Assassins Can Fail In More Ways Than One

This is my fair warning for those who think that bullets can trump ballots.

Here, Put This in Perspective While You're At It

http://www.disinfo.com/2009/12/saturnalia/

Put Things in Perspective

We Can't Find Our Christmas Card List

So if you were expecting (or would like to get) a card from us, please e-mail me at dr_psycho1960@hotmail.com

What Has been Seen Cannot be Unseen

Unexplained . . . .

Over at Shakesville ( http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/12/question-of-day_10.html?dsq=25496616#comment-25496616 ) the Question of the Day is whether you have had any personal experience of "the unexplained": ghosts, UFOs, telepathy, &c.

It reminded me of when my brothers and I were little, and we would make up our own radio shows, complete with commercials and theme songs. One of our favorites was introduced with a thin, spooky voice singing: "Unexplained . . . unexplained . . . Unexplained Phenomena!" [THUMP THUMP!]

Here is my answer, inspired by a couple of dozen earlier ones:

I have always described myself as suffering from tinnitus (in the form of prolonged high-pitched whines akin to the behavior of malfunctioning electronics), but after reading a comment at Shakesville, I'm thinking of starting to call it "exploding head syndrome": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome

In response to someone who has been troubled by undulating walls, I observe that I can deliberately make a wall or ceiling begin to seemingly undulate, if I stare at it long enough. It's just an artifact of the way the nervous system is put together, not a physical phenomenon. You don't need to be scared of it. In fact, it can help to pass a boring interval.

In response to several references to sleep paralysis, I told the story of how I once came into my little son's bedroom and saw him staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. He seemed so strange, for a moment I thought he must be dead, but when I spoke to him, he blinked and then closed his eyes and relaxed into normal sleep. I woke him to sleep. Wow.

In response to someone whose "UFO" turned out to be a blimp, I said that I once saw a blimp passing overhead, and for a moment of terror and elation was convinced that I had slipped into some alternate world.

Regarding ghosts, I don't believe in them, but if I ever see any evidence of their presence, I won't go out of my way to ignore it, either.

But my one genuine unexplained experience is having read a summary of a comic book story (Superboy & the Legion of Super-Heroes #195, 1973: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire_%28comics%29) before it was ever published, and possibly before it was written. Pretty minor, right? But I have no rational explanation for how I could have the vivid memory of reading a text page in a comic book which described the debut and apparent death of ERG-1 before he was published. Spooky....

Nice Wood

Today, as we have more than once, my wife and I were driving in the hills east of Corvallis, and passed Nicewood Drive, only this time we looked at each other, snickered and exchanged those fateful words:
"Nice wood...."
"Wanna fuck?"
Because you're only young once, but you can be immature your whole life. 8-) :-})