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This morning one of the local churches had a broadcast of their service from last Sunday morning. They have adapted well to the coronavirus-engendered shutdown. Several dozen choir members sang hymns together via Zoom and a father baptized his daughter in the family's bathroom tub. The sermon - delivered to an empty sanctuary - was no less potent and encouraging.
I imagine that much the same is happening across America and in other places also: churches holding virtual worship services across the Intertubes. But really, it doesn't matter where a church meets. As Jesus said, "where two or three are gathered in My name...", there is the body of Christ also.
Along those lines, there's an idea I had a few days ago and I'll pass it along to this blog's readers and anyone else...
Churches should have a "Revital Sunday" service (or "Revital Sabbath" for our friends among the Seventh-Day Adventist congregations). Yes, I know: "revital" isn't an actual word. But "revival" isn't the point. It's about a group of believers coming together to revitalize themselves and their church after such a long absence from each other. Revital Sunday could be a time of dedication and re-dedication as nothing quite has presented itself as an opportunity before. It could be a time of thanksgiving, for being delivered through some very trying circumstances. It could be a time for prayer, as so many are attempting to get their lives back on track, particularly after the enormous loss of jobs across the private and public sectors.
Revital Sunday could be a time of reflection and appreciation, and gratitude for what God has given already and what we must never take for granted, ever.
Let's back up a bit. The last time I bought a new computer was almost a decade ago. It's not that I'm a luddite or anything like that. Mainly it's that I like to get my money's worth out of something before upgrading. And also the little matter of spending a lot of that time driving across America, looking for a new place to hang my hat. With that done a new computer seemed "just right" to further stake my claim on what has become a new shot at life.
So yeah... I took the twelve hundred bucks of "coronavirus stimulus money" and plunged a chunk of it into a new rig. Completely built in the U-S-of A. Doing my part to help the domestic economy and all that. It's a super nice setup too. I should be good to go for the next five years of writing, blogging, graphics work, video editing (hint: something new may be coming sooner than later), whatever good-natured mischief that all two of this blog's readers have come to expect.
And of course, gaming.
Yesterday a copy of Fallout 4 arrived. It takes almost an hour to go through the character creation in that! But now that my 'toon is out of the vault and back on home turf (or the ruins thereof) the game proper should be about to commence. I also have been having some fun with Diablo III: a game that I once swore never to play because of the "always on" requirement. Call me a liar but, that one is also a lot of fun. And four years after getting in on its Kickstarter, I'm finally playing BattleTech: the tactical adaptation of the beloved miniatures game.
All of this in between working from home of course. Which incidentally is nowhere as enjoyable as one might imagine. This is now the third week of having to be at my... emphasis on "my"... desk every morning at 9 so that I can call patients from my living room. COVID-19 cannot burn itself out fast enough. But anyhoo...
With the firepower to handle it now in my possession, there was one item of computer gaming that I've wanted to investigate for awhile: EVE Online. That massive multiplayer thingy from the good people at Iceland's CCP Games. The one that has everyone playing on a single server and has become notorious for betrayal, backstabbing, Ponzi scheming, outright theft...
... and CCP practically encourages it. EVE Online is like a Randian dystopia writ large across the cosmos of its setting New Eden. Almost anything and everything goes. And sometimes it goes bigly. A few years ago the so-called "Bloodbath of B-R5RB" snagged major headlines for costing more than $300,000 worth of real-world money (it's based on how EVE's economy has a real fiscal correlation through it's PLEX and just roll with me here okay?).
The B-R5RB or BR-549 or whatever massacre is what piqued my curiosity. I knew: as soon as I could, I would jump into EVE and experience it for myself.
A few days ago I finally installed EVE Online's client, created a character, and proceeded with the tutorial. And from the first moments the reality came crashing down that I'm in waaaaay over my head. EVE's learning curve is legendary for being steep, almost completely unforgiving. Now I have witnessed how that reputation is well deserved. The appellation this game has earned in being called "Spreadsheets in Space" is just as merited. I've played MMOs before, beginning with Star Wars Galaxies (was THAT an awesome experience or what, at least before the "new game enhancements" turned it into "Star Wars Costume Party"). MMOs aren't the typical computer game, but they're not unapproachable either.
EVE Online is a looming dark monolith of mystery and frustration. I'm looking at it and wondering if I should proceed further after eventually completing the tutorial. I can't even pilot the ship as I "normally" always have with a starcraft simulator (going old-skool with fond memories of X-Wing and Wing Commander... and didn't we have fun taunting those pesky Kilrathi back in the day). There are like 27 different windows all open at the same time demanding that I orbit or warp or swap out turrets or get a message from someone called CONCORD... who in blazes can keep up with this stuff?!?
