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Sunday, April 27, 2014

199. Knowledge



I knew better. Everyone said I should have known better. Anyone could have told me. Would I have listened?

Apparently not.I’m visiting friends in Cincinnati, Ohio. Someone said, “Why don’t we go to the “Creation Museum? It’s just a short distance away in Kentucky.”So I thought, maybe a person should go see what it is all about.

Maybe a person should. But they certainly shouldn’t take an alien from another planet. I didn’t really. He just appeared. This young boy suddenly started following us. I knew immediately who it was but kept the secret to myself. It was embarrassing enough just to be there. It was like sneaking in to see a professional wrestling match, but some things you just have to experience for yourself.

I knew for sure it was he as soon as we reached the first exhibit that boldly stated the belief that the world was 6,000 years old. By this time he was standing with us and was evidently part of our group. He waited until a large group had assembled in front of the exhibit before he spoke.

“That’s going to come as a hell of surprise to the Roonkalarians.”

I ignored him but my friend couldn’t resist. “Why is that?” he said.

“They’ve been on their way here for a half-million of your so-called ‘years’ and they are only half way.”

A mother shielded her daughter’s ears and moved away from us. I tried to do the same but he stuck with us like glue.

He was quiet until we reached an exhibit that explained how dinosaurs and homo sapiens lived together. It was quite simple.

“It says here that dinosaurs were all vegetarians until man started sinning,” he said.

“That explains it then,” my friend said. “How they all lived together in harmony.”

C.W. said, “What is sin?”

“It’s when someone murders an obnoxious kid,” I said, suddenly realizing that a family of four had moved in beside me. I hurried off.

He was mercifully quiet until we reached a diorama depicting a nude Adam and Eve enjoying a tropical lagoon while a huge serpent hovered above them.

“Hey,” C.W. yelled for all to hear. “They ought to label this one ‘The Heavenly Hot Tub.”

I fled.

It was no use. He caught me at Noah’s Ark. There, we stood inside a “scale model” of a portion of a boat that was to have held two of every species on the planet. There was an animated diorama of an elderly Noah barking orders to workers high the scaffolding. I presume they were his sons. A small-scale cross section of the ark showed a male and female deinonychus, both docile and apparently awaiting the cruise with eagerness. That’s when it happened.

A voice rang out and everyone nearby turned to it. “Hey Big Dope,” it said, “get a load of this.”

I pretended to look around and search for the person he was addressing. No chance, he ran to me and pointed to the figure of Noah, again yelling to his workers.

“Noah was from Brooklyn. Can you believe it?”

Actually, he had a point. The voice of Noah did sound as if it came straight out of Flatbush. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw uniforms approaching and retreated from the exhibit and then from the museum.

My friends had left, pretending not to know us. One was intently studying an exhibit designed to discredit much of what Charles Darwin said and some of what he never said. The other was pretending to be part of a collection of faces depicting species close to humans, an exhibit designed disproved the tenets of natural selection.
A good job of hiding? hardly
The last words I heard were those of C.W. explaining the rudiments of space travel to a bewildered child.

I doubt that we will ever be invited back.









Plant eaters 6,000 years ago? Doubtful. - C.W.












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Sunday, April 20, 2014

198. Crimes

We were fishing, C.W. and I. That man. Uh, that thing. That … whatever … loves to fish. He says they have nothing like it on Falloonia. He tends to take on the appearance of a character straight out of a Steinbeck novel when we go, slouch hat, grizzled beard, patched work clothes—the full image. He once even tried to smoke a cigarette, with disastrous results.

On this day, he was ecstatic. “Just read,” he said as he watched his bobber intensely, “that a state in your country is doing something extremely wise.”

“Oh really,” I said. “Which one?”

“The one just south of here. The one where they like to party so much and make hot sauce. Loo, Loozi …”

“Louisiana?”

“That’s the one.”

I said, “They did something wise?”

“Yes. Real sensible, in my rough calculation of the value, number, quantity, or extent of something.”

