Happy New Year 2006 Everyone & Everything on the 3rd Rock Out from Sol!!!

Largely by random coincidence, this image from space very clearly shows, through fortuitous breaks in the clouds, Africa, the Sahara, Arabia and Madagascar.

Look South from the southern tip of Africa and there's a solid white patch at the bottom which isn't clouds, but where Neffe Ice Cube has just been -- Antarctica!

Vleeptron thinks this view is very fitting, because during the 20th Century, evidence became pretty overwhelming that the Moment When and the Place Where Human Beings first became Human Beings happened in Africa. Much of this evidence comes from Mitochondrial DNA -- a special kind of DNA, every cell has it, that descends exclusively from Mother to Daughter -- and so anthropologists now commonly talk about Eve, the Mother Of Us All, and they believe Eden was in Africa.

(Other common suspects for the Biblical Eden: Iraq between Tigris and Euphrates, also Serendip/Ceylon/Sri Lanka. Much trouble in both Paradises this year.)

From Eden we wandered, by foot and on floating logs (for short trips -- there's a water shortcut to Arabia and thus to Asia) to inhabit all of Eurasia, and very soon our ancient ancestors were in Java/Djawa in modern Indonesia. On the way we changed colors a bit, to experiment with pretty new colors or to blend in with new backgrounds better. Eventually we shivered in Siberia and wandered across the Land Bridge to Alaska and the Americas. Eventually Charles Darwin, the young gentleman naturalist aboard H.M.S. Beagle, would find these wanderers' descendants in Tierra del Fuego.

And waiting for The Beagle on every island in the South Pacific, and in Australia, were ancient peoples who had mastered The Great Voyages, life-and-death voyages from Southeast Asia to every land-sustaining rock in the gigantic Pacific. Many of the Pacific languages, those that survive, are recognizeably alike today.

Every one of these people -- the NASA guy who took this Hasselblad photo of our home from far out in space, Muslim women in Pakistan, Wall Street Republican gazillionaires in limousines (with their young skinny friend Annika), the grocery clerk who sells fresh fruit and snacks to my Nephew Ice Cube in Punta Arenas (Sandy Point), Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire), Chile -- are our Sisters and our Brothers. Or perhaps just truly our cousins, some close, some a bit more distant.

But no potion of Political or Media or Religious-"inspired" Hate can hide it:

As 2005 becomes 2006, or by any calendar's reckoning, all the Human Beings on the Third Rock Out from Sol belong to One Family, The Same Family, Our Family.

When we reach out and Love and Feed them, and wave "Ramadan Kareem!" and "Happy Hannukah!" and "Merry Christmas!" to them, we are Loving and Feeding and waving to our Family.

When we bomb them and kill them and torture them and make their lives more dangerous and more toxic and sicker, we are doing this to our brothers, our sisters, our cousins, our nieces and nephews, our aunts and uncles.

~ ~ ~

The first widely published photograph of The Whole Earth, as seen from New Space in the early 1970s, was cooked up by a fellow named Stewart Brand, who went on to publish the famous Whole Earth Catalog. Wonderful and Exciting Rivers of positive thought and action which sprang from the WEC are still alive and well today.

Brand thought it was extremely important that all Human Beings started looking at the Earth as the only place we know which can support and sustain biological Life (which, no matter how we try to deny it, includes Us).

There may be other Planets -- Vleeptron, Hoon, Yobbo to name just a few -- which could sustain Life, but they're very hard to get to (you have to know the Zeta Beam schedule), and I have received some Comments suggesting that some people don't even believe these faraway planets exist.

They do exist. When the Zeta Beam is working, I spend lots of time there, I keep a modest skinny little piede-a-terre in Ciudad Vleeptron (in the Poortown Parva neighborhood, No. 44 Biederbeckestraat).

Vleeptron has Planetary Free Medical Health Insurance for Everyone (of course our taxes pay for it, but Health and Life are not For Sale to the Highest Bidder).

Vleeptron aspires to a High Standard of Mercy flavored with a Lot of Justice. Nearly all the time, Vleeptron Gives People A Break.

