Author: ness23456

In Three Sentences…or Less

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It’s a sleepless night caused by our new Trumpistic (sic) societal norms. And surgical recovery. And wonderful, open-windows weather in upstate NY.

Our leader’s insecurity is on full display with the new Wall Street Journal lawsuit. Sticks and stones will break his bones but words…will hurt his ego. Sue the bastiges.**

ICE and DHS (google them) are over their annual budget already. Wondering about waste, fraud, and abuse? Me, too, DOGE..

Closing the border and deportation are two different things. Success at the border, then disaster using “worst of the worst, only” deportation. What?

It’s funny DHS and ICE agents want to protect their identities. As they surround and detain illegal immigrants, who is the “worst of the worst”, then? Maybe ICE should call ahead and tell their targets to mask-up as well, just to be fair.

Incongruity and hypocrisy are highlighted when illegal immigrants are rounded up from American businesses that then have to close because the businesses can’t find workers. Raise your hand if you think this is the first time America has taken advantage of “foreign labor” to make a profit. In a few years, if not already, you may not be able to learn about slavery, sweatshops, and rich men taking advantage of entire classes of foreign people as we Make America Great Again.

The Texas Hill Country Tragedy does not need to be politicized, it came with the rain. Years of denials about warning systems by elected officials are public record as they say “on record” they don’t want to “hear sirens in the middle of the night” or take “Biden Money”. Texas is a blueprint for our future if we allow it.

You hear a lot about common sense from politicians. So, if DOGE fires/lays off workers from national weather services and disaster warning agencies, what is it called if disaster strikes the very areas that need those services and agencies more than ever? I can think of a word.

A politician in North Carolina ran on a platform of de-regulation and was elected. When a family member got seriously hurt during an “unregulated” recreational activity, that same politician filed a bill to regulate it. Now that’s common sense, except for the timing.

A lot is made of Trump, chaos theory, and his ability to play “four-dimensional chess”. It’s time to realize he is in over his head and bouncing from crisis to crisis, winging it. Since he can’t be re-elected, it’s hard to understand since he doesn’t have to make anyone happy, anymore, but himself.

Common sense and Epstein. Before you make any assumptions, read all the records publicly available, including the 2008 “special” deal made by a Geroge Bush appointed Republican Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who was then appointed Secretary of Labor in Trump’s first term. Maybe MAGA is finally right about something.

When you’re in recovery from surgery, with a drug protocol full of painkillers and anti-somethings, it’s best not to think too much with the free time you spend sitting around “recovering”. This is the third post written during recovery and my sense of humor has “left the building”.

Whether that’s Trump’s fault or mine, I hope it comes back. Humor is all we have left. Enjoy it when you find it.

** See a Michael Keaton movie from 1984 for translation. And humor.

More About Big Beautiful Things

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It was a master stroke of BS to call a crap-bag of laws a big, beautiful thing (BBT) so it got me thinking of other BBTs, not to be confused with BLTs. The list is subjective, biased, and often fictional so if you have a complaint, stuff it in your big, beautiful arse.

And there is the first BBT: Irish/Welsh/Scottish movie dialogue. Not having been to any of those areas, I can’t confirm they talk the same in their natural settings as they do in movies, but they have a wonderfully melodic way of ambling around a thought, not expressing it directly, and yet putting more meaning into it than a shorter, succinct sentence. The Gift of The Blarney Stone? Google it. I dare you, you fecking shite. And watch The Snatch, a 2000 Brad Pitt movie with the most enjoyable, unintelligible English dialogue ever. BBT! Ooh, closed captioning, another BBT!

Shopping on a budget? You should be. Several stores in my area say they want my business but only one meets my budgetary, hours of operation, and proximity requirements. No, I won’t say who it is. I visited one of the stores on my “too high a price list” the other day, however, and was pleasantly surprised, twice. First, they had a yellow tag on muffins in the bread aisle. That usually means “BOGO”, or Buy one Get One free. BBT! Without putting on my glasses I grabbed two packages and headed for the self-checkout. Sadly, even with my glasses and 9-digit membership/phone number the machine still tried to charge for two, instead of one. It is an age-old grocery trick: leave the yellow tags on AFTER the sales end and see what happens at check-out. Some people pay the regular price rather than make a scene. As the steam rose in my brain a sweet, older lady approached to see if I was about to faint. Before I could sputter my anger, she said this: “Oh, honey. Those are buy one get TWO free. You need to ring up three and the price of two will be credited.”: What? WHAT!!!? She did it manually while I ran for a third package. When I returned, wow, another BBT!

