Please. Stop.

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I’ve written before about the “fun” of local “Letters to the Editor” in my local paper. It was fun for several months, but then…eh..it’s been awhile.

The problem is lack of growth, lack of progress. Read any comment section and you see this scene play out: Original, breathless statement filled with adverbs, adjectives, and snarkiness. Followed by breathless comments filled with adverbs, adjectives and snarkiness. Followed by more…snarkiness. (my grammar editor is “flagging” snarkiness as not spelled correctly. He/She/Them/It is wrong. Google it, yourself, and I’ve amended the grammar police’s dictionary. Oddballs.)

Maybe it is too much to expect immediate change in the tone and structure of public discourse, but is it that hard for people to see what I see? If you were asked for the sum of 2 plus 3 and answered 6, how many times would you do that before you wondered why people were correcting you, and gave a different, perhaps correct answer. (Hopefully, there is no undiscovered ethnic group/tribe where 2 pls 3 does equal 6.) Math is easy to see, isn’t it?

Past columns have talked about “Critical Thinking” (CT) and “Reading the Rome” (RR) and those expressed thoughts were not the work of a genius, or once-in-a-generation mind. (Unless you’d care to think of me that way. Your call.) They are the thoughts of an old man who paid attention. So, if all the writers and commentators are young, high school students, does the illogical repetitiveness of the stereotypical “Statement and Comments ad nauseum” (SCAN), indict our current educational systems? Yes. And the past systems. And the present systems. And commercial television. And contemporary music, And professional sports. And Capitalism. And the Free Market. Everything, Everywhere. All the time.

Huh. Finally. Nihilism explained. Maybe. Frederic Jacobi in the 18th century said Nihilism refuted the “belief in an unknowable true reality”. Uh-oh. No “true reality”? Sounds MAGAish but Nietzsche asked with God dead, where were we to find meaning in the world?

Okay, I’m off the google sidetrack, but it made clear the need for a True Reality. Trump and many others say January 6th was a kind of patriotic “celebration”. Others say it was an insurrection. All that is true, now, as the farther—in time—we get from 1/6/2021 the “less true” that day’s reality will be for both sides. Why?

As Americans we face constant MANIPULATION. Advertising. Politics. Societal norms. Rock stars have known thins for years and made a living singing about fighting it. “Another Brick in The Wall”, by Pink Floyd. “Monster” by Steppenwolf. “For What It’s Worth”, by Buffalo Springfield. In fact, find this song on YouTube from the late 60s. It clearly and precisely represents the entire point of this post. What does it say about us that a song from 1966 identifies our 2025 problems? I’m dropping the mic.

A nice thing about aging is the natural shedding of concerns for anything but our own medical and financial condition. It’s not up to the old people to save the world, we won’t be around long enough.

A bad thing about aging is the recognition nothing has changed. And sadly, may never change.

Music, again, and Jackson Browne in 1971:

“Oh, people, look around you the signs are everywhere. You’ve left it for somebody other than you to be the one to care.”

Another thing learned as an old man, the good we do and the things we learn in our youth fade with age, and there is no guarantee any following generation will feel the same. All empires decline and fall.

In reflection, this post reminds me of a recent medical test. The test is 90 per cent accurate reading negative results, but its positive results are only correct 50 per cent of the time.

Feels like symbolism for something, but it’s nap time, so…

Pets and Grief…maybe

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I can sunbathe from my second-floor balcony. I have not had a pet in over 14 months.

You may take a few minutes to try in–your own mind–to make a nice, human story from those two statements.

Okay. Times up. When sunbathing, I am not afraid to show my aging body but aware there may be some weak stomachs if too much skin is made available for public viewing. Fortunately, the sun shines into my apartment from the balcony at certain times of the day so there is a way to be secretly nudish (sic), appreciate the sun, and ensure innocent eyes don’t suffer retinal damage: keeping my balcony door open.

Sidebar: For the thirteen months I’ve inhabited a second-floor loft in Rome, NY, not one bug has been noticed at, near, or in my apartment. They do not even bang against the large windows or get caught in the screens, even when the windows are open and allow a beautifully breezy flow of clear, clean, upstate NY air. It is welcome relief from the south where bugs are frequently co-habitants and often big enough to be paying rent. An open window in the south is an invitation for a collection of creatures wondering if they can enter, and they often do, somehow. And in shifts with night-time arthropods arriving after the daytime hexapods retire after a long day. The arachnids (spiders) were welcomed, however, and their full webs were applauded each morning, until one decided–without invitation–to be a house pet. And one morning there was a praying mantis trying to unlock my car door, True story, he/she was huge.

