12 March 2016

ANDY! ANDY McCOY! FLEE FOR WHAT'S LEFT OF YOUR LIFE! THAT'S NOT YOUR NORMAL TOILET PUKING!

Click to enlarge important sign.

Geoffrey S. of Jerusalem made my morning with this news tip. Geoffrey and I and about 500 worldwide garage and basement ionizing radiation enthusiasts (mostly, but by no means all, of the male gender) are on the whackiest Yahoo list in c-Space.

Vleeptron Dude has a couple of Geiger counters.

And you probably don't have any.

Geoffrey has a lot more than I do.

Agence-Vleeptron Presse assigned our part-tme assistants Lenny & Spike to research IFLScience, the source of this HOT news item. Here is what Lenny & Spike told me they copied and pasted:

[Wikipedia:]

Elise Andrew (born 1989) is a British blogger and science communicator. She is the founder and maintainer of "I fucking love science" (IFLS), a Facebook page on popular science.^[1]

^{Earth, Vleeptron, Yobbo, Hoon, Mollyringwald and Björkguðmundsdóttir are surprisingly Fun Planets. If this Elise Andrew Person should ever take the Zeta Beam to Ciudad Vleeptron, I'll see if she wants to hear who's playing that night at Club Drek. Club Drek is the only music joint in the Dwingeloo-2 galaxy that features musicians both alive and dead, Club Drek does not discriminate.}

^{* * * * * * * * * * *}

Chemistry

A Bizarre Spike Of Radiation

Was Detected in Helsinki's Air

Saturday 12 March 2016

by Tom Hale

An “exceptionally high amount” of radioactivity was detected over Finland's capital on March 3 and 4.

Officials from the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) have said their rooftop air sampler in Helsinki detected 4,000 microbecquerels of the radioactive isotope caesium-137 per cubic meter of air. This is around 1,000 times the regular amount they detect.

Oddly, radiation levels on the following two days returned to 12 microbecquerels per cubic meter of air, which is declared a normal level.

Caesium-137 is used for medical devices, industrial processes and in research centers. Although large concentrated exposure to the isotope can cause radiation sickness and even death, the authorities said that levels were never high enough to affect human health.
Radiation is regularly detected above Helsinki, which the STUK says drifts from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant fallout over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away. However, the fact that the sample only contains caesium-137 indicates these exceptionally high levels aren’t linked to any form of nuclear reactor.

For a number of days, the source remained a mystery. On March 8, the STUK released an update that said they had traced the source back to their own building's garage. Their property complex also houses a small radioactive waste treatment facility. The facility has since been isolated, with further investigations underway.

- 30 -

ADDENDUM

On the off-chance you don't know any Hot Poop about the nuclide Caesium-137, try a trip to Goiania, Brazil, and take the city bus. See what kind of maguffins are in the laps of the other passengers.

EXTRA CREDIT

Write a new hit folk song, in any language, about the Goiania Accident. Write it in Finno-Ugrik, or Papiemento.

******************

Goiânia accident

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (May 2015)

Coordinates:

16°40′29″S 49°15′51″W

A teletherapy radiation capsule composed of the following:
A.) an international standard source holder (usually lead),
B.) a retaining ring, and
C.) a teletherapy "source" composed of
D.) two nested stainless steel canisters welded to
E.) two stainless steel lids surrounding
F.) a protective internal shield (usually uranium metal or a tungsten alloy) and
G.) a cylinder of radioactive source material, often but not always cobalt-60. In the Goiânia incident it was caesium-137. The diameter of the "source" is 30 mm.

The Goiânia accident was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, at Goiânia, in the Brazilian state of Goiás, after an old radiotherapy source was stolen from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 were found to have significant levels of radioactive material in or on their bodies.^[1]^[2]
In the cleanup operation, topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses were removed and examined. Time magazine has identified the accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters" and the International Atomic Energy Agency called it "one of the world's worst radiological incidents".^[3]^[4]

Description of the source

The radiation source in the Goiânia accident was a small capsule containing about 93 grams (3.3 oz) of highly radioactive caesium chloride (a caesium salt made with a radioisotope, caesium-137) encased in a shielding canister made of lead and steel. The source was positioned in a container of the wheel type, where the wheel turns inside the casing to move the source between the storage and irradiation positions.^[1]

A wheel type radiotherapy device which has a long collimator to focus the radiation into a narrow beam. The caesium chloride radioactive source is the blue rectangle, and gamma rays are represented by the beam emerging from the aperture.

Comparison of radioactivities
Goiânia source	TBq
1971	74
1987	50.9
Recovered	44
Unrecovered (c. 1987)	7
Unrecovered (c. 2016)	3.5
Smoke detector	0.000000037

The activity of the source was 74 terabecquerels (TBq) in 1971. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) describes the container – 51 millimeters (2 inches) in diameter and 48 mm (1.8 inches) long – as an "international standard capsule". The specific activity of the active solid was about 814 TBq·kg⁻¹ of caesium-137 (half life of 30 years). The dose rate at one meter from the source was 4.56 gray per hour (456 rad·hr⁻¹). While the serial number of the device was unknown, thus hindering definitive identification, the device was thought to have been made in the United States at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and was used as a radiation source for radiation therapy at the Goiânia hospital.^[1]
The IAEA states that the source contained 50.9 TBq (1,380 Ci) when it was taken and that about 44 TBq (1200 Ci, 87%) of contamination had been recovered during the cleanup operation. This means that 7 TBq (190 Ci) remained in the environment; it will have decayed to about 3.5 TBq (95 Ci) by 2016.

