Dlcox

For years, I have looked down my nose somewhat at claims by Army and Navy veterans that they were the meanest fighting forces ever seen. This is because of the fact that the Marine Corps seldom brags, because they know who they are, and the Air Force (my branch of service) were snake eaters and survival experts before the Navy invented the ‘Seals’ and ‘Seal Teams’, and the Army invented the ‘Special Forces’. This was because as a flyer, you had the possibility of being shot down anywhere on the surface of the Earth, and you had better be ready for escape and evasion as well as fighting it out and long-term survival under the harshest conditions imaginable. This included ‘Bugging Out’ through a battlefield covered with radioactive debris.

Well, I have become convinced that the kids serving today to protect our country may be superior in the ‘Badness Department’ to my former comrades in arms. This is because they made a simple video of themselves waging a firefight in Afghanistan while simultaneously engaging in a barbeque cookout. Here is this awesome short Youtube video:

It is sad that only one percent of the population of the USA has taken up arms to defend and protect the country. Recruiters are having a tough time right now signing up replacements for those that are discharged from active duty. This doesn’t say much for our materialistic dog-eat-dog culture, and I hope the liberals who are trying to defund our military in order to fulfill the dreams of our wishful thinking Democratic president and Congressional representatives watch this and reflect on the havoc they are wreaking on the best military force the world has ever seen.

So, I urge my fellow citizens to make being a veteran a real hallmark of worth in the corporate world when they are honorably discharged for service to the country.

It is hard to watch the images of the displaced people in the Middle East trying to find refuge from the madness of the religious wars going on there. It is especially sad to see the suffering of helpless innocent children who will be forever traumatized by the hapless flight of their families to regions of the world that are relatively peaceful and socially advanced. I’m afraid of the long-term consequences for the host countries, whose citizens have opened their hearts and wallets to the plight of these people. You see, the ‘religious’ conflict is a false –to- facts perception of what is really going on; I think a major contributor is that population density exceeds the carrying capacity of the planet in their region. The impact on the host countries will be profound and transformative, and not in a good way because of the clash of cultures and value systems.

Much can be learned as to the future of Europe and Asia from the seminal scientific experiments of John B. Calhoun in the 1960s. Here is a brief and very informative paper that summarizes the results of confining a population of lab rats as they grew from a pair of rats into something very frightening: Population Density

Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers or solutions. The deed has been done, and now our new ‘lab rats’ will show us the future of humanity without stringent population controls in place.

Now, on to another subject: A gift to my readers. What follows is a story that I published in my first book of short stories, “Smog and the Salv”

A Big Fish Story

According to a Goshute Indian friend of mine, there is a tiny lake high in Utah’s Uinta Mountains that nestles in the caldera of a small extinct volcano. The Indians call it Iceberg Lake, and in it resides an extremely rare species of fur-bearing Trout. I know it sounds ludicrous, but I believed my friend.

You see, some years ago, after much coaxing, he introduced me to one of the rare delicacies of the Intermountain West: Sugar-cured Great Salt Lake Grasshoppers. These huge, yellowish insects are collected by the Goshutes when they appear every five years or so, and properly cured, they taste a lot like lobster or shrimp. That experience made me a believer, so I didn’t reject his fish story out of hand.

Determined to try my hand at fly-casting for these rare trout, I got my friend to draw a map to the lake’s location. The trailhead seemed to be at the top of Lung Blood pass at about 12,000 feet, and climbing up to that pass is no easy feat, especially when you are nearly 70 years old. From there, the trail snakes along the crest of the mountains, well above the tree line for about five miles, to finally drop down a little through thick patches of Lodge pole pine and Aspen to the lake.

So on a bright August morning, I started out with tackle, waders, and snacks stuffed in a small backpack, and fly rod case in hand. After the brutal climb to the pass, it was mid morning, and I sat down on a convenient boulder to eat a cheese sandwich and take in the view. It was nearly a cloudless day, with only a few puff-ball clouds hugging a mountain top here and there, and you could see clear into Wyoming.

After scouting around for a few hundred yards, I spotted the old Indian trail leading through a split granite cliff face toward the north. I slipped into the backpack and using my pole case as a walking stick, headed out along the high ridge. The trail was surprisingly level, and I made good time to the point where it dropped into the forest below. The lake was a bit of surprise; you couldn’t see it until you were nearly on it, but it was very deep, and about 400 yards wide.

I took off my gear, and after resting for a while, crept quietly down to the lake’s edge. I peered into the crystal-clear water and could see several fish swimming in the shallows. They looked blurry; sort of out of focus, and their heads were much larger than their bodies. This is a sure sign of a lack of nutrition, as I had seen it before in high altitude lakes that were stocked by the Fish and Game with Eastern Brook Trout. Very few survived the harsh winter at those heights.

