Lightning Rod Gets The Zot

The Poet's Eye ^ | Lightning Rod

[Lrod]

A character like Christine O'Donnell presents a unique problem for a humorist. Few elaborations are called for since the caricature is self-embodied. All that is needed is a dead-pan Jack Benny look. You know, the one where he just stares blankly at the audience without saying a word and eventually someone titters and before you know it the whole place is in hysterics? Her very existence as a major party candidate for US Senate is the kind of comedy which arrives ready-written and would only be spoiled by embellishment. I mean, what can you add to rabidantimasturbationtarianism, rats with fully-functioning human brains and her famous Witches of Eastwick campaign ad that looks like it was produced by Tim Burton? I had fully intended to leave Ms. O'Donnell to the other comedians and the pundits who were wearing her out on cable TV. But then came the most recent revelation that she has claimed that her father was Bozo the Clown. Here I had to break my silence, not in the name of humor, but in the cause of veracity. This is a subject I happen to know something about.

Long ago, for one magic season, I was related by marriage to Bozo the Clown. I'm not making this up. My father was a semi-notorious lothario in the television and advertising business. Sometime after he turned 50, he married the 17 year-old daughter of one of his professional colleagues, Larry Harmon, the guy who owned the franchise to Bozo, the Most Famous Clown in the World. He was Bozo Primero, not one of the many FauxZos who were franchised in every major media market. I was much closer to the power center of the Bozo world than Ms. O'Donnell ever dreamed of being. It gave me an intimate glimpse into the backstage life of clowns. I knew little of the inside workings of the clown business in those days. Like a naive child, I had assumed that, you know, Bozo was Bozo. It never occurred to me that there was a school, like a Bozo boot-camp, where imposters went to learn how to walk like a Bozo and talk like a Bozo and draw the red rictus of a smile on their faces with greasepaint. It was like learning a dirty family secret and it was a big disappointment. When you go to see Bozo, you want it to really be Bozo, not some guy dressed up in a Bozo costume.

I hadn't thought about my brief inclusion in greasepaint royalty for years until Ms. O'D surfaced with her claims of actually being a blood relative of Bozo the Clown. The marriage between my father and Princess Bozo, which was chronologically challenged to begin with, barely outlasted the honeymoon. They had about as much in common as Christine would have in common with the 99 other US Senators. Suddenly the whole subject bubbled from my subconscious and made me wonder about franchises and politicians and the authenticity of clowns.

Since John Quincy Adams carried forth his father's political legacy, American politicians have campaigned on the richness of their family's past public service. Roosevelt and Kennedy and Bush all represent minor dynasties and it is entirely in keeping with this tradition for Ms. O'D to claim descent from Bozo. Clowning is as present in the current of American politics as populism, liberalism or conservatism. But in light of Ms. O'D's penchant for resume enhancement, she fibbed about her college career and has downplayed her wiccan studies, her claims to clownly ancestry are also suspect. While she seems like a natural and can certainly get a laugh and works well in the side-shows, one has to wonder if she is really ready for the Big Top, the center ring.

The US Senate is the Big League of Buffoonery. Even pros like Colbert have trouble hanging there. It's a tough room. Notice that Al Franken, even with all his years of practical comic experience, has been keeping mum in deference to the mime-masters of the Senate. These clowns can juggle, ride unicycles, do pratfalls and get shot from cannons, all with the perfect dead-pan of their painted-on media faces. They are consummate clowns adept with all the tricks, the seltzer bottle, the pie-in-the-face, the filibuster. I don't want to get all Stephen King on you but these aren't nice clowns. Ms. O'D should think twice before she alienates her witch constituency, she may need some strong juju to avoid the dunking stool. They'll make her the senator-punk-clown. Every troupe of clowns has one, the smallest clown, bottom of the pecking order, the one who all the other clowns slap and when there is no smaller clown for her to slap, she turns to the audience with her out-turned palms and pitiful Emmett Kelly frown and says, "I am you."

Two of the greatest Senatorial Clowns, Lloyd Bentson and Dan Quayle, in their famous vice-presidential debate in 1988 demonstrated the type of cut-throat comedy these jokers are capable of. When Quayle set the joke up by comparing his inexperience to the inexperience of Jack Kennedy, Bentson spiked it with this punch-line, "Senator," he said, "I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."

The Poet's Eye would like to say to Christine O'Donnell in this same spirit, "Ms. O'Donnell, you say your father is Bozo. Well, I knew Bozo. Bozo was briefly my step-grand-father-in-law. Christine, your father was no Bozo."