Events

Hospital abandonment

Culture and Convention Center, built on the site where the IGR had been located

The Instituto Goiano de Radioterapia (IGR), a private radiotherapy institute in Goiânia,^[1] was just 1 km (0.6 mi) northwest of Praça Cívica, the administrative center of the city. It moved to its new premises in 1985, leaving behind a caesium-137-based teletherapy unit that had been purchased in 1977.^[5] The fate of the abandoned site was disputed in court between IGR and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, then owner of the premises.^[6] On September 11, 1986, the Court of Goiás stated it had knowledge of the abandoned radioactive material in the building.^[6]

Four months before the theft, on May 4, 1987, Saura Taniguti, then director of Ipasgo, the institute of insurance for civil servants, used police force to prevent one of the owners of IGR, Carlos Figueiredo Bezerril, from removing the objects that were left behind.^[6] Figueiredo then warned the president of Ipasgo, Lício Teixeira Borges, that he should take responsibility "for what would happen with the caesium bomb".^[6]

The court posted a security guard to protect the hazardous abandoned equipment.^[7] Meanwhile, the owners of IGR wrote several letters to the National Nuclear Energy Commission, warning them about the danger of keeping a teletherapy unit at an abandoned site, but they could not remove the equipment by themselves once a court order prevented them from doing so.^[6]^[7]

Theft of the source

On September 13, 1987, taking advantage of the absence of the guard,^[7] thieves Roberto dos Santos Alves and Wagner Mota Pereira illegally entered the partially demolished facility. They partially disassembled the teletherapy unit, and placed the source assembly – which they thought might have some scrap value – in a wheelbarrow, taking it to Alves's home.^[1] There, they began dismantling the equipment. That same evening, they both began to vomit. Nevertheless, they continued in their efforts. The following day, Pereira began to experience diarrhea and dizziness and his left hand began to swell. He soon developed a burn on this hand in the same size and shape as the aperture – he eventually underwent partial amputation of several fingers.^[8]

On September 15, Pereira visited a local clinic where his symptoms were diagnosed as the result of something he had eaten, and he was told to return home and rest.^[1] Alves, however, continued with his efforts to dismantle the equipment. In the course of this effort, he eventually freed the caesium capsule from its protective rotating head. His prolonged exposure to the radioactive material led to his right forearm becoming ulcerated, requiring amputation. ^[9]

Source is partially broken

On September 16, Alves succeeded in puncturing the capsule's aperture window with a screwdriver, allowing him to see a deep blue light coming from the tiny opening he had created.^[1] He inserted the screwdriver and successfully scooped out some of the glowing substance. Thinking it was perhaps a type of gunpowder, he tried to light it, but the powder would not ignite. The exact mechanism by which the light was generated was not known at the time the IAEA report was written, though it was thought to be either ionized air glow, fluorescence or Cherenkov radiation associated with the absorption of moisture by the source; similar blue light was observed in 1988 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory during the disencapsulation of a ¹³⁷Cs source.^{[citation needed]}

Source is sold and dismantled

On September 18, Alves sold the items to a nearby scrapyard. That night, Devair Alves Ferreira (the owner of the scrapyard) noticed the blue glow from the punctured capsule. Thinking the capsule's contents were valuable or even supernatural, he immediately brought it into his house. Over the next three days, he invited friends and family to view the strange glowing substance.

On September 21 at the scrapyard, one of Ferreira's friends (given as EF1 in the IAEA report) succeeded in freeing several rice-sized grains of the glowing material from the capsule using a screwdriver. Alves Ferreira began to share some of them with various friends and family members. That same day, his wife, 37-year-old Gabriela Maria Ferreira, began to fall ill. On September 25, 1987, Devair Alves Ferreira sold the scrap metal to a second scrapyard.

Ivo and his daughter

The day before the sale to the second scrapyard, on September 24, Ivo, Devair's brother, successfully scraped some additional dust out of the source and took it to his house a short distance away. There he spread some of it on the cement floor. His six-year-old daughter, Leide das Neves Ferreira, later ate a sandwich while sitting on this floor. She was also fascinated by the blue glow of the powder, applying it to her body and showing it off to her mother. Dust from the powder fell on the sandwich she was consuming; she eventually absorbed 1.0 GBq and received a total dose of 6.0 Gy, more than a fatal dose even with treatment.^[10]

Gabriela Maria Ferreira notifies authorities

Gabriela Maria Ferreira had been the first to notice that many people around her had become severely ill at the same time.^[11]
On September 28, 1987 — 15 days after the item was found — she reclaimed the materials from the rival scrapyard and transported them to a hospital. Because the remains of the source were kept in a plastic bag, the level of contamination at the hospital was low.

Source's radioactivity is detected

In the morning of September 29, 1987 a visiting medical physicist ^[12] used a scintillation counter to confirm the presence of radioactivity and persuaded the authorities to take immediate action. The city, state, and national governments were all aware of the incident by the end of the day.

Health outcomes

News of the radiation incident was broadcast on local, national, and international media. Within days, nearly 130,000 people swarmed local hospitals concerned that they might have been exposed.^[2] Of those, 250 were indeed found to be contaminated— some with radioactive residue still on their skin— through the use of Geiger counters.^[2] Eventually, 20 people showed signs of radiation sickness and required treatment.^[2]

Fatalities

Ages in years are given, with dosages listed in grays (Gy).

Leide das Neves Ferreira, age 6 (6.0 Gy), was the daughter of Ivo Ferreira. When an international team arrived to treat her, she was discovered confined to an isolated room in the hospital because the hospital staff were afraid to go near her. She gradually experienced swelling in the upper body, hair loss, kidney and lung damage, and internal bleeding. She died on October 23, 1987, of "septicemia and generalized infection" at the Marcilio Dias Navy Hospital, in Rio de Janeiro.^[13] She was buried in a common cemetery in Goiânia, in a special fiberglass coffin lined with lead to prevent the spread of radiation. Despite these measures, news of her impending burial caused a riot of more than 2,000 people in the cemetery on the day of her burial, all fearing that her corpse would poison the surrounding land. Rioters tried to prevent her burial by using stones and bricks to block the cemetery roadway.^[14] She was buried despite this interference.
Gabriela Maria Ferreira, aged 37 (5.7 Gy), wife of scrapyard owner Devair Ferreira, became sick about three days after coming into contact with the substance. Her condition worsened, and she developed internal bleeding, especially in the limbs, eyes, and digestive tract, and hair loss. She suffered mental confusion, diarrhea, and acute renal insufficiency before also dying on October 23, 1987, of "septicemia and generalized infection",^[13]^[15] about a month after exposure.
Israel Baptista dos Santos, aged 22 (4.5 Gy), was an employee of Devair Ferreira who worked on the radioactive source primarily to extract the lead. He developed serious respiratory and lymphatic complications, was eventually admitted to hospital, and died six days later on October 27, 1987.
Admilson Alves de Souza, aged 18 (5.3 Gy), was also an employee of Devair Ferreira who worked on the radioactive source. He developed lung damage, internal bleeding, and heart damage, and died October 18, 1987.