I put together my fly rod, and tied on a tiny dry fly; a #22 Midge. On my first cast, a trout struck immediately. It jerked hard for an instant, and then the line went limp. I reeled in and saw that the fly was gone. The trout had swallowed it whole, and had bitten cleanly through the leader like some sort of Piranha. Those fish were damned hungry!

Shaking my head, I tied on a larger fly, and cast out again. I flipped the rod tip a few times to make the fly look life-like, and wham! Another trout chomped down, severed the leader and swam off, probably belching contentedly. I’m sure they were so hungry that they could digest the steel hook and feathers with no problem at all.

Disgusted, I reeled in once again, tied on another fly, and went through the same routine. Soon, I had gone through a half-dozen of my very best flies, and so I regrouped, tied on a much heavier leader, and attached big #12 Royal Coachmen and Silver Doctors. The outcome was the same; they bit through the leader and swallowed my flies. Soon, I was reduced to a few large terrestrials like grasshoppers and beetles in my tackle box. With their large heads, the trout swallowed them all, and none had even broken the surface to allow me to take a good look at them.

I couldn’t believe it; those trout had taken all of my lures and were swimming around with about an ounce of steel in their bellies. I searched through the bare hooks, spools of leader and line, and other paraphernalia in the box, looking for something at all to attach to the line. Nothing, nada. Wait a minute! I spotted a small horseshoe magnet that I had found last season and had casually tossed into the box. I know it was madness, but I was desperate. I tied it onto the line, and cast out, reeling in very slowly. Bingo! The magnet clamped onto the side of one of those trout, and I reeled in and flipped the small fish onto the shore.

It flopped around in the sunlight, the rays catching its glimmering golden coat of downy fur. As it flopped around, the magnet popped off, and I had a terrible time holding onto the little devil. It was a 12 inch acrobat, and the normal fish slime and the slick fur made it slip out of my hands every time I tried to grasp it. I did manage to flip it farther away from the shoreline, and exhausted, it finally gave up and lay quietly.

After it made its last gasp, I picked it up in both hands and examined it closely. Sure enough it was fur; close cropped and dense, covering its body from the tail fin up to the gills. By this time, I was tired and hungry, and consumed with culinary curiosity, I decided to cook and eat it on the spot. I made a ring of rocks and started a small fire within it. As it burned into coals, I sharpened the tip of a slender pine branch and speared it through the fish. I didn’t try to clean the fish first, because I was afraid of it slipping under the knife, giving me a nasty cut on the hand.

It didn’t smell too good as the heat from the coals scorched off the fur, but in minutes, the tender flesh was cooked. I got out the cheese, and one of the cold beers I had brought along. It wasn’t a bad meal. The stubble of fur gave it an interesting texture, and added a sort of almond flavor to the delicate trout taste.

I finished my impromptu meal, and seeing the sun was now across the zenith, I knew I had to start back to my car now, or take the risk of descending the pass in the dark. When I started up the car, I suddenly realized that I could never prove what I had experienced. I should have stayed to catch at least one more to bring home. On the drive back though, I realized that it was the Great Spirit at work. He wanted that lake and its unique inhabitants to remain a secret between me and the Indians. And, of course, I’ll never tell where it is.

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public  debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be  tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should  be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

Cicero  55 BC

The country that I have known and loved most of my life is becoming unrecognizable. It is due to the excesses of politics and politicians who seem to have an unhealthy disregard for the provisions of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. And, my fellow citizens have rushed to embrace the new ‘Savior-based economy’. Sadly, they are lacking the education and wisdom to deal with the issues intelligently, and largely depend on ‘Pundits’ and clergymen to do their thinking for them.

But then, this has been the case since the days that humans first formed societies out of gatherings of nuclear families. Nothing seems to change, and as time goes on, we burden ourselves with chains that exist only in our own minds. I came across a magnificent painting, rich in allegory, that seems to sum up our past and present condition:

It will surprise many to learn that the United States was not established as a ‘Democracy’. The fact is, most of our founding fathers were pagans, and went to great lengths to separate church and state, but one, James Madison, lobbied hard for it to be organized as a ‘Republic’, because he feared the results of direct voting by the citizens as is required in a participatory democracy. This was codified in the 14^th article of the Constitution.

So, instead of a democracy, we have a republic in which representatives write the laws and operate the government. Now, this would be an abhorrent situation to an educated general population of patriots, but it is what we have. We are still a long ways from evolving into a participatory democracy, although with modern electronics and the free Internet, we could set up a good one tomorrow.

