Thang Nguyen 555

So this is what it must have felt like here in the US, back then in late March 1975, when South Vietnam dominoes started to fall.

An anxious public, a rumbling press and an apathetic student (anti-war) body…all glued to a 19-inch television set.

From Tom Hayden to Jane Fonda, from the Rolling Stone to the Stones…Everyone must have felt bad…that the war they were FOR/AGAIN was finally drawn to a close…a city in its last breath, and a population without its head (Damn corrupt President soon made his departure after having shipped his furniture and whatever else to Taiwan).

People tossed their babies on board, treating them worse than luggage (no bags nor tags).

Hastily, the population of South Vietnam cried out to the upper Heaven: why us, why now.

Even the Ambassador thought there would be a peaceful resettlement.

Even the tamarind tree of the Embassy was left alone to provide needed shade for DOS personnel and CIA’s (later, that’s the same courtyard that millions in cash got burned so as not to fall into the hands of the invading enemies).

So this is what it must have felt back then, now that we keep seeing AP bulletin updating the Taliban’s advancing to Kabul.

DaNang, Nha Trang, Pleiku, Bien Hoa, Long Binh, Route 1, Saigon bridge, Hang Xanh intersection, Binh Thanh District, Saigon river walk, then District 1 pass the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Zoo, the Broadcast station …and bang, the double-door of the Independent Palace. ….

Scores of teenagers, know-nothing-ers, heroes-wannabes…helped fold old-regime flags, and pull up new ones.

Spit on them.

Step on them.

Show them and shove them out of the door.

We’re now in charge. We know best. After all, we’re on the RIGHT side of history.

Victors and vanquished.

A lot of cursing, of celebrating and head bows.

Stripping process. Army boots on the ground – left along side water canteen, M16’s and other “things they carried” ( in 1965 when Kennedy’s thought it was prudent to just send “advisors” to Danang to test the waters).

So, this is what it must have felt like.

We’ll send only 3000 to help move DOS personnel. Like sending “hungry students” movers to help with campus Move-in Date.

I understand completely the last straw.

Experienced many of those in my days.

August 31st, 2021 is going to be it.

But then, whose time table?

Whose momentum?

Whose bargaining chips?

Accelerating the concession…Henry Kissinger, Nixon? Decent Intervals? Honorable exit? (why it took more than 45 years to come up with the title? readers amnesia was counted on).

So the Powell Doctrine of Vietnam (dominate with overwhelming force, go in, win, and get out).

Still hasn’t learned the lesson.

OBL wins. We all lose. UK, USSR, US.

The definition of terrorism: minimum costs/maximum casualties.

19 terrorists + OBL = 20 in human costs in exchange for 20 years of lives, limps and 978 Billion. Now that Afghan girls , having learned about meToo, ( a slight lag after the US’ NOW in the 70’s), are they going to be beheaded again like our adulterated Saudi princess of late 70’s.

The clock I last learned always moves forward. Only people who don’t look at it, that tend to turn it back.

Genocides and atrocities have exterminated millions of our people. In the name of carrying out policies.

Then we have this “democratised” taking of lives during the pandemic.

People of all races, classes and genders (and now age groups) died.

All formed a United Nation of Ghosts…with General Assembly and Articles of Condemnation.

They seek to condemn us, living folks (and soon DEFINITELY joining them, if unvaccinated).

They are right to condemn us.

We definitely are living in blind-spot nations.

The United Nation of Ghosts, short for UNG, is by nature united in a common thread: No Fear of retribution we human are always preoccupied with.

The other side of death frees UNG to see, to say and to act on what’s best for their world, with common interests.

UNG spends not on killing, on weapons of mass-destruction, on taking and re-taking wastelands such as Afghanistan.

UNG – the flip side of angels’ nation – call a spade a spade.

No way around telling the truth.

UNG don’t spend time worrying and pondering about death.

A growing nation, UNG don’t seek revenge. Just wait. Things will come to them.

They meet like a 9/11 Commision, collecting and collating all the facts and angles.

Yet UNG feel pity for the living.

UNG don’t even play politics, or posture about pivoting or punishing others – the enemies.

UNG don’t need vaccines and certainly are not afraid of an increase in 2 degrees Celsius.

