Author: ness23456

Political Growth, a Personal Story

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In the 1960’s I was a very young news consumer in a very small market when news sources were very limited. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), ABC, NBC, and CBS convinced me to become a Democrat. There were three TV broadcast stations, AM radio, and newspapers, both daily and Sunday, delivering news of the town, county, state, country, and the world. And sports. All of us in my world heard the same news from the same places but often reached different conclusions. It was a perfect information world.

Books became a new source. The first mistake was Ian Fleming and “Bond, James Bond” books where an entirely new amazing world was revealed. Classics were read, too, like “Robinson Crusoe”, “Swiss Family Robinson”, and “Tom Sawyer” when the young brain wasn’t ready for Twain’s message. The world of print was an escape from farm life and a fantastic enhancement to the rote memory of 1960’s public schools. All of which did nothing to change my adolescent political belief.

Attending Earth Day Celebrations–including the very first national one in 1970–  and “No Nukes” rallies further cemented my Democratic Leanings. But subtle damage was done to the rabidness of those “leanings” by exposure to two books: “Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile”, by Ralph Nader, 1965, and more importantly “The Hidden Persuaders”, by Vance Packard, 1957.  They planted seeds of doubt, both of them, seeds fitting the rebellious nature of a young man looking at a world he did not understand.

But…with limited news sources, and a clearly defined two-party-only political landscape, it took several years for the seeds to grow. In fact, it took many years for the tree of Independence to grow higher than the bush of partisanship. It was at a Liberal Arts College, on the third floor of the girls dorm, when the evils of political purity began to be exposed. College students often argue just to argue. We called it “Debating”, and considered it an essential, unstructured part of a normally de rigueur education. It was during these ad hoc sessions the words of Twain, Nader, Packard, and others finally came into focus. This budding New Belief System (NBS) wasn’t earth shattering like The Moral Imperative of Kant, but it was more secular, more relevant, more down-to-earth, and a complement to philosophical mind bending. It became apparent a Capitalistic, Democratic Society needed both Naders and Kants to make sense. Great. Now what?

Life took its course with marriage, family, births, and deaths without the NBS fading but also without NBS making a big difference, except in my personal life. The faults of both political parties had been revealed by the NBS but so? Didn’t an intelligent person have to be a D or an R? It was simple inertia keeping me a responding member of the Democratic Party, and when Republican thoughts entered my mind, a feeling of disloyalty often followed. Ugh.

This long story needs quick completion, and a point, so here is my opinion, and mine only: No one should be a fanatical, devoted supporter of any political party. This morning’s on-line newspaper’s “letters to the editor” contained one praising a certain individual for voting consistently with the individual’s party. When I researched their voting record, it had evolved over time from nearly bipartisan to highly partisan, voting over 90 per cent of the time for the party line. My amygdala, part of the limbic system, lit up immediately and produced an audible: “That’s ass-backwards.”

I am now a devoted* Independent with Liberal Leanings**. It’s a result of the process engendered by the NBS: growing, learning, thinking, and applying. NBS was also nurtured by more information and more knowledge about politics. It is a rough and tumble business driven by money, fame, ego, and power. The Moral Imperative? Bah humbug. Public service? We measure it in dollars, now.

The reason for a two-party simple is clear: Money works with and against other money. Period. Imagine how hard it would be if there were three political hands*** dipping into the political pot.

With the advent of the internet and instant communication, there is no reason for anyone not to see the corrupted, misdealing, self-serving, nature of our two political parties, the system, and their candidates. So why support them? We have to support someone, yes?

No.

NO!

*Is it ironic, given my point?

