a unifying theory of modern conspiracies (lol)

[2023 note: this was actually written a couple of years ago but for some reason (cough) I never hit publish ... ]

So, I had this great insight this spring that might be the key to explaining at least a lot of conspiracist things if not all of them ...

You see, all along, it's been the dandelions.  Secretly they are taking over the earth (this appears to be some kind of hive-mind activity -- I'd hate to consider them having individual sentience!). The ships from their home planet will be arriving soon, hoping to find us softened for the easy capture of our ever-less-hospitable-to-humans, but increasingly fabulous for dandelions, environment, so their human allies have been ramping up the pressure.  From the day they talked innocent children into planting them on roadsides to beautify the country lanes (for historical evidence see Anne of Green Gables -- it's book one or two, I think -- where the author cites this specific activity in passing) -- from that day, I think we all have to admit that they have gradually been taking over at least this country (possibly invading from Canada, per citation).

And this despite the creation of and amazing increase in the use of poisons designed essentially (perhaps actually?) specifically to kill them.  And teachings in our movies, on TV, and in our schools about tidiness and perfect lawns -- a propaganda blitzkrieg that was fairly successful at least into the 1970s, and still holds sway over many human minds today.

But my clue was watching my lawn this spring -- a remarkably perfect spring for dandelions, and a remarkably un-Portland spring: deep rains followed by a week+ of no moisture at all, with clear skies and happy shining sun, repeated over and over.  *Someone* must have been messing with the weather (seriously -- who ever heard of a dry day between January and Rose Festival?!), and there were no logical economic beneficiaries to the new weather ... but ... my *dandelions* were settling in for a long, deep-rooted summer, clearly with the goal of finally eradicating my grass!!

Could it have been the dandelions all along?!?

Could this explain the obstinate support by our federal government of Monsanto and related companies, which is otherwise so unjustifiable?!?

Could this explain why all the children, starting in the mid-1860's, have been herded into compulsory standardized schooling? Both sides have a stake in that: the dandelions want us all to be green hippie drug-addled brainwashees, and the anti-dandelion freedom fighters need to train up an army of citizens who are educated on lawn poison and its efficient application, and will react with drone-like rejection when faced with a dandelion threat!

(Of course you've never heard of the anti-dandelion freedom fighters -- who would have believed them?  I'm sure they are valiant truth seekers whose families pretend they don't exist ... or they are protecting their own families from both the unfaithful and the dandelion sympathizers, by faking their deaths.  That takes a truly dedicated and intelligent person to pull off ... .)

Of course with any alien-planet scenario it ought to be easy to wrap in the secret goals (or create new secret goals that fit better) of the space programs (although this is a pretty big leap from the Isis/Masons connection, so I'm still working on that ... anyone with better knowledge of the Masons / Isis-in-space / Knights of Templar stuff is welcome to chime in in the comments ;) ).

But I think a unified theory that wraps in chemtrails, brainwashing institutionalization + media saturation, government subsidies to highly suspect companies which don't clearly benefit the nation, AND (maybe) the "faked" moon program is a pretty good unification theory ;).

OH!  AND, I just figured out 9-11's connection -- the neo-Cons/military are the normal suspects (if one doesn't go all the way to the Masons or even the Illuminati) ... what if the neo-Cons/military are, like Monsanto, carrying a secret and noble, but praiseless and seemingly nefarious, burden of keeping up and building up humanity's battle capabilities?!  I'm sure the poor dears are horrified by the use to which some incompetent leadership has put the resources that ought to have been carefully maintained for the first significant extraterrestrial conflict!  (The oddly successful movie Independence Day, in colorfully justifying Area 51, was perhaps, then, a carefully crafted warning by the resistance, bringing the strange bedfellows of mainline shoot-em-up, minority leadership, and geek sympathies together in subconsciously supporting the preparations against extraterrestrial invasion!)

And apparently even the Illuminati might truly have been cast unfairly as devils all this time.  They may truly have the success of the human species at heart ...

Although, as a green hippie (with no drug-addling), I still strenuously disagree with the methods the freedom fighters seem to be choosing (mass destruction and poison are pretty clearly counterproductive in the long run), and I wonder whether they have sufficient objectivity on the larger historical picture to work logically past the terror-stories they may have had whispered to them as children.  I prefer to rip them out of the ground and hope I'm leaving no roots behind (and hope the "commercial composting facility" in town actually gets hot enough to kill the darn seeds, since they consistently have enough mojo stored in even just their leaves to fully transform from a yellow bloom to a puffball even after being removed!).  Also, I heartily support the Organic Consumers Association for encouraging the domestication and eating of them, as a preferable solution to poison and an ironic reversal for the eville plans (as yet unclear but clearly not for the benefit of humans) of these invasive plants!

So there you go.  A decent unified theory of all the truly crazyass shit the government has been foisting on us (as opposed to the merely annoying but I can imagine it made sense to someone at some point).  Have I missed any significant "conspiracy theories"?

