Raymond Gaynor's Blog, page 52
November 19, 2020
CAUGHT BETWEEN A ROC AND A HARD PLACE
The mythical roc is often characterized as a giant raptor located on islands in the South Pacific or off Africa on the island of Madagascar, capable of seizing animals, including small humans, flying with them high into the sky, dropping them to their death and eating their flesh. The roc is never seen, living high above the clouds, only the dead actually seeing them just before being caught and dying for the roc’s lunch. Over the years, mounting “proof” of their existence has come to light, first from the fossil records, second from the findings of mysterious human remains, then from actual sightings of its huge feathers, followed by the demonstration of their giant eggs, and finally from sightings of their chicks. It’s all very scientific. Let me explain.
There have been increasing discoveries of fossils of giant, reptilian-like, carnivorous “birds,” called collectively “pterodactyls” with up to thirty-six-foot wingspans discovered throughout the world. Not just a skull, or a foot bone, entire, intact skeletons, sometimes with impressions of their soft tissue “wings.” Some detractors say these fossils were created from mixtures of “old bones” by paleontologists desperately needing a “find” in order to get a grant to continue their fake diggings.
Human remains have been found throughout the world, both fossilized and non-fossilized. Some show signs of broken bones and skulls with holes “pecked” in them. It’s not at all difficult to believe that more than one set of human “cold case” remains can only be accounted for from death by roc. Detractors, on the other hand, claim every such case can be explained “without the need for rocs, if one simply had all the necessary facts.” Humbug, I say.
The intrepid discoverer and careful recorder of all that he saw, Marco Polo, reported the existence of roc feathers in Kublai Khan’s China, in his own words, “It was for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size; so big in fact that its quills were twelve paces long and thick in proportion. And it is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him, the bird swoops down on him and eats him at leisure.” Polo claimed that the Great Khan sent messengers to the island from which it originated who returned with a feather (though detractors suggest it may have actually been a raphia palm frond).
Roc eggs were not unknown to sailors visiting Africa and the South Pacific. Some eggs they discovered were quite old and up to a foot in diameter, weighing in at well over three pounds. Some spoke of actually eating roc eggs, described as up to six inches in diameter, weighing in at three pounds. Detractors claim the former may have been produced by “elephant birds,” and the latter have been seen produced by ostriches.
Sailors to Africa and Australia frequently observed flightless roc chicks (later called by some detractors “ostriches”) up to 9 feet tall, with a 9 foot wingspan, weighing up to 320 pounds, implying adult rocs, still thought to be present in the late medieval times, would likely have been up to 25 feet tall, with 25 foot wingspans, easily big enough to seize a small elephant or large human and smash them into the ground to eat.
In summary, it’s clear from the huge amount of direct, observable evidence that rocs exist (or at least existed up to present day extinction) on remote islands in the South Pacific and near Africa. No matter what the detractors, many of them supposedly scientists, say. It’s always more important to believe in what we “know” to be true based on “common sense” proof. Even if it leaves one between a roc and a hard place.
Article by Raymond Gaynor, multi-award-winning author of THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020), an inspiring Sci-Fu (science-based futuring) novel of NewAmerica after the fall of “old democracy.”
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
There have been increasing discoveries of fossils of giant, reptilian-like, carnivorous “birds,” called collectively “pterodactyls” with up to thirty-six-foot wingspans discovered throughout the world. Not just a skull, or a foot bone, entire, intact skeletons, sometimes with impressions of their soft tissue “wings.” Some detractors say these fossils were created from mixtures of “old bones” by paleontologists desperately needing a “find” in order to get a grant to continue their fake diggings.
Human remains have been found throughout the world, both fossilized and non-fossilized. Some show signs of broken bones and skulls with holes “pecked” in them. It’s not at all difficult to believe that more than one set of human “cold case” remains can only be accounted for from death by roc. Detractors, on the other hand, claim every such case can be explained “without the need for rocs, if one simply had all the necessary facts.” Humbug, I say.
The intrepid discoverer and careful recorder of all that he saw, Marco Polo, reported the existence of roc feathers in Kublai Khan’s China, in his own words, “It was for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size; so big in fact that its quills were twelve paces long and thick in proportion. And it is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him, the bird swoops down on him and eats him at leisure.” Polo claimed that the Great Khan sent messengers to the island from which it originated who returned with a feather (though detractors suggest it may have actually been a raphia palm frond).
Roc eggs were not unknown to sailors visiting Africa and the South Pacific. Some eggs they discovered were quite old and up to a foot in diameter, weighing in at well over three pounds. Some spoke of actually eating roc eggs, described as up to six inches in diameter, weighing in at three pounds. Detractors claim the former may have been produced by “elephant birds,” and the latter have been seen produced by ostriches.
Sailors to Africa and Australia frequently observed flightless roc chicks (later called by some detractors “ostriches”) up to 9 feet tall, with a 9 foot wingspan, weighing up to 320 pounds, implying adult rocs, still thought to be present in the late medieval times, would likely have been up to 25 feet tall, with 25 foot wingspans, easily big enough to seize a small elephant or large human and smash them into the ground to eat.
