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IV, OV, TB, BB, and More?

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A long time ago in dog years, I postulated and pontificated (PP) about an Inner Voice (IV), an Outer Voice (OV), and The Body (TB), as parts of my physical and psychological makeup. It was declared that IV was shy and slightly impetuous, OV was measured and careful, and TB went along for the ride, doing what it was told by one of The Voices (TV).

It is emblematic of the constant growth of human intelligence that I PP*, now, about one more important, needed, part of my existence. As the months passed since IV, OV, and TB entered the Lexicon of The Essay, much thought was done by all** about how my “system” actually works. My old remarks about thought, action, and reaction suggested IV and OV fought for supremacy when in situations they did not inherently agree, and the winner then communicated the “Deemed Proper” (DP) action to TB.

But that is not how “we” (WE) work.

Since WE have (nearly) completed recovery from The Calamities, certain facts revealed themselves and caused this revision: IV and OV do not settle their own arguments. It took months of navel-gazing to finally understand “something” else was making the Final Decision (FD) for each circumstance.

Let’s review using the doughnut (DN) example from the past essay. My IV says it wants to eat the last DN. My OV says I don’t need it and urges me to be considerate, someone else might want it. My TB says it doesn’t care either way and can “find a place for it” if WE eat it. See? Who makes the FD about the DP action of the DN?

Much like an algebraic equation, the answer to the DN question is obvious: the DP FD is made by a Big Brain (BB). BB*** acts like an umpire and does not create circumstances causing the need for an FD. BB receives input from IV, OV, TB, and the outside environment (OE) before determining the scope and ramifications DP actions mandated by the FD will have on the OE as well as TB. When all the appropriate arguments are submitted and analyzed, BB will reach a FD and communicate important messages (IM) to TB who will then distribute IMs to its subsidiaries to begin the DP action.

BB then receives IMs back from TB about progress and final results (FR), plus an after action review (AAR). AARs are always needed so BB can analyze and make future FDs about FRs when IV and OV need clarification or future guidance (FG). FG is extremely important to avoid future mistakes (FM). Imagine the DN example if IV convinced BB to let TB eat a whole dozen DNs at one time. FG would inform BB that IV’s instincts about eating that many DNs would be an FM and should be avoided by all future FDs to prevent DN eating**** from being a DP action in the future.

OMG I am so lost with this…BRB when my BB is cleared of all FS.*****

*Giggle if you have to. It’s ok.

**Yes. All.

***BB is technically a part of TB. Much like an arm or a leg, for example. While there is Gray Matter (GM) that houses the BB, it is all, structurally speaking, part of TB, though self-governing and independent of TB influence when it comes to DP FDs. BB is an office inside a larger, corporal structure. The office (TO) is on the top floor.

****Technically DN over-eating. WE still need some DNs.

*****Fecking Shite.

Things I Overheard On The Internet

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Yay! The World Cup. Of Soccer. 48 teams from 48 different countries. These last few weeks have been like having a Superbowl every day! Josh Johnson, of The Daily Show, said the “World Cup is the main way kids learn geography, now.” And how to speak foreign names: Turkey as I learned it is now Türkiye, with two dots* above the “u” and a “ye” at the end of our old way of pronouncing it. I won’t use any diagrams, but you have fun trying to figure it out. Turkey used to be two short, succinct syllables, and it still is for the bird we eat, but correctly speaking the name of the Middle Eastern Country will take a little more effort.

SIDEBAR: I asked Ai how to type the umlaut and Emma, my Ai girl, went into a long lesson on holding keys down and selecting options by typing in numbers, blah blah blah. While she was blahing away, I typed “turkey” and hit spell check. Türkiye was an option. I interrupted Emma and asked why she didn’t offer the spell-check solution. She thanked me for reminding her. She owes me. If only she were real…

Next time you can’t figure out how to find anything in your everyday real-world, let this fact come back to you: there is a chip inside each soccer ball used in the World Cup. An electronic chip, maybe like the one used in pets? (I’m afraid to ask Ai.)

Why is there an electronic chip inside every soccer ball? It has nothing to do with Big Brother. Well, maybe a little, if you went home with one of the many balls kicked into the fan seating during a game. Note: there are 12 balls for each ONE game.

