The Day The Oil Stopped Burning: Chapter 2, D.C. A visit from afar

Chapter 2:

Ron Smith was in the office of The Environmental Alliance Group (EAG) at the corner of K street and Capitol in Washington D.C. "Where the hell is Saffell" he yelled at ear piercing volume. "Sir, I believe he has taken a leave of absents and headed to someplace in Michigan" answered a twenty two year old intern named Sam Marley. “what the fuck, everybody around here just takes off whenever they feel like it? Gee, did it ever occur to anybody that we have a fucking emergency going on around here? I'm really, really not in the mood to singlehandedly save the whole fucking world at the moment..... Like, maybe I could use a little bit of help....would that be TOO much to ask........would it"?.." Michigan, what the hell is he doing in Michigan? I thought we were through clearing up after those shit head auto industry guys ten years ago? Don't we have all that UAW bull shit out of the way? I thought We finally got Ford, GM, and all the rust belt Japs and Korians on board with new tech years ago. I thought they were all retooled and in full swing with the no Co2 thing"? "I believe you are correct with all that sir, however, I believe Jack is nowhere near the Detroit area", Answered Marley. It had long been assumed by anyone that was not from the mid west that the term "Michigan" meant "Detroit" or at least that south east corner of the state that made up the old industrial rust belt corridor that had churned out millions of cars and trucks during the last one hundred and thirty years. It was beyond the imagination of an east or west coaster that only five percent of Michigan was an industrial waist land and that the rest of the state was really quite nice. In fact, few people realized that the northern half of the state was quite possibly one of the most beautiful places on earth.

“Well, I don't give a shit where he is....get his fucking lazy ass back here! We’ve got a disaster brewing here". "On it sir" Marley barked.

Sam Marley had actually been frantically trying to contact Jack for two days now and he had absolutely no idea how to get in touch with him. Since the turn of the century, the world had become much smaller and flatter and these days if a person wanted to, he could stay in communication just about anywhere. The problem was if someone didn't want to stay in communication they could still go incognito. A lot of the current PE (post egghead) generation as they were known, had location devices implanted as part of a total brain-nerve system enhancement along with nano sized chips for increased data storage, faster computation speed and so on. In the sixteen years since egghead technology introduction, this and other enhancement procedures had become the rage and there were big bucks to be made from the guys who got in on the ground floor. The "location feature" was a big money maker since it was old technology, dirt cheap stuff and an easy sell to parents who were getting their kids enhanced because they would always know where their kids were, and the poor kids couldn't turn it off.

Sam was glad to have avoided that particular unpleasant embarrassment of youth but figured that at the present rate of achievement by the first PE generation kids who were just turning 14, fooling one's parents was going to be child's play..... He chuckled at his own pun and pondered what things would be like in a few short years when everyone under 25 would twice as smart as everyone over 25.

He swung into the office of Jane Keen who was the office manager and always pretended to be just a receptionist and secretary, but who in reality knew more about everything that was going on in their office (and D.C. in general) than almost anyone else. "Hi Jane, know how I can get a hold of Jack". "Not unless he wants you to....boss blowing a gasket?" Jane replied. "What's that mean anyway....blowing a gasket". It occurred to Jane that at twenty two years old, he had been only six years old when the last gas powered internal combustion engine was in general commercial use and that not knowing what a gasket was did not seem that odd. "Oh, just an old fashion way of saying he's throwing a shit fit ".”We'll, if I don't get Jack Saffell back to this office, I'm going to be buried in it".

Sam caught the Metro over to Jack's D.C. Apartment. Jack had a couple of handprints programmed into the security system in case of emergency and Sam's was one of them. Sam had only been with the organization for eight months as an intern but Jack, gifted with super acute perception, found that he could trust Sam, and trust was a rare commodity in the world of politics. Sam had no sooner turned on jacks residential data systems when he sensed a message. It was personalized to Sam's brain frequency and coded so Sam touching his temple made a copy to decipher later. Neuroscience and recent reverse engineering of the human brain had reviled a certain brain wave frequency that was as unique as a human fingerprint. A nano sized microchip had been developed which was implantable into ones temple and could utilize their personal frequency as somewhat of a phone number or email address. This procedure was basically like getting ones ear pierced and was FDA approved at any AT&T, Apple or Verizon retail outlet. Also while not anything like the surgically enhanced, it did add a couple thousand gig memory and boost the regular calculations per second brain capacity by about ten times. It was possible to personalize digital messages as well as communications to someone's personal brain frequency. Basically, people now had everything a smart phone did plus a hundred times more data and storage plus a unique access code in a microscopic chip emplaned in their scull.

Sam entered his apartment and imminently went for his data control station and downloaded Jack's message. "Hey Sammy here is the deal. I had to get outta dodge ...like now man! Sorry I couldn't fill you guys in but there was not much opportunity before I needed to vaminous. I got a visit from some PPPEP types who were not intending to take me dancing if you catch my drift. Anyway, I guess the intention was to make me nervous, but I didn't need my ESP to realize that these guys would just as soon put me in the big sleep as look at me. I figured I had better chill for a while and figure out our next move instead of ending up dead. If you are actually listening to this than the shit must be hitting the fan. Not many people know where I am but if you really have a meltdown going on than you can contact me by using my personal frequency response code and leaving a message, I'll know it's you and I will get a hold of you ASAP". Sam immediately followed Jack's instructions. "Hey Jack, it's Sam, I really need you to call me. Ron is freaking out and the shit is really hitting the fan. I'm not totally up on what's going on, above my pay grade I guess, but Ron wants you here big time."

Ron Smith was Jacks boss at The Environmental Alliance Group which was basically a Washington D.C. think tank that did environmental research and represented various environmental and scientific interests. They had always maintained a strong Government relations department and Jack with his high intelligence and keen instincts had long since proven to be their most valuable asset. Ron was a totally animated over the top kind of guy who pretty much exaggerated everything out of proportion. He also happened to be very smart and extremely good at his job, which basically consisted of making people agree with him. Jack was the antithesis of Ron being of somewhat calm demeanor and they made a killer team. They could play "good cop bad cop" on most any legislator and usually get their way......Or at least walk away with some sort of compromise situation, which was a victory in D.C. terms. Ron was seventy seven years old and had been in the political game in one form or another since he graduated from Harvard law school in 1982. Along the way he had gotten degrees in economics, political science (which he always considered oxymoronic) environmental engineering and an MBA. He had lived in D.C. Since Ronald Reagan was President and knew every single soul in the entire city. Ron was known as a straight shooter and generally played by the rules, however it was universally accepted that you did not want Ron Smith pissed off at you. Jack had accepted a job offer from EAG right out of U of M grad school mostly because of Ron. He had worked in the Reagan administration as an environmental advisor, spent four years on president Clinton's counsel of economic advisors, worked as a political lobbyist for major oil interests and started several major heavy weight D.C. Consulting firms. At the start of the new millennium Ron spent several years involved in research studying the effects of climate change. Considering that Ron's expertise included macro economic and political behavior including environmental impact, this research defiantly got his attention. The more he learned the more concerned he became until finally all his effort and resource became concentrated on the single cause of mitigating the damage he knew was happening as a result of vast carbon dioxide emission. It's not like he cared to play the blame game he just wanted to do whatever was possible to reverse, or at least lesson, the adverse consequences whether environmental, economical, or social. Up until the point that science began to recognize that a combination of burning fossil fuels, industrial scale agriculture, and global deforestation was causing a massive increase in Co2 in the atmosphere there really was no one to blame. After all, mankind had benefitted beyond imagination from the industrial revolution, and large scale agriculture. It is hard to blame a country or regional society for clearing land to produce lumber to sell and promote agriculture. The short term benefits to society in bolstering the economy and feeding it's citizens is hard to argue with, especially when weighted against some -might happen-in the future-supposed disaster- that may or may not happen due to global warming. Ron certainly understood that the blame, if you could call it that, was universal as well as immaterial. The important thing was that what was occurring now, be universal accepted, and that every measure be taken to reverse the process and mitigate the effects. This was where Ron saw plenty of blame and a vast assortment of villains. At the turn of the millennium trillions of dollars were at stake since just about every aspect of the economy of the developed world evolved around fossil fuels. Basically all our energy, transportation, industrial capacity, food production, and construction industries involved humongous consumption (burning) of fossil fuels in the form of coal, natural gas, or one of the various distillates of petroleum. Ron hardly expected these extremely powerful, very rich, and influential interests to just fold up shop and go away in the interest of averting environmental disaster sometime in the future. The irony that he once lobbied for and promoted the interests of the petroleum industry did not go unnoticed to Ron. In the next decade most conservative Republican lawmakers denied the validity of climate change and its disastrous consequences. Even in the beginning of the second decade of twenty first century the political will in the United States to effect any meaningful measures to ward off the eventual disastrous effects of continued Co2 emissions were pretty much nonexistent. In two thousand and ten Ron had formed the Environmental Alliance Group, a think tank for the research, study, and desimination of data involving all aspects of climate change. He started by funding a host of research projects and collecting data on the effects of climate change as well as exploring various alternative energy initiatives. Dr. Charles Watson PHD, a leading scientist and highly recognized expert in the field of climatology and environmental physics at MIT had been trying to increase awareness of the dangers to politicians, media, and the general public for at least ten years. He had followed the work of Ron Smith and when he learned of Ron's new organization he knew he had to be part of it. He had brought a half dozen researchers, scientists, and experts with him and in short order the EAG had become a formidable organization. Along with research and data accumulation they established a strong grass roots advocacy network and lobbying effort for climate change mitigation and other environmental interests. By 2032, The EAG was a global organization with several hundred of the absolute brightest minds in the world on its payroll. Jack had taken the job in late 2025 as a D.C. lobbyist and due to his extraordinary abilities he quickly became very close to Ron and Ron loved him like a son.

