Genetic Time Line Defined

As laid out in Porchwise's Encyclopedia of Highly Secret and Suspect Theoroticals.

Conception to birth: Genetic wars in the womb as DNA battles occur to determine the gender of the fetus...the beginning of what's usually known as 'The Battle of the Sexes'.

Birth to Age one: The cute and cuddly code kicks in along with the bodily functions code which will take the whole year to develope properly causing much parental angst.

Age one to two: Sensory, learning and 'let us push mommies buttons' code kicks in along with the 'walking upright' gene causing more parental angst.

Age two to three: The 'terrible twos' code along with the curiosity gene kicks in and the 'let us push mommies buttons' gene kicks the rest of the DNA into high gear causing mommy to make many trips to the doctor (for herself to see what pills will mix properly with beer and gin)

Age three to five: The first of the 'Iwanna do as I please' code kicks in along with the 'Fundamental Physical Agility' code causing much tree, garage and sometimes house climbing and further trips to the doctor (for broken bones and adjustments to mommies pills and alcohol combinations).

Age five to ten: The mental learning code kicks in and (according to DNA configuration) the humanoid reaches the deduction and conclusion stage. "I hate school!" is the more common conclusion uttered by most humanoids by the age of ten.

Age ten to thirteen: The random thoughts code kicks in along with the sexual preference code sometimes causing mass confusion in the humanoid.

Age thirteen to eighteen: The 'love' code along with the 'I know it all' code kicks'. The 'love' code has many DNA bytes with angst, confusion and 'I suck' being the usual dominate ones although the male DNA in some humanoids takes various paths sometimes leading the female to thinking she is absolutely beautiful or so ugly she takes down all her mirrors. The ego code kicks in in the male and he spends a lot of time in front of the mirror complimenting himself, combing his hair and uttering coments to himself such as 'Damn, I'm handsome!' The 'I know it all!' gene is dominate by age eighteen. The experimentation in all things related to 'party' runs amok.

Age nineteen to twenty-two: The work, college, join the military, or beachbum codes begin transforming the mental ability codes into permanent DNA to be passed on to future generations

Age twenty-two to sixty-five: Life experience causes other changes in all the genetic codes during this period of the humanoids existence, hopefully for the betterment of the next generation...but more than likely, not.

Age sixty-five to death: The 'to hell with it' code kicks in the the 'let's party' code (dormant since the age of twenty-two) kicks back in. The 'fear of death' code is activated leading to more mental confusion except in those humanoids whose karma has been elevated to enlightment and death only is the final step in joining the Universal Soul. Maybe.

Definitions to ponder over...

conservative: one step forward, two steps back

liberal: two steps forward, one step back

progressive republican: misnomer

opinion: a conclusion drawn with or without facts in evidence

parable: language device used for leaving interpretation up to the reader

constitution: document expressing the prime laws of a nation

bill of rights: guarantees under constitutional law

congressional committee: ship of fools

white trash: words describing how most elected officials feel about the voting public

supreme court: a collection of judges appointed to uphold the tenets of the constitution

filibuster: a necessary tool to restrain majority rule

science: the application of investigative results, experimentation and testing to prove theory

secularist: one who believes that religion and government should positively remain seperate

pork barrel: the hidden agenda of an elected representative in order to insure his reelection

totalitarianism: when government steps over constitutional boundries

quiet revolution: when the people use the power of the ballot box to form a new government
that governs solely under the tenets of the constitution

Something to ponder...

I ponder a lot about how religionists think about God, most especially about the oncept of his being a supreme being. The logical question (I know, I know...logic is not to be included in any discussion of God) would then be: who created God? Of course the religionist cannot answer this question because closed minds are not going to tolerate logical questions. If, however, we take the suposition that religionists are right about Him being the supreme being, then why are they so vehemently opposed to cloning? God clones all the time and that proof is in the pudding of fertilized eggs. Medical science has proven that more than one egg is fertilized at conception but then only one is allowed to implant to make a baby. It doesn't take a genius to realize someone or something is messing with the other fertilized eggs. The inevitible conclusion then is life doesn't begin until the single chosen egg implants and the other eggs are eliminated by..what? If you're a true believer you have no choice but to chalk it up to God's will but, even then, you'll have a hard time admitting the obvious: God believes in cloning and life doesn't begin at fertilization. The ramifications of this are not only intriguing but probably very upsetting to religious zealots as it blows their theory that life begins at conception. And that also opens the door to stem cell research that could be derived from all those fertilized but otherwise useless eggs.