Devair Ferreira himself survived despite receiving 7 Gy of radiation. He died in 1994 of cirrhosis aggravated by depression and binge drinking.^[16]

Other individuals

The outcomes for the 46 most contaminated people are shown in the bar chart below. Several people survived high doses of radiation. This is thought in some cases to be because the dose was fractionated.^{[citation needed]} Given time, the body's repair mechanisms will reverse cell damage caused by radiation. If the dose is spread over a long time period, these mechanisms can mitigate the effects of radiation poisoning.

Other affected people

Afterwards, about 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination; 249 were found to have significant levels of radioactive material in or on their body.^[1] Of this group, 129 people had internal contamination. The majority of the internally contaminated people only suffered small doses (< 50 mSv, less than a 1 in 400 risk of getting cancer as a result).
A thousand people were identified as having suffered a dose which was greater than one year of background radiation; it is thought that 97% of these people had a dose of between 10 and 200 mSv (between 1 in 2,000 and 1 in 100 risk of developing cancer as a result).

In 2007, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation determined that the rate of caesium-137 related diseases are the same in Goiânia accident survivors as they are in the population at large. Nevertheless, compensation is still distributed to survivors, who suffer radiation-related prejudices in everyday life.^[17]

Legal matters

In light of the deaths caused, the three doctors who had owned and run IGR were charged with criminal negligence. Because the accidents occurred before the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and because the substance was acquired by the clinic and not by the individual owners, the court could not declare the owners of IGR liable. One of the medical doctors owning IGR and the clinic's physicist were ordered to pay R$ 100,000 for the derelict condition of the building. The two thieves were not included as defendants in the public civil suit.

In 2000, CNEN, the National Nuclear Energy Commission, was ordered by the 8th Federal Court of Goiás to pay compensation of R$ 1.3 million (near US$ 750,000) and to guarantee medical and psychological treatment for the direct and indirect victims of the accident and their descendants down to the third generation.^[18]

Cleanup

Objects and places

Topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses were removed and examined. Those that were found to be free of radioactivity were wrapped in plastic bags, while those that were contaminated were either decontaminated or disposed of as waste. In industry, the choice between decontaminating or disposing objects is based on only the economic value of the object and the ease of decontamination. In this case, the IAEA recognized that to reduce the psychological impact of the event, greater effort should have been taken to clean up items of personal value, such as jewelry and photographs. It is not clear from the IAEA report to what degree this was practiced.

Means and methods

After the houses were emptied, vacuum cleaners were used to remove dust, and plumbing was examined for radioactivity. Painted surfaces could be scraped, while floors were treated with acid and Prussian blue mixtures. Roofs were vacuumed and hosed, but two houses had to have their roofs removed. The waste from the cleanup was moved out of the city to a remote place for storage.
Potassium alum dissolved in hydrochloric acid was used on clay, cement, soil, and roofs. Caesium has a high affinity for many clays.

Organic solvents, followed by potassium alum dissolved in hydrochloric acid, were used to treat waxed/greased floors and tables. Sodium hydroxide solutions, also followed by dissolved potassium alum, were used to treat synthetic floors, machines and typewriters.
Prussian blue was used to internally decontaminate many people, although by the time it was applied, much of the radioactive material had already migrated from the bloodstream to the muscle tissue, greatly hampering its effectiveness. Urine from victims was treated with ion exchange resin to compact the waste for ease of storage.

Recovery considerations

The cleanup operation was much harder for this event than it could have been because the source was opened and the active material was water soluble. A sealed source need only be picked up, placed in a lead container, and transported to the radioactive waste storage. In the recovery of lost sources, the IAEA recommends careful planning and using a crane or other device to place shielding (such as a pallet of bricks or a concrete block) near the source to protect recovery workers.

Contamination locations

The Goiânia accident spread significant radioactive contamination throughout the Aeroporto, Central, and Ferroviários districts. Even after the cleanup, 7 TBq of radioactivity remained unaccounted for.
Some of the key contamination sites:

[show]Map all coordinates using OSM Map all coordinates using Google Map up to 200 coordinates using Bing

Goiânia’s Instituto Goiano de Radioterapia (IGR) (16°40′29″S 49°15′51″W)^[1] suffered no actual exposure or breach of radioactive contents, but the site is noteworthy as the source of deadly, unsecured material. The IGR clinic no longer exists, having been replaced around 2000 with the modernized Centro de Convenções de Goiânia (Goiânia Convention Center).
Roberto dos Santos' house (16°40′07″S 49°15′48″W)^[1] on Rua 57. The radioactive source was here for about six days, and it was partially broken into.
Devair Ferreira's scrapyard (16°40′02″S 49°15′59″W),^[1] on Rua 15A ("Junkyard I") in the Aeroporto section of the city, had possession of the items for 7 days. The caesium container was entirely dismantled, spreading significant contamination. Extreme radiation levels of up to 1.5 Sv·h⁻¹ were found by investigators in the middle of the scrapyard.
Ivo Ferreira's house (16°39′50″S 49°16′09″W)^[1] ("Junkyard II"), at 1F Rua 6. Some of the contamination was spread about the house, causing a fatality. The adjacent junkyard scavenged the remainder of parts from the IGR facility. The premises were heavily contaminated, with radiation dose rates up to 2 Sv·h⁻¹.
Junkyard III (16°40′09″S 49°16′48″W).^[1] This junkyard had possession of the items for 3 days until they were sent away.
Vigilância Sanitária (16°40′30″S 49°16′23″W).^[1] Here, the substance was quarantined, and an official cleanup response began.

Other contamination was also found in or on:^[19]

50,000 rolls of toilet paper
Three buses
42 houses
14 cars
five pigs

Legacy

Disposal of the capsule

The original teletherapy capsule was seized by the Brazilian military as soon as it was discovered, and since then the empty capsule has been on display at the Escola de Instrução Especializada ("School of Specialized Instruction") in Rio de Janeiro as a memento to those who participated in the cleanup of the contaminated area.