So. One beautiful, unexpected spring day while sunbathing with the balcony door open and my physical form hidden from prying eyes (you know who you are!), it was with little fanfare and–certainly no invitation–that a big, fat fly buzzed into the apartment, zooming right over my astonished head and off into the very bowels of the previously insect free living space. You all know how they buzz, letting you know they are there, somewhere you can’t find them. Somewhere they are secretly doing what they do. Flies. Annoying little basta%$#s.

He/She/It was fat and fast, buzzing and zooming all over, but never back through the conveniently open balcony door. I chased It with a book, a broom, a towel, and eventually sat, exhausted, in the chair after an hour of high-level, video-game pursuit.

And it landed in my lap. I struck my lap hard with the palm of my hand as It flitted away, back to the kitchen area. It was during the ensuing respite from humiliation and physical exertion that I ruminated on the fact my solitary existence in the apartment was often a cause for loneliness as my dog, Charlie, and cat Maxine, were left behind in North Carolina, The Calamities making me unfit to be the animals’ parents until such time as chasing after them was a possibility. (But I could still type a long sentence.) Missed were the big, brown, loving eyes, of Charlie and the baleful stare of Maxine as she struggled with how to do away with me and still get fed. Like most pet owners, what is missed the most is talking with them. Just knowing they are there.

Long story short, I adopted the big, fat, uninvited fly as my new pet. I decided he was a male, but did not do any research to corroborate the fact. How would one do that, anyway? (google: do flies have sex.) Naming him was easy: Jeff, after Jeff Goldblum, the actor in the 1986 science fiction classic film “The Fly”. Technically, Mr. Goldblum’s first name is Jeffrey, so Jeffrey became my new pet. Not only did I talk to Jeffrey but I’m sure he talked back, in his own way. For example, he frequently joined me in the bathroom when I did my ablutions, keeping a discreet distance while resting in the tub, waiting. We played together, too, chasing each other around the apartment. Google the song “My Best Friend” by Harry Nillsson for an example of how close a man and his fly can become.

Sadly, when this story was told to local human friends, they all said the same thing: “Don’t ever tell anyone else this story.”

So here it is, in its mostly true form.

Epilogue: Our friendship lasted several warm, spring days, but when it got cooler things changed. Jeffrey was indifferent, lackadaisical and didn’t want to play anymore. One afternoon upon returning from an appointment, my opening of the apartment door revealed Jeffrey on his back on my kitchen counter, all six legs pointing to the ceiling. Even in the end he was considerate, dying in plain sight and easily brushed into the garbage. He’d given me the best of his 15-30 days on this earth. Oddly, the same friends who warned me about telling this story upbraided me for unceremoniously disposing of him. Was I supposed to give Jeffrey a funeral?

He was just a fly.

An Open Letter to Old Fuddie Duddies, you know who you are…

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As my life has progressed, so has my knowledge and use of modern technology. It doesn’t mean I’m keeping up, just not far behind. You can imagine my surprise when old friends and new friends huff and puff about using new technology. This post will be about modern stuff young people know already, and have probably moved on from, so if you’re tech savvy (any age), don’t read any farther. You’ll be bored.

Computers, laptops and cell phones entered my life in the early 80’s and 90’s and most of my cohorts are reasonably up to a slow speed with them. Reasonably. Many still use checks and check books and balance their accounts every month. I’ve given up arguing, debating, and teaching the merits of on-line banking, bill paying, and account maintenance. It isn’t that the ship has sailed, it never even got out of the dock. If you are my age and wondering what the hell I’m talking about, ask a grandchild. Or someone else’s grandchild. Don’t bother me. Benefits? See your account activity every day, not 30 days later when your statement posts and you sit down with your calculator, check book, and mailed, printed statement. Balancing or reconciling a checkbook, monthly, is an avoidable, self-inflicted torture–by the way–some seem to enjoy…so there is that aspect to consider.

Bonus sidebar: How many of you old couples still use two (or more) checkbooks for one account? A man once told he had three: one for him, one for her, and one for the “house” to keep track. Beside the possible S and M angle (google it), maybe those monthly account balancings (sic) helped keep them together? Again, don’t ask a man thrice divorced and recently dumped.

