SAINTS PRESERVE US
Here Be Monsters
Currently I am thoroughly engrossed in a
book called The Universe in Your Hand.
The author Cristophe Galfard is a theoretical physicist and a former student of
the late Stephen Hawking. There is some prime intellectual pedigree there.
Published in 2015 (and so perhaps already out of date in certain parts), the
work is a primer on hundreds of years of scientific theories, experiments and
empirical findings that are doggedly puzzling together the nature of our
reality. From our teensiest nano bits to the vast quilts of spacetime, Galfard
explains incredibly complex concepts in plain, elegant language. His analogies
are somewhat easy to grasp and a wry, dry wit pervades the book’s 415 pages.
When I finish The Universe in Your Hand,
I will close it for a moment to reflect and then start it again from the
beginning.
Because the human mind is able to traverse
the known universe to a relative extent, it follows that synchronicity, a
mind-bending concept of unrelated but eerie coincidences, comes into play.
Ancient peoples would have blamed the trickster raven or coyote, maybe lesser
gods in a pantheon such as Hermes or Loki. August has been that kind of month
for me, Lou Reed’s catalogue has proved to be uncomfortably slight succor:
‘When it all gets too much, you turn the TV set on and light a cigarette.’ Me?
I sit on the front porch with a beer and inhale the smell of the world burning.
The Flat Earth Society staged a conference
in Edmonton two
weeks ago. It was revelatory to learn that planet Earth is actually a cosmic
dinner plate, or maybe a serving tray suspended in the centre of not just our
solar system but everything included on the alien laboratory Petri trivet. Talk
about a la carte. Sure there are still five oceans yet only six continents
because Antarctica is actually a wall of ice
around the rim that keeps us from falling off our precious Wham-O Frisbee. Dear
God, now I’m really sweating global warming and climate change, as any rational
person would.
It doesn’t matter that the constellations
are different in each hemisphere. It doesn’t matter which way water spirals
down a drain in relation to the equator. No, a ball-shaped Earth is crazy, an
example of mass brain-washing. Proof is in established and documented nefarious
precedents including the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion, the ultra-secret Bilderberg world government, the
CIA-authorized assassination of JFK, the 9/11 inside job, Sandy Hook set-up,
and the United Nations concentration camps in the basements of Wal-Mart stores.
Every patriot excluded from the elitist ‘deep state’ knows the truth.
Apparently the conspiratorial cancer has so
metastasized within the vox populi that honest people are afraid to come
forward to croak as ‘Deep Throats,’ act as conduits to the fake news media.
They won’t speak. That’s a huge concern because astronauts, airline pilots,
astronomers, balloonists, sailors, science teachers and even disgruntled
low-level government bureaucrats or contractors could step up, blow whistles
and inform the rest of us that our world is really flat. Odds are there should
be at least one squealer in such a large and diverse group. Odds are.
Odds are too that humans will act
irrationally whatever the lessons of history. Madness is one constant of the human
condition. There’s a familiar pattern to civilization extending its boundaries.
The first stage is discovery and exploration. Next come the profit seekers
eager to exploit a new resource. Economic activity in turn attracts settlers.
Eventually, inevitably, the fighting starts.
So why shouldn’t centuries of frequently
disgraceful human behaviour culminate with the nadir of Space Force? So it
goes. It’s not even a surprise that Tweeterdumbest and his White House advisors
are skipping the middle steps, instead leaping from a few decades of manned and
remote exploration straight to a war footing by 2020.
Little is known about Space Force in utero. It could
be a new branch in the Pentagon’s existing arsenal of Army, Navy, Air Force and
Marines. It could be an auxiliary arm of one of them. However, despite the
small stuff like logistics, badges, shoulder flashes and uniforms, the American
people have been promised by the current administration that Space Force will
be staffed by experts in space warfare. There might be a flaw in that premise.
Even if personnel from Area 51 are
recruited to serve in Space Force, the likelihood remains that no human being
alive or dead has ever engaged in combat in space. I cannot prove this because
the United Nations and the Bilderberg have not returned my calls. Still, Sun
Tzu did not write a book called The Art
of War in Space which means there are no documented space warfare
strategies or tactics to study in order to become an expert. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan would
make for a good primer even if it is essentially a remake of Run Silent, Run Deep, a gripping film
about submarine warfare, a fictional engagement conducted over 70 years ago.
One of the many small pleasures in my life
is the simple gift of lying in bed at night and reading a book. The closet door
must be shut but I love an open window. I want fresh air and the sounds of
rustling wind or drizzling rain. Once I put down a book like The Universe in Your Hand on my night
table, I turn off the light and set my dream controls for interstellar
overdrive. Birdsong precedes the dawn. Our ball of confusion has rotated and I
can see our star once again. Get up. Put the coffee on. Feed the cat. The
morning papers carry stories of Flat Earthers and Space Force. Back to bed, pull
the blinds.
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