Ohio

A Republican State?

 Clker-Free-Vector-Images 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.  

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

 

About 

Glossary 

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

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." -Unknown  

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

As my regular readers are aware, I live in a fortified lair, Casa de Chaos, in the mountains of Ohio. 

Ohio is a Republican stronghold these days although we do have a token Democrat, Senator Sherrod Brown, our Senior Senator (in more ways than one, he'll be 71 in November) who's been a politician for all but two years of his life since leaving college.

His brother, Charlie Brown, was the Attorney General of West (by God) Virginia from 1984 to 1989 when, according to Wikipedia,  "...he resigned...in exchange for an end to a grand jury investigation into allegations that he lied under oath and into his campaign financial records." And which resulted in a very brief Wikipedia entry.

{Charlie Brown? You're making that up!}

No I'm not, Dana, follow the link.

 

My current official position concerning America's two major political parties can be summed up by Mercutio's famous declaration in Romeo and Juliet, "A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms meat of me."

{Thou wouldst have us believe thou art a Shakespeare fanboy, gentle sir?} 

We studied a condensed version of Romy and Julie in high school and I saw the (in?)famous 1968 movie version that very briefly featured Romy's bum and Julie's boobs. 

The teenage actors, now in their 70s, were so scarred by the experience they sued Paramount — 55 years later — for half a billion bucks, although unsuccessfully. And I'm definitely a Mark Knopfler fanboy whose song Romeo and Juliet is a favorite of mine (but not the kinda dumb video).

But I'm drifting, Dana.

{As is your wont, gentle sir.}  

All things considered, I'd rather live in a state where the Republicans are in charge rather than one in which the Democrats are because California. California reveals everything you need to know about the current state of the Democratic Party.

Big BUT, Ohio, like California, demonstrates what can happen when one-party rule is in effect. 

There's going to be a special election this week, in feckin' AUGUST! (8/8/23) to gut an Ohio tradition that's been in effect since 1912. 

There are elections every year somewhere in Ohio. We not only have off-year elections we have off-off-year elections. This year there will be statewide elections in August and November. The one in August only has one issue (no humans) on the ballot to vote for or against. 

It will cost the good citizens of Ohio about $20,000,000. 

{It can't wait till November?}

Nope.

The powers that be are using the August election to change the rules in the middle of the game to help them defeat a ballot issue in the November election that will expand abortion rights — if the citizens of Ohio agree to do so. 

Currently, the carefully gerrymandered GOP supermajority has decreed that abortions are only permitted for the first six weeks of pregnancy and they don't want to take the chance that the voters might disagree. 

If next week's ballot initiative (initiated by the legislature) passes, come November it will take 60% of Ohio voters to expand abortion rights. Since 1911, ballot initiatives have only required 50% + 1 vote to pass. 

Going forward, not only will it take 60% to pass an initiative, the Rules&Regs for citizens seeking to get an initiative placed on the ballot will tighten dramatically. Bottom line: much harder to initiate, much harder to pass. 

Given how polarized Americans are just now, getting 60% of voters to agree on anything, anywhere, is obviously a tough sell. 

And by the way, since the old Rules&Regs will still be in effect on Tuesday, it will only take 50% + 1 voter to pass the new Rules&Regs, and the taxpayers are on the hook for the $20,000,000 regardless of the result.

Machiavelli smiles. 

A very long story short: At the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1912, Teddy Roosevelt spoke in favor of the creation of the current system. “I believe in the initiative and the referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative.”  

The referendum on referendums passed and it became possible for anybody to start a petition drive to amend the Ohio constitution, propose a new law, or overturn an existing one. Get enough signatures and the proposed statute or amendment will be on the ballot. 

If 50% of the voters, and that nut job from Newton Falls support it (+1), it passes. 

(Irony alert. The referendum that permitted initiatives and referendums passed with 57.5% of the vote. If the proposed new Rules&Regs had been in effect it wouldn't have passed.) 

 

Last January, the legislature passed HB 458, an election reform law. According to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose the bill, among other things, did away with "...August special elections – a costly, low-turnout, and unnecessary election for our county boards to administer – unless it involves a political subdivision or school district that is in a state of fiscal emergency."

(It's a tradition in Ohio for subdivisions and school districts to use August elections to get unpopular levies passed with the help of low voter turnout. F.Y.I., despite allegedly being a Republican state, Ohio has a sales tax, sin taxes, property taxes, local special levies, local income taxes, and a state income tax.) 

 

Last May, they decided that there would be at least one more special state-wide August election, hoping to bump 50% to 60% before the abortion vote this fall, hopefully while no one was paying attention. The good news is that a lot of ones were, and are, paying attention. The Democratic Party, among others, has made sure of that.

