It's what we came for, just ...

It's what we came for, just not the way we imagined.



Britannica.com
Dear Boomers and anyone wondering what went wrong.

We have seen so much: rabbit-ear TV, Bandstand, the birth of Rock 'n Roll, the Iron Curtain, the election of Kennedy, Russian shoe banging, Berlin Wall, Cuban Missile Crisis, Cold War, JFK, RFK, MLK assassinations, civil rights movement/protests, Vietnam/protests, a man on the moon, the space race, the arms race, the Beatles, muscle cars, fast forward to 911, wars in the Middle East, new planets discovered, the Internet, and now Covid-19.

Clearly, this is the shortlist. And in those experiences, we saw hope. The New Age, Aquarius, the Harmonic Convergence, rallies for peace and human rights. We were the Boomer Brigade and we were going to change the world, out with the old, in with the new and dispelling darkness along the way.

Then STUFF happened. Yup, all kinds of stuff. Incomes were good. Job security was good and there was plenty of credit available and we liked it. We bought lots of stuff, went out a lot, began to travel and enjoyed the newest throwaway gadgets, longed for the newest catalogs, charged up a storm and ignored (by many) the cries of Silent Spring. Not all, mind you, but most. We were coming into our social, political, and economic power and we were convinced that new technology would solve all of our problems.

It didn't. New technology created as many problems as it solved. We were killing Mother but we falsely believed that it would all right, it'll get fixed. It wasn't. And, as the Great Recession stipped many of their things, we came to realize that something went awfully wrong. We did not seem to usher in an age of peace and love, but rather a time of 1984 non-thinking, dumbed-down, non-empathetic, Big Brother is watching you, scorched Earth extinction ridden planet.

We became stressed out, made fortunes for the health care industry, and began to blame everyone and anything but us for our woes and sorrows. We failed in our mission, hell, we forgot our mission.

And here we are, being taken out by something some scientists claim isn't even living and stocking up on toilet paper.

Okay, that was the no so good news. But take heart my fellow Boomers, we are, in fact, close to mission accomplished! Yes, instead of taking the easy road, as usual, we took the hard road. I guess we all learn more this way. We thought the system could be fixed from within. We were, basically, wrong, at least the way we were doing it. And along comes Covid 19, which resulted from our dumb actions and spread because of our dumb president. We did not imagine that we would bring in the Light on a Dark Horse. But we have and this little dead thing has done more to change the world in months and we did in many years. I hate to say, but perhaps this was the plan all along. Many of you will remember bemoaning that we had no guidebook--it was lost or we just forgot to bring it. But if we saw this in the guide, I wonder what we would have done. Sure, we may have prevented the pandemic but things would have continued along the dead-end road we were on. This would surely have been a failure.

I think we may pull this. The lives we have and are losing are not in vain. The world will not be the same along this path and that's what we wanted, it's just not the way we imagined it. When it's all said and done, we'll gather our souls around those Light balls we created in 1987 and have a grand congratulatory Soul Fest. After that, we can then finally move on as awakened beings, awakened gods in search of new adventures in this infinite sea of consciousness.

BIG WAL-MART IS WATCHING YOU!

If this does not bother you, then all is lost. Have we become so accustomed to be watched that it is now okay to give all of our rights to privacy away? Have we so opened our lives in this social media world that we do not care if some can watch our every move and scan our homes to see what we have purchased?  BIG BROTHER is not the government, it is the Multi-National Corporation. This is the stuff of sci-fi coming true. This is the stuff that so many have warned about coming true. What is to prevent the scanners from recording information on your bank cards? What is to prevent your trash from being scanned? 

Congress needs to pass a law to stop this. Someone needs to invent a personal jamming device to prevent these scans. Or, someone needs to sell lots of magnets!!!

I truly hope the implications of this action doesn't not go unnoticed and that people will care enough to fight this type of intrusion into their lives. Really think about the implications.

"The retail giant Wal-Mart will place radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on underwear, jeans and other consumer items, according to several news reports, including one today from the Wall Street Journal. Companies have long used such "smart tags" to keep track of the inventory of goods going through the supply chain, but the move by Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, to put them on individual consumer items marks a (not unexpected) shift toward something that privacy advocates have long feared.

That's because RFID tags, which can be read at a distance and hence surreptiously, can provide a lot of personal information even if it does not carry it per se. Katherine Albrecht, a privacy and RFID expert who has been following the issue for years, described in a special privacy issue of Scientific American just how the tags pose new security risks to those who carry them, often unwittingly. Here's an excerpt:  

If the idea that corporations might want to use RFID tags to spy on individuals sounds far-fetched, it is worth considering an IBM patent filed in 2001 and granted in 2006. The patent describes exactly how the cards can be used for tracking and profiling even if access to official databases is unavailable or strictly limited. Entitled “Identification and Tracking of Persons Using RFID-Tagged Items in Store Environ ments,” it chillingly details RFID’s potential for surveillance in a world where networked RFID readers called “person tracking units” would be incorporated virtually everywhere people go—in “shopping malls, airports, train stations, bus stations, elevators, trains, airplanes, restrooms, sports arenas, libraries, theaters, [and] museums”—to closely monitor people’s movements.

According to the patent, here is how it would work in a retail environment: an “RFID tag scanner located [in the desired tracking loca tion]... scans the RFID tags on [a] person.... As that person moves around the store, different RFID tag scanners located throughout the store can pick up radio signals from the RFID tags carried on that person and the movement of that person is tracked based on these detections.... The person tracking unit may keep records of dif­ferent locations where the person has visited, as well as the visitation times.”

