Who Gives A Hoot?

My memories of a previous life on Mars are fading more and more each year. One day my Martian memories will be so faint, selective and sporadic that I'll convince myself that I never even had a previous life on Mars, that my first time around was right here on planet Earth, along with the rest of you.

But since I'm still believing that I once lived on Mars when it was a wonderful big green, red and blue marble in the blackness of interstellar space, I still benefit from the Martian sixth sense that allows me to feel and smell a lie whenever I encounter it.

Want proof? When I was seven years old I thought it was really odd that a skinny pyramid with an eyeball on top of it is on the back of a one-dollar bill. Not even grown ups thought about that back then. By 1970 most of them still weren't even aware of that ridiculous pyramid and that even more ridiculous eyeball. By 1980 some people knew but no one cared. By 1990, a few more people knew about it but even fewer people cared about why and how it got there. By 2000, nobody gave a hoot.

And all that time, while I was wondering and puzzling and thinking about that idiotic pyramid, we Americans were too preoccupied with the daily business of eating, sleeping, buying, selling and procreating to notice the little owl on the front of the one-dollar bill. That's right, a teeny-weeny little owl perched between a leaf and the number "1" at the top, right-hand corner of the front of the American one-dollar bill. Wow, just being able to describe where it's located is a successful exercising of my limited Earthling free will.

As a former Martian (yes, I still believe in me), my biggest concern is not primarily where these disturbing images came from or why they're on the one-dollar bill or who even put them there. My biggest concern is that they've been there since 1935 and millions and millions of people never even noticed or cared if they did notice them. And that's the scariest thing about my having to be an Earthling the second time around. Being so easily deceived and controlled, over and over again. And being surrounded by people who just don't give a hoot.

It's no way to treat your fellow citizens and certainly no way to run a planet.