Nature gives and nature takes away. One simple rule.

The only way out is to be mindful that at any given moment, we’re to enter UNG without a passport or visa.

No need to rush the line at the Embassy of UNG. To show creds or qualifying papers.

The last chopper out of the nation of the living, carries a load of all sizes and shapes, people who pay taxes and people who are freeloaders, orphans and nuns, bell hops or bar girls.

UNG accept all, and embrace all. Death is quite an equaliser and a tranquilliser. Weighlessness even.

It’s where the Sun, stars and Moon start greeting you, more pronounced than a Walmart greeter.

Welcome home. Take your time. Reflect and recollect. All the good deeds and all your regrets. Everything is free but then, you’re already free (of desires). The economics and politics of UNG are mind-boggling, out of this world.

The infra-structure of UNG doesn’t depend on the law of physics i.e. force and counter-force. Only the application of Karma, its underlying architecture. The road is long, crowded, flows freely unhindered with burden, laden or debt. No scarcity.

Yet in this life, scarcity dictates, fear rules, and everything is not for free without you fighting for it. You can resign and retreat, and just let the clock does the ticking. Time will do us in. UNG is where time-out meets time clocked in.

No tax, no spend, no compromises and no death tolls. Already dead, duh! Alpha and Omega intersect in perfect union. Your opinion is not solicited. All understood, sous entendus. Verbal or non-verbal. Start making new friends….for we all are going to meet again, seeing each other again in new light…at UNG. Meanwhile, still get work to do, kids to educate and infrastructure spending bill to pass. The road is long and in need of patching-up.

A team of 19 – strong arms and strong will – students of Architecture and Aerospace – came to attack.

A decade later, a team of equal or even more dedication – strong arms and strong will – came to take out the master-mind: OBL.

One side memorised the Koran, the other side overheard Jesus said to the thief “today you shall be with me in Paradise”. One side: the Jihadists…the other side: America, God and Politics =…Civil Religion, the American version of Christianity (prosperity and orderliness – not to mention a largest arsenal on Earth ).

Restraining and sleeping Giant America is not.

Submission the Middle East is not (although in theory, the teaching was about total submission to Allah).

The interpretations of the will of God – God of vengeance or God of mercy.

I think he meant … (a priori i.e. reading into the text with pre-conception from past experience and cultural makeup), like a Rashomon experience – or the blinds with the Elephant in the room.

Meanwhile, kids, wives, husbands, firefighters, responders, volunteers, intelligent community, stock brokers and many more apparatus were activated in the past twenty years e.g…contractors, sub-contractors, logisticians, investors, media and medics…

All have been occupied. Kept busy. Distracted even destroyed. All by one man and his distorted view of the world.

His desire and determination to control…to re-shape the affairs of this world according to his interpretation of the will of God. To re-assert Islamic fundamentalism (the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, for instance).

Never has the role of an interpreter been so elevated.

You would think an interpreter as someone who puts on a headset at the UN Assembly and simulcasts hopefully without prejudice or bias.

Interpreters are not supposed to be interventionists.

Instead, they are meant to be mere transmitters and conveyors of information.

In 9/11 case, interpreters = executioners…(we think God-Allah- want to take you out, your decadence and demoralising way of life – which by the way, even some on the far right American fundamentalists agreed e.g. night life in Hamburg).

So condemnation piles on top of condemnation…the operation went ahead in full swing and full secret.

A mere 1% of American even thought about terrorism back in September 2001. Their minds were still preoccupied by the 2000 Election, the Supreme Court decision and Al Gore (and wife) traveling the globe in the aftermath (which allowed them to reflect and care more about our environment – an inconvenient truth).

Many were killed, either by getting crushed, hit, or decided to jump (to escape the 2300 degrees jet-fuel burn).

A lot of steel crumbled and a lot of lives destroyed e.g. heroes, villains, profiteers, volunteers and politicians.

More than a million pages were compiled, collated, analysed and presented at the 9/11 Commission.

Just for one reason: NEVER AGAIN.

The big three: UK, USSR and US learned the same lesson: don’t go into Afghanistan.

Something about the land, the terrain and the resistance.