 

By the year 2016 most of the worlds scientific community accepted the fact that Co2 molecules per cubic centimeter in the atmosphere had doubled in the last hundred years and that it was causing a very real green house effect. They also realized that this global green house effect was heating up the planet. Most of the world population, including a preponderance of leaders and politicians from the developed nations agreed on these two things, but that was where the agreement ended. Most scientists believed that the increase in Co2 was man made the overwhelming evidence being polar ice core samples showing that atmospheric Co2 levels had been relatively constant for the past ten thousand years till a hundred years ago when the industrial revolution went into full swing and we burned everything in the ground to keep it going. They also seemed to agree that while no one could predict the ultimate outcome, the overall effect was going to be negative in every respect. The problem was that many political leaders were not on board with these two most important points. The reason of course, was money and lots of it. It was simply not in the U.S. industrial corporate interest to move away from the status quo and most politicians are loth to buck the system when money is involved.

 

Two thousand and sixteen was a monumental turning point in the history of the human race. On January 1, 2016 the entire world was shocked to learn that an alien intelligence had made its presents known to the leaders of the one hundred and ninety six independent countries in the world. This "first encounter" was was also experienced by the United Nations during its first ever Global Climate Change Conference. The one hundred and ninety three members of the United Nations in 2016 were all in attendance along with over a thousand of the worlds top scientists.

 

This encounter, while understandably making quite a global splash and pretty much occupying all news media for several weeks, still was not the kind of thing that had been portrayed in science fiction books and movies for years. There had not been the appearance of some "space ship", no big hub-bub over aliens landing, in fact there was very little disruption and the whole thing seemed rather anticlimactic. The "Eggheads" actually referred to themselves as ecohedanosphearic entities. They had literally outgrown their biological surroundings Trillions of years ago and were comprised of information and energy, at least that was the basic explanation within the constricts of our human understanding at the time. Their chosen method of communication with humanity was through human looking holographic entities that behaved and communicated exactly like humans but could materialize or dematerialize as needed. This in it self was an impressive trick and went a great distance in adding to the legitimacy of their message as well as validating that they were what they said they were. Hard to argue with a guy who can disappear and reappear at will. The first contact with them was experienced simultaneously throughout the world by world leaders, scientists, and all the ambassadors, staff and research teams attending the afore mentioned Global Climate Chance Conference and the message was clear.......stop burning fossil fuels! Earth had finally reached a turning point, which if passed, would be catastrophic and irreversible. Humanity had now been discussing climate change and fossil fuel consumption for twenty six years with no real substantive solution or change in behavior. The earths atmosphere simply could not withstand the continued Co2 build up and the negative consequences were creating a feed back loop that was ultamitly going to render earth uninhabitable.

Ron, Dr Watson, and half a dozen representatives from the EAG were attending the Global Climate Change Conference durning the first encounter. Unbeknownst to Ron and his team there was already a world wide freak out going on since at 0:00 GMT before the conference, the eggheads had momentarily interrupted all global government communications with a brief message announcing their intention to make contact with humanity at the afore mentioned conference and with the majority of world leaders at 12:00 GMT which was 08:00 EST in New York City, right when the GCCC was scheduled to commence. Needless to say, the pervious twelve hours had been a mixture of panic, confusion, fear, and anticipation among governments, militaries, and scientific communities around the world. Of course the major world powers, the U.S. included, were having a total, secret, massive melt down because something, somehow had hacked their most secured communication and information systems. Regardless of the message, government agencies, and especially the military, are predisposed to panic when they suspect they are under attack, so at this moment it was fair to say that the world powers were a bit on edge.

No sooner had Ron and his team taken their seats and the conference called to order than a group of three men were introduced at the protium. In hindsight Ron was surprised at how casual it all seemed. It was almost surreal that all the worlds leading diplomats and scientists were sitting and listening to aliens.....no panicking crowds running around screaming.....no utter calamities......just entities beyond our comprehension explaining the solutions to our carbon emissions problems in a calm nonchalant manner at the United Nations Global Climate Change Conference. Ron was equally surprised at his own reaction. The two major thoughts that ran through his head were ....."This is so fucking cool" ....and..."This changes EVERYTHING". The men addressed the conference for less than an hour; the message amounting to a list of bullet points that basically went like this:

 

* They are ecohedanosphearic entities; a highly evolved spices who's basic evolution started in a manner similar to that of Earth's. They have evolved over a time frame that in earth metrics would be around one hundred and twenty six trillion years.

 

* They had conducted a "project" six hundreds million years ago. Seeds of biological life as we understand it had been planted on thousands of planets throughout the universe and the resulting evolution of life on earth was one of the outcomes.

 

* Their intention, and hope was for the evolution of intelligent beings, however they did not intend to micro manage the evolutionary environment, but rather let life evolve and observe the results. , Humans had evolved to a point at which our technological evolution was becoming exponential and we were on the "fast track" to becoming one of the advanced spices and as such, we were being offered the technology required to keep from destroying ourselves.

 

* They had compiled the information necessary to provide humanity a vast variety of energy technologies and alternatives. Among these were, the abilities to harvest limitless energy from solar, natural molecular movement and spontaneous nuclear fusion with out radiation.

 

* All of this information which also included hundreds of "gifts" in the form of advancements in biotech, nano tech, chemistry, engineering, physics, biology...both terrestrial and marine (humanity still didn't know anythingabout what was below the surface of the oceans) was available to everyone in the world and was already uploaded on the World Wide Web.

 

* The final, yet extremely important, point of their message was that in one year, all fossil fuels would become non combustable and thus useless! They had used technology which was simple to them to put into effect a molecular chain reaction that would result in a molecular, irreversible change in the composition of all combustable fossil fuels. Basically, mankind had a year to get it's collective shit together, and scale up the technology that had been gifted to us.

 

"Holy shit, this is unbelievable" said Ron grasping what an understatement he had just made. "Looks as if we might have some serious work ahead of us. Charlie, what do you think"? "Well, I suppose we should start downloading this tech data and see if anything these guys have for us is in anyway compadable with stuff we have been working on. Might give us a bit of a head start if there's even the least bit of synergy with any of our concepts". Dr Linh Chang followed Dr Watson's comment. "It's possible, of course that these aliens would utilize concepts that are at least within our ability to understand and actually produce. I mean, what's the use of granting us technology that's way to far advanced for us to ever realize". "Good point Linh, sure would be cool if those alien types perfected one of the ideas we've come up with but couldn't make work". Dr Watson was drooling at the thought. Nothing gave him greater joy than validation of one of his theories. "Boy would I love to get to scale up one of our rejected ideas and shove it down the throat of that numb nuts Senator Bates and his ignorant, research wannabe minions". "I'm with you there Chuck, lets get back to the lab and see what we got". Ron was at the wheel of their battery operated suburban and turned to Dan Stout, his head government relations guy at the time and asked. "So Dan, lets suppose for a moment that what we just saw and heard was for real....and let's suppose that this technology there're giving us is the real deal ....and maybe, we can help make it all happen....right...and, well.....any chance we can crack the social conservative hard line and get some support for any of this stuff"." Yea about the time that pigs can fly outta my ass" was Dan's reply. " Well, I guess we'd best get them flying then". Ron had no illusion about the kind of negative repercussions that were about to start reverberating through the global power structure. "Of course you guys realize what the hell is going on here..I mean, this is the biggest god dam game changer in the history of humanity....and even though we all know that we might have just been given the chance to save our planet and help humanity in every conceivable way....a lot of the guys in power are not going to be happy. Lets face it...if there is a way to fuck this up....they'll find it". Dan agreed whole heartily; " Unfortunately Ron, I suspect you are right on the money. I've been working D.C., Moscow, Beijing, London, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Aiyadh, Dubai, and Mexico City for twenty years now, and at least half of the Senators, Congressmen, Administration officials, PMs, Monarchs, Princes, Diplomats, Ambassadors, and Dictators have their hand deep in the proverbial oil cookie jar. It's going to be darn near impossible pull them off that fossil fuel umbilical cord until disaster sets in.....and from what I heard today from those aliens, or whatever the fuck they are, that's just what's gonna happen if every country in the whole dam world doesn't get their shit together......now that is one scary fucking proposition". " let's just see where things are when we get back to the office.. I'm guessing its a shit storm already".