Yes I’m stuck in the middle with you, and I’m wondering what it is I should do. It’s so hard to keep this smile from my face. Losing control yeah I'm all over the place.

Clowns to the left of me! Jokers to the right! Here I am stuck in the middle with you. ---Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty

Visit The Poet's Eye

[Tax-chick]

Do we even have full and new moons here?

[Tax-chick]

[Monkey Face]

Did you have a good evening out?

[Darksheare]

I was thinking graphics heavy first person shooter.
If you mess up and fail, stuff splodes and the game resets with you back at the beginning.
Only things are different.
At least, that was the Slaver section.

[NicknamedBob]

"Do we even have full and new moons here?"

No grunnion, no moons. Sorry.

We can see, if you can find a place to look, a bright Venus near the sun at various times, and an even brighter Earth, with its own dark companion.

From this distance and viewpoint, the so-called brightness of the moon is shown to be an illusion.

Also visible is Mars, likewise inward of us, and showing crescents. For most of these, you'll need a modest telescope to see details.

What really stands out in the night sky from here is Jupiter and its gang of moons. Being much closer, at the right time in our relative orbits, makes Jupiter and Saturn much more a feast for naked-eye viewing. It should be mentioned, of course, that our relatively rapid rotation, occurring many times in a day, makes planet-watching more like following the course of an airplane overhead. (No, we don't have those, either, but you can watch the canopy crews doing their maintenance work if you don't mind getting a stiff neck.)

Of fish, what we have in plenty is Tilapia, which feed us and our resident Plesiosaurs. (That, of course, is a different, and long, story. See links to the past on my home page.)

Other viewing options for the sightseer in the Flying Castle are provided by our Thrust Ring Telescope Project. Out here in the relatively clear "skies" of interplanetary space, you can literally see forever. What is needed is a telescope with a large aperture, an eye if you will, that is big enough to take it in.

Our Thrust Ring Telescope has an artificial aperture greater than two miles in diameter. And be combining images from opposite parts of our wide orbit, we get a parallax view that cannot be duplicated by any equipment on Earth. You'll have to be a bit of a programmer just to ask the right questions, but the information available is absolutely stunning, and several new worlds have swum into our ken.

We supplement our own studies with new information from Earth, usually going back for a second look when prompted by their information about distant planets. Our astronomers are happier than kids living above a candy store.

[Tax-chick]

Yes, we did. We went to a little restaurant in “historic downtown” Matthews, such zs it is (where I go to the library ;-). I had a nice fish with rice, and DP had some kind of noodle thing that I tasted but didn’t like. And I had apple-cranberry cobbler for dessert.

Frank thought the world was coming to an end by the time we got home, slightly over 2 hours after we’d left, but he recovered.

Now Bill and Tom are off to hike/camp, and DP will be leaving for sailing in a few minutes. I’m going to take the byos to Hobby Lobby and Petsmart. Pictures of Bill and Tom are headed your way today.

[sionnsar]

Morning, all.

[NicknamedBob]

"I was thinking graphics heavy first person shooter.
If you mess up and fail, stuff splodes and the game resets with you back at the beginning.
Only things are different.
At least, that was the Slaver section."

For me, the game begins, or the premise begins, with the discovery that there are alien beings surviving on the surface of the planet Venus.

This discovery came as quite a shock to our colonists there, and a fatal disappointment to many. For many decades, our two species had co-existed "on" the same planet without conflict.

That changed, of course, when our mining robots began disappearing. Investigating that disappearance disclosed the existence of a hitherto unknown species of intelligent and bellicose alien beings which had taken up residence on Venus' inhospitable surface, and underneath it.

They were survivors of a crashed interstellar craft, barely eking out an existence in what is a literal Hell for any of us, and doing so by using every trick of science and intelligence, including modifying their own bodies to withstand the rigors of that hostile environment.

Once they discovered the science and engineering of our mining robots, they were jump-started to a new level of capabilities. In secret, they plotted their strategy, taking advantage of our ignorance of their existence for a very long time.

When they attacked, it was devastating to our peaceful and unsuspecting colonists on Venus, and a complete surprise to what little of military capabilities we had in space at the time. We had a difficult period of catching up to do, and they built up their capabilities in the meantime also.

.

And that's the premise or background of my side of it.

[Monkey Face]

Your evening sounds great! Away from the kids is a bonus, for sure, even for two hours. :o])

I’m looking forward to the photos!