**just means more liberal than conservative leanings, but I am ambidextrous (sic).

***Or more. It’s harder to “politically profiteer” in parliamentary governments.

The Miracle of Medicine, the Mind, and Youth

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There was a time when mornings were full of life, full of energy, when running was first before breakfast, and life got better with each mile. It was a blissfully ignorant time of invulnerability and unlimited happiness, with no doctors’ threats or tests informing dietary and sleeping habits. Only God knows what could have been different to prevent The Calamities of 2023…if anything at all. Hopefully, if the medical science establishment has any sense, they will be searching for way to send patients back to the good, old, days.

Yeah. Right. In the meantime, age takes us by the hand and steers us into physical conditions with strange names and mortal consequences. Science is really good at learning about and naming these conditions but our success at eliminating them has been mixed. How long have we been donating to cancer—as well as other disease—fund raisers? There was a cancer program in the 1960’s involving chocolate bars. I supported it with an allowance big enough to buy one bar a week.

The end result of medical research at this point in my lifetime is we’ve made progress at longevity. Per Ai, my birth year of 1952 has an average life expectancy of 68.6 for males in the United States. A male born in 2025 can hope for nearly 80 years. Ai is quick to point out sex, country of origin, and income can make huge differences, both plus and minus. Ask Ai yourself for more details but—spoiler alert—America does not have the longest life expectancy. We don’t even make the top 5. Monaco is number 1? Maybe wealth is the most important factor?

But as we age, we’re finding it harder and harder to be happy about aging. Why isn’t the aging “experience” making us happier? Is it really making us wiser? We all know why aging makes us unhappy, read the first paragraph of this post. But is there anything we can do about it?

A couple of things could be done. First, look for and appreciate the humor in life. It’s there but gets lost in the mail, so to speak. The earliest humor is the simple fact the day we are born we start to die. Right then and there the clock starts and there is no stopping it. Cruel or funny? Make your choice carefully, it matters. I recently filled out a health questionnaire asking me: “Do you sometimes forget things?” I can’t remember if I even answered. Another plus for aging is streaming services for computers, laptops, phones, and televisions. You can travel world from your chair or hospital bed, watching period dramas, slapstick comedy, relevant medical shows, and take enough on-line courses to become your own Doctor…as long as your faculties are intact.

And there is it: intact faculties. Most of us wouldn’t mind living to 100 or more if we can still, read, write, walk, and wipe ourselves, right? So, are the medical miracles helping us live longer helping us know we are living longer? You’ll never know until you get there, wherever “there’ is.

One thing we should all change our mind on, is death, especially if the Near Dead Expericencers (NDE) are to be believed. Nearly all NDE people, upon their return from death, report a heaven much too nice for most of us. Many also report not wanting to come back to life, and wondering why they did.  Can we expect the same at our own permanent death? If so, why worry? And why stigmatize suicide and outlaw assisted suicide and euthanasia?

It’s Monday so the post took a somber turn, or did it? One thing that makes a difference in and about life is how you view it, how you perceive it, and how you process it. And what you should always consider is there is no other choice than what happens on the macro level: you will die.

Will you suffer cognitive decline in old age? Not if you die young. One NDE describes his experience by comparing his life to a laptop computer. There is a memory on the old laptop you can transfer to a new laptop, and then you can discard the old and recycle it. That may sound matrixy (sic) but if it helps… embrace it. And don’t forget to keep some empty thumb drives* around, just in case.

Next post we’ll talk about Aliens and how they affect modern life through movies, plays, television, and Oscar voting.

*Memory sticks, or whatever else they are called these days.

Not So Obvious Common-Sense Things for Seniors

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Hope seniors know these already, and if you’re a young’un, they can help you, too. You will get old, if you’re lucky.

Use a “fitness watch” to help with diet and exercise and don’t stop it when you’re done exercising. Or stop it and then start it again as you shower and dress. You’ll be surprised at how hard you work getting clean and dressed to go home after your fitness session.

If you don’t have a fitness watch, get one. It is an interesting device that can do almost anything, including recording your sleep/nap time. Get one with the “fall-safe” option. It will call 911 if you fall and don’t answer the watch’s question in 30 seconds. At least my google watch will. Of note: Ace Frehly, the KISS guitarist, recently died from the results of a fall at home. Not sure if a watch would have helped, but it can’t hurt. Think “Help me, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” ads from years ago.