Unexpected company from the future

About a half hour before sunrise this morning I went out to my porch with my first cup of coffee and was surprised to find a young man sitting on the steps.

"Can I help you?" I asked pleasantly enough considering the circumstances but people do get lost in the woods out here.

He had on a Tee shirt (red), Levi's and was barefooted. "Probably not...oh, I'm sorry about your lawn."

"What?" I questioned as I looked out across the lawn. I saw nothing unusual but the yard light illuminating the lawn was blocked by my two oaks and four pecan trees out there...a lot of the yard was shadowed.

"There's a couple of dead grass spots underneath that pecan tree," he said, pointing at one of the larger trees. "It's where Smith and I accidently beamed in..."

I still didn't see what he was pointing at so I sat down in one of the porch chairs while I recalled images of 'Star Trek'. "Beamed in?" I said. "You mean like 'Beam me up, Scotty'? Should I look for a spaceship?"

"Spaceship?" He smiled, "No, spaceships went out a long time ago."

"Come on up and sit a spell," I offered, utilizing the age old southern invite.

He stepped up on the proch, sat down and closed his eyes.

"You tired?" I asked. "Care for a cup of coffee?"

He opened his eyes. "No, I'm not tired...I was just checking my history bytes. Coffee would be okay, a Mountain Dew would be even better."

"Memory bytes? Are you some kind of Robot?"

"No," he said and laughed. "I'm an MIT student from the year twenty-sixty-five. Do you know anything about MIT?"

"Some; I'm a writer and I do subscribe to Discovery Magazine."

He closed his eyes for a few seconds then opened them. "Oh yes, a fine magazine in its time. We don't have 'magazines now...I mean in twenty-sixty-five."

I never assume anyone is crazy until I get to know them. "So you're time-traveling?"

"You might say that although time traveling itself is still on the drawing board. My ending up here is kind of a mistake...a misdirection of a sort. My pal, Smith, and I were busy experimenting with--to put it in your terms--'beaming' things around. It's 'Mystery Hunt' week at MIT right now. We were trying to 'Beam' parts to us for a two-thousand Ford SUV and misdirected half the split photon beam, using Roger Penrose's theory. Quantum math says it couldn't be done..."

"Whoa, boy! You're getting into nerdom and I ain't no genius." I got up. "Let me get your coffee; I don't have any Mountain Dew. Cream or sugar?"

"Lots of sugar, please," he said.

I went in and brought out the sugar bowl with his mug and he proceeded to make syrup out of his coffee.

I sat back down and said, "I don't care to know much about the future as I prefer to concentrate on the problems we have right now. By the way, what's going to happen to you if your pal can't figure out what happened and can't get you back?"

"Oh, I'm not worried about that...he'll run his memory chip and repeat the experiment exactly, including the mistake. I'll probably dissappear any minute. I will let you know the 'problems' you're concentrating on now--and I probably can guess most of them--will no longer exist in twenty-sixty-five."

"Why would that be so?" I couldn't help asking.

"Around the twenty-thirties, micro scientists created a computer no larger than a pea. They were able to plant it in the brain and neurology had already advanced to the point it could be connected, so to speak, to the brain. It marketed famously and in two decades nearly everyone had one implanted and could interface with what we call the 'World Peace' main frame--Orwell's predicition realized, except 'Big Brother' was programed by MIT grads who envisioned world peace, not by controlling minds but by programs based on diplomatic communication. War became a thing of the past. Humanity in twenty-sixty-five is truly 'civilized'--a word hardly appropriate right now in your time."

