May You Live In Interesting Times

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) -- the Stickies -- to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve the problem and access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse (right shoulder) and back scratcher 

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader (left shoulder)

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ballgame. Free speech is life itself.
                                                                                              -Salman Rushdie

May you live in interesting/exciting times/an interesting age -- the interesting ancient Chinese curse that isn't -- certainly seems to apply to the interesting times that I'm/we're currently experiencing. Here's hoping, My Dear Stickies, that your times are also interesting, but less so.

However, the current interesting times that began when the Black & White Ages ended in 1965 keep getting more interesting with each passing year day. Of course you, my gentlereaders, and even I, being historically literate, have to acknowledge that to any given H. sapien, living in any given interesting time in the past, might feel might just as overwhelmed by life as you or I often do.

Ben Shapiro & UConn

I bumped into a news story recently about a Ben Shapiro speaking engagement at the University of Connecticut. Mr. Shapiro drives on the right side of the road but avoids the shoulder in my semi-humble opinion.  Full disclosure, I'm a fan because, like me, he's a big fan, of actual facts.

Due to my Libertarian tendencies, I frequently find myself deliberately driving on the shoulder. But to me, he's a very smart, very nice Jewish boy who often talks too fast. My buddy Joe Biden confirmed he's also very clean.

[Stickies please note: I'll risk not only being accused of being inadvertently anti-Semitic I'll risk being accused of being an apologist for people who talk too fast. When clearly intelligent folks who seem to know what they're talking about talk too fast there's an excellent chance that they're even smarter than you think they are. I have no studies/statistics to point to but my "lived experience" (HT: Postmodernism) indicates this is true.]

Of course, in these interesting times, there is no shortage of folks that would describe him as a right wing-nut. There are others who apparently regard him as Beelzebub incarnate. The U of C is of the opinion that having him speak on campus required that an emergency psychological response team (EPRT) remained on standby to administer teddy bears and there, theres to triggered snowflakes.


Since I, your semi-humble columnist, will stop at nothing to get the facts, I've conducted my usual intensive/exhaustive/extensive/etceterive research (fired up my browser and went a-googling).

Fortunately, I found a video news report on the FOX News site that contains everything I need to complete the rest of this column before collapsing from exhaustive research exhaustion syndrome.

CLANG!!! This is a Fox news alert. The New York Times is reporting that according to a highly placed source in the White House -- who chooses to remain anonymous due to the highly sensitive nature of this story -- that the president's dog is suffering from an undiagnosed case of excessive flatulence.

We will have more on this right after our next overly frequent, overly-long commercial break -- which is a story unto itself when you think about it considering that in theory, the public owns the airwaves.

In the meantime, we have a report on a recent speaking engagement at the University of Connecticut featuring Ben Shapiro.

For a half a mo' I thought, well that's that. All that My Dear Stickies and discerning gentlereaders have to do is watch the comprehensive video. Geez, that was easy. Next.

[By the by, if you're short on time, click on the clip, and skip, to 2:10. Watch a UConn flunky insert himself between a student attending the anti-Shapiro and a reporter. If he doesn't make it big as yet another college administrator he can always make a living as a tourist or reporter minder in the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea.]

Big But

But there's a handful of Luddites out there that have youngsters (who haven't even turned 50 yet) print my stuff out for them. And of course, one of the major, but rarely discussed problems of living in the Dizzinformation Age is link rot. In relatively short order, the given links in a given nearly anything composed or/and published on the web are often riddled with link rot (electronic silverfish).

Therefore, let me summarize. Mr. Shapiro spoke at an event that more students wished to attend than would (safely) fit into the provided venue. UConn prohibited the public to attend for security (more safety?) reasons. Another campus venue was provided as an anti-Shapiro. The anti-Shapiro was sparsely attended (good). As far as I'm able to tell the EPRT was not triggered.

The devil, of course, resides in a cozy beachfront condo in the Details (a pair of islands/tourist traps in the Outer Banks).

According to the Washington Examiner, as well as several other media outlets -- featuring old-school style actual quotes and facts (as opposed to the wouldn't go on the record/endless speculation school of alleged journalism) -- UConn stepped up to the plate and fulfilled the primary purpose of institutions of higher learning -- prophylactic psychology -- before Mr. Beelzebub arrived on campus.

"We understand that even the thought of an individual coming to campus with the views that Mr. Shapiro expresses can be concerning and even hurtful and that’s why we wanted to make you aware as soon as we were informed.” - Joelle Murchison, Associate V.P./Chief Diversity Officer

I'll bet that's a (fake) job loving happy H. sapien, assuming, of course, there's an office full of diverse diversifiers to handle what I'll betcha-a-bottle of pop is some serious paperwork.

Now I, your humble correspondent, believe the obvious question is -- considering Mr. Beelzebub spoke to 500 (safely seated) students (remember, it was a no Nazis/pesky Citizens of the Republic event) and many students were turned away from hearing a speaker at their own college (for safety reasons), even if they were up to date on their tuition -- what happened at the anti-Shapiro?

Since this was not widely reported I performed some more exhaustive research, ignoring the bloody calluses that have developed on my fingertips, and discovered what follows.

