Breaking The Waves

 My older brother is just a little older today. Try as I might, he continues to elude me, age-wise.

And wise-wise, for that matter. It makes some sad sense that this is the guy so many have turned to when it was time to pass to the other side. He has shepherded more than his share of folks through that last little bit of life and managed them with care and dignity. It is, dare I say, a super power we might not have reckoned on when we were growing up. 

Or maybe we should have. He was the point person when my parents were out for the evening. Like the one time our parents decided to ring in the new year at our cabin in the mountains. They were heading up the road a piece to have some adult beverages and company, leaving three boys in a log cabin with no electricity or running water with the admonition that we keep the fireplace and the stove stoked with wood as it was going to get cold outside. Mountain cabin in winter cold. My older brother took these words to heart, and when my parents were out the door, he set about creating a system by which we could make sure that neither of those fires went out. My younger brother and I were assigned the task of keeping the wood boxes full, while the eldest of us keep feeding the flames. 

My father used to tell the story about opening the door when he came down to check on us. "Like a blast furnace," he would say. His three sons were bustling about, pajama shirts off, sweating to keep the home fires burning. No one was going to freeze on this night. 

My older brother was the guy who drove me places. There were adventures in his truck that included drive-in movies and amusement parks. It was he who first suggested the phrase "let's go chug some nachos." I paid close attention to his rites of passage, knowing that his was the path that I would follow. This didn't always mean that we saw eye to eye on everything. There was some sibling rivalry on my part. Anytime I could find my way into a spot that was better, faster, bigger than my big brother, I took some quiet pride. He was mostly patient with my need to assert myself, but at the end of the day, we both knew who the big brother was. 

And so it goes. Another trip around the son puts our age difference back to the four years we know nine months out of every year. I'm so very glad to have him out there in front of me, breaking the waves.  

Normal

 One of the "bright spots" of the flurry of indictments for our former game show host/twice impeached felon of an ex-president is the way that we haven't had to pay as much attention to the carnage taking place on our streets. But, just in case you were thinking there was some sort of moratorium on mass shootings while we try to find a cell big enough for Little Donnie and his ego, you should know that the pace of Americans killing one another with guns hasn't slowed appreciably over the past few months. 

Gun violence in America is a lot like the weather. We have weather most every day, but it takes some sort of hurricane or hail the size of canned hams to get us to notice while our democracy continues to teeter on the cliffs of insanity. Like when a white supremacist takes his hate for black folks off the Internet and out onto the streets of Jacksonville, Florida. 

On Saturday, twenty-one year old Ryan Christopher Palmeter fired eleven rounds at one woman sitting in her car in Jacksonville, before entering a shop and murdering another two people. All three of his victims were African-American. Then, as is the habit with murderers of this stripe, he turned his gun on himself. Mister Palmeter left behind a series of hate-filled manifestos, as is the habit of murderers of this stripe. Sheriff TK Waters told the media, "He knew what he was doing. He was one hundred percent lucid. He knew what he was doing and again, it's disappointing that anyone would go to these lengths to hurt someone else." As is the habit of murderers of this stripe, he bought his weapons legally, and then picked his targets with no particular agenda beyond the color of his victim's skin. He had the time to decorate the stock of his AR-15 rifle with swastikas. 

Again, a bright spot: He was turned away from the campus of the historically black Edward Waters University, when a security guard asked him for identification. He left in his car and headed back downtown where he killed  Angela Michelle Carr; Anolt Joseph “AJ” Laguerre Jr., and Jerrald Gallion. Because they were black. 

These killings took place on the sixtieth anniversary of the March On Washington. 

In 2017, Palmeter was held under Florida's Baker Act, which allows a person to be involuntarily detained and subject to an examination for up to seventy-two hours during a mental health crisis. "Normally" a person held under the Baker Act is restricted from purchasing firearms. 

I guess this wasn't normal. 

Or was it?

See you at the next indictment/hurricane/mass shooting. 

The Price We Pay

 Some people will want to talk about Bob Barker's turn in Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore. It's a funny bit. It takes the familiar game show host and turns him into a tough guy. For laughs. Infinitely more amusing than the former game show host who decided to act like a tough guy by running for president. 

Robert William Barker went to that big showcase in the sky over the weekend, and multiple generations mourned his passing. He was the host of Truth or Consequences from 1956 to 1975, a nineteen year long gig. He followed that up by hosting The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007. If you're tracking that right, he had a three year overlap where he was the presenter of not one but two of the cornerstones of American Game Show history. 

He was also one eighth Sioux, growing up on the Rosebud Reservation in Mission, South Dakota. He attended Drury College in Missouri on a basketball scholarship. When he returned home from a stint with the United States Navy Reserve, he married his high school sweetheart and moved to Florida to build on his broadcasting career. In 1950, the couple moved to California where things really took off. Ralph Edwards picked Bob to replace Jack Bailey as the daytime host of Truth or Consequences. In 1972, The Price is Right came calling and he never looked back. 