In summary, it’s clear from the huge amount of direct, observable evidence that rocs exist (or at least existed up to present day extinction) on remote islands in the South Pacific and near Africa. No matter what the detractors, many of them supposedly scientists, say. It’s always more important to believe in what we “know” to be true based on “common sense” proof. Even if it leaves one between a roc and a hard place.
Article by Raymond Gaynor, multi-award-winning author of THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020), an inspiring Sci-Fu (science-based futuring) novel of NewAmerica after the fall of “old democracy.”
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
November 18, 2020
MIMOSA, ANYONE?
Of course, the thought of a mimosa cocktail composed of champagne and chilled citrus juice — yum! — undoubtedly immediately came to mind. But I’m writing about a most peculiar and decidedly interesting plant that demonstrates the narrowing distance between humans, animals and plants. We are, after all, collectively living things, sharing common physiological and biochemical pathways.
Wikipedia mentions Mimosa pudica (from Latin: pudica “shy, bashful or shrinking”) as a “sensitive” (dare I call it empathic) plant, a creeping annual or perennial flowering plant of the pea/legume family. It’s primary action of interest is that, when “shaken or stirred” the leaves fold inward, re-opening a few minutes later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimosa_...
While many plants are surprisingly “sensitive,” most react on a scale of days or weeks (e.g. creeping vines), the mimosa reacts in seconds to minutes. The real surprise, however, is that the biochemical pathways that make this happen are not unlike those of human muscle cells. Or, you could say with equal surprise, that human muscle cells are quite similar to mimosa cells in the way they act when stimulated. Physiologically, when hooked to an electrocardiograph, disturbance was noted to cause a “nerve-like” action potential, resulting in the plant’s characteristic electro-chemical response.
But that’s not all. Its roots create carbon disulfide, which prevents certain pathogenic and mycorrhizal fungi from growing, allowing the formation of nodules on the roots of the plant that fix atmospheric nitrogen and convert it into a form that is usable by the plant. Nitrogen fixation not only contributes nitrogen to the plant but to the soil surrounding the plant’s roots, naturally “fertilizing” the soil.
Ah, but there’s more. Its flowers are both insect and wind pollinated, the seeds having a hard coat that allows the plant with its root nodules germinate and grow in marginal soil. High temperatures, e.g. forest fires, cause the seeds to germinate.
Still not enough to impress? M. pudica can extract and bioaccumulate copper, tin, lead and zinc soil pollutants from contaminated soil, allowing the soil to gradually return to less toxic compositions. In response, mimosa leaves can become toxic to foraging animals and humans. On the other hand, extracts of non-toxic mimosa plants showed antidiabetic and antihyperlipidemic activities in rats.
Okay, how about this? According to NASA contract researcher Cleve Backster, plants can actually “learn,” that is, change their behavior based on repeated stimuli. Given that plants lack a well defined central nervous system, the means by which they learn is not clear. However, it appears that plant cells can act like neurons and, in fact, “learn” in similar ways. Be careful with your mimosa plant. It remembers how it’s treated.
Why all this about mimosa plants? True, they’re quite amazing. But in my newly released Sci-Fu (science-based futuring) novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, one particular area of interest is in how people in the future might learn to appreciate and treat plants differently than today. For example:
Naming plants after people? The idea was to inspire feelings of environmental stewardship through government established and funded official Naming Ceremonies—N-Cares—whereby human caretakers and the animal or plant names of their now ‘cultivated natural’ darlings would be publicly announced, ceremoniously celebrated, then recorded digitally in ever-expanding governmental N-Cares information vaults called I-Cares. The honor caught on and the practical result was immediate: I-Cares, in essence governmental genetic diversity repositories, sprang up everywhere, and awardees gladly paid for public recognition, contractually committing themselves to husbanding the animals or plants which they had name-recognized for the duration of the human’s life. As a further honorific, caretakers were permitted to wear a light blue colored armband. At the same time, the government inserted a tiny, inert, bioluminescent DNA tag into the now protected entity, identifying it as under the care and protection of the government by way of that particular human caretaker.
So, name your plants, celebrate and treat them well knowing they can and will remember, but don’t, I warn, give them a cell phone and credit card. Instead, use yours to purchase a copy of THE EDGE OF MADNESS and see what else a most plausible future holds in store.
The Edge of Madness
Wikipedia mentions Mimosa pudica (from Latin: pudica “shy, bashful or shrinking”) as a “sensitive” (dare I call it empathic) plant, a creeping annual or perennial flowering plant of the pea/legume family. It’s primary action of interest is that, when “shaken or stirred” the leaves fold inward, re-opening a few minutes later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimosa_...
While many plants are surprisingly “sensitive,” most react on a scale of days or weeks (e.g. creeping vines), the mimosa reacts in seconds to minutes. The real surprise, however, is that the biochemical pathways that make this happen are not unlike those of human muscle cells. Or, you could say with equal surprise, that human muscle cells are quite similar to mimosa cells in the way they act when stimulated. Physiologically, when hooked to an electrocardiograph, disturbance was noted to cause a “nerve-like” action potential, resulting in the plant’s characteristic electro-chemical response.