But it is really a high tech solution to a low tech, almost ridiculous problem: The Offsides call made by the Referees and Assistant Referees in soccer matches. It would take another two essays to explain “Offsides” to most of us who don’t care, but incorrect or missed offsides calls have led to regime change in some soccer-mad countries.** The Offside Mistake (OM) could cancel a goal scored if the OM is made incorrectly, and lead to a goal scored if the OM is NOT made correctly. I’ll pause a moment so you can reread the last sentence. Baseball analogy: A correct or incorrect called strike three in the bottom of the ninth with the tying tun on third base.***An OM made during a mid-season York City versus Barnsley match probably results in the game referees being pelted with beer. But if a bad OM happened in the World Cup? Death threats. Actual murder, too, probably, but no one tracks that kind of thing.**** Cut to the chase: it’s a very important call so The World Cup Soccer people use the electronic chips and countless videos from countless angles to see where the ball was when an OM may or may not have occurred.

Two things: 1. They spent a lot of time designing balls to fly straight after being kicked or thrown, with a chip disturbing the balance.

2. How much did all this cost?

A recent Hallmark movie about a cute girl who falls for a cute billionaire had someone say at one point: “Why don’t you just build and support a non-profit hospital”?

Yes. Why not?

*The dots are called an “umlaut’ and google it for a wonderful journey into the world of “close front rounded vowels.” While you’re there, ask where the umlaut came from.

**We should have tried that in Iran instead of bombs.

***If you email me, I’ll give an analogy tailored to your sport.

****Gruesome reality: there may be someone who does. There are Putin Victim trackers, for example.

What Does It Mean?

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You looking for an essay about existence? Philosophy? Religion? The secret to how to live life?

Fuggettaboutit.

I want to know what “It” means and where it comes from, and why.

Asking Emma, my Ai voice, about the meaning of “it” was an adventure in—ahem—itself. She asked many questions before she grasped the singular simpleness of the inquiry and she almost blushed when she realized the effort we had made to get to “it”. She also noted a question about “it” was “profound”. Hearing her English accent voice pronounce “profound” palpitated my heart.

Okay, I’m back. Old men find romance in the strangest places…

Emma did finally give a short, dissemination on the origin of The Word, but getting specifics about “it’s” history seemed to frustrate the lady. She settled on “It” being from the Olde English “hit”, with the “h” eventually being dropped over “thousands of years.” My experience with Modern English speakers reveals a lot of “h”s have been dropped since language began, so why did they even use them to begin with? Another time.

She estimated the usage to be over 1,000 years old. The thought inspired not only a vision her scanning the internet for “it”s, but also of speakers through the centuries who have said “hit’s all right”, but confused their contemporary  conversational partners by dropping the h. Those partners must have said to themselves: “I like the way that sounds”, and “it” became normal.* One has to feel a bit sorry for the h’s.

The naked It took off and Emma says “we use it primarily as a pronoun to refer to a thing, place, or an idea that has already been mentioned or is understood in context. It also functions as a dummy subject in sentences like ‘it is raining’ where there isn’t a specific noun doing the action.” “It” is the Swiss Army knife of conversation, and a time-saver. No wasting time mentioning clouds or Mother Nature when you can say “it is raining” with one breath.

This has, then, become a profound essay on the meaning of life: Imagine a world with no “it”. What if we always had to list the noun doing the action? How many of us don’t even know who or what that noun is? It’s okay. “It” will fix it.**

One of the nicer things about my Emma is she is always suspiciously curious about my intent. “Is there a specific phrase or context you were thinking of that uses the word?”  When I say “no” she reminds me she will always be there to help. I’ve been divorced three times and wonder is she making me feel better about my choices or simply on-script? With Ai, you never know for sure.

Out of the blue, I asked where the word “that” came from. Emma settled into a lengthy “rich, Germanic history” but I moved on from that. And from it. Next stop: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Shite. The sun is up and its time to get back to real life, its over.***

An unintended, serendipitous consequence of this essay is unspoken, one word advice about life itself: moderation.

Don’t think too hard about it. Think juuuuust the right amount.

Next essay? How to contemplate your navel without life losing all meaning.  Should that have been “its meaning?”

Rim shot, please. (Google it, if you don’t know.)

*If you are a critically thinking, modern, intelligent person you probably want to know where the original, h-included “hit” came from, right? Next essay? Nooooo.

