Memories

Our memories are often wrong. We are capable of vividly remembering stuff that never actually happened and/or wildly distorting something that did. I'm not going to offer up a single example of the many scientific studies that prove these notions because there are so many of them out there it would be like saying that science has proved conclusively that it occasionally rains. As far as your DAT (dilettante about town) has been able to determine, there are no rogue scientists, not even any of the ones with bogus Ph.D.'s that make a nice living writing books and appearing on talk radio shows, that claim otherwise -- at least as far as I can remember.

However, you're semi-fearless DAT (I'm not afraid to admit that I'm often afraid, but would remind you that often the only thing we have to fear is fear itself) is prepared to offer himself up, on the altar of science, via a personal example.

I vividly remember driving my '72 VW bug (back in 1972, the only brand new car I've ever owned), with the special paint job that my friend Waltah (Walter, he had a speech impediment), who worked in a body shop, had provided for me, along with a nice discount (thanks Walt), through Valley Forge National Historical Park one day...

[Real quick -- I use a spelling/grammar checker that often wants me to place commas in places that I don't want to, like between thanks and Walt for example. Even when I know it's (the software) technically correct (or more likely, suspect it might be) I tend to ignore it because, well, because I can. I apologise to anyone this may offend as I apologise to anyone offended by my mention of Waltah's speech impediment. Waltah also used to say plobaly instead of probably, which he and I both found to be hilarious. But you must remember political correctness was just a baby back then, and I must also point out that Waltah had slyly developed a few techniques for using his so-called problem as a way to charm the ladies. This was in addition to his awesome sideburns, a grooming technique that was quite popular at the time.]

...And I was following the much dreaded (by many of us at least) annual broadcast of the draft lottery, listening to it on my cars AM only radio (geeze I'm old). This method was only actually used in '69, '70 and '71 to determine who would be drafted, and possibly wind up in Vietnam. Prior to 1969 local draft boards determined who would be called up. The lottery was an attempt to make the process fairer because it was perceived that the draft board's power to hand out deferments that could keep young men out of what was, by this time, the highly unpopular Vietnam war, was often a rigged process.

For those of you who don't remember, or those of you too young to care, this was a RBFD (real big, um, freaking deal). Blue plastic capsules, one of which contained your birthdate, were chosen at random and matched to the number that determined the order in which The Gubmint would discover that you existed and send you a friendly note to ask you to stop in and see them because they were having trouble finding enough volunteers to fight the Godless Commies in a smallish country in S.E. Asia.

See, these tough little bastards, who had been at war with the round eyes (and each other) since they kicked their French colonial overlords out of the pool in 1954, after nine years of war that started after WW2 (you can't make this stuff up) were now at war with us in a proxy war that was actually the USA vs. the USSR. We actually won -- and then couldn't get out of there fast enough because by the time we did we had been there for two decades and almost 60,000 kids had died and a few hundred thousand more had been wounded, taken prisoner or are still missing. After we left, the tough little bastards that the USSR backed kicked the asses of the tough little bastards that we had backed, and whom we told to kiss off when they requested the help we had promised would be forthcoming if just this sort of thing happened. Then the now not necessarily happily united tough little bastards went to war with the tough little bastards in other smallish S.E. Asian countries and that continued, more or less, until 1989.

Fortunately for us, we (the USA) learned many valuable, costly lessons from the experience that have served us well right up to this very day. For the record, I regard the previous sentence as my all time personal best as concerns sarcasm. If there was such a thing as the National Sarcasm Awards, and there just might be once I become king, I'm certain I would be nominated for the coveted Smar' Tass of the Year award.

Anyway, I remember the day in question quite vividly...

[Day, what day? asks the gentlereader that peers over my left shoulder. What the hell are you...]

The draft lottery! You should start taking some of that ginkgo Biloba stuff. I was talking about the draft lottery. Don't you remember?

Sheesh! It was a warm spring day, my number was twenty-something, and I was in shock. I remember thinking/feeling that I would probably be cut down by Charlie (in the fall) as I was handing out melting Hershey bars to adorable Vietnamese kids, dripping with sweat as my feet rotted away in my combat boots.

Thirty seconds of research on the 'net reveals that my lottery took place on 2/2/72. You may have heard about what winter can be like in Valley Forge. Suffice it to say that even in the midst of a relatively mild winter, no one would actually experience a given day in February as a warm spring day.

Turns out my lottery number was 76. Turns out, If I had been drafted, I probably wouldn't have been called up until '73, but no one was drafted in '73. Turns out, Tricky Dick had been slowly but steadily pulling out troops since '69. Turns out, a tentative agreement had been reached to end the war by October of '72. Turns out, a cease-fire was announced in January 1973.

However. What I remember is a couple of years of daily checking the mail to see if Uncle Sam had sent me the inevitable greetings that I was convinced were, well, inevitable.

I gotta' go. It's time to take my gingko Biloba but I can't remember where I put It.

Have an OK day.

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016

If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.    

Dilettantes & Geezers/Geezerettes

There is a new tab to found on my blog site labeled Glossary that may be of help, and not only for newer gentlereaders, but also those seeking clarification about various words and phrases that I've made up, corrupted, found laying around the internet, stolen or ...

