pH 4.28.2o
***
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Whatever and Taxes
In the midst of a national emergency, this writer would be derelict in his duties not to blog about certain circumstances. We are in Dire Straits, especially here in Southwest Michigan, where the virus is creeping down I-94 from both directions.
In Detroit, many people have died. That's a lot of bodies, a lot of burials or cremations, a lot of funerals, a lot of grief. (Some of us are used to it.)
The governess's stay-at-home orders have caused great anxiety, especially among those of us with a libertarian bent. Libertarianism is best described in three words... Leave us alone.
This was on full display at a noisy demonstration at the Capitol, perhaps politically funded and motivated, perhaps also well-intended... If you call walking around with an AR 15 slung over your shoulder, wearing fatigues, well-intended.
It is all understandable, though, as stress never has a good effect on anyone. The economic part, well... This is Michigan. We've never had nice things that any of of us can remember; ask a Lions fan. So that really isn't much of a factor.
In fact, round here, we like to look for the silver lining in the thick, dark gray cloud cover. About everything. Even death. Call it the unbearable lightness of being in Kalamazoo.
I have the option of being cremated or buried dead. Either way, your physical remains are to, eh, remain. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed, that's what it says on the Internet.
But then think about D.B. Cooper. He may have had a funeral, but we don't know if he had a cremation or burial, because we never found his body. For all we know, he was a Senator from Idaho. He just disappeared.
That seems preferable to dying. You might even find yourself frozen in a glacier somewhere, and half a million years later, a random scientist might extract your DNA and clone you. A few years ago they found a Wooly Mammoth frozen in the tundra, extracted his sperm, and when they can find a female elephant with the wherewithal, they will attempt to clone a hybrid Wooly Mammoth.
Of course, getting frozen in a glacier is not as easy as it sounds. If you go to the North Pole, even if you fall into a freshwater lake, the polar bears will eat you before you freeze solid... Maybe even before you're dead. So that wouldn't work.
The South Pole, that's a much longer journey for us Northern Hemispherians. And there's no guarantee that the leopard seals won't be just as lethal as the polar bears, never mind the penguins.
Besides that, global warming. Let's face it, no one's going to be found frozen in a glacier in 500,000 years. Nobody's going to be found frozen in a glacier in five years.
Before most of us are gone, knock on wood, Antarctica will be an alpine real estate haven for the wealthy, fueled by tourism, golf and agriculture - an economic boom for the Antarcticans.
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and death." I said that to a grocery store worker last week. She laughed.
Because it's true.
Ask a Lions fan.
pH 4.18.2o
***
In Detroit, many people have died. That's a lot of bodies, a lot of burials or cremations, a lot of funerals, a lot of grief. (Some of us are used to it.)
The governess's stay-at-home orders have caused great anxiety, especially among those of us with a libertarian bent. Libertarianism is best described in three words... Leave us alone.
This was on full display at a noisy demonstration at the Capitol, perhaps politically funded and motivated, perhaps also well-intended... If you call walking around with an AR 15 slung over your shoulder, wearing fatigues, well-intended.
It is all understandable, though, as stress never has a good effect on anyone. The economic part, well... This is Michigan. We've never had nice things that any of of us can remember; ask a Lions fan. So that really isn't much of a factor.
In fact, round here, we like to look for the silver lining in the thick, dark gray cloud cover. About everything. Even death. Call it the unbearable lightness of being in Kalamazoo.
I have the option of being cremated or buried dead. Either way, your physical remains are to, eh, remain. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed, that's what it says on the Internet.
But then think about D.B. Cooper. He may have had a funeral, but we don't know if he had a cremation or burial, because we never found his body. For all we know, he was a Senator from Idaho. He just disappeared.
That seems preferable to dying. You might even find yourself frozen in a glacier somewhere, and half a million years later, a random scientist might extract your DNA and clone you. A few years ago they found a Wooly Mammoth frozen in the tundra, extracted his sperm, and when they can find a female elephant with the wherewithal, they will attempt to clone a hybrid Wooly Mammoth.
Of course, getting frozen in a glacier is not as easy as it sounds. If you go to the North Pole, even if you fall into a freshwater lake, the polar bears will eat you before you freeze solid... Maybe even before you're dead. So that wouldn't work.
The South Pole, that's a much longer journey for us Northern Hemispherians. And there's no guarantee that the leopard seals won't be just as lethal as the polar bears, never mind the penguins.
Besides that, global warming. Let's face it, no one's going to be found frozen in a glacier in 500,000 years. Nobody's going to be found frozen in a glacier in five years.
Before most of us are gone, knock on wood, Antarctica will be an alpine real estate haven for the wealthy, fueled by tourism, golf and agriculture - an economic boom for the Antarcticans.
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and death." I said that to a grocery store worker last week. She laughed.
Because it's true.
Ask a Lions fan.
pH 4.18.2o
***
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