Research

In 1991, a group of researchers collected blood samples from highly exposed survivors of the incident. Subsequent analysis resulted in the publication of numerous scientific articles.^[20]^[21]^[22]^[23]

Film

A 1990 film Césio 137 – O Pesadelo de Goiânia ("Caesium-137 – The Nightmare of Goiânia"), a dramatisation of the incident, was made by Roberto Pires.^[24] It won several awards at the 1990 Festival de Brasília.^[25]

Foundation

The state government of Goiás established the Fundação Leide das Neves Ferreira in February 1988, both to study the extent of contamination of the population as a result of the incident and to render aid to those affected.^[26]

References

The Radiological accident in Goiânia (PDF). Vienna: International Atomic Energy Agency. 1988. ISBN 92-0-129088-8.

Camargo Da Silva, T. (1997). Leibing, Annette, ed. Biomedical Discourses and Health Care Experiences: The Goiâna Radiological Disaster. The Medical Anthropologies in Brazil. Curare Sonderband 12 (Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft Und Bildung). pp. 72–73. ISBN 9783861355687.

External links

Categories:

(Portuguese) Borges, Weber. "O jornalista que foi vítima do césio". Jornal Opção. May 27, 2007.^{[dead link]}

Planeta Diário: July 2010

Aint No Way to Go: All That Glitters

"Brazil Deadly Glitter". Time. October 19, 1987.

"2 Die of Radiation Poisoning in Brazil". Los Angeles Times. October 24, 1987.

"País está preparado para atuar em acidente radioativo" [Country is prepared to act in radioactive incident] (in Portuguese). Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI). 13 September 2012. Retrieved 10 November 2013. Note: person named only as "WF" in the IAEA report.

"Vida Verde" (in Portuguese). 1987. p. 15.

"Memorial Césio 137" (in Portuguese). Greenpeace.

Malheiros, Tania (1996). Histórias secretas do Brasil nuclear (in Portuguese). Rio de Janeiro: WVA. p. 122. ISBN 9788585644086.

Irene, Mirelle (13 September 2012). "Goiânia, 25 anos depois: 'perguntam até se brilhamos', diz vítima". Terra. Retrieved 5 December 2013.

UOL. Vítimas do césio 137 voltam a receber remédios e pedem assistência médica para todos. September 25, 2012

"Case Law and Administrative Decisions, Judgement of the Federal Court in the Public Civil Action concerning the Goiânia Accident" (PDF). OECD. 2000. (Archive)

Steinhauser, Friedrich (November 2007). ""Countering Radiological Terrorism: Consequences of the Radiation Exposure Incident in Goiania (Brazil)"". "Volume 29 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Human and Societal Dynamics": 7.

Da Cruz, AD; Curry, J; Curado, MP; Glickman, BW (1996). "Monitoring hprt mutant frequency over time in T-lymphocytes of people accidentally exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation". Environmental and molecular mutagenesis 27 (3): 165–75. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1098-2280(1996)27:3<165::aid-em1>3.0.CO;2-E. PMID 8625952.

Saddi, V; Curry, J; Nohturfft, A; Kusser, W; Glickman, BW (1996). "Increased hprt mutant frequencies in Brazilian children accidentally exposed to ionizing radiation". Environmental and molecular mutagenesis 28 (3): 267–75. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1098-2280(1996)28:3<267::aid-em11>3.0.CO;2-D. PMID 8908186.

Da Cruz, AD; Volpe, JP; Saddi, V; Curry, J; Curadoc, MP; Glickman, BW (1997). "Radiation risk estimation in human populations: lessons from the radiological accident in Brazil". Mutation research 373 (2): 207–14. doi:10.1016/S0027-5107(96)00199-6. PMID 9042402.

Skandalis, A; Da Cruz, AD; Curry, J; Nohturfft, A; Curado, MP; Glickman, BW (1997). "Molecular analysis of T-lymphocyte HPRT– mutations in individuals exposed to ionizing radiation in Goiânia, Brazil". Environmental and molecular mutagenesis 29 (2): 107–16. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1098-2280(1997)29:2<107::aid-em1>3.0.CO;2-B. PMID 9118962.

Césio 137 - O Pesadelo de Goiânia at the Internet Movie Database

UraniumFilmFestival.org: Roberto Pires

02 March 2016

Trump the Clown's endorsement by the KKKleagle / the U-Michigan mourner takes a free-throw / Super Tuesday VomitFest / Vleeptron Dude [X] for the old Socialist Jew (whom Spike Lee endorsed! / Smith ♥ Hillary

Click images to enlarge

Vleeptron has been informed that the above referenced athletic match (with the ridiculously high score) was not a men's college American football game, but rather a basketball game.

Vleeptron tries to cover all interesting aspects of all sports, but let's face it, we don't know shit about sports. Vleeptron Dude's uni had some unfortunate shooting murder associated with the football program in the 1920s, and instantly and forever stopped playing college football.

(Maybe 100 years is enough time to say they're sorry, and NYU could start playing football again. You can't have a great university without men's American football.)

The same Vleeptroid who corrected the college athletic game -- notice the mourner about to make a free throw -- asked Vleeptron why we haven't been blogging about the USA political presidential campaign.

That's easy. The USA presidential campaign has been making Vleeptron Dude disgustingly sick and ashamed.

But that's not an acceptable reason not to blog about it. So here, briefly, with a promise to post more in the near future, is some disgusting USA presidential politics.

Yesterday was a collection of primary voting days from about a dozen USA states, and Vleeptron Dude ambled down to his polling place to mark his preferred candidate's name with a big X.

Vleeptron Dude has amazingly lived long enough to have voted twice for the USA's very first Negro / African-American President, and we suspect this was Phase 1 of taking the Zeta Beam to an Alternative Universe.

Phase 2 is clearly to vote for, and see elected, America's first Old Socialist Jew President.

Which we did today at the polling place. When we get to this Alternative Universe, we'll see, in February 2017, the Negro President hand over the USA Presidency to the old Jewish Socialist guy from Vermont.

I took a bus through a blizzard to scowl nastily at W's 2001 inaugural in Washington DC. So I MUST see the African-American president hand over the White House to the Old Jewish Socialist. (This time I will be smiling in amazed delight, not scowling.)

