Preface

Some say that the truest form of art effortlessly and unpredictably bubbles-up from some unknown recesses of the artist’s three pounds of gray mush. If that is indeed true, I can assure you that nothing akin to such an experience transpired in the writing of this moldy old scrawl. And although, I’d like to tell you that this mare’s nest of hen scratch is factual, or at least partly based on truth, unfortunately this is nothing but complete and utter fiction. It is simply a poorly written, untrue, and highly disorganized windy memo, filled with boring redundancies and segues, with little importance; so, if you enjoy a steady, well edited, purposeful train of logical thought, this is likely not the book for you, and you should probably make a different selection. Don’t waste the precious seconds you have left on earth, reading this spurious unedited hodgepodge.

Make no mistake my dear reader, not one speck of this blustery babble, not a single phrase is remotely accurate or genuine. From the front to the back, this entire chalky slate is pure fabrication… only fiction. If you recognize anything in here, which you think resembles the truth or reality, it would have to be purely coincidental, and nothing more! That’s not to say that coincidence can’t occasionally be remarkable.

While it is tough the believe that something has happened by pure coincidence, it is oft harder to believe in almost anything else.

Bringing in the Sheep, by Yerom A. Wills

￼

NORTH OF THE BORDER

Driving out of Mexico, with the new points installed within the car’s distributor, my Ford was purring along, probably much like the day it had rolled off the Ford assembly line. Crossing Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, then finally entering Colorado, it wasn’t long before I ran straight into a major icy snow storm. After I got tired of trying to look through the haze of snowflakes, I pulled off highway 25, into a populated area, between Denver and Boulder, a friendly little community called Westminster. The roads were already icy and I didn’t have snow tires, nor did I have any antifreeze. After a bit of driving around, I stopped at a service station-garage, owned and operated by a father and son. Family businesses are now fast becoming a thing of the past. While drinking a cold bottle beer, the good natured Italian American equipped my aged Ford, with the appropriate snow tires, and a plastic jug of antifreeze. For years to come, I’d use that garage for gas, oil, and a few minor auto repairs. After paying the middle aged father, I then cruised around on the unfamiliar snowy streets, trying to get the lay of the land, and looking for a place to stay. I ended-up spending the next ten years in scenic Colorado, which just fortunately happens to be on the complete opposite end of the social and political spectrum from Mobile, Alabama. The difference between Colorado and Alabama is like the difference between light and dark, or heaven and hell.

Even though I was carrying around a considerable amount of gold bullion in my car frame, I remained concerned about making my money last, and wanted to find a cheap place to live. Aimlessly, I drove through the shabbier areas, knowing things were less expensive there, and soon spied a big brick two-story apartment building. It looked as if it had been built around the late 1920s, or early 1930s. The structure was shaped about like a huge saltine cracker box. Walking through the front door, I spied a fifty something year old man, painting the downstairs hallway. His hair was salt and pepper, with a big glop of white paint matted into his hair directly above the center of his forehead, a direct hit by a teaspoon of white pigment. He must have dropped the paintbrush, right after he’d filled it with paint. I couldn’t help but stare, which seemed to mildly irritate the tall lanky gentleman. He’s pissed and he hates painting.

“I know. I know. I dropped my paint brush, trying to paint the God damn ceiling, and that’s where it landed.” He offered confirming my assumption, while pointing with his thumb at the thick paint spot.

“Maybe you should try to wash it out, before it drys?” I suggested.

“Probably so, but it’s water base, so it’ll be okay. I use the oil based paint only for the trim. Tenants are always fuck’n the place up, but all I’ve got to live off of now is the rent I get from these old apartments, and I ain’t no spring chicken, anymore. You’d better hope you got more money than I do, when you get to be old, young man.”

“Are you the guy I’d need to speak with, about getting a place to stay, here?” I asked.

“I’m the owner, general manager, maintenance man, and chief rent collector. Will that due, son?” The aged gentleman responded with a grin.

Never having been the prodigal son, I wanted to appear cold and poor, so as to secure the lowest possible price. Purposely, I’d left my jacket in the car. Moreover, I stood in a stooped posture, and continually blew-on and rubbed my hands together.

“Yes, sir… I’ve just gotten into town, and I desperately need a place to stay, but I’m short on funds, so I’m hoping to find something super cheap. I have practically no money, sir. Have you got anything really really cheap?” I humbly and redundantly begged. The old Jewish commander in Spain did a number me… all that gold, and I’m trying to appear broke.The owner of the old building gave me a hard discerning stare, then he spoke.

“Follow me upstairs, young man. I’ve got something you just might be interested in, and it’s exactly like you’re asking for, and its super cheap. I wouldn’t live in it, though. Where you say you’re from, young man?” He commented without hesitation.

“Mobile, Alabama, at least a little over a year ago, I was there. I’ve been traveling around for the last year. Always wanted to see the lower forty-eight.” I responded.

My response caused him to give me a second scrutinizing look, but he didn’t interrogate me further. Evidently, he was accustomed to people, who didn’t want to be questioned too closely. Later, I’d find that most of the tenants of the building had colorful checkered histories. The two-story building had no elevator, so we climbed the reversing two segments of carpet-less dark creaky boards, up to the second deck. It’s warmer up here.Thank goodness. The hallway was only three feet wide, and like the stairs, it was without carpeting. The floorboards were so old that they’d wore on each other, leaving a knife blade gap, between them, which dirt appeared to have collected in. This place is really old and dirty. The owner stopped in front of room number twenty-one, turned the knob and pushed open the door, and there it was, a small room, and my new home, for the next four years of my ten year stent in Colorado. The room was stale, apparently designed to be a storage compartment, since it was filled with boxes, cleaning supplies, a few five gallon cans of paint, as well as the usual assortment spider webs. Beneath several boxes, I spied a twin bed, with a three inch thick gray and white mattress, which was to be my bed for those years. After that, I’d move to an apartment, closer to the University, where I’d later go to graduate school to complete my doctorate and post-doctorate.

“If you want the room, just store all this crap down in the basement, and clean her up some.” The owner commented.

“Where’s the bathroom? There is a bathroom somewhere. Right?” I asked.

“The shitter is down at the end of the hall on the right, and the shower’s across the hall from it. There’s some things in the basement, you can use for cleaning-up your new room.” He said pointing. The shitter? That must be western talk.

“Does the shitter and the shower work?” I asked, adopting the colloquialism.

“Yep, they sure do partner. I just fixed them, yesterday. Got a gas boiler in the basement the size of Texas, so the shower never runs outta hot water. Only thing is that the window in the shitter is permanently stuck open. Maybe you can get it to close, but I can’t… too many coats of paint.”

“How much you asking for this room?” I asked.

“The first two months are free, but you’ve got to do a first rate job painting the rest of the downstair hall, and this upstairs hall, too. Make sure you use the drop cloths so you don’t mess-up the floors. I’ll furnish you with all the paint and supplies. All that paint’n supplies is in the basement, on the end by the giant rusty boiler. That there boiler is so big, it could provide hot water to the whole Empire State Building. Don’t get any paint on the molding, except for when you use the dark brown oil based paint. Use masking tape on the molding. Starting the first day of the third month, it’ll be a cool forty dollars a month, every month, for as long as you stay. Can you handle that?”

“Yes, sir, I’ll take it.” I responded. This is even cheaper than my four dollar a day room in Acapulco.

“You can park your car out back in the building parkinglot. Can you start painting, today?”

“Yes, sir, soon as I park the car back there. Thank you.”

“Just shake my hand, partner, and we got a deal.” He said in a heavy western drawl, as I grabbed and shook his hand. Yippee ki-yay. I’ve got to find some place to hide all the gold, cause if my car gets stolen, there goes my gold in its’ frame. But my car is so crummy, I doubt anyone in their right mind would want to steal it. Still, I’d better remove the coil wire, and discount the ground wire from the battery.

That evening, I carried all the boxes, junk, and paint cans down to the basement, then dusted, swept, and sprayed the room with some bug-spray, which was in the basement. Lastly, I opened the one small window to air-out the bug-spray and dust. The room was five feet wide and twelve feet long, with the single twin bed, pushed in the far corner. It contained an old, but somewhat functional, radiator, and a small porcelain sink with hot and cold water taps. Later, I’d get a basic wooden straight-back chair, out of a dumpster to complete the room’s furnishings. It was fairly stark, and a smaller version of my room in military school.

The old two-story brick monstrosity was a bona fide dump, but it suited my parsimonious needs, just fine. The down-the-hall toilet, which was fifty feet from my room, was clean and worked well. The shitter, as the owner called it, was in a three feet by three feet room. Like the old man had claimed, the bathroom window had been permanently painted open. After my strenuous attempts failed to close the window, I used a sharpened pocket knife and sliced a sliver of paint off of the wooden window frame, and counted twelve layers of paint, which had been applied through the years. My close-up vision in those days allowed me to count the hairs on a gnat’s backside. Now my vision has reversed, so as I’ve aged, I have to use cheaters for reading, but I can clearly see far, to watch the smallest boats out on the distant horizon, without using glasses.

Apparently all those coats of paint had been applied, while the window had been open, ergo the window remained permanently open, and something of a statement as to the owner of the building, the one who didn’t care about the white paint in his hair. The painter obviously just wanted to get the job done, and the hell with practically. The deepest of the layers had probably been applied in the 1920s or 1930s. Consequently in the winter, I’d frequently be forced to brush the snow off the toilet seat. Sitting down on a frozen toilet seat was a real treat… better than a cup of coffee, for jolting the cortex into the awake state. The bathroom floor was only rotted in a couple to very small spots, since the rain could occasionally come in. The only thing that stopped most of the rain was a small red and white striped metal awning. It was the only window with an awning, making one think that the owner had preferred to installing it, rather than replacing the stuck window. The reason the snow got in was the dry air, so the snow was often light and powdery, and the wind easily whipped it up, and in, from the snowdrift along the base of the building. There was no radiator in the bathroom, so it could be like stepping into a freezer. On evenings when it began to snow, I’d stretch a piece of clear plastic over the opening, and tape it in place. Every time I’d return to the bathroom, the plastic had been removed and thrown out the window, making me wonder what kind of person preferred a cold bathroom. On the other hand, it could have been a case of O2 versus H2S and CH4.

Many days, the old radiator in my room failed to operate. At the time, I thought it was probably just rust clogging the pipe leading to my room. For the first year that I lived there, I’d be extremely cold many nights, when the heat failed to work. Whenever that happened, I’d go down the hall to the little shower-room. There was a small area against the edge of the shower, with a few hooks on the wall, where you could hang your towel of bathrobe. On cold nights, I’d turn-on the hot water and steam up the room, then I’d sleep nude on a thin plastic foam mat on the warm wet floor, with the water running all night. It was hard to sleep like that, so I’d drink about a quarter pint of cheap brandy, and use a soggy towel as my pillow. In the morning, after sleeping on the shower room floor, I’d wring-out the towel and hang it over the non-functional radiator in my room, to drip dry. Sleeping in the foggy warm shower room, and the extra humidity from the wet towel in the day, helped to keep my sinuses from drying out. The air in Acapulco and Mobile was filled with humidity, but the wintertime air of Colorado was extremely dry.

Later, I’d found out that there was no problem with the heat going to my room; it was just that someone, had felt the need to turn-off certain valves next to the boiler, supplying hot stream to various banks of rooms. Thank god it was never the valve providing hot water to the shower room. I suspected it was the owner, occasionally trying to save a little money on the heat. Without the never ending nightly hot shower, I might have died of pneumonia or frozen to death. Luckily, the building had a boiler the size of an eighteen wheeler, so the hot shower never ran-out. After one miserable winter, I found a little piece of rusty chain and bought a small ten cent padlock, to chain and lock the heating value open, and I was the only person with a key to the padlock. And so, my room’s radiator functioned, and so from then on, I could comfortably sleep in my bed on cold nights. The owner probably realized that I knew what he’d done, ergo he never cut the chain, and the valve stayed open. My life was not nearly as comfortable, as I’d been in Acapulco, so often I’d think about returning. To this day, I’m not sure why I didn’t, but I was searching for something, anything resembling a life that counted.

With all the large gold coins in my car frame, I constantly worried about my car being stolen. Invariably before leaving it parked somewhere, I’d pop the hood and remove the central wire off the distributor, and take it back to my room. When the spring came and the ground wasn’t so hard, one night, when everyone was asleep, I removed the gold from the rocker panes. The day before, I’d gotten some jars and still had my old hand trowel in the car trunk, so I buried the gold and some cash in the corner of the back lot, used for tenant parking. I’d selected that spot because, I could see it from my room window. However, about a week later, the garbage company managed to put their new dumpster, right on top of my buried treasure. What were the odds? So the next week, I was up early, asking the dumpster truck driver to move the dumpster over a few feet, using the false excuse that I liked to park my car there, beside the street light, so people would be less likely to brake into it. That night, I unscrewed the lightbulbs on the rear of the building, dug-up, and reburied the gold and money, beneath the outside rear steel staircase, while taking great pains to make sure that I wasn’t being watched. The spring thaw had soften the soil, and the digging was easier and quieter.

As you might expect, since the building rents were probably the lowest in the city, lots of extremely dubious characters lived in the building. In a way, I found that comforting. Nevertheless, there was one night, when for no apparent reason, a drunk walked past my room, and randomly fired three shots in rapid succession, through my thin apartment door, the bullets missed me by about one or two feet, and broke-out one of the panes of my room’s window, on the opposite wall from the door. The other two bullets were embedded in the wall. I filled in the holes in the wall with some white toothpaste. When the three shots were fired, I was in bed sound asleep, and the room was dark.

It was the third shot that made me realize they were gunshots. Immediately after the shots, I was left wide awake, wondering what was going-on. Why is someone shooting? Is someone dead in the hallway? I wish I had a gun. The first clue that the shots had been fired through my door came, when I noticed three bright lances of light, spearing through the darkness of my little room, emanating from the harsh florescent lighting in the hallway. For some reason, I hadn’t heard my windowpane break. Then, there was a girls’ voice, telling someone to go to their room, and to stop being stupid.

After a worrisome hour of intense listening, I quietly got up, dressed, exited my room, and looked around the building. No one, but me, seemed to have even been awakened by the shots. I couldn’t hear anything, not a TV or radio, and no one talking. How is it that I’m the only one awake after the gunshots? Finally, I returned to my bed, sipped another quarter pint of brandy, and nodded-out.

The next morning, I spied the broken window, so I taped-up a rectangular piece of cardboard to keep-out the cold. I hadn’t sleep well that night, and had decided to keep my eye out for a cheap dependable pistol. That morning, I also found a small half used can of wood putty in the maintenance room down in the basement, and patched in the holes in the thick solid-core wooden door. Later that day, I located some sandpaper and the requisite color paint, and touched it up. The next day, I found a glass shop and bought a cheap replacement pane of glass. I left the bullets in the wall, as a form of buried evidence, in case someone later got shot, and just used the aforementioned white toothpaste to fill in those two holes, then later painted over them.

Coming back from work the next evening, I was told by Jeannie, one of the female tenants of my building, that the guy, who’d shot-up my door, was a rowdy drunk, who didn’t even know me. She worked cleaning motel rooms, and did a little part-time hooking, with a few regulars. Jeannie described him, and I then realized, that indeed I’d seen him around. She was the female who’d been with him, when he just decided to shoot my door. I felt like asking her why she hadn’t checked-on my well-being, but she was a hardcore addict, and not often given to easily speaking the truth. She may have been so high, she didn’t even consider the possibility.

The woman insisted there was, “…really nothing to it. He don’t mean you no harm… really! He thought it was still just a storage room. He was just real drunk. He don’t even know you. He’s just an asshole, when he drinks. Neither one of you two checked on my wellbeing.” She explained, trying a little too hard to play down his potentially deadly deed.

After Jeannie talked a bit, I recalled the man, a guy in his early forties, but amazingly mediocre, easy going, except when drunk. The guy was always combing his hair. Some drunks can go from nice to nasty after the first drink… too much aggressive gray matter, no longer inhibited, due to alcohol. It’s as if the alcohol unleashes Mr. Hyde. I’ve seen this transformation happen in many alcoholics, regardless of their age or intelligence.

The gun totting bad drunk lived downstairs, near the back door, so I took the time to go visit him, and right from the jump, he most earnestly apologized, confirming what Jeannie had said… that he thought the room was still just used for storage. Jeannie told him about speaking with me. A few times when he was talking to me, his eyes went to his antique dresser. I acted like I was completely placated, then waited about ten days to pass, and when the guy went to eat at a nearby diner, using just my bodyweight, and the flat handle of a spoon, I quietly forced open his door, and found the weapon in the sock drawer of that dresser. It was a cheaply made .380 semiautomatic. As subterfuge, I also took his bedside lamp, and an unopened bottle of gin. I know he’s going to hate losing the gin. Putting everything in his plain white pillowcase, I checked to make sure no one was in the hallway, then quietly ducked-out the backdoor of the building.

Jogging down the block, I opened and poured-out the bottle of gin, since I’ve never cared for the clear booze, and threw the lamp and empty bottle in a distant dumpster, covering them by redistributing a few pieces of trash. Continuing on down the street, I disassembled the pistol along the way, throwing each piece in a different storm drain. Shades of being five years old at my Grandparents.

Perhaps, the guy was not a killer, just a bad drunk, who might have accidentally killed someone. Other than perhaps PCP (phencyclidine, angel dust) a crappy second rate hallucinogen, alcohol is likely the most dangerous drug ever made, but only for about one of every five of the males, who drink it. Still, that’s an awful lot of people. If there are roughly seven billion people on earth, that means hundreds of millions of people are ticking time-bombs, when on alcohol. Alcohol does far more harm than any other drug. One-third of all homicides involve alcohol. If alcohol was just newly discovered, it would be quickly banned and probably called the ‘killer drug,’ or the ‘devil’s-brew.’ Newspapers and TV reports would constantly expound on all the violence, it engenders. The world has too many alcoholics to allow that to happen.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm

There are people, who genetically have been graced with amazingly large numbers of neurons, which in effect, form the essence of aggression (hate, rage, savagery, ferocity, sadism, violence, pugnacity, meanness, etc., call it what you will, the unpleasantness is just groups of neurons), and they may also have reduced numbers of the neurons, designed to control said aggression. Alcohol inhibits the neurons, which normally inhibit aggression. Perhaps, such people were the warriors in more early times; possibly, when we were nomads roaming the earth. After all, the portion of the gray goop, which comprises the essence of what we call aggression, only exists for evolutionary reasons. DNA, which definitely condones some amount of aggression, is only concerned with survival, and its’ continuance down through the ages.

Something tells me that the descendants of those ancient warriors, may be the angry alcoholics of today. Ireland is an island nation, where there is limited land, hence tribes were often fighting for control. Consequently, the toughest most aggressive males were perhaps most apt to survive. Correspondingly, many Irishmen have a wee bit of a drinking problem. For some strange reason, that makes sense to me. When drinking, such folks may lose what little control they have over their massive aggression centers, and thereby become overly threatening, possibly even obnoxious, dangerous, reckless, violent, destructive, etc. On the other hand, some drunks may not be noble warriors, but just people with bad personalities, like: administrators, politicians, TV evangelists, sales people, people with borderline personality disorder, psychopaths, wife beaters, etc.

A few years later, by chance I encountered a genuine racial serial killer. He principally killed Jews and blacks. I watched him kill two innocent black people and accidentally wound a third person, who was white. Then, he stuck the gun in my face, but changed his mind about pulling the trigger, once he realized I was white. At the same time, the situation taught me a lesson, making me aware of some small amount of racial prejudice, which may have been buried within me. At that time, I was dating a Greek woman named Marie Angelis. The encounter with the killer began on a particularly cold winter’s night. Marie lived across the street from Valmont-Liberty Park in Boulder.

On several evenings each week, Marie and I would jog around the park. She was a short, beautiful, friendly woman, but during our relationship, she continued to have sex with a certain wealthy car dealer. Their agreement was that he gets to occasionally have sex with her, and she gets to use one of his cars. So, every couple of weeks, she’d be driving a different car. Marie also sustained a fairly sporty addiction to amphetamines, so often suffered with severe emotional swings. She tried to be a good mom, but between trying to financially survive, dealing with her elderly mother, and her speed addiction, her parenting grade might have been a ‘C- or D+,’ at best. The amphetamines and her arrangement with the car dealer were a deal breaker for me to consider her as any serious longterm relationship, still she had a good heart, was fun, sexy, and attractive. This was sort of like, my situation with Rosa in MC. Marie felt that I should be okay with her sex with the car dealer, since he let her drive his cars, and I’d frequently get to ride in them, and indeed I was okay with her deal with the car dealer. Still, I wasn’t interested in having a serious long term relationship. Her rule was that I was allowed to know about him, but he wasn’t allowed to know about me. I meant him a few times, but was introduced as one of her classmates, and she told him that we only studied together. Although she and I never attended classes together, she did review some of my assignments, and was quite good at editing; something, which I’ve never had the patients for doing. Back then, I just enjoyed figuring things out, and didn’t care about writing anything.

It was the middle of the night, and Boulder was in the middle of an ongoing blizzard. Marie and I were right in the middle of sex, when there was a rather loud determined knock at the front door. Someone wants out of the blizzard. Looking out the window, Marie saw that the car dealer had actually ventured-out into the snowstorm, no doubt looking to spend quality time with Marie. He knew she was home, since the car, he’d loaned her, was in her driveway, and fast getting covered in a foot of snow that fell that night. The situation caused Marie to go into a panic. She hurriedly gathered-up my shoes and clothes. To make a long story short, as she was letting the car dealer in the front door, I was closing the back door, ergo I ended up naked in the backyard, freezing and hurriedly pulling my clothes on in the middle of the snow storm, then trudging to my car, which was parked three blocks away, just in case the car dealer decided to drop by.

Indeed, I was okay with her sex-for-a-loaner-car arrangement, because my job paid little, and I was determined to apply most of my Mexican gold toward furthering my education. Whence, I never seriously considered our relationship to be anything, but friendship with benefits. She was basically a good person, but certainly didn’t love me, and I didn’t love her, but we got along fine, at least most of the time. She was a little sexy thing and so I loved it when she got angry; nevertheless, Marie was a far cry from Evangeline, or my wife. Addicts being addicts, I didn’t find out about the amphetamines, till the relationship was already headed downhill, and I accidentally discovered her amphetamine stash.

Returning to my story about the racial serial killer… Before commencing the long jog around the park’s perimeter, that evening, Marie and I were standing on the edge of the park, directly across the street from her house. We were just doing our pre-run stretching, leaning forward and touching our toes, etc., gradually trying to loosen the tendons and muscles, before launching-out for the run. Bending forward at the waist, my face was down by my right knee, so I was actually looking past my right leg, directly behind myself. While I was in the slightly awkward posture, I suddenly saw two young black adult males, emerge out of the darkness of the park, behind me. They were walking directly toward me.

The fact that it was dark, and they were strangers, and yes, perhaps that they were black, as well as the fact that they had gotten so close, before I’d detected them, momentarily startled me. So maybe, there could have been a slight racial thing involved, perhaps not, but quickly standing-up straight, I asked, “How are you guys?” The question was not posed so much as an honest inquiry, about how they were feeling, as much as it was met to get a handle on their intentions. At first, my surprise and imagination had made them seem slightly dangerous, but as it turned out, they were anything but. One of them sincerely and politely answered.

“Fine, thank you. And how are you, sir?” The young man genuinely smiled his response.

The other fellow addressed Marie, saying, “Good evening, madam.”

Marie was so much into her stretching, and not looking forward to the upcoming long run, that she didn’t seem to pay him any mind. Marie wasn’t paying they any attention. The two guys just kept walking on by, and then I noticed that they were being followed by a pair of young white women about their ages. These were apparently their dates. These two guys are almost too polite, but clearly nice fellows. Perchance her blood levels of amphetamines were running a bit low, for she was anything but cordial. Maybe, or possibly Marie was distracted by a passing car, but she said nothing to the four. The young people simply crossed the street, turned to their left and headed west on the sidewalk, with the two black guys, walking slightly ahead of the two white girls.

“I’m really not in the mood to run around this stupid park, in the dark, Joey.” Marie complained.

Marie was definitely not one for exercise. But, I didn’t play her much mind, and just kept watching the four young people.

“Okay. How bout we just keep it down to two miles, tonight… two laps around the park?” I said this never taking my eyes off the two black men and the two white girls. I’ll run some more by myself later.

“Okay, but let’s try not to break any speed records, tonight.” She responded.

These were two genuinely nice young men, and not people I needed to be worried about, but in less than a few seconds, right before my eyes, they’d both be stone dead! Later, I would find out that they were considered by their friends and neighbors to be the finest young men in their neighborhood. Interracial dating was still a huge taboo in parts of America. White male rednecks, and oddly enough, certain typically heavyset black females, seem to often be the biggest critics of interracial dating. Racism is a two way street, but with the whites generally doing the greatest harm and the most hating. After all, how many black cops do you heard about shooting unarmed white men?

Obviously, I’d misjudged the young men. Back then, unlike in Mexico, you didn’t see a lot of mixed couples in the United States, so to see two at the same time was highly unusual. Inter-racial marriage and dating was less than one-fifth of what it is now.

Taken aback by the odd little scene, I continued to watch the two couples stroll down the sidewalk, while Marie continued her stretching, never so much as looking-up to give them a glance. The two guys were talking, followed by the two girls, who were lightly giggling and chatting about something. Those four seem so content. Tragedy struck, when they reached the corner. The two black guys had just stepped out a few feet out onto the street, the girls were close behind them.

On the opposite side of the street, in front of the two black men, was an empty lot, which contained only a large bush. The bush was barely noticeable in the darkness. Suddenly, the interior of the bush lit-up with a flash, like a flashbulb had gone off inside the bush, and one of the black guys seemed to grab his chest, as he dropped down onto the asphalt. Perchance, because the gun was inside the bush and the air was dry, the retort of the weapon wasn’t too loud, not as shocking as was the scene. Most likely, the shooter was standing against the back of the bush, sticking the muzzle into the interior of the sparse bush, which had blocked some of the sound. He probably was using some of the heavier branches of the bush to brace the gun barrel, like a shooting rest, of sorts. To say the least, the sight of the black man being shot and going down was transfixing, albeit without any emotional impact. As trite as this may sound, it was like watching a movie… without any real feeling about what I’d seen.

The first shot was quickly followed by two more bright muzzle flashes, ergo the second young black fellow, also dropped to the asphalt; I remember thinking that he seemed dead; he’d instantly lost all motor control and went face-first onto the asphalt… not the slightest movement. He just went down for good. Simultaneously, one of the girls had spun like a top and had also gone down, but simply sat on her butt, holding her arm. I thought I heard her cry-out, but wasn’t sure. Later, I would learn that one of the bullets had fragmented, when it struck bone in the second black man, and a fragment had continued through him, hitting her arm.

After the second man had died, the first black guy suddenly tried to get back up, and that was a mistake. When the first black guy began to rise-up on one arm, there was a fourth flash from the bush, and he went back down, that time forever. Both of the polite young black men, I had just spoken with were then dead! The young woman left standing began to scream, but it was a delayed scream, like she had to think about it. The woman who’d been hit in the arm was silent, and staring at her arm. The screaming girl had both her palms on either side of her face, though not quite touching her cheeks, more or less fanning the air.

Marie and I were the last people, the two men had spoken with. No one else was outside, so I believe that the young woman left standing and I were the only witness to the killings. The two bodies laid in the intersection of 9th south and 5th east. That shooting looked and felt a lot different, than the one where the La Guardia, shot the guys in the little yellow car. But in a another few seconds, I would meet the killer, close-up, and face-to-face. Throughout that event, Marie just continued to stretch. She didn’t even seem to notice the shots. Later, she seemed to vaguely recall the sounds, but said that she thought that they were just a car back firing. Indeed, cars backfired much more often in those days. Marie didn’t notice the girl’s screaming. As I mentioned, her plasma levels of amphetamine may have been running low. Kitty-corner to the dead bodies, was a convenience store and frequently someone there would be yelling about some thing or another, so if Marie did hear the girl screaming she apparently thought little of it. Throughout all the events, Marie kept stretching.

The next day, the paper mentioned that the two murdered men were Ted Fields, Jr., 18, and David L. Martin III, 20. I believe they were friends, but I can’t recall for sure. In the park that night, they seemed very close, and I recall thinking at the time, that they were perhaps biological brothers. Considering the twenty-five yard distance from the bush to the two unarmed dead men, it was a shot most five year olds could have made, so a hate-filled well trained bigoted coward could make the shot easily.

How much courage does it take to kill two unarmed and unsuspecting innocents, from concealment, while hidden in the dark? What a hero! Even if you’re a full blown hate-filled racist, think about what the shooter accomplished with that heinous act? He just manufactured more hate and grief for the families and friends, and paranoia for the neighborhood. It was a losing situation for all concerned. It’s not too different from dropping bombs in Baghdad on civilians, both scenarios are just a product of evil, aggressive little pieces of gray matter, needing to release their neurotransmitters, to flood the world with misery. One is illegal first degree murder, and the other is legal genocide.

Both young men were then laying motionless in the street. I had no doubt they were dead, but I didn’t move, because I wanted to get a look at their killer, and so I remained intently focused on the bush, determined to see the killer the moment he emerged. But mysteriously, the shooter never appeared to leave the bush. While I assumed he was still behind or inside the bush, in fact, he had left in such a direction that the bush itself had blocked my line of sight, so I missed his exit. But not realizing that fact, I foolishly stayed focused on the bush, waiting for him to emerge and show himself. I was afraid to go closer to the bush for fear of being shot, so I just stayed-put.

Through all of this, amazingly Marie continued to stretch, apparently unaware of everything, which had transpired. She had an abundance of hair, which probably had blocked some of her hearing. All she realized was that some people had walked passed us, and a car had backfired several times. While still looking at the bush, a car approached from the direction of the shooting. But I paid it no mind, for I was determined to keep my gaze fixed on the bush, resolute in trying to see the shooter, whom I still foolishly assumed was hiding inside, or just behind it. I kept wondering why it was taking so long for the shooter to exit the bush. Maybe he’s reloading the gun. Maybe he sees me watching! Standing on the edge of the park, I was gazing west at the two dead guys and the bush, when the approaching car pulled to the curb, right next to me, and stopped. The car’s passenger window was open, and was only about two feet to my right, on 9th avenue. The stopped auto was pointed east. Wondering why the vehicle had stopped, I didn’t want to look at the car, for fear I’d miss seeing the shooter pop-out from the bush. Nonetheless, I hear a noise, and so I quickly glanced through the open passenger window of the stopped car. Just what the hell does this driver want… directions? I was only going to take a quick look and then quickly jerk my gaze back to the aforementioned bush, but as I peered through the window, I wasn’t sure what I was actually seeing.

The driver seemed to have a searching, if not quizzical look on his face, as if he was trying to remember me, or recognize me. Do I know this guy? The inside of the car was fairly dark. Oddly, his right arm looked much too long, and it was extended in my direction, so I leaned in a bit closer, trying to figure-out what I was looking at. At first, I thought that he was trying to hand me something, but in the reduced lighting, his arm looked weird and far too long.

Suddenly, I realized that I was actually looking was not his extended arm, but at a WWII style 30 caliber semiautomatic short carbine, held out by his extended right arm, and aimed at my clueless face. I had seen many of these weapons, in my youth. The medium powered rifle sold for $25 each, at Ye Old Hunter, a gun store on the banks of the Potomac River, when I was a teenager. Many of these lightweight weapons had been used by the Marines on Guadalcanal, and were good at ranges out to about two hundred yards. It was undoubtedly the same gun, he had just used to murder the two young men, and accidentally wound the young woman. His face suddenly seemed to recognize me, probably realizing the fact that I was white, with a white female, and so he smiled, and immediately drove away, just as I had finally realized I was looking at the muzzle of the gun. He looks young, and has glasses. It happened so quickly that I had no time to really fear the gun. As a result of this brief encounter, I had gotten an excellent look at his face. But, I was stunned for obviously the man driving the car was the killer of the two young men.

Had I been a black guy, who standing there with Marie, a white woman, I’m fairly certain that I’d have been summarily shot in the face. It was later reported in Boulder paper that the shooter was named, Joseph Paul Franklin, a psychopath, who no doubt enjoyed killing. Having later looked at his photographs, I’d have to agree that he indeed was the man, who had the deadly carbine pointed at my face that night.

“Why’d that guy stop the car? What’d he want… directions? I didn’t hear you say anything.” Marie asked, as Joseph Franklin was driving away.

“He just looked at us, and drove off.” I said, not mentioning the shooting, nor did I mention the carbine the guy had pointed at me.

Marie got her wish; we didn’t run around the park that night. I didn’t mention the shooting, just said I too tired to run, and escorted her back to the house. Once she was inside, I said I was going to the corner store and walked down to where the two guys were laying in the street. Oddly enough, I slept well, but before falling asleep, I thought a lot about what I’d witnessed. Perhaps observing a major tragedy made me unable to worry about the small nagging concerns, which day-to-day life seems to be perpetually filled with.

To this day, I feel a little guilty for misjudging the two young dead black men. There was a fair chance they’d read my concern. The concept and consequences of racism had never been clearer to me, than that night, for had I been black, I almost certainly would have died. Looking through that opened passenger window, I had gotten a close-up view of the devil, and gazed directly into the face of true evil. The murderer had smiled before driving away. How do you smile, right after killing them? Perhaps the answer to that question is that you enjoy your work. I don’t think Franklin was crazy in any legal since. He was too methodical. I later found-out that he was beaten a lot as a kid, grew-up amongst racists, was a Christian and a nazi, and claimed to have been inspired by Hitler’s Mein Kampf. He also claimed he killed 22 people.

While dreaming that night of the shooting, I was again standing on the old abandoned runway. As usual, it was sunset and I was talking with my Dad. The mirror-shiny DC-3 was just sitting there, waiting for me to climb aboard. There were two black bodies in the back of the plane that would have to be thrown-out over the water. This time, the wounded white girl was sitting on the runway, about one hundred yards away, still holding her bloody arm. I realized that she would have to be moved, for the plane to take-off. In his usual friendly dream voice, Dad spoke-up.

“You really should do something about that man. Some people plainly deserve to be killed, Joey… if only you’d had a gun, you could have shot him, dead. Killing some people is like curing a disease. Those young guys in the back of the plane sure didn’t deserve to die. If you don’t kill that murderer, you’re letting everyone down! Hell’s-bells, Joey.”

There was a good chance that the two mixed couples regularly jogged, or strolled, in the park, and had established something of a predictable pattern, which the predator was able to take advantage of. While I recalled his intense face, his light brown hair, and the old WWII carbine, I had foolishly not paid attention to the make and model of the car, nor had I taken note of its license plate. Conceivably, the killing of the two young men and the realization that I had been staring down a gun barrel had briefly wiped my mind clear of thinking… so much for me ever making a good cop, soldier, or spy. Often I’ve wondered what I was designed to do, but that yet remains undiscovered.

Franklin was a twisted racially motivated serial killer, who drifted from state to state to ‘cleanse the world,’ as he would later say. What a brave man, killing unarmed innocent people! The killer hailed from Mobile, Alabama, Who would have ever guessed that? He was reported to have been a member of both the American Nazi Party, as well as the KKK. Imagine that! Randomly, Franklin executed people, who did not fit into his view about how the world should operate, and those two young black men, dating those two young white women, certainly didn’t fit. There were just too many contradictory memories in his hippocampi to be able to accept whites being with blacks, especially white women, with black men. From the brief glimpse I’d gotten of his face, and say he looked very strange. Honestly, he didn’t really look evil, just weird. Besides, there’s little doubt that Franklin was probably one of those guys, with more than his share of hateful gray matter, which just needed an excuse to release those hateful, horror-producing, neurotransmitters. Perhaps, nothing did it for him, quite like killing someone, unless it was killing more than one person. Most likely, Franklin didn’t know anything about the two black guys, nor the two white girls, other than the fact, that they were dating.

In 1977, Franklin shot Alphonse Manning and his white friend, Toni Schwenn. In 1979, he killed a racially mixed couple in Oklahoma City. Then, he killed two black men in Indiana in separate incidents. In 1980, he killed Darrell Lane 13 and Dante Brown 14 in Cincinnati… two young kids! What a man… killing children! I wonder if the KKK or the American Nazi Party hold such behavior in high regard. It certainly takes real courage to shoot unarmed, unsuspecting children.

If there’s a God, after Franklin was executed, God probably was waiting with open arms, to say, “Great job Joseph, thanks for killing those blacks and Jews, as well as those white girls, who dated those evil black guys. I don’t know what I could have been thinking about, when I made all those worthless people! My mistake… I’m sure glad that you’re smarter than I am Mr. Franklin, and straightened-out my errors. And don’t worry about that thou shalt not kill, thing. You be de man, Joseph! Wish I could shoot as good as you. Come-on through those pearly gates, Mister Franklin. Mi casa es su casa…”

Much as Theodore Bundy, Joseph’s heroic killing spree ended with his arrest in Florida for the killing of the two black guys by a park, but he was linked to 20 killings and admitted to shooting civil rights leader, Vernon Jordan and Hustler magazine’s Larry Flint. Coincidentally, the girl I dated, prior to Marie, had lived in Theodore Bundy’s apartment. Moreover, many of the students that had known ‘Ted,’ thought he was a ‘real great guy.’ My bet is that Ted killed, because it turned him on sexually, whereas Joseph may have killed because he couldn’t get turned on, or perhaps he was gay but didn’t admit to himself, and killing was the next best thing, but I’m certainly not any kind of shrink.

After Joseph Franklin drove away that night, I had quickly walked Marie back into her house right across the street, hurriedly scribbled my name, address, and phone number on a piece of paper, and jogged down to the sight of the shooting, where the police and an ambulance soon arrived. Probably someone in the convenience store at the intersection had called the cops, since there were no cell phones, then. Some woman, in front of the store just kept saying, ‘my God, my God…,’ while she looked at the two bodies in the street.

Seeing the two men still laying dead in the street, after just having spoken with them, was strange, but I honestly felt nothing… no sadness, no fear, no excitement, just nothing. Nevertheless, I only briefly looked at them. To me, it was clear they were dead. Perhaps, something’s wrong with my feelings, or maybe more people should be like me. It seemed helpful that it was too dark to plainly see their faces. The wounded white girl was still holding her arm, and was just sitting there in shock. For some reason, I didn’t see the other white girl. Perhaps, she’d gone into the store, and the people inside were helping her, or maybe she’d walked away. I wonder if the couples were in love, or were they just dating? Glancing in the lighted little convenience store, I didn’t see the other girl. She might have wanted to get away from the two bodies, and merely left. The police and two ambulances soon arrived, so I walked-up to a cop, told him that I’d seen the shooter’s face close-up, gave him the piece of paper with my name, address, and phone number on it. Both of the bodies were put on stretchers, and loaded into the ambulances.

The cop took the folded paper, thanked me and nodded, but didn’t ask or say anything, other than to say, “Thanks.” So I left, expecting to be called. But, the police never called me. This was a bit odd, especially since I told him that I’d gotten a good look at the killer’s face, and his rifle. Perhaps the cop lost the piece of paper, I’d handed him, or maybe he threw it away. At the time, I couldn’t imagine that the cop would have purposely tossed the paper. After a week, I called the police station and left a recorded message, still I was never called back. After yet another week, I called and left another message, explaining how I could be reached and roughly what I’d seen that night, but both times I was ignored. I’d wrongly assumed I’d be taken before a sketch artist. Lately, there seems to be a rash of white cops shooting unharmed black men, so perhaps it might be reasonable to assume the police had simply trashed the paper with my info on it, and erased my voice messages. Franklin remained at large a bit longer, and only killed a few more people, before he was grabbed in Lakeland, Florida.

Clearly some are born with more evil gray matter, than others, which equates to things like aggression, hate, murder, etc. When you combine all that natural born hate, with hateful early programing, you may get a racially motivated serial killer. Nothing else really does it for them, like finding a person, or a race, or a nationality, or a political group, or some pecuniary group, or religious group, to ‘justify’ their killing. As mentioned, Joseph would soon be arrested in Florida, just as was Bundy. It’s always seemed odd that two of the notorious serial killers were both captured in Florida, and both had killed in Boulder. At age sixty-three, Joseph Paul Franklin finally received his lethal injection, on November 20th 2013 (Universal Children’s Day), as I was first beginning the writing of these texts. Perhaps, it says something about racism in the American justice system, that it took thirty-three years to execute him.

During that thirty-three years, Joseph got to enjoy the fact that George Bush, Jr. let all those black people suffer in the post Katrina situation. That president most likely only loves the very rich, which by default, may also mean that he hates the poor, and since blacks and Native Americans are the poorest of the American races, then George hates them. I doubt that his father would have been so uncaring, and not allow all that post Katrina suffering, to go unaided. So why would George Bush, Jr. be so insensitive? Who knows? George Bush, Jr. wasn’t the man his dad was, and so maybe he had to make his mark as best he could, be it famous or infamous.

George Bush, Jr. frequently had failed in his life, and I don’t just mean when he had lost the election, and was forced to steel it, from Al Gore, but he’d failed in numerous other ways. Not as much as I have, but a significant amount, none the less. If it hadn’t been for the Saudis bailing him out, and paying for his election as governor, there is no telling were he’d have ended-up. On the other hand, his dad, Bush Senior, had been a hero, a highly decorated naval aviator in WWII, like my Dad. He also got shot down once, like Dad. War can make people better appreciate suffering, regardless the form it takes. My Dad was kind to all peoples, regardless of race, creed, age, etc., and he liked nothing better than to help people. Perhaps, the following You Tube video says it all. In it, George Bush, Jr. pretty well paints his own picture. He makes it clear what segment of the country he cares most about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn4daYJzyls

My bet is that Joseph Paul Franklin took George Bush Junior’s lack of response to the devastated black peoples of New Orleans as a confirmation of the righteousness of his own racial hatred. After all, if the President of the United States can allow black people to live in such misery, completely unaided during such devastation, Joseph knew killing a few blacks was certainly no big deal. Years later, Charles Taylor, who funded the human butchery in Sierra Leon, would also compare himself to George Bush, Jr. Most likely George Bush Junior’s ignoring of the devastated people of New Orleans resulted in some deaths, so George was probably Joseph Paul Franklin’s hero. And, just possibly the reverse was also true, after all Franklin did live thirty-three years after his arrest. You know Joseph probably stayed glued to the television, during all the post Katrina news. We all have our heroes. For some people, it’s a soldier, doctor, sports figure, etc… for me it was my Dad, but for too many psychopaths, it’s other psychopaths. Who else can confirm their behavior as being reasonable?

No one can appreciate a psychopath, quite like another psychopath. Wasted Efforts by WA Morey

Too many people, without any marked talent of their own, worship at the feet of violence and death: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, George Bush Jr., are all lacking in any form of exceptional talent, other than the talent to orchestrate violence and cruelty. Generally, they love hurting and killing, but need someone or some group to hate, so they can give ground to their morbid actions. The most interesting of these, are the very purest of psychopaths, who don’t even need a religion or ideology; they don’t need any excuse to kill. I’ve often wondered what portion of the one-percenters, the politicians, and the corporate CEOs are psychopaths. My great aunt, the head shrink at Saint Elizabeth’s, who specialized in the criminally insane, felt that such people will become a greater percentage of humankind, as the planet continues to over populate.

It was just over three months after Franklin shot the guys, and the day after Thanksgiving. It was a chilly night, when one of the more unusual residents of the humble apartment building, in which I resided, quite unexpectedly showed-up at my room. He was a friendly elderly full-blooded American Indian, and a serious alcoholic named, Eagle Feather. Judging by his build, he should have been named Grizzly Bear, but even when he was drunk, he was cordial and never rude. Years prior, he left the reservation for his own safety; something about having sex with another man’s wife, whom Eagle Feather claimed he was unable to resist. He believed she was an evil witch, and had placed him under a love spell, causing him to lose his shadow, and her husband wanted to kill Eagle Feather.

When I opened the door, he said he just needed to talk, so I invited him in. He sat in my little room’s only small chair, while I sat on the corner of my small twin bed. We usually enjoyed each other’s company so much, that the scant surroundings made little difference. He began by telling me how bad his life, in general, had been, something he’d told me before, but this time he did so with an air of marked resolve, which disturbed me. He talked about how his wife had left him, and his kids hated him. It was an all too common addiction story. Because of alcohol and heroin he had committed many crimes and had spent much of his life behind bars. He definitely looked the worst the wear. Eagle Feather looked like he’d died a week ago, laid out on the desert, and had been brought back to life. He said he was only fifty-five, but could easily have passed for seventy-five. His leathery scared, and wrinkled, face spoke volumes about stress, desperation, fights, drugs, alcohol, and his aforementioned failures. But for all of that, there still remained a strong spirit of goodness about him, and in a very real way that spirit was all that was left of him.

After a couple of minutes had passed, I noticed his speech had begun to slur. Then, Eagle Feather calmly confessed to that he’d chased a handful of phenobarbital and codeine, with a pint of whiskey; after which, he told me that he had decided to ‘honor me,’ by dying in my room and that it was a good time to die! Looking back, in an odd way, it actually it did seem like an honor, but since I liked the guy, my brain screamed, ‘What the fuck!’ No doubt, if you’re going to die, you’d likely prefer to die in the presence of someone you are comfortable being around, as opposed to a bunch of strangers in an emergency room. Sometimes, I’ve thought that there may be an inverse correlation between how long someone has worked in an ER, and how much they can care. Thank goodness experience can offset caring. At this point in my life I think I should have done nothing. He had the right to choose his time and place. Christianity has stolen that right for too many folks.

With Eagle Feather’s shocking declaration of suicide, I definitely didn’t want him to die. Maybe, I should have just allowed Eagle Feather to drift off, since most likely he just continued to suffer for the remainder of his years. As he told me of his impending death, he suddenly nodded-out in the chair. I slapped his face six or seven times, and yelled at him to wake-up, but got very little response, except he fell off the chair and onto the floor, so I rolled him on his side and made sure his mouth was open, and tilted at a downward angle. I didn’t want him to choke to death, if he puked, and puke he did, but not on the floor. Eagle Feather raised up just enough to puke on my pile of dirty laundry. Some half dissolved capsules were on a dirty workout clothes. Quickly, I used my fingers to clean the vomit from his mouth and upper airway. He was still breathing but then unconscious, so I sprinted to the nearest pay phone to call for an ambulance, the owner of the building was coming in the door, so I told him about Eagle Feather, instructing him to go in my room, and to try to get the old Indian on his feet and make him walk, and that I’d be right back, as soon as I phoned for an ambulance.

“Are you shitting me… Eagle Feather… suicide?” He questioned.

Sprinting to the corner pay phone (The phone company refused to put one in our building, since the residents had repeatedly destroyed several payphone in the past, trying to liberate the change box. Half the building’s residents were addicts.), I called for an ambulance, which arrived five minutes, later. In those days, ambulances actually went faster than the posted speed limit. Those were the days when hospitals actually cared about saving lives. Now days, they’re more concerned about liability. Still, it’s understandable, since so many poor unethical people are searching for frivolous lawsuits. That’s probably owing to welfare, for when it destroyed the incentive to work, often loss of ethics is soon to follow. Often people, who don’t work, loose self respect, ergo they are more prone to become dishonest. Of course, if you want to abolish welfare, you’ve got to make good jobs available, including felons! Eagle Feather was a truly good person, and impeccably honest, though he made his living selling pills. I’ve known dreadful people, who abide by the law, and criminals, who are saints.

While waiting for the ambulance, I helped the building owner with Eagle Feather, keeping the Native American on his feet, throwing cold water in his face, sapping him, yelling right in his ears, and stomping on his feet, but not too hard. The situation made me recall the man, who’d died on my beach in Ocean City, but unlike him, Eagle Feather lived. Maybe that’s why, against my better judgment, I fought so hard to save Eagle Feather. I didn’t dream about Dad, with his shiny DC-3, that night.

“You’re not going to the happy hunting ground on my watch, Eagle Feather! Wake the fuck up, man! Wake up! Now! Hey!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, three inches from his ear.

Later, he dropped by my room and told me that he felt calm in my presence, and that’s why he had selected my room in which to commit suicide. He promised not to try to die in my room, again. Eagle Feather made me feel like a heel for having saved his life. While I liked the old guy, after that suicide attempt, I avoided him like the plague, and was wrong to do that. To this day, I regret not continuing the friendship. While, I should have continued to try to help him, instead, I let Eagle Feather down, thinking he was beyond help, or maybe I was just too lazy or self-absorbed, and didn’t want the responsibility. There are too many times in my life, where I’ve just chickened-out on helping someone.

The first job I got in the Denver-Boulder area was working for a materials testing lab, Boulder Physical Testing Laboratory. The lab tested concrete samples, soil/core samples, as well as steel welds. It was an extremely boring job, which required more than a considerable amount of caution. A few guys died, because of carelessness. It was a job which required a college degree, but barely paid above minimum wage. The lab used an extremely powerful radiation source to x-ray through the steel welds, to determine if they were sound, without cracks, and without any trapped pockets of air. A bad or weak weld can result in disaster, especially for large boilers. The radiation we used had to be strong enough to penetrate over one inch of solid steel, so human bone and other tissues of the body were comparatively nothing, and highly vulnerable, if exposed to that powerful radioactive source.

For appearances sake, and to be able to cash my weekly paychecks, I opened a small bank account. In those days, banks weren’t computerized, so you never had a long wait to get to a cashier. Moreover, they didn’t send reports to the IRS, as they do now. Now days, because bank tellers have to look-up and log everything into the computer, the transactions take several times longer, designed benefit the bank’s accounting and the IRS. I still heeded the old Jewish commander’s advice, which I’d received as a child living in Spain, so the little I was able to save, I put into gold and silver, and stored with my Mexico City gold in my dirt bank beneath the aforementioned exterior stairs of the apartment building. The gold and silver I purchased from a gold exchange on main street in downtown Boulder. I pocketed decent profits due to the Hunt brothers manipulation of the silver market. I didn’t ride it all the way to its peak, selling about three quarters of the way up the rise, hence I made quite a bit. Sometimes, some of my friends, and a few of the people at the lab would ask me to make silver and gold purchases for them. They could have done it themselves, but since I regularly did business at the gold and silver exchange, they’d ask me to buy and sell for them. Most of the people, who worked in the exchange wore guns. An ex-marine, with a semiautomatic twelve gauge, watched everything that went on in the exchange through a two-way mirror. That guy was one of Eagle Feather’s dexedrine customers. He never had to shoot the gun in the exchange. Eagle Feather’s supplier frequently hired him to guard his larger drug shipments. A man who can kill for money is rarely without work.

In those days, I’d read the Wall Street Journal on a regular basis, looking for clues (price of the dollar and other currencies, S&P 500 (electronic and certain manufacturing stocks), trade imbalances, other commodities, central banks, etc.) about things, which might affect the metals market. Nowadays, the controlling factors behind the various markets are almost indecipherable, with a lot of psychology stirred in. Looking back, I think most of my gains in the metals market were just luck. Now, with the internet, and screening programs, there’s almost too much information. But even with the multifaceted internet, and various algorithms, making smart investments can often be a complete crap shoot, and a lot like gambling. Wealthy men, far removed from public awareness, pull the financial strings on the stocks and commodities. Moreover, with the CIA tapping into the financial dealings of virtually every major company on earth, the opportunity for them to control the markets is certainly their’s for the taking. In addition, with the computational resources of NSA, nothing would stop them from creating their own legitimate bank, complete with digital accounts brimming with money; hence, no more need for the taxpayer money. Sure, eventually gold has to be matched with currency, but that’s not an impossible tasking. Part of this is owing to the fact that some gold transactions can be stacked (bundled together) so that profits can be made by careful timing.

While sipping some black coffee from a paper cup, and perusing the gold coin collector values listed on, what was called, ‘the gray sheet,’ I was trying to decide about making a purchase of an early twentieth century five dollar gold piece, currently for sale at the gold exchange. I was about to voluntarily pass-up on an opportunity to become extremely wealthy. Instead of quickly getting rich, I foolishly did the ‘right’ thing, which made no sense, because I was yet years away, from acquiring any form of conscience.

The opportunity began, when an old man came boldly striding into the exchange, just as the noon bell was ringing loudly, signaling that the gold exchange was closed one hour for lunch. The six foot four lanky elderly gentleman, was dressed like a forties farmer, wearing farmer-john denim overalls, a red plaid woolen shirt, buttoned up to the top, and laced-up-to-the-top super dirty scuffed-up Redwing boots. Ninety percent of his hair was long gone, and the remaining sporadic strands, were long, wispy, white, and multi-directional. As he turned toward the counter, the bell stopped ringing. He walked up to the highly attractive clerk, who was just fixing to leave for her noon meal, and loudly spoke his demand.

“I wanna sell some gold, young lady!”

“Certainly, sir, but we’ve just closed for lunch. We’ll be open again in just one hour.” The smiling blond clerk gently replied, pointing at the ticking Union Pacific wall clock, which had once hung on the wall of the old Denver train station.

“Young lady, I wanna sell it, now!” The old man belligerently insisted.

“I’m sorry, sir. You’ll have to wait an hour, and then we’ll be happy to help you with your gold.”

“I’m not in the mood to wait!” The old farmer pushed.

“Sorry, sir…” She stated, as she walked away.

The cantankerous old fellow was none too happy about having to wait an hour to sell his gold, so I walked over to ask him what exactly it was in the way of gold, that he wanted to sell. After giving me a suspicious unfriendly glare, he spoke.

“What will you give me for this?” He asked as his watery blue eyes opened a bit too wide, as he pulled out his wallet from his pocket.

From his look of uncertainty, I sensed the elderly gentleman was completely out of his depth. It wasn’t senility; he just didn’t know how to go about doing what he was trying to do. He’d asked the question, as he slid a twenty dollar gold piece out of his open, well worn, thin shiny leather wallet. The shiny gold coin came to rest in his large cracked and well calloused palm, for me to take and examine it. God, that wedding ring on his finger is almost worn clean through. Being always on the look-out for counterfeit collector gold, I took the coin and inspected it closely, but it was indeed genuine. The coin was an 1863 twenty dollar Double Eagle gold piece in excellent, if not near mint, at least what is now considered MS 65, maybe better! It was not a cheap coin. Wonder where he got this?

The coin had been made during the civil war, and it made me momentarily think of the immense strain, which Lincoln had to have operated under. He was a genius, who seemed to exist best without sleep, as well as when sick. Perchance, exhaustion somehow inspired him. When Lincoln was president, security was extremely lacks. He often walked the streets, and frequently rode, without a protection team, in an open carriage around the capital, stopping at stores and restaurants, and talking with people outside on the street, even during the war. Of course you can’t think of Lincoln, without a thought of John Wilkes Booth, and as a result, I then experienced a small flashback concerning the racist serial killer in the park, and the two murdered young black men. The effect was nothing more than my heart pounding, a little sweat, and a memory of the rifle muzzle, Joseph’s face, the flash of the weapon in the bush, the two bodies lying in the street, etc.

The coin was so valuable, and so financially exciting, I was having disconnected thoughts. The old man had seen my lapse of attention. He asked me, if I was okay. But, I was better than okay, I was flooded with adrenaline with the memories of Joseph Paul Franklin. At the time, I knew the collector coin had to be worth a lot, but didn’t know its exact value. All I had to do was to look it up in the gray sheet, clutched in my fingers, but I didn’t want to tip my hand, for if the old man caught on to the fact that the gray paper gave the coin’s real worth, I’d obviously lose my advantage.

“Well sir, it says, right here on the coin, that it’s worth twenty dollars.” I jokingly answered, trying to feel him out.

“I know it’s got to be worth more than that, son.” He responded, squinting at me this time, and nodding his head.

This old man has got not clue one, as to what it’s worth. The way he said it, with a slightly flat affect, told me the old farmer had no idea what the coin was actually worth. The twenty dollar gold-piece was practically mine for the taking.

So, I said, “I’ve got to admit, you’re right, sir. I’ll give you forty for it. That’s twice face value. That’s a good deal and it’s as high as I can go on this coin. What do you say?”

“Seems fair to me. It’s a deal, son!” The old man responded, without the slightest hesitation, and he even smiled. There’s no fool like an old fool.

Old age, corporations, and our government, are all so unforgiving. Writing this now, I live in a small town, barely outside of Mobile. There’s a community boat dock near my house on a river. While watching the boats being loaded and unloaded, a police car showed-up at the dock. Two cops got out, and began to roughly search an old black man in his late seventies. The aged man often hangs-out at the docks, hoping to receive tips for helping the fishermen to load and unload their boats, cars, and trucks. He smokes a briar pipe, which allowed me to see that most of his teeth were just brown stubs. While he never complained about his teeth, frequently, I’d heard him complain about severe pain in his lumbar region and legs. The cops arrested him for buying pain pills. The pharmaceutical companies make sure that the addicts get their pills, whereas legitimate doctors are so afraid to prescribe that the clinically needy often get arrested for stuff like that… big companies making money.

The old man’s agreement to sell the twenty dollar gold-piece had made me again inspect the coin for its authenticity, but I was certain it was legit, so I paid him. Instantly, the ill-informed aged man seemed pleased, but not nearly as much as I was. While I maintained a poker face, inside I was jumping for joy. But then, the old man said something that really got my attention!

“You want to buy some more of those, son? I got more in the car.”

Holy shit! He’s got more! His long multi-directional crooked white wiry eyebrows were raised, just awaiting my response. A few of his eyebrow hairs were so long, they made me think that perhaps a nest of albino daddy-long-legs spiders lived in his eyebrows.

“You’ve got more of these same twenty dollar pieces?” I asked, fingering the heavy gold coin, while my heart leaped with anticipation, and I was doing my best to appear calm and matter-of-fact.

“Sure do, son. Right out front, in the back of my Chevy. Got a whole big sac of them. Come on out, and take a look-see, for yourself.” He said, as he headed for the exit, and I cheerfully followed; again, examining the gold coin for authenticity, but as stated it turned-out to be genuine.

This is too good to be true! Parked next to the curb was a weather beaten 1963 Chevy Biscayne, a big wide low rectangular box of a car. The paint job looked as if the car had been driven through a huge sandblaster, since extensive areas had no paint, just the shiny base metal gleamed brightly in the sun. This made me assume that he likely lived somewhere out on the nearby dry desert region, where there was a lot of wind, and had no garage, so the sand had effectively sanded-off the car’s paint. The Colorado desert was an extension of the Sonora desert of northern Mexico, which I’d driven through twice, but without the cacti.

In the front passenger seat, sat what was probably his wife. The thin little woman sat straight up, stared straight ahead, and looked a little sandblasted herself. Her snow white hair was pulled straight back into a tight perfect bun, and her dress literally had the high collar of the early nineteen hundreds or late eighteen hundreds, with the countless tiny cloth covered buttons running down the front. She looks like she just stepped-out of some time machine. The dress material was covered in white embroidery and the carefully tailored edge ran clean-up to where the neck transitioned into the head. She looked like, what you might imagine the preacher’s wife looked like in the old TV series, Gunsmoke. At one time, it was my favorite show. Every show began with Marshall Dillon fighting a duel in the street… adrenaline right from the jump to better secure the viewer.

The wife didn’t seem too friendly, but then I figured it was a fairly safe bet that they were from a stanch religious sect. There were some polygamists, who lived along a desert canyon with a small creek, to the south-west, just across the border in Utah. They belonged to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As the old man and I walked passed her, she never so much as turned her head, but continued to stare straight ahead out the windshield. Glancing through the passenger window, I saw her hands were folded, one on top of the other, in her lap. He’s probably a polygamist. She could be sick, and he’s selling the gold for her medical treatment. The couple had to be in their late eighties, maybe even early nineties. The tall man reached down and opened the backdoor, behind his wife, and with a slow flip of his open palm, motioned to indicate a large very dusty canvas bank bag, which sat on the floor, directly behind his wife. Apparently, the guy used his own form of dirt banking, only with the canvas bag, rather than a jar, and probably hiding it inside some structure like between some hay bales in a barn, up in some tresses; or perhaps, he hid the sack amongst some canyon rocks, rather than burying it under the ground. The canvas would have probably rotted, if it had been buried in the ground.