As a senior, enough small things go wrong on a daily basis so when things go right, we are surprised into thinking they are BBTs. They’re not but here are a few examples of lesser, aspirational BBTs nonetheless. After the second hip surgery last month a walker became my constant companion for several weeks, along with an accessory I call “Reacher”. For the last two weeks I’ve dropped things on purpose just to enjoy the use of Reacher. My name is Robert and I am an addict.

Senior eyesight seems to get better and then get worse and then get better and then get worse…but it always gets better the day of my AMD shots**. It’s a BBT to see me ace those eye charts as a 73-year-old. Maybe one of the nurses will be impressed and ask me out…

My old (both old and former) girlfriend has reached “perfunctory response status” in regard to my texts and updates. Perfunctoriness (sic) leads to humorous responses. My text said some medical tests were positive but one was bad and needs more testing. Her response was “Good news!” BBT? I’ll accept the judge’s ruling.

Recent conversations have been about how many voices there are in our heads. It’s a BBT thing because I know, now, mine is not the only skull inhabited by more than just a Big Beautiful Brain. Or is it Ai speaking?  And how could I forget Thurber’s character, Walter Mitty? Or the movie “Inside Out”? Crap. I need to remember remembering is the first thing to go.

And then there is the Air Fryer. A YUGE*** BBT. As a man who loves to cook and hates to clean, my $24 Air Fryer from Walmart has raised the gastronomic level of life. Men living alone, pay attention: grilled cheese, day old chicken, two day old pizza, left-over hamburgers and hot dogs from July 4th, toast, and more, all done to perfection with minimal clean up, no butter, no saggy microwave structure, a wonderfully crisp, like new

I went away for a few moments. Don’t ask, just go get an Air Fryer.

** Do not google this procedure if you have a weak stomach. It happens to people like me every three months.

*** Thanks, Donald, for the new word. BBT!

Many Big, Beautiful Questions

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One. Big. Beautiful. Bill (OBBB). WTF? If the Republicans crammed all Trump’s legislative plans into OBBB are they done working for the rest of his term? What else is there for them to do? Investigate The Bidens? The Obamas? The details of OBBB will matter, soon, but right now, the sheer foolishness of putting so much legislation in one legislative bill makes you wonder why? Nearly every Small Ugly Bill (SUB) usually has one or two things a legislator can vote for and one or two things he/she is against, so imagine the love/hate salad of OBBB. The chutzpah of the Republican OBBB effort is astounding and revealing. Insecurity is the driving force of the Modern Republican Party Grievance Machine (MRPGM) and that insecurity is highlighted by OBBB. MRPGM knows they only have this year to get things done before voters correct themselves in 2026, just like they did in 2018. The MRPGM has to take a big bite of the political apple now, while they can. Plus, with all the legislative work done in 2025, MRPGM members are free to spend all of 2026 campaigning and spinning the damage assessments, and trying to get re-elected with more smoke and mirrors.**

Why are ICE and DHS making so many mistakes in their deportation zeal? Time will tell how much it is going to cost to fix the lives of present and future American Citizens who have been unlawfully detained and even deported. Wouldn’t a slower, steadier, and more measured deportation process make more sense in the long run? In fact, their idea of paying people to self-deport is probably the better way. It’s fair to guess some immigrants who are here legally, might not want to be here, anymore, America is so great, now. Note, too, all the stories about the troubles our tourism industry is having, these days.

And where were local law enforcement agencies when all the illegal immigrant murderers and rapists and drug dealers were allegedly cavorting freely in our towns and cities?