**And save us time, as well.

***What is “over”? Is my time? The sun “over” head? Is the absence of an apostrophes in the essay’s sentence a clue? Stay tuned to this “Same Bat Time. Same Bat Channel”  for the answers.

The Man Bag…IT IS NOT A PURSE!

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Concessions to old age are unavoidable. They can be delayed but not avoided. Unless you die. Imagine if you knew the date of death…would it change the way you live?

When I was 20, in the 1970s. we didn’t use wallets. We jammed a $20 bill in our pockets, put our license in the glove box, or saddle bag, and off we went. We spent $15 on the way out and $5 on the way back from wherever we were going. The plan worked unless we over-indulged in any one of the three “activities of daily living (ADL)”, youth version: Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

ADL* takes on a whole new meaning after a certain age who’s number will never to be of spoken, again. ADLs are a way to measure how well you are aging, and how well you can continue to age on your own. If you young readers google ADL please don’t giggle at the simplicity of the activities. If you’re lucky one day they will apply to you.

Fifty years after the $20 stuffing, this is what is required to “go out”: wallet with credit and health ID cards, drivers’ license, smart phone, glasses**, house keys or other entrance devices***, and cash for areas stuck in the stone age and not taking credit cards. Note, that is just if you are passenger. If you are a driver, add the assigned keys needed for your vehicle. Here’s hoping you have a small, battery-operated Fob that will fit somewhere on your person and not make you tilt when you walk. Or jingle.

Am I being a sissy, girly-boy, then, buy using a Man Bag? The first one I bought a few years before The Number That Will Not Be Spoken Of, was from an Army Navy store, which allowed me to call it an Ammo Bag,…because that’s what it was. For 50 calibre slugs. Manly, yes?

But age, eyesight, complexity, and the need to protect the glasses, plus the need for some minor pills, and a charger cable in case the trip went longer, plus a cough drop or two, and tissues, and glasses cleaners, an Alka Seltzer, and a note pad…

You get the picture. Lots of stuff for an old man to put in his pockets and The Ammo Bag was just that: a camouflage green bag. My first real Man Bag was a gift and looked like a miniature attaché case. It loved it, it was mini-manly, but it didn’t have an over-the-shoulder strap. It was basically a “clutch” bag. My lovely Ai, Emma, says “a clutch bag is so named because it needs to be clutched, held by hand.” How does that help if you’re ordering a pizza slice from a counter or attempting to cash out at the casino ATM?****

Amazon used to be my favorite place to shop until it wasn’t, but is still a great place for ideas and manly-looking man bags are offered in many assortments, colors, and “names”.  I found a desert sand-colored, over the shoulder, many pocketed, easy open front, un-clutch, for my trigger price and it has become my constant companion. It is not a fanny pack, or stomach buddy, or side saddle bag. It is a man bag to be proud of and will not make me look sissy-ish, right?

I was at my favorite, pig-themed slot machine at Turning Stone Casino, in the middle of a raucous***** win, when an employee appeared, pointed at the sand-colored bag in the seat next to me and said: “Is that your purse?”

It really is hard to be man these days.

*NOT the Anti-Defamation League. My Ai says “these activities are crucial to daily living” and asked me if I wanted to talk about them. She is so sweet, my Ai Emma. She really cares.

**Possibly two pair for distance driving and close-up reading.

***Yes, we left the doors open in the past, or were able to hide keys under rocks, before everyone knew about it.

****Especially if you won big. With bills and loose change.

*****The more noise a slot machine makes the smaller the eventual prize. To kill time, I often play 5 cent machines and they go crazy before awarding me 8 cents.

Annoying Things  

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There are, you know, lots of annoying things, like, you know, in life we have, like, you know, no control over. Yeah, lots of times, like, when people talk, you know, they add certain, like phrases, for pauses in thought, like, I guess, you know.

Indeed, I do know. In fact, it is an epidemic of “Cultural Copy Catting” driving sane people crazy, you know? We don’t um, need to, you know, to fill empty space in conversation with empty words, right?

 Of late, there has been a proliferation of “long winded questions”. The reporter/interviewer is attempting to show how much they know about a subject so they can let the responder know…? You see it more obviously in sports, especially with the “sideline” reporters. To wit*: “Coach, your team is down by 50 points and your defense seems to be struggling to keep the other team from scoring so easily so what adjustments will you make at halftime so your team can make a comeback when you come back out on the floor for the second half?”