“There ya go, son… have a look in that bag, there. Them are all twenty dollar gold pieces, sonny. Every one is good as gold. Ha, Ha,…Ya ain’t gotta worry about them, none.” He joked.

Where’d he get these? Maybe his dad or grandpa was a bank robber. Surveying the contents of the big sack, it seemed that there were roughly one thousand of the twenty dollars gold pieces of various years and mint marks, and all in near perfect condition. All the coins were the same, twenty dollar gold pieces, with a woman on the front and an eagle with a shield on the reverse. The most recent coin, I could find, was 1906, and the earliest was 1854. Evidently, the gold coins had been hidden away for a long time. Momentarily, hefting the sack, it was somewhere around sixty pounds. At forty dollars apiece, that was about $40,000. Just about what I had taped around my waist. If each was actually worth at least $1000, then the bag was worth at least $640,000! This old couple has no idea what these Double Eagles are worth! In today’s money that was about $2,150,000 to $3,600,000!

Buying the twenty dollar gold pieces would certainly have been easy money, and I still wonder what direction my life would have taken had I bought the sack. I could have done the deal right there, on the sidewalk and just walked away, sack-in-hand. However, the old couple looked desperately poor, so I tied-up the canvas sack, left it there on the car floor, then closed the car’s back door, and asked the old man to walk back inside the exchange with me, giving him the impression I was going to give him the money, once inside the building, so he followed me. Instead, I grabbed another new gray sheet out of the rack on the wall, and showed him how to look-up the value of each of his coins, by condition, year, and mint mark. When the old man saw how much the coin, I’d bought from him, was actually worth, he blew a cork. No good deed goes unpunished.

“You fooled me. You stole my coin, you thief! You’re a crook! Give me my gold back!” He bellowed. This old guy is an idiot, I could have bought them all.

The old man screamed this loud enough that everyone in the metal exchange suddenly turned to look at me. Holy Shit! All these people think I stole from this old man! They were all looking at me crosseyed! I had to do something to save face. At first, I started to walk out of the exchange, but I then thought of the ancient woman waiting in the car, and how she was stuck with this overbearing old halfwit. I’ll bet her life is horrible with this stubborn bastard. In the process of clearing my name, I was hopefully helping her. I spoke-up loud enough for all to hear, in hopes of quelling my glaring condemning audience. Though you may find it hard to believe, sometimes the best way to effectively deal with someone, who irrationally shouts at you, is to shout back at them, at the same volume they used, simply because they grew-up in families, who communicated that way; consequently, it creates an instant bonding and a weird form of respect. With people like that, if you try to be reasonable, they take it as weakness.

“Look, you fooled yourself, old man, and I paid what you agreed to. You got that? I paid you what you had agreed to! Nobody stole anything! You were foolish, so give me a break! (At this point, I then lowered my voice, so people wouldn’t overhear what I was saying, and I stepped closer to the old man.) Besides, I could have bought more of your coins, with the all the money I have on me. Everyone else in this room would have taken you to the damn cleaners, and bought your whole sack of gold. But, if you give me a chance, I can help you out, so that you make the most money from that bag of gold, you’ve still got in your car. That gold can change your life, but you’ve got to be careful.”

At that point I barely opened my shirt and showed him one of the bundles of hundreds, but in such a way the others on the exchange floor couldn’t see what I was doing. The old man stared at the money, then looked back in my face. Oddly enough, money has a way of commanding respect, usually among folks with limited cognitive abilities.

“Nevertheless, I’m not selling the one coin back to you. That’s what my lesson will cost you. And believe you me, you’re getting a deal.”

Even though I’d lowered my voice, it was obvious that the exchange was clearly interested in what was happening between the old man and I, but by then, no one still seemed convinced that I’d actually stolen the old man’s gold; at least, I wasn’t getting any more evil looks. The old guy had calmed down, considerably. Thank God!

“You’d better be glad that I’m not with the IRS or the police and asking you questions about where you got that big sack of gold, and you not even knowing what it’s worth. I hate to have to tell you this, but you’re not equipped, when it comes to this kind of dealing, sir. And when the exchange opens, if you show them that bag of gold, they will be asking you about where you got it, and calling the authorities. Soon after that, there’s a good chance the cops will be all over you, also wanting proof of where you got the gold. If you can’t prove where you got it, they take it, and good luck getting it back. Then of course, the IRS will be climbing be up your ass, with a microscope, looking to lay claim to as many of those coins as they can. If you’ve got any brains left in your old skull, only sell a few of the gold coins at a time, two, three, four, or five of them, at most, and only do it once a week. Do it quietly and discreetly, and go to different gold exchanges. Don’t give your name or address. (Now days, you have to show ID.)There’s three gold exchanges in the city. Look em up in the yellow pages. Don’t be loud and demanding, and speak softly. Don’t park your car, so someone can get your license plate number. Don’t ever drive around with all that gold in your car, since there’s a real very good someone will rob you, so leave your wife at home, and carry a pistol, if you know how to use one. Don’t tell anyone you have it, and carry it in a big loose front coat pocket, so you can get to it quickly.” I advised.

“Alright… exactly how do I do this?” He asked, while teetering from side to side, like a little kid. I can’t believe he asked.

“After all the noise you’ve made, its best, that for today, you leave and come back in a week, or go to another exchange in the south part of the city, today. I’ll give you the address. When you come in to town to sell, don’t dress like a farmer. Just were causal clothes… wear plain city clothes, like the other guys, in here. Again, only sell a few coins at a time. That’s important! Just bring those coins you intend to sell… no more than five, preferably just three. There’s a lot of people in this city, that if they get wind of what you have, they’ll follow you home and do you harm, so always make sure that no one is following you. Whenever you sell some coins, make it clear to whomever notices you, that the few you bring are the only coins you have, but don’t engage in conversation. Just sell the few coins and leave. Don’t deposit the money in a bank! Put the cash inside a ziplock baggy, and then put in a jar with a lid that seals tight. Bury it in a place that doesn’t flood and where no one can see you burying it.” After telling him these things, I then talked to him about buying a few ten year tax-free municipal, double and triple ‘A,’ bonds, with little to no front and end load cost.

Lastly, I gave him the name of a good estate planning lawyer, assuming that he probably had kids. Once I was sure he understood, I turned and left. Never did I see him, again. You might be wondering why I’ve mentioned this little fiasco. The reason is that the run-in with the old man, may have been the first indication that something of a conscious was trying to develop in me. Granted, it was just before I was forty, but it was only the one occurrence. Had that same thing happened earlier in my life, before I’d left Acapulco, I’d have bought every gold coin, the old man had, and been glad about doing so. For years, I continued to garner a modest profit from my regular trips to the gold exchange. I made more from dealing in metals, than I did by working in the testing lab. My gold, silver, and cash I still kept buried in glass jars, under the apartment building’s exterior stairs. Some Mason jars I left buried the entire winter, until the ground thawed in the spring. The ground was just too hard, during the winter, to try to dig-up. Surprisingly, the jars hadn't broken come spring thaw. John Mason had invented the handy jars, in 1858.

At Boulder Physical Testing Labs (BPTL), we x-rayed virtually anything, which had to pass some federal of state safety regulations, involving a steel weld, especially where the strength of the weld might be a safety concern. Sometimes, the item to be x-rayed was small enough it could be shipped to the lab, like the hooks, which attach ski lift benches to the overhead cable. One day, hundreds of them arrived at the lab, piled on flatbed trucks. But if the item was too big to be brought into the lab, like a giant stationery industrial-sized ship’s boiler, we had to load-up the x-ray equipment into a BPTL pickup truck, and drive to where it was being manufactured.

The ‘source’ or the radioactive pellet used in the device employed for x-raying steel welds was iridium 192. It was stored in an eighty pound portable cylindrical lead tank, about eighteen inches tall and ten inches in diameter. The radioactive pellet (RP) was only about a half inch in diameter, but if you were exposed to said RP, even for a few seconds, odds were against your surviving the radiation poisoning. Radiation is like being shot by quadrillions of tiny bullets per second; bullets so small you can’t see them with the naked eye, not even a scanning electron microscope. Needless to say, I was scared shitless of the RP, and made every effort to avoid it, or when I had to use it, I remained heedful and ever vigilant of its’ danger.

Though I frequently used the RP, never did I receive any state-sponsored instruction, not even any formal type of in-house education. The care and use of said dangerous radioactive equipment was supplied by the two guys, that did the x-rays at the lab. They casually taught me in their spare time, while I was hanging around the lab, with nothing else to do. There was hands-on instruction, when we went out on an x-ray job. Learning to x-ray steel was sort of a learn-as-you-go thing. Often, they’d tell me how to use the RP, while we were eating lunch. My instruction was how one kid might teach another about sex… a comment here and there. Nevertheless, as it turned-out, they gave me sound scientific advice. But, I was soon to realize that even if you followed the safety regs to the T, things can still go wrong.

“You got to be careful with that shit. You don’t want to be anywhere near the RP, when you crank that deadly bitch out of the fucking canister. That RP can really fuck you up fast, Joey. You’ve got to stay on your toes, when you’re playing-around that shit.” One of the guys professionally advised me.

I’m not complaining about how I was taught; I’m just trying to give you, the reader, a glimpse of the good old days. Back then, the guys who worked with the radiation, didn’t have a formal certification, at least, not in the lab where I worked. Besides, doing the x-rays wasn’t too difficult… a few calculations, concerning the type, curvature, thickness, and density of the metals to be x-rayed to determine how many seconds the RP, should be exposed to the weld, and at how many inches away from the weld. It was pretty much just plug and chug stuff math, and then there were some simple film development procedures, not to different that your standard photographic dark room techniques.

But as I said, my educational experience was nothing like an official school: no textbooks, no tests, no certificate, no educational fee, just on the job training, a couple of graphs, and using lethal radiation. There was one minor problem with this set-up. The older man at the lab, Quincy Baker, was a diabetic and alcoholic; consequently, he was a bit forgetful, surly at times, and perpetually late for appointments. Quincy was a huge consumer of lots of sugarless gum to hide his alcohol breath, and when his eyes got red, he’d wear sunglasses. If anyone asked him why he was wearing sunglasses inside the lab, he just said that he was highly photophobic, light sensitive. The alcohol was probably helping the diabetes to destroy his brain capillaries. Hence, Kyle Henderson, the other guy, who worked with the radiation, and I, were always double checking to make sure that Quincy wasn’t somehow going to over expose us to radiation. When Quincy needed a drink, he just go in the dark room, and turn-on the ‘do not enter’ red light, then no one could come in the room, and the other photographic chemicals would mask the smell of the alcohol. He kept the bourbon in a bottle marked developer on it, but he’d drawn a happy-face on the label was a magic marker. Sometimes he’d share, but generally he was stingy. Quincy had also been Kyle’s teacher. There probably should have been formal classes, and perhaps a test, and the corresponding issuance of some kind of license. Ergo, perhaps it wasn’t exactly our fault, that we were going to soon kill someone, with that little radioactive pellet; on the other hand, it may have been suicide.

Today, classes, fees, certificates, and licenses are required for many jobs, which don’t absolutely need such things, and often the license has to be periodically renewed, and also requires costly and time consuming ‘continuing education classes.’ Moreover, the person, who teaches the CEUs also has to pay the state for their license to teach the class, and the license doesn’t test whether their level of knowledge, or their ability to teach, is adequate. Now, licenses are required for many non-dangerous jobs. These fees and licenses are simply a money grab by the state and federal governments, even the classes are a money grab, since the school has to pay for a permit, to operate. The various levels of government never get tired of taking your money… never, and the odds are that there are going to be more governmental sanctions, fees, etc., in the future. Why? Politicians love taking your money, and you probably will let them.

But back in those days, you still had to give the state lots of money toward licenses to deal in liquor or cigarettes, but to play with deadly radiation it cost nothing… no license. In 1794, Alexander Hamilton. then the secretary of the treasury, introduced the first federal excise tax on tobacco products. Tobacco seeds costs next to nothing, and so you can grow your own tobacco for personal use. If tobacco taxes get much more expensive, homegrown tobacco will probably become commonplace. What that will do to the tobacco stocks? Philip Morris International, Altria Group, British American Tobacco, Universal Corp., Vector Group, Turning Point Brands, Standard Diversified, 22nd Century Group, and Pyxus. This is the group, who promotes the hardest drug to kick, the world’s strongest addiction… nicotine!

Anyone who sells tobacco products such as cigarettes, cigars, loose pipe tobacco, chewing, snuff, etc., is required to pay the corresponding tax. In this respect the government gets rich off people’s addiction. Tax rates depend on what the tobacco product is, as well as its’ weight, packaging, etc. Currently, the tobacco and liquor licenses are through the roof, especially the liquor licenses. But remember if the governments (local county, state, federal) tax too much, they can run the related companies out of business, because people can make their own tobacco products and distill their own spirits. There are now people, who do both.

Marijuana licenses for the dispensaries, the growers, and the medical users, are extremely expensive. The only people who’ll make probably make significant money in that scenario are the state politicians. There are lots of people in various states, who have a license to buy medical marijuana from a state sponsored store, but they still purchase the illegal weed, because it is cheaper, and if they’re busted, it’s only a small fine. Those tobacco smokers, who can’t somehow quite or switch over to the e-cigarettes, possibly should consider growing their own tobacco, rolling papers, and leaf grinders, and avoid all the expense, not to mention the carcinogenic additives, which the tobacco companies like to sprinkle into the chemical mess called, ‘modern tobacco.’ Just go online and checkout eBay for tobacco seeds. There’s all kinds of seeds, even nonGMO tobacco seeds, and the most expensive are still extremely cheap. Fifteen hundred tobacco seeds cost about fifteen dollars… penny a seed… penny a plant… no tax… and lacking any additives, the natural plant is far better for your health. Just hang and dry the leaves, grind them up properly, then get some rolling papers, or buy a cheap roller machine. On the other hand, if you’re rolling cigars there’d be no need to do the grinding, just roll the leaves, with the thicker more torn-up leaves in the center (These center leaves make-up, the filler, and usually are a blend of three types of leaves. The different amounts of these three types of leaf, often accounts for the different flavors. These ‘core’ or ‘filler’ leaves must not be packed too tightly or the cigar will not ‘draw,’ nor too loosely or it may burn too fast.), the thinner more ‘stretchy’ binder leaf (some techniques use two binder leaves) is then wrapped around the filler leaves, by rolling it on a hard surface. Then, the thinnest, non perforated wrapper leaf goes on the outside. Again, this is applied by rolling the cigar. Use a little ‘tobacco glue’ on the ends to give it a finished look.

The smoker might even want to consider making tobacco eatables, as is done with marijuana, to save their lungs. There already is chewing tobacco, but it’s definitely not to be swallowed. You can buy nicotine-containing gum, but it cost a fortune, but cost practically nothing to make. The money that a smoker can save by growing their own is phenomenal, whether it’s cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, or chew.

http://sustainableseedco.com/tobacco-seeds/?gclid=CMnO0er45M0CFQIKaQodeiQJ2A

Whenever, the three of us piled into the truck and traveled somewhere to x-ray some steel, once there, it was paramount that we first cordoned-off the area with three inch wide bright yellow tape, which read in bold black letters, “CAUTION….DO NOT ENTER…RADIATION…DANGER…CAUTION…DO NOT ENTER…” repeatedly along the length of the tape. The tape looked similar to plastic crime scene tape. There were no hard and fast rules, so every job was done a little differently, especially since many metal pieces were oddly shaped. The yellow and black tape was Quincy’s idea, and I have no idea if there was an actual set of ‘written-down’ procedures, which should have been followed when using the source. Every now and then, our general lab manager might show-up on the x-ray job, and say something like, “Be careful with that shit. We don’t want to kill anybody, today, guys! Ha, ha, ha…” It crossed my mind, that it might be safer, if we required everyone to vacate the building, except for those persons doing the job, but I was the junior employee, and figured Quincy and Kyle knew what was best. No one wanted to order the plant to be temporarily shut down. Too much money might be lost; besides, we had the yellow tape.

On one memorable job, we’d driven to a huge boiler-making factory, in a neighboring state, to x-ray, of all things, a new massive custom-made ship boiler. The huge steel cylindrical container was to be shipped to the West coast and installed in some sort of naval warship, being built on the west coast, at a place called Mare Island. As usual, Quincy was trying to recover from a massive hangover. Kyle had a bad cold and was high on decongestants, antihistamines, and codeine cough syrup.They both told me that it was my job to stay quite, and just pay close attention, learn, but most of all, keep out of their way.

“All you need to do Joeyyy is to proootect yourself, by stayiiing behind that there steel I-beam, right over yooonder, till it’sss time to crank the source, back in.” Inebriated, Kyle slurred this out.

Once at the factory, we climbed inside the enormous steel boiler tank. Quincy and Kyle went to work, placing unexposed film strips, all along the weld on the curved interior wall of the boiler, where the large curved plates of half-inch steel had been welded together. As ordered, I just watched. The diameter of the tank was about twelve feet across, with about a thirty-eight foot circumference, which meant about thirty-eight separate x-rays, per circumferential weld. That meant that the dangerous radioactive source would have to be exposed, cranked-out (There was actually a small hand-crank on the side of the container.), thirty-eight times, for each circular weld. The film strips were placed inside long flat flexible canvas envelope-like sleeves, lined with a thin smooth plastic so you could easily and smoothly side-in the film. The film envelopes had already been prepared in the lab’s darkroom, before we’d left to go to the steel mill, with its boiler factory. The canvas sleeves, containing the unexposed film, were about fourteen inches long and four inches wide, and were held to the inside steel wall, by good-sized hand-placed rectangular magnets. The small magnets pinned the canvas sleeves to the interior wall, along the boiler’s circumferential welds. Though tedious, it was a pretty simple procedure, which required accurate record keeping.

Next, we’d position a hooded or shielded radiation exposure unit, on the outside of the tank. This was also affixed to the steel tank by a larger more powerful magnet. The heavy exposure hood was attached by a wing nut to a steel rod, and the rod was attached to the strong mounting magnet. Loosening the wing nut, the distance from the tank to the exposure hood could be adjusted, by sliding the hood up or down along the rod. After each x-ray, they’d quickly crank the radioactive source back into the lead container, then reposition the exposure unit, to once again irradiate through the next foot long section of the weld, until they had circumnavigated the entire circular tank weld, then they’d move-on to the next set of thirty-eight foot circular welds. Occasionally, they had to ask the plant to use its powerful overhead lift-crane to reposition the monster tank, so they could properly position the RP-hood over the next section of welds, and thereby complete the x-raying all the boiler’s welds.

The hooded RP (radioactive pellet) exposure unit was connected to the aforementioned lead cylinder, by a thirty or forty foot long, somewhat flexible, ‘semi-shielded’ steel tube. As stated, in order to move the radioactive pellet from the lead cylinder to the open exposure-hood, which was positioned facing the weld, one only had to turn a small hand crank on the lead cylinder, and then the hot treacherous radioactive pellet would travel from the lead cylinder, through the long flexible tubing, and out into the exposure hood, to then shine it’s deadly rays onto, and through, the thick steel weld of the boiler, thereby exposing the film inside the canvas envelops.

Once the film had been thusly exposed, it could later be developed, and you could see if there were flaws in the weld, and if there were flaws, we could pinpoint exactly where they were located, so that area could be welded, again, and then retested, until it was deemed safe. To the trained radiographer, a subtle visible variation in photo might indicate a flaw in the weld. Most of the time, the flaws were cracks, but every now and then air would be trapped in the weld.

Simple chalk marks in the shape of arrows and numbers were left on the inside and outside of the tank wall, incase we later needed to come back and locate the bad weld, for repair. Because of the cost of redoing a weld, there was often some debate, but an exploding boiler could be more than just deadly. For some, as long as it is not their life, or a life in their family, the value of human life is small indeed.

The length of time that you left the RP out in the exposure-hood depended on the thickness of the steel. Since the steel was a half inch thick in the wall of the boiler that day, we had to leave the pellet out for quite a few seconds to increase the amount of radiation, penetrating the weld. As mentioned, you wanted to be nowhere near the front of the exposure hood and somewhere far behind it, whenever the ‘hot’ radioactive source was out, shining through the steel weld. In addition, we would find some way to get behind an object made of concrete and steel: a thick support column, a heavy piece of machinery/equipment, or maybe a thick concrete wall. Oddly enough, we never wore radiation badges, so no one was ever quite sure just how much radiation we’d received! We simply worked as fast as we could, to get the job done, before someone complained that we were taking too long If we slowed the delivery of the boiler, dollars would be lost, and heads would roll.

Life had certainly changed for me. Not long ago, I’d been selling drugs in Mexico City, then I’d been in sunny warm careful-free Acapulco, screwing Mia on the beach after two a.m., while running a once-a-week fun-filled illegal tourist business, and making great money. And then, there I was suddenly playing with deadly radiation, living in a one room dump, with a bathroom down the hall, while making barely above minimum wage, living in freezing cold, but extremely scenic, Colorado. At least, I was no longer suffering with childhood depression. I’d gotten my wish of living a simple life without any suicidal depression. Having a life with an important purpose just wasn’t a priority, then! For too much of my life, I’ve just wanted to get through it, while avoiding misery.

At the steel mill that day, I finally was allowed to help. I rapidly turned the hand crank, exposing the deadly radioactive source, in the exposure hood, then as ordered by Quincy and Kyle, I sprinted further back, and stood behind a steel I-beam support for added protection from the lethal radiation. It was Quincy’s job to watch the stopwatch, then he was to walk forward and crank the RP (radioactive pellet) back in. By having one person crank the source out and a different person crank it back in, we shared and therefore reduced our individual expose to the radiation. The pellet had only been out for a couple of seconds, when some mystery guy, who evidently worked at the mill, walked directly toward the source. Peeking around the edge of the steel support, I saw the mystery man walking directly toward the boiler. Certainly, he’ll stop when he sees the yellow and black warning tape. I pulled my head back behind the I-beam and yelled.

“Hey, stop! Don’t walk past the tape! Turn around! Leave, now! Get back! Danger! Stop! Stop! Stop!”

The man was one of the boiler factory workers, a tall gray haired guy, probably in his late fifties in blue overalls, and a pale blue work shirt. I’d later learn that he’d just started working in the boiler portion of the steel factory, and normally he’d worked on smaller specialty pieces. Once again, I quickly peeked around the support column, I saw that he’d walked right-up to the yellow tape, and without hesitating, he ducked under it, and headed straight toward the radioactive pellet. Oh shit! We were all yelling at the top of our lungs. Many of the other workers had joined in, yelling at the careless man. I had no doubt that all the loud yelling would instantly stop him.

“Stop! No! Stop!…Turn around, man! Don’t go in there! Get away! What the fuck you doing, man? Stop! Stop! Get the fuck outta there! Stop! Get back! Hey, you! Stop! Get back!” The building echoed with all our shouts, but the man seemed unfazed.

Holy shit, what’s wrong with that guy? He’s going to die! Is him deaf? Quincy has got to move and crank that source back in! Why isn’t Quincy running? Maybe he’s too fucked-up with his hangover.

As it turned out, the poor factory worker was truly stone deft, and Quincy, who was by far the closest to the crank was indeed distracted with his hangover. He’d heard all the yelling, but wrongly assumed that everyone, who was yelling, was upset about something else happening in the factory, and so Quincy didn’t even bother to lookout from his hiding place. He was content to just sit there, and continue to watch the second hand, until he was supposed to run out and crank-in the source. Kyle was literally nodding-out, because of his codeine cough syrup. Besides, he knew Quincy was in control. I was the furtherest away, and had my orders to stay put. I’d done my job by cranking the source out and getting far away. Nonetheless, I came out from behind the I-beam and sprinted for the crank handle.

The older deaf factory worker evidently couldn’t hear any of us yelling, nor did he bother to read what was boldly printed on the yellow tape. He just looked a bit angry, lifted the tape, and had walked right up to the hot radioactive source, stopped about two feet away from it, while it was jutting out from the side of the boiler. Without the slightest hesitation, he’d quickly leaned in closer. Twisting his neck, he looked straight at the inside of the hood, staring directly at the radioactive source for a good five or six-seconds. His eyes and forehead were only a few inches from the source. He even had placed his hand on top of the support rod. Holy Shit! He’s a dead man! At least he looks old, so his kids are probably grown.

I dove in for the crank handle and turned for all I was worth, but knew I was too late. The poor man had just kept gazing directly at the deadly RP, and appeared to be wondering what he was looking at. Where is Quincy? He should have been here cranking the source back in. The radiation had literally cooking the man’s face and frontal lobes, giving him a radioactive frontal lobotomy. Not realizing what happened Quincy finally emerged, but looked at me, blinking and wondering why I had returned to the radiation container.

Having been that close to the pellet, the factory worker definitely got way more than the 200 rads, generally required to kill an individual. He probably got thousands of rads, straight to his eyes and brain. The deaf-man had simply turned away and walked off, as though nothing had happened. Dead man walking… A few seconds later, he again lifted the yellow and black tape, and proceeded to open some office door, and casually disappear inside. Even though I was the one who’d reacted and dashed for the handle, I had reacted much too slowly, and knew that the man had received a lethal dose. I turned to look at Kyle and Quincy and they both were standing where they’d been hiding, with their mouths open, but saying nothing. Who’s gonna tell the guy he’s going to die? Not me… That old man is soon going to be in serious pain! For days, I debated whether or not I could have gotten to the crank and retracted the RP, before the man got overexposed. Thank God for morphine!

Initially, I had believed that the yellow and black warning tape would stop him, then that our yelling would turn him around. After that lengthy close-up exposure, the deaf man was truly a ‘dead man walking,’ and it wasn’t going to be an easy painless death. Most likely for a few hours, he’d think he was okay, and then he’ll be sick, and die over a week or two. I wondered if he had known what he was doing, and his oversight was perhaps suicide. Even if he was deaf, how did he ignore the yellow tape? God, can things change unexpectedly? If it was suicide, why not an overdose on drugs or die from a bullet? Insurance, maybe… A lawsuit for his family…

My two older colleagues and I were simply stunned and waited for someone to say something. We all knew that severe radiation poisoning was fatal, and the death preceded by a constellation of unpleasant health issues. He had gotten a tremendous dose, and right to the face and head. Maybe the giant dose to the brain was actually a good thing, in that it allowed him to die more quickly, with less suffering. I wondered if his brain swelled? If so, it may have quickly rendered him unconscious. Maybe they put him in a chemically induced coma. Maybe the docs removed part of his skull to relieve the blindingly painful pressure. But whatever happened, the impending death was undeniable. At the time, I thought that I’d just want the docs to overdose me on morphine and phenobarbital, for a brief life of painful suffering isn’t worth the living. Of course, for some reason, which only he or she fully understands, God will allow countless people to suffer for all of eternity.

My two senior lab co-workers told me to just keep quiet, and pack up our gear, so I did as instructed, and left the serious medical, death, and liability issues to them, and the lab to iron-out with the factory administrators, the guy’s family, and the inevitable self-serving attorneys. I left work early that day, sat on the back stairs of my cheap apartment building with a pint of Beam, and two cans of coke. That night there was a dead body wearing coveralls in the back of the DC-3, and there was my smiling Dad. I saw the dead man’s head hanging outside the loading door. It looked like a basketball. His whole head has swelled, not just his brain! Then, the head actually turned into an orange basketball. With that mysterious change, in the body, Dad spoke-up.

“Let’s get this thing in the air. There’s plenty of fuel on board, Joey. Some people just know, when it’s their time. And Joey, what are you doing anyway? That job is terrible. Can’t you get a better one? Go back to school, maybe. You were a better drug dealer than a lab worker.”

“I really didn’t know what to do in the steel mill. To be honest, I hate school, but it’s always good to see you, Dad. Thanks for helping with the body disposal.”

“Good to see you too, son.” God! He was he said it was good to see me! Dad answered, with an ear to ear smile, as he never flashed at me in real life; the smile was reserved for Mom and his friends.

That pleasant realization in the dream caused me to wake-up. I should never have soaped those school windows.About six days later, one of the managers at the lab informed me that the unfortunate deaf factory worker had died. At the lab, there was no further discussion about the dead deaf guy, nor did his demise appear in the Daily Camera, Boulder’s newspaper. Each morning, I’d pick-up a paper and check the obituaries, but the guy’s death never showed-up. Moreover, the radiation accident never appeared in the local section. In all the clutter of human folly, what’s one obituary… one human death? On the more kindly end of the humane spectrum might be John Donne, and on the other end is Mao. Years later, I wrote my Dad’s obituary, his impressive life was a tough one to put to paper. I’m sure that most of my Dad’s greatest accomplishments remain classified. In writing his obituary, I realized I’d hardly known him. All those years, I’d never made a valid effort to get to know Dad; worse yet, I hadn’t done anything to earn his respect, and then it was clearly too late.

You now know everything that I know about the sad little radiation accident at the steel factory. No official, no attorney, no investigator, or anyone ever came to question me, nor did anyone question the other two lab guys, that I worked with that day. It was a bit like how the cops had never called me, after the shooting of the two black guys by the park. Not once, did I hear Quincy and Kyle discuss that day at the steel mill. It was like it didn't happen. Often, I’ve felt like I was an invisible spectator. I have frequently wondered what the factory man’s death must have been like, how much he suffered, what his family thought, and whether they were fairly compensated. Or for that matter, did he even have a family. The lab made it clear that they weren’t up for discussing the ‘accident.’

Occasionally, I’d think about trying to find the two white girls, who had been with the two young black men that night in the park, or the family of the dead factory worker, but I didn’t bother. Moreover, I hardly discussed the demise of Knifeman with Esteban, and never talked about what happened the night I used the table leg in MC. I never mentioned the death of the two Spanish teens in the little yellow car, until many years later, and I’ve only told a few people about Evangeline’s death. Just mentioning her would depress me.

Perchance, death is just too final for my fail ego to comfortably wrap itself around, but in some cultures the extreme can be the norm; especially, war-worn countries. Consequently, I could never have managed being a doctor or a soldier, with all the concomitant suffering and death. My life would have been a regular three ring circus of never-ending flashbacks. While flashbacks don’t seem that unpleasant, they are tiring and quite disconcerting, but just for a minute or so. At least, that’s the way I experienced them.

About a year after I quit working at the testing lab, another x-ray crew, composed of two new men, had somehow managed to forget to crank the source back into the lead cylinder, after working at a job that day, so the radioactive pellet had actually popped out of the protective hood, and had gotten loose in the bed of the pickup truck. It was under the edge of the concrete testing equipment. The pellet was in the back of the truck for two days, as they loaded and unloaded things from the truck. Finally when they started showing signs of radiation poisoning, a search was conducted to locate the pellet, using the lab’s Geiger counter. Two weeks later, the men died miserable deaths.

The radiation work was the easiest part of the job, but certainly, it was the most dangerous. Probably it was more dangerous than selling drugs in MC, and it paid a hell of a lot less, only twenty-five cents above minimum wage. But for some reason, I found it comforting to be a hard-working respectable man. Now, I’m not so sure that I still believe in that. Perhaps the ideal job is counterfeiting. There’s still a part of me that wishes I’d learned the trade from Juan and Antonio, and crippled Guillermo, while I was still in Mexico City. The old men who counterfeited for the three black kings were great guys, and I have a strong feeling that one of my old scientist friends, also made a few bucks a a forger.

By far, the hardest and most miserable part of working at BPTL was when we’d do deep ground core sampling in the icy snow-covered, windy, rocky plains of near-by, God forsaken, detestable Wyoming. Usually, our job was somewhere near the wretched towns of Casper and Evansville. Whenever we worked there, the mercury usually remained below zero, and with the wind chill factored in, it was fifty below. Putt-putting along at one to five miles per hour, we’d drive off the highway, venturing out into the middle of preverbal nowhere, in a gigantic rattle-trap of an undependable ten wheel yellow rust-bucket of a truck. It was an ancient mobile drilling-rig, that the lab had picked-up on the cheap at an auction, back east. We didn’t have a GPS, so we would locate our position by shooting angles, off of various low rocky formations.

How I hated that nightmarish rusty old truck! The seats hardly had any upholstery left on the springs. Half the stuff on the God damn truck malfunctioned and constantly needed to be worked-on, and when something needed repair it always had to be done in the freezing cold. To effect the repair, often I had to take my gloves off and freeze my fingers stiff, trying to turn a wrench, install a hose, change a tire, repair a piece of wiring, etc. The ten-wheel rattle trap represented a milestone in technology failure. Whenever the pile of junk broke-down, the lab automatically assumed that we, the lab employees, were professional mechanics. Worse yet, we had to pay for the repair parts out of our own pockets; then when we got back to the lab, we had to file a request for reimbursement, submitting the various parts receipts. And remember, all that for twenty-five cents above minimum wage. The generosity and love of corporate America is near boundless!

Ninety percent of the time, the drill rig didn’t have a functional radio, in which case a breakdown out on the frozen Wyoming tundra could have been very risky, if not fatal, being tens of miles from civilization, in subzero temperatures. The junky metal monster was the rusty repudiation of dependability, and a huge frustration and near constant worry. Thirty-eight years later, I still hate that truck. I used to think about trying to buy it, just so I could blow it up. It was a gas powered truck, but the engine that powered the drilling unit was diesel. There are many dead and rotten things, which smell better than high-sulfur diesel fuel. To this day, just thinking about the smell sickens me. Thank God, diesel is now ultra-low sulfur, but one good whiff of the diesel, back then, was enough to make anyone toss their lunch. The brain interprets the smell of sulfur as the smell of decay and death, because many bacterial species, which break-down and decompose a dead body give-off sulphur compounds, and so the brain is programmed to dislike the sulfur smell and avoid it, and thereby give a wide berth to contamination by said bacteria.

The aversion to sulfur compounds is hard-wired, a genetic memory. Perhaps the smell is part of fetal dreams, since babies are born disliking the smell. Babies are born with the circuits already in place, so the infants will reject and avoid the smell of decay, the smell of bacteria, the smell of death. DNA tries to avoid death in so many ways (absit iniuria… let injury be absent), then once you’re past the age of fertility, DNA tries to kill you (postulatio damnum fatale… demands fatal injury). DNA attempts to make you survive, but only as long as you are capable of passing-on your seeds (DNA), then DNA tries to kill you, using various forms of built-in biochemical attrition.

Some scientists believe that with global warming, the dying plankton will sink to the bottom of the oceans, where the bacteria will proliferate and release huge amounts of deadly hydrogen sulfide. People living along Namibia’s desert coastline (southwest Africa) have long been familiar with the rotten egg smell that periodically emanates from the Atlantic Ocean. With an economy that is largely based on fishing, the locals are also used to seeing millions of fish die, whenever the unpleasant scent bubbles up, filling the air. The smell and the associated fish die-off are both caused by hydrogen sulfide gas, erupting from the bacteria eating the dead plants and plankton on the sea floor. The rising bubbling hydrogen sulfide gas so disrupts the surface of the water, it can be seen by satellites.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=13155

In the off chance that there was really a God, the Universal DNA Maker, I had actually prayed that the smelly rusty drilling-rig truck would self-destruct, just so the forlorn subzero job would come to a blessed end. Why I simply didn’t find another job, I haven’t a clue. Perhaps, it’s easier just to continue in the misery you know, rather than put forth the effort to find a new form of misery. On the other hand, staying in the crappy job may have been a subconsciously imposed sentence, for having been a drug dealer for so long, and for having been such a disappointment to my Dad. That idea never really dawned on me, till years had passed.

Several times I thought about torching-off the twin fuel tanks, since there were no restricting devices on the filler necks, leading into the tanks. All I would have had to do was run a long strips of cloth into the fuel tanks, wait a few minutes till the fuel climbed-up the strips of cloth, then lit them off, and sprinted for all I was worth. Likewise, I could have sabotaged the miserable yellow rusty rattle-trap, by way of two five pound bags of sugar funneled into both gas tanks, yet I never did, but I should have. I’m nearly positive that the stress of that particular job has shortened my life by a good ten years. Never again, do I want to lay eyes on the state of Wyoming. Almost everyone occasionally feels self pity, and I’m sorry to say, I generated tons of self pity, while working in vile Wyoming. It was the absolute opposite of Colorado.

In Wyoming, all I saw for miles in every direction was flat frozen snow, ice, and patches of exposed gray rocky land; usually accompanied by a leaden overcast sky… the landscape was the epitome of morbid depression. The colors on the plains of Wyoming were white and various shades of gray. The snow and ice were the white, and the sky and the few scattered flat rocky outcropping were various gloomy wavelengths of gray. On extremely cold days the snow would take on a bluish, ripply, almost corrugated appearance. The cold barren landscape offered no form of shelter, no mercy. In my limited opinion, a person who would choose to live there would have to be suffering with some sort of serious psychiatric illness, or if they weren’t initially, they soon would be. The only thing which would break the terrible monotony was an unexpected mind numbing icy-wind. While on the job, we tried to keep as much skin, as possible, covered from being exposed to the cutting wind.

The three of us would fire-up the stinky diesel engine and drill down to various specified depths to take core samples of dirt and rock. Mankind seems to never tire or drilling holes in, blasting, digging-up, sucking things out of, or covering over (asphalt and concrete), mother earth. After a few days of such drilling, staying in the world’s worst smelliest tiny motels, and drinking in the most dangerous bars in the entire solar system, we’d drive the frozen core-samples back to the lab in Boulder for analysis. The oil companies paid through the nose for those analyses. The lab got wealthy, while we, the laborers, nearly killed ourselves on those frozen plains, and were rewarded with a salary, barely above minimum wage.

All day long, out on the freezing plains, I’d carry 80 pound drill-extensions, sections of threaded drilling rod. All the while, I violently shook from the inescapable penetrating cold. Once out in the cold, at first your body and mind try to resist, to battle back the cold. Your mind tries to psychologically overcome the stress of it, but then at some point, usually after hours of shivering, you just accept the cold. In a manner of speaking, you allow the cold to enter you, like it’s your friend, and the corresponding violent shaking stops, and you suddenly feel warm, and that’s when you know you’d better leave, or die soon. The times that happened, I think I was very close to death, but just didn’t care. The beta-endorphin which blocks the discomfort of the cold, also blocks your fear of death. If that is true, dying by freezing, doesn’t seem too bad, except for the preliminary shivering.

Certain days, I’d be so cold that I’d shake the entire day. That night, we’d find a cheap diner, and eat like a small pack of wolves. The company gave us no protective garments, so I wore layers of conventional clothing, which I’d purchased in various thrift stores. One thing that seemed to help was using a plastic trash bag. I’d tear three holes in the bag, for my head, and one in each corner of the bag for my arms. First, I’d put on one layer of clothes, then put on the trash bag, then more layers on top of it, with more bags in between. It didn’t matter what it looked like, for it was all going to get covered in grease, ultra smelly diesel fuel, and snow.

Sometimes, I’d stand out on those smooth icy featureless plains in subzero weather, and just scream and stomp my cold feet, but amazingly, I never lost any fingers or toes to frost bite; though sometimes I was certain I had. I’ve often thought that a topical mixture of DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide), niacin, and catapres, might be a good preventative for frostbite. DMSO is a transdermal carrier, and the vitamin niacin and the drug catapres act to dilate blood vessels, to bring more warmth to the associated cold skin. Perhaps a thick water resistant emollient might be added to make it less apt to wash off, or it might make the mixture more effective, if used when diving in cold waters; just apply it to the skin a couple of minutes, before putting on the wetsuit. Perchance, the US Navy Seals could use it, when setting-up listening posts, swimming to and from the northern shores of Russia, close to where some sub bases are located.

My violent screaming accomplished two things: the venting of my frustration, and the resultant adrenaline seemed to help warm my body. I did such things, while I was still in the battling phase or shivering phase of dealing with the cold, before I’d just give into it. But the screams, into the cutting winds, made me feel trivial and insignificant. Albert Einstein theory of relativity, the idea of infinity, death, advanced calculus, the Hubble space telescope, and the frozen plains of Wyoming can all reduce you to near nothingness. Sometimes I’d shake most of the day. It was my body’s feeble effort to fight the cold, but all the while that I shook, I realized that all I had to do was to relax and accept the cold and the suffering would stop. Whenever I was freezing, this realization was there like an old friend, waiting to welcome me home… just stop shaking, and there would be no more suffering, especially if I took off some clothing. Those bleak freezing plains were a far cry from the beautiful warm sunny beaches of Acapulco. Even so, the cold was nothing compared to my post alcohol depression. I took pride in the fact that I was doing honest work, not dealing drugs, or hustling tourists in an illegal business, not doing something my Dad would object to. At that point in my life, I’d call home about every three months, and Mom would make Dad talk with me, but it was clear he could have cared less. His speaking with me was just to appease Mom. Everything he said was brief and obligatory, such as:

“You getting enough to eat?”

“How’s the job going?”

“Staying out of trouble?”

‘Behave yourself.”

“Let me hand you (the phone) back to Mom. Good luck.”

Once I’d soaped those school windows many years prior, my memories of him remained my only pleasant touchstone. He had formally detached himself from raising me. After the whipping he gave me for soaping those windows, he never touched me again, and barely spoke to me, only when Mom pushed the issue. When I had gotten married, he came to the wedding as my best man, but didn’t shake my hand, or even pat me on the back. He just stood in his appointed spot, and left when it was over.

On the desolate plains, the bitter freezing gusts would crack and cut into every bit of exposed skin. After a while our lips became so stiff, we talked like two-year olds, who used very short sentences. Our jaws and lips lost their mobility. Speech became a matter of only moving the tongue to pronounce words. At times, we’d get so exhausted and brain dead, we didn’t even use whole sentences. We were like three two-year olds, operating a drilling-rig on windy frozen plains of depressing Wyoming.

As the freezing day progressed, we spoke in one or two words phrases. For example, a sentence like, “Don’t forget to make that notation in the logbook,” might be rephrased into just the utterance, “book.” “Bring another drill rod,” became just, “rod.” “Its time to pack it up and go,” became a raised thumb pointed back over the shoulder. Of course, that was our favorite sign. I continually worried that one day the junky truck wouldn’t start, and leave us stranded, exhausted, and freezing, many miles from help, but luckily the old junk-heap always fired-up, and brought us back to civilization, back to food, a hot shower, and of course, the bar. The hot shower was tricky, because the hot water would make my fingers and toes ache and burn, so I had to begin my shower with room-temperature water, then slowly and gradually I’d add hot.

More often than not, our lips became severely chapped, and we’d have several deep cracks splitting the lips, with the lower lip getting the most and the worst cracks. Blood would periodically issue from those cracks and coat our teeth and run down our chins, and sometimes it would trickle down underneath the Adam’s apple. But if you were outside, the blood would quickly freeze, and small crystals of snow would form like a white dusty haze, on the frozen red streaks, so they looked like fuzzy red worms. Our young faces would become numb and wooden, and we looked like very serious old men.

Once in a while, the cold got so bad, we only communicated with glances and gestures, and we’d notice, in ourselves and each other, what we called, ‘cold-confusion,’ where we’d have trouble thinking and remembering. Now days, with global warming, you have to go to the northern Canada, Siberia, or the radioactive Novaya Zemlya Archipelago to experience that degree of cold. The wind usually came from the Northwest, and made the cold torturous. We’d do our best to position the drill rig so that it blocked the wind. But often the wind would change direction, and we couldn’t reposition, since we’d already stated drilling. When I get back to Boulder, I’m quitting. Still, I didn’t quit the job. Once I was back in Boulder, and I was standing in my down-the-hall shower, which never ran out of hot water, Wyoming would only seem like a distant nightmare.

Besides the bleak raw-edged environment, Wyoming was a amalgamation of oil rigs, bars, hookers, roughnecks, drillers, trailer parks, and cheap motels, with the world’s smallest rooms. There were a few drawbacks, as well. Throughout the state, there were lots of murders on a fairly regular basis. Just what you’d expect with a plethora of horny roughnecks, an excessive number of bars, with a lot of alcohol stirred in. While I never saw a murder there, I actually saw a lot of bad beatings. Roughnecks didn’t get that moniker for nothing. Per capita, Wyoming was the murder capital of the United States!

One murder still stands-out in my mind. A speed-freak roughneck spent the night with a hooker. In the morning, he went out and bought them breakfast, which he took back to the motel. Before eating breakfast with the girl, he took a shower and when he got-out, the hooker had eaten the both his and her breakfast. The roughneck choked her to death for stealing his food. He then called the police and reported his crime. When the police asked why he killed her, brilliant roughneck simply explain.

“The bitch ate my breakfast!”

That one liner was the talk of the bars for some time. In my humble opinion, that entire state is a much better nuclear test site than Nevada. Instead of using Nevada’s Dreamland Nuclear Test Site, just northwest of Las Vegas, why not move it a little further north, and rename it Wyoming’s Nightmare Nuclear Test Site. At least, the massive detonations and the intense radiation might warm-up the miserably cold place… melt some of that ice and snow.

As if working in wintertime subzero wasn’t bad enough, to balance things out, or perhaps to add insult to injury, the lab would have us working in summertime temperatures, which hovered around one hundred five to one hundred ten degrees, above zero! Boulder Physical Testing Lab tested most of the concrete and steel that was used in the construction of a giant power plant out in the central desert region of southern Utah. If I was forced to choose, I’d say I handled the extreme heat of the desert better than the icy winds of Wyoming; but frankly, I hated both extreme environments. Such drastic temperature extremes make one appreciate homeostasis, and to long for seventy degrees. Neither of the two locations were what you’d consider for a family vacation spot.

There’s something to be said for that saying, about ‘all things in moderation,’ but I’ve always had trouble with that concept. There was one particularly blisteringly hot day, which I unquestionably enjoyed; one that was indelibly and pharmacologically burned into my aged memory. Except for saunas and steam-rooms, it was the hottest environment, I’ve ever experienced. At times, I still take time to just sit and remember that glorious day. Nothing monumental was accomplished, during that day on the desert, except I came to realize a few hidden things about my limitations.

￼

MY BRAIN WAKES-UP

A marked change in my life began early one morning, while the sun was just shy of the horizon. It was a life-changing encounter. The man was a different and harder version of the little man at the Chapultepec Museum. In most respects, it was just your average commonplace meet-by-chance, but it later proved to be a pivotal moment, where my life made an unexpectedly blessed detour down the path less taken. Before leaving Colorado for the concrete pour in the scorching hot desert of southern Utah, I had gone to eat breakfast and swill a couple mugs of jet-powered coffee, at the popular Bill and Alice’s Cafe. If I recall correctly, the heavily painted white cinderblock diner was owned by a great guy named, Bill O’Henry. Word was that it had first opened in the mid-forties, right before I made an appearance into this world.

In the mid to late 1970s at Bill and Alice’s, three eggs over-easy, hash browns, a thick slice of delicious tender ham, with an unlimited cup of rich coffee was only a buck and a half; two bucks with the tip. It was the ‘best grease,’ west of the Mississippi, and my favorite kind of breakfast food. A dollar was actually worth something, back then. And the cafe’s friendly and comely waitresses were worth the extra driving distance. For one month, I dated one of their waitresses, a rather hot and spicy Native American, a kind and very sexy Apache. One of the restaurant’s patrons was unhappy that she’d supposedly made a mistake on his order, and he made the error of calling her a ‘fucking bitch.’ She promptly picked-up his steak knife and stabbed him in his left shoulder. He went right to the hospital, and she went right to the Boulder jail via a cop car. Because of an outstanding warrant in Arizona, she ended-up being deported, and went away to serve five to ten there, so that was the end of our relationship. Whenever I was with her, I never sensed that she had a vicious side.

Her crime in Arizona had been burning her boyfriend’s trailer down, because she caught him with another woman. At least her family lived close to the prison, in Florence, Arizona. Naming a prison, with the same name as the prepossessing historical Italian city, seems so perverted… Florence Arizona Prison. She was actually a wonderful loving person, but she couldn’t tolerate rudeness, and there was an overactive extra large tangle of neurons, which transacted into sudden violence. Her father had been a mean alcoholic, and she’d stabbed him too, but in the face. She was aiming for his eye, but he moved, and only received a three inch lesion along his left cheek. I meant him at the hearing. The older Indian didn’t seem to hold it against her. In her inability to tolerate callousness, she was similar to my daughter’s mother. Women who easily resort to violence have usually been abused early in life. Where men are more apt to be born violent, women have usually had it forced on them.

From the cafe’s ceiling, hung western style chandeliers, several old fashioned dry gray unvarnished wooden wagon wheels, each with six electric chimney lights. An extremely bad artist, who was probably the frugal restaurant owner himself, had hand-painted comical cowboy scenes on the off-white walls, but no one ate there for the chandeliers or the wall art. The white and dark green checkerboard linoleum floor tiles were always dingy, yet the floor always smelled like Pine-Sol, the smell of cleanliness and poverty. Gourmet critics avoided the cafe, like it was a dumpster swarming with flies. Though I frequently ate there, I never got sick. The reason being, that the kitchen was always kept impeccably clean.

The diner was open 24-7, and even at that early hours, the cafe was crowded, partly because some of the stoned and/or tripping space-set, was still awake from the night before, greatly enjoying the cheap food in their chemically altered state. There is often a huge cultural difference in those people, who choose to go to sleep till after sunrise, and those who get-up before the sunrise. Consequently, early mornings at the eatery were a cross-cultural experience; stoned hippies soon to enter the dreamworld, mingling the city’s blue and white collar workers, freshly arisen, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, and ready to issue forth into the work-a-day world. Each person was proud to be a member of their respective group. At Bill and Alice’s, the two group existed without dispute.

The restaurant was a mingling spot for left-wing creative night-owls, and the strong-willed accomplished right-wing conservatives. Each group was fully convinced the other was insane, yet at the diner they all seemed to get along. As mentioned, that morning of the trip to the desert, my life would change, so soon I’d make a pronounced detour. Walking through the entrance, I saw that the diner was packed with diners, so there were no vacant tables or booths. At first, I just stood inside the front door surveying the room, hoping someone was leaving. However, at one particular table with four chairs, sat only an uncommonly studious looking gentleman. Considering the distance that I’d have to be driving to the job, I didn’t have time to wait for a vacancy. I needed to eat fast and get on the road.

“Would you mind, if I share this table with you, sir? The place is packed.” I hurriedly asked the stranger, who had the entire table to himself.

Saying nothing and without looking-up, the lean stranger instead, merely gestured with his hand, indicating for me to take the vacant seat across from him. He had a long lean face, round gold rimmed John Lennon spectacles, a conventional haircut, a plain plaid button-down shirt, and a short grayish blond goatee. Unlike John Lennon, nothing appeared outwardly friendly about the man. The front of his neck was hairy, with hairs sticking-up out of his shirt front. He appeared Nordic by ancestry, sinewy, without an ounce of fat on his five foot nine frame.

Thanking him, I sat-down. Eager to eat and to get a cup of coffee, I scanned the room for an available waitress. He was a little older than I, and was intently reading Xeroxed copies of what I’d later learn were scientific articles. His intense scrutiny of the articles was as if his very life depended on finding some lifesaving nugget of info. But of course, medicine is supposed to be just that… lifesaving… a very serious matter, indeed. It’s hard to get more serious than life and death, yet there are those few, who love to generate death on a grand scale, solely to increase their profit: war industries, pharmaceuticals companies, the illegal drug cartels, the AMA, the FDA, coal industries, big oil, big tobacco, big alcohol, etc. You’ve got to admire the efforts psychopaths put forth to cover their true natures.

Needing to hurry, to get on the road, for going to the pending concrete pour, I kept raising my hand and waving, trying to secure the waitress’s attention. Finally she came to the table, order-pad in hand, and I requested my usual. As she departed, the older stranger sitting across the table from me, immediately asked a rather unexpected question, yet he did this still without making eye contact. He spoke the words were as if he was reading his question off the Xerox paper, which he was still gazing at.

“So, what are you interested in?” He asked. What a strange question…

This question took me a little off guard, so momentarily I hesitated. This caused him to looked up, and to stare me in the eye, and raise his eyebrows, as if to say, ‘Well, hurry-up with my fucking answer. Everyone knows what they’re interested in!’ But this wasn’t the typical question used for initiating an early morning conversation, with a stranger. Normally people ask, “How ya do’n?” or “What do you do for a living?” But, I took him literally, since it was clear he meant it that way, so I attempted to answer, accordingly. This guy is one serious dude.

“Women, good novels, and a little whiskey, and that is about it. I don’t really care for weed, or drugs, anymore… got tired of being stoned and stupid, and I hate the accompanying paranoia.” I answered shrugging my shoulders. Nothing like a little invasive personal honesty, to start the day.

Correspondingly, my answer made me think of the dancer I was then dating at the dance department of the nearby University. She was an extremely attractive woman, half Arab and half Japanese, with huge dark almond eyes probably inherited from her Arab father. She’d gotten the long straight jet black hair from her Japanese mother, only it was thicker, like you see in Arab women. Her body was lean and graceful, partially owing to her genes and partially owing to years of dancing. Beauty commonly blossoms, when the parents come from distant parts of geography. Few people ever consider the effects that advanced technology as had on gene mixing, and by technology, I mean: planes, ships, cars, and trains. I’m not going to be able to see her for three days, because of this concrete pour. One hundred years ago, the number of people, who mated and successfully produced offspring, from distant locations on the earth was but a tiny fraction of one percent of what it is today. The melting pot is now more like a high speed blender.

Forcefully exhaling his disapproval, it was clear the stranger didn’t like my answer about women, novels, and whiskey. This time he placed the Xerox papers down on the table, grabbed the opposite edges of the table with both hands, and firmly spoke. What’s with this serious guy?

“That isn’t what I meant. Listen, you look like a reasonably intelligent person. Besides sex, novels, and drinking, don’t you have some worthy intellectual interest, something you care about… something you wonder about… something you find conceptually captivating… something worth devoting your life to?” He pressed on, clearly expressing exasperation with me and my first answer.

He was indeed a bit pushy like the little man at the Chapultepec Museum in Mexico City. This guy is basically telling me I’m wasting my life, and he’s right. He was causing me to think of my alcohol detox at age twelve, when I’d given-up on taking life seriously, and I just wanted to lead an uneventful life, without depression. He’s telling me to get my life back on track, to live with a serious purpose. The stranger posed this question, partially shaming me in the process. How embarrassing! I should have known he wasn’t interested in my drinking and womanizing. All this was transpiring, without the advantage of my morning coffee, and it was killing me. I was hoping that he would he just leave me alone, until I could get some caffeine, onboard. Maybe, I should get the hell out of here, and just grab a burger, along the way. The guy was a true curiosity. He had a flinty hard edge, a potentially dangerous aspect to his bearing; yet overtly, he had remained serene and nonthreatening. This guy is no one to fool with.

He was one of those well intended, yet overly serious people, and it was easy to tell that he could go from zero to sixty in half a second. This guy is not your run-of-the-mill conversationalist. He knows that every watch spring with eventually unwind. Though he smelled of honesty, I could see the dancing demons just behind his highly intelligent blue eyes… the eyes of wisdom born of combat. Maybe he’s outgrown the demons, maybe not. Something told me, that he’d killed more than his share. He was clearly waiting for a thoughtful honest response, and I only wanted a cup of coffee, so I said nothing, stalled for time, and thought. It’s too early for such a question, but he was kind enough to let me sit, here. Rambling around in my sleepy cranium, I searched hither and yawn, for an answer to his question, but my misfiring lazy early morning gray matter wasn’t giving up any intellectual tidbits.

Again, I flashed on the quaint little professor at the Chapultepec Museum, and how he had intensely expressed such profound intellectual interest in the archeology, relating to the ancient Indians of the Americas, and there I was, without my caffeine and without a scholarly investment to my name… none what-so-ever. I’d read lots of books, but they were all only passing interests; mostly novels for entertainment sake; albeit some novels are loaded with various types of interesting knowledge, with insight into things like: politics, religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, history, science, etc. Yet thus far, nothing had succeeded in riveting me, and I had failed to find any lasting interest. Most of my life, I was merely content to live without depression and boredom… no grand purpose, that is until that day at the cafe. The stranger shamed me into thinking about my lack of purpose.

Indeed, in the presence of that stranger, I was slightly ashamed. I’ve wasted too many years with dope, drinking, and fooling around with women. The leathery faced stranger was forcing me to uncomfortably stick my head up-through the cognitive firmament, too early in the morning, and without the benefit of caffeine, coursing through my cerebral capillaries. For a few moments, I felt like a bit of a fumbling dolt. It’s almost like I believe I’m incapable of clear thought, without the caffeinated brown brew. The waitress was returning with the coffee. Maybe, I should tell him I’m interested in caffeine. The pushy stranger let-out a slightly impatient sign, because of my lack of a prompt response, still he waited, without further comment.

He’s disgusted with me. Fuck him, anyway. At that point, I’d decided to give-up and ignore him, so I stopped trying to come-up with an answer. Then, for some unknown reason, when I quite trying all together, I remembered a piece of a dream, that I’d had the night before. In the dream, I was riding-up in an elevator, inside an extremely high skyscraper. The elevator unexpectedly shot right up through the top floor of the building, then its door opened, and it was somehow left teetering on the very edge of the skyscraper’s roof. When the elevator’s door opened, I was looking over the edge, straight down at some major city, about five thousand of feet below. In the dream, I was initially worried that the elevator was about to fall off the roof, but then I realized, that worse yet, the entire building was toppling over. This caused me to jump out the elevator door. After a fairly terrifying and lengthy plunge, I flipped over and hit the street flat on my back. I just laid there, but miraculously I was still alive and felt okay. And, I hadn’t awakened. Most such dreams will cause the dreamer to awaken before hitting the ground. Lying there, a long shiny black limousine pulled-up next to me. A uniformed chauffeur got out and opened the back door. Out of the door, stepped a tall shapely woman, dressed all in black, complete with a black hat, black veil, black heels, and dark nylons. It was hard to see her face through the veil, and that bothered me. She walked over and looked down at me, then checked her thin gold ladies wrist watch, as if she suddenly realized that she was late to an appointment. She turned back to the chauffeur, and spoke. She’s got a great body, and those stockings are hot. I wish I could see her face. Her rhyming parting words had awoken me that morning, not the alarm clock.

“Well, Joey’s still alive! Let’s go, Clive.” She said this snapping her long fingers. Clive?

Still awaiting my traditional breakfast, I was momentarily aware of how strange the process of dreaming seemed to be, and how little was understood about the mysterious phenomenon. Everyone dreams, but so little is known about how it happens. And then, there was all those people, who for many years had been desperately attempting to attribute meaning to the events and characters within the dreams. The terrifying elevator dream had caused me to reflect on how temporary life is, and that I only had so much time, until the sand ran out, and that I hadn’t really done anything of significance with my life. Then soon thereafter, I was sitting in a cafe with a complete stranger, who had just made me realize how I had wasted so much of my life.

All those variables collided: the stranger’s question, my skyscraper dream with the mysterious woman, the enigma of dreaming, the temporary nature of life, and my life’s lack of purpose. From that collision of thoughts an ambition sputtered to life, without any deliberate effort or thought, a sudden minor epiphany, which would lend some direction to my life. I was indeed interested in how the human brain worked, but at that moment I was interested in how the dreams from the night before had actually occurred… how the brain’s circuitry literally produced dreaming. How are dreams carried-out in the brain? Besides, what could be more intellectual than the essence of intellect itself… the human brain? Without those brain cells intellect doesn’t exist… the very essence of intellect and interest was in fact nothing more than the gray mush. Even though I fully realized that I was about to utter a rather grandiose answer, I blurted it out, anyway.

