FOUND YOU AT LAST!

I have finally tracked down this book.  I had read it as a teenager and remembered many of the plot points.  I remembered the main character's last name, Belson.  I remembered a scene where he steps out of his spaceship on a new world and puts his foot on the grass... which begins to scream from his crushing weight.  I remember the bleak world of 2063 where all fossil fuel is gone and uranium is also running out.  I recall the strange new element he discovers that is only radioactive in zero-G and how it makes him the wealthiest man on Earth.  Alas, I could never remember the book's title or the author's name.

Today I was doing a Google search for keywords "Belson," "screaming grass" and "depleted resources" and was taken to a thesis paper that references these words in a critical analysis of... Lo and Behold!  The Steps of the Sun by Walter Tevis.  That title on Amazon led me to this cover which I remember distinctly as one cool piece of sci fi novel cover art.  It was so impactful I copied the style of drawing and it became part of my own rendering style.

Now I can scratch one more enigmatic mystery from my past off my list as solved.  Now if I could only find that paper sack filled with eight rolls of 35mm film from our family vacation to California in 2000, which I lost and fear I may have accidentally thrown away. 

The Thin Skin and Dour Persona of Popular Culture

    I miss the days when it was okay to celebrate caricatures.  Not stereotypes... not bigotry... not insensitively mocking or shaming others... just being okay with caricatures of people.  Hooting Indians, gun slinging bowlegged cowboys, air headed gum chewing blond showgirls, sombrero wearing Senors, sassy "honey-chile" drawling big bottomed black ladies in big church hats, or hysterically flamboyant gay men.



    The vein of offense that runs like a raw nerve through our cultural discourse makes it a capital offense to poke good natured fun at any of the myriad humorous characteristics common among any particular demographic. 


    In the 60s and 70s Chief Nock-A-Homa was a fixture of Atlanta Braves baseball who would come out of his tepee in full feathered headdress and buckskin regalia to dance a war dance each time a Brave hit a home run.  He's long gone because it was offensive to some. 


    Aunt Jemima pancake syrup bottles used to be shaped like a glass depiction of a large black woman in a kerchief.  That went away as racial stereotyping.


    I remember a Little Golden Book called "Little Black Sambo" that was a favorite of American children in the 50s through the 70s.  So popular it spawned a home cooking restaurant of the same name.  Now it is even hard to find any record that the book even existed at all; let alone a copy of it. 


    Johnny Reb's chicken and barbecue was an icon on Hwy 19 in Union City Georgia in my childhood. The 30 foot talk Confederate soldier holding the Stars and Bars could be seen from a mile away.  Torn down as horrific and offensive.


    Uncle Remus characters where a staple of Six Flags over Georgia when I was a kid.  The Disney classic film depiction has been locked away in the vault forever.  Obtaining a poorly duped copy of it is like buying black market silk stockings during the Great War with lost of low voices and winks and nods as money is slipped into palms and a bootleg DVD is slipped into a plain paper bag and placed under your coat as you slip out the back door of the bookstore.


    All these things are gone now... sacrificed on the altar of political correctness.  We've become so conditioned to assume the most negative possible intent in every interaction with our fellow man that we have made our imagery bland, banal, and innocuous... and the world is a more homogeneous, less colorful, less vibrant place for it.

Keep Scary Guns Away From Our Oversized Infants

Certain types of guns are just too dangerous for 18 to 20 years olds to possess.  "Assault Rifles" such as the AR 15 or Mac 90 or AK 47 are evil looking instruments of death and mayhem and these doltish tots are unable to safely be in their presence.  I suppose the list could be exhaustive based on how scary looking the firearm is.

Okay... fine.  Let's apply the same criteria to other items even more deadly than these scary rifles.  Any car with and engine over 4 cylinders.  Or any car capable of speeds in excess of 70 mph.  Put governors on them to keep the speed down.  Criminalize tampering with those until age 21 when they are able to be responsible.

Criminalize text messaging.  Aside from the danger it creates it also makes kids inattentive and dumb.  They can install those apps on their 21st birthday.

Force children to be friends with unpopular kids.  Make it mandatory and treat it like community service.  Say.... 8 hours of being friends with that oddball kid that sits in the top right corner of the bleachers at Assemblies.

Create a new government agency responsible for evaluating families for effective parenting and give them enforcement powers to compel compliance with federally mandated good parenting guidelines.  The use of fines and or imprisonment along with the removal of children from noncompliant homes for placement in approved foster homes should be encouraged.

These measures can be implemented alongside those other highly effective efforts like maximum speed limits, making drugs illegal and laws against underage drinking.