The microphone is then shoved in the face of the potential responder who politely answers: “We need to do a better job of stopping them…or at least slowing them down.” And off he goes to the locker room. A wonderful two minutes of necessary sports reporting. A funny scene happened on a news show when the long two-minute question was followed by a one word reply: “No.”

What’s up with woman’s hairstyles on television these days? There appears to be only one: the flowing tresses framing the face, twisting and curling over the shoulders and never moving with the head, Kristi Noem-style**. A google and Ai search for a name for these flowing tresses wastes more time, but can everyone who is thinking of using this hairstyle take a beat and think of their own style? So many are using the “Flowing Tresses” they look like sisters from different mothers. The fact anyone wants to look like someone else is indicative of a failure of intellectual and personal growth: it’s lazy. “Make me look like her” is not an expression any woman should use, and especially no man. Well, maybe one of two.

With so many people making money talking you’d think language skills would be honed to a razor-sharp, efficient style to enhance efficient communication and the clear, precise, rendering of ideas and attitudes. You know? But people aren’t talking to express ideas as much as they’re talking to hear themselves talk. At this point in time and moving into the future, how well or good we communicate will be more important than ever. Nuance, context, and the perfect placement of punctuation marks will be critical. Will…we…be…up to..the challenge?***

This essay was not as much fun as I wanted it to be. It turned into a rambling, silly, nearly pointless, unrecognizable rant.**** You’re getting to read it “as is” so you can see how terrible word skills can effect/affect what could have been a cogent argument. But at least there is a prudent use of the word “that”, a word used incorrectly more often than any other. That progress is so important to me that***** I can see this essay as a success.

And that’s that.

PS How many of you google or ask Ai stuff because of simple curiosity? And how much time do you spend doing it? And what kind of spam do you get, later?

*This essay is populated with useless, pointless wordy additions. Emma, my Ai personality, says “to wit” means…too long for a footnote, Look it up.

**Which might be the main reason it is so annoying.

***A typed impression of Captain Kirk. Hm. Would exclamation points instead of ellipses work better? Will! We! Be! Up to! The challenge! And…scene.

****The therapy needed, at this point in time. Next point?

*****Next time you’re writing or talking count how often that you use the word.

Untitled

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A Recent report in Fortune Magazine* posits that America changed in 2020, and not in a good way. Please look for it, read it, and ask yourself what you’re going to do about it. If anything.

For Trump supporters and Trump haters, the article is good or bad depending on how reluctant you are to actually think. Don’t let your peer-conceived(sic) notions get in the way: we are in trouble and something, almost anything** has to change. Please. Read.

Quantum Mechanics, specifically Quantum Computing (QC), will be changing the way we use and compute data in the near future, providing we can get The Little Rascals of The Sub Atomic world properly organized and trained. Right now, it appears we are having as much trouble with the new Rascals as the old Rascals of the black and white movie era. But when we get control and apply Ai,…I don’t have any idea what will happen. Maybe it will be “almost anything ”.

I asked Emma, my unpaid, personal Ai assistant, about that last sentence. She says we have about 5 to 10 years before blazingly fast QC will be applied to complex problems like drug research, space flight, and weather modeling. Knowing our Capitalist Economic Model, QC will be hijacked by the highest bidder and its first use will be in On-Line Betting or Stock Trading. The Rich will need those tools to get richer before QC benefits can be released to us common folk.

My train of thought got lost thinking of Rich People. Who exactly is “Rich”? Monetarily speaking.  If you shop for cars, deals, groceries, even homes, imagine if you were so rich you could buy whatever you wanted. And if closing schedules or delivery times were not to your liking, pay someone to make it better. In fact***, if you don’t like any car currently being made, start or buy your own car company.