Did DOGE members label anything they didn’t understand as “waste, fraud, or abuse (WFA)’? Did the DOGE people understand any of what they were looking at? Did DOGE know the long-term benefits of the WFA they stopped? A program in my hometown is closing because DOGE has convinced Trump’s Office of Management and Budget not to spend the money already allocated to this program. It is a Grandparent Mentoring Program where grandparents “adopt” an elementary student and help the student learn both educationally and socially with in-school activities. It helped both students and grandparents for years. But not this coming school year. WFA?

Does the average American understand most of the WFA “discovered” by DOGE was legally researched, proposed, and voted on by elected American Senators and Representatives who knew why they were approving the expenditure and how important it might be? For example, due to cuts in “climate change research”–a favorite MRPGM bugaboo–farmers will no longer have current and extended weather forecasts to help them plan for crop planting, harvesting and even selection. WFA?

A reread of these questions points to one thing in common: lack of critical thinking. The Political Power Surge felt by the MRPGM, along with the knowledge The Surge won’t last long, has spurred the MRPGM into hasty, poorly thought out and even dangerous actions. One last question: WHY????

In Proverbs 12:19 King Solomon states: “Truthful words stand the test of time but lies are soon exposed.”

Let’s hope so.

** and the Democrats, too. lets hope someone learns…

Expectations? Don’t Bother.

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In thinking about happiness and well-being, and after years of observation and self-testing, my conclusion is we are our own worst enemies. We get in the way of happiness by not seeing it when it’s there and by not pursuing it when it isn’t. The sentence sounds odd so take a moment to think about it…

I’ve been a New York Yankee fan since 1960. Sixty-two years. When you are a sports fan, you get to live the highs and lows of the teams’ results. Championship years and cellar-dwelling years, it’s all a package. Happy when the World Series ends in victory, banners raised, and sad in years they don’t make the Series, and the season is over with a whimper. It’s easy to see when happiness comes and when it doesn’t. They win, we’re happy. They lose, we’re not. Is there anything we can do about it? No, especially when we are a small child listening to every play on the radio. You actually experience happiness and despair, clearly defined and unavoidable. Damn Yankees.

So what does that have to do with anything? It’s easy to live with the happiness thrust upon you by your team winning, but what about the unhappiness of losing? Ah, there’s always next year. In baseball, the following spring brings hope for a better year, a hope for seasonal happiness, a hope for the World Series Ring. For a sports fan hope becomes an expectation. Before any new games are played, we do not hope the Yankees will be better, we assume to know the Yankees will be better, we expect it. And when the Yankees lose, we are unhappy because an expectation not realized makes us unhappy.

And there it is in black and white: expectations are the cause of unhappiness. The measured and regulated nature of sports makes it obvious, including the annual renewal of “expectation” no matter what happened last year. A common fan’s announcement after an unhappy, expectation-denying season is “never again will I root for them”, a vow only kept until next season begins with a new hope/expectation.

But the damage expectations do to our lives is harder to see in real life. Why are some of us unhappy? Something in life didn’t go as planned, didn’t happen as we expected it to happen, and there is no choice but to feel unhappy about it. Marriage doesn’t meet our expectations, we divorce. Friends don’t meet our expectations, we dump them. Even in our dining habits, if a restaurant doesn’t meet our expectations we unhappily decide not to dine there again. We expect a diet to work? Potential unhappiness. We expect to get a job? Meet the girl of our dreams? Become an influencer? Be like Taylor?

But it is not the action or inaction making us unhappy. Unhappiness comes from the destruction of expectation and how we process that destruction.

You want to be happy? Don’t expect anything. Ever. At all. Enjoy the terrible meal. Enjoy the Yankees losing. Enjoy your girlfriend dumping you. At least be ambivalent, but don’t be unhappy. And you can expand the process into your philosophy of life: don’t expect happiness and you won’t be unhappy when you’re not happy…?

A little hyperbole helps make a point until it veers off into absurdity. Hm. If you expect to understand what makes you happy and you never do, you’ll always be unhappy? Or happy you understand you’ll never be happy?

That’s it. You got it. Want to be happy? Just be happy. Let things be what they are. Do your best, but don’t expect it to be better than anyone else’s expectation, especially if it really is better.

