Florence, Part 1

Nan and I recently returned from our first trip to Italy. We flew into Florence on Thursday, September 20 and wandered the streets for a few days before taking the train on Sunday to the Cinque Terre area. There we met up with a great group of fellow Americans for a six-night, five-day Wayfarers hike (thewayfarers.com). On Saturday, we returned to Florence for a couple of more days before flying home.

We knew this would be the trip of a lifetime for us, so we took plenty of photographs, like this one of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence's 700-year-old town hall.

With the help of modern technology, I have started putting the images together with captions into Flash-based slideshows. They will display in a standard browser window provided you have the Adobe Flash Player installed. If you need it, click here. If you already have it, click the photo of the Palazzo to go to the first slideshow, "Florence, Part 1". There are three different ways to view the show, so be sure to experiment with the different buttons you'll find.

Separate slideshows of our Wayfarers hike and our second weekend in Florence will follow as they are completed. Enjoy!

"It's Time for Change"

I drive an old 1995 Honda Passport with a bumper sticker on the back window. Up until a few months ago, it was "Save the Planet: Gore 2008", but when it became apparent that Al was not going to run, I chipped it off and replaced it with one that says, "It's Time for Change: Barack Obama 2008".

During my drive home this evening, traffic was backed up at a four-way stop sign. As I waited to go through, a gentleman in a brand-new, mother of pearl-colored Cadillac Escalade rolled past me on the right. To me, nothing screams "I'm an asshole" louder than a Cadillac Escalade, especially one with that perverse milky paint job.

As he went by, he put his arm out the window in a thumbs-down gesture. At first I was confused. Was he commenting on my driving? But then it occurred to me that he was making a non-verbal comment about my bumper sticker. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, I guess. I smiled and flipped him the bird.

9-1-1

Today is the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. I remember that morning clearly. I was getting ready to leave for work; Nan was already gone. I was surprised when the phone rang since it was still very early. It was Nan. She told me to turn on the TV; a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. When the TV came on, it was tuned to The Today Show. The picture showed one of the towers smoking, and I thought, "How could a plane have flown into the World Trade Center on such a perfectly clear morning?" Then Katie Couric's voice said something like, "All right. Now let's back that up and look at it again in slow motion." I expected to see the jet that had caused the smoking tower, but instead I saw a second jet slowly enter the picture from the right and slam into the other tower, creating a huge ball of fire and debris. "Holy shit!" I thought. "What are the chances of THAT happening? Two planes in one day?!" And then it dawned on me that this was no accident, that people had done this intentionally. I stared in utter disbelief for several minutes as the scene replayed over and over again. Finally, I turned it off and went off late to work, thinking, "Everything has changed."

As I watched the news reports play out over the next several days and weeks, I kept waiting for someone to comment on the irony of the date. September 11. Nine-eleven. Nine-one-one: the number we call when there is an emergency. Was it just a coincidence that Osama bin Laden would choose this date for the attacks? Or was it intentional, either to send a warning--like the attacks themselves weren't enough of a warning--or to make an extremely dark joke, something like, "Hey, America, better call 9-1-1!"

In his infrequent videotapes, like the one released last week, bin Laden doesn't appear to have much of a sense of humor, unless you count telling us that the war in Iraq would end if we would all just convert to Islam. That made me smile. But he delivered it in such a deadpan manner that you had to think he was serious, not only about that but also about everything else he has done, including the attacks six years ago. Deadly serious. So why is he still alive and threatening us? Maybe it's like a button I saw a few years ago: "Osama bin Forgotten."

Moby-Dick

It took more than a few months, but I finally finished reading Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. It was very different from what I expected. Everyone knows the story of Captain Ahab's quest for revenge against the white whale responsible for taking his leg, but there is much more to it than that.

Many scholars have concentrated on the insanity of Ahab's obsession. To me, that was merely the device that drove the plot. The greater story is the one of man's place in the universe and his perception of that place. The whalers are routinely successful in their hunt until they finally encounter Moby-Dick at the book's climax. Their incredible hubris is revealed in the absolute destruction the whale wreaks upon their world, killing everyone but Ishmael, the narrator who survives to tell the tale.