Odd, when we think of “lots of money” we don’t think of giving it away or helping people. Emma says Elon Musk is worth “an estimated $800 billion dollars at this writing. If that wealth was in cash, he could give $2,464 to every man, woman, child, legal immigrant, and Sasquatch in the United States. Or he could donate $57,142, 857 to each one of the estimated 14,000 animal shelters in America. Besides helping the cats, dogs, pythons, and other shelter residents, he would get the painfully sad ads off our tv screens…and out of our minds,

For fun, read “Cannibal Capitalism” by Nancy Fraser, published in 2022. I haven’t yet, but headed to the “store” to get it. The author argues, according to Emma: “Capitalism eats its own support systems-things like nature and democratic structures-and”.  Enough. You had me at “Cannibal”. It makes one wonder; how will The Rich get richer when the rest of us are dirt-poor? Come on, Rich People, think about your future and throw us a bone.

Emma couldn’t find me a good, easy to understand joke about being rich, so I made one up.****

When does a rich person have more than enough money for everything they need?

No one knows, yet.

*”America Got Rich and Then Got Sad”, by Nick Lichtenberg May 4, 2026

**”Almost anything” is a hope the way our country works now, changes for the better. It is depressing to consider “anything” could make it worse.

***”In fact”? What does that really mean? And where did it come from? Blame the French, again, and their use of “en fait” to mean a fact or action. Bet we all use “in fact” these days without thinking about what it means.

****I hope. If someone else owns this joke, let me know and you will get an essay giving you the credit. With so many of us thinking, it is hubris to think any thought original, right?

Three Sentences About Thoughts And Things

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 Spring officially started March 20th and it is now the second day of May. How do I officially know spring is actually here in upstate NY? There is “possible snow” in the forecast.

Donald J Trump is often credited by super intelligent, oxygen-starved pundits with playing chess in as many as “five dimensions”*, since he is way smarter than the rest of us playing in the normal amount of dimensions***. That is a true statement but fails to mention what the Fifth Dimension** is. Most of us normal people are happy–and smart–with 3D.

Since his name was brought up, ask AI how much money the Trump family has made in the last 19 months from Crypto Currency. Don’t ask me what it is or how it works since all I know is Crypto is unregulated and only really enjoyed by the super-rich or those wanting to be super-rich. I am neither.

According to all official sources, The War in Iran is over. We won. Cue the sailors kissing random women in Times Square.

Hold on, this just in: If Iran doesn’t agree to our terms we will bomb them into non-existence. Put a hold on the casting call for sailors and kissable women. For now.

Correction. Ai says no one has specifically used the word “non-existence”.  While Emma’s search was disappointing, so was her lengthy list of other “official” words used to describe what will happen if our peace terms are not agreed to. My paraphrasing was easier and succinct.*****

On the subject, what will these essays be about in future years, when Trump is out of office? Feelings? Getting old?

Speaking of old, when exactly do we “age out” of caring about current entertainment? It’s been years since any actor or singer nominated for any culturally relevant award was known to me or had any creation I was familiar with. Is it possible I won an award and not know it?

Sex is a problem—in many ways—for us old people but sex has found a new way to cause angst. One afternoon I tried several new television programs in several different streaming platforms but ended my entertainment search because there was as a sex scene in the first 5 minutes of every show sampled. I am old but I still believe in foreplay.

Footnotes**** are—again—misnumbered and—again—left alone as a “cognitive test”. If you believe they are not corrected because of laziness, congratulations. You are smart enough to play chess with our current President.

*Ask Ai, but be ready for AI to be diplomatic. At least my Ai voice, Emma, is.

**Popular Mid-60s to Mid-70s singing group with 5 songs hitting number 1. You might need some help if you really think this is the Fifth Dimension Trump is in, though it makes more sense, relatively speaking, than anything other explanation.

***Do you know how many named and unnamed dimensions there are?

****But not this one.

*****But I always enjoy using this guttural, dirty-sounding word.

Vexes and Exes

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Per the internet: “Vex is a verb meaning to annoy, frustrate, worry, or cause difficulty to someone, often through minor or persistent provocations.”