Final example and possible escape from this mess: A young female student sits behind a young male in class. She constantly complains to him about not meeting the “right” guy. It takes her the entire school year to see her expectation of the right guy is wrong and the guy in front of her is The Right Guy. They fall in love and marry, something neither of them expected, though the guy did hope. (Don’t think too hard about this one. It’s a true story but a poor example.)

I took a shot of tart cherry juice to clear my head for the final, really final thought. Hope is one thing, but expectation is another, different thing. Find the hope all around you and you’ll find happiness anytime you want it. Let hope fester into an expectation, you lose control.

Keep hope alive. You can do it.

PS Hope this sloppiness helped someone…I expect to hear about it, too.

Benign Bemusements

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After years of complaining about drivers’ inability to understand and use a well-known and researched free life-saving safety device, blinkers, it is time for empathy, time to walk a mile in their shoes. This past Monday, the 13-mile, mainly four-lane highway drive from my home to the Fitness Center at Turning Stone was the time and place. I intended to drive the entire route without ever touching the turn signal arm. It is a drive of very few turns so…and it was performed at 4:30 AM so there were few witnesses…and victims…but…

The first 12 miles were glorious: the sheer audacity and freedom was intoxicating. I changed lanes on a whim. I made my one right turn onto the highway with total abandon and when the two lanes narrowed to one, I shifted over with a youthful, carefree exuberance. That joy filled my soul and I lost myself in it until in anticipation of a left turn into the parking garage, my now-unattended brain fired the nerve(s?) of my left arm. The left hand fell off the steering wheel, my eyes dropped to watch, and the left-hand fingers descended perfectly onto the turn signal lever. Could I catch myself in time to prevent disaster or was I doomed to repeat the past? Would the turn signal lever be strong enough to resist? Would it count if the light bulb was burned out and never flashed? Is Trump ruining the entire world?

I’ll try, again, on the way home.

Speaking of Trump, is it strange he decimates social, educational, medical, and scientific services in the name of “balancing the budget” and then spends billions on immigration deportations, domestic military policing, and parades? The American Public is (are?) the idiot(s) for allowing this to happen, and by electing him in the first place. Will we do anything about it?

Immigration reform is needed, but if we assume 1 in a 10,000 Americans is a criminal, it’s safe to assume 1 in 10,000 immigrants is a criminal, right? So we are deporting them all? Indiscriminately? Court cases alone will cost billions. It is a classic case of mismanagement made sadder by the hurt it is causing innocents. And is a perfect example of baby and bathwater. It is proof we need experienced professionals running our government who understand nuance or at least are willing to learn. HHS Chief RFK firing all 17 members of an advisory board to the CDC? He don’t need no stinkin’ advice.

Political doublespeak and the attendant physical contortions are not unique to the Republican Party, or to this day and age. Democrats are participants, too, as well as being quick learners. But I just watched Republican Representative Loeren Boebert in a US House hearing perfectly detail the causes, actions, and repercussions involved in an “insurrection”. Finally, I said to myself, someone on the Republican side sees it. Finally. But she was talking about Los Angeles. Find it on you tube and watch. It is the perfect example of political…umm…selective memory? Ignorance? Oblivion? She was innocently outraged, positive about all facts, and sure anyone who didn’t agree with her was stupid, unpatriotic, and un-American. Plus, she was shrill, one of her unique skills.  Unfortunately, I cannot remember a Democrat display so completely tone-deaf and absurd, but there probably is one, someplace. It is what politicians do and we reward them for it. Let’s vote them all out next time. All new for the future.

There are so many odd, sad, funny thoughts and things happening to us old people. This post was supposed to be about those things. But Ai is ruining everything, including my brain. Politics is an ear worm, now. Anyone know a cure? Maybe if politicians stopped being stupid and self-serving…?

See? Funny things.