“I’m interested in how the human brain works, in particular, how it produces dreams… what parts of the brain dream and how it works. I’d also like to know why we dream. There’s got to be a reason, or maybe several reasons, since virtually everyone dreams. It must serve some good evolutionary purpose. Why do our brains do that crazy stuff every night? But I’m afraid that my brain isn’t working too well, without my morning coffee, so that’s about the best sleepy semi-desperate comeback, I can give you, at least for a spur-of-the-moment answer.”

The stranger widely opened his gold rimmed eyes, and slightly smiled. Oddly enough and completely unbeknownst to me, I was seated in front of a true man of systematic study, a man who possessed several Ph.D.s, all in various fields of science. In a way, this encounter was not too different from how I’d accidentally run into and been given a tour of the Chapultepec Museum, by the little professor. But there was a major difference, for where the little man in the museum had shown me what intellectual passion sounded like, the stranger in the diner had almost demanded for me look inward, to find my ‘own’ intellectual passion.

The older gentleman, stopped questioning me and nodded a couple of times. He believes me. Maybe, I believe me. My sudden answer about the brain was certainly better than telling him not to bug me, and seemed to please him, and I think I was marginally serious. I prayed he would then just leave me the fuck alone, until I had consumed at least half the coffee, just placed in front of me. One more tough question, without coffee, and my main frame might have crashed. I never imagined, that because of that stranger’s single question, brain research would become my vocation; that I would become a Ph.D., a post-doc, and a neuroscientist. My post-doc would be done in brain receptor studies. While to some, such endeavors may sound impressive, that particular post-doc was actually boring, and of little practical value. Matter of factly, the stranger responded to my statement.

“In that case, let me write-down some scientific references, you should read. It’ll just take a moment. Some people think that Eccles is the best neuroresearcher ever born, but for my money, the Frenchman, Jouvet is utterly amazing. He’s discovered most of the stuff about how dreaming occurs in the brain. The man is absolutely the world’s foremost authority on the neurophysiology of dreaming.”

Oneirology is not the study of what dreams mean, that’s dream interpretation. Oneirology is the neurophysiology of dreams: the parts of the brain, their chemistry, their interactions, and why they synchronize, the way they do, as well as where the components of the dream are stored and displayed.; stuff like the people, the props, and the plot. In the months that followed, I’d realize that Eccles was responsible for unraveling much of the basics of how nerve cells function, whereas Michel Valentin Marcel Jouvet discovered larger answers, concerning human consciousness, and the nature of dreaming. Spencer S. Eccles may have a major medical library named after himself, in Salt Lake City, which I may have visited more than a few times.

After jotting-down some things, the stranger in the cafe then tore-off a sheet from his long yellow legal pad. In a very deliberate fashion, he’d written for about three minutes, then carefully folded, and handed me, the sheet of paper. It contained six scientific references. By then, I was thankfully sipping my coffee. Taking the paper, I thanked him. Pointing at the paper, which was then in my hand, he spoke, again.

“Those are some of my favorite brain research studies, dealing with sleep and dreaming. Most of them were done by Michel Jouvet, who as I mentioned, is probably the world’s foremost brain researcher, though too few realize that. Who the hell knows stuff like this off the top of their head? Too much politics in science… I think you’ll find them interesting. If you’re truly curious about how the brain works, you should read them. Just go to the medical library, up there at the university. If you have any trouble finding the articles, ask the medical librarian for help. She’s the best, and plenty easy on your eyes.” The stranger said this as if he was bored, but raised his eyebrows, when he mentioned the librarian.

Through the years, I would come to realize that the raising of the eyebrows was this detached gentleman’s primary, if not only, facial expression. He was by-in-large without emotion, much as was my Dad. The dangerous looking dispassionate stranger had jotted-down six cutting-edge scientific research articles, each reference included: the authors, the title of the article, the name of the scientific journal, the journal’s volume, the page numbers, as well as the year of publication. He had performed this feat completely from memory, just as my dear maternal Grandpa might have done, with his legendary eidetic memory.

Thanking the peculiar stranger, I folded the yellow paper a few times, and stuffed it into the right front pocket of my work jeans, while seriously doubting the authenticity of what the man had written. I was uncertain about the guy, who seemed like a real mixed bag. I couldn’t decide if he was honest, or just bullshitting me. Maybe he’s a schizophrenic. He’s so over-the-top serious. Maybe he’s been through some heavy shit! At last, my extremely heavy ceramic plate of ham and eggs arrived, and I shoveled them down, while telling the stranger about the upcoming concrete pour. Ever since military school, I ate like a starving dog. Hurried eating is a bad habit I’ve now passed to my child. Chewing your food thoroughly is indeed important for many healthy digestive reasons.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/07/31/chewing-foods.aspx

Thanking him again, for sharing his table, and for the scribbled information, I then left the diner, climbed in the old Ford, and hit the road for the long drive to the desert region of southern Utah. Perhaps, that was the moment when I thought about actually trying to make my life count for something. It was a few days, until I’d returned to Boulder, yet several weeks, before I would again see the unique older stranger. I hadn’t bothered to ask his name, but neither had he asked mine. To say the least, it had been an extremely unusual encounter… not your average run of the mill breakfast chit-chat. The way he had talked and behaved carried a sense of urgency, as if to imply that every moment counted, that life is a short pithy proposition. In that respect, he made me think of my Dad, yet the two men were vastly different in other ways; nevertheless, both were combat vets. Nobody appreciates the temporary nature of life, quite like a combat vet.

The first day at the job-site, was the planning day for the huge concrete pour, to begin the next morning. It was just a check-in day, a meet and greet, and we all reviewed each of our proposed procedures. Later around six p.m., I drove five minutes to the closest one-horse town to rent a cheap dirty cinderblock motel room. I ate showered, downed some bourbon, and got right to bed, since the giant concrete pour would be starting early the next morning and I needed the sleep.

However, that night in my tiny motel room, the uncomfortable twin bed with its thin lumpy mattress, together with the noisy air-conditioning vent blowing directly on my head all night, allowed for little sleep. The next morning at the job site, while sitting inside the work shack, waiting for the monster concrete pour to begin, I could tell that I was coming down with a devastating head cold. It was one of those illnesses that comes on fast, a foregone conclusion that it was going to be severe, and take days to recover from. Already, the corresponding headache, raw sore throat, fatigue, sweating fever, and persistent irritating cough had presented. The temperature that day was forecasted to be over one hundred degrees, so I knew I was in for a seriously tough time.

Needing something to deal with the symptoms, I asked Ralph, one of my new coworkers, if he had anything that I could take for my cold. I was hoping that he had something like an aspirin, or some over-the-counter cold medicine. The soaring desert temperature, was definitely going to exacerbate my illness, and in short order, incapacitate me, yet the lab was depending on me to carry-out critical the many concrete tests that day. My job was entirely necessary to the pouring of the immense slab, a concrete slab on which would rest three huge electrical generators. Ralph smiled, and told me I didn’t look well. My only saving grace that day, is that I would have a ‘helper,’ to assist me, but the helper was a labor temp, who knew nothing about concrete testing, and would be of little real help.

“There’s a good chance that if I don’t get something, to help with this cold, I’m going to crash and burn on the job.” I complained to Ralph.

“Yeah man! I’ve got something that’ll help you with that cold, Joey. This shit is the best cold medicine you can get. It must be an antibiotic of some sort. It’ll definitely cure your ills. You’ll be feeing fine, in no time flat. But look man, I’ve gotta really hurry, since my job is just about to start. The medicine is in my truck. I’ll be right back, and bring it to you. Hang tight, I’ll throw it to you, as I drive by, cuz I got no time to stop. So just wait right here, and I’ll toss it out the truck window to you, as I zoom by.”

“Thanks Ralph! I’ll be standing here, waiting for you!” I answered. Maybe it’s a strong antihistamine.He sounds so positive that it’ll help me.

Ralph ran-off to get his yellow company pickup truck, as I waited outside the building for his return. My helper was in my company truck, waiting for me. The engine was running and I had to be on the job in less than two minutes. My little job was absolutely critical that day. Hundreds of concrete trucks were coming to the pour, and I had to test the concrete on each on of them, before they could add their concrete to the immense slab. In a way, I was the weakest point in the entire project. If I couldn’t work that day, the many trucks would have lost their loads of concrete, and I was the only people, who could do the testing! The trucks had come from a huge concrete plant over, one hundred miles away. I had to go to work, or die trying!

The right thing to do and the hard thing to do are usually the same.

Life, the Truth, and Being Free by Steve Maraboli

Ralph had to drive right past me on the way to his part of the job, in an area called, ‘the dirt dump.’ He was testing the dirt compaction on the newly installed private roads and parking lots, for the power plant. The entire project spanned-out over hundreds of acres. Being in a hurry, he didn’t even slow down, but flew past me at roughly fifty miles an hour. As he did so, he tossed something small out the window, in my direction, and yelled instructions.

“Here you go, Joey. That’ll fix you right-up. Hurry and take it right now with some water. Drink lots of water, today. Gotta go, man!”

“Thanks, Ralph.” I yelled back at Ralph’s fast fading vehicle.

Picking up the pharmaceutically wrapped pill off the ground, I noticed that it was incased in a clear sanitary stiff plastic bubble, backed by a small piece of hard paper, with the usual extremely small printing on the back. This pill is probably clean and safe, since it’s a legitimate pharmaceutical, and well sealed. The concrete pour was right on the edge of starting, so I didn’t have the time to read the microscopic print, les I show-up late to the all-important concrete pour. Trusting in my fellow employee, I just quickly tore it open, worked-up a bunch of spit, and was unpleasantly surprised to find that my sore throat made the swallowing fairly painful. Then, I jumped in my assigned truck, with my helper, and drove-out to my spot on the job site. Running a fever, I was not looking forward to the day’s scorching work, and was praying that my illness would not become too debilitating, but there was no doubt that my ailment was going to worsen in the forthcoming desert heat, albeit I knew that was just wishful thinking. Later, I found-out from my co-worker, that the pill he’d given me, was something called Desoxyn, a special sustained-release preparation of pure pharmaceutical-grade ass-kicking, eye-popping methamphetamine, trade named Desoxyn!

https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm

Within a few minutes, I felt absolutely fan-fucking-tastic! My worrisome cold seemed to have magically vanished, never to return. The pill had actually appeared to have cured, what clearly was an extremely aggressive respiratory illness. That’s a great cold pill, a near instant cure for the common cold! The desert heat climbed to 110 degrees that day, and thanks to the meth, the high temperatures didn’t appear to faze me. Instead, the horribly oppressive heat literally seemed to energize me, and as it turned-out, in was one of the best days of my wasted life.

Never before had I found hard physical labor to be so enjoyable. It wasn’t until much later that afternoon, when Ralph dropped-by the concrete pour, that I was told about the type of pill. But by then, I had indeed figured it was some type of glorious speed. The good thing about Desoxyn was that it was sustained release, allowing me to get through the entire twelve hour work day, without the massive bolus effect that a simple tablet would have produced. A tablet or capsule of pure speed, without being sustained release, and would have dropped me like a rock around the sixth to eighth hour mark, which would have made the last six to four hours of the job nearly impossible to deal with. The sustained release was perfect for the long twelve hour concrete pour. No doubt, Ralph had realized this fact, and it may have also had something to do with his high-spirited personality. He had probably given me the only pill, which could have gotten me through that long scorching hot laborious day. Certainly, no physician would have prescribed the drug. Whatever a doctor would have given me, would not have halted the cold in its’ tracks, ergo the critical job would have been sacrificed, but the doctor’s script would have been safer for me.

The glaringly bright blazing hot sun, which normally would have been completely exhausting, instead seemed to make things appear brighter, sharper, and wonderfully vivid. The blistering heat and corresponding sweat, was actually comforting. Out there on the flat dry desert, I felt like I could see for miles and found myself studying the distant surrounding terrain, while simultaneously performing my job. Moreover, I kept an eye on all the workers, and their various jobs, and so the entire job, with its hundreds of workers, seemed like a single moving entity. On occasion, I’d spot a rabbit or a curious distant coyote, as well as the random soaring hawk. My olfaction was also more sharply attuned to the surrounding work environment, with brief whiffs of odor from the desert, the smells of sage and creosote. The hot arduous job was more like a delightful vacation.

The fatigue due to the lack of sleep and the onset of illness had vanished. The hard physical labor, which generally would have been debilitating, was like a deep healing workout for my muscles. The climbing temperatures and demanding drudgery, which typically would have pounded me into mind-numbing oblivion, was invigorating. Odd as this may sound, that particular meth episode on the desert eventually helped to configure a small change in certain air combat procedures in the United States military.

Throughout the long twelve hour work day, my partner and I tested the heavy gray slurry from hundreds of concrete trucks, with their giant rotating drums. A mentioned, the monstrous concrete slab would form the base-platform for three humongous electric generators. It was about 40 feet thick, 250 feet long and 100 feet wide, filled with countless tons of slightly rusty crisscrossing steel rebar. Truckload, after truckload, of concrete had to be tested, throughout the long twelve hour day, and that was my job. As truck after truck dumped their approved concrete load into the developing slab, men holding giant vibrating tools made sure the concrete was uniform.

With each newly arriving truck, I’d run to the truck fill a wheelbarrow full of concrete, then grabbing the two handles, I’d lift and run the load back to our testing table, to conduct the necessary tests, before that truckload could be added to the slab. The set-up for my test equipment was about 50 yards, from where I procured the concrete sample from every arriving truck. Each wheelbarrow load weighed about 150 pounds, and I would run back-and-forth for the entire twelve hour work day, pushing the heavy wheelbarrow load of concrete in the 110 degree weather; load after load, with absolutely no break, and yet I fully enjoyed it, and without apparent fatigue.

More amazingly, my muscles weren’t sore the next day. Normally, when you perform an exercise or physical labor to which your body is unaccustomed there’s a corresponding soreness the following day. This minor fact has made me wonder if perhaps meth might expedite the body’s ability to rid itself of painful lactic acid. (The biochemical waste product said to cause muscle soreness, due to excessive exercise or work.) No doubt there are many peripheral effects to methamphetamine, which have not been studied, and since it’s now an illegal drug, they probably never will be properly studied, but I must agree that meth should never be tried, for the hell-of-it, simply because the danger of addiction is far too great.

Each load of concrete seemed to make me stronger, more alert, and more eager to continue. The drug literally galvanized me to the job and everything else going on around me. Savoring the heat and intense physical labor, I refused to allow my helper to assist me, and did all the work by myself, for the entire twelve hour day. Not only did I haul all the concrete for the various tests, but I also did all the manual testing procedures. Some of this testing required math computations and recording, which were more easily done in my head, than with the calculator, yet without giving the computations the slightest thought; my brain just automatically did them, involuntarily. It was shocking how the mind just did what was needed, without any form of willful effort. This drug is amazing! My brain would plug the measurements into the formulas and carryout the required calculations, all the while I’d be working and carrying on a conversation with my helper. Furthermore, I could look at any object, like a hard hat, a shovel, a table, a pencil, etc. and my mind would estimate the various measurements, and instantly perform the analytical geometry to mathematically describe each item in three dimensions, without having to give it the slightest thought, and again, without trying… no effort!

Sometimes, I’d look at something, and the corresponding formulae seemed to just appear, without any effort. My brain would invoke various math formulae, which I had long forgotten, but evidently they’d remained hidden in my brain, just out of reach of my ego, and feeble consciousness, but which were easily reacquired, while on meth. The formulae had been learned eleven or twelve years prior, in the analytical geometry and calculus classes, in my military high school. Through-out all this exertion, I noticed my heart rate didn’t seem to accelerate too much, and despite all the labor, I felt comfortable and relaxed. The meth effects were nothing short of staggering, and provided another great memory for my life’s scrapbook. The concrete and steel workers, were all nearly passing out from the hard labor in day’s scorching heat, so apparently they weren’t on speed. After a while, the guys began to take bets on how long I’d last, since my drug-delivery co-worker, Ralph, had somehow spread the word about what he’d given me for my cold. Each time I ran to sample the gray mud from a newly arrived truck, I’d drink some water from the job’s giant orange plastic water barrel, but due to the massive sweating, I still hardly peed that day. Every couple of hours, I’d also down a pink salt tablet. The salt tablets were standard on job sites in those days.

There was no lunch break, since drying concrete waits for no man, and once the concrete pour started, it had to continue till it was done and the massive slab complete.To stop and restart would have set-up a large fracture in the slab, and considering the vibrations, which the massive generators would produce, the slab had to be dense and uniform throughout. The formidable mind-altering drug made me aware of how much exertion I could endure, if it was ever required in an emergency situation. At the end of work, I had memorized all the results for every one of the hundreds of tests, I’d run that day, and so I understood what it was like to be my maternal grandpa with the photographic memory. It was well past sundown, when I got off work, and had worked just over twelve hours.

The desert sunset that evening was a spellbinding blend of coral, pink, rose, gold, and orange. For some reason had made me think of going west to California, the state in which my Dad had spent his teenage years, while his life was yet more carefree, before the iron hand of war had laid-hold to him, and gruelingly squeezed-out every drop of laughter. The sunset, also made me think of Acapulco. The most amazing sunset I ever witnessed occurred while skydiving, about fifteen years later, as described in the next book to follow (book nine, in the chapter entitled, Jumping the Whirlwind). The drug had also made me think about the man in the diner, who’d asked me if I had any intellectual interest, and as a result, I’d given some thought to the process of dreaming, while high on the meth.

That evening after the exhausting concrete pour, back at my tiny road-side cinder block motel room, I sat down on the side of the uncomfortable lumpy little bed. My pants cuffs and shoes were fully encased in a thick coating of semi-dry concrete, and the rest of me was covered in white powdery cement dust, giving me something of a ghost-like appearance. To untie my boot laces, I would have to flex my ankles to break the dried and drying concrete. But for a moment, I just sat on the side of the bed. Desperately, I needed to get a shower, put on some clean clothes, go out and grab some food, and then come back to the room, brush my teeth, and get to bed to be ready for the job, the next morning. Judging from my fatigue, it was obvious that the stimulating effects of meth were fast fading. It wouldn’t be long, before I’d need to sleep.

Determined to remain focused and not go to sleep, before getting a shower and some food, I allowed myself to relax, only for an instant. While sitting on the side of the bed, my head briefly bobbed-down once, just one quick nod, lasting for what seemed to be a half-second. Then, I hurriedly stood-up, undressed, showered, pulled on clean clothes, and walked outside to get some dinner at a near-by all night diner, before coming back to go to get a good night’s sleep. Yet stepping outside of my room, I immediately sensed something was amiss. The air and the light from the sky were all wrong. The breeze was far too cool and the sun was all wrong, being just below the eastern horizon; instead of being below the western horizon. For a moment, I was confused. Shockingly, I then suddenly realized that it was the next morning, and that I’d slept the entire night sitting-up on the side of the bed, completely covered in concrete! What I had thought was but a brief little downward nod of my head was in fact an entire night’s sleep.

Nevertheless, my muscles felt fine… no soreness. Flabbergasted, I had evidently awoken at just the right time to get cleaned-up, and go eat some breakfast, before driving back to the construction site, for the next day’s work! My brain’s built-in subconscious alarm clock was apparently working fine. It was as if yesterday’s meth-mind had strategically set my biological clock so I could precisely begin the next day! That again made me think about the guy at the cafe and his scientific articles on sleep and dreaming. The night’s sleep had only seemed like a second, but had in fact been eight hours, one of very few full night sleeps, I’ve ever experienced, and I did it, while sitting up, on the side of the bed, fully dressed.

Apparently the snoozing, while sitting up on the side of the bed, isn’t all that bad for you, since as mentioned I wasn’t even slightly sore or stiff. At least, since I wasn’t laying down on the bed, but sitting on the foot of the bed, I wasn’t sitting under the blowing air-conditioning vent. Working the next day was just the usual eight hour routine, without all the heavy lifting. Oddly enough, I wasn’t wiped-out, but I wasn’t nearly as inspired, nor as industrious, as the previous day, and while I missed the glorious feeling, still, I didn’t take another pill, even though it was offered. Never again, would I do meth, but never would I forget its profound effects, and those memories would later prove to be useful.

For all I’d been through that previous day, I felt remarkably calm and content… peaceful. One might think that I would have been drained and lethargic, but I was merely back to my usual self, but without the aforementioned respiratory illness and relatively calm. I wonder how many drug addicts wish that they could be back to their usual self, like they’d been, before they ever tried the stuff? I had no desire for more drug. Physiologically, most of addiction is a relatively simple thing, not enough dopamine in the brain. As previously stated, low brain dopamine (hence, dysfunctional dopaminergic neurons) is in fact craving, and that’s the reason an addict is an addict. If a person tends to have low dopamine to begin with, they are going to be more prone to addiction. Perhaps, this is why addiction has a strong genetic component to it. Dopamine typically suppresses feelings like anxiety, and stimulates feelings of wellbeing, so low dopamine means plenty of anxiety and no feeling of well being… simply put, misery. Perhaps the brain levels of dopamine closely correspond to one’s love of life, one’s desire to live. Depending on a person’s endogenous dopamine levels alcohol and other euphoric drugs, may quickly or slowly lead to addiction, for without a certain level of dopamine life isn’t worth the living. If a person is too low on dopamine, they can’t possibly muster the motivation to quit their addiction. The nerve cells which represent motivation are dopamine contains cells, since dopamine also accounts for motivation; low dopamine means the person has no motivation. So to ask an addict to get motivated and quit is a bit like asking a ninety year old man to run a four minute mile. He may like the idea, but no matter how hard they train, no matter how hard they try, no matter how much they want to succeed, they will not run a four minute mile, and it’s foolish to expect it. And if that’s true, which it is, then how do we justify locking away the addicts, for being addicts? Being born with dopaminergic neurons, which are low in dopamine to begin with predisposes the person to addiction. Drug, or alcohol, or nicotine-induced dopamine reduction may mean a life of misery without the required drug, or alcohol, or nicotine. Wait long enough and sometimes dopamine levels without the drug, or alcohol, or nicotine may elevate to a satisfactory levels, so there is no craving/anxiety; but sometimes, if not often, they will not reach functional levels, and so the misery and the craving won’t; plus, motivation/willpower will not allow the person to abstain! Too many of these folks have been made into addicts by their physicians prescribing adderall, xanax, pain pills, etc. Often, the doctor at some inexact point, choses to stop prescribing, and the patient is left with their addiction, their misery, and no hope for a normal happy life. If you’ve a modicum of intelligence, please try to appreciate this.

Only God knows how many brain cells, I’d killed the previous day on meth, not to mention my childhood alcoholism. Yet because of that meth experience, whatever cells still survived certainly had a better understanding of my potential mental and physical capabilities, but for each and every neuropharmacological benefit, there is an equal and opposite detriment, a price to be paid. After years of brain research and countless hours reading about the brain, I am convinced there is no free lunch, when it comes to taking mind altering drugs, and firmly believe that the best brain chemistry is that provided by a healthy food, fun, exercise, work, study, sex, and proper sleep, and if you’ve just got to do an addictive drug, make it was mild as possible, e.g., coffee for a stimulant, and Benadryl (diphenhydramine) for a relaxant or sleep, unless you have problems with side effects. Alcohol is far too toxic to the body to be concerned safe, not even in moderation. I think that thing about one glass of wine being good for a person is pure horsepucky.

While meth was extremely useful for my job that day, and an exceptionally interesting experience, it was certainly not worth the risk of addiction. Moreover, it was overkill. An analogy might be like using a formula one race car, to drive to the corner store. Perchance, the only exception to using this potent drug might be if you are so bone-tired that you can’t continue, while you’re in a deadly serious life-threatening situation, i.e., combat; then and only then, might meth be reasonably used to temporarily revive your mental and physical capabilities; at least long enough to allow you to extricate yourself from whatever the dangerous threat might be. Only then, as an attempt to save your life, might it be wise to take methamphetamine, otherwise you run the risk of: addiction, brain damage, prison, mental illness, etc. Drugs like adderall, meth, benzedrine, dexedrine, and ritalin may overkill for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), in the vast majority of cases, where they’ve been prescribed. Milder less addictive stimulants, at conservative dosages, might be considered, since there may be a correlation between schizophrenia, depression, childhood violence/murder, and the prescribing of those stronger stimulants.

Two days later, back in the Boulder-Denver area, I was standing in a local laundry mat, cleaning out the pockets of my grungy jeans, and preparing to throw them in the washer, when I found the yellow piece of paper, with the six scientific references, which the stranger had given me in Bill and Alice’s Cafe. The note was filthy with concrete dust, but the hand written brain research articles, about sleep and dreaming, were still legible, and caused me to wonder if the six articles were indeed legitimate, or just the scribblings of a weird over serious stranger.

As mentioned, I was then dating a professional dancer (modern, jazz, and ballet), who was half Arab and half Japanese, a beautiful, talented, and obsessive woman. Haruki was gorgeous, but we just really weren’t made for each other, for many reasons. She was teaching modern dance at the university that day, and wouldn’t be off work, until late. She was one person, who I never really understood, but respected tremendously. The young woman was beyond gorgeous and kind, but was turbo-powered OCD. Both she and her place were cleaner than the preverbal whistle. Each minute of every day, she followed a preplanned timeline. Even her diet was meticulously planned. Each and every calorie, for each and every day, was recorded in her diary. Haruki literally weighed-out each of her carefully planned and prepared food items, as if she were a research chemist. Every day, she carried her food to work at the university, in clean sealed Tupperware containers, and ate at exactly the same time, throughly chewing her food, to better insure accurate circadian bowel movements! She only drank herbal teas, juices, and distilled water, ate no red meat, and drank no alcohol.

Her shopping was done in the same stores, buying the same things, on the same day of each week. Her laundry was always done at the same time, and the same day of the week, using the same detergent. In addition, to the usual aspects of laundry, she needed to clean two wash clothes, two bath towels, and two clean pillow cases, each day. She seemed to take great pleasure in being organized. In fact, if Haruki failed to adhere to any part of her routine, she became depressed, and rather self-effacing. An interruption in her regiment might produce tears. Those big tearful eyes could crack your soul.

Haruki once bought and ate a candy bar from the 7-11 store. Her diet strict forbid sweets, so you’d have thought she’d consumed cyanide. It took her a week to forgive herself. Her beauty and goodness were absolutely irresistible, until they weren’t, and so our relationship faded. For me, a life without spontaneity is too sterile. The world is filled with dissimilar peoples and so certain relationships are designed for different purposes and to last for varying periods of time.

My relationship with Haruki was one of my shortest… two years. She expected me to bend to her schedule, and for the most part I did, until it was obvious her schedule was more important than me. Professional dancers have beautiful bodies, which require extreme amounts of self-discipline to create, as well and maintain, but too much discipline destroys creativity and spontaneity.

Refolding the stranger’s piece of yellow legal paper with the scribbled six research references, I stuck it in my pocket. After the clothes were dry, and since I didn’t fit into Haruki’s schedule for at least seven more hours that day, I headed to the University of Colorado’s medical library, to search for those mysterious six research articles on the neurophysiology of sleep and dreaming. This was the first time in my life, where I had actually been motivated by a sincere desire to learn, with the exception of the beer-facilitated learning my good Dad had painstakingly provided in my infancy, and early childhood.

The stranger in the cafe had more or less rekindled what the little man in the Chapultepec Museum had attempted to start. That man, who’d been dressed in an old tweed suit, had shown me what it was like to be passionate about an intellectual interest; whereas, the guy in the cafe had made me search for my own interest. I doubted that the article’s were legitimate, but if they were, would they actually explain how the brain produced sleep and dreams? This may seem rather ridiculous and nonsensical, but this is exactly how I came to pursue the neurosciences… right after bumping into a stranger and after having experienced an accidental meth trip. Those six research articles awoke a genuine curiosity in me, and the meth had made me realize I was capable of doing something more with my life than working an everyday job.

Maybe, I was just starting to grow up; after all, I was then nearly twenty-nine years old. Conceivably, it was the marked reduction in dope smoking, which had allowed me to find an honest interest in life. Moreover, I was finally getting sick of hard physical labor, and all the other legal and illegal idiocy I’d indulged in, be it in the name of money or adrenaline. At first, I had no idea how to look-up the references in the university’s medical library, but the informative intelligent sexy librarian proved to be a saint. I so thankful that she showed me how to use the wondrous collections of scientific literature. Female librarians are an interesting lot. They spend their days in a quiet building, dealing with people, who speak only briefly in hushed tones. Perhaps, this does something special for their sex drive. A good medical library is one of the greatest gifts to humankind. Not only does it contain millions of scientific research studies, but videos of almost everything you’d care to learn about medicine: thousands of surgeries, various other procedures, patient interviews, and lectures on every thing imaginable related to the field of medicine: pharmacology, endocrinology, neurology, gynecology, psychiatry, dermatology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, toxicology, cardiology, audiology, immunology, infectious diseases, etc.

At the library, I was at peace and often lost track of time, perchance because I never was bored. It was like I finally found home. Weird as it may sound, there have been times in my life, where I have fantasized about having my own apartment, attached to, or actually situated inside a first rate medical library. The medical library became my addiction. Where some might prefer to go home, at the end of work, and watch something on Netflix, I preferred the medical library. Prior to discovering the medical library, there had been few things which could rivet me: sex, drugs, flashbacks, and those few times that I’d feared for my life. But my life in the medical library would also often warp time. I’d go there in the morning, then take a break, thinking I’d go to the cafeteria for a noon lunch. Once outside, I’d discover that the sky was dark, and it was time for dinner. How I loved experiencing that time distortion.

It bares repeating, that medicine is something which functions best, when motivated by the simple uncomplicated desire to heal, without involving anything else, certainly not: capital, hubris, power, prestige, sadism, fame, respect, etc. Both medical treatment, and medical discovery, function most successfully, when motivated only by the desire to preserve and/or restore health. Pharmaceutical companies will try to convince you that they honestly care about your health, and that the research for creating and producing new drugs is unbelievably costly, and that’s why they must sell those drugs at such inflated prices; but, don’t you believe that lie. Only my Republican friends say that they believe that deception, yet they know practically nothing about science or medicine, so I suppose you’ve got to forgive them. Generally, drug discoveries are made for very little money, and even if a significant sum is used for drug development, that amount is usually nothing in comparison to the profits garnered by big Pharma. Just consider their market cap, and then multiply that by ten to get their real worth. A fair percentage of the drug discoveries have already been made, by researchers working under NIHH grants, and not working for big Pharma.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_companies_by_revenue

Big Pharma just moves in and scoops-up the profits. Some of the most profitable discoveries have been made quite by accident, yet big Pharma is more than content to charge huge unjustifiable prices. Many countries do not allow pharmaceutical advertising, but the US does. In 2005, money spent on pharmaceutical advertising/marketing in the United States was approximately $29.9 billion, with one estimate as high as $57 billion. Pharmacies now call and send their customers text messages to encourage them to get those refills. They even offer to call the customer’s doctor. Pharmaceuticals are more about profit than your health. The pharmaceutical and healthcare industries employ more lobbyists, than any other industry! Why would the drug companies need to spend so much on lobbyists, if they’re just trying to help us?

The pharmaceutical companies will try to convince you that it cost hundreds of millions to get a new drug to the market, but the scientific publications don’t bare that out. Estimates run between thirty to seventy percent of the new drugs come from plant sources! The trick is to find an herb/plant material (leaf, root, stem, sap, bark, flowers, pollen, etc.), which has medicinal benefit, then identify the major efficacious botanical molecule(s), isolate them, then synthesize and concentrate it. Sometimes, once the molecule is identified, the drug companies may modify the molecule to make it more effective. They simply use age-old chemical procedures. To modify the active plant molecule only means that you submit it to various simple, tried and true, well known, old hat, organic chemistry procedures, to change, or add, or subtract a CH3, NH2, OH, or some other simple chemical group. Each new molecular creation gets a number assigned to it, then its synthesized in bulk, and tested on animals, for desired effect, as well as side effects, both negative and effects that may be useful. It may seem to be complicated, but it’s far from it. Animal testing, which is banned in University labs, still goes on behind the tall fences of the big pharmaceutical companies, and their massive security forces help to insure that PETA doesn’t pull a surprise visit. After successful animal testing then comes testing on volunteer criminals. The drugs deemed safe and effective are then marketed. Doctors get lots of free samples, via drug reps, and ads are taken-out in magazines, on the television and radio, the internet, etc.

Furthermore, the pharmaceutical companies continue to raise the prices on drugs, which were developed decades ago, and yet the drugs are now easier to manufacture; again, demonstrating that with big Pharma money comes first, and people’s health comes last! A drug developed in the 1950s or 1960s suddenly becomes much more expensive. Why is it that drugs, are being sold at higher and higher prices, when with advances in technology make it easier and cheaper to manufacture? Moreover, why do the American drug companies sell drugs, to third countries, at much lower prices, than what they charge Americans? In addition, in most countries a person can purchase antibiotics without a script. In America, you have to shell-out for the doctor visit, then you have to pay an inflated price at the drugstore!

A ten day prescription for an antibiotic, i.e., augmentin (amoxicillin and clavulanate potassium), which cost about $125 in the United States is shipped (by the manufacturer) to Thailand, where it is sold for roughly $9. And, it’s not that the drug companies are being philanthropic, because they are still making a huge profit selling the drug more cheaply overseas, since the drugs cost practically nothing to make! It’s just that most Thai people can’t afford the higher price.

Viagra, the first pill for erectile dysfunction was created accidentally by scientists at Pfizer Laboratories and was green-lighted for use by the FDA on March 27, 1998. The scientists were testing the active ingredient in Viagra (sildenafil) as a drug to control blood pressure. It was an accidental, extremely profitable (five dollars per pill) discovery. If eight percent of the men take viagra regularly, say once a week, and there are roughly 160 million men in the US alone, thats roughly $3.3 billion, for just the American market. Pfizer stock rose like a R-36M (SS-18 Satan) ICBM. The amount of money that went into the development of viagra was practically nothing.

When the drug, alpha interferon, was first produced by the drug companies to treat Kaposi’s Sarcoma (skin cancer often associated with AIDS), they charged $500 per syrette (a one drop, injectable), which only cost the drug company about 25 cents to manufacture, a mark-up of 200,000%. Because of the high price, many AIDS patients were forced to painfully suffer and die with that form of cancer. I once spoke with a board member of one of the pharmaceutical companies, which sold alpha interferon. Initially, we spoke about another research concern, and I brought-up alpha-interferon.

Me: “By the way, I was looking at the manner in which you guys make alpha interferon. Your lab puts a gene into E. Coli (Escherichia coli bacteria), lets them multiply in a giant stainless steel vessel, and then you chemically induce the bacteria to produce and release the alpha interferon. Using this simple and efficient method, allows you to make the interferon for just pennies per syrette, yet you’re selling it for $500 per syrette. If you lowered the price, you’d undoubtedly sell a whole hell of a lot more, so why not lower the price, and help stop all the human misery associated with Kaposi’s Sarcoma? It’s certainly not the best way to die of AIDS.”

Board Member: “We make more money, with the higher price. See Joey, we’ve done the marketing analysis, and if we lowered the price… yes, we’d sell more, but in the long haul, we’d still make less money! We make the most money at five hundred bucks per syrette.”

Me: “Yeah… but what about all the human suffering?”

Board Member: “We just look at things like: supply, demand, and profit. We do this to make money, Joey!”

Me. “Shame on you. Shame on you, man. What an asshole!” (Then, I simply hung-up without saying, goodbye.)

Undoubtedly, the board member thought I was being unreasonable. It’s all a matter of perspective… which is more important… life and health, or making immeasurable amounts of money. Big Pharma employs countless expensive lobbyists (attorneys) to better ensure that NIHH does not allocate funds to research anything, which remotely smacks of discovering a cure. Congress controls the funds to NIHH, and the lobbyists control congress. A politician has to be concerned about being elected, and that means they need money. And if a bribe won’t secure the politician’s support, they’re easy to threaten. Everyone has skeletons in their closet, and if that doesn’t work, their family is an easy target. No one is protected when it comes to big business.

Big Pharma certainly hates any form of research which attempts to create new vaccines, which could prevent illness, and undermine, if not eliminate their profits. And, with old existing vaccines, they still use the preservative Thimerosal, ethyl mercury. Why are they still using a mercury-based preservative, when they known the health risks? Could it be that the preservative is already stockpiled, and causes side effects, which then make big Pharma even more money?

Nor does big Pharma want it found-out that an inexpensive long existing cheap drug is an effective treatment for something, which they are selling a newer expensive drug to treat. An example is when it was recently discovered that methylene blue was effective in treating Alzheimer’s, whence big Pharma pulled all the methylene blue out of the pharmacies. Almost overnight, methylene blue disappeared world-wide. Big Pharma is still selling those expensive Alzheimer’s treatments, which don’t work and have marked side effects.

Moreover, why is it that the AMA uses highly expensive new antibiotics to treat MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) infections, without trying the use of combinations of cheaper older antibiotics? Wouldn’t it seem reasonable that companies, which make drugs affecting the public health, should be completely open to public scrutiny, including all the company’s financials, as well as their scientific testing, including their animal testing? Selling drugs, which affect life, is not like selling doorknobs. To withhold or overprice something, which can save or improve life is tantamount to premeditated murder, and/or a battery. Capitalism, where monopolistic drug syndicates run commerce, can make life pretty unbearable, and not just for the sick and dying.

Businesses which do not have a direct bearing on life, health, and survival, do not deserve such public scrutiny: Christmas tree ornaments, roofing shingles, paint, jewelry, carpeting, toasters, watches, trashcans, nails, furniture, etc. On the other hand, big Pharma which deals with, if not controls human life and survival, should be completely open to public examination, and judicious regulation. Try to open a simple sandwich shop, even a small food truck, and you’re under the microscope from the public health inspectors, the state business regulators, licensing issues, the IRS, etc. If you’re a physician, just consider all the legal hoops you jump through to practice your trade. But, big Pharma erects a huge fence around their research locations, with a staff of security agents, and thereby schedules and controls all their governmental inspections… no surprise visits for big Pharma! They now control the FDA. It’s amazing what money can do. Their profits also may be nicely concealed from the IRS, considering the small amount they pay in taxes. Have you ever heard of the IRS investigating a big pharmaceutical company? They have, but only for big Pharma’s charity assistance. This is where big Pharma donates some huge amount of cheap drugs to those who can’t afford them, but then takes massive tax write-offs, for said donations. The donations are usually drugs that they’ve over produced and can’t sell, anyway. Moreover, looking at their stock dividends and the market growth, they may also be concealing things from the Securities and Exchange Commission. There appear to be no surprise inspections of their facilities, not even by PETA! About 100,000 people a year die because of big Pharma, but that’s not too surprising, given that around sixty-five percent of the country uses some type of pharmaceutical. However, there are many more deaths which occur simply because the people can’t afford the drugs.

http://www.alternet.org/story/147318/100,000_americans_die_each_year_from_prescription_drugs,_while_pharma_companies_get_rich

Should corporations be allowed to massively profit from misery and death? As ridiculous as it may seem, these are important considerations, and worth repeating. Correspondingly, all records, research, and business dealings of the FDA should be completely open to the public. After all, their salaries are paid for by you, the taxpayer. In fact, the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies should be required to disclose everything (drug development with all the procedures, costs, testing results {positive and negative}, salaries, bonuses, distributions, taxes, etc.) with weekly online disclosures. While this sounds like socialism, I am definitely okay with capitalism, but nevertheless pharmacology and medicine should be controlled by the people, for when it is controlled by profit, people’s health suffers and people needlessly die! There are countless examples of where this has occurred. A few are detailed in this windy opus. Again, as long as big Pharma’s all about profit there will be no cures, since cures mean loss of profit! If people have their health, they can often overcome most financial problems, and so the preservation of health and life is paramount, and goes beyond any capitalistic mandate. Healthcare should be for free, as it is in so many countries, whose medicine is superior to ours, and unlike what Rusty Limp Bough may want to tell you, there is no having to wait a long time, to receive the medical care, in countries with socialized medicine.

From the outset of studying those six scientific articles, which the stranger had jotted-down in the cafe, I felt something beginning to ignite within me, the uncorrupted desire to understand things about the functioning of the ever mysterious human brain, and to look for better ways to promote its function, health, and longevity. Initially, my efforts focused primarily on the neurochemistry of mental health, i.e., schizophrenia and depression.The library was like a cathedral with near-endless volumes of phenomenal scientific materials. It became my church, and those journals my holy texts. Oh sure, various religious texts have great words of wisdom to live by, but they hardly begin to explain the mysteries of nature.

In a way, if a God actually made the universe and life, then science is the study of God’s work, quite literally. And so, for you religious folks out there, studying science is perhaps the finest form of worshipping God’s creations. Of course, this is all contingent on there actually being a God. Many nights, I would actually dream science; sometimes, the dreams even made logical sense. The dreams seemed to be my subconscious efforts to understand and unravel the elaborate and sublime nature of certain neurophysiological systems. As mentioned, I was initially trying to understand the nature of depression and schizophrenia.

The six references about dreaming turned out to be genuine, difficult to read, but beyond be interesting. The cafe gentleman’s eidetic memory was apparently the real McCoy, something akin to a legitimate photographic recall. With the help of the librarian, I had managed to locate the six journals articles and made Xerox copies of them, so that I could take them with me to read, whenever I had a chance in my little room, or during my breaks at work. Reading those six journal articles was not easy, and nothing like reading six articles in the Reader’s Digest.

Even with an undergraduate degree in biology, it took me a good month to feel that I had a reasonable grasp of the contents in those six cutting-edge articles on brain research. At the time, my education was far from adequate, to be able to understand the arcane issues, presented in those sophisticated articles. In order to comprehend what I was reading, I was forced to find and study a number of things: looking-up the definitions for many of the scientific words, finding and reading about various research methodologies and materials, as well as search-out and study several of the research articles, which had been used to form the basis for the articles the stranger in the cafe had given me. It was a real struggle, and often I wished that I’d saved that methamphetamine, I taken on the desert that day, to initiate my studies of neurophysiology. But once I’d developed an interest in science, I would never do drugs again. At long last, my wayward life had found a sincere intellectual interest.

As you probably realize, in science usually one discovery leads to the next question, which leads to the next discovery, etc., and so at the beginning of each scientific article the author reviews some of the pertinent history (the background), and how said history supports and perpetrates the proposed study, and then how that proposed idea (hypothesis) hopes to expand the field of knowledge. Reading those six little articles was a major undertaking, for my warped meager mush. As mentioned, if you believe in God, when you study science, you’re actually studying God’s creations. Just imagine getting your average southern Baptist to agree with that concept, especially since the principles of evolution, so beautifully explain the principals of neurophysiology, as well as all of known physiology, both human and animal.

Finishing the six research articles, I was solidly hooked, addicted to the medical library, not to mention the helpful shapely librarian, for the next several years. The librarian became the woman on the side, since none of my relationships in Colorado were monogamous. She only had sex with her husband roughly once a year. He was gone working for an oil company most of the time, in fact almost all the time. Besides, they only hung together for the kid’s sake.

Neurophysiology became an enduring interest. Because of those six articles a novel form of inquisitiveness, had begun burning itself into my soul. To become an employable scientist, one must jump through the classical academic hoops of earning a Ph.D. or MD; however, at least fifty percent of the course curriculum is a waste of time and money. Consequently, most of the best scientists are autodidacts (self taught). At long last, a similar passion to that of the little tweed man in the Chapultepec Museum had finally come to be ignited within me. At long last, I’d come to feel his thirst for knowledge, albeit not ancient knowledge, but trying to understand cutting edge of what might be considered future knowledge. My humble mush had come to rub-up against the erotic velvet touch of intellectual curiosity. In my wildest dreams, I never thought myself capable of such passionate interest; at least, of a non-sexual nature.

Proud of, and inspired by, my minor scientific reading accomplishment, I returned to Bill and Alice’s Café, in search of the stranger, who was responsible for kindling my scientific interest. Disappointingly, the guy wasn’t there. It was not until about my sixth trip to the cafe, I found him sitting there, alone at a table, just as he’d been the first time, with papers spread-out on the table. The place wasn’t crowded, as it had been the first time I’d seen him. Pretending not to have noticed him, I sat at another table about fifteen feet away. He was sitting there again reading Xerox research articles. This guy has got to be an information sponge. After a few minutes, my peripheral retina told me that he had looked up, and had probably spotted me, yet I pretended not to have noticed him. Immediately upon spotting me, he spoke-up. I’d decided to play a friendly little trick on him.

“Well, what did you think of them?” He shouted at me, referring to the six articles he’d given me to look-up. Time to be evasive.

“Oh, hello there. It’s you. You talking about those six research references, you wrote-down for me?” I affected surprise, without answering his question, simply to make him think I was dodging his question, avoiding the fact that I had failed to read those six interesting scientific articles, when indeed I had, not only read them, but studied them.

“Of course that’s what I’m taking about. What’d you think of them?” He impatiently pressed-on. This guy is far too serious. He looks so pissed.

It was more than obvious, that the somber stranger didn’t think I’d read the six articles, and I’d successfully baited him. He was very pushy and had no time for amenities. He was all business, without not a drop of humor. He couldn’t even tell me hello. He was mildly irritated, and his face clearly expressed distain. He’s positive that I’m lying, and he clearly hates a liar. This is great! Little did the man know, he’d created an addiction in me, a true thirst for knowledge, the likes of which, I’d never known.

Indirectly, that thirst for knowledge had something to do with the dose of methamphetamine on the desert, as well as the little guy at the museum; the meth allowed me realize the satisfaction of pure thought, and the man at the museum made me feel the passion. The meth had also made me realize that I wanted to do something better than running wheelbarrow loads of concrete, drilling in the ground at subzero temperatures, and risking my life x-raying steel welds. That sweltering day on the scorching hot desert, I had briefly experienced the finer capabilities of my mind, only to be wasting them on testing concrete. Years later, looking at the physical effects of meth on human brain tissue, as well as the documentaries starring meth addicts, made me realize how lucky I’d been, not to have partaken further.

That day, those elevated cerebral functions had been like the pearls of my sweat, cast off my brow onto the hot desert floor, where they quickly evaporated. The puzzling stranger in the cafe had indeed shown me how to better employ what little intellect I possessed. Nonetheless, I decided to play him a bit longer, ergo I answered him in such a manner as to appear disingenuous, to only be pretending to have read the articles. Being a great liar, it was easy to lie about my truthfulness, a sort of reverse lie.

“You were right; those articles were really cool… inspiring. That medical library is a real God send.” I answered, purposely without adequate elaboration, maintaining the ridiculous facade. This guy is nothing, if not serious.

I’d purposely, made the comment without adequate sincere emphasis, as if I were only trying to pretend I’d read them, to brush him off, to avoid him, and to circumvent further discussion. Thus, I succeeded in making him assume that I was a liar. I took great pleasure in goading him, making him think that I was faking about having read the articles, for I could tell from the way he’d posed his initial question, that he was highly skeptical. This silly trick of mine was to set him up, to hopefully make him a genuine friend, to produce a rebound in his emotions, from hating me, to appreciating the fact that I had been inspired, had gone to great effort to study what he’d suggested, and that he hadn’t wasted his time, writing-down the references for me. My unplanned awkward little fraud was a way of honoring him.

Sensing I was a fraud, he exhaled in exasperation, frowned hard, partially closed his left eye, then pulled his mouth to the side. In his estimation, he was certain that I hadn’t read them. He’s swallowed the hook, and he’s angry. Ha, ha…Perfect! After all, how many people would go to the trouble that I had, to find and read those complex articles, just on a stranger’s suggestion? More than a fair amount of effort, hundreds of hours of reading and thought, had been put into looking-up and reading esoteric issues in brain research. At this point in my gambit, I couldn’t help but smile. He can’t stand, that I’m smiling. Ha, ha…

“So what did you find so interesting about them?” He angrily challenged me, absolutely determined to prove me a lowly liar.

That moment was pivotal. Here I am, nearly the world’s best liar, pretending to be a liar. One of the gifts of a good liar is to make people think that you’re incapable of lying, or just really bad at it, and that you don’t like to lie. It was the first time in my life, that I’d actually made a sincere effort to conduct my life with a modicum of purpose, and I was turning the moment into a joke, to better secure his friendship. He was much like the little man at the museum, but was interested in a subject, which I too found to be engrossing. Continuing-on with the charade, I stalled to firmly set the hook. The stall made it appear as if he’d caught me in the lie.

But then, I suddenly changed my demeanor, and earnestly began to discuss my impressions of the six scientific articles, and the questions the studies had instilled in me, and so the stranger began to realize that I had honestly made a wholehearted effort, to comprehend the contents of the articles. He also realized that I’d been joking with him, so once again, he invited me to sit at his table, but that time, without my asking. Unlike my first encounter at the diner, I received some genuinely friendly eye contact. He’s definitely impressed!

That day in the cafe, I made a friend, but like all my friends, not for life, but at least for five years. And thus began, a long and strange friendship, which lasted till I left the state. He was one of the most unusual persons, I’ve ever met, and still remains deadly serious about science. He spent most of his life studying… a rare pure scholar in every sense of the word. Even now, I keep tabs on him, but from a distance, and without his knowing.

Possibly he originally became a scholar as a means of escaping his past. Something told me, that his near constant studying was a means to maintain his sanity, but I could be wrong about that. I’ve had the privilege of meeting very few with his level of focused determination, and I’ve met a number of good and great doctors and scientists, yet none remotely as intense as he. On the outside, he looked completely relaxed, but you could sense the tightly wound high-carbon steel spring buried inside. The stranger’s name was Dr. Chris Alexander Gray.

Only you can determine your true purpose in life, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to have a friendly genius dropping you hints.

The Search by Moyer A. Williams

He and I would meet about once a week, to share scientific information. At first, I’d read whatever he recommended for that week, then I’d report to him to discuss that information. Having access to Chris was like having access to the National Library of Medicine and a scientific internet, before the internet existed, when there was little more than the Defense Department’s ARPANET (The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network… one of the world’s operational packet switching communication networks… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET ), and a few of the early networking/communication protocols.

During our meetings, I mostly listened as Chris would draw upon his vast wealth of stored scientific information. Contrastingly, he would also point-out things, which he didn’t know, or couldn’t remember clearly, thereby exhibiting that very rare commodity of ‘intellectual honesty.’ Far too many people hate to admit what they don’t know. Chris would instruct and help me to understand, and then he’d write down more references for me to read. In a very real sense, he may have been my second true teacher. My Dad was my first, but only for the first few years of my life, and Dad’s alcohol-rewarded lessons where only about basic things. Chris’s lessons came from ancient medical history up to the limits of what was then barely known in physiology. Listening to Chris and studying medical research was more of a high than selling dope in MC.

As I began to read more at the library, and more than just what Chris suggested, some of my newly found information, Chris would be unaware of. After all, medical science is an extremely vast, an almost limitless field, and so no one person knows one-hundredth of one percent of what exists in the realm of medical knowledge. Whenever I mentioned a fact, which Chris didn’t happen to know, I was amazed at how quickly he would allow me to play the role of the instructor, and show genuine appreciation for the new info. This percipient scholar had earned several Ph.D.s, in various fields of science, and was certainly the consummate teacher. Because of Chris and others like him, I came to view nature’s intricacies, as something extremely exciting, rather than an arduous complexity. Soon I’d learn that just the complexity of a human cell, its’ physiology and biochemistry was far more elaborate than the most technical man made device. Comparing the complexity of a single human cell to the world’s most advanced weapon system, would be like comparing the Battlestar Galactica to a slingshot.

Chris was swift to ask me pertinent thought-provoking questions, and to ask he to speculate and theorize about how physiological systems might operate. He was forever trying to skate along the end of the unknown, looking for ways to solve the big questions, or to shine a light out into the darkness. After reading about some discovery, new questions always arise and that was when Chris would such me to postulate, on things that were yet unknown. Looking back I realize that some of my early ideas were ludicrous, yet Chris never belittled. He seemed to enjoy imaginative speculation, as much as, if not more than, reviewing proven facts. He was definitely an extraordinarily gifted fellow, and yet he was oh so ready to learn from a novice. As mentioned, if I introduced a new fact, that he was unaware of, he was genuinely thrilled with the knowledge. His academic enthusiasm was much like the little man at the Chapultepec Museum, yet Chris lacked the intensely jovial nature. Oddly enough, Chris lived with a sweet American woman of Mexican decent, named Liz… a fine and attractive woman. She once mentioned an unusual fact, concerning Chris.

“Chris hardly sleeps, but when he does, it’s only in a chair, while he’s still sitting straight-up, with a book in his lap. He only uses the bed only for when we have sex, never for rest or sleep. Before I meant him, I didn’t know people like him existed.” She informed me.

After months being tutored by him, I came to realize that he was a highly intelligent alpha male, who had run away from his home, in the southern part of the state, when he was merely fourteen. One day, his Dad, a poor dirt farmer, who I suspect was a polygamist Mormon, had decided to punish Chris with a whipping, only the father elected to use a wooden two by four, instead of the usual belt. When Chris finally recovered from the savage beating, he ran away; hitch-hiking, all the way to San Francisco, where he became an acid head, and lived around the famous intersection of Haight-Ashbury. Later, Chris was drafted into the US Army, and was soon a point-man, leading combat patrols through the jungles of Vietnam... lots of shooting... lots of booby-traps… lots of killing during various snatch and grabs (of folks to then be interrogated)… lots of dead comrades, and I’d guess, lots of subsequent PTSD, and much like my Dad, Chris had little if any sense of humor, and was overly serious. For a few weeks, Chris also taught me karate, and was an outstanding instructor in that, as well. He greatly stressed physical fitness (running, stretching, weight training), learning to block punches and kicks, and rehearsing only a few deadly moves, over and over and over. He felt that there was no point in learning more than a few moves, blows and strikes to the: eyes, throat, solar plexus, groin, and knees.

“If you have to defend yourself, you want to make your strikes hard and vicious, and nail them in critical regions of their body.” Chris said something that effect.

As mentioned, my Dad and Chris were a bit alike, in how they managed their overly serious post-combat lives. Dad worked hard and returned to school and then graduate school, never making less than an A for any class. Chris did the same; but unlike Chris, Dad had stayed in the military for a stent of thirty years. Whereas, Chris had a sincere interest in his academic field. Dad’s focus remained the military, and politics; retirement carried little benefit other than a retirement check. For Chris, science remained his huckleberry. Both men were intense, serious about what they did, had little to no sense of humor, yet both were good with children. Oh the benefits of lots of killing…

In case you don’t know, the point-man is the guy in the squad or the platoon, who walks out in front of the rest of the group, a scout, ergo he’s the most likely of the group to get shot, or blown-up by a booby trap. When Chris came back to the States, he started reading science, probably as an escape from the Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and never stopped reading. Maybe sitting-up to sleep in some way helped him to manage the PTSD nightmares. Perhaps, you wake-up quicker and more easily, if you’re sitting-up, whereas if you’re laying down you’re more vulnerable, more susceptible to attack. He spoke only briefly about Vietnam and combat, very briefly. In that respect too, he was like my Dad. As a child, I often remember seeing Dad sleeping, while sitting upright, in an overstuffed chair in the living room.

Never having discussed it with Chris, I can’t say that I definitively know that he had PTSD; I’m just assuming, but I’d bet big money that I’m right. But if he did have PTSD, Chris still seemed to function better than almost everyone else. In Mobile, there is a small railroad bridge, with huge concrete abutments, crossing-over Seventeenth Street. Those old abutments is where young people love to paint slogans, street-art, political statements, lover’s initials, etc. Whenever anything political is put-up, you can bet that it won’t last one day, before someone in the other political party paints over it.Today while riding home, I passed under that bridge and someone had painted a beautiful ten foot rippling red, white, and blue American flag, but poetically the unknown artist had also painted the letters P-T-S-D across the flag, as if the letters were in someway an intrinsic part of the unfurled American flag. How appropriate; especially, since these days our valiant troops are serving multiple tours, while the US is benefitting from the spoils of war (gold mines and opium in Afghanistan, as well as oil in Iraq), and the military complex is wallowing in taxpayer dough! But, what’s a bunch of dead people and a little PTSD compared to big money? What’s life compared to wealth?

There’s a good chance that it won’t be long and the military will be claiming the victim’s of PTSD are faking it, so the government won’t have to pay for their mental disability. If you’ve never had PTSD, it’s hard to appreciate it, and so too many Americans may think PTSD is bullshit, or not really that bad. No doubt countless more modern day veterans have PTSD, since they have been forced to go on multiple deployments. It’s got to be costing the government a fortune in disability payments. Maybe if Trump gets elected, he and his cronies will figure-out a way not to have to pay PTSD benefits, yet use the media to pretend to be patriotic, and caring about the vets.

The erudite overly serious Chris singlehandedly inspired me to get involved with science. He made me see how cool science is. For that precious gift, I shall always be deeply grateful. There are only two things that have given my foolish life genuine purpose: my daughter and science. Aside from those two things, I’m pretty worthless. As a father, I’d like to think that I’m pretty good, but as a scientist, I’m practically insignificant. But, if you’ve read this far, you already know how lacking I am. My life signifies almost nothing. In the grand scheme of things, life and wealth are both fairly insignificant, when you consider that the universe is going to implode into something akin to a huge blackhole, right before the next big bang. The big bang is just mother nature reshuffling all the matter, and dealing it out again for one more big game. Each time the universe expands outward, probably certain types of life spring-up on various planets, only to again disappear as the universe implodes, again… a never ending repetitious show… all for God’s enjoyment…

During one of my meetings with Chris, he mentioned that I should begin to read about a line of research, which had little to do with the brain per se. Instead, it was more about microbiology, the immune system, and a tactic for curing disease. It was called, Monoclonal Antibody Therapy (MAT). To understand MAT, I had to read-up on how b-cells (a type of white blood cells… part of the immune system which manufactures antibodies) are made and how they operate. That alone, took a week of concentrated reading, with my looking-up lots of scientific terms, and by then, I’d only gotten some of the basics down. This was around 1978.

From the little I came to know about MAT, it is certainly an area of research, which the public needs to be more aware of, since this therapy likely holds the potential to cure almost all known cancers, as well as perhaps all of the diseases that are caused by pathogens, i.e., viruses, bacteria, mycobacteria, fungi, etc. After saying that, you may think I’m a bit looney, but only a wee bit. Imagine what curing all those diseases would mean to the AMA, but especially what it would mean to the pharmaceutical companies? Needless to say, they’d suffer tremendous financial losses. What if there was no more forms of cancer {https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/cancer/in-depth/monoclonal-antibody/art-20047808}, hepatitis {https://www.ott.nih.gov/technology/e-144-2004}, AIDS or HIV {http://www.aidsmap.com/Monoclonal-antibodies-show-promise-for-HIV-positive-people-with-limited-treatment-options/page/3119871/}, influenza {https://www.eenzyme.com/mabsforinfluenza.aspx}, ebola {https://www.nature.com/articles/srep25856}, herpes {https://www.pnas.org/content/110/17/6760}, plague {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2491117/}, dengue {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4958264/}, common cold {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3851/IMP2578}, MRSA{https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/219/6/848/5184432}, shingles {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3536365/}, malaria {https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.4512}, yellow fever {http://www.biofronttech.com/products/research-reagents-yellow-fever-virus-reagents-yellow-fever-monoclonal-antibodies/2/22/137/}, infant diarrhea {https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1201267/}, whooping cough {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0378109788902194}, etc.? If you cure all those diseases, and more, using MAT, you’ll soon bankrupt most of big Pharma! Another research technique with tremendous healing potential is CRISPR, a simple yet powerful tool for editing genomes. It allows the researcher to easily alter DNA sequences and thereby modify gene function. Its many potential applications include correcting genetic defects, treating or preventing the spread of certain diseases. CRISPR is short for CRISPR-Cas9. CRISPRs are specialized sections of DNA. The protein Cas9 is an enzyme that acts like a pair of molecular scissors, for cutting strands of DNA. CRISPR technology has been adapted from the natural defense mechanism of bacteria and archaea, a class of single-celled microorganisms. These organisms use CRISPR-derived RNA and certain Cas proteins, including Cas9, to defeat attacks carried-out by viruses and other foreign organisms. They do this largely by cutting up and thereby destroying the DNA of the foreign invader. When these components (proteins) are transferred into other, more complex, organisms, it allows for the manipulation of genes, or editing of the DNA. Biohacking like this has tremendous potential, but it could also be extremely dangerous. Big Pharma will push the idea of danger, because people can do this in home labs, but they (big Pharma) will also try to prevent cures for genetic diseases. They certainly don’t want to cure: cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, hypertension, arthritis, heart disease, etc., since these are huge money makers, and they all have genetic components. It’s my gut feeling that such gene cutting proteins are used in certain lymphatic cells, to create random protein sequences to act as receptors for disease antigens.