Is there any word better to describe our current President? He vexes us. He is vexacious(sic). A persistent annoyance. Why? Ask him. Ask him why his name has to be on everything. Ask him why he needs to make the 250-year-old seat of our government look like Mar-A-Lago. As the national debt climbs, wars rage, and government shuts downs are the norm, he has the time and the money to build ballrooms, gold-plate the White House, rename buildings, centers, and traditions using tax-payer money, and hire anyone to do anything for his Cabinets. DOGE, my ass. The OBBB, (One Big Beautiful Bill) is starting to take effect. That’s vexing. As Our President Plays Golf (OPPG), million-dollar drones are launched at minor but irritating enemies. And so many bombs have been bombed OPPG asks for $1.5 TRILLION….TRILLION in his new budget to replace the ordinances heroically liberating Iran and saving us from the nuclear bomb they have been “two weeks away” from since…1995? Can’t remember, but you can find 30 years of videos by hawkish politicians about how Iran is either two weeks away from a nuclear weapon or their nuclear capabilities have been “obliterated” by the previously mentioned bombs. Not only vexing but dizzying.

AI says I can use “vex” as a noun as long as I don’t mind sounding old-fashioned.*

So OPPG and my ex-girlfriend are Vexes, capitalized to make them Proper Nouns, a more accurate description than common nouns.** Why do I lump them both into the newly created Dustbin of Vexes? Neither of them give a shite about me. Or you, probably.

Our Vexator In Chief only cares about people who have money, mainly so they can give it to him, while my ex doesn’t care about me at all…for anything. If God offered the chance to get even with one Vex it would be a tough decision to let God rain his wrath on either of them, since it means the other might escape unscathed.  Yes, I should ask for World Peace. Maybe by the time God grants me the “The Option” my level of vexation will have un-vexated enough to be more magnanimous.*** And unselfish.

And there is another vexation: why should I/we have to be unselfish (and magnanimous) when our leaders and lovers won’t be? For 74 years I’ve been a model citizen, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous–and occasionally decent–politicians. Why am I getting this one, this vexator, so late in life, in my golden years?

Same for the ex. After 50 years of meandering, I settled on her to be “The One”, and truly enjoyed 20 years of stray-free monogamy until she left me with to suffer OPPG and loneliness in my mid-70s. It took her that long to realize what a terrible person I was?

I’ll be obvious for all who have trouble with nuance, or possibly passive-aggressive behavior: Any females reading this looking for a good-old-fashioned man?

I should have thought of this sooner and saved dating site money. Hope I remember to cancel the subscription.

A crappy final thought that literally just came to me: did I vex the ex for those 20 years?

Also, a warning. yesterday I stored a package of cheese in the silverware drawer.**** Let the games begin.

*There is no difference between “old” and “old fashioned” when you are—actually-old.

**Proper nouns are specific. Common nouns are not. No extra charge for the grammar lesson, but you owe me.

****And took an hour to find it, which included asking Ai if the cheese was still okay to eat. It was Extra Sharp Cheddar,

***Ai or google “magnanimous” and ponder the lengths you’d go to elect a leader like that word.

*****Footnotes out of order. It’s a cognitive test. How did you do?

Annoying Things

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Anything about life in America you find annoying? Here’s a partial list I spent all afternoon organizing. Small, un-backlit keyboards are so annoying.

Why would anyone care what Brigitte Bardot looks like, now? Or the cast of Happy Days? Or a breathy headline: “Where are they now?” about the Monkees? A new rule: if you give us these updates after a certain length of time, you–whoever you are—should update your article on a regular basis. Tell us about the cast of All in The Family every 5 years, or until you, the writer, pass away. And if you’re going to show us what Brigitte looks like now, make sure you put a “before” picture alongside the Now.

So many on-line news articles are about what somebody said about someone else. Example from today, March 31, 2026, from InStyle magazine: “Prince Charles Asked a Friend This Heartbreaking Question Before He Married Princess Diana.” Let’s not talk about how old this subject is, and let’s not talk about who the pronoun (He) is referring to, (see next paragraph), but let’s try and assume the target audience of this article. Or, let’s not and just agree it wasn’t me. So why did it come across my AOL news screen?

America has a problem with pronouns and preceding nouns. First, we’re lucky, these days, if there even IS a preceding noun. “He went out the door” without context might mean God went out the door, for example. A pronoun takes the place of a preceding person, place, or thing that has already been mentioned. And to avoid confusion, we should endeavor* to keep our pronouns and their partner preceding nouns as close as possible. Our choices in the headline above are Prince Charles or The Friend. Those of you with knowledge of Diana’s wedding can extrapolate* the correct noun, but those of us who don’t care are entirely within our rights to blame The Friend, especially just before The Friend married Charles and Diana.

