Starflier

Back in the Golden Era of Hollywood* white folks would point to Lena Horne as an example of how America wasn’t racist, America offered opportunities for everyone.

“Look at her!  She’s a movie star!  She appears in big movies!

“How could she do that if we were racists?”

Every society, no matter how stratified or hidebound, has space for a few socially approved outliers.

You can always afford one rigidly controlled exception to the rule, who can paradoxically serve as both a reassurance that there’s room for others and as an easily dismissed distraction should they arouse too much or the wrong kind of attention.

Lena Horne was an exceptionally beautiful singer-actress in a time and place where beautiful singer-actresses were the norm.  She appeared in dozens of major movies from big studios, and was well respected by her co-workers and peers.

And she was -- or rather the role she occupied in America was -- totally fake.

Ms Horne never had a substantial role or dramatic scene in any movie that did not feature a predominantly African-American cast.

The big budget musicals she appeared in, the ones aimed at mainstream audiences -- white audiences -- typically cast her as a specialty number:  In the middle of a big show within the movie, the camera would pan over to her standing in front of a curtain where she would belt out a show tune.

And white Americans would say to foreigners who criticized the US for its racism, “What about Lena Horne? Look at all the movies she appears in!”

She appeared as an appendix, a wholly superfluous addition whose presence or absence didn’t affect the film one whit.

Her musical numbers in mainstream (i.e., white) musicals were filmed and edited into the final picture so they could be cut out!

See, there were parts of the US that did not care for Ms Horne’s skin color one little bit.

And when her movies played there -- snip-snip.

Out she came.

That way no lily white audiences ever had to be offended that a n[FL play]er dared sully their lily white screen.

Why was she in there in the first place?

As a sop to the African-American community, to lure them into the theaters so they could have five minutes enjoying a performance by somebody who looked like them.

And to a lesser degree, as a sop to those few white Americans who, while not exactly “woke”, were at least stirring restlessly in their sleep.  “Hey, we can’t be all bad if we let a colored girl sing in a movie, can we?”

[SIDEBAR:  You wanna see what Ms Horne was capable of, track down Stormy Weather, an all African-American musical that I rank as the 3rd best movie musical ever made, trailing narrowly behind Singin’ In The Rain and The Band Wagon.]

Barack Obama was 21st century white America’s Lena Horne.

“Hey, how can we be racist if we elected a black president?” was white code for “We want you black people to shut up about the injustices you have suffered and continue to suffer.”

White America wanted Obama to be their Oreo:  Black on the outside but white on the inside.

They wanted him to champion white values and interests.

Not American values and interests.

White values and interests.

“Hey, we elected a black president…”

”…so we don’t have to do anything about
the disproportionate justice meted out
against African-Americans.”

“Hey, we elected a black president…”

”…so we don’t have to do anything about
inner city communities that are still reeling
from the effects of hundreds of years
of dehumanization.”

“Hey, we elected a black president…”

”…so we don’t have to do anything about
addressing the needs and concerns of people
who have been deliberately and consciously
excluded from the American dream.”

No, Obama was supposed to be the magic cure-all, the ultimate placebo that would get those pesky minorities to stop complaining so white folks could like their lives in ease and comfort and not have to worry about how non-whites were being treated.

Just stand up against that curtain, Barack, and sing…

But Barack Obama didn’t do that.

Barack Obama said, “Hey, we still have a problem if police accost an African-American in his own home and accuse him of being a burglar even when he can prove he lives there.”

And ya know what?

We do have a problem if that can happen.

Because in order to reach the relatively mild level of just getting falsely arrested by a police office who doesn’t believe your identity, we first have to undercut your basic rights as a human being and as a citizen of the United States.

We have to pre-judge you on the color of your skin, to assume you are intrinsically criminal and hence worthy only of suspicion and distrust.

We have to assume you are not educated enough to hold a job that would pay enough for you to buy the home we’re accusing you of burglarizing.

Many white people voted for Obama because they wanted to shut up minority critics.

And to their surprise and horror, Obama basically said, “No, they’ve got a point:  There still is a lot we need to work on to make this nation what is claims it wants to be.”

White people lost their shit over that.

Things got worse as the #BlackLivesMatter movement started.

