooling systems in the unlikely event of total loss of power to the water pumps. Why do they use water to cool the reactor cores anyway? Why don't they cool the cores with liquid nitrogen instead? It's good enough for cryogenically freezing the heads of dead rich people so why not nuclear fission cores? Then we wouldn't have all of these evaporative runoff reservoirs with their unnervingly warm temperatures trying to pass as recreational swim parks like the one at Lake Monticello off of the Old Cherokee Road in Jenkinsville, South Carolina, just a 37 minute drive from my house.

There is a nice little sandy beach with boulder outcroppings for decoration and after you wade out into the bath warm water you can glance to your left and see the looming cooling tower at the "Virgil C. Summer" Nuclear Station part of SCANA's South Carolina Electric & Gas company. Then thoughts of three eyed fish and oozing skin lesions fill your head and you quickly wade back to shore. Ah the wonders of non-polluting clean emissions nuclear power, it just warms the cockles of your heart don't it?

And how can we go without mentioning the Savannah River Plant located just out of Allendale in Aiken, South Carolina. Did you know there is a waste containment facility there housing spent Uranium and Plutonium fuel rods that is so very radioactive that no humans have entered the building in over 20 years now? They use specially shielded robotic vehicles to occasionally inspect the edifice and keep photographic records of the structure built with concrete walls four feet thick which is now the consistency of foam rubber! Guess they will soon need to bury the place in concrete a la Chernobyl just to keep the poison from escaping. Although they don't make atom bombs there just about everyone in that low country area refers to the place as the "bomb plant". But then they also pronounce Nuclear as "Nook-you-lure" instead of "Nu-Clee-err", gotta love that southern drawl.

Tough luck Japan gets bombarded by nuclear fallout for the second time in 75 years. Hope all goes well and they can recover once again…

A Real One Armed Bandit...

We watched Soul Surfer last night on DVD. The film documenting the shocking and tragic radical amputation by shark bite of the left arm of (then teenaged) professional surfer Bethany Hamilton. The story details her accident and recovery and what a difference she has made to so many through sheer will and ceaseless determination. The movie is good but although I'm sure Bethany worked with the producers, writers and actress "Anna Sophia Robb" her portrayal seems somber and despondent which is what one would expect to accompany the loss of a limb. However, during the end credits actual film footage and photos of the real Bethany show her in many of the same scenes as upbeat and ready to face any challenge head on and not depressed at all. My kids were too disturbed by the bloody horror of the shark attack and the sight of the stitched up nub to enjoy or even pay attention to the story.

For some reason the film reminded me of a week I spent in summer camp back in 1969 at Camp McCall in the mountains of North Carolina. On the first day there I noticed a kid with a prosthetic arm (probably a Thalidomide baby) with one of those articulated metal hooks in place of a hand at the end. I spent the entire week absolutely petrified avoiding him at any and all costs just out of utter terror! I had no foundation for my fear other than total ignorance. Maybe I thought missing limbs were contagious? Don't misunderstand; I wasn't a neurotic basket case by any means. I did the normal camp stuff, hiking, swimming, shooting BB guns and bow and arrows, making lariats out of that wonderful pleather craft strip, playing soccer, making friends and Indian leg wrestling, etc. Then on the last day of camp the counselors put on a talent show in the mess hall for all the kids. Everyone was seated in those folding metal chairs shoulder to shoulder laughing and whooping to the counselor's on stage antics. I was relaxed and happy with the knowledge and anticipation of going home the next morning. The kid next to me was sitting with an off white floppy cloth hat in his lap covering both hands. Towards the end of the presentation he put his hat on I realized that he was the very one armed boy I had dodged all week. Instead of recoiling in horror my sense of dread was gone. He was just a regular kid no different from the rest of us..!