Amazon has entire pages of shoes for all seasons made specifically for seniors to “slip-on” without exerting the type of effort a fitness watch would record *. Of course, you can still wear lace-up shoes and add extra calories to your fitness routine. No, there are no “slip-on” socks, yet so we still bend over to remove and put on most socks. If you get loose fitting ones, you can get the socks off without bending over and save a few ergs of energy. Get a “reacher”** to pick them up if bending over is anathematic. (Today’s new word. Ask Ai.)

Give your most trusted child *** a key to your home or apartment building, Then, when you fall asleep for your afternoon nap the child can drop stuff off without waking you. It gives them the chance to check up on you, too, and see how clean and aromatic your home or apartment might or might not be. It would help, too, if you both had some sort of communication schedule, especially if the senior lives alone. My daughter and I try to talk every day or at least three times a week, and we never miss more than two days in a row. In a worst-case scenario, if I went to heaven in my apartment, it would only be two days before they found my rotting carcass. My building maintenance man says he wouldn’t know about “any” corpse until it started to smell. Don’t laugh, reader, it is a fact, not hyperbole for humor. Ai says “putrefaction” would take 4 to 10 days depending….

Depending on where you live, buy more reading glasses, cheap gloves, and cheap hats than you need. Due to our natural cognitive decline, it’s better to have these things in abundance than to need them and not have them, especially on cold, winter days. Or when shopping and trying to read labels. Look in Dollar Stores for economic quantity, and if you still trust yourself, buy decent ones from Macy’s. Oh, and Amazon, again: I bought 12 pairs of brown Jersey gloves for $9. Some are in the house, some are in the car, some in my man-bag/gym bag, and some are resting in the dresser drawer for when the others run away from home. Note: if you’re buying me a Christmas Present, do not buy fancy gloves or hats. If you do, and they are really pricey, they’ll stay in the drawer rather than mysteriously disappear. Hopefully, they can be re-gifted to “someone with all their faculties intact.” (See
“For Esme-with Love and Squalor” by J.D. Salinger. 1950)

In a later post we’ll talk about “layering” to keep warm, get cool, and then warm up, again, all with one coordinated outfit.

And if you live in a warm climate…you needn’t care about most of this post, you lucky bastage.****

 *Except for summer. Or a move to the south. No socks! Socks suck

**You know what it is: a squeezy thingy at the end of an extension thing-a-ma-jiggy.

***If you have one.

****Michael Keaton in “Johnny Dangerously”, 1984.

Things Overheard During Football Games

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If you don’t care about football, move on…

Sports announcers have lost the ability to talk in complete sentences, let quiet moments be quiet, avoid pycho-babble, and simply make sense. And they love copy-catting (sic). At first, turning the sound off made sense, but was a comedy goldmine was being missed?

Let’s start with phrases all football announcers seem to use. See if they make any sense and picture hearing them every freaking game, three or four times.

“He’s got two time-outs in his pocket.” Confusing remark about game-time management and a coach with imaginary things stuck in real, small places. Meaning: “The team has two timeouts left.”

“He needs to dial-up the pressure.” Nice way of saying the defense sucks and the coach has to get “more pressurey(sic)”. Get it? Think, water, if you’re having trouble.

“He lives for this moment.” And its variant: “He’s dreamed of this moment since playing in the backyard.” Announcers’ projection about why some players play well when they need to play well. Not sure of a phrase used for those who don’t play well when they need to play well. “Choke?” Be nice if some announcer tried it.