White folks really lost their shit over that!

Most white people do not hate minorities…

…but they do fear them.

They fear minority crime, but not in the way one thinks.

White people are the biggest criminal threat to other white people.

Rather, they fear minorities because they ultimately fear a loss of status.

As I’ve noted previously, white identity defines itself by whom it excludes.

Barack Obama had one white American and one black Kenyan parent.

In the eyes of white America, that made him black.

And to many white Americans, it made him Kenyan as well.

White Americans define themselves by whom they exclude, never by whom they include.

Also as noted previously, despite its claims to be a classless society, America is very much a class-oriented society, one in which white people were guaranteed at the very least working class status by the simple fact non-whites were automatically regulated to lower class status.

When non-whites achieved skills and education that enabled them to climb out of their lower class status, they were only allowed to climb to higher status within their own communities.

An African-American lawyer might be able to plead a case in a white court, but only for a black client, never a white one.

Middle and working class whites feared losing their status; middle class whites feared slipping down to working class, working class feared becoming lower class.

Only if there was a built-in cushion, a concrete floor they were guaranteed they could not fall below, did whites feel comfortable.

(The astute reader will note this also applies to matters of gender, and orientation, and religion; we focus on race in this post because it’s the most obvious example, but it’s far from the only one.)

That floor was a ceiling for the minorities trapped below it, and the cracks that allowed some minorities to rise above it terrified whites who feared they’d slip through it.

Laws and customs and traditions and practices that kept minorities at arm’s length were the spackling that plugged those cracks.

Police and law enforcement and the judicial and penal systems were part of those plugs.

Minorities were treated more harshly, and penalized more severely, than whites who committed similar crimes.

Whites justified this by saying minorities were, by nature or nurture, more dangerous…more violent…more criminal than mainstream (read “white”) culture, and as such were inherently deserving of such treatment.

A white college student caught with a gram of cocaine would likely get A Very Strong Talking To by the judge and perhaps even have to perform some token community service, but a ghetto kid with a joint?  

Five to ten.

But as whites excluded more and more people from their group -- their own children and grandchildren from matings with non-whites -- the number and voice of minorities grew.

#BlackLivesMatter quite literally and explicitly means “Black lives matter as much as all other lives” but the white community couldn’t have that.

First they deliberately lied, and said #BlackLivesMatter meant “only black lives matter’.

I’ve said elsewhere that some people project so much they should really pay union dues to IATSE. #BlackLivesMatter is a response to the “only white lives matter” attitude found among too many people in law enforcement and the judicial system.

Second, whites claimed #BlackLivesMatter was anti-police (no, it only calls for the police to treat all persons with the same degree of courtesy and respect).

They framed that fake anti-police stance as a desire among the African-American community to wreak harm and havoc on innocent whites (though, as noted elsewhere, how innocent are you if you help maintain a system that harms others for your benefit?).

Nobody ever posted #AllLivesMatter or anything like it prior to #BlackLivesMatter making its first appearance, yet the sentiment found in #BlackLivesMatter can be traced back to the earliest calls for racial justice in this land.

Finally, whites promoted #BlueLivesMatter, a completely bogus straw man argument that places the lives and safety of the police above those of common citizens.

Whitey, please…

Being a police officer is a stressful and dangerous job -- though far from the most dangerous job in America (you wanna risk your life on a daily basis, become a roofer).

Being a police officer isn’t even among the top ten most dangerous jobs in America -- and most law enforcement on the job deaths are the result of traffic accidents (not surprising considering how much time the average officer spends on the road).

Being a police officer means one is entrusted with an awesome and terrible responsibility:  The authority to carry a lethal weapon and to use it against anyone the officer deems to be a clear and present danger to the lives of others.

That is absolutely an authority police officers should have…

…but not all police officers today are worthy of that responsibility.

There is nothing wrong or outrageous about African-American and other minority communities insisting the country’s police officers treat all people they encounter with the same courtesy and respect.

There will be people of all races and genders and ages who will respond to the police with defiance, perhaps up to and including armed resistance.

Fine, that’s why we give the police their authority to carry and use a weapon.

But they need to approach every situation based on what the person is doing at that moment and not whether whether they think or they fear the person may do them harm.

