There was a time in the 19th Century when some American religious zealots thought they had calculated precisely the day of the Rapture, the “end of the world”. Hundreds of Americans devoutly gave away their worldly possessions and gathered on a particular hilltop. Eh, not so much. Eventually, they just drifted away after awhile.

cosmic hand of god

Think about most of the “end of the world” scenarios that become popular. The Mayan 2012, nuclear winter, the Rapture, massive asteroid smashes into the globe, for example. Actually, if you think about it, the WORLD doesn’t end; it’s just most of us and civilization AS WE KNOW IT that ends. Not the world.

Absent Trafalmagorians racing into their sun/star or Darth Vader’s Death Star, the world isn’t going to end for billions of years until old Sol gets feisty and swallows us. I’m thinking we won’t care half as much a billion years from now. We’ll just teleport to another solar system and get on with our lives.

And conspiracies? Puh-lease.

Government that can’t fix potholes can’t conspire to wipe its own ass.

A CIA that thinks Saddam Hussein has WMDs and can’t conspire to assassinate Castro with exploding cigars successfully but can conspire to kill JFK and get away with it for 50 years without anyone spilling the beans? Right.

The world as we know it is really run by Illuminati/Trilateral Commission/Jews/Masons/billionaires that get together annually with aliens and rape and eat virgins/Mafia/CIA/KGB/Mossad/Terrorists/Fight Club/the Vatican/evil genius villains of some/every stripe. Rly? Srsly?

Ghosts or Demons or Mothmen (really bad movie)?

They traveled back in time and put birth announcements in a 1961 Honolulu newspaper to advance the cause of a half-black kid who grew up to be president?

They control all the money and how it flows? They sure did a good job of losing $23 Trillion (US) last year, didn’t they? Genius! Er, maybe not.

Once you start listening to this crap, you might want to think about this: is there a shred of evidence or is all the evidence conveniently missing? Most conspiracy theories rely on a “prove it doesn’t work that way” kind of negative pregnant.

That stuff is just a folkway substitute for tonight’s television. Just another way to keep from having to think about how vacuous our fat-ass in front of the TV lives have become and to keep from having to take personal responsibility for having raised children who listen to rap music. If it’s not some grand conspiracy that we can’t control, then it’s us who have to take responsibility for who we’ve become.

Can’t have that, can we?

For my money, it’s the same with Christianism (as opposed to Christianity). Believe in all the “magic” stuff or die by the sword muthafarkker! Otherwise, to claim to be a Christian, we’d have to give stuff to the poor and sick and lame and stop judging our neighbors. Ewww.

It’s all trash and mostly pushed by trashy people, if you think about it.

Most of folks who champion this stuff turn out to be people with stunted critical thinking skills. They are mostly people who find themselves trapped in small lives that don’t match up with their high opinions of themselves. People who must think they have special insight into life as we know it as a way of boosting their self-esteem and elevating themselves into a small coterie of the enlightened. Otherwise, they’d just be assholes who refuse to take responsibility for the fact that they live in a trailer park.

Sis, this stuff is like drugs. It’s a diversion from the hard work of living in the real world. It’s a way of escaping responsibility for our life choices. It’s addictive in the same warped, wacked out way that drugs are addictive. When you indulge in these fantasies, you’re getting the thrill of it and you escape your real life. Just like a drug.

You are way too smart to fall for that crap. You are way too cool to need that crap.

Besides, everyone knows the world and our lives can be reduced to 12 bumper stickers: One Day At A Time; Think; Let Go and Let God; etc. All the best people know that your brother, personally, is the world’s smartest guy and should be in charge as Emperor of the World because he’s going to make sure that there are no skirts shorter than they are wide and that spandex will never again be sewn into a size larger than 12.

A really short spandex skirt in size 16, now that’s the end of the world as we know it!

The sun makes the infinity symbol in its travels through a year

This may be the most complicated photo taken EVAH. The method of getting the sun to demonstrate its flight overhead over the course of a year wasn’t easy and is described HERE. Hat tip to the traveling John Heinous.

My daughter has posted the most incredible film starring my grand-daughter on her blog, Mom-A-Tron, and I beg you go see and hear the smartest 7-year-old on Planet Earth.