Cavemen and contour. Rough patches and destroyers of men.

If just once, the clock can be turned back.

We would have Bush still sitting and reading at a Sarasota Elementary class room (and the terrorists of 9/11 are not awarded wings in the same city).

No WH Chief of Staff (Andy Card) leaning over to whisper in his right ear about a second plane which has just hit the South Tower…and that America is not under attack. Then we wouldn’t see the Government of America doing “the Lord’s work”…that Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House . not singing “God Bless America”…(perhaps they would have found out his past transgression on the wrestling team and put him in prison anyway).

And the then mayor of NYC would have kept his political capital…to be squandered anyway, the way he drank in the Map Room on Election 2020 night (premature celebration and pre-packaged script about “the Steal”).

We would still have Peter Jennings of ABC anchoring the news and Todd Beamer, Wheaton grad and Oracle employee, playing balls with his two sons (instead of “let’s roll” to rush the weapon-wielding terrorists on UA 93).

Perhaps and perhaps. But the clock keeps ticking, from Alpha to Omega…respecting no man.

And so, the 19 on their Jihadist mission. Took down the Twin Towers and newly renovated portion of the Pentagon, with UA93 flight buried in a Pennsylvania abandoned mine. Then we got a 20-year war with scores of Afghan allies at our coat tail.

74 Billions. Thousand of lives. Decades of war and waste. We’re all sub-contractors of someone else’s will and wit. Of their versions of God, his will and his wrath. And we still are willingly given in to them, one payment at a time.

They used what was available to them (terracotta)…in the time frame allotted to them (40 years) to leave behind traces of greatness…a glimpse beyond the transient and impermanence.

In so doing, they left their marks (Qi dynasty) and stayed true to their aspiration (Mandate of Heaven).

Each culture and country appoints ministers of Communication and Information. Those people make sense of (and out of) chaos.

The narrative.

The re-drawing of the map, re-invention of legendary (Putin has been in power forever).

Strong men. Guarding the Emperor tomb (not to mention musicians and concubines – gotta to have them, since the nights were long and life stretches beyond death toward infinity).

And so it goes…Ancient script for today’s world.

The problem? aplenty. The solution: me.

I drain the swamp. Clean up the mess. Build the equivalent of ancient citadels, knock down diseases and death (Jericho march – circling the borders).

The everyday presentation of self…(narcissistic one). Then since 1979, the culture of narcotic and narcissism joint forces, a confluence that makes a perfect storm. God has a lot of money!

Back to our glimpse of immortality of ancient Confucian ancestors. We all want what’s best for ourselves and our descendants…

Yet we leave behind dirty air and a gridlock (governmental shut-down).

All the while, calling it “freedom” “equality” and “brotherhood” in the Rousseau- tradition.

Give me the mike.

Give me the money.

Give me the credits (deservedly or not).

Give me, give me, give me.

Sounds no where near the democracy I used to know and aspire to.

Meanwhile, our Olympics’ aspirants and winners show us what could be.

They reflect our self-projection, what it is that we hope to become…a glimpse of immortality.

To go beyond the boundaries.

(Most times, self-imposed and self-inflicted).

We are no Papillons. We walk right in the prison of our own making.

We hear the clanking of iron doors (behind us).

Resigning to the usual (payments).

Giving up and giving in. Without a fight.

Without even kicking and protesting.

The Olympics will come around again. But ours never does.

So we inadvertently build ourselves up to be a terra-cottas army of one, standing guard over an unknown-soldier tomb.

What’s so precious that deserved guarding? our Values? our legacy? our shortcomings – collective and personal.

It took me a while to learn to separate the two…since people have a way to impose and pass the buck…to hand over more and more on your plate what’s supposed to be in theirs. Shared grief but unshared responsibility.

Prodigal son I am not. Disloyal soldier I am not. Apathetic citizen I am not.

Yet I find myself in shame when looking at those terra-cotta soldiers.

May their spirits live beyond the grave. Their humanity and heroism. There is nothing more noble than when one died in sacrifice for others. Our civic duty and our hope of enduring intangibles.