          In 1960 when kids like you know who wanted to get a local baseball game together, we called a house phone. If someone answered, gold! As long as it wasn’t answered by a teen-aged girl waiting for a certain boy to call. If no one answered, you kept trying. Imagine getting 10 kids together for a game (we only used half the field). I cannot remember when answering machines came out, but I do remember getting my first cell phone in the mid-90’s about 5 years after a good friend got a car phone. Even then most calls still went to a “House Phone”. Car phones didn’t last long but then the cells hit and we all had them. Now calls went to the person holding the phone, still never certain of the message getting through but at least progress. Then, voice mail, group phone calls, etc.

          The next big leap was texting. Most old people are still confused about all the phones can do, but texting should be easy. It is a combination of mailing, calling, emailing and smoke signaling, all of which can be used for effective communication: effortlessly thanking distant relatives, asking out a possible mate, and getting 10 old men together for whatever it is ten old men could do. Not only does the sender get control of the message (I sent it to you hours ago. Must be glitch.) the receiver does, too. (I didn’t get your text. Must be a glitch.) Imagine both excuses happening on the same text. It’s possible. Maybe everybody’s not happy, but at least they aren’t mad. Some tried, right? Why can’t old people see how great this form of communication is? And learn to use it? Oh, and you can send a text, any time, like when you want to tell someone something but don’t want to talk with them. Early morning, around 3am is the best time for that particular text. They won’t be up for a phone call, and the text might wake them up, a bonus. Genius.

          The best modern technology to keep up with is music. I’ve spoken before of the records, 8-tracks, cassettes, and CD’s of the past, and how ear buds have revolutionized the way we can hear music as loud as we want without upsetting uptight neighbors. For anyone reading this older than me, I just found—online–and listened to a 1943 live recording of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by The Andrews Sisters. The miracle of modern technology isn’t just the access to centuries of music, but the quality of the music, as well. A past post mentioned Jackson Browne and how the vinyl, monaural records of the past have been “digitalized” (read: fixed) and everything can be heard, now, not just the singer and lead guitar. As a single man living alone with slight disabilities, my indoor activities are often accompanied by a soundtrack no one else can hear…or complain about. Try Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” at 11 on your stereo, then add ear buds. Write back to me about who was happier, you or the people in your vicinity. Of, course, they might be Zep fans, so, be ready to share, or explain. Learn to text, old people. Please.

          Yes, I should be listening to “The Great Courses of Mankind”. FYI: I’ve penciled them in for my next hip replacement when I won’t be able to dance for a month.

Not Again…

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If you are a regular reader you know about The Calamities, and that a new calamity may be added to the list, soon. A colonoscopy revealed the potential for a new Big C, but until the biopsy comes back, let’s focus on the fun things in life.

After the completion of the anal butt scanning, the perpetrators handed me a form to sign. “I’ll sign anything,” I said, still high from the anesthesia. My daughter read it to me later. It was an innocuous list of things to be careful about post-colonoscopy, like don’t drive, and be ready for slight dizziness when standing up. The last item on the list?  “Do not sign any legal documents” until full recovery.

My move from a tennis hotbed in Durham, NC, to Rome, NY, thirteen months ago caused a sharp decline in tennis participation. Aside from The Calamities, my sudden (and complete) dearth of tennis capacity is because there is no one in Rome who plays tennis. No one. Anywhere. Except in the operating room at my colonoscopy. The anesthesiologist plays! Silver lining, much? It’s only been 24 hours, but he hasn’t called. Maybe he didn’t like me…

Turning Stone Resort and Casino (TS) is my favorite fitness center. After exercising old bones and muscles, I’ll toddle down to the gaming floor or sidle over to The Emerald, the 24-hour restaurant, or do both. Fitness starts at 6am and all other activities follow…perfect timing. Last week I vowed to never gamble again as a string of bad luck wiped all my winnings and plus, stupidly, $10 from my savings. But the bad news of yesterday’s colonoscopy inspired me to risk another $10 this morning. It is the “yin and yang”** of life: bad luck yesterday, good luck today, right? Complementary forces in the Universe. Great winnings were expected.

The house quickly and efficiently took my $10 so it was off to the usual omelet and potatoes breakfast at The Emeralds, where good luck finally revealed itself. They make home fries with onions (Why does anyone do that?), so for years at Emeralds my potato side was French fries. Not bad for the rest of the day, but home fries or hash browns are de rigueur** for morning ingurgitation**. But today, this very morning, a waitress with a heart of gold and probably some power over the cook, had them make onion-less home fries for my dining pleasure. Yang is back, baby!

The Yankees lost to the Mets and…stop. Doesn’t belong here.