{Wait-wait-wait. Aren't you the one that's written about the wisdom of America's founding pasty patriarchs setting up a republic to counteract the downsides of democracy? Couldn't "initiatives and referendums" proposed by Wokies or Normies get ugly?} 

Potentially, sure. Another big BUT: since 1913, only 71 citizen-driven ballot initiatives made it to the ballot and just 19 were approved by voters. That's an average of once every six years or so.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.   

The Secret of Life (Updated)

Image by elizabethaferry 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.  

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

About 

Glossary 

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

"Show business is just like high school, except you get paid." -Martin Mull

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

So-called real life, at least in the countries that used to be proud to be identified as products of Western Civilization, is just high school with money (and smartphones), that's all you really need to know.

In fact, modern technology + modern prosperity = perpetual high school (mt + mp = phs).

{But some of the countries in the Eastern Hemisphere and the Global South are also...}  

Yes indeed, but the majority of them are products of radically different cultural traditions than ours which they aren't abandoning as rapidly and enthusiastically as we are. 

{Wait-wait-wait, you've revealed the secret of life, as alleged by you at least, several times over the last hundred years or so, old man. What gives?} 

I haven't written about the subject since my four-month sabbatical last year at a secret Taoist monastery in the Wudang mountains. Like its predecessors, this missive serves as an update to previous versions. 

If technology keeps advancing arm in arm with global prosperity, eventually the entire planet will consist of H. sapiens with psyches equivalent to that of an average American high school student (and many of their elders).

The good news is that with a bit of luck, this will cancel out the ChiCom's effort to destroy Western Civilization via their not-so-secret weapon, TikTok. By the way, I define ChiComs as the current emperor and his minions, not his serfs and slaves.     

{But there's no shortage of countries mired in poverty and primitive technology.}

Sure. But if you adopt a birds-eye view you'll discover that technology and prosperity are spreading at unprecedented rates. At least for now. 

{You're gonna' have to supply links to the data if you want me, the Stickies, or your gentlereaders for that matter, to believe that.}

Well, I'm not going to... but I would if I thought it worth the effort. 

Prosperity has made it possible for more people to access technology. Technology has enabled more people to access the worldwide web of all knowledge. 

But unfortunately, the web, particularly social media — as well as traditional media like TV, print, and radio — is chock-a-block with contradictory knowledge that constitutes the ultimate, international version of a classic debate format familiar to everyone:

Uh-huh! Nuh-uh!

{You've mentioned this uh-huh, nuh-uh thing before too. In fact...} 

I know, but it just keeps getting better and worse. Modern technology has made it possible for everyone to become a publisher, a broad/narrowcaster, a producer/director, a musician/record label, etc. Any moron can claim to be a columnist. Power to the people!  

But nowadays, all sides of any given argument are able to supply links to all sorts of websites and data top-heavy with links to all sorts of other websites and data top-heavy with links... ad infinitum. 

Flame-fanning by traditional media outlets more motivated by financial survival than the search for truth, makes it hard to tell genuine thoughtful, carefully reasoned disagreement from mere partisan infotainment, ideology, gossip, and propaganda.

{Well, that's a spiffy paragraph, but what's it got to do with your notion that real life is high school with money?}

It's an October morning in 1968 and a bunch of bleary-eyed teenagers are seated at a high school cafeteria table waiting for the homeroom bell. Being 1968, there was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air (HT: B. Dylan).

A vocal minority of Boomers a few years previously, had begun a cultural trend that has since gotten out of hand: all politics all the time. An argument has broken out at the table and an occasional, "It's a fact! You can look it up!" can be heard.  

{I still don't see...}

Well, now you can look it up, but most Uh-huhs! can be easily refuted by a Nun-uh!

Bottom line: All politics, all the time is spreading around the world at light speed. Filtered through social media and exploited by the outrage industrial complex, the result is a virtual version of an endless American high school civics class debate (or a cafeteria kerfuffle).

{Do they still teach civics in high school?}

Later that same day our typical American high school Boomers are eating lunch at their self-segregated cafeteria tables. At the cool girl's tables, top-heavy with salads, cans of diet soda pop, and little else, they're speculating about Debbie. Turns out her family didn't move. Debbie's been moved, to the Saint Mary McGilliddy home for mothers and babes.

At the jock tables, they're congratulating, Bob, a wrestler, as it turns out he won't be dropping out of school and getting married after all. Bob and several of the members of the wrestling team aren't eating, an important match is pending and they need to "make weight." 

When lunch is over a flurry of notes are exchanged that will be delivered by an ad hoc postal system once classes resume.

 

It's an October afternoon in 2022, and at a typical American high school Zoomers are eating lunch at their self-segregated tables. At the cool girl's tables, salads and bottled water are being consumed with one hand, information consumed and disseminated with the other. 

At the jock's tables, members of the wrestling team are working their smartphones with both hands. 

An endless stream of pics, selfies, videos, gossip, trolling, canceling, cyberbullying, tweets, and etcetereets is being generated.