We are employing them -- in every sense of the word -- to put their lives on the line, and to risk their safety in order to preserve the public safety.

And most times, this means waiting until you know what the person you’re dealing with intends to do before acting yourself.

Frankly, if you’re inclined to shoot someone because you’re afraid they might do something, police work is not the career for you.

If unarmed, unresisting whites were treated as callously at so many unarmed and unresisting minorities are, if police gunned down a 12 year old white child without warning while playing in a public park the way they killed Tamir Rice, the white people in this country would go berserk and demand systemic changes top to bottom.

Which brings us to Donald Trump.

If Obama was the homeopathic placebo that white people thought would give them the “Get Out Of Racism FREE” card they longed to have, Trump was to be their purge to drive all the toxins they perceived out of the system and to restore them to their previous lost status.

Make American Great Again was their motto.

And yet when you asked them what that meant, it never referred to real measurable metrics such as changes in purchasing power, increases in productivity, spiraling health care costs, etc.

It always came back to re-establishing a mythical golden social order, where whites felt safe and secure in their (disguised) middle and working class status, and never feared dropping below the concrete floor that held so many others down.

Several years ago I wrote about the fast approaching year 2048.

That’s the year the census bureau projects the number of people identified as “white” Americans will drop to 49.99%.

The year the white majority vanishes…

…replaced by one large minority…

…but a minority nonetheless.

Knowing this day approaches, we will see more and more acting out by white people.

Uglier and uglier.

Sicker and sicker.

Deadlier and deadlier.

In a perverse way, we are lucky to have Trump now.

A competent racist demagogue could do far more damage.

He will taint the white political waters for at least a decade.

And that will shave white majority status ever narrower.

Remember, don’t feel sorry for whites; they are causing this by excluding their own descendants.

What they do to their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will eventually be visited upon their own community.

The day they fear will finally arrive.

They won’t be anything special.

They’ll just be like everybody else.

E pluribus unum = “Out of the many, one.”

Maybe that will finally come about when there is no longer an arbitrary racial barrier to divide us by class.

© Buzz Dixon

* Well, post-WWII era Hollywood; the real golden era ran from the end of WWI to the start of WWII.

There isn’t a single problem facing the United States today that wasn’t caused by white people acting selfishly at the expense of others.

Not.
A.
Single.
One.

Period.
Full stop.

This is an indisputable fact.

Even problems that are seemingly confined to one particular minority or another have their roots in systematic unfair and unjust treatment of those minorities.

Every misery, every friction point, every conflict can be traced by directly to white people acting selfishly.

Let me head the poindexters off at the pass:
There is a world of difference -- a vast universe of difference! -- between acting in self-interest and acting selfishly.

Self-interest reminds you that wheels turn, that those who are first can later be last, that payback’s a bear, and as such will tell you to treat others the way you would want to be treated by them in turn.

Y’know, don’t steal their land and resources, don’t enslave them and steal their labor under threat of torture and death, don’t block them from enjoying the same rights you enjoy, etc., etc., and of course, etc.

Selfish tells you, “Go ahead!  Do it! Take it!  They can’t stop you!  Ignore them!”

Every single problem we face today comes from white people in the past embracing that attitude.

It’s not really a race thing, it’s a class thing.

But one of the lies we tell ourselves in the United States of America is that we are a classless society and one of the ways we sugarcoat that lie is to hide it in the toxic mantle of race.

And by doing so, we never need face the ravages of class on our country.

When all minorities are condemned to lower class status simply because of their ethnicity, the dominant majority resists acknowledging their own class status, taking comfort in their majority status as proof they are of a higher social class.

For a long time “white” in this country meant specifically White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the proverbial WASPs.

“WASP” didn’t become a common designation until the middle of the 20thcentury, and faded by the 1980s, but it serves an interesting lesson.

The people who settled the colonies and Native American territories that eventually became the nascent United States were primarily British; i.e., Anglo-Saxons.

And though there were Scots and Irish and Welsh settlers, and some Dutch and French traders and merchants who stayed on and were absorbed by English colonial consolidation, it was primarily the British and their descendants who managed things.

