[Gentlereaders, you will no doubt notice this particular column is a bit shorter than average. This serves the dual purpose of demonstrating to potential syndicators/publishers that I can be less verbose if/when I need to be and will enable me to catch up on my spring cleaning.]
Venezuela, socialist paradise. Just one of the many socialist success stories slowly but steadily nudging the planet in the direction of utopia. Three relevant quotes, in chronological order, if you please.
"Joseph Stiglitz, in Caracas, Praises Venezuela's Economic Policies." (This is the headline of an article written by Kiraz Janicke for a website called venezuelanalysis.com, 10.11.2007.) "Nobel Prize winning economist and former vice-president of the World Bank, Joeseph Stiglitz... who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001, argued that relatively high inflation isn't necessarily harmful to the economy," the article informs us.
"In 2015, Venezuela had the world's highest inflation rate with the rate surpassing 100% becoming the highest in the country's history." -Wikipedia
"Recently, a woman who works at a nearby beauty parlor decided to start her commute earlier than usual to join the line in hopes of finding milk. As per the government-mandated schedule, her turn to shop for basic goods is every Friday. She gave up on her weekly trips to the local supermarket, not only because she has to work on Fridays, but also because she is terrified of being held at gunpoint by the robbers who wait to pounce on shoppers if they emerge with anything inside their grocery bags. Her 8-month-old granddaughter hasn't had formula in months, she told me. She worries about the breast milk her mother feeds her, since she only has bread and noodle soup to eat." -- Emiliana Duarte. The quote if from an op-ed Ms. Duarte wrote for the New York Times of 5.21.16 entitled "In Venezuela, God Does Not Provide."
Dr. Joeseph Stiglitz is not only a Nobel Prize winner, according to Wikipedia, "Stiglitz has received more than 40 honorary degrees, including from Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge Universities and been decorated by several governments... ." The article referenced above is about a visit he took to Venezuela in 2007. The author informs us that Dr. Stiglitz is a man of the left who thoroughly approved of the policies of socialist, and then president (1999 -- 2013), Hugo Chavez, a now deceased BFF of Fidel Castro. While in town, Joe had a chance to sit down with his buddy Hugo and talk things over.
To be fair, Dr. Stiglitz does not go around declaring himself to be a socialist, not even a "democratic" one. Personally, I think he perfectly embodies the position of the Depublicans, and their current leader the Hilliam, free market socialism, or, have your cake and eat it tooism. Dr. S. serves as an advisor to the Hilliam (Hillary and William Clinton).
[Get rich quick idea: If baseball/football have baseball/football cards, why doesn't politics have political cards? If the content of the 24-hour news networks, as well as all the news media to a greater or lesser degree, is any indication, politics may be America's actual national pastime, at least every other year.
Proposed format: On the front of the card, of course, would be the politicians picture, name at the top. Along the bottom, a relevant blurb/slogan/quote. For example, Hugo Chavez -- Bolivarian (i.e. socialist) Revolution.
On the back would be a micro-biography: Mr. Chavez began his political career by leading an unsuccessful coup against the folks that were running Venezuela in 1992. After getting out of jail two years later he founded a political party (the Fifth Republic Movement, fifth time's the charm?) and was elected president in 1998. In 1999, he oversaw the rewriting of Venezuela's constitution (their 26th), which guarantees free this/that/the other thing, to everyone.
Mr. Chavez was wildly popular and reelected 3 times. Unfortunately, implementing his "Bolivarian Revolution" slowly but steadily trashed the nation. When global oil prices collapsed in 2014 (the nationalized oil industry had been paying for all the free stuff) so did the country, somewhat tainting his legacy. He died, from cancer, in 2013. "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." -Margaret Thatcher
Where was I? Oh yeah, Dr. Joe visits the big V. and it's covered by venezuelanalysis.com. You'll be relieved to know that the website in question is still up and running, unlike the country. The name makes it sound like the website of a stuffy think tank, huh? Not exactly.
Wikipedia sez that the founder sez it's, "a left social movement perspective on the Bolivarian Revolution in the English language." Others, including The Gubmint, say it's pure propaganda, and who knows more about propaganda than The Gubmint? As uncomfortable as I am agreeing with The Gubmint, I'm forced to admit I think they're right. In fact, if you check it out, I think you will also, gentlereaders.
From Ms. Duarte's article: "In 2012, when inflation and poverty had already started showing through the seams of Bolivarian socialism, Mr. Chavez made a rare public acknowledgement of his governments flaws. He said it didn't matter if there was no electricity or water, as long as we had a fatherland."
Feel the Bern.
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 2016
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Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Bits & Pieces
Democratic Socialism in practice: Amtrak. Amtrak is an entity that was created out of thin air by The Gubmint in 1970. Amtrak has managed to lose money, every year, without exception, ever since. The tab so far? $16,000,000,000 billion bucks. Can you guess who's paying the tab?
According to Wikipedia, Amtrak is, "...a partially government-funded American passenger railroad service. It is operated and managed as a for-profit corporation... ," -- that has never turned a profit. Who built this Frankenstein? Well...
When Amtrak was created, the privately operated passenger rail business was in the process of going the way of the buggy whip industry. Why? The overwhelming success of The Gubmint subsidized interstate highway system and aviation industry. However, in 1967, the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) was created to try and prevent this from happening. They lobbied to create the partially government-funded (i.e. subsidized) for-profit railroad that's never turned a profit, mentioned above.
They succeeded. They're a non-profit, still around by the way, and happy to take your donations. Several of the firms that make and sell stuff to Amtrak, as well as the labor unions that staff it, are proud, apparently unembarrassed members.
I love my toaster. I love bread. I love toasted bread more than untoasted bread. This is a brief book review about a book I haven't read, and never will.
The book is entitled "The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance From Scratch." The author, Thomas Thwaites, spent nine months and $1,837.36 to accomplish this, and failed. He wound up with a device that looks like something recovered from Hiroshima and now is on display in a traveling exhibition entitled "Aftermath: The Bomb," which, according to the author, "... kind of toasts bread."
The idea was to not only make his own toaster but also to manufacture all of its components as well, even the plastic outer shell. When I first heard about the project and the resulting book I hoped that the point was that we shouldn't take for granted the 1,001 inexpensive, "simple" devices and innovations that exist in the background of our lives. Products and services that the 1% (and everyone else) would have regarded as jaw-dropping magic not all that long ago.
Nope, I was wrong again, as I am, unfortunately, with disturbing regularity. It took about two minutes to discover that multiple detours were taken around many insurmountable walls in this quest to make a homemade toaster, which I expected. However, apparently the last 25% or so of the book, what I would call the what have you learned Dorothy? section, is an environmentalist rant attacking the various industries and processes that result in a cheap toaster.
Mr. Thwaites, no doubt, would probably be displeased to discover that I've attacked his book without having actually read it. However, I would hope that as he sits in his cozy hut, eyes streaming and lungs wheezing, toasting homemade bread made of wheat he grew himself over an open fire, that he would find it in his heart to forgive me.
Economics: As I've written before, economics is one of the many subjects that I find interesting and that I study in a dilettantish, superficial sort of way...
[Marie-Louise just whispered in my ear that I shouldn't be so hard on myself. She says that I should explain to my gentlereaders that I'm just trying to be a big picture person in an age of specialists. That I try to serve them by surfing the ocean of information we're all trying to avoid drowning in while we try to make it back to the beach. That sounds kind of pompous though, so I'm not going to bring it up.]
But a couple of professional scholars (which I guess makes them the opposite of a dilettante like myself), Anthony Randazzo and Jonathan Haidt have done a study of professional scholars that specialize in economics, that is, economists. They concluded that these social "scientists" look at the facts they collect (the studies that they did, the source of the statistics they love to quote) then interpret them based on what they think is moral and ethical. Which ain't science.
Which is why when you hear the phrase, or some version of it, "Most economists agree...", if your bonkercockie detector doesn't immediately go off you should have it recalibrated.
The Donald v. the Billary: Yes, the Billary. You get two for the price of one. As you're no doubt aware, or can easily confirm if you're not, those two have been a beast with two backs for decades. Of course, it's a matter of speculation as to whether... nevermind. I don't support either the Donald or the Billary. Let me rephrase, I don't support the Donald or the Hilliam. Hilliam just popped into my head, and it sounds funnier I think.Yes, definitely, the Hilliam it is.
My lack of support is not based on their political positions, which seem to be quite flexible anyway. It's based on what kind of people they seem to be.
The Donald. The Donald is on his third trophy wife and while it's not for me to judge, him or anyone else, I personally find that creepy. I'm a dude, dude. I get it. All men are pigs, we're wired that way. I'm also an old dude, and though I risk being tossed out the Old Dudes club for being a traitor, trust me on this. While (in most cases) the raging forest fire of passion is now a relatively easily managed, well-maintained blaze in a nice fireplace, we're as aware of attractive, young women as we were when we were young. Perhaps even more so since for most of us they are out of reach. DNA never stops trying to replicate itself.
However, that doesn't mean you have to surrender to biology just because you can. Particularly when you'll be pooping on other people's lives, like your kids for example. As I say, I try not to judge. Marriage is hard, and complicated, and private. The wife might be as anxious to flee as the husband. But then you do it again? And the third wife is 24 years younger than you, and only seven years older than your oldest son? It could be love I guess, it's still creepy.
As to the Hilliam, well, books have been written about how they somehow keep just missing being dragged off to the guillotine, so I'll limit myself to the subject of Bill the documented horndog.
Ladies, suppose you had spent years helping to cover up for a man who thought nothing of cheating on you as you both clawed your way up the political ladder (if confused google the phrase, "bimbo eruptions"). Suppose you made it all the way to the White House anyway and he got caught, once again, and this time, everyone on Earth was aware of it, along with some of the gory details.
Suppose he went on TV and looked the world in the eye, and sincerely lied his ass off. Would you not only stick with him, would you tell the world it was all just a vast right wing conspiracy? Should someone who wants power that badly even be allowed to run the PTA?
©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.
According to Wikipedia, Amtrak is, "...a partially government-funded American passenger railroad service. It is operated and managed as a for-profit corporation... ," -- that has never turned a profit. Who built this Frankenstein? Well...
When Amtrak was created, the privately operated passenger rail business was in the process of going the way of the buggy whip industry. Why? The overwhelming success of The Gubmint subsidized interstate highway system and aviation industry. However, in 1967, the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) was created to try and prevent this from happening. They lobbied to create the partially government-funded (i.e. subsidized) for-profit railroad that's never turned a profit, mentioned above.
They succeeded. They're a non-profit, still around by the way, and happy to take your donations. Several of the firms that make and sell stuff to Amtrak, as well as the labor unions that staff it, are proud, apparently unembarrassed members.
I love my toaster. I love bread. I love toasted bread more than untoasted bread. This is a brief book review about a book I haven't read, and never will.
The book is entitled "The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance From Scratch." The author, Thomas Thwaites, spent nine months and $1,837.36 to accomplish this, and failed. He wound up with a device that looks like something recovered from Hiroshima and now is on display in a traveling exhibition entitled "Aftermath: The Bomb," which, according to the author, "... kind of toasts bread."
The idea was to not only make his own toaster but also to manufacture all of its components as well, even the plastic outer shell. When I first heard about the project and the resulting book I hoped that the point was that we shouldn't take for granted the 1,001 inexpensive, "simple" devices and innovations that exist in the background of our lives. Products and services that the 1% (and everyone else) would have regarded as jaw-dropping magic not all that long ago.
Nope, I was wrong again, as I am, unfortunately, with disturbing regularity. It took about two minutes to discover that multiple detours were taken around many insurmountable walls in this quest to make a homemade toaster, which I expected. However, apparently the last 25% or so of the book, what I would call the what have you learned Dorothy? section, is an environmentalist rant attacking the various industries and processes that result in a cheap toaster.
Mr. Thwaites, no doubt, would probably be displeased to discover that I've attacked his book without having actually read it. However, I would hope that as he sits in his cozy hut, eyes streaming and lungs wheezing, toasting homemade bread made of wheat he grew himself over an open fire, that he would find it in his heart to forgive me.
Economics: As I've written before, economics is one of the many subjects that I find interesting and that I study in a dilettantish, superficial sort of way...
[Marie-Louise just whispered in my ear that I shouldn't be so hard on myself. She says that I should explain to my gentlereaders that I'm just trying to be a big picture person in an age of specialists. That I try to serve them by surfing the ocean of information we're all trying to avoid drowning in while we try to make it back to the beach. That sounds kind of pompous though, so I'm not going to bring it up.]
But a couple of professional scholars (which I guess makes them the opposite of a dilettante like myself), Anthony Randazzo and Jonathan Haidt have done a study of professional scholars that specialize in economics, that is, economists. They concluded that these social "scientists" look at the facts they collect (the studies that they did, the source of the statistics they love to quote) then interpret them based on what they think is moral and ethical. Which ain't science.
Which is why when you hear the phrase, or some version of it, "Most economists agree...", if your bonkercockie detector doesn't immediately go off you should have it recalibrated.