Yet my client reported that over 23,000 people were logged in on the server when I was doing my second session of EVE tonight. More than twenty-three thousand people, all in the same sandbox. See that ship off in the distance? That's a real person flying it. It could be a guy or a woman. They could be anywhere from thirty miles away to somewhere in eastern Europe. Everything in game, apart from tutorial assets and other things of that sort, representing a player and their handiwork.
It's... fascinating. And complex. Just as real life. In that regard, EVE Online might be the most accurate depiction of human nature ever engendered by online gaming.
Intimidating. Very intimidating. But it's also oddly gripping. And, it must be said, exceptionally beautiful. The graphics are pure loveliness to behold and the background soundtrack is so peaceful that I could see using it for periods of relaxation and stress relief. EVE Online is a masterpiece in almost every way.
And it's been around for closing in on seventeen years now. That's quite a lot of other people who seem to readily defend it, despite the nature of the game.
I'm probably going to try it out some more, and maybe begin a small-ish in-game career as an explorer, or maybe a miner. Dad worked for a long time in a granite quarry, so maybe there are some asteroids out there that I can drill into and sell on the market. In the meantime, even if I don't pursue it any further, EVE Online is going to still be something that I'm glad exists. It's a testament to human ingenuity and a monument to human nature.
A little over a month ago I wrote about beginning Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR for short. It's a therapy technique that, with the aid of a trained and experienced facilitator, I am employing to address the matter of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD and I promise that's the last acronym) that I was diagnosed with two years ago.
We are now well into the treatment, and it has begun to bloom forth some enormously positive results. That, despite the unusual circumstances that have sent this procedure onto a wildly parallel tangent. This past week was the third session that we had to conduct via video conferencing as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. COVID-19 has affected pretty much every aspect of health care in our area. The building I work in - a mental health facility - has five entrances. Right now passage is only allowed through one, and you have to answer a series of questions ("Have you been out of state in the past fourteen days?") and have your temperature taken before entry. Even then the place is eerie quiet, absent the usual presence of our patients and most of the staff: all appointments are being conducted via telephone. And then this past week the order came down that cloth masks were to be worn at ALL times apart from individual offices.
The location of my treatment is something of a "sister site" to ours. It's having the same lockdown. Hence, having to use tele-therapy, with the facilitator and I in our respective homes and working over the Internet.
How has that been working? Surprisingly well, believe it or not. Fortunately we were able to lay down most of the basic groundwork for everything that has come since, but we are still not at the real heart of EMDR: the use of light and motion to "rewire" the brain to steer away from traumatic memories. I don't know how or when it's going to work when that part of the process sis entered into.
But still, a number of tools have come about that are already helping me to aggressively counter the trauma. For example, there are two places that I can "retreat" to when things become almost overwhelming. They needed to be places that have some kind of special significance.
For my second place, I chose this:
The desert of New Mexico near Socorro, home of the Very Large Array
I spent over a month in Albuquerque around the end of summer in 2016. Had things gone the way I had hoped, I would have been able to settle down there. New Mexico is one of the most beautiful places I have ever discovered, and it was beckoning my heart the closer we got (my dog Tammy and I). The scenery, the people, the opportunities there... well, the timing didn't quite work so well on that last one. Maybe someday I will get to return there to stay. It would definitely be a sweet place to have a family.
A few days after we arrived I went looking for something I had always wanted to see with my own eyes: the Very Large Array radio telescope near Socorro. I knew what it looked like - it's been featured in many movies, particularly Contact - but to gaze upon it just from afar... that thing covers almost as much area as most counties in the United States!
It was the desert in all its wild natural beauty, magnificently married to that system of modern science. Perhaps the largest research facility of any discipline on the surface of the Earth. It was all one painting, and I was walking through it. In those moments, I felt more alive than the vast majority of times throughout the span of my lifetime.
When asked for a place of peaceful retreat within my mind, during our third session, that is what I thought of immediately: the New Mexico desert.
And other tools have come about also, including the knowledge of certain people in my life who are something like "avatars" of aspects of character: the nurturer, the spiritual side, a few others. There are more tools than I could convey about in a blog post, but you get the idea.
As I said, we still haven't gotten into the part of EMDR that many people consider to be the "real" course of treatment. But this is all still of tremendous importance. This is the foundation upon which all of that work will be built upon. And so far we've been building a strong foundation indeed, according to the facilitator.
That's how things stand now. What happens next will be impacted in one way or another by the coronavirus situation, and it's conceivable that we may have to delay the "lights-on" part of the protocol until the lockdown is alleviated. But even so, I'm feeling very upbeat by what has come so far. They are tools that can be used in the meantime and who knows, it might even strengthen the effects of the next phase of treatment.
