Friday, June 17, 2011

Philosophical Phoolishness

Okay, this is going to be one of those posts that is totally not worth reading because it’s not going to cure anything or fix any world problems. I’ve always thought if I just applied myself and tried a little harder that I would be able to not only figure out what’s wrong with the world, but I would be able to point out how to fix it. A very wise person once told me that I should never complain about anything unless I was going to offer a working solution as how to fix it. That has always kept me remarkable quiet.

Another thing that I was told by this very wise person was, not to ever say or do anything that I wasn’t willing to sign my name to. That’s always been a little easier for me, because I always give my best. I know full well that other people can do better than me, but I always try to give my best, and I’m willing to own up to the things that I do. So, people that do and say mean things, and sign their name as “Anonymous” always kind of makes me wonder who would do a thing like that. I know, I know… there are “good anonymouses” (Anonymice?) but they seem to be few and far between, and they also seem to be completely overpowered by the meanies.

Where’s this going… Oh yeah, I was going to solve the worlds problems. The way that I see it is that human nature is the worlds biggest problem. Some would say that over-population is the world’s most major problem, but if you scratch down to the bottom of it, you will find that it is “human nature” that requires babies. So, I’ve figured it out for you. That’s my first recommendation is to stop having babies. If you're not going to stop having babies, the world problems are only going to get worse.

The other thing that I see wrong with the world is people that want to run other peoples lives. You find a lot of that in religion. There are religions in the world that teaches that if you draw a picture of Mohamed, they will have to kill you. The reasoning is that Mohamed is so perfect that no image of him could even come close to who he is, so, if you draw a picture, they have to kill you. That kind of makes sense if it were true. I'm not saying that it is not true, you understand, but you won't see me trying to draw any pictures of him.

Then there are the people that try to save you, whether you want to be saved or not. I really don't get that. I go way out of my way to leave people alone, yet some people follow you around like flies on Buttermilk trying to save you. I really don't get that at all. It's like they have to "save" at least ten souls or they don't get to go to heaven. I'm not really sure why they want to save me. If they really knew me they might not like me. Why would they want somebody they didn't like up there in heaven with them? Go figur'.

There is a guy that walks around town with a large walking stick. He will give you his prophesy if you ask. That is my kind of guy. If you want to be saved, you have to ask him for it. Apparently he works directly under God, and God tells him what's going on. It's a nice arrangement. It seems that God is holding back great tidal waves in the Pacific Ocean until enough people start praying for forgiveness. Then God's going to kill the rest of us with a tidal wave. Religion is soooo cheerful. My only problem is, I can't believe in anything unless I know it's real, I lack that faith thing. Now if God shows up, I can hit his big toe with a my Hammer. If he yells OUCH! I will be come an instant believer, I will pray like crazy, then I will get to go to heaven with the rest of the Godly devote, because it says right in the Holy Book (Depending on which Holy Book you read) that God has to take you into heaven if you pray hard enough. Believe me, if I hit God on the big toe with a hammer, and he yelled ouch, I would be the most sincere praying person on Earth.

Now this global warming thing... Why do we care if we over-populate the earth if its going to die anyway? Global warming has been happening for the last 220,000 years. If you haven't noticed, you simply haven't been paying attention! So, global warming is going to kill us. It's only been it the last 10 or 15 years that people have gotten extremely rich predicting that the sky is falling, before that, there was very little money in it. In fact, Chicken Little died a pauper's death, he is in an unmarked grave, nobody even knows where he is buried. But, Al Gore? Everybody knows about him, he is practically the modern day Messiah. If anybody is going to be able to save us, it will be Al Gore. Shouldn't we be praying directly to him, or should we still go through God with our prayers as a common courtesy. I believe in courtesy.

Let's see, what have I left out? Oh yeah, Earthquakes and Volcanoes... Crap, some of this stuff gets to scary to contemplate. Back in 1906, "The Great San Francisco Earthquake" fractured the San Andreas fault from The Triple Junction off of Petrolia to San Juan Bautista. That’s a three hundred mile long fracture folks. The little village of Branscomb California sits just a few miles east of the San Andreas fault. My grandmother Ruby (Middleton) Branscomb was almost killed by a falling fireplace at a cabin on the headwaters of the South Fork of the Eel River on April 18th 1906 at 5:12 AM. I understand that the earthquake shook a lot harder at the north end than it did in San Francisco. The quake shook so hard that they felt it in Nevada. It knocked over redwood trees in Branscomb. Rightfully, the quake should have been known as the “Great Branscomb Earthquake”, that shook so hard that it knocked down the city of San Francisco 200 miles away! I know how Chicken Little felt, he was the one that predicted that the sky was falling, and Al Gore stole his thunder. Well san Francisco stole our earthquake!


