Civilization is a FRAUD – What’s so civilized about it?

 

‘The “civilized” have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their “vital interests” are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death; these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the “sanctity” of human life, or the conscience of civilized world.’  —James Baldwin

POVERTY IS A TOOL

It is in this writer’s opinion poverty, poverty as we know it in the modern world and in the modern sense, does not need to exist.

It is a byproduct of lifestyles, of policies, of politics, of psychologies driven through conscious and unconscious selections. But in recent centuries, the means to abolish poverty came to mean it was possible for humanity to share the wealth among its members, producing an age where poverty did not exist. Despite the occasional protestations about the end of the world or the world’s inability to support growing populations, Humanity continued to exist and grow. And grow more unequal.

Instead of growing more equal and egalitarian, society took a subtle but unpleasant turn toward selfishness, toward personal gain, toward greed and instead of abolishing poverty, poverty was embraced and recognized as a tool by those in control.

Poverty has been weaponized in modern society.

• Debt is the ultimate expression of power in this, our capitalist-focused pretense of a civilization;
• Fantastic (as in imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality, definition) personal wealth has become the ultimate billy club, the ultimate expression of force, more powerful than any legal system.
• The creation of socialized debt and poverty manufacture has become more enabling than any political power. More subtle than the quietly offered bribe and more invasive. More influential than any kind of charismatic leadership.
• Money has become the ultimate aphrodisiac, lubricant, and problem-solver as long as the problem requires lots of money to be thrown at it, in perpetuity, with subsidies for all (who deserve them and know how to lobby to get them).

Combine the use of weaponized poverty by the fantastically rich who use their wealth to create opportunities of social imbalance:

• Creating a “need” for education in the workforce while at the same time “providing” the resource at an exorbitant price, driving everyone into debt to participate due to the inescapable “requirement” for a degree to be had by everyone, even if you’re just serving fries across a counter in a fast-food franchise.
• Altering a police structure from a “protect and serve” environment of civil service to a “fee collection service” managed by local government in place to offset taxes no longer collected against the wealthy and now subsidized instead by taking even more from the already cash-strapped lower-class citizens of major metropolises already struggling to just stay in the rat race.
• Driving people to homelessness with any interaction with the civil system from a parking ticket to a speeding ticket. Any time a citizen in one of these cities meets a cop, there is a fee involved that will take away anywhere from a day to a week’s worth of pay in one interaction.
• With most people living just a paycheck from homelessness, to meet the police may be to greet your harbinger to homelessness or even outright criminality as you are forced to choose between feeding your family or paying a fine to avoid getting a bench warrant which will eventually end in your arrest.
• Creating a medical and health system so imbalanced that millions of people will go into debt through no fault of their own because the medical industry cannot be bothered with tracking and regulating itself so that people can find themselves in debt without even knowing it after a visit to the hospital that might have been thought to be covered by insurers.
• Meanwhile entire food industries are enriched by the creation of food-like products from industrial food processes which create and exacerbate health problems in societies across the world, shortening lifespans, reducing quality of life and driving people into the arms of a corrupt medical-industrial complex only too happy to capitalize on the dying while making no efforts to change the systems which create these sicknesses in the first place.
• The medical industry is little more than an accomplice in this orgy of food-product devastation across the planet.

People starve in lands of plenty, eating food that isn’t food, creating lives which end sooner, with a poorer quality of life. If the Sword of Damocles could be asked, it would be embarrassed by abundance of the damned dancing beneath it’s ominous shadow.

A PAUCITY OF JUSTICE

We have the dual justice system adding insult to injury in the lives of those not rich enough to buy JUSTICE and instead are forced to mutter beneath their breaths when the issue of the who the punitive aspects of our legal system are for.

They can reply unequivocally, “just us”.

Everyone who is worth less than a million dollars can agree, just as easily as the news media parades a multitude of cases before you, showing how the wealthy pay a fine when involved in atrocities that destroy the lives of millions and how the poor, even when they are engaged in non-violent, non-lethal crimes can find themselves arrested for upwards of three decades.

They are slaved out to corporate farms, fire-fighting teams, industrial widget builders and thralls-for-hire. Even when the murderer is clearly in the wrong for an act poorer men have hung for, somehow, an excuse, a malady real or imagined (i.e. affluenza) will excuse the wealthy from the punishments assigned to the rest of us.

Being poor in America is having a greater and greater meaning as the systems once used to bring prosperity to the masses creating a middle-class are dismantled under the guise of “de-regulation” when those regulations were put in place to protect all of us from the greed of capitalism run amok, unregulated, unconcerned with the effects of its rapacious growth on the environment, society, and ultimately upon itself as it strip-mines the people whom it needs to buy its products and services.

‘The man most likely to want to lead government, such as it is, the man most likely to believe government has to do more with what’s in his pocket than in is heart or head, also tends to be the least fit to do so. This delusion should be satisfied by electing such folk as dog walkers, given a collection of various animals according to their nature and ushered out to perform a civic duty they are so aptly suited for.’ —Mark Twain (he didn’t say this, but I think he would have!)

WHAT ARE WE DOING?

Is the final goal of this engine of capitalism to leave nothing but the scorched earth behind it as it absorbs the fruits and the bodies of its laborers toiling in conditions just shy of legally-sanction criminality, under the guise of double-digit corporate growth?

Is the goal to leave no natural rain forest unmolested, no oil-bearing shale deposit unmined, no natural resource unexploited for the sake of the next billion-unit gadget being sold to help folks masturbate virtually?

Is the goal to say “we are so wealthy, the environment doesn’t matter, burning carbon doesn’t matter, clean oceans bereft of all life, doesn’t matter; human lives where people have dignity, respect, education, a sense of worth and belonging to viable communities, doesn’t matter?”

Is the goal to remind us that all of the things we see in the media exist to serve the capitalist agenda of selling products, moving goods and ultimately pandering to created needs using propaganda, commercials and social manipulation of memes until people are willing to go into debt for the latest iGadget, no matter how many times a year it’s upgraded.

Is the goal really to say to everyone involved in this grand experiment of humanity to say “fuck you if you weren’t born wealthy or aren’t ruthless enough to sell your fellow humans up the river for your personal benefit?”

Is this why Pope Francis pisses everyone off? Because he has the temerity to point out to everyone who uses the teachings of the church as a cover for their cultural duplicity that he, as the titular head of that church, will not sit idly by and provide cover for their reprehensible behavior?