But that’s not all. Its roots create carbon disulfide, which prevents certain pathogenic and mycorrhizal fungi from growing, allowing the formation of nodules on the roots of the plant that fix atmospheric nitrogen and convert it into a form that is usable by the plant. Nitrogen fixation not only contributes nitrogen to the plant but to the soil surrounding the plant’s roots, naturally “fertilizing” the soil.
Ah, but there’s more. Its flowers are both insect and wind pollinated, the seeds having a hard coat that allows the plant with its root nodules germinate and grow in marginal soil. High temperatures, e.g. forest fires, cause the seeds to germinate.
Still not enough to impress? M. pudica can extract and bioaccumulate copper, tin, lead and zinc soil pollutants from contaminated soil, allowing the soil to gradually return to less toxic compositions. In response, mimosa leaves can become toxic to foraging animals and humans. On the other hand, extracts of non-toxic mimosa plants showed antidiabetic and antihyperlipidemic activities in rats.
Okay, how about this? According to NASA contract researcher Cleve Backster, plants can actually “learn,” that is, change their behavior based on repeated stimuli. Given that plants lack a well defined central nervous system, the means by which they learn is not clear. However, it appears that plant cells can act like neurons and, in fact, “learn” in similar ways. Be careful with your mimosa plant. It remembers how it’s treated.
Why all this about mimosa plants? True, they’re quite amazing. But in my newly released Sci-Fu (science-based futuring) novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, one particular area of interest is in how people in the future might learn to appreciate and treat plants differently than today. For example:
Naming plants after people? The idea was to inspire feelings of environmental stewardship through government established and funded official Naming Ceremonies—N-Cares—whereby human caretakers and the animal or plant names of their now ‘cultivated natural’ darlings would be publicly announced, ceremoniously celebrated, then recorded digitally in ever-expanding governmental N-Cares information vaults called I-Cares. The honor caught on and the practical result was immediate: I-Cares, in essence governmental genetic diversity repositories, sprang up everywhere, and awardees gladly paid for public recognition, contractually committing themselves to husbanding the animals or plants which they had name-recognized for the duration of the human’s life. As a further honorific, caretakers were permitted to wear a light blue colored armband. At the same time, the government inserted a tiny, inert, bioluminescent DNA tag into the now protected entity, identifying it as under the care and protection of the government by way of that particular human caretaker.
So, name your plants, celebrate and treat them well knowing they can and will remember, but don’t, I warn, give them a cell phone and credit card. Instead, use yours to purchase a copy of THE EDGE OF MADNESS and see what else a most plausible future holds in store.
The Edge of Madness
November 17, 2020
LET THEM EAT DEATH
Yes, that’s a play, and a not-so-nice one, on Marie Antoinette’s famous, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“Let them eat cake!”) comment when people were dying of starvation during the French Revolution. Substitute “COVID-19” for “starvation” and what you get is basically the title of this post.
I’ve long been fascinated by the difference between a “good” and a “bad” leader. After much research (and authoring), I have come to believe that it is the same difference between a “good” and a “bad” person, namely, who empathic, or at least capable of empathy, the person is. Empathy is something between an emotion and a feeling, having it’s own brain cells (“mirror neurons”) required to possess the trait.
We typically call a person or leader without empathy, a sociopath, as he or she is capable of doing anything, including murder, directly or indirectly, without feeling or remorse. It’s the polar opposite of the Native American saying, “Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until I have walked in his moccasins.” I’m often asked what I think our contemporary world lacks, and, in my opinion, it is more than anything else, empathy.
While I don’t speak directly of empathy in either TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2016) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, or in the sequel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I tried mightily to convey the idea through the actions, reactions and thoughts of my three brave protagonists, facing, like each new generation, an ever more complex and challenging world. That’s one reason I like to characterize THE EDGE OF MADNESS primarily as a relationship work. Empathy emerges from developing relationships and vice versa. Call it the “real” circle of life, if you will, but it’s, in the end, what all non-sociopaths live and eventually die for.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...
I’ve long been fascinated by the difference between a “good” and a “bad” leader. After much research (and authoring), I have come to believe that it is the same difference between a “good” and a “bad” person, namely, who empathic, or at least capable of empathy, the person is. Empathy is something between an emotion and a feeling, having it’s own brain cells (“mirror neurons”) required to possess the trait.
We typically call a person or leader without empathy, a sociopath, as he or she is capable of doing anything, including murder, directly or indirectly, without feeling or remorse. It’s the polar opposite of the Native American saying, “Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until I have walked in his moccasins.” I’m often asked what I think our contemporary world lacks, and, in my opinion, it is more than anything else, empathy.
While I don’t speak directly of empathy in either TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2016) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, or in the sequel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I tried mightily to convey the idea through the actions, reactions and thoughts of my three brave protagonists, facing, like each new generation, an ever more complex and challenging world. That’s one reason I like to characterize THE EDGE OF MADNESS primarily as a relationship work. Empathy emerges from developing relationships and vice versa. Call it the “real” circle of life, if you will, but it’s, in the end, what all non-sociopaths live and eventually die for.