“Just what, in your estimation, did they do that was so wise?”

“They voted on a law to prohibit crimes against nature.”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Seems I read something about that.”

“That’s one of the first sensible things I’ve seen in a long time.” He raised his line, checked the bait, and swung it to a new location.

I was intrigued. “Why do you say that?

He looked at me as if I had just asked him if the sun came up that morning. “Your species spends so much time enacting laws protecting things like the wealthy, fertilized eggs, and mythology cults, don’t you think it is time nature deserved some protection?”

“Uh ...”

He interrupted. “Just think,” he said. “No more clear cutting of forests, removal of mountaintops, polluting of rivers, exhaustion of sea life, … it could be the start of what you call ‘governing by the rational model.’”

“Uh, C.W.”

“No more extinction of other species.”

“C.W.,” I said forcefully.

“Burning of fossil fuels …” He stopped. “What?”

“That’s not what they meant.”

“What who meant?”

“The legislators in Louisiana.”

“What they meant by what?”

“Crimes against nature.”

He looked at me in disbelief. “Of course it is.”

“No. Afraid not.”

“What then?”

I told him. At least I began to tell him before he broke in. “You mean like they do in those …, I mean like I’ve heard they do on those internet videos?”

“Yes. Afraid so.

Your methods of governing are best considered
during moments of peace and solitude. - C.W.
I now know what is meant by the description “stunned disbelief.”

“That’s insane,” he said. “completely contrary to nature, reason, or common sense.”

“I think you mean ‘preposterous,’” I said, “and I suspect the folks in Louisiana would be quite proud to hear you say it.”

He looked me in the eyes. “How on earth,” he said, “would you enforce such law?”

“That, my friend, is something you will have to talk to them about,” I said.

“I’d rather talk to a mountain goat,” he said as his bobber began to bounce.
 
 

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Wish List

Evidently C.W. is into making lists. I found this in his files on my computer.

10 .Wish that I could become as good a salesperson as the one who convinced young girls that putting a jewel stud through their nose is sexy.

 9. Wish that I could exact a toll on the use of the word “awesome.”

 8. Wish I had a cute cat.

7. Wish I could afford all the things TV says I must have on a minimum wage salary.

And I wish I understood the obsession
American's have with vampires, car chases,
and Britain's Royal Deadbeats. - C.W.
6. Wish pot worked on Falloonians.

5. Wish I could play the banjo but didn’t so I could contribute to western civilization.

4. Wish I could design a tattoo than would make a 300 pound, pot-bellied moron into a hunk.

3. Wish Big Dope would let me wear my saggy trousers in public.

2. Wish “all you can eat” buffets didn’t make you fat.

 And …

 1. Wish I could buy Ted Cruz a Whoopee Cushion.


Of course:
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Monday, April 14, 2014

Monday News

Dear Friends and Followers:
I found this on Big Dope's Computer Journal this morning and stole it.

What’s happening on Monday?
 
- Mike Huckabee says there is sometimes more freedom in North Korea than in America.
- Sean Hannity, the Koch Brothers, Fox News, and the Teabaggers are encouraging open rebellion against the United States in defense of a man who doesn’t recognize the validity of our country.
- Television stations in Oklahoma are editing out portions of Cosmos because “it is causing demonic possession of young children.”
- The Waltons, their rich friends, Jeb Bush, and the editorial staff of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette want to do away with public schools.
- A white supremacist nut job murders three Jewish people and nobody makes the connection with hate radio. 
I am very afraid, not for myselffor my “use module” is nearing the end of its depreciation cycle—but for the children and grandchildren of my friends. And for my country that I took an oath to defend.
I am also confused. The current agitations are being fomented by those who already have everything. What else could they need? Or want?
Finally, I am bemused by the adage that life imitates art. We are well into George Orwell’s "1984" and are heading, it seems to me, for H.G.Well’s “The Time Machine” in which the world is occupied by the the dark Morlocks and guileless Eloi. There is also Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaiden’s Tale” in which women exist only for service.
Of course, TV news has become exactly as depicted in the 1976 movie “Network.”
I don’t think it will all come to pass for I believe, as David Simon does, that the bricks will start flying before then.
I just hope that too many innocents aren’t harmed or killed by them.
 
