(Palestine, Texas) Just when I was beginning to think that our return to the ranch in the East Texas Outback couldn’t possibly be stranger, along comes and email from reader Bob ujp in the square state of Kansas:
This is in the news in Kansas. The Journal World. Lawrence Ks. On 9-24-14
Gov. Brownback to proclaim Zombie Preparedness Month.
Kansas are being encouraged to prepare for an invasion of the living dead, with Gov. Sam Brownback scheduled to sign
A proclamation later this week declaring October Zombie Preparedness Month.
The state Division of Emergency Management says if residents are prepared for a zombie attack, they’re prepared for anything.
Deputy director Angee Morgan says the idea is to make people aware of the need to be ready for emergency situation like natural disasters, catastrophic storms, fires even a SWARM OF ZOMLIE.
Brownback is slated to sign the proclamation at 11:00 am Friday in his ceremonial office in the Statehouse.
(I think we should read in between the lines.)
Hmmm…could the people in Kansas know a lot more about what’s going on in the World of Woo-Woo than anyone could have ever imagined? (Why Kansas, though?)
It’s a non-trivial question since we now have the first reports of people (this is about to get weird, so hang on!) Zombies from Ebola…
A report on the AllAfrica site over here says (in part):
Two Ebola patients, who died of the virus in separate communities in Nimba County have reportedly resurrected in the county. The victims, both females, believed to be in their 60s and 40s respectively, died of the Ebola virus recently in Hope Village Community and the Catholic Community in Ganta, Nimba.
I’ll just file this in the “Well, I’ll be damned file…”
Could this all be one of the most pervasive and sticky marketing plans ever from Activision which is talking about Call of Duty with a side of zombies in co-op player mode?
Hell, I don’t know what to think on this one…maybe age is creeping up on me, but they’re going to have to do better than this to really creep me out…
On the other hand, the report about how students at Kent State are enjoying a zombie class…well, that’s the kind of mass-hysteria rising that may be significant… Hell, next thing you know some college or other will offer a PhD in Zombie studies…
Color me aghast but not surprised.
Where Did the Dreams Go?
OK, that’s weird…particularly because there was a flurry of word-use of “zombies” about 1-2 years ago…
But where have people’s dreams gone? This is a more legit question for the field of psychology to deal with…
A note from director Chris McCleary at the www.nationaldreamcenter.com site has me wondering:
Mysterious lack of dreams: Something we’ve been discussing in the forums lately is a VERY strange lack of dream language. We had three runs within one week (two of which were this past weekend) where there was an astonishing lack of dream words in my DreamBot4 printouts. It was so drastic that I had to crack open the DreamBot and see whether the linguistics engine broke!
It was good that no problems were found, but that just begs the question, “What was happening in the collective unconscious?” We have lots of theories, but nothing can be proven. We suspect either a calm before the storm or this will simply be a natural cycle in the collective psyche.Astral Battle: Yesterday the lull ended with a super-surging word, “Astral Dream.” The rest of the list yesterday did little to clarify that meme, but today’s run might have done just that. We see all sorts of astral words such as demonic, witch, angel, and more. Last week we enjoyed a sustained and generally very positive word list…that appears to be changing again.
If you have noticed a change in your dreams over the past week, or so – especially if they have changed in character, please send me a note and cc Chris over at the Dream Center. Especially if you are having astral dreams or if you’re suddenly popping into astral projections/ out of body experiences.
Why?
Oh, you would ask that…
OK, here’s the deal,real simple-like: I have long wondered if there isn’t some kind of tide in the affairs of men (thanks Willie) that drives all kinds of paranormal phenomena.
We notice the same thing in terms of people sending in woo-woo – and it also showed up in the early data of the www.nationaldreamcenter.com DreamBase.
In other words, there would be stretches where my email inbox would be chock-a-block full of reports of this high strangeness, or that…and then we’d go a couple of weeks (or longer) where people’s self-reported encounters with weirdness just fell off the chart.
This cyclicity question is potentially verge important.
Imagine being the first to find a kind of “heartbeat” of the global mass consciousness: If such a phenomena were found to be objectively real then it would be mighty interesting to do some cross-discipline study to see if there was any relationship between cycles in mass consciousness and, oh, say the STOCK MARKET.
I’ve long kept open the possibility that that study of stock market cycles is really subsidiary to something else.
If people’s encounters with woo-woo, their dream content, and perhaps even rising zombies are all run by some hidden metronome yet-to-be-found, well, that’d be Nobel Prize quality research, I would think.
Then again, I look at past Nobel winners and….er….maybe not!
6,178.9 Miles Later
In answer to a thought-problem posed for Peoplenomics readers yesterday, the correct answer is through Dallas. The reason is long and statistical, but the correct answer is that Dallas terrorism risk is really is an incredibly small number. Until October 5th…when there’s a blip in the data…
We were having a discussion about whether we should return to the ranch by way of two possible routes (through Dallas or Fort Worth). The numbers for Dallas were so small that we might conceivably have gone through Dallas some thousands of times without risk of terrorism while in the city being statistically meaningful.
Or, to put it another way: Don’t live Life in Fear…live it in real-world statistics.
Passings: Pusscilla the Ranch Cat
After a long illness, Pusscilla the Ranch Cat passed on yesterday as we were driving through Wichita Falls, or so, on our way home.
Long (and untreatable) illness. She was buried next to her long-time companion Tommy, who was our first editor, a role later assumed by Zeus the cat.
With her passing, the ranch is down to just two cats: the editor-cat and Panama’s Ranger the Cat. She should be named Rangerette, but in keeping with modern military decorum, her name and service unit is non-gender-specific.
Living 9-years isn’t bad for a feral cat that wandered in from the woods during a rainstorm carrying her newly born kits. The father, Tommy, moved in when word of our loose cat-welfare requirements got out..
At the wake last night, I found myself wondering “If there is a Heaven for cats, are there mice along with all-you-can-eat rats for the taking?…and in turn, how would the mouse Heaven work out?”
These are the details about how the Universe really works that just make me crazy(er).
Find Grindstone, Apply Nose
Panama has the fall garden prepped. A bag or two of this and that and a final tilling needs to happen this weekend while the weather is warm.
There is a full voicemail box to be dealt with.
The stack of mail is over 2-feet high.
The tractor needs to get out and bush hog the trails around the property. Regrettably, it doesn’t do this without a supervisor on board.
Fence repairs need to happen since the power company came though with a monster-machine to trim the power line right-of-way…
And as a capper, another one of my monitors on the big server (down to 2 monitors from the usual four) needs to have its power supply (inverter) section in order to return the display to life. If it’s not one thing, it’s two…
If it’s true that there’s no rest for the wicked, then I have to rank as a world-class bad-ass.
…Which I’ve made a note to be after I finish a little more sleep.
Write when you break-even…
George george@ure.net