Image Comics

 

Alcohol

 

People with alcohol-related brain damage (ARBD) or alcohol-related dementia (ARD) may repeat themselves due to memory problems. Alcohol can damage the brain, especially if consumed heavily over many years. 

Explanation

Blackouts

Alcohol can cause blackouts, which are periods of time when someone can't remember what happened. 

Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS)

This syndrome is a type of ARD that can cause memory loss, delirium, and hallucinations. People with WKS may repeat questions or comments during a conversation. 

Alcohol-related brain impairment (ARBI)

This condition can cause difficulty learning new information, focusing, and retrieving information from memory. 

Alcohol-related brain damage (ARBD)

This condition can cause memory and thinking problems, including confabulation, which is when someone makes errors when recalling information. 

Other effects of alcohol

Alcohol can also cause chemical imbalances in the brain, which can make it hard to stop drinking. Other effects of alcohol include: 

anxiety, sleep disturbances, pain, feelings of illness, irritability, and emotional pain.

THE MAELSTROM

In 1803 the townspeople in Richmond, Virginia, were roused from their beds by a fire alarm and were able to view a very rich display between 1 and 3 o'clock. The meteors "seemed to fall from every point in the heavens, in such a manner as to resemble a shower of sky rockets."

 "Long ago, a massive perturbation of orbits in the Oort Cloud, perhaps triggered by a passing star or a tiny black hole, sent millions of comets hurtling towards the sun.  As they crossed the paths of the planets, some struck with the force of unimaginable explosions, gouging out craters hundreds of miles across and irrevocably altering the delicate balance of planetary orbits.  Those that reached the sun were torn apart by its gravity, their icy bodies fractured into countless fragments that were flung back into the Oort Cloud in vast, elliptical trajectories.  These icy shrapnel, a ghostly armada of cosmic debris, now returns.  Over millennia, they will bombard the inner planets once more, a relentless storm of impacts that will reshape the face of Earth.  New mountain ranges will rise from the shattered crust, while devastating earthquakes and volcanic eruptions will tear the land apart.  The very air will be thick with dust and ash, blotting out the sun.  This cosmic maelstrom will last for centuries, a period of unparalleled geological upheaval that will test the very limits of life's resilience."

 

The backside of the Moon. 

It may be that the theoretical "ninth planet" is a tiny black hole. Invisible to astronomers but Stellar-mass black holes are typically in the range of 10 to 100 solar masses. If in orbit about our own Sun and within the Oort Cloud its orbit could be thousands of years.

Brunswick Stew

4-6 quarts chicken broth
2 pounds boneless, cooked chicken, roughly chopped
2 quarts canned, diced tomatoes
1 cup chopped onion
3 cups fresh or frozen white potatoes, peeled and diced
1 quart frozen or canned butter beans, drained
1 quart frozen or canned whole kernel corn, drained

5 tablespoons sugar
kosher salt to taste
coarse black pepper to taste
crushed red pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in a large stockpot, starting with 4 quarts of chicken broth. Bring to a boil, and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, 1½-2 hours, until it becomes thick.

Add the remaining chicken broth, if desired, 1 quart at a time. Return to a simmer for an additional half hour before serving.

This stew also can be frozen.

Farm Bureau of Virginia

Dodge RAM

 

Life During Wartime

 Life During Wartime                                           story             Neil Crabtree

My neighbor Skylar is a Florida cracker from way back, descendant of a long line of rednecks on both sides of the family. From what he’s told me, the line between both sides of the family may have been crossed several times during the previous century. But he’s sharp enough, and funny as hell if, like me, you are an Anglo Saxon in constant need of sunscreen. Our houses are on lots side by side, our driveways run parallel, and if one of us forgets to put out the cans on garbage day, the other usually will just go ahead and put the cans from both houses out to the curb. We grill together, though not as much as before the recent election. His TRUMP flag still flies and he’s less obnoxious now that his side won. Jokes about the opposing sides have stopped being funny. We’d rather talk about football than the state of the union. 