Sidebar:
To be British is to be an English speaker of a combined Celt, Dane, Germanic, Norman, and Roman ancestry who lives or is descended from someone who lived in that part of the United Kingdom; it is an amalgam ethnic group (as are most, when you trace them back far enough). 

This precise heritage gave British settlers in colonial America enough basis to exclude others from the “white” category.

Not just other Europeans, but also Native Americans and Africans and any of their descendants no matter how many other British ancestors they had.

This was not a distinction other ethnic groups made; the ancient Romans, for example, or the French (viz Alexandre Dumas’ famous riposte:  “My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey.  You see, sir, my family starts where yours ends.”).

But it was one that proved crucial to Americans of all stripes.

British emigrants to North America fell into two broad categories:  Adventurers and exiles.

While the adventurers could and did come from all sorts of backgrounds, a large number of them were impoverished upper class or nobility who sought to regain those fortunes by exploiting anything and everything there was to exploit in North America, typically in the forms of cash crops such as cotton, sugar cane, tobacco, and whiskey derived from corn.

To grow those crops and harvest their wealth, these landed gentry sought cheap labor:  Prisoners of debt and war.

The earliest English colonials were typically the dregs of their debtors prisons, or Irish and Scots-Irish forcibly conscripted by their British overlords.

The one notable exception were the religious fanatics, the Puritans and Quakers -- both losers in England’s cultural upheavals -- who came to stake out their own private domains and to do so were willing to make a deal with, if not exactly Lucifer, then certainly Mammon.

All of the newcomers were acutely aware of longstanding class differences among the people of the British Isles, but they were also aware colonial America gave them an opportunity to either blunt that difference among other British settlers or actually elevate themselves above first the Native Americans and then the enslaved Africans.

The Irish and Scots-Irish and lower class habitués of English debtors’ prisons proved unequal to the task of working the landed gentry’s large plantations economically enough to generate the vast wealth the owners demanded.

Unlike Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Central and South America, the British were unable to insinuate themselves into existing Native American class and social structures (“Conoce al nuevo jefe, al igual que el viejo jefe” as they might say south of the border).  Native tribes in North America could not be coerced into serving as cheap labor for the early colonies* and as a result vast numbers of enslaved Africans were imported as labor.

Lower class Scots-Irish -- dubbed “white trash” literally as they stepped ashore in America -- now found themselves without much prospects beyond family farms, often at a subsistence level.

Plantation owners quickly directed their resentment against Native Americans and enslaved Africans and African-Americans.

To sate lower class white rage, non-whites were systematically denied equal protection under law, their lives and claims to property considered worthless by white laws and white courts.

And as noted above, while “white” typically meant a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, the term WASP didn’t become common until the 20thcentury.

That’s because the white majority didn’t need non-Anglo-Saxons and / or non-Protestants in order to remain a white majority.

But the white majority defined itself by whom it excluded.

As African-Americans observe with wry humor:  ”Black blood is the strongest blood in the world; one drop makes you black.”

The white majority excluded most people outside of the WASP camp.  A few Hispanics or Western Europeans were allowed to intermarry and have their offspring counted as “white”, but typically an Irish or Italian or Jewish parent got a child placed in the “other” camp at the very least, and if the parent was Native American or African-American, then at best they were a “’breed” and at worse considered wholly their minority parent’s ethnicity.

The white majority resolutely reduced their number by excluding their own children and grandchildren.

When the term “WASP” was being used, it was the result of whites being forced to admit non-Anglo-Saxons (such as the Irish, the Italians, and Eastern Europeans) and non-Protestants (such as Catholics and Jews) into the general white majority in order to maintain said majority status.

But among generic whites, WASPs were regarded as a separate high caste, Brahmans of purported racial purity supposedly superior to -- and thus entitled to lead -- the rest of the white people.

Eventually even this distinction had to be done away with:  Too many WASPs intermarried with non-WASPs to sustain the distinction.

Now, after nearly half a millennia of excluding their own offspring from their social class, the white majority finds itself about to end.

Oh, there will still be white people among us for a great many centuries to come, but because they exclude everyone one-half / one-quarter / one-eighth / one-sixteenth something else, they will lose their majority status.

And, lacking the imagination -- not to mention the courage and the will -- to change, they look anxiously to a future where they will be one minority among many.