Vleeptron does not Execute people who have done bad things, because that would make us murderers, and blur the destinction between people who do bad things, and Us.

Vleeptron has a prison. There are 91 women and men (and No Children) in it, it resembles a community college dormitory, it was designed and established by a retired prison official from Finland (Mrs. Beasley), mostly the prisoners spend their days and evenings taking education classes and working through their previous problems with alcohol and some other Stuff.

Vleeptron has wonderful live music -- Lieder, jazz, opera, Mozart, Mozart, Mozart, Kurt Weill, Mozart -- did I mention we have Mozart? -- nasty nihilistic Thrash Punque, Quebecoise Acid Country with Emmylou Harris, Mozart, Math Rock, Geoff Muldaur, and Prince's Intergalactic Orchestra, featuring George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic -- every night at about 30 clubs and theaters all over the Dwingeloo-2 Galaxy. Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band (featuring Ryland Cooder) will be putting on a Monster New Year's Show at Xbg's tonight, shows at 21.00, midnight and 03.00.

Vleeptron has 33 Mosques, 33 Synagogues, 33 Christian Churches, 33 Buddhist Temples, 33 Hindu Temples, the Swedenborgian joint, the Great Cathedral to Flying Spaghetti Monster, two Quaker Meetings (they loathe each other but have to pretend they love each other hahaha), and lately a lot of Peanut Butter Worshippers have been meeting on Tuesday nights in borrowed basement rooms. Nobody has punched anybody in the nose over Religion on Vleeptron, Yobbo or Hoon since that thing with Ivan and Snoooooootzuuuu in minus-44,114 A.V. (Some historians think it wasn't over Religion, but over Ivan's Sweetie-Pie, Umaaaaaaaaa.)

Vleeptron has recently received word of Another Life-Sustaining Planet with very similar ideas and customs called ErinLand. Perhaps this year Erin H. will send us some reports of Life in ErinLand. (She too has to spend most of her time on poor Earth, she's got Nose-Wiping of Kids to do, but manages to take short trips to ErinLand now and then.)

This verbiage has gone on too long, so let's wrap it up.

Vleeptron is awfully glad that (almost) everyone's made it to the end of a rather Difficult & Unpleasant year on Earth.

Since Eve (and her boyfriend Otzi) first became Human in Africa (see image), Humans have been remarkable for their resilience and strength in the midst of adversity and trouble.

We also know that since those First Human Moments in Africa, Humans have been kind, generous, even Loving. If you watch too much Fox News Channel or read too many Murdoch publications (Murdoch owns Fox) and don't believe me, Leave A Comment, and I will tell you how we know that our most ancient Human Ancestors have always been Kind, Generous, Loving, particularly to Children.

Vleeptron, speaking through Me, Bob, and the whole Vleeptron family -- Agence-Vleeptron Presse, NGO Vleeptron, The High Non-Junk Science Council of Vleeptron, and the Akira Kurosawa Intergalactic Zeta Beam Drome -- wish all of you still stuck on Earth the most Wonderful, Healthy, Happy, Beautiful and Prosperous 2006.

And we also wish the same for all the Earth's wonderful creatures: The phytoplankton, the Orcas, the Krill, the Beavers, Special Wishes to my friends the Polar Bears in their times of New Peril as the Arctic ice melts. Special Good Wishes to the world's Big Cats and to the Wolves and all Predators who complete and balance the Cycle of Living Creation. (Vleeptron is particularly fond of Owls.)

Happy New Year!
Happy 2006!

What songs do you sing when The Moment Arrives where you are? In English, we sing that old song from Caledonia. (There's probably some sort of Alcoholic Beverage in that Cup o' Kindness. Probably Single Malt Scotch.)

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
And days of auld lang syne, my dear,
And days of auld lang syne.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?

We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu'd the gowans fine.
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld lang syne.

Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne,
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld ang syne.

We twa hae sported i' the burn,
From morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.

Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne.
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.

And ther's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.