Category: Orphans

This whole debt crisis thing has gotten me down into the funkosphere where everything is, well, you know, funky.

Funk, funky, Funkadelic, Grand Funk Railroad, the last of which I saw rocking Lake Charles, La., back during the mid-70s, they all are funny words and funky as well. Of course, many old timers may remember “Funk and Wagnalls,” who were not all that rockin’ but they were sure funky with their dictionaries. I wonder how I.K. Funk would have defined: “Funky?” The company stopped publishing in 1997.

But yes, we need to lighten up, children, we need to lighten and brighten and anything else favorable that might rhyme with lighten and brighten lest we become frightening. Why do I talk as if I had watched a “WKRP in Cincinatti” marathon? Well, this is surely not the reason:

Colon Cleansing May Be Risky, Study Finds

So reads the headline from WebMD, adding: “Hazards May Include Nausea, Vomiting, Kidney Failure; Advocates Cite Energy Boost, Other Health Benefits”

What are they saying? Is it good? Is it bad? Nausea, vomiting, kidney failure? I don’t see that much of a boost, much less a boost in energy. Well, you can read the article for yourself but I find the whole colon cleansing topic somewhat disgusting. I mean, it’s your COLON for Pete’s sake. Do you even know what a colon is? Ever have one of those tubes run like a sewer snake up your butt?  Traveling as if it is looking for the next big break in the pipes which would cause a massive flood of New York New York New York sewage in Midtown Manhattan. Oh my!

By the way, do you know the difference between the words “sewage” and “sewerage?” Do you care? Well, I spent many a long day and long nights listening to local elected officials having a long discourse over the two. You see, sewage is s**t and sewerage is Shinola. Not really, Shinola is, or was at least, a brand of wax shoe polish. Yes, people used it to shine their shoes. Yes people used to shine their shoes. Sewerage is the actual physical facilities used to handle sewage. Aren’t you much better off knowing that?

Back to why I am running my very own “That 70s Show” is because one of the great mysteries of the Universe could be solved in just a jiffy. Yes, I’m talking about the mystery of D.B. Cooper.

My sources tell me — My sources being newspapers via the Internets, radio and TV — that the FBI is close to solving the 40-year-old mystery of the man who hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines flight over (where else, the Northwest) and who parachuted from the Boeing 727 plane with bundles of cash that he extorted out of the Feds. This is a story more compelling than Bigfoot, almost. Who was D.B. Cooper? What did he plan to do with the money? Did he survive the jump? Did he have a clean colon?

Well maybe we will find out soon. If we do, I might not be in such a funk then, but who knows? It all comes out in the wash. It don’t mean nothin’ my brothers and sisters. Right on and get down and right on some more! The end of a funky tale might just be near. Our great national nightmare might be close to over. Or not.

It’s a hunka hunka burning Earth here in San Antonio. I am on the Riverwalk this week for training. It’s a cool place. I haven’t been here in years, but it is so freaking hot out. Right now it is 99 F. That’s not bad. I’m looking at the local weather and in Pleasanton, just south of San Antone, it is 103 F. The training has been very useful. That seems kind of a strange statement sometimes. Nonetheless, it is true.

The Riverwalk is a very tourista-type happening if you have never been there. It’s cool though. It is sort of reminiscent of the French Quarter. You see a young freak-type girl dressed up like a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader except for the tats and piercings here there and everywhere. Then one can see young-middle age couples wearing similar shirts except they don’t say something like “I’m with Stupid –> I am Stupid.” There are a lot of teachers in town right now. Of course, there is a lot of Air Force, as there has long been.

I remarked to a colleague last night when we went out for a couple of drinks that the young E-2, E-3, enlisted remind me of what such carefree times it was for me when I was in the Navy, just barely past boot camp. My colleague, a retired Marine, or Marine  (I think once a Marine is always a Marine is what they say), agreed. The young airmen got the world by the tail. Three squares and a rack. Most out on their own for the first time. Although the economic situation makes that somewhat different. Some enlist when they find the job situation is in the can in the civilian world. Then it gets tougher to get in the service, at least in some of the services and some jobs. There is also the possibility of getting sent to Iraq, Afghanistan or some vaca spot such as that.

Oh well. It’s about time to see if a colleague wants to go to dinner. Hopefully somewhere cool.

The foundation started by the man who brought the world Windows now wants to do toilets.

A “reinvention” of the toilet is needed to improve worldwide health, says the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A strategy is needed to bring safe and clean sanitation to the world. A lack of such facilities may be taken for granted in the comfort of your nice cozy, little John but a great portion of the world’s population — more than a billion people, according to the foundation — have to “go” in the open or perhaps in the woods like the proverbial bear. That is, if they are lucky and don’t get eaten by a bear or whatever.

“No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet,” said Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the foundation’s Global Development Program. “But it did not go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world. What we need are new approaches. New ideas. In short, we need to reinvent the toilet.”

The foundation isn’t just talking s**t here. Some $42 million is being offered in new sanitation grants that “aim to spur innovations in the capture and storage of waste, as well as its processing into reusable energy, fertilizer, and fresh water.” In addition, the foundation plans to help local communities end open defecation and increase access for a better way to “go,” if you get my drift.

This is no load of crap. The lack of sanitary facilities could help prevent some of the 1.5 million child deaths from diarrheal diseases each year. Investments from the foundation include $3 million in grant funds for the “Reinventing the Toilet Challenge” going out to eight universities across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. A stipulation of the challenge is to reinvent the toilet as a stand-alone unit without piped-in water, a sewer connection, or outside electricity—all for less than 5 cents a day. That would be a sweet though possibly malodorous proposition.

The Gates Foundation has involved itself in a number of worthwhile projects and this one is certainly not at the bottom of the pile. Why this could be the biggest development in sanitary facilities since Thomas Crapper invented the ballcock. I would apologize for the juvenile fecal pun festival, but I must remind you that the folks at the foundation are the ones who brought the subject up.

The weekend is finally here. I do not wish to dwell anymore on the debt ceiling crisis that the pols, particularly the rabid right-wingers, have brought to a head. But even though I do not wish to dwell on this matter that doesn’t mean I am going ostrich (sticking one’s head in the sand) like some folks such as Michelle Bachmann. Of course, Michelle and her hubby have some strange ideas anyway like the ones they use to make money off poor folks who can’t deal with their kids being gay.

I think I would tend to believe folks who know a little about the economy instead of politicians who trade in make believe.

Oh well, at least if I am furloughed because of the obstinacy of the Republican Party I will have plenty of company including Republicans who will go: “What happened? That damned Obama.” Yes, that damned Obama indeed. Sometimes I think that some of the people I encounter in my part-time job are idiots in search of a village. I can only imagine what poor Barack has to endure with people in power who are idiots yet few if any of their underlings have the balls to tell them that they are as stupid as amoebas.

But enough of that. I’m going to play with my computer this weekend. Look at maps. I love maps. Perhaps I will figure a new route around Cape Horn. Oh, well, yes I guess that has been done. I might even read for pleasure. Do you know what that is like? It can be fun. You should try it sometime.

The sky may be falling all around us, but I think I will take a break this weekend from giving a damn about any of it. To quote a fine old song by the Atlanta Rhythm Section:

“Life on the streets is a jungle/A struggle to keep up the pace/I just can’t beat that old dog-eat-dog/The rats keep winning the rat race.

“But I’m not gonna let it bother me tonight/I’m not gonna let it bother me tonight/The world is in an uproar and I see no end in sight/But I’m not gonna let it bother me tonight.”