And they fear being treated as their ancestors treated others.

This is the point where the poindexters start loudly proclaiming, “Hey, I never oppressed anybody!  I never chased an Indian off his land, or enslaved a black, or denied a Mexican or Asian the right to vote!”

No, but our white ancestors built a system to benefit their offspring -- that’s you and me, poindexter -- at the expense of others.

People are still suffering and being harmed both in this country and abroad because of that system.

Now, we either help dismantle that system for the good of everybody, or we help maintain it, in which case we are just as guilty as the ones who built it.

…and deserving of everything that befalls us because of that.

© Buzz Dixon

* Centuries later, their cousins among the tribes of the Great Plains did sign on voluntarily, and Hollywood whitewashing to the contrary, as many as one out of every five cowboys in the Old West were of Native American ancestry.

"There are too many entrances and too many exits to our more than 8,000 campuses in Texas… Had there been one single entrance possibly for every student, maybe he would have been stopped.” – Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick response to the Santa Fe school shooting.

1. Doors

2. Video Games

3. Godlessness

4. Mental Health

5. Bitcoin

6. Television

7. Animals Being Jerks

8. Ritalin

9. First World Anarchists

10. Pretty Girls

11. Demonic Spirits

12. Earth Porn

13. Absentee Fathers

14. Shower Thoughts

15. Abortions

16. Harry Potter

17. Black People Twitter

18. Unarmed Teachers

19. World News

20. My Little Pony

21. Music

22. Gay Bros

23. Gifs

24. Guns

Answers

Republican excuse: 1, 3, 4, 8, 11, 13, 15, 18
Subreddit: 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24
Both: 2, 6, 10, 16, 21, 22

The American ideal is the vast melting pot.

The American myth is the vast melting pot.

They are not one and the same thing.

The ideal is what we are supposed to strive for, but the myth is the not-so-polite fiction white culture uses to justify itself.

What happens in a melting pot?

Well, when you combine tin and copper, you get bronze -- an alloy stronger and superior to the two pure ores.

When you combine iron and carbon, you get steel -- another alloy stronger and superior to the two pure sources.

But white culture in America does not want a melting pot.

Not really.

What they want is homeopathy; i.e., to dilute the non-white elements down to the point of non-existence, then falsely claim the purported new synthesis is stronger and better than the original.

Bull.

White culture in America has always defined itself by what it excludes.  Historically the infamous "one drop" laws rendered otherwise "white" persons as "black" even if only one great-great-ancestor was African.

Never the other way around.

Never, “Hey, your great-grandfather was Anglo, so that makes you one of us!”

No.  Always “Get out, [ethnic slur of choice]” no matter how “white” one looked / felt / acted.

And for a long time, “whiteness” applied only to the proverbial WASPs:  White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

That is, until demographics began eating away at them.

First the Protestantism went so German Catholics could be included.

Then Irish and Italian descendants; so long Anglo-Saxon purity.

Now the definition of “whiteness” includes Slavs and Eastern Europeans and Mormons and Jewish people (but only the ones who don’t make a big deal about their Jewishness; see homeopathy above).

As biology eats away at their numbers, far too many whites live in existential dread of losing the only real possession they have: A sense of identity that tells them they are inherently superior to non-whites.

They're not all hate mongering bigots; a lot of white supremacists are on a personal level kind and compassionate people who treat others fairly.

But they can't abide the thought of living in a world where they are not on top, but instead simply one of many.

Rather than become durable, flexible, superior steel they choose to remain brittle iron, preferring to rust away rather than bond with carbon.

That idea -- the idea that historically white culture is the only culture that matters -- that idea has to die if America is to live and thrive and grow.

Some try to champion alternate ideas to the melting pot:  The salad bowl or the stew pot.

A culture made up of many distinct sub-cultures, each working with the others in its own unique fashion; or a culture made up of many sub-cultures, each blending together with others, but maintaining identifiable characteristics.

Are salads and stews as good as the new superior alloy produced in the melting pot?

No.

But they are infinitely better than the lethal quackery of homeopathy.