Please note from the graphic above that Donald J. Trump, the winner of most Republican primaries on Super Tuesday, has never heard of David Duke, former Grand Dragon, or Krigat of Wands, or Sublime Whatever, of the Ku Klux Klan, who loudly supports Trump, and asserts that anyone who does not vote for Trump is a traitor to his or her (white) legacy. When asked by Cable News Network about Duke's endorsement, Trump later said he had a bad earpiece and didn't understand the CNN guy's question.

Okay, Agence-Vleeptron Presse has done its political duty and now must vomit, do some prescription and nearly-legalized drugs, and go to sleep.

Please Leave A Comment about the USA's exciting and entertaining Presidential campaign leading us via the Zeta Beam to a new Bizarro Universe.

**************

Letters to the Editor

The Sophian

Smith College

Northampton, Massachusetts

To the Editor:

As a decades-long neighbor and admirer of Smith College, I was dismayed to see, at a televised Massachusetts Primary Day rally in Springfield, a young woman behind Hillary Clinton holding high a sign that said "Smith ♥ Hillary."

I was not dismayed by the unsupported claim -- ubiquitous in political campaigns -- that the Smith community loves Hillary. I trust The Sophian will report thoroughly on the campus's political leanings throughout the campaign.

My dismay stems from wondering -- if the sign was somewhat accurate -- why?

Because Hillary is a woman? I don't recall a tidal wave of campus enthusiasm when Sarah Palin was the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008. In fact I can't recall any positive Smith response to Palin's candidacy, not even one PALIN banner from a dorm window facing Route 9.

Because Hillary's record has consistently advocated for women's rights and equality? I will leave the truth of this belief as an exercise for Smith's excellent student journalists and researchers. I've studied Hillary's public record since she jumped from Arkansas to the White House as First Lady, and long ago concluded she is a very "soft," unreliable advocate for the rights of women and girls, here and worldwide.

She is certainly no pioneer in advocating for LBGTQ causes -- while New York Senator, skipping the NYC St. Patrick's Day Parade and marching in Buffalo instead while the NYC parade banned Irish-American LGs from marching.

Bill Clinton manufactured our military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and an incisive lesbian deejay at WTTC-FM Springfield defended the Clintons this way: "He's the first president who ever even lied to us."

Her Democratic Party opponent advocates (as Hillary does not) a policy of free college for America's young people. The Sophian embarrassed the Smith administration by breaking the story that Smith was ending its traditional "needs blind" acceptance policy. Bernie Sanders isn't offering Free Smith to young people, but aiming for free public colleges. That's sufficiently wonderful to get my vote; my father-in-law proudly wore this sweatshirt: "HARVARD -- THE MICHIGAN OF THE EAST."

Smith ♥ Hillary? Say it ain't so, Jo.

And if it is so -- well, Oliver Cromwell said it this way: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."

Bob Merkin
Chesterfield, Massachusetts

(30 years 8 blocks west of Smith)

08 February 2016

新年快樂 from Vleeptron!

Click images to enlarge.

Today (Monday 8 February 2016) is the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, and this is the Year of the Monkey.

If you are born in a Monkey year, Wikipedia says you are associated with

Positive traits:
Intelligent, dignified, optimistic, romantic, sociable, quick-witted, confident, agile, motivator, curious, gregarious

Negative traits:
Egotistical, vain, arrogant, selfish, deceptive, reckless, snobbish, stubborn, suspicious, manipulative, restless

(Vleeptron Dude is a Pig -- although we prefer the fearless mighty Boar. For anyone who was just born -- Hi Amy & Mike! -- that babe was born in the Year of the Goat.)

I hope you are near enough to a New Year's celebration to hear lots of little cheap firecrackers -- but please, not too close. China invented gunpowder, and so should have the right to celebrate their biggest holiday with their invention forever.

新年快樂

07 February 2016

birthday faux postage stamp from USA state shaped like palm of right-hand mitten / Ann Arbor mourns for Blue / hanging on till 2062 A.D. N.S.

Click images to enlarge.

A wonderful slew of Birthday Greetings has poured into my inbox -- chiefly due mechanically to my dust-gathering unattended Facebook page, which automatically e-mails my 11,619 friends that it's my birthday.

Above, a lovely faux postage stamp from my old Army pal what lives in the USA state shaped like the palm of a right-hand mitten.

He and most of his family and neighbors are in mourning because of the above final American college football score. (I don't know who his daughter, a water-polo champion, roots for, because she attended both universities.)

Having attended a university that did not play football after some sort of murder shooting scandal in the gym in the 1920s, I have adopted U-Michigan as my College Football team, and my father-in-law (who wore a sweatshirt that said

HARVARD

THE MICHIGAN OF THE EAST

) asked to be buried in his U-Michigan socks, and was.

On Friday 5 February 2016 I turned LXIX.

My least favorite reply on chat (I'm lePendu on Undernet) when someone demands to know my exact age is:

"Oh, you're older than my dad."

My usual reply to such demands is:

"Oh, you're a mathematician! You love numbers! Me, too, I love numbers! That's so cool!"

Many chatters have noted that when you try to pronounce the acronym asl, it sounds a lot like asshole.

My desires for longevity are modest. I just want to hang in there until 2062 so I can see Comet Halley a second time. I will try not to drool on the attendant who wheels me outside to see it.

Mark Twain came in with Comet Halley, and went out with the spectacularly close 1910 flyby of Comet Halley.

My Great-Aunt Nathalie heard I was writing a newspaper article about Halley's and phoned to ask if it would be possible to see it near Washington DC. 1986 wasn't a spectacularly close flyby, and if you REALLY wanted the best possible view, you had to see it from the Southern Hemisphere. (I flew to the Australian desert.)

But she'd been born in 1910 and all her life her older siblings had told her "You came with The Comet!" Now she wanted to see it. So on my advice, her grandkids drove her out to the Maryland mountains near Camp David, for the clearest least light-polluted skies, and she saw The Comet for the first time! (Or the first time she could remember and understand what she saw.)

Old age (I prefer "dignified maturity") is usually no hindrance to eyesight, particularly if you've had cataracts surgically (actually by ultrasound) removed. Since then, my eyesight's as sharp and eyeglass-free as it was in my twenties.

This may just be urban legend, but it was commonly believed that cataract removal extended human vision into ultraviolet frequencies. The legend says such people were used as coastal UV light-signal observers during World War II. If you know The Truth (or the Not Truth) about this, please Leave A Comment.