Change…Who Needs It…

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In youth, change is not only welcomed but anticipated. Hoped for. Longed for. Can’t wait to get to 16 and drive, 18 and graduate, 21 and drink, meet someone, marry, raise kids, find a job. Slowly getting older is “change” too, but going from 35 years to 45 years was nothing but math, the addition of ten to 35. I admit to feeling smarter and wiser as the yearly number went up, but never was there a desire to stop it, slow it down, or deny it until…

If only…recent years, probably starting around 65, there’s been a desire for time to stop advancing, to at least slow down, let things settle. Don’t make me face something new every year. Don’t let things change. In any of the last ten years if you had offered to make time stop and existence be what it is at that moment be that way forever, I’m your huckleberry. (RIP, Val.)

From a peace of mind consideration, it is pointless to think that way…consciously. But it is the way the mind works subconsciously, below the daily humdrum of existence. The Big Beautiful Brain (BBB) does not want to age–or maybe BBB just doesn’t want us to know we are aging–until there’s nothing we can do about it, anymore. The statement implies maybe there is something we can do about it but—again—it is a falsehood our conniving, gray-mattered BBB uses to make the approaching end more palatable.

Ugh. Why is this mental masturbation happening tonight? These thoughts have been around the frontal lobe of BBB since the dawn of time with rationality leading to the conclusion, since nothing can be done, acceptance is the best practice.

But Sly Stone died recently. Sly and the Family Stone were a companion heartbeat from the 1960s and 70s. When the wonderful world of Youtube was discovered 50 years later, Sly’s music was one of the first “old friends” I looked for, right after Jackson Browne. Sly’s performing exuberance and powerful funkiness struck a chord in a very young man and was added to the cohort of musical heroes like Steppenwolf, The Isley Brothers, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Jackson, Joanie, Cream, Jimi, Cat Mother and The All-Night News Boys, all of which are still “crankin” on Youtube. Go ahead, look. Monaural sounds played at 11 on a speaker whose dial numbers only went to ten 50 years ago, have been “remastered” and are now beyond stereo when listened to with ear buds so perfect and personal every instrument, “track”, flourish, chords, and comments can pour into the ears at anytime, anyplace.

The point? It’s hard to avoid contemplating life’s changes when music constantly reminds you of how things never stay the same. When listening to Sly and others today, it is the 50-year yesterday that is heard, and the 50-year yesterday life is relived however briefly. Any senior worth his Medicare Card will tell you reminiscing seldom leads to happiness in older people.

Ah, but…is change really that bad? Maybe. If we don’t pay attention to everything, it’s easy to see how we can think the only change in old age is bad change. We see death of friends, medical calamities, loss of vision, loss of vertical jumping ability, pharmaceutical protocols never imagined, skin texture changes, urination increases…

Okay. Took a break after trying to list bad changes in older life. It got depressing so I found Sly’s “Dance To The Music” on Youtube and listened at full volume without bothering my neighbors. Gosh, I love modern music delivery…a welcome, blessed change from the 70s.

Maybe change isn’t so bad…

(10 minutes later, after “Every Day People”) We have to embrace change and wonder at it since we really have no choice. If we rein in our rambunctious BBBs, we should be able to convince ourselves we will be able to listen to Sly and The Family Stone live, in heaven, if things go well.

Happiness? Meh…

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Happiness. Bah, humbug; Ai says: “Happiness is a complex and multifaceted concept with no single, universally accepted definition.” After listening to algorithmic crap for 5 minutes the Ai voice settled on a conclusion: “it’s a mental state where positive feelings outweigh negative feelings.” There’s an algorithm you can run for yourself. Get a piece of paper, make a T Chart (also called a “graphic organizer”, “two column chart” or “Pros and Cons”). List all your positive feelings under the Pro side and all your negative feelings under the Con side, then add them up, subtract for the difference, and find out your mental state at that very moment. Remember, if the Pros outnumber the Cons you are happy, no matter how you feel. Trust the process.

You wonder where “happy” came from? According to Ai it derived from the Middle English word “hap” which meant “good luck” and through the years the word meant something that HAPPENED (or could happen) to you not what you felt about the happening. (e.g. Winning the lottery is “hap” and how you feel about winning the lottery is “happy”.) There is no known reason or excuse how happy came to mean a feeling of being fortunate instead of the actual act of being fortunate. Fortunately for you I wasted my time looking this up so you can sit and feel fortunate you didn’t have to do it. Put that on your Pro side.