The Donald v. the Billary: Yes, the Billary. You get two for the price of one. As you're no doubt aware, or can easily confirm if you're not, those two have been a beast with two backs for decades. Of course, it's a matter of speculation as to whether... nevermind. I don't support either the Donald or the Billary. Let me rephrase, I don't support the Donald or the Hilliam. Hilliam just popped into my head, and it sounds funnier I think.Yes, definitely, the Hilliam it is.
My lack of support is not based on their political positions, which seem to be quite flexible anyway. It's based on what kind of people they seem to be.
The Donald. The Donald is on his third trophy wife and while it's not for me to judge, him or anyone else, I personally find that creepy. I'm a dude, dude. I get it. All men are pigs, we're wired that way. I'm also an old dude, and though I risk being tossed out the Old Dudes club for being a traitor, trust me on this. While (in most cases) the raging forest fire of passion is now a relatively easily managed, well-maintained blaze in a nice fireplace, we're as aware of attractive, young women as we were when we were young. Perhaps even more so since for most of us they are out of reach. DNA never stops trying to replicate itself.
However, that doesn't mean you have to surrender to biology just because you can. Particularly when you'll be pooping on other people's lives, like your kids for example. As I say, I try not to judge. Marriage is hard, and complicated, and private. The wife might be as anxious to flee as the husband. But then you do it again? And the third wife is 24 years younger than you, and only seven years older than your oldest son? It could be love I guess, it's still creepy.
As to the Hilliam, well, books have been written about how they somehow keep just missing being dragged off to the guillotine, so I'll limit myself to the subject of Bill the documented horndog.
Ladies, suppose you had spent years helping to cover up for a man who thought nothing of cheating on you as you both clawed your way up the political ladder (if confused google the phrase, "bimbo eruptions"). Suppose you made it all the way to the White House anyway and he got caught, once again, and this time, everyone on Earth was aware of it, along with some of the gory details.
Suppose he went on TV and looked the world in the eye, and sincerely lied his ass off. Would you not only stick with him, would you tell the world it was all just a vast right wing conspiracy? Should someone who wants power that badly even be allowed to run the PTA?
©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.
Saturday, May 14, 2016
King Crank Saves America
I don't know who will be the next president. I don't know if the Republicrats or the Depublicans or neither (I can dream can't I?) will be in control of congress come Wednesday 11.9.16. I do know two things, however. Everyone will agree as they do right now, and as they have for years, that our tax code is a bloated, complicated mess and that we need to decide what to do about our southern border problems.
I know one other thing as well. Odds are nothing will actually be done about either problem.
[Oh yeah smarty-pants, and what exactly would YOU do to fix...]
Forgive me for cutting you off imaginary gentlereader, but I know exactly what I'd do. And I will, when I become king.
First, the tax code. When I become king I will solve this with one simple decree. First, I'll abolish the current code and the IRS. This will create some unemployment in the Tax Compliance Industrial Complex sector but a king's gotta' do what a king's gotta' do, for his subjects as well as his realm. I would then reveal the exact percentage of my flat tax, a number that I would decide on based on a single, relatively brief meeting with my economic advisors after giving them a few days to fight among themselves.
There are no exemptions. Whatever you actually make will be multiplied by a given percentage, and that's what you will pay.
If, at the end of the first year of the new program (during which current programs will remain in force), if you have made less than an amount to be determined each year by my advisors and I that's determined by the state of the economy, you will get your money back, plus, a payment that will also be determined by me and my economic advisors. This lump sum will be just enough to meet certain minimal standards for getting by. You will have to budget so it lasts. If you get a raise, a better job, win the lottery, etc., in the course of the next year, good for you, it's still your money.
When you file your taxes the following year you won't be tossed off a cliff because you're doing better and hit an arbitrary number, your supplement will just be cut back accordingly. There will be a ceiling though, above which there is no more income supplementation. You'll be motivated to do as well as you can because you won't be able to live high on the hog via your supplement.
Big But...
How you spend money is up to you, but if you throw it away on recreational pharmaceuticals or ginormous televisions, that's your problem. WIC, food stamps, Section 8 housing, etc., all gone -- along with the gubmint or Gubmint employees that dole out the goodies if you kiss their butts and fill out all the right forms. You'll spend your dough, carefully, 'cause it's yours, in the free market. Nobody needs to know who's getting supplemented and who ain't. Everyone will know that no one that is will be living the high life, and will have to work just as hard as everyone else to get ahead.
The only further help available from your Gubmint will be an emergency plan that places you and yours in shelters run by a private, government-subsidized charities, or, will subsidize moving in with friends or family. If neither of these options sounds attractive, good, I'm sure you'll do all you can to get back on your feet as quickly as possible.
If you support kids you will receive a larger amount than a single person. However, your Gubmint will only help with up to two children per custodial parent. In other words, you can make all the babies you want -- if you're prepared to support them. However, you won't receive any additional money for having more kids than that. You will receive enough money to keep you and your kids fed, clothed and sheltered, but you won't get enough to live all that well. You had better give some thought to how you're going to support your kids before reproducing.
If you're born, or become, disabled, you will be taken care of, and we're going to redesign the safety net from scratch. If you're genuinely disabled (warning: subject to random verification) we will graciously provide a level of care that will be the envy of all those countries that also envy our unprecedented level of prosperity. We'll do all that we can to harness the power of the free market and the states will be encouraged to experiment to come up with what actually works without taking away people's dignity.
As to those of you that revel in your self-assigned role as a professional victim and/or those who make a living encouraging/creating such thinking -- Bonkercockie! This is America, we take care of our own, but we insist that everyone do what they can to take care of themselves, this is the price of freedom. And as your king, I would point out to those of you that don't think any of this is your problem, three things. You may be a sociopath. You may need help someday. Finally, one of these people you would ignore might someday jump out from behind a rock and gleefully cut your throat. Hunger makes people cranky.
As to our southern border, I'm going to order that Mexico be annexed to the USA. I hope our new citizens acquiesce willingly but I'm prepared to order an invasion if necessary. I know there would be casualties but who fights nicer, more politically correct wars than we do?
BAM! Just like that, most of our illegal immigrants, or undocumented aliens, or whatever we're calling them this week, turn out to just be people that were ahead of their time. Many of them for decades. Step two, round up the rest, a much more manageable task at this point, after we decide what we're going to do with them. Personally, I'd forgive anyone that did have a job and didn't have a criminal record, but I'll leave that up to the Congress. As I've mentioned in the past, I'll be a benevolent monarch. If Congress decides on mass deportations to satisfy the immigrationally righteous among us, so be it. I'm sure all of the innocent kids that will be affected by this will be fine, eventually.
Yes, I realize we also need to address our immigration policies as concerns the rest of the planet, and I'll get into that at a later date. Right now though, everyone's obsessed with the Mexican border particularly a certain follicly challenged Republicrat intent on building a magical 2,000-mile long wall that can't be tunneled under, flown over, or simply gone around via any number of routes.
While annexation is a somewhat radical step I stand by my past pledges to be a benevolent tyrant that interferes with my subjects lives and current political arrangements as little as possible. But I'm prepared to act whenever stalemates are holding us back and this is such a situation.
Rationalization: While Mexico had no shortage of problems before becoming America's dealer, it's our appetite for drugs that created and fuels this industry and has made things in the entire hemisphere dramatically worse. They've been around as long as us, right next door, but somehow managed to remain a sorta/kinda third world country anyway. Which was fine. But since our appetite for party drugs has created the cartels to supply our demand, we owe it to them to make them part of the good ol' USA. Right?
Even the eventual, inevitable legalization of weed is proving to be a lengthy, tedious and expensive undertaking and no shortage of folks still stand in opposition, so, let's annex Mexico in the meantime. Long run, we should go all the way to the Panama canal -- baby steps.
Think about it. Mexico's southern border is only 540 miles long. We can continue Prohibition, but save some money and perhaps a few lives, all without shutting down the Drug Enforcement Industrial Complex too quickly, which would be a hit to the economy.
They've got oil. They have great food. They have access to two oceans just like us. They have warm winters. Imagine the ever growing horde of American geezers and geezerettes descending on Mexico every winter; snowbirds have money or they wouldn't be snowbirds. They would help the Mexican economy catch up with the rest of New America by flooding thecountry the new states with cash. They would also serve as cultural integrators for both formerly separate countries.
The world in general, and Mexico in particular, would pitch a bitch -- at first. But think about it. Did we, as in the world, do much more than bluster when Vlad the Bully took a bite out of Ukraine? Or when he jumped-in in Syria? "Not to worry Bashar, your brother bully's got your back baby!"
Talking point: The new millennial Czar is the same as an old school Tsar. America, on the other hand, sets people free and turns them into consumers.
Win -- win, baby.
Oh, I almost forgot, the healthcare mess that the Depublicans made worse and that the Republicrats don't seem to have a clue how to fix. If you click on my Links tab you'll find a short YouTube video that explains how Singapore solved the problem and provides cheaper and better healthcare than we do.
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.
I know one other thing as well. Odds are nothing will actually be done about either problem.
[Oh yeah smarty-pants, and what exactly would YOU do to fix...]
Forgive me for cutting you off imaginary gentlereader, but I know exactly what I'd do. And I will, when I become king.
First, the tax code. When I become king I will solve this with one simple decree. First, I'll abolish the current code and the IRS. This will create some unemployment in the Tax Compliance Industrial Complex sector but a king's gotta' do what a king's gotta' do, for his subjects as well as his realm. I would then reveal the exact percentage of my flat tax, a number that I would decide on based on a single, relatively brief meeting with my economic advisors after giving them a few days to fight among themselves.
There are no exemptions. Whatever you actually make will be multiplied by a given percentage, and that's what you will pay.
If, at the end of the first year of the new program (during which current programs will remain in force), if you have made less than an amount to be determined each year by my advisors and I that's determined by the state of the economy, you will get your money back, plus, a payment that will also be determined by me and my economic advisors. This lump sum will be just enough to meet certain minimal standards for getting by. You will have to budget so it lasts. If you get a raise, a better job, win the lottery, etc., in the course of the next year, good for you, it's still your money.
When you file your taxes the following year you won't be tossed off a cliff because you're doing better and hit an arbitrary number, your supplement will just be cut back accordingly. There will be a ceiling though, above which there is no more income supplementation. You'll be motivated to do as well as you can because you won't be able to live high on the hog via your supplement.
Big But...
How you spend money is up to you, but if you throw it away on recreational pharmaceuticals or ginormous televisions, that's your problem. WIC, food stamps, Section 8 housing, etc., all gone -- along with the gubmint or Gubmint employees that dole out the goodies if you kiss their butts and fill out all the right forms. You'll spend your dough, carefully, 'cause it's yours, in the free market. Nobody needs to know who's getting supplemented and who ain't. Everyone will know that no one that is will be living the high life, and will have to work just as hard as everyone else to get ahead.
The only further help available from your Gubmint will be an emergency plan that places you and yours in shelters run by a private, government-subsidized charities, or, will subsidize moving in with friends or family. If neither of these options sounds attractive, good, I'm sure you'll do all you can to get back on your feet as quickly as possible.
If you support kids you will receive a larger amount than a single person. However, your Gubmint will only help with up to two children per custodial parent. In other words, you can make all the babies you want -- if you're prepared to support them. However, you won't receive any additional money for having more kids than that. You will receive enough money to keep you and your kids fed, clothed and sheltered, but you won't get enough to live all that well. You had better give some thought to how you're going to support your kids before reproducing.
If you're born, or become, disabled, you will be taken care of, and we're going to redesign the safety net from scratch. If you're genuinely disabled (warning: subject to random verification) we will graciously provide a level of care that will be the envy of all those countries that also envy our unprecedented level of prosperity. We'll do all that we can to harness the power of the free market and the states will be encouraged to experiment to come up with what actually works without taking away people's dignity.
As to those of you that revel in your self-assigned role as a professional victim and/or those who make a living encouraging/creating such thinking -- Bonkercockie! This is America, we take care of our own, but we insist that everyone do what they can to take care of themselves, this is the price of freedom. And as your king, I would point out to those of you that don't think any of this is your problem, three things. You may be a sociopath. You may need help someday. Finally, one of these people you would ignore might someday jump out from behind a rock and gleefully cut your throat. Hunger makes people cranky.
As to our southern border, I'm going to order that Mexico be annexed to the USA. I hope our new citizens acquiesce willingly but I'm prepared to order an invasion if necessary. I know there would be casualties but who fights nicer, more politically correct wars than we do?
BAM! Just like that, most of our illegal immigrants, or undocumented aliens, or whatever we're calling them this week, turn out to just be people that were ahead of their time. Many of them for decades. Step two, round up the rest, a much more manageable task at this point, after we decide what we're going to do with them. Personally, I'd forgive anyone that did have a job and didn't have a criminal record, but I'll leave that up to the Congress. As I've mentioned in the past, I'll be a benevolent monarch. If Congress decides on mass deportations to satisfy the immigrationally righteous among us, so be it. I'm sure all of the innocent kids that will be affected by this will be fine, eventually.