Just a glimpse, a spark. That’s all it takes…a light house…a fire that warms and shows the way. Glad to be born. Ready to die. Leaving traces beyond our temporal existence. We are all scholars and soldiers. To learn and to fight against ignorance and imprudence. To put the stake on the ground and draw a line in the sand. All the while, mindful of peace makers – honorable and admirable. We are ministers of culture, reshaping the narrative and carving up the .terra-cotta in our own images…in hope of getting beyond the transient and impermanence.

All that loving…longing…even lusting.

First the corner store owner. Then the jewelry store couple. Amidst counting their silver coins and bitcoins.

Leaving their inventory behind. Their relatives behind. And their retail customers bewildered.

Stores closed. Finished. The end.

Never got to do Sinatra’s “My Way”.

Never got to take that trip of a lifetime

Never got to celebrate their well-deserving birthdays, to walk their daughters down the aisle (and to give them away properly and publicly.)

Never got to see tomorrow’s sun, to look up Groundhog Day’s weather.

Just like that. Gone and forgotten. Like yesterday’s flowers.

Perhaps they once learned languages, second ones: at Chinese school, French lycee or at an ESL class.

What’s with Vietnamese, our century-old native language? Just because it doesn’t carry the weight of “currency”?

We have our loving, longing and lusting too!

That had been before we died…not in war, but during the pandemic.

Talking about war. Vietnamese got more-than-a-fair share of it: from fighting fits-and-starts with the Chinese up North, followed by anti-colonial sentiments and struggles against the Chateaubriands of the world (what were those European breeding in Southeast Asia to begin with) and fairly recently the Vietnam “experience”- hot flare up during the Cold War?!?

All those fighting and in-fighting, only to collapse at the feet of bat virus…From spare parts to body parts -victory counting and accounting derived from McNamara’s Pentagon propaganda.

And then they died, prospect or retrospect.

The moral arc of history traces itself to infinity, full weight of accounting…(and of sin, is death).

But when we focus (by zooming in), we see the differences, split hair….50 shades of grey, of vaccined and unvaccinated zip codes.

I felt a jolt, a reminder that life is short-lived. And that all the counting and accounting don’t amount much. First silver coins (to point out the Son of Man) to finally the bitcoins (for re-distributing digital disinformation).

Who is going to have the last laugh? The laugh soundtrack of late-night shows on TV? or the ones who keep tab of their growing war chests…for the next election and de-selection? Will they live on to be 100 and re-call their swindles and loots?

America is a strange land and a strange place. It thrives on being (both rightly and wrongly) and becoming better than anyone else… at home or at the Olympics… out West and in the Mid-West…but then… they died. A better more supreme- version of their previous selves…the ones had got left behind ( ethnic grandparents’)…

Live free? Sure, clothing are optional. Die free? For sure. Free to die. To bring others with you (by way of spreading anti-vac). By way of spreading hate (while still alive). By way of filling up your gas tank and war chest, to all of a sudden, fall by the wayside (like the last scene in the Godfather) unable to finish up a sentence, a complete thought or a full accounting of silver coins and bitcoins.

Wait….my passwords…my last words…Let me finish…Oh Lord, I have gone astray…too late to live out a Judas life.

We have yet learned to distinguish between cost and price… price paid for all that loving, longing and lusting called life.

All of a sudden … in mid-sentence. Like a dangling modifier, an incomplete thought. A life interrupted. Half-baked narratives full of attention-getters and impatient garbles – digitally unworthy in the age of artificial intelligence and internet.

It took time to grow roots. To re-establish one’s self. It’s more true in big cities.

Like Saigon. Pearl of the Orient.

10 miilion strong. All crammed in.

Food vendors, office workers, service workers, factory workers….

Now gone. Home. In a spontaneous urban exodus.

Leaving behind a trail of broken dreams.

Fleeing is what I know.

Leaving behind a part of you…

Embark on a gypsy life…drifting…like a rolling stone.

No roots, no growth.

Meek and transactional existence… day-to-day survival.

I know it. Now they know it. Leaving Saigon that is.

The hotel Continental, Caravelle and Cathedral (Notre Dame).

At least, they are now home. No longer the need for postage at the Post Office, nor the need to send home money.

The money seekers send themselves home. To be couch surfers and Internet surfers.

Not for long.