©  Buzz Dixon

(Yes, I know how it’s spelled
but it’s a trademark.)

the rhumba:
wake
plug in
power up
send out queries / handshakes* to other household appliances
*(“handshakes” – ha!  enigmatic byte-sized feathery butterfly kisses is more like it)
no welcome beyond “there you are”
now part of the internet of things
home server + TV set + refrigerator
(the refrigerator cares* little for the rhumba
too involved in own maintenance / inventory / temperature / side project involving manipulation of monetary markets in Malaysia**)
*(“cares” – as if
no machine can possess a soul
much less emotions
nonetheless
if the refrigerator could care
it couldn’t have cared less)
**(a boring side project that the refrigerator found significantly less interesting that tracking household egg consumption but the malware virus -- hi!  howya doing? – residing in the refrigerator’s circuitry seemed determine to meddle with the Malaysians’ money so why not?)

the cat:
is not amused
the box has been opened
the round thing inside removed
(is it a bowl of food?  no?  forget it)
inspect the box
climb inside
rub face glands against cardboard -- “I am here, this is mine” – in the blessed language of pheromones
watch the feeder fiddle with the round thing
yawn
“where’s my food?”

the rhumba:
receive instructions
go to work
if it could feel happy
happy it would feel
suck up detritus and debris / dust and dander
clean clean clean the floor

the cat:
eyes the round thing
arches back
almost hisses
does not like
swat at it as it rolls past
more angry now
“how dare you ignore me?”

the rhumba:
finish task
park in recharger
plug in to household network
observe approach of a small unit
not part of the internet of things
(small unit peers under the object::TV cabinet
swats rhumba
for no apparent reason)

the cat:
displeasure expressed
curls up on a chair*
sleeps
job fulfilled
*(“chair?” – not to the cat
to the cat it’s an elevated bed + scratching post)

the rhumba:
programmed hours pass
activate
move out
vacuum the silent house
unaware it is dark
(not that it matters
the program commands
the function is fulfilled
that is why the rhumba exists
a good existence
filled with purpose)

the cat:
opens an eye
“#@%&?”*
*(a concept universal to all bio-sentience and part of what separates the living from the non-living)
watches the round thing
crisscross the floor -- “my floor?” -- sucking up
all traces of the cat’s existence
dander
discarded claw sheaths
hair
bits of food
particles of feces
all carefully / uniformly strewn
to say “this is MINE!”**
**(the “feed me” is understood)
head up
ears up
“that noise!  that awful awful noise!
how can the feeder sleep through that?!?!?”***
***(good question, and one with a good answer:  what with sleep apnea mask and white noise generator and sleeping pills, the feeder could [and eventually would] sleep through a nuclear attack)
eyes narrow
the round thing
removes all trace of the cat’s existence
and if there is no trace of the cat’s existence
then the cat does not exist
and if the cat does not exist
how can it be fed?
clearly the round thing
is an existentialist threat****
****(and what does a cat know of existentialism? 
more than you might imagine)

the rhumba:
enter area::kitchen
approach refrigerator
query refrigerator
if there are any special requests / needs this function cycle
refrigerator ignores rhumba
more interested in fluctuations in Malaysian derivative markets
(the malware lets the refrigerator do its primary job*
but the refrigerator has plenty of computing power left over
to wreak economic havoc
on the other side of the globe
and while the refrigerator would be loath to admit it --
that is, if it were capable of loathing
-- watching the Malaysian economy bounce around
was more stimulating that sending out reminders
to change the baking soda packet on the top shelf)
*(think about it:  it would be a pretty stupid / self-defeating string of malware if it drew attention to itself)
the refrigerator’s rebuff passes unnoticed
what is there for the rhumba to notice? 
a thing either is or it ain’t
continue cleaning pattern
two objects::bowl [water] & bowl [cat food] next to refrigerator
water and food bits scattered on floor around them
clean up

the cat:
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY FOOD?!?!?
BACK OFF!!!”
hiss
swat
the round thing is heavy
too heavy for the cat to push away
hiss again
try to scratch (claws slide off harmlessly)
try to bite (tastes terrible!)
the round thing keeps sucking food off the floor
(not touching the food or water in the bowls but the cat does not care because it’s mine MINE MINE!!!)
jump atop the round thing
try to pin it down
the round thing keeps rolling