The Edge of Madness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...
November 16, 2020
ON BEING GOVERNMENTLESS
These are times that indeed try humans’ souls. It’s one thing to have voted in a particularly “bad” government, but another altogether to have to suffer under virtually no government at all as seems to be the case ever since our current government leader caught and recovered from COVID-19.
It wouldn’t be so bad if this were a Sci-Fu (science-based futuring) scenario in a novel. Unfortunately, the reality is stranger — and infinitely more deadly — than any dystopian novel. Give me H. G. Wells’ WAR OF THE WORLDS read by Orsen Welles any day. At least it ends well. In the real world, things dystopian don’t always end so well.
TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, while a decidedly LGBTQ man-love oriented tale, posited just such a Sci-Fu scenario, with the errant President Brown abdicating on election night, leaving the president-elect the sole and only half leader of the USA during a time of political-social-financial meltdown. Out of it came a “new” America, smaller, it’s capital located in Chicago, with a “new” vision looking to the heavens rather than to one party’s pockets.
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
The prequel to my latest Sci-Fu novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, the sequel deals with the reconstruction of “new” America and, based on plausible political-social-technological events, posits a world where, like every new generation, youth must find their places in an increasingly challenging and dangerous world. Seizing the world as it is and making the most of it, the three protagonists, two males and one female, explore and carve out a new set of social mores (or morays depending on your point-of-view) befitting the “new” would with its eyes on the heavens.
The Edge of Madness
Looking for something in a world recovering from governmentlessness, that’s neither dystopian nor utopian, that’s simply plausible and exciting? I dare you to step up to the edge of madness and peek over the abyss. You might even like what you see!
It wouldn’t be so bad if this were a Sci-Fu (science-based futuring) scenario in a novel. Unfortunately, the reality is stranger — and infinitely more deadly — than any dystopian novel. Give me H. G. Wells’ WAR OF THE WORLDS read by Orsen Welles any day. At least it ends well. In the real world, things dystopian don’t always end so well.
TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese, while a decidedly LGBTQ man-love oriented tale, posited just such a Sci-Fu scenario, with the errant President Brown abdicating on election night, leaving the president-elect the sole and only half leader of the USA during a time of political-social-financial meltdown. Out of it came a “new” America, smaller, it’s capital located in Chicago, with a “new” vision looking to the heavens rather than to one party’s pockets.
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
The prequel to my latest Sci-Fu novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, the sequel deals with the reconstruction of “new” America and, based on plausible political-social-technological events, posits a world where, like every new generation, youth must find their places in an increasingly challenging and dangerous world. Seizing the world as it is and making the most of it, the three protagonists, two males and one female, explore and carve out a new set of social mores (or morays depending on your point-of-view) befitting the “new” would with its eyes on the heavens.
The Edge of Madness
Looking for something in a world recovering from governmentlessness, that’s neither dystopian nor utopian, that’s simply plausible and exciting? I dare you to step up to the edge of madness and peek over the abyss. You might even like what you see!
November 15, 2020
MIDNIGHT SHOWER, ANYONE?
If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I’m keen on astronomy, pointing my 180mm Maksutov-Cassegrain Sky-Watcher telescope at the Mid-Pacific planets and stars over Honolulu every other night. The preceding week, the target was initially Jupiter (captured with 6 moons!) and Saturn (with its gorgeous rings and 3 moons), then the red planet Mars during the near planetary conjunction. Tomorrow and Tuesday, 16 and 17 November 2020, it will be the Leonid Meteor shower, which happily doesn’t require the telescope. Anticipating “fireballs” and near horizon “streakers” every 6 to 10 minutes and a new moon, it should be great viewing across North America and okay viewing even here in paradise.
One of my best memories is watching a meteor shower snuggled in a sleeping bag on the open deck at Harbin Hot Springs (Napa Valley California) with a very dear friend. It was the ultimate “reality show.”
One of the particularly rewarding aspects of astronomy is not only the opportunity of a themed night date, but the sheer variety of events throughout the year. If nothing else, I can direct the “big guy” toward the moon and enjoy watching where one day soon humans may be living!
Don’t have a telescope? A good pair of binoculars can be equally satisfying when planetary watching. And, of course, one doesn’t even need binoculars to enjoy the many meteor showers on display every year. Just a good friend and a cozy way to sit or lay and watch them whiz by.
Raymond Gaynor – Multi-award-winning author of 5-Star Amazon Reviewed THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020). Available from Amazon in printed and eBook formats at
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
The continued “naughty” adventures of three young firebrands attempting to find their way in a challenging and dangerous world.
One of my best memories is watching a meteor shower snuggled in a sleeping bag on the open deck at Harbin Hot Springs (Napa Valley California) with a very dear friend. It was the ultimate “reality show.”