An independent-minded scribe of stories wants nothing more than to produce the works that mean most to him. And then one of his minor creations becomes a raging monster that takes control over almost every aspect of his life. The fans won't leave him alone, they won't let him be free to find his own happiness. And it's driving him insane...
Sound familiar? Perhaps the tale of a certain plaid-flanneled filmmaker who made a small movie once upon a time but saw it instead become a franchise upon which fans pinned their hopes, their dreams, sometimes their entire meaning of life. But alas! It isn't George Lucas we're talking about here. But it could be.
Way, waaaaay back in 1985 there was a new series on CBS called George Burns Comedy Week. It didn't last very long and George Burns himself had very little to do with it apart from providing the intro to the show and lend his name. It was something that had never been done before and to the best of my knowledge hasn't been attempted since: a humor anthology series. Each episode was basically a short film by a different director, and they tended to have pretty good casts to them. John Landis directed "Disaster at Buzz Creek" starring Don Knotts and Don Rickles. Another memorable entry was "Christmas Carol II: The Sequel". But the series only lasted thirteen weeks. I dunno, maybe it was too ahead of its time or something.
So what does this have to do with George Lucas, and Star Wars?
One of the episodes of George Burns Comedy Weeek was "The Honeybunnies", starring Howard Hesseman a few years after his run on WKRP in Cincinnati. Hesseman portrays a struggling playwright who only wants to see his work given a proper Broadway opening. But that's not what is interesting the people around him. They instead want his characters the Honeybunnies: a warren of pink anthropomorphic rabbits with cutsie names and dripping with saccharine sweetness.
He gives them the Honeybunnies. And the Honeybunnies become a mega franchise spiraling out of control and derailing his own life and aspirations. But the fans won't let him quit: they want their Honeybunnies and they don't care about anything else.
So what does our hero do? He gives them the Honeybunnies in as big a way as possible, with their own motion picture. And he freakin' MURDERS them before the fans' horrified eyes.
Can you imagine that being George Lucas, just finally sick and tired of Star Wars and then in the middle of Episode I the camera cuts to him telling everyone "Sorry folks, the franchise is over, get a life"?
It is HILARIOUS television and if "The Honeybunnies" wasn't produced with Lucas at least a little in mind, it will genuinely astonish me. This seems to be a story tailor-made about his being the creator of a zillion-dollar franchise when he just wants to be an artist. In fact, switch out the characters' names in this for those of Lucas and other real-life individuals and it practically DOES become the story of Star Wars if its creator decided he was going to honk off the fans once and for all in order to reclaim his life.
So without further ado, here in two parts found on YouTube is "The Honeybunnies":
Something that's been twirling around my gray matter since last night:
The coronavirus situation is bringing about the first real paradigm shift since the fall of communism thirty years ago.
We are not going to come out of this the same that we were before, just as life in the civilized world - or anywhere in the world for that matter - did not proceed as it had been before the Soviet Union lost control of its satellites before itself imploding. That chain of events precipitated an entirely new sphere of being and now for these current generations, COVID-19 is doing much the same. Albeit, on a vastly larger scale. It's one thing to watch the Berlin Wall coming down from thousands of miles away. It's something else entirely more drastic when it's the President of the United States telling you... yes you... to wear a mask when going out in public.
Solidarity Party march in Poland circa 1980s
"But Chris, what about Nine-Eleven? Didn't that cause a paradigm shift??" No, not really. And I say that not in disparagement of the memories of those who perished that day, or who have perished in the wars that came about because of our trying to end terrorism. The September 11 attacks, through the lens of an objective observer, were still part of that previous paradigm. Some might even say that Osama Bin Laden was an element resulting from the collapse of communism, in that he rose to power during the waning of Russia's involvement in Afghanistan. In the broader sense, September 11 was one act of a larger drama, but it did not remarkably alter the drama itself.
The coronavirus pandemic however has that potential. And right now it's more than living up to it.
American industry will not be the same. American law will not be the same. American constitutional rights are already not the same (whatever happened to freedom of worship, now that some governors have declared wholesale that churches and synagogues are not "essential services"?). American government will not be the same and indeed some are calling for the November elections to be cancelled across the board.
America has endured its petty would-be tyrants who would have altered or outlawed these areas of our society and for the most part it has come out of it unscathed. That can not be said for what is now transpiring. For no matter how much we may recover - and I pray that we will do so mightily - the damage is done and there will be those who will try their damndest to exploit it.
The paradigm is shifting, ladies and gentlemen. It is mutating into something we could not foresee and can not extrapolate the end result of being. It is, for lack of a polite way to put it, as scary as hell a time as any in living memory.
I do not write this to arouse terror. But I do write this to arouse awareness of the situation. And maybe, do my best to instill a little hope for the best.
