TO: Lt. Commander Orphex, Space Station 2045, Report #001

 DISCLAIMER: As administrator of this blog I am making it available to "Captain Xerxes" (as he calls himself) for his use. This poor fellow knocked on my door one day and appeared to be totally bewildered. He seemed like such a simpleton with all the strange questions he asked, with some being more typical of a 6 year old. Anyway, because he seemed nice enough and rather vulnerable, I took him in for a few days. After that, he sort of "grew on me", and I decided to let him live here indefinitely, or until he finishes "his mission", as he put it. I gather that he is doing some kind of missionary work when he's out and about. To keep him occupied here at my place, I gave him this blog to use.

The views he expresses are his only and probably should be regarded as for entertainment only. Of course, there will always be gullible people who will take his writing seriously, but gosh, I can't help that!       Ron Horn

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I am very pleased to report that the administrator of this blog, whom I will introduce shortly, has kindly offered it to us so that we can continue with this research project. As we discovered, the extensive pollution in the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere often interfered with our communication technology. However you should have no difficulty taking signals off the communication satellites that orbit the planet and thereby access these blog reports. Let me know if you have any more problems.

As previously reported, after first landing on this planet I encountered a colony of apes. Soon, however, we realized that the dominate species on this planet are closely related to apes, but called "homo sapiens", AKA humans, human beings, human race. They are more intelligent than the apes; and, so far, appear to be the most intelligent creatures on the planet and exist in huge quantities. Of course, their intelligence is still quite primitive compared to other creatures we have discovered in our travels in the galaxy.

I am presently very concerned about all the crises facing the human race--wars, deteriorating economies, peak oil, climate change, exhaustion of resources, etc. The basic problem seems to be that this species has enough intelligence to craft a number of tools and things, but not enough to curb an overactive imagination. These mostly hairless apes with over-sized brains suffer from megalomania--they believe that they are a unique species created by some “god” or creator that has endowed them with an exceptional role and place in the universe. For example, there are a couple of major mythologies or "religions" whose literature quotes their god as saying, "Let them [humans] have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the Earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth."

They also think that they are so clever that there is no situation that they cannot find a solution for. For example, see the fantasies they have concocted in this publication! It is extremely difficult for most of these creatures to believe that they could easily go the way of the dinosaur and the Dodo bird. I'm beginning to think that this is likely to happen. But they do make for an interesting study because we have never encountered in our travels to various galaxies an intelligent species that thought it was not subject to the laws of nature. We have encountered some humans here who know better, but they are in the minority.

Humans have devised an economic system which is founded on the belief that, because of their (imagined) exceptional status, they don't feel constrained by natural limits on fossil fuels and other natural resources. Then there is all the damage inflicted on their planet by pollution resulting from their efforts to convert every natural resource that they dig out of their planet to make into various objects which, in turn, are soon tossed aside and buried. How clever is that?!!(Ha ha) They call it “capitalism”. It's clear to me that the need to change this system is no longer just a matter of what they refer to as social justice, or of preventing war crimes against their fellow creatures; it is now a matter of survival of the species itself.

Their tribes or societies are basically divided into two classes of humans.  Each society has a small class of humans who dominate the majority based on their "ownership" of all the significant units of the various economies.  They use vast armies of rented slaves to produce the wealth that the ruling classes appropriate for themselves. Clearly this system provides them, the ruling class, with abundant short terms benefits, and thus they are preoccupied by efforts to preserve the system. Such efforts are often seen in their use of deception in their communications media, the extensive use of  surveillance on their subjects, elaborate systems of gulags for those who refuse to adapt, assassinations, invasions, theft of resources, etc. I also suspect that these religions, that I referred to briefly, have been concocted by the ruling classes to keep their subjects ignorant of, and distracted from, the unfavorable realities which this system imposes upon them.

Now let me introduce this hairless ape or, if you prefer, human being by the name of Ron Horn. He will serve as my Earth guide while I study this planet and this interesting species. He has followed, and participated in, political events in a tribe called the US since about the age of 20 Earth years. Such events included the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, and a variety of anti-war, feminist, and other human rights activities. In addition to grass roots experiences, his political views have been shaped by numerous books, films, the internet, travel, etc. over the past 50 Earth years as an adult.

He obviously also suffers from megalomania—he believes that he might make a difference by creating what appears to me as a propaganda blog disguised as a survey of news, news analysis and opinion articles. He figures that he has about 10 effective Earth years left and will devote them to this project. Well I guess he just can’t help it--it seems to be the nature of this mysterious creature. Because he is now retired from rented slavery (most Earthlings call them "jobs", although some dissidents call it "wage slavery") and has extra time, he has created this blog for his fellow megalomaniacs with similar concerns, but who have limited time to surf the net.

Captain Xerxes