The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

My Marvellous Invention

"Invalid Entry" 

Personally, I don't really get why space travel and the oodles of cash used to fund it are considered worthwhile. Sure, it's cool to know we have the ability to go to the moon and all, but at the end of the day it's been done and there's not much to see there. Not like it's Vegas, people. Of course it is interesting, but I think that while it is kind of cool in a trekkie sort of way, it's not doing much by way of the current economic situation on this particular planet, which we've effectively mucked up, so why would we think we have the right to leave our footprint, carbon or otherwise, on planets which don't actually have any life? What we're doing, in essence, is funding curiosity. I can't quite reason that out.

I also think cloning is largely unnecessary. While it is kind of fantastic in a very narrow kind of way, it also seems creepy and useless. What if we get to the point of cloning humans, what happens to the souls, the personalities? I actually hate the entire idea. I think it's an excuse for mad scientists to play God, and if God is out there, I can't see Her being amused. It is unnatural, you see, unintended, which for me means it isn't meant to be. It's not like medicine in which the goal is to prolong an existing life. It's a dangerous game in which alternate lives are created solely for the purpose of someone being able to say they did it. I can't find any good in that.

And robots. Let me just talk about the robots. Why, oh why do we need robots? Are we that lazy that we can't be bothered to get up and fetch the remote that we need a robot to do it? Recently, on the Discovery channel, they showed a Japanese scientist who had invented a robot which was meant to be a substitute for a human mate. It was a female prototype, and while everyone was so giddy reporting about this very eerie looking human substitute, I was choking on my chicken and rice wondering why in the hell it was necessary. Are people such sadsack losers that they can't even attempt to find a living, breathing person to share a conversation with? I was really unimpressed with the people who were smiling maniacally while discussing all the benefits of battery operated people because I just knew they were getting paid to do it, with money that would have been spent on divising better irrigation systems for Third World countries, or for social welfare systems which would aid in the current economic downslide. I say bring on the robots which diffuse the bombs but forget about the rest. Robots should only exist to do the things which might bring harm to an actual person and should never be given the importance that something which breathes rightfully has. Am I the only one who saw 2001: A Space Odyssey? That didn't set off any warning bells?

And, of course, Octo-Mom. The woman is clearly out of her everloving mind, what with the Angelina fixation and the need to have a gaggle of children. That she's single isn't even my major concern, but that she is so obviously disturbed, as well as dependent on the people of her state for financial support. I have to say that I knew as soon as I saw her doctors on television after she delivered her eight newest children that something was amiss. There was something kind of slimy and snake oil-ish about the lot of them, like they were in it for the prestige, not just the human science. Some people might say that it isn't anyone's business to tell her what to do with her own body, but my argument is that if left to the course of nature, she wouldn't have had fourteen kids anyway, so basically, yes, there should be some limits set given that this is a manmade phenomenon. It isn't natural. It isn't playing God to say no to it. Also, just look at her. There's crazy in those eyes, there are lies in those enhanced lips. She thinks she's smarter than everyone else, and the ones who will suffer will be those children, all of whom at some point will have to deal with the heavy strain of knowing that no one thought their mother should have had them, that they exist because of a wicked bout of crazy. I feel for them, I really do. New to the planet and already marked for disenchantment.

So, after all my criticisms, what would I invent with all of my self-righteousness?

Oh, the possibilities...let me see...

Well, first off, I think a whole lot of health care money should be put to work in the treatment of mental/emotional health. I would come up with a new restructured system in order to implement it and my justification would be this simple: many physical diseases/maladies are the result of prolonged periods of stress and depression, so treating those who suffer either or both of these conditions would ultimately lower the incident of actual physical illness, which would cost less overall. I'd develop a campaign which would work to dispell the myths and stereotypes associated with it, and would reallocate money into the study and education of feelings. We all have them, it's what we have in common, but many of us have trouble dealing with them. I wouldn't want a nation of delicate daisies, though. No, what I'd want is a more comprehensive understanding as to what makes a human tick, and I'd want them to learn effective coping skills. I would not want people to nurse their weaknesses, that wouldn't do. My hope is that we could begin to understand how the body is affected by thought, and how to find a way to harness the negativity, turning it into something more positive. Right now, we're all just spinning in circles waiting for the sky to fall. I don't think that's what life is supposed to be about.

I'd like to make slippers with sensors which would either heat up when it's chilly, or cool off when it's too warm. I want books with words that glow in the dark to allow for reading after bedtime so that the person next to you is not disturbed, with pages that turn themselves with a faint touch on the bottom corner. I want condoms to be developed which don't feel like latex over skin, but rather skin itself, with all of the warmth and moisture and no restriction. Oh, many brands say that they already feel like this, but they don't. I would develop a pill which could instantly cure drug addiction, smoking and alcoholism in one dose, leaving no lingering desire, only clarity. I'd create chocolate that was calorie-free and actually tasted like chocolate. A battery-operated back tickler. An ice-cream maker that would produce up to fifty different flavours at the push of a button. A signal that would go off in one's pocket, not unlike a pager on vibrate, whenever someone who found them attractive approached them. How great would that be? To know that he or she is interested before they even look you in the eye. It would save a lot of time, and rejection.

And, a time machine. I would absolutely love to go back, undetected, in a bubble of invisibility, to just to observe. I don't think it would be wise to interfere in any way, messing with destiny and all that, but to hear how things were said, what people looked like, what day to day life was all about. I'd skip all the drama, though, moving past the wars and Holocaust and general carnage, although, if I could kill Hitler without anyone knowing I might like to slit his throat while he reclined in a bathtub. I'd watch Monet paint by the riverside on a spring afternoon. I'd sit on a city street in the late 1940's, watching well-dressed people bustle by, amongst the clatter of streetcars and clacking heels. I'd go sit in the Serendipity cafe and watch Marilyn Monroe sip on a milkshake, and I'd head to the Whiskey A-Go-Go to watch Jim Morrison sing with his back to the audience. Woodstock. I'd do that too. I'd love to run through a field in the 1950's countryside, just as the sun was looking to set. Paris in the 1890's. California in the 1930's. I'd create a panel of buttons which would allow for any country at any given period of time, preferably their best. I'd want to walk the cobbled streets of Dublin on a summer night in 1960, down O'Connell, over the River Liffey, listening to the songs bleed out of the pubs onto the street. I'd go to 1700 Venice and watch the glamour and sexual intrigue of Carnival while donning a gold and red mask. Oh, how I'd travel, how I'd listen, how I'd drink.

I would not go forward. The future is as bright as it is dark. Best left as a surprise, I think. I'm not God, I don't need to trouble myself with what I can't, or should not, control.