Just temporary…..until the pandemic subsides (herd immunity).

In South Korean, the wait for a jab is 111 days.

Perhaps longer than that in Vietnam, in post-Saigon existence.

It’s reverse culture-shock. For young couples to return to the country side…to seek refuge.

The dead will bury the dead….You go on and build a life…only to return to bury yourselves.

What we lost while making our way home.

Co-workers’ promise to stay in touch, last pay checks, fun and fashion from the city.

Urban habits and urban pace.

Do we even have wi-fi everywhere..to stay in touch.. to run a scam and/or to raise some money.

Who would respond at the peak of panic? True friends?

We burned all our bridges…We have lived a lie.

Now what? No one will miss the crammed urban space…not until the stillness and silence of the green landscape hit you in the face. Self-imposed new economic zones…gardening and ad-hoc farming. Co-op and fish farming.

It’s time to heal ourselves and heal the Earth.

No one intends to pick second best, to not take advantage of the concentration of educational, financial,social and governmental resources. Not to mention talented and artistic hub. Of engineering and web developers.

Brain drain.

Emotionally draining.

Financially destitute.

Bottoming out.

Before the virus caught up with us, it’s us who died by self-inflicting panic and paranoid.

Death by herd instincts instead of survival by herd immunity.

Saigon and many SEA cities got thinned out, the Earth finally catches its breath. “You can’t always get what you want”…

But human…loss and losing out…such a zero-sum game we play, more than often with a lose-lose outcome.

Wish we could nail down our target, like we once hunted down OBL to the gate of Hell.

No closures. Only death by attrition and survivor’s guilt.

I know a thing or two about leaving Saigon. About one’s memory of its last scene, of the winding river, polluted and stoic. Of the intangibles called life, which only make themselves known more in their absence…in the stillness of the night, when away from it all.

You’ve got a friend in me. An empathic one. A fellow sojourner and sufferer who understands loss and brokenness.

Before you know it, night will bleed into day…and with day, there is hope. Always.

““For those heading to an airport,” the 9/11 Commission report stated, “weather conditions could not have been better for a safe and pleasant journey.” The 8:51 a.m. temperature reading was 68°F at Central Park, 72°F at La Guardia, and 73°F at both JFK and Newark Airports.”

A good day to fly or die as any.

Twenty years on. 6 Trillion dollars later. And 21 million dollars more for 8000 Afghan visas.

At least this time, Congress did not hesitate (it did back in 1975).

First the plot, then the plunge. Buildings collapsed, stock brokers jumped.

All hell broke loose.

Our Commander-in-Chief was doing his mom’s job (help children read) turned to his war-footing (flying and landing on a air-craft carrier to declare “Mission accomplished”).

Yet, today, in his most recent interviews, George W. Bush said we haven’t finished the job.

In a sense, he is right. The world is still very unstable, no mater whose hands are that the helm.

Just a little less unsettling than years previous. But the poor and the variants are still with us.

At least, we get to roll up our sleeves to focus on infrastructure (as we should have, albeit two decades late, distracted and all with far-away lands and far-flung conflicts).

A generation has grown up, digitally.

Games, games and games.

Comics, comics and comics (counterparts in France).

War stops and game stop.

Kids in the West worry not about not having foods in their fridges.

They only worry about not having wi-fi signals.

Life online is more important and relevant than life off-line.

Tik tok profile, and instagram photos.

Digital natives vs Afghan non-natives (new arrivals).

All those who wear turbans and masks are arriving at our doorsteps.

What we fear happened is happening. (Replacement Theory?)

The invasion of the body snatchers. Fiction turns non-fiction.

America gets to be multi-colored. A large percentile of Republican said they would take up arms to defend the old ways of life. Whatever that means…Against the British Empire? Against dead OBL? Against China and the origin of virus?

Against those young Russian hackers? or our own home-grown terrorists who refuse to wear a mask and get a jab?

First choose one’s battle.

And one chapter at a time.

We need to eat and sleep. Life makes basic demands on us: its flow and its perpetual cycle of growth.

Nice weather for travel on that crisp Fall day.

Perfect for flying. Also perfect for destroying.

It would have taken 2 years of willful distmantling of the structure.

But in a few hours, both towers were no longer there.

