Alcan

This entertaining movie is more for men who have sweated and wept for gaskets and washers misplaced and bearings that fail. There is a training school for mechanics but most mechanics don't go there. We learn the hard way and then put ourselves in positions where the precarious balance of safety and goals becomes blurred. There is a process to rebuilding something but it's rare to get it perfect...and in Hess's case I'd say it's not even realistic because he chose the worst vehicle in the most remote location to bring back to life. Plans like this usually fail not because of the determination but because the money becomes staggering. And if you have the money to throw away on some crazy plan then you wouldn't have the crazy plan to begin with.

One need not remind me that Hess has some qualities that Oggy might display from time to time. But the real similarities are sort of in the experience. I asked a filmmaker in San Francisco to follow me to Ellesmere Island and this documentary is sort of what he would've ended up with...had we survived. I have mixed feelings that no one was interested in filming the Arctic Wolf Quest of 2009-2011. I think I would've found a way to keep going North from Happy Valley and that's when it would've been in a dangerous realm. You can't show up in Nain without an escape plan. Lacking any kind of team mentality I couldn't look at those thousands of kilometers of north arctic coastline and open water to Baffin Island and then the unlikely scenario of a research vessel or crab boat would take me further...and proceed with plaid bell bottom pants and a few Canadian dollars and a story about being sent back from the future. But with a camera man filming I would've kept going, abandoned my van, set out on foot, something ludicrous and probably fatal. So, I'm alive today but I wonder if the trip to Ellesmere Island would've been heroic or another gimmick in the failed environmental movement. It would've been interesting as it would've required a long boat journey and probably a longer ride in a medical evacuation helicopter...maybe international news: "Homeless Man Rescued Off Coast of Ellesmere Island. Tells Tales of Time Travel, Wolves, Starvation, Apocalypse."

The movie also brings back memories of the Alcan Highway...remote wilderness, weeks of driving or hitchhiking, desperation, feeling close to death. I had separated both shoulders somewhere in Montana and kept going, walking like a double amputee. In The Yukon Territory I could no longer walk without a crutch and when I sneezed I fell down from double groin tears. The trip had broken me but there was no turning back...no cars on the highway in either direction...6 days waiting for a ride with $3 in my wallet. Resigned to death.

End of Privacy

It seems America has taken a page from every Fascist dictatorship in history with the argument that it's permissible to spy on and invade whomever we choose because of national security. I'm puzzled that so much interception of data was ongoing but no one seemed to know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. What's their excuse for that fuck up? You can't pretend every effort wasn't made to know when Hussein was taking a shit...so how did you not know there was no arsenal of weapons in Iraq? Either you suck as a spy or you knew there was nothing there but the Bush agenda demanded you say nothing. Well, I recall Powell lying with a straight face that he recommended an invasion. When you have drug addicted voters and secretive government and lying presidents then you don't have a democracy. You can argue that fascism is safer than democracy and therefore preferable, but you can't argue that democracy includes widespread deceit by the elected. Someone on my banned news site said it best, "We shouldn't be worried that Snowden released information, we should be worried that he's the only one who thought the NSA's conduct was wrong."

In other news: Facebook is allowing videos showing people being decapitated to be posted and shared on its site once again. What more could I expect from an autistic CEO?*

The experiment continues into how fucked up we can make our children...as though we haven't reached rock bottom.

Really, how could you trust an adult if you were 12 years old and knew that older people really didn't care what you smoked, ate, watched, or learned? We are teaching kids to disrespect us because we have no limits or restraint. A kid can not be spanked because it's child abuse...but he can watch a woman beheaded on Facebook and buy smakable special K scooby snacks and watch Hannah Montana gang raped on MTV. <irony>Ok, that's not a contradiction.</irony> Kids are the best at spotting contradictions but when they get so industrialized and routine the kids stop pointing them out. Why bother? They try to fit in to a social structure that is a total disaster...and then wonder why India is taking all our jobs. A 12 year old American will be very lucky to get a job scrubbing clothes in 20 years. They sense it so they are behaving like I would, fuck it all, do what I want, let the blood flow. Chief Seattle, where are you to guide us? Dead. Murdered to make way for Six Flags cotton candy stands. Awful.

*I'm all for freedom of speech, which in this case means the freedom for criminals to create their own internet network from scratch, launch satellites, manufacture digital cameras and go ahead and post their beheading videos. Go for it. I won't stand in your way. But when AT&T , Google and Facebook snuggle up in bed with Mexican mafia home movie network THAT ISN'T FREE SPEECH. It's Aiding and Abetting The Murderers, which isn't in our constitution.....yet.