There had been a grounds crew that took care of all the houses in our cul-de-sac, but since the end of January we had not seen them. They would come every Wednesday morning and spray grass and dust all over our cars. My landlord told me most of the workers had been rounded up by ICE to be deported. Skylar acted surprised.

“I never thought they was illegal,” he told me, as he helped me unload boxes of books from my car trunk. “Hell, that one boy helped me move the boat trailer into the back yard without asking for anything. I gave him five bucks and a cold cola and you’d think I was Santa Claus. Manuel told me the others were brothers and cousins. Primos, he called them. Like good dope, but cousins.”

“Trump said he was going to deport the illegals,” I pointed out. 

“The daddy was illegal,” Skylar said in frustration. “Manuel was born at Jackson like the rest of his kin,” Skylar said. “Now what are we supposed to do? The Haitians are in more trouble than the Greasers. They’re rounding ‘em up by the truckload. Who’s going to cut our lawns?”

“There’s always people looking for work,” I said.

“You know what white men charge to do yard work? Prices will double.”

“Some kids will come around.”

“Forget it. We’re running out of darkies.”

Darkies was the term Skylar applied to any non-white person. Latinos, Arabs, Hawaiians, if there was one drop of black blood, the people may not look black, but they were definitely darkies. Darkies encompassed the spectrum of objectionable people from black to swarthy. You didn’t have to be African to be different.  Indian qualified. Either kind. The formal term in the old days was Colored People, those not allowed to use White bathrooms or water fountains. Nowadays we say People of Color on TV, darkies in Skylar’s house.

Deporting children born in the United States of illegal aliens had just become common, but the guilt it caused to civil-minded folks felt uncomfortable, like a deal that had been welched on. Every day it seemed there came another offensive action from the Trump administration. Proud Boys openly threatened the judges and congress people who had sent them to prison. Climate Change could not be mentioned even when the weather made it obvious something major had gone wrong. The Gulf of Mexico was now the Gulf of America, for no other reason than the President thought it sounded nice.

“Going to have to change a lot of geography books,” Skylar told me when he heard about it. 

“Why not? They’re already re-writing the history books,” I said.

“That’s just more of that MSNBC misinformation.”

“When did you ever watch MSNBC?” I asked.

“I don’t have to. The President has his own news agency.”

That part was true. Misinformation could be had twenty-four hours a day, sent from on-high, from the Chosen One. The news he gave out often conflicted with the news given out by networks we’d watched our whole lives. The Trumpers did not care. The media had always been biased against their point-of-view. Now it all balanced out. 

“I’m going to buy a lawn mower,” I told Skylar. 

“Hell, I may have one in my storage unit. I’ll check. We can both use it.”

“Works for me.”

“I feel sorry for Manuel,” he said. “Imagine. He’s being deported to a country he’s never seen.”

“Him. And a million other kids.”

“I hate to think about him landing in some shithole country like Nicaragua or something. It’s going to be hard to earn a living. We should give them all a hundred bucks on the way out.” Skylar looked around. “The Golden Age of America,” he said.

“Thanks for helping with these books,” I said. “They’re damn heavy.”

“Where did you get all them?’

“The high school has to get rid of them. They’ll give them to you free if you’ll haul them away.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“They’re WOKE. Too WOKE for teenagers to read.”

“Jesus. My sister would be happy to get her daughters to read anything,” he said. “They spend all day on their little phones. Come to visit and I hardly get a peep out of either one. We used to play softball together, not five years ago. We’d talk about things. I don’t know what’s going on these days.”

I could see something going on behind his eyes, a shadow not caused by any visible cloud.

“Skylar, you and your family are welcome to as many books as you’d like. Whatever is leftover I’ll take to Eunice to sell at the Dollar-A-Book sale.” Eunice operated the last used bookstore in Miami and sold herbal tea remedies and kombucha her husband made fresh each week. People brought her their used books and she gave them a store-credit against any purchases they made. Once a month she ran a Dollar-A-Book sale and gave the money she raised to the Redlands Animal Shelter. Skylar bought books about fishing, about grilling and about the Civil War. He knew a lot about the Confederacy and the different battles. He was a TarHeel from Carolina, and I’d been born and raised in Virginia, mostly around Petersburg, home of the Centre Hill Mansion, and the Crater, where Union troops led by Pennsylvania miners dug a tunnel under the Confederate camp and filled it with dynamite. The Yankees blew up the dynamite and rushed the huge crater they’d created, only to find the Rebs had learned of their plot and were able to attack from the high ground at the edge and massacre the Union men. Skylar had actually visited there and had a collection of Minie balls and shrapnel purchased at the roadside stands. We each had a tradition of Lost Causes that spanned generations, as ingrained as our politeness and taste for salty Smithfield ham. Elvis singing Dixie could move either of us to tears.