Lesson learned? On the drive home this morning, a sadly inept driver hogged the smooth inner, passing lane of the four-lane highway. As I began to pass the idiot on the rough, trucked-up outer lane, he slowed, and turned left, exiting the highway. Whoever was driving did not get the benefit of my screaming face and extended middle digit.  Lesson: things aren’t always what they seem so don’t overreact. Keep your wits about you. After further internal discussion, though, the facial and digital displays were judged situationally(sic) appropriate as the driver did not use their blinker. A lesson for all of us.

The morning’s weather deserved cursing, too, as a cold rain sifted down through the clouds during the morning drive to TS. With the darkness and 50-degree temperature, it was the kind of cold that seeps into old bones. A well-thought-out lamentation, followed by a sufficiently remorseful prayer failed to affect any climate change. But hours later, as my car exited the TS parking garage, the rising sun fought through the clouds with just enough success to showcase the intense, budding, beautiful greenery of upstate NY. Yin and Yang, again.

Okay. My mind is back in balance. Yin and Yang. Que sera, sera. Let it be. An important thing to remember in times like these is how good life has been. No calamity should ever make you forget.

**google it. Fun stuff.

Waste. Fraud. Abuse.

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For the sake of this short rant, we will consider those three words as one threat to America, for the conservation of space.

It’s time we all learned fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) is not a new, momentary, correctable problem. In fact, we need to  admit we can’t “eliminate” it. We can just do the best we can to mitigate it.

America’s economy is a Capitalist economy. AI describes Capitalism as “an economic system where individuals or businesses own the means of production and make decisions about what, how, and for whom to produce, with the goal of generating a profit. Key features include private property, free markets, competition, and relatively limited government intervention”

As you read this description, did the term “government intervention” seem to be in the wrong sentence with the words “free market”? And how about the words “relatively limited”? There are two major ways governments can intervene in any economy, with the end result in both often more of a hybrid mix.

One is by proactively deciding “what, how, and whom to produce for”, and make those decisions before any production starts. Picture a government directed economy much like China and Russia. (Loaded with FWA, by the way.)

Two is by monitoring “what, how, and for whom to produce” after production, and then setting a regulation for further production. Picture a business making and selling poison as a health cure. After a few deaths, a government would (hopefully) stop that business and regulate the future manufacture and sale of poison. Plus truth in packaging and advertising.

Another ambiguous term is “free markets”.  What free markets want is to be able to get away with making and selling poison marked as a health cure, only stopping when enough consumers stop buying it due to “competition”, an innocuous term defining how consumers “learn” about the product’s real properties (death) from the “free market” activity and stop purchasing. Picture a “consumer group”, after “X” number of deaths, organizing and advising people not to buy the “health cure”.

Neat. Tidy. Understand? The Theory is easy to understand, when we add FWA, some realism, to the plot, things get muddled.

FWA has been around since cavemen (Cavepeople?). Picture one caveman (Lou) desiring the other caveman’s (Abbot) food. Lou points to the sky, Abbott looks up, and Lou swipes the mammoth rib from Abbot’s hands. Fraud. Or Lou has some tasty berries, and Abbot has another meaty rib. Lou offers the berries to trade for the rib. Abbot declines, so Lou throws the berries away. A female nearby (Phyllis) has neither meat or berries and goes hungry. Waste. (Yes, a female was used on purpose.)

Phyllis finds the berries, cleans them up, and offers them to both Lou and Abbott as “fresh”. This could be both abuse and/or fraud. Abuse comes from using something for bad effect or purpose, so we’ll say Phyllis is abusing the current fireside free-market system.

The real point is as long as human beings are involved in any economic system, FWA will be a companion and will factor in the system’s functions. Even in Communism’s directed system. FWA is historical, unrelenting, and maybe important? Like plecos (sucker fish) cleaning the aquarium?

What can be done about FWA? First, it is very, very ignorant of both the nature of man and history of capitalism to think you can root it out, entirely. Trump, Musk and DOGGIE say they are doing it, but all they are doing is throwing out the bathwater with the baby, and new bathwater will get just as dirty very quickly no matter what baby you wash in it. That’s life when money and power are involved.

Free Markets need regulatory activity to work best for the population. Free Markets work best with post-activity government intervention. It’s akin to weeding a garden, as long as the weeds don’t infect the regulatory system. But you know how weeds are…same as FWA.

