Saturday, March 16, 2024

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

 
Image by Evgeni Tcherkasski from Pixabay

This weekly column consists of letters written to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now and haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"At some point or another, everyone has felt unseen and unheard and marginalized." - Ayanna Pressley 


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

I'm a member of a marginalized group.

I went a-googlin' to discover exactly what a marginalized group is having been triggered by the use of the phrase. It happened to turn up in a bunch of articles one recent morning when I was in the midst of my daily relentless need for input.

{Yeah, yeah, we know, you're a current events junkie and...}

In my defense, Dana, I'm very particular about what sort of current events I shoot up, and I'm a wanna-be polymath with wide-ranging interests beyond current events.

{Half-assed polymath... Hey, isn't that a line from a Randy Newman song?}

Perhaps I should settle for renaissance man person and make a point of pronouncing the word as ren-a'-sance. 

{This whole often crossing out man or men shtick and inserting person, not to mention making fun of the pronoun wars by writing he/she/they or the like is getting old.}

As am I, but now that I'm officially declaring myself to be a member of a marginalized group I'll have to give some thought to changing my ways.

According to CultureAlly.com ("Your diversity, equity & inclusion solutions all in one place") "...marginalize refers to the act of treating a person or group as though they are insignificant by isolating and/or disempowering them." 

Having been raised in front of an old school television (think 27" black and white box with tinfoil draped rabbit ears mounted on a cheap stand with two cat hair-clogged plastic wheels for viewing maneuverability) my isolation and disempowerment started early and continues to this day. 

{Huh. Do tell.}

I refer, of course, to heterosexual pasty patriarchs being treated with thinly veiled contempt via that all-American institution, the TV sitcom. 


Anyone of a certain age is aware of the rapid devolution of the wise and patient family patriarch type, think Ward Cleaver or Ozzy Nelson, to the likes of Alan Harper of Two and a Half Men and Al Bundy of Married, With Children, with Archie Bunker of All in the Family bridging the gap. 

For the record, I confess to thoroughly enjoying All in the Family which began in my last year of high school. It was well-written, funny, and cutting-edge for its era. 

But being a relatively clueless callowyute at the time, I never gave any thought to the fact that while Archie's hip, self-righteous son-in-law Michael (aka Meathead) went to class to study sociology, Archie, went to work. 

I went a-googlin' to jog my memories of All in the Family and discovered that I had forgotten that Archie fought in the Second World War. Worse, I had no memory of the fact he had been a young baseball star who dreamed of playing for the Yankees but had dropped out of high school to go to work to support his family during the Great Depression.  

Still, everyone knows the dads of TV Land are (usually) well-meaning dopes... except for evil ones that run hooge global empires that spend all their time ripping off everyone they can, including loved ones.

{What about Cliff Huxtable?}

Moving on...


Despite being told for decades that dads are dopes, I attempted to overcome the damage inflicted on me from being raised in a psychological ghetto in TV Land. I fell in love with, and set my sights on, a blond, girl next door type in my mid-twenties. 

I set out to become, Superhusband! Partying had become boring and my genes were crying out to be reproduced.

I spent nearly three years proving myself worthy and able to make such a thing financially and realistically possible while my love finished college by the skin of her teeth and subsequently informed me that it wasn't me, it was her. 

Later dude. 

{Oh c'mon...}

Seriously. 

"I think there's something wrong with me, I don't think I'm capable of making a commitment," she said.

It would've been nice to know that before spending three years re-enacting the Labors of Hercules.

"I know we promised to be each other's rock, but like, I'm just not up for being anyone's rock right now."

{Oh c'mon...}

Seriously.


To be brutally honest, the previous paragraphs were as far as this column got before I ran out of gas. Not having dropped out of high school to support my family and abandoning my dream of being a professional baseball player (or having fought in a world war) I was feeling like a sissy. 
 
{You're aware Archie Bunker wasn't an actual person... right?}

I definitely don't feel privileged but life and my late wife (born sick, died sick) has taught me that my life could've been way worse, perhaps I should just click on the little trash can icon.

{Uh-oh, do I smell white fragility?}

That's my new deodorant. 


But then I came across this, Thousands of Seniors are still dying of Covid-19. Do we not care anymore? courtesy of CNN.com.

"Prejudice against older adults is nothing new, but 'it feels more intense, more hostile' now than previously, said Karl Pillemer, 69, a professor of psychology and gerontology at Cornell University." 

{I don't understand.}

That one sentence tells ya everything you need to know, you don't have to read the article. Everything in the article is a variation on that one sentence.