"I can't disagree with you about that. I really am..."

He suddenly dissappeared. Not Star Trekky like but just was gone in an instant.

I got up, went in and wrote 'six pack of Mountain Dew' on the shopping list hanging on the refrigerator. When wifey gets up I'll just tell her it's for unexpected company.

God call the Don

THE DON: Hello?
GOD: It's God, Donald. I just called to discuss 'The Apprentice'. I'm not too happy with it.
THE DON: You don't like it? Jeez, it's getting the best ratings...
GOD: War gets high ratings, Don. Look at that Iraq mess--preempted everything for weeks when Dubba decided it needed rousting.
THE DON: Boy, Lord, you got that right although it really would have been a wow if we'd just had the tanks gold-plated.
GOD: That's one of the things I called to talk to you about...this obsession of yours about gold is pissing me off a bit.
THE DON: But I like gold! It's classy stuff!
GOD: I'm afraid your putting the Midas touch on everything is going to be the downfall of your show, that and those gluttonous banquets you're televising in your penthouse and all those two-hundred-dollar-a-plate restaurants. The average American can just stand so much of that kind of showing off, you know.
THE DON: But all I'm doing is showing what happens when you go after the 'American Dream'...
GOD: You mean you believe the American Dream is unlimited wealth and power?
THE DON: Well, isn't it? I mean isn't it pulling yourself up out of the quagmire of just 'making a living and aquiring enough wealth and power to have anything you want?
GOD: But, Don, you never did that, did you? You were born into wealth, remember? What you did was just take a small fortune and make it bigger...I see nothing in your past that could even remotely be called 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps...nothing about personal entrepreneurship...about starting with nothing but ambition and a burning desire to escape the rat race.
THE DON: But that's what 'the Apprentice' is all about. I mean we interview over a million applicants to find twelve of the best!
GOD: There's another thing that bothers me. One of your criteria for 'weeding out' is the applicant must already have been a success in their own career.
THE DON: Certainly!
GOD: And you assume this will instill your viewers with the motivation to pursue the American Dream:
THE DON: Of course!
GOD: Whew! I guess I better send Jesus down there to have a little talk with you and Dubba. Seems like you think alike...of course your backgrounds have a lot of similarities.
THE DON: Dubba? Who's Dubba?
GOD: I haven't got time to go into Dubba's problems...let's just say he's someone like you who needs a lot of educating about what the reality of the poor and the working class is all about.
THE DON: Hey, Lord, I've got my favorite charities...I give away a lot of my money!
GOD: Perhaps so but your values are still askew. Don...are you listening.
THE DON: Oh... sorry, Lord...just trying to figure out who Dubba is...is he richer than me?
GOD: I'm going to hang up now; Jesus is on the way.
THE DON: Wow! Can I put him on my show?
The phone clicks and thunder rolls across New York.