Yes, I realize we also need to address our immigration policies as concerns the rest of the planet, and I'll get into that at a later date. Right now though, everyone's obsessed with the Mexican border particularly a certain follicly challenged Republicrat intent on building a magical 2,000-mile long wall that can't be tunneled under, flown over, or simply gone around via any number of routes.
While annexation is a somewhat radical step I stand by my past pledges to be a benevolent tyrant that interferes with my subjects lives and current political arrangements as little as possible. But I'm prepared to act whenever stalemates are holding us back and this is such a situation.
Rationalization: While Mexico had no shortage of problems before becoming America's dealer, it's our appetite for drugs that created and fuels this industry and has made things in the entire hemisphere dramatically worse. They've been around as long as us, right next door, but somehow managed to remain a sorta/kinda third world country anyway. Which was fine. But since our appetite for party drugs has created the cartels to supply our demand, we owe it to them to make them part of the good ol' USA. Right?
Even the eventual, inevitable legalization of weed is proving to be a lengthy, tedious and expensive undertaking and no shortage of folks still stand in opposition, so, let's annex Mexico in the meantime. Long run, we should go all the way to the Panama canal -- baby steps.
Think about it. Mexico's southern border is only 540 miles long. We can continue Prohibition, but save some money and perhaps a few lives, all without shutting down the Drug Enforcement Industrial Complex too quickly, which would be a hit to the economy.
They've got oil. They have great food. They have access to two oceans just like us. They have warm winters. Imagine the ever growing horde of American geezers and geezerettes descending on Mexico every winter; snowbirds have money or they wouldn't be snowbirds. They would help the Mexican economy catch up with the rest of New America by flooding the
The world in general, and Mexico in particular, would pitch a bitch -- at first. But think about it. Did we, as in the world, do much more than bluster when Vlad the Bully took a bite out of Ukraine? Or when he jumped-in in Syria? "Not to worry Bashar, your brother bully's got your back baby!"
Talking point: The new millennial Czar is the same as an old school Tsar. America, on the other hand, sets people free and turns them into consumers.
Win -- win, baby.
Oh, I almost forgot, the healthcare mess that the Depublicans made worse and that the Republicrats don't seem to have a clue how to fix. If you click on my Links tab you'll find a short YouTube video that explains how Singapore solved the problem and provides cheaper and better healthcare than we do.
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.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
That's Infotainment!
Or,
Notable & Quotable, Part 2
I'm so old that when I was a young callowyute I only had access to four TV stations. My city (Pittsburgh) had two rival newspapers of consequence. One published a morning edition, the other came out in the late afternoon.
At one point in my life, I found myself working as a newspaper
Where was I... Oh, yeah, a callowyute growing up in Pittsburgh, a callowburgher. Like many of my fellow baby boomers, I was raised in front of a TV set. If you're a member of one of the three generations that have come along since I was a kid (dang I'm old) the answer to your obvious question is, yes. Yes, our parents were quite concerned that this idiot box, this talking lamp that always seemed to be on if the kids were home, was going to turn us all into, well, idiots. There's some ammunition for callowyutes to use when you're arguing with the old farts in your life about your smartphone addiction (you're welcome).
While newspapers were still quite popular, particularly among our clueless grups, those hoopleheads that thought they were cool just because they survived the Great Depression, won WW 2, and saved the world, we boomers (and many of our parents) tended to get our news from the tube. "Now your daddy's in the den shootin' up the evening news." Jackson Browne, from the song "Red Neck Friend."
The four TV channels referenced above were the local outlets of PBS, NBC, ABC, and CBS. PBS didn't begin directly competing with the three commercial networks via a nightly news format, the one I and many of my fellow boomers relied on, until 1975. By then I was going through my hippie with a job phase and preferred to get my news from Rolling Stone and "underground" news sources. You don't want to know. Suffice it to say, the PBS version of the news had little impact on my yute. The big three traditional broadcast networks, however, were a different story.
Back in the dark ages everyone that watched TV watched the local affiliate of the big three networks mentioned above. Newspapers aside, the evening news, local and national, was a cultural touchstone. When I was 10 years old, in 1963, the national news broadcasts were dramatically expanded -- from 15 minutes to 30. While there was less time back then given over to commercials, obviously this was not a lot of time. News anchors, paragons of gravitas one and all, were limited to covering what were regarded as the most important news stories of the day. If a nationally known celebrity were to drop dead or be indicted, this would dutifully be mentioned. Whom they were currently dating and/or their problems with drugs and alcohol, would not.
With the exception of the rare earth shaking event or crisis that generated a, "We interrupt this broadcast..." you might not hear any additional national news for 24 hours. There were exceptions of course. Your town might have a decent newspaper that came out the next morning. You might listen to a local radio station that provided some (usually quite limited) national news.
The news anchors referenced above professed to subscribe to mainstream journalistic ethics. In practice, this meant, among other things, that they were supposed to try and draw strict lines between fact and opinion. Though we're now told that they allowed their biases to shape the news more than we ever knew, or they acknowledged (books have been written), that's how it was supposed to work.
"Information turnover is often more important than information content." Robert Greenberg. I've taken Mr. Greenberg's quote completely out of context. He was referring to a change in philosophy by composers of classical music in the early twentieth century. I told you I was your dilettante about town. However, the moment I heard it I knew I was going to use it in reference to how the news media operates in the new millennium.
Permit me to deploy some pseudo-journalistic ethics at this point and mention that Dr. Greenberg's quote is from a Teaching Company (you should Google that name) course he put together called, "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music." Full disclosure: Lest I sound even nerdier than I am my main take away from his efforts is to now understand why I don't actually care for most classical music, particularly opera.
"Information turnover is often more important than information content."
A seemingly endless commercial break (SECB), then, CLANG! Fox News Alert: The recording artist Prince, formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince is dead at 57! Blah, blah. Another SECB. CLANG! Fox News Alert: Donald Trump just said something really ignorant in a really ignorant way! Blah, blah. Another SECB. CLANG! The Gubmint has threatened to stop giving the gubmint of North Carolina its fair share of the money they take from people that don't work for The Gubmint and who actually create value (profits) if North Carolina won't permit men who think they are women (and vice versa) to poop where they please and shower where they feel safe...
You pick up the clicker and go to CNN. You arrive in the middle of an SECB. "Welcome back, we will now continue the discussion between two party hacks, CNN contributors, whom we pay to promote the people and positions they are paid to promote by their respective political parties.
"You suck sweaty socks!"
"No, you suck sweaty socks!"
Back to 1963. Not only was the nation somehow able to get by with a half an hour of nationally broadcast national news, TV stations usually went off the air after The Tonight Show, it's current competitor or an old movie the third local station picked up on the cheap. It was standard practice to play the Star Spangled Banner while showing patriotically themed footage and then saying goodnight.
[Aside: The Tonight Show regularly featured interviews with the authors of actual books who were witty, intelligent and often controversial, thought-provoking figures. Occasionally, famous classical musicians performed. Most people took Sunday off, some of them actually read the books they heard about on the Tonight Show. Just sayin'.]
I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal (online version only) because I'm
I'll read the dead trees version every morning, the one that I might pick up again later in the day knowing that none of the content has vanished or been updated. I'll absolutely revel in the delicious delusion that I have a clue as to what's going on in the world.
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.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Due to Technical Difficulties
I don't know what happened, but it was probably something I did.
Saturday night, 4.30.16, 11:07 p.m.
After some last minute tweaking, I clicked on the Publish button. My dashboard duly noted that my column was no longer a draft. As always, I clicked on my View Blog button to make sure the new column was actually there. It wasn't. First time this ever happened.
Mild panic ensued. I may not have a huge readership, well, not yet (GRIN), but I take this very seriously for some reason. I mean, well, technically speaking, there are 7.4 billion potential readers out there since the internet is more or less everywhere.
It would probably be tacky if I were to point out at this juncture that if you like my stuff you obviously should being trying harder to get the word out, so I won't mention it.
I have promised a new column every week, and I wouldn't want to embarrass myself, my freakishly large household, especially The Stickies (my grandkids), and of course my fellow Mehlmauers (present and former).
Anyway, the column turned up as though it had been published on 3.16.16, the date of a very rough draft.
The bottom line is I've no idea if the rough draft was published, on a Wednesday, and if either no one noticed or said anything, or what happened. It took awhile, but I found it and I fixed it.
Anyway.
I have a group of folks that check in on Saturday nights just after 11:07 EST to catch my latest column. If you happened to be one of 'em I apologize. The rumor that I had been picked by the Secret Political Correctness Task Force, and briefly detained and threatened, is not true.
Have an OK day.
P.S. Well, at least I think it's not true. See, last Thursday night, 4.28, at about 11:00 P.M., my site was accessed over 200 times, from Israel. Yes, that Israel. I've no idea by whom, or why. Betwixt that never before experienced phenomenon and my recent and unexplained difficulties, I'm a little jumpy.
P.P.S. Please scroll down to view this week's column, Notable & Quotable.
Saturday night, 4.30.16, 11:07 p.m.
After some last minute tweaking, I clicked on the Publish button. My dashboard duly noted that my column was no longer a draft. As always, I clicked on my View Blog button to make sure the new column was actually there. It wasn't. First time this ever happened.
Mild panic ensued. I may not have a huge readership, well, not yet (GRIN), but I take this very seriously for some reason. I mean, well, technically speaking, there are 7.4 billion potential readers out there since the internet is more or less everywhere.
It would probably be tacky if I were to point out at this juncture that if you like my stuff you obviously should being trying harder to get the word out, so I won't mention it.
I have promised a new column every week, and I wouldn't want to embarrass myself, my freakishly large household, especially The Stickies (my grandkids), and of course my fellow Mehlmauers (present and former).
Anyway, the column turned up as though it had been published on 3.16.16, the date of a very rough draft.
The bottom line is I've no idea if the rough draft was published, on a Wednesday, and if either no one noticed or said anything, or what happened. It took awhile, but I found it and I fixed it.
Anyway.
I have a group of folks that check in on Saturday nights just after 11:07 EST to catch my latest column. If you happened to be one of 'em I apologize. The rumor that I had been picked by the Secret Political Correctness Task Force, and briefly detained and threatened, is not true.
Have an OK day.
P.S. Well, at least I think it's not true. See, last Thursday night, 4.28, at about 11:00 P.M., my site was accessed over 200 times, from Israel. Yes, that Israel. I've no idea by whom, or why. Betwixt that never before experienced phenomenon and my recent and unexplained difficulties, I'm a little jumpy.
P.P.S. Please scroll down to view this week's column, Notable & Quotable.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Notable & Quotable
The Venerable Wall Street Journal has a feature that appears on their editorial pages, dead trees as well as digital editions, called Notable & Quotable. It's exactly what it sounds like. A quotation from someone or something that's worth noting. A given quote, presented without comment, often serves to lampoon the source of the quote, which may be from a report or document of some sort, not necessarily a particular individual. Being a smarty-pants, by nature and by nurture, as well as a lover of mordancy, I thoroughly enjoy that particular angle.
However, the quote that follows, which is a quote of a quote that they recently quoted, is neither inspirational or mordant or something in between. It's a comment on the downside of life in the information age.
"The vast accumulations of knowledge—or at least of information—deposited by the nineteenth century have been responsible for an equally vast ignorance. When there is so much to be known, when there are so many fields of knowledge in which the same words are used with different meanings, when everyone knows a little about a great many things, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to know whether he knows what he is talking about or not. And when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts."
Notice the phrase nineteenth century. This quote is from an essay entitled The Perfect Critic, written by T.S. Elliot -- in 1920 -- and refers to the numerous advances in knowledge made in the 1800s. Fast forward nearly a century and change the word nineteenth to twentieth and it still works. At this point I'm tempted to place another quote, "The more things change, the more they stay the same," the English translation (as everybody knows, GRIN) of an epigram penned by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (now that's a cool name dude). But that's too easy, obvious and cliched, so I won't.
The quotation in question begs a question. If Mr. Elliot is right, and he is, now more than ever, what should I/we/you do about it?
[I don't know if I can, or should, do something about it, says my imaginary gentlereader, after all, my life is complicated enough without...]
Read it again, please. It's only 99 words. Note the last sentence. "And when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts."
Or, GFBL -- gut first, brain later -- is triggered. I coined this phrase a while back and promised to expand on it at some future date, but never got around to it. It needs an entire column, but for now, I'm just going to repeat my original grossly oversimplified explanation. Science confirms that under most circumstances we react emotionally first, rationally later. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, would add that in fact, often what we think of as being rational is just rationalizing our not necessarily optimal, sometimes downright goofy emotional behavior.
From Final Jeopardy, Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything by Steven Baker, "...Daniel Kahneman of Princeton redefined these cognitive processes as System 1 and System 2. The intuitive System 1 appeared to represent a primitive part of the mind, perhaps dating from before...our tool-making Cro-Magnon ancestors forty thousand years ago. Its embedded rules, with their biases toward the familiar, steered peopled toward their most basic goals: survival and reproduction. System 2, which appeared to arrive later, involved conscious and deliberate analysis and was far slower."