Just consider all the money the pharmaceutical companies have lost with the advent of vaccines, which stopped the spread of smallpox and polio, although, polio still persists in Africa, due to a failure to fully administer said vaccine! How is that allowed to happen? Without those two vaccines, big Pharma and the AMA would be making lots more money, considering the amount of care those patients require, especially those who have, or have had, polio. Small pox killed more than 300 million people in the twentieth century, but about half those, who contracted it survived, but often with debilitating conditions (blindness, lung problems, deformity of limbs, due to arthritis, etc.), and many survivors are terribly scarred, requiring psychiatric counseling. Financially speaking, why would the pharmaceutical companies want such cures? Give that very simple little question some serious thought, and then tell me why medicine should not be socialized! Don’t you want earth’s inhabitants (animals, included) to be healthier/happier? If cancer could suddenly be cured with one inexpensive treatment, the annual hundreds of billions of dollars, for the countless painful surgeries, the trillions of rads of hurtful radiation treatments, and the oceans of nauseating near useless chemotherapy (https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/drugs/cancer-type), tons of addicting pain killers [Tramadol (Ultram), Hydromorphone (Dilaudid), Methadone (Dolophine, Methadose), Morphine (Apokyn, Avinza, Kadian, MS-Contin, and others), Oxycodone (OxyContin, OxyIR, Roxicodone), Hydrocodone, Oxymorphone (Opana), Fentanyl (Actiq, Duragesic, Fentora, Lazanda, Subsys, and others), Tapentadol (Nucynta), etc.] would suddenly disappear. Think about how much suffering would end, if cancer was cured If we cured all major maladies, there’d be a corresponding over population, so we’d have to work on our use of birth-control. Of course, if medicine were socialized, birth control might be free. After all, most birth control pills are just unbelievably small amounts of cheaply made hormones.

Quite possibly, the AMA and the drug companies would do their level best to try to discredit MAT, to make those cures appear to be nothing more than desperate pipe dreams, or somehow dangerous. Perhaps, they might go so far as to pay for bogus studies, whose results, confirm the worthlessness of potential cures, or that the cure has horrible side effects. Just consider how long the AMA and the FDA blocked the combination antibiotic cure for the Helicobacter pylori a Gram-negative, microaerophilic mycobacterium, found in the stomach, and sometimes the eye. The pathogen is frequently the etiology (cause) of stomach and duodenal ulcers, {The bacteria causes more than 90% of the duodenal ulcers, and up to 80% of stomach ulcers.}which can often led to cancer, which equates to even more money for the AMA and big Pharma. That mycobacterium is also linked to such eye conditions as: blepharitis, glaucoma, central serous chorioretinopathy, as well as others. For almost two decades, AMA and big Pharma did their level best to blockade the use of the cheap combination antibiotic therapy for ulcers, because gastric and duodenal ulcers were such a gigantic money maker, for so many years… so much pain, and misery, but for oh so much money.

MAT (Monoclonal Antibody Therapy) requires a fairly simple procedure. The premise said procedure is based on is that there is not a disease out there that kills virtually everyone, and certainly not every animal. Rats, pigs, buzzards, sharks, alligators, bats, crocodiles, cobras, pit vipers, etc., tend to have highly effective immune systems. Though some subspecies do get cancer, others do not get certain types of cancer. For each type of cancer, there is an animal which appears resistant, and this goes for all diseases, as well. For that matter, there are families of people, who do not get certain forms of cancer. For each cancer, bacteria, or virus there are some people or animals, which are immune. If there were a disease, which killed literally everyone and all animals, life would have perished by now.

When a foreign immunogen (substance generating an immune response, i.e., virus, bacteria, bacterial toxin, etc.) causes a humoral immune response, a vast variety of antibodies are produced against different parts or regions of said foreign molecule(s). These are sometimes called ‘antigenic determinants,’ or ‘epitopes.’ Most antibodies recognize and interact with these three dimensional shapes. Antibodies can also recognize certain stretches of amino acids or ‘continuous epitopes.’ The antibody molecule is specific for a single antigenic determinant or epitope (This usually means that the antibody can bind to a protein on the virus or bacterium, and the antibody is so big and clunky, that it screws-up the functioning of the membrane of that enemy; hopefully so bad, that the invader dies.), and each antibody is created by a single B cell clone. An antibody of unique specificity, derived from a single B cell clone, is called a ‘monoclonal antibody.’ These B cell clones, which manufacture the desired antibody, can be grown in cultural, and the resultant antibodies harvested, to be administered to the sick.

Every human and animal has its own unique immune system, ergo their particular strengths and vulnerabilities. Immune potential is largely individualized by DNA, and whether on not it is implemented is largely determined by whether or not it is exposure to disease. Various immature lymphatic cells produce different complex proteins capable of binding various pathogen’s antigens (proteins and/or complex carbohydrates on the surface of the disease cell), and so the person is born with DNA, which serves as templates for the manufacture of antibodies (the variable sites, as well as the heavy and light chains) to fight the disease, but what determines the synthesis of those antibodies is, as mentioned, the individual being exposed to the proteins, glycoproteins, and complex carbohydrates on the outside of various pathogens (viruses, bacteria, mycobacteria, etc.), and sometimes, even the various molecules the pathogen sheds or excretes (toxins). Vaccines induce dead pathogens, or parts/pieces of pathogens, or chemically compromised pathogens, which are barely alive but not capable of reproduction. These may serve to stimulate the person’s immunity. Exposure to the world of pathogens begins at the moment of birth, when the infant passes through the mother’s birth canal, and is exposed to the plethora of microorganisms in the mom’s vagina, ergo organisms in the mother’s breath and her kisses/saliva, even the mother’s nipples are covered with pathogens, etc. These early exposures are needed to set-up the offspring’s immunity. This early immune programing would have to be extremely important, just as is early behavioral programing.

So why, when disease strikes, do some people die and others survive? And, why are so many animals immune to diseases, which can seriously sicken or kill humans? There can be various reasons, but frequently the answer is quite simple, and only takes a small amount of explanation, so please bare with me. If you’ve never been big on science, or you’re nervous about reading scientific stuff, trust me, you can easily understand what I’m about to describe, concerning MAT. More of the world needs to know this. It is something the world needs to understand, for one day, pathogens will begin to attack killing many. As long as these things seem arcane and beyond the public’s understanding, the pharmaceutical companies will be allowed to drag their feet, and delay the curative vaccines and treatments. It will all depend on whether they can produce a profitable long term treatment.

Many say that the most deadly virus on the planet is Ebola; not that it kills more people than any disease, but if infected, you’re apt to soon die. Ebola works fast, not like HIV. {Actually, I think that currently in low income countries AIDS and Malaria may be the biggest pathogen-based disease killers, but I’m no disease expert.} Every now and then, Ebola rears its ugly head and kills shitloads of people in Africa. There is no publicized cure, and it kills about 50-90 percent of its victims, depending on the strain of the virus, the victim’s age, general health, and the quality and availability of medical care. Said virus can also occasionally mutate. What I’m about to describe can be modified and used as the virus changes. What I’m describing below is actually remarkably simple.

The HIV, becoming AIDS, may take much longer to kill, but it eventually kills about 97-99 percent of those, who contract it. [Of course the HIV never kills by itself, since the victim dies of a disease or diseases, which have been allowed to attack, because their immune system has been compromised by the HIV.] But about one or two percent of caucasians are actually immune to HIV. They are first diagnosed as being HIV positive, then later actually test negative, and it’s no mistake! This immunity has been well established.

https://www.hivplusmag.com/research-breakthroughs/2016/3/23/anyone-immune-hiv

Marburg hemorrhagic fever has a 23 to 90 percent fatality rate; again, depending on things like the strain of the pathogen, the medical care, the victim’s age and immunity, etc. There are many other terrifying deadly diseases, and new ones are likely to soon arise. But with all the existing diseases, there always appears to be some percentage of the victims, who initially test positive, but then later test negative, for said disease. In other words, they somehow have completely recovered on their own. Moreover, there are many animals, which can easily throw-off said potentially fatal human viruses and bacteria, if they are deliberately infected.

Perhaps, the famous football superstar athlete and world-renown businessman, Magical Johnnason is such a person. He was said to have tested positive for HIV, but fortunately now is reputed to be negative for the virus! If that is true, the virus has either died or has been dormant for 25 years! To prevent his infection from worsening, Magical supposedly takes daily combination drugs, and helped to advertise for Glaxo-Smith-Kline, partnered with Abbott Labs to help fight AIDS in Africa. But lots of people have taken that combination therapy, yet they still died of AIDS, but not Magical.

Many people assume that since he’s rich, he was able to afford the more expensive cutting edge drugs, which no one else could afford. Or that, because he does advertising for Glaxo-Smith-Kline, he is given the non-profitable but curative medicine, which just might be the aforementioned monoclonal antibodies, discovered but unpublished. On the other hand, what may have allowed him to live this long is his own immune system. Besides Mr. Johnnason, many sex workers in Africa have been found to be resistant to HIV, and still engaged in the world’s oldest profession, without concern for HIV, and the subsequent AIDS!

https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/202/Supplement_3/S339/850348

Why are all these sex workers/hookers immune? And if they are immune, what is it that makes them immune and allows them to survive, and couldn’t the antibodies of such people be somehow used to help others survive? HIV-exposed seronegative sex workers produce lower levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines at baseline than the HIV-negative control subjects. Moreover, CD4+ T cells of HIV-exposed seronegative commercial sex workers usually have a lower level of gene expression that can be seen in differentially expressed genes and systems needed for HIV replication, such as the T cell receptor pathway and previously identified HIV dependency factors. This apparent lowered activation results in “immune quiescence,” which may contribute to host’s resistance to HIV. As mentioned, the hosts appear to make HIV antibodies, and if so, why not use such people as antibody factories, and harvest the antibodies. Use these antibodies, together with substances which suppress the pro-inflammatory cytokines. There are in all likelihood many species of animal, which are immune to HIV, which may produce these antibodies. This only makes since, because there are so many mammals, who don’t sustain HIV infection, yet no doubt they have been exposed.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=154932

The existence of HIV-immune people is well known, but not widely advertised. Perhaps, knowing this might set people to thinking, they are safe, when in fact they are not. Scientist have discovered that the CD8+ T cells of naturally immune people, control the disease by delivering deadly poisons to the infected cells. They developed a series of assays that tested the presence of said T cells, and their ability to kill other T cells infected with HIV. Perhaps these cells could be isolated, cloned, and cultured to be administered to the infected.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/why-some-people-are-immune-aids/

In addition, researchers have focused on a few mutant proteins: CCR5, CD4, and human leukocyte antigen, which may hold the key to this disease puzzle, as well as offer the potential for new HIV treatments, if not cures. Why don’t we expound on, and talk more about these naturally immune people? In one way, not discussing them may be a wise decision, since as stated, there is the very real possibility that careless people may wrongly assume the disease is less pernicious than it actually is, and so be more apt to share needles or have unprotected sex, thinking they are one of the immune resistant people. This is not a far fetched assumption, when you look at how much money is spent on the lottery. Few people ever carefully consider odds. Playing the lottery is about like, picking-up a shovel, walking out into the woods, and begin to dig in some random spot, hoping to find buried treasure. Twice people have been cured of HIV (below), by receiving a bone marrow transplant from people who are naturally immune to the virus.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/03/05/700361887/bone-marrow-transplant-renders-second-patient-free-of-hiv

Some percentage of people and probably many animals are also naturally immune to various dangerous human diseases. And apparently, there isn’t a disease that kills every person or animal, that contracts it. Those who form resistance likely form antibodies, and/or other natural substances (above, various types of non-specific immunity: complement proteins, cytokines, etc.), which apparently kill or help to kill the pathogen (disease causing organism). And that is why we should probably more carefully study these natural immuno-protected people and animals. Obviously, they may hold the ‘key’ to cure or better create vaccines to these pernicious illnesses. We may also need to consider cloning and culturing CD8+ T cells of naturally immune people, to control the disease. As stated, these cells deliver poisons to infected cells, killing the infection.

No matter the malevolent disease, if a person recovers from it, he or she probably made, not just lots of antibodies, but many different types of antibodies, as well as the other proteins, and biochemicals, which offer various amounts of immune protection. These people may also make more white blood cells which deliver toxins to infected cells, or actually eat pathogens, or digest pathogens. These are weapons which attack and hopefully destroy the pathogen, and these weapons can be harvested and cultured from people, who have recovered, or from animals, which have been purposely infected, but failed to succumb to the disease, perchance showing little, if any, symptoms. While inflammation is part of the immune response, factors (biochemical) which produce inflammation (mast cells releasing histamine) should probably be downplayed, since inflammation may worsen the symptoms. In fact, treatments which suppress natural inflammation may be helpful, when used with monoclonal antibodies, or cloned b-cells, etc.

A large percentage of those people, who contracted smallpox, produced a plethora of antibodies and recovered. Although smallpox was eradicated more than thirty years ago, the vaccine is still studied because the disease may still be used as a bioweapon. Some people tolerate the vaccine with no problem, where others have some a problem with the production of inflammation-producing cytokines.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4263415/

Many with Bubonic Plague also recovered by producing massive amounts and types of antibodies. Moreover, part of the dangerous symptoms of plague may be owing to cytokine inflammation.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21106776/

The same for influenza, and so it is with many other diseases. The antibodies improves the recovery, but the cytokines can be problematic, due to excessive inflammation. Not all cytokines produce inflammation. They are a group of proteins made and secreted by certain white blood cells and largely act as chemical messengers. The trick with regards to cytokines is probably to partially suppress those cytokines, which enhance problematic inflammation. At this time, there is a great deal of information in the scientific literature about cytokines, both their positive and their negative effects on disease.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26189369/

As mentioned, a small percentage of those infected become resistant to HIV, and an even larger percentage, survive Ebola, by these aforementioned natural methods. During the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the people who were brought back to the United States, and put in the Atlanta hospital (Emory), received the full spectrum of antibodies from mice, which had been infected with Ebola, and had quickly recovered from the disease! Once recovered, the mice continued to make the life-saving antibodies. These were easily harvested from the mice (I think the antibodies were in the ascites inside the sack of the mouse peritoneum.), and given to the two people with Ebola at Emory Hospital. They were cheaply cured, by receiving the mouse antibodies! Why haven’t we heard more about this technique in the news? Why are we not shouting it from the rooftops? Ummmh? Could it be that with such monoclonal antibody treatments, big Pharma loses too much profit? As previously stated, medicine should be socialized so that it is not run by profit, but by the desire to heal!

It is important to again mention that there exist certain families, where no one seems to suffers certain types of cancer, or they actually got the cancer, but experienced a spontaneous remission, and a full recovery. Why? Again, it is likely due to the fact that these genetically related people are able to produce a host of different types of antibodies, white blood cells, and/or other biochemicals which attack, or in some way work against certain types of cancer. As you have probably already guessed, effective medicines could be made from those antibodies (MAT), white blood cells, and the other anti-disease factors, to treat infected individuals, who may not make them.

The treatment might also entail, removing some of the cancer cells from the cancer victim, fractionating those cells, thereby shattering their membranes (killing the cancer cells), and then injecting the inactive ‘cancer-soup,’ back into the victim, to supercharge the victim’s own immune system, to make the person’s own immune system begin to function more strongly. On the other hand, said ‘cancer-soup’ could be injected into those persons with the genetic history of being cancer free, or better yet, into a specie of animal known to be immune to said cancer; thereby, forcing their immune systems to produce the requisite antibodies, white blood cells, and other disease fighting factors to conquer the disease. Then, those beneficial factors might be harvested and injected back into the cancer victim, to hopefully kill/cure their cancer.

And if you search through the scientific literature, you might find that science has occasionally used monoclonal antibodies to treat various illnesses. But often, the success of MAT has appeared to be questionable, or has been made to appear to be questionable. So, the causal reader might say to him or herself, “Monoclonal Antibody Therapy is a good idea, but doesn’t actually appear to work.” If what I have just stated were true, that might be tantamount to murder, since Monoclonal Antibody Therapy may prove to be one of the most successful means by which to cure a variety of fatal diseases. If such a means of investigation and treatment were thwarted, because of mere profits, what would you call it?

But just maybe, those studies are allowed to look somewhat less than satisfactory, to fool you; after all, big Pharma’s profits are first and foremost. If that is true, and MAT studies are jimmied to make them look less than, or questionably, effective, how would bis Pharma do it, and why would a researcher want to do this? Well, probably the individual doctor wouldn’t! But certainly a large profit-driven corporation might. Funds might only be used to back those proposed studies, which are doomed to failure, by their inherent design flaws. Exactly how would such a scientific fraud be conducted?

Before a study is funded by National Institute of Human Health, or by almost any other government or pharmacological funding agency, the researcher must submit a comprehensive proposal, which describes exactly how he or she intends to carry-out their proposed study. Generally, said research proposal is written in nauseating detail, and it is like an iron-clad contact, between big Pharma and some researcher who works for some University or company. If that proposal is funded, the researcher must rigorously adhere to the proposed research paradigm. To do otherwise is to risk job loss, and/or face legal attacks against themselves, as well as against their institution, and loss of future funding. Furthermore, a study which fails to closely adhere to its proposed design will likely not be published, since the researcher has to submit his work to a review committee, which is controlled by the institution he or she works for. Moreover, a study must be accepted for publication, by the particular publishing journal. The reviewers (people who work for the publication and screen the submitted article for publication) may work for big Pharma. Many of these reviewers have with worked for big Pharma or for institutions which institutions which have bowed-down to big Pharma, the AMA, and the FDA.

There are various ways that MAT could easily be made to appear to be clearly ineffective or dangerous. For example, if the full plethora of antibodies were not used, but instead, only one or two types of antibodies were selected, then it might be easy for the cancer cells, or the virus, or the bacteria, etc., to mutate against said few antibodies, and thereby survive. Indeed that is how much of MAT research is now conducted. Normally, when a person overcomes an illness, whether it a simple cold or Ebola, they make thousands of different kinds of antibodies, and frequently millions of each of those kinds. Again, to make a study fail, the big Pharma funds the researcher, who only uses one or two of those types of antibodies, not a largest enough variety/array of antibodies to actually kill the disease; instead of using all the thousands of various types of antibodies, which would allow the human to overcome the illness. Often, the researcher has contacts with big Pharma, because of previous funding. They (big Pharma) may make a suggestive hint, such as, ‘We (big Pharma) want to error on the side of safety, so it would be preferable if you could isolate and identify just one or two antibodies, which would kill/disable/retard the virus. Using just one antibody is safer, less likely to cause an adverse reaction.’ Of course, the researcher designs I study accordingly to insure that he’ll secure the funding. When the testing of the single antibody fails to attenuate the virus, and the results are published, it makes MAT appear to be ineffective, or marginal. Indeed, monoclonal antibodies have thus been used, but of course the lack of the vast variety and/or concentration of antibodies, guarantees that they will fail to work to kill the disease for which they’ve been created; hence, no cure and big Pharma retains their profits. This pitiful technique is couched in the argument, that the researchers, by only using one or two antibodies, were just trying to be safe and to ‘isolate’ the most effective type(s) of antibody. How sad! It also gives the impression, that using hundreds or thousands of various antibodies is dangerous. Perhaps that is true, but it could be tested in animals, and then MAT could be tested in gradual graduated amounts (types and number of various disease generated antibodies in animals, i.e., mice, rats, pigs, etc.) in humans.

Perchance, the studies which are strategically funded, are the ones designed for failure, the ones where only one or two ‘varieties’ of antibody are employed to treat the patient suffering with the illness. So the virus, bacteria, or cancer remains insufficiently treated, and may easily mutate against such a weak, ‘one or two weapon,’ treatment paradigm. The natural full (entire spectrum and concentration of antibodies, complements, cytokines, certain white blood cells, etc.) successful immune response occurs because of the plethora of many varieties of antibodies and related immune-effective molecules, making it impossible for the disease cells to mutate effectively. When the doomed-to-failure study, which only used one or two antibodies, is published, MAT looks like a waste of time, and simply doesn’t work, and an unnecessary risk.

For MAT to work effectively and cure the illness, it’s likely that the complete spectrum of antibodies, all the various varieties, or some appreciable portion of that spectrum, which is formed by the naturally immune animal or human, should be administered to the infected individual, at a natural equivalent concentration. In this respect, MAT should probably be renamed, polyclonal antibody therapy, PAT. By funding studies which fail to succeed, and thereby discourage the use of MAT, the pharmaceutical companies remain highly profitable, because their pseudo-effective and ineffective treatments continued to be used. Once you cure cancer and certain other profit-generating diseases, with a single or a few MAT treatments, you’ve effectively knocked-out a large portion of their massive proceeds.

The following might be an actual case, if not the first case, where MAT was used successfully, and it was during an actual worldwide plague. It was used in a time which big Pharma, as we now know it, didn’t exist. From January of 1918 to roughly December of 1920, a deadly influenza (H1N1 virus) plague infected approximately half a billion people throughout the planet, and killed roughly 50 to 100 million, which at that time was then about three to five percent of the world’s population! With just one mutation, it could happen again, and we’ve got no clue about the actual probability of that happening. This possibility of a new bug appearing is why I am stressing the use of a cocktail containing broad spectrum MAT, complements, cytokines, and certain white blood cells, etc.

One of my old fictionalized scientist friends told me about a group of US Navy doctors, who were working in San Diego back in 1918, and found an effective way to protect themselves and their fellow healthcare workers, from the deadly influenza plague. These doctors withdrew blood from the immunologically strongest of their influenza patients, namely those, who clearly had influenza, but obviously fully recovered. These were the patients, who had evidently formed the requisite antibodies, complements, cytokines, and white blood cells needed to overcome the disease, although the doctors back then certainly did not know much about these immunologic factors, they had found a very practical treatment. They simply assumed that there was ‘something’ in those surviving patient’s blood, which had delivered their recoveries. The docs were just shooting in the dark! You’ve got to admire the practice of heroic medicine! What is the likelihood that doctors today could do something like that? Those docs in 1918 had in effect administered life-saving antibodies, complements, cytokines, and some white blood cells to the sick.

Those early San Diego physicians, who were fighting the influenza plague, withdrew blood from some of the newly recovered patients, centrifuged that blood, so had the red blood cells, some of the white blood cells, and the platelets settled to the bottom of the centrifuge bottle. Those cells were then returned to the recovered donors from which they’d been taken. What was left of the blood was the liquid part, called ‘plasma,’ which most likely contained the antibodies, complements, cytokines, and a few of the white blood cells.

Said centrifuge bottle was merely a pint bottle with a thin rope tried to it, and the physician would just spin the bottle around on the end of the five or six foot piece of rope, sort of how a cowboy might twirl a lasso. The red blood cells would sink to the bottom of the bottle, due to the fact that they were covered with heavy iron-containing hemoglobin molecules. The white blood cells and platelets, not being as heavy as the red blood cells, would form a thin layer on top of the red blood cells, called the ‘buffy coat,’ and some stayed in the plasma. Above those cell layers (red and white) was the liquid or plasma, which contained the aforementioned healing factors! I apologize for this repetition, but I want to be clear..

Since the plasma remaining in the top of the bottle is free of red blood cells, there is a marked reduction in the possibility that it (the plasma) will cause an immune rejection, when injected into another person’s bloodstream, but since that plasma was filled with the recovered patient’s immune factors, it may act to cure another individual, suffering with the same illness, if put into their bloodstream. The US Navy doctors intravenously administered this plasma into themselves, and to certain their other healthcare workers, and so none of them fell prey to the dreaded disease, they were treating. In other words, the recovered patient’s plasma was used prophylactically… preventively.

So, we might say that monoclonal antibody therapy has been around since 1918! On the other hand, the doctors who did this, may have read about the work of Behring and Kitasato, published on December 4th of 1890. They were able to show that serum from an animal, which had been immunized against diphtheria could be used to neutralize a fatal dose of the diphtheria toxin. (Behring E.A. and Kitasato S. Uber das Zustandekommen der Diphterie- Immunitat und der Tentanus- Immunitat bei Thieren. Desch. Med. Wochereschr. 1890; 49, 1113-4.) In that study, certain of the antibody types or liver enzymes evidently bound to, and tied-up or destroyed/neutralized, the toxins produced by the diphtheria. And so, the toxins were rendered harmless. Behring got the Nobel Prize for this in 1901.

At least in the 1918 influenza plague, harvesting the antibodies appears to have been a relatively simple task. Doesn’t that make you wonder why we’re not using them more, now? Perhaps animals, which have been shown to be immunologically resistant to some types of cancer or resistant to certain disease pathogens, e.g., virus, bacteria, mycobacteria, fungus, etc., could be used as ‘antibody factories.’ Quite likely mice, pigs, rats, alligators, snakes, buzzards, etc., in many ways have profoundly powerful immune systems; much ‘stronger’ that those of humans, with more types of effective antibodies, against disease challenges.

Many animals would not only be more apt to make more, but a larger variety, of beneficial antibodies, which could then be used to successfully treat the cancer or pathogen-based diseases in humans, and other animals (veterinary medicine). Various animals could be exposed to the disease (injected with cancer cell-membranes, as well as various preparations of dead or live viruses, bacteria, mycobacteria, fungus, etc.) to determine which species or subspecies of animal could create the most effective types and numbers of curative antibodies, white blood cells, and other disease fighting biochemicals/enzymes/complement proteins (most complement proteins are made in the liver, and so those people with compromised liver function, might desperately need to receive injections of complement proteins, when fighting a serious disease), etc.

Theoretically, more than one type or subspecies of animal could be used to generate an even more potent mix/blend of antibodies. For example, it might be determined that there may be several subspecies of mouse or rat, which produce effective antibodies against ebola, or flu. Consequently, antibodies from these various subspecies, might be combined and used as a more powerful combination-antibody treatment. Again, the administered treatment to the human patient might be some blend of millions of types of antibodies from said several animal sources. Various blends of antibodies, complements, human white blood cells, cytokines, etc. could be manufactured, if medicine wasn’t for profit. Obviously, all such developments would have to undergo efficacy testing for the dependability of their curative property, and toxic-testing for safety, but if you allow the FDA and big Pharma to do the testing, it will most likely fail to get to where it needs to be, especially if a truly bad bug becomes a pandemic! And don’t forget that NIHH is run by the government, which is controlled by the lobbyists of big Pharma.

That’s probably where the pharmaceutical companies would also want to pay for the studies, just to demonstrate that MAT is toxic and unsafe for human use; anything to keep them from loosing business to cheap, effective, cures. Perhaps, they’d be able to claim the MAT treatment caused meningitis, or seizure disorders, anaphylaxis, hypertension, violent nausea, rejection syndrome, etc. As a result of this obvious conflict between profit and effective healthcare, it should be illegal for pharmaceutical companies to engage in, influence, be indirectly involved in drug or medical research! The pharmaceutical companies should exist as only manufacturing factories. Their products should only be purchased by the government with a mark-up of no more than one hundred percent, as determined by government inspectors, with all variables of drug pricing being fully disclosed online for public scrutiny. That way, any person having to purpose a pharmaceutical can see why he or she is paying the price they are. Pharmacies should only be allowed to charge a hundred percent mark-up over the manufactures price. This way, the customer is paying two hundred percent above manufacturing cost. In addition, perhaps those things which are designed to promote human health should be non-patentable, since now patenting means the company owning the patent controls the manufacture, and therefore the price.

The global antibody market is currently worth roughly $20 billion, a drop in the bucket, but antibodies are slowly (too slowly) becoming an essential tool in medicine, research, and industry. The first therapeutic MAT antibody to be approved for clinical practice was anti-CD3 muronamab (1985), used to combat transplant rejection. Since then, the field has slowly grown, with some monoclonal antibodies providing immuno-therapies for cancer, autoimmune disease, as well as inflammatory conditions/diseases. Another successful antibody is rituximab – an anti-CD20 antibody targeting B-cells in B-cell lymphoma, and autoimmune diseases, e.g., rheumatoid arthritis. Monoclonal antibodies are also starting to be used in diagnostics and for detection proteins; for example, blood type testing, pregnancy tests, immuno-histochemistry, fluorescence microscopy, and flow cytometry.

Drug companies obviously have a ‘dangerous conflict of interest,’ when it comes to researching developing curative medicine, and that’s a real human tragedy! It’s not too different from allowing the fox to guard the henhouse. The pharmaceutical companies can only make money, as long as people remain ill, or addicted. How can we allow leviathan drug companies to preside over research and government (lobbyists), where a cure would represent a loss of huge profits, and longterm expensive treatments with lots of side effects, which need to be treated with additional profitable drugs? It’s like far too many undereducated Americans have ‘agreed’ to remain sick (uncured and on longterm treatments), so that big Pharma can get rich. Worse yet, many just allow themselves to die, while still paying-out their lifesavings to the medical insurance companies, the hospitals, and the pharmaceutical companies. Often, by the time they die, they’ve nothing left to will to their children.

Again, NIHH and the FDA are controlled by the government/politicians, which are in turn controlled by big Pharma’s lobbyists. Research on curative monoclonal antibodies, as well as other endogenous and exogenous anti-disease factors/drugs, should be conducted in a way, which is completely above-board, and not affiliated with the ever greedy influence of the corporate world, their lobbyists and politicians. In consideration of the above, and as of late, drug companies may literally be killing more people than they’re saving; doing far more harm than good, with many of the ineffective newer drugs. This is not to mention the number of addicts they and the AMA have knowingly been supplying, and often creating, by over treating people for pain, anxiety, and ADHD. If drug companies, are in effect blocking and withholding potentially curative medicines, are they not guilty of at least assault, and in some cases, quite likely premeditated murder? Clearly, they are guilty in thought (mens rea), as well as guilty by their actions, and their inactions. Whatever happened to the first rule of medicine? It’s probably not to be found anywhere on the walls of big Pharma.

Primum non nocere… Latin for, ‘First, do no harm.’

Hippocrates

Big Pharma just continues to allow diseases (cancer, HIV, malaria, colds, etc.) to continue to run rampant, while they produce their lucrative non-curative drugs with their profitable side effects. Since drug research is often about life and death issues, basic logic dictates that it must be conducted so that it’s completely detached from the twin motives of profit and greed!

Conservative Republicans and even certain liberal Democrats will foolishly insist that profit encourages people to improve medicine. Competition drives progress… While in many cases, it is true, but in the field of medicine, it is utterly ridiculous! In fact, it is the opposite, for in the business of pharmaceuticals, profits actually drive the prevention of cures, and if you give it a little thought, and as mentioned, that may sometimes be tantamount to first degree murder! Doesn’t that seem like it just might be irrefutable logic, or do you honestly think that the CEOs of big Pharma actually care about curing cancer and pathogen-based diseases? With cancer, the treatments usually only prolong life, just long enough to cause the patient to go broke.

The sooner you realize it’s a ball, the sooner you can relax, and stroll to first base.

Faking Your Health by Tommy William Ready

A viable cure, will remain hidden, and the public’s good health will forever represent a financial disaster for the pharmaceutical businesses, since a cure is probably only a single inexpensive dose. Of course, big Pharma will try to charge as much as they can for that one treatment, but still it will be nothing in comparison to the annual $45 billion they make off the AIDS cocktail, in just the United States, which big Pharma’s research dollars did nothing to develop/discover. Longterm treatments now often represent thousands in expense, to the ever suffering patient.

If today, antibiotics had not yet been invented, and gonorrhea still existed, and some research scientist applied to study the effect of the mold-extract called, penicillin on people with the disease, he would either never be funded, or if he were funded and he reported his successful results, then big Pharma would probably fund a dozen studies, indicating that penicillin has dangerous, with deadly side effects. They might rely on the fact that about 2.5 percent of the people are allergic. Big Pharma would do their level best to keep right-on selling some treatment, which only slowed down the infection, or in some way made it more manageable, so the patient would become their life-long customer! In the 1800s, Gonorrhea was largely treated with two medications: cubebs (the dried powdered fruit of an Indonesian pepper), and copaiba (extract from a South American tree). In 1859, over 150,000 pounds of copaiba were imported into the United Kingdom, mostly to treat the disease. Neither herb appears to have cured the disease.

As stated, certain species and subspecies of animals have extremely powerful immune systems, and most likely would make excellent antibody, complement protein, white blood cell, and cytokine, factories, etc., for curing many deadly diseases. Just consider the decaying viral and bacterial laden foods which rats, mice, and vultures are able to ingest safely. Many rodents can feed off of the rotting carcass of an animal, swarming with flies. Rodents are often bitten by the fleas, which carry bubonic plague, and not all at are killed by the plague. The plague has no effect on certain rodents, but kills many humans, and so the disease vectors are hard to stop. The point is that the rodents which do not capitulate, also likely produce antibodies to various diseases.

Male rodents (rats, mice, etc.) often engage in combat, with each other, as well as other animals, ergo they frequently sustain grievous wounds, while living in filthy microbe laden environments; still, they rarely do they die of infections, and tend to recover much more readily than do humans. So why aren’t we studying and developing monoclonal antibodies, complements, and white blood cells, in a more serious manner? Why aren’t we manufacturing said antibodies, and other curative biochemicals and cells, to treat and cure pathogen-based diseases, not to mention cancer? For cancer, one might also want to use manageable pathological viruses (HIV, rhinovirus, measles, herpes, hep c, small pox, varicella zoster virus, etc), or non pathological viruses, with monoclonal antibodies on the outside of their viral coats, so that the virus specifically targets the cancer cell, while simultaneously triggering an immune response in the patient. To do this, you might have to reverse engineer viral RNA to synthesize said monoclonal antibodies (proteins). The virus, coated with the monoclonal antibodies, would therefore only infect the cancer cells. However, for immune safe areas of the body, like parts of the urogenital system, the nervous system, interior of the eye, the brain, etc., a direct injection of the otherwise harmless virus might have to be made.

The funding of NIHH is a corporate, and therefore political football, a source of contention in US Congress, always serving as a proxy for the political issues of the time. Congressmen and Congresswomen are heavily influenced, if not actually bribed, by lobbyist. Said behaviors were most volatile during Reagan’s presidency, when he repeatedly tried to cut funding to NIHH, but Congress partially restored it. The chopping of funding to NIHH markedly reduced the country’s response to the AIDS epidemic. It was thought that Reagan considered AIDS to be God’s curse on gays, just like some of his right wing religious backers. Newspaper articles dealing with AIDS came out in 1981, but it was not until more than half way through 1987, that Reagan announced a committee to research the HIV problem… politicians and greedy businessmen controlling issues of life and death. For a Hollywood cowboy, he was extremely slow on the draw. The unchecked spread of AIDS in the US might have been directly owing to his slow reaction.

Bush was also slow on medical research. It was not until 2009, that Obama reinstated federally funded stem-cell research, overturning Bush’s ban of such research in 2001. The funding of the military and the intelligence support agencies cost the taxpayer over fifty percent of the annual budget. What has always irked me is that medical research is generally performed by highly intelligent men, but often the presidents that hold the purse strings are comparative mental midgets. Money to the defense contractors, and the MIC, always comes first, receiving the lion’s share of the budget.

￼

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5d615cc10df9

As you can see, Iraq and Afghanistan really elevated the peak (red, above), and made a shit ton of money for the ever hungry MIC. If Trump gets elected you can bet the defense budget will soar. Those two variables… big defense budget and corporations paying less taxes, means the burden of defense falls more heavily on the taxpayer, and so there probably will be cuts to things like: health, education, welfare, planned parenthood, etc. NIHH, which is supposed to be the guiding light for medical research, will probably receive less than one percent of the nation’s operating budget! Bullets are far more important than health. NIHH controls more than half of all funding for health-related research, and about eighty-five percent of all health research in our universities! So, if NIHH is controlled by congress, whose members are in turn controlled by the lobbyists of big Pharma, research into cures is strictly off the table. Screw curing illnesses. If you think I’m wrong about this, just ask your doctor to site three medical cures in the last twenty years, and watch him squirm. Make sure he doesn’t try to substitute a treatment for a cure. If he does site a cure, go on the internet and make sure it that it was in the last twenty years. If scientific techniques are now better than ever, why are we not getting the medical cures? There are three primary reasons for this: 1. big Pharma’s fear of cures costing them money, 2. more than half the budget goes to the military and the military industrial complex, with less than one percent of the budget going to medical research, and 3. public complacency due to reduction in the quality of education. America is not even close to the top ten countries for education!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health

Please let me show you one tiny glimpse into the profits of big Pharma… For a moment, let’s consider one example of how much money would be lost to the pharmaceutical companies with their overpriced, long-term treatments. If AIDS were cured by one pill or injection, or by a brief series of shots of monoclonal antibodies, here is what big Pharma would lose. Today, the average cost for an HIV or AIDS victim is about $18,000 per year, and there are about three million Americans with HIV or AIDS, equating to roughly $54,000,000,000.00 per year, and that’s just in the United States, where the majority of their market is overseas! That’s about how much money big Pharma makes off Americans for the ‘non-curative’ longterm AIDS-cocktail treatment… $54 billion! And, this is just one disease… $54 billion and over ninety percent of that money is pure profit. And you thought the cartels made a lot of money. The pharmaceutical companies make all that money, yet they didn’t discover the treatment. To development the AIDS cocktail didn’t cost them a cent. They had to do practically nothing in the way of research. Chow, a Harvard med student came-up with the idea of using a combination of existing drugs. Later, the cocktail was refined by Ho, a Canadian. The cocktail is a dirt cheap blend of old AIDS drugs, mixed together. Yet big Pharma gets to bleed the victims dry by selling it at high prices, as if it were their discovery. Here is how the idea of the cocktail may have actually come about.

On February 18th, 1993, the New York Times may have reported that a fourth-year M.D./Ph.D. student at Harvard Medical School, Yung-Kang Chow, discovered a new approach to combatting HIV. Chow simply called his new technique “convergent combination therapy.” He combined three different drugs commonly used to treat the virus.

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20109915,00.html

When I spoke with Chow on the phone, he was only a student, and appeared to be profoundly afraid that I was a reporter. When I asked him how he had come-up with his novel approach, he just kept asking me, “Are you sure you’re not a reporter?” It certainly seemed that the ‘powers that be’ had put the fear of God in him. Someone had apparently threatened him, rather than congratulating him! When he first made the discovery, as well as the not fully authorized publication, it terrified certain people, because it looked like Chow had come-up with a cure, and actually may have. Later, the cocktail may have been modified (diluted down, so to speak) to be a lasting, non-curative treatment. I’m fairly certain that other more senior members of the lab, where he worked, were probably jealous, and did everything they could to steal credit for his discovery, or diminish his finding. What he’d done was to put several existing AIDS drugs in a test tube with live HIV. Eventually the virus id said to have mutated and successfully overcome the virus, but rumor has it that he was somehow convinced to say this, and another guy got the credit. Nevertheless, it was Chow who came-up with the valuable idea of using combination drugs! But it was the powers that be, namely big Pharma, which really capitalized on Chow’s discovery. I wonder how much money the little med student made from his profound discovery? My bet is that comparatively speaking, he got practically nothing. To create an effective vaccine to HIV, will probably require two things. 1. Administering vaccine antigens, which cause antibodies to be made, that can destroy the virus’s ability to mutate, and 2. the antibodies will either deactivate the glycan shield, bind to it, or penetrate it. The HIV envelope/coat glycoprotein is the ineffective target for HIV neutralizing antibodies. The HIV envelop is made of heavily glycosylated proteins, with about half of its mass being made of host-derived N-linked glycans. The high density of glycans creates a shield which impedes antibody recognition.

Is it true that the pharmaceutical companies actually employ more lobbyists than do all the oil industries combined? If so, why? Why do you have to spend so much money, if you’re just trying to help people? If lobbyists control politicians and politicians determine, which programs get funded at the NIHH, then how would legitimate intensive monoclonal antibody research ever get funded; especially since MAT may hold the potential to destroy large portions of big Pharma’s profit? What other reason could there be for big Pharma having so many lobbyists, well over twelve hundred, and most of them are expensive lawyers? Do you think those lawyers are working on your behalf, trying to persuade our politicians to fund cures? Think what would happen to big Pharma and the medical industries if cancer was cured!

Lord only knows, that our upstanding politicians probably haven’t a clue as to the actual potential, which monoclonal antibody therapy holds, and probably never will, and there’s little doubt that they enjoy the benefits of big Pharma’s big money. How many diseases do we need to suffer before the politicians realize that we need to research antiviral and anticancer methods, that we need better medical facilities, and that medicine needs to be socialized. America has no good plan for isolation if a pandemic were to hit. If the politicians were aware of the potential of MAT, but didn’t fund it, they might be considered sociopaths, if not criminals. It’s sort of like being able to stop the holocaust, but instead accepting a bribe to allow it to transpire, to needlessly allow the suffering and death of millions! That’s got to be worse, than one case of first degree murder. The lobbyists and politicians could even be considered as complicit in causing human suffering and death, if they knew about MAT, but did nothing to pursue it. If you realize that something has the potential to save lives, lots of lives, and you don’t rigorously pursue it, is that not tantamount to murder, if not actual first degree coldblooded murder? In federal and most state law, second degree murder is intentional killing that isn’t premeditated, or killing which is caused by a lack of concern for human life. What big Pharma, some of their lobbyists, and politicians are going seems to clearly be premeditated, ergo first degree murder, since as things are now, it’s a forgone conclusion that people will suffer and die, from certain diseases!

As strange as it may seem, there are better forms of population control, than starvation, war, and disease. Nevertheless, the dollar takes precedence.

Weeding the Garden, by Leo A. Wilemly

While an extremely costly long-term treatment is no doubt better than death, it sure can’t beat an inexpensive quick permanent cure. Again, to stop this felonious stupidity, we must get the pharmaceutical companies out of the research business, by completely banning them from doing, or paying for research, and by getting rid of all their lobbying capabilities, unless said lobbying is done in the public eye, i.e., written and submitted online, via live interviews/meetings online, etc. While perhaps the first amendment should be allowed to stand, it should be modified so that all communications with politicians, at all levels of government, should be online. It’s the abuse of those last nine words to the amendment, which have been causing the bribes, so let’s make it public. And let’s make covert communication with any and all American leaders an act of treason, punishable by death of life imprisonment. To that effect, it should be mandated that all politicians may only use a government-provided phone which is monitored 24-7. Moreover, whomever drafts these changes to the first amendment, should not be affiliated with any politician or major corporation! It’s time that big brother experience good old fashioned tic-for-tac.

First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Moreover, the corporations of big Pharma need to make full financial disclosure, and only be allowed to make the standard one hundred to two hundred percent profit. In the first amendment, when it uses the word ‘people,’ I doubt the most Americans enjoy the fact that the first amendment has been designed to allow corporations to privately redress their grievances, bribe and dupe politicians, so they can get rich and deter the progress of medicine. Most likely, the totality of big pharma should be purchased by the government for a ‘fair’ price, or maybe not so fair, and the shareholders should be paid-off first. The shareholders should not be punished for the sins of big Pharma, since in almost all cases, the share price of each company doesn’t begin to accurately reflect the actual value of the company. Of course, what big Pharma has done to its’ shareholders is nothing compared to its’ customers. America’s health should not be for sale. To better appreciate this argument just imagine that your child, or your mother, or your spouse is seriously ill, and is forced to go broke, trying to pay for their longterm treatment, with no real hope of being cured.

Monoclonal antibodies would be extremely cheap to manufacture; after all, the mice or rats or some other relatively cheap animal make it for you. And there-in lies the rub, for big Pharma makes no big profit! Most likely by now, you can tell, that the lack of good quality research into the development of clinically effective monoclonal antibodies has long been one of my pet peeves. The reward for developing and practicing the art of medicine should be the self-satisfaction one receives from knowing that they have healed, or eased or stopped suffering, or beat-back death. That reward should be greater than the reward of money. Such a medical/ethical perspective, should be taught in the schools. As of late, such a perspective seems to have been lost by too many in the United States. Too many of our current politicians just seem like ego-manics. Doctors might first be worshipped, as well as inspired, because of the health they furnish, and not because of their huge salaries. Folks like WW Mayo and his two sons (Will and Charlie), Albert Schweitzer, William Halstead, many of the physicians in Doctors without Borders, are not now as prevalent as in past years. Nonetheless, there are still such humanitarians. Who do you worship, the egoists, or the humanitarians?

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2015/oct/26/extreme-medicine-msf-daredevil-doctors-humanitarian-frontline

When I was a child, we were taught about people like Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who unselfishly went into destitute regions of the globe to help heal the sick, where healing was the good doctor’s only reward. We were taught that such people were in fact the best of humankind. In 1952, Schweitzer received the Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy, known as, “Reverence for Life.” He founded the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambarene, of central west Africa, for the poor and distressed, and in so doing, saved thousands of lives. He founded it in 1913, and ran it until he died in 1965. Moreover, his life’s accomplishments extended far beyond the field of medicine. Now people, who are relative novices in their field, receive the Nobel Prize for works of questionable merit. Today, the Nobel Prize is often awarded for political reasons. The prize recipient is selected by a five member committee, appointed by Norway Parliament; consequently, said five are generally politicians.

Consequently, the award may have been awarded for less than noble reasons. While President Barrack Obama is a great guy, he was given Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 only nine months into office. Much of the surrounding controversy arose from the fact that nominations for the award had been due by February 1, 2009, just 12 days after he took office. Al Gore was awarded the Peace Prize for simply creating a documentary, which dealt with environmental issues, and had little to nothing to do with peace. The Dalai Lama received the Peace Prize for being in exile, and though he was clearly a great guy, he had little, if anything, to do with the establishment of peace. All these guys are good men, but receiving the prize just seemed too political for me.

Humanitarian action is more than simple generosity, simple charity. It aims to build spaces of normalcy in the midst of what is abnormal.

by Dr James Orbinski

Perhaps, there are those, who don’t want the world to know that there yet exists people like Dr. Albert Schweitzer. But there are still those doctors, who put their lives on the line fighting disease in the world. The aforementioned Doctors Without Borders (DWB) are poorly paid and often working in war torn areas, where one or both sides of the conflict come to hate, if not attack them (DWB). To my knowledge, only one member of Doctors Without Borders has received the Nobel. The DWB doesn’t discriminate about which side of the battle (without borders) they choose to medically treat, and since both sides absolutely ‘know,’ that they are the righteous side, the Doctors Without Borders is frequently judged as being unrighteous, an enemy supporter, worthy of killing. Many of those doctors have died, not only due to purposeful military actions, but due to disease.

https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/tribute.cfm?source=ADD1600U0V55&utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_term=brand_sitelink

We hear little of those healers, yet it is they who should be winning the Nobel Prize for Medicine, and lauded in our school systems, not politicians, music and cinema stars, generals, CEOs, and the like, but people who have made real personal sacrifice for the betterment of humankind. Some American sport teams get ticket tape parades, yet the men and women who are saving lives, at the risk of their own, fighting the Ebola virus in West Africa, largely remain unknown. Can you name even one of those doctors? In my feeble way of thinking, the Nobel Prize is no longer of great consequence.

“It is better to deserve honors and not have them, than to have them and not deserve them.”

-Mark Twain

Many of America’s sick and/or dying have become ‘financial slaves’ to their illnesses, forced to pay with every mandatory trip to the pharmacy, clinic, or hospital. Consequently, in the later years of their life, when maladies are most apt to strike, people often loose their entire savings, dying in debt, with no financial legacy to leave their children. While medicine is ‘critical,’ in oh so many ways, in America it’s morally despicable. But if medical insurance corporations and their lobbyists, as well as Big Pharma’s bogus research, questionable drugs, and their countless lobbyists were taken out of the game, we could make healthcare so much better, and still it would be reasonably profitable. Medicine could easily be configured to be so much more effective in maintaining and restoring health. Let me ask you… which is more important, the wealth of the pharmaceutical industry, or the health of our nation, if not the world? It’s ridiculous that the medical world has gotten to the point, where such a question needs to be asked.

America… the nation which profits most from her sick and dying.

Land of The Free by Moe R. Willay

Besides MAT, there are several other methods for developing curative medicine and vaccines. None of which are getting significant financial support from NIHH (No Immediate Humane Help). For example, the use of a high-yielding geminivirus-based transient expression system in N benthamiana that is clearly suited to simultaneous expression of several interesting proteins allowed expression of a MAb (6DB), which is well known to protect animals from Ebola virus infection, at levels of 0.5 g/kg biomass. (Chen, Q., He, J., Phoolcharoen, W., Mason, H.S., 2011. Geminiviral vectors based on bean yellow dwarf virus for production of vaccine antigens and monoclonal antibodies in plants. Human vaccines 7, 331-338.)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21358270

The World Health Organization carried-out the first ever analysis of the quality of the world’s medical and health systems, country by country. The results were published in the 21 June issue of The World Health Report 2000-Health Systems: Improving Performance. You can order your own copy from bookorders@who.int. It indicates that the United States health system spends a greater percentage of it gross domestic product on health (cost of medical care), than any other nation on earth, but out of the 191 countries studied, the United States was ranked only 37th (from the top) in its performance quality! All that education and technology, and all that massive expense, yet 37th was the best we could do? Again, it’s big Pharma, medical insurance corporations, and hospital corporations blocking medical progress, and getting rich by doing so.

The United Kingdom, which spends only six percent of its’ GDP on medicine, and ranks 18th! France was ranked as number one! Even small countries like San Marino, Andorra, Malta, and Singapore ranked much higher than the United States! Wake-up America! The pharmaceutical, medical insurance, and hospital lobbyist are ‘literally’ killing you, and draining your bank accounts, and Americans do nothing. Such blatant corruption needs to be stopped with prejudice, and it needs to be prosecuted as criminal, but too many Americans are like mindless sheep, being fleeced, and lead to the slaughter.

In a very real way, this twisted medical/pharmaceutical dilemma is not too different, than my aforementioned Grandfather’s employment. As an attorney, he knew no peer, and he defended criminals, whom he knew had taken lives, or had seriously hurt people, or had stolen people’s wealth, yet he did his best to free them, and free them he did, but always for a big profit! He was acting within the bounds of the law, and when in law school, he probably thought he’d be doing the moral thing. The crimes of big Pharma are similar, only millions of times worse… acting within the bounds of the law, while allowing disease conditions, suffering, and death to continue, while garnering huge profits!

The more murderers, muggers, and thieves my Grandpa freed, the more business he, and other attorneys like him, received. The drug companies follow basically the same paradigm… the more human sickness and misery, the more money can be procured, as well as the other numerous medical businesses. By not properly researching monoclonal antibody therapy, vaccines, complements, cytokines, the use of a high-yielding geminivirus-based transient expression system in N benthamiana, and other forms of curative medicine, it is very much like the pharmaceutical companies are doing their level best to make sure pathogen-based diseases and cancer remain free to continue to terrify, injure, and kill, so they will always have a ready supply of customers, trapped into paying for an expensive life-prolonging non-curative treatment. Just as Grandpa freed the psychopaths to continue plundering, maiming, and killing, the pharmaceutical companies and their government-controlling lobbyists, and the government-controlled medical systems are freeing-up illnesses to continue to drain your wallets, injure your bodies, make you miserable, and ultimately kill you. And it doesn’t stop there. After you’re dead the mortuary comes, to collect whatever little bit of change is still giggling in your cold pockets.

A successful vaccine, which spells the end to a profitable non-curative disease treatment is virtually the same as big Pharma’s committing financial suicide. Greed certainly doesn’t confine itself to only one profession. In 1979, largely through efforts of the World Health Organization, the small pox virus (variola) was eradicated from the earth. Surely, we can do that again with other diseases. Why did we stop with smallpox? You probably know why! Worse yet, the small pox vaccine was first developed way back in 1796, by a guy named Edward Jenner, and there’s been too few vaccines recently, with the exceptions of polio (1961), a few types of papilloma, as well as the hepatitis A and B vaccines, in 1997. The list of vaccines is not that long; see CDC website below.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/vaccines-list.html

The vaccine for the human papilloma virus (warts) is only partially effective, about 80 percent of the cases. Science has made profound advances in the understanding of human physiology biochemistry, and immunology, but recently these advances have failed to result in cures. Come on America, stop drinking the big Pharma/AMA purple Kool-Aid. Eradicating smallpox was long ago… 1979… and we haven’t done much since! Wonder why? The world conquered small pox, two generations ago! Wake up, folks! The modern world doesn’t properly vaccinate people in Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, so there’s still polio out there in the world! How is it we don’t correct that?

When dying time at last arrives for those pharmaceutical CEOs, board members, administrators, and lobbyists, as well as for all those bribed supportive politicians, they can lie on their death beds sucking down what they know are their last few breaths, and contemplate their impressive bank books, rather than recalling the millions of people they could have earnestly helped. Their legacy will only be their bank statements, which will probably be quickly squandered by their kids, once they’re dead and gone.

Their true legacy with be one of the misery and death, they created or simply allowed to continue. Perchance, those people should have their final net worth, chiseled into their granite tombstones for all to see, and for a few stray dogs to lift their hind leg on. When they get to those pearly gates, there’s no doubt God will be waiting to personally greet them.

“Congratulations Mr. Lobbyist or Mr. big Pharma CEO, or Mr. puppet politician, on that big pile of money you accumulated, and don’t worry about all the death and suffering you caused or purposely allowed to continue. Who cares about human suffering, anyway? After all, that pile of money you made is far more important than my meager creation of life. Come-on in, good buddy! Me casa es su casa.” God will no doubt say.

The Hippocratic Oath is now a ‘thing of the past,’ for far too many doctors. The original draft was written in the late fifth century, BC. Many scholars believe that the original ancient oath was written by the Pythagoreans, and was made to various Greek Gods, which were thought to be involved with health and healing. Since then, the oath has been modified, unknown times. Probably the most widely accepted version is the one called, The Declaration of Geneva, which was drafted by the World Medical Association (WMA) in 1948.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Geneva

At that time, the oath was regularly used in graduation ceremonies for medical schools, but in a 1989 survey, only three medical schools, out of the 126 questioned, still used the oath, and probably none do, now! The WMA was established on September 18th, 1947, and now has over 10 million physicians as members, from almost every country on earth, but their oath has basically been eradicated from medicine! Why? Perhaps the physicians need to be made to tow-the-line, in the fight against big Pharma, and its lobbyists, and their politicians. Maybe we could write a better oath.

Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote something about artists. Since I clearly lack his profound literary talent, I am ashamed to say that I have somewhat modified and plagiarized his work and renamed it The Healer (one paragraph below). But this small abuse of Nietzsche’s work, which he titled Joy in Old Age, works just as well for the field of medicine, as it did for the artist.

http://www.lexido.com/EBOOK_TEXTS/HUMAN_ALL_TOO_HUMAN_BOOK_ONE_.aspx?S=209

Again, I must clearly admit that the following is not completely my work. In addition, I am sure that my alterations have probably somewhat diminished the quality of the original work. My humble apology to Friedrich Nietzsche. Originally, I created the modification as a gift to my fine doctor, and of course I told him the original draft was written by Nietzsche. Now, I’m not so sure about who wrote it. Rarely do I see my doctor, but just knowing that a man of such quality exists, brings me great comfort, and fills me with hope for the future of humankind. When I die, I do hope he looks out for my child.

The Healer

The healer, whose art has fled his hands into the bodies of his patients, may take an almost malicious joy, as time breaks into and destroys his own body. It is as if he is hiding behind a door in his house; watching a thief breaking into his safe, all the while knowing, it’s empty and its valuables have been wisely spent.

Generally, scientists who apply for a research grant, which may foreseeably result in an actual cure, are unlikely to receive funding. Those who apply to study obtuse disease mechanisms, related epidemiological issues, possible partial or delaying treatments, or drugs to treat side effects of existing drugs, etc., are far more likely to get the cash. Any proposal which does not truly threaten to result in a cure, but looks as if it has some indirect non-curative merit, is apt to get funding, and then such unproductive studies are advertised to the public, in the name of ‘progress,’ as phony evidence that big Pharma is working hard for you.

If you click on the below web address, you’ll see that NIHH appears to estimate the annual research costs, for 2009, to have been about $216 billion. The last twenty years might therefore be about $4 trillion, or more… with no real cures. You can bet that the pharmaceutical companies have benefitted greatly from that, while trying to make you believe that they’re the ones paying for and developing the latest medicine, and it just may be the very same medicine that you, the taxpayer, pay too much for!

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=annual+cost+of+cancer+research

What it cost the United States to put a man on the moon was no where close to that amount! NASA claims it was about $25B. How many cures were derived from NIHH’s twenty year $4T budget, which is about 160 times the amount that it took to put a man on the moon. Having a hard time naming a cure? Me too. Ask your doctor to name all the cures in the last twenty years, and just see what he comes up with. Don’t let him get away with naming longterm treatments, or the papilloma vaccine, which only marginally works. Demand that he name only actual cures! The cure for hepatitis C is one, but it was used successfully in Canada for many years before the United States finally broke-down and allowed it to be used, so Hep-C doesn’t count. And even though it’s a cure, it still takes months of treatment to clear the Hep-C virus. It wasn’t until the 2013 that the US allowed the cure to be used, since Hep C was one hell of a big money maker for drug companies and the AMA. The death due to Hep C wasn’t usually pleasant, since it would generally cause painful liver cancer.

If you cure cancer, people will quit contributing billions to its study. There is no measuring the amount of money that has been contributed to the study of cancer! Through the years, more money has gone to cancer (treatments and research) than all the gold reserves in the ten richest countries in the world. Hospitals love that research money, because about forty percent (overhead) of it goes directly to the hospital corporation, just another greedy business. If some hospital based researcher gets $100 million to study something, the hospital usually takes about $40 million of it, and if the results of the study point to a longterm treatment, then big Pharma snatches it up, and claims the credit for discovering it, as well. Again, if you cure cancer, people will stop paying billions for its research, and even more for its treatment. Hospitals will lose-out on radiation treatments, surgeries, marked-up chemo therapies, psych sessions, drug for side effects, countless expensive patient visits, pain pills, anti-inflammatories, etc. Then, there the minor issues of suffering and death.

The machinations of certain lobbyists are designed to steer politicians away from the curative medicines, and to redirect the focus onto less beneficial drugs, which do possess a modicum of benefit, but are highly profitable. Since the lobbyists and politicians generally know little about drugs and medicine, and only what big Pharma tells them, so they may actually believe they are working for a worthy cause.

“Senator, Congressman, etc…. We would certainly love to support your campaign, or your public project, etc…. Currently, we are testing an exciting new highly promising drug, which we believe may be able to help extend the life of those poor people suffering with metastatic (insert name of cancer), by as much as (insert weeks or months)… It may even lead to a cure (immense lie). We need to make sure that NIHH gets the necessary funding to help develop this. Big Pharma can only fund so much research, since just developing it, has cost my company a virtual fortune (another immense lie).” The highly paid lobbyist might say to some politician.

What the visiting lobbyist actually presents may not be a ‘completely’ bad idea, but still it is extremely unlikely to have any curative value, and the money which NIHH allocates to the development of that potentially longterm treatment comes out of your pocket. Like a magician, the lobbyist redirects the politician’s attention, in two ways: One is by dangling campaign finances or project finances, or other forms of more direct monetary bribery, and the second portents that their form of research does indeed have some benefit, in that it may lengthen life, even though it fails to offer any real curative benefit. So, what the lobbyist proposes seems like a win-win to the greedy politician.

