Flash Fiction 1

The wonderful thing about our reality is that we can completely change it simply by creating distance.
Relegating annoyances to the limbo of our perception, where they can no longer intrude and cause turbulence.

Think about it, each scene in our mind is there because we perceive it. Once we go somwhere else, the pestiferous impute ceases to exist. In fact, for all practical purposes, the rest of the universe. with all its galaxies black holes, supernova, doesn't exist since it is out of sight and our of mind. Just a concept somewhere in the boondocks of consciousness..

So the best solution to inpute that attempts to constantly annoy or a situation that is becoming annoying, is to distance it where it doesn't exist for us. Out of range. In limbo.

Trying to reason with the irrationals will do no good since the irrationals play their game according to their own irrational idiocies. So you either play along with their idiocies and fitin by acting insane or else you will be deemed an undesirable and be harassed becausefor yur sanity. It is a no win situation not worth the time nor the effort. If you live in a tribe of headhunters and don't hunt heads, you will be deemed a troublemaker. Same difference.

Titan seems inviting to colonization because of the way it mimics earthlike features such as lakes, river tributaries, sand dunes and rains. However, closer inspection is a bit sobering. Lets take a closer look. To begin with the lakes are composed of methane as is the rain.
Lakes of Titan - Wikipedia

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Positives to colonization are:

1. Tolerable atmospheric pressure which makes pressurized spacesuits unnecessary. It also provides complete protection against space radiation and meteoroids and is useful for aerobraking spacecraft during entry.

2. Nitrogen in atmosphere can be used as plant fertilizer.

3. Indications of cryvolcanism which provide water with which to make breathable oxygen.

Atmosphere of Titan - Wikipedia

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Negatives to colonization are:

1. Extreme cold : 94 K (−179 °C, or −290.2 °F), Far colder than Antarctica

2. An atmosphere making the use of solar power impossible and making insulation from the cold far more difficult than in a vacuum due to heat dissipation.

3. Low surface gravity of 0.138 g, slightly less than that of the Moon/ Which means that there are health risks involved such as skeletal calcium leakage and a gradual muscular atrophy.

4. Crustal instability: There are land features which can swivel 40 miles in a very short period of time making navigation to a specific place a bit uncertain since you never know when it will decide to get up and go while the going’s good.

Climate of Titan - Wikipedia

Many persons don't really appreciate just how tremendously distant our Sun really is because it can be so blistering hot on summer days and it seems so prominent in our sky. But in reality, what seems to be a fairly nearby sun is actually an almost unimaginably enormous distance away. Here are some examples to illustrate just how distant our sun really is.

The Sun is approximately 93,000,000 miles (150,000,000 km) or 1 AU (Astronomical unit) from Earth.

Light traveling at 186,000 miles per second takes a full 8.3 minutes to reach us.

Voyager 1 speeding through space ~ at 38,000 mph which is approx 24 times faster than a bullet would take 101 days.

A Boeing 747 at cruising at ~550 mph which would traverse the continental United States in approx six hours would take over 19 years.

A car traveling at 70mph, would take 152 years

A horse galloping at ~30 mph, would take a whopping 354 years l

Walking at ~3 mph, would take you a brief 3,540 years which is almost a thousand five-hundred years longer than the time elapsed since Jesus walked the Earth 2000 years ago.

So whenever at the beach you think the sun is near-think again.

I have always been fascinated by the history of Rome-in particular its military success and reverses. One of the most interesting I find is the battle of Carrhae, a small town near which it took place, because it illustrates two things that the Bible tells us:

1. that the blind leading the blind will lead them all into a pit

Matthew 15:14 ►

New International Version
Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit."

2. that love of money can lead to all kinds of self-inflicted wounds.

1 Timothy 6:10 ►

New International Version
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

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Most modern historians tend to view insatiable greed, envy as the motivation for the campaign.. So this is in full harmony with their opinion.

Now, the man who is responsible for providing us with this confirmation was the rich and famous Crassus-the richest man in Rome at the time. His riches were derived from, his unscrupulous policies to increase his wealth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus

Part of his military fame was for having defeated Spartacus the gladiator who led a rebellion against Rome involving freed slaves. But of course he wanted more! He envied Julius Caesar’s growing military success in Gaul as well as Pompey’s successes . So after gaining control of Syria by being appointed as its governor, he struck East towards the Parthian Empire. Not that Parthia deserved to be attacked since Rome and Parthia were at peace. So this was a personal venture largely subsidized by his own money in order to gain more fame and increase wealth.

The gist of the story, to make a long story short, is this. Crassus ignored the advice to stay clear of the desert and refused the offer of 10,000 Armenian cavalry from king Artavasdes II .

Instead he paid attention to the advice of an Arab in the employ of the Parthian king and plunged mindlessly into the arid region where a trap had been laid by Parthia general Surena. There he and his 34,000 were surrounded by Parthian cavalry and showered with seemingly endless barrages of arrows.

His son, Publius Crassus, who had brought 1,000 Celtic cavalry from Gaul was beheaded and his head displayed on a spear after he fell into a trap where his cavalry was confronted by 1000 heavily armored Parthian cataphracts and prevented from escaping by horse archers.