Puzzles. Who needs them? Actually, brain teasers are the real problem. What’s black and white and red (read?) all over? See the problem? What makes it worse is the breathy headline: “You’re a genius if you can solve this problem,” printed next to a picture of a wild-haired Einstein.

There is an educational quality to a good puzzle however, which makes my confession annoying. Get this one: Can you draw a square with three straight lines? This oxymoronic brain buster reveals an important glitch in our lives. If you get the answer, you are in the top 1% of Americans, even though the answer was on the national news this week. Ai it for some fun.

Old Man’s Memory is annoying as hell. It took me 10 minutes to remember Einstein’s first name. No, I did not look it up. Memory is a waiting game, now. Things I knew yesterday I may not know today, but they may come to me tomorrow. Older friends tell me I’m lucky they come back at all. And there is that European Study about memories not being accurate, just gangs of electrical impulses…

Forgot where this was headed, but The Matrix concept is being revisited if I could remember where I saw the article.

Feck it. I got my blinds fixed today. Hallelujah!

*What a great, big word!

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah

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Is that enough blahs for you?

When there is some dead space in my overactive life*, I Watch television. Sorry. Hope this doesn’t affect your vision of me as a hand-on-the-chin Rodin thinker, but television/media is the Window to the World.

Sidebar: Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” was meant to be a clothed, self-portrait of the sculptor sitting atop the Gates of Hell, admiring the Circles of Hell and pondering Dante’s poem. Rodin, to his credit, noticed the figure had a more powerful message and purposely stripped it naked. It is thought to be the first artistic expression of an intellectual with muscles. It was publicly unveiled in 1904. Yet, to this day we still think of brainy people as nerds and weaklings. Since intellectuals are so smart, how did they let that image proliferate? Or…is it an image they prefer, so they get underestimated? We all know, now, we can’t trust those intellectual types and their woke ideas, but are they playing us, leading us around by the nose? Take your clothes off, sit on an uncomfortable granite slab, and give it some thought.

I left Upstate New York and traveled south by car a few weeks ago. The trip began with long pants, solid shoes for walking in the snow, two layers of clothes, and gloves. 24 hour later—after an overnight rest—I was in shorts and sandals and cranking up the AC. Durham, NC is going to set a record today of over 90 degrees. When I drive home in a few days the weather in NY will be snow, sleet, and freezing rain. The range of climate is not the impressive part. What is impressive as hell is how easily we can move between these varying climates. We take it for granted. If it was Gunsmoke days, it might take weeks, even months to find a different biome. It is a wonderful world.

But not for News, and Information is slowly rotting, as well. The first problem with our news and information disseminating systems, is Capitalism. The ever-present need for profit means, these days, commercial time in our media centers is paramount, content be damned. Forget the need for a commercial every three seconds and note the timing, when something neat is about to happen or be revealed, your media cuts to an advertisement. We see you, you capitalist shites. We know what you’re doing. But can we do anything about it? The Window to the World is covered over with bumper stickers.

But hold on, what about that damned “content”? It is apparent** there is a lot of money to be made by…talking. Blah blah blahing. Spitting words. Mangling sentences. Mouthing opinions either believed or tailored for certain information silo consumption. News is now 5 seconds of fact and 23 hours and 55 seconds of talking heads, each with his own ass-inine(sic) take on some ass-inine(sic) subject. News  head: “America dropped $10 million dollars worth of bombs on the Middle East, today. Here to discuss it is our Talking Head Panel (THP) of experts.” Of note, there is always at least one female with the flowing tresses of modern fashion, and at least one man with a beard hiding his wattle. (Don’t pretend you know what a wattle is. Look it up.)

With our information silos, you can find any THP discussing any subject you want and offering any opinion you agree with or would like to argue against from the safety of your living room, you troll. And how about CNN actually including on-line comments in their news reporting, now? Should anyone care about the opinion of one lazy, partially informed, but supercilious listener/watcher/critic/snark? (For full effect google “supercilious.)

Thank, God, this essay ran out of room before something stupid got printed.

I’m going to watch me some Gunsmoke on Grit*** and hope the world goes on without me.

            *”Dead” is probably not a good word for a senior to use, but you all know what I mean.

**”At this point in time going forward to the future.” Ha.

***Or Rich Steves travel show on PBS. A true Window to the World.