Generally, lobbyist are highly intelligent, extremely persuasive, smooth talking lawyers, whose firms were frequently located in the nation’s capital, or out near the beltway. In the political discourse of the past, ‘K’ Street became a metonym for Washington’s lobbyists. Many lobbying firms have been located there, in Northwest Washington, passing from Georgetown, through a section of downtown DC. However, since the late 1980s, many of the largest lobbying firms have moved. As of 2012, I believe only one of the top-20 lobbying firms still has a ‘K’ Street address. When they were all so grouped together, they made an easy target for a creative terrorist. Before the lobbyist meets with the politician, he or she is well briefed on the politician’s interests and needs, and the politician knows that said lobbyist represents people with often profoundly deep pockets. Lobbyists can operate in completely legal, or perhaps in illegal, ways to further the politician’s power, habits, or influence, if not their personal wealth, by direct bribe, or by investing certain ways. A good lobbyist is a good listener, a subject matter expert, knows his target, is familiar with legislative processes, is politically knowledge, is amiable and good with people, with excellent communication skills, knows the target’s allies and enemies, knows how to make his agenda sound reasonable and good for the country, knows how to draft bill/legislation, etc.

Do you honestly think that lobbyists of any kind should be allowed to meddle in our governmental affairs, and to have private access to our politicians, who are supposed to be working hard on behalf of all the American citizens? Politicians are just people, but not just any people. They usually have eminence egos, and love power and money. Such traits probably mean they’re more susceptible to bribes. Do lobbyists actually create anything of value… any genuine good, benefitting America’s citizenry, or are they the pawns of the corporations, which loot America’s wealth and health?

Is it true that, for some time now, most of the bills have been drafted by lobbyists? Is it true that lobbyists, paid for by corporations, write our laws and thereby manipulate the laws, which the citizens must live under? Just for a moment, think of the implications of that little tidbit! In effect, the laws of this country are being drafted by corporations and corporate CEOs, whose primary interest is profit! The laws are not drafted for the welfare or health of the American citizen! For most Americans, lobbyists represent a clear criminal abuse of the first amendment. They universally claim to be completely legitimized by the United States Constitution and its foolish first amendment. Just carefully consider the last nine words. The word petition may be widely interpreted.

It’s the last nine words of the first amendment, which I’ve taken the liberty of underlining (above, about twelve pages prior), that the corporations have used to justify their bribing/petitioning of the American government officials, and for their right to draft our laws. Just ask Jack Abramoff, or watch the movie, Casino Jack. In reference to the last nine words of the first amendment, perhaps the word ‘petition’ should be interpreted to mean that said petitioning is done, via written documents published online. Why not? After all, politicians are paid and elected by the public.

http://www.gingle.in/movies/download-Casino-Jack-free-2798.htm

Jack Abramoff was only the smallest tip of the colossal lobbying iceberg, and America is the Titanic. Check-out the TV series House of Cards, and the character, Remy Danton, former White House Press Secretary turned lobbyist, played by Mahershala Ali. Mr. Ali plays the kind of character you love to hate. Of course Remy Danton actually develops a conscious, something which is unlikely to happen with a true life lobbyist. Nice job, Mr. Ali.

http://viewitonline.net/watch-house-of-cards-online/

I’m almost certain that the drafters of the United States Constitution, to some small degree, foresaw the possible abuses of that portion of the first amendment, when they drafted those nine underlines words, for they were also involved in making a big profits of their own, back in those days. In a way, they were the mega corporations of their day. Of the 55 delegates, who attended the Constitutional Convention, thirty-five were wealthy lawyers, or had benefited from legal training, though not all of them relied on the legal profession for a livelihood. Some had also become judges, 13 were businessmen, merchants, or shippers, six were major land speculators, 11 speculated in securities on a grand scale, 12 owned or managed slave-operated plantains or farms. Even Madison owned slaves.

Only two of the original signers (Mr. Broom and Mr. Few) were small farmers. So about 53 of the original 55 (96%) might have had a real financial interest in the drafting of that last heinous nine-word-portion of the notorious first amendment. The neurophysiology of greed has been carried around in our ancestral DNA, long before we walked upright, and it has managed to worm its way into our US constitution. Still, I doubt that the average US citizen, who reads that amendment, thinks of corporations, when reading those last nine words.

Many of those early drafters of the constitution were wealthy businessmen, most likely looking to abuse the newly made system. Still, I’m almost certain that they had no idea, just how much subsequent damage that minor literary stratagem would render upon the people of the United States, during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

…to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The word grievances was not intended to be used by the insurance, oil, pharmaceutical, banks, and the military corporations/industries, as a way to make money, at the expense and well being of America’s citizenry, if not the world. The drafting of the constitution was done without any public participation/editing, and remember nothing is perfect, not even the bible. Today, most people only worry about things like: the next paycheck, what time the ballgame starts, how to falsely justify killing more Arabs, their favorite type of booze, and what Fox News thinks about some dastardly Democrat. And, according to Fox News, they’re all dastardly. People back then were unconcerned about something being drafted by a bunch of rich folks. Folks today, are also pretty much that way.

Lobbyists are the most destructive force in America, and probably the world. Terrorists are nothing compared to the US corporate lobbyists. Just look at how many have suffered and died, due to ineffective drugs, a lack of curative medicine, unjust wars, drone strikes, and JSOP operations, not to mention pollution and global warming. The CEOs and officers are the new kings and princes of the United States, behind the curtain, and we’re their mindless sheep, pawns, and servants. Perchance, it’s time for another American revolution; time to demand: the end of the two abusive political parties, an end to lobbyists, and the adoption of socialized medicine. Don’t socialize anything but medicine. Our health is not something for profit.

I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor, who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State.

-Sophocles, Antigone

Having quoted Sophocles, I must admit I’m terrified of the United States government, for no longer is it a government by and for the people!The people in charge are too frequently vengeful and dangerous. Today, the United States is a government, run by the intelligence agencies, at the behest of mega corporations, and some of those corporations are owned by the intelligence agencies, and as stated, visa versa. For all practical purposes, the president, and most of the senators, and congressmen are just figureheads/puppets, which can easily be bribed, and/or threatened. The political leaders are simply held-up to the American populace, on the radios and TV screens to divert our attention away from the real powers that be, namely the intel agencies, and/or the mega corporations.

Today, if a politician were to try to change those last nine words of the first amendment, he or she most likely would encounter deadly opposition, especially since the lobbyists are the life blood of politicians and corporations, and almost certainly have serious influence in the military, NSA, CIA, FBI, etc. But just for shits and grins, think about the ramifications of omitting those last few words, or rewriting them, so that certain non-written and non-disclosed types of ‘petitioning’ would be punishable by a life sentence in prison, or a death sentence. Lords knows… we need to change those nine words, since America is no longer by and for the people, but chiefly by and for major industrialists and the intel agencies. They make the mob look like a group of first graders. The American people now suck the hind tit, if any tit at all. Unless, he or she works for the government. Now wonder the United States ranks thirteenth in the world for quality of life, not even in the top ten!

https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp

The fact that the controlling echelons of medicine do not want the scientist to create a medical cure is just one of the things that bothered me about working in medical research. Another major irritation was that countless untalented institutional administrators, constantly tried to control the researchers, and their research, when they didn’t have a clue about medical science. It was like the monkey leading the organ grinder. With very few exceptions, these highly inept administrators measured their self-worth by the amount of misery they could inflict upon those, who actually possessed some scientific talent. A man or woman with a masters or doctorate in Hospital Administration is routinely a poor excuse for an educated person.

They’re almost as poorly educated as the people with degrees in education, who claim to be teachers. However, the teacher group may be a good and caring group of people, whereas the members of the administrative group generally are not. I know those comments sound like I’m trying to be an elitist, and I’m truly sorry to give that morose impression, but if you’ve read this far, you know that I’m anything but elite. Nonetheless, those statements about administrators, and people who graduated in education, are for the most part true. This is not to say that there aren’t good administrators and teachers, for there are, but it is to say that the majority of those working in both fields are not worth the powder it would take to blow them to hell.

Far too often, administrators are victims of the green-eyed monster and are filled up to their eyeballs with the stench of self-deceit. Those lowly evil creatures never seem to realize, that upon death, you can’t take anything with you, that you can only leave a lasting legacy of your work, and in the memories of those left behind. And, while money is indeed a form of legacy, it is far from the best; the best being deeds of: love, kindness, mercy, generosity, healing, caring, encouragement, etc. But frequently, the larger the ego, the smaller the creative force, and the less the ability to sincerely love, unless of course its self-love. Too often, for those with only self love, power and money become their surrogate forms of love. It’s probably almost the same pieces of gray matter just getting used for distinctly different purposes. Administrators have no real love, and so they’re doomed to remain uninspired in the field of medicine, since only the true desire to heal drives discovery, and if you don’t love there is no desire to heal, hence no discovery, only jealousy where caring might have been. If you’re only self-concerned, you can’t make an earnest search/investigate the issues to help others. You’re not properly motivated, ergo the administrators rarely respect the scientist; however, they are quite capable of jealousy.

This administrative phenomenon has long existed, throughout most American University systems, as well as in the civilian and military medical communities. In those systems, many highly talented physicians are controlled by sadistic, or at the very least, meddling and less than inspired medical administrators, possessing unlimited inanity. Administrators have usually exhausted their intellectual abilities, having completed their near worthless MA or Ph.D. in hospital administration, having taken courses, probably designed by people much like themselves. Sadly, I once knew a squatty little research administrator, a Navy caption, who oversaw a secret laboratory and possessed only a masters in biology, yet he joyfully ruled over those with far more knowledge, without a clue as to how irksome he was. Wasn’t it Einstein who made these two quotes?

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe. Einstein actually used the word, ‘stupidity.’

Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.

My gut feeling is that when Einstein referred to “stupidity” in the first quote, and “weak minds,” in the second quote, he was chiefly thinking about meddlesome scientific administrators, and probably a few of his more unimaginative scientific colleagues, which almost every scientist is grievously forced to endure. And when Einstein was referring to great minds, do you think there was even the slightest possibility, that he was thinking about an administrator?

An administrator in a bureaucratic world is a man who can feel big by merging his non-entity in an abstraction. A real person in touch with real things inspires terror in him.

Marshall McLuhan

Without a doubt, the greatest challenges to medical science are the greed and insecurity of misdirected uncreative people, like administrators, and self-centered corporate officers of the large pharmaceutical companies, their puppet lobbyists, as well as their self-indulgent minions, certain members of our democratic and republican parties. These are people who measure their worth in power and money, as well as in the resultant misery generated by their incessant meddling.

…There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done

Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy

There's nothing you can make that can’t be made

No one you can save that can't be saved

Nothing you can do but you can learn to be you in time

It's easy

All you need is love…

Beatles, Partial Lyrics of ‘All You Need is Love’

Perhaps the Lord, or who ever wrote Exodus 20:1–17, and Deuteronomy 5:6–21, should have considered amending the sixth commandment, not to have included the owners, board members, administrators, and lobbyists of: the pharmaceutical companies, the pharmaceutical/medical/research companies, the oil industries, the insurance industries, the polluting power/coal companies, and the massive military industrial complex (MIC). In the humble opinion of a shameless former Mexico City drug dealer, they are all more than a blight on the progress of America, far more than any terrorist or illicit drug dealer, and that includes the Muslim terrorist, as well as the KKK terrorists, and those Israelis, who continue to terrorize far to many innocent Palestinians. Some radical Palestinian kills a Jew, and the Zionists take-out an entire block of innocent Palestinians.

The above industries perpetuate poor health, suffering, poverty, misery, a dirty planet, and death… lots of death, and perchance soon, the death of the entire planet. Errantis voluntas nulla est… the will of a mistaken party is void. What are you, dear reader, going to do to save the earth? Why is it that some insane person commits massive slaughter against innocent loving people (Aurora, Charleston, Sandy Hook Elementary, Pulse nightclub, etc.), and they are punished, yet the corporate monsters, who bring war and deadly pollution, never seem to be made to pay? Why is that hard for people to get their head around?

And please, don’t get me wrong about the military industrial complex, while I hate those who generate war for profit, I greatly admire the man on the point of the spear: the soldiers, the pilots, the sailors, the covert people overseas in the State Department, etc. The man or woman, who puts their life on the line, has my total respect and genuine admiration. Who could not admire the deeds of a medal of honor recipient, like Michael Patrick Murphy, a man who put his life on the line for his fellow SEALS, as described in the book, Lone Survivor, or the heroic deeds of Desmond Doss on Hacksaw Ridge in WWII? Those are truly amazingly good and impressive people, and nothing short of what is best about humanity.

As you probably know, the Medal of Honor is given to members of the military, who have distinguished themselves at the risk to their own life, above and far beyond the call of duty, while in action against enemies of the United States. Before being awarded, the events are rigorously investigated. America’s military men frequently display valor.

Nevertheless, it seems that we are purposely generating some of our own enemies. Another of the most awe-inspiring displays of bravery was carried-out in WWII by CDR. Evans, who was a three-fourths Cherokee from Oklahoma. He led his destroyer, the USS Johnston, straight into the face of a huge Japanese naval fleet, on 25 October 1944, off Samar Island, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. His destroyer was supposed to support marines assaulting Leyte.

Unexpectedly, down came a huge Japanese fleet hellbent on destroying the marines on Leyte. Task Unit 77.4.3 (Taffy 3) initially tried to flee the area, when confronted by such a mighty force. However, Evans and his destroyer crew would not give way to the enemy. As soon as the USS Johnston sighted the enemy, Evans came over the intercom, “A large Japanese fleet has been contacted. They are fifteen miles away and headed in our direction. They are believed to have four battleships, eight cruisers, and a number of destroyers. This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.” Right from the outset, CDR. Evans was ready to take it to the limit! He placed the wellbeing of his country, above own his life. Of course, he was also putting his crew’s lives on the line.

He ordered the USS Johnston to come about. At flank speed he charged the entire Japanese fleet, a lone destroyer against an entire fleet! The rest of the American destroyers and destroyer escorts followed the USS Johnston, but far back. The Japanese fleet opened fire, with their 18.1 inch, 16 inch, 14 inch, 8 inch, and 6 inch guns, blasting up the water along the sides of the USS Johnston. Amazingly, Evans zigzagged the ship through the incoming barrage of shells, until he was within range to use his small 5 inch guns, which could not penetrate the hulls of the battleships and cruisers, so he ordered fire to be concentrated on the upper decks, and this succeeded in knocking down the superstructures and setting the ships afire!

The USS Johnston also fired torpedoes and blew the bow off the Kumano, a heavy cruiser, which necessitated another cruiser leaving the fight to rescue those on the Kumano. Finally, the Japanese scored hits, a 14 incher, and three 6 inchers, went right through the Johnson, but luckily without detonating. However, the first hit knocked out half the engine power and the electricity to the aft gun turrets. Evans was struck by one of the blasts and had 2 fingers ripped from his left hand and his shirt burned off. The destroyer was severely crippled, yet still Evans refused to withdraw, and so set out a smoke screen.

When it was all over, the little destroyer had slugged it out with giant Japanese battleships and cruisers, and a line of Japanese destroyers, scattering much of their fleet. Finally a round knocked out the USS Johnson’s engine room and detonated several 5 inch shells stored in the forward magazine. The USS Johnston was dead in the water and the Japanese ships surrounded it and fired from all sides. Even under that withering fire, Evans refused to order ‘abandon ship,’ until all remaining rounds had been fired, even the starbursts rounds, which are basically just flares, and the sandbag rounds commonly used for target practice. Later, when the Japanese passed the survivors in the water, they threw them food and water and shouted, “Samurai! Samurai!” Everyone one loves a hero, for courage often best defines the worth of humanity, regardless of nationality or race! Evans was not one of the survivors. Like Evans, many Medal of Honor winners, received the medal posthumously.

So dear reader, please fully realize that when I’m criticizing the military industrial complex, I do indeed respect and admire the men on the point of the spear. I despise the military administrators (the REMFs), the military industrialists, the lobbyists, and politicians, who while pretending to honestly care about the warrior, profit in power and money by putting those fine warriors in harms way. Many of these selfish people get rich off the warrior’s precious blood, as well as off the blood of those supposed enemies and terrorists, ostensibly killed in the name of Democracy. Unfortunately, the warrior too often wrongly believes that the people in Washington truly care. But just look at how poorly many of our injured and sick warriors are cared for by the VA hospitals. This is not to say that the hospital personnel are at fault. Again, it’s Washington’s corporately run government, who controls the funding, which is largely to blame.

Weapons manufactures kick the hornet’s nest, while the military deals with the swarm.

The Gullible Ninety-Nine Percent by Leo W. Maury

The corporations forming the military industrial complex (MIC) have a way of manipulating politicians to have other countries designated as dangerous foes of the United States, e.g., Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Bush Jr. ran around like a mad man, desperately trying to get people to support his Iraq war. George knew that when a president goes from being a politician and bean counter to commander-and-chief, he becomes quite popular. Certain American politicians have been most effective at making enemies, around the planet, clearly to support the arms industries (MIC), and for the spoils of war.

More and more citizens are coming to realize that we’re not so much protecting the homeland, as we’re making more enemies, and more reasons to keep making those costly weapons. There’s nothing quite as perverted as sending intrepid men to fight and die in unjust wars, not to mention killing lots of relatively innocent foreign peoples. These are wars fought for the spoils (oil, gold, opium, etc.), or so that the MIC can sell more of its’ deadly wares. There were no legitimate reasons for any of the above three wars… absolutely none! Just try to justify them. Vietnam was to stop the fictitious communist dominoes, Iraq was to get those illusionary weapons of mass destruction, and Afghanistan was to stop the tailbone’s opium trade, which we took-over, as well as to bomb Osama bin Laden, who wasn’t even in those mountainous caves. Bombing caves was certainly highly profitable for the MIC. Those 2000 lb. Paveway I and II Laser Guided Weapons (bombs with steering fins) run about $25,000 each, at least when you buy them in huge lots. We’ve dropped so many in the middle east, that I doubt anyone honestly knows the actual number, nor do we know the number of bloody gallons, we spilt. The costs to build all those planes that dropped them runs from $20 million to $150 million each, and then there’s the cost to operate and maintain them. Just the simple BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile cost only $2 million each, but the cost to make and operate those expensive Navy ships, from which they are launched, is truly extreme. What really tough to calculate is the number of bloody gallons.

It used to be that only the soldiers and their families knew the true cost of war, but now big business seems to think they know better… blood versus dollars.

Fooling Soldiers by Moe R. Willery

￼

A CHESS GAME WITH HIV BEES

While attending graduate school at the University of Colorado, and desperately trying to cram my head full of scientific facts (some useful and others only needed to complete a course), one of my favorite pastimes was playing ‘speed chess,’ also called, ‘bullet chess.’ We students played the game in the ever popular Student Union Building. While participating in the Chess Club, a mysterious incident transpired, which may or may not have influenced, almost every human culture on earth; I say almost since North Korea claims it is HIV free. If that claim is true, it’s probably the only good thing to be said about the miserable country. On the other hand, they do hold two world records: unsuccessful missile launches (that may soon change), and creating propaganda about the wonderful living circumstances of their population. If the humble citizens weren’t so pathetically destitute, the government’s efforts to make it appear that they are living large, would be considered childishly humorous.

Most likely, China will give North Korea some dependable missiles, by which to launch their nuclear warheads. My bet is that since China has the technology, they are also secretly helping them with the development of their nukes. Russia too will probably back the North Koreans, but my bet is that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a self-made man, personally doesn’t care for Kim Jong Un; nonetheless, Russia may ally itself with the dictator strictly for strategic reasons.

The North Korean leader does not appear to possess the attributes which Putin respects: intellectual prowess (Un did poorly in school in Switzerland. Whereas Putin graduated from Law School and was an outstanding student.) Un is obviously over weight and out of shape, where Putin has a love for physical fitness and judo. Un was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and ascended to power by birthright, and not through personal accomplishments, as Putin did. Putin came from humble origins. Putin’s mother worked in a factory, and his dad was in the Soviet Navy, and worked on subs in the early 1930s. Putin pulled himself up by his boot straps, is physically fit, intellectually accomplished. Un appears to be spoiled, definitely not going to be in the next world CrossFit games, and of questionable intellect. Those less than complimentary attributes probably make Un desperate and dangerous. China’s leader, Xi Jinping also appears as a highly capable self made man, and so it is again questionable as to how he feels about Un. Of course, how he personally doesn’t matter in consideration of China’s defense, since the two greatest threats to China are likely the United States and Russia, so it only makes sense that China would enjoy having an ally with functional nuclear weapons.

Besides a place to play chess, the student union was primarily used by students as a place to study and socialize. It had a small attached cafeteria, which served thick hamburgers, all meat hotdogs, french fries, soft drinks, and gallons of rich black coffee. As with regular chess, the players used the standard dual-sided clocks, which are essentially two stop-watches inside one small wooden or plastic rectangular box, with a button on top of each stopwatch.

As we typically played speed chess, where each competitor was allowed either three or five minutes on his clock, in which to contemplate all his or her moves, for the entire game. Most of us preferred the shorter three minute games. Theoretically, with each player using all their time, a game could last as long as five minutes and fifty-nine seconds. The entire game usually lasted somewhere between one to almost five minutes, sometimes a little more. At the outset of the game, the two clocks were adjusted to afford each player the aforementioned three or five minutes. After a player made his or her move, they’d quickly smack-down the button on the top of their own clock, thereby stopping their clock from ticking, and automatically starting their opponent’s clock, then visa versa.

There are four ways to end a game of speed chess. One is the good old-fashion way of ‘checkmate,’ another is where one player simply resigned what is a hopeless game position, a the third is by running your opponent’s clock out of their allotted time; at which point, a small red plastic flag falls inside the clock face, and the fourth is where a draw is established. You might think that three to five minutes isn’t enough time to properly play a game of chess, but most of us were rather hyper folks, so win or loose, often those few minutes were more than sufficient time for a highly enjoyable game. Playing in that manner caused more mistakes to be made, making the game less predictable; therefore, more exciting. This is sort of like how college football can be more exciting than the pros… more mistakes… more action-packed excitement.

Generally, when the clock’s flag would fall, someone playing or watching the game, would call-out, “You’re dead,” or “Flag!” You could have been winning tactically, but if your flag fell, you still lost. It’s sort of like the guy, who has everything going right for him, winning in the game of life: the beautiful wife, the wonderful kids, a big bank account, serious list of accomplishments, retirement in sight, when suddenly he has that unexpected heart attack, or thoughtlessly steps off the curb, and ‘bam,’ he gets hit by that undetected city bus, or perhaps he dies right after winning the lottery, etc. Remember that 1998 movie, Waking Ned Divine? At some point, just like Ned, we all simply run out of available time.

http://www.hulu.com/waking-ned-devine

There sat old Ned, in his tiny Irish house, in front of his antique box TV, with the winning ticket still tightly clutched in his aged cold dead fingers, but he’d died ecstatically happy, knowing that he was a winner! Just like the soon to be dead older CEOs of the pharmaceutical, oil, insurance, hospital, or power companies, clutching their bloody bank books. They think they die a winner. Perchance, the only real difference is that Ned had apparently been a good and caring man, who loved his neighbors, whereas the CEOs of the aforementioned companies are anything but good and caring, and couldn’t care less about your wellbeing. Its like their brains are seriously broken, yet they think that they are nearly perfect. They are somewhat like I was, before my child was born. When she came along, it was like I’d previously been blind, and suddenly could see. My very meager conscience grew and became more like an actual moral guide.

There were about twenty of us, who had become addicted to the harried little game of bullet chess, and we spent anywhere from one to eight hours a day playing. Most of the competitors came from the departments of physics, math, biology, chemistry, engineering, or other sciences. Many were graduate students, others were scientists, the occasional MD, a few PhDs, and a few of the players were not from the university, but just drove to the student union, just to play speed chess.

One of the most interesting players hadn’t gone to college. He was a professional gambler, named Greg, who accidentally killed himself. Greg had tremendous intelligence, drive, and ego, and had been a champion gymnast in his younger days, a former state champion. Whenever he played chess, he would routinely smoke a cigarette. In those days, people were permitted to smoke in businesses, restaurants, and in the university. That was before the effects of second-hand smoke were known. In those days, no one knew that the tobacco companies were creating strains of tobacco, which produced higher concentrations of nicotine, to addict people faster. During the game, when Greg was concentrating, he’d have the filter end of his cigarette squeezed tightly between the last joints of his index and middle fingers of his right hand, and with his chin resting on the palms of both his hands, he’d study the board. In that position, the tip end of the cigarette’s filter was firmly pressed into his right sideburn, hence that’s exactly where Greg developed his deadly malignant melanoma, right where the filter was regularly placed into his sideburn. There was a black dot a little over a quarter inch in diameter, and shaped sort of like the state of North Carolina.

Given his distain for doctors, his dynamic willpower, and the fact that he couldn’t afford the insurance to go to the doctor, he decided to remove the cancerous liaison himself, using a common one-sided razor-blade, he’d purchased from a hardware store. It was the same type of razor-blade that you’d use to scrape paint from a windowpane. Because of the bloody botched self-surgery, the cancer quickly metastasized (spread), throughout his body, and he died a painful death, a few months thereafter. The last few weeks he was a morphine addict. One reason the death was so painful was that, he viewed drug with a jaundice eye, and was over-the-top with willpower. He wouldn’t accept the morphine, the pain drove him insane. Needless to say, this was depressing demonstration of willpower over wisdom, but he was a good and kind man, one of those very rare people, who has a big ego, yet an even bigger heart. In the game of chess, he’d never give-up, never resign, no matter how desperate his position.

Now-and-then, a random faculty member would show-up to indulge in the fast paced game, but after losing a few games to lowly students, they’d usually fad away. Besides they had a valid excuse to leave, since in those days, it wasn’t considered good form to socialize too much with the students. In a way, that’s the beauty of chess, in that it cuts across all barriers: language, cultural, racial, social, age, sex, etc. It’s the great intellectual equalizer, while staying the humdrum of life’s petty concerns.

Curiously, there were a couple of older men (In those days, early forties was considered to be older.), who often came just to watch us play, Paul Killian and Mike Gamin, but the two rarely actually played. Mostly they only watched and kibitzed with the players, who were momentarily off the board. The speculative rumor was that Paul and Mike worked for the CIA, which we students called, ‘the company.’ Both appeared to be in excellent physical shape, both exuded a certain mental and physical toughness. Even though they were older, they dressed like students, and were outgoing, but had to work at it a bit.

They were always talking with the chess players about new notions in science, trying to get us to speculate, almost like they were prospecting for ideas. That obvious situation was a bit stilted, since it was clear that they themselves had little background, or personal interest in science, or chess; nonetheless, they were good guys. They’d pose out-of-the-blue questions, or ask scientific questions, and wait for our responses.

“If you could look at the entire earth from outer-space, and see anything which was one foot or larger, what kinds of things would you look for?” Paul asked.

“Can you think of a way to turn outer space into computer memory?’ Mike posed to the chess players, while they were busy playing chess.

“How could you make someone sleep for months or years, and not have to pee or poop, and they wouldn’t sustain any physical or psych damage?” Paul questioned.

“Can you think of a way that low voltage current could be used to instantly displace water or make it instantly less dense?” Mike asked us.

The chess club members went so far as to openly accuse Paul and Mike of working for the CIA, and the two would neither confirm, nor deny, our accusations. They’d simply dodge the accusations, and repeat what we figured was their standard cover-stories, or they’d laugh and simply change the topic. We’d laugh too. Paul, the taller of the two, claimed to be a writer, but hadn’t published anything. He’d always state that his wife, whom no one believed was his actual wife, was slowing his writing progress with near constant demands for sex. She didn’t look anything like a nympho, but of course, looks can be deceiving. Paul once ran a marathon, and I accompanied him, riding my bicycle. The race was just over twenty-six miles, but around the twenty-third mile of the race, as the crowd in downtown Boulder began to shout words of encouragement to him and the other runners, for some unknown reason, Paul took the shouts of encouragement the wrong way, and began to shout insults back at the friendly crowd. In Paul’s exhausted mind, it was almost like the crowd had been transformed into his enemy. Perhaps, it was a little PTSD. It made me wonder, if he’d been tortured. For a few short minutes, Paul seemed to have temporarily lost his sanity. About five minutes after the run, he recovered his composure.

When he was acting crazy, I was at a loss as to how to deal with him, so I said nothing. At the time, I chalked-up Paul’s weird behavior, during the race, to the stress of distance running, but clearly something had happened in his past. I figured that what I was witnessing some form of combat related flashback, and I realized that there’d be no point in later asking him what had happened. Nevertheless, it was clear that he’d been through something horrific. No doubt, a significant number of CIA agents see action, or were in the military, prior to entering the agency.

Mike made no mention of his past, but alleged he was a precious metals (gold and silver) prospector. Periodically, he’d be gone for a few days at a time. Since we were located next to the rocky mountains, his story about being a prospector seemed plausible. The Rockies were know for mining; gold, silver, tungsten, and copper mines are scattered throughout the mountains. But most of the mines had been mined-out, years prior. Both Paul and Mike’s stories would have been somewhat hard to confirm, and since no one cared, none of the chess players bothered to investigate. Paul, the writer, was supposedly always struggling to get a book completed (I now know that feeling.), but he never allowed anyone to read his work, and always claimed, that he needed to do more editing and that his girlfriend kept distracting him, and kept him from finishing. Almost everyone liked them, I as well. We were neither for, nor against, the fact that they appeared to work for some type of intelligence agency. If you want to fish for creative ideas, generally it’s best to cast your hook amongst young adults with adequate education. Creativity is strongest in the younger years of life. Once a person gets into their late forties, it generally begins to fade.

The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

Albert Einstein

The chess players were a fairly tight knit group. While they were all bright, they had highly diverse personalities. We greatly enjoyed each other’s company, but were by no means what you might classically think of as friends, but what other non-working group spends hours together on a daily basis, usually seven days a week, and just to play a game? The odd thing about that chess club was that aside from how we each played the game, we knew little about each other, and we really didn’t care to known anything. We only came together to play the game.

How a player plays the game, is somewhat reflective of their actual personality; factors like anger, obsessiveness, depression, intelligence, confidence, control, speed of thought, determination, etc., would be clearly displayed in how they played the game. Bullet chess and skydiving have something in common, in that both tend to demand your undivided attention and concentration, and only lasts for a brief amount of time. For most 14,000 foot skydiving jumps, the jumper falls for a full minute, before opening their parachute, then once its open, the jumper glides around for about four minutes, before landing. When you’re playing chess, or jumping out a plane, your brain is pretty close to being fully occupied, so there’s no room for the day-to-day worries. It’s like the brain can handle only so much, and there’s no processing room left for anything else. You’re not likely to be worrying about your checking account, when playing speed chess, or jumping from a plane. Consequently, those two sport-like endeavors (speed chess and skydiving) are like minor forms of nirvana. In a way, they’re both a type of meditation, a brief escape from reality. At least, that’s why I liked them… no fret, no boredom.

When engaged in playing speed chess or skydiving, your brain is clear, in an untroubled flux, processing events in a somewhat euphoric flow, free of life’s nagging encumbrances, a type of freedom, without hesitation, without tedium. Everything is cause and effect. Every movement, during the game, or while skydiving, impacts the outcome. I suppose life’s a bit like that, but with more boring periods of do-nothing time, and repetition stirred-in. Just look at how much redundancy is put into most songs, or consider how often I repeat things in this hodgepodge. How often have you had to sit on the phone and been forced to listen some ridiculous recording, while you’re waiting to talk with an actual person? Consider how often you waste your life, by waiting in a line of people at: the bank, the grocery, the doctor’s office, the restaurant for your meal, red traffic lights and stop signs, or listening to ads on TV and radio, or waiting for some long winded person to get to the point. And how about those school years, listening to the same lessons, over and over.

Usually, when playing chess at the student union, we only knew the other player’s first name, or maybe his nickname. Sometimes, we might know his academic major, or maybe his job, and perhaps one or two other innocuous things. But by-in-large, we all came together solely for the hurried little game, not so much for the socializing. For all that we cared about each other, the opponent might just as well have been a flesh-covered machine, an emotionless game-playing autotron. But, there isn’t as much adrenaline, when playing a computer; although some players claim there is. Admittedly, the group’s lack of true human concern might be considered by most people to be a bit sad. Any conversation between the players almost exclusively dealt with the game: missed moves, alternate better strategies, mistakes, pieces left foolishly hanging, too much time spent looking for a strategy, plays made to solely run the other player out of time, etc.

One afternoon, while playing bullet chess, Paul Killian, the older of the dynamic CIA duo, decided to buy coffee for everyone in the chess group. In those days, since we were poor students, Paul’s offer of coffee was considered to be something of a magnanimous gesture, even though it was only five cents per cup. With Paul’s offer, all the chess clocks were momentarily paused, so that the players could pour and fix (cream and/or sugar) their coffee. Caffeine is routinely the cerebral vitamin of chess players, still others prefer drugs like: meth, adderall, benzedrine, or dexedrine. The World Chess Federation implemented drug testing in 1999, but it was my feeling, that the chess players I knew did not imbibe in illegal drugs, just caffeine. By that time in life, I too had given-up on all forms of drug, except for caffeine. Both the CIA guys drank their coffee black. During the interruption for coffee, Paul Killian stepped forward and made an embarrassingly awkward suggestion to the chess players.

“You chess players see each other for a few hours almost every day, but all you guys do is play chess, and you hardly know anything about each other. The games fun… sure… but it really doesn’t serve much real purpose. So, why don’t we try something slightly different… something interesting? We ought to get to know each other; maybe become friends, outside of just playing chess… maybe, share some ideas. What do you say, guys?” Paul commented. What going on in his head?

While delivering that unexpected comment, Paul smilingly gazed at the group of chess players, but everyone had quickly lost interest in his spiel, were doing their level best to thank him, and politely ignore him, then get back to the game. It was obvious, that none of us cared about friendship and conversation, or the sharing ideas with the other chess players. Unabashedly, we were only there to play the game, and knew that we didn’t care to know more about each other. Our social attitudes might have been slightly cold, but we all enjoyed that arrangement. Paul had clearly struck a sour note. It was the first time we’d heard him suggest something so ridiculous. Chess players are not like talkative outgoing drinkers at a bar.

The chess players weren’t unfriendly people, but more like men who meant to play poker... friendly, but not true friends, just there for the game. For some, they played for their ego, for others, in was the distraction, and a few played to learn strategy. We all wondered what Paul was trying to pull, since he was definitely not a sensitive man, and had to have known that we weren’t remotely interested in what he was suggesting. Paul quickly noticed that he was fast losing his audience, and so I was feeling a little sorry for him, and figured he’d just give-up, yet surprisingly he didn’t. Instead, he pressed on.

“Look guys, I can see that you’re not very interested in my little suggestion, but please just hear me out. There are all these vacant conference rooms in that big concrete bunker across the campus (called the Behavioral Science Building), so all we have to do is select an empty conference room. This sounds boring! The building is never locked and the rooms are open and hardly used in the evenings. And, I already know where there’s one that would be perfect, for what I’m proposing. After four o’clock, there’s usually no one on the entire floor. We could have it all to ourselves.” Paul pushed the issue.

“Thanks for the coffee, Paul.” Everyone responded, without further comment, about what he just suggested. What the hell is Paul proposing? Just give it a rest, Paul!

We were all fixing our coffee, and heading back to our seats with our large styrofoam cups, brimming with warm commercial grade brown brain juice, yet nobody was even mildly interested in what Paul had to say about us meeting in the Behavioral Science Building. We were more interested in getting back to playing chess, than in developing a plan for socializing. Can’t Paul see we’re not interested? None of us wanted to see the games stop. Like any other serious addiction, the game superseded life’s finer things, like: conversation, human interest, politeness, friendship, etc. Some of the guys had families, yet they still spend hours a day, playing the game, just like gamblers, but without the money. Regardless, win or lose, they’d got their daily dose of game-induced adrenaline. After all, their intellectual wherewithal was on the line.

For many years now, I haven’t played, probably because I’m still enjoying interacting with my child and all the responsibilities, which that entails. Perhaps when she finds a man and leaves home, I go back to playing the game, provided I’m not too senile. That’s why I’m praying that the Swedish Alzheimers vaccine succeeds in its trials, and the greedy powerful American pharmaceutical companies don’t block its availability in the United States, but something tells me that no vaccine is coming. There’s a small bookstore in Mobile, where a few guys meet on Thursday nights to play the game. Every now and then, I go in there with my daughter, and while she peruses the book aisles, I watch a game or two. Just watching them, I can still feel the old adrenaline begin to flow, yet it’s not just adrenaline, but also the joy of ordered thought, and that aforementioned escape from life’s useless nagging worries. The game is a solid fluid uninterrupted flow of focused consciousness.

Once we had prepared our coffee and were back in our seats at the student union, no one would so much as look at Paul. No one wanted to be obligated to respond to his ludicrous suggestion about socializing. None of us wanted what he was selling; nevertheless, we didn’t actually want to tell him, ‘no.’ Amazingly, Paul persisted with his unwanted request. Give it a rest, Paul. Next, Paul began appealed to our vanity. God knows that many chess players can be intellectually vain, and filled with hubris. Frequently, you can sense the hubris and ego in a player by how hard they place the pieces down onto the board with each move, or by their face when they glare across the board, after a move, or by their level of sarcasm, or how they act when they win or lose. But this time, when Paul started-in again. His approach was an embarrassing compliment. His technique was obvious but effective.

“Most of you guys are into science or math, and into some fairly thought-provoking arcane shit, and probably have some really cool ideas that are worth listening to. Human beings are hardwired to communicate, to share their ideas, not just share chess moves. And nobody in this chess group is stupid, so why wouldn’t you want someone to hear your ideas? Don’t you want to share? Don’t you have anything worth telling? What I’m suggesting is that just once each week we all meet, and one person gives a little half hour presentation on whatever they think is interesting or cool… something totally off the cuff... completely informal… on whatever topic you choose. It doesn’t even have to be a full half hour. No one will expect anything close to a polished presentation. Hell, if you fuck it up, no ones cares… no big deal. Just talk about anything, which you happen to think is thought-provoking. It can be on virtually anything. Jesus, why not give it a try?” Paul pleaded. He’s got a point.

Paul’s appeal-to-vanity tactic seemed to work. The chess players had stopped their clocks again, and were looking at Paul. Maybe, he’s got something. I realized that I would like to hear what some of the guys had to say about their fields.

“I know that each of you are capable of giving a talk on something, you think is worth knowing. At the end of the presentation, we can all sit around discussing the idea, or even some other tangential ideas which grow-out of the little talk, or if you want, you can leave and come back here to play chess… no strings attached… no harm, no foul, no obligation. You got nothing to lose. The Behavioral Science Building is only a five minute walk across the campus. Like I said, this would all be very informal, and we can forget doing this, anytime you want, so come on guys. What do you say? You know, each one of you knows some really cool shit, that we’d all like to hear about. Let’s pick each other’s brains.” Paul then stopped, with his arms spread wide, looking from face to face, hoping for a positive response.

His appeal to the runaway egos of the young male chess players was plainly working. The guys had started raising their eyebrows and looking at each other, and nodding their heads, as if to say, ‘What do you think? Maybe, it’s a good thing, after all.’ It was true that each of the chess players was involved in something fairly fascinating, and was likely to have some thought provoking notions to share. All the players were avid readers in science and/or math. After all, Universities are frequently the birth place of new ideas, since that’s where all the youthful gifted minds tend to gather (At least, they used to.). Although skeptical, we all decided to give-in to Paul’s suggestion, and try-out the once-a-week group meeting thing.

Besides, he’d paid for all that coffee and there was nothing to lose, or at least, so we thought! Paul even agreed to lead-off the talks with the first presentation, about how he had lost a lot of body weight, and had trained to run a marathon. It was actually a good presentation and made from his heart, since Paul had once weighed over three hundred pounds, and had slimmed down to 175, to run the aforementioned marathon; the one, where he temporarily flipped his lid near the end of the race. Since several of the chess players were into running and working out, his presentation was warmly received. After Paul’s presentation, people began to contribute their own thoughts, and the conversation drifted from topic to topic, a disorganized, though thought-provoking, hodgepodge of thoughts. As a result, the first meeting lasted almost three hours, and people seemed to enjoy each other’s company. Conversation, amongst people skilled in the art of chat, can be a thing of joy. As of late, too few young people develop the art and joy of skilled conversation. There are certain factors which are needed to carry-out such an event. Intently listen, be patient, and actually try to understand, not only what a person is saying in a literal sense, but how they are feeling about their topic, while placing yourself in the other person’s perspective, rather than listening to your own internal dialogue/opinion. Seek to aid in the development of the other person’s concepts and ideas, to compliment them, and expound upon their contribution to the conversation. When speaking, look for opportunities to reiterate other people’s ‘already-stated’ perspectives, and incorporate them in your presentation. This lets them know, that you are listening. You don’t have to agree, and of course, you should disagree if you’re so inclined, but first let the person know that you’ve fully comprehended their point of view. Avoid being verbose or too insistent, when expressing your own ideas. Even though a given idea may be correct, or seemingly profound, in some way it is limited. Every idea, I’ve ever expressed as certain limitations. When speaking, focus on creating a succinct, yet clear explanation, without too much repetition. (As you can tell, I’m not good with being succinct, and I’m overly repetitious.) Remain intent on finding points of agreement, between differing points of view, and be gentle when pointing-out what you feel are possible short-coming or inaccuracies, in another’s ideas. It’s easy to see the error or shortcomings in others, yet it can sometimes be more important to first acknowledge their good points. Where there might be insurmountable points of disagreement, why not just avoid them whenever possible? Simply segue into other realms of discussion, or take the other person’s position, while playing devil’s advocate, but leave out the sarcasm. If you must challenge, do so briefly, as if your challenge is almost inconsequential. Learn to put others at ease, watch for signs of tension, concerning certain topics; things such as: lip compressions, rapid eye blinks, looking away for too long, rolling of the eyes (this is a big one), overly deep breaths, sneering, clinched fists, bowing or shaking of the head, etc. Again, if you see these signs, then shift the topic to something less contentious.

By the same token, where you can, avoid making such unsettling gestures yourself. Attenuate, if not negate, your negative emotional reactions, and consider the emotional impact, which your word selection may have. Often it is all too obvious, that when people’s comments lack intellectual merit or logic, said individual may attempt to substitute emotional commentary to compensate. They also tend to raise the volume and interrupt. The primary reason to not give way to such, is that when the emotional parts of the limbic brain begin to fire, they tend to release inhibitory neurotransmitter on the more cognitive brain areas, hence the quality of conversation deteriorates.

Although it’s not always true, generally it’s the folks on the left side of the bell curve, who are most apt to rely on volume and interruptions to press an argument. When in a group, attempt to include everyone equally in the conversation, shifting eye contact from person to person, equally. Do your best to make sure each person feels included and important, beyond the topic being discussed. If a joke fits the situation, tell it, but don’t look to turn the conversation into a joke feast, as you might see done between the gangsters, in the series, The Sopranos. However, if the conversation has been unproductive, then perhaps a few jokes are a good way to end it. If you do tell a joke, never be the first to laugh, nor laugh the loudest, or the longest, unless it’s sincere.

These are but a few things to consider when sharing ideas. Of course, there are many more. Where people have been raised by those who are skilled in conversation, these points may seem inherently obvious. It’s quite likely that you find these suggestions to be quite elementary, but I’m always amazed at how many people don’t adhere to them. On the other hand, some people are born to be bad communicators, and can’t be saved. Perchance, the art of conversation and public speaking should be taught in school. It could employ some of the techniques used in the group called, Toastmasters. In Toastmasters, after a person finishes a rehearsed or an impromptu speech, the other members offer criticism; first, discussing the positive attributes of the person’s presentation, and then gently mentioning the possible negatives, while usually being careful not to hurt someone’s feelings.

In our schools, the teacher could simply select a topic, and as the discussion proceeds, he or she could point out the positive and negative aspects of the class conversation. If the development of ideas and relationships, not to mention world peace, are important, then the art of conversation becomes paramount. There are times, when a single well orchestrated conversation can save thousands of lives. The key to stopping wars and the associated death is often open and honest communication. That’s just one reason why we don’t need stupid presidents.

At times, I was a bit shocked at how often some of the highly intelligent chess players were unaware of these simple aspects of conversation. A high IQ by no means guarantees social skills, but it sure doesn’t hurt. As a result, sometimes the gatherings ended unpleasantly, still no one wanted to stop Paul’s weekly meetings. The once-a-week participants were mostly scientists and students of science, a couple mathematicians, a writer, two engineering students, and the aforementioned gambler; as a result, the little assembly was usually fun.

Often the informal chess club get-togethers lasted for just the aforementioned half hour, and then everyone went back to the Student Union Building to play speed chess, to push plastic, since no one used wooden pieces. But every now and then, the meetings would continue long into the evening, lasting eight to twelve hours; young men talking together enjoying the sharing of ideas!

Where some enjoy gossip, clever minds usually prefer ideas.

Shoot First… You Can Always Get a Lawyer by Adrian W. Morely

Paul Killian and Mike Gamin were always present at those weekly meetings, and Paul sometimes took notes in a small omnipresent spiral notebook, claiming that he scribbled the notes for possible use in his frictional novels, which as mentioned, no one ever saw; much as these books will probably never see the light of day, never be reviewed by someone’s Wernicke’s area. What transpired at those unofficial meetings was sometimes extremely interesting, sometimes not, but nothing which would alter the odyssey of humankind; at least, not until one unforgettable early evening.

That one particular chess club meet still remains fairly clear in my aged mind, because of its possible ramifications, which may have actually changed the course of the world’s carnal experience, putting the double think on the act itself, and putting a lot of folks six feet under. The meeting that afternoon lasted about one hour, and albeit brief, it has forever left an indelible question in my mind. Undoubtedly, it may also remain in the minds of the other participants, though at the time, the meeting only seemed weird and fun, though relatively inconsequential. It wouldn’t be until years later, that the particular meeting would take-on importance. When you’re reading about this meeting, and what it may have meant, please understand that there is just a tad of advanced science, contained therein, so if a given paragraph becomes too complicated, just skip to the next.

The appointed speaker that day had delivered his half hour talk on the topic of the world’s problem with heroin addiction. At that time, there was not yet a crack cocaine problem, and meth wasn’t such a serious issue, so at the time, heroin was the planet’s biggest illegal drug problem. Then, the vast majority of heroin was coming in from southeast Asia, unlike now, where most of America’s heroin is derived from plentiful opium poppies of distant Afghanistan, currently occupied by the US military. Is there any other valid reason why the United States fights the Taliban, who used to run the opium trade?

Please bare-in-mind, that unlike myself, most of the chess players were not liberals. About eighty to ninety percent were right wing hard liners, with very little in the way of human compassion. This political fact is one of the more shocking things, which I discovered about the chess group, as a result of attending those weekly get-togethers. Sadly, I came to realize just how much hostility they could exude about almost anything political. But then, I should have known, since for many of the player the only purpose of the game was to conquer the opponent.

To tell the truth, I was amazed at how judgmental the members were concerning certain peoples, and what they considered to be politically or socially correct. All the chess players were atheists and looked at religion, as if it was black magic from ancient times (it sort of is), yet these same folks were conservative politically. Up until those unceremonious little meetings, we’d never expressed moral, political, or social opinions, when playing chess. We just played the game, with little talk, other than stuff which pertained to the game.

In fact, when playing bullet chess, we rarely spoke a word. It was considered impolite to talk while playing. Nevertheless, the kibitzers frequently could shut-up. Because of those special meetings, I came to realize that many of the players were not what I imagined. While the brief heroin presentation wasn’t too enlightening, it was however passable and after it ended, surprisingly Paul Killian suddenly spoke up with an abundance of enthusiasm, as if the mundane drug presentation had somehow moved him. He was forever goading us into discussing things, but it seemed that there was little substantive material left to pursue, at least initially; still, that discussion went much further than any of us expected.

It’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.

Abe Lincoln

“Well, I think we can all agree that heroin is a major problem in the world right now, but what can we do about it, guys? Hasn’t anybody got any ideas? Come-on guys… How can we stop the heroin problem… shut it down? Maybe if we put our minds to it, we can think of something, which might help to solve it! I know that sounds a little grandiose but think positive, guys… no problem so big we can’t figure it out. Right? Give me your thoughts. Any suggestions? Anything guys… I don’t care if it’s ridiculous, just take a stab at it. What do you say? Think!” Paul spoke.

Paul’s dreaming. He sure loves that phrase, ‘What do you say?’ He had partially given the impression that he was joking, while seriously trying to entice us to actually make viable suggestions. This is for his novels? Paul was shooting for a rather lofty goal, for such a simple little meeting! Quickly solving the world’s heroin problem was no minor task! At that time, I didn’t know that apomorphine already had been shown to be a highly effective treatment for almost all forms of chemical addiction (alcohol, cocaine, heroin, barbiturates, meth, etc.), but the US government had placed it on the schedule two registry, as if it were heroin or cocaine, and yet the drug is non-addictive and non-euphoric. If you were to shoot it up, you won’t know it from water. For addiction treatment, the patient just receives subcutaneous injections (skin-popping, just under the skin) of the drug, at sub-emetic (barely below the threshold, where it produces nausea) doses, for about six weeks, along with small dosages of L-dopa, and the two amino acids tryptophan and phenylalanine (commonly sold in vitamin shops), as well as with a low dose B-vitamin complex pill everyday, with food. The treatment is administered as soon as the patient has finished their withdrawal phase. During the withdrawal phase the drugs are the standard meds to prevent seizures, hypertension, anxiety, and GI function. Those addicts, who are on methadone, should first be transitioned back to heroin for a month, before attempting withdrawals, since methadone has a very long half-life, and is more dangerous to attempt to quit. Methadone is one of the dumbest and cruelest drugs ever made. To add insult to injury, my bet is that one day some drug company will make methadone implants with sustained release.

Unlike me, most of the attendees of these weekly meetings were brilliant people, so I suppose anything was possible, but solving the world addiction problem seemed about as likely as reversing the spin of the earth, with a snap of one’s fingers. We never did unravel the problem of heroin addiction, but we did segue into something quite unexpected. While Paul’s statement seemed over-the-top and a bit ludicrous, it didn’t stop us from responding. Fools rush-in, where angels…

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.

I think at least part of the quote is by Albert Einstein

“It’s just too bad we can’t kill all those worthless junkies! The world would be better-off.” One of the draconian right winger chess players enthusiastically volunteered, for no practical purpose, while several heads nodded in agreement. Geez, that’s slightly cold.

“And, how exactly would you do that?” Paul quickly asked, without batting an eye.

Suddenly the purpose of the discussion had switched from solving the addiction problem, to how to kill the addicts! Some folks just love any excuse to express aggression. At that point, different members began to zealously pursue the killing idea. Like I said, they were right wing conservatives. The idea of killing the addicts plainly seemed to have some appeal for the majority of the members. The conversation proceeded.

“Maybe, you could just put some kind of poison in the heroin?” A chemistry major volunteered. I’m sure glad this is just theorizing.

I was astounded at the unbridled enthusiasm they showed for killing, but then, I didn’t take this situation too seriously. Chess players tended to enjoy pointing-out when a person was wrong, and so another member quickly responded.

“Oh, that is slightly ridiculous idea, man! As soon as a few of the addicts die, the word will gets out, and then the other addicts will seek different sources for their heroin, and that will be the end of the poison idea, and how could you possibly poison enough heroin to get the job done? Besides, who wants to get arrested for murdering a bunch of worthless junkies? Maybe you could kill a few thousand, and then spend the rest of your life in prison, unless the state has the death penalty.”

Killing addicts is apparently no big deal, but thank goodness this is only a mental exercise.

“Well, maybe you could use a disease instead of using a poison, some type of microbe… just stick it in all the heroin.” Another member suggested.

“Same thing, once a few get sick and die that’s the end of that plan. Once they see their buddies dying, that ends that plan. Look guys chess means constantly struggling not to make an error, and so far this line of thought has lead nowhere.” One of the older (forty-two years old) chess players, a grad student in biology, vehemently countered. It’s a good thing that we’re just a bunch of powerless nobodies; still, that line of thought seems to have inspired them.

“Here’s an idea. What if you used an extremely small virus, so it’s really difficult to detect, very hard to identify, and the hypothetical virus which took a long time, maybe even years, before it attacked the person, years before the symptoms began to appear? Maybe, it could just somehow lay dormant in the body, and in that long amount of time, all the heroin addicts could become infected. Bata-bing!” While I posited this idea, I was thinking that the discussion was just a harmless mental exercise, not even remotely knowing, if such a virus actually existed, but then things continued.

At the time I made the comment, I knew practically nothing about virology or immunology. Never would I wish to kill a single addict, even if it were possible, and even if I wouldn’t be prosecuted for it. I’d only kill by accident, or if my life or someone else’s life, was actually threatened.

“How would you do that?” Mike Gamin immediately asked me, as if he truly believed that I had that kind of mastery of microbiology.

“Don’t ask me. Ask Jim, here. He’s the recombinant DNA dude, or Tim, over there, he’s into exotic virology. I don’t know much about viruses. I only study neuro stuff.” I responded. Mike likes my idea!

Then Tim the virologist, volunteered an interesting tidbit. “Well, there may actually be some immune suppressing viruses, which take their time knocking-out an animal’s immune system, and then months or years later, the animal dies, when it’s infected by something else, usually some other microbe, maybe a bacterial infection or cancer or another type of virus gets them, since without a viable immune system, something is bound to eventually come along, to kill the animal. But to the best of my knowledge, those viruses have not even been well identified, but they’re only be in certain African monkeys. There are some researchers, who’ve long suspected there is some immune suppressing virus, which sickens and kills certain monkeys in sub-Saharan Africa. But I’m not real sure about this, I’d have to do some checking.”

“So Joey’s suggestion might have some actual merit?” Mike asked.

Then Jim, who was the DNA guy said, “Theoretically, it wouldn’t be too difficult to switch the viral RNA from the monkey virus into another viral coat that’s compatible with humans, like the simple cold virus. For that matter, even if it’s only in monkeys at this time, for all I know, the monkey’s viral coat might live in humans. I don’t think anyone really knows. You’d have to research that, but human and monkey physiology are generally pretty similar. Just put the immune suppressing monkey RNA in, a fairly benign little virus, which you already know can live in humans… you know… one which we know can penetrate, infect, and replicate in human cells and be released slowly, suppressing and killing the immune system. The virus would probably pretty much behave the same in human as in monkeys. You could even throw-in a few extra inactive nucleotide sequences, attaching them to the end of the RNA chain, to disguise the monkey-origin, if it was ever analyzed. Make it look like some mutant virus, rather than a man-made creation, which it mostly would be a mutant virus, as it is in the monkeys; after all, even though they’re addicts, legally it’s still mass murder, a weird type of genocide, so you’d better hide the evidence!”

It makes sense that a virus would want to live in its host, long before it finally kills it… gives the virus more time to reproduce, and evolve, and to find its way into another host… a smart virus. If the virus could spread through fluids it might be spread by sex, but sure as hell addicts would spread it with needles… just look at hepatitis.

“You just use some inactive pieces of existing RNA, and hook ’em on to the RNA, which suppresses the host’s immune system. That way, if someone analyses it, they won’t know where it came from. It’d be disguised, turning the new virus into sort of a ‘mystery virus.’ If you were going to infect the poppies, maybe you could use a spore-like, hard-cased virus, and the virus might withstand the chemical process of going from opium to heroin. Some thick viral coats are compatible with certain plants and animals. People shoot-up the heroin and get the virus, but don’t get sick, until their immune system begins to crash, months or years afterwards. Maybe it gradually destroyed their lymphatic system, spleen, and bone marrow. And then, along comes a serious disease, they catch it, and die, just like the monkeys, Tim mentioned.” Jim summed-up. Paul and Mike love this shit!

“How would you get the virus in the poppies?” Paul Killian asked.

“I’d put the virus in some type of a supportive solution, some thick liquid it could live in, and spray it over the poppy fields, or maybe you could spray in on bees, right before you release them over the poppy fields of the golden triangle. Just before day break, while it’s still dark, so the famers can’t tell what you’re doing, even if they hear you. Just release the bees from the helicopters. The bees might spread the virus as they gather nectar and pollenate the plants. The down draft of the rotors might push the bees down toward the flowers. Just make sure the guys inside the helicopters wear old-fashioned beekeeper suits and tight fitting full-face gas-masks. Maybe, they could wear the same clothes that guys were for chemical warfare or for hazmat. You’d probably want to use the same type of bee that is found in the poppy region, so no poppy grower would get suspicious, and you’d be better assured that the bees would go for the poppies. Who cares if there is no hive for the bees to return to, once they’ve spread the virus into the poppies.” I foolishly volunteered.

“What do you mean a ‘supportive solution?’” Mike asked.

“The virus may not live, outside the body, so you’ve got to devise a supportive solution, so it can stay alive. Tim would know more about that.” I answered.

Later, Paul and Mike left the once-a-week meeting with their notes in hand, and we all walked back across campus to the Student Union. That meeting may or may not have had something to do with the subsequent development and emergence of HIV, and world AIDS epidemic. Many people assume that the HIV cannot live outside the body, but one way of keeping a virus alive outside a host is to just put the virus in T-cells, or other macrophages, or peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs, JM, Jurkat, MT4, MOLT), and then put those cells in a highly viscus (not quick to evaporate) nutrient rich solution, like glucose/fat rich plasma. For that matter, you could simply centrifuge the blood of HIV positive people, and the Buffy coat (the layer of white blood cells) would already have the viral-laden cells, then, you’d simply put them in the supportive solution.

The bee-transported HIV would live off the macrophages and PBMCs, etc., and those cells would live off the liquid culture medium (enriched and thickened plasma), whence the virus might stay alive, at least until it penetrates the plant, to live-off the poppy. Said solution could possess high numbers of infected PBMCs 1-2 million cells per cubic milliliter (one drop); after all, there are about 5-6 million red blood cells per drop, so you simply replace some of the RBCs and platelets with the HIV infected PBMCs, and add the nutrients. You wouldn’t have to worry about clotting, because the platelets aren’t included in the solution. The platelet layer is between the red blood cells and the white blood cells, and easily removed.

q=life+cycle+of+poppy&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&imgil=S1-wtz4OF7bTUM%253A%253BwEvmPz7frMK1aM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.slideshare.net%25252FMMoiraWhitehouse%25252Fparts-of-a-plant-power-point&source=iu&pf=m&fir=S1-wtz4OF7bTUM%253A%252CwEvmPz7frMK1aM%252C_&usg=__VDVaihs4nMj-_1rVvPPhsXk4QuM%3D&biw=1185&bih=761&ved=0ahUKEwjS6eb_u-jQAhWrhlQKHYm_AsEQyjcIKw&ei=mllLWNK0DquN0gKJ_4qIDA#imgrc=S1-wtz4OF7bTUM%3A

The syrupy enriched solution, containing the HIV, could then be finely sprayed/misted on the bees (On the other hand, perhaps it could just be sprayed from aircraft onto the poppy fields.), and then later, perhaps the macrophages and/or PBMCs might lyse (break-open), and the virus would be released directly on the poppies, as carried by the bees. This way, the virus would be delivered to the pollen, which would penetrate and live in the plant. Angiosperms, like the poppy, have a wealth of pollination methods, involving many different agents to transfer pollen, including various insects (entomophily). HIV infected poppies may not be compromised by the virus, and so generation after generation may act to produce HIV-infected opium. When the plant dies, the virus might still be alive in the seeds, and so hypothetically, the infection might thus continue on for generations. Although, I doubt it.