God and the Genetic code

Saint Peter was busier than usual when his cell phone started chiming 'Amazing Grace'...God's personal ring tone so he had to answer.
ST PETER: Yes Lord? Pray ye make it quick, I'm swamped here, the line must be ten miles long.
GOD: Sorry, Pete, it's just that I wanted to let you know my genetic code program crashed again.
ST PETER: Oh no! What did it do now?
GOD: Well, to tell you the truth, and you know I always do, I'm really not sure. I was trying to straighten out two codes at once and somehow mixed up the human terrorist gene with the aggression gene of the lion. Just as I pulled the terrorist bit out of the terrorist code, the lion page dissappeared. I'm not sure where it went...might be another Lucifer virus.
PETER: So what do you want me to do, Lord?
GOD: After you've checked off the basic ten on each of the souls in that line, find me a computer nerd with less than two marks against him and send him over to my throne. Make sure his I.Q. is above one-sixty, okay? I don't want no psuedo genius working on my program.
ST PETER: I'll see what I can do but it might take a while although I realize we've got all the time in the Universe. I prayed for you not to put that genius bit in the random genetic code system you know...
GOD: Come on, Pete, you know better than to question my judgement...besides, I had to do it. You know how little of their brains my humans were using.
ST PETER: Sorry, Lord.
GOD: That's better. Look, if you ant me to I'll send Jesus over there to help you out. I know that malaria outbreak in Africa has got you a little busier than usual but you know Lucifer caused that mess.
ST PETER: No thanks, the last time he helped me out he spent more time forgiving those five-checkmark souls than he did casting them into hell.
GOD: Please quit telling me things I already know, Pete. You know how stubborn he can be at times. I'm thinking about sending him over to help John the Baptist anyway. Since John lost his head he's been delving into the medical field. He recently informed me he thinks he's discovered a way to obliterate that cancer code Lucifer hacked into the wellness code.
ST PETER: Okay, Lord, I'll do my best but don't expect miracles...
GOD: Sometimes your sense of humour cracks me up, Pete but I know you'll do your best. Oh Jeez, I better get off now, Mary's out fooling around in the apple orchard again. She knows what happened to Eve...sometimes I just can't control that girl. Oh yeah, I'll be gone tomorrow for a few eon's. That new world I created in Universe four needs a population created.
ST PETER: Well, good luck although I know you don't need it...but may I please make a suggestion?
GOD: A suggestion? Sometimes you just almost step over the line, Pete.
ST PETER: I know but I just pray you will use your basic Jesus genetic code...maybe it'll create a better life form.
GOD: Prayer answered and denied, Pete. You know his code is missing the free will byte. And besides I already did that with Ghandi and look how much good it did. Hmmmm...maybe I'll try it again although not before I add the free will bits.
ST PETER: As you wish, Lord. I've got to go now too as someone down the line is waving the Koran and jumping up and down. Guess I've got to chew some butt.
GOD: Ha! Lot of good that'll do. At the last God council meeting, Ali, Budda, and I had quite a time wrestling that anger code around...not much of anything came of it. Don't rag the guy too hard, Pete, he's just expressing what he's been taught.
ST PETER: I'll try to be humbly angry, Lord.
GOD: Bye then, talk to you in seven days unless the big bang I caused in Universe five created a time warp in four then it might be seven billion days or so. Some things just get out of hand.

Notes on Blogdom

I went blog reading yesterday for most of the day and was rather astonished at how much disparity there was in the literacy of bloggers. Then again I suppose Blogdom has a rather large population. I was also amazed at the frequency of college student blogs. Mosy of them fell into the category of chic-lit as most of those blogs were done by inane college women--well, college girls would be a better fit. The few college male blogs were mostly rants, raves and bragging about partying, drinking, pot smoking, and sexual conquests. Most all showed a sad lack of rudimentary English--all combined it was mostly a waste of reading time. I've been a speed reader for many years and only three things slow me down: bad spelling; bad sentence structure; and a really literate piece of interesting writing. As a former columnist I learned early on that editing was a must (if you want people to at least have an idea about where you're coming from) but most bloggers hardly seem to be aware of this unless they are into wordsmithing and coveying their thoughts literally. Blathering seemed to mostly be the order of the day.

The religionist, secularist, athiest, and political wars also marched on (as they've been doing long before blogging). God and government pop up often and usually are just spurious opinions by closed minds.

In the comment section it's usually just rant, rave and sometimes sensible advice or accolades on the blog itself. On the really good, literate essays I couldn't help but wonder why the writer wasn't working on a novel.

I don't plan on many other forays into the blogging jungle but I do plan on visiting a few of them again and throw others I find literarily interesting into my links.