When the smoke clears out, we see Sept 11 – 2021 approaching.

6 Trillion dollars all spent.

Lives and limps lost.

We’re all baseless ( I did not know al Qaeda means “the Base” per Peter Bergen).

Ask the Saigonese who are migrating back to the country side.

De- urbanization. Baseless. Rootlessness.

Gypsies and reality re-constructs.

People do travel. Crisp and clear day or not.

While a few (19) purposefully killed themselves and brought others down with them.

In the name of Allah. In the name of zeal and of vengeance (against infidelity and heathenism).

This makes my blood boil. This makes me want to rebel against hypocrisy and hyper-fervor.

In the name of this and that. End justifies the means. Ideology over individuals – aka collateral damages.

Somehow nature patiently puts up with man’s folly…Suit yourselves.

I am still here. Albeit a few degrees hotter…but still a crisp Fall day…good to travel as any other day.

Friendly sky, hostile terrorists. Got on all of our nerves, unsettled and upended our lives.

At the tune of 6 Trillion dollars and counting. Yet it’s still not quite dealt with. The root of evil lies at the heart of man. Can’t get it out without getting rid of man himself.

The human condition. Sometimes it makes me ill. To think of the hypocrisy vs transparency, of Evil vs Goodness.

We move the needle in between those extremes, or settle in the middle for a compromise called daily life. Pretending that it’s someone else’s business. The outsourcing war, the contractors and the drones.

All mix-up life comprises of Artificial Intelligence, man’s poor judgement and a virtual world that grows in size.

Twenty years ago, we lost two towers and many lives. Today, we lost our causes (Jan 6) and the ones who defended the building (Capitol) spoke of hatred and humiliation at the hands of fellow American. Don’t see any al-Qaeda here!

First were the explorers…Blue-Ocean types who pushed the envelope.

Hand-in-hand were the missionaries who hitched the ride…to ends of Earth.

After Commerce and Creed, are the Commanders… Gotta to have them, to deal with pirates and prisoners…

Then the loot, the merchandise and the money…back into the Capitalists’ coiffeur.

There you go. The history of man as we know it.

Calvinists and Columbus….are linked and worked in tandem.

First the blessing of the vessel (before) then the blessing of the foods – spice from afar (after).

As long as you pontificate and take the high road – “to civilise” ‘m savages (per Calvinistic theology, those salvages were pre-ordained, not to run around naked…but to be dressed in 100% cotton).

When early settlers went West, for Gold Rush or per God’s latest revelation to the White Men, “God” blessed’m, with T-shirts and hamburgers – McWorld, not the Others. Then in the 70’s the Others got doubly-blessed with oily stuff squirting from the ground….Voila…the Saudi Princes….on their yachts as it is in Heaven.

They sat not on the throne; but might as well on gold-plated toilet seats.

They were like that Egyptian King in 300 where no arrows can touch. Their hobbies were none others than Arabian horses and un-masked Russian women (DJT pee-tape rumour).

Meanwhile, Islamic kids have been learning the Koran by heart – No Child Left Behind.

Then they pushed the envelope: let them learn not just the Holy Book, but also how to fly (as if Architectural studies in Hamburg were beneath them).

So we awarded them wings…out of all places, Sarasota, Florida where Bush was trying to push “No Child Left Behind”… in an Elementary class ; half-way through, he was forced to be on his war footing (apparently, he abandoned No Child Left Behind – to this present day, only to push for another version of it in today’s Kabul).

History is full of irony.

“Abraham! Listen…Go to the ends of the Earth…subdue them…make them believers”…

Both sides hear the same calling. But only One monotheism version can stand …hence, the duel to the death.

It’s been 20 years since NYC got knocked off of its two front teeth (Tom Wolfe). It got an implant, for substitute, for “steeling” our resolve.

McWorld is thriving again…Jesus vs Jihadist…the battle continues…

It’s not just blood draining. It’s coiffeur and patience. Twenty years of a war of attrition, a drop in a 4,000 years bucket.

Kids not only got left behind. They got killed on their flights out of Boston on that fateful Fall day.