Crassus was forced to retreat to the town of Carrhae and leave 5000 wounded behind to be slaughtered. He was finally beheaded himself and had his head displayed in a Parthian play as a prop according to Plutarch's biography of Crassus. . The total losess were 20,000 killed and 10,000 captured. All this totally unnecessary since at age 62 Crassus was already rich and famous.

The contest that ensued between Rome and Carthage has always intrigued me. Here is one issue I found perplexing. Why didn’t Carthage stop Rome’s ascendency when it had the chance?

Carthaginian Indifference?

Rome didn't spring full-blown as a major Mediterranean power. Even after throwing off its Etruscan yoke it was vulnerable to attack by the Gauls. So it's ascension was a slow gradual one which also involved the conquest of neighboring cities and bringing them into alliances followed by the subjugation of the Greek colonies in southern Italy with the defeat of Pyros which finally brought the entire Italian Penninsula under its control.

In short, at first sight Rome might appear to have been carelessly allowed to transformed itself into Carthage's worse nightmare right under the noses of the Carthaginians when they might have easily nipped it at the bud.

What such a view ignores, however, is that Carthage’s control of the Mediterranean was being challenged by another power, the Greeks. So the efforts were being directed at an existing threat as opposed to a potential one. In fact, prior to its confrontation with Rome Carthage had fought three wars in Sicily against the Greeks. Then a fourth one when Pyrrhus invaded Sicily. So it had its hands too full of Greek challenges to pay attention to an emerging Rome. Only after the Greeks in Sicily appealed to Rome for help against Carthage and Rome intervened did the danger become clear.
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Carthaginian Lack of ingenuity?

Yet another quirk that still stands out is the Carthaginian inability to find a way to counter the corvus, the ramp deployed from the Roman ships in order to make a battle art sea a land battle.

One would expect that all the minds at Carthage would have concentrated on nullifying the corvus in order to give Carthage the advantage at sea once more. Strangely that effort never seems to have been made. Was it because the Corvus wasn’t really as effective as some historians claim? Some say it was totally abandoned because of its instability in rough seas and that the last battle the finally won it for Rome it was not a factor. Still I wonder why no effort to counter it was ever made? Strange!

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The Corvus



The corvus was an unusual naval weapon used by the Romans during the First Punic War to help make up for the Carthaginian prowess at sea. The corvus was a boarding bridge, probably 36 feet long and 4 feet wide, with a parapet on each side. This was attached to a pole on it's own ship, and could be pulled up at an angle. Underneath the far end was a heavy spike. The idea was the ship with the corvus moved close to the enemy, and then released it. The spike would dig into the enemy vessel and pin it in place, while the Roman soldiers would charge onto the enemy ship. This allowed the Romans to take advantage of their superior infantry. The corvus was first used at the battle of Mylea, where it helped bring about the first major Roman naval victory of the war. Long considered implausible, modern reconstructions have proved that the corvus was indeed possible with the technology of the time.

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_corvus.html

The greatest delusion?
Posted Today at 03:17 PM by Radrook
Tags

When studying history and making a comparison with present or recent historical events it becomes quite clear that although we have progressed technologically our emotional area has remained unchanged. Mankind still cannot resolve major disagreements without the threat of violence or its employment. The sad truth is that we haven't gone at each other with nuclear weapons in a full out war not because we are more civilized now, but because we fear mutual annihilation.

However, that hasn't prevented us from killing each other with conventional weapons. So the only difference is that where once we employed bows and arrows to kill at a distance we now use rifles and cannons and ICBMs.

True, we are far more technologically advanced, but the murderous savagery is still present and only hidden by a veneer of civility.

Please consider that every single invention or discovery we make, our military pounces on it to determine its killing potential-whether it be pharmaceutical, or strictly limited to electronics. \

How to cause explosions via gun powder? We immediately began cannonading each other and would up carpet fire bombing entire cities.

How to make certain chemicals into gasses?
We gassed one another during WWI

Discovery of nuclear power?
We nuked other humans during WWII.

Advances in electronics?
Already we are considering making machines that can replace soldiers and aviators so we can kill each other at a distance at greater safety to ourselves ad keep the process as clinically antiseptic as possible.

Future colonies on other planets in our solar system? We are already finding ways in which to obliterate them if war breaks out.

In short behind the sophistication that separates us from the lower beasts there still growls the snarling savage eager to be unleashed and straining at the shackles that hinder its bloodthirsty movements and murderous desires.

The irony of this is that despite the historical evidence we still insist that we are closer to a benevolent God than we are to a maniacal demon.

Perhaps that is the greatest delusion of all.

Flash Fiction 1

It's the end of the world as I know it yet no one believes it but me.
Others here continue complacently contented murmuring memorized songs
beneath frog-laden croaking trees, gazing at darkening skies through barred windows
in stupefied wonder as the faltering sun gradually refuses light and birds begin to deny sibilant song.

“As long as hearts pump thickening blood through green twisting veins there is

hope!” the head nurse shouts.

Who here knows anything about the thundering clock but me?
If I could just only claw my way out of this padded cell and leap
across the snake-roiling floor to save their innocent souls they’d be free..