Confessions of a recovering tree-hugging dirt-worshipper

Part one...

The major party political conventions are behind us and we are now in political high season. We are now being exposed to the opinions of multitudes of people that are trying to convince us to vote for their candidate or not vote for the other candidate. How does that fit into the subject of this rant? Well, there are loonies on both sides of the political fence and I am going to give you an insight into how a particularly scary one, um, group thinks.

The tree-hugging dirt-worshippers (THDW) are a group of complex thinkers. By in large, they may appear to be rational but I think that would be better to consider them to be logical. That may not appear, at first, to make sense but hear me out. A rational person is agreeable to reason but the THDW are more prone to be logical. Let me flesh that out by using an analogy.

It is rational to think that the tree I am cutting down may fall on me if I do not take precautions against cutting it the wrong way. If you think about it logically, the depth of consideration can - and in the THDW's mind, does - become overbearing with possibilities. If I think logically about cutting the tree, I may start thinking about all of the possible permutations of my actions. Instead of simply thinking about how I am going to cut the tree in such a manner so as to miss me and the neighbors, I will begin thinking about all of the actions that I am taking and the external forces acting on the tree both seen and unseen. The vast majority of folks that would try to think out all of the possibilities and how to react to them would probably just forget about cutting the tree and go watch the Cats play.

The THDW throw their hands up but in an entirely different manner.

Instead of thinking out all of the seemingly infinite possibilities, they will find some possibilities that they can make sense of and ignore the rest or -and this is part of where they start to move down the slippery slope- they begin to rely on like-minded folks to share the heavy mental lifting. As some who are adept in debating will tell you ( and I am NOT one ) when you destroy some one's argument they will often become emotional or angry. The THDW are no different except that their emotion are magnified... greatly. For me this is where it gets scary -because I know how they are-.

I read in a Scientific American Mind magazine where teenagers are logical often to their own detriment. I know that this sounds crazy considering their actions but I think it sheds light on my THDW argument. It seems that kids are taught, and correctly so, that there is right or wrong, left or right, up or down, light or dark and so on. This forms the basis for deductive reasoning. What the teens miss is the experiential portion of life to 'temper' their thinking into a form of logic called inductive reasoning. Most adults will tell you that there is right and wrong but there are also infinitely varying degrees of right and wrong. There is left and right but there are also infinitely varying degrees of left and right. That is one of the reasons that kids
will experiment with drugs or sex or who knows what. They know what feels good and they have been told what feels better, they have also been told the repercussions of their actions but they lack the experience to make a valid connection to the detrimental side of their actions. They know that they should not do something because they have been told that they may experience a downside but they have not experienced that yet but they do know -if only in part- the good side. As a teenager, I know the good and I have been told -but have not seen- the bad side, thus the decision is a no-brainer.

Make sense? OK, the THDW are similar to teenagers in that see the good or bad but they do not see the infinite degrees of good and bad. They have not had the correct experiences to allow them to form decisions by using inductive reasoning or they have chosen to ignore them.
In the mind of a THDW, the [INSERT ONE OR MORE HERE] - capitalist - military-industrial complex - republican - are out to get them or destroy the planet. They see this because they see the effects of the likes of Three Mile Island on the environment and they do not see or do not want to see the numerous variables that went into making the decisions that led to this calamity. Let us look at Three Mile Island, the THDW say that we should not have atomic energy
because of the possibility of accidents like the kind that happened here. What they REALLY want to say is that they don't want to have atomic energy because

A) some evil capitalist will make money from it ( and the THDW won't ) or
B) the use of atomic energy will harm the earth.

They will imply that the 'evil capitalist' has made his money by raping and pillaging mother earth and that untold numbers of animals died in the process (they may mention that people died in the process but but they don't care about people, more on that in Part deaux.) They will use their deductive reasoning to make this argument and their argument will have gaping holes in evidence, but even though the gaping holes in evidence may make their argument void, they will argue and scream at the top of their lungs that so long as the evidence that they have can be used for the argument, they will not allow that the missing evidence can be used to counter
the argument.

It is frustrating for a sane person to watch them much less try to comprehend what is going on in their pointy little heads.

I will post more very soon. I want to get into the head of a really scary type of tree-hugging dirt-worshipper that holds little value for ( your ) human life.

My poor truck...

My truck is a good truck.
My truck never complained much and always took whatever kind of gas I happened across.
My truck only had minor aches and pains and always started when asked.
My truck is a good truck.

My truck is going to the scrap heap.

It appears that a defect that may affect over 800,000 Tacomas was built into the truck that sits in my driveway. The defect is incorrect rustrpoofing of the frame and you either have the defect or you don't, there is no in-between.

One of the men that I work with mentioned the problem to me. I decided that I would crawl under my truck to check out. I reached under and grabbed the frame to pull myself under and both my hands went through... not good. I took a good look and found that the frame is rsuted completely through on both the driver and passenger side.

Due to the difficulties and cost in replacing or repairing the frame Toyota has elected to purchase the trucks back for 1.5 times Kelly Blue Book ( high value ) almost regardless of the condition of the vehicle. My truck high books for $8200 so I should get close to $12,300 ( the details aren't worked out just yet. ) That is a good deal but I likes my truck. I likes it a lot. But I guess I will get over it.