Nevertheless, it’s worth considering. Especially, if the virus could somehow spread from plant to plant. Plant viruses use strategies that are generally different from those of animal viruses. Plant-to-plant transmission frequently involves vectors, such as birds or insects. However, some viruses can move from plant to plant by touch alone, e.g., the tobacco mosaic virus. Tomato mosaic virus and tobacco mosaic virus may exist for two years in dry soil or leaf debris, but usually one month if soil is wet. The viruses can also survive in infected root debris Tomato mosaic virus and tobacco mosaic virus can exist for two years in dry soil or leaf debris, but will only persist one month if soil is moist. The viruses can also survive in infected root debris in the soil, for up to two years. Sticky pollen grains on the bees could absorb the solution of virally infected PBMCs, and then be distributed to the moist female parts of the plant. Where the virus could enter the plant during fertilization, for as stated, some viruses are well known for their ability to live in plants. In fact, one of the first viruses studied was one removed from the tobacco plant… the Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV).

A German, Adolf Mayer, working in the Netherlands (1882), was the first to describe an important disease of tobacco, named it the tobacco mosaic disease (TMV). How does the tobacco mosaic virus infect? It can spread through the plant’s phloem. Phloem is the tube-like vascular tissue in plants that conducts various sugars and metabolic products downward from the leaves. TMV can be transmitted from one plant to another by simple contact, or perhaps via the soil and root systems! Although the tobacco mosaic virus does not have clear transmission vectors, it can be easily transmitted from the infected hosts to the healthy plants, just by human handling! If the TMV were living in a plant it might be reasonable to assume that it might make chemicals to kill other viruses, trying to infect its host plant!

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29976581/ns/health-aids/t/tobacco-plant-virus-may-yield-hiv-drug/#.WEte6neZO9Y

Quite honestly, I have no idea if the HIV could live in a plant, or if the proposed nutrient rich viscous solution, with the PBMCs could convey the virus alive to the plant. So, all that stuff may be ridiculous; regardless, one unusual aspect of the virus’s RNA makes me think that there is a better than even chance, that the HIV is man-made. It’s the simple fact that forty percent of the RNA found in HIV is identical to that of the green river monkey’s immune-suppressing virus (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, SIV), and sixty percent of HIV’s RNA is some mysterious bullshit. This fact certainly seems to imply it could indeed be man-made. Maybe that sixty percent is from the Tobacco or Tomato Mosaic Virus or some retrograde virus, which would allow it to penetrate and thrive in plants and humans! On the other hand, the sixty percent which is different, may simply be inactive nucleotide sequences, perhaps introduced as subterfuge, or it could be the RNA that was already in the human compatible virus, used to receive the SIV (Simian immunodeficiency virus) RNA, just as Jim had mentioned in that little chess group meeting, so long ago.

However, if HIV was a natural mutation from SIV, it was a real whopper of a mutation, since 150 percent extra RNA would have had to just suddenly, and magically materialized by a single mutation, and that seems awfully unlikely! If HIV came from the green river monkey by some accidental mutation, where did the extra 150 percent of RNA come from… the hand of God smiting the sinful gays and heroin users? I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard Southern Baptists screaming, that HIV was actually God’s punishment, against ‘those sinners.’ The rednecks, here in the deep south, never get tired of hating, especially if it involves anyone who doesn’t agree with their interpretation of reality.

“God definitely made that virus, cuz he makes everything, don’t He? Ain’t no doubt about it. And there ain’t no doubt that he’s punishing all those nasty perverts (pronounced, preverts). They’ve gots to learn their fuck’n place! God is cleansing the earth of dem faggots! AIDS will get rid of all those deviants, not to mention those worthless, needle users. There ain’t no doubt about it. It’s the hand of God!”

Many Catholics said the same thing about syphilis, beginning in the late 1400s, until antibiotics came along in the twentieth century, and then that speculation abruptly ended. When antibiotics came along, God apparently gave up punishing the sinners. Syphilis and AIDS were both heavily stigmatized, due to the fact that they are sexually transmissible, and of course any sex outside of marriage… In the minds of those plentiful religious folks, who love to hate, such diseases denounce the victims as being social pariahs, and figures of immorality. Certain sadistic and pious folks do so enjoy having a handy scapegoat.

The superior person usually acts before speaking, and afterwards speaks in accordance with their acts. Their words remain modest since there’s nothing noble about being superior to others.

Like a Dog by Morley Williams

Though not primarily sexually transmitted, the same was also said about smallpox… God’s wrath against the wicked. If a person contracted the pox, it was God’s will. Even if the victim was a good and pious person, it was assumed that God had given them the pox to atone for their sins, which were hidden from the public. If you are prone toward drawing such conclusions, are you sure that you feel good about blaming God for something so vicious? How do you think Jesus might have treated the world’s syphilis or AIDS victims? What if God didn’t cause AIDS, and you get to the pearly gates, and meet God, and there you stand, having accused God of such a horrible injustice?

God: “Where do you, a small minded bigot, come off saying I made HIV, and accusing me of making those people suffer and killing them? What makes you make such judgements? Most of the times, you’re saying that I’m mysterious and that you can’t understand half the stuff I do, but honestly… HIV?”

The Bigoted Southern Baptist: “Well, it sure sounded good, besides I hate all those homosexuals, and sexual deviants. Don’t you? It says so in the Bible, and didn’t you inspire those guys that wrote the books of the Bible? Ain’t the Bible your word?”

God: “No, I didn’t inspire or write the bible, and I never said I did. You just need to think that I did, just so your moronic mind can have someone to hate. All those little scrolls were written by desperate, and sometimes well- intended men, except for the old testament, those writers were pretty wicked. But listen you fool, those scrolls, which make-up the Bible, were hand-picked in 325 AD, by some old tribal chieftains and a Roman emperor, not by me! They picked those scrolls out of a few thousand other scrolls, and thus the Bible was created! Usually several scrolls were put together to make one book, and they were put together by men, not by me. They were not selected or inspired by me, Bozo. Your problem is that you’ve got too much hate and bigotry in you! What did those gays ever do to you, for you to hate them so much, or for you to begin to claim that you understand my designs?”

Years after that weird meeting, AIDS raised its bloody head, ergo I immediately recalled that peculiar assembly of chess players, and what we’d discussed. It taught me that it may not be wise to engage in evil discussions, even if you assume the discussion is nothing more than a theoretical exercise. Perchance, just speaking of malicious things may lead to unintended consequences. As mentioned, Paul had taken copious notes, during that odd little meeting.

Weapon scientists are a bit like creative screenwriters, always dreaming-up the ultimate scenario.

Whatever Spins Your Crown, Bill W. Moyer

At the Pasteur Institute (1984) certain researchers accurately speculated that HIV was the cause of AIDS. Subsequently, Robert Gallo, an American biomedical scientist and director of NIHH, developed the plasma test to detect the amount and type of antibodies. He was ostensibly known to have rather pointedly given the findings to the United Nations, as well as to the CIA! Why was it made public knowledge, that he’d given the findings to the CIA? Why would he want to give his findings to the CIA? I could see giving it to the CDC, the WHO, the AMA, maybe even the FDA, and other medical institutions, but why make a public announcement, saying that he’d given his findings to the CIA? Perhaps, to create the public appearance that the CIA didn’t know anything about the disease?

Broadcasting that the CIA had to be informed may have been a bit of inane reverse psychology to hoodwink us, the public? Maybe it was to make it appear as if the CIA was innocent? Moreover, just how hard would it have been to place HIV into some old blood and tissue samples, to give the impression the disease came from long ago? Back in the 1980s and 90s, blood and tissues were not under lock and key. Such subterfuge is not exactly rocket science, that is if it was true.

Robert Gallo and Hilary Koprowski, a Polish immunologist and virologist, who had created the first live polio vaccine, ‘found’ that the green monkeys in Africa were often infected with the aforementioned immunosuppressive virus, SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus). Quite likely, that’s the virus Tim had been referring to, during the meeting of chess players. Remember that these timelines and comments are all pure fiction, and nothing more than fabrication. In a reverse form of logic, the massive amount of extra RNA is almost tantamount to proof of human engineering. Otherwise, you must abandon Occam’s razor, which I’m sure can be done every now and then, but seldom without being wrong. The question is… why were the extra nucleotide sequences added (if they were added)? Perhaps, they were added for confusion’s sake, subterfuge, or to help replicate a dissimilar viral coat, or so the virus could have the catabolic enzymes to better penetrate plant cells?

Maybe, it will never really be known how HIV came into existence. But if it can from the SIV, how could all those extra nucleotides have gotten in there? Again, the extra RNA could have been that of a simple fairly mild, or even innocuous cold virus, which became the recipient of the SIV’s RNA, via recombinant viral RNA manipulation. Life naturally evolves from life, but it’s unlikely that it could evolve to naturally produce so much extra RNA; as stated, amounting to 150 percent extra RNA. An appropriate analogy would be the sudden emergence of a human with 115 chromosomes, instead of the usual 46. On the other hand, perhaps one SIV virus ate some other virus. One such virus was discovered; but, to the best of my knowledge, only that one has ever been reported, and so it may not be a real phenomenon.

http://phys.org/news/2011-03-virus-eating-virus-antarctic-lake.html

To accomplish adding RNA and constructing the desired virus, the scientist simply makes a DNA copy of the viral RNA genome. This DNA version is then put into host cells, which will then manufacture the tailor-made virus with said RNA.You don’t have to try to directly add RNA to the virus. While it’s unlikely that the vector of the virus was the bee-to-pollen-to-opium-to-heroin thing, I do think HIV was engineered; still virus with a thick coat may withstand the process of going from opium to heroin. With its unwelcome appearance, AIDS killed a lot of addicts and gays, and now many other peoples are also dying; not to mention, the countless infected babies born to infected mothers. I’m sure all those infected babies were part of God’s plan. I once mentioned this to one of local Baptist rednecks, and he responded by saying, “God probably just takes the infected babies right up to heaven, so it’s no big deal.” The redneck had made it to the fifth grade, but never missed church or a free drink, nor did he miss that ever exciting and intellectually stimulating, Rusty Limp Bough broadcast.

The deadly virus has generated large amounts of fear, suffering, death, and the corresponding familial depression; but once again, let’s don’t forget the monstrous profits being made by the drug companies, with their non-curative cocktails, which the victims must take every day for the rest of their lives. But as mentioned, the average cost for an HIV or AIDS victim is roughly $18,000 per year. Now, that tidy sum just might put a dent in a person’s budget. About three million folks either have HIV or AIDS. So… do the math… $18,000 times 3,000,000 = $54,000,000,000.00 ($54 billion) per year, and that’s just for the United States! If HIV were human-engineered, could drug profits also have been part of the motive… not just killing the heroin addicts?

Having a deadly disease and then being financially destroyed at the same time… What could be better?

True Freedom by Ary E. Millow

That whopping amount of money doesn’t include the cost of all the associated drugs and other medical care, i.e., psychiatric, home-care, nursing, antibiotics, cancer treatments, pain management, infection treatments, pulmonary treatments, liver issues, etc. Nor does that dollar amount, take into consideration the overseas market. Something about the above financial estimate tells me that the pharmaceutical companies sure don’t want to see a cure for AIDS, anytime soon. It has to be such a terrifying things to find out that you have contracted HIV, or AIDS.

Most gods throw dice, but fate plays chess, and you don’t find out till too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.

Sir Terry Pratchett

￼

THE MUSH, THE UNIVERSE, AND THE TIME MACHINE

If you’re not big into science, you may want to skip this chapter. On the other hand, occasionally people who dislike science, enjoy a highly simplified explanation of scientific ideas and issues, by the same token, some of this may seem a bit elementary to the more scientifically educated readers, and some not so elementary. Inherently, most people would like to known more about things, which they don’t fully comprehend, but too few want to make the actual effort. Most folks don’t drop by their public library to pick-up a copy of Newton’s, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Sometimes, all it takes is an honest effort, a little perseverance. The first part of the following fictional chapter discusses how and where dreams occur in the mind of the dreamer, as well as a few of the reasons for dreaming. The last part of this fictitious chapter is a sliver of physics, concerning the nature of the universe, and a theory which may one day lead to a mythical time machine, or maybe not. But like I said, if you truly hate science just skip this chapter. Besides, while I did study the human brain a bit, I’m definitely no physicist, and as you already know, far from being a decent writer.

Before my child was literally shot-out from the womb, a precipitate delivery, into this fast fading folly of a dangerously polluted planet, studying the brain was still the most fulfilling aspect of my life. The brain, approximately three pounds of soft light gray mush, is sort of made in two halves, referred to has hemispheres. The brain more or less looks similar to a pair of big bleached-out light gray ultra wrinkly prunes. While the mush may not be too exciting to look at, for the present, it appears to be the most complicated mystery, remaining in the physical universe, not to mention the fact that the brain, and the various technologies made by the brain, are all we study the universe with! The sum of all knowledge resides within the connections of all those wrinkly prunes, as well as in the writings, art, math, and programing they’ve managed to create. Still, machine consciousness, may be just around the corner, but once again, it would have been made by the gray mush.

The human brains are everyone’s thoughts, ideas, creations, suggestions, hallucinations, delusions, dreams, and schemes. The brain’s life support system is the rest of the human body, and said body depends on things like clean air, potable water, a dependable temperature range, healthy food, etc.; yet lesser, more short-sighted and greedy brains are fast destroying those precious necessities for financial gain.

Like a radiant diamond bullet, right between the eyes, that lack luster gray mush is all the world’s imagination. That bland tangle of neurons is all our questions, as well as every single answer, both right and wrong, rolled into what we deem reality. In most respects, the human brain seems relatively important, and how’s that for an understatement?

It’s all a matter of gray matter.

Only the Ions by A.M. Worley

Still, only a carefully allotted portion of the mush attempts to sort things out. That paucity of gray mash, which comprises ‘you,’ or the all important ‘ego,’ is what allows for something more important than pure logic. Because of its limited size, and restricted function, that portion (the ego) of our gray puree, intentionally creates the electrical (ionic) illusion of freewill, identity, selfishness, and individualism, and so we see ourselves as controlling our destiny, and being separate from the collective consciousness, or for that matter, as being separate from the poorly understood subatomic and molecular collections, comprising the universe, whatever that actually entails.

Such an amazing gift… to see one’s self, as controlling its’ own destiny... to actually believe that you make your own decisions… the wonderful ironic ionic illusion of freewill, whether it be by God’s design, or by mutagenic evolution, whichever created the ego. Then, possibly God set evolution in motion, which seems to largely adhere to various laws of chemistry and physics, ultimately leading to the formation of self-perpetuating DNA. What if the term ‘God’ is just some peoples’ way of filling-in the incomprehensible, or dealing with the insignificance and depression associated with infinity? Or, for some folks, the idea of God is used to get over or through a rough spot in their life (addiction, death in the family, guilt, pain, serious illness, etc.), or it’s to give purpose a purposeless life, or its to help them deal with the terror of impending death, or believing in God means going to church and making friends to combat loneliness, or maybe God explains the creation of the universe, even though no holy text ever written does a half decent job of explaining creation or the nature of space or life. Often belief in a deity has to do with how a person is raised/programed. The formative years are not easily cast aside, just too many overused circuits will scream their protests, if you present a logical counter argument. Or perchance, there really is a God, but my bet is that if there is a God, said God doesn’t remotely resemble the God, as described in any of the popular religious texts. One simple reason for this assumption is that none of the popular ‘holy’ texts actually describe how he created any of his creations, with the slightest degree of genuine detail or insight, but rather they all are just a bunch of vague generalities. To the best of my knowledge, only science attempts to explain nature, and although the story is far from finished, science is much more complete in its’ explanation of such things as life and the universe, than is any of the supposed holy books. Holy books seem to rely heavily on smoke and mirrors: seven days, light and dark, firmament, creation unit, man being made from sounding clay, etc. Oh sure, you can use your imagination and make such glib comments seem profound, but honestly wouldn’t it be better to search for the truth, using your own cognizants, rather just accepting some shallow and baseless old book. When it comes to the universe, the ‘holy’ books are largely meaningless words; at best, they are extremely hazy, and far from accurate, or revealing. The few explanations about life and the universe are frankly pathetic. Granted, people in those days didn’t have much scientific knowledge, but why not try to explain it anyway, why not offer something more reasonable? Why don’t the holy texts, inspired by ‘God,’ or angels, describe things like photosynthesis, the functioning of DNA, cellular respiration, the functioning of neurotransmitters, fluid dynamics, toxicology, cancer, gravity, basic chemistry, orbits, the aging of stars, the nature of comets, field theory, how memory functions in the brain, the neurophysiology of dreams, immunology, complete nature of biochemistry, time travel, etc.

If you consider the vast amounts of research done by, and about, that mushy gray throne of consciousness, certainly more is understood about it, than any of one person remotely realizes, but the ‘holy’ texts contribute nothing toward explaining how the mind actually works. There’s not a single iota of legitimate physiology in any of the holy texts, just words such as: heart, skin, flesh, blood, hair, bone, etc., but nothing of any consequence. and yet, the words are supposed to be inspired by the great creator. Most likely, there’s never been anyone, who can appreciate even one percent of the science, which has been discovered about the gray mush, certainly not my aging fumbling meager mush; but then, there’s virtually nothing in those tiresome holy texts. There’s lots of sound behavioral wisdom, and while that’s good, so what? Those things are kind of obvious. Your average teenager could figure-out the ten commandments. Does that make them holy? That same wisdom is found in many other secular texts. Oft times, certain individuals seem to possess greater wisdom and far more knowledge than is found in certain holy books. In fact, the Bible and Koran might be hard pressed to match the wisdom of Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Joyce, Twain, etc.

That thing inside your skull is the creator of all you do and say, what is best and what is worst about you… those things, which you discuss freely, and those darker things, you may fail to mention. Not only does the mush formulate what you discuss, but carefully or not so carefully, it edits out its secrets, for if anything is apt to be memorable, it is one’s secrets, much as I have woven the words in this disorganized tome, only jotting-down what I’m willing to share of my life.

All the words of every language, and even the long lost words first originating from primitive animal sounds, created by our earlier forms of gray mush. Moreover, the comprehension of those sounds is also accomplished by gray mush. All communication (both output and input) is but various neuronal firing patterns, within those hallowed gray wrinkly prunes. Everything that you do, think, or sense is like that, much as your three pounds of gray mush is now interpreting the words on this page, or as printed or displayed or transmitted by various methodologies made/invented by the gray mush: printing-presses, computers, cellphones, Xerox machines, digital signs, televisions, radio, satellites, fiber-optics, telegraph, drums in the jungle, cuneiform on clay tablets, semaphore, microwave transmission, smoke signals, signaling mirrors, laser optics, etc., not to mention those signals going into deep space, looking for more ‘intelligent’ forms of mush… mush in search of more mush. When looking for smart mush, remember that many people consider humankind’s psychopathic mush to be the best evolution has to offer. It is they, the psychopaths, with their greedy global warming, who may be about to end all life on earth.

The mush is susceptible to many tragic, but fascinating diseases; diseases produced by various unkind things: birth defects (in utero and during birth), worms, bacteria, radiation, viruses, parasites, radiation, drugs, booze, poisons, malformed DNA, chemical imbalances, and stress: physical stress, psychological stress, and stresses in our memories, conscious, as well as unconscious. Even brain trauma/injury, while often heartbreaking, may produce intriguing neurological conditions, if for no other reason, than the loss of function somewhat confirms the purpose of the damaged brain tissue.

In fact, that was one of the first ways that the brain was studied, by looking at what part of the brain was damaged, and then considering what loss of function or ability the victim appeared to have sustained. Consequently, war-related injuries have sadly furthered the understanding of the human brain. Throughout history, nothing has produced the number of brain injures, which wars have managed. That might be the only good thing which war has produced… advances in medicine. Lord knows, it’s done a lot for the advancement of trauma surgery.

The gray mush has created all of science, every bit of medical science, from the witch doctors and shamans, to general practitioners, from trepanning to neurosurgery, from herbs to pharmaceuticals, from blowing smoke over the sick, to reiki, to blood-letting, to x-rays, to immunotherapy, and MRIs. The mush is one of the last frontiers of science, worthy of your interest, for indeed it is the very essence of interest. Our understanding of all the other categories of knowledge is clearly only accomplished through the efforts of the gray goop. Computers may one day be able to understand what we can’t understand, but until they can be linked/integrated with our brain tissue, it will still be living brains, which build the computers, write the software, unless AI takes a real leap forward. On the other hand, the linking has already begun, ergo machines may soon possess consciousness, and share consciousness with the mush.

The brain is responsible for all the art ever created; all we’ve seen, felt, tasted, or listened to, from a newborn’s first beautiful cry to Hiroshima’s lethal blast, from a train’s distant lonely whistle to the philharmonic, from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood to Deep Throat, from the beauty of a dark moonless night on the cold open plains of Siberia to the spellbinding fireworks on the fourth of July at the nation’s capital, from Van Gogh to what you drew on the wall as a child, from Mozart to a two year old banging her fists on the piano, from Spam in a can to Adri’s gourmet creations at El Bulli, from an warm smelly buffalo skin to Coco Chanel’s finest, etc. Moreover, it is every odor you’ve ever known, from the smell of the ocean’s salt spray, to popcorn, hot sex, and to the final odor of antiseptic on the floor of your hospital room.

That gray mush made and recorded history long before the rock paintings of Bhimbetka, or Iry-Hor, Inana, Zeus, Buddha, Jesus, Mohamed, Joseph Smith, and Jim Jones, to long after Jiminy Cricket and Totoro, to this moment and all the historical moments yet to follow, which may not be too long, if global warming continues unchecked. For obviously without the mush, there would be no history. The mush created every philosophy, each prejudice, all the religions, every judgment ever rendered, and all pieces of literature from the ancient works, such as The Stories of the Yellow Emperor and The Art of War, to whatever just made it onto the New York Times Bestseller list, and from the simplicity of Shakespeare, to the profound teachings of Alfred E. Newman, from the hieroglyphics in Tut's tomb, to the writings in the bathrooms of all the gas stations in the universe, every symbol, alphabet, and language, each piece of propaganda, literally all the religious/holy/supposed God-inspired texts, as well as all the world’s riddles, poems, rhymes, jokes, songs, prayers, sermons, codes, speeches, plays, books, chants, oaths, rants, ramblings, etc. The mush is the creator of this idiotic hodgepodge, the old and well used MacBook Air I typed this on, and the internet I used to fact check it with.

The mush created every form of math from two plus two, to the Teichmuller Theory, from taking simple averages, to carrying out multilinear regressions, from cutting notches in a stick, and making hash marks on a cave wall, to totaling things on an abacus, to doing functions on a slide-rule, to performing calculous functions on your laptop. The mush created the math at the local grocery store, to calculating orbital intercepts in outer space.

The brain is the creator of every vehicle, from Rome’s and Egypt’s ancient wagons and chariots, to the bicycle, to the sputtering Model T, to the Hennessey Venom GT, from a skate board, to the bullet train. The gray mush created very vessel, which ever floated on, or under, the water, from a leaky dug-out canoe, lazily drifting down a muddy tributary on the Amazon or Nile, to a Nimitz class nuclear powered aircraft carrier, easily traversing the deep blue oceans of the globe, from a raft made of vine-bound logs, to the British Astute-class fast-attack sub. That three pounds of cognitive gray goop has designed every machine that’s flown through air or space, from the civil war observation balloons, to the Wright brothers and the ancient Kongming lanterns, to the SR-71, to the Sukhoi T-50 & 57 PAK FA, and Space Shuttle, as well as whatever other gizmo is yet to be invented and to be sent hurtling-off through the atmosphere and the black of space. Perhaps one day, the mush will make a machine, which travels through time, though that may already have happened.

Those twin dull gray prunes afford us our happiness from petting the family dog, to experiencing beauty, to falling in love, to having heart-pounding hot erotic sex, to holding a new baby, to successfully conquering ourselves, to teaching a child, to saving a life, to solving a puzzle, to receiving an ‘A’ on a school test, to flawlessly dancing, to creating art and science, and in some cases, to the pleasure of killing an enemy. That mush also affords us every frustration, pain, guilt, and fear, from the worry of going to sleep as a child, to the dread of facing old age and death, from the disappointment of breaking a nail, to the fright of breaking your face, to the terror of breaking your neck, to the deep sweet sorrow of breaking your heart. Each and every emotion is nothing more than certain brain cells firing, no matter what anyone says, for whatever it is that they say is nothing more than a conglomeration of nerve cells sequentially stimulating their diaphragm, throat, vocal cords, jaw muscle, tongue, and lips.

That mysterious gray mush creates every dream ever dreamt. The process of dreaming serves so many purposes. Aside from death and post rigor mortis (sets in about two hours after death and ends around the twelfth hour, although various things can alter those times), the dream state is the only time where our weary skeletal muscle cells fully relax from the day’s work and movement. Massive amounts of various kinds of critical hormones are secreted by the pituitary, during dream sleep. These hormones are inarguably important to our overall health, regulating (opening and closing of regions of) cellular DNA for protein synthesis, immunity, healing, regeneration, rebuilding tissues, binding to brain receptors to alter thought and emotion, etc. Our short-term memories, acquired from the day’s blunderings, become long-term neuronal memories, during dreaming that night. Those more permanent memories form our life’s diary, which in essence is your understanding of our life. Each of us, in a very real way, is simply a compendium of stored long-term memories, thanks to our somewhat bizarre and unpredictable dreams.

Furthermore, dreaming helps to purge the brain of certain types of anxiety. The neurons, which are in effect fear-filled short-term memories, acquired during the day, are allowed to bleed-out their stores of neurotransmitter, during dreaming, to more or less exhaust themselves, so that hopefully they won’t be as active the following day. This merciful process thereby diminishes our fear and apprehension.

Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care

The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath

Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,

Chief nourisher in life’s feast.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Match that for eloquence! Perhaps, it was Willy Wiggle Stick who was the son of God. In this way, the lies and dangers we expose ourselves to during our conscious life, become the phantoms and demons, dwelling in those seemingly disorganized events of our sleep. And in so doing, our dreams partially serve to at least partially knit-up that ever unraveling sleeve, we call ‘life.’ Sorry, Will…

We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

The dream generating parts of the brain are partially located in phylogenetically primitive (ancient) regions of the brain, and may fire-off at times of great stress, or in the event of unconsciousness, and so, with the realization of impending death, perhaps the hippocampi fire and suddenly the person is exposed to all of the memories, and so it seems their life flashes before their eyes. Then again, the person may experience various apparitions of the afterlife, when at the end their locus coeruleus fires off, which normally creates visions called dreams. As a result of this event, the person believes that their particular religious or philosophical belief has been confirmed. Most people know that their belief is the only true belief. There are somethings everyone is convinced they’re right about.. reality changes from brain to brain. That’s just one reason why these ten books are works of true fiction. Each pair of gray prunes is often ‘certain,’ that it’s understanding of God, spirituality, and/or the afterlife is ‘the’ correct understanding, and that all the others are simply: wrong, misguided, foolish, lacking in insight, uninspired, etc. Few people just say they don’t know, or remain in active search mode. How much time has been spent, if not wasted, worrying about the hereafter… that big event, when the three pounds of gray mush merely stops working, and begins to decompose?

If a person is granted the indignities of old age, perhaps the excitement of a blissful dream may accelerate the heart, and in so doing the aged myocardium fails to keep pace with the demands of the happy dream, and the merry dreamer fearlessly skips-off into an unrealized death; whatever that may be; and, believe you me, the mush has generated plenty of ideas about what the afterlife may be: Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Babism, Druze, Judaism, Rastafari, Mandaean, Sabian, Shabakism, Ayyavazhi, Hinduism, Jainism, Scientology, Meivazhi, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Gnostic, Babi, Yazdanism, Confucianism, Shinto, Taoism, and too many others. Furthermore, each of these ideas is somewhat different for each individual.

Time’s collective mush may have created all of those beliefs, and left them, and others, for your gray porridge to contemplate. But when your brain dies, most of it will be lost, like an over worked slave’s scream, echoing off the side of a half built pyramid. So my very dear readers, do fully enjoy that mush between your ears, but occasionally demand that it do good, gentle, and maybe even a few courageous things, so there remains a worthy symbol of its brief existence. I sincerely wish my mush had done so.

Stars shining bright above you

Night breezes seem to whisper “I love you”

Birds singing in the sycamore trees

Dream a little dream of me

Say nighty-night and kiss me

Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me

While I'm alone and blue as can be

Dream a little dream of me

Stars fading but I linger on dear

Still craving your kiss

I’m longing to linger till dawn dear

Just saying this

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you

Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you

But in your dreams whatever they be

Dream a little dream of me

Stars fading but I linger on dear

Still craving your kiss

I’m longing to linger till dawn dear

Just saying this

Sweet dreams, till sunbeams find you

Gotta keep dreaming leave all worries behind you

But in your dreams whatever they be

You gotta make me a promise, promise to me

You’ll dream, dream a little of me

Dream a Little Dream of Me (1931) lyrics by Gus Kahn… music by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwand

Generally, when scientists study the great gray mush, they consider the function of certain groups of neurons, or tracts (cable-like groups of nerve cell axons), or certain neurotransmitters (the biochemicals that the nerve cells release onto other nerve cells, either to excite or to inhibit activity), or other chemicals within the brain, etc. Interestingly, opposing neurological factors, like opposing emotions are usually situated in the mush so that the cells representing one emotion are actually in touch with, or partially embedded within the cells, which represent the opposite emotion.

Again, the cells representing opposing emotions are next to each other, and intermingled. One group of cells, largely representing one emotion, act to inhibit the opposing emotion, by releasing an inhibitory chemical (neurotransmitter) on the cells comprising the opposite emotion, since the chemical which excites one group of cells inhibits the cells representing the opposite emotion. Maybe that’s why I’ve never experienced joyful terror, or courageous fearfulness, or hateful love, etc.

The brain cells which together represent the feelings of anxiety, terror, and fear won’t fire, while the cells which constitute the feelings of contentment, wellbeing, and happiness are firing, and visa versa. The neurons which produce and represent happiness and euphoria, when firing, inhibit those neurons which represent sadness and depression, and visa versa. The bottom line is that you can’t be happy and ecstatic, while being morose and depressed. They can exist moments apart, but not simultaneously, since the chemical which one releases to fire inhibit the opposite emotion. Once the happiness neurons are firing, they inhibit the sadness neurons, and visa versa. In that way, the individual remains with one emotion at a time. Imagine if electrodes are placed in both groups (happiness and sadness) and they were simultaneously stimulated. Perhaps only then, could both emotions be experienced, concurrently. Still, there are those people, who claim that LSD can do that. This mutually inhibitory condition also exists for the parts of the brain, which drive the sleep, and awake states; one turns the other off. As one is gradually inhibiting the other, you are either slowly falling asleep, or gently waking up.

Much of the following information was contained in those six early research references, which I was handed by the stranger that day in Bill and Alice’s Cafe, so very long ago, or at least now, it seems to be ages ago. The groups of neurons, known as the raphe (french word for ‘seam,’ because most of its neurons are in the midline or seam of the brainstem and midbrain), which create the non-dreaming sleep state, sometimes called ‘black brain sleep (not dreaming sleep),’ are partially embedded among the neurons of reticular activating system (RAS), which produces the awake-state, and visa versa. The more nerve cells firing in the RAS the more alert the person becomes. So as the RAS begins to fire, it inhibits the raphe, and the person transitions from sleep to awake. As the RAS uses-up its stores of its neurotransmitter, throughout the awake phase of the day (usually), it begins to run low on its’ neurotransmitter, and eventually can no longer inhibit the raphe, and so the raphe begins to fire and sleep ensues, overtaking the awake state, since as the raphe fires, it inhibits the RAS. For most people, the raphe has enough neurotransmitter to inhibit the RAS, for roughly eight hours each night; whereas, the RAS has enough neurotransmitter to inhibit the raphe for approximately sixteen hours, and so we’re generally awake for two-thirds of our life, some people more, others less.

While parts of the raphe are still firing, dreaming appears to begin with the firing of the two loci coerulei (two tiny groups of cells, which appear like two BB-sized blue spots in the brainstem). That way, you remain asleep (the raphe), while you dream (the locus coeruleus). The shade of blue is called, cerulean blue, which is a type of sky blue. That color of pigment was created in 1805 for artists, who worked in oils. As mentioned, the firing of those two blue spots, is the initiation of the dream cycle. There is actually a type of blue melanin pigment in those nerve cells.

To varying degrees, the raphe and the reticular activating system can inhibit the locus coeruleus, depending on their particular circadian state, or how much of their respective neurotransmitters are present. Obviously, the raphe doesn’t inhibit the locus coeruleus all night, during sleep, or we wouldn’t dream. And in some people, the RAS fails to inhibit the locus coeruleus, during the awake state; consequently, such people hallucinate. Special circumstances can create this: PTSD, schizophrenia, certain drugs, extended periods of stress, LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, sleep deprivation, an enlarged zona fasiculata of the adrenal cortex, etc. But usually, the arrival of one’s dream and its’ duration is determined by a very careful firing-balance of those aforementioned nerve cell groups, and their respective amounts of neurotransmitters. Normally, dreams arrive only when they are supposed to arrive, and they last, baring some unforeseen interruption, only as long as they are neurochemically intended to last.

As one area of the brain, like the raphe (non-dreaming sleep center), becomes active, it releases the neurotransmitter, which happens to be 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), onto the cells of the RAS. The 5-HT turns off the cells of the RAS, ergo the individual goes to sleep. Likewise the cells of the raphe run-up to the cortex and rhythmically release 5-HT onto the cortex, turning it off, as well. That rhythmical release of bursts of 5-HT produces slow synchronous brain waves on the EEG. Consequently, non-dream sleep is often called slow-wave sleep. In the morning upon awakening, the reticular activating system releases its neurotransmitter, norepinephrine (NE), onto the cells of the raphe to turn them off, and by then the raphe is low on 5-HT; and so, the individual enters the awake state, to face whatever life may bring. In addition, the cells of the RAS project up to the cortex and release NE on the cortical cells, awaking the brain. During the night, the RAS has been synthesizing its stores of NE to drive the next day’s awake state. Likewise, during the day, while the RAS is inhibiting the raphe, the raphe is then synthesizing and storing-up its 5-HT, to drive the next night’s sleep state, when it will again release the 5-HT onto the cells of the cortex, to shut them off. Sometime during that sleep period, one portion of the raphe, a group of cells which some researchers think is called dorsalis, begins to run low in 5-HT, so that it can no longer inhibit the locus coeruleus, and for most people, this happens in the latter part (usually, the last couple hours) of the sleep period, so the two blue spots fire and stimulate the parts of the brain, which then display subconscious memories/experiences, contained within parts of the individual’s hippocampi (Many conscious and unconscious memories are stored in the two hippocampi.), onto the same the cells of the visual and auditory cortices (areas of the cortex), which are used to see and hear, during the awake state, thus the person sees and hears in their dreams.

All this happens, while other parts of the raphe are still operative, inhibiting the reticular activating system, so you remain asleep, during your dreams. In fact, during dreaming, it is even harder to awaken. This is because, some of the cells of the locus coeruleus extend to, and stimulate, portions of the hypothalamic pituitary areas to cause the dreamer to release beta-endorphin, and other hormones from their pituitary gland. The beta-endorphin goes into circulation, and is a protein, which possesses ten to one hundred times the pain killing and sedating power of morphine. Because of this, we’re all junkies, when it comes to dreaming, but it is this beta-endorphin, which better insures that the dreamer isn’t easily awakened, making sure that the person receives the various benefits of dreaming. Haven’t you ever noticed how irritated you can get, when someone awakens you from a dream, as opposed to when someone awakens you from non-dream sleep? Being disturbed from a dream is sort of like a junkie, whose had the needle pulled from their vein, when half the heroin yet remains in the syringe. Interrupting a dream stops the pituitary’s release of beta-endorphin. Once, I had a friend, who was a state chess champion, with a tested IQ higher than Einstein’s. One afternoon, I dropped by his house. The front door was unlocked, so I walked in, and I found him unconscious, with the hypodermic needle, still a third full of heroin, stuck in his arm. Never before had I seen such a sight. Since he looked unconscious, I feared that he had overdosed and was about to die, so I quickly pulled the needle out of his arm, and flung it out an open window. Immediately, he awoke and was furious with me for doing that.

Again, opposing emotions like happiness and sadness, or bravery and fearfulness, or love and hate, etc., operate as described, with the neurons of one emotion, buried within the neurons comprising the opposite emotion, thereby inhibiting the opposing emotion, when firing and generating their particular emotion. Each emotion possesses a neurotransmitter, which will turn-off the opposing emotion; and so, fear blocks bravery, and bravery blocks fear, happiness blocks sadness and vice versa, shame blocks pride, and visa versa, and feelings of love block hate, and vice versa. This is similar to how the raphe blocks the RAS, and visa versa. If you think about it, this duality makes inherent sense, and has everything to do with so much of psychology and philosophy, as well as various poems and songs, and so many of our actions, for what is the human brain, but the totality of each person’s personality and reality? Everyone’s awareness is a carefully balanced orchestration of opposing sets of neurotransmitters, and not just for the awake state, the sleep state, the dream state, and for various opposing sets of emotions, but for the entire range of human neurophysiology. There are even excitatory and inhibitory neurons, which govern our ability to move our muscles, in effect representing our coordination and strength. Many feel that the neurotransmitter acetylcholine is the primary brain chemical driving the contraction of muscles, and the neurotransmitter dopamine slows and governs the resultant movement. The balance of those two systems somewhat explains coordination.

And yes, there are certainly consciously controlled regions of the brain (or at least our ego lets us think so), which may also influence all those various opposing neuronal groups, but those consciously controlled cells also vary in number of cells. For example, most people can learn to control at large portion of their rage. But for some people, who have an extra large group of neurons, representing rage, and a relatively small group of neurons, designed to consciously control those abundant rage neurons, the task of controlling their rage may be next to, if not completely, impossible; regardless of how many anger management classes they take. How effectively these consciously controlled groups function may largely be a matter of genetics. Genetics may effect things like: the number of neurons, the synthesis and amounts of neurotransmitters, and so even the ability to learn to control them.

Practice can only be as good as the genetic limitations, with which it has to practice.

M.A. Rowley

This balancing act, between opposing neuronal groups, and our conscious control over them, undoubtedly plays a significant role in not only the major human behaviors, but the more unusual or subtle things like: how we appreciate: music, colors, visual art, nature, creativity, etc. For example, in some people, the parts of the brain, which perceive color and form, may have substantial connections with the parts of their brain, which represent emotion, whereas in others, there may be little such connection. Consequently, what is heard, seen, or touched can deeply effect some people, resulting in tremendous emotional upwellings; while for others, those associated areas aren’t well connected with their emotions, and so the same sounds, sights, and tactile sensations seem to be of no great emotional importance, and those people never understand what all the fuss is about. There are so many politicians, who fall into the latter classification, and I suspect that’s possibly why the public schools have practically nothing in the way of art classes. When your country puts the majority of its national budget into the manufacture of hugely exorbitant killing machines, need I say more.

For some people, certain tactile sensations, coming from the sex organs and erogenous zones, which integrate with the Septal Nucleus, lead to sexual arousal and produce orgasm. The orgasm is DNA’s reward for replicating/reproducing itself. But neurons of the Septal Nucleus may also be connected-up with certain emotions and memories, housed in the hippocampus and amygdala, i.e., anger, love, affection, visual memories, auditory memories, olfactory memories, and taste memories, etc., whereas for others, few if any such connections exist, and so, sex remains without certain emotions, etc., largely just tactile and visual. Of course, for different folks, different concentrations of the cells representing such Septal stimulators are employed. Different strokes for different… For some people sex just seems to feel great, but it has little or no associated emotion, and nothing to do with love. Such people may feel love, but just not associated with sex. Sorry to say, I’m mostly in that category. Many men and a few women are configured that way, since this is based on causal observations, may in consequence be in error. Different parts of the hippocampus or the amygdala hook-up with the Septal Nucleus, and these hook-ups/connections markedly vary from person to person. If hate and anger hook-up with the Septal Nucleus, then you may have your run-of-the-mill sadist. For them, such turn-ons may run the gamut, from the guy who likes to spank the woman’s ass during sex, to Jeffery Dahmer, the Milwaukee Monster, who often ate parts of his victims and kept parts in the refrigerator for arousal purposes. This category of sexual being could possibly include those, who condone the killing of thousands of innocent civilians was in: people such as Milošević, Idi Amin, Mao, Bush, Stalin, Hitler, etc. If on the other hand, the pain neurons from the lateral spinothalamic tract directly or indirectly stimulate the Septal Nucleus, then you have you everyday masochist, and as with the sadist, their desire for pain may range greatly. There are some folks who have a relatively attenuated Septal Nucleus, and so have little to no interest in sex.

The presence of one emotion for some period of time is going to use-up its intrinsic neurotransmitter, and as a result, more than likely, predispose the individual to the firing of the opposing emotion, and this scenario occurs regardless of the person’s financial wealth, and so some extent despite their environmental circumstances. No matter how rich one’s life, the person is still apt to sustain a certain level of happiness and depression. Too much happiness may therefore set-up their brain for some amount of sadness, too much contentment may set-up the person for anxiety, even too much love may make someone more susceptible to feelings of hate or disinterest, etc., ergo, we should sometimes avoid the prolonged extremes of any single positive emotion, lest we suffer the opposing less desirable emotion. Perhaps these emotions may influence certain broader behaviorisms, so that if a person does something wrong or unkind, they are predisposed to acting with more goodness or kindness. But here again, such things may be somewhat dependent on the neurophysiology they are born with.

Perchance, this is why the longer the manic depressive patient continues in their manic phase, the bigger the inevitable crash, and the more unfathomable their despair. Perhaps, this duality of neuronal systems may, to some extent, play an important role in the old idea of karma, the concept involving spiritual cause and effect, where intent and actions of a person influence the future of that individual. This may not just apply to good and evil. For example, look at a beautiful piece of artwork for an hour or two, and it no longer seems as interesting. Look at it too long, and you may even get sick of it. Listen to a piece of music repetitively for more than a few minutes, and it becomes boring. Play it all day, and you may hate it. Once the neurotransmitters for one feeling are drained, the opposing feeling begins going active, and without volition, unless sleep intervenes to rebalance things (certain neurotransmitter levels).

Normally, with adequate sleep, the neurotransmitters can be restored, so behaviors and emotions can be rebalanced; but of course, not in all people, for in some folks these systems may not be balanced from birth, or because of severe experiences, drug use, brain injury, poor diet, stresses and strains, toxins, etc. For example, if a person is born with a larger than average reticular activating system, and a relatively small raphe, he or she may tend to sleep little and stay awake for extended periods, but then their reticular activating system must be able to reload (synthesize) its neurotransmitter levels in a shorter amount of time, since they don’t sleep as long. If the individual can not reload the RAS in the time allotted by the functioning of the raphe, such a person may appear groggy, less alter, and perhaps not live as long, since their body isn’t proposed as much recuperative sleep, and I fear that such is my situation.

Likewise, a person may have been born with an abundance of nerve cells which create happiness, and he or she may also have been born with fewer neurons, which manifest the feeling of sadness, hence such a person may generally appear happier than most people, regardless of life’s experiences, and without the usual depressive rebound. I’ve known people like that. As a rule, I’ve noticed that people, who live past one hundred years old, seem to have an abundantly happy personality, and they also appear to love people.

So while there is a balancing of these various opposing systems (sleep, dreams, emotions, interests, levels of motivation, motor coordination, awareness, etc.) in the brain; quantitatively, it is certainly not the same for all peoples. Each brain is obviously different. In most people, with a relatively normal distribution of neurons in the various opposing groups, representing happiness and sadness, the burden of experiencing excessive happiness is the rebound experience of excess sadness, that the happiness neurochemically engenders. The number of participating braincells and their level of activity is somewhat determined by DNA and by experience. Perchance, that’s why people who have everything going for them: family, friends, wealth, good health, etc., may still be depressed, at times. An individual can have everything going their way… good relationships, great job, plenty of money, good health, even respect and fame, yet periodically they may be sad or even severely depressed, simply due to the counterbalancing of their opposing groups of neurons and the levels of their respective neurotransmitters. The following may be a good example of this.

Once, while eating at Mobile’s rather famous Jerry’s Buffet, I bumped into a CPA, who worked in state accounting office, as well as for the Alabama State Lottery Office. He was vacationing at the Gulf Shores. At his lottery job, he frequently came in contact with the lottery winners to arrange the details for the transfer of their winnings, usually discussing such things as: the state administering payments vs. giving them a lump-sum, account numbers, federal and state tax notification forms, etc. The lottery-guy was frequently flabbergasted at how many of the winners would show-up in a less than a euphoric state, if not in a down-right ‘gloomy’ disposition. These big winners were often poor people, who had been struggling their entire life, and they’d just become millionaires, yet by the time the winners had gotten to the lottery office, many seemed relatively indifferent or even depressed. Most likely, upon initially finding-out that they were a big winner, their brains went over-the-top with exhilaration, but after the ‘happy’ neurons had released, and depleted their neurotransmitter stores, most likely the opposing ‘sad’ or ‘gloomy’ group of neurons was left chemically unopposed; so when, the winners at last showed up to claim their prize money, those ‘sad’ neurons were functioning, hence they appeared to be something less than happy.

As mentioned above, in reference to the sleep-dreaming-awake states, as well as the talk about opposing emotions, etc., this neurological/neurochemical balancing act can be biased or disproportionate, in many people. They be born with a one-sided abundance of nerve cells, or a disproportionate amount of neurotransmitter. So, they may be prone to being motivated or lazy, highly coordinated vs. clumsy, perpetually happy vs. often sad, filled with love for other people vs. antisocial, narcoleptics vs. insomniacs, brave vs. cowardly, etc. These extremes may certainly be due to events in their lives, yet every bit as often, if not more often, people are simply born with a predisposition toward one extreme. You’ve probably known such folks. These people can be completely different than their siblings, even though they’ve been raised with all the same benefits and detriments, and having basically the same life experiences. Such folks are graced with different genetic alleles expressing in such a way, that they came to possess a vastly different neurochemistry and neurophysiology: more or less neurons in certain critical groups, and/or with more or less neurotransmitter for said neurons. This is not to say that life’s events can’t play a role, for indeed they can and often do; but frankly, sometimes they’re not the primary, rate-limiting variable. People without advanced degrees in science are generally the ones, who like to believe that such behavioral extremes are almost always owing to environmental issues. And, while that is optimistic and frequently more hopeful, it may often be far from accurate, and it may be doing more harm than some folks think. When talk therapy fails, and it usually does, then it’s time for pharmaceuticals, but the current state of drug therapy for most emotional imbalances is far from ideal. What we need is to advance science to the point that said neuronal imbalances are actually corrected, and while many folks presume that the human brain is far too complex to be corrected, perhaps it’s not as hard as one might imagine.

There are people, who seem perpetually happy, even though they may lead woeful lives of strife and struggle, just like my aforementioned black paperboys. Certain people are graced with immense amounts of courage, yet they came from a relatively nondescript background, much as my Dad. Some people are extremely kind and generous, who’ve not been raised to be that way. Many of the poor Mexicans in Mexico City had been raised in extreme poverty, yet still, they were oh so generous. In such cases, it may well be a matter of genetically based neurophysiology, present before birth, a making of the DNA in sperm and egg. Still, the first two years of life are critically important, since the brain looses much of its plasticity after age two. Loosing a fair percentage of its’ ability to make new circuits, and so after two, the person’s somewhat stuck with those early hardwired circuits. That’s where I was lucky to have a teaching/instructing Dad, with the glorious reward of beer.

There were many years in my life, where I slept very little. Until the doctors finally prescribed my sleeping pills, many was the night, that I slept only about fifteen minutes, yet usually I still managed a significant level of activity in the awake state, though my body seemed to fatigue at times, and I sustained too many colds. In facts one year, I had a cold that lasted nearly six months, yet never developed pneumonia. Although I’ve haven’t been able to find a physiological reason for it, on the day’s following little sleep, sometimes my vision changed, and occasionally those evenings, areas of my visual field seemed to glow a neon purple. This occurrence is much different from the previously described color-wave game that I played as a child, when I was trying to go to sleep. Those colors were always red, green, and blue. Most likely, childhood alcoholism did some damage to the sleep-inducing parts of my brain, parts of my raphe. As an adult, I tried every known sleep-inducing herb, but none helped, not even slightly. Once I took about thirty melatonin pills, but didn’t feel slightly drowsy. Thanks to my doc and modern pharmacologically, I can now sleep. The health benefits have been wonderful. Without those pills I’d probably be dead.

So far in this awkward discussion, I’ve only mentioned brain cells and brain chemicals, but of course, these cells and chemicals are made out of smaller and smaller particles. Yet few, if any, scientists study the brain on the subatomic level. For the most part, only physicists study and theorize about subatomic particles. Nevertheless, every atom composing the brain is made of certain subatomic particles. Hence, the entire brain is inarguably composed of nothing but subatomic particles, and so every thought and feeling is nothing more nor less than a composition of moving subatomic particles. Simple reason dictates that such must be the case, for how could it be otherwise? Right now, you may be wondering what my point is, but please bare with me.

It’s also inherently clear that the brain gives off, or radiates some of those subatomic particles. Evidence of this ‘brain radiation’ is clear from EEG recordings. Electrodes are put on a person’s scalp and something is coming out of the brain, then doing something to those electrodes. If nothing else, this might be a chain reaction of one atom polar-shifting (positive to negative or visa versa) the adjacent atom, within the brain, then out of the brain and through: the Pia mater, the Arachnoid Mater, the Dura Mater, the inner periosteum, the boney skull, the outer periosteum, the Galea Aponeurotica, the hypodermis, the subcutaneous layer, the four layers of the epidermis, the thin layer of electrode paste, and into the metal of the electrode. At the very least, something or things is/are causing atoms and molecules to shift/polarize. But it may not just be polar shifting of atoms, for to ensure clean EEG recordings, they must be conducted in shielded rooms, where the walls, floors, ceilings, windows, and doors, are completely covered with layers of copper screening, similar to a Faraday cage. This copper shielding is designed to prevent subatomic emissions or radiations, coming from other peoples’ bodies, especially from their muscles and brains (muscle cells and brain cells have a lot of similar properties), from being picked-up by the electrodes on the patient’s scalp, thereby confounding the patient’s EEG recording.

Exactly, what those human-emitted subatomic particles are, I have no idea. The word ‘waves’ doesn’t actually explain anything. Many people just say the brain gives off ‘energy,’ when at some level, it’s difficult to discern exactly what energy is. The difference between energy and matter is rather difficult to explain. If you ask someone about what, in a molecule of glucose (sugar), actually is the energy, they may tell you that it’s the twelve high speed electrons on the hydrogens atoms of the molecule, which are in fact a type of high-speed matter. But then, what exactly is matter? Defining matter may be impossible, for there may be no such thing as the smallest particle. How could there be? It is reasonable to assume that every particle is made of smaller particles, which are made of yet smaller particles, and so forth and so on, ad infinitum. And so, there probably is not such thing as the smallest particle, and so there is arguably no such thing as matter! Ergo, those twelve high speed electrons are not matter as we like to think about it. The moment, someone claims that some particle is indeed the smallest particle, it might be tantamount to saying that particle doesn’t exist. He or she might say something, as follows.

“Well, folks, here it is. This is the ‘thing-a-ma-jig’ particle, and it is the smallest particle there is. It’s only made of itself!”

In a manner of speaking, if something were only made of itself, it wouldn’t exist, and that’s not me trying to be philosophical. Ergo, it becomes rather obvious that while humans often enjoy finite concrete ideas and concepts (groups of firing neurons), the only way that the universe can exist is with the notion of infinity. The problem is that we’ve only got our limited three pounds of gray mush, so no one can possibly get a complete handle on it. Perchance, it is good to know one’s limits, since as far as we’re concerned, the universe has none. In this respect, it could be that humans are like three year olds, who can only do addition and subtraction, except for a few like Isaac Newton and Carl Gauss, who may be the greatest minds to ever have published their thoughts. Those two, and the few who may be like them, could well represent the next step in cognitive evolution. Maybe we need to dig them up and take a DNA sample, for cloning/breeding purposes.

If you ask someone, with a basic scientific education, what sunlight is, they’ll probably tell you that its high speed (186, 282 miles per second) photons (tiny particles), radiating out from the sun toward the earth, and of course, the sun radiates photos, etc., in all other directions of the sphere, as well. But different amounts of photons are emitted from the sun at different times, and locations. The equator of the sun rotates faster than the poles, and the internal parts of the sun rotate at a different rate, than the external, which appears to have something to do with the genesis of sun spots. When there are sun spots, there’s an increase in photons (as well as other particles) being emitted from the sun. But again, there is little doubt that the photon is made of still smaller particles, which in turn are made of yet smaller particles, on down into infinity.

If that’s the case, it may plausibly beg the question, ‘Is there really any matter?’ Something tells me that the wave length of light is owing to the mass and speed of the particles orbiting the central mass, or the photon’s nucleus. The orbiting particle or particles pull(s) the nucleus to the side, as it orbits around it, hence the high speed photon wobbles, and thereby creates the wavelength, which our eyes and brains interpret as different colors (provided the photon is in the visible spectrum), but most of the photons have wavelengths, which the human eye can’t detect, and so most light remains invisible to our eyes and gray mush. The wavelengths of light are measured in nanometers and the human eye can detect wavelengths from 380 to 700 nanometers. The Hubble space telescope is designed to view ultraviolet light, visible light, and near-infrared light, from about 100 nanometers to 1.8 microns in wavelength. And while Hubble has made truly interesting photos and revelations about the universe, I’m not so sure it was worth the cost (about $9B, with all it’s maintenance and repairs), especially considering all the things that the earth and its inhabitants desperately need, such as healthy food and clean water, and to minimize pollution.

Again, if all the matter is made of smaller and smaller and smaller particles, then there must be no such thing as matter, at least as we normally think of it! According to some types of particle physics, the particles which make-up an atom are called ‘point particles,’ and said to ‘not take up space,’ but this ‘point particle’ comment doesn’t readily acknowledge the existence of infinitely smaller and smaller particles. Sometimes words, and even math, fail to explain, but remain but the illusion or deception of knowledge. While infinity is somewhat disconcerting, and definitely unfathomable/incomprehensible, it still seems to be an obvious reality, and strongly makes us consider our limitations. It is quite likely that with each quantum leap downward (smaller) in particle size, said smaller particles are almost entirely made of space. Just as the atom, as well as the solar system seem to be made of almost entirely space. Moreover, the vast majority of the galaxy is space. Furthermore, our our galaxy is in a cluster of roughly fifty-four galaxies, and this cluster of galaxies is also mostly space. It is quite possible that there are not only galactic clusters, but clusters of clusters of galaxies, and so forth, and so on… infinity larger and larger. Using a type of math which accounts for infinitely large and small particles, the universe may one day accurately described.

Again, this concept of ‘no such thing as the smallest particle’ implies that there is no actual matter, and as particles become smaller, by huge diminishing quantum leaps, so may their potential speeds increase by proportionate quantum leaps, so that the size of each particle might be inversely correlated with its speed, meaning that in most cases the smaller the particle, the faster it goes. This isn’t always true, moving from smaller to larger. Below is the speed of light in miles per hour. So, just imagine the speeds of particles, which are many quantum leaps smaller than the light particle.

Average Photon speed = 669,600,000 mph

Average electron speed = 4,680,000 mph

Earth’s speed of spin = 1000 mph

Earth’s rotation speed around the sun = 66,000 mph

Speed which Earth and Sun move toward Vega = 43,000 mph

Speed which Milky Way Galaxy Spins = 483,000 mph

Rotation speed of Milky Way = 453,600 mph

Perhaps some particles, which are hundreds of quantum leaps smaller, than say the light particle (the photon), and could be made to travel in a straight line (which some indeed do), might travel trillions of times further than the limits of the known universe, in a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. In other words, they’d be incomprehensibly fast, at least to the human brain. But if that were true, the universe would very quickly dissolve, unless somehow those extremely fast particles were to suddenly reverse direction and return to momentarily reform the parent mass, from which they’d emanated, only then to again radiate outward, to some unbelievable distance, and to again return, over and over, ad infinitum.

This concept of particles with near infinite speed caused me to put together a simple little theory about how gravity might operate. If you’re kind and patient enough to read this, please feel free to say I’m wrong, since I’m nothing like a real physicist. The logic of this theory is not purely deductive, nor is it inductive; in other words, there is no concordance of multiple premises used to draw-up the theory. There’s no algorithm leading to the next algorithm, no scientific discovery leading to the next hypothesis. Yes, it’s fictional; nevertheless, it may just be correct. With deductive and inductive reasoning, one might use a certain number of facts to reach a conclusion, but in this theory, I’ve only employed one unproven, formally rejected assumption/idea, along the notion that there is no such thing as the smallest particle. The following conjecture could indeed be valid, and if so, may have some theoretical implications and maybe even some practical uses.

Over thirty years ago, I’d occasionally phone an esteemed older Jewish physicist at one of his labs (I assumed he worked at more than one.). That lab was simply an enormous warehouse, where he’d generate lightning bolts, launching them down the length of the long metal building. At least that’s what he told me. He seemed to be a truly brilliant man, and so I was surprised he’s take my calls. Practically everyone knows that Einstein and other famous physicists have hypothesized, that if matter could somehow surpass the speed of light, that said matter might travel in time. If a photon could go faster than 186,282 miles per second, even just slightly faster than its’ normal speed, then it might suddenly jump in time, but what might that actually mean? What that might mean is a reversal of direction of travel.

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

Richard P. Feynman

Moreover, supposedly if a particle could surpass the speed, which corresponds to its’ particular mass, it might suddenly reverse direction, and travel in the opposite direction, from which it had been traveling, because it’s traveled in time. Perhaps, Einstein felt that there might be such particles… immeasurably small particles, which travel at immeasurably fast speeds, which somehow exceed their allotted speeds (relative to their mass), and so reverse direction, and come back through the direction from which they ‘originally’ came, to reconstitute the parent matter. The old physicist told me that Einstein was never able to prove this intuitive assumption, so he never published it. Feynman seemed to think the world of Einstein, when he said, “Einstein himself, of course, arrived at the same Lagrangian but without the help of a developed field theory, and I must admit that I have no idea how he guessed the final result. We have had troubles enough arriving at the theory - but I feel as though he had done it while swimming underwater, blindfolded, and with his hands tied behind his back!”

But supposedly, Einstein discussed the reversing direction thing with my friend, firing-off lightning bolts in the warehouse. In one study, the neutrino was found to be faster than the photon, though that’s still being debated. The size difference is also still under debate. What this may mean is that relativity may be in question. Some folks think that when a photon decays, it breaks down into two of the lightest neutrinos. If so, we could safely assume the photon is larger and perhaps slower. With the emergence of the large Hadron Collider, the world was exposed to the Higgs boson, which is largely responsible for giving subatomic particles mass; whatever mass really is.

Science demands absolute proof, ergo unproven thoughts are usually considered unacceptable for scientific publication; so, thank God for free internet publishing. The International Journal of Theoretical Physics, a peer-reviewed journal of physics, was first published in 1968. I’ve thought about submitting this goofy idea to their editor-in-chief, Heinrich Saller, though I’m sure its filled with too many holes, and it’s poorly written, as well as not being properly edited for formal publication, so here it will probably remain, and probably no one will ever read it. There’s no physics publication dedicated to poorly written hunches about how the nature of gravity and electromagnetism. While there is indeed wisdom in requiring proof, it may also cause some people to stop considering an unproven idea, even though the unproven idea may actually have some measure of validity. But if you’re dealing with immeasurably small particles, with ungodly fast speeds, then there may be no way, at least with existing technology, to prove the following theory. On the other hand, math might be able to prove it, but even then, there might not be the necessary numbers (the mass and speeds of the immeasurable and hypothetical particles), for without measurements there’s usually no descriptive math to be applied.