No, the U.S. wasn’t perfect then and it is not perfect now. Democracy is a moving target, changing over time. But obviously we’ve done some things right. No other nation has influenced as many other nations since the days of the Roman Empire. No other nation has advanced the sciences and the arts as much as the U.S. has. And no other nation has yet moved beyond superpower status to a potential global government.

And yet, with the Savior-based economy, we are giving up much of what our fathers and forefathers achieved, and we are spilling the blood of our children in shooting wars instead of isolating and using the power of high technology, finance, and commerce to dominate and control the miscreants that have hijacked entire countries.

I’m sure that a world government, if it is ever constituted, will at first take the form of a republic, and will endure in that form until the entire population of the world is educated enough and smart enough to evolve it into the real deal. This may well take several lifetimes to accomplish, but it is a worthy goal.

I knew that sooner or later I must ‘belly up to the bar’ and offer solutions to the crisis that I have been predicting for over 10 years. Now, I don’t see myself as being uniquely enlightened; many others have preceded me in developing realistic foresight, most notably the people of Norway. I know this seems improbable, but consider the Norwegian Svalbard Global Seed Vault; a secure seed bank on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 kilometers from the North Pole. It is so remote and secure that it is guarded only by a lot of hungry Polar bears.

 Soon, humanity will be forever grateful for the creation of this vital source of biomass for the Earth and food crops for humans. But we must also act fast in other areas, for example, relocating the International Space Station to a very close lunar orbit. This is the perfect habitat for lunar pioneers to rest, recuperate, and coordinate the touchdown of vehicles on the Moon’s surface necessary for the establishment of a human colony that can revitalize and reestablish civilization as we know it back on the Earth’s surface. A new technology is being developed not far from my home that can be adapted to speed up the process of engineering lunar habitats that can endure for the long term on their own. See it here: Virtual Reality

 The underlying reality for investing in a lunar habitat is that ‘Spaceship Earth’ will be far easier to Geo-engineer than hollowed out asteroids, or somehow (with the help of aliens) creating giant spaceships that travel at warp speeds to new planets similar to the earth, and so on. The reason we must drop everything and get going on this fast is simple:  It is time once again to learn from the lessons of the past. For this, I give you the anomaly of 1200 B.C. It is so similar to the global conflict surrounding the ISIL movement, that it makes me shiver. Here is the definitive example of what can happen and it is 45 minutes long. Perhaps you should view this blog post on a desktop PC to avoid draining the battery on your Smartphone. Now, I give you for your consideration “The Sea Peoples”:

Next, consider this video made by others about the coming extinction. It offers a reasonable and scientific plan for fighting the immediate effects and perhaps stopping the process in its tracks, assuming we survive the modern iteration of the Sea Peoples:

Preventing the Mass Extinction

Well, I don’t want to overload you with a lot of new concepts in one sitting. When I get motivated (and you can help by making comments to this post), I will offer other fun facts and solutions for your consideration in some subsequent posts. For now, I’m going to kick back, sip a shot of Jack Daniels, and enjoy the fact that my doctor took me off of my daily pills to control my blood pressure this week. I am fit enough from doing four kilometers on the track every day that I don’t need them any more. At age 75, I’m not doing too badly. I’m also starting on chart five of the Air Force 5BX program of exercise that I did when I was on flying status over 50 years ago……

Fires, fires, everywhere in the Old West, including near my own home! The evacuation order came for me to leave everything I own and run like hell! Here is an image of the inferno that came raging to my street:

Quail Hollow Fire Courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune

Many of my neighbors rushed out of their homes carrying oil paintings and other valuables, trudging down the street like Syrian refugees. I wrung my hands fitfully, looking right and left for a place to hide and then I realized my bad Karma was due to the fact that I hadn’t visited the old Guru that lives in a cave on the the mountain behind my home in quite a while. So, instead of running with the herd, I decided to climb the mountain to his hideout and see if he was all right.

I put on my crampons and ice-axed up the glacier like an old mountain goat high on loco weed. Braving the howling wind at the summit, I hobbled as fast as I could to the cave’s jagged entrance and stepped inside. It was dark and dank, and  a voice from the back of the cave, sounding like James Earl Jones on helium said, “Is that you, Fed Ex guy?”

“No, it’s me, master.” I replied as I dusted the snow off of my parka. “I brought you a gift.”

“I told you not to show up here any more, you worthless piece of Llama dung. I still have a bad hack from that rotten Jimson Weed you gave me last time.” He shuffled into the feeble shaft of light that penetrated the mouth of the cave, and grabbed the pouch that I proffered in my frost-bitten hand. He opened the drawstring and peered inside suspiciously.

“What is this crap?”

“Well, it’s the Joni Mitchell CD that you wanted, and some seeds from a Yopo tree that I collected in the Amazon last year.”