“He’s very athletic.” This phrase is used by all sports announcers and let’s us know that as we watch high-level athletes perform they are…athletic. As of this date I have never heard of any football participant being called “unathletic”. It will be noted if it happens.*

“I don’t know what he was seeing, there.” Common phrase used by announcers, fans, and players when a quarterback throws an interception. It’s on this list because it is an honest, factual response but leads to former football players turned announcers trying to explain not only what the present player saw, but what the present player should have seen and done. Called “second-guessing” by normal people.

“He’s a leader in the locker room and has a high football-IQ.” It’s never apparent what the announcer is trying to tell us. Are most players not intelligent? Or is there a “streets smart” version of intelligence in football? Often, poor performing players are praised by the remark, and are usually let go or traded soon after. Sometimes, it refers to a very good player who is hurt but contributing on the side-line with general cheer-leader support, or actual “let’s look at the replay” technical support for his replacement. Most time the remark is generated—in my opinion—by a random comment made by a friend of the “leader”, or a self-serving sideline reporter question: “You’re a leader on this team what do you think of how bad your team is playing?” for example. It is often asked of any player who will take the time to answer.

“The coaches haven’t had time to get him up to speed.” Usually this is said about a top draft pick or trade who is under-performing. The statement refutes the importance of practice and coaching which leads to the question “What IS going on at practice?” It is especially pertinent in the professional ranks where it is their JOB.

We’re running out of room and haven’t addressed the worst announcer’s offence: Nonstop talking. It begins with announcing teams being two-man teams. ** One guy is supposed to “speak the game” presumably—and rightfully—so vision impaired fans know what is happening. The second guy is the “color guy” who provides insights and knowledge we might not know. It’s tough to manage talk time to begin with, but most “color” guys are ex-players or coaches intent on reshaping their legacy. They need to let us poor, non-playing souls know how smart they are. One of the “comic gold” times mentioned earlier is when altruistic time management gives way to two Alpha males and leads to nail-biting drama as both get as many words in the 40 seconds as they can before the ball is snapped for the next play. The time a quarterback approaches the line of scrimmage, evaluates the defense, and calls the correct play is a “Sacred Time” to all knowledgeable fans. *** Too often all we hear is bloviating announcers.

Last remark, promise ****. In a recent game a penalty was called on the team with the ball. The referee stated–to the entire stadium and television audience—”the ball will be placed half the distance from the start.” There was no further explication so don’t miss the complex humor.

*Imagine “choke” and “unathletic” being used at the same time. Makes sense.

**No woman, yet, in the NFL booths.

***In the “huddle” two plays are called. At The Sacred Time, The QB picks one.

****Never heard it before, and probably never will.

Impatience is a virtue?

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There was a time when life was full of running fast, driving fast, going to bed late, getting up early, drinking, and eating whatever was available*. And there was never enough time to do it all. School and work wasted so many hours. It was a time of adventures, mistakes, missteps, too many beers, not enough money, and occasional involuntary vomiting.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” somebody ** wrote in 1859. Is it different for young people in this century? In the 1960s and 70s there was a sense of uncertainty, unease, and nuclear doom. American cities were burning, young people were dying in Viet Nam and on college campus, and Richard Nixon was supposed to be our president. The uncertainty and unease led to an undefined certainty the world was not going to last much longer, prompting my generation to wonder if we’d make it past the age of 30. It was a time, and you can understand how it skewed our decision making about the future.

America in 2025 is reminiscent of that 20th century era.

