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The difference a cup of coffee makes...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2042
It's been a long week. The rent, overdue, still not in the bank. The vanished neighbors with their outstanding utilities bill of almost $1000 have not been returning calls. And I ran out of coffee on Monday.
"It's a good thing..." I tell myself, but I'm not convinced. In the mornings I drink green tea, but it's not the same. A headache develops, small but there, in the back of my head. It's there every day, getting worse as the day wears on. I'm without energy, the myths of caffeine in green tea have been grossly overstated.
"Still, it's a good thing", I tell myself. "Break the addiction...".
This morning some pocket change from a bill, not my bill, not my change, but the temptation is irresistable, only enough for a single cup, I break down and take the daughter on a walk to StarBucks.
And sipping it, bitter, the headache vanishing as it goes down, it's amazing, really, the difference a cup of coffee makes...
Job in Iceland
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1762
I'm in an office, a technology company, Iceland. The view from the window is spectacular, Reykjavik, the city of small whitewashed buildings, the sea in the distance, blue, blue sky. They've offered me a job, a contract position, I'm not in a position to be fussy and I like it here, "It's only a year" I tell the children. The person interviewing me, dry but pleasant, Norwegian, very efficient, I've a small modern room where I will stay, I'm not sure how I feel about this, it's a different world...
Doubt
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 1740
Sometimes I have my doubts.
Not about the serious things, like God and the universe and such, I have long ago worked those out. And if I hadn't there are countless others who have and will let you have the answers at a discount, although I think my reasoning is a little more economical (and, not that it matters, consistent and sane...). In any event the big issues aren't the ones that trouble me.
But there's other issues, loads of them, for which there aren't any clear answers.
Like 9-11. Sure, it's possible it was a carefully plotted terrorist attack. Why not, the terrorists, the Arabs, they all have good reason to loathe the United States. But to believe that is in a way to accept all the lies that followed, the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraq, to ignore the many "expert" opinions that contradict the "Official" findings. To disbelieve the official story puts you in the camp of wing nuts who believe the government planted explosives and brought down the towers themselves.
Probably the truth is somewhere in between. The government knew but allowed the plot to go ahead so it could rally support and go to war. Even that, however, presupposes a level of intelligence that I find it hard to credit the Bush administration.
There are other things, too.
Like Flying Saucers. I have no doubt that there is intelligent life elsewhere in our Galaxy. I have no doubt that if we survive, and given enough time, one day we'll make contact. But I'm not so sure that they (the extraterrestrials) have visited Earth, and I'm damned sure they haven't abducted Whitley Streiber. Ever. Not even once.
The grey area is in the visit to earth. There are undoubtedly UFO's, by definition anything that is unidentified is a UFO. But are they beings from another planet? Or is there another explanation?
I don't have the answers. So I turn to the internet, in this case a dubious source, but the best available (short of being taken on a trip by them myself). On the internet there are any number of experts, people who've held positions at high levels of government who say that the aliens are here. And at first hearing it's easy to dismiss one or two of them as being plausible crackpots, deluded, off the deep end...but the more testimonials you come across, the more doubt is sown in your mind. They can't all be crazy, can they?
"Yes, there have been ET visitations. There have been crashed craft. There have been material and bodies recovered. There has been a certain amount of reverse engineering that has allowed some of these craft, or some components, to be duplicated. And there is some group of people that may or may not be associated with government at this point that have this knowledge. They have been attempting to conceal this knowledge. People in high level government have very little, if any, valid information about this. It has been the subject of disinformation in order to deflect attention and create confusion so the truth doesn’t come out."
Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and sixth man on the moon
"I know other astronauts share my feelings... And we know the government is sitting on hard evidence of UFOs."
NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper, 1997
Those are just a couple of the more credible "witnesses". There are many more, anonymous names until you verify the positions they held and realize that, if anyone knew, they would know, that none were in a better position than themselves to know. And then there's Roswell, as preposterous as it seems that a flying saucer crashed in the desert, so much more ridiculous was the governments delayed reaction, the announcement that they'd captured a flying saucer, then the retraction....
It doesn't add up.
But the weight of intelligent opinions, of people of substance who claim to have seen or experienced something beyond the norm, is overwhelming. And even if half of them are hallucinating, lying, victims of false memories, mirages, ghosts on the radar, that still leaves a large number of cases without any easy answers or interpretations.
There are other things as well, the reputed Amero, the New World Order , Cabals of secret societies such as bankers who orchestrate the economy and our lives. I have no answers. It seems unlikely that bankers could so organize themselves to rule the world, especially in wake of the economic collapse, but even following the collapse they bore no repercussions. The rumours of internment camps throughout Montana , ChemTrails in the sky, some of it's nonsense, surely, and the facts misinterpreted, but a bit of research does confirm that the government has indeed considered and even experimented with many of these methodologies....
And while they undoubtedly wouldn't test these things on their own people - oops - ...
The big questions, the meaning of life, the universe and everything, I've got those figured out. The small questions, they plague me.
George Orwell - Keep the Aspidistra Flying
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 1690
An uncomfortable recognition of the resemblences between young Gordon Comstock and myself; unfortunately I haven't gone searching for poverty (but it's done a fine job of finding me....). As always, Orwell has a fine eye for the minutae and details of the hypocrisies and manners of English society. And the bit about advertising is as relevent now as always...but still, that damnable resemblance....
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