 

That was 2016, and now sixteen years later there was still a lot of shit brewing. Most of the speculation by Ron, Dan, Dr.s Watson and Chang had proven to be accurate. The Environmental Alliance Group had been useful in the research and product development arena . They also played a role in advocating for the requisite changes in Government policy. Dan Stout had been killed in a plane crash in 2022. Aviation without fossil fuel proved to be a challenge and the era of new technology did witness some negative effects. "Change ain't easy. If it was, we'd be out of a job" was what Ron always said, but losing Dan was pretty hard on him. It turned out that some of the ideas Dr. Watson had conceived in the field of solar energy capture had been amazingly close to the technology that the eggheads had given us. Had they been a bit more lucky and been able to get past proof of concept, they might have made a butt load of money just getting patients on the technology. There was no money to be made on patients since the eggheads had made all their technology universally available, but there was most assuredly money to be made by producing and selling alternative energy sources through the world. Unfortunately, everyone involved in producing energy the old way had less motive to make any change to the status quo; no matter that it be for the better.

 

Some countries faired better than others. At first the U.S. didn't prove to be too receptive and was slow to embrace the changes required....not only to thrive....but to survive. A vast number of Americans were simply scared. Suddenly realizing that we are not alone in the universe. Suddenly realizing that the higher power in the universe that people referred to as God, had just shown up and granted us a miracle. Suddenly realizing that we had to actually change our behavior and our beliefs. If there is one thing that people are afraid of...its change. It is funny how people of every different religious faith had spent three thousand years trying to convince others of the existence of a universal higher power, based on various books and stories, yet refused to accept that very higher power now that it had made an appearance. As history has shown, U.S. citizens have always been a bit fickle and the progressive majority that had elected the first African American president to his second term were no where to be found in the 2016 elections; replaced it seemed by an extreme social conservative faction who's agenda included a total and unequivocal denile of the appearance and very existence of the alien life form that had visited earth and bestowed upon us the tremendous gifts of clean renewable energy, food production, advancements in every sector of science and medicine, in fact the gift of life itself. Why a society would reject something that was clearly so beneficial is mysterious but then hindsight is twenty twenty. Politicians at every level were beholden to special interest of every kind, all of which had everything to gain from the status quo and everything to lose from progressive change. The lobbying influence of these special interest (especially energy) was overwhelming as was the influence exerted by the Catholic Church, the Evangelical Christian right and every other religious group who stood to lose power.

 

Congressman Rick Santorum and his running mate Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann had narrowly defeated Secretary Hillary Clinton and running mate Senator Al Franken. Supported by narrow majorities in both House and Senate, President Santorum and Vice President Bachmann were able to pursue their hyper conservative agenda and put the U.S. squarely behind most developed nations in the race to prefect and fully adopt the new energy technologies. At the very least, the U.S. fell four years behind and spent the insuring twelve years playing catch up. One of the eventual results of the four year debacle that best described President Santorum's term was the split of the Republican Party. The American political landscape had become even more divisive, which was hard to imagine after the dysfunctional behavior of the legislative branch of Government over the preceding dozen years. Moderate, centrist republicans and democrats were becoming more and more disenchanted with the extreme, and ideological positions of the far right and left fringes of their respective political parties. This all finally came to a head during the 2020 election when for the first time since 1854, a new viable political party was formed. Actually, it was not so much a "new party" as a division of the two parties that had shared power for one hundred and sixty six years into three parties. The new line up basically went like this: The Party of Traditional American Values (PTAV) was comprised of the neo-con, super social conservative, tea party, religious, types that had no interest in compromise or cooperation with moderate pragmatic republicans much less liberals. The New Democratic Republican Party (DRP) was comprised of members form both parties. Mostly those who thought in practical, pragmatic ways and had been thought of as centrists, which was regarded as a dirty word....like "compromise"... In the "divisive decade". The New Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) was comprised of more left wing Democrats, socialists, and even certain fringes of the Green Party. Of course the Libertarian Party, Communist, Socialist, and Green Parties still existed, but as Mark Twain once stated " there is no truly criminal class in America other than Congress" so even though there were more groups involved, they were still mostly crooks

The Day The Oil Stopped Burning, Chapter 1: Leland

Jack Saffell was looking forward to catching some perch that afternoon. He had not been out on Lake Leelanau for nearly 10 years and he had an incredible desire for some fresh perch filets red skin potatoes and sweet corn. Of course any of the above in late august in northern Michigan would qualify as a gourmet meal on its own. The difference in gastric adventures among his particular crowd between summer and mid winter was profound with summer offering up a plethora of every edible delight imaginable and winter often reducing one to cream of mushroom soup on toast.

Perch was far and away his favorite fish. Tuna, dolphin, grouper, even sword fish, in fact any saltwater marine species just could not hold a toothpick to fresh perch fillets fried in oil and butter, dusted with drakes. His friend Jimmy in Key West always claimed that raw tuna was god’s gift to the taste buds but then Jimmy was once rumored to have served fried cat fool patties with Margaritas to guests and claimed they were his famous crab cakes.

After 5 years of dealing with the meat headed shit bags in Washington D.C. He was totally ready to spend a little time fishing, eating, drinking and sleeping, the latter of which he had found sorely lacking in the last five years.
Sleep came a bit hard as one learned the intricacies of the so called Potomac colonoscopy. The most important thing a government need do is maintain the appearance of upholding the law, especially when they're breaking it. After a year or so in his job as an environmental lobbyist his naiveté had given way to recognition of reality, which in turn gave way to apathy, which in turn gave way to downright anger, which in turn lead to his being asked to leave in a manner of speaking. Being a hero just because it is the right thing to do was not really his gig so he was willing to take his leave of the city well before the shit storm blew in from the Atlantic.

And so, here he was, back in northern Michigan. The year was 2032 and Jack was just 32 years old. In fact he was born on January first of 2000 at 12:00. 01.01 AM. Of the 4,100,000 people born in the US in 2000, 7.8 were born in the first minute of the new millennium. Considering that 1.3 of those were born in the first ten seconds, it would appear that Jack was the first child born in the United States in the third millennium AD. There's really no way of knowing but people had always assumed Jack was actually the first child born to the new millennium in the entire universe. Of course that was before we had realized we were not alone in the universe. Best anyone had ever calculated the "eggheads", as they were derogatorily known, numbered over 2300 trillion on at least 16 different planets. Compared to our mere 7 billion at the turn of the century, it was fair to guess that quite a few eggheads came into existence before Jack had in those first few seconds of the new millennium, but of course, at the time we were clueless of their existence. Since 2016 when earth had first experienced a visit from the eggheads, our technology development had taken an exponential leap forward. By this point most every new baby was enhanced. Several chips in the old Frontal lobe and a manipulation of the first thirty or so embryonic stem cells in the blastocist to reverse the human aging process could do wonders. A few injections of preprogrammed nanobots to fight infection, transform malignant and mutant cells into productive ones, and totally enhance muscle growth could do the rest.

He found it amazing that in his sweet short life humans had gone from mostly sick, rather weak, intellectually challenged creatures with a life span of about eighty years to quite the opposite with a lifespan that although yet untested, may prove to be two, maybe three hundred years.

While Jack was a "natural" as unenhanced humans were called he was born with certain “special powers". His intellect was equal to that of the enhanced with an approximately 200 million calculations per millisecond speed and a memory of over 400 thousand gigabytes. This although was not his real gift. His real gift was a spot-on telepathic ability to know exactly what people were thinking and were going to do. It was not that he could read their minds per say, but he could just sense their intentions and reactions. Also his physical condition was superior and physical activity kept him in excellent shape.

Jack's talents proved quite useful during his somewhat idealistic youth, but now things had changed and he was just looking forward to some peaceful fishing and a bit of his second love which was drinking. Of course a butt load of "safe" alternative drugs had made their way through the proverbial FDA pipeline, but Jack had rather preferred the good old booze.

Jack reached for his Zebco in the shed of the old family cottage on Lake Leelanau. He had had this rod and reel since his sixth birthday and it remained his favorite rig for Perch fishing. Next, his tackle box, also an oldie passed on from his father and grandfather. Then, he strolled down to the dock and into his 1929 Old town dingy with the three HP Johnson Seahorse outboard. The 1959 Johnson was just for show. It was still perfectly operable however the gasoline needed to operate it was unobtainable. Jack had mounted a small electric which although rather low-tech at the time still managed to run on a three inch by 6 inch battery which remained charged simply by the molecular movement within the water. He only had to motor a few hundred yards to "the snags", two cedar trees in 16 feet of water which had been there since the first damn was built in 1869. Amazing how a Cedar tree won't rot after one hundred and sixty three years underwater. The tops were about 4 feet under the surface and were hard to pick out if you didn't know exactly where to look, however he could probably have made it there asleep. He had actually pondered if the old dingy could just gravitate to this spot, what with the several thousand times it had been there, and the cells in wood having a sort of memory and the molecules in white cedar having a certain attraction to one another.