As small government MAGAns, and Republicans look to shrink the government and regulatory intervention, all hell is going to break lose as man’s (better? Nooo) nature is given free rein. Trump and Musk, however, are not being ignorant of human nature and history, they are using it to their advantage. They know a small government and a diminished regulatory framework is good for Trump and Musk, and people like them. At least 5 pre-2025 government “interventions” in Musk’s potentially illegal activities are now moot, as there is no one and no framework to investigate him. Ditto Trump.

And a large part of America still thinks Trump is good for them. Those are the people ignorant and unaware, with no grasp of mankind’s FWA history.

FWA can be caught and corrected, but never completely eliminated as long as man (and maybe a woman or two) see dollars signs and political power in whatever system they think they can manipulate. Know that, understand that, and don’t look away when it happens. In the meantime, profound waste has become normalized: compare professional sports salaries to your local teachers/cops/firemen. The Free Market at its finest.

And please, don’t fire the weeders. They are our only hope.

Older Life Tips. Not OLD, Older…

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Life doesn’t get easier with age. Here are some thoughts.

My eyesight is great, even with Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). AMD slowly robs your central vision…if left untreated. Get an “Ainsler Grid”, or simple sheet of lined graph paper, and tape either one to your refrigerator door. Look at it often, one eye at a time, and if any of the lines get wavy, get to an Ophthalmologist as soon as possible. An optometrist might be able to diagnose your AMD but he/she couldn’t treat it, so get to an OPHTHALMOLOGIST. If the word is too long, google “Retina Specialists” in your area. Of note, learn the difference in eye medical professionals.

Vision is great but not young. I suffer from the standard old age loss of “elasticity” in over 70-year-old eyeballs and need help with fine print. Like the smaller and smaller instructions on Tyson chicken about how to cook it. Or how to take prescriptions. You can buy “reader” glasses almost anywhere or pay your optometrist (sic, learn) for a fancy pair but if you’re like the rest of us who use them only for reading, you’ll need several pair (I have 10) spread around the house and car. They get lost, often, as if they have legs. Most often they’re lost on our heads. Since you need so many pairs, you don’t want to pay a high price for them. Dollar Stores have “trees” and trees of $1 readers in any magnification you need. They are just small magnifying glasses. The dollar store models really should not be called glasses because they are made of plastic. They work perfectly if you don’t scratch them, and if you do, buy another bunch. Like 10? My eyes were getting a little fuzzy, one time, and it made me wonder if my eyes were getting worse. Maybe a higher magnification? Thankfully, I was smart enough to see it was the plastic lenses getting “foggy”, not my eyes. A moist wipe didn’t clear them up, so I planned a dollar store trip to get cleaner, new ones. Google it! Yes, I did and after dropping all my foggy plastic glasses into warm water with a little dish soap, wiping with a paper towel, and letting them dry,—voila!–my eyesight returned to normal. Sadly, I was both pleased with myself, but angry it took ten years, and google, to learn how to clean “plastics”. Hope this one helps someone.

Try to remember the world is getting less and less interested in you and what you have to say. It shouldn’t need to be mentioned, here, but…life has passed us by. Get over it. If you pay too much attention to car and beer commercials, you’ll get depressed. For comfort, enjoy the prescription drug commercials: they are meant for us and young people with problems. But do not think the drug companies care about you, they want money. And, yes, young people do have problems but don’t “help” them by pointing it out…unless they ask and even then, be careful

Recent conversations with younger and older people have reminded me of how complex, diverse, exciting, and possibly fulfilling our old lives have been . If you feel bad about being passed by and rejected by modern society, close the blinds, turn off all electronic devices, and revisit your past. If we can remember our pasts, every one of us achieved something, saved something, earned something, did something, or otherwise enjoyed the heck out of our lives in those long-ago years. Celebrate it all. Blow your horn. But to yourself. Write it down, Record it with video or voice. Besides the self-therapy aspect of letting it out, imagine how much everyone else will miss you when they read about your life and what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished, what you have survived.

And that’s a good place to end: The End. If you reached a certain age, especially if you’ve made it longer than the average life expectancy or lived longer than your parents: Woo Hoo! Champagne for all.

But let the kids pay for it. And don’t drink too much.

Is The Doctor In?

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It’s been a wonderful 2 and half years of medical frivolity. Starting in March of 2023, The Calamities have been a wild ride through the Modern American Medical Establishment (MAME), and its partner, the Modern American Insurance Establishment (MAIE). MAME and MAIE were new to me in 2023 since I’d only visited their ancient ancestors in the past for the occasional broken bone, (ahem) UTI, or abscessed tooth when ERs were the only things open 24 hours.