Everybody had to wear a mask inside the place. That was after being admitted inside following temperature being taken and making sure we hadn't traveled outside the state in the past 14 days. Less than a quarter of the normal staff was in the actual building. Starting tomorrow I'll be almost strictly working from my house for Lord only knows how long.
And one of my cousins thinks that my eyes in this pic makes me look like a meth addict. I think I was trying more to channel Bane from The Dark Knight Rises.
The call came about thirty minutes ago. The test indicated that I was negative for the COVID-19 virus. Although the nurse emphasized that a "negative" now doesn't mean that a "positive" later is out of the question.
But for now, I'm choosing to be elated. Like I haven't been in a heap long time.
Self-isolation is not a fun thing. Not at all. Driving out to get tested two days ago was the only time since Sunday night that I've dared venture from the confines of my home (okay yeah well there was also taking Tammy on walks so she could "do her business" but you know what I mean). Especially with yesterday being my birthday. But some friends figured out some stuff and we were able to do something with a gimmick called Zoom. Ever heard of Zoom? All the cool kids are doing it now, I've heard.
Negative. Nada. No infection.
It's back to work in the morning and I think I've driven my poor supervisor crazy about wanting to return to the office. In the meantime, I'm going to tempt fate and get a real meal - including chocolate milkshake - from the Chick-Fil-A drive-through.
Remember way back in second grade, when you found that big book on Miss Hoppenleiger's classroom shelf. You know, the one that was loaded with interesting facts and cool stuff and sometimes it was pretty gross. Yeah, that book. And you read how ancient Egyptians would make mummies by shoving a metal implement up corpse's nose to remove the brain through the nostrils. Yeah well that's what happened to me about an hour ago. Only it wasn't a metal hook. It was something like those plastic coffee stirrers that you pull out of the utensils bin at a McDonald's. And it was six inches long. But it did go straight up my left nostril and if it didn't impinge on my brain then it came *$%#ing close.
Well, it's good to bear in mind that at no point did I leave the car. It was all done absolutely within a closed-off track, going from one station to the next. First up was a police cruiser manned by two of the town's finest (wearing face masks). One of them marked a number on my driver-side window, then directed me to drive forward and stop at the sign that was flashing a phone number and some other info. I called the number and it went to a statewide screening setup. The nice lady asked me a series of questions about my symptoms and I answered as best I could (some of them seem a bit fuzzy at the moment). She then asked for my name, birth date, address, phone number, all that kind of jazz. After that she instructed me to "drive on further down the course to the next officer."
Now I was approaching the innards of a convention center. Another cop, also wearing a mask. He made me pause then waved me on through to inside the building. Not far from the entrance there was what looked like a HAZMAT field lab, patrolled by four guys in full-body suits that looked like something out of a Resident Evil game. They told me to stop the car and roll down the window. I was hesitant at that but as the guy told me "don't worry I've got all this gear on."
He asked me if I knew what the test was going to be, and produced a long swab that was at least eight inches long. I was expecting something like taking a sample from inside my cheek, or at most from the throat. But that was not it at all. "We're going to stick this up your nose and swab there." Ehhhhhh...
I really, really don't want to have been hit with coronavirus. But I don't care to have a glorified chopstick shoved into my nostrils either. I had come this far for peace of mind and there really wasn't much of a choice. Not if I wanted to be sure. So I told him "let's do it" - like Gary Gilmore must have spoken before they shot him up in that prison cannery - and leaned forward in the driver's seat then tilted my head back.
"Gag-inducing" doesn't being to describe it. Not when the reflex is for your nose to be the thing gagging and your brain feels like it's getting probed by some alien implement. I couldn't tell you how far it went up into my nose, but it was quite a bit. And he held it there for about three or four seconds before slowly retracting the swab.
And that was it. Except that my left nostril has never felt so funky. I was never the kid who shoved crayons up his nose but now, I feel like life ended up enlightening me about the sensation.
The lab results will be coming in tomorrow, or possibly the day after that. Dear Lord, please be negative. I'm going stark raving bonkers without the comfort of my office and all that "Weird Al" Yankovic music they let me get away with playing as I type up clinical notes.
The symptoms began yesterday. Persistent coughing and a fever that may have been higher than I initially realized. The coughing has diminished for the time being but it comes and goes. No phlegm. In the past few days I'd finally expelled the last of the mucous from a nasty sinus infection in January (my colleagues begged me to see a doctor but I had to "be a man" and all).
Now I've been evaluated by a screening and given instructions to self-isolate for what may be the next 72 hours. So that's what's going to happen. Fortunately the larder is stocked with plenty of food, lots of liquid in the refrigerator and there is an ample supply of toilet paper. There is enough here to ride out a siege by an army of Cossacks if it comes to that.