I suppose the JFK assassination.  One could toss him, the CIA, the FBI, and the mob in on either side of the dandelion equation probably. It's more fun if the "goodguys" were actually the badguys, so let's put the mob/CIA/FBI arrayed against the dandelions and desperately trying to root out (ha ha), by intelligence work and some strong-arming, the dandelion supporters in the halls of government.  JFK would then I suppose be the pretty face on the dandelion movement, but it's probably not hard to argue he didn't know he was being used.

P.S. I've disturbed myself, by the way.  In case anyone wondered.  (No, I do not believe the dandelions are *actually* any of the outrageous things I've here stated.  They are, however, apparently annoyingly well adapted to live with humans in a temperate climate, like rats, corbids, starlings, and cockroaches.)

lightsabers: a working theory

With all due apologies to the people with whom I am in Seriously Serious discussions (lots of those to be had lately :( ), I had one particularly successful Unserious discussion yesterday, in which I posited a theory of lightsabers that it really quite elegant and I'm really quite proud of it : ).  This was in response to the common objection that beam weapons can't by any physical logic just *end* at a set distance from the source.

C'mon, you know this has always bugged you ;).

So here it is:

I think light sabers don't end. I think only a portion of their infinite (and constantly existing) powerline is manifesting in our ("our" she says? ;) ) three-dimensional space at any time. This would also explain the amazing amount of burn-through capability the saber is capable of, and the capacity of the energy blade to absorb or reflect large (but relative to infinity quite minor) energy blasts.

Possibly the special temple-cave crystals cause this precisely limited dimensional interference by being themselves somehow structured into some other dimensional space, and perhaps this interface is activated/deactivated by the Force, somehow raising the molecular (or other) activity levels enough to trigger the crystal's special properties.

This segment-of-an-infinite-energy-beam theory makes me pretty happy :).

on MARVEL's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

OK, I'm going to say it, despite knowing that at least one social-media-powerhouse friend disagrees: I like "Marvel's Agents of Shield."  A lot.

It's full of humanity in a Chekovian way: the humor is often the natural output of a character's frailty -- even more commonly, it's the natural result of the combination of several characters' frailties -- and all the while the sympathetic (I know not all of you!) audience is left with a hole in the heart for the pain the same frailty causes and inevitably will cause.  The Whedon family team again picks apart the genres it has been handed; I wonder how much of that is inherent in, and automatically flows from, their assumption of non-religion and gender equality where our inherited definitions of genre include, at some level, old Western Civ religious tropes (and end-games) and extreme gender-inequality.  (Sometime maybe I'll talk about the convention we are all taught in school defines "a story" -- preposterously masculinized and totally therefore derogatory toward many forms of story-communication, especially in academic settings.)  I continually wonder, watching this show, how many people at Marvel really understand what they have done in handing such a culturally subversive and revolutionary set of writers a substory that is deliberately supposed to question their own superhero genre.*

Last week I realized how satisfying it was to watch Coulson, the equivalent of a single parent with several children, trying to subtly and quietly assess a personal health/growth/identity crisis over the season's arc ... I'm sure some people are very grumpy as being "dragged along," but you know what?  That's how it really *works.*  Diagnosis and healing are hard to come by when your time is spent being The Grownup(/the leader).  I am appreciating watching the gradual, increasingly both inescapable and incredibly fundamental, pain of Coulson's mental processes.  Holy crap, the questions he is dealing with, most of which are acted but unstated!  (I am glad I saw the Avengers movie, which definitely adds interpretive layers to my experience.)

* I also think "Marvel's The Runaways" (you have to look for it under "M" instead of "R" at bookstores, seriously : P ) was one of the most stunningly honest breakaway-but-stay-within comic series I've read (particularly I love Wolverine's occasional savvy appearances; but then Wolverine is such a writable character :) ); it carries some of the same "but wait, the moral issues surrounding this whole superhero thing actually almost completely suck for everyone involved" idea-set, but avoids the hubris of the Superman and Batman workovers.  Because if heroes exist, the rest of us have still only got our lives to live.

(All of which makes me sound like I read a lot more comics than I do.  Actually I mostly read DC, and mostly in the 80s.)

So anyhow, so far so good, *I* think.  There is lots of good set-up so far, and interesting below-the-super-radar-but-genre-appropriately-still-super-ridiculous plots, and dialogue and characters I love to listen to.  I am interested in where this writing team takes this media opportunity.

And Clark Gregg is anchoring the show so intensely, and the three younger characters are totally believable, and if the two intermediate agents aren't fully believable, that's because they are starting as declared successes from the comic-book world of SHIELD ... and I expect they will probably follow Coulson as he steps back into being a full, independently-thinking human again (or they won't be able to last on the team, psychologically).  I think "Nick Fury" set Coulson up on purpose, but I wonder whether SHIELD (and Marvel) will be comfortable with the results.

I'm excited :).