The Pope reminds us:

• Climate change is bad and we know it. We can lie and say “we’re not sure, but we truly already know its bad and saying anything but that is disingenuous at best.
• Punishing the poor for being poor, throwing them in jail, pushing them out of their homes is not Christian. Hell no it’s not. Nor is bringing back debtor’s prisons or redlining, or the prison-industrial complex. Making people poor and then arresting them for being poor is criminal.
• Hydraulic fracturing? How do you square the circle of saying we would rather have oil than water, when there are already millions around the world without enough water?
• Aren’t there corporations with no problem risking fresh water for millions of people deeming their lives less important than the billions of dollars to be made by using that water to get access to fossil fuels we could, if we were forward thinking, be putting aside for something better, using renewable energies instead.

THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU

This part is for my Sisters and Brothers out there who I trust have figured it out by now. America’s amble bosom does not provide equal nurturing for all her citizens. “With Liberty and Justice” for those who are properly connected and doing what the established system of inequality deems is your place to be.

People say its because the dominant subculture doesn’t take People of Color seriously and that is why they ignore us in the media.

While I use the term People of Color, I realize it is more inclusive to say anyone who isn’t part of the lucky sperm club. If you weren’t born rich, you are the problem and the system does take you seriously.

You are not necessarily a problem individually. After all, you are an individual without much in the way of resources, it’s only when you are part of a larger movement do they acknowledge you. But they have figured out how to keep those movements from happening. See: Occupy.

You see, they take us quite seriously and we are a far greater threat than we realize to them. You don’t marginalize an enemy that doesn’t matter.

You ignore him.

When you systematically make an effort to undermine a particular enemy, demonize him, incarcerate him, kill him, destroy his family, take his women, undermine his way of life, this is how you get rid of an enemy you fear.

If the system is doing that to YOU or someone in the public sphere, they fear them. They fear their power, their influence, their ability to generate a viral idea which might unseat them.

Their fear is of a Black Planet. Genetically speaking we are already a Black Planet since all life started in Africa but what they fear is the visual confirmation of something that already exists and will only continue from this point forward, unless in their minds, they do something about it.

Part of this article came about because of the deaths in Nigeria and why they haven’t managed to draw the attention of the deaths of the cartoonists in France this week.

They didn’t pay attention to Black deaths because, to them, they don’t matter. They never have. Likely, if current trends remain constant, they never will.

Since the end of “chattel slavery” the dominant subculture has done everything possible to attempt to return to the days of free labor. All of its “engines of progress” are simply other ways finding new ways to reduce the cost of labor which can be 50% of all costs for a business.

In other words, how can we make people work for less?

Slavery was the most effective means of wealth-building the United States and the world has ever known. And though it isn’t talked about in polite company, know organizations around the world are trying to find new ways of exploiting a worldwide workforce, without paying for it. See: “TransPacific Partnership”.

“Respectability politics” has never meant anything to the dominant subculture. Even when People of Color were self-supporting and maintained our own separate but equal facilities, towns, places we could call our own, they were never content to leave us in peace.

The bottom line is simple and few of us want to accept it. Racism is an economic ploy, not just a social one. It has allowed entire industries to blossom on the backs of bigotry, hatred and cultural appropriation and destruction.

Note the recent police “slowdown” in New York City where with the reduced activity of the police in across the city, our people are spending less time being arrested, harassed and cited, being forced to spend our already weakened dollars on fines, fees and defenses against a city using the poorest members to fill its coffers.

Adding insult to injury a recent news article by Reuters reports that lawyers and bail bondsmen are experiencing “economic hardship” because the police were funding their “industry” with arrests from our community. (http://www.reuters.com/…/us-usa-police-arrests...) What happened to the question of whether there should be as many of these services in the first place?

What needs to be understood is this: Poverty is a weapon. When you can control what a man earns and how he spends it, you can control all aspects of his life, his future and direct it in whatever fashion you want.

If we want to be more independent of this negative cultural control, we must find a way to free ourselves from the economic hegemony being exercised on our backs. Our children need to step away from the TV and get back to the basics.

Mastery of skills, mastery of self, preparation for the future, first by being educated and second by avoiding the media engine designed to undermine self-esteem, self-worth and self-determination.

Unless we can shake off our generations of “induced poverty” and “media-mentality” we have no chance of making effective strides in this society. If you wonder why nothing appears to change, that is the reason. There’s no profit in treating you as a person, with dignity, respect and a sense of individual purpose and wealth.

You are much more valuable as a brain-damaged, suffering, emotional wreck, barely able to pay your bills, willing to get into debt across the entire span of your life. Early in your life, with college debt, with a house in your middle years (if you’re lucky) and with numerous organ transplants or cancer treatments when you’re old.

They want to make money on you from the cradle to the grave.

Would you like fries with that?

Freeing People Since the Revolutionary War

Laugh. It’s okay. I’ll wait. I thought it was darkly funny too. Then I thought deeply about what it really meant. And this is what I came up with:

America’s Imperialist Policies: “Freeing” People Since the Revolutionary War

Or so they would have you believe. When I saw this graphic, I realized much of what has bothered me about the United States military is the very existence of that military and how it has been used since the forming of this nation. The military is the ultimate expression of “cognitive dissonance” and freedom.

• How free are we if we spend more than the next 14 nations who are our allies to maintain our military superiority?
• How free are we if we are free to starve in the streets, while millionaires look on at the starving masses from their helicopters?
• How free are we when we look down at the chicken we just bought from the market and have to wonder: “Is it safe to eat?”
• How free are we when our students leave school with more debt and less to show for it than any generation in 100 years.

To have a chance at a decent job, some of them will leave school with what we once spent on a house.

You remember those. Where people who live in tent cities across America used to live, in homes. Homes they have lost due to the collapsed financial market. A market where we have finally gotten around to slapping fines out but no executives of these banks who knew they were engaged in what should have been considered illegal activities have been sent to jail yet; if ever.

If you want to see a jail cell, then protest appears to be the way to go. Executives have to be caught eating a live human baby, on camera with at least 12 reliable witnesses and even then a good lawyer gets them “time served” and a napkin.

We say our military might is about maintaining our freedom. Freedom appears pretty expensive to me.