Just for explanation’s sake, let’s say there’s a particle called the thing-a-ma-jig, and these particular particles are trillions of quantum leaps smaller than a Higgs boson. Hypothetically, all larger forms of matter must be made purely/only of those thing-a-ma-jigs. If there is no such thing as the smallest particle, then the existence of the thing-a-ma-jig is quite probable. If a photon travels at 186,282 miles per second, then the thing-a-ma-jig would travel trillions upon trillions of times faster than that speed. If they, the thing-a-ma-jigs, pulse outward, so that momentarily the atoms and molecules, which they, the thing-a-ma-jigs, entirely compose would momentarily disappear, and all those thing-a-ma-jigs would then surpass the speed allotted to their near infinitesimally small size, so they would reverse their direction, and then the atom would be reconfigured, countless trillions of times, every quadrillionth of a second. Moreover, at its super fast (incalculable) speed, the thing-a-ma-jigs might travel to somewhere far beyond the limits of the known universe, before they exceed their allotted speed, and reverse direction. The sum of all their returning masses may be more or less equal to the mass of the universe. This reversal thing might keep the thing-a-ma-jigs, from drifting out into the the big incompressible void. This would be something akin to extremely small and incredibly fast big bangs. In essence, the matter of the big bang just keep going outward and speeding-up, until… If the universe is indeed slowing down, you might say that such an analogy isn’t valid, but there is also good evidence that the universe is speeding-up. If your brain is now screaming, “Where’s the proof for this theory, Joey?”… please bare with me a bit longer, for I am, like you probably are, all about the proof. Perhaps, when I get done with this proof-less gibbering, it will make sense, and you’ll be satisfied.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111004-nobel-prize-physics-universe-expansion-what-is-dark-energy-science/

If the following speculation is indeed true, to some degree, it may explain such things as: gravity, electromagnetic fields, ionic attraction and repulsion, why light (the photon) is bent (drawn) toward the thickest portion of a clear lens as it passes through, various other things/phenomena, and it may lay the ground work for a time machine! I readily admit that the latter factor is a bit of a stretch, but it’s so seductive to think about. The theory about to be proposed, implies that all of us are going far beyond the limits of the known universe and back, innumerable times, in an immeasurably small fraction of a fraction, of a fraction, of a trillionth of a second, and that the universe is a constantly fluctuating entity, which pulses so rapidly that there is no way of detecting such oscillations, at least not with any current technology. However, reasonable conjecture may make this theory hold one or two drops of water. If true, such a theory may well alter current concepts concerning the limits of the universe. If this type of pulsing (immeasurably fast micro big bangs) phenomenon actually exists, then we are all part of one unified highly interactive field (whatever that may actually be); in essence, the universe is one single entity of ever fluctuating densities, and so space and vacuums would no longer be empty; in effect, there would be no true vacuum, but it would be filled with immeasurably fast and undetectably small particles. A particle, which is countless quantum leaps smaller than a photon or a Higgs boson particle (named after Peter Higgs a British theoretical physicist, emeritus professor at Edinburgh, and Nobel Prize laureate {being a laureate is often better than being the winner, because the laureates usually lack the political involvement, ergo their accomplishment might be more apt to be based on merit}) might be capable of immeasurably fast speeds; and if Einstein were correct, when those immeasurably small and fast particles supersede their allotted speeds (pass their terminal velocities, relative to their sizes), they then return back from where they emanated, to momentarily reconstitute the parent particle, which the human organisms with all their instruments, which largely existing on the molecular/atomic/slightly subatomic levels, remain unable to perceive/detect.

If this is happening quadrillions of times, every quadrillionth of a second, it would likely appear to the human observer, even using the most advanced technology, that the parent particle has remained unmoving, solid, stationery, and fixed in place. Given that every scientific instrument is made out of these pulsing particles, it might not be possible for any such instrument to detect said pulsing super small particles. Perhaps they can only be understood by this poorly written conjecture. In effect, the extremely small pulsing particles comprise the totality of all larger particles, ergo things like people, the entire earth, a basketball, the galaxy, the universe, a neutrino, a blue bottle fly, a planet, or anything which is detectable by human senses or scientific instrumentation, would be traveling further than the limits of the known universe and back, in immeasurably brief periods of time. Admittedly, at this point, my explanation probably seems redundant and sketchy, but I beg you, to bare with me, just a wee bit longer, and it may seem viable.

The manner in which the above conjecturing may explain gravity is as follows. To elucidate this windy rambling, simply consider two rocks in outer space. Of course, just as all matter, both are made out of the extremely small and immeasurably fast particles. Imagine that one rock is the size of an adult African bull elephant, and the other is the size of a fully restored 1971 Westfalia Camper, Weekender Edition, the classic old VW surfer van. I’ve always wanted one of those vans. One day, I may save-up enough. Also, let’s suppose that the two rocks are just sitting far out in deep dark space, and these two rocks are a mere ten billion miles apart. And, for the sake of this explanation, they are the only heavenly bodies in the universe; in other words, there are no other heavenly bodies creating any gravitational pulls. In terms of the vast universe, at only ten billions miles apart, they’re practically bumping elbows. Still, the question begs the asking… why do rocks, that far apart, actually move towards each other; in other words, how does gravity work?

Depending on who you talk to, the observable universe is roughly 28 billion parsecs or 93 billion light-years, yet if the aforementioned immeasurably fast and immensely small undetectable thing-a-ma-jig particles, do somehow exist, then the universe might be or should be countless magnitudes larger than 93 billion light years. Now, we measure the size of the universe in terms of detectable (huge) particles, e.g., stars, gas clouds, planets, blackholes, atoms, photons, mesons, quarks, x-rays, neutrinos, alpha particles, beta particles, fermions, leptons, various bosons, gluons, hadrons, neutrinos, etc. Yet, thinking in terms of much smaller, and much faster, undetectable particles, there’s no telling the size of the universe. If there’s no such thing as the smallest particle, the sky is the limit. Infinitely smaller and smaller particles, moving at faster and faster speeds may mean the universe is actually infinitely large, pulsing at ungodly fast theoretical rates.

The subatomic particles, which comprise the totality of those two rocks (the African bull elephant and the VW camper sized rocks) would be made out of these aforementioned undetectable, pulsing particles; just as all matter is made of atoms, all atoms are made out of smaller and smaller an smaller subatomic particles, which in turn are made of some even infinitely smaller particles, ad infinitum. If these immeasurably small sized and ungodly fast particles, could pulse outward from the two rocks (and in effect, the two rocks would briefly disappear), then attain and slightly surpass their terminal velocities, and so return back through the direction from which they came, to reform (ever so briefly) the total mass of the two aforementioned rocks would be going to somewhere beyond the limits of the known universe, and returning to reform the two rocks. The elephant and VW sized rocks would appear to you, the observer (existing on the atomic level), to have not gone anywhere. In this respect, the two rocks are made of smaller and smaller countless big bangs. But to add a tad of complexity, don’t overlook the fact that these outwardly pulsing particles are in turn made of infinity smaller particles, which also pulse outward and return to form their parent particles. With a slight stretch of the imagination, one might assume that a type of reality exists, at each size level, which is composed of these pulses, which fly outward to then return and reconfigure the parent particle.

The reason the two rocks, sitting at ten billion miles apart, would begin to move toward each other, that is to say, how gravity works, might be because directly between the two rocks, some percentage of the pulsing particles would collide with each other, so that some of those (collided) particles would go off in odd random directions; therefore, they would not return to the original parent rocks (the elephant and VW van sized rocks). {The scattered particles are obviously extremely small, but they too would still operate under the laws of gravity, as being described, and so they’d attract each other, but due to their immeasurably small sizes, they’d form into extremely dense objects, i.e., blackholes. And while they might seem extremely dense to humans, on the atomic level, they might not be as dense as other particles; as a result, some blackholes may be far denser than others.} Consequently, on the sides of the two rocks, closest to each other, fewer particles would return, representing a loss of returning energy on the sides of the two rocks, directly facing each other. While on all the remaining surfaces of the two rocks, which is most of the remaining surface of each rock (not facing the other rock), they would still receive all the returning extremely small particles. Again, for explanation purposes, I’m excluding the fact that there are other heavenly bodies out there, nor am I considering the mass of you, the reader. Again, the particles will return to all the surfaces of the rock, which do not perfectly face each other. This situation would clearly drive the two rocks toward each other, and thus, gravity might be partially explained! The closer the rocks get to each other, the more the collisions of their component super tiny particles, ergo the stronger this position of the gravitational force would become. Of course in the real universe, there are far more than the two rocks, clearly the universe is composed of a plethora of mysterious celestial rocks (various types of stars, blackholes, asteroids, comets, planets, electrons, neutrinos, etc.), and so this crazy phenomenon would be occurring in innumerable directions, and between all the countless hunks of matter. Again, in the real universe, gravity would be simultaneously occurring between all the heavenly bodies, via the same previously described mechanism. So the larger the rocks, and the closer they are to each other, the greater the loss of the extremely small particles on their various facing surfaces, hence the stronger the gravity, at least until they reach a certain distance, which one might call, ‘orbital distance.’ An attempt to explain orbits is soon to follow.

Perchance, such immensely fast and immeasurably small particles are what allows gravity to exist over so many light years of space for such incredible distances would be nothing for such extremely fast particles; as mentioned, with this theory of gravity, there wouldn’t actually be any totally vacuous/empty space. The further apart the two rocks and the smaller the two rocks, the fewer the number of those supremely small particles, which would interact or collide (directly between them), ergo the weaker the gravitational force, as portrayed by the basic well-known mathematical description of gravity.

F = G m1m2/ r squared

Where:

F is the force between two masses (rocks)

G is a gravitational constant. Its value is known to be 6.67 X 10-8 (centimeters cubed per second per gram)

m1 is the mass of one rock

m2 is the mass of the second rock

r is the distance between the centers (center mass) of the two rocks

The above mentioned expanding sphere of extremely small and fast particles, a spherical shell of particles, if you will, and their interactions (collisions), may at least partially explain gravity, or maybe it doesn’t, but if it does, it may also imply that a tremendous number of ‘scattered’ particles are going to be created, from the previously mentioned collisions between the particles of the many expanding spheres. The thickness and shape of the expanding and retracting spherical shells, would relate to the shape, thickest, and density of the parent rocks, as well their rotation and spin would play a role in this explanation of gravity. Those scattered super small particles, resulting from the collisions of the particle shells, will go off at various angles, also helping to fill-in supposed empty space. Considering the amount of material (heavenly bodies) we can see/detect in the universe, there would have to be a huge amount of those post-collision scattered ‘undetectably small and fast’ particles and they might lend a certain ‘fluctuating density’ to space, as if they were a extremely fine essence. Space might therefore be like a fluctuating fabric, and in this respect it may fluctuate in time, since some of these particles are traveling much faster than light, and can exceed their allotted speeds.

What we now think of as space would be ‘somewhat filled’ with these post-collision/scattered immeasurably small and fast particles, as well as by the particles of the aforementioned expanding and contracting spherical shells, which are still intact. Another factor contributing to the gravitational attraction is that the two rocks (the elephant and the VW van) could also act to shield each other, from those countless multidirectional scattered post-collision particles. Said shielding of each other from the scattered particles would further add to the two rock’s mutual attraction, for gain impacts would be occurring on the remaining unshielded surfaces of the two rocks. Again, in this explanation, the cosmos might be something like a constantly varying ‘fabric of immeasurably high speed, and undetectably small, particles.’ The closer you get to larger detectable heavenly bodies, the greater the density of the fabric. Just for arguments sake, imagine that there were three identical rocks, at equal distance from each other, forming the corners of a two dimensional equilateral triangle. In this theory of how gravity occurs, in the very center of the space, is a spot where all three rocks are closest to, and this should be an area of increased density. In truth, there are countless objects in space, and so there could well be many areas where the fabric of space is more dense and being supplied with extremely fast high speed particles by many heavenly bodies, such areas might be the birth place of black holes.

This pulsing theory might be continually repeated, as you go down the infinity of forever smaller and faster particles, since always a particle is made of ever smaller particles, till every so often you find one particular size of particle, which can pulse outward, hit its unbelievable terminal velocity, and reverse its direction of travel, as I was told Einstein may have once hypothesized something akin to this, but couldn’t prove it. In other words, as the sphere of a sub-sub-sub atomic particles is expanding outward, its smaller component particles are also pulsing outward in countless numbers of expanding spheres, coming off the parent sphere, an infinite plethora of spheres, expanding from their parent expanding sphere, and this (sphere made of countless expanding spheres, which are then each made of faster expanding spheres) goes on for infinity, with the smaller particles always being relatively faster, much much faster. In this theory, space and even subatomic space, would have form, but just not form and matter as most folks are accustomed to thinking about.

In this theory, which might be called the Infinite Theory, since there’s no such thing as the smallest or largest particle, nor the fastest or slowest, space would contain all the particles from the ever expanding and contracting spheres, as well as all the scattered particles created by the colliding spheres. The scattered particles (which by the way are also made of even smaller pulsing particles, which are made of yet even smaller pulsing particles, ad infinitum) may find their way back into some other masses (heavenly bodies), so the universe, continues to exist, much as the entire universe is hypothesized to one day return for the big bang… shades of Dr. Who. For all we know, the big bang may just be one of a countless group of big bangs, simultaneously existing in a universe, which is infinity larger than the one we can now perceive, due to the reach of these infinitely fast particles. For that matter, there’s probably no way of determining how many times the big bang has banged in the past, or will again bang into the unforeseeable future.

Continuing with this amateur theory… might it also explain a few other things, including why heavenly bodies orbit each other. Going back to the example of the two rocks, the way they might come to orbit each other is that as the two aforementioned rocks move closer to each other, the massive number of pulsing undetectable super small particles emanating from each rock and striking the other rock, become more and more numerous, and therefore collectively more and more forceful; perhaps, at some point with enough impacts of these small particles, the two rocks begin to shove away from each other, so that they are gradually moved to the side enough so that they don’t strike each other. As they move closer to each other, this shoving of each other, combined with their momentum (closing speeds), might cause them cruise on past each other. But then, after they’ve cruised past each other at some distance, the gravity (as already described) will again, cause them to slow-down, and then again, reverse their direction and move toward each other. Spin would play a role in this and is soon explained. With each return toward each other, they miss each other by a greater and greater distance, until the shape of the elliptical orbit is established. This may also cause the rocks to spin, since as they pass, more particles will impact on one side of each rock than on the other side. The shape and speeds of the orbit might depend on: the sizes (masses) of the two rocks, their initial approach speeds, their shapes, how long they’ve been orbiting, as well as their rate and orientation of spin.

With certain notable exceptions, most orbiting heavenly bodies are spinning, even astroids, comets, and meteors rotate/spin. Spins may be initiated, and subsequently influenced (perpetuated or slowed) by the impacts of the aforementioned extremely small particles, which as stated, form the fabric of space. If a planet were to spin contrary to the spin of the sun, my bet is that it would eventually stop and then reverse its’ spin. Measurements from the ESA Venus Express spacecraft indicate that Venus’s rotation is roughly six minutes slower than when it was measured sixteen years prior, by the Magellan spacecraft. Moreover, the spins of the particles may influence how they repel, and attract each other, and this possibly somewhat explains magnetic attraction and repulsion, ionic attraction and repulsion, and maybe some aspects of electromagnetism.

To simplify this explanation, once more imagine the two rocks in outer space, and that only one of them is spinning, and the other rock is not rotating, but simply stationary, and only the spinning rock is pulsing-out its undetectable subatomic particles, which are then striking the non-spinning and non-pulsing rock. If the spinning rock is pulsing at the aforementioned incredibly fast rate, the particles of the spinning rock are going to impact the non-spinning rock more on one side, than on the other half side. This is similar to how an old fashioned spinning lawn sprinkler might soak one side of a nearby oak tree, than on the other side.

With that in mind, now let’s consider that both rocks are spinning. Whether the two rocks are small like ions, or big like planets or even stars, imagine that they have parallel or near parallel axes, and both are spinning in the opposite directions. In such a situation, they might be prone to knock each other apart, because of the above-mentioned phenomenon of one side getting hit more than the other. In this case (where they spin in opposite directions), their sides which are generating the most particles which hit the other would also be the most impacted, receiving the most hits from the other particles/rocks/planets/stars. But, if they (the ions, or spinning rocks) are spinning in the same direction, both their hitting sides would be mostly striking the non-hitting side of the other, and so the striking particles would act to augment or accelerate each other’s spin, and along with the aforementioned gravitational effect, they would be drawn together, and into the aforementioned orbit.

The shape, distance, and speed of the orbit would be influenced by the distance between the heavenly bodies/particles/rocks/etc., the directions and rates of their spin, the amount of initial momentum/combined speed of approach, the masses of the two particles, their shapes, the aforementioned scattered immeasurably fast and ultra small particles, and/or the aforementioned density of the fabric of space (the number of these particles in the involved region), through which they’re traveling, as well as all other pieces of matter (including the scattered particles comprising the aforementioned fabric), both near and far, from one end of the universe to the other, wherever those ends may be. Eventually, with enough undetectable particles being lost, the two orbiting rocks will probably ‘crash’ into each other. You don’t have to hail from Queens, Oxford, or Ulm to understand this, and honestly, this theory strikes me as being too simple to be true; still, it may hold a modicum of truth. On the other hand, it could be completely wrong; especially, since I know so little about physics, and there’s no telling how much brain damage I’ve sustained due to my childhood alcoholism, and there were a couple of year-long bouts of heavy drinking in my teens and twenties, where I probably dumped brain cells like confetti, during a Macy’s Day parade.

Corresponding to this (above) explanation, the ionic attraction of opposite charges may mean that the particles are both spinning in the same direction; both spinning counter-clock wise, or both spinning clockwise, as viewed from the same pole of each particle. And the ionic repelling of like charges may mean the particles (or the majority of the particles making-up the ion, for ions must be made of various particles) are spinning in opposite directions. Yes, it’s a fairly well accepted idea that ions exist, when there is a difference in the number of electrons (deemed as being negative; whatever that actually means) and number of protons (deemed as being positive), but when there is a difference, then there might be a corresponding difference in the total number of particles being emitted from one side of the ion, at least as a whole; in essence, forming the ion’s overall ‘collective charge.’ In addition, consider the case of a simple metal bar magnet, with opposite charges on each end. The strength of the magnet’s charge may be owing to the number of like spinning particles, minus the opposing charges. The stronger the magnet the more the ions are of like spin, and perhaps faster their spins. Considering this, it’s then easy to see why one end of the magnet is charged the opposite of the other.

Perhaps, if the above theories concerning gravity, orbits, ions, and electromagnetics/magnetics happen to be marginally accurate, they might serve as a basis for the development of time travel. While space travel with continuous acceleration is indeed fast, it would likely remain far far far too slow to comfortably visit distant stars or other galaxies. Alpha Centauri (made of three stars) is 4.3 light years away, or about 6,000,000,000,000 miles, and it has no planets. The closest galaxy is about 300,000,000,000,000,000 miles, which there really is no point in visiting, unless you have a time machine. Even using constant acceleration, provided the spacecraft could carry enough fuel, it will still be traveling just under light speed. With current techniques there would be no hyperdrive, which the Starship Enterprise had.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_travel_using_constant_acceleration#/media/File:Roundtriptimes.png

If you’ve read the above theory concerning gravity, orbiting, ionic attraction and repulsion, etc., the fact that I’ve now mentioned the idea of a time machine probably means you’re wondering about my creditability. But please, bare with me just a wee bit longer, so I can explain what may be the basis for a ‘temporal relocation machine.’ I’m so glad I’m old and don’t remotely feel the need to defend this idea to anyone! In science, there is generally a plethora of uncreative folks, just waiting to tell you why something can’t, or won’t, work, but these are usually the same folks, who’ve never created anything novel in their boring life. When they are finally shown that an idea indeed has merit, they begrudgingly remain skeptical, in an obvious effort to soothe their festering egos. On the other hand, this theory, about to be presented, may be completely wrong, but I suppose there’s nothing wrong with theorizing. You be the judge.

Part of this concept is based on a well-known theory, proposed by, and agreed to, by many reputable scientists, and you’ve probably heard about it. Simply put, the theory states, that if you could somehow travel faster than the speed of light, you could travel in time! In this crazy suggestion for time travel, I certainly haven’t figured-out a way to supersede the speed of light. What I am suggesting a way of doing just the opposite, to retard the speed of those aforementioned infinitely fast (much much faster than light), immeasurable small particles, of which everything is composed, the same infinitesimal particles which I’ve suggested account for gravity.

If this slowing of super fast and tiny particles could be done, perhaps even an object (maybe even a person, but most likely just a hydrogen atom, to begin with) might be made to ‘jump’ in time, relative to the rest of the universe; for in effect, you may have changed the speed of the object’s or person’s extremely fast and immeasurable small constituent particles, relative to the rest of the universe. Said particle, object, or person might be reconfigured in an earlier, or perhaps even a later, time. Intuitively, I’d say that the particles would enter an earlier time (the past) by some tiny faction of second (depending on how much you delayed the returning particles), while the rest of the universe would continue moving faster on into the future, or perhaps said object would just momentarily fail to continue into the future with the rest of the universe, and hence only disappear into a nothingness. If this suggestion has merit, you can bet that the military will want to consider how it might be used to kill, or move weapons. Imagine that if such a device could be perfected, being able to go back into the past, to make certain investments, or to eliminate certain things before they become problematic: diseases, wars, almost all politicians, coal-fired generators, the whaling industry, holy books, certain people claiming to be the son of God, genocide, etc.

At any rate, the trick to time travel might be to simply slow the return of the extremely small component particles, of whatever it is that you’re trying to send into another time or nothingness. Considering the astronomical speeds of these extremely small particles the time jump might be appreciable. This might be done in several ways. For example, the alignment of existing gravitational fields in space. Such a place might be located somewhere between two or three blackholes, and there’s a good list of blackholes to select from. Of course, the sizes and distances of the blackholes would be figured into the computation. A bit of three dimensional math might locate the best spots. It could be interesting to locate the point, which represents the greatest integrated pull of several blackholes, if not all known blackholes. Such a point might cause the component returning particles of some object to be slowed, and such a point may represent a location to make an object jump in time, ergo such locations may already be void of heavenly bodies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_holes

Another way, might be to surround the object, you wish to time shift, with a powerful manmade electromagnetic field to delay the return of said component super small particles, or use overlying electromagnetic fields. As the infinitely small particles are returning to reform the parent object, they pass through said activated magnetic field. On the other hand, electrons (used to create the aforementioned field) are probably far too slow to attract those super small, super fast, particles. Nevertheless, the activated magnetic field might slow the ultra tiny particles, and delay reconfiguration of the parent object. If the object went back in time, how far it went might be relative to the length of the delay created. In a way, some portion of each person’s life should be devoted to working on the development of a time machine, for a time machine may be the only way to avoid the inevitable big ‘D.’ Though there may be another way of avoiding death, using cloned tissue, EEG recordings, and some carefully applied regression analysis.

There are a few moldy ideas rattling around in my mushy old cortex on how to do that, but I’m certainly not an engineer. I shouldn’t have waited so long to finally go to grad school. If the above gravitational theory holds water, a time machine may have already been built, for certainly, someone smarter than I, has figured a way. Maybe he or she is locked-away, somewhere in the bowels of Langley. Again, when considering the expansiveness of deep space, perhaps the only reasonable way to consider space travel is to first construct a time machine. Current techniques of space travel would take far too long. With time travel, one might be able to move to point A, when point A used to be near where you currently are located, then conventional travel could be used to travel the differential. After all, galaxies don’t just rotate. They also travel in other ways, moving through the universe, and they all seem to have planets. Besides, there are a lot of earth like planets in our own galaxy. In 2013, a group of astronomers analyzed the data from the Kepler mission, and claimed that there may be as many as 40,000,000,000 earth-like planets in our own Milky Way, with the closest one being about twelve light years!

￼

MAYDAY

Having completed a lackluster postdoctorate at the University of Colorado, I went to work in a rather dull secret government research laboratory, just west of Mobile, close to Wilmer. Returning to Mobile, after being gone for more than a decade, nothing of any significance seemed to have changed. Sadly, the city felt pretty much the same. Most of the old white men were certainly the same. Refreshingly, some of the black folks were a little more assertive, but not too much so, lest the moronic local KKK mount-up. The houses, buildings, and streets were pretty much all the same. Even the smells of the city were the same: the omnipresent auto exhaust, saltwater brine, the occasional whiffs of jasmine, and various food smells, coming from restaurants, strange odors quaffing down the streets, coming from certain notorious chemical plants, etc. The only thing which had significantly changed was me.

When you tell someone that you work in a secret government lab, they automatically wrongly assume sophisticated science is being conducted, but anything of consequence rarely happens in a government lab, unless you’re talking mega computers and sophisticated weapons (especially, outer space weapons, surveillance, and communication devices), but even then, most of the top-of-the-line weapons and surveillance stuff is created and made by corporations, and said corporations which even run mission briefings in the pentagon. Those same corporations have lobbyists, who draft federal legislation/bills. That way, they (the corporations) make sure those weapons get used.

In the lab where I worked, research generally proceeded at a snail’s pace, and so, I usually had surplus time to come-up with ideas, which would never be published. Because of the available free time, I did all the online work (papers and tests) for someone, with adequate cash, to receive their masters in Fire Science. In addition, I wrote the master’s thesis for a guy in public health. He already had an MD but needed the masters in Public Health for administrative purposes. I never got paid for the thesis, but I didn’t really care. It was a pleasure to write it, a fairly extensive review of antimalarials. The information, I’d learned, later helped me in a myriad of ways. The lab possessed a rather grandiose name, which made it sound as if it were scientifically avant-garde; yet in truth, it was barely mediocre. Its’ only saving grace was that it housed a so-so medical library, and a few interesting folks, but only about a half dozen. The rest of the employees were rather uninspired, just plugging and chugging along for their paycheck, and ultimately to grow old with a so-so retirement check. Working there, I truly missed having access to a genuine first class medical library, ergo leaving the university had been somewhat like withdrawing from an addiction. Indeed, I was making more money, but I was much less content. The semi-secret lab was beyond boring. The only thing that was interesting was the never ending political infighting.

Small minds are more than content with money, gossip, and politics. The realm of new ideas, and innovation, usually escapes them, since money can’t buy them creative minds.

A Life Without Purpose by Ray M. Willot

For the years that I worked there, the laboratory went through two different bosses. Both were vile egomaniacs. I honestly believe that the first one, General Howe, was clinically insane. He always loved to tell me about his sex orgies in the Philippines, but that’s not why he was crazy, it was more his fear of certain types of light, i.e., sunlight and moonlight. The second one, General Grady was an authentic self-centered nightmare, a regular dingle berry of self-concern, without the required IQ to run the place. He was the prime example of the Peter Principle, that certain people rise to their level of incompetence. That selfish dunce lent new meaning to the word, vanity.

As it turned-out, because of that second boss’s many indiscretions, I was forced to write a lengthy complaint letter to the Office of Special Counsel, directly under the President of the United States, and so I took his worthless ass to federal court, and won the case, largely because of the help of Dr. Mrisiette. The federal judge permitted me to make the decision, about whether the dingle berry should be allowed to retire, as opposed to being fired, without his retirement pay. Either way, the judge wanted him gone. The judge called a fifteen minute recess to give me time to make my decision. I decided to allow him to retire, since he had a family, and his retirement date was only a couple months away. I still wonder if I made the right decision. While I’m not known for holding a grudge, he’s an exception.

When the lab’s library didn’t have the medical journal I wanted, I’d have to laboriously fill-out an order form, submit it to the librarian, then I’d wait a week, or two, or three for the article to arrive. Often the article was a disappointment, and so was the cumbersome, under equipped, medical library, but I suppose it was better than nothing, but not by much. I suppose, I’d been spoiled, because I’d once had regular access to one of the top medical libraries in the world; God how I yet miss it. I’d move back to that place, but my adult daughter has her own business here in Mobile, and I can’t imagine not being able to regularly see her. A well equipped medical library has enough medical journals that you can quickly read and sort through an absolute fuck ton of information, while you’re there… no having to order articles, and then wait for weeks to see if they’re worth reading. In a very real way, this easy availability of research material guides, if not drives, the creative process. Frankly, it was inspiring.

Such an availability to medical/biological/physiological information produces more questions, as well as many more ideas, and avenues of thought open-up. The actual answers to unsolved scientific questions are few and far between; nevertheless, the fun is in the search, and the search is akin to speed chess… nonstop thinking, which eliminates the tedium of day-to-day life. That top-rated medical library of my youth was a great high, which I’d never known before. It was all thanks to that unusual fellow at Bill and Alice’s Cafe, who given me those six scientific references.

Inside the huge unproductive government concrete and brick research edifice, ten times as much human energy got devoted to useless office infighting and insanely frivolous politics, as was applied to the actual pursuit of science. Ninety-nine percent of that wasted time was caused by the ever self-concerned administrators, especially the two aforementioned generals. As a result, there was very little genuine progress. As near as I could tell, millions of research dollars were throughly wasted. You’ve probably heard about how the government wastes money on things like a fifty dollar bolt, or a ten dollar box of Kleenex, etc., but such things are small in comparison to all the waste of the worthless government research labs. Nothing of significance emerged from that stupid lab. One truly odd thing about the lab was that the incompetent administrators did their level best to hamper the scientists’ publishing. Because of classified issues, some things should not have been published, but somethings which should have been published in the public literature never made it there, because of political infighting. I never wanted to take the time to edit written material; nevertheless, the lab had a paid editor. Sadly, the editor was ‘close’ friends with the aforementioned head dingle berry. Consequently, the lazy editor, who hated her job, would try to make each scientist do his own editing, with the support of the dingle berry… birds of a feather. Because of these folks, the lab’s publication rate slowed to a trickle, but even with that maddening obstructive situation, I still published more than anyone in the lab. I’d simply do an end-run on the usual publication chain in the lab. After slowing the publications, by reducing the editor’s workload, the dingle berry would still try to tell the bosses in Washington, that the lab was a success, and worthy of funding. I don’t think the bosses in Washington cared.

The library was run by a wonderful old-fashioned lady, named Jan Balk, who twenty years prior, had earned a degree in library science from Mobile Community College. She was a very sweet slightly jumpy little woman, overly conservative, and a highly religious (Southern Baptist) soul. Though we were socially and politically complete opposites, I always enjoyed seeing her. Jan wasn’t bad about pushing her religion, but sometimes the occasional comment could be a bit assertive, but that was to be expected, since her dad was a retired preacher. The children of preachers are rarely agnostic, they seem to be either stone cold believers or atheists. Jan, like many religious people, gently demand confirmation and agreement, using the subtlest of comments or questions. Know what I mean? Some folks demand to know exactly where others stand, along the belief spectrum. Personally, I’m still not too clear on what the word, ‘believe’ means, and I’m more interested in a person’s goodness, than what they believe. In fact, I could care less about their belief.

“You know Dr. Bone, my arthritic has been feeling lots better, lately. That’s got to be the good Lord answering my prayers. Wouldn’t you say?” Jan might suggest, while anxiously eyeballing my face for my reaction, but I’d just sidestep the issue. That was about as pushy as she got. Basically, she was a good and honest woman.

“Well Jan, I’m sincerely glad to hear your knee is better.” I’d genuinely respond. Maybe it has to do with the fact you lost thirty pounds.

For dodging her question, I’d receive an annoyed vertical wrinkling of the brow, with her lips flattened and pulled laterally. I should have just agreed with her. Why not? What’s one more lie, in a life of countless deceits? In the long run, what difference does it really make? Who am I to try to mess, with another person’s comfort zone? At times, I’ve found myself agreeing with religious zealots, as well as with the ardent atheists, both in the same day. Who really knows what the truth is, and who cares? I guess I don’t, because I’m willing to admit my ignorance, as well as fear. Belief is tricky, but one thing for sure, it’s nothing more than tiny circuits made of living brain cells… nothing more, but nothing less. Often, when someone vehemently insists they believe, they’re clearly confirming they don’t believe; at least, it seems that way to me.

Jan, the pious librarian, had a recurrent eye twitch, which would notably worsen, whenever she became the slightest bit excited. It didn’t take much to make to start the twitch to twitching; just a fun-filled provocative glance, or a semi-suggestive sexual comment would do the trick, and her eyelid would commence to jumping and fluttering. Most times, I did my best not to comment on the obvious twitch, but at times, the muscle spasms were so acute, that by trying to ignore them, things became more awkward, and so it was best to simply make an inconsequential commit.

“I see the twitch is bugging you, today. Every now and then, I get the same thing. I suppose everyone probably does, now and then. My twitch seems to relate to caffeine consumption.” I’d sympathetically lie.

One extremely boring morning, my office phone rang. It was the lab’s public relations officer, informing me that an important scientific big-wig would be visiting our lab that afternoon, a famous researcher, who was probably the world’s number one scientist in the area of vestibular science, the physiology of equilibrium and balance, a Dr. Ashford Bluebill. He was also somewhat involved with proprioception, the body’s awareness of its position in space. These were areas of science which dramatically impacted the aviation community. The last thing a pilot needed was a case of vertigo, disorientation, dizziness, or nausea. Consequently, aviation physiologists considered Dr. Bluebill to be something of an academic god.

At that time, I was the most junior scientist in the lab, but for some reason, during that phone-call, I was asked to give the world renowned Dr. Bluebill the grand tour of our unproductive research facilities. Why me? I’d think the God damned administrator should conduct the tour. On time, the renown good doctor drove-up, right at three thirty in the afternoon, while I was standing out in front of our building, awaiting his esteemed arrival. He arrived in a standard bland light gray government issue Ford sedan. The driver got out first, and I was pleasantly shocked to see that the ‘chauffeur’ was a gorgeous tall, extremely shapely, coal black woman, wearing a sexy friendly smile, and a seriously short snug-fitting dress, barely covering a figure which made it difficult to look away. In contrast to her ebony skin, her eyes and teeth seemed to flash, as she glanced and smiled over the top of the light gray sedan.

This could be an interesting afternoon! The diminutive elderly Dr. Bluebill was about five foot three and the spectacular black female chauffeur appeared to be an even six feet. The scientist was in his mid eighties, with pale fish-belly white skin, and near weightless fly-away snow white hair; whereas, she was probably in her early thirties, and dark as a black diamond.

From their subtle unspoken communications, the pair seemed to be more than mere employee and employer. They were way to happy and touchy feely. If ever there was an odd couple… The elderly scientist had slightly bumped his head getting out of the car, so she leaned over, lightly touched his head with her elegant long ebony fingers, then affectionately kissed the spot, he’d bumped. He smiled, that knowing smile. However, once in the lab, the two behaved in a throughly professional manner. Well… almost. Oddly enough, none of the lab’s administrative higher-ups came to greet the pair, and then it dawned on me that even though Bluebill was a rebound scientist, it was likely that the conservative republicans of the lab, simply couldn’t deal with his unusual relationship, with the tall, young, provocative, African American female; and so, I realized why I’d been selected to show the couple around, and why no one had shown-up to greet them. During the tour, one of the first places I took them was to the so-so underground medical library, run by the aforementioned nervous conservative, Jan Balk, with her famous somewhat predictable eye twitch. Entering the library, I noticed that Jan’s twitch appeared to be under control, and that’s when a minor epiphany arrived. The slightest sexual innuendo was a guaranteed trigger for Jan’s twitch. She knew Dr. Bluebill, by his illustrious scientific reputation, and was no doubt anxious about meeting him. Escorting the duo into the library, there stood Jan Balk, back straight, with her arms to her sides, hands closed, awaiting the arrival of the prestigious Dr. Bluebill.

It was clear from the moment we walked in, that Jan was put off balance, by Dr. Bluebill’s erotic tall black feminine assistant. The ever vigilante librarian could probably sense there was something of a subtle relationship between the unlikely pair. This connection became evident since as the odd couple came strolling into the library’s vestibule, the tall gorgeous black woman, was again using her lovely elongated fingers to arrange and rearrange the professor’s unruly flyaway snowy hair. The leggy young black beauty was impossible to ignore, standing next to the diminutive older white gentleman. What a contrast! Stepping forward, I made the usual ritualistic introductions, and could see that Jan Balk’s visual scrutiny of the ebony goddess had barely, almost imperceptibly, started her right eye to ever so slightly twitch, but just once; so to lighten things up, I superciliously commented.

“Dr. Bluebill, this is our lovely highly efficient librarian, Jan Balk, who by the way, besides being something of an expert in library science has many other wonderful talents.”

This comment caused Jan to frown; wondering what those other wonderful talents might be. Dr. Bluebill merely uttered one word.

“Oh?” Perfect, he’s asking me to elaborate!

“Yes! Jan here is known for having a strong attraction for well educated men, such as yourself, doctor. You’ll know, if Jan has the hots for a man, because she starts to uncontrollably wink at him. It’s something of a psychosexual thing with her. When she winks, she’s dropping the man a hint.” Did I really just say that? What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t believe I just said that! To make a bad matter worse, I had followed-up the comment by giving Dr. Bluebill a knowing smile, and a brief nod.

Honestly, I don’t know what made me make that unkind comment, but make it, I did. The words had simply flown from of my foolish mouth, without a filter. Of course, this rude unexpected remark had completely shocked and embarrassed Jan Balk, and predictably her right eye immediately started twitching and winking, just like she was a regular Tijuana pro, giving Dr. Bluebill the impression that she indeed had the hots for him. I can’t believe I said that! Then unexpectedly, the beautiful black goddess smiled and spoke-up.

“Oh my goodness! Dr. Bluebill look at that. My, my… She must like you, alright!”

This gorgeous ebony woman seems to have taken me literally? Dr. Bluebill knowingly smiled, then as a semi-reprimand, he pulled his mouth to one side, and shook his head at me. By then, the embarrassed Jan Balk had quick-stepped to her office, and slammed the door closed. She hates me! She may never talk to me, again! As a result, I gave Dr. Bluebill and his enigmatic assistant the grand tour, but without Jan’s help that day. Of course, Jan reported me to the aforementioned grand dingle berry, running the lab, but I didn’t care what he thought.

In all sincerity, I do regret saying that to Jan, and don’t know why I did it. To this day, I don’t know where the sudden inspiration and complete lack of sensitivity came from. There are so many bad things I’ve done, that I’d like to be able to take-back. But while I’ve just portrayed myself as being something of an ass, I did in fact, take my job seriously, and labored hard to be useful, but I don’t know how useful I really was.

One morning, I was sitting at my desk, reading the medical literature, trying to decide which drug might be the best drug for putting pilots to sleep, in between strenuous repetitious combat missions (SUSOPS; sustained operations). In combat, pilots are often called upon to fly strike, after strike (sortie, after sortie, mission, after mission), without much time for sleep. As a result, when a window of free time arrives, the war-time pilot is often so pumped-up with adrenaline, from the recent combat, that pharmaceutically unaided sleep can impossible. Perhaps, the combat pilot had just flown through a barrage of missiles, or had his plane raked by merciless ground fire, while attempting to deliver a two thousand pounder onto the heavily protected target. Maybe, his hydraulics were failing, and he had just carried out a risky bad weather night landing onboard the deck of a pitching aircraft carrier. Or possibly, he’d just watched his wingman get blown out of the sky.

After circumstances like those, the pilot may then realize that he has a three or four hour window for sleep, but with all the stress he’s been through, sleep may not be forthcoming. Too much stress causes part of the cortex of the adrenal gland (The Zona Fasiculata) to produce too much cortisol, which indirectly robs the brain of available tryptophan, needed to make 5-HT, the neurotransmitter of the raphe, which produces sleep. Hence, too much stress means no sleep or dreams, and please recall that it is the act of dreaming, which allows the combat pilot to rid his brain of anxiety, and it’s my bet that few things generate anxiety like multiple air combat missions. Consequently, the lab was trying to figure-out which short-acting sleep drug might be the safest and most effective for the combat pilot to use. One of the concerns about using such a sleep-aide was that should an unexpected emergency arise, the pilot might have to be prematurely awoken to fly another combat mission, while still partly under the influence of the sleep-producing pharmaceutical. Climbing into a combat aircraft, while high on a sleeping pill, is a risky proposition, even in peace time.

Without Shakespeare’s ‘rounding’ sleep, those merciless sharp edges of wartime can have a way of cutting into the performance of the combat pilot, especially if he’s flying a supersonic jet fighter, in one deadly combat mission after another. The ideal drug would be one, which could get the pilot to sleep quickly, then wear-off fast, leaving the pilot asleep, and with little, if any, side effect, upon awakening. My vote was to use nitrous oxide, but uncharacteristically, the military elected to use a harder more addictive drug, a short-acting benzodiazepine (valium class of drugs), called xanax. Most likely, a drug company was somehow involved in that questionable decision. I thought the selection a bit absurd since, xanax took roughly twenty-five to thirty minutes, before it would begin to work, and it lasted about six hours. Side effects included memory loss, something a combat pilot can ill afford to sacrifice. Each mission requires that the pilot remember numerous facts: call signs, egress routes, capabilities of enemy aircraft, locations of enemy ground-based weapons, etc. Nitrous oxide is immediate in its affect, and wears off within seconds, with minimal side effects, is non-addictive, and those are the reasons that it is commonly used by some dentists. After the dentist turns off the gas, a minute later, the patient gets out of the dental chair, pays their bill, climbs into their car, and drives safely away. The reason nitrous oxide is probably not given to patients for chronic insomnia is that it’s extremely cheap, so no significant profit can be made by the ever greedy big Pharma, and the gas is considered by some to be a high, as if the benzodiazepines (valium-like drugs) aren’t! Xanax is widely used/abused in the drug culture.

Though I must admit, many dentists have died from an accidental overdose of nitrous oxide. But that is only due to a massive overdose, not because of some side effect. The way the deaths of dentists have usually transpired is that after a hard day of drilling teeth, accompanied by various qualities of breath, from minty fresh to dragon breath, the dentist lays back in one of his or her comfortable dental chairs, and puts the gas-administering mask over their face, breathes deeply a few times, and quickly passes out, but if the mask is still over their mouth and nose, the dentist unknowingly keeps breathing the gas, and so dies a peaceful death.

Consequently, young dental students are now taught, that if they’re going to abuse the gas, to lay on their side, awkwardly holding the mask to their face, without putting the elastic strap around their head. That way, if they fall asleep, gravity pulls their hand from their face, and the mask falls away, so no overdose. In the case of the fatigued wired-up combat pilot, the flight surgeon would be administering the gas, so there is no reasonable chance of an accidental overdose. The pilot simply climbs in his bunk, and the flight surgeon shows-up with a small tank of nitrous, puts the mask on the pilot’s face, and holds it there, until the pilot goes to sleep, then the flight surgeon removes the equipment, leaving the pilot to sleep in his bunk. If the nitrous oxide fails to do the job, then the flight surgeon could just have the pilot watch reruns of Ted Cruz on C-span.

After a few years of working at the government lab, I had become accustomed to only receiving phone calls form the people in the resident laboratory, usually just my fellow scientists. The calls would be delivered via the lab’s switchboard. But with one particular call, an unknown woman’s voice came over the line, introducing herself as an investigator with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Department. She was a detective Michelle Levi. Christ! Did I do something, which is going to get me arrested?

“If you’ve been watching the news lately, you might have heard about that Mobile City Oil (MCO) plane crash… it killed three guys… two pilots and a MCO executive? We’ve collected a bunch of evidence, and some of it is confusing, and we really don’t know what to think of it. So, we decided to try to find a scientist to come take a look at our evidence. What do you say? Can you come to our office, and look over some of this stuff, and see what you can make of it? Please.” She greeted me.

The call had certainly had gotten my attention, since indeed the newspapers and TV had recently carried a series of on-going stories and commentaries, about the mysterious plane crash of a ten-seater Beechcraft aircraft. The plane had been carrying some important executive of the Mobile City Oil, as well as the pilot and co-pilot. The jet had crashed for an ‘unknown’ reason, shortly after takeoff, but foul play was strongly suspected. The executive, who was believed to have been the primary target of the murder, was a man named, Mike Norton, the senior vice president of MCO. Many people had felt that the pilot and the co-pilot, who were also killed in the crash, were just collateral damage. Even if Mike Norton deserved to die, the pilot and co-pilot certainly didn’t.

To say the least, the story I’m about to relate is depressing and has no happy ending; in fact, compared to most fictional stories, it lacks any form of an actual closure, and if there is an ending, it’s that the bad guy wins. Still, it represents an interesting occurrence in my life; something, I’ve never completely forgotten; if only I can live that long. Perhaps, it’s something which serves to demonstrate how easily psychopaths can commit murder for things like power and money, or because of fear of exposure, or maybe for something else.

The local Mobile newspaper had reported that Mike Norton was on his way to Atlanta, to see the parent company’s CEO. He carried his old fashioned leather briefcase, chock-full of what could have been certain incriminating documents. Some of those papers burned in the crash, but others were collected at that crash sight, because they’d managed to stay in the briefcase, which wasn’t burned too badly. After the crash, what was left of the Mobile City Oil business documents were stored in the police evidence room. They later mysteriously disappeared, but not before a few pages had been copied. Rumor had it, that copies of said documents are now stored with certain peoples, so that if need be, they can be sent to various judges and other law enforcement authorities, federal legal officers, not affiliated with the Mobile FBI. Apparently, copies are not admissible in court. No one person knows how many copies have been made, nor the exact identity of all the people, who hold a copy. Each of the original people were instructed to have several other people (friends/relatives) hold copies of the copies.The documents will probably never surface provided nothing untoward happens to certain people. I only meant one of the people holding said copies. It’s slightly more complicated than that, but hopefully it’s an effective failsafe system, to keep the killer or killers at bay. At this point, I’m still not completely certain, who the killer is, or if he knows about those copies.

The parent company of Mobile City Oil, is Southeastern Oil Company (SOC), a well known multibillion dollar corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It’s still considered by many investors to be a top performer, even through tough economic times, and it continues to pay good dividends. It’s a regular warhorse stock. Where other stocks may reduce or skip their dividend, SOC just drops only a few points, then starts climbing again, and relatively quickly. Mobile City Oil generates about seven percent of Southeastern Oil Company’s annual profits. Southeastern Oil Company now supposedly makes about $50 billion per year. Mobile City Oil is about nine percent of SOC worth, bringing-in approximately $4.5 billion per year, large enough that it might not be difficult to embezzle/skim-off a few million, here and there. The parent company just keeps getting wealthier, while southern-eastern power customers keep getting poorer.

To date, the question remains… What was it that Mr. Norton had to tell the CEO of Southeastern Oil Company, and what was in that old briefcase, which was so damning that he, along with the ill-fated pilot and copilot, had to be immediately murdered? The murder had to be a hurry-up job, for the killer to also sacrifice the flight crew, and not to know where that plane would impact. Some people think it was because the Mobile City Oil board members were purchasing unreasonably expensive oil, from a Nigerian oil company, which in turn was kicking back a chunk of the money to the nefarious board members of Mobile City Oil. The board members might have been making untold millions this way, while many of the poorer citizens of Mobile were going broke, trying to pay their tremendously inflated heating and air-conditioning bills. How easily some people of means become unconcerned about those of meager means.

Buy fifty-million dollars worth of crude at $120 per barrel, which actually only cost $60 per barrel, and sixty million dollars gets split between the board members and the owner of the company… a simple good ole boy ‘kickback’ scam. Perhaps, when Mr. Norton became a board member, he was too honest for the rest of the board. Rather than sharing in such ill-gotten gains, he may have elected to tell the parent company, Southeastern Oil Company, about the shenanigans he’d discovered. Consequently, someone on the Mobile City Oil board may have decided to eliminate him, along with the pilot and co-pilot.

If the oil-for-kickbacks scam were true, it’s no wonder the power rates in Mobile were, and still are, sky high. Much as big Pharma, big Power grossly over charges for their electrical power. Have you ever wondered how much mark-up there is on power. If the involved companies were each allowed to make 100 percent profit on their product: coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, transportation, power. Then say, that a consumer’s power bill is $100.00, the cost to make and deliver that is only approximately $3.00 to generate and maintain, and in the process some of those companies pollute your planet, and you get all the associated health problems. Not only that, when the power companies finally make you pay online, you’ll get a charge for the ‘convenance’… paying to pay! Too many poor families are having their heat turned-off in the cold of winter, and their air-conditioning turned-off in the blistering summers. There is no excuse for this, other than the oil companies are charging many times what is needed to make a decent profit. People are too often like sheep, especially when the police fully back the powerful corporations. The police evict people, who cannot pay their power bill. When people come into the oil company to pay their monthly fuel bill, a guard is usually present, not because of the potential robbery, but because poor customers have been known to loudly voice their grievances, about their bill. I’ve been there when such harangues have begun. If that was allowed to get out of hand, and people began to organize, then MCO might have to actually lower their power prices. They need to profit all those billions of dollars. The hell with the poor, without power! Right?

Too often, people have to be driven right to the edge of, or even over the fiscal cliff, before they react. While there certainly were many brave Jews, during WWII, but just look at how many German and Polish Jews just allowed themselves to be rounded-up, when they may well have strongly suspected what was in store for them, and should have gotten out of those countries (Poland, Germany, Croatia, Norway, etc.), or went on the offense, before it was too late, yet they did nothing, and just stayed and went right over the cliff. And many of those Jews were educated, and highly intelligent. Today’s Americans are similar. They realize that big Pharma, big Medicine, big Power, and huge military industries, are herding them over the fiscal cliff, yet they just keep paying, without doing anything. Gone are the days when your average high school grad can just go out, find a job, which will allow him to live comfortably.

When you’re poor, unorganized, and ill-informed, you generally don’t have an effective means of fighting a large well organized corrupt corporation controlled government, short of doing something illegal. Moreover, you’re more apt to believe the media propaganda. Don’t think for a minute that the poor shareholders are getting their fair share of stock gains and annual dividend yields, from the mid-cap and large-cap stocks. Of course, getting honest estimates of actual costs and profits, from your mega corporations, like Southeastern Oil Company, is next to impossible… at best it’s a pipe dream… just one more fiction the public chooses to believe. Furthermore, never expect to get an accurate assessment, concerning their massive levels of pollution; especially, if they’re using coal fired generators, or burning any kind of fuels, except for nuclear, but then nuclear has its’ own problems. Since rockets are so, we maybe we could put the spent fuel rods into the nosecone, and launch them into the sun. Once out of the earth’s gravity, if the rocket is headed in the right direction, it will simply be pulled-in by the sun’s gravity. Never the less, you’d still need to take careful aim.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-top-22-air-polluters-revealed/

Power and oil companies are no strangers to greed, manipulating numbers, falsifying expenditure reports, as well as at reporting their contributions to charities, which were never really made. Sometimes the contributions are just out-and-out lies. When such happens, it’s usually just a trick of phraseology, for taxes sake, and for public appearance.

“Mobile City Oil has put together a special committee in hopes of achieving a twenty-million dollar donation to ….” The emphasis is the three words, ‘in hopes of.’

“Mobile City Oil has agreed to make an endowment to…” The emphasis here is that the size of the endowment is not mentioned.

“Mobile City Oil has agreed to help support ten students to attend …” Again, the actual amount of the support has been omitted. Help might mean a free hotdog at a convenience store.

Too many people, most pointedly the elderly, are sometimes forced to suffer through scorching hot summers or freezing cold winters, because they can’t afford their power costs. Their deaths are usually chalked-up to old age, which is partially true, but lack of proper temperature regulation in their homes may manifest itself in such things as: stroke, cardiac arrest, pneumonia, accidental falls, dehydration, heat stroke, etc. Old age is bad enough, without the insult of unaffordable cooling and/or heating. Big Power controls the media. If you don’t believe this, go online, and try to find the number of people, who have their power cut off, for nonpayment

The Miami R. Herald newspaper might have reported that the saga of the Mobile City Oil plane crash, “…played-out similar to a novel.” The various newspaper reports, might have used words like: illegal political meddling, payoffs, kickbacks, embezzlements, sabotage, etc., plainly implying that Mr. Norton could have been murdered in an effort to silence him, possibly to keep those documents from reaching the president of Southeastern Oil Company. The New York City Times might have published a similar evocative article, using the words, “…triple murder.” The newspaper reports could have also revealed that a former director of Mobile City Oil and his wife had been shot dead in their home, in the not too distant past. The apparent additional murders were most likely carried-out to also cover-up some less-than-honest company chicanery, something illegal which the board had knowledge of, or participated in. Yes, people will kill for money, or to avoid going to prison. Good people sometimes find such stuff difficult to appreciate.

Moreover, the articles could have mentioned that an attorney for Mobile City Oil, who billed the company to the tune of about $501,000 per year, claimed to have found some dead sparrows, or some such little birds, at the door to his luxurious home by Orange Beach, as well as at his law firm, in downtown Mobile. Dead sparrows were alleged to be a mob thing, to let the person, who received the birds, know that they (the mob) intend to kill them, if they (the bird recipient) open their mouth, and ‘sings (to the cops) like a bird.’ Said Mobile attorney was already acutely wealthy from having won several extremely high profile profitable lawsuits. But then, so were certain others on the board of Mobile City Oil, extremely wealthy people. You can bet that there aren’t too many EBT card users on that corporate board.

On an unnecessary aside, who decided that an attorney should be entitled to forty percent of the reward for some unfortunate person’s injury or misery? Just imagine that a young married couple loses their only child, due to some doctor’s oversight or some drunk driver, and the child was the absolute love of their life. Perhaps the child’s death was due to some blatant form of medical malpractice, or a drunk with a history of DUIs, such mishaps do often happen. The couple’s lives have been forever diminished by the profound loss. The attorney comes along and puts in less than one hundred hours worth of work, if that, and of course he screams that he justified, because he went to three years of law school, but if he wins, he goes home with forty percent of the massive settlement. Why should the attorney be entitled to forty percent of the grieving parent’s settlement? Give me a fucking break! The attorney might claim that without him or her, the couple would have gotten nothing. While that’s true it really has nothing to do with the forty percent charge. The real value in such a situation is the life of the child, and the corresponding parental grief, so how can an attorney be entitled to forty percent of that, regardless of his or her pitiful three years of law school? In my mind, no amount self-serving palaver, by some greedy attorney, can remotely justify their usurping forty percent.

Oh sure, the attorney will claim that he or she is clearly due that whopping amount of money, simply because it was his or her amazing legal skills and experience, as well as his or her three years at law school, which allowed him or her to garner the award. While that’s possibly true, is the attorney really entitled to such a massive amount of the award for taking a few notes, gathering a few documents, taking some depositions, preparing a case, and filling-out and filing a few forms? Even Albert Einstein was only worth around $12 million, when he finally died… all those brain cells and only $12 million, yet some mildly smart ego-maniacal attorney, does a few boring self-serving macho TV ads, files a few papers, flaps his lips for a few hours, and gets wealthy off someone else’s tragedy. Some lawsuits have run into the billions of dollars. Who is worth forty percent of that much, for nothing more than a well educated song and dance in the courtroom, and the corresponding paperwork? My maternal Grandpa, the attorney, displayed certain traits, which made him a great attorney, and I rarely see them in most attorneys, today. He had a photographic memory, was an excellent listener, highly perceptive, and possessed a keen intelligence. For many of his clients, especially the poor, he displayed a genuine compassion, a trait which is now far too uncommon. Grandpa honestly wanted to see them receive a fair shake. He seemed to feel their plight, even if he knew they were guilty; still, the most heinous individual has some good aspects. This kindness endeared him to a lot of poor people. Grandpa was determined, and tireless in his preparation for his cases. He was also an avid great listener. Not only did he contemplate what a person said, but he studied how they said it. He stayed focused on the person’s eyes, and became very still. Lastly, he was constantly creating novel strategies to benefit his nefarious clients.

Hypothetically, those who go to law school should probably have such traits, but be motivated by the desire to see fairness and justice done, and not be too concerned about the all mighty dollar. The same goes for medical professionals. Anyone who goes to medical school or nursing school, should be primarily motivated by the desire to heal people, not by the cash.

Why did the attorney for Mobile City Oil only receive a few dead sparrows, while the victims had their plane sabotaged? Why just a threat? Perhaps, the attorney had threatened to spill the beans, about the underhanded dealings of Mobile City Oil, or he actually knew, who sabotaged the plane. If the attorney knew something, why did he only get dead birds? Why did he get off so easy? The idea of the dead birds is kind of corny, if not downright ridiculous… perchance, it’s desperately ridiculous. As long as people are being killed, why just threaten the attorney? Does that make sense? And if he didn’t know anything, why give him the birds? But, if he knew what Norton knew, why not give him the same fate as Norton? Why run the risk of somebody seeing the birds, being left on his door step? How do you make sense of that?

Wasn’t blowing-up the plane enough of a threat? Why not just blow-up the attorney’s home? If he didn’t know something, why did he receive the sparrows, or could the sparrows just be the attorney’s feeble attempt at subterfuge, to make it look like he’s innocent and being threatened by the real killer? Perhaps, the attorney was the cat, which ate the sparrows, and Mike Norton had been the sparrow about to sing. No one else on the Mobile City Oil board received dead sparrows, only the attorney. There is the remote possibility that Mike Norton, deserved to be killed for some unknown reason, but even if that were true… again, what about the pilot and copilot?

Later that day, I arrived at the Sheriff’s Department, Investigator Levi meant me in the front lobby. She was an attractive full-figured redhead, with a huge heart, which seemed far too big to possibly be beating inside a police officer’s body. She had a smile which warmed your soul, like in was Christmas. This was about the sixth time that I’d been in the Sheriff’s Department. By then, I’d worked on more than five cases with other detectives, but most of them I’d only communicated with over the phone, and when I did go in to the department, I gave a phony name. To say the least, working with the cops was a tricky, if not a dangerous proposition, and not because of the immediacy of criminals, but because of the cops, themselves. In those days, they too often tended to be like dangerous criminals with badges, who’d rarely get caught. As a rule, cops just aren’t congenial and up-lifting. While they’re supposed to protect and serve, it often depended on your race, and cultural perspective.

At our first meeting, I wrongly assumed that Michelle’s apparent kindheartedness was too good to be authentic, that it had to be an act, but it wasn’t. She was much too nice to be a cop. She must always play the good cop, when they interrogate suspects. Yet over time, I came to realize Michelle was hugely compassionate, a sweetheart of a gal, who skillfully managed to exist, while surrounded by hateful male policemen. How such a wonderful feminine creature survived, in that psychotic vile hive of ego-soaked politics, remains an even bigger mystery than the plane crash. But survive Michelle did, and she managed to reach retirement. Nevertheless, she got stung more than a few times. She once endured a substantial beatdown by a drunk, while checking-out a public storage warehouse. Its never been too clear whether that may have been a set-up by someone in the Sheriff’s Department. Cops are forever having to venture into uncertain, potentially dangerous, scenarios. Not only did Michelle survive the mistreatment of the police department, and the beatdown, but she got through a violent abusive marriage. Believe it or not, even though she was a cop, she didn’t do a background check on her husband, who’d she’d later fine-out had been to prison for murder. Then the worst came… she was forced to deal with the tragic death of her two years old daughter. Her belief in the Lord and her loving mother saved her sanity. I’d helped her to adopt the child, only because I knew the biological mom, who didn’t want her own child. Later, she married a great guy, a former Marine. Lord knows, after all she’d been through, she deserved some genuine happiness.

Once we were inside the investigation department, Michelle introduced me to a Detective Jay Carns, the lead investigator on the Mobile City Oil plane crash. My first impression was that Jay seemed a little odd, maybe because he appeared to be slightly evasive… standoffish. He hardly made eye contact; but at the time, I simply chalked that up to the callus nature of his job, and that Jay was probably stressed.

Later, I’d visit the Sheriff’s Department to see how the investigation was progressing, only to be informed that Jay had left his employment there, and had gone to live in a luxurious condo on the Gulf of Mexico in Texas, without an apparent financial care in the world. He didn’t even try to stick-around for his retirement; he just suddenly quit his job. Rumor had it, that he spent most of his days fishing for big game fish about forty miles off the coast, on a thirty foot 1975 Chris-Craft 30 Tournament sport fishing boat. Perhaps, Jay had inherited an unexpected windfall. Strangely, with Jay’s departure from the police station, the evidence pertaining to the aforementioned plane crash, somehow just vanished from the evidence room, including the aforementioned papers from Mr. Norton’s briefcase; at least, most of them, but not before some copies had been made. As mentioned, they were later repeatedly copied and distributed, and redistributed. You can’t be too careful when dealing with a killer, who is willing to kill innocents (the pilot and copilot, not to mention the fact that whomever sabotaged the plane had no idea where it would hit the ground) to eliminate his target, Mr. Norton.