One of the particularly rewarding aspects of astronomy is not only the opportunity of a themed night date, but the sheer variety of events throughout the year. If nothing else, I can direct the “big guy” toward the moon and enjoy watching where one day soon humans may be living!
Don’t have a telescope? A good pair of binoculars can be equally satisfying when planetary watching. And, of course, one doesn’t even need binoculars to enjoy the many meteor showers on display every year. Just a good friend and a cozy way to sit or lay and watch them whiz by.
Raymond Gaynor – Multi-award-winning author of 5-Star Amazon Reviewed THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020). Available from Amazon in printed and eBook formats at
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
The continued “naughty” adventures of three young firebrands attempting to find their way in a challenging and dangerous world.
November 14, 2020
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO RESTAURANTS POST-PANDEMIC?
When I introduced my newly released future relationship novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I introduced it as a science-based futuring work, creating a new genre, that of SCI-FU. The thing about SCI-FU works is that they create a plausible (even likely) future scenario that can act as a mirror to readers, to help them decide if this is the kind of future they want or not. That’s the power of SCI-FU, and here’s a positive example:
Most people, if asked, would say that the biggest problem restaurants face is adjusting to a world where customer and food server protection (sanitation) and “home dining” may become more important than ever before. But I wonder…
COVID-19 as of today, 14 November 2020, has now infected over 10.9 million individuals. Subtract the 250,000 attributable deaths so far, and that leaves leaves 10+ million individuals who have contracted the disease and are supposedly still alive. Of these, 27 to 65% experience at least temporary, and, in many cases, what looks like permanent loss of smell. Most experts tend to the higher estimate, so let’s assume a conservative 50% of survivors — about 5 million — are without smell.
There are only four, maybe five, basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and, according to the Japanese umami (or the Russians cabbage and to some, temperature or fat). Irrespective of whether there’s four or seven, the fact is that the tongue has very limited “taste” receptors, the majority of “flavor” coming from smell. So, in a post-COVID-19 world, a large number of people won’t be able to ascertain “taste,” and thereby “fine dining.”
So, what if half or more of Americans (and by projection the world population) no longer “tastes” their food. And by extension, in the future, why go out to a fine restaurant, or any restaurant at all, other than to simply “fill up?” I suspect this is a real “future problem” for the entire food service industry, as well well as agriculture and grocery stores. If taste doesn’t matter, what’s left? Only what we see, can hear or feel. Perhaps what’s left is temperature (and I don’t mean spicy hot), umami (roughly the “feel” of the food in the mouth) and maybe, just maybe, the “feel” of fat in the mouth, which may be simply another aspect of umami.
On the other hand, if we’re an airplane tranportation world, or poised on fleeing Earth altogether for other planets, maybe loss of smell and taste isn’t altogether bad. It will make in-flight meals easier to provide and prepare. Perhaps we could, like the former USSR used to do during periods of starvation, add sawdust to our meals, providing them with more ruffage, lowering our incidence of GI cancers and stretching out the inevitable destruction of all plant life. While I would truly miss the taste of chocolate, those who haven’t experienced it when they acquired COVID-19 wouldn’t.
The Edge of Madness
Most people, if asked, would say that the biggest problem restaurants face is adjusting to a world where customer and food server protection (sanitation) and “home dining” may become more important than ever before. But I wonder…
COVID-19 as of today, 14 November 2020, has now infected over 10.9 million individuals. Subtract the 250,000 attributable deaths so far, and that leaves leaves 10+ million individuals who have contracted the disease and are supposedly still alive. Of these, 27 to 65% experience at least temporary, and, in many cases, what looks like permanent loss of smell. Most experts tend to the higher estimate, so let’s assume a conservative 50% of survivors — about 5 million — are without smell.
There are only four, maybe five, basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and, according to the Japanese umami (or the Russians cabbage and to some, temperature or fat). Irrespective of whether there’s four or seven, the fact is that the tongue has very limited “taste” receptors, the majority of “flavor” coming from smell. So, in a post-COVID-19 world, a large number of people won’t be able to ascertain “taste,” and thereby “fine dining.”
So, what if half or more of Americans (and by projection the world population) no longer “tastes” their food. And by extension, in the future, why go out to a fine restaurant, or any restaurant at all, other than to simply “fill up?” I suspect this is a real “future problem” for the entire food service industry, as well well as agriculture and grocery stores. If taste doesn’t matter, what’s left? Only what we see, can hear or feel. Perhaps what’s left is temperature (and I don’t mean spicy hot), umami (roughly the “feel” of the food in the mouth) and maybe, just maybe, the “feel” of fat in the mouth, which may be simply another aspect of umami.
On the other hand, if we’re an airplane tranportation world, or poised on fleeing Earth altogether for other planets, maybe loss of smell and taste isn’t altogether bad. It will make in-flight meals easier to provide and prepare. Perhaps we could, like the former USSR used to do during periods of starvation, add sawdust to our meals, providing them with more ruffage, lowering our incidence of GI cancers and stretching out the inevitable destruction of all plant life. While I would truly miss the taste of chocolate, those who haven’t experienced it when they acquired COVID-19 wouldn’t.