While young people naturally thrive on chaos, they prefer it be of their own making, not from the governments who stockpile weapons so powerful if they all exploded at once we’d rocket to Mars…in pieces.  A young person’s rough day should be because they burned the candle at both hands, working hard in the day and playing hard at night, until they outgrew their own stupidity. But these days working and playing have been replaced by worrying, by an unlabeled anxiety used as inspiration for inaction (sic) of any kind. Unlike my father, who viewed and judged my generational cohorts as “troublemakers”, I see lethargy, inactivity, profound sorrow, and aimlessness in the current young generation. Especially in young men. It should be noted an old man does not have much contact with the young of any kind, anymore, but the driveway, backyard, and road games of our historical youth have now been replaced by the bright, colorful, toxic seductions of video games and on-line adolescent experimenting. The bullying of older students over younger students, historically performed and endured in real life by generations ***, is now an online phenomenon with markedly different and dangerous possibilities. Worse, when we played those “road games” like stickball, parents knew where we were and knew the risk: cars running us over and abrasions severe enough to need shorts and gauze for most of the year. The new youth can hide in the physical safety of their basement, their bedrooms, and even in the backseat of the car and enter unhealthy worlds and relationships without parents ever knowing, sometimes with emotional and bodily consequences too hideous to contemplate even with proof of the carnage.

It may be the senior fondness for a re-painted Golden Age, but when the robots come, what next? Will the next generation of youth ever be young like we remember young? Or will they be…

As we, all adults, fight and scrap over macro terms like democracy, fascism, and preferred pronouns, the youth of this and succeeding generations will be watching and responding, looking for clues on how to live life and be happy. Is it even possible we can set an example?

*Yes. All before high school graduation. Parents trusted kids more, back then. Ironic?

**Made you look. I know who, but Ai wants me to put a semicolon after the first “times”. Was Dickens wrong to use a comma? I’m stickin’ with Dickens.

***I was both bullied and bully, as were most of us, except for the exceptional young people who had sense enough—and were lucky enough not to not get drawn into either. Those people became lawyers. Doctors, and politicians.

 It’s The Rich, Stupid

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Have you noticed the higher status of actors/citizens in all advertising, lately? Even the prostate cancer ads feature people who seem too well-off to be sick*. Car ads are for cars so expensive I can’t even afford the sales brochures. Medicare ads…why are those seniors always smiling, laughing, and well-dressed even in the pool? Is my economic inferiority complex simply an age thing? All my grand-kids have started jobs with salaries seldom seen in my entire working lifetime. Am I getting poorer or simply financially older? (Imagine a sad, sad face.)

It’s been mentioned, before, that income inequality is starting to skew financial-life planning for “normal people”. Here’s a (paraphrased) idea of what is happening:

Costco’s controversial new policy says something worrying about the economy

FAST COMPANY 11-4-2025  Jessica Stillman

New perks for some Costco members have received a decidedly mixed reaction from customers, employees, and analysts.” 

“It’s a decision that more and more leaders seem to be weighing. As management consultant Daniel Currell noted in a fascinating essay in The New York Times on the rise of pricey upgrades at Disney theme parks, companies are increasingly looking for ways to cater to–and extract more profit from—their most upmarket customers.” 

“Extract”? What a great word for what is happening. David Stockman and Ronald Reagans’ (and others) original “Trickle-Down” economic theory, where the benefits accrued by the rich will trickle down to the rest of us, appears to be working in the opposite direction, these days. The middle class of America has shrunk so much businesses are faced with the choice of marketing to the lower-class poor, or marketing to the upper-class rich. If you were running a business, which class would you want for customers? It is the logical result of a free-market capitalist society. Its effects, however, are anything but free. Those effects are easy to see in real estate where rich buyers purchase entire neighborhoods and gentrify it until no one but rich people can live there.

Now it’s seeping into all areas of life. If Costco can sell hamburger meat for $10 a pound because rich people will pay that much, what are poor hamburger buyers to do **? An upper-class customer base does not shop the same way a frugal middle-class or desperate lower-class shop. The upper-class rich don’t waste time with sales and coupons, often making purchases just to buy something, no matter the cost.

In the old days the free market focused on the savvy-shopping middle and lower classes simply because those people were the majority of purchasers. A simple chart would reveal why larger discretionary spending will beat lower, necessary spending anytime there is “competition” for markets.