Or, it's perfectly normal, when confronted with the deluge of data available via the click of a mouse or a tap on a touchscreen, to feel like you're drowning and just go with your gut. Or grab your, um, well, I'll leave that up to you, and jump. Or, just turn the dang thing off and go take a _____ break.
[Okeydoke, but I still...]
...Need to be aware, I would gently suggest, of informational overload in order to improve your chances of not being a victim of your own emotions. This will serve to also dramatically reduce the possibility of walking in front of a bus while hypnotized by your smartphone and going viral on Youtube via some other jokers smartphone.
Now, how, or even if, you try to accomplish this, is up to you. Perhaps you're a happy camper, a world-class multi-tasker, a type A that loves the frantic pace of the culture. A culture that's fragmented, and continues to fragment, into seemingly endless subcultures. Good on ya'! Take care.
However, if you're like me, and often feel like you're smothering from informational overload, may I make a suggestion? Seek out a news source that you trust, one that has the resources, and the integrity, to tell you what's really going on in the world. I'm talking straight news and informed opinion that's clearly labeled opinion, and that strives to maintain a "Chinese wall" between the two.
What we have is mostly infotainment. And it occurs to me it's going to take an entire column to explain what I mean by the term, and why I have a big problem with the phenomenon. An edited stream of consciousness gets ugly sometimes. See, what follows is an homage to the Wall Street Journal and I'm very happy with it and loath to change it. So, forgive me gentlereaders, if I've placed the cart before the horse. Infotainment will be the subject of next week's column.
Which brings us to why I love the Wall Street Journal. If you've read what can be found by clicking on the Just Who Is This Guy Anyway tab of The Flyoverland Crank you know that I call the WSJ my paper of record. If you're not familiar with the WSJ, there's a good chance it's not what you might think. Obviously, I have no way of knowing exactly what that might be, but I've encountered numerous folks over the years that are certain it's the boring, stodgy, house organ of corporate weenie, country club, crony capitalist, evil 1% Depublicans -- which it ain't.
[Being a current events junkie and your DAT (dilettante about town) I read all sorts of things, on a daily basis. But if I were to be tossed into Politically Correct Prison (which seems inevitable) by a kindly judge that decreed I could have access to one source of current events, it would the WSJ.]
What it is, is a newspaper that's been around for a very long time with very high standards. While it's editorial policy, self-described as "free people, free markets," is unashamedly center-right (many of its detractors would say far-right) this policy is restricted to its editorial pages which take up three full pages of the high priced dead trees edition. The rest of the content is well written and objective as possible. This was what I was taught a good newspaper was supposed to be when I went to school in the dark ages.
There's a catch though. I was taught that newspaper articles are written so that a 12-year-old can understand them. The WSJ assumes its readers are a bit more mature and intelligent than that. I have 39 certifiable college credits and even I have to sometimes intellectually stretch to fully understand a given article or editorial. And speaking of the editorial pages again (sorry, it's my favorite part of the publication) there's an intelligent, well spoken, token liberal with a weekly column. Also, nationally and internationally known progressives are regularly given space.
It's not cheap, but the online edition ain't too bad. Considering the quality, it's worth every penny. The thing I like about a dead trees newspaper is that for 24 hours or so it helps me foster the illusion I have a clue. Online editions of national, and many local papers, are different every time you take a look. More on why that's not necessarily a good thing next week.
Have an OK day.
[P.S. Gentlereaders, I've experimented and will continue to experiment with various formats, column lengths, and the like. While my primary motivation was/is developing my writing style, I've always given (minimal) consideration to what I thought a potential publisher and/or advertiser might want to see.
One of the reasons I don't run ads on my website anymore is the fact I've decided to just let the column happen and go where it (and Marie-Louise) wishes it to go.
If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth sharing and/or worth a buck or three, fine. If not, so be it.]
©2015 Mark Mehlmauer (The Flyoverland Crank)
If you're reading this on my website (there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other shtuff there) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) or share -- please scroll down.
However, the quote that follows, which is a quote of a quote that they recently quoted, is neither inspirational or mordant or something in between. It's a comment on the downside of life in the information age.
"The vast accumulations of knowledge—or at least of information—deposited by the nineteenth century have been responsible for an equally vast ignorance. When there is so much to be known, when there are so many fields of knowledge in which the same words are used with different meanings, when everyone knows a little about a great many things, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to know whether he knows what he is talking about or not. And when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts."
Notice the phrase nineteenth century. This quote is from an essay entitled The Perfect Critic, written by T.S. Elliot -- in 1920 -- and refers to the numerous advances in knowledge made in the 1800s. Fast forward nearly a century and change the word nineteenth to twentieth and it still works. At this point I'm tempted to place another quote, "The more things change, the more they stay the same," the English translation (as everybody knows, GRIN) of an epigram penned by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (now that's a cool name dude). But that's too easy, obvious and cliched, so I won't.
The quotation in question begs a question. If Mr. Elliot is right, and he is, now more than ever, what should I/we/you do about it?
[I don't know if I can, or should, do something about it, says my imaginary gentlereader, after all, my life is complicated enough without...]
Read it again, please. It's only 99 words. Note the last sentence. "And when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts."
Or, GFBL -- gut first, brain later -- is triggered. I coined this phrase a while back and promised to expand on it at some future date, but never got around to it. It needs an entire column, but for now, I'm just going to repeat my original grossly oversimplified explanation. Science confirms that under most circumstances we react emotionally first, rationally later. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, would add that in fact, often what we think of as being rational is just rationalizing our not necessarily optimal, sometimes downright goofy emotional behavior.
From Final Jeopardy, Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything by Steven Baker, "...Daniel Kahneman of Princeton redefined these cognitive processes as System 1 and System 2. The intuitive System 1 appeared to represent a primitive part of the mind, perhaps dating from before...our tool-making Cro-Magnon ancestors forty thousand years ago. Its embedded rules, with their biases toward the familiar, steered peopled toward their most basic goals: survival and reproduction. System 2, which appeared to arrive later, involved conscious and deliberate analysis and was far slower."
Or, it's perfectly normal, when confronted with the deluge of data available via the click of a mouse or a tap on a touchscreen, to feel like you're drowning and just go with your gut. Or grab your, um, well, I'll leave that up to you, and jump. Or, just turn the dang thing off and go take a _____ break.
[Okeydoke, but I still...]
...Need to be aware, I would gently suggest, of informational overload in order to improve your chances of not being a victim of your own emotions. This will serve to also dramatically reduce the possibility of walking in front of a bus while hypnotized by your smartphone and going viral on Youtube via some other jokers smartphone.
Now, how, or even if, you try to accomplish this, is up to you. Perhaps you're a happy camper, a world-class multi-tasker, a type A that loves the frantic pace of the culture. A culture that's fragmented, and continues to fragment, into seemingly endless subcultures. Good on ya'! Take care.
However, if you're like me, and often feel like you're smothering from informational overload, may I make a suggestion? Seek out a news source that you trust, one that has the resources, and the integrity, to tell you what's really going on in the world. I'm talking straight news and informed opinion that's clearly labeled opinion, and that strives to maintain a "Chinese wall" between the two.
What we have is mostly infotainment. And it occurs to me it's going to take an entire column to explain what I mean by the term, and why I have a big problem with the phenomenon. An edited stream of consciousness gets ugly sometimes. See, what follows is an homage to the Wall Street Journal and I'm very happy with it and loath to change it. So, forgive me gentlereaders, if I've placed the cart before the horse. Infotainment will be the subject of next week's column.
Which brings us to why I love the Wall Street Journal. If you've read what can be found by clicking on the Just Who Is This Guy Anyway tab of The Flyoverland Crank you know that I call the WSJ my paper of record. If you're not familiar with the WSJ, there's a good chance it's not what you might think. Obviously, I have no way of knowing exactly what that might be, but I've encountered numerous folks over the years that are certain it's the boring, stodgy, house organ of corporate weenie, country club, crony capitalist, evil 1% Depublicans -- which it ain't.
[Being a current events junkie and your DAT (dilettante about town) I read all sorts of things, on a daily basis. But if I were to be tossed into Politically Correct Prison (which seems inevitable) by a kindly judge that decreed I could have access to one source of current events, it would the WSJ.]
What it is, is a newspaper that's been around for a very long time with very high standards. While it's editorial policy, self-described as "free people, free markets," is unashamedly center-right (many of its detractors would say far-right) this policy is restricted to its editorial pages which take up three full pages of the high priced dead trees edition. The rest of the content is well written and objective as possible. This was what I was taught a good newspaper was supposed to be when I went to school in the dark ages.
There's a catch though. I was taught that newspaper articles are written so that a 12-year-old can understand them. The WSJ assumes its readers are a bit more mature and intelligent than that. I have 39 certifiable college credits and even I have to sometimes intellectually stretch to fully understand a given article or editorial. And speaking of the editorial pages again (sorry, it's my favorite part of the publication) there's an intelligent, well spoken, token liberal with a weekly column. Also, nationally and internationally known progressives are regularly given space.
It's not cheap, but the online edition ain't too bad. Considering the quality, it's worth every penny. The thing I like about a dead trees newspaper is that for 24 hours or so it helps me foster the illusion I have a clue. Online editions of national, and many local papers, are different every time you take a look. More on why that's not necessarily a good thing next week.
Have an OK day.
[P.S. Gentlereaders, I've experimented and will continue to experiment with various formats, column lengths, and the like. While my primary motivation was/is developing my writing style, I've always given (minimal) consideration to what I thought a potential publisher and/or advertiser might want to see.
One of the reasons I don't run ads on my website anymore is the fact I've decided to just let the column happen and go where it (and Marie-Louise) wishes it to go.
If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth sharing and/or worth a buck or three, fine. If not, so be it.]
©2015 Mark Mehlmauer (The Flyoverland Crank)
If you're reading this on my website (there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other shtuff there) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) or share -- please scroll down.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
The Bathroom Bill
For the record, I didn't care if a particular person was gay before it was cool to not care if a particular person was gay. In fact, I had a gay roommate, who was also a good friend, for a couple of years in the late 70s. I still take great pride in the fact that when he and I and some other gay friends were hanging out one day, that they told me I was one of the most well-adjusted heterosexual males they knew.
This puzzled me. At the time, I was not on the short-list of nominees for the stud of the year award. Actually, never have been, never will be, particularly now that I'm over a thousand years old. A huge head, a lazy eye, my mom's nose (cute on her, not so much on me) and the odd trait, for a male, of preferring to copulate with females I'm at least deeply in like with, is not the definition of studly. Perhaps this is why I've always suspected I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body.
[Irony Alert: The lesbian trapped in a man's body line, which I've used for years, is meant to be a non-sequitur. Humorous in that I thought it made no sense, while also poking fun at the parade of Bigfeets prepared to present themselves for our (well, not mine, sniff) entertainment on numerous television shows. Turns out, it's a thing. I guess I should apologize.]
Anyway, this puzzled me because, callowyute that I was at the time, I jumped to the wrong conclusion. In spite of the fact I was a bit picky, I was as obsessed with sex as much as the typical male of the species. I was going through a dry spell and like most single male callowyutes I thought there was a scorecard on my forehead that clearly indicated I was no threat to anyone's daughters. If I'm so well adjusted, where's all the wimmin?
[Irony alert, No. 2: The word wimmin in the previous sentence was used as a subtle tribute to the immortal Popeye. A quick bit of research (don't ask, it's just the way I am) revealed to me that it's a thing too. Turns out that there are feminists that prefer the word wimmim to the word women. They also prefer using womban, or womon, instead of woman. As Popeye once said, "Wimmim is a myskery."]
Further conversation revealed that I had missed the point entirely. What they were referring to was that apparently there are a lot more bi-curious and/or confused men at large in the world than I was aware of. This phenomenon was the source of my comfortably and unapologetically gay acquaintances having had no shortage of dramatic/baffling/hilarious/embarrassing encounters in their quest for love, be it tawdry or spiritual in nature. They were just saying that they appreciated that I knew what I was about, that I knew where I was coming from.
[My imagined gentlereader speaks. Wow, you rock dude! Please, tell us more about how frosty and well adjusted you are. If the rest of this column is going to be more of the same I'm going to call my dentist's office to see if they've had any cancellations today, I need to get my teeth cleaned. Marie-Louise is hip cocked and head tilted, left eyebrow raised in skepticism.]
Sheesh. I was just establishing my bona fides before discussing the kerfuffle concerning the considerable controversy generated by a law recently passed by the state legislature of North Carolina. House Bill 2, or, the Bathroom Bill.
The bill sez that local municipalities can't pass their own laws regulating wages, employment and
"public accommodations."
The LBGTIQ -- lesbian, bisexual, gay, transsexual, intersex, and queer or questioning community -- is up in arms. I shall take the high road and refrain from making any comments on the acronym in question, with the exception of one cheap joke. I'll bet they have more interesting parties in that community that I do in mine.