I've never experienced a radical amputation (knock on wood) but I know some who have… Once while working for a picture framing warehouse called Springs, Ltd. a guy named Randy was cutting frame pieces using what I believe to be one of the most hazardous machines ever invented. It's called a Morso guillotine chopper. Invented in 1911 the Machiavellian device revolutionized the industry by massively speeding up the process by which excellent quality frames could be made by a wider range of people. It uses two blades which come down via a foot operated pedal cutting a 45 degree angle into a stick of molding creating a perfect mitered corner for a picture frame. The knives (as they call them) are so very sharp that they can slice through a steel re-bar like a chainsaw cuts through whipped cream! If you thought a lot of butchers were missing fingers you don't know many picture framers. Anyway, Randy was busy chopping frame members and talking football with a guy named Mitch who was standing behind him joining the frames with an under pinner. Guess Randy got a little too careless while cutting up with Mitch and took the tip right off of his middle finger. A clean cut though the bone and everything. We took him and the severed finger-tip to the emergency room in hopes that the appendage could be reunited but sadly and typical of the South the white doctors simply shaved off a bit more of the bone, pulled the skin flap over and sewed it up. Had Randy not been a black man they probably would have reattached the tip…

Another time one of my parent's best friends Rondo McIntosh was operating a bush hog on his farmland in Gaston, South Carolina, on a Saturday morning, by himself when he decided to jump down from the still running machine and free up some branches which had obstructed the blades. There were no witnesses to this accident so no one really knows what exactly happened but once he freed the limbs the bush hog mowed over him so severely damaging his left arm and leg that once he was helicoptered to the closest hospital the doctors couldn't save either and amputated both. He survived but as you can imagine his life style was considerably altered and he spent the rest of his life in a wheel chair.

Of course neither of these examples is akin to floating peacefully on your surf board while enjoying a sport that is your life's passion and suddenly out of nowhere a man eating shark swims up from the depths below and bites off your arm at the shoulder. You just never know from minute to minute how your life can/will change possibly veering away from any and all preconceived notions of what you expected your future to be. The most poignant scenes in the movie for me were when Bethany first arrived home from the hospital she walked into her bedroom and picked up her ukulele realizing that that was one thing she would never be able to do again. This probably bothered me more because I am a guitar player and know how much it means to put hour after hour into fret board and picking practice and the satisfaction one gets from the ability to play music. Unfortunately you can't play a stringed instrument without two hands (unless you use the toes on your feet)! The other thing about the film that left me speculating was when Bethany's father was called to the marina after fishermen notified him they had caught a huge great white shark. He brought Bethany's surf board with the big chomp missing to measure the jaw bite and see if the shark was the same one that took her arm off. Everyone agreed the mouth was a perfect match but nothing was said as to split the shark's belly open to look for pre-digested arm bones. While it's just morbid curiosity on my part, I wonder if they did that..? My favorite part of the movie came at the end when Bethany being questioned by reporters said, "I've had the chance to embrace more people with one arm than I ever could with two." I hope she is doing well and continues to inspire thousands of other good people who have bad things happen to them…

Five Things I Hate About the Cops…

One;
They often are under educated and ignorant. Did you know that police officers graduate from the criminal justice academy after only nine weeks time? Generally speaking, to become a licensed trial lawyer and pass the board's one needs a bachelor's degree which can take four years to acquire and an additional two to four years in law school. So how can any cop learn the ins and outs of the law in only three months? What they really learn is how to shoot a pistol (they don't have to know how to aim it – just to draw it from a holster and fire it), how to drive a big fast car with poor handling characteristics and memorize lots of CB codes like "5150" which means crazy people on the loose. Typically they don't really know much about the law just ask one a question and you'll see this is true. Anyone with even a minimal amount of common sense knows more about the law than your average cop does. Trouble is the cops think they know everything about the law. In other words they "know just enough to be dangerous". Famed Hollywood director Alfred Hitchcock, master of suspense and expert on the horror film genre was once quoted saying, "I'm not against the police; I'm just afraid of them." Because they are ignorant, under educated morons--duh!