The Edge of Madness
November 13, 2020
THE COST OF HOLIDAY HAM
This has been an unprecedented year in many ways. It’s this generation’s first experience with an admittedly plague-like pandemic. It’s this generation’s first experience with mammon: cold hard cash and the uniquely human “need” to hoard it. It’s this generation’s first experience with unlimited greed in the form of a graven idol called money or wealth and it’s inevitable successor, power, and its uniquely human, though some might say uniquely animal, “need” to concentrate it and lord it over others. I’ve always regarded money and power as illusions, two sorts of Monopoly games created by greedy, mostly unconscious folks who “play the game” to win and, in their unempathetic playing, loose the experiential human life that others live and die for. It’s this generation’s first adult experience with democracy, that contentious yet robust form of government that remains more experimental than established. It’s also this generations’ first experience with blatant fascism, propaganda and the short and long “con.” A lot of “experience” to deal with mixed together into an almost unintelligible cauldron, seasoned with this generation’s first experience with the joys and vicissitudes of creating and rearing progeny, our only real immortality in and increasingly challenging and dangerous world.
Every generation has had to deal with “growing up” though hopefully in the absence of war, pestilence and mass death. Most concernedly, few escape this experience unscathed. The question, “What’s the cost of holiday ham?” is another way of inquiring about this generation’s ability to recover and develop the necessary resiliency to help the next generation in it’s similar though always unique quest. With science, the truth is always repeatable. With history (or herstory if you prefer) human experience is never entirely repeatable, despite the common challenges. And in this case, consider the term “holiday ham” in the alternative sense of someone in leadership — an alternative “father” — whose purpose is entirely different. Whose purpose is dis-information, dis-integration, destruction and entirely self-serving with little experience or interest outside of the money and power Monopoly game.
These are truly poignant issues which in my newest published work, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I decided to take on, without hedging, in the form of a relationship Sci-Fu (Science-Based Futuring) novel, as a way to provide this and every generation a less “loaded” insight into what we are and what we could be. Good or bad but never indifferent, THE EDGE OF MADNESS gives each and every reader something desperately needed into today’s world: a look at from where we’ve come, where we are and where we might be headed in a fully plausible — yet neither dsystopian nor utopian — future. “Being able to imagine the future is half of living well today.”
On Pre-Holiday Sale through 26 November 2020 from any of the four Savant [online] bookstores: Savant Bookstore Atlantic, Midwest, Pacific and Honolulu at 25% off Suggested Retail Price and free shipping within the USA using “HOLIDAYSALE” discount code at checkout. Also on sale now as an Amazon Kindle eBook for $2.99 (regularly $7.95).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...
The Edge of Madness
Every generation has had to deal with “growing up” though hopefully in the absence of war, pestilence and mass death. Most concernedly, few escape this experience unscathed. The question, “What’s the cost of holiday ham?” is another way of inquiring about this generation’s ability to recover and develop the necessary resiliency to help the next generation in it’s similar though always unique quest. With science, the truth is always repeatable. With history (or herstory if you prefer) human experience is never entirely repeatable, despite the common challenges. And in this case, consider the term “holiday ham” in the alternative sense of someone in leadership — an alternative “father” — whose purpose is entirely different. Whose purpose is dis-information, dis-integration, destruction and entirely self-serving with little experience or interest outside of the money and power Monopoly game.
These are truly poignant issues which in my newest published work, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, I decided to take on, without hedging, in the form of a relationship Sci-Fu (Science-Based Futuring) novel, as a way to provide this and every generation a less “loaded” insight into what we are and what we could be. Good or bad but never indifferent, THE EDGE OF MADNESS gives each and every reader something desperately needed into today’s world: a look at from where we’ve come, where we are and where we might be headed in a fully plausible — yet neither dsystopian nor utopian — future. “Being able to imagine the future is half of living well today.”
On Pre-Holiday Sale through 26 November 2020 from any of the four Savant [online] bookstores: Savant Bookstore Atlantic, Midwest, Pacific and Honolulu at 25% off Suggested Retail Price and free shipping within the USA using “HOLIDAYSALE” discount code at checkout. Also on sale now as an Amazon Kindle eBook for $2.99 (regularly $7.95).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...
The Edge of Madness
November 12, 2020
KICKS AND FLICS
As promised, the continuation to the day before yesterday’s post on SweetSixteen and yet another of the many facets of coming-of-age in NewAmerica:
“For modern lovers, SweetSixteenSalsaSex, when it really clicked, especially when virginal and alternative as in the case of Draff and Billie, offered the enactors a further reward: that all-time most sought-after prize of publiczed intimacy, the exceptional, elusive, once-in-a-lifetime “FirstLoveIConsumated” pop emotag, FLIC. While the best in human literature for the last 2,000 years was replete with tales of persistent love, affection and romance—with only occasional consummation, and even rarer ribald sex—it was only during the last decade that transitioning NewAmerica, unquestionably in the throes of the greatest socio-technological changes of any time in history that sex became acknowledged for its own, as both the reason for and outcome of affection and romance. In the process, the public came to know and passionately embrace FLICs as a new interplanetary obsession. The pre-Jacksonian equivalent of a FLIC—unrequited first love—had, for centuries, besotted the written annals of common, everyday romance books with a typically unsavory outcome. Only recently had NewAmericans elevated such stories above romance to an entirely new plane, and, more recently, a new art form. In spite of what people might say in front of one another or in a familiar crowd, it was the opportunity to see and experience a FLIC first hand that drew everyone irresistibly to the various seemingly spontaneous SweetSixteenSalsaSex exhibitions that popped up in the streets, and, as in the case of Draff and Billie, attended by the participants’ entire social group.“
FLIC, anyone? Only one per person; only once in a lifetime; only during SweetSixteen!