Just have to wait and see what happens next. And trying to keep from going full-tilt bonkers from wracking my brain about what might have been caught where and from whom. Which, it could be any number of iterations. My work is in the healthcare field. In a realm of mental health specifically. In a role that keeps me fairly out and about in the community. There have been days when I've logged almost 200 miles while assisting clients. To say nothing of all the people coming in and out of the office, staff and patients, on a daily basis. Since last week our office has adopted special measures: screening everyone who comes in for care, and going to rotating shifts of in-office and working from home.
(I had to sign a contract stating that I would wear real pants if I did video conferencing with a client.)
It could be anything, acquired by a mathematically boggling number of possible routes. But I guess, it is what it is and I'll have to sit tight and wait for a phone call.
But if it is coronavirus COVID-19, then I will do what I always do when an interesting situation comes about:
I'm going to blog the heck about it, with exuberant documentation.
"One Shining Moment" is the song that CBS uses in the final moments of their annual coverage of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, to recap the highlights of the road to the championship. All well and good... except that there won't be an NCAA men's basketball tournament this year because of the coronavirus epidemic.
So I, foolish I, took it upon myself to address this curious situation...
I emphasize "imperfect" because there is not an absolutely perfect solution and there never will be. COVID-19 is now such a pervasive element that it's as every reputable engineer will note: there is going to be a trade-off. We won't be able to help one matter without it negatively impacting others.
But from where I sit...
- fast-track production of and widespread treatment with hydroxychloroquine IMMEDIATELY. Especially in conjunction with zinc supplement, azithromycin and other medications being found to aggressively confront the symptoms of COVID-19. Especially in light of research that has come out of France in recent days about the hydrozychloroquine/AZT regimen. This could be our generation's "polio vaccine moment", if we attack coronavirus with something that almost with each passing hour is looking like a silver bullet against the illness.
- no-frills bare-bones economic stimulus of $2000 per U.S. citizen. Two weeks ago I would have recommended $1000 or even $500 but the damage wrought to the economy since then has become enormous. A reasonable amount of one-time fiscal injection into the public economy, and that's it. Meaning no ridiculous and irresponsible riders to the bill.
- pull back on restrictions against public gatherings. Which seems to be going backward on addressing coronavirus. But I'm weighing the disease itself against the harm being done against the economy and against society as a whole. And there is the matter of the United States Constitution: the freedom to assemble in peace and also freedom of of worship are sacred ones. A lot of states and municipalities right now are arguably overstepping boundaries that were never meant to be crossed. Expect that to be rigorously confronted in the courts during the months after coronavirus begins to wane.
There are two virtues I've seen that are qualities in general of the domestic reaction to COVID-19: responses are fairly localized and official actions are being delegated. These are good. It means that the response to coronavirus in South Dakota won't be the same as the response is in Brooklyn. And it also means that bureaucracy knows when to get out of the way when those who know best how to rapidly manufacture and distribute ventilators are free to do so.
As for how to get more toilet paper onto the shelves: brother, you're on your own...
Some are almost rubbing their hands in glee at coronavirus: holding to the notion that this is an obvious sign of the Second Coming because Pestilence is loosed upon the land. Though adherent that I aspire to be, my eyes cannot but roll in disbelief. Pandemics are almost as reliable as Old Faithful and will remain so until the end of time. The average span between worldwide outbreaks is around a hundred years. And coronavirus is hot on the centennial of the Spanish Influenza.
No, it is not the time for overzealous fervor to grasp rational thought. But with respect to my fellow Christians, coronavirus is at last the “Come to Jesus” meeting that the United States is long overdue for.
Let’s consider what must certainly be the most serious issue about what coronavirus is now teaching us. We have a woeful, immoral and almost criminal over-reliance on China for our manufactured goods, and especially pharmaceuticals. The vast majority of medication consumed by Americans come from Chinese labs. Many of these facilities, incidentally, have been accused of utilizing manufacturing processes that defy safe and sanitary protocol. Even so, the drugs are being shipped into the U.S. and domestic drug companies care little. After all, it’s easier to charge nigh-unconscionable prices for vitally needed medication when it can be manufactured for pennies overseas. Even cheaply-manufactured medications such as acetaminophen and insulin are now supplied by China. Perhaps ninety percent of antibiotics like penicillin are sent to the U.S. from factories under the ultimate control of Beijing.
Profits are good. Profits drive innovation and research. But the drive for profit in defiance of ethical responsibility has inflicted a grievous wound upon the nation’s self-sufficiency and general integrity. It is a wound that politicians – on both sides of the aisle – have not looked past so much as pour harsh acid upon.
And now comes word that China is threatening to deny America access to drugs that could stem the coronavirus outbreak in our country. It is not an empty threat. Particularly not in the present environment of trade hostility that has already awoken the bear market. Right now the ChiComs are feeling pokey about the U.S.’ international response to the coronavirus pandemic. What happens in the event of a full-blown economic war between east and west? Should China choose to do so, it could cut the spigot off for all distribution of medications to the United States.