In 2023 I was fortunate to live in an area with 4 major health systems supported by local universities. For those of you who know the meaning of “The Wrong Color Blue**”, I’d selected the University of North Caolina at Chapel Hill (UNCCH) as my medical playground, instead of Duke University (DU), after arriving in NC in 2007. It was not a value choice but a convenience choice. UNCCH had an office close by and driving one mile to UNCCH seemed like a better idea than 6 miles to a DU office. Ah, the mistakes of the young…

When The Calamites hit, the entire UNCCH system came into play and its hospital was ten miles away. (25 miles during rush hour, timewise.) Later research revealed DU is a higher rated system. UNCCH is very good, but DU is better. A small distinction carrying enormous import in medical care.

As I took up residence in the UNCCH system, the internet became the most valuable tool at hand. The internet is a wonderful place for a writer and sportsman, with the entire “Brain” of humanity there for the picking. It soon became a patient’s best friend and “shadow” doctor. There wasn’t a medical adjective, adverb, noun or conjugation (in English or Latin) in my medical reports I did not look up on The Internet. As an added feature, the IT department at UNCCH “dropped” or “posted” test results to my “portal***) account as soon as the test was completed. This allowed me and my internet friend to learn, analyze, and critique test results before a doctor had a chance to explain them. My head usually exploded from the raw data. Then notes were taken, questions formulated, the internet was queried, and answers found…wait…was what my friend, The Internet telling me right? For the record, at least half of it wasn’t. There were many times something on The Internet was not even close to what it should be or was way off the mark of the research question.

In the early days the doctors humored me, but it became obvious when they were frustrated by not just questions, but stupid questions. My goodness, had I become a pain the ass? A know-it-all? Me? How did it happen?

Medical people have a nickname for this patient: Doctor Google. You’d think with the hundreds of dollars they get paid for talking, the real doctors shouldn’t mind. They get paid for listening, too, don’t they?

It took months to realize I was not just wasting my time, but the doc’s too. And, logically, other patients’ time. (Ever have a doc appointment be on time?) That huge internet “Brain” was half full of crap and I did not have enough medical school training (In fact, none) to know the difference.

A valuable option then presented itself: google only respected sites from respected hospital systems and organization. Most of them appeared in the search results, but not always at the top of the list. I looked up government organizations, too, like the NIH, CDC, USDA, and others. My medical questions, now, do not go out to the entire big brain, but to Harvard Medical School, The Mayo Clinic, and MD Anderson, et. al. These sites are filled with peer-reviewed facts, plus curated blogs written by other people like me or you looking not just for answers, but correct answers that fit our own, unique circumstances.

Being a Doctor Google is not a bad thing if you remember you are NOT a doctor.

And if you do careful research from respected, trusted sites, you will someday ask your doctor—or any medical professional—a question they will appreciate. Your care and maybe even someone else’s care will be all the better.

This advice is not just for medical care, but all news and information gathering. Use your Critical Thinking skills to be careful, be diligent, and not be a fool.

** If you want to meet new people, visit the Durham-Chapel Hill area and proclaim yourself a fan of either the dark blue Duke or robins-egg-blue UNC. Someone close by will hate you immediately and let you know why.

*** Computer terms everyone should know and use…but don’t. Ask your healthcare provider.

Soccer? Is it Futbol?

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Is there anyone in America who can explain soccer to me? In less time than a Cricket match?

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world according to “The World Atlas”, with about 3.5 billion fans. Where do you think baseball and American football are in the rankings?

Cricket is in second place with 2.5 billion, followed by Hockey, Tennis, Volleyball, TABLE Tennis, and finally Basketball at number 7 and Baseball at number 8. Rugby and Golf round out the top ten WORLD Sports.  Haven’t found real Football, yet.

Don’t quibble about who The World Atlas is and how they might know these facts. What intrigues me is the constant effort by Soccer to penetrate the United States sports scene. We do not have Cricket leagues that I know of, do we? Any of your office friends play cricket? Talk about Cricket? Is there a relationship between Cricket and the “sounds of Crickets”? Are there Cricket pools? Holy crap. Do NOT google “how long does an average Cricket match last?” A Test Match can last 5 days! Are there food trucks?

Screw Cricket and let’s get back to Soccer. I played a type of soccer in the third grade in the 1960s. Our teachers put up some orange cones, threw a round ball into the middle of the square the cones made, and watched us run around. Then they blew a whistle, and we all went back to our readin’, riting’, and rithmatic. (sic)

I see later versions of this game in a park lately, it being recognizable by the glom of children all running in a group in whatever way the ball bounced. They looked like a school of sardines.