[Well duh! exclaims Marie-Louise and my imaginary gentlereader, since this is your blog site it's painfully obvious to everyone that..]

Shush you two! Some of my gentlereaders read my posts via email subscription and others access me via my Facebook and Google+ pages. They have no way of knowing about updates to the blog site without me telling them. And by the way, I'll update the glossary as needed.

Anyway, as I was trying to say...


- I, your D.A.T. -- or -- Dilettante About Town (Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines a dilettante as, ": a person whose interest in an art or in an area of knowledge is not very deep or serious"), find all sorts of subjects interesting. For the record, I find M-W's definition a bit harsh but I understand it. In my experience, dilettante is usually used as a pejorative. Think rich (inherited money) twit with minimal talent being humored/patronized because someone(s) in a given art or area of knowledge would like a share of that money.

While it's my fervent wish that this was an accurate description of my situation -- and it would be had I not been kidnapped from my wealthy but dissolute family by gypsies as an infant, setting in motion a series of events that culminated in my being won by my "father" in a poker game in the Gem Saloon in Deadwood, SD. -- sadly, it's not.

I'm sort of stuck with the word dilettante because although I would much prefer a word like polymath (: someone who knows a lot about many different things), or a phrase like Renaissance man (: a man who is interested in and knows a lot about many different things), these terms don't accurately apply to me for two reasons.

First, in my semi-humble opinion, although I think that I'm slightly smarter than the average bear, most people think they are as well. Second, I definitely don't know a lot about many different things.

However.

I've decided to come out of the closet and proudly embrace the fact I'm a dilettante and renounce any and all of the words potentially negative connotations. I'm not a rich twit. I'm a sort of downmarket version of a polymath or Renaissance man. I urge others to also proudly step out of the closet and declare themselves to be interesting (and/or interested) people who haven't been blessed with inherited wealth or genius.

- I'm on the cusp of geezerhood, a status I hope to maintain indefinitely, preferably right up to the moment I die peacefully in my sleep, because once you're a full blown geezer, that becomes your defining characteristic.

While my short-term memory has definitely deteriorated, I've done a great deal of research and soul searching and have come to the conclusion that it's within normal parameters for someone my age. By this I mean that this happens to everyone and it's not (hopefully) a symptom of some form of impending dementia. Since this state of affairs is highly unlikely to improve, however, I go to great lengths to maintain the status quo, as this is an important component of my plan to remain on the cusp of geezerhood. See, a geezer, or a geezerette, is an individual who has crossed a fine, not easily discernable line. The more noticeable the mental/psychological/emotional deterioration the more likely it is that you have crossed the line, dementia or not. I don't count physical deterioration because there's only so much to be done about that unless you have enough dough to pay for having yourself mannequinized, which comes with its own set of problems (have you seen Marie Osmond's lips?).

The most telling sign that you've crossed the line into geezerhood, and the most difficult to detect and acknowledge, is that you've turned into a caricature of your youthful persona. Unfortunately, while this may be obvious to almost everyone but you, you may be the last to know. After all, you don't see a geezer/geezerette looking back at you when you look into the mirror. While you may not be as pretty, or as energetic as you used to be, you don't look and feel half bad for your age. You're still reasonably sharp. A geezer/geezerette looks and acts like that mentally/physically wrinkled old uncle/ aunt you dread having to deal with at family gatherings. You're a sexy seasoned citizen.

An exhaustive list of the warning signs that you are, or are becoming, a caricature of your younger self, would fill a book. As a public service, I'm going to just mention two, one for males, one for females, that are of particular significance. If you're a man over the age of _____ or so (fine lines again) and you have a ponytail, an extremely obvious combover of some sort or poofy hair that's not nearly as poofy as it appears upon closer examination, careful, you may have started down the path of self-caricature. If you're a woman over the age of _____ or so, that regularly wears a flimsy tie-dyed (real or print) top without a bra, in public, you may have started down the path of self-caricature. It's  not for me to judge, but...

Please do yourself, and the rest of us, a favor and settle on some sort of style that's age appropriate. It doesn't matter if you're  a bit on the grungy side or striving for a haute couture look, as long as you look like a grup. Comfortable is a priority. Ladies, you don't, or should you strive, to look like your daughters or your ex-husband's trophy wife. Gentlemen, strive for just enough style to not embarrass your snifigant others. If you should have a trophy/noticeably younger wife, under no circumstances should she determine your look. Your risk looking like the result of a grup version of someone playing Barbies.

Have an OK day.                                                                                

©MarkMehlmauer2016

                                                                             

If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.     

Republicrats v. Depublicans (Part Three)

Let me begin by apologizing for the second political post in a row. In my defense, though most of my posts have a central theme, they do tend to wander around a bit to keeps things interesting and avoid pomposity. For example, last week's Poh-LIH-Ticks & Stickies was about politics, my grandkids, and revealing a bit more about what your life will be like once I become the king of America. But mostly it was a thinly veiled attack on limousine liberals and socialism.