Trickle Down is finally lifting all our boats, just not the way it was intended. The next few years will be interesting as there is no enforced government regulations or rules to limit the amassing of personal wealth.  Hopefully, all the new billionaires will let us have some crumbs. Forbes says “288 new billionaires entered the list in 2025.”  That gives America a total of over 900 billionaires. Ai says America had 13 billionaires in 1980. Imagine all that money…

*Don’t they get the best healthcare, with screenings and tests, whether they need them or not?

**Google “Model Pricing Strategy”.

Strange, Unconnected Things…Right?

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My fitness centers computers went down and staff could not “swipe” us in to workout. They put out a form to sign. A paper form. Most workouters (sic) take as little as possible into the gyms for security reasons. Reading glasses are not needed, so I had to ask the clerk to sign me in to the dimly lit facility. It was not embarrassing.

A recent report says the Shingles vaccination has helped maintain heart health in a large study of those who received the vaccine. It motivated me to get the shot. Vaccines are wonderful things, unless you’re the small percent who might be allergic to the contents. I think of the shots as a civic duty. Ai says about 2% of Americans suffer from the peanut allergy. Of all the shots Ai was asked about the reported rate of allergic reactions was never over 1%. Note the word “reported”. When analyzing any medical issue in your life you are unique, but anecdotal stories are not research, even if they are true. Yes, those of us who never suffer allergic reactions are lucky to not be in that “less than 1%. Besides, much like the weight loss drugs, boner pills, and now shingles shots, there are often surprise, positive side effects.

I set up an online appointment for the shot and arrived at the shot site 5 minutes early. They didn’t give me the 60-second shot until 23 minutes after my original shot time. * Why? It doesn’t matter, really, if only they’d tell you about it. I sat with another retired man whose appointment was late. We didn’t really mind but as you sit there and minutes drag on you wonder, when? And then you wonder “why can’t anyone say something?” as well as “why bother making appointments?” The shot-giver gave me the scoop on how to just drop in and get a quick shot in the future, without waiting or appointment. No, no sharing secrets.

As much as I might pretend, coming to grips with a chronological age has still not happened. It’s safe to say at every age all of us never know what we really look like to someone else, especially if we say we don’t care. But what should a 29-year-old look like? A 39-year-old? A 59-year-old? A 73-year-old? It was never a “waste time on it” thing until lately, when the age of those in the vicinity creates curiosity. It doesn’t help that no one has ever said you look good/bad for any age, ever, so why wonder about it, now? As long as I never look like that guy, over there…

The CEO of IBM says 65% of American jobs will be lost to Ai in the next few years. Artists, sports players, waiters, hospitality staff, will probably all be safe “Who wants to watch robots play baseball?” A news story shortly after the CEO showed a robot butler already for sale in the United States. It took the robot 5 minutes to place one glass in the dishwasher.

The robot’s price was $20,000. See? This is where income inequality really hurts us. Imagine how long it would take a $200 Robot to put a glass in the dishwasher. No word, yet, on how many rich people have purchased the Robot. Note: all through these paragraphs there is a small “r” robot and a capital “R” Robot. Anyone see more Proper and Pro Noun Wars in our future?

There was going to be an update on the progress scientists are making with Quantum Entanglement in communications and computing. The applications and breakthroughs are happening by the second, so just look it up for yourselves, and marvel at the sub-atomic world.

The area I live in has been “droned” for several years. If you don’t know what that means, get on You Tube, search for “drone views of My City” and watch what happens. There is something inspiring about seeing life from above, a reminder, maybe of how small and insignificant we really are? Nope. A reminder of how beautiful the world can be…most of the time. And if you’re lucky.

Any Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young fans? Google a 2011 Venice, California High School charity concert with David Crosby and a variety of musicians including the school’s choirs and bands. It is the best live concert performance this writer has ever seen…on tape **…on YouTube. I am a CSNY fan, so…

*Too much math? If a man arrives 5 minutes early…

**When will we replace “on tape” with something current” “On-Digital”?

Not Again…

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Its hard to not think about death when you are an old person. Death’s proximity is the main problem, not fear. It’s like having a root canal on your calendar and you can’t reschedule. (Apologies to all Dentists. You do good and necessary work. You’d all be Gods if you could make the work painless. * Hm. Dentist playing cards?)