Now, while North Carolina does have a state law on the books that forbids discrimination, it doesn't contain specific protections for those groups listed in the previous paragraph. Also, House Bill 2 requires that multi-occupancy restrooms, changing rooms, locker rooms, etc., in public schools and government buildings are to be used by folks based on the biological sex listed on their birth certificates. Multi-occupancy? Yup, it's OK for public institutions to offer restrooms that can be used by anyone, one soul at a time.
Before we move on, some more cheap jokes. What about aliens, from other planets I mean? They do walk among us after all. Who enforces the rules? Will North Carolina be forced to create a Department of Genitalia Certification?
As to the worry that those folks who identify themselves as a member of one of the groups delineated by the acronym in question having to endure endless discrimination unless they are specifically protected by law, I'm sorry, but as you may have heard elsewhere, life is not fair.
I'm not advocating that it's OK to discriminate against anyone, or any group, in particular. However, I would point out that everyone discriminates. Sometimes it makes sense. For example, I freely admit that I go out of my way to avoid dealing with drunks and drug addicts if at all possible.
Sometimes it makes no sense whatsoever. There's no shortage of folks that automatically hate someone because of the color of their skin or whom they copulate with. Which is just goofy. But if I thought you were one of these goofy people, I'd avoid you too. I might even choose to not hire you for a job you're otherwise eminently qualified for. I may choose not to rent you an apartment. I might decide to discriminate against you.
However, being slightly smarter than I look, I'd never admit to my reasons if I thought it might cause me legal problems, or even just an awkward conversation. I'd just pick someone else and have a bulletproof cover story prepared. I'm guessing most people would, and do, the same thing.
I know for a fact that I've been repeatedly discriminated against because I'm chronologically (slightly) over 50, even though in reality, I am, and always will be, 39. Not once was the evil perpetrator dumb enough to say it was because they thought I was too old. Well, except for a certain hottie that works at my favorite convenience store, but I see her point.
My point is that all the legislation in the world won't make anyone actually accept anyone. But it will generate lots of work for lawyers and bureaucrats. Be kind, be rational, be dependable, pay your own way, do your job, be a good spouse, show a little style, do the right thing, set a good example, et cetera. Many people will accept you as you are, many will not -- get over it and get on with it.
As to which restroom you should use, well, let me put it this way. Even though I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body, when out and about in the world, I wear men's clothing and use the men's room when nature calls. I confess to being hopelessly old-fashioned in that I support the genitalia rule.
I could care less which letter of the acronym you identify with. I could care less about what you get up to behind closed doors, as long a no one's getting hurt unless they want to. But I would remind you that you share the playground with other kids. I would remind you acceptance won't come by insisting that anything goes and everything must be tolerated.
I'm not worried that you're going to molest my grandkids, but I am worried that there's no shortage of infidels out there that would if given the chance. I am worried that discretion, modesty, and consideration of others people's sensibilities are considered to be quaint notions.
You're a little weird, you don't fit in, but you're comfortable in your own skin? Fine. Me too. Personally, I don't care if I'm accepted and approved of. And I don't go out of my way to make people uncomfortable. Just the opposite. I mind my own, try to show a little class, follow a personal code of moral and ethical rules that are hard to live up to and try to remember that the sermon/speech/column/screed lived is the best way to effect change.
And I would ask Bruce Springsteen, a gazillionaire poster child of limousine liberals, do you actually believe that canceling a concert and depriving restaurant servers, parking lot attendants, the venues janitors, et cetera, of the money they didn't make that day served any purpose beyond polishing your halo?
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 201
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.
This puzzled me. At the time, I was not on the short-list of nominees for the stud of the year award. Actually, never have been, never will be, particularly now that I'm over a thousand years old. A huge head, a lazy eye, my mom's nose (cute on her, not so much on me) and the odd trait, for a male, of preferring to copulate with females I'm at least deeply in like with, is not the definition of studly. Perhaps this is why I've always suspected I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body.
[Irony Alert: The lesbian trapped in a man's body line, which I've used for years, is meant to be a non-sequitur. Humorous in that I thought it made no sense, while also poking fun at the parade of Bigfeets prepared to present themselves for our (well, not mine, sniff) entertainment on numerous television shows. Turns out, it's a thing. I guess I should apologize.]
Anyway, this puzzled me because, callowyute that I was at the time, I jumped to the wrong conclusion. In spite of the fact I was a bit picky, I was as obsessed with sex as much as the typical male of the species. I was going through a dry spell and like most single male callowyutes I thought there was a scorecard on my forehead that clearly indicated I was no threat to anyone's daughters. If I'm so well adjusted, where's all the wimmin?
[Irony alert, No. 2: The word wimmin in the previous sentence was used as a subtle tribute to the immortal Popeye. A quick bit of research (don't ask, it's just the way I am) revealed to me that it's a thing too. Turns out that there are feminists that prefer the word wimmim to the word women. They also prefer using womban, or womon, instead of woman. As Popeye once said, "Wimmim is a myskery."]
Further conversation revealed that I had missed the point entirely. What they were referring to was that apparently there are a lot more bi-curious and/or confused men at large in the world than I was aware of. This phenomenon was the source of my comfortably and unapologetically gay acquaintances having had no shortage of dramatic/baffling/hilarious/embarrassing encounters in their quest for love, be it tawdry or spiritual in nature. They were just saying that they appreciated that I knew what I was about, that I knew where I was coming from.
[My imagined gentlereader speaks. Wow, you rock dude! Please, tell us more about how frosty and well adjusted you are. If the rest of this column is going to be more of the same I'm going to call my dentist's office to see if they've had any cancellations today, I need to get my teeth cleaned. Marie-Louise is hip cocked and head tilted, left eyebrow raised in skepticism.]
Sheesh. I was just establishing my bona fides before discussing the kerfuffle concerning the considerable controversy generated by a law recently passed by the state legislature of North Carolina. House Bill 2, or, the Bathroom Bill.
The bill sez that local municipalities can't pass their own laws regulating wages, employment and
"public accommodations."
The LBGTIQ -- lesbian, bisexual, gay, transsexual, intersex, and queer or questioning community -- is up in arms. I shall take the high road and refrain from making any comments on the acronym in question, with the exception of one cheap joke. I'll bet they have more interesting parties in that community that I do in mine.
Now, while North Carolina does have a state law on the books that forbids discrimination, it doesn't contain specific protections for those groups listed in the previous paragraph. Also, House Bill 2 requires that multi-occupancy restrooms, changing rooms, locker rooms, etc., in public schools and government buildings are to be used by folks based on the biological sex listed on their birth certificates. Multi-occupancy? Yup, it's OK for public institutions to offer restrooms that can be used by anyone, one soul at a time.
Before we move on, some more cheap jokes. What about aliens, from other planets I mean? They do walk among us after all. Who enforces the rules? Will North Carolina be forced to create a Department of Genitalia Certification?
As to the worry that those folks who identify themselves as a member of one of the groups delineated by the acronym in question having to endure endless discrimination unless they are specifically protected by law, I'm sorry, but as you may have heard elsewhere, life is not fair.
I'm not advocating that it's OK to discriminate against anyone, or any group, in particular. However, I would point out that everyone discriminates. Sometimes it makes sense. For example, I freely admit that I go out of my way to avoid dealing with drunks and drug addicts if at all possible.
Sometimes it makes no sense whatsoever. There's no shortage of folks that automatically hate someone because of the color of their skin or whom they copulate with. Which is just goofy. But if I thought you were one of these goofy people, I'd avoid you too. I might even choose to not hire you for a job you're otherwise eminently qualified for. I may choose not to rent you an apartment. I might decide to discriminate against you.
However, being slightly smarter than I look, I'd never admit to my reasons if I thought it might cause me legal problems, or even just an awkward conversation. I'd just pick someone else and have a bulletproof cover story prepared. I'm guessing most people would, and do, the same thing.
I know for a fact that I've been repeatedly discriminated against because I'm chronologically (slightly) over 50, even though in reality, I am, and always will be, 39. Not once was the evil perpetrator dumb enough to say it was because they thought I was too old. Well, except for a certain hottie that works at my favorite convenience store, but I see her point.
My point is that all the legislation in the world won't make anyone actually accept anyone. But it will generate lots of work for lawyers and bureaucrats. Be kind, be rational, be dependable, pay your own way, do your job, be a good spouse, show a little style, do the right thing, set a good example, et cetera. Many people will accept you as you are, many will not -- get over it and get on with it.
As to which restroom you should use, well, let me put it this way. Even though I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body, when out and about in the world, I wear men's clothing and use the men's room when nature calls. I confess to being hopelessly old-fashioned in that I support the genitalia rule.
I could care less which letter of the acronym you identify with. I could care less about what you get up to behind closed doors, as long a no one's getting hurt unless they want to. But I would remind you that you share the playground with other kids. I would remind you acceptance won't come by insisting that anything goes and everything must be tolerated.
I'm not worried that you're going to molest my grandkids, but I am worried that there's no shortage of infidels out there that would if given the chance. I am worried that discretion, modesty, and consideration of others people's sensibilities are considered to be quaint notions.
You're a little weird, you don't fit in, but you're comfortable in your own skin? Fine. Me too. Personally, I don't care if I'm accepted and approved of. And I don't go out of my way to make people uncomfortable. Just the opposite. I mind my own, try to show a little class, follow a personal code of moral and ethical rules that are hard to live up to and try to remember that the sermon/speech/column/screed lived is the best way to effect change.
And I would ask Bruce Springsteen, a gazillionaire poster child of limousine liberals, do you actually believe that canceling a concert and depriving restaurant servers, parking lot attendants, the venues janitors, et cetera, of the money they didn't make that day served any purpose beyond polishing your halo?
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 201
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.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Immigration
Let me admit up front that I'm soft on illegal Mexican immigration (IMI) or, if you prefer, _______.
I think that any illegal immigrant convicted of a crime should be punished and deported, but someone needs to tell the Donald that statistically speaking, immigrants of all sorts are less likely to commit a crime than the native born. Were I in the country illegally I'd be a model, low profile guest, for obvious reasons.
The blank space at the end of the first sentence is provided for those of you that prefer a more politically correct term. It's tough keeping up with politically correct terms. They seem to evolve and adapt even faster than the super cooties regularly featured in apocalyptic news stories. You know, the ones that we're constantly being told could fuel the first world-class pandemic of the new millennium? It would probably be wrong to develop this analogy further and compare the snowflakes obsessed with politically correct terminology to the rats that carried the fleas that caused the Black Death, so I won't. Anyway, I've already drifted off topic.
IMI's, or more properly, IHI's (illegal Hispanic immigrants), because these folks, particularly lately, often are from countries located south of Mexico (which incidentally is the title of my next album) have my sympathy because I can easily construct alternate realities with my powerful reality distortion field. In my head, smartypants, in my head -- I know they're not real.
Premise of my reality distortion: Canada is to the US as the US is to points south. Say that in spite of our northern neighbor's abominable climate they were the most prosperous (so far...) and freest (well...) country in the world and our situation is roughly equivalent to Mexico and points south. What would life in these United States be like?
Insert sound of harp strings being strummed while image on screen goes all wavy, here.
The Gubmint and the gubmints of our reality distorted USA would be world famous for, and have a long history of, good old fashion third world corruption. Bribery at every level would be considered a cost of doing business, the lubricant that keeps the wheels of commerce and gubmint turning. John and Jane Doe would live in a world where the playing fields are rarely level. Everybody pays to play.
[Aside: I'll bet a bottle of pop, a Mexican Coke made with real sugar (it really does taste better), that Juan and Juana Garcia would enthusiastically trade their current situation for the current situation of our abused and downtrodden 99%. "I just hate my new iPhone, I wonder if I can get out of my contract... aw, geez, the barista screwed up my coffee, again!"]
Reality distorted Canada would not be all that different than the real Canada. It would have a much larger economy and may or may not have real Canada's socialized healthcare system. But other than that, it probably wouldn't be much different than it is now. It also wouldn't be much different than the real USA...
Carter and Emma Smithe, of the Toronto Smithes, don't party like they did when they were still in school, in fact, what with careers and kids and all, a second glass of beer (Carter) or wine (Emma) at dinner is about as twisted as they're likely to get these days. But once in a great while, they stash the kids somewhere safe for the weekend and get a room with a jacuzzi. Carter (weed) or Emma (blow, the munchies make you fat) might even indulge in some recreational pharmaceuticals. It's not as if they go out of their way to score, but occasionally Bachus tosses a treat in their direction... See what I mean?
But the reality distorted America, the pay to play America mentioned above, a third worldish version of America, would suck sweaty socks. Carter and Emma's occasional dabbles with drugs, not to mention the needs of their fellow Canadians that are more enthusiastic consumers of legally prohibited substances, would be a nightmare for John and Jane Doe. That's because they just happen to hail from Anyfreakintownnearthenorthernborder, USA.
Real Canada took a pass when real America tried banning alcohol. Things didn't work out very well in real America but real Canada couldn't manufacture and sell booze fast enough. Gubmints will be gubmints however and both real America and real Canada, after evaluating the lessons of Prohibition both decided to prohibit recreational pharmaceuticals anyway.