The message is that man is but a small component in this universe and that the universe, despite man's feelings to the contrary, is largely indifferent to him. Much of this message is contained within the following paragraph, about two-thirds of the way through the book, when one of the cabin boys, who has joined the chase with the whalers for just his second time, jumps out of the boat in fear:

But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and Stubb's boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels them uncompromised, indifferent as his God.

Pip's brush with death exposed to him the truth of man's situation and changed him forever in the eyes of his shipmates. "Insane" is the label others place upon those whose perception does not match their own.

It is apparent why this book created such a sensation when it was published more than 150 years ago. The language and imagery are advanced, even by modern standards. It is a difficult but rewarding book and well worth the time it takes to work through it.

July 28

July 28 has historically been a bad day for me.

In 1987 it was the day I parted company with an employer and immediately started my own somewhat ill-fated computer business, which I ran for ten years and then sold to a former employee whose birthday was July 28. But the sale did not go smoothly and resulted in legal wrangling to reach a settlement.

In 2004 it was the day I founded my eBay business, shortly after being laid off from a great IT job at Aspen Valley Hospital. That business was a financial disaster, so I closed it down after a year to stop the losses.

Today it is July 28 again, and I am trying not to tempt fate. I was going to go on an adventurous solo dirt-bike ride between Gateway, Colorado and Moab, Utah, but Nan talked me out of it after I mentioned that July 28 has been unlucky for me. My luck may be changing though because I was successful, just a few minutes ago when they went on sale, in getting two tickets to the Green Bay Packers vs. Denver Broncos Monday Night Football game on October 29--probably our last chance to see Brett Favre play in person. How lucky is that?!

"got jesus?"

I was cut off in traffic the other day by somebody with a "got jesus?" sticker on their bumper. It made me wonder how a person like that can justify their bad driving, whether they think that speeding, not using turn signals and rolling through stop signs are not actual sins so they don't count in God's ledger, or maybe that God is on their side so they can drive with reckless abandon. Either way, it scares the shit out of me.

Apparently, I'm not the only one. It's gotten so bad that the Pope had to issue the Ten Commandments for Drivers last week. I read them online and it comes down to this: "Drive nice." Hear that? Don't treat freeways like your personal NASCAR race. Don't pass on the right in merge lanes. Don't pretend that your desire to arrive at work on time is more important than other people's. Don't think that tailgating will cause the drivers in front of you to speed up or get out of your way. Don't drive while talking on your cell phone, eating an ice cream cone and steering with your elbows. And if someone lets you pull in ahead of them, wave and smile to acknowledge their courtesy. 'Nuff said.

Better the Second Time Around

In some of my first Whispering Jesse blog postings, the "Where's the Dinghy?" series, I detailed our ill-fated May 2004 sailing trip in the British Virgin Islands. We endured a lifetime's worth of sailing misfortunes in a single week, everything from dangerous weather to almost losing our dinghy.

I'm happy to report that things do indeed go better the second time around. What we learned from the first time's disasters prepared us well for the trip we took last month. It went so well that Nan said it was our best vacation ever. That's a far cry from last time, when in the middle of some particularly bad weather Nan said she hated sailing and would never do it again.

Here's what we did differently this time:

Instead of sailing with only the two of us, we recruited Nan's sister Monica and her friend Vicky to join us. Neither had ever sailed before but they were quick learners and excellent shipmates.

Instead of scheduling our flights with no room for error, we took the time to find flights that would give us options and get us from Denver to the British Virgin Islands in just one day, with time to spare in case of problems.

Instead of assuming our luggage would arrive when we did, we packed some toiletries and clothes in our carry-ons.

Instead of using a smaller, less expensive charter company, we went with the biggest and best, the Moorings, out of Road Town harbor on Tortola.

Instead of going with a smaller boat, we went with a forty-foot Beneteau, the 403 Club. It made for a smoother ride and much more cabin room, plus it included such niceties as an auto-pilot and an electric anchor windlass.