But thanks to “Ted Lasso”, I’ve tried to learn more. I’m also a closet fan of The World Cup (TWC), an event, presumably, where countries field National Teams every four years and play an Olympic style Tournament. TWC began in 1930 and has been played every four years, since, excepting the WWII war years of 1942 and 1946. And every pizza parlor I’ve ever been in has at least one picture of an Italian team that won a TWC, if not all four teams.

AI says there are 193 countries in the world today. Wikipedia says over 211 teams are “eligible” to play in TWC. Interesting numbers needing an entirely different post and explanation.

As I understand it, “QUALIFYING” for TWC is an event all its own, with the world broken up into “6 Continental Zones” where matches are played with the winners moving on to different “stages”. The zones have mostly normal names like Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, but there is also a zone named “Oceania**”. By the time the fateful year rolls around, (currently 2026), 32 teams are left standing to compete for TWC.

I have to stop. Every fact I learn about soccer and TWC, leads to more questions. Qualifying rules, for example, are different from the rules used to play the games in the TWC final “stages”. Why?

          Enough. I’m a fan, and not knowing what the hell is happening is part of the allure of the game. So is the noise I hear when I find a foreign soccer match on TV. It appears all soccer fans are nuts. And noisy. After 125 years of competition. What is the secret to soccer’s massive, long-lasting, fanatical popularity? Outside the United States, that is?

          Sadly, I’m leaving this discussion worse off than when I began. There is still no answer to why some matches are “Friendlies” and others are called “Caps”. Or why there is no accurate, running clock. Soccer matches aren’t over when the clock on the screen runs out, they’re over when the guy running around the field, who never touches the ball, says it is over. Why do they KEEP playing during “stoppage time”?

          Ted Lasso had trouble understanding the soccer leagues where the Champions are the losers from the Premier League or something…And if a talented actor like Jason Sudeikis can’t understand it, what hope is there for me?

          One thing for sure, it will never be called Futbol in my house.

**Think of every small island in the Pacific Ocean: they are all in “Oceania”.

Funny and True Stories from Daily Life

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I was sitting at my favorite money-taking slot machine on the gambling floor of the local casino when this conversation between two nearby strangers happened.

Him: “You come here often?” (Said hopefully, but also shyly.) Her: “Yes. I like these machines.” (Said without hesitation.) Him: “Ever go to Vernon Downs?” (A different gambling place about 5 miles away.) Her: “No.” Him: “Oh. The machines pay better.” Her: “I know! I won a $100 there last week.”

My local Mcdonald’s drive thru voice instructed me to “please pull up to the second pick up window” after placing my order. When I turned the corner there was one unmarked window, one window marked “Pick-up 1”, and the window I went to, marked “Pick-up 2”. I waited until there was an arm waving in my rear view mirror calling me back to “Pick-up 1”. I reversed back to “Pick-up 1” and was told “people go to the other window (Pick-up 2) all the time.” The speaker looked about 13 years old. Me: “Why don’t you instruct customers to go to Pick-up 1?” 13 year old: “That’s a great idea.”

A week later I was back for the really good 2 for 1 breakfast sandwich deal and was told by a familiar voice to “Please pull around to the second pick-up window.”

This next one isn’t funny, it falls under the “Just My Luck” heading. Complicated story, so hang in there. On April 1st my Primary Care Physician (PCP) discussed a colonoscopy. My last butt invasion was in 2021, four years ago and the result was great with a recommendation to have another anus probe “in seven years.” (A great timeline for an over 70 male.) But radiation treatments and chemo in 2023 wreaked havoc on my digestion so as a compromise PCP and I settled on a ColoGuard test…just to see if anything was going wrong, cheaply and easily. On April 14th ( In case you missed it thirteen days later!} someone from the PCP’s office called to schedule a “colonoscopy.” I referred them to PCP’s notes about the Cologuard. On April 15th the Cologuard test kit arrived, but I waited until Monday, April 21 to do the stinky deed** and send it back. On April 22, I found a research study from the University of California at San Francisco claiming “CAT scans and other radiation in the area of the pelvis” might be causing new and different cancers in current cancer patients already being treated for cancers in the “pelvic region.” (Whew.) As a Prostate Cancer patient in 2023, radiation was used in diagnosing and treating cancer in the prostate area which is adjacent to the pelvic area. Very adjacent.