Pause and consider what this would mean to diabetics dependent upon their neighborhood drug stores being stocked with insulin, or medications commonly prescribed to address influenza: an illness that far more people each year perish from than will on account of coronavirus. People are now going full- blown paranoid about a shortage of toilet paper. But that can be rationed. With medication, not so much. I myself am now weighing the likelihood of medications running out that I use to manage having manic-depression. The number of Americans who have mental health conditions is enormous. Might a dire deficit of mood stabilizers lead to mass ideations of suicide or harm to others?
It is now clear that America has an over-reliance upon Chinese manufacturing of pharmaceuticals for too long. But our lack of autarky is betrayed again by a spectacle beheld by even the healthiest of citizens: the vast shelves of cheaply-produced goods at Walmart stores dotting across the fruited plain. And also readily available from online retailers. For decades American companies have parceled their industrial capacity to Chinese workers who are underpaid and overworked. We have enjoyed cheap clothing and kitchenware and collectible action figures and Blu-ray players. We have also compromised our economic independence. And though the policies set in motion during President Trump’s administration have yielded enormous rebirth of long-shuttered factories, America is still hurting from decades of job losses. Once the textiles industry in America was one of the mightiest of employers. It allowed families to grow and thrive and allowed countless young people to better their lives with college education. Today textile production in the United States has almost completely evaporated, particularly in the Southeast where it was once towered over all other industry.
If China can cut off medication for one key sector, it can cut off every medication. As well as every other product that comes from there to American ports. And what is America going to deny China in turn? Blockbuster action movies whose studio executives kowtow to mainland Chinese “sensibilities”? Clothing and medication are vital assets. Extravaganza entertainment is not.
The coronavirus outbreak, depending on who one chooses to listen to, is either the dread harbinger of the end times or a momentary blip upon medical history. Six to eight months from now we will likely be laughing about the coronavirus “plague” just as we did about Y2K. But the vulnerabilities it has exposed should be – as some activist leaders have coined the term – a teachable moment for America.
It is time to rediscover anew the virtue that American protectionism is a virtue and not a vice. We are obligated to look after the interests of our own people, and that is absolutely not to be taken to mean that we are a selfish or uncharitable nation. American greatness however has from its colonial beginnings meant looking to ourselves for production of food, goods, and medicine. We have been abundantly blessed with these and many more fruits of our labors. And when the fruits have been so bountiful, we have gladly allowed the people of other nations to enjoy much of our surplus. It is conceivable that World War III was staved off because the Soviet Union came to be dependent so greatly upon American grain production. Had domestic farming capacity during the Cold War been at depleted levels, the possibility would exist that Moscow would have been much more desperate and belligerent toward its western rival. The Politburo was wise enough to recognize its own weaknesses. Why then should the United States be any different?
America has been betrayed by politicians and lobbyists acting in the interest of foreign powers if not being outright paid for services rendered. We have been living on borrowed time and now the coronavirus threat has pulled back the curtain on our would-be industrial masters. Were our international situation a private business, the ones responsible would have long been chewed-out by the company honchoes. And most likely given a cardboard box and fifteen minutes to clean out their desks. Their incompetence would not be lauded and certainly not rewarded.
The attitude toward this land by too many entrenched politicians, corporate opportunists, and foreign sympathizers has gone far beyond incompetence and into the territory of treason. Perhaps the coronavirus will cast long-awaited light upon such treacheries. And perhaps the American people will have eyes opened at last to demand an end to over-reliance on international industry.
If so, in the greater scheme of things the coronavirus may prove to be less a blight and more a blessing.
Some of this blog's longtime readers may recall how I was writing a book about having bipolar disorder. That was a project I'd been working on for some time, and then Dad passed. It sort of took the wind out of my sails, but I vowed to finish it someday.
Guess what? It's still nowhere near finished. The last time I committed a word to that endeavor was in winter of 2015. And so much has transpired since then. It will make more sense to write a new book drawing from the experiences of the past four years especially.
Someday I'll start to work on that. In the meantime, I do get to rightfully proclaim that I have finished the manuscript of my first book.
The idea for it surfaced about ten years or so ago, and it's been percolating in my gray matter all this time. Perhaps I needed to achieve some deeper understanding of the message I wanted to convey. And then came the past two weeks and events on this side of the Intertubes. And then I knew: it was time.
It's a children's book. I visited the local Barnes & Noble's and studied products in the kiddie section to make sure I would have the page count right. The average seems to be thirty pages for a picture book the primary audience of which is ages 5 to 9 or so. And this manuscript packs in plenty with that amount of space to work with.
It's the book that I wish had been around when I was six years old. Maybe I can contribute a little something to children who are likewise going through a hard time. I like to think so.