My sister writes on her blog, MindOverMary, that she wants to go on a genealogical detective hunt for my adopted father’s biological roots and needs a brother to go with her. I have some mixed feelings, but my curiosity presently dominates.

There were lots of things to do this weekend. A few of the things on my list were: IAO opening, Baubles show at Red Cup, the opening of Oh! studios by the lovely Juliet and her partners, First Friday gallery walk on Paseo and the opening of Picaso’s, the much anticipated successor to the beloved Galileo’s. The teapots at JRB Art Gallery were interesting, but there was one teapot with “bullet” teacups that looked remarkably like, well, male genitalia. Joy Reed Belt also showed some really wonderful and bright works in the main room that I wished I could afford.

Being a tea-totaller, I passed on something that sounded like soooo much fun: the Snuggie Pub Crawl initiated by The Lost Ogle. The pub crawl focused on the Classen Circle clubs (Edna’s, Drunkenfry, HiLo and Speakeasy on 51st) and the star of the event was JD Merryweather’s Coop Ale Works beers. JD is a well known and wonderful photographer who lives and works in my Paseo “bubble”; he’s also a helluva great guy.

Love you guys and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Blogblah

Looking on

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY

gay agenda/Sally Kern

Broken Penis Syndrome

The End of All Marriages?

A BIT OF OLD BUSINESS

TODAY’S THOUGHT

Those who are kind reward themselves
But the cruel do themselves harm.

Proverbs 11:17

SINATRA SPEAKS

Chariman of the Bored

My yucca plants covered with ice and snow

THERE’S SNOW BUSINESS IN OKC

Since the courthouse is closed today due to the weather “emergency”, I thought I’d take time from being bored at the house and maybe do a little blogging since I’ve not really written anything since the Inauguration on the 20th, a week ago. Before he tells you all about it, I’ve got to admit to a tiny bit of cruelty: I laughed and laughed and could not make myself come to the rescue of Sinatra late yesterday afternoon when he found himself in the middle of an icy driveway and couldn’t get any traction. Have you ever seen a cat lose its footing? I don’t think that happens often, or at least I don’t see it often, and watching my “snow cat” floundering just struck me funny. So funny, as it happens, I couldn’t keep my own footing well enough to go rescue him. When I finally got to him to pick him up and carry him back inside, he was PISSED. Fortunately for me, it was nothing a good petting and a little canned food wouldn’t assuage.

LongRydeHome's Earth/Sky/Water sculpture at my house, now improved and new with SNOW added!

The view down 61st Street, looking east from my house

Just so that Nojackla, Mom-A-Tron and MindOverMary, living in New Orleans, Tucson and Charleston respectively, can remember what Oklahoma winter weather is like, I thought I’d let ‘em see down my street why their hometown is shut down. As I write this at midday, just about 11:30 a.m., the weather report says it’s 20 degrees (F) and snowing on top of the ice we got on the streets last night. A few good and brave folks, including Muffy, are out on the streets, but an old guy like me knows better than to even try.

New Avatar?

A lonely blogger types his fingers to the bone

TODAY’S THOUGHT

Just because you’re in the driver’s seat doesn’t mean you have to run over people.

The Last Lecture
Randy Pausch

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY!

$100 Civil Fine for Pot Debated

Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth

SINATRA SPEAKS

Chairman of the Bored

Swimming in Love

MCARP has a new “infatuation”, a teen crush that he’s all hush-hush about because it’s about him and not the anonymous her. Of course, he also has a dream about drowning that wakes him up. Calling Sigmond, Calling Dr. Freud.

Flibbertigibbit
I follow her on Twitter and I read her blog and I’m one of the boys she’s left behind (I’m L2 in fact), but now we’ve all been left behind by her love for her new 3G phone fueled by raises and bonuses in the oil and gas business.

MindOverMary with LongRydeHome

Longrydehome

KO starts the year very perky and then goes to Eureka Springs, Ark., spontaneously and gets elliptical again talking about the joys of being in a new town where no one knows your name.

MindOverMary

Baby sister does the holidays with panache: one drunk girlfriend falls face first off a barstool at their favorite watering hole and her son in law gets in a barroom brawl over the unwanted advances of an endangered pipsqueak towards his wife, sister and motherinlaw at the same bar. Only Mary could make this sound like a fun time and make me laugh about it.