With his three hook rig and minnows for bait it was only a matter of minutes till he had a bucket of twelve to fourteen inch Perch. The Perch population was one of the few species that the department of natural resources had not totally messed with, and it is entirely possible that that was the reason for their success as a species. Recent human history had proven that basically every bright idea some bureaucrat biologist came up with, and convinced the government to act on, had a dozen or more unintended consequences, mostly bad. Of course, trying to mitigate the negative consequences just produced more of them, and on down the vicious cycle of human natural intervention and blundering we go.

It was clear to him after his years of frustration in D.C. That the eggheads had it right when they planted the seeds of life on earth six hundred million years ago, as they had done on thousands of planets through the universe, and just left it alone. Let evolution do its thing, and let the higher evolved spices learn from their mistakes. Perch had made their niche in the evolutionary food chain being relatively little guys, and were doing just find in spite of man's help and now he intended to consume as many as he could eat along with the aforementioned redskins and sweet corn. He had pulled out a bottle of forty fifth parallel wine he had stashed under the cottage ten years ago. The wine industry had been one of the agricultural and environmental success stories in his home county of Leelanau. The soil and climate becoming better and better as a result of climate change which in northern Michigan was becoming generally warmer with the appropriate precipitation. The French pretty much shot their own foot off when they started the genetic modification of certain grape species to combat the climate chance in their neighborhood. The result of this exercise being a disaster and pretty much eliminating the wine industry in France in a matter of a few years. Similar results were experienced in Brazil, Chili, Italy, and California to one degree or another and these days only the Aussies and Michiganders could grow a decent grape and make a decent wine. As always, Kentucky and Tennessee remained on top with respect to making "brown wine" which was his default favorite.

Climate change had become a non-issue what with the energy technology that the eggheads had bestowed on our civilization in the nick of time. In fact, that, along with the renewed interest by humans in nuclear weapons and their increasing willingness to deploy them was the main reason for the visit, and ultimate intervention by the eggheads. He could barely blame them for wanting to preserve what had taken six hundred million years to evolve. It seemed like long time to him however the eggheads had a totally different concept of time having been around for trillions of years and having life spans that nobody really understood but were a least ten thousand years. The only way we understood this is that the same guys that came around to visit in ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica were here again. Even though we were now utilizing Co2 free technology, it was still going to take quite a few decades for our atmosphere to straighten out and we were stuck with the present weather patterns for quite some time to come.

He heard a car coming down the long drive back to the cottage and figured it must be Annie G. Her real name was Annie Jean Gallagher but he had always called her Annie G. They had grown up together and had spent a lot of time together till he took the job in D.C. and she took an internship with Robert Ballard through the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography. This was kind of a dream come true gig for a budding, young, highly intelligent, highly motivated marine biologist. It had been five years since they had seen each other and he was excited as hell. They had stayed in touch, emailed, skyped or talked on the phone every couple weeks, but for a time they had been soul mates, and he harbored a pretty deep seeded desire to rekindle the ol' flame as it were.

She still drove the battery powered 2020 Subaru she had bought used eight years ago when the both finished Grad school at U of M. The car had definitely seen some better days, but Annie looked outstanding. “Holy shit…. Does she look good” Jack thought to himself. The Kayak, mountain bike, and kite board on top of the Subi were more than a subtle hint as to her lifestyle and her body was all the proof one needed to see that see stayed in great shape. She had always had a beautiful face with a sort of impish smile that turned up a bit more on the right side than the left and gave her a look of mischief, at least in his mind.
Dark hair pulled back, dark eyes, and a medium to dark complexion. Of course she had spent most of her life outside and the sun had given her a permanent-tan. Most people these days tended to avoid sun exposure at all cost since medical technology hadn't quite figured out how to make our skin last as long as the rest of our human bodies were expected to last. Turns out that reverse engineering the human brain was not the last hurdle in our quest for immortality; keeping the skin from getting thin, brittle, withered and deteriorated was. Jack and Annie both figured, "what the hell" the sun just felt to damn good on the skin to deprive one of this simple pleasure. They both knew that our biological evolution had been combined with and overtaken by our technological evolution back when man first used fire and that at this rate the need for an actual biological body would be obsolete before their skin gave out (or so they hoped). The eggheads had evolved past the need for any physical constraint such as a biological body billions of years ago. Of course they could, and did, present themselves as physical beings. They could also enjoy any physical stimulus or pleasure; however their concept of such things as pleasure was way beyond our comprehension. On the brief encounters with humans they preferred to present themselves as a mostly human form in something of a hologram and utilizing the same sound wave/ language communication system we humans use. Even though a tremendous amount of knowledge, information, and technological advancement had been experienced at an incredible and exponential rate due to the eggheads, and people were due to live two or three times longer as a result, they still hadn't taught us how to exist without our biological bodies yet. Jack assumed they probably intended to save that one till we got a bit more advanced....... like maybe a few hundred million more years.

He had just poured wine, brought the water to a boil and had the perch dusted with Drakes seasoning and ready to toss in the pan. He met her at the back screen door with glass in hand. "Whaooo baby..... Do you look great" were his first words. "You’re not looking too bad yourself Jackie boy". "By the way, I have been living on a boat for the past twenty two months and have not gotten laid in as long, so if you haven't put that fish on yet.....DONT".

The perch turned out to delicious as he had expected and the last sweet corn cob was tossed into the fire around midnight. "Wow, I really didn't expect that" Jack said, with his best convincing lobbyist voice. "Yea, maybe not, but I could sure as hell tell that's just exactly what you were hoping for. Maybe not till after the fish, which were incredible by the way, but still just what you were hoping for". "You know, even though I'm the one with the supposed telepathic connection, you always seem to know just what the hell I'm thinking. I'm telling you, I could get hit by a beer truck this minute and die a happy man. Ten hours of sleep and I'll consider it the perfect day". Ten minutes later, they were both asleep like spoons on the sleeping porch and didn't move for ten hours.

The term frustration could barley describe his overall experience in our nation’s Capitol. So much shit was changing so fast and basic laws of physics were no longer laws and if there is one thing that Washington has natural resistance to...its change. So, at 12:00.01.01 AM, January 1, 2016 when the eggheads first made their presents known, everything changed....everything changed a lot! Exactly one year later every drop of oil in the world, every lump of coal, and every cubic centimeter of natural gas was rendered useless in a matter of seconds. In their first overt intervention in nearly ten thousand years, the eggheads apparently figured we were worthy of a little figurative kick in the ass so along with giving humanity a few tips like cold fusion, and the ability to convert a two second UV ray exposure into two hundred thousand megawatts of electric power, they also changed the molecular structure of every combustible fossil fuel by a couple particles we didn't even know existed and made it all about as worthless a fart in an outhouse. Nice trade, however the dip sticks in D.C. that owed their souls to the major energy interests were quite literally pooping in their pants. This overall atmosphere was a total heyday for the environmental interests, but all the positive results and requisite drastic change for the better, still didn't make working in that environment any easier. What you had was a bunch of scared shitless, unscrupulous politicians because they realized that the intellectually enhanced youth were going to outsmart them all out of their phony baloney jobs in a few short years and being suddenly shown up by aliens made them look like a bunch of monkeys fucking a football. With ten years into it, things were still a total clusterfuck, not to mention the evangelical shit bomb. Every organized religion in the world was freaking out because their God actually turned out to be a highly evolved species that had planted seeds of life around the universe six hundred million years ago. One no longer needed the middle man. The guys in Rome with the funny hats that had held the monopoly on communication with "the big guy" for three thousand years had just lost their corner on the market. Same thing with the Muslims, the Protestants, the Lutherans, the Jews, the Hindus, and all the various cults that professed to have the exclusive pipeline to the higher power in the universe and extracted money from it's followers to gain access to that pipeline. When the eggheads showed up and saved our proverbial asses, they pretty much explained how things went down over the last six hundred million years, and rendered the practice of organized religion rather obsolete not to mention, stupid.

The only real active roll the eggheads took in the natural evolution of earth was when they had to take out the dinosaurs. Mammals were always intended to evolve to a higher status, but before they could take hold and develop a larger brain and finally the neocortex which was the exclusive development of the Homo sapiens spices a few molecules of DNA sort of went haywire and the next thing you know dinosaurs are taking over everything. A well directed asteroid gave us a sort of reboot and the mammals’ ultimately took their place in the evolutionary line and the rest as they say is history.