Two;
Police Officers new to the force often overreact to situations which are not of a criminal nature as if the situations were crimes (this can be true of veterans as well). Here is one example. During High School a school chum of mine thought it would be fun to tie a measure of extra string to a Yo-Yo and hang the Yo-Yo out of a third story window to test whether or not he could Yo-Yo from that height. Since the Yo-Yo was a quality Duncan brand Yo-Yo the test worked and the Yo-Yo came back up as expected. It just so happened that another friend of mine who had graduated a year earlier and had just completed his studies at the criminal justice academy and was working newly hired as a meter maid in the city of Columbia's police department (even though he was male they still call them maids) was checking parking meters in front of the school at the same time my school chum was performing his Yo-Yo experiment. He stopped and shouted up to several of us who were hanging half way out of the window to stop doing that and pull that Yo-Yo back inside. He then actually threatened to arrest us for said activity. While there are many antiquated and bizarrely useless laws still on the books in many states no one in their right mind would believe Yo-Yoing from a third floor window was, is, or ever will be illegal. But, it's quite normal for police officers to make up laws they feel necessary in order to assert their authority over non-conforming ordinary average law abiding citizens who are having too much fun. A co-worker of mine used to say, "It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.., then it's just fun."

Three;
Police officers show nepotism and not just towards other officers. My sister was dating a local city policeman and all of the other officers in that district knew her. While driving her to the mall one day I was pulled over for a burned out tail light. When the arresting officer saw my sister in the passenger seat she said, "never mind", returned to her patrol car and drove away. Did you know that displaying one of those little metal stars that the Shriners stick on the trunks of their cars can keep you from being pulled over for speeding on the interstate? Lots of cops are also Shriners.

Four;
The official rule is to get someone, anyone; even if it's the wrong one and make damn sure they are convicted even if you have to falsify evidence to make that happen. Thank GOD for the "Innocence Project"! Virtually every state in the union has multiple stories in the books illuminating the innocence of men serving 15, 20 even 30 years for crimes they didn't commit thanks to the "get someone" rule. Talk about miscarriage of justice! Wouldn't it serve the community better to get the actual perpetrator? The trouble is that once the criminal justice system decides they have the person responsible in custody they set about manipulating evidence and coercing witnesses and jurors to ensure a victorious conviction. Can you believe there are people still in jail now who were convicted in the early sixties for possession of a single marijuana joint?

Our criminal justice system is just plain redonkulous!

And Five;
They are NOT proactive. They do not prevent crimes from occurring like a comic book superhero with extraordinary powers would. They only arrest or try to apprehend perpetrators after a crime has been committed. And their success at this usually totally relies on eye witnessed accounts. Accounts which can be greatly exaggerated or even completely fabricated as in the case of Susan Smith who drowned her two infant sons by pushing her car into a lake with the children strapped helplessly in their car seats and then blamed their disappearance on an African American carjacker who never even existed. Not all cops are bad and to generalize by saying so would just be wrong. I've known two cops who were actually "good" cops (good like the Sheriff Andy Taylor character you remember from televisions The Andy Griffith Show). One was named Olan who I met as a fellow bodybuilder at the old Maxiumus gym out on Alpine Road. He was a tall blond headed Highway Patrolman fairly young probably only in his late twenties but certainly not older than 32 or so. He lifted weights to stay in shape and so he could out muscle evil crime doers of the sort that broke local speeding ordinances and the like. He wasn't your typical arrogant egotistical gun toting law man we are all used to like those who flaunt their power by threatening average citizens with unwarranted jail time or undeserved traffic tickets. This was one of those people who prefer to see the good in someone rather than force out the bad. He actually broke several vertebrae when he responded to the scene of a local train derailment by entering the burning wreckage and hand carrying several injured passengers to safety including a woman who was nine months pregnant at the time. While on leave recovering from his injuries he invested his insurance money in the then burgeoning stock market and garnered a small fortune. He didn't stay with the patrol (who would) and the last time I saw him he was driving a brand new convertible Jaguar XKE.

