Me and My Drone

No two drones are alike

My drone

A high hurling autopilot deus ex machina

Has followed me and my family for years.

Sometimes I ask: "How many ways doth my drone love thee?"

One: When I painted my roof with tar, the drone checked from an altitude of 3,000 feet (using its  gamma ray sensors, biological sensors,  camera through the clouds) if the tar had indeed seeped into the cracks.

Two: to make sure that my balding spot is properly brushed when going to work.

Three: when visiting a new site my drone can tell me how many stairs I have to walk up or down.

Four: My drone can tell me how many police cars are in my neighborhood; knowing where they are stalking has made me more relaxed and my blood pressure has gone down.

Five: Since I love chipmunks I wish to know, before my dog gets my morning paper, how many chipmunks are in my garden.

My drone, rain or shine, can send me accurate information regarding not only chipmunks, but chipmunk predators. That's also why I arm my drone with Tomahawks SSH1A's (a family version missile that is meant to take out only domestic animals) because there are too many cats in my neighborhood.

My community doesn't with that we use the leaf-blower if there are more than 6 blowers on the block, I can do a quick check and see how many neighbors are blowing before taking out my gear.

And what about all those hours spent waiting to buy a ticket on Broadway? Since we have our drone we have cut those lines in half, using stealth technology brings on a windfall of smiles.

 From my remote control synthetic vision system I can

night or day,

seek, observe and react in real time to real situations

I can even follow my kids movements 

whether they be 10 or 10,000 miles from home!

My wife and I are so happy with our drone we

decided to buy another one.

The XXX-WMW by Lockeed

-Capable of flying 24 hours a day 

-Capable of being recharged by laser light

-Capable of flying up to 200 mph with a decibel count of under 50

The XXX-WMW has been approved by the San Francisco Police and

The Serbian Vanilla and Chocolate Swirly Tango dance company

(first reconnoitered by the XXX-WMWjr)

There are so many applications for a drone, it is time everyone should have their own 

With a global landscape that is more user friendly

The economy will sky rise.

Drones don't deliver delicious diners

But they can let us see our pizza on its way getting delivered.

The day Mom died

For years she suffered

And I prepared -or tried- for that fateful day.

I smeared on so much empathy

If mom were a toast

Even she would have gone soft.

I tried to reconnect sinews that had been torn

enmeshed neuralgic structures

tangled after years of family riffraff.

Trying to paste it all together was naive,

even in the name of the Family.

Trying to be "there" was idealistic,

when for so many years we were pushing apart.

It was a week when the rains heaved in

My worries of "nature drying" were dispelled when the

phone rang announcing mother lay dying

She had a week left at best, so I began to prepare my bags

and then

a point

in

my

chest

Burning pain, I knoweth not where from

A small but deep point, like a bite that drilled into my flesh

had me check into the emergency

I had to check

I a nurse, a health professional, and then be off! to my grave business.

Upon examination the doctor said,

"We have to operate tonight, no later, no later."

"But my mother is dying, I have to go"

"If we let you go, you will join your mother, but not on this living world"

My soul was jolted

had I trucked with evil spirits?

had I not gone to church enough?

had I not been honest? were some of the myriad of questions that jangled me.

That night the surgeon removed the foreign agent that had invaded my body

That night my mother died.

My friend accused a parallel psychosomatic disorder,

a stress inflection on the corpus callosum just above the temporal lobe that I had suffered from.

Regardless, heavy doses of antibiotics were prescribed

that ultimately buried my stomach in a WWI trench.

Still, with stoic resolve, I went to the funeral

Wanting to hold still, to listen still,

to the words and the music that my mother loved

Only if still

My intestines didn't rumble like a tank moving over the trenches where my stomach lie

awaiting to explode.

Only if the internal aftershock wasn't there

But it was.

Forced to leave under the watchful family eyes

I tried to change thought

Didn't my cat go for a walk

Didn't you spend three days,

Three nights looking and worrying about it just before my infection?

And that fly that got under my bed cover?

My mind was slipping. Was it the antibiotics or my infection coming back to get me?

The cold bathroom at the funeral home piped insipid organ music

I held on to a heating pipe in the stall

And wished I were

In my bath, thinking about mother.

My roof has an anti aircraft missile system

It may have taken years

that really felt like decades

True, I already had my state business licence

and a liability insurance for over a million pounds

-my former wife though I was a safe investment.