Mollified, he sat down and assumed a full lotus position on the cold granite floor. Digging an old corn cob pipe from under the filthy Navaho blanket that draped across his shoulders, he stuffed a few seeds in the bowl and lit up, drawing the pungent smoke deeply into his lungs.

His eyes bugged out like a toad and after a few minutes, he exhaled the greasy green vapor. “That’s more like it”, he squeaked, “ Gimme some of the Tequila in that hip flask you’re hiding under your parka”, he demanded.

“How did you know I had that?” I unzipped the parka and handed him the bottle.

“You are disgustingly predictable.” he replied, chugging the contents. “Now, what do you want?”

I pondered his question for a moment. “Well, beside my house being on fire by now, I have been considering giving my fishing float tube and stuff to my nephew. I love it, but I’m getting too old to use it anymore. The kid doesn’t even have a car to put it in and go somewhere.”

“So what? Maybe it will motivate him to get a job. Besides, things are to be used and people are to be loved.”

I considered this comment while the old man belched and farted contentedly. He was right, of course.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed, “Those seeds are all right!  I’m getting tunnel vision!” He scuttled across the floor like a crab and sat back on an old mattress covered with bat droppings. He slipped the CD into a portable player, and a clear sweet voice started the first tune from ‘Shadows and Light’.

“Anything else you’d like to tell me before I go?”

“Yes.” He said, scratching his beard absently. “Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character; Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

I pondered this admonition for a minute, and satisfied; I zipped my parka back up and turned to leave. “I’ll see you again, someday.” I called over my shoulder.

“If you see that Fed Ex guy on the way down, tell him the porn he’s delivering had better have some women in it this time.”

“Will do,” I replied.

As I climbed down off of the mountain, I could see hundreds of firemen fighting to contain the fierce flames which were still shooting hundreds of feet into the air, and dozens of fire trucks were spraying water. Two Blackhawk helicopters were swooping down, dumping fire retardant, and the whole effort was being orchestrated by a spotter plane circling well above the scene. It was then that I was glad that I live in the most tax-expensive real estate in Utah. For once, I won’t mind paying my taxes this fall; those people were worth every penny of it.

It tugs on the heartstrings of any caring, compassionate person to see the image making the rounds on the Internet of the immigrant father carrying the dead body of one of his innocent children out of the surf of the Mediterranean. Seeing the stark image made me want to weep as well, although I have hardened myself over the last ten years that I have been predicting mass population displacements in my blog posts. Well, as the Chambers Brothers used to sing, “The Time Has Come Today”; In fact, here it is: https://youtu.be/_zfgoJzOCgg

Now that you’ve had your Acid Trip for the day, what can we do? I have pointed out many times that five billion of us have to go in order for the rest of us to live sustainably. Few are willing to die voluntarily so that many others can live.Trying to think about this dilemma dispassionately is very hard because one must set aside religious beliefs and social value systems such as that of the USA which seeks the ‘greater good’ for everyone. So my only recourse for this discussion is to use reason, science, and non-Aristotelian logic (General Semantics). With all that said, here we go:

The ‘Great Die-off’ has to begin with those who drag everyone else down; the destroyers of resources and civilization, such as ISIL, followed by those who continue to over-breed as a sort of old age social security insurance policy, hoping that their children will take care of them. (I have to admit that this worked well for thousands of years in the past, but that was then and now it’s now).

So, it seems that our efforts to save the ‘Innocent’ masses that are migrating with their children out of regions of conflict, must be focused on those that are educated or have critical skills useful to the ‘survivors’ of humanity. The rest should likely be confined in camps in their countries of origin. Regardless of the firefights, ground wars, religious-based terrorism and so forth going on, this must be done quickly. And the camps must be provisioned adequately, including food and water, and guarded by the rest of us in order for the candidates to be tested and otherwise identified as worthy of salvation. If done in nature this would be called ‘Darwinism’ or ‘Natural Selection’. Unfortunately, this winnowing of the herd by nature usually takes thousands of years, and we no longer have the luxury of time. The candidates that get a ‘passing grade’ get assimilated into our societies carefully.

This kind of ‘testing’ and confinement must also take place within ‘developed’ countries, and ‘western’ or ‘democratic’ societies as well. When the dust settles, the ‘fit’ among us can start the rebuilding process. The new human paradigm will be environmental remediation, with forestry workers and fish& game folks having the same privileges as engineers, teachers, farmers, and physicians. Here is the alternative:

Advanced societies and countries will be quickly overrun and bankrupted, as well as suffer social collapse caused by displaced populations, terrorist infiltrators and fanatics. Feudal groups within the smoldering remains of ‘civilization’ will arise with the wealthy having their own armies, and social disorder will continue while the planet is being rendered uninhabitable by environmental change.

The Deluge (oil on canvas by Thomas Cole 1857)