Instead of staying at an expensive hotel the night before our charter began, we stayed on the boat and got well-acquainted with its systems before heading out the next day.

Instead of sailing around Tortola clockwise, which is somewhat contrary to the prevailing easterly Trade Winds, especially on the north side of the island, we sailed counter-clockwise and enjoyed the benefits of never having to use the engine to make headway.

Instead of assuming the boat would have adequate water and fuel, and that every mooring area would have a water and fuel dock, we planned our itinerary to include strategic refueling stops at Marina Cay and Sopers Hole.

Instead of assuming that we would be able to get a day mooring at the Baths--no anchoring allowed!--we spent the previous night at the closest overnight spot, Manchioneel Bay on Cooper Island. We were underway by 6:15 the next morning and were the first boat to arrive at the Baths that day.

Instead of thinking I knew where I was going as we tried to enter North Gorda Sound and almost heading out to open sea by mistake, I checked and rechecked the chart, and entered the sound safely through the Mosquito Island channel.

Instead of using a long line to attach our dinghy to our Marina Cay mooring while we refueled, and then running over it and fouling our propeller on the return, we tied the dinghy up close to the buoy and motored up to it extra-cautiously.

Instead of thinking there would be plenty of moorings available at Jost Van Dyke, we sailed early from Tortola's Cane Garden Bay to White Bay and tied off our dinghy to an open mooring buoy, then made a side trip to Sandy Cay. When we returned all the other moorings were taken.

Instead of arriving late to the Sopers Hole and Norman Island mooring areas and ending up with windy, noisy moorings, we made a point of sailing early in the day and were rewarded with quiet, protected moorings, the one at Norman Island being the best of the trip, with excellent snorkeling right next to the boat.

Instead of suffering twenty-plus knot winds, four to six foot swells and frequent squalls, we were lucky to have fifteen to twenty knot winds, minimal swells and partly cloudy skies--perfect weather almost the entire week.

As good as it was, the trip was not without incident:

Monica took a bad fall going down the steps into the cabin, cracking two ribs and bruising a wrist. She had taken off her sandy shoes in the cockpit before descending, and her wet feet slipped out from under her at the bottom, causing her to fall back hard against the steps. She was a trouper, only complaining when we made her laugh.

We failed to notice an approaching boat as we were casting off the water dock at Sopers Hole and had to take evasive action, which resulted in us being pinned by the wind to the windward side of an adjacent dock. Fortunately, we didn't cause any damage to the boat, but I think I swore myself hoarse. We would have been forced to wait for the wind to die in order to make our escape, but a smart bystander directed a man in a dinghy to come under the dock from the leeward side and push our bow out into the wind while I gunned the engine and steered us out of there. It worked like a charm.

Hey, if everything went perfectly, it wouldn't be an adventure now, would it?

Here was our itinerary for the week:

Day 1, Saturday, May 5: Moorings Charter Base in Road Town, Tortola to Manchioneel Bay at Cooper Island.

Day 2, Sunday, May 6: Cooper Island to the Bitter End Yacht Club at North Gorda Sound, Virgin Gorda, with a four-hour stop at the Baths.

Day 3, Monday, May 7: Virgin Gorda to Marina Cay.

Day 4, Tuesday, May 8: Marina Cay to Cane Garden Bay on the north coast of Tortola.

Day 5, Wednesday, May 9: Tortola to White Bay at Jost Van Dyke, with a side trip to Sandy Cay.

Day 6, Thursday, May 10: Jost Van Dyke to Sopers Hole at Tortola's west end.

Day 7, Friday, May 11: Tortola to the Bight at Norman Island, with an unsuccessful snorkeling stop at the Indians. This time, all the day moorings were already taken.

Day 8, Saturday, May 12: Norman Island to Moorings Charter Base.

Monica and Vicky flew home the next day, but Nan and I spent an extra week at a villa on Cane Garden Bay owned and operated by our friends, Allan and Joycelyn Rhymer. They invited us to a festive Mothers' Day luncheon and made the second half of our vacation a joy with their boundless hospitality.