Much like all the different “theres(sic)” there are, happiness is often misused and even misunderstood. If you feel happy you read my post, for example, does that make you happy all day? For a second? For ten minutes? Ai is, again, no help. Happiness can be: “a momentary, specific emotion like the joy you feel when something good happens.” Or it can be “a broader, more enduring sense of well-being.” Ai does not offer a judgment on well-being-joy being better or worse than momentary-joy when contemplating if you’re happy or not. Thanks for nothing. But if you have to contemplate if you’re happy, logic says you must not be, and if contemplating makes you happy, do NOT look down at your navel…unless it’s an outie.

When collegiate philosophical course requirements conflicted with the happy-go-lucky (Yikes.)  lifestyle of a young man, I retreated to an area lacking external stimuli. The hopeful plan was quiet reflection and meditation would lead to a clearer understanding of why what I liked to do to be happy might not be what what I should do to find everlasting happiness and peace. It took 52 hours for the mental fog to part, revealing nothing more than the need for external stimuli.

What saved that particular young man from perpetual Naval Contemplation while looking for “life’s:answers” about happiness was contemporary literature. In James Thurbers’ “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and collected works, he noted the need for humor and a “Sense of wonder” when understanding happiness. Wonder? Yes. Remember how you felt when you first saw Niagara Falls. Or the Cathedrals of Europe. Wasn’t the wonder, first, that made you happy? For some specific NY sports people, imagine how you’ll feel when the Buffalo Bills (for non Bills fans, insert your favorite team,) finally win the Super Bowl. There will be a dizzying sense of happiness, but isn’t it the result of wonder? They finally did it! Wonderful. Some would say the Bills not winning the Super Bowl is humorous, as well, but let’s not get Western New York angry.

As usual, the post has wandered off to the side of the metaphorical trail, but one last visit with Mark Twain ( a HUMORIST!) might help with Happiness: “There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.” Significantly, he adds: “To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with.” Not much humor in either statement, but happiness? We all know what he means…

So happiness can be like your first love: you’ll know it when you feel it.

And if it never happens? The only answer to “never” is an incommunicative death, which is what waits for us all.

But there’s hope. Be patient and recognize it. Happiness will follow.

Can’t close without a thought from (honorary) Dr. Steven Wright. “Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll probably still be a dog.” Take 5 minutes to think before you wonder what it has to do with happiness and why it’s The End.

PS John Lennon’s song “Happiness is a Warm Gun” has nothing to do with this post. Maybe later…

Really, Really Odd Things

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Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. How has one person been able to turn those words from the perfect definition of America into a litmus test for personal loyalty? DEI is the cornerstone of America. Think who originally lived here until we stole their land, moved them to reservations, and decided their culture was not good enough to be “included” in The New World. Manifest Destiny. Google it, young people. It is White Supremacy chronicled and defined.

Let’s think about a couple things:

1.What if the Native Americans (NA) had banned DEI in their own societies and forbid the intrusion of the WASPs(White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) who landed on the NA coast? What if NAs had been able to resist the WASPs, even deport them back to their “home” countries?**

2. What if the WASPS, once they took control of North America, had enforced strict no-DEI laws thereafter? No Polish. No Italians. No Irish. No Catholics. No Jews. No Hispanics. (New Mexico, Arizona, California, and parts of Texas would have to be “ethnically cleansed to get rid of “those people”. Where would America send them?) Understandably, native Africans would still be allowed. (Yes, sarcasm, unfortunately about a serious issue.)

When DEI is discussed now. it is about a xenophobic power issue: we want nothing but white people in charge, making decisions, controlling things. Thank, God the DEI deniers have decided to let people from all Western Civilizations to join in the select group. Poles, Italians, Irish, Catholics, some South Africans, you’re back in, guys. One can only imagine (again??) what sports would look like if we had historically denied DEI. I’ll leave that to your own thoughts, especially if any of your favorite players or members of your fantasy teams would be on a DEI “list” of some sort. DEI is also an instigator in music, food, and cultural activities we all enjoy. Piñata, anyone? Tango? Mardi Gras? Sweat lodges (saunas, now)? Modern Agriculture?