Yet as I lay lying in the darkness of my bedroom

The thought that at any day, any hour my building

and my neighborhood could be attacked

by plane, by rocket, by a suicide truck

left me unnerved; my sleep jilted like a discarded lover

It took endless meetings with the co-owners

yet we prevailed: today we have an anti aircraft missile device on the roof.

My little girl loves it! She is charmed by its whirling, turning spinning

She said it is like a jellyfish with eyeballs, a tortoise pivoting like a ballerina,

Its eyes fixed on the sky

regardless of the weather

regardless of events below on the street

matter little economic highs or lows

matter little which Prime Minister rules

Our sweet, faithful, reliable anti aircraft missile system is

 there 

In the dog of the night

Beware! If it be a fish and chips stand whose merchant pretends to be innocently selling at our corner or

an olympic athlete making a false start at the 100 meter dash to create a diversion in order to attack our building

WE WILL BE PREPARED!!!

Safety has no price, security no place, and fear no proximity.

Jellyfish closes down nuclear plant

In California, a jellyfish decided to close down a nuclear plant

It wrapped its tentacles around nuclear rods

• 
  

and became more luminescent 

 than ever!

troops of jellyfish then bolted over to France

Where in the midst of the French elections, 

 Sarko, nuclear energy isn't even on the table.

Meanwhile, in Chernobyl, 26 years after the catastrophic meltdown,

scientists have discovered that by placing thousands of snails side by side

they will be able to create a dome that is more effective in blocking radioactivity than

Than the current plan of placing 3 Eiffel towers over the site

for a period of 1,000 years.

 

For many Chernobyl residents the wait for a decontaminated land will prove to be long and idle

The landscape gone, people will be part of a "wallscape"

That may be advantageous only to rabbits digestive systems.

The Nature and Rates of Excretion of Radioactive Breakdown Products of I¹³¹-Albumin in the Rabbit

F. Zizza, T. J. Campbell, and E. B. Reeve

From the Department of Medicine, University of Colorado Medical School, Denver. Dr. Zizza was a Research Fellow of the American Heart Association during this work.

From the Department of Medicine, University of Colorado Medical School, Denver.

Received March 30, 1959

 This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

ABSTRACT

When I¹³¹-albumin is given intravenously to rabbits, the radioactive breakdown products that are released into the plasma and urine can be extracted into acetone. Paper chromatography and paper electrophoresis show that about 80 per cent of these are I¹³¹-iodide and the remainder are organic I¹³¹-iodine compounds. When I¹³¹-iodide is given to rabbits taking iodide in their drinking water, the radioactivity is quantitatively excreted, without being accumulated in the tissues and without becoming attached to the plasma proteins. The rate of excretion can be defined by a first order rate process with a rate constant, a, ranging between 1 and 3day^-1. The organic I¹³¹-iodine compounds liberated during the metabolism of I¹³¹-albumin can be closely matched by a mixture of the organic I¹³¹-iodine compounds liberated during the metabolism of I¹³¹-monoiodotyrosine, I¹³¹-diiodotyrosine, and the amino acids released by digestion from I¹³¹-albumin. These organic I¹³¹-iodine compounds are not accumulated in the body and their radioactivity does not become attached to the plasma proteins. Their radioactivity is excreted as fast or faster than that of I¹³¹-iodide, and, to a satisfactory approximation, the same equations describing the excretion of I¹³¹-iodide with the same constants may be used for describing the excretion of the organic I¹³¹-iodine. These results permit improved estimates of the distribution and catabolism of I¹³¹-albumin.

Burning Museums

Antonio Manfredi, director of the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum in Naples

Faced with a dismal budget that forced his museum employees to wash the car windows of their clients

 Has decided to take the extreme measure: burn the museum's paintings to protest a lack of funding.

Not suprisingly the director of the Uffizi museum in Florence

has decided to act accordingly. Having contacted the artist and the subject for approval -just as Mr. Manfredi- last Friday Boticelli and his Venus witnessed the burning of his masterpiece. When the artist was interviewed he stated, "I felt weary moving my bones after some centuries of idleness, but for a good cause, and so that Italians remember that art isn't free, I said 'what the heck, let's do it.'"

Venus, on the other hand, said with a soft chuckle: "I suppose you could say I've felt a chill being naked -I mean nude- for so many years. I love my body and it's a pity so many won't be able to see it, I mean the young people and future generations and stuff like that, but I think a little fire will feel good and I hope do good for Italia!"

