Systems of energy fluxes

In several weeks we shall be into two important events, the Fourth of July and hurricane season. These two periods of time share some characteristics; for one they both occur yearly in the summer. For another, they both represent in a fashion brief, punctuated periods of energy flux outside the normal everyday weather.
To explain let me first describe a night last year that hurricane Ike paid our town a visit. The weather was wonderful. It was calm. We watch eagerly the local weatherman predict with charts and maps the multitude of course for which the storm could take. We watch as it ran over Cuba and then turned with its eye on Houston. My wife, a mountain girl from the west, said “Its not going to hit us?” and then, “Where did you move me?” Around 4 pm the air grew heavy and the clouds looked strange; and though most of us couldn’t tell you where the wind usually comes from, we could all tell it was not from the usual source. It had a new source, a high-energy system generating its own power. Night drew on, the winds increased, the rain filled the air, and all mixed in a cacophony. Many hundreds died that night, power was lost in some areas for weeks, gasoline lines formed, basic needs lines formed, all from that night. The night past. Morning shown like every other day, but life below changed.
Time is relative. Systems of abnormal energy tend to states of equilibrium. The storm subsided in one day, we enjoyed many days of sun and good weather.
In three weeks we shall hang our flags, we shall watch the fireworks, but shall we think of revolution? Shall we think of sacrifice? I am a son of the American Revolution. This revolution was brief in relative time. It was high energy. A band of men, normal men, revolted against the notion that one man is greater than another, that we are endowed with divine rights. We can choose for ourselves. A novel notion, that spurred a great war, but brought in years of peace. Our founders brought us to a state of equilibrium by eliminating fluxes of energy in the system caused by the corruption of a government dictating the lives of its people.
I think that despite our problems, we shall in three weeks time have more honor to raise our flag than any other nation. Our nation has been a beacon of light to others hoping to change their home regimes. Though there be many voices which would excuse our nation, which would be embarrassed at our culture, I shall not. My Grandfather fought the socialist regime in Germany in 1945 and spent 8 months in a prisoner of war camp. My Uncle was a marine in Vietnam and fought in the Tet offensive. And while these men in my family suffered from their experiences in war, their bravery and sacrifice give me humility that I am related to such greatness, and that my relatives fought on the right side.
So though there be storms ahead, they pass quickly in the night. Though wars and tyranny seemingly last long, they too are out-of-equalibrium systems and shall past in the night. America is here, so long as we remember the revolution- Viva La Revolucion de America!

Joys of Peter, Paul, and Mary and the value of self loathing

The mailbox that has vexed my quiet neighborhood for so long is now in its pre-assembled state, something it shares with the new mailbox, in the front of my driveway. There is merely a small, square piece of concrete sitting, or hiding, amongst the aggressive indigenous grass that has swallowed at least four toddlers. You can't blame the grass for its aggressive nature, this is a southern variety and understands the natural world's view of competition. A concept abstract to politicians, university professors, and people largely from the flanking coast of the continental U.S.
My battle with this green aggression has now taken on new dimensions. As I was helping out the domestic labor I came across a cassette tape (I'll spare you the joke here on the advancement of technology- except for the last comment) I made for a friend. Magnetized on its brown strips of tape were classics of varying decades, Guns-N-Roses, Queen, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. The sixties folk trio who my parents took me to see in my impressionable teen years, while they were in their twilight years happily soaking up the 2nd hand smoke from concerts, and the nuclear radiation fallout from protesting french nuclear tests in the south Pacific. As I listed to "Why are you crying my son? Are you frightened like everyone?....brain fades...Puff the magic dragon, lived by the sea, and frolic in a happy mist, in a land called hon-alee....wow, that brings me back at least two decades before I was born, and made me want to protest something...like ....happiness. Okay, its really hard to find something when life is pretty good, and like all arrogant Americans, I think I'm doing pretty well. I may not be the best looking individual, but I still get winks when I look in the mirror. I have wonderful children, who are cute enough that they get freebies when I take them out in public. With such a great life, I ask "why did Peter, Paul, and Mary (whose real names are Joseph S, Carl M, and Bernadene Dorn) and they 60s crowd, included the modern equivalent i.e., liberals and Europeans, hate the human population? And want to curtail modern growth?"
Well, I think I have the answer. Its self-loathing. If I did nothing but think about drugs, rock n' roll, and the third item in that list, or I was hanging around in San Fran these days, I think that I would hate myself, and if I hated myself then why would I want to reproduce a smaller version of my self-loathing ego. Think about what man kind is blamed for, we cause mass extinction (ignore the Permian or the K-T boundary), create wars, create pollution, consume anything and everything, and worst yet- man has reached out with his inventions and altered the very cycles of the earth's climate all so we can drive our cars three blocks to Wal-mart to scarf down a hot dog made with plastic imported from China. Why would you want to create more of you, when you are the cause of all these things? If you were wading in a drug induced state in a pit of mud, listening to mindless noise (lets call this Woodstock) and you looked up and saw that your fellow county men, who worked selflessly long hours, had through man's arrogance and a slide ruler put a man on the moon, why would you want the human race to go on? You wouldn't, and so you'd vote for Obama, so it won't.

The First Of All The Rantings

Hi,
Welcome to a wonderful choice of your explicitly valuable time. Your understanding, and looks, will be enhanced to a state of pure conceit that you may start your own talk show simply by reading this blog, and others that may follow.
Perhaps you live in a wonderful subdivision with every neighbor having a perfectly manicured lawn, wife, and hair cut. We could even kidnap you, blindfolded, and drop you into middle of no where suburbia and you would find your street- it's the one by a Subway, just down from the Wal-Mart, and next to that elementary school. In this perfectly manicured street of yours there is that neighbor, who undoubtedly should be more work motivated because his yard is not edged, his mailbox is not brick mason work, and he has two mini-vans with oil leaks and rusted dents. As a matter of fact, you look down the street and see amongst the straight brick built mailboxes, his mailbox, tilted at a 45 degree angle and holding on by the strength of 6 layers of color-matched duct tape. If you live next to this guy then all I can say is, "Hi neighbor, can I borrow your lawn equipment?"