{I still don't understand.}

I'm a victim! I'm marginalized! Get Kimberle Crenshaw on the line I need validation! I'm yet another victim of "multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage."  

According to the chicks at Womankind Worldwide"Intersectionality is the acknowledgement that everyone has their own unique experiences of discrimination and oppression and we must consider everything and anything that can marginalise people – gender, race, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, etc."

{Hey, you spelled acknowledgement and...}

You need to stop marginalizing the way folx in the UK spell. 

{I was referring to Womankind, shouldn't that be Womynkind?}

Wait, I'll be right back... Nope, that's how they spelled it.

Cool! I'm officially oppressed and marginalized! Do I get a check? Is there a softball league? An official Facebook page? Hows about reparations? I gotta go... busy, busy!

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day


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Friday, March 8, 2024

The History of the World, Epilogue

Ruh-Roh!
Image by JJ Jordan from Pixabay

This weekly column consists of letters written to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now and haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." -Charles Dickens


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),

From the Department of Fun Facts: In 1790 most Americans lived on farms; about 90% of our predecessors used a rooster for an alarm clock. 

But then, between 1870 and 1920 roughly 11,000,000 people said goodbye to Ma and Pa and moved to cities to take advantage of industrialization and 25,000,000 (legal) immigrants joined them. Obviously, this was a really big feckin’ deal that changed everything. 

Yes, Virginia, we are a nation of immigrants. 

We’re currently in the midst of a hi-tech/communications revolution that is also changing everything that started late in the last century and continues apace. The more things change, etc.


By the late 1970s, the seemingly unstoppable post-World War Two American economic boom collided with a booming global economy. What seemed like suddenly at the time (trust me, I was there) the American steel industry, which actually had been gradually declining, more or less collapsed. In short order, it was followed by a general hollowing out of the American industrial base. 

The rust belt started rusting and we’ve been arguing over who and/or what the cause was and what should’ve been/should be done about it ever since. 

Jimmy Carter made us feel like it was game over but Ronald Reagan made us feel like it was a new season and we were bound to come out on top. 

The roaring nineties, the result of the rapid spread of the internet and the seemingly endless possibilities for new ways to make money, made us think Regan may have been right. It was only a matter of time before all those economic refugees from the factories and the mills would be reabsorbed into the economy, just like the unemployed buggy whip makers eventually were after the last time something like this happened. 

The whole world was going to prosper by adopting the aforementioned pursuit of self-interest, division of labor, and freedom of trade. The American way (a phrase that I suspect most of my younger gentlereaders may not truly appreciate the meaning and significance of) had triumphed. It was The End of History and the good guys (us) had won.  

Big BUT...

China’s been doing its level best to prove that economic freedom (well, more or less) is perfectly compatible with draconian restrictions on political and personal freedom powered by cutting-edge technology — much of which they purchased or stole (and continue to steal) from the Western Barbarians.

The Pooteen is doing his level best to prove that history's not over and that bloody wars of attrition haven’t gone out of style, particularly for the dick-tater class. 

Meanwhile, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, it turns out that you can’t print money and accumulate massive debt without unleashing the inflation dragon after all. 

Oopsie. 

Ya’d think this would call attention to the possible long-term effects of a cumulative 2% inflation rate, that’s now regarded as the minimum price we should/must pay for fiat money that’s backed by nothing much, would be getting more attention. 

{I’ll bite, why should we care about that?}

It’s the reason we have to play/are at the mercy of the stock market. Living within your means and saving up your dough is nowadays a suckers bet. You have to bet on the stock market and pray the value of your house (of cards) doesn’t collapse before you do. 

I’m not going to explore the fighting of endless wars… or the fact the Democratic Party has been taken over by relatively tiny groups of Wokies, Greenies, and folx on the sexual fringe… or that the Republican Party gave us the Donald, a gift that just keeps on giving… or that both parties are incapable of compromise on issues normal, everyday Americans would like to compromise on and then move on… or mention that Hollywood, academia, certain corporations and much of the mainstream media, have chosen sides and pursue their agenda like the devoted members of a cult. Or…

{Could we move on, please?}

Point taken, Dana. I’m primarily concerned about the Woke folx, many of them the postmodern versions of Lenin's useful idiots, who think they are changing the world but are actually controlled by duplicitous tech oligarchs with the help of a corrupt clerisy. Folx that take their salaries and bennies for granted, and sneer at the beliefs and lifestyles of people with blue collars who built (and maintain) America. 

Having gleefully “disrupted” millions of people out of a job they’re now working their bums off building robots and developing artificial intelligenci to disrupt millions more. 