If you’re still with me, here is the ending: On Friday night, April 25 the “Positive” (sounds good, right?) Cologuard test results were emailed to me and said this: “you have a higher than average chance of having advanced precancerous polyps or colon cancer.” Easy to understand, yes? But then, this: “It is not the same as a cancer diagnoses.” Oy.

A safety sign in the pool at the fitness center is loaded with “Pleases”. For example, “If someone is drowning, please call 911.” And if someone is in distress, please call 800-xxx-xxxx.” The last admonition is the best: “DO NOT SWIM ALONE”. (It may take a second to get this one. Please don’t worry, that’s normal.)

There’s more, but it’s nap time. At least I didn’t mention Tr—

** Cologuard sends you a nice set of plastic utensils so you can accurately poop directly into a small popcorn container, add some magic juice, seal it up “tight”, and ship it overnight to their lab. I sent them an email asking how I did, shipping-wise, but no response. Maybe it leaked all over and the “positive” result is their way of getting even…hopefully….Maybe?

Randomies and Bits and Bobs…again

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Yeah, it’s a made-up word. I’ve been watching too much British television. So? Doesn’t it sound right?

I’d like to ignore it but there has been a lot screeching from the Trump administration about upholding the law. Bondi, Leavitt, and et. al., have parroted Trump in the shouting about obeying the law. The irony is lost on them and it’s okay, but sheeesh. Have some pride, for goodness sake. Just think “kettle meet pot, pot meet kettle.” At least be a little quieter and show some humility. An old saying of my father’s comes to mind: “it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool-” You’re a smart reader, you know the rest.

Same with the “liberal bias” nearly everywhere in Trump World. “Fox meet MSNBC, MSNBC meet Fox”. And not for nothing but the “free press” has always been seen as the opposition to the sitting administration. In Trump World Fox is part of the administration so that might be why when the whiners complain of bias in the “main-stream media” they never mention Fox.

A randomy (sic) of note: nearly all of Trump’s Executive Orders deal with, imply, reveal, expose, and try to remedy the insecurity displayed by the MAGA movement. Everything not kissing MAGA’s rings is a threat.

DEI. If you want to see what DEI is, go out to eat in a big city with a partner. Know what the biggest problem will be?: You want Chinese or Italian? Korean? Mexican? Viet Namese? Schnitzel? Creole? Southern?

Or music: Latin, classical, rock, hip-hop, polka, K-Pop, soul, reggae, or any one of the many styles?

And sports fans will rue the day Trump orders all professional sports teams to be made up of only American, white, Christian players. When I wrote this I tried to see how Native Americans fit in it, but, alas. Can you do it for me? **

DEI is all around us. Grow up.

Most Americans, and this includes MAGAs. are incapable of understanding complex issues. That lack of understanding is the major reason we still have big, unsolved problems. The deportations Trump is rushing through, for example. Not one single American thinks deporting bad non-citizens is wrong. Not one. For those that have working minds, the problem isn’t any one individual, but Trump is throwing out so many people, so fast, the only way to get the point about “due process” is if you imagine it happening to you: sent to CECOT by “mistake”. “Administrative error”. The calculus is the same as the death penalty argument: No one is really against the death penalty for someone who “deserves” it, but after so many convictions overturned, for example, do you think it’s possible we, us, America, have executed one, single innocent man?

For some real immigrant fun, watch the Movie “The Gangs of New York”.

Trump’s efforts are being supported by an “the end justifies the means” argument. Again, fine, as long as you are not the one being “ended” by mistake.

In a previous post I mentioned how hard it is to talk with senior people. Another, happier reason not to is how long it takes. Bill (name not changed, there are no innocents) and I often talk before early morning fitness routines about the past. Bill is 84 and has a larger, longer past, but when we talk it isn’t about troubles but about those pasts. He’s 84, driven, successful, gregarious, while I’m lazy, misanthropic, and happy to get by, but the stories we tell are about the same things. And they are all funny…in a slightly wistful, nostalgic way. I’m 110 (sic) per cent sure neither of us exaggerates the stories, but the most important part is this: Bill tells one, I think of two of my own, and I tell one and he thinks of three of his own, and he tells one and I think of ten, and I tell one and he thinks of 20…ad infinitum.

To shorten this story, the pre-workout morning is storytelling and laughing,…with, sometimes, a hint of “did that really happen”? And that “hint” is not about Bill’s stories, but my own, unless he feels the same way and when we part we both go home thinking: “Did I really do that?”

Life is wonderful if you live long enough to realize it, are fit enough to remember it, and find someone who cares to hear you talk about it.

**wonder if anyone is offended