Uninhabitable area of Yellowstone Eruption
 Volcanoes… Urgh… These are just to scary to talk about. The ground around Yellowstone is starting to tip up, the lakes are moving to the side. They say that if Yellowstone blows that it’s going to remove, or inundate, or make uninhabitable, 2/3 of the United States. Can you say...  TEN THOUSAND times the size of Mount Saint Helens!? The good news is the coast of Northern California should be in the safe zone…. If the wind is blowing in the right direction. Pray to Al Gore that the wind is right the day that Yellowstone blows. More good news is it will stop the illigal imigration out of Mexico. The ground has been lifting at an ever rapidly moving rate. I changed my mind, I don’t want to even talk about volcanoes.

This has already gone on too long. So, I’m going to stop here and post this. Can you see it?



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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

First off here, I can't even believe that even a fly would like buttermilk.
Next, I heard yesterday that the sun is going into a sleepy phase over the next several years such as happened during the the last little ice age.
As far as the volcanoes are concerned the prevailing wind blow East so as far as I can see from the above I won't have to do any praying either:-)

Oregon

Rose said...

Just quit driving that SUV, and the Caldera will not blow.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Oregon
Buttermilk was Dale Evan's horse. Being an old horse guy, I thought that you would know that...

Ernie Branscomb said...

We should drill geo-thermal wells into the Yellowstone caldera and cool it off. We would have enough free energy to power up the whole world. That is, if we didn't slip and touch-off an eruption.

I was wondering how many nuclear power plants there are in the devastation area? Not many I'd bet, they need tons of cooling water.

skippy said...

Ernie, this is an aside to the philosopherings here.

I'd be curious to know from you and your readers, what's the most interesting thing you've ever discovered or found? You've discussed treasure, the Shelter Cove and King's Peak stories, the Brother Jonathan, fossils and arrowheads, but surely you-- or readers-- have your own interesting finds? Here's some examples.

I remember an out-of-work father restoring old pianos on the side so his family could get by. He found $2,000 inside one of his player pianos: 1930 era bills in a brown paper bag stashed underneath the hood. That came in handy.

Years ago, a Eureka watch and clock repair business, The Oldtimer, showed me his unusual find of the day: an 1848 Scottish will, elaborately written on a sheepskin parchment with a wax seal stamping, found behind the old grandfather clock he was tinkering on. "That's not unusual, clocks were a common place that everyone hid their stuff in," he said, "as well as in Prince Albert cans on strings lowered in walls behind the light sockets, down gas tanks of junked cars, or behind a removable stone of an outside wall. Usually the hiding place is where the keeper can keep an eye on it from the master bedroom," he said.

A friend dug up a rotting leather pouch holding silver coins from the early 1900s on his California Street property, encased in rhododendron roots. Another found two silver dollars at Sequoia Park using his metal detector. Our local thrift stores have their own stories of money rolls and jewelry 'left forgotten in the pockets of donated clothing all the time.' While not truly treasure, another friend found a large, handmade brass ring hanging to a rotting fence post of an Arcata pasture. "It was used in oxen's noses," he said, that being the most likely and interesting of all answers to believe. An acquaintance restoring an old oak desk bought from a hotel discovered-- to his horror-- a long-lost suicide note stuck inside giving him both the willies and the heebie-jeebies. Of course, Petrolia residents still remember marijuana bales washing up onto the beach one day in the mid 70s.

Beyond the normal clay marbles, glass bottles, and an occasional rusty object like railroad nails and horseshoes, has yours truly discovered anything interesting? One day was a spectacular one in memory, Ernie. While digging a garden, I hit something hard, solid, and deep with the shovel. Whatever it was, it wouldn't budge and nearly crimped the shovel. A careful excavation revealed a seriously large and heavy ingot buried several feet in the ground. Brought to the surface, it was shiny and silver colored, encrusted with dirt, shaped like a brick with curved edges, and weighing several pounds. Yahoo! I couldn't believe it. Skippy hit the mother lode: a silver ingot! Skip's heart stopped knowing his ship had finally come in.

But those visions of sugarplum fairies soon faded. Cleaned off and examined more closely, it certainly was an ingot all right... but it was a lead ingot. A wiser and older gentleman explained these things were commonly used for the soldering of plumbing pipes; apparently workmen discarded it after finishing their building project long ago. Sigh. So close and yet so far. Skippy kept his day job.

Ernie, perhaps you, readers, Charlie 2 crows, Oregon, olmanriver-- even Suzy Blah Blah!--have their own treasure story or discovery to tell? I bet so. Just a thought for some future summertime musings.

(sorry so long and off-topic here; my e-mail isn't working to send this to you otherwise.)

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't get too comfy with the notion that a Yellowstone eruption wouldn't bother us here. I was at a party some time ago and a university geologist described a many inch layer of volcanic ash that was preserved in a layer to the east of Arcata. I want to say it was a foot thick, because it made an impression, but I don't really recall how thick the deposit was.