Then there was Sargent Billy Clark. Part Vietnam veteran part Hell's Angel biker and all American bad-ass he was a cop for the city of Columbia and later a Richland county Sheriff. Not a wannabe Erik Estrada he was more like the inspiration for Robert Blake's character John Wintergreen in Electra Glide in Blue. Sometimes he patrolled in a Crown Vick cruiser but often you might see him leading a funeral procession on one of those big ole' honking king sized Harley-Davidsons with the saddle bags and full frontal windshield. He'd be decked out in his too tight black leather jacket and his spit shined knee high boots and his Jodhpur riding pants with the thin yellow stripe up the side and big white cuffed gloves and that little shorty helmet that offers no jaw protection in case of a crash. I met him when my sister dated him for a while. What really stood out about the guy and made him such a good cop was that he had that innate ability to quickly judge a situation for what it was. He was called in as back-up for another city cop named Connie making an arrest at a K-Mart store of a shoplifter who had stolen four spark plugs. Guess the guy just went nuts because in a crude escape attempt he wrestled her gun away and started firing in random directions wounding one customer in the hand. Billy pulled his revolver and like some Wild West sharp shooter dropped the guy in his tracks with a single shot to the forehead. Imagine losing your life for a free set of spark plugs! Clark wasn't about to let anyone else get hurt. He probably saved the state a ton of trial money and detention fees too. I heard that one day he rode up on a couple of freaks smoking a joint and instead of going all Barney Fife and busting them he simply said, "Put that away, it's illegal you know." He had that Sheriff Andy Taylor air about him that "Je ne sais quoi", that ability to read people and know what was going on inside. Don't know where he is now but the last time I saw him he had quit the City Police department and become a Deputy Sheriff. He was just one of those rare Frank Serpicos in a vast sea of Joe Fridays.

Very shortly now the prison system will start early releasing murderers, rapists and child molesters in order to make room for all of those nasty highly dangerous criminal lunatics who are soon to be apprehended for illegally downloading the newest Justin Bieber songs over the Internet. Doesn't it make you feel just yummy inside knowing that the cops are hard at work tracking down those vicious music copy stealing ne'er-do-wells..?

Napoleon is Dy-No-Mite...

Revenge of the Nerds was good but to really understand the nerd experience you have to see the cult classic "Napoleon Dynamite". I missed it in theaters when released in 2004 but caught it on television a year later. Since I started watching somewhere in the middle I first thought it was a very poorly made low budget film using actors who were obviously local extras with no real acting skill so I changed the channel. But the next night it was rebroadcast and this time I watched from the beginning. The opening credits are so distinctive complemented by the music of the White Stripes that one is drawn in straight away and as the story unfolds you start laughing and laughing and laughing until your face aches and you recognize that the actors are doing one hella good job of making the viewer believe they are local extras with no talent or capability. But, they actually give Oscar worthy performances and the character development and dialog conjure up long forgotten memories of your own inescapable High School experiences. I don't want to spoil the story by telling you what happens but towards the end there is a series of scenes where you realize that the lives of the characters are coming together and that things in their future aren't as dire as the bulk of the movie predicts. This scene is emotionally complemented by a musical piece written by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra and performed by Patrick Street called Music for a Found Harmonium. You very rarely see such an exquisite mating of sound and video that conveys so much, explains everything and doesn't need a word of dialog. This masterpiece is a must see cinema encounter. If you've already seen it you know what I mean. If not, go get it now! And be sure to sit through the closing credits as there is an important addition to the story at the tail end...

Just Pull It Yourself..!