So, the first draft is complete. And there'll be some tinkering and having friends critique it and then perhaps sooner than later it'll get shopped around and hopefully an agent will like what he or she sees. I will admit from the start however: I am NOT an artist. So I'm praying that someone specializing in children's art is out there somewhere who can help bring this vision fully to life. I think there is. Whoever he or she is, I'll be looking forward to working with them.
Just as I look forward to posting about this again.
This blog has been operational for sixteen(!) years now, and it's covered a lot of territory. Everything from pop culture to weird news to chronicling my run for political office and anything in between. It's shown readers the inside of a nuclear power plant, to the ancient sanctity of Orthodox Christianity.
But it hasn't depicted everything about my life. Though there have been times that I've shared glimpses of personal frustration and tragedy, most of what happens on this side of the screen has been shrouded from my audience. It's been a common lament of mine: how it seems that everyone I know gets to display their blessings and joy over Facebook while I've come up empty in those regards. And then I'm reminded that people only show the good things on social media, not the bad. So if that's a crime, then I suppose I'm just as guilty.
However, there are exceptions. The Being Bipolar series is no doubt the biggest of them. Hard to believe it'll be ten years later next winter that I began that series, and there is still much more to write about it. I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder (or manic depression) early in 2004. By 2009 it had destroyed much of my personal life, including a marriage. Being Bipolar began as an attempt to take it back. On that note, it failed. But I still ended up satisfied that it's documented my thoughts and experiences with a mental illness.
But it's not my only mental illness.
Early in 2018 came another diagnosis. I now understand that I have Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The result of numerous horrible experiences across the span of my life, and especially things that happened during my childhood. That's never really been written about on this blog. My best friends and circle of close associates though have seen it only too often. The times when I regress, and have flashbacks and am immobilized by the weight of memories that cannot and will not leave. My therapists have helped me find a few strategies for dealing with episodes of PTSD: helping me get back into the moment instead of staying thrust toward the past. And in vast part they do work.
But that's only addressing the symptoms, not the condition itself.
Yesterday I began what we are hoping may be an endeavor to stem the PTSD itself once and for all. I had the initial appointment of what will be a series of sessions involving a fairly new therapy called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing... or EMDR for short. It came about during the Nineties as a result of investigations by psychologist Francine Shapiro. It essentially means that via visual manipulation and use of other stimuli (including the use of a gimmick that I've dubbed "the Walkman") my brain is going to rewire itself to route around the parts of it that the PTSD chiefly operates in. Or something like that.
Not really EMDR since Alex can't move his eyeballs around
Yesterday's session was an orientation/familiarization with the technique. And I'm already very much looking forward to beginning it proper. EMDR has enjoyed great success in helping others address their own PTSD and we think it holds a lot of promise for my own case.
This was already an exceptional week in regard to my recovery. I cannot discuss much of what transpired, however. Maybe someday that will be possible. Maybe, not ever. The EMDR though, I can and will be talking about that as the treatment progresses. So, stay tuned!
There is a tradition I never fail to keep: whenever I get snowed in and can't go anywhere, I turn down the lights and crank up the sound and watch the 1982 movie The Thing. Maybe that says something about my baseline state of mind.
John Carpenter's now-classic film of horror and paranoia at an Antarctica research base might not be appropriate viewing for when one is tempting real-life cabin fever. But if Die Hard is a Christmas movie, then The Thing is the perfect wintertime follow-up. And it's a darn nearly perfect movie in every other possible way: the story. The casting. The pacing. The practical effects (which still hold their own against any CGI today). The cinematography. That score by Ennio Morricone. And that building-up of tension as the men of Outpost 31 grow increasingly mistrustful of each other...
So yeah, I'm a huge fan of The Thing. And I've read the original novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr. As well as watched 1951's The Thing from Another World.
And then there is the 2002 video game The Thing, which followed the events of the John Carpenter film and received both commercial and critical acclaim. Partly because of the innovative "trust" element. I'm going to always have fond memories of playing that game, and unfortunately it seems the physical release is the only one out there. Maybe GOG.com will have it for sale sooner than later. Anyway...
I've seen and read and played just about everything Thing-ish. But one item had been out of my zone of interest: 2011's The Thing. Meant to be a prequel to the 1982 film, the 2011 entry was intended to reveal the story of the Norwegians who first discovered the alien vessel and its malevolent cargo.
Helmed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.and with a cast led by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, The Thing '11 was an idea that I just didn't care about once the initial details started coming out. And it wasn't just the notion of depicting the events of the Norwegian camp: something that was perhaps better left to the imagination (the "less is more" school of thought). When MacReady and Copper begin exploring the burning ruins of the base, and then they come upon the radio operator who had slit his wrists, well... it's just like Copper said: "My God, what the hell happened here??"
