My Favorite Mormons

A Mr. Cranky's Neighborhood Story.  

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted. Best perused on a screen large enough for even your parents to see and navigate easily.   

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.  

About

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance." -David Mamet

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

My favorite Mormons (no connection to the early sixties sitcom) live in the house next door to Casa de Chaos. I've mentioned them in previous episodes of Mr. Cranky's neighborhood. Both Mr. and Mrs. Morman are 80ish. Both, as you might expect, suffer from a health problem or three. 

The weather in early spring in the Hooterville metropolitan area is often a study in sharp contrasts. You can wake up to snow and 15 degrees one morning and the next day the high temp can shoot up into the sixties. 

Recently, the temperature remained in the civilized zone for a few days before a blast from Canada came through and reminded me of why I'm glad Tricky Dick ended the Vietnam draft just before I might've been forced to decide if I wished to become a Canadian citizen. 

I happened to glance out of our kitchen window and saw Mr. Mormon tinkering with his Can-Am Spyder, an extremely cool-looking three-wheeled motorcycle, gently throttling the engine up and down. Unlike a certain brand of motorcycle that shall remain nameless, the Can-Am's motor is as quiet as its competitor's motor is loud, a gentlepersons sort of motor. 

{You've also made mention of this old dude's bike in other Mr. Cranky's neighborhood episodes. What's your point?}

I have two points actually. First, my big brother Eddie taught me a long time ago that in the case of non-birthing persons over the age of 30, with (temporary) exemptions for men caught up in a midlife crisis, the louder the motor, the smaller the penis is likely to be. You can look it up. 

{Are you trying to get your butt kicked?}

Second point. I was completely unaware that Mrs. Momom had ever/would ever awkwardly and carefully climb onto the back seat of the trike and join her partner of multiple decades for a spin around the neighborhood, neither of them wearing a helmet. 

When I expressed my surprise to my daughter, who's always much more in tune than me with what the denizens of our hood are up to, she told me I was reporting old news and that the two of them taking a spin was not uncommon. 

When I pointed out they weren't wearing helmets and they're even older, much older, than I am, she helpfully pointed out that they, like most people, aren't actually that much older than me. And given that it has three wheels, that he doesn't go very fast, and they don't go very far, they were both likely to survive the journey. 

I'm happy to report that they survived and that the next day I saw Mrs. Mormon awkwardly and carefully descending her porch steps while grasping the handrail with one hand and the hand of a toddler, one of her many grandkids, with the other. 

I still take a daily walk around my neighborhood most mornings; you need to keep moving if you want to keep moving, which brings...

{Wait-wait-wait, I wanna write that down.}

Which brings us to dogs and canes.  

{Well, obviously.}

I use a HurryCane, the preferred cane of cool kids everywhere, because I suffer from something called lumbar spinal stenosis and osteoarthritis. Actually, suffer is too strong a word, I'm somewhat inconvenienced by both conditions, but I refuse to have back surgery if or until it's absolutely necessary (right, Ben?).

I give my cane full credit for enabling me to walk away from a recent encounter with a Pit Bull unscathed. Fellow geezers and geezerettes, if you use a cane, or perhaps even if you don't, and regularly walking is part of your fitness routine...

{Maybe even the only part.}   

And if you prefer walking around your neighborhood to walking around your local mall...

{I hear that's a good way to meet chicks.}  

Get yourself a cane like the HurryCane, one with three or four, stabilizers(?) on the bottom. Something a barking, growling, drooling beastie can't fail to notice when you point it at its face while slowly inching sideways towards safety, never taking your eyes off of the little furry little... 

{One of them babies with a large, four-pronged frame on the end would be great. You could have a prong with a point added in the middle that's shorter than the others so it wouldn't touch the ground. Then...} 

Because even if Cujo's owner comes running and begins screaming at the dog because it seems reluctant to pass on a chance to have fresh human for breakfast, you might still have a chance if it chooses to be a bad doggie.

{Do they still make sword canes?}  

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

P.S. No canines or writers were injured in the course of the events that led to this column being composed. However, I must confess that I (only briefly, of course) fantasized about reenacting the Caning of Charles Sumner with the assistance of the dog's owner who mumbled a brief, insincere sounding apology in my direction while screaming at his dog to go back to the house.

I noticed he didn't attempt to grab it by the collar (no chain in sight); he must have been smarter than he looked.    

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He Said She Said They Said

Surviving in the Dizz/Misinformation Age

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted. Best perused on a screen large enough for even your parents to see and navigate easily.   

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.  