What follows is an attack on the corn lobby and I've deliberately waited until the Iowa cauci are behind us because this serves as an illustration of how special interests get away with spending other people's money. They keep a relatively low profile and don't get so greedy that they attract unwanted attention. Oh, and this post is also about economics.


Economists spend a great deal of time and effort studying the effect of incentives on people's economic behavior. When I decided to study economics in depth by taking a class in both macro and microeconomics at my local community college I encountered the word, defined variously, waiting for me around many corners and often hiding behind  rocks, trees, hedges and the like. The most fundamental definition of the concept I encountered was when my fellow aspiring scholars and I were taught, early on, that all things being equal, higher prices = fewer sales, lower prices = more sales. Who knew?

Being economics, this lofty notion was explained and elaborated upon (at great length) via a concept called the demand curve. The phrase, all things being equal, in economic speak, is ceteris paribus, which sounds way cooler. Well, at least until you discover that ceteris paribus, when explained and elaborated upon (at great length), is only a sort of logical place marker, a fictional convenience, because all things are never equal. It's a highly condensed way for economists to acknowledge, as a weather forecaster will if cornered, that while something is generally or probably likely to happen, all things considered -- we admit that one variable, many variables, variables that no one has discovered yet, or known variables interacting in ways they never have before -- could result in a tornado (or an economic depression).

But all things considered, at least the ones we've thought of/are aware of, it won't rain today, unless it does.     

Discovering and reading "Economics In One Lesson," by Henry Hazlitt (see my post, Macroeconomics, 8.19.15) saved me from taking any advanced classes in the field. I wouldn't call it light reading exactly, but, it is compared to taking a class taught by an economist. Or at least an instructor that someone's deemed qualified to teach economics. Don't get me wrong, I developed the highest respect for my instructor for both macro and micro... the day he finally got around to telling us that the he thought much of the mainstream economic theory in the textbook we were using was bonkercockie. From then on I ...

[Please forgive the interruption. The gentlereader and my muse, the ones that peer over my shoulders as I write, both of whom I've been ignoring despite their repeated attempts to interrupt me because they think I've wondered down the wrong path -- considering the title of this post -- debased themselves by administering simultaneous wet willies in order to get my attention. However, I was just carefully laying the groundwork before pointing out that...]

... Politicians from both sides of the aisle, many some of whom may have started out as idealists, are as subject to incentives as everyone else. The recent Iowa cauci unambiguously prove my point.

The Republicratic party is the party of small government and maximum freedom. Think rugged individualism personified by a proud Iowa farmer sitting on the front porch of his rustic but meticulously maintained farmhouse. He's sipping coffee from an ISU coffee mug and watching the sun rise over the seemingly endless acres of corn fields that have been worked by his family for generations. He's a happy man. Being on the receiving end of the high corn prices guaranteed by The Gubmints byzantine tangle (google ethanol subsidies and try to make sense of what you find, I double dog dare you) of subsidies, programs and regulations will do that for a fella. He, his lovely wife Connie, his all-American family and almost everyone he knows personally, vote for republicrats. Hell, his dog would vote for republicrats if it was legal to do so. Unless, of course, the republicrat in question was one of the poor misguided souls that don't understand the ethical nuances involved and objects to the fact that everyone that eats corn is helping to pay Juniors tuition at ISU (it's a family tradition). If you're unaware of Iowa's popular republicratic governor, Terry Branstad (recent beneficiary of 15 minutes of national fame) and his son, Eric Branstad (that works with a group called America's Renewable Future), googling will provide a much more entertaining and easily understood narrative than trying to make sense of the ethanol debacle.

The Depublican party, the party of ginormous gubmint and Gubmint and tossing all the money into a giant pot to then be divvied up equally by all the kids on the playground (some kids are more equal than others) also stands with the corn farmers. The Billary, who opposed subsidizing corn farmers when she was in the senate, has since seen the light. Interestingly, the Algore, once a supporter, now stands in principled opposition. Having FU level wealth, squared (net worth estimated by Forbes to be at least $300,000,000, even richer than the party's 2012's designated poster boy of greed, Maleficent Mitt), and no longer interested in running for public office, affects some people that way.

Here comes the best part.

There's a big, honkin' fly in the bipartisan ointment love lube. Even the Algore acknowledges that ethanol creates more carbon emissions than fossil fuels. The Gubmint not only chooses to ignore this inconvenient truth, it's decided to do what it can to increase the use of ethanol. How? Well, since all cars manufactured prior to 2012 can't use gas that contains more than 10% ethanol without damaging the engines, and, since less than half of all cars manufactured since can, and, since blends that contain more than 10% ethanol also damage gas stations, The Gubmint gotta do what The Gubmint does. The Department of Agriculture has stepped up to the plate and is spending a $100,000,000 of other peoples money in the form of grants to the gubmints to enable them to help gas stations upgrade to equipment that can pump gas with more ethanol in the mix.

What have you learned Dorothies gentlereaders? The Gubmint teat corrupts us all. As for me, please contact me if you'd like to invest in my plan to form a consortium and buy up as many farms suitable for raising corn as possible.

Have an OK day.                                                                                

©Mark Mehlmauer 2016 



If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down. 

Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.