In 1982, he began closing each episode by saying,  "This is Bob Barker reminding you to help control the pet population — have your pets spayed or neutered." His love of animals was backed up by action, not the least of which was his purchase of a ship that would interdict whaling in Japan. He was in Washington DC to testify before Congress regarding proposed legislation that would ban captive elephants from traveling shows, such as circuses when his health began to fail. A  carotid endarterectomy sidelined him for less than a month. A stroke slowed him down for a bit three years later, and as the new century rolled on, age caught up to him. 

But it wasn't until 2023 that the reaper finally came closest to the actual retail price of Robert William Barker. The Happy Gilmore bit was nice, as I mentioned, but what I will remember most about Bob Barker is the soda crackers and ginger ale. When I was home from school, that was what my mother served me while I was propped up in my parents' bed, watching daytime television. Daytime television that featured one solid hour of games and prizes geared toward the terrifically mundane price of a can of peas to that of an Audi R8 Spyder. Bob was my host for stomach flu and the Showcase Showdown. It might not have been the chicken soup that made me better. I think it was probably Bob Barker stomping on the Terra around Television City in Hollywood. 

He will be missed. 

Trouble With Numbers

 Sometimes, in the teaching profession, initial frustrations with a student can give way to understanding after all factors are taken into account. Learning for some is more difficult than for others. Little Donnie Trump may not have excelled in mathematics when he was young, and after being passed along grade by grade, teacher after teacher, that deficit became a fixed part of his world view. 

First grade may have been when the math train hopped off the track for Little Donnie. That is when the concept of "less than" and "more than" becomes vital. Even before you begin to add and subtract, it is important to have number sense. Six is bigger than three. Two is smaller than four. And so on. The symbols for less than and more than help some students comprehend this concept, but can confuse others. The wide end of the arrow faces the bigger number. The arrow points to the smaller number. For the younger set we often tell them that the "alligator" always eats the bigger number. 

Thus, if one were comparing electoral votes for example, 306>232. Additionally, 74,223,369<81,282,916.

Little Donnie may have assumed that every time you got fewer popular votes in an election, as he did in 2016, because we know that 65,844,954 >62,979,879 that he would go ahead an automatically get more electoral votes. He did that way back then: 304>227. This might also require some basic understandings of the United States Constitution, but Little Donnie's skill set does not seem to be up to the task of comprehending such a complex document. 

Which leaves us with the number thing. Add object permanence to that equation and you end up with quite a mess. Like that whole business with crowd size that continues to plague him. Size has seemingly always been a problem for Little Donnie. Like when he showed up for his arraignment in Georgia, he claimed to be six foot three inches, two hundred fifteen pounds. Which is thirty pounds less than his last White House physical reported. And let's just say that Little Donnie hasn't been skipping dessert since he left 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It could be that his tiny hands give him problems with perspective, but it could be that numbers just don't get along in his head. 

Please forgive me for taking so long to get to the punchline, but it has been a very long seven years. Or was it ten? Don't ask Little Donnie. He's not good with numbers. 

What If They Gave A Debate And Nobody Came?

 I have just received word of a gathering of presidential hopefuls. Apparently this event was held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and hosted by a "Faux News" organization, the Young America's Foundation and something called Rumble. My Qanon friends might recognize that last name as a streaming outlet known for its right of most everything content. Essentially Rumble is a place for folks who feel that Faux News just isn't crazy enough for them. 

Eight candidates, ranging in experience from zero to "president of my college fraternity," gathered on a stage to spout their support of one another and their vision for the future of the country. 

Just kidding. They spent two hours fighting for the scraps that were left when the big orange had a prior engagement. Taking a peek at the former game show host's calendar, it appears that he was scheduled to be arraigned in a Fulton County courtroom, finger printed and have his picture taken. For posterity. And also because that's what we do with criminals. 

Interestingly enough, the twice-impeached one managed to be the big orange elephant in the room that spent half of the debate ignoring his indicted presence. Instead, Faux moderator Martha MacCallum led off the evening by asking about the very pressing matter of the viral right wing anthem, “Rich Men North of Richmond." Martha got right into it: “Governor [Ron] DeSantis, why is this song striking such a nerve in this country right now? What do you think it means?” 

Nobody asked me, but I think it means that Faux News is afraid of stirring up these spineless sycophants. I think the fact that the current prohibitive favorite in the Republican Party's search for a candidate for President of the United States was not willing to show up and face the music, as a Rich Man South of Richmond, shows the continued break with reality that all these folks seem to share. 