They woke up refreshed and after a little morning delight and a pot of dark French roast hit the road for a little cruse around the county. Jack just wanted to take a drive on some back roads and let his mind wander. The last few months in D.C. had put his brain into such knots that he felt the only way to untie it was to relax and let it untie itself. He wondered if the kids that had enhancement procedures could get an algorithm that taught itself how to relax the same way a couple shots of tequila could relax him. He was glad to be out of the tornado that was brewing. He had been sucked up into this shit before and it was only by his unique power to see what was coming that he got out. In less than three months was the presidential election. President Kelly was expected to earn reelection but the house and senate were anyone's guess and a lot of incumbents were looking at the unemployment line. Twelve year old kids had a better grasp of global economic conditions, not to mention physics, science, and mathematics which had progressed rapidly since1/1/16.

Even though by almost every measure life was better for every human on earth since 2016, the world still had no shortage of luddites who would deny technology beneficial to humanity in favor of their own personal interests or bizarre personal beliefs. The same zealots and extremists who were never satisfied with simply maintaining religious freedom for themselves, but insisted that the rest of humanity agree with their way of thinking were still alive and kicking even though an overwhelming preponderance of evidence to the contrary had been dumped in their laps. The apparent separation of church and state that the United States had grappled with for all its two hundred and fifty six years had been put to the test in the extreme back in 2016. A mere ten months after our first contact with the eggheads and after the historic second term of America's first African American President Barak Obama the Unites States did an abrupt one hundred and eighty degree turn and elected the most religious, social conservative , evangelical administration in history. President Santorum and Vice President Bachman had spent the better part of their term denying the very existence of the eggheads and attempting to stifle every shred of benevolent technology they were willing to grant us. This finally became the overwhelming reason for the egghead’s manipulation of the molecular structure of all carbon dioxide emitting, combustible carbon based fossil fuels, thus rendering them all non combustible. It was clear to Jack that the eggheads were far to advanced to bother arguing the benefits of technology which was several million years outdated to them but was advanced enough to put humanity a hundred years ahead and basically save our planet. Santorum and his administration were idiotic enough to present an argument so the eggheads simply eliminated any other options. Jack also realized that the eggheads had no interest whatsoever in micromanaging the planet earth and had probably just made their existence known in order to keep humanity from destroying its own home. Jack figured folks should be a bit grateful for still having a planet and getting a huge boost in health, lifespan, quality of life and happiness as a nice byproduct, but his life as an environmentalist and lobbyist had lead him to regard mankind as basically akin to the Coco bird and willing to shit in its own nest.

The next twelve years had produced a bit more cooperation and positive movement in the direction of new technology which was producing a better environment and healthy, longer, and generally happier lives for most of humanity. The positive results of reworking the world’s infrastructure on the global economy had most developed economies embracing change. Another little trick the eggheads taught us was instantaneous water desalination at no cost and producing clean energy as a byproduct, thus providing almost instant agricultural turnaround for many developing and under developed countries. President Dr. Sarah Jane Kelly had been progressive with regard to taking full advantage of all the technology gleaned from the eggheads, and implemented a full court press on all levels of research which was producing almost daily innovation. Unfortunately, the United States government, as well as many others, still harbored those who would attempt to reverse much of this advancement. Dr. Kelly was a hands down favored candidate for reelection, but she was not without enemies.

After a drive "around the horn" as a drive around the north point of Leelanau County was called, Jack and Annie stopped at a bar in the town of Omena called “Knot just a Bar". He ordered a Dos Eques and a shot of Patron tequila with a lime and a walleye sandwich. She ordered a glass of Pinot Grie from a local vineyard and an order of fried cauliflower. They had spent the better part of the morning just reminiscing old times and catching up on each other’s adventures over the last six years. Annie knew Jack well enough to sense his tension and could not help but notice what many would refer to as burn out. "So, what do you think the bone heads are going to come up with this time" she asked him referring to the upcoming election. "You know, it's getting harder and harder to figure that shit out......even for me". "The best I can figure, the trad's are going to lose some seats, and that will probably be a positive, but the signals are getting pretty muddy, so really, I just can't tell". The "Trad's" or Traditionalists as the social conservative / tea party segment of the former Republican Party had come to be known were still in resistance to full implementation of new technology and were still in support of research trying to reverse the molecular manipulation of fossil fuels so we could use up remaining reserves. Tremendous amounts of money were at stake since we still had huge reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas and a whole bunch of machinery and technology that could still run on the stuff which was otherwise useless.

As they sat on the deck overlooking Omena Bay they could see half a dozen boats moored just off the public beach. "You know, I haven't been sailing in over five years" Jack said "we should call Geno and see if we can take the Leading Lady out tomorrow". Geno was an old friend of Jacks who owned an old C&C 39 sailboat. She had been Geno's dads’ boat and Jack and Geno had grown up sailing her all over the Great Lakes. She was a thirty nine footer built in 1972 right about the time all boat manufactures were making the switch from wood construction to fiberglass. At the time they really didn't know how much fiberglass to use in the hull construction, what with it being a rather new technology so they just used a lot. The result in this case being a really stout boat that could take a beating, sail fast, and last a long time. She had come with a Universal Atomic Four, 30 horse power, gas engine, but in 2017 Geno replaced it with an electric power plant that utilized deep cycle hydrogen technology and was constantly charged with a solar panel the size of a postage stamp. It had cost him a couple grand at the time but he could now cruse anywhere in the world without having to fill up the tank. Nowadays you could get a much more efficient setup for next to nothing. Egghead energy technology was so efficient it had effectively taken all the profit out of the energy industry. Jack saw this as a good thing, however quite a few douche bag energy industry executives probably thought differently.

“Well call him” Annie said “looks like the breeze is filling in a bit from the North West, and I haven’t seen Geno in years”. “I bet he’s out on the big lake on a day like today anyway”. Jack touched his right temple and said “dial Geno” a second later Geno picked up “what the fuck man where the hell are you”. “Annie and I are just sitting here in the Omena bar sippin a cold one”. “You are fucking kidding me! You’re here”? “Yea, just got in yesterday. Already went out to the cottage, caught some perchies, had a dozen for din with redskins and some of sonny’s sweet corn from the old veggie stand and Annie came over to join me. And dude…guess what”. “I Don’t know….what”.. “She just logged an eleven week gig on a NASA research vessel and was horny as hell”. “Oh, you fucking dog…..you didn’t”..”Sure did pal. All night bone-a-thon. Finally had to eat the perch around midnight”. “Oh, you are a total dog…so, how’s she looking”? “Beautiful as ever my man”. “So, I am here, working my ass off, and you call to tell me that you are back in the county for the first time in 6 years, got laid all night long, and now you guys are sitting in the Omena Bar getting fucked up…..is that about it”? “Yea, that’s about it. Oh, and yea, we want to go sailing”….” Fuck off loser”…”Come on man; we really want to see your ugly mug”. “Ok, I’ll get done here around three and meet you guys at the boat. Tell Annie she’s lowering her standards by sleeping with a bum like you”. “Awesome man, see you there”.