The fact that no personal data are stored in the RFID tag does not present a problem, IBM explains, because “the personal information will be obtained when the person uses his or her credit card, bank card, shopper card or the like.” The link between the unique RFID num ber of the tag and a person’s identity needs to be made only once for the card to serve as a proxy for the person thereafter.…"

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=should-you-worry-about-the-tags-on-2010-07-23&sc=CAT_SP_20100726

ARREST ME NOW! GUEST BLOG BY SHANNON EVANS

Arrest me now. I may not be Arab, Muslim, or male but I do fit the profile of the two schmucks currently being much maligned by the FBI and the local papers for their “suspicious activities.” You see, I once lived in a fundamentalist Muslim country and was married to a Palestinian. I grew up in a small southern town where the tallest building was the Merchants and Farmer’s Bank and so I often stare up at the buildings in Seattle and any other large city I happen to be wandering. I was a civil engineer in my previous career and find myself fascinated by bridges, viaducts, railroad bridges, locks, dams, and other key pieces of urban infrastructure. I sometimes go on line to study architectural drawings. I have even been known to photograph these critical pieces as well as churches, mosques, and even the airplanes on the tarmac at SEATAC. I live on an island and yet I am still fascinated by the roar of the engines and the speed of the water as it rushes beneath me on the ferry. I still take pictures of the skyline, the Colman Docks, the stern, the bow, the galley, and other urban places that interest me on the ferries that come and go from our bucolic little island port. I once took a picture of the cute little coast guard fellow on the ramp leading to the boat because he was just cute as hell in his battle dress. I feel guilty as hell for all my subversive activities! Where do I turn myself in and to whom? The FBI? The Port Authority? Screw that! Send me the hotties from the Coast Guard!
There are more subversives in my family to arrest as well. Consider my son who is a commissioned officer in the US military currently training at a prestigious flight school sponsored by Uncle Sam. Seems to me he should be an object of great concern. Could he, an Irish/Cherokee/ Scottish/Arab American, be a deeply embedded covert Al Qaeda operative? Due to his deep-seated ancestral roots steeped in carnage and jihadist tribal behaviors could this red-blooded Arab American boy turn? Could he possibly be pre-programmed from infancy to ride his aircraft into a large building all in the name of Allah? Why else would he have gone to university to study to be an aviator? Why else would he have joined the military? He has to be a mole for Osama and the Boys!
How did the Arabs become the bad guys? When did we become so steeped in this new brand of ignorant isolationist bigotry? Islam, Muslim, Arab, Jihad. These words strike fear into the hearts of the ignorant masses of our country. FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, Patriot Act. These are the words that should strike fear in our hearts. They are the weapons of Mass Destruction. Being scared all the time and spying on my neighbors doesn't seem to be a real productive way to live one's life. Less than a century ago some of the finest men in the world fought against this same oppressive behavior in places called Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches along the coast of Normandy. Have we as a nation forgotten the nationalistic behaviors of the Germans as they sought to rid themselves of their Jewish population? Jews were different looking and accused of manipulating the world monetary institutions thus causing the great depression so they could profit and grow their ambitions. The NAZI party was a small but vocal group that instituted a system to spy on and seek out subversives who were Jewish or Jewish-looking. Photos and drawings were circulated to help the common folks identify potential suspects. Watched, photographed, and finally the leadership, knowing what was best for the “real” Germans, instituted a plan to take care of their “Jewish threat.” Their initial solution? Isolated “work camps” in other countries where Jews and non-conformist others (gays, lesbians, jazz musicians, gypsies, the mentally handicapped, and pacifist clergy to name a few) were sent for further interrogation and evaluation. This was all done in the best interest of the German people by their government.

Need we forget our own colorful past rampant with bigotry? I am a child of the south and frankly, I do remember White only/colored only washrooms, drinking fountains, and theatres. I lived through the hangings, the cross burnings, integration and George Wallace. I can remember a hot August when the local sheriff was up for re-election and all the local kids white and black were at the market getting an ice cream. One of the white kids stole a piece of penny bubble gum and slipped it in the shirt pocket of one of the “colored” boys. The minute the black children left the store the kid who planted the evidence said, “Mister, that nigger stole some gum and stuck it in his pocket!” The store owner ran out, confronted the boy, and held him until a deputy showed up. Cuffed, searched, and crammed in the back seat of the squad car he was driven away. The next day the headlines of the local paper screams, “BLACKS RESPONSIBLE FOR SMALL TOWN CRIME WAVE!” The arrest of an 8 year old child sparked near riots in the black community. There were those in the white community who called for a hanging but the prompt gun wielding riot gear clad sheriff’s response quashed the uprising. The grateful white population promptly re-elected the overweight tobacco chewing uneducated bigoted lawman.

If our reason for profiling is to stem terrorism then we better expand the list! Guantanamo will have to be enlarged to house our home grown redneck militia members who have attacked such auspicious government and private sites as the Oklahoma City federal court house, abortion and Planned Parenthood clinics. We should also create a special section on the base for the members of ELF who target the EPA and other environmentally linked facilities.

In the interest of saving the rest of the world from terrorism we better round up and tag all South American communists, Basques, Japanese Cult members, and Irish people. They have a propensity for blowing cars, buses, and trains up as well as carefully placing biological agents. Maybe these are all Al Qaeda satellite organizations that act as cells or Mastermind groups for the mass destruction of those who do not follow Sharia!

So, the next time you are on the Washington State Ferry and notice a skinny, red haired fellow with bad teeth and an Irish accent taking photos, detain him! Notify the authorities! You will only be doing your civic duty and saving us from the Celtic arm of Al Qaeda!



.