Comet Halley appeared over Normandy and England a few days before the Battle of Hastings in 1066. One who'd seen its previous flyby in 989 wrote:

"You've come, have you? ... You've come, you source of tears to many mothers, you evil. I hate you! It is long since I saw you; but as I see you now you are much more terrible, for I see you brandishing the downfall of my country. I hate you!"

-- Eilmer of Malmesbury
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Edmund Halley (a close and very important pal of Isaac Newton) was the first to prove that comets were predictable natural phenomena and did not presage omens of the fall of empires and births and deaths of kings. Specifically he predicted the next return of "his" comet (though when it did show up right on time, 13 March 1759 N.S., he'd been dead for many years).

Halley was a Royal Navy commander who once wheeled Tsar Peter the Great around the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in a wheelbarrow (and then contrariwise). They were very drunk. I'm guessing either gin (the first mass-produced high-octane beverage, also known as "Dutch courage") or rum, though the Tsar may very well have brought his own vodka.

Please visit the (Old) Royal Observatory, designed by Christopher Wren, and overlooking Queens House by Inigo Jones -- if there's a Heaven, this is what the architecture will look like. Outside you can skip back and forth over the illuminated sidewalk line that separates the Western and Eastern Hemispheres (your globe's 0° Longitude Line), and inside you can see the restored Harrison chronometers still ticking away, which solved Longitude calculation anywhere on Earth. (Newton favored a "clock" based on the Galilean satellites of Jupiter.)

05 February 2016

PizzaQ! I want this for my birthday!

Click to enlarge maybe.

It's my birthday, and I want this for my birthday.

26 January 2016

PizzaQ!

Yet what are all such gaieties to me
Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?
x² + 7x + 53
= 11 / 3.

-- Lewis Carroll

Solve poem for x
win 3 slices pizza with avocado capers & endive

31 December 2015

Happy Reformed Gregorian New Year 2016 / special shoutout to The Uma & Khaled Mardam-Bey / This Planet's a Mess!

Click to enlarge.

uhhh wow we just had our first nasty Solid Precipitation Event of the Winter (which, calendrically, began 9 days ago, with balmy spring weather), and an hour ago (while the Happy New Year fireworks set a Dubai skyscraper ablaze) I slid and slipped on ice and snow to drive into town to get Chinese food -- the menu still calls it Peking Duck, but I guess it should be Beijing Duck.

S.W.M.B.O. also wanted Cheetos, which she claims is a universally recognized New Year's Day tradition.

So ...

Happy Reformed
Gregorian New Year!

If Vleeptroids will recall, the first HNY greeting I designed was meant to do only one thing: Not have any of the standard famous hokey stereotypical cliches, like the old bearded man limping & wheezing out, and the neonate in a diaper/nappy crawling in.

So here Vleeptron pours methode champagnoise into The Einstein-Minkowski Light Cone!

Albert and his pal Herman cooked up this-here Light Cone to represent ... well, Everything. The Past, the Future, the Present, and all the crap that goes on Everywhere and Everywhen.

The idea is that the constant velocity of light speeds in all directions To and From HERE & NOW.

There may be goofy crap Outside or Beyond the Light Cone, but we can never perceive or experience it. It is Forever Unknowable. Because we can't see stuff beyond where light has travelled from NOW.

(For you Unatheists, God, or However Many Gods you believe in -- He, She or Them know all this Outside-the-Cone Goofy Crap. But we mere mortals and Einsteins and Minkowskis, we can't even guess. We are, to put it bluntly, Too Fucking Dumb.)

(I personally think that Killer Clowns from Outer Space live outside the E-M Light Cone -- but I got no proof.)

Now I will briefly -- as briefly as possible for the verbose Vleeptron Dude -- summarize the quickly expiring Year 2015.

It sucked. It bit the Hairy Wazoo. It was the Year of the Dead Babies, the Year of the 14-year-old girl Suicide Bombers, the Year of the Abducted Zoroastrians and Nigerian Schoolgirls ...

I could go on.

But, as Fred Schneider & the Shake Society sang:

THIS PLANET'S A MESS!

Now I'm going to prepare to eat my Beijing Duck and Drink my methode champagnoise and try to stay awake until our local midnight about 5 hours from now. (I always like to hear Guy Lambardo & His Royal Canadians sing Auld Lang Syne.)

I love all Vleeptroids, here, on Earth and in the Dwingeloo-2 Galaxy! And wish everyone a MUCH MUCH BETTER 2016!

Oh, a special shout-out to The Uma -- salam, selam, safety wherever you may be, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, or Darmstadt DE.

And a special Salam to Khaled Mardam-Bey, who turned a gazillion strangers into neighbors! If there's True Hope for a better 2016, Khaled's one of the world's best bringers of this Hope.

18 November 2015

MoNGO & Vleeptron want Asian, African & Middle Eastern refugees in USA now / Muslims, Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, Druse, Samaritans, Alewites, Atheists welcome, lay your burden down

Click to enlarge,

hope, dream

The New Colossus

by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Source: Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings (2002)

12 November 2015

When you see millions of the mouthless dead / Veterans Day / War Without End Amen

Charles Hamilton Sorley, a Scot from Aberdeen, was shot through the head and died instantly at age 20, at the Battle of Loos, on Wednesday 13 October 1915. His body was lost, but his kit bag was found and sent home to his family. They found this poem inside it.

When You See Millions
of the Mouthless Dead
Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895-1915)

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"Yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

Original text: Charles Hamilton Sorley. Marlborough and other Poems. 4th edition. Cambridge: University Press, 1919: 78 (no. XXXIV). First publication date: 1916. Composition date: 1915. Form: sonnet. Rhyme: ababbabacdcdcd

==============

In 1918, largely by coincidence and random accident, the combatants along the Western Front (France) agreed that the guns would fall silent at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

==============

I found a poppy Tuesday night. No one was selling them -- distributing them for a vets charity -- around town, so for the 2nd time in my life as a veteran I wandered into the VFW hall, and the friendly barmaid had a bunch of them on the bar.

I wore it on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. A couple of people noticed and knew what it meant. One thanked me for my service -- this Endless War's Hallmark Card for this Miserable Circumstance.