About four weeks ago my right front tire went flat. I thought it was another dry rotted valve stem but the folks at Goodyear found a small slit in the sidewall. At the time I couldn't afford what they said was their cheapest tire (well over $100.00 mounted and balanced) so I drove around on the already bald doughnut spare for about two weeks until it wore through to the cloth and also went flat. I ended up going to a place on Broad River Road called Cheap Chuck's Used Tire and bought a used tire (mounted and balanced) for only $32.00! It's a Goodyear Integrity and has more tread left on it than the other three tires already on the car! So I was happy about that purchase. Anyway I needed a new spare tire as well. I searched the Internet trying to find a doughnut spare and was surprised to find that they are even more expensive than regular tires. My next door neighbor used to work for Goodyear as an installer so I asked him if he knew where to get one at an affordable price. He told me about this junkyard on Monticello Road called "Pull-a-Part". I drove out there one day during lunch and found that they had about 20 Chevy Cavaliers on the lot. You pay one dollar to get in and use your own tools to remove whatever parts you need. So I took their wheelbarrow and started out to the first Cavalier on the list. They have an excellent inventory system and know exactly where all of the cars are by row number although they don't keep inventory of what parts are actually left on the vehicles so it's hit or miss. The first one I came to didn't have a spare. The second had one but it was not in the best shape and the rim was a bit dented. When  I came to the next one it was a fast back version of the car but the trunk was missing it's lock mechanism so I couldn't open the trunk. I went to the side and found that both front seats were jammed in the upright position so there was only about a ten inch gap to squeeze through. The back seat was missing and I could see that the spare tire cover was in place so I sucked in my belly and crawled through the opening into the back of the car, moved the cover and low and behold there sat a pristine never been out of the car or on the road doughnut spare. Still had the stenciling on the tire and was still pumped up. I struggled the tire out of the car and lugged it up to the office to pay. It was only $16.00 including tax! Guess it doesn't take much to make me happy these days!

Kissing Robot in Japan...

So the Japanese have finally done it! Gone and created a female robot for lonely men. While the first one is only 15 inches high she has all the curves and kisses a reclusive nerd could want. She dances, sings and can even hand out your business cards. Her body is sleek white and gray plastic with a face that looks like a space helmet. Now if they can just combine the robotics with a Real Doll somebody’s going to get rich! However, this concept is nothing new. Remember the cult classic Melanie Griffith movie from 1987 called Cherry 2000? The robot girlfriend idea didn’t work back then either. But, it just goes to show you that all science fiction really does eventually come true!

Original story here;
     New kissing robot from Japan

Topless in Chesapeake Bay...

Yet another State legislature manages to totally embarrass their tax payers. A man was arrested and charged with public nuisance in Eastern Maryland for going topless in public. That’s right, a man! It seems that in the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland that no one, man nor woman is allowed to go topless on a public street or sidewalk. I can understand that their mostly Amish population doesn’t want women parading around with their boobs dangling about but are they equally offended by firm Pectorals and washboard abs? Would Brad Pitt or Ryan Reynolds be arrested if they went shirtless there too? Sure we all hate to see that fat old guy with the furry back walking around on the beach in his Speedo but does everyone need to be punished? Isn’t there a better use of tax payers’ money than wasting it on the whims of some prudish law maker who because of old money wouldn’t know a crime if it blew down his street in the middle of the night? Do we realize that a previously convicted murderer or serial rapist probably had to be released early so this poor sole could be locked up in one of Maryland’s overcrowded prisons? (After all, what jail in the U.S. isn’t bursting at the seams with drunken Indians, illegal Mexicans or poverty stricken African Americans?) Can’t these Senators and Representatives do better? Maybe we should free all of the bad people and lock up only the good! Then our neighborhoods could literally crawl with cyber punks and child stealers so that our nation’s elected officials could make better use of their less than necessary bodyguards and their super expensive armored limousines (which we also pay for with our tax money)! Let's go to the polls and get these sissy law makers out of office. We don't want laws that are kale and spinach salad with vinaigrette dressing. We want laws that are shredded meat with Greek potatoes smothered in pork fat gravy! "Beef", it's not just for dinner! Try to vote a little smarter people, please..!