prozakistan

"...between two of the major "seas", Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquillity) and Mare Foecunditatis (Sea of Fertility) ...."

Sounds good, looks smooth and calm, the way things ought to be...

I dreamed a convoluted, science-fiction/fantasy sort of scenario last night, it went on and on, continuing after I got up to go to the bathroom.

I was going through a transition, aided by some sort of complex intervention, never quite clear who was intervening to do exactly what, but I was changing, and I was worried about the outcome, although everyone around me seemed to take it all as a matter of course, even if they occasionally raised an eyebrow or otherwise indicated that they noticed it was going on, a hint of anxiety.

Finally, it occured to me that my physical appearance was changing, something about my corporeal presence in that space,my face felt different. This was a land of no mirrors. I asked a little girl -- somebody who had been there, off and on, throughout this dream -- if I looked OK. "Do I look right, are they doing a good job?" She nodded an enthusiastic Yes.

Just before I woke up this morning, the denouement: I had transformed into a dog, my face the canine equivalent of those Planet of the Apes natives. I had been a freak before, I realized, with a human countenance, and now, as the scales dropped from my eyes, I realized I was like everybody else, and humans were running around at our heels (or the canine equivalent thereof).

It seems, at least, an echo of the Twilight Zone episode where the girl goes through plastic surgery and when the bandages come off she looks like everybody else, grotesque, not the horrifying beauty she was before.

Lurid dreams, here in this luridly calm country.

Pain intrudes -- a mouthful of dancing flames --
just often enough, thank goodness, to remind me of the peaks and valleys.

The need for calm, quiet vigilance abides.

"At least one of the four Fort Bragg soldiers suspected of killing his wife this summer had apparently been taking an anti-malarial drug associated with aggression, paranoia and suicidal thoughts, United Press International has learned."

That faint buzzing?

Depression can be fatal if symptoms go unnoticed.

I read (the link is gone! it was a Thai newspaper, sour and sweet and spicy) that: "Designed like a little astronaut carrying a small backpack, Asimo can live with humans and help them work. He can walk, climb and descend stairs and perform certain tasks within the realm of a human living environment. "

...and Asimo never, ever gets depressed.

"A fabulous horse famed for its peculiar blood-colored sweat has triggered a wave of enthusiasm among Chinese experts, media and the masses recently," says China Daily.

You'd think, if they don't have a pill for that, maybe acupuncture, something.

Not sweating blood, here in prozakistan...

Says here that "science as we know it today would not exist without the pressures of war... chemistry arose from the search for more efficient explosives, astronomy from a naval need for more efficient navigation, mathematics from weapons ballistics, and metallurgy from the development of edged weapons and guns," as elucidated in a new book, Science Goes to War: The Search for the Ultimate Weapon, from Greek Fire to Star Wars by Ernest Volkman.

"Science has primarily been responsible for that progress," Volkman writes. "And the greatest spur to science has been war; a relationship that began from the first moment men began to think of better ways to kill each other....The scientific establishment has had the bad habit of trying to take credit for the applications of science that benefit mankind, while distancing itself from those that more efficiently destroy it," Volkman. "However, the fact is that the relationship between science and the soldier is a long and intimate one."

No science, no weapons to fight that sad, sinking feeling...

Feeling belligerent this evening, in the calmest sort of way, well-defended here in prozakistan.

"Most curious of all is the apparent lack of activity where you would expect it most. The Pentagon car park, which during the last Gulf war was packed at weekends, is noticeably empty. Senior British officers, including key brigade commanders, are either on leave or about to take it. Cobra, the Downing Street emergency committee, which meets to preside in any war or major crisis, has not yet been staffed up. The optimistic slant on this is that nothing much is happening. "
Observer of London, August 4, 2002


Sounds good, yes.

"The alternative - as explained to The Observer - is that everyone has been told to take their holidays in August because they might not be able to go later in the year."

But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.