About

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"The country would be better off if we stopped having comment sections. And if we got rid of Twitter." -Colin Powell

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

Like many people that watch/listen to two too many podcasts...

{That's your idea of a killer first sentence?}

Once I typed to two too many, there was just no going back.

...I've heard the word heuristics oft bandied so I went a-googlin' and the very first hit returned was a definition. 

{Oft bandied?}

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that can facilitate problem-solving and probability judgments. These strategies are generalizations, or rules-of-thumb, reduce cognitive load, and can be effective for making immediate judgments, however, they often result in irrational or inaccurate decisions. 

Perfect. And oh, please note, "...they often result in irrational or inaccurate conclusions," more on that anon. And oh yeah, a tip o' the hat to The Decision Lab for supplying the definition. 

For example, a pair of hungry Homo commonsensicusses emerge from a forest/jungle into a clearing at the same time as a huge, hungry, saber-toothed bitecherfaceoff. Having been around the forest/jungle a time or three they don't stop to debate and plan their strategery.

Their brains — based on past experience, available weaponry, the size of the bitecherfaceooff, how long it's been since they last ate, etceterate — rapidly recommends that they either prepare for battle (bitecherfaceoff steaks kick-ass) — or run like hell.  

{What's any of this got to do with he said she said they said?}

Patience, Tonto, patience. 

{Bite me, Kemosabe, bite me.}

I've never understood that phrase, it doesn't make sense.

{I know, right? But still...}

Scott Adams — cartoonist, author, daily podcaster, and former public speaker (more on that anon), the Dilbert dude — has noticed a powerful heuristic shortcut that's powered by the internet.

In Episode 1681, Scott Adams: Facts Don't Matter. It Only Matters How Much We Hated You Before You Spoke, Mr. Adams points out that "...we have completely stopped caring about topics and we only care about people," and provides examples of "...the personality being more important than the fact." 

Once a person reaches a certain level of notoriety and the kids on your team have identified him/her/they as being uncool, you're no longer burdened with discovering exactly what it was they actually said, in what context, and deciding if it was a valid, factual statement. 

Who said it is more important than what they said

This is a very handy shortcut when navigating a passage through the Information Ocean in search of the truth... or at least a friendly harbor where you can catch your breath and stock up on provisions. 

Who's got the time to watch/listen to all those podcasts, watch all those videos, or read all those articles, blogs, and columns? Even if you do have more time (and energy, and motivation) than the average Joe or Joan Bagadonuts, how do you know who or what to believe?

Worse yet, there are powerful people loose in the world whose power is based primarily on their ability to exploit our ubiquitous media, particularly social media, although their accomplishments in the real world, in meat space, are negligible. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes comes to mind for some reason.

{But you digress.} 

Indeed.

Anyways...  Although he didn't mention it, Scott Adams is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Long before the election of the Donald in 2016, he predicted in a blog he no longer maintains that His Royal Orangenes would be the next president. This was when everyone else, including me, was saying no way; it's just the Donald marketing the Donald.

Mr. Adams, who wasn't a Trump supporter at the time, and whose political opinions are all over the map, merely set out to explain how it is Trump did/does what he does. Adams calls him a master influencer and set out to explain his power from the perspective of a trained hypnotist. It was really quite fascinating. 

{Did/does what he does?}

Cool, right? It also put an end to the Dilbert Dudes' lucrative sideline as a popular public speaker invited to lampoon the corporate weenies he lampoons in his comic strip — at corporate events sponsored by corporate weenies.

Although he went out of his way to explain he wasn't a Trumpie, that he was merely explaining how the Donald does what he does, a handful of rabid anti-Trumpers declared him a supporter of the evil one. Twits who had never read his comic strip, much less his blog, began twittering and the noise triggered an avalanche. 

As far as the corporate weenies were concerned he was now potato salad that had been left out in the sun. An income stream evaporated overnight. Fortunately for Mr. Adams, he had already accumulated FU-level wealth. But what about all those little fish trying to pay their bills that live in large ponds polluted with Wokie ideology?

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share this column/access oldies. If you enjoy my work, and no advertising, please consider buying me a coffee via PayPal/credit-debit card.    

Feel free to comment and set me straight on Cranky's Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays, other things other days. Cranky don't tweet.

Politics Without Romance

Human nature is the nature of humans. 

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted. Best perused on a screen large enough for even your parents to see and navigate easily.   

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown.  

