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

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  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.

American Banking and Ai…a Fun Financial Foray

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My new credit union in NY added to my despair over modern, corporate customer service. To be efficient with my banking, moving funds to NY from North Carolina made sense. But the Credit Union (CU) selected in NY is proving to be…inefficient. And that’s being kind. It’s a strange world where a 73-year-old with no criminal record, a lifetime of credit usage, and Credit Scores over 800 has trouble borrowing money. Side Bar: Transunion suggested my score could be nearly “perfect”, if my records contained a “Closed End Installment Account” like a car loan, personal loan, mortgage, something with an end date, since all my credit accounts are “revolving”, or open lines of credit.* So I applied on-line for a small, personal installment loan from the new CU in New York to flesh out the credit resume.  A quick, electronic declination followed. A quick call to a human revealed the lines of credit, unused but open, made me a “credit risk”.  An inquiry about what a credit score of 800 means got this reply: “It proves you’ve paid off loans in the past, but we are unsure about your ability.” *

Savings and checking accounts had been opened with the NY CU and small sums were deposited as trial amounts. After the loan debacle, it was decided moving money to NY would not be efficient. In the meantime, I’d used small amounts** from the checking account. One morning I withdrew the “last” $20 ** and the ATM let it happen.

When I checked my NY CU account later that day, the checking account was overdrawn and been charged a $28 fee. No problem, most CUs and Banks give you a free mistake a year so I’ll talk to customer service at the CU and see if they could help. The NY CU website said customer service was available “Mon-Fri from 7:30AM to 9PM EST”. At 8:45AM I called and sat on the phone tree over 25 minutes. *** “You are caller Number 3, 2, 1.” Finally, a male answered and explained “We open at 9”. (If I’d called at 7, would the phone tree have looped me for two hours, if I was dumb enough to wait?) The live male “looked into” my problem and went to talk with his “manager”. The live male returned and offered a refund of $14. I asked why cash could be withdrawn that was not in the account and here is his response: “We automatically sign you up for overdraft protection when you open your accounts. It automatically gives you what you ask for.” And why an Overdraft Fee of $28? Answer: “Policy.” I asked to have the automatic, free “benefit” removed from my accounts.

Important fact for the reader: I was livid after the overdraft phone call, but now the $14 loss and wasted time feel insignificant. As an old girlfriend used to say, “Why are you making such a big $%^&ing deal about it?”  Thanks for listening and if you’re not okay with simply letting me vent, send a bill for YOUR wasted time and my Ai policies will handle it.

As for modern American Companies’ customer service and “Policies”…a mix of Ai and humans is worse than Ai, or humans, alone. Sadly, the future will be just Ai. Caveat emptor, everyone, all the time.

God help us all.

*I don’t know why, for all.

** Money for gambling at Turning Stone Resort and Casino. Sometimes I lose…

*** While doing other things like clipping nails, etc.

No More Trump For Me…Ever

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The Calamities are nearly defeated. One Cancer is in remission. AMD * is under control. Arthritis has been surgically removed. Walking and simply existing is now painless, easy and almost worry-free.

 What keeps me awake at night, now, is the state of our country, specifically a government that does whatever it wants and lets billionaires run everything. It’s tempting to…No! No more.

The 2024 election will be added to The Calamities List and will be looked at only in the rear-view mirror and eventually be forgotten. There are only a few good years left (details in a later paragraph) and no more “painless and easy living” time will be wasted on politics. Don’t believe me? Watch me. Bill, this mean you.

The return of a close approximation ** of good health inspired me to look for a place to volunteer. Volunteering was a part of life given up when doctors, treatments, ailments, and related issues made me unreliable. But those days are past, *** and I am now training to be a Volunteer Long Term Care Ombudsman for the State of New York. Anyone know what an “ombudsman is”?  Bet you don’t, so look it up, anyway. In the early days, as they decide if I’d be at least an okay o-man, I’ve “shadowed” mentors who get paid to do it. We visited Long Term Care Centers, Assisted Living Centers, and Rehabilitation Centers to try to get residents to let us know how things are going. Know anyone in any of these places? Ever visit one of these places? Know what they do? Know how they do it and how well they do it? I trained as a Certified Senior Advisor and Long Term Care Consultant in my past financial life and thought I knew it all. These places aren’t new to me. This will be a great opportunity to assist people in the stage of their life where the help these facilities perform is not just needed but required. It is the only option for them. My life will be fulfilled.

My visits these last two weeks revealed how ignorant I am about modern senior adult medical care.

There will be more written later, but a Long Term Care situation is not the fun you might think it is, given younger people call this the “Golden Years” for us seniors. It doesn’t help that at my age with my history it might be me in one of these facilities even as early as next week. What will be will be.

End of life care is a complicated story populated with villains, heroes, saviors, losers, and the just plain unlucky. Sadly, most stories fouetté **** and pirouette **** around money, and that sad dance only adds to the staggering heartbreak. In each and every visit there was a very fervent wish I would wake up in the morning worth $400 Billion dollars and could solve most of the problems inherent in end of life issues.

One can dream, at least for now.

*If you are a senior reading this, check yourself out using an Amsler Grid. Do it now, unless you already did. AMD sneaks up on you.

** Everyone okay with this strange phrase?

*** Ai says I need a comma here. I disagree. All in favor of a comma, raise your hand.

**** Ars gratia Artis

Questions for Concerned and Thoughtful Americans

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When you end your workout at your fitness center and go to the showers where there are three empty stalls, do you select the weird stall with the handrails, folding seat, water controls below waist level, and hand-held shower head?

Do you know the difference between an indictment and a conviction?

Do you now the “distance” between an indictment and a conviction?

Does the term “respect law and order” come up only when you’re talking about someone else’s actions?

Is the driver in front of you doing 10 miles per hour over the speed limit getting in your way and holding you back?

Do you believe in and repost things from your favorite websites to your on-line accounts and state “How True!”, or ask “How True?”

Is everything your political opponent says wrong and everything you say, correct?

Do you get mad when people use “facts” to make their point?

Do you think America is a place only for natural born Americans and there is no room for minority people or religions?

Is it okay to think anyone who doesn’t think like you has a screw loose?

Can you own a gun and still be Anti-NRA?

Is it possible President Trump is doing some thing(s) right?

Is it possible Joe Biden did ANYTHING right?

Do you feel better about yourself when someone agrees with you or disagrees with you?

Is a “tribal validation” of your opinions necessary or are you an independent thinker?

Is it really an insult to be called “sheep” by your political rival?

Should “leaders” of institutions be held to a higher moral standard than the bots and trolls who criticize or praise those leaders?

If you own an AR-15 what do you do with it?

Can we, the people, solve our own problems, or do we need a centralized form of government to make things work?

Do you know anyone who has no place to sleep tonight?

Do you have an idea where you will be sleeping at age 80?

Any relative already in Long Term Care?

Think you won’t need Long Term Care?

Think anyone has the answers to most, all or none of these questions? Life is “a tapestry of rich and royal hue”, said Carole King in 1970. But The Buffalo Springfield said it best in 1968: “We better stop, children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down.”

That was 57 years ago.