Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

I believe that  most people are good.  Not necessarily ‘good’ in the sense of high  quality.  50% of all people are below average intelligence.  Almost none of us  will never win  an Olympic medal.  And the vast majority  of people  will never do anything world  changing in their lifetimes – no great novel, no invention or discovery.  That’s  the nature of  the game.  Most of us are average.  That’s what  average means.

I mean ‘good’ in the  sense of not evil; decent, rational,  reasonable compassionate folks.  They don’t go out of their way to throw rocks at your windows, they’ll stop and call for  an ambulance if they  see an  accident, they will bend down to  pet the occasional dog.

I also believe that there is general consensus around the world about what  ‘good’ is.  Sure, the Arab world has  a long way to go in its attitude toward women, Koreans eat dog, and Americans have private prisons and the death penalty but, everywhere you go, parents love their children, children love to play, and  most  people  will not  throw rocks at your window without a good reason.

This makes me optimistic.  If we can get around all the different crap  our  governments put  out, there is hope that  the human race could come  together – and do wonderful things.

When you’ve lived in a  city  for a long time,  even a historical, cultural, tourist trap of a city like Prague, you soon stop doing the touristy stuff (generally before you’ve been  there a year,  or maybe two.)  You become less concerned with where  the  hip, new clubs are and more focused  of what restaurants are within  walking distance.

But today, we decided to do something cool, that’s right in  our neighborhood, sort of.  As soon as you  cross  Sokolvska, you’re into a wild area, which was once the  land  of warehouses, scrap mongers and lots of derelict  structures with overgrown yards, and is  not  yet filled  in with new business centers and overpriced apartment  buildings, although that’s definitely the intention.

Walk a  bit  toward the center, then turn  through a cracked parking  lot with  grass  and  spindly trees growing through it, where no one  has  parked  for 15 years, push through the trees at the back and there  is a staircase down the bank and  a short,simple dock, where a ferry boat arrives on the half hour, during daylight, during the summer.  Same price as public transport, so if you have a monthly (or 3 monthly, or annual) pass, it’s free.

Helena and I were the only passengers on the  way over.  We didn’t have  much of a plan  for  our  day out; take the ferry across the river, walk around for  a while, look for someplace to have a snack, and come back.

When we got  off the  boat, we found something right  away we didn’t know was there , and that was the paved footpath.  I don’t know how long that’s been there, or how I didn’t know it existed, but there you go.  We also saw  some ducks.

We wandered around, and had cheesecake and drinks in an overpriced place with the softest music  I’ve  ever heard, it was  like Leonard  Cohen on Quaaludes, and almost nothing on the menu, but they  had a cannabis lemonade, so I had to try that.  It wasn’t bad.

Then we caught  the  ferry back, with a couple of other passengers this time, enjoying the cool air and the long views over the  river, in the light of the  late  afternoon.

We took a  mega bike ride today, the wife and I.  The plan was to bike  up along  the Vltava, past the zoo, and on up to Kralupy, which we had heard was 15 kilometers, but that was a lie, have lunch, and then bike back.

Me and the very camera shy Helena, on the sunny bank of the Vltava

I half expected Helena to fade and want to turn back early but, I must confess, today I was the weak link.  There were a couple of minor problems with my borrow-a-bike (cool Prague  program, you pay a bit to sign  up but  then you can pick up a bike  at any of several points around town, and  drop it  off  at another), but that wasn’t it.  H  thinks it’s because I got stoned before we set out, which may have been a factor, but I always do that.  For whatever reason, I was lagging behind.

After we’d gone about  10 kilometers, we saw the first sign and it said Kralupy 17.

Then, when the cable to my hand  brake just snapped and stopped working, we decided to turn back, but then I realized I had the old  fashioned kind, kick back on the pedals, so we continued.

We finally got  to Kralupy about 4 and had lunch at the Sport Hotel.  They assured us they were open  as they walked us  through the large, elegantly laid out and totally empty banquet hall and  out  onto the terrace where two old men were drinking, one beer, one coffee, and I think coffee worked there.

Anyway, the food was fine, the view was fine, and I learned that Kralupy was either an ancient Czech word meaning bark stripping, or something to do with  stealing chickens.  I thought  that  rather humorous.  Bark stripping by  day, chicken stealing by night.  An industrious sort of place.

We felt  well refreshed by  the meal, but  decided  to take  the  train back.
I still feel sore.

On Monday, in a region  of northern  India, 800,000 volunteers planted nearly 50 milli0n trees in 24 hours.  The  goal was 50 million, but they only made 49.3 million before the 24 hour deadline.

That’s kind of  awesome.  All walks of life, politicians and housewives,  school children and soldiers, out  in the sun, sort  of a festival atmosphere, planting and singing…it didn’t  say in the article that they  were singing, but  I hope they were singing because it  makes the  work go easier and that is, therefore, how I picture it.

I didn’t actually hear about it until yesterday.  50 million trees is a cool thing, and it will go into the  Guinness book of world records (the previous world record was fewer than a million trees), but it’s not  Earth shattering  news.

Then, this morning, I hear the news of the massacre in Nice.  88 dead, many of them children.  There’s nothing you can say about it.  It’s horrible.  There’s nothing  anyone can  ever do to make it unhappen, or to make the damage less  painful.

But, as the world moves backwards, so it moves forwards, and  I think of the trees.  For all of the people in France who died, thousands of  trees were planted.  May they live long and grow  tall.

I don’t really have too much to say tonight, there’s no arguing with Hillary supporters, they feel that they’ve won and that proves their candidate is not a criminal, for some strange reason, and polls are showing that she’s getting her ass whupped by the ferret hatted, tiny fingered, reality show huckster while Robert Reich writes “What’s going  on?”  What’s going on, professor Reich, is that a majority of Americans just can’t stand the  woman.

But, I don’t want to talk about politics, so let me write a column about sex robots, because that is always a popular topic  and boosts readership.

I’m all for  ’em.  They would be a great boon for ugly people, people who are kind of unsocial and don’t get laid a lot, people  with insatiable  appetites who just can’t get enough from their partner or partners, or people with some special  kink which is illegal or socially unacceptable.

I once, in a real life  conversation, said  “I think the most popular model will be Patti Pubescent, and he  said “Well, now we know what your sex fantasies are.”

A couple of  other things – sex robots  won’t be able to get pregnant and they probably won’t  be able to transmit diseases, at least  if they’re new or only  have one  owner or are disinfected between uses.  So, the more  sex robots there are out there, the more STDs will drop and perhaps the birth rate, too, which eliminates the greatest problem facing  mankind, which is overpopulation.

Might have an effect on prostitution and human  trafficking as well.

All that and people  will be having  sex more often, too.  Win-Win.