The time to be afraid is when the dancing stops. - C.W.
 

Sunday, April 13, 2014

197. Prayer Lists

C.W. has always been intrigued by our obsession with religion. This time it went too far, as you will see.

The first to call was the oldest Thorton girl, the nosey one.

“It’s Carlota,” she said though it wasn’t necessary. She has this snorting sound that she makes when she breathes. I would have recognized it anywhere. I told her my wife wasn’t home.

“It’s you I wanted,” she said. “I called to talk to you.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Did you hear me?” she said.

“Sure I heard you. What’s up?”

“You tell me,” she said, just like that. “You tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Why I need to pray for you.”

“I don’t you to pray for me.”

“Then why, tell me, is your name on a prayer list? I need to know what kind of troubles you got.”

“I don’t have any troubles.”

“Are you two having problems?” She snorted again.

“What?”

“Trouble. Are you two having, you know, marital problems?”

“Goddamn it, who told you that?”

“If you are going to blaspheme the Savior, I shall refuse to pray for you.”

“Well don’t then.” I hung up.

“C.W.! I instinctively knew he was behind this. Before I could think, the phone rang again. It was Ida Covington.

“Is it cancer?”

“Is what cancer?” Then I remembered.

“My cousin had it and he didn’t live but six months. And he had two churches praying for him.”

“Your cousin?”

“Uncle Fred’s oldest son, Chester—the one that was in prison for killing his wife. But it was the most wonderful thing. He surrendered his soul to Jesus right before he died and he’s in Heaven right now. Not a doubt in my mind but what he is praying for you.”

“Ida,” I explained, “Get off this damn telephone.” She did but it rang again.

“Hello.”

“If you need money, our bank ..., a voice said. After that a neighborhood kid called to ask if he could have my woodworking tools when I was gone.

I went outside to find C.W. He was sitting peacefully watching the geese play around the pond at our farm.

“Do you know anything about a prayer list?”

He turned. “A what?”

“A prayer list. Don’t lie to me?”

“Oh,” he said. “Now I remember. Yours was the only name I knew.” This is his idea of an explanation.

“Knew for what?”

He fidgeted. “Remember when I wanted to visit some churches for research and you wouldn’t go with me?”

“I remember it well.”

“There is this small church not far from here and they insisted that I give them a name for their prayer list.”

I exhaled a long breath and looked at the sky. “And you gave them ..”

“Your name. I figured that, even if it didn’t help, it couldn’t hurt.” He stopped and thought. “They seemed to place a lot of importance on that sort of thing.”

“I suppose so,” I said, and sat beside him.

“Anyway,” he said. “I was afraid if I didn’t give them a name, they would start praying for me.”

“Perhaps they would.” My thoughts drifted.

“Does it work?”

I snapped back to the present. “Does what work?”

Big Dope has a long list and my name is on every line. - C.W.
“Prayer.”

“I’m thinking of trying it,” I said. “We will find out.”

“How will we find out?”

“You will be called home.”

Inside, the phone was ringing.


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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Dear Friends and Followers:

Big Dope has been making me work lately so I can only offer this quick poster I made.

 
 
I promise more later. In the meantime, check out www.wattensawpress.com



Sunday, April 6, 2014

196. Ailments

C.W. and I were taking a walk along the river in Little Rock and, for a change, I was enjoying his company. On occasion, he appears in a form very similar to the late writer William Faulkner, complete with herringbone sports jacket, hat, and pipe. At these times, he tends to be more contemplative and, … well listen to him.

“I’ve discovered something about your species,” he said, “that is quite unique in the galaxy.”

