Thomas Wictor

It started with one of the worst nightmares I’ve ever had. I won’t describe it, but it had to do with my parents. They were both alive and refusing to get involved in my attempt to save a hideously mutilated child. The little girl had most of her face torn off. From there it became the most insane day in decades.

Tim sent me a link to an article titled “Hollow Men, Hollow Markets, Hollow World,” by Ben Hunt. You have to be a member of the investment site Seeking Alpha in order to read, but I can summarize.

Bots and zombies generate one third of all Web traffic in an effort to attract clicks and therefore make sites and pages seem much more popular than they are. Thus one third of all Web traffic is fake. Along with this statistic, you have to add in the fact that 70 percent of all stock trading is automated. Machines move around shares, positioning rather than genuinely investing.

But there is something about the aftermath of the Great Recession, a something that is augmented by Big Data technology, that has made it okay to embrace public misdirection, and miscommunication as an acceptable policy “tool”. It’s telling when Jon Stewart, a comedian, is the most authentic public figure I know. It’s troubling when I have to assume that everything I hear from any politician or any central banker is being said for effect, not for the straightforward expression of an honest opinion.

I agree with Hunt, except for the part about Jon Stewart. He’s no more authentic than any other public figure. The Zeitgeist is about misleading the public, and Jon Stewart is as dishonest and agenda-driven as the people he attacks.

After reading Ben Hunt’s brilliant downer of a commentary—the title of which refers to T.S. Elliot’s masterpiece “The Hollow Men”—I went out to make an appointment for a blood panel at my local lab. It’s part of my cardiologist’s efforts to keep me out of a mental institution. On the sidewalk in front of my house, I discovered this.

Have you ever found a butter knife on the sidewalk, perfectly aligned with the crack? It’s like a hex that a voodoo priestess laid down against me.

On the way to the lab, I had at least twenty near misses as people changed lanes without seeing me, roared out of parking lots, and ran red lights. Everyone drove either forty miles per hour faster than the speed limit or twenty miles per hour slower. I kept getting trapped behind cars that looked like they had no drivers. They inched along at a walking pace, and when I’d pass them, I’d see a tiny head barely visible over the edge of the driver’s door.

At the lab the obese receptionist said, “We don’t make appointments here. You have to do it by phone or the Internet.”

I’d gone there six weeks ago and made an appointment. “When did you change the policy?” I asked.

“We’ve never made appointments here. You have to do it by phone or the Internet.”

So apparently I hallucinated making the appointment there, following through, having my blood taken and analyzed, and getting the results from my doctor. With no alternative, I left. In the parking lot a guy doing about eighty almost creamed me. If I hadn’t stood on the brakes, I’d be dead now. He smiled as he flew past.

I drove home, having another twenty near misses. A small pickup with a lawnmower in the bed started drifting to the right toward me. I slowed down, and he slowed down. I sped up to pass him, and he sped up. I stopped, and he stopped. I accelerated again, and he accelerated. Finally I screamed, “MAKE UP YOUR MIND!” and waved my hand at him, so he pulled in front of me and throttled down to ten miles per hour.

We stayed in formation for five minutes. I wasn’t going to try and pass him again because I knew he was in the grip of a road-rage fixation on me. Finally I shook him by signalling a right turn. He dutifully signaled too, and at the intersection I yanked the wheel to the left, cutting across three lanes. In my rear-view mirror I saw him screech to a halt and try to back up, but someone else blocked him in.

Back in the safety of my house, I read an article about a Muslim parent in Dearborn, Michigan, who’s upset because the school gave his kids flyers for an Easter egg hunt at a local church. The photo is beyond belief.

He looks like an escapee from a North Korean death camp. That’s the face of a man who’s lost all faith in humanity. His sorrow can’t be quantified; he’s been sobbing for days, inconsolable. In his hands are the documents that killed his soul.

Since Apple is no longer supplying security updates for whatever animal-named operating system I had, I bought Mountain Lion three days ago. Everyone says the newest OS—Mavericks—is garbage. I’ve been advised to avoid it. When I made my purchase, I learned that Apple no longer sends install disks. You have to download the new OS from the App Store. Today the App Store wouldn’t recognize my user name or password.

I changed them both five times and never got in. Somebody therefore helped me install Mountain Lion a different way. Since I paid for it but never received it, Apple and I are even. As I fumbled with the App-App, App-App Store, I was making this sound the whole time.

Then someone sent me a link to a video of a nine-year-old singing sensation named Emi Sunshine. The sender thought I’d enjoy the performance.

I had a hunch, and my hunches are usually correct. Emi has lots of videos on YouTube. Here’s what I was looking for. Behold the next Miley Cyrus.

Note to the world: Don’t send me any more links to videos of little girls headed for trouble, okay? Appreciate it.

Recently I drew a face on the aloe in my garden. It looks like it’s waving hello.

“Hi, Tom! Glad you’re home! How was your day?”

Well, aloe, my day was like this.

But tomorrow’s another day. Less than four hours to go.

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.