The Facebook page created to promote the anti-Shapiro event reported that although 277 students were "interested" only 88 showed up for an event that could have (safely) accommodated 500. Good. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2017 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) -- please scroll down.

  

 

The State of the Zeitgeist (2)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who aren't here yet) -- the Stickies -- to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View original (above↑) to solve the problem/access lotsa columns.]

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse (right shoulder) and back scratcher 

Iggy -- Designated Sticky

Dana -- Designated gentlereader (left shoulder)

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-grandstickies,

Zeitgeist: the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era (Miriam-Webster).

Interesting word, zeitgeist. I'm a word lover (you best get out of Dodge, word lover! we don't want yer kind 'round here!) and there are many words I like, zeitgeist for example, just because of their sound and irregardless of their meaning.

Irregardless is another, which, according to the word police, isn't even a word. The word regardless, which means without regard, does not require the prefix, ir-, because it's redundant. Prefixes aren't supposed to be redundant.

For the record, I obtained this information from a website called GrammerBook.com. While I'm willing to concede that they may be technically correct, I have a valid poetic license and I'm not afraid to use it.

Anyway, they also maintain that sneaked is technically correct (as opposed to snuck), so, grain of salt. I sneaked some candy from the Stickies Easter baskets? Seriously? Obviously, snuck is the proper choice.

And we're back. I confess I'm slightly uncomfortable with the way I have used/ am about to use the Z word. Merriam-Webster uses the word era and this implies a large, dusty tome with many black and white photographs and voluminous footnotes.

I'm offering up a snapshot from a smartphone (with a decent camera) that probably will never generate a hard copy. Which is my way of saying that I acknowledge that defining a period of history as a particular era, while one is living in it, may be a fool's errand.

A sudden, dramatic, world class development, like WW3, because the chubby charmer currently enslaving North Korea wakes up in a bad mood because he failed to launch his missile the night before in spite of the best efforts of a drop dead gorgeous bed warmer/slave (I've heard rumors) and initiates a complicated series of events beginning with all of the sushi restaurants in Hawaii being contaminated with radioactive fish and ends in our next world war (hey, it could happen) and snap! we're living in an entirely different era than the one we woke up to this morning.

However, I maintain that my poetic license permits me to use zeitgeist because we're living in an, well, era, that at least to those of us who are attempting to cope with it, is marked by daily floods of dizzinformation and an ever increasing velocity in the pace of our lives. In fact, a never-ending sprint would seem to be the default pace, even for those of us who are trying to drag our feet.

So, it doesn't feel like we're living in the _______ era (that's like, so yesterday, but please feel free to insert the word of your choice) because we're moving so fast that we not only don't have time to catch our breath, we must maintain a heads-up posture at all times so as not to be flattened by some new technology that's about to disrupt our lives.

In other words, it feels like we live in a succession of mini-eras (an era of eras?) because things, the zeitgeist, can change so rapidly and dramatically.

In other words, I plan on regularly writing state of the zeitgeist columns and everything above explains why, and justifies the fact, that I plan on using the word zeitgeist instead of using a boring word like snapshot.


And now, grandstickies and gentlereaders, a zeitgeistian observation based on a news story I recently stumbled on that completely coincidentally continues the theme of my last column, How to Build a Snowflake.

[Waitwaitwait, this will just take a sec', and after all, I AM the Flyoverland Crank and this IS the "wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer. (Garrulous: given to prosy, rambling, or tedious loquacity; pointlessly or annoyingly talkative -- Miriam-Webster). 

If you google the word zeitgeistian, not only will no dictionary defend its legitimacy, Google will ask you, Did you mean: zeitgeist? However, there are several entries that use the word AND an "images for zeitgeistian" entry that will provide you with hundreds, perhaps thousands of pictures.  
Therefore, I, the future King of America, declare zeitgeistian to be a word.]

Last week's column, How to Build a Snowflake, was about a trend in some colleges and universities to emphasize social justice and protecting the delicate sensibilities of their students. This new development is quite different from the fearless pursuit of truth and the development of the intellectual tools needed to discover it as practiced by old school schools.

On the delicate sensibilities front, it just so happens that the students at Youngstown State University are in midst of taking finals.

Youngstown, Ohio, is a formerly vibrant rust belt town that is still bleeding population 40 years after the steel mills started disappearing. To their credit, many locals who don't plan on leaving refuse to accept the status quo and are trying to create a renaissance. Some who left, and achieved success elsewhere, have returned and joined the struggle.

This is a not uncommon phenomenon in Flyoverland, which is why I find the following, which made the news this past week, depressing.

In order to help the students cope with finals, which is apparently, for Millennials at least, the equivalent of trying to swim across the Mediterranean to escape the carnage in Syria, puppies and kitties -- via a sort of pop-up petting zoo -- and massage therapists are being provided to help the delicate flowers through this difficult period. Can finals cause PTSD?

I wonder if this class, whose "final projects -- which includes history boxes, interpretive dance, poster presentations, video presentations and more -- ..." also included a stressful final.   

My parents, who had to deal with the Great Depression and the Second World War, thought they had it tough. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2017 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) -- please scroll down.