The need for the military and its purchases certainly appears to be more important than:

• schools – we don’t seem to value education anymore; no money? No education. We don’t plan on you making any decisions anyway so who cares if you learn anything?
• bridges – we haven’t had enough collapse to make anyone care, yet. With over 2,000 in a dangerous state of repair, its just a waitin’ game.
• roads – we are turning them back to gravel. FDR would be so proud.
• updating our electricity infrastructure – parts of the nation spend more time in the dark than the Amish
• water – no one is mentioning this number one hard to come by resource, nationwide
• waste management – take it to the landfill, no plan after that
• research and development – we don’t do that here, anymore
• manufacturing – precious little of this either
• plumbing and city-wide sewer and sanitation for every major metropolis in the US.

Thank God [sarcasm] we are still privatizing prisons. American innovation at its finest. [/sarcasm] 

Did I miss anything important? Wait:

• industrialized food production – or how to create foods that will eventually kill us
• genetically modified foods – no useful or specific testing before human use
• dying bee populations likely due to pesticide overuse
• antibiotic resistant disease management – welcome back to the age of dying-from-a-scratch. Penicillin we hardly knew ye…
• overpopulation – no need to stop now, we can break 10 billion by 2040.
• climate change – yes, I know, its a myth, like Creation, right?
• fracking and its poisoned waste water – we don’t need fresh water; fracking scientists assure me, flammable water IS still drinkable.
• oil production, oil sand extraction – moonscape anyone?
• lack of transition to non-oil based technologies – solar panels? We don’t need no stinking solar panels, or wind farms or biogas facilities. Peak oil is a myth too.

The US maintains over 600 military bases around the world. We have more fighters and bombers than we will ever use. We have cargo planes coming off the assembly line and being scrapped in the same year. We have so much military hardware, we are selling it to the police in our local communities.

Just what we need, antipersonnel vehicles on Main Street.

The military is a jobs program with a $600 billion dollar price tag. Yes, I said it.

That is the American way. We starve our schools while our fighter bomber programs roam free across the countryside, ensuring powerful defense contractors continue to get their piece of our “ignorant nation” pie.

American Imperialism is dead, hear tell it. Now that there are almost no nations we can destabilize and then attack under the guise of “freedom.” We are being told that our president has no sense of foreign policy. In conservative speak: no sense of foreign policy means any policy which does not put boots on the ground and food in a defense contractors mouths.

It has been the American way for so long to deliver freedom from the barrel of a gun or the bomber bay of attack aircraft if your country needed “freedom”. Freedom meant we bombed you into freedom and then you spent twenty five years “recovering” and not being an economic threat to our hegemony.

Clever plan, eh?

I would say our experimentation with a Democratic Republic has had a rocky road and almost no one who has tried to embrace our freedom, particularly after we send them a dose of HE has been successful in its implementation.

Could it be our brand of freedom comes at too high a price?

A friend of mine had this to say about the secrets a government must keep to maintain its control:

by H Wolfgang Porter

The thing that a staggering amount of people in the US cannot comprehend is how the government works on a multi-level, multi-tiered, multifaceted framework nationally and internationally simultaneously. Few people ever get to see the ‘whole picture’ and even fewer can comprehend it when they do!

Most folks see one small aspect of what the country does and support or flip out over it based upon the limited info they get from news sources (often singular.) What the government does is crazy deep. When you get things going at such ‘depths’, there’s a lot of ‘dark’ activities going on. Rarely are those activities stuff you’d want to shine a light on.

What’s jacked though is the people of the US benefit quite a bit from those things ‘done in the dark’. For everything perceived as ‘good and above board’, an unknown (probably for the best) amount of shadowy events went down to push that ‘light event’ into being.

No one in this country wants to acknowledge or admit that the US is an Empire. You don’t get to be an empire or ‘superpower’ in the world without a lot of people getting covered in blood and dirt. It’s jacked up because we want the country to present the best face and intentions possible at all times. But, in the real world it doesn’t work that way.

At best, ‘We the People’ should be working towards keeping our government ‘honest as possible’. It will never be 100% above board because other nations aren’t playing by those rules. Plus, we’ll always have people in power who have their own agenda and those folks with the money and influence to push them along. We counteract those factors by being well informed as possible and do our individual best to not look at everything through ‘tribal filters’.

There is No Future – A cheery film talking about why we need to start changing how we do things around here. Or else.

Is this a bad time to mention we still have 20,000 nuclear weapons rusting away quietly all across this nation, ready to keep us free (or begin to quietly fail) and be unable to launch with hunks of active plutonium waiting at the maybe secure launch facility.

Nothing to worry about. What’s the worst that can happen? An explosion of Freedom…

© Thaddeus Howze 2013, All Rights Reserved

© H. Wolfgang Porter 2013, All Rights Reserved

Can we stop worrying about Millennials yet?

I know it has been fashionable and even acceptable since Time magazine (pay-walled article) made it okay, but it is time to stop hating on the Millennials.

As a social group, they have enough issues without the socially acceptable, yet completely reprehensible treatment they receive in the media, particularly from the conservative side. But no one treats them particularly well, no matter which side of the fence you find yourself perched.

As an employer I have never had any issues working with them, understanding their expectations from work, or dealing with their often peculiar work ethic. I tried to treat them the way I would like to be treated with the understanding, their job was not the center of the Universe. And given how the workplace environment often treated them, I could completely relate to their viewpoint.

The Trickle Down Theory: The principle that the poor, who must subsist on the table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich, bigger meals. –William Blum

Seeing how I don’t happen to agree with that happily Reaganesque mindset either, enjoy playing a wide array of video games, like leaving work on time (screw unpaid overtime), focusing my time for things and people I enjoy like skateboarding, hang-gliding, pub-crawling, playing with my son and utilizing social media technology, in some ways, even though there are a few decades between our ages, I am completely in sync with their viewpoint.

The Boomer generation which currently rules the economic world and is giving themselves the best of executive pay, exotic homes and off-shore bank accounts seems completely dickish by complaining about a social group that starts with so little all things considered and expected to handle the worst of the Boomer excesses while starting off in debt, with poor credit, with criminalized poverty, no homes, no cars and little in the way of effective training in “How to Screw Over Your Fellow Workers While You Dine, Shark-like, on Their Inner Organs.”

