... a cure fi di fever ...

... since I began these Ackeelover Chronicles, cyberspace has coughed up a few life-lessons that have required some handling ... this blog is more than an exercise in writing, a public outlet for stream-of-thought on a variety of topics that infect my mind, it's turned into a vehicle for my learning as well ...

... feedback from the readership skews positive, with mild critique aimed at my chosen style of prose - eschewing capital letters to begin sentences, favoring instead consistent use of ellipses (...) to separate thoughts, sentences and paragraphs ...

... what lies behind the final interface though, beyond the building of riveting content and pithy copy, is a technical battle to thwart the malice, malfeasance and malediction that would compromise a sincere web-publishing effort ...

... searchable cache, which hoards remnant rants of a mentally-challenged Australian Stargate fan whose attentions toward me went far beyond the acceptable, underscores my paranoia ...

 

... it's hard not to see the-ghost-of-malevolence-past when confronted with suspicious-site warnings, such as the one that greeted viewers of this blog recently, but the new malady proved to be from an entirely different malefactor ...

 

... malware - loosely speaking, malaria for computer systems ...

 

... fortunately, there's a fix for this fever ... vigilance, tenacity, technical expertise and time to decipher dense diagnostic forum-threads for helpful antidote ... this is the unglamorous side of blogging, and it doesn't come with a futuristic bug-bustin' suit ...

 

... but it's a relief to rout malignancy for a clean bill o' health ...

 

... meltdown mash-up ...

... "Bless my eyes this morning, Jah sun is on the rise once again, the way earthly things are going, anything can happen" ...
- ("So Much Trouble In The World" - Marley)

... by now readers of this blog will be familiar with my conviction that there's never a bad time to reach for a Marley lyric to support a thought ... Bob Marley tailored his songs around specific concerns but also for universal applicability and while he never actually used the word "meltdown" in song or, to my knowledge, interview, recent events may very well have given him opportunity to do so ... for sure there's plenty occasion these days to employ the term ...

... the earthquake/tsunami double-whammy in Japan, as if it isn't catastrophic enough in terms of loss of life and damage, is precipitating crises at several nuclear facilities, feeding fears of Chernobyl-style reactor meltdowns of massive consequence ...

... "in this age of technological inhumanity, scientific atrocity, atomic mis-philosophy, nuclear mis-energy, it's a world that forces lifelong insecurity" - ("Survival" - Marley) ...

... the growing challenge to the autocratic status-quo in the Arab world is widely characterised in Western media as systemic meltdown but is probably more akin to a populist derma-peel than a grasp at Washington or Westminster-style democracy ...

... "every man got a right to decide his own destiny ... so arm in arm, with arms, we'll fight this little struggle ... soon we'll find out who is the real revolutionary" - ("Zimbabwe" - Marley) ...

... collective unrest or act of God doesn't hold a monopoly on the phenomenon of meltdown, in fact it is just as likely, perhaps moreso, for any given individual to manifest this state through uncontrolable anger, psycho-chemical breakdown or both, as in the case of one sick cyber-stalker who I've had to report to police ... then there's the force majeure called Teflon Charlie ...

... with Charlie Sheen's dramatic severance from the Two and a Half Men TV sit-com keeping news cycles distracted, all the apocalyptic internet chatter around the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 and the looming fly-by of the asteroid Apophis, you'd think we have enough cataclysm to contemplate ... not so ...

... you may have heard of Betelgeuse, one of the brightest stars in the night sky, it's said to be close to burnout, soon to collapse on itself in a showy, stellar meltdown known as a supernova ... the dying star is considered old for its type and could stage this spectacular exit tomorrow, or in a gazillion tomorrows, but in the context of our universe, that means soon ...

... Marley, in the astral gleam of stage lights, represents a supernova in the musical firmament ... acceptance of the supreme authority of nature is central to Rasta spirituality and is perhaps the best prescription for dealing with meltdowns ...

... "have no fear for atomic energy, 'cause none a dem can stop the time" - ("Redemption Song" - Marley)

... interestingly enough, I journey to Australia in a matter of weeks at the kind invitation of the Supanova Pop Culture Expo ... I'll see Brisbane where cyclone Yasi wreaked havoc only a month ago ... a Jamaican Down Under, like Bob in '79 ...

... "Jah love, Jah love protect us" - ("Positive Vibration" - Marley)

... seashells and the sick cyber-stalker ...

... seems sometimes ... only a hit of pure, unabashed nature can counteract malady and illness ... if any of you in blogland have been with me from the beginning of Ackeelover Chronicles or have poked through the archives, you'll have seen evidence of a seashell aesthetic ... every so often I'll throw some at you ...

... I do this in part to share beauty with readers, and in part to help inure us all to some of the ugliness out there ... to throw wonder at some insanity ... and there's plenty evidence of that too, everywhere you look ... even where you're not looking ...













... pretty much the first thing to notice here are the holes in each of these shells from my favourite beach-of-the-moment ... wonderful creations, previously home to many a happy clam ... but now they have holes in them, protective cuppings with bored breaches ... apertures which can freely admit grit, and irritants ...














... any breach of this "homeshell security" threatens the wellbeing of a self-respecting bivalve ... and I, ostensibly a higher life form, know exactly how that feels, for I too have an irritant that has breached my homeshell ...

... said irritant, in the form of a very disturbed individual wielding a computer like a weapon, is easily identifiable when you come across the madness online ... evidently, such people are as commonly occuring in nature as these shell holes ... when I mentioned the offending cyber-stalker recently to a friend, the response was an unimpressed, "welcome to the club mi bredda" ...












... these blanched sea-urchin shells have holes in them that are meant to be there ... when alive they are protected by long, sharp and painful spikes to keep away attackers ... the internet has no such protection or assurance ... so, until such time as a suitable cyber-pesticide is developed, or an exterminator is found, I am treating the breach with the beauty of the beach ... and whatever additional tools I can get my hands on ...