Jack took a swig and said “He’s gonna meet us at three. Oh..And he said you must have raised your standards. Not sure what he’s talking about”. “I’m sure you don’t you butt head” she replied. “No idea sweetheart” he said as he downed the Patron and took a bite of lime. After lunch and a few more rounds they headed south through Peshawbestown to Suttons Bay. Peshawbestown was the home of the Grant Traverse band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. It was an official reservation albeit a pretty small one. Nevertheless, it dated back to sometime between 1860 when the first white guys established communities in North Port and Omena and 1880 when most all the Civil War angst had cleared (in the north anyway) and the wholesale screwing of the native Americans resumed in earnest. Geno’s dad, who was affectionately known as “The Geeze” had said that Peshawbestown use to be a total dump and all the Native Americans were in total poverty. They use to go buy smoked chub, whitefish and trout fillets from the Indians because back in the 1970s the Federal Government outlawed the use of large mesh gill nets in commercial fishing. This action seriously reduced the catch, which was probably the idea, but the Indians got pissed cause they claimed fishing rights had been bestowed them in Treaty of Washington, signed in 1836. The whole deal went to the Michigan Supreme Court and the Native Americans won their fishing rights back in 1979. Since they were the only guys who could use gill nets they were raking in the fish and selling it way cheaper than the other commercial fishing operations run by whites in Leland, Frankfort and Charlevoix. The non Indian fishermen were always pretty pissed about the whole thing, but Geeze had told them that the Peshawbestown population had been so screwed for so long they deserved a break. By the time Jack was born, the native America fortune had changed dramatically. In the 1980, they figured out that the reservation status qualified as a sovereign entity and as such was not subject to state gambling laws so they built a bingo palace. Then they built a casino. Of course this got tested in the courts as well but ultimately the Native Americans won and Indian gambling was off and running. Next was a really, really big casino, which was still in operation and had the usual hundred or so cars in the parking lot at one in the afternoon as Jack and Annie drove by. “You want to stop in and see if Susan’s working today” Jack asked. “To fucking depressing for me” was the reply. He had to admit; it was a pretty fucking depressing sight watching the diehard gamblers at the tables drinking and playing black jack at one in the afternoon on a beautiful summer day. “I just want to run in and see if she there” he said as he pulled in. Susan was an old friend of his dads who had got him involved in politics. She had always been involved in some issue or serving in some local political position. She was an environmentalist and a total activist in that regard. It was pretty clear that Jack was interested in environmental studies early on and Susan had recognized his extraordinary abilities just as early. As is the case for anyone with a passionate cause, Susan was acutely aware of the need for secession planning and she saw Jack as the “chosen one” perfectly suited to carry the torch. It had not quite dawned on him that she might be a bit disappointed to hear that he had bailed from D.C. His eyes took a while to adjust from the bright afternoon sun to the super dark interior of the black jack room and he bumped into table number one on his way around the corner. “Breaking in a new set of feet” he recognized Susan’s voice. “Shit, I can’t see a fucking thing” he said. “lovely to see you too Sweetie” she said. “Come here and give me a hug my sweet boy…what the hell are you doing here”? “I figured I better come back from D.C. and check to see if you’re still alive you old hose bag”. “I love you too sweetie”. His eyes had started to adjust so that at least he could see and outline. He gave Susan a big bear hug. She had been a black jack dealer at the casino for as long as he had been alive, but now she was the pit boss. “So, what’s up with all the Washington dick heads” she asked. “They ever gonna get their heads out of their asses and realize that the Global Energy Cooperation Act (GECA) is a fucking no-brainer”? “Usual shit, the pres is pushing hard. I had two dozen meeting in three days before I left just to get the guys in Ways and Means from killing the fucker”. “Oh Jackie boy, you are still my hero. Can’t you use your voodoo shit on then and determine how it’s gonna go”? “Yea, that’s the problem, I DID, and what I got scared the shit out of me. I got a vibe from the chair of the People for Proper and Peaceful Energy Production (PPPEP) and I didn’t like what I felt. This numb nut actually claims to have a formula to reverse the fossil fuel non combustion conversion and might have the support in the house to start production. What an unbelievable shortsighted ignoramus”. “That’s what I love about you Jack…no need to sugarcoat…so, what are you going to do”? “Well I’m sure as fuck not going to hang around here in the dark and play black jack, Annie’s in the car”. “What the hell you still doing here talking to a bag like me. Get you ass back out with that young lady. How is she anyway”. “Looking good as ever” Jack said with a somewhat evil grin. “Are you too back together”? “Since last night” Jack smiled. “Better treat her right this time Jackie boy”. “Yea, Yea, I hear ya….Hey I gotta run, I just wanted see if you were here and say hi. I hope I'll be around for a while, kinda feel like I got to chill for a while. Let’s get together this week and I’ll fill you in on the whole bizarre story. It’s totally fucking unbelievable.” You got it Jackie Boy. Thanks for stopping by, good to see you”.

“How’s she doing” Annie asked as Jack got in the Subi. “She looks pretty good for and eighty year old”. Susan had once had MS which had been cured ten years ago through embryonic stem cell research, but had done some nerve damage that was probably going to take a few more years of research to figure out. Even when research had a breakthrough it usually took a while for the biotech industry to bring things to scale not to mention the FDA process which in the Santorum era proved to be the worst impediment to progress and caused the death and suffering of millions that might have otherwise been cured. This was the kind of shit that drove Jack nuts and it was the same kind of shit that he feared was happening again. Since President Dr. Sarah Jane Kelly had won election in ’28 the NIH had been granted permission to continue research involving somatic cell nuclear transfer. Due to the conservative push back by the “trads” this potential life saving research went largely unexplored; at least to the extent that there were no deliverable results until we got another little gem from the eggheads. When they showed us how to enucleate a human egg and fertilize it with a somatic cell from someone else; the rest was easy. We just let that egg grow in the petri dish for five days then extract the embryonic stem cells from the inner cell mass and create an embryonic stem cell line by putting them in the right nutrient and letting them divide. After six months, if they had not differenceated or mutated in any way, the stem cell line was good to go. The cool thing is that the embryonic stem cells in the line have the same DNA as the person who donated the somatic (skin) cell. Since scientists had long since learned how to prompt stem cells into any of the two hundreds and forty different cells in the human body, they would have an infinite supply of replacement cells for anything that went wrong. Since the replacement cells would have the same DNA as the donor there was no rejection. The only real reason this had been resisted is that all the super conservative bone headed trads were afraid simply because this is also called cloning. Jack often found it hard to believe some of the backward superstitious bullshit that people used to believe in and actually passed as religious faith.

Susan had gotten new undamaged mylam cells injected. Mylem is basically the nerve lining that gets damaged in MS and causes the nervous system to short circuit, so with a new supply of nerve lining cells with her own DNA marker her whole nervous system was able to repair itself and if anything decided to go haywire again, she had a supply of more cells to do more repair. The only bummer in her case was that entire sections of nerve had died as a result of having no lining for so long and we didn’t quite have the technology to do the complete rebuild yet. Still, she probably had an extra twenty years of pretty healthy, happy living that would not have happened otherwise. As Jacks old mentor, thinking of her had often kept him “in the fight” as they say. Although he did his lobbying for the environmental interests, and didn’t have the expertise in biotech, he did work hand in hand with a lot of guys who had a lot of genetic, nanotech, and biotech expertise and they were usually on the same page.

“Let’s get some supplies and head down to the boat. Geno will be there in about an hour so we should be prefect”. Then pulled into the Merc to buy beer ice and munchies, and headed down to the Leland Harbor where the Leading Lady was moored in Slip number 21. “Holy shit, I can’t believe you guys are actually here. How the hell are you”? Geno had already untied dock lines, had the main sail half raised and was pushing “the Lady” out of the slip. “Throw the shit in the cooler and give me a hand here” he yelled. “Aren’t you going to start her up and motor out of the harbor” Annie G asked, although it was apparent that was not what Geno had in mind. “Na, I try and just sail her out if it’s not blowing stink”……”saves on gas” he said with the deep infectious laugh Geno had when he told an old joke that only amused him. Like Jack, Geno was a bit on the nostalgic side. They both embraced change and new technology especially when it was designed and used to save and improve lives. They also realized that the eggheads had granted us technological advancements that would have otherwise taken decades or even centuries to come up with and we were defiantly getting a snowball effect. Jack, with his higher than usual intellect was able to rather easily master new technologies and use them to his benefit; even so, he and Geno liked to pretend like they were old fashion, shunning modern conveniences in lieu of “the old way of doing things” as the Geeze use to say. Thus, the old Johnson outboard just for show on Jacks dingy, and Geno’s propensity for pushing his sailboat out of the slip and sailing out of the harbor when he had a perfectly good, electric, clean, engine to motor out of the harbor with if he wanted to. Besides, Geno liked to be a show off some times, and sailing a thirty nine foot sail boat out of that harbor in any kind of wind was impressive. “Hey, hop on quick brother”. Geno already had the main raised the rest of the way, and the north west wind was catching the sail as Geno turned the helm to port and they picked up speed. “Hey Annie G roll that jib out , will ya”. As she undid the furling line, Jack tugged hard on the port jib sheet and out she rolled. Jack gave a half dozen wraps on the port primary winch, clicked in a winch handle and started to grind as he handed the sheet to Annie G to tail for him. Within thirty seconds they were trimmed in and sailing on starboard tack at full speed right toward the breakwall. “I guess we better gibe before we smash into the rocks”. “Gibe Ho” he yelled and swung the helm hard to port. The boom came across, Jack undid the port jib sheet, Annie G took up on the Starboard jib sheet, the sails filled again and wham, back up to eight knots and heading right for the mouth of the harbor. “Well, just like riding a bike, I always say”. “Yea,…. not to fucking bad, considering we haven’t sailed together in 5 years”. “Hand me a beer” They all cracked a beer and had about thirty five seconds to slam them before they were at the harbor mouth and had to gibe back to starboard before going on the beach. “Where are we going? South Manitou anyone”? Geno asked. “Let’s go to the south end of North Manitou” said Jack. “It’s a perfect beam reach with twenty knots of breeze and I want to feel The Lady stretch her legs and run for a while”. “North Manitou it is” said Geno. Jack loved to feel the helm of a sailboat in his hand, especially the Leading Lady and especially in a good stiff breeze. Within seconds he was in what Annie G called a “magic moment” kind of like a trance with a smile on his face and a freeing of any anxiety from his mind. Jack and Geno had grown up seeing that “magic moment” face on Geno’s dad, the Geeze. They had spent 4 months a year sailing all over lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior and no matter what the weather or how many miles they had in front or behind them, Geeze always had a look of total serenity on his face as soon as he took the helm. Geno had always said it was because that’s when he felt closest to God. Of course a lot of people’s concept of God had changed since we learned about the eggheads, but Geno had always thought of god as simply some collective form of higher power in the universe and that recognition, of it and gratitude toward it along with kindness and tolerance toward other humans was the extent of a spiritual life. As it turns out, he had it figured just about right. His dad, the Geeze, probably followed a bit more of a Christian belief but had taught Geno and Jack to practice tolerance above all else. Jack really didn’t understand all the hubbub since it seemed to him that the eggheads were in fact a benevolent, omnipotent, superior being (actually, a whole lot of superior beings, but there did seem to be some network or connectivity between all 2300 trillion of them) that did plant the seeds of life on earth, and even though they didn’t seem to micro manage our planet, they did seem to love us and care enough to save our asses from extinction. To Jack, this seemed to be more or less the definition of God he had heard over and over. He figured people should be happy to have a God that was pretty much as people had imagined for ten thousand years finally make an appearance and validate everybody’s beliefs, instead of being freaked out because they couldn’t claim exclusive ownership anymore. Basically, he thought religious zealots were ignorant douche bags.