So,in Juan and Juana Garcia in John and Jane Doe's reality distorted version of the USA, the drug cartels that so efficiently supply recreational pharmaceuticals to reality distorted Canada for fun and profit, ensure John and Jane will lead, um, interesting lives. This is the unpleasant side effect of criminal organizations that make so much money they can corrupt a given culture at every level.
John and Jane both work in the energy sector. He's a roughneck working in the oil/natural gas fields and she's a low-level secretary. Before you accuse me of being a sexist, remember this is an America that's been reality distorted to mirror real Mexico. Real Mexico is an unabashedly mucho-macho place. John would prefer that she stay home with their five kids (they are good, traditional Catholics) but they need the money. John doesn't make all that much money because the Gubmint runs the nationalized energy sector and you don't make good money without knowing the right people. He wouldn't have a job at all if he didn't know some of the right people.
John and Jane are worried and scared. The cartels have made everything worse. Innocent bystanders are regularly killed. Reporters that tell the truth are regularly killed. The cops are more or less owned by the cartels. John and Jane have a teenage son that has bling bedecked buddies with lots of girlfriends who have offered to introduce him to their version of the right people. One of his gorgeous daughters has caught the eye of a local thug.
A good friend of John and Jane, who has known them both since they were kids, is quite aware of their situation because they have stayed in touch over the years. He's a newly minted citizen of our reality distorted Canada. His rich, well-connected parents sent him to college there to become a petroleum engineer knowing that if he did well and got a job offer or two he'd be provided with a path that could eventually lead to citizenship, and it did,
In a recent phone discussion with his friends the Doe's, after being updated about their current situation, he offered to pay whatever it would take to get them and their kids across the border, illegally. They could figure out a way to stay once they got there.
Were I John or Jane I'd start packing.
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 2016
f 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.
I think that any illegal immigrant convicted of a crime should be punished and deported, but someone needs to tell the Donald that statistically speaking, immigrants of all sorts are less likely to commit a crime than the native born. Were I in the country illegally I'd be a model, low profile guest, for obvious reasons.
The blank space at the end of the first sentence is provided for those of you that prefer a more politically correct term. It's tough keeping up with politically correct terms. They seem to evolve and adapt even faster than the super cooties regularly featured in apocalyptic news stories. You know, the ones that we're constantly being told could fuel the first world-class pandemic of the new millennium? It would probably be wrong to develop this analogy further and compare the snowflakes obsessed with politically correct terminology to the rats that carried the fleas that caused the Black Death, so I won't. Anyway, I've already drifted off topic.
IMI's, or more properly, IHI's (illegal Hispanic immigrants), because these folks, particularly lately, often are from countries located south of Mexico (which incidentally is the title of my next album) have my sympathy because I can easily construct alternate realities with my powerful reality distortion field. In my head, smartypants, in my head -- I know they're not real.
Premise of my reality distortion: Canada is to the US as the US is to points south. Say that in spite of our northern neighbor's abominable climate they were the most prosperous (so far...) and freest (well...) country in the world and our situation is roughly equivalent to Mexico and points south. What would life in these United States be like?
Insert sound of harp strings being strummed while image on screen goes all wavy, here.
The Gubmint and the gubmints of our reality distorted USA would be world famous for, and have a long history of, good old fashion third world corruption. Bribery at every level would be considered a cost of doing business, the lubricant that keeps the wheels of commerce and gubmint turning. John and Jane Doe would live in a world where the playing fields are rarely level. Everybody pays to play.
[Aside: I'll bet a bottle of pop, a Mexican Coke made with real sugar (it really does taste better), that Juan and Juana Garcia would enthusiastically trade their current situation for the current situation of our abused and downtrodden 99%. "I just hate my new iPhone, I wonder if I can get out of my contract... aw, geez, the barista screwed up my coffee, again!"]
Reality distorted Canada would not be all that different than the real Canada. It would have a much larger economy and may or may not have real Canada's socialized healthcare system. But other than that, it probably wouldn't be much different than it is now. It also wouldn't be much different than the real USA...
Carter and Emma Smithe, of the Toronto Smithes, don't party like they did when they were still in school, in fact, what with careers and kids and all, a second glass of beer (Carter) or wine (Emma) at dinner is about as twisted as they're likely to get these days. But once in a great while, they stash the kids somewhere safe for the weekend and get a room with a jacuzzi. Carter (weed) or Emma (blow, the munchies make you fat) might even indulge in some recreational pharmaceuticals. It's not as if they go out of their way to score, but occasionally Bachus tosses a treat in their direction... See what I mean?
But the reality distorted America, the pay to play America mentioned above, a third worldish version of America, would suck sweaty socks. Carter and Emma's occasional dabbles with drugs, not to mention the needs of their fellow Canadians that are more enthusiastic consumers of legally prohibited substances, would be a nightmare for John and Jane Doe. That's because they just happen to hail from Anyfreakintownnearthenorthernborder, USA.
Real Canada took a pass when real America tried banning alcohol. Things didn't work out very well in real America but real Canada couldn't manufacture and sell booze fast enough. Gubmints will be gubmints however and both real America and real Canada, after evaluating the lessons of Prohibition both decided to prohibit recreational pharmaceuticals anyway.
So,
John and Jane both work in the energy sector. He's a roughneck working in the oil/natural gas fields and she's a low-level secretary. Before you accuse me of being a sexist, remember this is an America that's been reality distorted to mirror real Mexico. Real Mexico is an unabashedly mucho-macho place. John would prefer that she stay home with their five kids (they are good, traditional Catholics) but they need the money. John doesn't make all that much money because the Gubmint runs the nationalized energy sector and you don't make good money without knowing the right people. He wouldn't have a job at all if he didn't know some of the right people.
John and Jane are worried and scared. The cartels have made everything worse. Innocent bystanders are regularly killed. Reporters that tell the truth are regularly killed. The cops are more or less owned by the cartels. John and Jane have a teenage son that has bling bedecked buddies with lots of girlfriends who have offered to introduce him to their version of the right people. One of his gorgeous daughters has caught the eye of a local thug.
A good friend of John and Jane, who has known them both since they were kids, is quite aware of their situation because they have stayed in touch over the years. He's a newly minted citizen of our reality distorted Canada. His rich, well-connected parents sent him to college there to become a petroleum engineer knowing that if he did well and got a job offer or two he'd be provided with a path that could eventually lead to citizenship, and it did,
In a recent phone discussion with his friends the Doe's, after being updated about their current situation, he offered to pay whatever it would take to get them and their kids across the border, illegally. They could figure out a way to stay once they got there.
Were I John or Jane I'd start packing.
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 2016
f 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.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Kindness & Communication (Hair Helmets, Part 2)
To review: Last week's column was about hair helmets with a couple of (hopefully) amusing wanderings down side alleys to see where they led. My original intent was to make fun of not only hair helmets but other methods that we allegedly rationally driven homo sapiens employ to improve our chances of mating and reproducing.
However, my plan, as happens often as not, fell apart. Hair helmets wound up being the only contrivance discussed, and when I got to the end, I was suddenly seized by a strong notion that I should've also discussed what, if anything, sets us apart from our fellow animals. Which I will...
But first (it's not you, it's me) I want to get into how this sort of thing happens, since it will no doubt continue. Don't say, gentlereaders, that you've never been warned.
I've mentioned in at least one of my columns, and should and will add to what you will find by clicking on the Read This First Please or Glossary tab of my site, that my writing style is an edited stream of consciousness. That is, though I start out with a notion ranging from vague to specific, I give my muse and an imagined gentlereader free reign to gently push me in whatever direction feels right.
However, I then edit ruthlessly, guided by the twin goals of clarity and humor, sometimes deleting entire columns. F.Y.I., I've deliberately and officially stopped referring to my posts as posts. They are now and henceforth, my columns. After all, I've yet to miss a week since (self) publishing my first column on 7.23.15., just like a real columnist, who actually gets paid. This change in nomenclature serves two purposes.
First, it helps me to maintain the discipline necessary to prove to a syndicator, publisher, editor, agent, Google AdSense etc. (I really need to find the time and inclination to do whatever I need to do to make some money from this. As it is, I'm having too much fun just writing love letters to my daughter, son-in-law, and my grandkids -- the Stickies -- to hopefully occasionally be reread after I'm long gone) that I'm a worthy investment.
Second, I'm faking it 'till I make it. I'm acting as if. I'm keeping hope alive. I'm, uh, maintaining a good attitude. You know, doing all that sort of stuff you're supposed to do to be successful at something that the people who make a successful living teaching people how to be successful at something advise us to do. I'm also subtly and secretly manipulating and hypnotizing my gentlereaders to look past the sale and assume I'm destined to be a wildly successful writer so they will stick with me and tell all of their friends they should be following me. Shhh...it's a secret.
Yes, Virginia, I do think we are more than just another animal that happens, fortunately for us, to live at the top of the food chain. However, I also think it's very important that we don't forget, so to speak, where we come from. Scott Adams, the man that cranks out my favorite daily comic strip, Dilbert, and also writes a blog, not to mention an occasional book, says we're easily manipulated moist robots. He also maintains that we mostly use our rational abilities to justify our irrational, emotionally driven behaviors after the fact. In my semi-humble opinion, he's right.
Big but.
There are two ginormous characteristics homo sapiens have that separate us from our fellow animals. There are arguably, and probably, more. And who knows? Maybe the folks that claim dolphins and/or elephants and/or _____ function at a level equal to, or even superior to us, are correct (though I have my doubts). And, of course, many people the world over understand and cherish the meaning, importance, and significance of the deceptively simple phrase, good dog.
For the sake of simplicity and clarity, though, I'm going with communication and kindness.
Communication first. You don't have to be human to communicate successfully, in a limited way, with your fellow _____ . In fact, it's possible for all sorts of creatures to communicate, in a limited way, with all sorts of other others who communicate, in a limited way, with each other.
I'm sorry, I'll stop (GRIN).
A full blown language, on the other hand, even a very simple one with a limited vocabulary, creates a network. Language is the wiring, so to speak, that links my mind to your mind to their mind. This was the first internet and just like the current electronic, ever growing, planet-spanning one, it increased our processing power exponentially.
Writing and reading eventually supplemented oral tradition and made it easier for each new generation to build on what went before.
Had computers never been invented, we would still (and did) be able to do a lot of amazing things. After all, 7.3 billion heads are better than one.
Pooping indoors and disappearing the results by gently pushing on a tiny handle. Effortless access to sparkling clean hot and cold water by turning some tiny wheels. Climate control via pushing some tiny buttons. Et cetera. We take for granted what our not too distant ancestors would've declared to be magic, and then tortured and/or killed a bunch of folks to mitigate the bad juju.
Life is, and always will be, subject to unpredicted crap storms. Utopia will never be just around the next bend. But as you're working your butt off, plotting and scheming and hoping while impatiently waiting for your financial position to improve, you'll always find a way to keep the utilities turned on.
Kindness? Yup, kindness. That is, if you expand the definition of kindness. If you include everything from the evolutionary advantages that resulted from tribal cooperation to choosing to be the grup in the room to the teachings of the ethical and spiritual traditions that state we must love and take care of each other.
Yes, other species cooperate to get stuff done, particularly stuff that ensures the survival of the group.
But we can consciously decide to at least try to get along with that moron we work for, and not just for the sake of ourselves. We can do it for our family, our fellow slaves, our customers, our patients, or our _____ -- or not.
Every kid on the playground knows who's cool, who's OK, and who's a bully.
"Wo, oh, what I want to know, is are you kind?" (from the song "Uncle John's Band").
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.
However, my plan, as happens often as not, fell apart. Hair helmets wound up being the only contrivance discussed, and when I got to the end, I was suddenly seized by a strong notion that I should've also discussed what, if anything, sets us apart from our fellow animals. Which I will...
But first (it's not you, it's me) I want to get into how this sort of thing happens, since it will no doubt continue. Don't say, gentlereaders, that you've never been warned.
I've mentioned in at least one of my columns, and should and will add to what you will find by clicking on the Read This First Please or Glossary tab of my site, that my writing style is an edited stream of consciousness. That is, though I start out with a notion ranging from vague to specific, I give my muse and an imagined gentlereader free reign to gently push me in whatever direction feels right.
However, I then edit ruthlessly, guided by the twin goals of clarity and humor, sometimes deleting entire columns. F.Y.I., I've deliberately and officially stopped referring to my posts as posts. They are now and henceforth, my columns. After all, I've yet to miss a week since (self) publishing my first column on 7.23.15., just like a real columnist, who actually gets paid. This change in nomenclature serves two purposes.
First, it helps me to maintain the discipline necessary to prove to a syndicator, publisher, editor, agent, Google AdSense etc. (I really need to find the time and inclination to do whatever I need to do to make some money from this. As it is, I'm having too much fun just writing love letters to my daughter, son-in-law, and my grandkids -- the Stickies -- to hopefully occasionally be reread after I'm long gone) that I'm a worthy investment.