“Somehow, “I said, as a bicyclist sped by at a blinding speed, brushing my elbow and shouting an expletive. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

“I have learned,” he said, “that among the elderly, the greeting ‘How are you doing today?’ is not a question asked merely for effect with no answer expected.”

“A rhetorical question, in other words.”

“Why are you repeating me again?”

I said, “Never mind. Continue.”

“Gladly,’ he said, puffing his pipe. A woman pushing a baby stroller met us going the opposite direction and made exaggerated hand motions to wave away the smoke. He tipped his hat to her. She huffed along. “What I have learned,” he said, “is that when asked that question, old folks will begin to describe their physical conditions in great, and unwanted detail, and why they do that I don’t know, unless they think the whole thing is important and it would never be that at all unless you were close to them in some way and not a complete stranger.”

“You might want to work on your sentence structure,” I said.

“I have been,” he said. “Can’t you tell?”

“Go on.”

“So,” he said, “is there no physical condition that is so intimate, so personal and evolutionarily basic, that some of you will forbear sharing the details with a stranger?”

“What kind of details?”

“Well,” he said, as we stopped to admire a particularly beautiful view of the Little Rock skyline and a teenager walked past us punching a message into her phone, “the question I mentioned can certainly elicit a detailed description of some current ailment or a recent visit to a person’s physician.” He puffed. “They certainly like to share that one with you—the visit to their doctor.”

I nodded and we continued to walk.

He said, “Bowel movements. That’s another.”

"Bowel movements?”

“Bowl movements. Popular topic. I’ve had more than one old soul begin telling me about her digestive ailments, simply because I asked how she was doing.”

I couldn’t disagree with him.

He continued, “Not only frequencies, but personal characteristics, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I do,” I said.

One of the interesting things about you
is your ability to talk to strangers. - C.W.
“Then I had one,” he said, “attempt to tell me about her aged husband’s attempts to perform actions she hadn’t been interested in since the Reagan Administration.”

“Oh dear,” I said.

“You may not think it odd,” he said. “But on Falloonia, we keep such information to ourselves.”

At this point, we were interrupted by the reappearance of the woman in the baby stroller, this time with a police officer in tow. He suggested C.W. might want to extinguish his pipe. He did, and after some heated discussions, we continued our walk.

“Well,” he said, “enough about me. How have you been?”
 
“A little irregular, I’m afraid.”

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Thursday, April 3, 2014

Education

Dear Friends and Followers:

I’m still thinking about the proposal Big Dope and I have for replacing the (ugh) “teach to the test” system in public schools with the Teacher Reward System. It would work like insurance commissions. We would keep track of a teacher’s students and reward that teacher with residual yearly bonuses for student success. Possible examples:

- A teacher whose student becomes a TV pundit receives a $00.01 bonus.

- A teacher whose student becomes a Wall Street exec receives a $00.05 bonus.

- A teacher whose student becomes an attorney receives a $10.00 bonus.

- A teacher whose student becomes a firefighter or police officer receives a $20.00 bonus.

- A teacher whose student becomes a physician receives a $50.00 bonus.

- A teacher whose student becomes a nurse receives a $75.00 bonus.

- A teacher whose student becomes a studio musician receives a $100.00 bonus.

- A teacher whose student becomes a writer receives a $200.00 bonus

- A teacher whose student becomes a scientist receives a $500.00 bonus.

- A teacher whose student becomes a librarian receives a $600.00 bonus.

- A teacher whose student becomes a teacher receives a $1,000.00 bonus.

Preachers would range from Fundamentalist (a reprimand) to Methodist and other mainline groups: $15.00 bonus.

Wouldn't it be nice if students learned something
besides how to take a standardized test? - C.W.
We are still working on professional athletes since teachers rarely have any input into how those are moved through the educational system as youths.

Big Dope is leaning toward incarceration for a teacher who has a student graduating while believing in so-called “creation-science.” Personally, I am more in favor of having such teachers wear “ribbons of shame.”

Your thoughts would be welcomed.

Your Friend,
 The Alien C.W.

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