The new administration wants MERIT to be the deciding factor in American Life. Dictionary definition: “the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward.” I was going to skewer the current administration’s lack of using merit until I realized, just now, just here, that “Blind Loyally” is now a job skill! My bad for forgetting to include it in the list of traits needed to manage large Departments of the American Government, or positions of power in the same government. I’ve sadly lost legal standing to criticize Trump placing family members, news sycophants, and other loyalists in any positions he could. I’m sure our new FBI chief, for example, is up the job of doing what he is told to do. And who is a better, merit-based pick for head of the world’s greatest Army, Air Force, and Navy but a former news talking head who…who am I kidding. Nepotism? Affirmative Action? WTF.

We should all understand DEI is dead, and merit has been redefined as anything the hirer wants it to be. We’ll Make America Great Again any way we can, goshdarn it.

Last thought found accidentally by dictionary hopping; The Latin word for God is DEI. Are we denying God by denying DEI? Probably, but only if you are a splitting-hairs-type person who despises the application of DEI in America. As with most wonderfully romantic ideals of our nation, the problem is not DEI, but the political process of DEI. That might let DEI deniers off the “afterlife judgement” hook, but it really doesn’t. Modern American DEI (MAD, get the humor?), needs to reformed and enforced, not vilified and denied. Same for welfare, Medicaid, and other social support groups. Enhance them, reform, them, but do not eliminate them.

Posting needs to be reformed and enhanced, too. This type of polemic would need to be hundreds of pages long to reveal, research, discuss and settle the nuances of any subject. It’s hard to make that readable, let alone humorous.

So you just need to think about things…for now.

** Wonder if Native Americans ever thought of a wall…

Random Ramblings of No Regard***

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Bad news followed by good news on the medical front these past 30 days. Went from possible colon cancer after failed Cologuard test and subsequent “polypy”(sic) colonoscopy, to happy, clear pathology report 30 days after the whole mess started. I’ll never get those days back.

Then a routine dentist appointment yielded a “bump” in the sinus area above the teeth. Referral to a specialist had me waiting a week, but then 3d-imaging and sinus x-rays had the specialist wondering “Why are you here?”, a saying much more evocative than the “di rigor” (It’s Italian. Google it. Expand your linguistic horizon.) “you’re okay”, especially if you’ve already googled “sinus lump” and its strange, dangerous possibilities. Oh, it was the root end of my tooth. Normal bump. I mean, it should have been, but I’m not a dentist, so…Both false alarms had threatened the June 18th removal of the last defective hip. The final removal of the last of arthritis is on schedule. Until some more of the Big A visits. So the Big C and the Big A will only need watching after June. Discussions with like-wise afflicted cohorts have helped make the decision if anything else happens, no more treatments. Let it be.

The Trump-Musk feud is fun to watch until you consider how serious the issues are for all of us. Commenting on either is unnecessary but I will make this statement: Watch out for Big Tech. Specifically, our data in the hands of Big Tech. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. never delete records. There is a current conspiracy buzzing around a company called Palantir and what it plans to do with all the data “collected by DOGE” when DOGE went into the IRS, Social Security, and other government agency’s data banks, and “handed” the data to third parties like Palantir. They will know everything, so says the conspiracy.

And Ai WILL end the world as we know it. You can see Ai and its devil offspring, algorithms, being used already to torment us in Customer Service and Financial Services. When was the last time you called your credit union, bank, or credit card company’s “customer service” number and got a live, human being, even after the phone tree?** As an Aging Man, I’ve noticed the algorithms are even better at aggravation than real people, and getting an apartment, car loan, home, loan at age 73, by myself, is nearly impossible. Ai even makes it impossible to get a person to explain why. So get ready,

And if Ai puts a lot of people out of work, what will they do?  So glad I’ve aged out of that particular worry.