A few girls are pregnant, but nowadays the whole world is becoming a small town wherein everyone can gossip and fret about every-thing that every-one is up to, and can do so anonymously.  

Marshall McCluhann achieved his 15 minutes of fame (H.T. Andy Warhol, fellow Yinzer) when he posited that "the medium is the message." I think that although the mediums keep changing, and do have an impact on the messages, the messages, like human nature, remain fundamentally the same  

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.   

   

Sexy Senior Citizens

Image by Anne 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.  

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  

"You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old." -George Burns

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

The boilerplate that appears at the top of this column, at least on my website, includes the following statement: Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating meltdown. 

The word intersectional belongs between debilitating and meltdown but by leaving it out I avoid the statement slopping over onto the next line creating an unbalanced looking heading. They call me Mister Symmetrical.  

{Some of them call you Mister Anal and think you're unbalanced. Also, I must point out that given that some people read this column via email, on their phones, or even via ink sprayed on dead trees your obsession with symmetry may be pointless.} 

Well, I must point out that sexy senior citizens (SSCs) understand that my love of symmetry, and the pursuit of same, is merely fidelity to my personal aesthetic inclinations. The point is to know what you like without feeling compelled to justify it to others, but also maintaining a live and let-live attitude... in spite of the fact the world is full of philistines.   

SSCs know that you must remain open to expanding your inclinations and be aware that there are always going to be people who can teach you things, right up to the day you're deleted. Some of them are long dead but have left numerous hints and clues behind.

Not all geezers/geezerettes are SSCs, many are just parodies of their younger selves with wrinkles. Or worse yet, a parody that's had so much "work done" they now look like caricatures of their younger selves.

Note to aging famous (and formerly famous) actors and models, presidents, seriously rich people, upper-class people, and members of the lower-upper class who have the time, inclination, and money to strive to look forever 39 (preferably younger):

Knock yourself out. It's your time, inclination, and money. 

However...

I feel compelled to note that wimmin of all ages who strive mightily to look "hot" while simultaneously decrying the toxic male gaze are considered oxymoronic by some of my fellow (but less sensitive) heterosexual, cisgender males.

And, that many men, of all ages, who strive mightily to look hot or cool via ponytails, patchy facial hair, or the I Only Shave Every Other Day Look often look lukewarm at best.   

Also, the faces (beware of close-ups) of the sort of people of a certain age that go out of their way to display pictures or videos of themselves showing how young and healthy they look often resemble robots with worn plastic faces touched up by makeup artists that work at funeral homes.

{Feel better now?}

I do, Dana. Thanks

{So what exactly is a sexy senior citizen given the title of the article? Remember that? How about a concise definition?}

Can't be done, Dana. That would be like trying to concisely/accurately explain the taste of homemade _______ to an AI-powered android. It will never get it, although it will be able to fool many people into thinking it does... but not a SSC of course. 

The most concise definition I've been able to come up with is that a SSC is an individual of a certain age who manages to remain (reasonably but not too) young at heart but has been around long enough, and is savvy enough, to have accumulated a level of wisdom unlikely to be found in the young of body/brain. 

But advanced chronological age is no guarantee of wisdom. There is indeed no fool like an old fool because if they haven't figured it out by then they are unlikely to ever figure it out, and "it" is somewhat variable and hard to define. 

{Could you be a little more vague?}

I warned you. 

{Fine then, what do you mean by savvy? Smart?}

No, because nowadays most people think of smart as intellectually smart. 

A good mechanic that doesn't read anything besides the local paper and repair manuals, is fundamentally kind (but not necessarily warm and fuzzy), honest (but would never tell their spouse that their new ______ makes their butt look big), and has lived long enough to know there is such a thing as human nature and there isn't such a thing as Utopia (or many other things) is not usually called smart. 

But they're definitely savvy, perhaps even wise, prefer traditional (commonsensical) pronouns, and are just as likely to be of benefit to the world as the average professor with a Ph.D., perhaps more likely. In fact, an excellent janitor who embodies the virtues listed in the previous paragraph is more valuable to the world than a professor who doesn't. 

As I mention in my glossary the term sexy senior citizen doesn't refer to physical attractiveness or how sexually active someone is. It's about a certain difficult-to-define something that can be so subtle that only a fellow SSC may be aware they have it. For the record, SSCs know that modesty and restraint are much sexier than cheap displays. 

They're also aware of the fact that much of who they really are, and what they know, is invisible to younger H. sapiens. This gives them an edge in various situations that the young aren't even aware of.

One of the many compensations for being closer to one's inevitable deletion than the young is being able to gently manipulate them without their knowledge. Luckily for them we're more likely to do this for their own good, or frankly, for our own amusement, than to do evil. 

Fortunately for our fellow H. sapiens and unripened progeny, we (mostly) use our secret superpowers for good. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.