Jack fell into his “magic moment” at the helm. Geno and Annie G sat on the high side catching up on what had been happening in their lives in the last five years. “I can’t believe Ballard is really an asshole” Geno said. “He always seemed like such a cool guy on those discovery channel things. Remember watching that thing about how he found the Titanic… like, twenty years before we were born. Man I thought that guy was cool…how old is he anyway…like ninety”? “More like a hundred by now” Annie G said “He’s been getting treatments for a long time now, so the fucker will probably live another fifty years”. “And yea, he’s a real fuckwad, always hitting on the twenty year old interns…of which I was one…a knee to the fucking nads put a quick kibosh on his tit feeling routine, but still…what a low life.” “wow, I never figured him for a lecher…So how was your last gig on that NOAA research vessel”? “oh that gig was awesome; two hundred foot steel trawler, just tricked out, every toy in the book… for an MB that is”. “MB” Geno asked”. “Sorry sweetie, marine biologist ….we’re all MBs for short” ´”Yea, so what do you call the enviro guys like Jack before he got the lobby gig”? “We call um GTs for Green Turds”. “So, what in the world is Jack doing back here anyway”? “Beats me, I just got back a couple days ago. I was staying with some friends in Traverse City and was about to call you and come on out to the county when I got a call from Jack yesterday”. “Yea, so you came right out and screwed his brains out”. “What can I say, I was horney and he bribed me with perch. I always was a sucker for fresh fish”. “Hey, I had some awesome whitefish on the grill last night”. “Well, if you would have called me first...……it could have been you”. The thought gave Geno a bit of a twinge; Annie G was looking good as ever and they had been lovers off and on in the past. “That’s the story of my life, a day too late”.

"You know we could just harden up a few degrees and head over to Fayette". Fayette was a ghost town on the west side of Lake Michigan in Big Bay De Noc. It was a tiny crescent shaped natural harbor about three quarters of the way down the west side of the Garden Peninsula of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It was settled as an iron smelting station in 1867. It was in close sailing distance from the port of Escanaba where the iron ore from the Upper Peninsula's mines was loaded. It held the required hardwood forest for charcoal and had plenty of the required limestone. It was a perfect natural harbor which offered protection for the many sailing and early steam vessels which hauled in the ore and left with the smelted pig iron on its way to the steel mills in Gary Indiana. There was no overland access to Fayette, however the community had grown in short order with smelting plant workers and families, shop keepers, saloon keepers, blacksmiths, doctors, and all the different people that make up a community. The community grew and thrived for twenty years when technology changed and the mills in Gary were suddenly able to process the ore from scratch and rendered the smelting process unnecessary. Within two years, Fayette was a ghost town. Even today the Garden Peninsula is sparsely populated and basically has about a twenty lineal miles of paved road in an area of around twenty four hundred square miles.

Geno and Jack had sailed to Fayette numerous times, usually in September or October when it was empty and desolate. It was almost eerie sailing into a desolate empty ghost town in early autumn and they both loved it. There was nothing within twenty miles except Shirley’s Port Bar about three miles down the road. Geeze had first taken Geno and Jack there when they were weathered in by a massive storm out of the south that blew forty knots plus, rained sideways, and had fifteen foot waves rolling up Green Bay. They walked to Shirley’s in the rain and got totally shit faced. They considered it totally cool since they were just sixteen and Geeze had to sweet talk Shirley into serving them by convincing her that after two days stuck in a boat in Fayette with these boys he was going ape shit and needed to get trashed and he really didn't see any harm in the boys joining him; otherwise they might get board and ditch him. Shirley said that she hadn't seen a law man except for the Game Warden in years. It was commonly understood that being the Game Warden in the Garden Peninsula was by far the most dangerous job in law enforcement. You just don't tell a "Yopper" when, where, what or whether he can hunt. Shirley figured as long as they didn't have a car to crash, there wasn't much harm in letting the boys get hosed. They spent the day drinking beer, and tequila, eating burgers, watching football and playing pool. The next day jack and Geno couldn't move because they were so fucking hung-over. Geeze told them to drink a beer."Liquid wheat germ....better than orange juice" was one of his favorite sayings. They felt pretty darn lucky since the weather was still shitty and Geeze wasn't going to made then head out. Sailing south in those conditions would have been a barf-o-Rama, and instead they got to stay in their bunks all day and nurse their massive hangovers. Geeze let them do just about whatever they wanted most of the time, but he was totally unsympathetic when it came to the effects of the day after.

“Hey Jack, you still alive back there? Annie G and I want to go to Fayette". "That'll take all night and we don't have our stuff". “What the hell do you need, I got a butt load of food and booze on board, I got blankets and pillows, and I got a bunch of extra cloths and rain gear". "What about ice? We got enough ice"? “Yea, we got plenty of ice, besides, I put in a new fridge/ freezer unit that runs on solar....we're all set". "What about drugs...got any drugs". "Does a bear shit in the woods and use small fury animals as toilet paper"? "You boys are sick" Annie G said. "Ok" said Jack” we're in"........"Right, Annie G"? "Right you are Jackie boy".

Jack turned the wheel to starboard by about twenty degrees and leveled out at a compass course of 290 degrees WNW. They had sailed across the Big Lake enough times that he didn’t need to look at the charts. Most pleasure vessels these days had a GPS system that was fully integrated into all the boat systems and had a projected readout that could be viewed anywhere on the boat. Geno had intentionally not upgraded his navigation systems preferring to rely on the dead reckoning the Geeze had taught him and Jack, and taking an occasional glance at the old 1990s GPS map below at the Nav Station. Just another one of those “old fashion” things he liked to do even though technology had make it unnecessary.

The paradox of the fact that Jack was a crusader against those who obstinately resisted the life improving technologies granted us by the eggheads, while shunning many technologies in favor of doing things “the old fashion way” did not go unnoticed by Geno. It is likely that it did not go unnoticed by Jack ether. Of course they both saw the difference between trashing the planet or depriving humans of life saving advancements and denying oneself of simple time and labor saving conveniences.

“So you guys wanna go to Fayette hun?” Jack asked. “You know, it’s still a bit early in the season; probably be some other boats there”. “I don’t care, I want to go see if Shirley is still there” said Geno. “I think after that, we should head to Beaver Island……What da ya think”? “Absofuckinglootly” said Jack. “Since we are going to be sailing for the next twelve hours, I guess I’ll take a little snooze and rest up for the night watch. What time you want me back up to relieve you” Jack asked. “I’ll take her till twenty two hundred hours, then we’ll do 2 hour shifts”…..”Sound good”? “Yup, see ya then”. Jack went below to crash up in the V berth. Geno felt a bit of disappointment when Annie G followed him below, But sucked it up and said “hey, you guys better set me up with a sandwich, and my evening bourbon totty". Geno did like his bourbon. Annie G made him a ham and swiss sandwich and a bourbon on the rocks with a lemon twist. “Here you go honey” she said as she set the drink down and gave him a kiss of the cheek. “Don’t get too lonely”.

Autopilot was a convenience that latterly every other boat had and that Geno had refused to install. He said that getting a machine to drive your sailboat defeated the whole purpose of sailing in the first place. In his mind, sailing really was not about getting to any particular destination as much as it was about the journey. He said the same thing about life, and that was why he loved sailing so much. The downside of this attitude was that someone had to be at the helm all the time and right now it was him as Jack and Annie G were below snuggling together. He considered getting the sails trimmed perfectly and tying the helm off which allowed The Lady to sail herself as long as the wind didn’t go berserk, but then he figured three was always a crowd so he just enjoyed the sunset and sipped his bourbon.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE GUN CONTROL DEBATE.