But I like this holiday better than the other one, because Veterans Day / Remembrance Day / Armistice Day is more about the guys who came back pretty much okay.

If you have male children, make sure they can type fast and well. If they have dual citizenship, Do Not Give Up either citizenship.

08 November 2015

at le Cinema PolyOdeon QuadruplePlex-16 RealD (tm) IMAX (tm) off Exit 6a I-84 / e-mails from cineaste who grew up in Jura

cliquez pour le format anamorphique

Yo Bob

I DEMAND THAT I AM GIVEN BACK THOSE 40 MINUTES I HAVE WASTED ON THIS GODAWFUL PIECE OF UTTER SCHEISSDRECK AND I WANT THAT TIME BACK RIGHT BLOODY FLAMING NOW !!!

Naturally after 24 hours I have forgotten most of what I have seen. Bob /Pauline Keel Was Right. I think I only saw about 40 or 50 minutes of it anyway and started doodling on the iPad.

This is an A List Movie ? Huh ? The 3D animations were absolutely mondblowing and flawless, there were some nice scenes – the rest is utterly forgettable.

Of all the characters Chriss Pratt (a comedian ? Seriously ?) is somewhat likeable, the nerds at the control center were ok, the rest is – forgettable.

Plot line ? Bloody hell, don’t get me started. What we have here is a classic Monster Movie in the B Category that has more to do with It Came From Outer Space, King Kong or Godzilla BUT NOT DINOSAURS ! Of course I knew I was watching a sorta wanna-be SF movie, but if you construct you own universe just make sure it does not collapse in on itself. That plot has more holes in it that swiss cheese and I know bloody well what I am talking about here – a chameleon “dinosaur” – in an amusement park. Who wants to see that ? When I heard that I thought “oh good, it is going to break out of its cage and cause death and destruction while being able to shape-shift. Brilliant idea, mate ! You reckon park visitors would pay for a thing they can hardly spot ? But since it can shape-shift we have the perfect scenery for some action...”

Good SF, even unrealistic SF works because that self-sustaining bubble has rules based on the logic of that bubble. This movie has no logic, it is just popcorn trash and the most dissapointing thing is that this is supposed to be an A list movie....

I mean I like popcorn movies, my generation was raised on american movies like Indiana Jones, Back To The Future, Star Wars and all that. But ya gotta draw the line somewhere....

The original Jurassic Park (based on a Michael Crichton book, I believe) hat a decent plot, good actors playing believable charactars, it hat dinosaurs, action, a few funny moments – and even a message, even if it was a small one. And I can still remember this movie.

This kacke had none of that and if this is the current state of Hollywood Popcorn Blockbuster Movies then I am utterly baffled. Neffe liked it, but he’s 14 and you know how kids at that age are. Just you wait ‘till the little bugger can clock stuff like Brazil, Blade Runner, Seven, The Godfather etc. ! I have already lost him when it comes to mainstream music but I might have a chance with doing something for his cineastic intellect before it is too late.

Yet not all is lost. I hear The Martian is pretty good, and if the movie is only 1/4 as cool as the book and they haven’t fucked it up too much this one might be a treat....

From: Robert Merkin

Sent: Saturday, November 7, 2015 9:54 PM

To: PatfromCH

Subject: Re: At the movies

Pauline Kael had a book about movies called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which is what Italians call James Bond, Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Jurassic World -- well, I told you, it was Supercalliafragialistic Amaze-o-Scope 4D Popaphonic (tm) Popcorn Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Roar Roar. All Phineas T. Barnum, the great showman who brought The Amazing White Elephant to America. (A school -- well, not mate, we didn't like one another -- but a school guy now owns the Barnum and Baily Circus. He has to swear to the media a lot that he would never mistreat or do weird surgical things to turn horses into unicorns. He doesn't do that anymore. And the tigers and lions all have Luxury Erste Klasse air-conditioned cage and train accomodations.)

These are wonderful movies to smoke hasheesh or take LSD or drink absinthe to. And to watch with dates -- a couple of rented Jung Madchen at the Nevada bordello. (Stay away from the convenience-store faux viagra.)

And then, Ms. Kael said, you immediately forget all about it. The movie is entirely consumable in the theater. No residue remains in your brain.

"You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll kiss three bucks goodbye!"

-- promo for "Hardware Wars"

As I said, there is a tragedy associated with this bag of gobshite, and that is that Chris Pratt is an inspired W.C. Fields Chaplin-class comic.

"Dying is easy. COMEDY is hard."

-- Edmund Kean, Shakespearean actor

Chris is very much a Brain Comic, the intellectual absurdities of existence are his special forte, but if you want him to tumble down into a dark muddy hole and garbage pit on a cold night, he's happy to do that, too. And do it as well as Fields (the world's finest juggler ever) did. (Fields did it all while drunk, but I haven't heard what, if anything, Chris Pratt uses/abuses.)

Great comics are often gifted musicians, or at least have natural musical talents, because it's all in the rhythm and the tempo.

Have you heard the world-shattering news? James Bond shagged a 51-year-old woman! She's really -- uhhhh -- well, okay, not HOT, but uhhh ... well, not too far Out Of Code, as Brits say in likening an older woman to grocery store cheese in your refrigerator that is still safe to consume. I wonder what Bond Girl No. 1, Ursi, thinks about this new surprise development in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang World. Today Barbara Bach, another Bond Girl, was on TV in her first comedy, Caveman, where she met and then married Ringo Starr. The whole thing is Very Funny, and all the pretty young women are dressed in skimpy animal skins.

SWMBO looks at some women on TV and mutters "mutton dressed as lamb" -- like Angela Merkel dressing like a Japanese schoolgirl to emphasize her attractive seductive youngness.

You laughed, you cried, you kissed how many Swiss francs goodbye? Say hi to Neffe.

Bob

(SWMBO left me all alone this weekend! gtg, identical twin redhead freckled cheerleaders Tiffani and Heather are waiting for me in the hot tub.)

----- Original Message -----

From: "PatfromCH"

To: "Robert Merkin"

Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2015 2:28 PM

Subject: At the movies

Watching jurassic world with my nephew on bluray Oh dear what awful gobshite.....