Next time, north to Anegada!

Why I Vote Democratic

Yes, that's right, "Democratic," not "Democrat" as the Republicans have been saying lately. "Democrat" is a noun; "Democratic" is an adjective. I believe the English majors in elected office and on TV news are just trying to get liberals' goat with their misuse of the words, or maybe they think "democratic" is too close to "social equality" in its meaning, which would in turn mean that "Republican" equates to "social injustice."

I have voted in every presidential election since 1976, eight in all so far. In fact, I vote in every election, whether it's mid-term, referendum or special. And I have never voted for a Republican candidate. Not once. It's not that there maybe aren't some worthy Republicans running for office, but they'll never get my vote because of what the Republican Party stands for to me.

If you have read this blog before, you know that I value nothing more than fairness, personal freedom and thinking for oneself. I don't believe the government should legislate morality or otherwise concern itself with the behavior of its people unless that behavior infringes on the rights and freedoms of others. On the Left vs. Right scale, this puts me pretty far out to the Left, just shy of anarchy, and at almost the polar opposite of modern Republicans, who seem to want to control every aspect of people's lives and make each other rich at the expense of those less fortunate.

When I was younger, I believed it was important to vote my beliefs, so I voted for Independent candidate Eugene McCarthy in 1976 and People's Party candidate Barry Commoner in 1980. I think each received less than one percent of the vote in their respective elections, but this dismal showing didn't change my thinking so much as watching the 1980 presidential election returns did.

I remember sitting in my friend Curt Haensel's apartment in Madison while we were both still in college there, watching in utter disbelief as Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter to become president. It was like watching the death of hope. It was like, what were the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam protests, the Feminist Movement, the Watergate trials and all the other progressive events of our lifetimes all about? How could it all have led up to this, America putting the brakes on the free society it had been creating since John Kennedy was elected?

What followed was twelve years of nothing socially good or progressive happening, eight with Reagan and then another four with the first Bush. Money that had been budgeted for programs benefiting the people was now reallocated to defense. We outspent the Soviets and ended the Cold War. But to whose benefit? The Soviet Union splintered into several poverty-stricken, corrupt fiefdoms. America was now the world's sole superpower, and the rest of the world had better watch out, as we proved in the Gulf War. We began meddling in the affairs of other countries, toppling disagreeable leaders and providing arms for uprisings. When questions were raised, ignorance or forgetfulness were claimed. Conservative values became "family values." The anti-abortion movement gained ground. The national debt climbed into the trillions. Nationalism was seen as a virtue. And the rich got richer, the poor poorer.

While all this was going on, there were presidential elections in 1984 and 1988. I voted for Democratic candidate Walter Mondale in 1984, and I voted for Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988. Neither won of course, but I was no longer voting my beliefs, I was voting my conscience. Enough with the independents! If my vote would help get the neo-conservative Republican monsters out of office, that was good enough for me.

I have voted Democratic ever since--the straight party ticket every time. If ever I have a doubt, I just need to be reminded with situations like the recent voting of Ronald Reagan as "Greatest American in History." Ahead of Abraham Lincoln. Give me a break! The nostalgia our society feels for this era of rah-rah conservatism and "America first" is completely beyond my understanding.

Hope lives again though, in the form of Democratic candidate Barack Obama. He is the breath of fresh air we all need right now. A man of the people and for the people. He will be elected our next president, and he will put us back on the path to freedom and equality for all.

Republicans equal life; Democrats equal death?

Keith Olbermann closed out his Countdown program on MSNBC last night with the best analysis I've heard so far regarding the state of fear the Republicans have been using since 9/11 to control the American people. Here is the transcript from MSNBC.com:

A special comment about Rudolph Giuliani’s remarks at a Lincoln Day dinner in New Hampshire:

Since some indeterminable hour between the final dousing of the pyre at The World Trade Center, and the breaking of what Sen. Barack Obama has aptly termed "9/11 fever," it has been profoundly and disturbingly evident that we are at the center of one of history’s great ironies.