      I have hesitated to express an opinion in the "gun regulation debate" which has spurred much fiery rhetoric lately. The reason is that I can agree with both arguments and find myself somewhere in the middle (ah, that untenable centrist position again). As is usually the case when we the citizens call upon our central authority to enact legislation intended to control the behavior of society, the devil is in the details!

At first glance it is easy for me to agree that there is no compelling need for any individual in American society to possess a simi automatic military style high power weapon with a high capacity magazine. I certainly don't need one, nor do I want to own one, however as a shooting enthusiast I can understand the thrill and enjoyment in shooting one (at the proper firing range with proper safety protocol of course).

As a sportsman, I do enjoy hunting and fishing, and my favorite is bird hunting, both upland, and waterfowl. The preferred weapon for this is a large gauge (12 G) shotgun, which thus far does not seem to be in the line of fire with regard to gun control and of which I own several. Now, I have absolutely no problem if I am required to undergo a background check whenever I want to purchase a new shotgun in the interest of public safety and to assure society that I am not a nut case. I would like to point out however that this will cost lots of money, create a new level of government bureaucracy, and not really address any of the problems germane to this argument since I am a responsible gun user. On the other hand, I often buy large quantities of shotgun shells for practice and skeet shooting. These are low power, small shot loads used expressly for practice and are far less expensive than "game loads". I buy many cases at a time, because there is a quantity discount and we often shoot hundreds of rounds at a time, which is why it is called "practice". If I were subject to a background check every time I were to purchase a large quantity of shells.....well, that would be simply ludicrous and offensive. This is but one small example of how difficult it is to draw a reasonable line, and how well intended action by a central authority often misses the mark.

My real concern, is not with the firearms themselves, but with two larger pictures, which seem to be at the crux of this debate: the first being that our society has taken violence, warfare, fighting, and the use of firearms out of reality, and placed them in a virtual computer world where one can "play" countless hours immersed in violent action, with unlimited firing of virtual firearms with absolutely no consequence. I have no empirical data regarding the effects of this on our youth in society today, but I have to believe, it must have an effect on behavior at some level. After all, what else has changed in recent years? The same weapons have been available for 40 years, but there seems to be a rash of senseless violence and mass shootings, perpetrated by young people in the last ten years or so.

Being a baby boomer, I am one generation away from a time when learning to shoot and handle a gun as well as learning to ride and handle a house were required skills for every boy to learn. Both skills required practice, knowledge and were passed from father to son for generations. I was fortunate to have been taught now to safely use a gun, how to respect and properly maintain a gun, and I was taught how to hunt, and consume what I kill. We did not need to hunt to survive, those days being long past, but my father taught me the proper use of a firearm as a tool, just as it had been taught to him. This transfer of skill and knowledge has ended for the most part at my generation, and unfortunately seems to be replaced with an ability to "pretend to fight" and "kill and die" in a virtual world that gets more realistic every day. It does make one wonder, if the children who have perpetrated some of these useless acts of violence, have somehow lost the ability to truly discern reality from fantasy. Unknowingly, our society through computer games, television, and movies has depersonalized violence, and replaced what I regard as a useful tool for protection and survival, with a fantasy- land weapon used for entertainment. I don't know what the solution to this is, but it won't be easy and it won't be overnight and it is certainly not the "FAULT" of any one group of people. Especially those like me who own, properly use, and respect firearms and try to teach responsibility and safety.

I guess that my summery of this point is this: While, measures to limit availability of certain kinds of weapons and enact reasonable gun controls, is a good thing, I regard them as stop-gap measures that do not adequately address the underlying issue, which is a far deeper and harder problem for us as a peaceful society to recognize much less deal with.

The second "big picture" I refer to is this: What is the intended purpose of the second amendment to the constitution and our right to bear arms? I have heard the argument that "the state of the art weapon" at the time the second amendment was written was a mussel loaded single shot musket. But then, that is what the military used as well, so basically the average Joe carried around a weapon that was equal to or better than that used by solders at the time. I personally think it comes down to this: does the second amendment exist for us to have firearms to defend ourselves from one another and to hunt game for sustenance or sport? Or, does it exist in order for our citizenship to defend itself against the possibility of a government obtaining too much central power, too much central authority, or becoming too oppressive? The second amendment does also include the right to "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State". Now, it is up to the interpreter as to whether a well regulated Militia and “the right to bear arms" was intended for "defense of" or "against" the central government, but it is no secret that the founding fathers harbored a deep suspicion of central power and authority. In fact, many checks and balances were placed within our system of government to prevent too much central power.

I think we can all agree that technology in military weaponry has rendered this question rather moot. If our military were to be used by our federal government to control or oppress its citizens, I doubt it would make much difference how many folks owned 30 shot simi-auto M4s. Does that mean we should all be allowed to possess RPG launchers and have Cruise missiles in our basements? I don't think so!

I guess it comes down to this: THINGS CHANGE !!!. Whatever the original intent was within the second amendment does not matter because evolution in technology has rendered it useless. We can no more defend ourselves from military oppression by our own government using M4s, M16s, and Gloc 9mms than we could using muskets. So....what is the purpose TODAY? If it is to hunt, shoot for sport, collect, defend ones self against intruders, and enjoy the age old skill of marksmanship, I would have to conclude that a large capacity, military style weapon is not a necessity.

Now that I have weighed in on the issue and have considered several points of view, I still find myself in the middle. My naive hope is for personal responsibility, proper education of our children and an overall shift in our society away from the glorification of violence. My realistic side says that extreme views on both sides of the issue will drown out any reasonable, pragmatic dialog and we will end up being reactive instead of proactive. We will end up with some legislation that annoys gun owners, pisses off anti-gun activists, and really does not effectually accomplish anything. I guess I am being a pessimist but history seems to be on my side.

What do the Cold War and the Fiscal Cliff have in common?

During forty four of cold war the strategy was to assure an outcome so disastrous to both sides than nobody would be stupid enough to cross the line. It seems our political parties have tried using a similar tactics, all hoping that nobody would be stupid enough to allow us to go over the Fiscal Cliff. I wonder what the odds are in Las Vegas; probably about fifty fifty. Of course in the cold war, no one purposely put us in a position that might end in mutual assured mass destruction, but our Congress and President have purposely put us in a position that could well end in economic Armageddon.
Seem a bit masochistic to me since the political consequences on both sides are disastrous; moreover it seems extremely sadistic since even if our elected leaders are willing to commit political Harri-Cari most of us would rather not be handcuffed to their corpse as it flows over Niagara Falls.

We have been talking about the need for extensive tax reform for two decades, yet the 112th Congress elected to "kick the can" and delay a decision on the "Bush tax cuts" with a self imposed expiration date of December 31, 2012. It comes as little surprise that they chose this date since it's a presidential election year, with all the House, and half the Senate up or grabs. The obvious rational was that 1. the election would bring about change in the balance of power and as such one party could get more of what they want.......or 2. A particular incumbent looses and as such has little motivation and nothing to lose during the current lame duck session........or 3. They are all totally ignorant of the fact that this inane game of political chicken is inherently dangerous.......recessions have started that way. I lean toward 1and 2, but 3 is not out of the question.

Some, if not all, of this is semantics, posturing and political gamesmanship. What difference does it make if you gain revenue through raising the marginal rate of the top bracket by 4.5%, or by a reduction of deductions (thus raising effective rates of the same group)? More revenue is more revenue! Well, I'll tell you; the difference is President Obama campaigned on raising the rates on " the top 2%" and by golly he intends to do so. Now, what is the difference in spending reductions as a percent of the previous fiscal year's budget, or a percent of GDP? Well I'll tell you; it depends on what you cut, and who gets hurt most from said cut. If those who are directly in the hurt locker as a result of government spending cuts happen to be YOUR constituents....ouch.....if it's the other guy's.....who cares.

On top of all this, in the summer of 2011, our elected officials failed to reach a compromise on raising the federal debt ceiling. For much the same rational listed before, they "kicked the can own the road" till the exact same date as the tax cuts expire. Add to that the separate "death tax" set to change from a 5million per person exemption to one million, and you realize that Congress has really backed itself into a corner. The inability to reach a resolution in 2011 resulted in a reduction of the United States credit rating from triple A, and a negative reaction by the stock and bond markets world wide. This time, absent a deal, we would face way higher taxes, stifling any economical growth, sequestration, leading to higher unemployment in an already still fragile economy, and a likely recession. I don't know about you guys, but going down that road for no particular reason other than ideology, and political gamesmanship just seems insane.

Both political parties just spent a total of six billion dollars in the last election to remain pretty much status quo. That comes to twenty bucks for every man, woman, and child in America. Wow, they could have just handed out a twenty to each one of us at the polls. Would be another good reason to go vote. Anyway, the joke is on Congress since the balance of power remains the same and how they have to actually do something. Unfortunately, we all could become the punchline......that is if you can consider assured mutual mass destruction......a punchline. Do we really miss the cold war tactics so much as to create our own? Masochism indeed.