The Birth of Venus, Boticelli

It was feared that the choice of the Medusa was more complicated; her spell could still be intact and thus bringing her back was a risk. However, the Medusa, keeping her eyes fixed to the black and white tiled floor said (over the hissing of the snakes in her hair), "I'ma reallya pleased to be here to see my painting burned! Don't get me wrong, I lova the expression of my face. But I no wanna see museum staff washing cars or windshields or whateva. It just pisses me off."

Then there was the little trio -remember the average height during the renaissance was 5'5"- all standing face to face like talking Egyptian. There was Piero, Federico and his wife, Signora Montefeltro. Federico, being a big art supporter, spoke out first: "I don't care if if this situation started with Berlusconi or now is a Monti problem. I don't wanna hear it's a north or south issue. Art has no boundries" he said, keeping his profile fixed on his wife's, "and if the economy is bad, so what. In my days we had problems too. I was a condottieri, a mercenary in charge. And sometimes we had to fight for what we believed in. I didn't allow my guys to wash the horses or anything because I made sure they was a paid for what they worked."
Piero della Francesca, standing behind Federico's wife, some say trying to wake her up, simply stated, "I couldn't have said it better. You can burn all my paintings, cazzo!"


There seems to be a change in the air regarding museum funding that is spreading beyond Italian borders. Culture is the first budget to be axed. At the National Gallery in London, Hans Aznavoor, a curator, has set out not only to invite Paolo Ucello, but the original combatants of Florence and Siena that figured in the Battle of San Romano. "I want all the warriors in their original armors to bring a torch and light up the painting. It's time people learn what real perspective is about!"

The Titanic

The Titanic

a silent novel by Jamesola Langola. 

Sam and Fred are two happy-go-lucky  dogs on the Titanic. Their master was Charles Randolf Macy the IIIrd. Everything was just swank: drinks were "a volonte" and the dogs even had foie gras as an appetizer. When the ship hit the iceberg things took a nasty turn and the dogs could smell the trouble in the air. they looked over the icy ledge and reminisced about their comfortable lives in New Jersey when their master would have  butler James take them to the kennel when Madam would go shopping. 

Sam resting during the Titanic's maiden voyage.

Further down on deck, Millicent and Jarvis, two pooches, contemplated who would take the

lifeboat as the orchestra played their last songs

Millicent and Jarvis were confused because they couldn't understand the exited voice of their excited

boss, who reverted to speaking Japanese.

Fortunately, Madame Wiggens and Ursula, two of the first class poodles, had a nose for lifeboats, and they offered advice to the young pooches.

Albeit stuffed with people!

There was little time left. Millicent looked at Jarvis, Jarvis at Millicent, and then they both looked
at the incredible stars that shone above them. Millicent pushed Jarvis, making a quick pounce and...

Stay tuned for the next thrilling episode of the Titanic                  (or Titanica). Do Millicent and Jarvis survive? Will Madame Wiggens find another solution for a lifeboat? Can Sam and Fred find happiness in their memories?

Expired Passport

Just a few days before an expected departure over the seas

I lay half asleep, ruminating with face pressed into the folds of my pillow

When some inner neuron coming from God knows where

Carried an alarm indicating that my passport was expired.

Wearily, feet searching for slippers, my body responded

to nocturnal commands.

I shuffled like Frankenstein's Bride

(my hair whipped up on the sides)

to the dark desk whereinith my Passport lie.

Damnation! The fatal date 

marked clearly in ink

belonged to another time in the past

It was a pill I had to swallow

And dilly dallying would serve no justice!

I would have to cast

a line

for

an

Emergency Passport.

Knowing that most mortals rarely check their Passports on a yearly basis,

Why? thought I,  couldn't my cherished government create a friendly reminder

so that 3 months before the DATE

one would be alerted to take a course of action.

Hence I wrote to the Department of State

Suggesting that a passport would contain a timed device

that meant that it would start smoldering 3 months before expiration.

To my surprise the State office accepted

Under the one condition that citizens must wear fireproof clothes and pajamas 

 Thanks to the State Department

I got the renewal in time and made it to my plane to

see the launching of the latest missile in North Korea

A giant missile in the shape of Kim Jong Il!

I never clapped so hard in my life

As Kim Jong soared over the skies!

The following day, however, my hands hurt so much

puffy and too tender for a handshake or touch

I went, thinking wisely for some needed relief:

little acupuncture needles in thy neck,

and my passport, firmly in my rear pocket.