NASCAR mania

Earnhart, Stewart, Johnson, Waltrip, Neuman, Wallace, Martin, Gordon...if these names mean nothing to you then you probably don't need to read any further because you're not a NASCAR fan. Then again you might just like to ponder silly things like this, as I'm doing this morning out on my porch.
When I was twenty (some forty odd years ago) I got over my lead foot days when I blew the engine in my first car. Now I've become a NASCAR fan and sitting here pondering the reasons why--why would I, an old fart well into his sixties, suddenly develope an interest in the banal sport of automobile racing? Have I become a victum of hype? What impels me to drop everything else on Sunday afternoons to sit before the boob tube and watch modified, shiney and gaudily panted cars going round and round an oval tract for three or four hours?
I remember a period in my thirties when I was living in Colorado, I got hooked on football. I spent nearly a decade of rooting for the Denver Broncos until time and circumstance caused a move to Texas and the excitement faded away.
NASCAR stadiums now have crowds of spectators numbering in the hundred thousands. Major corporations shower advertising bucks down on NASCAR like confetti at a Hero's parade. Where once stock cars were the domain of barnyard mechanics and pit crews were made up of fathers, brothers or hang-around-the-garage types, crews now are 'specialists': six to eight well-trained men who can change all four tires, fill the gas tank, make driving adjustments to the undercarriage and have a car in and out of 'Pit Row' in less than fifteen seconds and have a contest that awards the top team a million bucks each year. The top drivers, besides winning a lot of money, also sideline making commercials. The hype includes America's fascination with staying young (and phobia about aging) by naming the newer, hot NASCAR drivers 'The Young Guns'.
And there's also the vicarious thrill of the wreck, much like the oh's and ah's the crowds at a football game gasp out when a player is carried off the field.
I reckon I'm just as 'Americanized' as the next fellow (although it is an irritating thought) so I'll just let this go by admitting I'm hooked (at least for the time being) on NASCAR. Besides, I have a remote and can switch channels during the commercials to whatever golf tournament is on --they usually coincide quite nicely. I've always been hooked on golf--that's Jack Nicholas and Arnold Palmer's fault. Well, it was--now it's Tiger Woods and Phil Michelson's fault.

Playing with letters

PSYCHIC: Persistant Scams You Can Ignore Completely

LOVE: Latching Onto Viable Emotions

EMOTIONS: Everyone's Mental Observations Tested Internally On Nonsensical Scales

POLITICIAN: Person Of Limited Intelligence Talking In Circles Inventing Absolute Nonsense

VOTE: Very Odd Tallies Emerging

Oh well, it's a quiet day here on the porch.

Paula and Corey Cliffhanger

He was twenty--she was thirty-eight. He was trying to climb the mountain--she lived on top of the mountain. He would grab any rope to help him climb--she threw him a rope. He had a rage to get to the top and grabbed the rope--she had raging harmones and began pulling him up. He slipped on his past and fell--she threw no more ropes. He grabbed a jutting rock on the mountainside and screamed--she leaned over the edge and yelled down for him to shut up. The earth trembled--the mountain began to shake. They both held on for dear life. Stay tuned for next weeks thrilling episode: 'Who's Lying?'

Taming the Bear

When I stepped out on my porch yesterday morning a light rain was falling but the thunder was rolling off in the distance and lightning was flashing on the predawn horizon. According to the forecast the day before we were in for it and we were. I knew this day before yesterday because I went out in the front yard and snipped off the Wisteria vines and crawlers-- everytime I do this it rains the next day.

I like rainy days because I can enjoy my favorite method of writing which is putting pen to paper. I always keep my computer off on stormy days, not because storms bother me but because I can't afford to replace my computer. When I was a columnist all my first drafts were done pen to paper then the second draft was typed and sent off to my editor and my editor rarely used the red pencil on the column. My novels are a different matter. First drafts are done pen to paper and enjoyed, then second and thirds and fourth and fifth and...well, you know the score...are like wrestling a bear. Revising, adding, cutting, and all the other editorial work I find irksome I also find necessary to tame the bear.

When I bought a computer (not that long ago) I found 'word' a handy tool but I wish it was smarter. Editing with 'word' sometimes can be a chore in itself-- kind of like taming the bear without sharpening his claws. I suppose (and have been advised by other wrestlers) that 'book' is much better but, as old as I am, I don't want to be induced to becoming a lazy writer. And frustration is just a norm when writing mystery fiction so I'll just plod on along and wear the 'ignore' tab out in 'word'.