My sister is supposed to come over this morning, but she hasn’t called, so I began to “clean house.” I moved my “bed” under the window instead of against the wall. I know my neighbor isn’t deaf, but she wakes me up with the TV blasting at midnight.

Now all my tubs and bins of yarn and thread are against the wall, acting like sound-proofing. I hope.

Worked up a sweat! And made my back hurt.

[Darksheare]

Bradamante current position: Drifting in reverse post aerobraking maneuver with two alien vessels remaining in pursuit.
Status: TeleFRAg ammo expended, several experimental torpedo and missile batteries available, secondary beam and particle batteries available, scavenged planetary defense BFG’s grafted to the underside of the bow.

---

Back at Shuttle 106, Old Kappa sat at the communications seat and sent a message to the Fin and Flagon bar and grill on Mars.
“He’s going to be surprised when he sees this through the dome...” he trailed off before hitting send.
The message body stated, “Greetings from the outsystem fleet. Look up at 2000 hours outside the Fin and Flagon. -from the Temporal Dysjunction team.”
He added a data packet with instruction after that.
Then he sat back and relaxed.

In the Fin and Flagon, Mars planetside habitat

Delta Kappa looked at his communication pad in annoyance, he was absentmindedly rubbing the fading scars on his forehead while looking at the pad.
Then he answered the annoying chirping.
Then he frowned.
Thumbing through the data his eyebrows furrowed.
Then he raced outside and looked up in time to see.

Bradamante burst from N-space microseconds before hitting Mars atmosphere.
“Are you sure this was a good idea?” Sparks asked from his seat, he’d belted himself in.
“No, but keep an eye on the view behind us.”
The foreward view showed atmospheric friction on the shields, the rear view showed the three vessels chasing them appearing in atmosphere one right after the other.
Bradamantes fire trail shown brightly as she made her path around Mars, orbiting sensors shrieked in alarm, communications arrays lit up, and defenses went to alert.
“Sensors indicate stresses are reaching critical on the one vessel.” the computer piped in just as the rear view showed parts of the subject ship falling off.
“Can we send another torpedo their way while in atmosphere?” Eva wondered out loud.
“I’ve already tried that!” the computer sounded excited.
The screen showed a seemingly small explosion on the wounded vessel followed by it tumbling uncontrollably out of the atmosphere.
The other two ships were still in pursuit.
Delta Kappa watched the four streaks pass overhead and off into the distance, falling debris landing far south, and one streak being flung back out into orbit.
Then he grabbed his vac suit and raced to the labs to the west.
Bradamante left Mars atmosphere, and swung around to face her pursuers.
Drifting backwards in her native element once again, she prepared to unleash technological hell upon her targets.
“BFGs on lead target, secondaries on that.. is that thing a frigate or a small destroyer?” whatever it was, it was ugly with bumps and protrusions everywhere.
“Approaching Deimos orbit.” the computer was becoming annoying with the cheery announcements.
The lead vessel had more armor from the front than from the rear and resisted the spectacular damage the BFGs had done previously, making Sigma growl impatiently.
“Do we have fire suppressant foam in the teleFRAG magazine?”
“Fire suppressant foam is only for use in case of emergency. There is no fire emergency at this time.” the computer informed him.
“Very well. Take a look at our pursuers and tell me, are our weapons having the desired effect at the moment? Would that constitute an emergency?”
“Oh dear.” the computer did not like that at all.
Several decks below, the fire suppressant foam flooded a portion of the teleFRAG magazine with what would soon become foamy chaos.

[Monkey Face]

Morning. How are you today? Meetings? Sight-seeing? Sleeping?

[Darksheare]

As for further in the future:

