Vandalism of Words - Derek Haines (free ebook reader txt) 📗

called almost anything except a fool. Why?
A fool is defined as a person who acts unwisely or imprudently or someone easily duped. It also refers to someone ridiculously trivial or frivolous, helpless or defenceless. In addition a fool is the the butt of a joke. None of this refers to me at all. So far off the mark it would be ridiculous to even consider associating me with this word.
A glance at a thesaurus adds to my argument.
I do not consider myself as an ass, blockhead, dunce, dolt, ignoramus, imbecile, cretin, dullard, simpleton, moron, clod; informal nitwit, halfwit, dope, ninny, nincompoop, chump, dimwit, dingbat, dipstick, goober, coot, goon, dumbo, dummy, ditz, dumdum, fathead, numbskull, numbnuts, dunderhead, thickhead, airhead, flake, lamebrain, zombie, nerd, peabrain, birdbrain, jughead, jerk, donkey, twit, goat, dork, twerp, schmuck, bozo, boob, turkey, schlep, chowderhead, dumbhead, goofball, goof, goofus, galoot, lummox, klutz, putz, schlemiel, sap, meatball, dumb cluck.
No. I am an idiot, not a fool. And very proud of my status.
References are from my helpful little Macbook dictionary.app program that uses as its sources:

http://www.oxfordreference.com/pages/Subjects_and_titles__t183
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Reference/?view=usa&ci=9780195342840
http://wikipedia.org/


Right, Let’s Blow Up The Moon!

SAVE THE WORLD: BLOW UP THE MOON!
It has been nearly fifty years since JFK set a challenge to mankind. And, it has now been forty years since the challenge was fulfilled by Neil Armstrong. Since then, nothing.
Now I am sure you will think that detonating our moon into tiny dust particles sounds a bit radical, but there are some very sound reasons for putting this on our collective political agendas and working together to implement the plan before the next decade is out.
Firstly, we now know that there is plenty of water on the moon courtesy of the LCROSS mission. So, get the timing right and blow up the moon when it’s trajectory crosses central Australia and the Sahara and boom, instant agriculture. Dumping all those buckets of moon water on our vast desert regions. On the way to feeding our ever growing population.
As well as the water, the moon is rich in minerals. We’ll have dug everything up on Earth soon, so let’s plan for our grand children. Gravity will bring all those mineral rich dust particles down to Earth in no time at all. Our kids and grand kids won’t even have to go down a hole to get the stuff. It will just bee lying around, on everything.
Next. Global warming. Solved in an instant by blowing up the moon. Our thin protective atmosphere will be covered with a heat reflecting dust cloud that will last for thousands, if not millions of years. Just imagine. Our kids could play happily outside without fear of sun burn. In fact they would never see the sun at all.
Did I mention tides? Imagine no tides. That would save a lot of shipping problems. Beaches would stay put for tourists. Mangroves would die ensuring few mosquitoes to carry diseases. No more werewolves. No more lost night’s sleep because of the full moon. No more howling dogs. Stars in the night sky will be much brighter. The list is endless.
NASA could stop wasting money on trying to put a man back on the moon. It’s been done before you silly people! They could set a real challenge for themselves and start designing a real SS Enterprise and start training new Captain Kirks. Get on with finding all those alien life forms out there.
Then there is the side benefit of what to do with all our nuclear weapons. Nobody wants to use them anymore, and there are thousands of nuclear warheads lying around rusting and rotting. So in one economical exercise, we can rid the world of these nukes by putting them to good use. To blow up the moon!
So I put it to you to pressure your leaders. Barack Obama, Dmitry Medvedev, Nicolas Sarkozy, Kim Jong-il, Hu Jintao, Ban Ki-moon, Manmohan Singh, Gordon Brown, Asif Ali Zardari and all other presidents and prime ministers to work together and set the world this breath taking challenge to save our planet for our children.
Permission is granted to forward this article to Al Gore, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and any other environmental activists.

Grieving. The forgotten emotion in separation.

It took me some time to decide to publish my last book, Nobody’s Fault. In fact I wrote it more than ten years ago, and in essence it was a cathartic exercise during a very difficult time for me. What came from the process was the realisation that men and women suffer from tremendous grief during and after separation, and our society offers very little recognition or help in working though this complex physiological state.
After a death, grief is a natural and well understood state that takes time to manage and heal with compassion and caring. But this same reaction, mixed with the guilt, bitterness, anxiety and anger of separation creates a volatile state of mind and makes for unpredictability in people’s reactions. Very little is done to help people in this state, and often is totally ignored by physicians and counsellors. And certainly by lawyers!
After writing the book, I realised that I had been grieving. But did not know I was because I was a man. Strong, determined, pig headed, rational and not affected by emotion in decision taking. Wrong, wrong wrong. I was an emotional wreck and hiding behind a facade of male strength and stubbornness.
I was asked which character was me in the book. The answer is there is a little of me in all of them. Women included. Except one character that became a problem in writing as she intentionally has no name and is never described, but is central to the story.
The story is brutal, angry and disgustingly irrational in parts. It had to be though as reactions to grief are irrational and extremely unpredictable. Not knowing or trying to hide grief makes for a state of mind that is extremely fragile.