The problem lately, is in the structure of the human being. The history of psychological understanding is complex and often controversial with Ids, Egos, Super Egos, and the two-faced beings of Aristophanes’ Myth of origins. Brighter, larger minds will eventually sort it all out but on a personal level I recognize three parts of human existence, at least my human existence. There is an Inner Voice (IV), an Outer Voice (OV) and The Body (TB). These components are slightly in tune with conventional Freudian and Transactional Analysis concepts, but I’ll take credit for making it easier to understand. My IV is the quiet, mercurial voice, sometimes reasonable but often impulsive and self-destructive. “Eat that last doughnut.” The OV is the rational face presented to the world after much consultation, debate, argument and bargaining with the IV. “But someone else may want that doughnut.” TB is just a handsome structure supporting us all and does whatever it’s told, often with a slight, painful delay. (See the tennis story from last March where OV instructions to TB were overridden with disastrous results by IV.) It’s important to note IV and OV are flexible, devil’s advocate-types and often take positions opposite each other apparently just for the fun of it.

The problem, now, is death used to be an afterthought for OV and opportunity for IV to take OV down a peg when things were going too well ** for the entirety of US. When cancer was beaten and TB and OV celebrated, IV was the voice in the background saying “So what? You’re going to die, anyway.” And when recovery from surgery was OV and TB’s main focus, IV tried hard to remind all “you’ll never be as good as you were at age 30.”

But now, death has become OV’s subject of conversation. Again, it may be proximity, or it may be because of the nursing home visits these last few weeks. Notably, those visits deposited death into daily conversations and OV had no choice but to participate. When I returned home from visits, TB sat quietly as OV wondered how long it would be before we all, three, would be living in such facilities. It was IV, then, who suggested we think better thoughts like dying quietly in our sleep. It makes me feel sorry for TB. It’s doing the best it can but more time and telomeres *** have been lost to the past than are left for the future. It comes down to simple math and TB doesn’t do equations.

But OV and IV do, and its hard to escape the constant, internal bickering, especially when the environment is added to the mix. Bright, sunny, beautiful fall days allow IV to tell OV to “shut the f^&#” up when death enters the conversation. Then, on rainy, cloudy, cold days OV lords it over IV with a smirk. For the record, TB never says a word. It lets its nerves do the talking.

It’s a wonder any of us worry about death. Ai estimates over 100 BILLION people have died over the course of history. Ai even says 173,000 die each day. Me and my components will join them, as will you.

Alred E. Neuman *** used to say: “What, me worry?” Honestly, there’s nothing like truth from the mouth of a fictional character to help manage our endings.

*And cheaper.

** Lost time trying to remember good and well rules. Is this one correct?

*** Do I need to point out you should google things you may not know about, anymore?

The Thing We Should All Know By Now

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Since cancer altered my life, writing is one of the daily events adding meaning to life and helping me pass time.

Lately, I’ve noticed too much time being passed on our new president, opinions, and current events.

It is time to clear the air and let the world know something, maybe, about how to think? Ugh…this gets uglier and uglier, and when trying this subject in the past, it never came out right and the post never saw the light of day. Crap, let’s just pull the Band-Aid off and see where we go.

Americans have become stupid.

Not all of us. Most of us? Some of us? Stupidity is hard to explain without sounding like you think you’re smarter than everyone else when all you are pointing out is you know you might be stupid and others don’t know they might be stupid. * They are not smart enough to see it? Maybe, ignorance would be a better word. The best example is the locker-room guys last year who said America is “not respected” by foreign countries anymore. When asked what countries they’d visited to form their opinion, their answer was “None.” How do you measure disrespect, anyway? Or ignorance?