Reason has revealed I am the cause of the unusually terrible weather upstate NY has suffered since my return. Unprecented weather with tornadoes and a once-in-a-50-year snowfall winter “seemed” to have followed me here. My bad. But I will not assume any contribution to how bad NY sports teams are. We’re talking Championships, now, not regular season. The Bill’s fan motto is now “win one in my lifetime” which is really a question, not a hope. The Yankees had won at least one World Series in every decade of their existence. My moving probably coast them the 2010s, but the 2020  failures are their own. Jets. Ha. Orangemen? Eh. Giants? Nooooo. Knicks? Ugh and ughier(sic). Nothing really is expected of the Nets, but the Rangers last Cup win was over 30 years ago with the last appearance in the Cup finals 10 years and counting. This can’t be all my fault. The Bill’s were good but not good enough when I lived here and have resumed being The Big Tease in NY sports.. For my son-in-law’s sake the Bills better answer that motto question…and soon. And not in the negative…again…

Mets were purposely omitted: they stole Soto, so…

This post went the way of life these days. Medical questions being dismissed or answered and treated allows the mind to randomly ramble and wonder about…

S%*$. I missed Nap time.

** And when you do, do they do anything but repeat what the algorithm says?

*** Selected this title because Ai says it is “terribly clunky and redundant.” It made my day.

Truther(sic) Words Were Never Spoken

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Mark Twain is a personal idol and national treasure. He was born November 30, 1835, raised in the 19th Century and died in the early 20th, on April 21, 1910, but his observations are timeless. They defy the centuries. He recognized enduring human traits which were humorous on the surface, often dangerous to society, and funny. If you have the long view of life and believe living a good life will get you to a Good Place, Mark Twain is your prophet/guide. His life is one of triumph and tragedy as he lost 3 children to the illnesses of the times, and suffered some, himself, but his reported last words as he lay dying of a heart attack (which happened to people in those days) were “Give me my glasses.” He had more to write in the afterlife.

Most of us know Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, even though forcing a student to read something is not the best way to introduce authors and their works. Ai says the books are still being taught in “some Schools” but the subject matter can be “controversial”. Since talking about race is always controversial, Twain would be happy we are just discussing it, these days. Of course, he would point out we shouldn’t need to, anymore.

Unfortunately, our modern societal and political conversations are not about facts and truth. Pick any issue in America and you’ll find arguments, facts, and opinions to support either side, with both sides thinking the other is—at best—uninformed. My personal opinion is one side of the national debate is intent on obscuring facts and making opinion the determining factor for truth or fiction. But the opposing side doesn’t seem interested in sticking to the facts, either. Having truth be so “fluid” brings to mind this Twain Quote: “Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”

I’ve written about the rhetorical skirmishes from my local paper’s opinion section, how writers pronounce themselves as know-it-alls, and lack humility. (Knowing and talking about humility, by the way, does not sound humble, does it. If there was any other way…) In speaking (figuratively) with these writers, this Twain quote often comes to mind: “The truth is no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie.” Please note in repartees with local writers I never profess 2 plus 2 equals anything, just that 2 plus 2 does not equal 5. So many political party supporters are intent on believing anything the party says. See my post about “Tribe over Truth”. An additional point is to reveal, slyly, not everybody you disagree with is wrong all the time. You agree?

But, alas, it is the fate of a semi-professional Devil’s Advocate and self-appointed Fact Watcher to learn there will always be a part of society unfazed by brilliant and cohesive skewering of a particular viewpoint. ((I honor myself un-humbly(sic), with the previous statement and arbitrarily assign myself the role of Twain in 2025. Just for this day, I promise.)) These “skewerings” are not meant to denigrate anyone or any viewpoint, but professional political statements from professional politicians are getting comical, as each one tries to satisfy what they think their tribe/party needs to hear the professional politicians say. (Hope you get the sublte, sophisticated, elitist sarcasm in the repetition of a phrase.)

This “adherence” to party dogma and debate (alliteration) leads to this post’s final Twain quote:

“It’s easier to fool people than convince them they are being fooled.”

Final declaration: Professional Politicians (Again?) have always tried to fool the voting public. Most of them do it on the fly, reacting to polling, upcoming elections, or current events. But some do it on purpose with carefully designed and artfully thought-out schemes, often involving years of planning and manipulation.

Which type did YOU vote for?