“Things will get better,” Skylar said. “Cold beer helps me think. I got a half a cooler full of tallboys. Want a beer? Here, let me help.”

As I got the hand truck under the boxes of books, we could see an unmarked car with blue lights flashing behind the grill, parked at the end of the street, motor running, but no one getting in or out. Just two dark shapes, talking on cellphones, sitting and waiting for orders.

“Now we have something to fear besides Fear Itself,” I said.

“I’m afraid you’ll get us both in trouble with your leftist bullshit.”

I thought for a second. “Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

“More hand truck and less jerking me around, we’ll get to that beer cooler yet.”

He pushed the stack of boxes back toward me but was unsure I could handle the load. 

“I’m feeling more Mexican already,” he said. “Here. Let me get that. You’ll dump the whole thing bigger than hell.”

He came and took the hand truck and the stack of full cardboard boxes from me.

“I’ll get the door,” I said.

“Grassy ass, Seen-your,” he said and pushed the pile forward, then stopped. “Look what they’re doing.” He rested the load. 

Down the street, a van had pulled up next to the parked car. Three uniformed men got out and headed up the driveway of the corner house. A dark-skinned man came out of the house with his hands up and was seized immediately. Two spun him around and handcuffed both wrists behind his back, yelling at him the whole time. The men from the car went into the open house door and came out with an elderly lady between them. More unmarked cars with flashing lights arrived, two, three of them, and armed uniformed men entered the premises. They came out again with a young dark-skinned boy in shorts and a Dolphin jersey, and a young woman carrying a baby in her arms. Female officers came from one of the cars and helped get the family into the police van. The original tenant kept yelling at the officers until they marched him to the first car and shoved him into the back seat. Then several officers cleared a way for the vehicles to come down our street and go around the big tree right in front of Skylar’s house to circle out of the cul-de-sac. In the backseat we saw the dark-skinned man and he looked at us both for help we could not give. The car and the van were leaving while cop cars with flashing lights kept arriving, uniformed men and women standing around talking. From inside the house there came a gunshot and a yelp of a wounded animal. Another gunshot then silence. The street cops headed into the house, weapons ready. We could hear radio chatter all the way down the street.

“Jesus,” Skylar said. “They shot the dog.”

I started to head into the street but Skylar grabbed my arm tight and would not let go.

“Don’t do it, man,” he said, pulling me close. “They’re like sharks. They’ve tasted blood.”

“They have no right to do this,” I started to say, then I saw the look in his eyes.

“Let’s get your WOKE books outta the driveway,” he said, and pushed the full hand truck to my front door. I helped him get up the front step. Inside, he wheeled the stack against the wall, then headed straight to the liquor cabinet. He liked my Bob Dylan bourbon and knew we were both ready for a shot.

“I saw that guy in Publix this morning. He’d won a hundred bucks on a scratch-off and was happy as hell,” Skylar said. “I patted him on the back, said I needed some of that luck. He just kept smiling. Seemed like an OK dude. At least he got the hundred bucks.”

Several ICE and law enforcement vehicles came down the circle and sped away. At least one had a camera mounted on the dashboard. There were still cars at the house. I locked the front door, for all the good it would do. Luck seemed a funny thing, but not the kind that makes you laugh. A family taken away, a dog shot dead. I felt the way I did after I got T-boned in my Toyota on Bird Road by a woman who thought she could beat traffic. Blind-sided and spun around and hurt in too many places to count.

“Better days,” Skylar toasted, and we knocked back the first of many rounds.

Rick Griffin