"What?", indeed. I first saw 1982's The Thing when I was ten years old, and every time I've watched it since my imagination gets sent reeling in wonder about how it went down among those poor scientists before they unleashed extraterrestrial death upon the most desolate wilderness on the planet. What led up to the final survivors shooting at that dog from a helicopter laden with kerosene and grenades?
Did I really want or need to see that portrayed?
And then there was the casting. It screamed "modern American film gore" with an emphasis on "American". Look, we've had a Thing movie from an American perspective: it was The Thing of 1982. A prequel about the Norwegian camp should have a cast of entirely Norwegians. Having it headlined by an American actress with fellow English speakers: it just didn't seem right.
Then there were the effects. Doubtless it was going to be largely accomplished by some CGI rendering engine pushing pixels. I didn't doubt that the transition from the brilliant work in the 1982 film would be a jarring one.
Maybe it's the weather lately. At this time of winter in this location, it should be at least one major snowstorm already this season. Here in mid-February that's looking less likely. So without a proper occasion upon which to watch 1982's The Thing, I thought that maybe... just maybe... I could give the 2011 film a fighting chance. So that's what I did last night.
What did I think?
The Thing (2011) is a gruesome waste of a premise that had strong
potential. There is so much that went wrong with this film. In some ways it is admirably accurate to the 1982 film (the coda where we see the Norwegian helicopter flying off to track down the dog is especially good). But other details are unforgivably ignored (didn't the boffins from Norway already use their explosive charges to blast away the ice from the alien ship?). That's a bigger lingering plot problem than anything from The Rise of Skywalker... and that's sayin' something.
As I'd feared, The Thing 2011 edition tried too much to be a modern "American" horror. Maybe the boys in marketing thought that a pretty young American female among all those Scandinavians would increase the commercial appeal. Instead it distracts from the spirit of the 1982 "original". There would have been nothing wrong with a cast completely comprised of Norwegians, Swedes, and Danish. In fact, I would have preferred it that way. And have the dialogue composed entirely of Norwegian (maybe with English subtitles... or not). As it is the cast of Norwegian characters is woefully under-employed in this movie. A tragedy because they seemed to be taking this project especially to heart. One of the Norwegians is well played by Kristofer Hivju, who went on to portray Tormund Giantsbane in HBO's Game of Thrones. Had I been the one in charge of the project, that's the approach I would have taken.
And it must be said: no modern CGI can outdo Rob Bottin's practical
effects work in scaring the hell out of the viewer. Even when the staff of Outpost 31 was looking at the remains of the creature, with it just laying there on the table, not moving at all: that static horror said it all. That kind of slow appreciation of the monstrous isn't there in The Thing 2011. There isn't a
single creature in this movie that is as memorable as the
Norris-thing. It's all moving too fast and furious. It all looks too shiny. And going back to "if it was me making this movie" I would have tried to replicate the lighting and film grain of the 1982 film. Yeah, film grain is important. It needs to be consistent across a series. It's one of my major complaints about the Star Wars prequel trilogy and it's a major complaint here.
But most of all, I found myself incredibly disappointed with the failure to adequately arouse the kind of paranoia that made John Carpenter's 1982 movie such an enduring classic. The sense of growing mistrust among the Norwegian base staff is so lacking that it seems almost tacked on. There isn't a single scene that comes anywhere close to Blair (Wilford Brimley) going berzerk with that fire axe:
There is so much else that could be said. This is definitely a prequel that became something we never needed. Which I hate to say, because in other hands The Thing (2011) really could have been a very terrific movie. Instead the film ended and I was just very, very disappointed. It's going into the pile of other movies that were made but I'm going to pretend were never produced (Alien 3, anything past the final scene of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and the inevitable sequel to Joker).
And so it is that whatever happened at that Norwegian camp will remain open to speculation. Which is probably just as it should always be. Besides, it's more fun that way.
Some
of Google’s ”doodles” either fly over my head or make me cringe in
disbelief. A lot of them are about historical events and people that at best are extremely obscure or else make me wonder "What the hell are they smoking over there?"
But the one they have for today is as good as it gets and I
recognized it immediately. Give credit where credit is due: Google was really thoughtful about this one and how to convey it:
This is how to SERIOUSLY
protest a wrong. Peacefully and respectfully. Nobody was hurt, nobody
was insulted, nobody was arrested because of violent behavior. These young men simply went in, sat at a whites-only lunch counter, and politely asked for service. They were denied. So they just went back the next day and asked for lunch again. And again. And again. The word spread,
there were other such protests and it wasn't long before Woolworth’s
ended its segregation policies. Other businesses soon followed.
We
could learn a lot from the Greensboro Four, even still today. Come to think of it, especially today.