Lately, I have been questioning the wisdom of indenturing out children with the idea they should have to pay for an education. I recognize we are a profit-driven society, but I believe paying for education should be something society does for our children, not the other way around. We invest in them so they can, return that investment in the development, improvement and effective management of the Commons. In countries like Sweden, Finland and places where reason is still a facet of their social consciousness, they recognize investment in youth, improving their lifestyles in the future. They look at us with nothing but contempt. I secretly sneer with them…

This should be a no-brainer. Instead, someone decided they should not only pay for education, but it should cost them as much as a home in the Midwestern United States. Anywhere from $30,000 to $250,ooo ended up seeming like a reasonable amount of money to pay for an education.

But wait, there’s more. We have also told them they should leave college in great debt, bearing great responsibility (paraphrasing Spider-Man) and do it with minimum wage pay. When you do the math, using the debt they leave college with and assuming minimum wage pay, it will take nearly as long as a 30 year mortgage to pay off and cost double the amount of the starting debt.

We have told our children that they have to save the world while being handicapped with major debt while starting off poorly socialized. Consumer technologically literate and hyper-connected but only interested in things which promote their internet meme of choice and assorted cat videos. Cursed with short attention-spans and the entire bulk of the world’s knowledge at their fingertips, they flit from info-bit to info-bit, full of memes and fury, signifying nothing.

So, how about we get off their backs, give them some tools, get away from our partisan political bickering, stop putting wealth and profit before streets, sewers, bridges and opportunity to participate in what was once one of the greatest economies in the world and find a way to help them with the long, damned list of things that have been screwed up under our watch during the era of Saint Reagan and the Greed Over People party. And no, I won’t give the Democrats a pass because they did their share of dirt too. They just appeared to care a bit more (and seemed more emotionally disturbed when they were caught doing dirt) while they were doing it.

The Millennials with our help will have to tackle a long list of issues. What issues? Here is a quick and dirty list:

• reasonable and affordable health care,
• a collapsing economic structure that needs a complete retooling,
• reducing military interactions in foreign countries,
• feeding and caring for the disenfranchised members of our societies,
• our failing education system and improving its quality,
• economic disparity between the rich and poor,
• the digital divide all over the world and in all layers of economic strata,
• effective socio-economic relationships with other sovereign nations,
• global climate control and management,
• toxic waste and overall waste management,
• desertification of our food producing areas on our planet,
• destruction of our planet’s rain forests at 20 square miles a day,
• eradication of cancer,
• HIV, AIDS, and management of growing list of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, 
• renewable energy development,
• loss of fossil fuels and what that means to our lifestyles,
• failing infrastructures of power and roads and
• corporate malfeasance just to name the few I could think of in about 30 seconds. 

Can we stop worrying about Millennials yet? We have so many other, more important things to deal with…

Don’t get me started on Instagram…

The Overblown Death of the PC (part 2)

“The PC Market is collapsing.” –Business Insider

“Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have taken the world by storm. Apple launched theiPhone six years ago. Three years later came the iPad. Google sold its first Android phone in 2008, five years ago. Is the PC dead yet?” –Yahoo Finance with the Business Insider

In Part One of The Overblown Death of the PC we talked about the reasons people believed the personal computer to be on its way out. I disagreed with almost all of them.

But that conversation on LinkedIn continued and the overall message shifted to virtualization, thin clients, and the much ballyhooed “Bring Your Own Device” or BYOD premise of bringing whatever you prefer and just connecting it to the company network.

Bring Your Own Device is not a silver bullet. BYOD is just one of a new strain of network security concerns which continue to abound in our modern age. Malware and other denial of service attacks continue to increase and are working on more sensitive integrated systems every day. As the technology for smarter devices continues to develop and as fast as new apps are being developed, malware is just as quickly propagating across this new interconnected and completely open environment.

What I hear far too little of is an understanding of the new technological ecosystem being developed. In addition to the growing iOS and Android playgrounds where few if any environmental monitoring is being done, almost no malware protections are being enacted and neither security processes, nor human awareness have kept pace with the potential for hackers to invade the privacy of billions of potential devices which lie unprotected for the most part.

Adding to this tech-soup of potential vulnerability are the complexities of virtual computing and remote desktop environments, as well as thin client systems are all becoming dependent on cloud computing technology, wide area networks and client-managed environments. Few are discussing the increasing complexity of these environments where hardware is centralized but use is distributed through a multitude of virtual environments without concern for operational capacity, network stability, and Internet connectivity.

We are seeing more outages of the Internet daily, so much so, there are applications which monitor traffic to let you know which services are currently available:http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/ . Though this tool is primarily for popular web services, Amazon has a version which is also accessible through the internet:http://status.aws.amazon.com/ . Each tool like these is predicated on the idea that no system of computer operation is infallible and the more interconnected we become the more likely we will find the opportunity to see first hand:

For Want of a Nail
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a nail.

The death of the desktop computer is built around the idea we have managed to supersede what the tool has given us.

• That we have managed to secure our environments, to create infrastructure which will support wireless technologies, metropolitan area networks, and the inevitable planetary-area networks we are designing.
• That we are able to effectively isolate and route around failed areas of the largest network which connects us all, the internet. The jury is out.
• That we have greater control of our soon-to-be completely necessary planetary network in such a way, hacking vulnerabilities are a thing of the past, every system which is put on that network is aware of how to deal with potential threats, without human intervention and will do so in a fashion so humans can simply be informed without having to worry about restorations of a failed environment, first.
• That scrupulous use of said planetary network ensures no one will be using it to unlawfully monitor its users, manipulate the users or their data, socially engineer user behavior for profit, perform acts of vandalism or terrorism, using said network as part of a control system and structure for acts of military warfare or sabotage.

So, is the desktop dead? Is that even the right question?

Perhaps the question should be: Is the desktop computer being killed by corporations who want to manipulate users into a cycle of:

• Regular planned obsolescence – creating underpowered devices which need constant upgrade to deal with software bloat, development issues and a constant need for upgrades.
• Consumerism – the technology is really being structured around pushing products, dependence and reliance on said devices (extending the reign of television advertising in the new medium).
• Development Control: by getting rid of users ability to create information this creates a more passive audience waiting for new “products” and “fees” for receiving them. 
• Health issues: The long-term effect of using said devices in terms of user health (eyestrain, inattention, psychological distress) and destroying the environment to feed the engine of gadget production.

Is the death of the PC being artificially hastened to sell portable digital technology, even when financial, economic, social, and technological safeguards for that technology are not currently in place? Oh yes, I would say so, just from watching the industry and its lust for profit.

