We are each given a remote control.
But not all of us know where the PAUSE button is.
We press PLAY or oftentimes FAST FORWARD.
Then we are looped in by stimuli from all directions (Preview, Blu Ray slide show etc..).
Attention grabbers and assaults to our senses.
We have slowly been anesthetized. Our sensory perception goes numb.
Terminator 2, Transformer 3 etc…
If you count the shell cases spent on one of these action movies, you will find they quite exceeded the bullets
of all Western movies combined. Western genre now comes across as pathetically slow-motion.
Drone time.
Doom time.
Heat-seeking weaponry. High tech warfare. You can run but you can’t hide (as long as you still generate body heat).
I was across the street from Three-Mile-Island back in 1979. News media crews ate late dinners at the only restaurant still opened in town.
We were facing what was then considered a close call.
Now the Spill.
Oil leak and nuclear leak raise doubt about our technological prowess.
(As of this edit, there were explosion at a Navy yard in New Jersey).
There isn’t a better time to be a scientist. There isn’t a worst time to be a technologist.
Testing a solution and solving a problem in real-time, both at the same time.
No PAUSE, no reflect. Just pure play.
One shot. We have gone to the Moon and come back, many times.
Now the challenge is at the bottom of the ocean.
Who would have thought and seen it coming. During the Gulf big Spill, we were shown and stared at the graphic that showed “DAY XX”, as if the nation is held hostage by the Oil Spill.
We need a Reagan-esque take-charge voice, which theatrically pronounces “Mr BP, hold down that cap”.
A local captain committed suicide a few days ago. He was too close to the center of things.
And he did not allow himself the luxury of just playing along. How many days has it been, DAY 70?.
The man should have watched it on video, sort of Peter Seller’s BEING THERE, instead of actually being there and got eaten up by the hole.
Peter Seller never knew where the PAUSE button was, nor did he care if life on and off-screen were different. All the same to him and actually, it’s more real on than off-screen. Reality bites hard and in least desirable places. Please show me the PAUSE button. I want to get off.
Thang Nguyen 555 