On a related note, North Carolina governor Doug Burgum ruptured his Achilles tendon on Tuesday, but was able to attend Wednesday night's show because he "wouldn't miss it for the world." Which is kind of funny, since it seems that most of the world didn't feel that way. But, good for Governor Doug. 

Good for Rumble and the Young America's Foundation. If I hear about any more shows like this, I'll make sure to ignore it too. 

Mooning

On Wednesday, India became the fourth nation to land on the moon. This comes with some qualifiers, of course. India's landing was the fourth country to make a soft landing on the lunar surface. Four decades after Russia became the first country to hit the moon in 1959. It took another seven years for them to touch down lightly, allowing the Luna 9 to do something just a few months ahead of the Americans, whose Surveyor settled down lightly in June of 1966. China came in third, decades later in 2013, when they put a rover up there. It should be acknowledged that India managed their probe, Chandryaan-3, onto the south pole of the moon. Lunar landings have been primarily restricted to the equator until now. 

So there's some history there. Like the story of the first humans to land on the moon back in July of 1969. That was the United States. We got so good at it that we did it six more times. It would have been seven, but Ron Howard needed to make a movie about something, so we let Tom Hanks drive. And that almost ended in disaster. And even with that setback, the United States kept putting men on the moon until 1972.

Why did we stop going? Why didn't any other country send humans up there afterward? It could be that after Americans had driven all over the place with their dune buggies and even stopped to play a little golf there wasn't much mystery left. It might also have something to do with the way things were here on Earth at the time, and if you can imagine it, the public was getting bored with these astronomically priced missions (if you'll pardon the pun). 

As it turns out, the moon is a pretty desolate place. Plenty of rocks and dust, but not much in the way of atmosphere or ambience. It does have something going for it that a lot of other galactic destinations do not: distance. Current propulsion technology allows us to make the trip in about three days. Compare that to Mars, at about seven months, and you'll understand why human beings continue to reach out for a slice of that apocryphal green cheese. The Indian lander hopes to search the southern pole of our rocky satellite for traces of water, ice to be precise. Water molecules can be split into hydrogen and oxygen, thereby increasing the possibility of using lunar resources to breathe and create more fuel which happily can be created by recombining hydrogen and oxygen. Science!

Which drops me off here: Science is good. Science is important. We have cellular telephones because once upon a time we went to the moon. We can still figure out more things like how to get a social media app that truly supports free speech and how to get ketchup back in the bottle. But first we need to respect the science that we already have. We need to recognize when, after all those years of thinking that we lived on a dinner plate, suddenly we're a tennis ball. And what we do to our world matters so that we don't have to rely on other worlds to save us. These revelations are additions to our knowledge, not topics for debate. Chandryaan-3 did not land on a hunch. That was real. 

I saw it on Al Gore's Internet. 

Pile On

 The name of this blog is "Entropical Paradise." As I have mentioned previously, I had no idea that I was the only clever person to jam these two notions together: the random disorder in a system and a sun-drenched beach. Electronic music has their version, composed by Douglas Leedy. There is "a place for writers" on Substack. The Cleveland Institute of Art had a video installation exhibit a few years back. And though it may have become a part of Al Gore's Internet past, there was even a conservative-minded blog that used to compete with me for hits back in the day. 

All that being said, I find myself compelled to comment on the random disorder in this system once again from my soapbox way out here in the recesses of the aforementioned invention of former vice president Al Gore. On my way to work a few mornings back, I rode past a table that had been sitting on the street for a few weeks. Over the course of the time since I have returned to school, a twisted window screen was added to the pile. Then a couple of ratty old dining room chairs. The latest addition to the pile was a chunk of torn cardboard upon which was scrawled this message: "Stop leaving stuff here!"

I let that sink in all the way down the hill and wondered, as you dear reader must be doing right now, why someone would add to the pile by asking that people not add to the pile. 

Welcome to the random disorder in the system. Picking up after yourself has become difficult, if not impossible, for many. The result is the periodic monument of scrap left on curbs and corners across this great land of ours. To the great credit of the folks who frequent the neighborhood just outside our school, the heaps tend to be clustered around the garbage can provided by the city. The twin-sized mattress and the broken forty-two inch television do not, however, fit inside and have become an ersatz fort which no doubt houses a great many of our local rodents. 

But that mild effort has been made to collect refuse in a locale designated for refuse. The challenge being that our refuse production has far outstripped our capacity for dealing with it. Instead, there are those who feel that this is an invitation to contribute to the pile, making it more obvious until the point where it can be seen from outer space. Once NASA has notified local authorities, these pillars of waste will be moved. Or consolidated. Or more likely some kind soul will stop by with a Sharpie-scribbled sign that says, "FREE." 

Free to pile on.