Old Sage

It is normal that we get old. A real bummer yes, but unfortunately unavoidable. With each year that passes, our lives change, people come and go, births, deaths and marriages. (I prefer the expression, hatches, matches and dispatches!) New friends, old friends, lost friends. Our opinions change, beliefs become either more or less flexible, patience decreases. Wrinkles appear and short term memory becomes an increasing challenge. Doctor’s appointments become an intricate part of your calendar.
But then, some things just do not change at all. Levi’s are always cool. Politicians still lie just as eloquently. War continues to be a practical political and financial bonanza. Lego is still popular with kids. Elvis Presley is still the King of Rock & Roll. And university students are still reading Atlas Shrugged.
Then there is my mind. The body maybe suffering from a little wear and tear, and hurtling towards its use by date, but my mind stays exactly the same. More’s the pity some might say.
I read this description of myself this morning. I wrote it more than ten years ago, and it proves me correct. My mind still truly believes this same lie.
“I am an incorrigible epicurean, whining political sceptic and lascivious pervert. If you have formed a differing opinion, I must tell you that you are probably wrong. Not necessarily though, as who am I to tell you what you think. Perhaps I should rephrase this opening paragraph to read that I love to believe that I am an incorrigible epicurean, whining political sceptic and lascivious pervert. It is a selfish indulgence and an attempt to create a positive image of myself. In reality I am just an ordinary boring Australian male who lives in a semi-perpetual state of driven imagination and wild fantasy.”
Some things just never change.

Bing, Go, Go, Gone!

Microsoft still manage to amaze me. Although a dedicated and self confessed and obsessed Apple Mac freak, there is no getting away from the fact that we all (including me) live in a Microsoft world. This was bought back home to me last week with a very sudden thud.
I have, of course, registered my website with Google, Yahoo, DMOZ, directories, other smaller search engines, and then of course, Bing. Microsoft’s new answer to internet search.
All goes well, and my site is listed in varying degrees of fullness by all these sites and directories. In fact, I was initially impressed with Bing, as it indexed around 75% of my pages. Not bad. I was truly very happy. Until!
One morning last week, I log on to Bing, and presto, my site has disappeared from their index except for one page. 90% of the backlinks listed just a few days before had also disappeared. So, naturally I send a friendly email to Bing support asking what had happened.
I received a prompt reply from a guy at Bing. Good so far. Content of the message? Well, try this for a start.
“Bing has a different search algorithm and the Bing Team continuously updates the algorithms we use to ensure we have the highest quality content in our search results. For this reason, you will notice over time that some sites are showing then sometimes it doesn’t.”
Now, if you understand this gobbledegook message, please let me know.
This was of course accompanied by suggestions to visit their Bing forums which I always understand as ‘piss off’ and find out for yourself.
I have heard rumors of Google’s Sandbox, but this sounds like Bing’s Black Hole!
My response to the email was just to say to myself ’sod off Microsoft’ as usual and get on with other things. Until!
Microsoft kindly sent me an email MSN Support Survey to complete just a few days later. May not have helped my site, but I scored their support at zero for everything listed, and when I had a chance to comment instead of tick boxes, I informed them that their support stank! (Or words to that effect.)
My simple point here, is that yes, you can have 1,000 ISO certificates and accreditations for quality customer service standards because you have a systematic two way evaluation process in place. But for me, no matter how sophisticated the processes you have in place, if you treat your customer as if he or she is brain dead, you will last as long as a monopoly as American railroad companies. A long time yes, but in the end, smarter people will bring you down.
I contact many services on the internet, but none one other than Microsoft manages to treat me like a completely brain dead idiot with an appetite for nonsensical horse shit.
Well done Bing! And goodbye! I wish you a pleasant downfall.

It’s Love!

What is it about the iPhone? I have had my little darling for more than a year now, and I am still in love.
I know more words have been written about the iPhone in the last couple of years than almost any other news worthy item. So, I am not going to comment on anything technical or geeky. It is just a fascination for me, as to why I am still in love. Yes, I’m a gadget freak, but no other gadget has held my affection for this long before. So what it about the iPhone?
For me, it is the shopping list. I use this little app more than anything else. Ticking off my items as I toss them in the caddy. Cool! The alarm. So cool. Waking to the sound of soothing harps each morning. And as it is by my bedside, it had received a full charge overnight, so as to be ready for my new day. Then there is the multiple level backgammon that keeps me occupied for hours. Notes? Did I mention that I can make a note of a bright idea in either