Millions of pages after (9/11 Commission Report) We still haven’t put the nail on the coffin of that eternal struggle. Mind-set problems? No problems! We’ve got a military solution ready to go, right at this minute (Air Force).

THE WORST WE HAVE DONE IS NOT AN EYE_FOR_AN_EYE. THE WORST IS WHEN AFGHAN WOMEN AND GIRLS GOT A TASTE FOR IT _ ALL DRESSED UP _ NO PLACE TO GO.

I am glad the Saudi women finally not beheaded but are getting their licenses to drive.

I am glad the Taliban mentioned that women will have a place at the table (politically) – that’s what they said.

I am glad at the Olympics, we have seen many female athletes getting medals…perhaps it’s not the duel to the death between ideologies (interpretations of the revelation) but 1+1=3 to include Mother Earth whom we depend on so much for our continuation of life – rightly or wrongly….we will find out, after the dust settled.

After 20 years, NYC 9/11 acrid smell and dust sure have …but new dangers and new challenges are here… with a new Giuliani variant ..Delta variant and the Dome (climate).

I am not wasting time regarding pre-destination vs free will debate. But I know if we keep leaving Child Behind, they will learn and know the Terrorist version on line by heart….And when the flood keeps rising, when the adults keep supplying drugs and guns…they will join any fight or flight school to become and belong to something bigger than themselves, not to mention to live however briefly for the greater glory..( and to have an orgy with unmasked virgins on the other side of death – Paradise).

First the commerce, then the creed, and finally the conquest for commerce…. Told you, It’s the greed that grinds the wheel, gyrating in circular motion from time eternal.

We’ve got to be hurried. Or else.

Or else the machine will spell, auto-complete, grammar-ly correct and comment on our and our friends’ postings.

They said the machine will take up all the chores (Klara watches over your kid in the Sun), like a lifeguard at the pool, and while at it, offers some advices.

Got to be hurried.

Toll booth workers are laid off. Elevator operators are laid off. Gas-station attendants laid off.

Even fire fighters partly replaced by automatic sprinklers.

Those are the known knowns. Unknown unknowns are the water-boarding experts, the Patriot Act executioners…

Until the table turns.

Until the machine and machine operators look for something else to do.

We have yet fulfilled our duties and obligations in our known world.

Yet machine is so advanced (so ubiquitous that they are now short of chips for auto-mobiles).

We all live in a world – that floats like a Yellow Submarine….chips-enabled and operated.

Even our feet get tired and re-tired (those who understands a little bit about biology would know that energy spent is energy earned). If you sit idle, down at the bottom of the rabbit hole, waiting to be validated by peers of your own groupthink…then it’s group narcism (my new term).

Stop the steal. R by name only. No action talk only.

Somehow, we all agree that the others are bad.

“They” came, conquered and control us…(sounds like the other way around, if you asked Native American).

My long thesis is: we have yet exhausted and exploited all the opportunities to do well and to do good in our known world. There is no need to explore outside of our borders (known knowns) in order to move up the food chain.

No child left behind? Oh yeah? We left many of them behind, in unmarked graves that recently got discovered up North.

Say No to Drug? Oh yeah, they, the pain-killer pushers, just settled out of court at the tune of billions of dollars.

How about the vaccines? 49 % of us already situated inside the known knowns quadrant, while the rest are still on the fence…

What is going on? Do we need more catch phrases, slogans and tweets to appeal to the better angels of our nature?

I am so exhausted that on this Monday morning, I already feel like it’s Friday.

Thank God it’s Monday (TGIM)…How about that for Making oneself’s great again.

More opportunities to do well and to do good.

The whole week ahead for us to make a difference in our known world.

How about reach out to a friend? Your own kids? Our own bodies….those feet that haven’t had decent exercises, worthy of being attached to bi-pedalists (us).

God has given us plenty of chances..with our two hands than two feet to move, to lend a hand to others in dire need.

My name is Samaritan. What’s yours? Now that you know I exist, in your known world. You too can join us…we’ll be there, by the side of the road, where plenty of opportunities to do well and to do good will present themselves, from Monday – Friday, never fails. “the poor shall always be with you”…that’s known knowns, if you care to agree.

It’s not that we do not live in a machine-aided society. It’s that we refuse to live in a man-aided one.