Second, I'm faking it 'till I make it. I'm acting as if. I'm keeping hope alive. I'm, uh, maintaining a good attitude. You know, doing all that sort of stuff you're supposed to do to be successful at something that the people who make a successful living teaching people how to be successful at something advise us to do. I'm also subtly and secretly manipulating and hypnotizing my gentlereaders to look past the sale and assume I'm destined to be a wildly successful writer so they will stick with me and tell all of their friends they should be following me. Shhh...it's a secret.
Yes, Virginia, I do think we are more than just another animal that happens, fortunately for us, to live at the top of the food chain. However, I also think it's very important that we don't forget, so to speak, where we come from. Scott Adams, the man that cranks out my favorite daily comic strip, Dilbert, and also writes a blog, not to mention an occasional book, says we're easily manipulated moist robots. He also maintains that we mostly use our rational abilities to justify our irrational, emotionally driven behaviors after the fact. In my semi-humble opinion, he's right.
Big but.
There are two ginormous characteristics homo sapiens have that separate us from our fellow animals. There are arguably, and probably, more. And who knows? Maybe the folks that claim dolphins and/or elephants and/or _____ function at a level equal to, or even superior to us, are correct (though I have my doubts). And, of course, many people the world over understand and cherish the meaning, importance, and significance of the deceptively simple phrase, good dog.
For the sake of simplicity and clarity, though, I'm going with communication and kindness.
Communication first. You don't have to be human to communicate successfully, in a limited way, with your fellow _____ . In fact, it's possible for all sorts of creatures to communicate, in a limited way, with all sorts of other others who communicate, in a limited way, with each other.
I'm sorry, I'll stop (GRIN).
A full blown language, on the other hand, even a very simple one with a limited vocabulary, creates a network. Language is the wiring, so to speak, that links my mind to your mind to their mind. This was the first internet and just like the current electronic, ever growing, planet-spanning one, it increased our processing power exponentially.
Writing and reading eventually supplemented oral tradition and made it easier for each new generation to build on what went before.
Had computers never been invented, we would still (and did) be able to do a lot of amazing things. After all, 7.3 billion heads are better than one.
Pooping indoors and disappearing the results by gently pushing on a tiny handle. Effortless access to sparkling clean hot and cold water by turning some tiny wheels. Climate control via pushing some tiny buttons. Et cetera. We take for granted what our not too distant ancestors would've declared to be magic, and then tortured and/or killed a bunch of folks to mitigate the bad juju.
Life is, and always will be, subject to unpredicted crap storms. Utopia will never be just around the next bend. But as you're working your butt off, plotting and scheming and hoping while impatiently waiting for your financial position to improve, you'll always find a way to keep the utilities turned on.
Kindness? Yup, kindness. That is, if you expand the definition of kindness. If you include everything from the evolutionary advantages that resulted from tribal cooperation to choosing to be the grup in the room to the teachings of the ethical and spiritual traditions that state we must love and take care of each other.
Yes, other species cooperate to get stuff done, particularly stuff that ensures the survival of the group.
But we can consciously decide to at least try to get along with that moron we work for, and not just for the sake of ourselves. We can do it for our family, our fellow slaves, our customers, our patients, or our _____ -- or not.
Every kid on the playground knows who's cool, who's OK, and who's a bully.
"Wo, oh, what I want to know, is are you kind?" (from the song "Uncle John's Band").
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.
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Hair Helmets
Why are homo sapiens obsessed with their head hair? The obvious answer would seem to have a biological/evolutionary explanation. A healthy head of hair is an indicator of yute and overall good health. In spite of our relatively large, highly developed brains that enable us to do amazing things such as visit the moon and, well, brain surgery, we're still the playthings of our DNA. Our DNA is all about survival, reproduction and driving us to mate with (or at least, watch, often goofy TV shows and movies about) superior looking specimens of the species.
I get that. And I would remind you, and myself, that no matter how smart we might think we are, or, how above or over all that sort of thing we might think we are, we're not. Caution: Ignoring, or worse yet refusing to acknowledge your inner infidel, may be hazardous to your health (and life and job and relationships and...).
Big But.
Everywhere I look I see hair helmets. Creations, constructions and colors further and further removed from anything Mother Nature's Hair and Nails, LLC has ever produced. The Donald is our national poster child for this cult, and make no mistake, it is a cult. How else to account for something that generates such dedication, time, and expense?
[Aside: Speaking of the Donald, his orange complexion would seem to suggest he's an Oompa Loompa. No, seriously, think about it. This would also explain why a man who will turn 70 years old in June has hair that seems to vary in color from washed out blond to almost Peep yellow. This could be the result of constant coloring to hide his naturally green hair.
Now, Oompa Loompas are generally short in stature and the Donald is tall. This begs more than one question. Is he a native Loompalandian with a glandular disorder? If so, this would seem to disqualify him from becoming president. If he is a native Loompalandian, was he ever naturalized? If not, does he have a green card? Was his father or mother born in the USA and married to, or at some point hooked up with, a native born Loompalandian? If so, doesn't this place the Donald in the same situation he placed Senator Cruz in when he suggested that Mr. Cruz might have eligibility issues?
Most importantly, why are none of the rabid watchdogs of the press trying to get to the bottom of this mess? But that's not what I want to talk about, so let's move on.]
My definition of a hair helmet is a much broader than the traditional conception. That is, a television news anchorperson whose hair looks as though it's made out of fairly rigid vinyl and would only move ever so slightly in a tornado. Or come completely off, like a, well, a helmet and possibly become a dangerous, sharp-edged projectile.
My definition: A hairstyle, regardless of color, rigid or otherwise, that crosses a fine line whereupon said hairstyle becomes the first thing you notice about someone, you can't help but being aware of it at all times, rarely flattering.
A beacon of hair, if you will. A hairstyle that causes its owner to resemble a floor lamp without a shade.
The fine line I mentioned is determined by the amount of contrast, or the lack thereof, between a given hairstyle and the overall look of the subject. For example, a rigidly coiffed, blue haired, little old lady with minimal makeup and a conservative outfit works just fine.
However, a little old lady with minimal makeup, a conservative outfit, and waist length, elaborately curly, grape Kool-Aid colored hair -- not so much.
So, how did we go from being understandably influenced by our DNA to hair helmets? I propose two reasons. First, a significant downside of living in the information age is the fact that we're more exposed to advertising, both overtly and subliminally, than ever before. A great deal of advertising is dedicated to pushing products for managing our manes. Second, our head hair, at least theoretically, provides a means for anyone to compensate for the genetic crime of not being as attractive as professional pretty people that are so attractive that they can make a living from it, often just by reminding us that we can't. But -- with the purchase of the right health and/or beauty aid -- we may not have to wither away empty, alone, and childless, after all.
[Another Aside: About advertising. I, like most people, find most advertising, to be a pain in the butt. I'm amazed that it's even possible for an hour of alleged programming on broadcast TV to include 20 minutes or so of advertising, but not from a legal standpoint. The viewers, not The Gubmint, should determine what's acceptable. The viewers hold all the power, literally, in the palm of their hands: CLICK! What amazes me is that anyone puts up with it, considering there is no shortage of alternatives.
However, I'm a grup and a sexy seasoned citizen so I know there is definitely no such thing as a free lunch. Yes, we're knee deep in adverts, and it's not possible to be engaged in the modern world without encountering them hither, thither, and yon (don't that sound way cooler than here, there, and everywhere?).
Yes, they're often annoying, stupid and downright offensive. But they provide us with no shortage of often annoying, stupid and downright offensive content at everyone's favorite price -- free and no charge. Occasionally, they're the only portion of the content that ain't annoying, stupid and downright offensive. Were I less empathetic and attuned to the feelings of my fellow homo sapiens, I would say that whining about advertising is like bragging about how you vote in every election with one breath and then complaining about the quality of political incumbents with the next. But I'm not, so I won't. And Besides, that's not what this column is about.]
Sorry, what was I talking about? DNA...hair helmets...the Donald (alpha male)...advertising (environmental input) that easily exploits fundamental biological drives...
Wait a minute, is the only difference between us and all the other animals on the planet just a matter of degree?
Sheesh, this got depressing fast, and I didn't even see it coming. This is going to require a part two to explore what, if anything, does set us apart from the rest of the animals.
Anyway, I've got to run, I've got an important appointment and I have to do my hair.
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.
I get that. And I would remind you, and myself, that no matter how smart we might think we are, or, how above or over all that sort of thing we might think we are, we're not. Caution: Ignoring, or worse yet refusing to acknowledge your inner infidel, may be hazardous to your health (and life and job and relationships and...).
Big But.
Everywhere I look I see hair helmets. Creations, constructions and colors further and further removed from anything Mother Nature's Hair and Nails, LLC has ever produced. The Donald is our national poster child for this cult, and make no mistake, it is a cult. How else to account for something that generates such dedication, time, and expense?
[Aside: Speaking of the Donald, his orange complexion would seem to suggest he's an Oompa Loompa. No, seriously, think about it. This would also explain why a man who will turn 70 years old in June has hair that seems to vary in color from washed out blond to almost Peep yellow. This could be the result of constant coloring to hide his naturally green hair.
Now, Oompa Loompas are generally short in stature and the Donald is tall. This begs more than one question. Is he a native Loompalandian with a glandular disorder? If so, this would seem to disqualify him from becoming president. If he is a native Loompalandian, was he ever naturalized? If not, does he have a green card? Was his father or mother born in the USA and married to, or at some point hooked up with, a native born Loompalandian? If so, doesn't this place the Donald in the same situation he placed Senator Cruz in when he suggested that Mr. Cruz might have eligibility issues?
Most importantly, why are none of the rabid watchdogs of the press trying to get to the bottom of this mess? But that's not what I want to talk about, so let's move on.]
My definition of a hair helmet is a much broader than the traditional conception. That is, a television news anchorperson whose hair looks as though it's made out of fairly rigid vinyl and would only move ever so slightly in a tornado. Or come completely off, like a, well, a helmet and possibly become a dangerous, sharp-edged projectile.
My definition: A hairstyle, regardless of color, rigid or otherwise, that crosses a fine line whereupon said hairstyle becomes the first thing you notice about someone, you can't help but being aware of it at all times, rarely flattering.
A beacon of hair, if you will. A hairstyle that causes its owner to resemble a floor lamp without a shade.
The fine line I mentioned is determined by the amount of contrast, or the lack thereof, between a given hairstyle and the overall look of the subject. For example, a rigidly coiffed, blue haired, little old lady with minimal makeup and a conservative outfit works just fine.
However, a little old lady with minimal makeup, a conservative outfit, and waist length, elaborately curly, grape Kool-Aid colored hair -- not so much.
So, how did we go from being understandably influenced by our DNA to hair helmets? I propose two reasons. First, a significant downside of living in the information age is the fact that we're more exposed to advertising, both overtly and subliminally, than ever before. A great deal of advertising is dedicated to pushing products for managing our manes. Second, our head hair, at least theoretically, provides a means for anyone to compensate for the genetic crime of not being as attractive as professional pretty people that are so attractive that they can make a living from it, often just by reminding us that we can't. But -- with the purchase of the right health and/or beauty aid -- we may not have to wither away empty, alone, and childless, after all.
[Another Aside: About advertising. I, like most people, find most advertising, to be a pain in the butt. I'm amazed that it's even possible for an hour of alleged programming on broadcast TV to include 20 minutes or so of advertising, but not from a legal standpoint. The viewers, not The Gubmint, should determine what's acceptable. The viewers hold all the power, literally, in the palm of their hands: CLICK! What amazes me is that anyone puts up with it, considering there is no shortage of alternatives.
However, I'm a grup and a sexy seasoned citizen so I know there is definitely no such thing as a free lunch. Yes, we're knee deep in adverts, and it's not possible to be engaged in the modern world without encountering them hither, thither, and yon (don't that sound way cooler than here, there, and everywhere?).
Yes, they're often annoying, stupid and downright offensive. But they provide us with no shortage of often annoying, stupid and downright offensive content at everyone's favorite price -- free and no charge. Occasionally, they're the only portion of the content that ain't annoying, stupid and downright offensive. Were I less empathetic and attuned to the feelings of my fellow homo sapiens, I would say that whining about advertising is like bragging about how you vote in every election with one breath and then complaining about the quality of political incumbents with the next. But I'm not, so I won't. And Besides, that's not what this column is about.]
Sorry, what was I talking about? DNA...hair helmets...the Donald (alpha male)...advertising (environmental input) that easily exploits fundamental biological drives...
Wait a minute, is the only difference between us and all the other animals on the planet just a matter of degree?
Sheesh, this got depressing fast, and I didn't even see it coming. This is going to require a part two to explore what, if anything, does set us apart from the rest of the animals.
Anyway, I've got to run, I've got an important appointment and I have to do my hair.