Only in this America of the early 21st century could it be true that the man who was president during the worst attack on our nation and the man who was the mayor of the city in which that attack principally unfolded would not only be absolved of any and all blame for the unreadiness of their own governments, but, moreover, would thereafter be branded heroes of those attacks.

And now, that mayor — whose most profound municipal act in the wake of that nightmare was to suggest the postponement of the election to select his own successor — has gone even a step beyond these M.C. Escher constructions of history.

"If any Republican is elected president — and I think obviously I would be best at this — we will remain on offense and will anticipate what (the terrorists) will do and try to stop them before they do it."

Insisting that the election of any Democrat would mean the country was "back ... on defense," Mr. Giuliani continued: "But the question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have. If we are on defense, we will have more losses and it will go on longer."

He said this with no sense of irony, no sense of any personal shortcomings, no sense whatsoever.

And if you somehow missed what he was really saying, somehow didn’t hear the none-too-subtle subtext of "vote Democratic and die," Mr. Giuliani then stripped away any barrier of courtesy, telling Roger Simon of politico.com:

"America will be safer with a Republican president."

At least that Republican president under which we have not been safer has, even at his worst, maintained some microscopic distance between himself and a campaign platform that blithely threatened the American people with "casualties" if they, next year, elect a Democratic president — or, inferring from Mr. Giuliani’s flights of grandeur in New Hampshire — even if they elect a different Republican.

How ... dare ... you, sir?

"How many casualties will we have?" — this is the language of Osama bin Laden.

Yours, Mr. Giuliani, is the same chilling nonchalance of the madman, of the proselytizer who has moved even from some crude framework of politics and society, into a virtual Roman Colosseum of carnage, and a conceit over your own ability — and worthiness — to decide who lives and who dies.

Rather than a reasoned discussion — rather than a political campaign advocating your own causes and extolling your own qualifications — you have bypassed all the intermediate steps and moved directly to trying to terrorize the electorate into viewing a vote for a Democrat, not as a reasonable alternative and an inalienable right ... but as an act of suicide.

This is not the mere politicizing of Iraq, nor the vague mumbled epithets about Democratic "softness" from a delusional vice president.

This is casualties on a partisan basis — of the naked assertion that Mr. Giuliani’s party knows all and will save those who have voted for it — and to hell with everybody else.

And that he, with no foreign policy experience whatsoever, is somehow the messiah-of-the-moment.

Even to grant that that formula — whether posed by Republican or Democrat — is somehow not the most base, the most indefensible, the most un-American electioneering in our history — even if it is somehow acceptable to assign "casualties" to one party and "safety" to the other — even if we have become so profane in our thinking that it is part of our political vocabulary to view counter-terror as one party’s property and the other’s liability ... on what imaginary track record does Mr. Giuliani base his boast?

Which party held the presidency on Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party held the mayoralty of New York on that date, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party assured New Yorkers that the air was safe and the remains of the dead recovered and not being used to fill potholes, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party wanted what the terrorists wanted — the postponement of elections — and to whose personal advantage would that have redounded, Mr. Giuliani?

Which mayor of New York was elected eight months after the first attack on the World Trade Center, yet did not emphasize counter-terror in the same city for the next eight years, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party had proposed to turn over the Department of Homeland Security to Bernard Kerik, Mr. Giuliani?

Who wanted to ignore and hide Kerik’s organized crime allegations, Mr. Giuliani?

Who personally argued to the White House that Kerik need not be vetted, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party rode roughshod over Americans’ rights while braying that it was actually protecting them, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party took this country into the most utterly backwards, utterly counterproductive, utterly ruinous war in our history, Mr. Giuliani?

Which party has been in office as more Americans were killed in the pointless fields of Iraq than were killed in the consuming nightmare of 9/11, Mr. Giuliani?

Drop this argument, sir.

You will lose it.

"The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us," Mr. Giuliani continued to the Rockingham County Lincoln Day Dinner last night. "Never, ever again will this country be on defense waiting for (terrorists) to attack us, if I have anything to say about it. And make no mistake, the Democrats want to put us back on defense."