The PC is not dead. But we are sealing it up alive in the coffin for profit’s sake. Think of how much money can be made while new interfaces are being developed. Think of all the planned obsolescence inherently built into each device, replacing it after only 6-12 months. Imagine all of that technological churn being done, the billions spent on advertising new versions of old devices with only minuscule differences making corporations like Apple some of the most profitable agencies on Earth. Think of the ever-expanding app industry estimated to grow to $25 billion dollars in 2013 and continuing to grow. There is so much money to be made by Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, and other device manufacturers I can’t see them NOT promoting the device/gadget over desktops. The potential profitability is absolutely astounding. Charge as much for a handheld device as you do for a laptop with 1/10 the functionality, but call it mobile. “Make a gadget cool, and the sheep will follow.”

If the PC is dying, I suspect someone is killing it; for a profit. And it’s not the butler.

See Also: Gadgets: A Perfect Storm of Wrong – Where I discuss the environmental issues around the constant proliferation of gadget/device technology.

The Incongruence of Man

A Mouse Trap

by Ruchit Doshi

A mouse looked through  the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.What  food might this contain? The mouse wondered… he was devastated to  discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse  proclaimed the warning:

There is a mousetrap in the house!
There is a  mousetrap in the house!

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her  head and said, ‘Mr.Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is  of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.’

The mouse turned to  the pig and told him, ‘There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap  in the house!’

The pig sympathized, but said, I am so very sorry,  Mr.Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in  my prayers.’

The mouse turned to the cow and said, ‘There is a mousetrap  in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!’

The cow said, ‘Wow, Mr.  Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.’

So, the mouse  returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap .  .. . alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house — like  the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer’s wife rushed to  see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake  whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer’s  wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a  fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the  farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main  ingredient.

But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors  came to sit with her around the clock.

To feed them, the farmer butchered  the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died.

So many  people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide  enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack  in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is  facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you,

Remember —- when one  of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

We are all involved in this  journey called life..

We must keep an eye out for one another and make an  extra effort to encourage one another.

Remember, each of us is a vital thread in another person’t tapestry; our lives are woven together for a reason. One of the best things to hold onto in  this world is a FRIEND!!!

*  *  *

Appendix:

1. The Incongruence of Man

How can a monster be so magnificent in all that he does?
When creating, masterpieces are born, timeless,
works of art, visions of design, ripped from Logos itself.
When he destroys he rivals Shiva and Kali, ending the existence,
of one and all, with only monuments to ever speak of regret.

How do we reconcile this creature, fearfully made,
fearfully led, fearfully cowering in its own darkness?
Seeking validation, finding none, like the fallen Morningstar
destroying to facilitate a semblance of power, of control
flailing against a universe where no control truly exists?

This is the madness, the dissonance, the incongruence of Man.
Forever seeking, never finding, never willing to understand
that what he seeks, he already has, all he must do is turn to another
and ask.

— John Nox

2. No Man is an Island

These famous words by John Donne were not originally written as a poem – the passage is taken from the 1624 Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and is prose. The words of the original passage are as follows:

John Donne
Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

“No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a
peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod
bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well
as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy
friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes
me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for whom the bell

You can enjoy other famous literary poems at Famous Poems Online

3. Planet of the Apes

Despite the fact the movies were by today’s standards of science fiction less than perfect, there were occasional moments of terrible brilliance within them. This line, more than anything else in the movie, has never left me.

“Beware the beast man, for he is the devil’s pawn. Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport, or lust or greed. Yes, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him. Drive him back into his jungle lair: For he is the harbinger of death.”

The Twenty-third Scroll, Ninth Verse, “Planet Of The Apes”

This quote was found on Cool Quotes Collection.com.

4. Chinese Anti-terrorist Exercise

In this photo released by the official Xinhua news agency, members of China’s armed police demonstrate a rapid deployment during an anti-terrorist drill held in Jinan, east China, on Wednesday July 2, 2008, roughly one month ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Xinhua/Fan Changguo)

The Overblown Death of the PC – Part 1

A month ago Regina Pilkington posed the question “Do you envision desktop computers as obsolete in a few years?” on LinkedIn and I waited before I answered, curious what others would say. I didn’t have to wait long. What I heard surprised me. And my response will surprise you.

Most of what I heard was:

• The PC is dead or so in decline, it may as well be dead.
• It has no future, it is being replaced by digital devices.
• The PC is a dinosaur and is being replaced by BYOD and virtualization.
• In a decade or less, there will be no market for PCs, look at their inevitable decline in the market.
• Apple is getting out of the business, Dell is shifting markets, HP is foundering, the PC’s reign is over.

There were a few more moderate voices:

• “The obsolescence of the desktop in my opinion is held back by the effectiveness of the desktop interface.”
• “The form factor will survive over the next 5 – 10 years. The ease and size of the system is not possible in the tablet for now.” 
• “My feeling is it will never be obsolete, it will be one of many different ways (just not the only one) to compute.”

And then one other voice rang out with the question, I think everyone was dreading:

• “How long ago did that dinosaur called the mainframe disappear?” (He clarified saying he was being facetious because mainframes are still not dead.)

This question irks me when I see it making the rounds on the tech journals and publications because of the weak premise and lame assumptions used to prognosticate the Death of the PC and as if to make it worse, these tech pundits want to make predictions as if they were any better at predicting long-term technology trends than religious leaders are at predicting the end of the world. Let me save you the trouble. Manufacturers are scrambling and technology is changing but it is safe to say, the personal computer will be around for quite some time to come even if it doesn’t look quite like you remember it.

My response: No. The PC era is not over. Not by a long shot. Not even in a decade.

No matter what form it takes, no matter what it will look like, (smartphone, tablet, head-up display) the era of the PC (Personal Computer) is not over and not likely to be any time soon. If it is based in silicon, it is still a personal computer.

“Big boxes of mostly air” (as they are known by PC technicians) may fall from grace for those people who think smaller and more mobile is better, but those are the same people who will be complaining when network connectivity and data transfer rates can’t keep up with the increasing demand being placed on networked devices and the networks that serve them.

Add to this equation the varying reliability of the cloud infrastructure and people who depend on their portable device for computational ability will be sorely disappointed as more devices means interruptions in service due to demand load, poor design of software and hardware, incompatibilities of design and infrastructure, malware, viruses and good old-fashioned human error.

Despite the Microsoft and Apple compulsion to squeeze out new OS every two years or less, the software infrastructure for PCs is still more robust, stable and better defended than the portable OSs being used right now.