Too often, the resonating rustle of new money drowns-out the competing voices in the choir. My bet is, that as the years go by, the murderer will keep detective Carns close, almost like a good friend. Then again, perhaps the detective was both rewarded and threatened, the carrot and the stick, or possibly he’d just had enough of police politics. Maybe murdering has its limits, when the potential victim is a detective, or perhaps the detective still has the evidence, to be released if he’s murdered. And so, it was probably better to fork over some big dollars for a condo, and drop-off a few birds. Maybe both the detective and the attorney had stashed some damning evidence in such a way that should either of them have been killed, it would go public… mutually assured destruction. Then again, it may be both the detective and the attorney, who were the murderers.

After the detective left the police department, and the evidence disappeared, the investigation just seemed to peter-out. Even the FBI lost interest. Without continued due diligence, the case remains an unsolved mystery, yet it may still be solved one day. Initially, the police dropping the case made me wonder if perhaps there wasn’t something unsavory about Mr. Norton, and so the police just didn’t care if the crime wasn’t solved. For all I know, Norton may have deserved to die. Still, there was the deaths of the two air crew. The cops just couldn’t ignore their deaths, right?

One of the pieces of evidence, the police made me privy to, was the departed Mr. Norton’s rather strange and contradictory autopsy report. That medical report was a real puzzler, containing three attention grabbing details, like the fact that Mr. Norton’s right hand was completely gone, leaving only the charred burned stump of a wrist. The missing hand was never found. It appeared to have been burned away, vaporized; a most unusual event considering that the rest of the body was there, and the other two bodies of the pilot and copilot were whole and accounted for. Not even the bones of the missing hand were found. It was just as if the hand had simply vanished. Considering that there’d been an airplane crash, the burned off hand initially didn’t seem that unusual. However, the most bizarre and puzzling two findings of the autopsy were found inside all three bodies.

The extraordinary findings were that while the dead men’s lungs and respiratory passages were clogged-up with large amounts of thick heavy black carbon, undoubtedly due to the inhaled smoke and suet from the burning interior of the plane, paradoxically their blood was extremely high in oxygen, much higher than is even normally found! The suet should have made breathing difficult to say the least, and so blood oxygen levels should have been extremely low, certainly not higher than normal! Those two facts had given birth to that peculiar oxymoron. On the surface, the heavy black suet in the lungs, existing with the blood’s high oxygen levels was at first an inexplainable contradiction! The question was, how do you clog-up the lungs with black suet, yet have higher than normal oxygen levels in the blood? Impossible… To say the least, I was stumped, and couldn’t fathom how those two opposing facts coexisted in all three bodies. The two facts were like burning in hell, but feeling cool and cozy.

At first, I thought that the autopsy report must have been erroneous, since this contradiction with the ‘suet and elevated blood oxygen concentration’ seemed to be a clear physiological impossibility; large amounts of obstructive suet in the lungs, with high blood oxygen in the blood just didn’t jive, so I figured that, whoever had done the blood collecting and/or testing, had done something wrong. Perhaps, they’d mixed-up the blood samples, or had mixed-up the results with another set of results, or the lab had miss read the blood test results. Maybe some decimals had been misplaced, or some labels had fallen off a group of test tubes, and had been put back incorrectly. But that had already been considered, and the results had been triple checked, confirming the unnatural results. New samples were taken and rerun. How could this eerie physiological situation have happened? It just didn’t seem possible, especially since the plane was not oxygen equipped, and the men could only have been breathing ambient (cabin) air. How could they only be breathing plain air, from the outside atmosphere, yet still have above normal blood oxygen levels; not-to-mention, that an oxygen consuming and suet emitting fire was involved?

The autopsy results had been throughly analyzed by the US Air Force Institute of Pathology (USAFIP), which at that time was reputed to be the best pathology lab in the country, and the USAFIP couldn’t offer any suggestion to help solve that puzzling physiological mystery. Of course, that strange anomaly begged the question. If not a laboratory mistake, then how was it that their respiratory systems, which were clogged with black suet, owing to the burning plane’s interior, passed enough oxygen to allow the blood oxygen levels to be far above normal?! Where did all that excess baffling blood oxygen come from? As mentioned, the plane was not oxygen-equipped, nor had anyone attempted to give the obviously broken dead bodies any oxygen at the crash site. The bodies were plainly killed by crushing impact. There seemed to be no way to apply Occam’s razor to the suet-oxygen conundrum… no easy answer on this one. But, as it turned-out there was an answer.

The ancient concept known as, Occam’s razor, is that among competing hypotheses (possible explanations), the one with the least number of assumptions is ‘probably’ the correct answer… lex parsimoniae. The term “Occam’s razor” was not actually employed by William of Ockham, who died in 1347, but the phrase was supposedly introduced in the literature by Sir William Hamilton, 505 years later (1852), in a tribute to William of Ockham, who was known to have frequently employed said effective form of thinking in solving various important things. Most of his contributions were in the fields of philosophy, math, and theology. With the understandings in neuroscience to of those fields have been rendered as useless, at least in my mind.

The various police photos of the plane’s wreckage showed that inexplicable smooth-edged holes in the fuselage. The holes weren’t tears or rips, or punctures, since the edges of the metal were smooth and didn’t appear to be pushed inward, but rather outward. The apertures appeared to be anywhere from one to four inches in diameter, and looked as if something had melted right through the plane’s metal skin. In addition, the inside of the aircraft’s small stainless steel toilet was heavily scorched and melted through in a couple of spots. The plane’s interior carpeting showed multiple black burn tracks, as if some fiery objects had rolled around on the floor of the plane, creating burned erratic twisting trails in the carpeting as they tracked around, probably due to irregular flying, by the pilot, who was being blinded and choked by thick black smoke. Like the briefcase documents, some of those police photos also disappeared from the evidence room, but not before copies had been made of three of the photographs, but only three.

Out-of-the-blue, and from a chance encounter, a piece of serendipitous evidence came from an employee at the local Mobile television station, which had first covered the tragic story. One day, shortly after that meeting the two detectives, I’d gone to Mobile’s Bel Air Shopping Mall, looking for a birthday gift, and just happened to bump into a well known local news anchor. She was a smart tall sexy black woman named, Sue Duras. At first, I was just looking for something to talk to her about, and had started the conversation by commenting how badly the old shopping mall needed renovation, pointing to apparent leaks in the hall skylights. But not two minutes into our discussion, she voluntarily started talking about the Mobile City Oil plane crash, basically repeating what had been in the news, ergo I started telling her about the oxymoronic autopsy report. She told me about something shocking, which the cops had not mentioned, or they simply didn’t know, yet it was of great significance. Always remember, everything which has been done by humans is subject to errors, omissions, misinterpretations, oversights, etc.

“What if that Mobile City Oil plane had hit this shopping mall. It crashed only a mile from here. You know… the poor pilot sounded so desperate, that day!” She had unexpectedly commented. Did she actually hear the pilot talking that day!

“What do you mean he sounded desperate? Did you actually hear him that day, speaking in the plane, before he crashed? What are you saying, here?” I asked.

The reports in the newspapers and the TV had contained nothing about someone having heard the pilot that fateful day. Sue then divulged that during the day of the fiery crash, she and her loyal news crew were in their big well-equipped TV telecommunications van, while the radio scanner was doing its usual thing of progressively scanning through the various radio frequencies. Scanning radio frequencies was standard operating procedure for the news van. Unexpectedly the scanner had picked-up and locked onto the communication frequency, coming from the airplane, carrying Mr. Norton. The plane was still sitting on the runway, getting ready to takeoff. It was getting clearance from the tower. Ms. Duras later allowed me to listen to that fateful recording. One of the men in the van had stopped the scan and press the button on the scanner to permanently lock-onto Her belief in the Lord and her loving mother saved her. the airplane frequency. He had done this because he was an amateur pilot, and had wanted to hear the transmissions between the tower and the pilot of the aircraft.

Multiple copies of said airplane transmission, probably still exist, hidden away, along with copies of the papers in Mike Norton’s briefcase and a few photos of the accident, as part of the aforementioned failsafe mechanism, to be sent to critical persons in the event that the actual murderer(s) attempts to obtain them. It was almost as if someone in the police department knew, ahead of time, that those things were going to be stolen from the police evidence room. At minimum, there are no less than five people, who have these papers, photos, and audio copies (now on authenticated thumb-drives), with the aforementioned explicit instructions. This is probably a bit of overkill, but when it comes to protecting one’s self against being murdered, there’s no such thing as overkill. Each of the original five people have at least three copies of everything. Furthermore, each of the five people may have made even more copies, and have given them to undisclosed friends, with the same mailing instructions.

At minimum, there are probably fifteen copies, all set to be sent off, should the need arise. There might even be a recording of the original detective, Jay Carns, in that treasure trove of information, speaking with a certain female attorney. Each of the fifteen separate packages, containing those materials, is ready to be sent to carefully selected judges, attorney generals, and two retired mercenaries; The judges are those thought to be immune to bribery, and in positions to elicit procedures designed to bring a person to trial. Still other packages are addressed to be sent to certain media persons, including the aforementioned tall black news commentator, but like the two judges, she may be about ready to retire.

Each package is currently accompanied, by a copy of a twelve page, single-spaced, type written letter of explanation. You, the reader, may be wondering why we don’t just go ahead and send them off. The answer to that question is multifaceted, but one answer is that there is no purpose in bringing down a local hero to the community, if not the state, and the nation; and, I don’t mean a military hero. Like all people, he has his faults, and while said faults may include murder, his more positive attributes may out weigh those few murders. You, the reader, may find that hard to believe, yet it just may be fair-minded. In addition, the device, that destroyed the plane, may have been configured to just kill Mr. Norton, but did more damage than expected. And for all I know, there could have been some heinous things for which Mr Norton warranted killing. I have no proof of this; nevertheless, those rumors seem plausible from hearsay. These are things which his wife and family may not know about.

The scanner in the TV communication van had first picked up the aircraft transmissions, coming from the pilot on that fatal day, while he was lined-up for takeoff. Everything that came over the scanner in the news van was automatically recorded on tape. The recording, I heard, began with the pilot receiving clearance, from airport control. After takeoff, the pilot continued to communicate with the tower; something about a positive climb and climb rate, gear up, and a slight change in heading. The tower said, “Roger that.” Then, there was a few seconds of silence, but the scanner remained locked on to the plane’s frequency, because the amateur pilot in the news van had manually locked the scanner in place. Shortly thereafter, there was a small sudden sound, like a small ‘click.’ The ‘click’ was barely audible, but it was clearly there, and it was immediately followed by a loud ‘whooshing or hissing’ sound, which seemed to transform into a mysterious ‘sizzling’ noise. The pilot then exclaimed, “What the hell is that sound?” Then, someone in the plane yelled, “Fire!” For the scanner to have picked this up, the pilot must have still been depressing the mike button.

Next, the pilot oddly shouted, “Get that out of here!” This was followed by scuffling sounds, then a hissing bubbling ‘splash,’ then there were loud sizzling and popping noises. Immediately thereafter, someone lets out an ear-splitting blood-curling scream, followed by the pilot yelling, “Get him off me! Get him off me!” At first, this made me think that one of the other two men, in the plane, was attacking the pilot.

For the next minute or two, the pilot said things, indicating that he couldn’t see, that he couldn’t breathe, and he calmly repeated the word, MAYDAY, quite a number of times! The tower asked the pilot to state the nature of his emergency several times. There was also lots of coughing going-on in the plane. Most likely all three men were choking. The pilot coughs out that there is an onboard fire. Lastly, the poor pilot yells, “We’re going down. MAYDAY, MAYDAY! Cough… cough… cough, MAYDAY! I can’t see!” The expensive company plane and its three passengers smashed into a small apartment building, which recorded as a lackluster muffled ‘thump,’ signifying the end of the transmission and three lives.

Thinking back, it seems like the terminal ‘thump’ came about four minutes after takeoff. Miraculously no residents were in the apartments. Just as easily, the building could have been full of people: women, kids, old people, etc. Nevertheless, the plane could have just as easily smashed through the roof of a nearby shopping mall, or into a school filled with children! In fact, there was a school only two hundred and fifty yards away from the crash site. Consequently, most likely it’s a fairly safe bet that if the plane was sabotaged, the saboteur didn’t mind killing lots of people, since practically everyone knows that a jet filled with fuel is a lot like a bomb, and deadly on impact.

But perhaps, the murderer never considered the possibility of the aircraft hitting a highly populated area, and if that’s true, then the killer wasn’t too smart, but all things considered, it’s quite likely that the killer wasn’t too stupid, but definitely a full blown psychopath. Most likely, the murderer had wrongly figured that the twisted burned crash would simply be chalked-up to some mechanical failure, which caused the plane to burst into flames, or as mentioned, perhaps he figured that only Norton would die. That the explosion under Mr. Norton’s seat would only kill him. But the plane didn’t just suddenly ‘burst’ into flames, in reality there were a few very long minutes, where terror ruled inside the plane, yet the pilot was still calmly talking and choking, before the aircraft augured on in.

One thing for sure, the murderer was worried about something, and he or she was cowardly and evil enough to kill two innocents and haphazardly risk the lives of many people on the ground; and bare-in-mind, that the plane came down in a city! It seems more than plausible that the murderer did this to avoid exposure, whatever that might have been; whatever Mr. Norton had in the briefcase.

Perhaps, that exposure would not only prove that the Mobile City Oil board was stealing, but maybe Mike’s papers were also going to expose the ungodly amounts of money, which the company was overcharging its many customers, or what the board was siphoning off in the form of kickbacks. A non-psychopathic criminal might have just grabbed as much money as he or she could, and fled the country, to a place without an extradition agreement. Of course, those places are not the best places to live.

In a very real way, the company’s customers are trapped like rats, since Mobile City Oil is the only power company in the area. Chances are that a $200 monthly heating bill, cost MCO company less than ten dollars, and that $10 includes all expenses: infrastructure, maintenance, salaries, insurance, materials, fuel, and all the other overhead costs. I wonder what the masses would do if they knew that their heating oil bill was marked-up by roughly 2000 percent? Still that’s not nearly as much as the pharmaceutical companies mark-up their drugs, nor as much as the mega oil companies mark-up the cost of your gasoline and diesel. When it comes to power bills, the more socialistic UK isn’t immune to this same financial imprudence; still, their bills are not as high as ours. Sometimes socialism is capitalism in disguise, but then, certain aspects of capitalism are tantamount to financial slavery, disguised by media propaganda.

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/energy-market-investigation

http://www.newsweek.com/martin-shkreli-daraprim-drug-prices-374922

http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/gasoline/margins/

https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/average-energy-bill

Perhaps the day of the plane crash, things were moving a bit too fast for the killer to conceive of a better plan, than hurriedly using the sloppy incendiary. After all, Mr. Norton, the senior vice president of Mobile City Oil, was on the way to spill the beans to the parent company. Maybe, the killer had to kill Norton before he got the papers to the CEO of Southeastern Oil Company, so there was no time to come-up with a better or safer plan. The killer may have simply panicked; even so, he still killed the two air crew, and risked the lives of many on the ground. Did the killer just happen to have an incendiary device handy? Or, did he have a friend, who owed him a favor, and was able to quickly assemble the deadly device? Or, maybe the friend already had a commercially or military made incendiary. If you have the knowhow and the materials, such an incendiary can be thrown together in a minute or two. Perhaps, the incendiary owner or maker lives in the southern part of Mobile, down near one of the bayous. Maybe, those packages of papers and audiotapes, which are yet to be mailed, also have some info, concerning that incendiary maker, but said info may be purely speculative, and soon discussed, herein.

While the inflight emergency was transpiring, and the pilot was struggling with the cabin full of choking smoke, the news crew in the TV communication van phoned ahead to the television station, giving the people at the station the plane’s transmitting frequency, instructing them to tune-in to the inflight emergency, and put the airplane’s broadcast on the newsroom’s speaker. So then, the people in the van and those at the television station were all listening to the blinded choking pilot, fighting for his life. Throughout all this, the van continued to record the desperate transmissions. While the frantic dead-dealing scenario in the plane was in the process of unfolding, the news van pulled-up to the back door of the station, where Sue Duras jumped from the van and hurriedly dashed into the station, where the same frenzied aviation broadcast was being anxiously listened to by the people in the newsroom.

Sue later told me that while she was inside the news department, listening to the deeply troubled pilot, and the plane was still in the air, her office phone rang. Sue said that she really didn’t know why she bothered to answer the phone; after all, she was then listening to a life and death struggle over the airways, but in spite of that, she grabbed the phone and answered, “Newsroom, Duras.”

The male caller matter-of-factly announced that a plane, owned by Mobile City Oil had just crashed, and then he just hung-up! According to what Sue told me in the mall that day, after she hung-up, she continued listening to the struggling pilot, broadcasting the multiple MAYDAYs, or “venez m’aide,” which means, ‘come help me,’ but in that fatal scenario there was no way for someone to come and help. Often saying MAYDAY, just allows the speaker to not panic! Greeting life’s end is usually a bit of a horror show, unless it’s escaping chronic pain or senility. That’s probably the only advantage to long chronic mind-bending pain, i.e., cancer, since it can make the grim reaper seem like your best buddy.

“It was definitely weird, Joey. That caller just stated that the Mobile City Oil plane had already crashed, but it was still in the air. The pilot was still coughing and repeating, ‘MAYDAY.’ Those of us in the newsroom, where still praying that the plane would somehow make it, but it crashed after a few more seconds. Those poor people in that plane… but like I said… the caller didn’t say the plane’s about to crash; he said it had already crashed, but it was still in the air! Pretty strange, huh?” Sue sympathetically commented. That is strange.

To this day, the TV station hasn’t a clue as to the identity of the untimely mystery caller. Perhaps he was the murderer, perhaps not. What would be the purpose of making such a premature call to a television newsroom? Whoever it was, obviously was Johnny-on-the-spot with the phone number of the TV station’s newsroom! Maybe, he’d memorized the station’s phone number in anticipation. Most likely, the caller assumed that the TV station could not have known about the plane so quickly, and didn’t anticipate that the van’s radio scanner had locked onto the plane’s desperate transmissions.

There was no caller ID, or cellphones back then, yet no attempt was made to trace the weird call by the police. My bet was that the caller had a hand-held frequency scanner, was listening to the broadcast, realized the plane was doomed, and had called from a payphone. But once gain, he may have been the killer. On the other hand, the call might have been placed by someone, who worked in the airport’s control tower, and he had just assumed that the plane was about to crash, and barely misspoke, by saying that it had already crashed. Still, if that were true, it’s a real stretch to claim the men had died, when in fact they hadn’t, and the plane was still airborne; at least, for a few more seconds. If the call had been made by the killer, or by the bomb maker, if they weren’t one-in-the-same, why would he do that… report the incident? What purpose would such a call serve? That curious call to the TV newsroom yet remains a bit of an unsolved mystery, and so this story is not nice and tidy, like a Sherlock Holmes novel, where everything is ultimately explained, and all the pieces fall neatly into place, with every question answered. Furthermore, there’s no warm and fuzzy ending to this story. Still, there is some interesting conjecture.

While the plane crash happened in the early 1990s, to date, foul play has never been definitively proven, and probably never will be, but not because murder didn’t happen, but most likely, because murder silenced a few people, and money may have silenced the rest. Currently, most homicides now go unsolved in the majority of big-city police departments. These may be drug-motivated crimes, where the witnesses are afraid to come forward.

If money had purchased ill-placed loyalty, it probably wasn’t mere pocket change, so maybe you should look at those involved people with lots of money. Nevertheless, probably only the governing board of Mobile City Oil, and its attorney had the kind of money to pay such big bribes. The bribes might have been huge, since even the FBI apparently threw in the towel, and walked away, not long after Detective Carns left the Mobile Sheriff’s Department, along with the aforementioned evidence.

At first, I was quite uncertain about some of the things, I’d heard on the tape from the television news van recording, and kept wondering how those men could have their lungs chocked-full of burned carbon suet, yet still have high levels of oxygen in their blood. It seemed so terribly impossible. My mind almost reflexively kept returning to that biomedical conundrum. That nagging contradiction ate a hole in my soul.

As mentioned, the amount of black suet in the lungs should have made the pilot pass-out, due to a paucity of oxygen to his brain, and long before impacting the apartment building, but the pilot’s transmissions indicated, that even though he was choking and blinded by the smoke, he was still lucid all the way to his collision with the planet, all the way to that minor terminal ‘thump,’ in the recording. The pilot probably couldn’t see where he was going, nor could he stop coughing. Inexplicably, the three men had oxygen rich blood, all the way to impact.

For all my efforts, I was unable to solve the physiologic enigma of respiratory suet with high blood oxygen, whence I was about to give-up on the problem, when I asked myself, ‘What would my deceased Grandpa do in this situation?’ My dear old maternal Grandpa, the aforementioned (in book one) highly skilled attorney, once told me that if he had an apparent unsolvable problem, he would talk it over with various people, both the professionals and lay folks, and in so doing, he frequently would find a viable solution; often one, which he hadn’t remotely foreseen. Two heads are indeed often better than one, though certainly not always.

Heeding Grandpa’s sage advice, I did likewise, going from person to person in the lab, discussing the physiological conundrum. No one could offer a valid explanation for the contradiction in the autopsy. The first few folks (secretaries, technicians, janitors, scientists, etc.), with whom I spoke, also thought that the inconsistency with the suet in the lungs and high blood oxygen was an unsolvable mystery. Most insisted that the military pathology lab had obviously made a mistake, and for all three bodies, even after repeated sampling and testing. Like me, they remained stumped.

Finally, I went to consult with a saint of a fellow, who was also an outstanding scientist and humanitarian, Dr. Bill Pullman. Bill has always been a pleasure to bounce ideas off of. He possesses a near bottomless barrel of ideas, and theories… a brilliant creative force, as well as a moral caring man… a true one of a kind. My Dad, my good doctor, and Bill are probably the finest example of men, I’ve run across.

My skeptical daughter doesn’t easily take to many people, but she seemed to love Bill, immediately after meeting him. The attraction surprised me, but considering Bill’s qualities, I should have expected it. She once told me that he was the only old man, she was seriously attracted to. He is a true rarity in this age of corruption, greed, and ignorance. Bill’s one of those happy souls, who can generate a genuine twinkle in his eye, then he’ll laugh, inviting you to join him. When I first told him about the autopsy’s paradox, he too was clearly perplexed. But sometime during the next twelve hours, he apparently solved the insurmountable morbid paradox. The next morning, he phoned me from his office.

“Buy me lunch this afternoon, Joey, and I’ll tell you what I think about your problem with the suet and the blood oxygen autopsy thing. I might just have a viable solution for you, where the suet and the high blood oxygen actually make sense, at least if we’re talking murder.” He postulated.

Sitting down to lunch at a local sandwich shop, The Blind Man’s Deli, that old twinkle was in his eye, and a smile was spreading across his face. He’s definitely got an idea, but is it good! Needless to say, I was more than slightly curious about what he’d come-up with. The Blind Man’s Deli was called that, because it was actually owned and operated by a blind man, who loved to eat. Although he was totally blind, somehow he always could accurately determine the denomination of the bills, which he received from the patrons, in payment for their lunch.

“I only have one request, before I share my thoughts with you, Joey. This plane crash is obviously fairly dangerous business, especially considering that three people have been murdered, not to mention, that an extremely expensive aircraft has been destroyed, and whoever did it, didn’t care about the people on the ground when the thing augured-in, so if I share my thoughts, I don’t want my name mentioned, not to anyone, especially not to the feds, or the police. Don’t even allude to my existence. The idea has to be completely yours. You see, if my idea proves correct, it pretty well establishes that the people in the plane were murdered! So, you have to promise not to mention my existence for at least twenty years. After twenty years, people will lose interest. What do you say, Joey?”

“Sure Bill, I promise. I’ll take credit. But you know murder has no statute of limitations, so maybe if it goes unsolved, twenty years isn’t really long enough.”

“Twenty years will be fine. Maybe the killer is old enough that he’ll have died or become senile, by then. Either way… alive or dead, the case will be dead in the water, by then.”

“Okay, man. I promise. What’d you figure out about what caused the suet-oxygen problem?” I asked.

As promised, I’ve never mentioned that the following theory was Bill’s, until writing these hodgepodge texts, and it’s been more than twenty years, since the crash. But even now, in this poor excuse for a book, I’ve carefully changed his name and certain details. In the days of the investigation, I did as Bill requested and dishonestly took credit for his brilliant solution to the victim’s autopsy contradiction. Bill had indeed found Occam’s razor, buried deep inside the confounding enigma.

Though I’ve lied countless times, this is the only time in my life, that I had taken credit for another man’s creation, but I did so following Bill’s demand. To receive the undeserved credit, all I had to do was to reboot my mendacious skills of years past. It was like riding a bike on a warm spring day. Yet the older I get, the less comfortable I am, with such double-dealing. Having a wonderful daughter makes you want to be a more honest, and scrupulous man. I’ve tried to be worthy of the privilege of raising her, but I’ll never be that good. When a child is born, they are completely innocent, and the very essence of purity, so how is anyone ever truly worthy of the gift of perfection. How is someone worthy of the immeasurable gift of life, especially someone as imperfect I?

Murder is only accomplished by those who have truly lost sight of the gift of life, except for their own. Then again, there is the real possibility, however remote it may be, that Mr. Norton deserved his death. On the other hand, it’s likely that many murderers can out rationalize most politicians, but that many politicians murder large numbers of innocent people, and are therefore worst than the infamous serial killers. However, most politicians are just in it for the money, and the power, but there’s a fair amount of overlap in the two groups: murderers and politicians. One is a criminal, the other is often a hero to many.

Perhaps the apparent murderer, who killed the three men in the plane, has finally come to realize the value of life, and with age, he has found his guilt, but for most psychopaths, once a psychopath, always a psychopath. Still, I’ve often wondered, if the deaths of those three men have come to haunt him. My bet is that he does regret that he murdered them, especially the two air crew, but still tells himself that he really had no choice, since he’d have lost face and lost his fortune, or perchance ended-up in prison for shady business dealings, i.e., fraud, theft, embezzlement, etc. Who knows? Whatever it was that Mike Norton was going to expose about the murderer, it had to be something serious. If the killer has a religion, perhaps, it allows for forgiveness, perhaps not. In many religious texts, one can find the justification for almost anything; it’s just a matter of interpretation. Since those, who were murdered were gentiles, the murders might not have been sins against heaven. Or if he was an Arab, in many ways, killing infidels is not as serious as killing a true believer.

Dr. Bill Pullman’s solution to the autopsy’s medical dilemma was elegantly simple. His ingenious hypothesis fit perfectly with the medical data, as well as with the photos of the plane, and with the recording made by the TV communication van. Yet, Bill solved the problem, without all those facts. I had only told him about the autopsy paradox… suet in the lungs with high blood oxygen. In other words, his arcane reasoning skills had solved the puzzle with far fewer clues, than I had available to me, and fewer clues than The US Air Force Institute of Pathology, as well as The Sheriff’s Department had to work with. In about twelve hours, with less information, Bill had done what a lot of highly professional folks couldn’t do, even after months of thought.

Bill had found the solution, which fit Occam’s razor, and although it was monstrously obscure, it was beautifully simple! Bill had hypothesized that the explosive, or more appropriately stated, the incendiary (burning) device, employed by the murderer, or by the murderer’s minion to destroy the plane, had been a substance called, thermite! There are various compositions of thermite, using different metal oxides, but they all burn extremely hot, around 2500 to 2900 degrees centigrade, depending on which metal oxide is used in its manufacture.

Bill explained, that while it is burning, thermite gives off a tremendous amounts of oxygen; in fact, disproportionate to the amount it needs to burn. This characteristic, of giving off huge amounts of oxygen, while burning, is what allows thermite to continue to burn, even under water. It burns so hot, that in a second, it can burn through steel and concrete! The thermite reaction was developed in 1893 by Hans Goldschmidt. In 1899, it was used to instantly weld railroad tracks together in Essen, Germany. If two steel rails are placed end to end, and a small cardboard cone of thermite is placed, apex down, on top of the junction of the two abutted steel rails, and is then ignited by using a burning magnesium ribbon (Just stick a match to the thin magnesium ribbon, which is stuck down in the powdered thermite.), the burning thermite will fuse the two steel ties together, in less than a second. It would take a welder with a welding torch many times that long to do the same job.

Later, the military came to use the substance in: hand grenades, artillery shells, and incendiary bombs dropped from aircraft. Thermite is also sometimes put in the nose of more conventional bombs, so that the bomb may burn through the dirt, as well as through the steel and concrete roofs of underground military bunkers, thereby allowing the bomb’s explosive charge, to fatally detonate once inside the bunker.

Since burning thermite gives off tremendous ‘excessive’ amounts of oxygen, it could easily explain why the victims on the plane, had extraordinarily high levels of oxygen in their blood, even though they were also inhaling significant amounts of black carbon suet, from the plane’s burning carpet and plastic paneling! Bill’s suggestion was quite brilliant. The thermite, if it fragmented, also explained the several holes melted through the plane’s framing and fuselage skin. Moreover, it explained why the plane hadn’t exploded, since thermite burns very hot and fast, but doesn’t actually explode. Burning holes through the fuselage of the jet was not even a slight challenge for the fragments of the tremendously hot burning thermite.

Working off Bill’s theory, another incendiary weapon, which could have been used, instead of the thermite, is white phosphorous. In the military, it’s sometimes referred to as, ‘Willie Pete,’ or ‘WP.’ I’m not sure about how much oxygen it generates, though it’s probably considerable, since it too burns, while submerged underwater, and actually burns hotter than does the thermite. Moreover, it can be purchased commercially, and without any type of license. It’s sold in bulk out of China. It can be ignited in the same manner as thermite. The question of who made the device was never solved, though more than a few ideas have been kicked around. There were a couple of people in the police, who were ready with a couple of suggested names, and one who was an acquaintance of someone in the Mobile power company.

In reference to the television communication van’s recording, the first peculiar sound had been the aforementioned small ‘click.’ The click could have been made by the detonator for the homemade chunk of thermite, or perhaps, for the white phosphorus. Generally, magnesium is used to ignite thermite, but perhaps fulminated mercury could also be used to ignite it. When making the homemade thermite or white phosphorus, the maker might have simply embedded the muzzle of an easily obtainable magnesium flare gun, inside the thermite or WP material, to ignite it. Such a homemade detonator can be purchased at practically any boat supply store, and might also be why the thermite broke into several pieces, explaining the several holes through the fuselage, and the small tracks burned around in the carpeting, etc.

The flare gun, if embedded in the thermite or WP, would most certainly have been completely vaporized. The trigger of the flare gun may have been fired/pulled remotely by an electrical/mechanical device attached to a simple receiver, or it may have just been set off by a simple mechanical kitchen timer, with its ticker disabled. Also, the crash site was an apartment building, so there’s a good chance that components of the incendiary device might have been overlooked as part of the contents of one of the destroyed apartments.

If a small two-way radio or cell phone operated detonator was used, the operator would have activated the bomb soon after takeoff, and at low altitude to ensure that the signal reached the plane. Still, the killer would want to wait long enough, so the plane couldn’t turn around and safely land back at the airport. According to the recording made by the TV news crew, and from looking where it crashed, into the aforementioned apartment complex, that is exactly what happened. After the ‘click,’ the second strange sound on the recording was the loud whooshing and hissing sound. This might have been the sound of the thermite or white phosphorus actually igniting and burning. Neither of those two compounds make a big bang sound, when they ignite; nonetheless, they do violently ignite; hence the whoosh.

Whomever prepared the thermite powder, or the white phosphorous, may have not packed the substance tight enough, and with the impact of the flare gun projectile, the poorly packed incendiary fragmented into pieces. Certain of the larger fragments my have burned holes right through the fuselage, while other pieces may have rolled around the plane’s carpeting, etc., creating the aforementioned odd burned track patterns, which were most probably made in response to the poor choking and blinded pilot’s wild erratic flying. In this manner, the burn patterns created something of a flight record.

The third significant sound on the TV van audio recording had been when the pilot said, “What was that?” That comment may have been made because he heard the sudden igniting of the thermite or white phosphorous. The next sound was the pilot saying, “Get that out of here.” The pilot could have been referring to the brightly burning incendiary. But there were no windows that could be opened such an expensive plane, ergo Mr. Mike Norton seems to have heroically grabbed the largest chunk of burning incendiary, with his bare hand, and bravely tossed it into the toilet, behind his seat, burning-off his right hand down to the wrist, as was clearly described in the autopsy. This speculation would also fit with the crash photos of the burned and melted metal toilet bowl, as well it corresponds with the recorded bloodcurdling scream on the TV station’s tape-recording. As Mr. Norton finished throwing the incendiary into the toilet, undoubtedly he was overcome by terrific pain, not to mention the horror of his missing hand, and so he might well have stumbled backwards, falling between the pilot and copilot seats and onto the pilot, which might explain the pilot’s recorded yell of, “Get him off me!” At this time, you could safely assume that Mr. Norton was in a profound state of shock, and the cabin was fast filling with smoke. But all of this is mere guesswork.

If the above suppositions are true, then the unfortunate Mr. Norton may have been something of a lionhearted man, since he had to have known he would lose his hand, by grabbing it. Still, tis doesn’t mean that he didn’t deserve what he got, for his past deeds, yet that is simply an ill founded possibility, I’m acknowledging as a possibility. When operating in the unknown, one most consider all possibilities. Burning thermite or white phosphorous would have been like grabbing a piece of the sun. If that is true, the vice president willingly accepted the loss of his hand, and the acquisition of immense pain. Since he was a former military man, there’s a fair chance, he recognized what he was grabbing. My God! Just try to imagine what it took for Norton to burn off his own hand, in an attempt to save the plane!

Mike Norton was most probably killed to coverup someone’s greed motivated wrongdoing. One thing for sure, if you’re the murderer and reading this, you’ll always know what you did, and my bet is that the older you get the less comfortable you’ll be moving around in your ever loosing skin; maybe I’m wrong about that. Perhaps, you’ll turn to drugs for comfort, probably cocaine or pills, but over time the use of such drugs has a way of becoming anything but comforting. The measure of a man is poorly calculated by his wealth, but more accurately by the goodness of his deeds, or the content of his character, to roughly paraphrase a famous murdered black man. I wonder who realized his killing.

If the thermite or white phosphorous hypothesis is valid, then the crash was obviously premeditated, and Bill’s hypothesis had few assumptions. It appeared that the application of Occam’s razor had indeed confirmed the crash was premeditated murder! Oddly enough, the police told me that someone, who refused to testify, had witnessed a large black car, delivering a package to the plane right before takeoff. They also told me that the car was owned by the attorney, who claimed to have received the dead birds, and who billed Mobile City Oil to the tune of a half a million bucks a year, and was also on the corporate board. This is the same attorney, who would have the kind of money needed to bribe people. For some reason, I was never allowed to speak with the person, who’d supposedly seen the car making that package delivery, since they’d requested anonymity, yet it is that same person, who might be a friend or relative of said attorney. One might reasonably assume that the deliveryman might have the person, who made the incendiary device.

After returning to the Mobile Sheriff’s Department, I laid the thermite/white phosphorous idea on the police. They seemed to think the idea (which I still pretended was my idea alone) had real credence, yet nothing came of it, because as mentioned, rather suddenly the local FBI had just up and dropped their investigation, the aforementioned chief police detective Jay Carns, unexpectedly left the Mobile County Sheriff's Department, and the corresponding evidence in the police evidence room mysteriously vanished. The newspaper and the television news stopped carrying the story, so people seemed to quickly lose interest. As one might expect, there was no outcry from the complacent general public, and most likely Mr. Norton’s widow was devastated, and unable to raise much of a protest. To date this remains an unsolved triple murder. Yet this story doesn’t end there.

Subsequent to my mentioning the thermite/WP idea to the cops, I got a call from a rather well-known local TV news commentator, Dave Gaudry. He was a former newscaster, turned documentarian. Dave interviewed me about the Mobile City Oil plane crash. On camera, I laid out the scenario, much like I’ve done above, again claiming credit for Bill’s first-rate thermite idea, which explained the high levels of blood oxygen, when the lungs were clogged with black suet. He didn’t ask me, who the evidence might have pointed to.

Later, when the interview tape was edited, and the TV show was aired, all of the cogent interview points had been omitted. Though I was disappointed and slightly perplexed, at the time, I just chalked it up to clumsy film editing. Maybe Dave’s assistant was high when he edited that, or he doesn’t understand anything about science. The editing had eliminated all the pertinent details, and failed to let the public know about the possible use of thermite, or white phosphorus; in fact, the foolish editing had largely left anything which pointed to murder! At the time, I just chalked it up to the fact that the interviewer or editor probably didn’t know much about science. Nevertheless, I thought I’d made the thermite explanation simple enough that the average TV viewer would have understood.

But perhaps my presentation of Bill’s theory at the police department had gotten back to the murderer, and the TV interview was actually meant to defuse me, or maybe it was to see how much I knew, since later, I found out that the building, which housed Dave Gaudry’s offices, was owned by the same corporate attorney, who was on the Mobile City Oil, who owned the black car, which I had been told had delivered a package to the plane, right before takeoff. This was the same attorney, who billed Mobile City Oil to the tune of a half a million greenbacks a year, and claimed to have mysteriously received a small collection of dead sparrows, and had more than adequate funds for some serious bribing, which appeared to have likely transpired.

It may seem far fetched that the FBI and the head investigator in The Mobile Sheriff’s Department could have been bribed, but what else could explain their suddenly ignoring the obvious? Moreover, said mystery attorney also might have been known to have had a personal relationship with the head of the FBI office in Mobile, and had it been true, it wouldn’t be the first time that an FBI agent was known have accepted a bribe. Let’s face it. It’s tough to ignore money just so you’ll look the other way. Inspectors in America’s port authorities look away all the time, to let those big cocaine shipments through. In fact, that’s how most cocaine gets into America, not the southern border, though that may change by the time I finish these books.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/dirty-fbi-agent-years-international-bribery-scheme/story?id=33772254

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/FBI-Agent-Charged-With-Falsifying-Records-Selling-Stolen-Drugs-297022681.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:FBI_agents_with_criminal_convictions

The feeling I got was that once the FBI and the lead police investigator had split the scene, and the evidence had disappeared, the remaining cops simply got nervous, and backed away from the case. With all the drug-related crimes, the police had enough to do, without worrying about some dead rich executive. It seemed that important people had been killed, or apparently bribed, and whomever the killer, he was definitely highly influential and deadly. Because of this case, the entire police force was divided into small warring factions, so they tended not to trust each other… et corporibuxs non unitae infirma.

After a while, the whole thing more or less just fizzled-out. Now days, if you walk around the streets of Mobile and ask, “Do you remember the Mobile City Oil plane crash, where that executive was killed?” Most people don’t recall it, or if they do, they say something vague.

“Oh yeah! I remember something about that. Whatever came of that, anyway?”

Later, Mobile City Oil agreed to plead guilty to illegal political contributions. The company paid a half a million dollar fine. This fine involved the dead birds and the plane crash. How that related to the apparent murder of three men, I’m not to sure about. Mr. Norton was probably going to expose that wrongdoing, but fair more, much more grievous things. Years later, one of my students happened to be the grandson of Mike Norton, and so I was invited to meet, Mrs. Sarah Norton, the wife of the deceased Mike Norton. She appeared to be a highly intelligent and a scrupulously honest individual, as well as a woman who sincerely loved her deceased husband.

Mrs. Norton was still interested in receiving justice (not revenge) for his death, and described several things about the apparent murder, for in her mind, her husband’s death was certainly a murder! She mentioned that the day of her husband’s funeral, she’d returned home early. The funeral had simply been too much for her to bare. When she entered her house, in a state of profound depression, she was shocked to discover she had an intruder inside! The home invader, was strolling down her interior stairs, as if he was inside his own home. Upstairs was where Mr. Norton’s home-office had been located!

The contentious interloper momentarily stopped on the stairs and just casually told Mrs. Norton that he was going through Mr. Norton’s home-workplace to make sure there was no Mobile City Oil business on his (Mr. Norton’s) computer, which she (Mrs. Norton) would need to worry about. Earlier that day, when she had departed the house to attend the funeral, she was sure that she had left the house locked! Who do you think had apparently picked the locks, entered the Norton home, and had been in Mr. Norton’s office, making sure there was no evidence on Norton’s home computer?

No doubt, you’ve guessed it. It was the extremely wealthy sparrow man... the very wealthy attorney with the black car which had delivered the package to the plane! It probably wasn’t the attorney, who delivered the package, but supposedly it was his car, driven by someone else, who then delivered said package. It was the same attorney who had sufficient funds to have bribed the involved officials. It was the same attorney who was later involved with the federal investigation, which levied the half million dollar fine for manipulating politicians. Who better to manipulate a case than a brilliant, extremely wealthy attorney, who was on the board?

Mrs. Norton didn’t seem to agree that the attorney’s claim that he was her husband’s friend was genuine. Possibly what the Mobile City Oil attorney was concerned about was whether there was something incriminating on Mr. Norton’s home computer, or in Mr. Norton’s file cabinet. The aforementioned attorney of Mobile City Oil, has since gone on to build a huge law firm, and has become one of the most famous attorneys in the nation. While I was asking around about the airplane disaster, I was lucky enough to see my Dad, one night. There he was smiling, standing by his mirror-shiny DC-3, with three bodies already loaded-up and ready for dumping in the ocean. Unlike the earth’s actual oceans, the dream ocean was limitless.

“I know a lot of people get killed and dumped in the ocean, Joey, but can’t you do something about this kind of stuff? You know two of those guys were pilots, and they’re my favorite kind of people, and that murderer is still strutting around, thinking he’s something special. He was just lucky that apartment building was empty. Think about that potent fact, son!” Dad said, shaking his head, as if it was somehow my fault, and for just a moment, I felt like I was worst than the murderer, for not doing something. Normally in that reoccurring dream, I feel the warmth of friendship with my Dad, which I never had in real life, but in that version, I also felt shame, as if I let Dad down.

Remember the old saying that, ‘evil flourishes when good men do nothing?’ It might have been Edmund Burke, who first said that. He’d been an Irish statesman and author, as well as a big supporter of the American revolutionaries. He, and a number of the revolutionary leaders, had started the ball rolling: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Baron de Montesquieu, etc. In the movies, the good guys come out on top, and the bad guys are punished. In the current world, it’s a much tougher call, and is generally not a matter of luck, but directly owing to things like: bribery, blackmail, coercion, firepower, and capacity to murder. The good guy in this story was the two air crew and probably Mike Norton. The attorney, who may well be the bad guy, still enjoys a great life, one of massive fortune and fame. Some guy named Phil still gets him his cocaine for their parties. The wealthy man has several houses around Mobile, enjoys a marvelous yacht, and owns scads of one-of-a-kind collectibles, and he contributes to many worthy charities. I’ve seen most go them, none are cheap, most with historical significance.

On-the-other-hand, the wealthy attorney may be completely innocent and the company plane just accidentally burned-up, or someone else committed the heinous crime, not the attorney. Anyone on the Mobile City Oil board could have orchestrated the crash. But never forget, that it was the attorney, who was one of the first to scream that the plane crash was murder, since he is the one, who claimed to have received the warning of dead sparrows! It was the attorney’s car, which was supposedly seen delivering the package to the plane, just before takeoff! It was the attorney, who served on the board, and had enough money to bribe officials! Moreover, it was the attorney, who invaded the Norton home and rummaged around in dead Mike Norton’s office, while the wife was away at her husband’s funeral! Then there was the minor fact that it was the attorney, who owned the building where my interview had been conducted; the same interview which had been bogusly edited, when it finally aired! The evidence, relating to the crash, clearly screamed murder!

Remembering Occam’s Razor, the Mobile City Oil attorney only just seems to fit the evidence, but again for all I know, it could be someone else, who sabotaged the plane, and Occam’s razor won’t hold-up in court, not without some sort of irrefutable proof. Perhaps, there is something in Norton’s past, which warranted his killing, but even so, why kill the two air crew, and risk killing all those people on the ground, during the crash? It this case, the two good men, flying the plane became almost invisible. The entire event seemed like a sad Kabbalah.

Still, it was the attorney and a couple of other characters affiliated with Mobile City Oil, who claimed that MCO’s nefarious business dealings were the work of, Mr. Mike Norton, but since he was dead, he couldn’t defend himself. It’s always easy to denigrate the voiceless dead. There’s the possibility, that one day the aforementioned lead investigator, who inexplicably left the Sheriff’s Department to live in a condo on the gulf, may have a change of heart. And of course, there’s that minor nagging fact that murder has no statue of limitation!

Nevertheless, my maternal Grandpa, the famous attorney, used to say, that he could bury anyone with enough circumstantial evidence. Perhaps, my Mobile drug-dealing nemesis, Black, who’d almost gotten me busted in the trap-house, is back digging graves at the old Jewish cemetery, בֵּית קְבָרוֹת. If the attorney gets old enough, and death comes-a-knocking, my bet is he’ll still never divulge a scintilla of the truth. On-the-other-hand, while there are those, who will unequivocally tell you that no amount of good can make-up for murder; still, I’m not totally convinced that’s accurate. After all, there have been many murderers, who turned their life around. Check-out Renald “Ren” Moore.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/this-former-convicted-felon-just-became-a-college-valedictorian_n_585721b8e4b08debb789a7d6

Some might say you can’t buy forgiveness. On the other hand, money can be used to do a lot of good. Certainly, there is more complexity to that Norton murder, than I’ll ever realize, and there is the real possibility, that I have made some inaccurate assumptions, herein. The older I get, the more ignorant I feel, but that’s only partially owing to my brain slowing down. While there may not have been enough evidence left to criminally prosecute the Mobile City Oil attorney, there may have been enough for Mr. Norton’s widow to make a rather potent civil case; nonetheless, the gentle elderly woman never pursued one. After all, there’s no telling what kind of accident might have then befell her.

Obviously, after the attorney had let himself into her house, her home wasn’t exactly safe. Lately, the kindly woman has just been watching the turtles in the pond, behind her home, and enjoying what’s left of her time with her family. But, there is little doubt that the attorney is held in a special dark and chilly spot in her broken old heart. On the other hand, I have no genuine idea about the true nature of Mr. Norton.

Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

I’m barely wise enough to know I haven’t any. Over the span of a few years, I ended up working on a number of different police cases, but I always asked to be kept in complete confidence, since often I was more afraid of the police, than I was of the criminals. Too many seem to be the type, who loves to hate, and lives for the moment where they can arrest, or harm, or in some cases, even kill. Mobile has various powerful people: politicians, drug dealers, car dealers, media owners, gang leaders, judges, lawyers, etc., and not surprisingly each of the bad ones tends to be in some way affiliated with a faction of the police. Most of the board members of Mobile City Oil were affiliated with certain cops, whether it be the upper or lower echelons. From time to time, I see that attorney. We eat at a local barbecue restaurant, but we’ve never spoken.

Most of the cases I worked on and solved, I would just anonymously phone-in the pertinent information to some investigator. Generally, I’d stand by some payphone, while a friend, usually a black female, phoned it in for me, so I didn’t have to use my voice, and the black accent often messed with the investigators head, especially if the case involved only white people. Now days, you’d need to use a cheap disposable burner-phone, call from some nebulous location, without satellite coverage, and avoid calling near cameras, then dispose of the phone. Get someone else to buy the burner phone, since stores have cameras, and tell them if someone questions them about the phone, to say that they lost the phone, so the investigator might assume someone else had found it, and made the call of interest. Wear a big floppy hat, and make sure there are a lot of people in the area and no cameras, so you can’t be pinpointed making the call. If a camera is unavoidable, facial recognition software can be defeated by wearing a wig which partially obscures the face, thick framed glasses, sticking cotton balls inside the mouth between your guns and cheeks, and behind the upper or lower lips, and by making a few saline injections on: the point of the chin, the bridge of the nose, or the cheek bones. The saline protuberances usually only last an hour or two, and can be removed by again using the needle to extract the injected fluid. You might also want to change the eyebrows by plucking them, or adding to them with eyebrow pencil, and consider wearing colored contacts. Having said all that, keeping your face looking down, and wearing the facial obscuring wig is often sufficient. If your hands are visible from above, apply cosmetic scars and veins, and wear a junk, thrown-away watch. My might also want to wear disposal clothes, you got from a yard sale, or thrift store. Be aware that the phone’s GPS can later allow the satellite to recordings to spot you, as well as your ingress and egress. Satellites, which are barely above the horizon, will film your face. More than once have CIA folks been bribed, ergo a rich man might get those sate photos.

In order to get a bona fide reaction from the police, I often had to report my findings several times to several cops, and maybe even to an involved attorney or two, by calling the defense attorney, or the State Attorney’s Office. You’d be surprised about how often the cops would not pursue a valid lead, especially if it meant the person they’d already arrested could be proven innocent. Too many cops enjoy action, as opposed to justice.

One time, the cops refused to act on my tip, so I called a newspaper reporter, identifying myself as the police officer, who was investigating the crime. That got the ball rolling. Occasionally, because of the police failing to respond, I’d write an anonymous letter (Using a fake name and address to encourage the judge to take it seriously.) to a judge, always being cognizant of finger prints, hairs, fibers, and the saliva on the envelope gum. Here again, I’d often ask a friend to do the writing and mailing. Now and then, I’d collect a hair or two or some fibers from public places, to leave in the envelope, or stuck to the sealing gum. If I used gloves, I didn’t use latex, because of the powdery residue.

One young black man, whom I definitively knew to be innocent, was held in jail for over a year, for a murder he didn’t commit. All the while, the police pretty well knew he was innocence. The only thing they had on him was some extremely flimsy circumstantial evidence, and they knew the young man was penniless, non-aggressive, and fairly uneducated, so they were assured that they faced no reprisal, in the form of a lawsuit, or physical harm. They just wanted to close the case, and justice be hanged, or rather electrocuted. The State prosecutors, even had the young man’s public defender, tell me to back off, or I’d be arrested for ‘interfering in an investigation.’ All I had done was to find witnesses to the actual murder, and asked them to sign affidavits as to what they’d seen. In essence, I’d handed the cops the real killer on a silver platter, but it just made them angry, since they’d arrested the wrong guy… never mind the innocent man’s spending a year in the slammer, for nothing!

Of course, a rigorous prosecution is the legal posture, which the State is supposed to maintain. But here in Mobile, when a guy gets arrested, the cops just want the arrest (their gold star), the State just wants a guilty verdict, and the vastly overworked public defenders are next to useless, only bowing-down to their giant workload and presenting plea-bargains. Consequently, justice is seldom attained, and far too many innocents are locked away. White people typically assume that almost all the blacks, who have been arrested are guilty, but from what I’ve seen in Mobile, it seems that about one in three blacks, who are sent to prison are innocent, or at least not deserving of prison. And even blacks, who are guilty, are given overly lengthy prison stays.

When speaking in person with an investigator, I’d usually use a phony name, often a Latino name, because I’d employ a slight Spanish accent, with the occasional Spanish word thrown in. Sometimes, I’d slightly mispronounce my last name, or when spelling it I’d add or subtract one letter, or reverse two letters. That way, if they found out the truth, they just assumed that I’d made an honest mistake. Since my last name is Bone, I’d slur the word into ‘Boone,’ or if orally spelling it, just stutter-out the extra ‘o.’ But since I was just passing-on accurate useful information, while minimizing or lying about how I gotten it, the cop would correctly assume, I was only a concerned citizen, and rarely questioned the legitimacy of my name. Those techniques would probably no longer work on the cops.

As time passed, I came to realize that helping the police could be a strange, if not dangerous business. Ninety percent of the cops had too much aggression. More than the job called for, and too often, it was beyond their control. So the dangerous aspect of working with the cops wasn’t the criminals, but was due to the cops themselves, as well as the various dubious officials and attorneys, to whom said cops had pledged their undying allegiance. Many cops had sold their soul, so to speak. When I first started investigating crimes, I relished the idea that there are good cops and trustworthy officials, who would make propitious use of the fruits of my meager investigative endeavors. I should have stopped looking into things and stopped turning-over rocks, but I felt I had something of a knack for solving crimes, and so quite enjoyed it.

Often, I’ve contemplated the question of whether there is more justice outside the law, than under the law. According to my highly astute Dad that’s a stupid question, for in his mind, most cops were not much different, than many of the criminals they pursued and arrested, and my Dad was rarely wrong, but never lied. After having successfully been set-up once, by the police, and seriously threatened another time, I no longer had anything to do with helping law enforcement. One of those threats is mentioned in a later chapter, but for my own wellbeing, many of my encounters with the cops, aren’t mentioned, herein.

This is not to say, that there weren’t good and moral cops, nor is it to say, that there aren’t honest officials, for indeed, there are. Still, it is to say that in good ole Mobile there are far too many bad ones, and if the news is even half accurate, such police officers are getting to be more and more common. Correspondingly, the percentage of psychopaths in the world’s population has been steadily growing. If Trump gets elected, my bet is the cops will operate with impunity. The problem with the white people’s perception of the cops is that the vast majority of cops are like themselves… fairly honest! It’s a typical flaw in basic human psychology.

That’s why liars think that most people are like them, and lie frequently. Lots of dopers think that most people indulge in some form of drug. A large percentage of criminals think that everyone’s a criminal, but that most folks just haven’t yet gotten caught. Most weed smokers think that most people smoke weed, and most nonsmokers assume that there are fewer weed smokers, than there actually are. A large percentage of alcoholics assume that most people drink, and most of those that don’t drink would like to drink. Many straight people erroneously believe that there are very few true gays. Most gays think there are more gays than there actually are, and that almost everyone has a small amount of gay, lurking somewhere in their personality. Most Christians think that most Americans are Christian. Mentally ill patients often assume that most people suffer with some form of mental illness. No three pounds of gray mush is the same… billions of neurons, each with hundreds of connections… far more unique than fingerprints… too many circuits for there to possibly be a descent match.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1080/00048670802363667

At one time, America stood as the world’s premier symbol of freedom, but now America locks-up more of its citizens per capita, than any country on earth! America now deprives more of it citizens of their freedom than any other nation. If that trend continues, locking away more and more of our citizens, where does that finally leave us? What percent of our population will be enough? This may be emblematic of an increase in psychopaths working in our government, for who wants power more than a psychopath, unless it’s a racist psychopath, and as late psychopathology is plainly on the rise, and so is racism. Perhaps, these elected officials and corporate heads are the ones, who need to be deprived of their freedom. Crime must rise, when the economy is designed to serve the rich. While Obama has taken steps to reduce prison populations, and release nonviolent offenders, most of the presidents, prior to him, did the opposite, as probably will the next president, whether it be Wall Street-backed Hillary, or all about money-and-attention Trump.

Certainly, if Trump gets into office, being a Republican, he’ll probably make sure the foolish war on drugs gets ramped-up, which will only worsen the drug problem, and serve to increase the already inflated prison populations. On the other hand, Trump might be the guy to prosecute the pill mills, to urge the Attorney General’s office to authorize the DEA to start busting them Right now the DEA overlooks the pill mill doctors. He also might help grant the DEA a bigger budget. If you think Trump will win, invest in the Prison stocks: Corrections Corporation of America, Geo Group, CoreCivic, etc. Since America locks away a greater proportion of its people, than any other nation, what might that say about America? We lock-up a greater percentage of our folks than does: Iran, Russia, Somalia, Libya, North Korea, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Egypt, etc. More than all the countries, which we desperately love to criticize as being oppressive governments… ‘America… nation of prisons.’

Locking-up so many of our American citizens better insures the survival of an pernicious form of political control; since a disproportionate number of those locked away are non-whites, and a disproportionate number of those non-whites are relatively harmless, usually they’re just desperate to escape poverty, or they’re addicts. Americans, who agree with such incarceration tactics, may be similar to those German citizens, who once supported Adolph Hitler; sometimes, such folks are actually well intended, but nevertheless they’re ill informed. However, almost all those fine supportive German people, who didn’t died in the war, later regretted their supportive decision, when they more fully understood the full magnitude of Hitler’s dealings.

But what happens, when the right wing begins to lose control, for sooner or later, lose control they must? Just do the population math, and consider how insistent DNA can be. Many more younger people will soon be voting, and they lean to the left, especially when it comes to human rights and the environment! Besides, just how many prisons can be built, and what do you want America to be remembered for… prisons? I don’t think so! The law says that everyone is equal; so why not treat people equally? To do so is not as hard, or as dangerous, as many right wingers might suspect. Right wingers actually seem to not just hate other races, but fear them. Truly, people are not all equal, but they deserve equal rights, and equal justice, regardless of their: age, sexual preference, abilities, religion, attractiveness, education, wealth, race, looks, etc. For example, there are many people, who are smarter and harder working than I, so do I deserve to have less rights?

The government exists only to serve its’ citizens and should serve them equally, and might do well to adopt ways of nurturing its’ less fortunate citizens, as much as it now punishes them, with minorities being arrested more often, typically having less satisfactory legal representation, being locked away more often, and getting the longer prison terms, relative to their offense! Money makes a difference in the American legal system, just ask the dead Mr. Norton and his two aircrew. Currently, neither political party earnestly strives for equality. Too many Republicans are simply flat-out racists. Some Republican racists honestly feel they’re not, when in fact they are. I’ve meant many such people, who are in that weird form of self-denial. The Democrats, who lack an appreciation of what it takes to grow and manage a major corporation, seem to only help the poor, but just enough to garner their votes, which also tends to corrosively destroy their desire to work, and their efforts to get ahead. Many of those, who become trapped by welfare, tend to blame the world for their own lack of incentive, and so welfare can sometimes contribute to a type of moral decay, and gives birth to reverse racism. Certainly not all people on welfare are lazy or immoral or racists, just far too many of them. This situation lends false credence to the position of hateful racists. Perhaps, America needs to slowly phase-out most of welfare, but only if it is successfully replaced with genuinely good jobs and better education, but to effectively insure education, greater efforts must be made in the school to control bullies. A repeat offender (bully) should be forced out of academic school, and into a trade school. One possible solution to the schoolyard bully is the judicious use of online school.

Perhaps, the bully should be ordered to use online school, or maybe every student should use online school. That might eliminate the need for those huge school buildings, and other things: maintenance, heating and air-conditioning, lights, grounds care, school buses, fuel bus maintenance, etc. Online schooling might eliminate in-school racism. Before welfare rose its’ ugly head, more poor minorities (men and women) worked, than did folks in the middle and upper classes. The poor were the hardest workers, but as of late, they are falling into a miasma of financial, legal, and moral decay. This is worsened by the racist actions of the police, as well as the inequalities (rich vs. poor, white vs. black) of America’s justice system. Prior to the welfare rolls ramping-up (before 1976), there were less than 200,000 people in prison. After that, the graph literally exploded, with prison populations climbing, like a Minuteman III ICBM.

https://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf

https://www.google.com/search?channel=iphone_bm&sxsrf=ALeKk03yS47uPMqdIsdzwOetkDsyYeXrjA:1594568381100&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=graph+of+people+on+welfare+by+year&client=safari&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjaobOPhsjqAhVBQ6wKHQDpD4wQsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1023&bih=759#imgrc=Q7x3g7Q_Y2DiYM

http://www.censusscope.org/us/chart_race.html

You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall live with you in your midst, in the place which he shall choose in one of your towns where it pleases him; you shall not mistreat him.

Deuteronomy 23:15-16

Anger… the self-destructive allusion of mastery.

Momentos Quod Solis

Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart, whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Stink weed…