Old People Get Paranoid

I swear that the older people get, the more paranoid they become. I'm not sure if this is simply a matter of brain chemistry gone bugfuck, medication overload, faulty nutrition, spiritual bankruptcy, fear of death, contrariness, just desserts, revenge, or some other factors that I am too unimaginative to categorize. A case in point is my elderly neighbor. She used to be very friendly and chatty, but for the past two months she has stopped talking to me and snubs me whenever we are both in the same outdoor space. This morning, she left a voicemail for me accusing me of putting my trash bag on her property. Of course, I had done no such thing, but she thought I did. Why she thought that I cannot fathom. It's paranoia, I think.

I have a friend whose mother is in her mid-90s, and the stories I hear also lead me to believe that this elderly woman is becoming more paranoid the longer she lives. I'm not saying there isn't enough to be paranoid about in this world. As the saying goes, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.

My dad was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and I think that was a misdiagnosis, but it's instructive all the same. His paranoid delusion that someone was going to sue him and take away his farm and all he had worked for because he was involved in an accident on the county road that ran past our homestead was the tipping point for him. He was on the road at dusk with two horses pulling a seeder, and a car going much too fast ran into the back of the seeder because my dad apparently didn't have a reflective triangle on the back of the machinery. That part was his fault, of course, but the driver of the car was also to blame for not having his automobile under control. After that accident, my dad went into a whirlwind of paranoia, and all he could think about or obsess about was the fact that this man was going to sue him and render him penniless and homeless. That never happened, of course, because no real damage was done in the accident, except to my father's sanity. He spent several years after that in a state-owned mental hospital, underwent 50 electroshock "treatments," and never recovered his equanimity.

As I said before, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. Whatever was out to get him, got him. I am only sorry that it was all inside the walls of his skull. If he could have just let go of the paranoid thought, he might have lived and been happy.

I hope my crazy neighbor can get help for her paranoia before it kills her too.

Time is a River

What's the difference between UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) and GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), you ask? Maybe you don't ask, but it's a story worth telling anyway. It never hurts to know these things, does it? Curiosity is good for the human soul. One of the criticisms leveled against George W. Bush is that he is incurious. I believe that incuriosity leads to ignorance. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I think the cat had a hot time poking into everything just the same. That's why cats are so, like, unable to be coerced into anything. They are too smart to be coerced and/or co-opted.

Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. Strictly speaking, UTC is an atomic time scale which only approximates GMT with a tolerance of 0.9 second. It is also used to refer to Universal Time (UT) which is a standard astronomical concept used in many technical fields and is referred to as Zulu time.

Why do we observe these precise time methodologies? Because without precise time, a whole bunch of stuff in this world (that we take for granted and never think about) would not work, and that would make us crazy. Or lost. Or dead. Or all three. Or worse.

UTC is the time system used for many Internet and World Wide Web standards. In particular, the Network Time Protocol is designed to synchronize the clocks of many computers over the Internet (usually to that of a known accurate atomic clock) and, thus, uses UTC.

Those who transmit on the amateur radio bands often log the time of their radio contacts in UTC, as transmissions can go worldwide on some frequencies. In the past, the FCC required all amateur radio operators in the United States to log their radio conversations. International broadcasters such as the BBC World Service also use UTC when publishing their schedules and announcing times during broadcasts.

UTC is also the time system used in aviation. Weather forecastings, flight plans, air-traffic control clearances, and maps all use UTC (colloquially referred to as "Zulu Time") to avoid confusion about time zones and daylight saving time.

If we didn't have precise time, how would we know when to turn on the next football game? Case closed.

World Clock

This clock shows UTC time (Coordinated Universal Time). The time in South Africa is UTC+2. Hence, add 2 hours to UTC (shown on this clock) to get the time in South Africa---in case you are watching the World Cup (which, if you're not, you otter bee).

Bambi lives

These little angels were seen on Seabrook Island, South Carolina, one evening in late June 2010.