![]() This month’s post is brief, partly because I've been doing the same thing every morning from about 9:30 - 11:30: building a set for a musical to be performed in November. I post some images for your consideration. I learned that there are about 11,000 homeless people living on the streets in Detroit. This is America being great again. Time to change? I sometimes listen to late night talk radio - Dr Savage in this case. He was talking about the two shootings - El Paso Texas and Dayton Ohio. He pointed out that America is the only country in the world where this happens (something that you would not expect from a right wing radio host). He attempted to put the blame on: drugs, violent video games, antidepressants, poor parenting, lack of God in the schools, persecution of white males etc. At no time did he make the connection that no other country in the world allows citizens to have assault rifles - this did not occur to him. This is the mindset of the extreme right. In 1951, 7% of households in Canada were single persons, now it’s 28%. My sister Cathy visited overnight - Aug 18/19. She brings me Hardy Boys books which I order online and ship to her address. (saves money) Started watching the old series “The Good Wife” last month and am now finished 4 of 7 seasons. Read I Fly Alone, A Wellington Pilot’s Desert War Bill Bailey, 2010 (non-fiction) From the web: “After several years at sea, pilot Sgt Bill Bailey arrived in Cairo in 1942 as a new recruit to the RAF, hoping to fulfill his ambition to fly bombers. Within hours of his arrival he is sent on his first bombing mission as second pilot in a 104 Squadron Wellington. The aircraft was hit by enemy gunfire and suffered continual loss of altitude as it struggled to return to base. In thick cloud over a vast expanse of barren desert the aircraft hit a rock outcrop and disintegrated. Bill came to lying alone on a precipitous ledge and soon realized that he was the sole survivor.” The early chapters were the best part of the book. Later in the war he was assigned to lighter duty and he writes about this too, but it does not hold the reader - I kept expecting something big to happen. ⅗ Returned to Source Toni Morrison - author (1931) Peter Fonda - actor (1940)
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![]() "There are three sorts of people: those who are alive, those who are dead, and those who are at sea" (Aristotle) Saturday, July 6 I attended the Windsor Airshow. It would have been a waste of money (I’ve seen the static displays before) if not for the tour of AAR AirServices where 7 Boeing 737 Max jets are being warehoused and maintained. AAR stands for Alan Aircraft Radio, a business started by Ira Eichner in 1955 out of the backseat of his car. He supplied radios and other equipment to the fledgling commercial airline industry. It’s now the third largest aircraft MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) company in the world. AAR is storing these jets which have been grounded following the crash of two, killing hundreds of passengers. They must be started up regularly and kept in flying condition. The tour guide told me that many of the people who work in this industry are gypsy-like, moving from facility to facility around the world, working for a year or so and then moving on to a new MRO. She said it was difficult finding anyone in Windsor with the required skills and most of the current staff are American. ![]() I also purchase a ticket and took a flight on a Chipmunk, a two seater single engine low wing aircraft, designed as a trainer following WWII. My pilot was a young man named Andre who’d immigrated from Romania with his parents in 2006. He started flight school when he arrived, has his commercial license and helicopter license but is pursuing an engineering degree as jobs are scarce in the airline industry (so he says). After takeoff Andre handed the stick to me (in the seat behind) and I flew for about 10 minutes along the Detroit River - fun! Random Thoughts The human operating system includes an app for reproduction. The strength of the programming in men is significantly stronger as the “system” (body) does not suffer the same debilitations as a woman when she hosts. This physical consequence for the woman naturally restricts them from sexual proclivity. The sexes (often) do not consider this as characteristic of the nature of the programming. ![]() Evolutionary genetic sharing of early Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals - traces of both still remain in our DNA - some people have more Neanderthal than others. We have anthropomorphized Neanderthal as they are often portrayed as aggressive and dangerous. It was more likely that Homo Sapien was the aggressor - survival of the fittest. Neanderthal may have been our kinder gentler cousins whom we took advantage and drove to extinction. Morning affirmations "I have a right to my life in this universe" "I have a right to abundance as a flower has the right to sunlight" "It's easy for me to remember and control my dreams" "With each day in every way my life is getting better and better" "With each day in every way I am getting better and better" "I live in a safe universe" "I will only react to constructive suggestions from any source" ![]() We had a nice visit with Tommy and Judy Kurtz. They stayed for dinner. At the end of the month I was invited to speak to a class of drama summer students on set design. I enjoyed it. Politicians are mostly after power - but is it power for power’s sake - or the power to skim millions off the top. Assume Trump is re-elected - another 4 years. What kind of candidate will the GOP run after Trump? If they look to their institutional base - say Jeb Bush, will the Trump diehards support a return to the old swamp dwellers? The GOP may find they have painted themselves into a corner. This has the potential to banish the party to the history dumpster. Teilhard de Chardin on the Universe (my take) The Universe is not an unorganized random collection of matter and dark energy, but can be thought of as a molecule or even like the seed of the oak tree, it has an internal plan and will grow and evolve along its predetermined trajectory. Everything in the universe functions as a part of the grand process. Our destiny is to reach the Omega point, or die as a species. Our success is not guaranteed, but the success of the universe is. ![]() Viewed The Last Czar (Netflix) Mini series about Nicholas II, the last czar of Russia. The Romanov family ruled Russian for 300 years and were (at the time of Nicholas) the richest people on the planet. Due to intermarriages among the royal families of Europe (the empress was the daughter of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and his first wife, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort), the Russian heir was born a hemophiliac. His distraught parents kept this from the world - enter the mystic Grigori Rasputin. It was Rasputin who seemed to cure the child. Rasputin quickly became a close confidant of the czar and significantly influenced domestic and foreign policy. Nicholas was too isolated from the real world and made a series of mistakes with regard to the uprising of the Russian people. He and his family paid with their lives. Rasputin was assassinated months before by Russian royal cousins. Trailer here ![]() The Good Wife (Netflix) I’m late to the 2009 courtroom drama series. It’s entertaining with lots of familiar faces from the Sons of Anarchy, House of Cards and Homeland. It ran 7 seasons at 23 episodes a season - I doubt if I will watch them all, but maybe :) The Big Hack (Netflix) If you are/were on Facebook and voted for Trump you were probably hacked by Cambridge Analytica and sent “fake news” to convince you that Trump was your man. This is important viewing - the democratic election process is in jeopardy. (actually has been since the beginning, but it really got revved up when Bush stole the election from Al Gore.) In 2016 it was estimated that “they” had 5,000 data points on your file. Now it’s estimated that they have around 70,000 bits of information based on your online activity. I think we’re in trouble. Trailer ![]() Read Tales of the South Pacific James Michener 1946, Winner of the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction This was Michener’s first published novel and consists of a number of connected short stories about the lives of American military men and women stationed in the South Pacific. These are not fighting troops, but the supply and maintenance teams which backed them up. Coming out just after the war it was an instant best seller. It was also the basis for the musical “South Pacific” and a television series called “Adventures in Paradise” 1959-62. Cary Grant made a movie called “Father Goose” which seems loosely based on one of the stories - The Cave. I can understand how it was popular in its day, but not so much now. 3⁄5 Goodreads reviews here |
AuthorI believe we are what we think. What we think depends on what we feed our brains. This is a partial record of what my brain has been eating. Archives
February 2023
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