About

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"There's a reason that there are oodles of young Aussies, Germans, Japanese, even Chinese backpackers traipsing around the world. They are unencumbered by debilitating student loans. No such luck for the American Theater Arts major with $120,000 in loans." -J. Maarten Troost

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

The public-choice school of economics, a.k.a public-choice theory, is, well...  'As James Buchanan artfully defined it, public choice is “politics without romance.”' -econolib.org 

For the record, I can't find exactly where or when Mr. Buchanan actually said that. I did find dozens of versions of something along the lines of 'As James Buchanan said, public choice is "politics without romance."'

{And this matters because?} 

Well, the dude won a Nobel Prize for his work in the field, you'd think that... 

{You really need to get out more, Sparky.}

Anyways... This normally would be a good place to quote the Wikipedia entry on the subject at hand, assuming, of course, it wasn't clearly crafted by a Wokie (it wasn't), but since it reads like it was written by an impoverished grad student who will never be famous for his/her/their prose stylings...

{Seriously, dude, you're not that old, find the car keys and...}   

Instead, I'm going to post the video below, because I'm cool like that and it does an excellent job of explaining public choice theory.

Now, for those you that are wandering in the wilderness and following the locusts and honey diet, or the Luddite like gentlepersons among my vast hordes of regular readers that rely on some intrepid soul to print out my column (not to mention any names, Ed), permit me to vastly oversimplify. 

Public choice theory holds that the politicians (sleazy and otherwise), and bureaucrats (and bureauons) that constitute the group of H. sapiens that run or work for the government at any level are subject to the same drives, incentives, and motivations as we mere mortals. 

{That's just common sense.}

Not necessarily. There's an awful lot of people that maintain that they're just humble but lovable public servants, grateful for a chance to serve. 

{Sure, but nobody actually believes...} 

So you say, but there are also an awful lot of people who say that we need a government solution for this, that, or that other thing — which can be true.

Big BUT.

As the video points out, instead of just asking what government policy is needed to solve a given problem, we also need to consider what policy is likely to actually emerge from "real-world democratic politics," and take that into consideration. 

To which I would add: before we pass yet another law on top of the thousands of other laws that, so far, have not led us to the promised land.  

Which is to say: since the H. sapiens in the government business are just as prone to temptation, egotism, and screwing up as you and me, what we want is often not what we get — that's politics without romance. 

And it gets worse: people in the government business don't suffer from an inconvenient constraint that most of us do, they pay the bill with other people's money.  

{This would be a good place to supply an example...}

For example, on a recent Joe Rogan podcast, Rogan had a guest, Ben Burgis, a writer for Jacobin magazine. Mr. Burgis is a socialist who, like Mr. Rogan (a democratic socialist), supports things like universal healthcare, a universal basic income, free college, etceterage. 

{Impossible, Rogan is a card-carrying member of the alt-right, just ask Neil Young.} 

They both agree that college should be free, and consider that the cost of a college degree nowadays, as well as kids going into debt up to their... butts is completely unacceptable. I don't agree with the free part — free is rarely actually free, and "free" is often perceived as having little value — but I do agree that kids just beginning their adult lives deep in debt is unacceptable.

But one of the many reasons college is so expensive is the result of several decades of The Fedrl Gummit handing out easily obtained loans to children (which can't be discharged via bankruptcy) and then the higher education business raising their prices faster than the inflation rate to absorb the money. 

This isn't an open secret, it's not even a secret. 

{They're not children! Well, not exactly, they...}

Simultaneously, education incorporated is top-heavy with administrators who are teaching nothing to no one, and many of these positions are mandated by The Fedrl Gummit. What about taking a machete and thinning out the ranks of all those people that don't actually teach anyone?

{You mean their jobs, right? Not actually the...} 

Isn't reforming the bloated education business the place to start?

{Bloated?}

Schools with well-fed endowments are currently fighting a 1.4% tax on their investment incomes if their cash stash is worth more than $500,000, per student! Leaving that tax in place is not just politics without romance, it could also be called common sense.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

P.S. How about college grads having to take a standardized, general knowledge test to graduate and prove they didn't slip through with inflated grades, and publishing the aggregated results? 

What about students who are often taught by absurdly underpaid "instructors" and "teaching assistants" (often as not in debt up to their eyeballs in student loans) that help to prop up the system? 

What about charging the NFL for running a minor league for professional football wherein the coaches are often better paid than the professors? 

What about... 

{We gotta go, folks.}

Scroll down to share this column/access oldies. If you enjoy my work, and no advertising, please consider buying me a coffee via PayPal/credit-debit card.    

Feel free to comment and set me straight on Cranky's Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays, other things other days. Cranky don't tweet.