Those portable OSs are ripe for attack because they are being developed faster than they are being protected. Yes, someone will get around to writing tools for protection, but since there is little agreement on standards and protocols, hackers and their ilk will have a field day while such agreements are being forged. If you think the transition to portable devices will be smooth and seamless, you will be disappointed, no matter what pundits predict.

On top of everything else, those more portable devices are still not as powerful, not as expandable, not as configurable as a current desktop or well-made laptop, nor do they offer as many options for use.

• They cannot be used in tandem, compounding their power and effectiveness. 
• You will not see a server farm made with iPhones any time soon. 
• They cannot be programmed or developed from, easily, if at all. 
• They are primarily tools of data use, information viewing and consumption 
• Devices are the digital equivalent of a television, a phone, and a piece of paper. 
• Until they get an interface which integrates voice and gesture into an effective interface, they will always be substandard tools to do any advanced work such as design.

What smaller devices offer flexibility and portability. They are still PCs, now more personal than ever. They will still require powerful servers to coordinate their data, access search engines, and store data for use by these smaller RPC (remote personal computers). The PC era is not dead and will not likely be dead until such time as we are producing computers that are biological in nature and do not require the use of any technologies which currently resemble anything we do today.

The PC is transformed (again) it is now the Remote Personal Computer, it is the Server Computer, it is the distributed computing system (another aspect of ‘the cloud’.) This penchant for imagining the death of the PC is the same as when cars appeared and the death of the bicycle or the train were predicted. I still see trains and they are as vital a technology as they have ever been. I am still running over bike messengers on my way to work.

Instead of alarmist (and futile) predictions of the end of the PC as we know it, let’s instead predict how the PC will be transformed into a tool of greater utility and diversity, how we will make it easier to store, utilize and share information effectively without creating larger, slower, less efficient networks. Then we can talk about creating the next generation of computers which might truly lay the PC as we know it today, in all of its iterations, to rest.

Planets provides Galactus with sustenance? How?

There is no single answer as to what specific type of energy Galactus (from the canon Marvel Earth-616) is feeding upon when a world is selected by a Herald. Depending on the writer, the medium or the continuum being described, Galactus has used a variety of energy forms to survive on from nebulous and ill-defined “life-force energies” to the anti-matter energy of the Negative Zone or the background energy of the universe itself (perhaps vacuum energy), which may be just another way to describe the Power Cosmic.

Here’s what we do know:

• Galactus (as the humanoid Galan) is a survivor of the previous universe. He survives the cosmic crush of the Universe with the help of the Phoenix Force and is reborn as a fundamental/abstract being in our Universe. He is reborn from the Cosmic Egg as a brother to Eternity and Death. He is seen as a force between the two, challenging all life in the Universe.

Galactus, as he is seen in the realm of abstract entitites, a burning energy pattern without his trademark armor. Here he greets the other abstract entity, Eternity.

• Galactus does not have to completely destroy a world he has fed upon. If he is able to set up and use his Elemental Converter, he can leave a shred of life energy so that world can barely support lower level life (lichens and their ilk).
• He is able to draw the lifeforce from the world without his Elemental Converter, but if he does, the planet is often completely destroyed and unable to support life in the process. This is not his desired method since it wastes precious life-force energies.
• In a conversation/confrontation with the Phoenix, Galactus indicates both of them utilize the same energy, he using the spent remains of a civilization or barren life-bearing planet, and she the energies of life as yet unborn.

Galactus triumphs in an ironic conversation with the Phoenix Force after getting his celestial ass handed to him in a confrontation with its current host.

Even at his earliest stages, he was a power almost without equal. Discovered by one of the first most advanced races in the universe, a Watcher is horrified to discover how powerful Galactus was.

The Watcher after studying Galactus flees when he, as was the want of his people refused to destroy the potential threat he correctly perceives Galactus to eventually become. As Galactus leaves his incubation chamber, he consumes his first planet without technology leaving it a husk unable to support life, forcing its inhabitants to become the first Wanderers (beings forced from their world by Galactus).

Despite his humanoid appearance Galactus is a being who defies description, his powers are dwarfed by his physical appearance, which is now more than anything a construct perhaps in homage to his previous humanoid appearance. The Enchantress describes him: “What we normally see of Galactus is the merest tip, he’s an iceberg of cosmic dimensions. No. Worse. He HAS no dimensions. No boundaries at all.”

• He is equated on the same level of cosmic necessity as the other great conceptual powers of the Universe, including Death, The Living Tribunal, The Inbetweener, and Epoch, to name a few. Within his energy-filled body lives the destructive force of Eternity, Abraxas. Only the Other Cosmic/Abstract beings or the Celestials have proven to be his equal. In a confrontation against three Celestials however, Galactus was defeated (Fantastic Four #602, #603, #604) and rescued by a future Franklin Richards.
• The life force that Galactus feeds upon does not appear to need to be sentience, for Norrin Rad made it his duty during the time he served Galactus to find him worlds filled with the potential for life, but having no sentient life upon them. In the Marvel Universe, planets can have life-force like energies which can lead to beings such as Gaea/Jord (Earth-616) coming into existence and leading to an explosion of lifeforms over time. Perhaps it is this energy upon which he feeds.
• Galactus’ recent death and resurrection implies Galactus’ continued existence having been restored by the “beyond Omega-Level” powers of Franklin Richards and the threat of the Mad Celestials defeated. Galactus was repowered by Franklin Richards who has no known connection to the Phoenix Force. Galactus was restored to full strength and was capable of destroying a Celestial after his renewal.

SPECULATION

• Considering Galactus’ transition from the previous Universe to this one was through the interaction with the Phoenix Force, it may be he requires the re-infusion of Phoenix energy to sustain himself. The Phoenix Force is considered to be the unbridled energy of life in the Universe. Since his life was recreated by the Phoenix after the death of his Universe, he may be lacking a particular universal constant which is not available in our universe.

Taa’s civilization was one of the last still in existence. Lethal radiation caused by the “Big Crunch” this universe was experiencing was wiping out all life across the universe. Galan, a space explorer, was dispatched to travel through the cosmos to find a means of saving Taa, but he found none. The radiation eventually killed off all but a tiny fraction of the population of Taa. Knowing their deaths were inevitable, Galan proposed to the remaining survivors that they die gloriously by piloting one of their starships directly into the heart of the “Cosmic Egg.” As the starship containing Galan and his fellow survivors approached the focal point of the Big Crunch, the heat and radiation killed all the passengers except Galan, who strangely found himself filled with new energy.

