Month: June 2016

This is going to be a Rough Week

Posted on by D. L. Keur

 

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Well, it’s already apparent. This is going to be a rough week for me. I’ve got eight days to survive tippy-toeing around a husband who, home for a much-needed rest from driving big rigs on nasty, congested highways rife with ignorant, rude, in-a-hurry 4-wheelers, is taking exception to almost every word and phrase I utter. So I’m taking a vow to remain silent unless asked a direct question. It seems the only way to avoid huge, ugly conflicts. I am hoping that he’ll mellow out in a few days, but that might be asking too much. As he gets older, he gets less tolerant and more and more testy, and I’m about the only one he feels ‘safe’ to blow off steam around. But I don’t like it; I find it hard, sometimes, to just shut up until he finally mellows.  Other than leaving for the week, which is an option I’m prepared for, silence seems the best plan until and unless things start getting very ugly. It’s a good thing I’m good at silence and zen.

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Caring About a Stranger

Posted on by D. L. Keur

Forrest_1-13-2015_900webMy husband sacrificed his first vacation day and night because he cared. A stranger is taking over his weekly LTL run through Canada’s Alberta and BC provinces this week while he takes a short vacation. But, upon reaching the shipping dock, Forrest discovered that, instead of the usual load he’s been getting the last couple of weeks, it was one of those “loads from Hell.” The load topped the weight limits, and even getting it loaded right took hours with the forklift driver so the rear axles weren’t overweight. Then, even with the load shifted as far forward as possible, the rear axles are maxed.  And, of course, the run includes just about every tricky, nasty receiver on the list of possible delivery locations. It was the kind of run that Forrest says can push him to the limits.  And, so, he worried. For the driver taking it, a driver who’s never done this run, or even one like it, a driver who has about one year of driving experience and has never driven a heavy haul.

So Forrest sat down with the driver, and they went through all the problem areas–all afternoon, five hours worth. Then, because the driver’s GPS doesn’t do Canada well, at all, and he wouldn’t use Forrest’s because he didn’t understand how to use it, Forrest came home and spent all night till 5:45AM this morning typing out explicit directions and reminders of ‘how to’ so this guy had a reference sheet on where to go, how to best get there, what problems to expect, and how to negotiate all the very nasty potential problems as well as regular, legacy problems at each receiver.

Caring about a stranger–I wish all of us did that…for everyone.

Thank you, Forrest.

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How I See It, the Super Short Version

Posted on by D. L. Keur

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A friend of mine, with no intended malice, labeled my perspective in a particular thread on G+ as providing “a yummy dystopian outlook.” At first, I was taken aback, surprised that he would consider me thus, and a bit hurt, too. Then, he went on to explain when I challenged the charge. He said:

I find that many of your outlooks on society verge on the dystopian.

Personal opinion of mine, but I’m not ready for my robot overlords to take over or a Basic Living Wage. That’s very nightmarish to me although incredibly realistic in regards to how fast society is buzzing along.

And, yes, thinking on it, I tend to agree with his evaluation. I, too, am not ready for robot overlords or robot servants, for that matter, and, while the basic income model may make some sense, it’s neither practically functional nor possible, not in our present economy, neither the national one nor the global one. It’s beside the point, though. Yet, I will provide you my response, which was:

What I aim to do with my ‘dystopian’ posts is to bring an awareness of potential consequences, consequences that we are already seeing. I’m not and have never been ready for some of the horrible, absolutely horrible, consequences that have come to pass since I was a kid. I’m watching the worst and the best unfold, and it’s a compelling experience.

But Ken Beghtal’s words stirred some thinking, always a dangerous thing, yes. So, here, in a nutshell, is my outlook encapsulated in two, short bullet lists:

The Awesome

  • Advances in technology and science across every field have opened up the greatest potentials for us to truly move ourselves from primitive savages to a responsible, enlightened, benevolent species, capable of achieving wondrous things.
  • Multitudes of us care, share, and work hard to tame our species’ destructive nature, promoting good for all, promoting tolerance and caring, preserving what’s best and what is wonderful and native to our planet, from nature and the biosphere, from cultures, our own and not our own, from intellect, reason, and, yes, even ideology, utilizing every tool possible, including artificial intelligence.

The Terrible

  • Simultaneously, advances in technology bring us ever closer to enslavement, loss of freedom, loss of our own free will and thought, along with hellish war machines and weaponry so destructive that we face planetary annihilation every moment of ever breath.
  • Multitudes of us fear and hate, craving violence and wishing death upon those, human and other, with whom we share the planet, but of whom we have no tolerance. From microbes to plants and every type of animal on up to other humans, we eradicate, destroying, in ignorance, greed, arrogance, intolerance, and callousness, life around us, life that sustains our very own existence.

We live in a wondrous age of extraordinary potential. We live on the brink of self-imposed and self-perpetuated annihilation.

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Weighing in on Harambe’s Killing & Negligence

Posted on by D. L. Keur
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Harambe just before he was shot to death with the 3 year old who climbed the fence and fell into the habitat’s moat.
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Michelle Gregg, the negligent mom of the 3-year-old who fell into Harambe’s habitat, and the child’s father, Deonne Dickerson.

I said I wanted to stay out of this one. But it’s impossible, so here goes–short and to-the-point.

  1. The mother of the three-year-old boy who fell into Harambe’s habitat, Michelle Gregg, was negligent. She’s got five kids. She’s not a first-time mom. She knows how easily and quickly a three-year-old can disappear. This is why they make child tethers. She should have been using one if she was prone to being distracted by the tears of another of her children, who, it was reported, was throwing a petulant fit about leaving the zoo.
  2. It was inevitable that Harambe would be killed once the child fell into the enclosure. Inevitable under the circumstances of a hysterical crowd and the lawsuit the zoo would face if they didn’t act decisively. Was the gorilla going to hurt the boy? I doubt it. I watched the videos repeatedly. I listened and read what several experts said, pro and con. But doubt doesn’t secure the life of a child in danger and all animals are going to protect their young, first and foremost. Therefore, I say it was inevitable that Harambe’s life would be sacrificed.
  3. The zoo was just as negligent as the mother, Michelle Gregg. The animal habitats are those animals’ homes and territory. (Unfortunately, the Castle Laws don’t apply for the animals living there.) The zoo has an obligation to keep stupid, dangerous predators–humans–out of those habitats. If that means an eighteen-foot unscalable fence with razor wire on top with another high-voltage fence inside that, then do it. Remember, the wild animals–the humans–you’re admitting into gawk at these captive animals are the real and present danger to the zoo animals’ safety.