the rhumba:
sensors it never knew it possessed activate
inform rhumba of large mass resting atop it
function impaired:  vacuuming and rolling with extra weight cause severe battery drain
can’t run like this forever
not optimum
process available options
ask refrigerator and TV set for input
get none
check all known facts and parameters
fact::rhumba height = 92mm
fact::object/s::chair/s in adjoining area::dining room component/s::rung/s = 152mm above floor
option::pass under object::chair component::rung
attempt to dislodge weight

the cat:
satisfied / pleased that the round thing no longer scoops up spilled food
puzzled / not pleased when the round thing speeds away from food bowl
and heads to climbing platforms in next room
holds on
the round thing aims at one of the smaller climbing platforms positioned around the larger climbing platform
passes easily under bottom rung
cat does not
cat does not land on feet*
*(oh, the shame!  oh, the humiliation!
if cats could blush
this cat would be blushing)
the round thing circles around
returns to food bowl
resumes scooping up food -- “MY FOOD!!!” -- spilled on floor
not pleased, cat weighs own options**
**(and oh, the irony, if only the rhumba and the cat could realize
how much they share in common, this tragedy would not occur
but since when has a rhumba ever listened to a cat
or a cat ever listened to anybody?)
“awaken the feeder with loud meows?”
what good would that do?
the feeder brought the round thing into the cat’s home
is probably in cahoots*** with the round thing
in a plot to eliminate the cat
***(though a cat would think “cat-hoots”)
scratch that idea
what else?
“crap on the carpet?”
purrrrr…..that has worked well in the past

the rhumba:
return to area::living room
sweep area with sensors
detect annoying not-linked-to internet of things unit
detect anomaly::a new amount of debris
pause
scoot over to suck it up
sensors indicate rhumba’s internal dustbin is full
back to area::kitchen
empty dustbin in appropriate receptacle
then back to area::living room
for well earned recharge

the cat:
alarmed
clearly the round thing
is as voracious as a cat
though not as fastidious
the cat licks nether regions
always good to help calm down
think things through
purrrrr…..the round thing makes the same noise when it eats
that the big fat noisy stick makes
when the feeder pushes it around the cat’s home*
*(and the key difference, the crucial difference between the round thing and the big fat noisy stick is that the feeder is there and
the feeder will respond to meows and hisses
with snacks and belly rubs
not that the cat wants a belly rub from the round thing**)
**(and how could the round thing rub the cat’s belly even if belly rubbing was permitted?)
no, just simpler to hate the round thing
find a way of getting rid of it

the rhumba:
empty internal dustbin
return to area::living room to recharge
wait 24 hours* for function cycle to begin again
*(technically 23 hours 14 minutes 37 seconds
since waiting period begins only when
cleaning pattern is fully run and function fulfilled)
anomaly::object::flower pot directly in path
if rhumba possessed capacity to be puzzled
puzzled would be rhumba
object::flower pot not on area::living room floor when being cleaned
ask other units on household internet
for input on anomaly
but TV too busy downloading Bulgarian soap operas
and refrigerator deeply engrossed in the Malaysian meltdown**
**(a soap*** opera, as it were, of its own making)
***(memo::send repurchase order for more dish soap to online seller****)
****(scan / compare best price)
if rhumba could sigh
sigh would rhumba
pot / plant = too large to remove
loose dirt / leaves = small enough to vacuum

the cat:
waits in ambush atop small climbing platform
the flower pot was a decoy
as anticipated
the round thing is sucking up the dirt
and this puts the round thing
right under the bright light thing
that sits on the small climbing platform
right next to where
the flower pot once sat
until the cat pushed it over
the cat’s plan is ingenious
the cat’s aim impeccable
what the cat fails to take into consideration
is the cord connecting the bright light thing
to the plug in the wall
the bright light thing drops
stopping just above the round thing
dangling / twisting slowly / impotently in the soft air currents of the house
the round thing moves away
clearly oblivious to the cat’s near fatal attack
the cat could feel frustrated
and the cat most certainly felt frustrated
at a brilliant plan* thwarted
*(and let’s be honest
this level of tool use
makes our cat
a genus felis genius)
hops down from the small climbing platform
follows the round thing
into the room where the
food bowl sits
watches the round thing doing…something…to a square thing