“Through these doors sits some of the greatest genetic research discoveries ever conceived, what I am showing you, you did not see.” The adult rabbitoid seemed to exude a barely hidden menace, the Inquisitor couldn't put his finger on it.
“So why are you bringing me in there?” he wondered aloud.
“Because in there is where we have to go, you'll see.”
The outer set of doors slid shut behind them, a cycle timed out, and the inner doors opened to reveal a vast space before them.
Row upon row of vats, equipment, computers, lab tables, and a large agriculture area containing the unmodified offspring of the original genetic material stock.
Overhead loomed several floors of enclosed catwalks, and one singularly non-rabbitoid face was glimpsed briefly in one window.
“I thought there were only rabbits and Doctor Lee here. But I swear I just saw-”
“You saw who I am taking you to. Her name is Silash. Have you ever heard of the Sireenians?” The rabbitoid looked sideways at him.
“They were supposedly extinct. And they built-” the Inquisitor cut himself off.
The Sireenians were a technologically advanced race living further down the Orion Arm of the galaxy from Sol, they'd built vast arrays of hyperspace gates, mere relics of days gone by now.
If there were any still around, it would be a monumental discovery, so much could be learned, so much history to discover.
“Doctor Lee repaired the gate, and repaired this facility as well. This facility was built long ago to house the remaining population from the Sireenian homeworld. Their star went nova, and the survivors were scattered before the destruction. That's why nobody ever found their home planet. It was destroyed.”
“So he wasn't alone here.”
“No, he accidentally awoke some of the Sireenians during the course of his work. Much of the machinery here was already in place before he came. And much of what he used to create us was already here.”
The Inquisitor chewed on this thought for awhile.
The Sireenians had built the facility as a doomsday bunker?
“How many more Sireenians are here?”
“We would number at roughly three billion if we were all woken and sent fourth.” a musical voice chimed from behind him.
The rabbitoid bowed slightly towards the source of the voice.
“No need to bow to me Matthew Cosfhota. I am no god, you know that.” the Inquisitor turned to look at a humanoid shaped form topped by a long neck that supported a long graceful head.
Long hair curled downward from the crown, rimming yellowish almost feline eyes.
She leaned on a staff, giving an appearance of a mage from some fairytale.
“I merely show you respect, elder.” Matthew said, some humor tinged his voice.
“I'm not that old, unless you count the years spent in hibernation.” a fragile seeming hand reached out and patted Matthew on his forehead.
“Shall we get the meeting underway?” Silash gestured towards a lift.
“Meeting?” the Inquisitor began to worry some, obviously there were plans in motion that he knew nothing about but figured prominently in!
Silash turned and gave him an amused smile.
“Yes, meeting. We will be discussing the abduction of allies of the Sireenian Republic. Come now young one, the stairs are this way.” she led the Inquisitor towards the lift and placed him aboard the device.
Matthew Cosfhota -Longfoot- stood beside him and gave an apologetic smile.
“Hold on to your lunch.”
“What?”

“Are you quite alright yet dear?” Silash was speaking to the Inquisitors back as he leaned over a bucket.
Grotesque echoes issued forth from the bucket every couple seconds.
“I'll be fine. Guuuuuuuh...” he wished the floor would quit moving.
“He's not used to repulsor lifts elder.” Matthew Cosfhota padded over.
“Here, drink this. It should make you feel better.”
The Inquisitor sipped, he guessed it was tea, and was surprised that it did indeed make him feel better.
“You should lease that out as an amusement park ride. You'd make a fortune.” drifted up from under his end of the table.
“Shall we get the meeting in order?” an entirely different voice queried, it sounded somewhat worried.
“I'll be fine.” the Inquisitor sat up from under his end of the table.
Several pairs of eyes turned to inspect him.
He suddenly felt as if he should make an excuse to leave the room and run screaming for the door.
“And he was sent to look for us specifically?” said a medium grey furred rabbitoid in what seemed to be an almost Virginia Piedmont accent.
“The Planetary Council sent him to find the product, which is us, and report back on just what kind of successes Father had in making us.” Matthew stood behind the Inquisitor, one hand on his shoulder.
‘So that I don't bolt, or holding me in my chair so I don't fall over in another wave of nausea?’ he wondered.
“The Council sees a military use for you, I was sent to find the Prodigy.” he said.
He thought he heard some gasps.
The rabbitoids at the other end of the table leaned together and whispered to each other.
“You should drink more of your tea, you look like you are going to fall over.” Matthew said sideways.
“The.. *cough* Prodigy as you say is already in their possession.” the group said as they returned to looking at him.

[glock rocks]

Here's the view east from the front yard of Lone Peak

... taken a couple years ago in mid-winter.

[NicknamedBob]

“You should lease that out as an amusement park ride. You'd make a fortune.” drifted up from under his end of the table.

You're way beyond me, pal. I build habitats.

[Monkey Face]

Oh, my!

You just made my day! Thanks!

[Darksheare]

Heh heh heh.
The Sireenian repulsor lift messes horrifically with the human inner ear.
It has artificial gravity to hold you in place while launching upwards using antigravity.
The two fields tell your inner ear that you are flying, falling, sliding, and spinning.
It is possible to become accustomed to it, but the Inquisitor uunfortunately doesn’t have the time.
But he’s got some ideas for retirement already, should he live.

[NicknamedBob]

Ah, yes, I did something similar with a type of “subspace”, in which faster-than-light travel was possible.