Printed book at 25% off Suggested Retail Price through 26 November 2020 using “HOLIDAYSALE” discount code at checkout from any of the four Savant Boosktores (Hawaii, Pacific, Midwest or Atlantic):
https://checkout.square.site/buy/4MI5...
Printed and Kindle editions from Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859 $2.99 through 26 November 2020 (regularly $7.95)
Printed book from The Book Depository with international free shipping: https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Ed...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
“For modern lovers, SweetSixteenSalsaSex, when it really clicked, especially when virginal and alternative as in the case of Draff and Billie, offered the enactors a further reward: that all-time most sought-after prize of publiczed intimacy, the exceptional, elusive, once-in-a-lifetime “FirstLoveIConsumated” pop emotag, FLIC. While the best in human literature for the last 2,000 years was replete with tales of persistent love, affection and romance—with only occasional consummation, and even rarer ribald sex—it was only during the last decade that transitioning NewAmerica, unquestionably in the throes of the greatest socio-technological changes of any time in history that sex became acknowledged for its own, as both the reason for and outcome of affection and romance. In the process, the public came to know and passionately embrace FLICs as a new interplanetary obsession. The pre-Jacksonian equivalent of a FLIC—unrequited first love—had, for centuries, besotted the written annals of common, everyday romance books with a typically unsavory outcome. Only recently had NewAmericans elevated such stories above romance to an entirely new plane, and, more recently, a new art form. In spite of what people might say in front of one another or in a familiar crowd, it was the opportunity to see and experience a FLIC first hand that drew everyone irresistibly to the various seemingly spontaneous SweetSixteenSalsaSex exhibitions that popped up in the streets, and, as in the case of Draff and Billie, attended by the participants’ entire social group.“
FLIC, anyone? Only one per person; only once in a lifetime; only during SweetSixteen!
Printed book at 25% off Suggested Retail Price through 26 November 2020 using “HOLIDAYSALE” discount code at checkout from any of the four Savant Boosktores (Hawaii, Pacific, Midwest or Atlantic):
https://checkout.square.site/buy/4MI5...
Printed and Kindle editions from Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859 $2.99 through 26 November 2020 (regularly $7.95)
Printed book from The Book Depository with international free shipping: https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Ed...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
November 11, 2020
WHAT’S A “RELATIONSHIP” NOVEL?
If you’re wondering where that seemingly “out-of-the-blue” question came from, wonder no further. My newly released THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, while in one sense is a Sci-fu (science-based futuring) novel if nothing else by definition, it’s equally a romantic, occasionally highly erotic work that is an exploration of “relationships” today and in a plausible future world. After all, what’s more human than relationships?
Starting as (intentional) playmates, growing together into an adolescent “mob” then an independent, young adult “group,” struggling together to find their places in a challenging and dangerous world of constant techno-social change, the three protagonists search and explore everything from BBF/BGF to romance to snogging and shagging while searching for each’s mate and “soulmate,” confronting and resolving life issues like work, self-esteem, self-actualization, consciousness and empathy — the work of every new generation. And work it, these three do.
Taking up where TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese left off, NewAmerica, a shadow of its former United States of America, provides a challenging and dangerous future place for three young firebrands to live.
The Edge of Madness
Book Depository (free international shipping); https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Ed...
Raymond Gaynor is the pen-name of the multi-award-winning, reclusive writer-artist-photographer-videographer, who, in his own words, “lives and breathes” San Francisco. He co-authored with William Maltese on the Tripler and Clarke gay political thriller, TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) and with A. G. Hayes on the fifth Koski & Falk adventure, QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016). He is the author of numerous fiction, “sci-fu” and non-fiction works published under a variety of different pseudonyms.
Author Photo: https://ibb.co/Yjrbh7Q
Starting as (intentional) playmates, growing together into an adolescent “mob” then an independent, young adult “group,” struggling together to find their places in a challenging and dangerous world of constant techno-social change, the three protagonists search and explore everything from BBF/BGF to romance to snogging and shagging while searching for each’s mate and “soulmate,” confronting and resolving life issues like work, self-esteem, self-actualization, consciousness and empathy — the work of every new generation. And work it, these three do.
Taking up where TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese left off, NewAmerica, a shadow of its former United States of America, provides a challenging and dangerous future place for three young firebrands to live.