So, if you have or know someone that owns a 1995-2000 Toyota Tacoma pickup, I would encourage you to tell them about the program ( it isn't a recall - exactly. It is a 'warranty extension' ). Have them do some research before going to the dealer so they will not be surprised at their options and what will be expected from them.

My poor truck.

Tag, I'm it...

Jennifer tagged me, and others, to 'splain seven things about me that few people know about me. Like her, I could likely go on at least forever if not longer with arcane and creepy things about me that you don't know.
Maybe you might find something in common with me ( poor you ) and you won't be so lonely in life knowing that there is another nut job out there that may be something like you.

1) I am a former tree-hugging dirt-worshipper. Also known as - not to offend anyone here but it has to be said - Democrat; Liberal; Big-Goverment Lover or It-Takes-A-Village Type.
No kidding! Having been raised on the government dole and until I discovered a little thing called personal responsibility, I lived to wait for the guv'ment check to arrive. I remember the monthly trips with my brother and Dad to the local jail to pick up the pile of commodities ( 'real' food that was the precursor to food stamps ). We would then feast on canned pork, dried eggs, dried milk and enough corn meal to make a nearly infinite number of cornbread pones until the last week in the month when things would thin a bit unless there was enough money left from the check to buy some Uncle Charlies cubed beef that Mom would bread up using the commodity flour and fried in commodity lard and serve with commodity dehydrated potatoes.
Please realize that my memory of this is some forty years old ( making me about eight at the time ) and I actually remember this with great fondness but that doesn't make it right.
I grew into a young man thinking that the government was the giver of all things fair and wonderful. Until I was about thirteen, I helped my Mom spend the checks on things that we didn't need ( she was frugal and new the value of a dollar, me on the other hand... )
Then...

2) I am staunch Republican ( Reagonomics; Supply-Sider; Personal Responsibility and all of the things and more that Liberals hate. ) Since the time that my Mom said that we didn't have enough money to buy the crap that I thought that I deserved and her suggestion that I actually get a job to make my own money. So off I went up the hill to do odd jobs for Mrs. Moss at her store up the street. After I got a small taste of the real money that could be made by actually earning it, I took to working at the Rockhouse after school and I haven't looked back.

3) I used to weigh three hundred ten pounds. Sixteen years old, six foot two and size forty eight pants and dateless will make you do desperate things so I took to losing weight. Fifteen or so years later I was at my lowest of one hundred sixty two pounds in size thirty three pants. I must say that I was diggin' life. I appeared gaunt ( the bad kind ) but I felt great! I may have felt great but those around me constantly bombarded me with questions about whether I had cancer and other life-threatening maladies. I started to gain weight and I have leveled out at -about- two hundred pounds which I am mostly happy.

4) I know twenty seven different computer languages. And they are none of which you have ever heard of or would recognize if I told you what they were. They are all specialized languages used in industrial computers or robots. I may not be able to format a letter in Microsoft Word but I can make a four thousand ton injection molding machine purr like a kitten, albeit a VERY LARGE kitten.

5) I am a stroke survivor. Late 1993 ( or was it '94 ) an aneurism burst deep in the left parietal lobe of my brain. It took my ability to speak clearly for a good while but I am pretty much back to 100%. Thanks to all for the prayers and good wishes because they pulled me through.

6) I have a great memory! No really! A really great memory... for numbers. I can remember phone numbers for people long dead and even the odd address.

7) I have a terrible memory! No, really! I have a really bad memory... for names. There are people that I have worked with for eighteen years that I could not tell you their name if my life depended on it. I have forgotten my own name but it usually comes back to me before I need to go fetching my driver's license. I feel sorry for KiKi and RoRo when I am around them because I am constantly calling them by the other's name. It can be embarrassing unless you can make a game out of it.

There you have it. Seven worthless facts about me. Please don't think less of me because they aren't too exciting. I never promised that they would be worth reading.

I am so ashamed...

Last weekend, Adam & I went to see Cloverfield ( the movie ). I was looking forward to seeing it because I like movies with plenty of wanton destruction , mayhem and generalized badness. Throw in a monster that whups the fire out of a major city, has copious minions that are all about attacking and terrorizing the locals that weren't smart enough to get out of town, large military operations with big explosions and scads of people in sheer panic and I am all about it. Next thing you know, I am plopping down 5 bucks ( matinee ), getting a bucket full of popcorn along with a 44 ounce bladder-buster full of my favorite fizzy-pop and rooting on the bad guys or the bad things in this case.

Then I did it. I actually did it and I almost ashamed to say it. I got sick while watching the movie. Not like throw up sick but that's probably because I kept my eyes closed during the last two-thirds of the movie. To beat it all, I don't get motion sick except for the time that I rode on Delirium at Kings Island. And even then I didn't get sick, just kind of woozy in a grown man sort of way.

The entire movie is filmed from the standpoint of a guy that is using a camcorder to record the day's events so it is jittery, spends about 25% of the time about 10 degrees off of plumb.

That being said... THIS MOVIE ROCKS! I can hardly wait to go see it again! Especially since I missed the crucial last scene in the movie because I was whimpering in my seat trying to figure out how to not look or appear sick as I was stumbling out of the theater.

Now I may have to get all doped up on Bonine, put on my Sea Bands, maybe put a clothespin on each ear but, cover me boys, I am going back in.