I’m concerned that no shortage of techies are telling us that it’s only a matter of time before our machines and technology will be smarter than we are and might decide to delete our dim, inefficient, species -- yet keep working to make it happen. 

I’m concerned that irregardless, millions of us will be out of work and that this will finish off the middle class.

{On the bright side, that could solve the climate change thing.}   

I hope I’m wrong, but this jaded old man has a new reason for getting out of bed in the morning. I'm hoping to live long enough to see if I’m wrong (yet again) before I’m deleted. 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Scroll down if you wish to share my work or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns (and other stuff) on Facebook so that you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me publicly flogged.  

  

Friday, March 1, 2024

The History of the World (Condensed), Ch. 8

Image by JJ Jordan from Pixabay

This weekly column consists of letters written to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now and haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

“The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” -Mark Twain

{Hey, you used that quote already.}

This is true, Dana, but I think it's perfect given that the world-changing events we’re currently in the midst of are as dramatic as the Industrial Revolution.


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

The stage was all set. The United States of America was born, smack dab in the middle of the Northern half of the Earth's Western Hemisphere. Most of the country was not too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter.

{That sounds vaguely familiar for some reason...}

Although both North and South America had been populated, more or less, for as long as the rest of the planet they were what a modern-day property developer would describe as radically underdeveloped, a viewpoint also held by the Europeans who "discovered" it.

The H. sapiens who called it home at the time begged to differ. 

Unfortunately for them, some Europeans proved that if one were to sail far enough west from Europe one would neither be killed by sea monsters nor fall off the edge of the world — as had been predicted by some very intelligent people, the Earth turned out to be round. 

Also unfortunately for those who were here first, the European's technology for killing other people (a practice that many of the locals also enthusiastically embraced) was far superior to that of the locals. They firmly believed that God was on their side and that this justified all sorts of barbaric behavior (as it did back home) and they also brought all sorts of diseases with them that the locals hadn't been cursed with but were about to be.

But after no end of false starts here, there, and even over there, they cobbled together a country theoretically based on the freedom to pursue happiness as each citizen so defined it as long as they avoided stepping on each others toes as much as possible. 

They thrived and prospered like nobody's business despite the fact they were as flawed as H. sapiens still are and despite no shortage of bad behavior and hooge mistakes. 

H. sapiens will be H. sapiens. 


{Hold up there, Sparky. Your so-called history of the "world" can be summed up by saying that for thousands of years, all sorts of stuff happened all over the globe but it was all a mere prelude that led up to the establishment of the U.S. I don't think that...}

Balderdash. I've clearly pointed out that all sorts of stuff happened that somehow/fortunately eventually begat Western Civilization which somehow begat the USA (the best the world's done so far) despite the fact H. sapiens are naked apes that frequently behave accordingly. 

I've never claimed that other cultures haven't done/continue to do all sorts of cool stuff from which all naked apes have benefited greatly. However, I maintain that overall, America is as good as it's gotten. My bias has been abundantly clear from the very beginning and I've pointed out that while we should be proud we should also be humble, to which I would add, we should also be grateful.

Now, where was I ... "They thrived and prospered like nobody's business despite the fact they were as flawed as H. sapiens still are and despite no shortage of bad behavior and hooge mistakes. H. sapiens will be H. sapiens." -me

{Sheesh...}

Big BUT...

Native Americans were, and still are, treated abominably.

Slavery was and still is the nation's original sin.

Women were considered by many to be second-class citizens and didn't get the right to vote in America till 1919.

These are merely, in my semi-humble opinion, the three biggies. There are literally thousands of other documented injustices. But slavery, the suppression of women, and the exploitation and slaughter of a given indigenous population by foreign invaders was and still is, in no shortage of locales the rule, not the exception, since forever. 


I maintain that some dramatic progress has been made in America since 1776 but there is, and always will be, a long way to go given the nature of the game and the creatures who play it.   

History is fascinating and illuminating but these are dangerous times, apparently even more than usual given recent developments so we need a little less relitigating of the past and a lot more of looking the present in the eye just now.

We don't have to wait and see if the Artificial Intelligenci will end us. 

We have perfected the technologies we use to kill one another in that we now can kill everyone if the nukes are launched or the right/wrong micro-cooties escape/are released from the labs. There's a Woke Mind virus loose in the world that's causing more than a few people who are products/beneficiaries of Western Civilization to promote cultural suicide.

{That's a lot of something/something elses in the same paragraph... are you/we done?}

Not quite. Next week is an epilogue, Ruh-Roh!, and then I'm/we're done.

{Ruh-Roh?} 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Scroll down if you wish to share my work or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns (and other stuff) on Facebook so that you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me publicly flogged.