The Edge of Madness
Book Depository (free international shipping); https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Ed...
Raymond Gaynor is the pen-name of the multi-award-winning, reclusive writer-artist-photographer-videographer, who, in his own words, “lives and breathes” San Francisco. He co-authored with William Maltese on the Tripler and Clarke gay political thriller, TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) and with A. G. Hayes on the fifth Koski & Falk adventure, QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016). He is the author of numerous fiction, “sci-fu” and non-fiction works published under a variety of different pseudonyms.
Author Photo: https://ibb.co/Yjrbh7Q
November 10, 2020
WHEN CARS BECOME DODOS
WHEN CARS BECOME DODOS
much more interesting. But let’s take a moment and look at this in a bit more detail.
I could pursue what would happen to public transportation, auto dealerships, car insurance, tires, air/noise quality, the environment, cities, malls — you name it — but what I want to focus on for this tirade is what would happen to roads and service stations.
In my new science-based futuring — SciFu — novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Savant 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, cars have gone the way of dodos, roads have been repurposed for human-powered locomotion including – ugh – actual walking and for the jet set bicycling, and service stations serve locomoters like thirst aide stations today service marathon runners. But that’s only the start:
“With the demise of Awheels, roads were converted into wide BWheel pathways with large open walkways on either side.” An image of a converted roadway appeared as if QTrans’ed into Brie’s mind and began flickering like an ancient celluloid movie back to a walk he’d taken several days ago with his mob. Walking these days was tantamount to taking a personal vacation…
…Encouraged by their government, NewAmericans slowly began to re-define what recreation meant. It soon became ‘in’ to take one hour or even one or more days off work to tour formerly ravaged byways, officially renaming in the vernacular the animals and plants they noted while walking or Bwheeling.
“The idea was to inspire feelings of environmental stewardship through government established and funded official Naming Ceremonies—N-Cares—whereby human caretakers and the animal or plant names of their now ‘cultivated natural’ darlings would be publicly announced, ceremoniously celebrated, then recorded digitally in ever-expanding governmental N-Cares information vaults called I-Cares.”
The honor caught on and the practical result was immediate: I-Cares, in essence governmental genetic diversity repositories, sprang up everywhere, and awardees gladly paid for public recognition, contractually committing themselves to husbanding the animals or plants which they had name-recognized for the duration of the human’s life. As a further honorific, caretakers were permitted to wear a light blue colored armband. At the same time, the government inserted a tiny, inert, bioluminescent DNA tag into the now protected entity, identifying it as under the care and protection of the government by way of that particular human caretaker. This program singularly changed the surface of NewAmerica into one citizen-tended, cultivated-natural “paradise.“
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
Dystopic or uptopian? I don’t think so. Just a science-based futuring. And, no, people in this futuring didn’t go and give the animals or plants a VISA or MASTERCARD. Not yet, anyway.
much more interesting. But let’s take a moment and look at this in a bit more detail.
I could pursue what would happen to public transportation, auto dealerships, car insurance, tires, air/noise quality, the environment, cities, malls — you name it — but what I want to focus on for this tirade is what would happen to roads and service stations.
In my new science-based futuring — SciFu — novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Savant 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, cars have gone the way of dodos, roads have been repurposed for human-powered locomotion including – ugh – actual walking and for the jet set bicycling, and service stations serve locomoters like thirst aide stations today service marathon runners. But that’s only the start:
“With the demise of Awheels, roads were converted into wide BWheel pathways with large open walkways on either side.” An image of a converted roadway appeared as if QTrans’ed into Brie’s mind and began flickering like an ancient celluloid movie back to a walk he’d taken several days ago with his mob. Walking these days was tantamount to taking a personal vacation…
…Encouraged by their government, NewAmericans slowly began to re-define what recreation meant. It soon became ‘in’ to take one hour or even one or more days off work to tour formerly ravaged byways, officially renaming in the vernacular the animals and plants they noted while walking or Bwheeling.
“The idea was to inspire feelings of environmental stewardship through government established and funded official Naming Ceremonies—N-Cares—whereby human caretakers and the animal or plant names of their now ‘cultivated natural’ darlings would be publicly announced, ceremoniously celebrated, then recorded digitally in ever-expanding governmental N-Cares information vaults called I-Cares.”
The honor caught on and the practical result was immediate: I-Cares, in essence governmental genetic diversity repositories, sprang up everywhere, and awardees gladly paid for public recognition, contractually committing themselves to husbanding the animals or plants which they had name-recognized for the duration of the human’s life. As a further honorific, caretakers were permitted to wear a light blue colored armband. At the same time, the government inserted a tiny, inert, bioluminescent DNA tag into the now protected entity, identifying it as under the care and protection of the government by way of that particular human caretaker. This program singularly changed the surface of NewAmerica into one citizen-tended, cultivated-natural “paradise.“
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
Dystopic or uptopian? I don’t think so. Just a science-based futuring. And, no, people in this futuring didn’t go and give the animals or plants a VISA or MASTERCARD. Not yet, anyway.
