You need to read the big book of 'Shut the F*#K Up!'

I like to read through other people's blog postings from time to time.

Admittedly, I avoid most of the 'twitter' stuff, and I don't always follow religiously, so sometimes things slip through my brain. I only got a facebook / myspace account so that I could cyber stalk Rick Emerson and his (hopefully) future pursuits. I'm geeky like that. I'm cool with myself.

Increasingly, though, it amazes me that people read things on the web and take them at face value, or worse, cite the web article as a statement of fact.

People, I can type anything I want on here. I can claim it is true, and no one can debate me. I say it is true, I make the rules on this particular blog, I am infallible. I am the blog god. So to speak.

I have the bestest blog ever for 2009!*

*(According to my dog, Beauregard)

I have bleeding heart liberal hippie pals on the left, and I have some oddly right wing whacko pals. I welcome everyone into my tent of dysfunctionality. I don't exclude someone just because I don't happen to like the fact that they may chew on their own toenails. That is between them, and their own particular deity, goat, chicken, candle, or flying spaghetti monster.

What really grates on me, however, is that people (yes, some of my friends) will blindly follow online articles, work themselves up over same article, email a bunch of other people citing the article and expounding upon it as the new gospel.

Don't ever come to me with something on the web, and that as your only fact to support an argument. I'll shut you down. Or at least, shut you out. Read it. Reflect upon it. Research it.

The days of 'news' being reportage is long gone. News is now entertainment. I really can't find news on television anymore, with the exception of the BBC, and even that is suspect.

Go consult the true book of knowledge, the book that I think I should write someday.

It is the big book of Shut The F*#K Up.

Your ears are not able to adequately hear when your mouth is ejecting noise.

Listening and speaking are mutually exclusive. It is a very binary reality.

One can either be speaking, or be listening. You can not do both simultaneously.

Plates colliding.....

Life just never seems to let up. I shouldn't complain though, considering I have a roof over my head, I have plenty of food and water, and I haven't lost anyone in a bad earthquake.

Growing up in earthquake territory, I do feel for the people of Haiti. No fun at all. The only good thing about earthquakes compared to a few other natural disasters is that they are without any panicked buildup or warning. Add to it that they are over rather quickly (relatively) and are done. Fires you see coming for quite some time and they destroy things pretty completely.

Floods slowly build, ruin, then slowly recede. Then you have worse things that linger like mud, mold, and mildew.

The worst part about earthquakes is rubble, and land shifts. If it rains in Haiti, flooding and muddy landslides could happen.

Having lived with a mother who survived the 1964 Alaska Good Friday earthquake, I suspect that I have a fair bit of latent phobia about being water / food-less. My pantry is huge. It has enough food for us to last probably a week or so from. More than I suspect many of my peers have. We don't have enough water on hand. That is always troubling. Where do you store it? How do you keep it? Do you rotate it out? Egads. Its maddening to think about.

All that being said, what about people that take daily medications? What if you were 3 days before you next 30 day refill? Bam. Now what? You have 3 days. Then you have to decide if you can make it beyond the 3 days. Will there even be a pharmacy open?

Water, food deliveries, basic necessities. Those will all be forthcoming. But who knows how long that might take too?

In the US, we have the luxury of a Walgreens or other retailer on nearly every block, in our big cities.

Not everyone is so lucky.

Think about that.

If you have $10 to give, give it. If you can't, thats ok too. At lest think good thoughts.

It could have been us.