At first, being in such a field was sickening and disorienting, but necessity drove people to adapt to it.

[Darksheare]

Crunch the giant figures front and center in the next section of the rabbitoid story.
He’s roughly fifteen foot tall, and a rabbitoid is mostly leg.
He has a stride length while running that approaches a distance equal to his height, maybe a little further at full speed.
Somebody is going to take a flight from the fist of an angry giant.

[Darksheare]

“I told you to drink more of your tea.” The Inquisitor was trying to regain his seat.
“I know, I know.”
“If you won't listen to me, at least listen to the Elder.” Matthew motioned to Silash who was crouching nearby.
“Bring me my tablet please, Matthew.” she looked worried.
“You look as if you are very concerned.” the Inquisitor hoped to hear something that would help his plight.
“Yes. You see, one of ours was very sick once. You may know him as Crunch.” she took the tablet from Matthew and proceeded to scan the Inquisitor, her face scrunching in a most unreadable fashion.
“Crunch? Big guy, speckled black fur around his nose and mouth. Not one for small talk, mainly reads and shepherds around a little girl in a very protective manner?”
“You've seen him. He helped Doctor Lee unload a shipment of supply crates. Sit still please, and one crate had been contaminated with streptococcus bacteria. Never having been exposed to any forms but what already existed here, he became virulently ill. We thought we would lose him. Quit twitching please.” she continued her scans.
“Can't help it ma'am, that itches.” her handheld scanner tickled somewhat.
Then he jumped as video began to play behind her, one of the other rabbitoids had punched up the video logs.
Logs that he'd been looking for in the outer sections of the base.
Crunch had apparently been quite large even at the age of three.
He currently stood almost fifteen foot at full height with hands that could encircle a grown man.
At three he'd been taller than Jeremy TwitchEar and his six foot mass.
The video showed Crunch just as he'd fallen ill, the medical bay was filled with equipment and activity.
Crunch was shivering, hallucinating due to high fever, and he'd started nasal hemorrhaging.
The video skipped forward, the discussion was about using antibiotics and how little was truly known about rabbitoid physiology and how it differed from standard leporid herbivores.
The rabbitoids had been altered enough that medications that were useful to humans or rabbits might be lethal to them.
In the video, Crunch was losing fur around his mouth and nose, cutaneous ulcerations, and his lungs were filling with fluid.
“F-father. I'm.. so sorry.” Crunch gargled, his vocal cords were a mess from the strep infection.
“Nothing to be sorry about.” Doctor Lee said in the video.
A much smaller rabbitoid appeared.
“Emily, you shouldn't be here, you may get sick too.” Matthews voice cut in, he appeared on screen in a biohazard suit.
“There's the Prodigy you are looking for.” Silash cut in on the video playback.
“The little girl?” the Inquisitor pondered it, it fit with what he'd read.
The video continued, the little girl put her hand on Crunch and patted his forehead.
“Get well big brother.”
“We flooded him with antibiotics, as well as used a gel of a sort on his face and throat. We were unable to salvage his voice at the time. He has refused surgery to repair the damage.” Matthew was looking at the floor.
“And then I failed them. Both of them.” he added.
“Inquisitor, I have some news. You have a minor bronchial infection. You picked it up here.” Silash announced, there was some irony to her voice.
The other rabbitoids visibly relaxed.
“We are still vulnerable to infections that we were never exposed to. It is imperative we retrieve our kind, we do not yet know how, er, robust our immune systems are.” the Virginia Piedmont accent again.
“Wait. How did you fail them?” the Inquisitor looked at Matthew, he couldn't tell if the visual distortions he was experiencing were from his fever or from the tea.
“They were taken, before I could shut down the gate or activate the inhibitors.”
“You can hardly blame yourself for that.” Silash checked something on her scanner and frowned, “Apparently the tea causes some minor hallucinations in you, sir.”
“No kidding.” the Inquisitor watched the scanner wiggle like gelatin.

[Tax-chick]

Afternoon! I dozed off on the sofa for a while, while David Attenborough droned on about insectivorous mammals, but the phone rang. I think I’ve told every pre-teen girl in the city, now, that Elen and Sally are out of town until Wednesday.

One of their friends showed up at the door, causing great excitement to Ash, but she didn’t want to walk Ash or anything. Ash went out and lay down on the doormat and wouldn’t come in until I got her a snack.

I bought the byos some watercolor paints ($.99) at the Hobby Lobby, and they’ve just gotten tired of painting and gone to the playground.