At the moment Galan’s universe met its end, the Phoenix Force amassed the positive emotions of all living beings in the cosmos to preserve them from eternal damnation, enabling the Sentience of the Universe — the previous universe’s equivalent to Eternity — to meet with Galan. Within the “Cosmic Egg” the Sentience of the Universe revealed itself to Galan and informed him that though they both would die in the final moments of the universe, they would both survive through a joint heir born into the next universe. The Sentience of the Universe merged itself with the mortal Galan and thus Galactus, the devourer of worlds, was conceived. —Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Galactus Entry

• It may also be that containing the destructive element of Abraxas within his “body” may require an infusion of life energy (Phoenix Force) to maintain his prison. In the very early years, Galactus could go for extremely long periods of time without feeding. This may have been due to his primal exposure to the Phoenix Force after the Big Bang. As the Phoenix Force dissipated and possible collected with worlds, it became harder for him to harvest from the background radiation of the Universe and he was forced to seek it out.
• Noting that Galactus has complete control of all normal electromagnetic phenomenon, the energy he is seeking must be very subtle or very unique, otherwise he would simply feed from stars or other highly energetic objects in our universe. If a star cannot feed his powers, he is seeking a very rare energy indeed. Since the Phoenix Force can manifest anywhere, it is possible he is seeking planets whose potential of that energy is still in an abundance enough for him to replenish his supply.
• It is noted that Galactus can utilize energy from the EM spectrum and can harvest the power of a star to replenish his cosmic energy for combat. He has also absorbed energy from a Protector of the Universe (Gravity) completely draining him of his powers but was able to temporarily sate Galactus enough to spare the Cosmic being Epoch from Galactus’ hunger. It is possible Galactus can feed on alternative energy sources, but this varies from writer to writer just as his power level does.

SPOILERS

Galactus is now thought to be a Herald of Franklin Richards (this is implied from a statement from Nathaniel Richards, Reed Richard’s father) after a confrontation with the Mad Celestials in which Galactus appears to be defeated and potentially mortally wounded. He is resurrected and restored with the powers of Franklin Richards. Whether this is hyperbole or a statement of fact remains to be determined. It is also noted Franklin and Galactus will be aware of each other for billions of years in the future. Stand by for your moment of awesome:

Galactus being raised from the dead by Franklin Richards. Fantastic Four #604

This answer was written and appeared as MY ANSWER on the Scifi.stackexchange.com. Standing by my answer, I am posting here on my website as a potential source of information on the cosmic being known as Galactus. ‘Nuff Said!

The Science of Science Fiction (1)

I find myself both a writer of science fiction and a questioner of science fact. When I find a question which intrigues me, I am compelled to try and answer. Today’s questions deal with the issues of ugly aliens in modern media and the question of alien languages. To start this off, let’s watch a video of some of the Earth’s ugliest animals. Believe me, it is relevant.

To be fair, some of these animals are pets and chosen because they were ugly, a couple were damaged due to car accidents or surgery, and at least one was premature in its development. The point of the video is for all of those who were NOT unnatural in their representation, they are as varied and diverse as could be. Yet they all share the same root DNA. And with that let’s ask:

Why are aliens in media so ugly?

Earth has been home to millions of different species in the time that it has existed in the known universe (an estimated 4 billion years, give or take). As far as we know, all life exists due to the existence of DNA/RNA interactions. Yes, there are some exceptions but for the most part, life as we know it, and almost as we define it, utilizes DNA as part of its makeup. Bear with me.

We as humans, have no idea what other potential forms of life can exist in the universe, because we have no information regarding the basis for that life. Does it use DNA? Does it use carbon chains? Is it even based in carbon at all? Look at all of the potential forms of life which Earth has spawned. Almost all of the ones considered common to most people reside in only three or four of these phyla listed below: plants, animals, algae and fungi. Within those four phyla are millions of potential aliens waiting to visit the Earth.

Writers take the liberty of creating aliens partially as metaphor, partially as mirror, partially as allegory, of the idea of the Other. That which is outside of us (Humanity). Since Earth has been host to millions of lifeforms it is safe to say that Aliens will be different than us, and depending on where they hail, will certainly NOT resemble us, television not withstanding.

Remember television has production issues and one of them is costuming, so our aliens must resemble us or their production costs become prohibitive. In writing Aliens, we have the liberty of making them different. Indeed, we have a responsibility as writers to make them different from us, because they WILL be.

They have been born of another star, another planet’s life-giving chemicals in combination with billions of years of their own evolutionary, environmental, and potentially cultural information creating a creatures as unique, potentially fascinating and if they can cross space to get to us, as complex as we are.

We will probably find them difficult to look at, think about all the life on Earth we are not thrilled to see, snakes, frogs, bears, spiders, insects in general, because they are so different from what we consider the norm, our upright, bipedal, bilaterally-symmetric form with our endo-skeleton, squishy organs and folded brain inside of our cranium, our jelly-filled eyes, our fragile and easily punctured skin which contains our miles of nervous tissue, many yards of intestines and sponge-like oxygen capture system; not to mention our mechanically pumping cardiovascular system and electrically charged neural activity.

I don’t believe aliens will look like us. We share our genetic heritage with every living thing on Earth and yet there are millions upon millions of different forms of life on the planet. We share 94% of our genetic material with an octopus. That 6% difference has created a vastly dissimilar life-form. A 2% difference gives us chimpanzees or other simians. A 1% difference gave us the now extinct Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and most of the modern football players of today. What will a creature from another world, that may or may not use DNA look like to human eyes? It may be more terrible than we an even imagine.

Our concepts of beauty are written into our DNA (our acceptance of the golden ratio, a natural evolutionary pattern of development used by plants and animals for leaf and branch development, nervous system density, and even the distance between our eyes, nose and mouth that we find pleasing to look upon,) so we may be repulsed by their appearance without even understanding why because their “golden ratio” may be different than our own.