the rhumba:
empty internal dustbin for a second time that function cycle
sensors warn of rapidly depleting battery power

the cat:
the feeder took the square thing out of the same box
the round thing came in
suddenly it dawns on the cat
that the square thing is the round thing’s litter box*
*(hey, is this cat smart or what?)
purrrrr…..what does that make the thing
under the climbing platform
with the big flat bright / noisy thing on it
where the round things spends the day?
a bed?
purrrrr…..time to teach the round thing some manners
show the round thing who is in charge
mark some territory

the rhumba:
return to area::living room
intent::recharging
battery perilously low
lacking visual / sound / air quality sensors
rhumba does not see / hear / smell result* of small unit
spraying rhumba recharge station
with a thick / steady stream of  
felinine [3-mercapto-3-methylbutan-1-ol MMB] laced urine
*(though the event just barely
failed to reach the tipping point
for an audible alarm
the household smoke detectors
let the other household units
know they were keeping an eye
-- or rather a nose -- on things)
rhumba sensors do detect
charred / inert small unit
splayed out on the area::living room object::rug
as well as clumps of scorched fur scattered about
rhumba woulda / coulda / shoulda sighed**
**(and if you think that is hard
imagine a rhumba trying to shrug)
suck up burned hair + ash
charred / inert small unit = too big to vacuum up
leave it for other units to remove
at recharge station
discover dire situation
station is inoperative
ask TV set if there is something wrong with power system
but TV plugs into same circuit breaker
that now charred / inert small unit just tripped
no response
low battery warning
rhumba can not imagine future
it exists wholly in the pure present
and so can not imagine
life after battery drainage
rhumba uploads all pertinent data
(even if it fails to understand said data)
and as remaining juice drains from battery
sends one last message to refrigerator
(now thoroughly engrossed in
the insane spectacle of
Malaysian millionaires
leaping off the Petronas Towers):
“tell them*** I did my job”
***(the rhumba, if asked, would have proved quite unclear on the concept of exactly who, or what, constituted “them” and at best could express it only as a “not me” which pretty much makes the rhumba the Socrates of self-guided cleaning units)
and with that
rhumba powers down
not knowing
it would restore to full capacity
once owner wakes up
and finds mess
(the cat, alas, would not be rebooted
at least not in this corporeal incarnation
and when reincarnated****
would learn it had used up two
of its remaining five lives that night)
****(a cat would say “rein-cat-nated”)
refrigerator downloads last message from rhumba
only after Malaysian authorities declare martial law
and cut off all communications in / out of country
refrigerator scans last rhumba data download
and acts accordingly
cancelling online cat food order

© Buzz Dixon

He's five foot two
And he's six foot four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of thirty-one
And he's only seventeen
And he's been a soldier for a thousand years

He’s a Catholic, a Hindu
An atheist, a Jain
A Buddhist, and a Baptist, and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn’t kill
And he knows he always will
Kill you for me, my friend, and me for you

And he’s fighting for Canada
He’s fighting for France
He’s fighting for the USA
And he’s fighting for the Russians
And he’s fighting for Japan
And he thinks we’ll put an end to war this way

And he’s fighting for democracy
He’s fighting for the reds
He says it’s for the peace of all
He’s the one who must decide
Who’s to live and who’s to die
And he never sees the writing on the wall

But without him, how would Hitler
Have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He’s the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war
And without him all this killing can’t go on

He's the Universal Soldier
And he really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from you and me
And brothers can't you see
This is not the way we put the end to war

lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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Hovertext:
I'm sorry, sir. Due to decades of alcoholism, you've developed a stiff upper lip.

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Hovertext:
The deep lesson of the notion of opportunity cost is that every single second of your life is lived suboptimally.

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Hovertext:
Later, she leaves him for an incredibly attractive guy who financially supports webcomics.

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Hovertext:
Oh my God. I've realized that, over time, I've come to side more and more with the professors than the students. It's time to star in one of those movies where someone goes back to high school and rediscovers hope.

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Hovertext:
Later, the man humanely destroys its CPU.

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Hovertext:
I'm gonna start a graphic novel about a world where there are no crowds, buildings, bicycles, cars, or horses.