There is no room for this.

This is terrorism itself, dressed up as counter-terrorism.

It is not warning, but bullying — substituted for the political discourse now absolutely essential to this country’s survival and the freedom of its people.

No Democrat has said words like these. None has ever campaigned on the Republicans’ flat-footedness of Sept. 11, 2001. None has the requisite, irresponsible, all-consuming ambition. None is willing to say "I accuse," rather than recognize that, to some degree, all of us share responsibility for our collective stupor.

And if it is somehow insufficient, that this is morally, spiritually, and politically wrong, to screech as Mr. Giuliani has screeched, there is also this: that gaping hole in Mr. Giuliani’s argument of "Republicans equal life; Democrats equal death."

Not only have the Republicans not lived up to their babbling on this subject, but last fall the electorate called them on it.

As doubtless they would call you on it, Mr. Giuliani.

Repeat — go beyond — Mr. Bush’s rhetorical calamities of 2006.

Call attention to the casualties on your watch, and your long, waking slumber in the years between the two attacks on the World Trade Center.

Become the candidate who runs on the Vote-For-Me-Or-Die platform.

Do a Joe McCarthy, a Lyndon Johnson, a Robespierre.

Only, if you choose so to do, do not come back surprised nor remorseful if the voters remind you that "terror" is not just a matter of "casualties." It is, just as surely, a matter of the promulgation of fear.

Claim a difference between the parties on the voters’ chances of survival — and you do bin Laden’s work for him.

And we — Democrats and Republicans alike, and every variation in between — We Americans! — are sick to death of you and the other terror-mongers trying to frighten us into submission, into the surrender of our rights and our reason, into this betrayal of that for which this country has always stood.

Franklin Roosevelt’s words ring true again tonight.

And, clarified and amplified, they are just as current now as they were when first he spoke them, 74 years ago.

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" — and those who would exploit our fear, for power and for their own personal, selfish, cynical, gain.

Good night, and good luck.

So it goes.

I was saddened but not surprised to learn of Kurt Vonnegut's death last week. I had been sure he would die back in 2000 when he suffered smoke inhalation from his apartment catching fire, but what's a little smoke after a lifetime of cigarettes? Still, he had been on my "death watch" list since that incident and I had been dreading the news of his death for years.

I was introduced to Kurt Vonnegut in my early teens in the early 1970s. My mother brought a copy of Cat's Cradle on one of our summer lake vacations to Waupaca, Wisconsin, and she thought I would enjoy it. I did. And I shared it with my friend John Shepherd. Before long, we had each read all of Mr. Vonnegut's fiction. His stories validated our adolescent discovery that life was absurd and that nobody really knew what was going on. We especially enjoyed Slaughterhouse-Five and its premise that Billy Pilgrim had become unstuck in time. As I have gotten older, that idea has come back to me frequently as random memories of my life leap to mind at odd moments for no apparent reason. Of course, I only live in moments that have already occurred, not also in the future as Billy Pilgrim did. "So it goes."

The many excellent short stories in Welcome to the Monkey House were a revelation for John and me. We laughed out loud at several of them and were deeply moved by others. I still reference the equality-at-any-cost idea behind "Harrison Bergeron"; get misty thinking of the young lovers in "Long Walk to Forever"; and wonder if my dog is as smart as "Thomas Edison's Shaggy Dog".

In 1976, while attending the University of Iowa, I had the great good fortune to see Kurt Vonnegut speak at McBride Auditorium. He spoke of his work with the university's Writers' Workshop and answered questions from the audience, but what I remember most clearly was his reading of the first chapter of his work-in-progress, Jailbird. When he came to the description of the homeless woman with old love letters stuffed in her shoes and revealed that the letters were from the story's narrator, Walter Starbuck, there was an audible gasp in the auditorium, followed by a raucous standing ovation. Such was the power of Kurt Vonnegut as a storyteller.

To use the greeting of Billy Pilgrim's Tralfamadorian abductors: Mr. Vonnegut, hello. Good-bye. Hello.