In my opinion, if First Contact is a physical one, visible to the general public, and the aliens are not anthropomorphic (resembling humans in a bilateral symmetry, bipedal with a similar physical appearance), the human reaction will be directly related to what the human mind will associate the appearance of the aliens to creatures in our own environment. Humanity’s innate fears and revulsion will likely prejudice their responses if the aliens appear too non-human. If they appear to resemble insects or some extremely divergent form of life, for example (as the aliens in District 9 appear to) humans may not be able to even consider them as intelligent or sentient. On Earth, natural selection seemed to favor insects; there are physically more insects on Earth than any other kind of animal combined. (Don’t think about it, you will only want to go out and buy more Raid.) It is not too hard to see insectoid intelligences being a possibility as an alien visitor. If they resembled terrestrial insects, they may also have a completely different outlook on life or individualism as a whole, since insects have more of a collective intelligence than an intelligence based on individual thought or action. Each acts as part of a greater whole. Would such a society value individualism? Would they consider us intelligent at all?

To us, anything that isn’t us, isn’t normal. How traumatic it will be for us as a species to find other sentience out there that did not evolve into what we consider to be the ultimate expression of intelligent life on Earth. Of course we would consider it ugly. It isn’t us. It mocks us, likely by resembling some other member of our planetary phyla and reminding us that we aren’t all that special. Some other creature might have made it to the top of the food chain; and on their world, it wasn’t us.

What would an advanced alien language look like?

If anyone were being honest, the answer would be: We have almost no idea of what an alien language would look like either in appearance, structure, delivery, interpretation or nuances.

But we are not honest so we presume to have an opinion about what aliens might use for language. But the only creatures we could use as a reference point would be aliens whose physical characteristics, biome limitations, and species similarities would make them in most ways like us. They might communicate using written variations similar to languages used on Earth with written and vocal components. But reference the Kung! people for a variation outside of the norm of most people. (See Click consonant:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_consonant)

As humans we can barely conceive of a language which is encoded in flashes of light, potentially dependent on frequencies we cannot see, or on positions of the lights on the body of the alien, which could convey any number of concepts or notions, or depending on the medium of the light being emitted or the delay between entities giving subtleties and nuances about how the message should be received or what to do with the message after it has been interpreted.

We would be hard pressed to imagine a language from a creature with a four lobed brain (potentially capable of thinking or processing information in ways we have yet to conceive of) with multiple arms/tentacles who might use the position of their tentacles the same way a Chinese cuneiform might embed a particular meaning within the structure of the position of those tentacles, and the movement of the tentacles, and the positions between each character could convey a series of information about how the second character should be interpreted and implying what the next character may portend.

If the creature in question embodied information delivery the same way cephalopods on Earth change color, it could be another layered conversation taking place in the color transitions as well as the arm placements.

If the species in question lives in water, it may also take advantage of the medium’s enhance propensity for sending vibration to encoded sub-aural information as infra-sound, either as a completely separate information stream, or as a data supplement to arm position, and skin color information. Such a creature could conceivably attempt to communicate with us in three different formats and we would still have NO idea we were even being spoken to!

Humanity must admit when considering conversation with alien species, we will and should throw out all of our preconceived notions about what form or appearance such communication will take place in. It may simply be more fantastic than we can begin to imagine.

My answer to: Why are aliens so ugly? first appeared on Quora.com. © Thaddeus Howze 2013. All Rights Reserved [ @ebonstorm]

What do you do to nourish your muse?

A bit of consistency is best for a muse and her subject. So I try to start my day at the same time, as early as she can kick me out of bed. If time permits, something to break the fast of the night’s repose, healthy if possible, fruit, cereal or dare I admit to it, the candy of meats, bacon. If I am really lucky, my wife makes one of those banana/fruit/flaxseed/protein powder drinks she loves. When I am unlucky, the recipe includes kale (ugh).

A brisk regimen of blood flowing cardiovascular activity to increase the muse’s serotonin levels boosting creativity. For exercise to truly benefit a muse, it need be a regular thing, a long term gift to both you and your muse. A healthy muse is a wealthy muse. My muse admits to not enjoying regular exercise.

I admit my muse did once have a caffeine habit as the wicked drug can force open the doors of creativity, but the cost was a nervous eye twitch that was quite unbecoming to everyone who knew us. We have now dropped to one cup, in the morning after our exercise and breakfast.

But for a muse to truly be creatively inspiring more than just exercise is needed. A muse thrives on experiences, the more diverse, the better. A muse does not thrive sitting at home watching the telly. No, if anything the telly saps a muse of creativity, exposing it to the idea the blandishments of modern media are to be the accepted form all creativity must take; be safe, be friendly, be predictable, be violent, be dangerous, ensure a happy ending when all is said and done.

As if life were so predictable.

Go outside, meet your neighbors, ride mass transit, yes, mass transit, for a wealth of stories await you if you can simply look, listen, imagine and believe. Driving is a solitary prison disconnecting you from stories not introducing you to them. Jump from a plane, ride a cross continental train, ride a ship, do all of these things, so you might experience the world from a perspective different than yours.

See the night sky at sea. Be amazed at all the stars you didn’t know were there. Introduce yourself to the Milky Way. It will speak back to you. Plummet to the ground at 32 feet per second, per second, feel you heart rise into your mouth, know fear. Makes your writing about it more real. Go to a play. Feel language in a way you don’t normally use. Let it roll over you, through you. This feeds your muse like nothing else.

A muse secretly craves facts, despite their artistic bent. My muse reads over my shoulder marveling at the same things I do, often finding ways of using things I read in a fashion I hadn’t thought of. Technically, that’s her job. Reading the news, reading the tabloids (not too often) reading the crackpots (so many interesting theories its hard sometimes to remember they are crackpots).

Most of all, read the classics. Yes, some are SO dull. My muse falls asleep when I read some of them. But they are not for her anyway. They are for me. Jack London reminds me to connect to nature. HP Lovecraft connects me to fear. Edgar Allen Poe connects me to the monstrosity of the human condition. Machiavelli connects me to the intellectual craft of human manipulation. You may never use any of these. But it helps as a writer, to know how far human beings have come, will go, and have gone if you want to write about characters you or anyone else will give a damn about.

Most of all, engage your muse in fun. This mean getting away from writing and having a good time. Muses need fun to unleash their creativity by connecting ideas from all of your experiences, your reading, your writing, your life, your loves, your beliefs and most importantly your connection to the Universe where ideas abound, awaiting you and your muse to reach into that realm of Logos, that place of perfection and find your stories aborning.

Your muse and you are one, inseparable; to follow your muse, you must first lead her to your inspirations.

What do you do to nourish your muse? © Thaddeus Howze 2012. All Rights Reserved

Painting: My Muse, © Deviant ARTist: parsakoira

The Bracelet

Black Science Fiction Society gives panel discussion at Georgia Tech