Hey, that got pretty close to the point. More: it’s irksome to read letters to the editor and online comments where people “know” everything about everything. No matter what their political persuasion or education. Is there really one or two people out there who know everything about everything?

Example: medicine. How many people (and ask yourself, too) know more about medicine than their doctors? Education: How many know more than the teachers? How many know more than “over educated, know-nothing, deep-state bureaucrats”?

In fact, one of our stupidest mistakes is believing because professional people don’t do what we want them to do, the professionals are the stupid ones. Recently a passenger in my car complained about a traffic circle interchange, exclaiming “What idiot designed this piece of crap?” I mentioned the multiple layers of state employees who did traffic studies, designed it, and built it. My partner’s response was a gleeful “See? Too many cooks spoil the food. I’d have done it different.” The supposition in this case was the professional engineers spent their time purposefully designing a “piece of crap” and my passenger could have done it better by himself, presumably in half the time and half the cost. To illustrate how complex stupidity is, what if he was right?

We will wrap up here, by adding stupidity isn’t really a problem unless it gets in the way of productive conversation, or wastes a lot of time with unproductive conversation. Either situation is a debatable value judgement made by either listener or talker, or both. All I, personally, ever know for sure is when someone talks and acts like they know it all, my first assumption is they don’t. Who gets to be the ass, then, you or me? (Ass u me.) As the good Dr. Wright says: “Half the people you know are below average.” And another from doc: “A conclusion is a place where you got tired of thinking.”

Let’s all do this: stop thinking we know it all. We don’t.

And don’t shoot the messenger.

PS There is an excellent October 17, 2025, opinion piece by conservative pundit George Will about “The Velocity of Stupidity”. Check it out online.

*Such a terrible sentence. Ai agrees and wants to rewrite it for me. But I know better so….

Small Things To Help Your Life…and Others

ness23456 Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
  1. Use your blinker before your brakes. Benefit: no one will rear-end you or give you the finger as I—they–drive by.
  2. Pay your bills when you get them, not when they’re due. Benefit: if you ever have a cash flow problem, you will have several weeks to recover (or agonize) before the bill is actually due.
  3. Brush your teeth. Benefit: you’ll save money, pain, and stress. And teeth.
  4. Don’t block elevator doors while you wait. Benefit: People won’t think you’re an idiot when they can’t get off. The elevator is not your personal servant.
  5. Use your high beams correctly. Benefit: You will not get front-ended by a blinded, mature driver, unless they do it on purpose to prove a point.
  6. Do not tailgate at night with your high beams on. Benefit: don’t know, but I don’t carry a weapon. If I did and you were behind me…
  7. Before you do anything important, “STOP”, then think, before you act. Benefit: Better choices. Longer life. Less stress. Possible contentment. Unless you’re being mugged.
  8. If you’re being mugged, calculate all costs. Benefit: if you don’t think your life is worth much, que sera sera. But do your calculations quickly.
  9. If you get good advice, don’t wait, act on it. Benefit: You got good advice. Don’t be an idiot. (Unless the advice is to not act.)
  10.  If an idiot offers you advice, smile and accept. Benefit: Unknown, but never assume an idiot isn’t packing, looking for someone to stalk, or is generally unhinged. Do not forget to walk away after you smile. It’s your option to act on the advice or not but even an idiot is right, once in a while, so…
  11.  If you’re asked if you “know” Jesus, reply honestly. Someone really important might be listening. An honest “no” will probably help more than a snarky, dismissive “yes” in the long run.
  12.  Don’t cheat on your State and Federal taxes just because everyone else does, do it for the money.
  13. A bird in the hand is only worth more than two birds in the bush when you can’t catch the other two. Carpe Diem and try for all three.

There’s a chance this list has been posted, before. I’m too lazy to look all the way back to when we started, so enjoy it this time as much as you did last if it’s old and mentioned it if it isn’t.