Von meinem iPad gesendet=

Vleeporn! / e-mail from abroad / e-mail from a broad / hookup alert! / erotic multiplier effect of impending world/nuclear/chemical war & life-extincting holocaust

Click to make bigger, more attractive

Lenny & Spike the runaway dropout teenage weasel and stoat who help out around Vleeptron and briefly ran the Zero-Friction Thrill & No I.D. Cheap Beer Park on the system's Rules-Lite Planet Hoon were supervising the Vleeptron e-Mail Spam & Malware filter -- we call it The Great Firewall of Vleeptron -- and after they left to get to a Fudge Tunnel concert at Club Drek, I found we had received this wholly unsolicited message:

*************

FROM: Valencia Loffler
SUBJECT: Feeling Horny? Get Laid Now!

Hello straṇger sex master.
I just bro͑ke up wit֮h my BF a֖nd I'm l֓ooking for sٛome f͕un :ֵ-) Wa֣n̊t to come over?
My s٘cr֙eenname is Vٗalencia90 ))
My pr֧ofile i͛s here: h ttp://Valencia.HookupAlert.ru
W֔elְcome!
*******************

Valencia90 and I are both in the Northern Hemisphere, as winter approaches. So this invitation sounds very inviting, and maybe even more stimulating than such hookups usually are as the United States of America and Russia seem, in two or three locales, to be toying with the idea of direct armed conflict. Both Russia and the USA have missiles armed with fission and fusion weapons, and Syria has brought back the long-gone but well-remembered Poison Gas Warfare.

Great and crappy world literature alike have found that when War Breaks Out, everybody's nipples get stiff and everybody gets a big erection, no Viagra necessary. You don't even have to use that herbal stiffener that they sell at Apu's convenience store on the Vegas Strip.

Because we both know there's a very good chance this may be the last time we get to bang one another, or, for that matter, to bang anyone. The MoD may even permanently prohibit masturbation, or make it a lot harder than it used to be.

Valencia (who truly is 90) is very clearly a fur-clad Russian babe, but our analysts at the Vleeptron Security Agency suspect she's posing on a sidewalk in Queens or Brooklyn or maybe the Bronx. That's my old beloved Marlboro cigarette brand ad in the background. And the alphabet is all Roman, not Cyrillic.

No flies on the boffins at VSA, who lease office space in the Tri-Sky-Hi Towers in Ciudad Vleeptron. Valencia cannot keep her true location secret from Rumply Snrq-Bellvale and his Team for long.

So if I decide to go for it, I may only have to take a 6-hour Amtrak train for our secluded rendezvous over borscht and vodka (not that French vodka, either, the Real Tovarich Brand stuff).I hope she can get her hands on a tin of Caspian caviar, too. Does she take credit cards? Or American dollars? Or The New Tumbling Ruble? Euros?

Valencia's e-mail seems to be trying to inspire me to travel

4161 miles (6696 km) (3616 nautical miles)

to make this hookup happen.

What should I do? Please Leave A Comment.

"Of all our regrets, the coldest and most empty are of temptations we have successfully resisted."

-- James Branch Cabell

("tell the rabble

it rhymes with Cabell")

******************

ADDENDUM 1.

I just noticed the dot br -- to get a little of the old in-out, I may have to get my fundijo to the Southern Hemisphere, maybe the Beach at Ipanema, or maybe Valencia is dancing at the SambaDrome with skin glitter.

4858 miles (7818 km) (4222 nautical miles)

03 November 2015

TdS●Posta / Historic Commemorative: Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack All Dressed in Black Black Black with Silver Buttons Buttons Buttons all down her Back Back Back

click to enlarge

she jumped so High High High
She touched the Sky Sky Sky
and she didn't come Back Back Back
till the Fourth of July ly ly

31 October 2015

the Treasure at the Bottom of Deep Shit Lake

Cliquez sur Ubu Roi pour a faire plus grande

e-mail to former newsie colleague of Vleeptron Dude who found me 35 years later on LinkdIn or whatever

wow okay during my confusing and painful collisions with Higher Education, I majored in theater/drama at NYU in da Bronx (i.e., in wild theater party orgies), so now you tell me D**** has reached the Zenith of All My Life Ambitions: He's writ and staged an Off-Broadway Play!!! (Did they invite him to the cast party?) What is the play's name, who reviewed it? D**** used to mutter about eventually writing a novel, but I don't think he considered me Worthy to share Deep Literary Dreams with. Once I bought him a novel I liked, "The Origin of the Brunists" by Robert Coover, and tho he appreciated the gesture, I think the book made him throw up. (Not an original reaction to reading Coover.)

But Holy Krap he's an off-Broadway Playwright now! Color me violently envious!

Here's [4-sheet at top] something inspired by one of my favorite playwrights, I saw it produced in the little experimental theater at Lincoln Center, and IMHO the production sucked.

But the play -- originally written by a French junior high school student about a math teacher he hated -- is just -- well, it opened up a New Universe for human beings, including moi. Postalo Vleeptron is one of my postal issuing authorities from my vacation planet (I got a condo in Ciudad Vleeptron near the Shoe Mirrors UnderWay stop).

As winter approaches, i am also violently envious of your childhood in the Bahamas. C2 taught in the Caymans for a few years -- I think she still has a bank account there with like $53 plus a few decades of interest. Wow, I know somebody what's got a bank account in the Caymans.

When we've been able to swing it, we like the (former) Dutch islands, particularly Statia. Stay away from the French half of Sint/Saint Maarten, you'll get shot or stabbed there, sometimes accidentally by les Gendarmes themselves. The Dutch half prohibits all such non-Calvinist misbehavior.

We don't have to do anything about our Leach Field, but it's not advised to eat stuff C2 grows on top of it. Most enjoyable story I covered in Miami was this huge garbage truck that had sunk into the landfill's Deep Shit Lake, and any foole who wanted to put on a deep-sea diver soot and go down there could have the big truck for free if he was successful. Took him 3 days of diving into Solid Waste, but he managed to hook a chain to that truck. (He told me it wasn't worth it, and he sure wasn't doing anything like that ever again. I think his gf operated the air pump topside.)

Pardon my senile dementia, I think M*****'s Pulitzer was for her Herald reporting, not for the girls basketball book. Do you know folks who shifted to the Palm Beach Whatchamacallit? Who?

Envious Bob

25 October 2015

PIZZAQ -- What kind of car was it?