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.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
A Touch of Class
Let's bring back a touch of class. And restraint. And modesty. And _____ . License to say and do anything ain't working.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting we all start behaving like the characters in a good old fashion mainstream American movie or TV show restrained by good old fashion American censorship. I am suggesting that we walk the culture back a step or two from the edge. If anything goes, nothing is edgy anymore. When nothing is edgy anymore all that's left is to try and be more shocking and/or disgusting than the next guy. Embrace your inner infidel.
[In an effort to promote cultural tolerance, gentlereaders, I offer up the phrase inner infidel. I see it as a bridge that will help us to connect Muslim culture to the other major cultures on the planet. It also sounds way cooler than barbarian, which is somewhat played out, as a word I mean. Sadly, there's no shortage of barbarism loose in the world.]
"A man got to have a code," Omar Devone Little: A fictional character in The Wire, played by Michael K. Williams in the third best television show ever made. Mr. Little was a charismatic, gay, Honey Nut Cheerios-loving thug that made a nice living robbing, and if necessary, shooting, drug dealers until he was killed in the shows last season. In spite of his occupation, he had a strict personal moral code that included not working on Sundays and not harming innocents.
When the baby boomers tossed out the tot out with the jacuzzi water and upended the traditional (and yes, often hypocritical) moral standards of the West, we began the Age of Relativity. It's like, all relative, dude.
From urban DICTIONARY (.com): "It's All/Everythings Relative means the world is in the eye of the beholder; all people look at things from a different perspective... Everything is quantifiable in terms of individual perception.
You can have your code, I can have my code. We can choose not to have a code. Who needs a code? If it feels good, do it, you only live once!
I wrote a column, well, two columns actually, I'm Glad I'm Old, parts one and two (1.23 & 1.30.16). I could maintain an ever growing list of reasons of why I'm glad I'm old but (cognitive dissonance alert) I'm more glad that I'm still alive and prefer to dwell on that. Note, I didn't say I wish I was young. No well adjusted Sexy Senior Citizen should, but that's another column, and, I strive to be nonjudgmental, so I won't bring it up.
[Could we move on please? asks my imaginary gentlereader as Marie-Louise pokes me in the ribs.]
Fine. One of the many reasons I'm glad I'm old is because I'm so ancient that I was raised by two members of the Greatest Generation and up until the age of 13 or so I was steeped in a cultural consensus that vanished in a remarkably short time. I do not long for its return. It wasn't a utopia and I'm very much a seize the moment kind of dude.
However, my childhood provided a firm foundation to build a life on as well as a feeling of being a part of something bigger than me, an organizing principle, however flawed, that I could join, or try to change, or even try to destroy. But if there's really nothing to join, change, or try to destroy, because anything goes, and to declare that one value system is superior to another makes you a hater, well, I'm glad I'm old.
If adolescents have nothing real to rebel against you wind up with a hookup culture where making love is just having sex, just another easily dispatched biological need. Where allegedly liberated young women have to worry about being labeled prudes if they don't use their smartphones to distribute soft porn (or worse) starring themselves. And about not getting enough likes if they do.
This is why I understand and respect where traditional religious believers are coming from, even fundamentalists, assuming they reject violence as a legitimate tool for spreading their faith. I not only was raised to be a believer, I sorta/kinda still am, in a very non-traditional way. I'm a meditator, a philosophical Taoist, and I find there to be much wisdom in Stoicism. (Fear not, I couldn't hope to explain myself adequately even if I were so inclined.)
However, I emphasize with traditional believers primarily because I suspect that an anything goes philosophy is repugnant to any more or less well-adjusted grup, it's not just because of their religious beliefs. They would feel this way even if they weren't religious. The organizing principle they've chosen, or take for granted because that's the culture they were brought up in, and it works for them, just makes things seem that much worse
[That organizing principle thing again? Define your terms sir! sayeth the gentlereader. Marie-Louise is scratching my back, she understands.]
It means exactly what you think it means. Wikipedia: "An organizing principle is a core assumption from which everything else by proximity can derive a classification or a value." Or, the framework or the grid you use to make sense of the world and decide on how to make your way through it.
I also understand and respect where atheists are coming from; I'm a staunch ex-catholic. However, I define myself as agnostic because I'm a firm believer in maintaining as open a mind as possible to counter the scientifically documented phenomenon called confirmation bias. Or, don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up syndrome.
George Will, one of my intellectual heroes, describes himself as an amiable, low-voltage atheist. I mention this because of the stark contrast between his position and that of snarky, self-righteous arrogant atheists that feel the need to make fun of believers, and run to court over world-shaking issues, such as prayers at public school football games, at every opportunity. Yikes! atheistic fundamentalists. And more than a few atheists will tell you that while Stoicism might be OK, Taoism is definitely out there in the goofy zone.
Flexibility and a willingness to update your organizing principles are required for a life well lived. Too much flexibility, particularly if built upon the shifting sands of political correctness, or even worse, no framework beyond if it feels good do it, will result in a hot mess. Fine lines.
"A man got to have a code."
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.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting we all start behaving like the characters in a good old fashion mainstream American movie or TV show restrained by good old fashion American censorship. I am suggesting that we walk the culture back a step or two from the edge. If anything goes, nothing is edgy anymore. When nothing is edgy anymore all that's left is to try and be more shocking and/or disgusting than the next guy. Embrace your inner infidel.
[In an effort to promote cultural tolerance, gentlereaders, I offer up the phrase inner infidel. I see it as a bridge that will help us to connect Muslim culture to the other major cultures on the planet. It also sounds way cooler than barbarian, which is somewhat played out, as a word I mean. Sadly, there's no shortage of barbarism loose in the world.]
"A man got to have a code," Omar Devone Little: A fictional character in The Wire, played by Michael K. Williams in the third best television show ever made. Mr. Little was a charismatic, gay, Honey Nut Cheerios-loving thug that made a nice living robbing, and if necessary, shooting, drug dealers until he was killed in the shows last season. In spite of his occupation, he had a strict personal moral code that included not working on Sundays and not harming innocents.
When the baby boomers tossed out the tot out with the jacuzzi water and upended the traditional (and yes, often hypocritical) moral standards of the West, we began the Age of Relativity. It's like, all relative, dude.
From urban DICTIONARY (.com): "It's All/Everythings Relative means the world is in the eye of the beholder; all people look at things from a different perspective... Everything is quantifiable in terms of individual perception.
You can have your code, I can have my code. We can choose not to have a code. Who needs a code? If it feels good, do it, you only live once!
I wrote a column, well, two columns actually, I'm Glad I'm Old, parts one and two (1.23 & 1.30.16). I could maintain an ever growing list of reasons of why I'm glad I'm old but (cognitive dissonance alert) I'm more glad that I'm still alive and prefer to dwell on that. Note, I didn't say I wish I was young. No well adjusted Sexy Senior Citizen should, but that's another column, and, I strive to be nonjudgmental, so I won't bring it up.
[Could we move on please? asks my imaginary gentlereader as Marie-Louise pokes me in the ribs.]
Fine. One of the many reasons I'm glad I'm old is because I'm so ancient that I was raised by two members of the Greatest Generation and up until the age of 13 or so I was steeped in a cultural consensus that vanished in a remarkably short time. I do not long for its return. It wasn't a utopia and I'm very much a seize the moment kind of dude.
However, my childhood provided a firm foundation to build a life on as well as a feeling of being a part of something bigger than me, an organizing principle, however flawed, that I could join, or try to change, or even try to destroy. But if there's really nothing to join, change, or try to destroy, because anything goes, and to declare that one value system is superior to another makes you a hater, well, I'm glad I'm old.
If adolescents have nothing real to rebel against you wind up with a hookup culture where making love is just having sex, just another easily dispatched biological need. Where allegedly liberated young women have to worry about being labeled prudes if they don't use their smartphones to distribute soft porn (or worse) starring themselves. And about not getting enough likes if they do.
This is why I understand and respect where traditional religious believers are coming from, even fundamentalists, assuming they reject violence as a legitimate tool for spreading their faith. I not only was raised to be a believer, I sorta/kinda still am, in a very non-traditional way. I'm a meditator, a philosophical Taoist, and I find there to be much wisdom in Stoicism. (Fear not, I couldn't hope to explain myself adequately even if I were so inclined.)
However, I emphasize with traditional believers primarily because I suspect that an anything goes philosophy is repugnant to any more or less well-adjusted grup, it's not just because of their religious beliefs. They would feel this way even if they weren't religious. The organizing principle they've chosen, or take for granted because that's the culture they were brought up in, and it works for them, just makes things seem that much worse
[That organizing principle thing again? Define your terms sir! sayeth the gentlereader. Marie-Louise is scratching my back, she understands.]
It means exactly what you think it means. Wikipedia: "An organizing principle is a core assumption from which everything else by proximity can derive a classification or a value." Or, the framework or the grid you use to make sense of the world and decide on how to make your way through it.
George Will, one of my intellectual heroes, describes himself as an amiable, low-voltage atheist. I mention this because of the stark contrast between his position and that of snarky, self-righteous arrogant atheists that feel the need to make fun of believers, and run to court over world-shaking issues, such as prayers at public school football games, at every opportunity. Yikes! atheistic fundamentalists. And more than a few atheists will tell you that while Stoicism might be OK, Taoism is definitely out there in the goofy zone.
Flexibility and a willingness to update your organizing principles are required for a life well lived. Too much flexibility, particularly if built upon the shifting sands of political correctness, or even worse, no framework beyond if it feels good do it, will result in a hot mess. Fine lines.
"A man got to have a code."
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.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Utopia
As a slightly younger man, all right, as a much younger man, I sorta/kinda believed in utopia. I say sorta/kinda because even as a somewhat idealistic callowyute my head was not far enough up my, um, tailpipe to believe that a utopia of any sort was actually possible. It was just a case of yutefull idealism coinciding with the societal and cultural upheavals of the late sixties.
It began early on. In the course of my eight years of Catholic grade school, I was constantly being reminded that God wanted me, no, required me, to help the less fortunate -- even the pagans -- if I expected to have a chance to get my sinful butt into heaven. (I was never directly told that other alleged Christians who weren't Catholic were essentially pagans, but it was implied.) However, I was also taught that going to heaven was just the cheese on the fries. It was just as important that I do all in my power to establish a heaven on Earth. For example, the church fully supported the civil rights movement and the abolition of the obscenity that was/is Jim Crow. It was made abundantly clear to me that this should be, no, was, my position as well.
It wasn't just talk, we were expected to walk the walk, literally. Seemed like we were always going door to door peddling something to raise money for this, that and the other charity. It occurs to me that my grandkids, who attend public schools, are also peddling something or other every time I turn around. However, it's always about raising money to pay for some extracurricular activity they're involved in that's not covered by taxes or the seemingly endless fees for this, that and the other thing. Hmmm...
This eight years of my life referenced above coincided primarily with the early sixties but slopped over into the late sixties. I point this out because making reference to "the sixties" is a very common phenomenon. And while most of you that hadn't been born yet are justifiably tired of the dated cultural references (sorry...), I rarely hear anyone talking about the fact that the early sixties was a radically different era than the late sixties.
See, the early sixties was mostly the fifties, part two. But the seeds of the late sixties had been planted and were starting to sprout. Fear not, I'm not going to belabor this point with a lengthy thesis, that would not serve to get me where I'm headed. If you were there, or at least have a working knowledge, compare and contrast "I Want to Hold Your Hand"/ "Helter Skelter," or, Martin Luther King/Black Panthers. If you weren't, or don't, sorry, your gonna' have to do some homework. I...
[Is this rambling bonkercockie going somewhere? inquires Marie-Louise. She's in a foul mood today and has yet to scratch my back, not once.]
Patience, ma cherie, patience. I'm just laying out the groundwork necessary to make the first of my two points. First point: I get it, I understand why Bernie Sanders is so appealing to callowyutes. Also to limousine liberals, many of whom have never made the transition to grouphood.
I had/have (but it's evolved) an idealistic ethical system that began when it was pounded into me (sometimes literally) from the age of 6 to the age of 13 by the Sisters of Charity. By the time I had reached the end of what I thought, at the time, was my sentence, it was officially the late sixties. As I slowly but steadily drifted into another large sect, people who used to be Catholic, I simultaneously got caught up it the secular religion of the moment, what for lack of a better term, I'll call the yute movement.
I use the term yute movement (a phrase not original to me), an ideology that included several different strains of thought, some of which contradicted each other, because it was powered by callowyutes. Teenagers (a group invented by America in the fifties) and twenty-somethings rose up and sank their orthodontically coddled teeth into the hands of their enablers. "Don't trust anyone over thirty."
[Reminder, if my slightly unconventional vocabulary proves confusing, the Glossary tab of The Flyoverland Crank might help.]
So, though I don't feel the Bern, I get it. Many of us coddled boomers, flush with the untested knowledge every new generation has that they can and will do a better job than the previous one, were let loose on the world oblivious to the fact it was (relatively) free market capitalism that made possible the unprecedented affluence that we took for granted, due to our shallow grasp of history and economics. Many of us became socialists and armchair revolutionaries -- for a minute. Most of us got over it. To quote something Winston Churchill didn't actually say, "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." Though he didn't actually utter the words the misquote lives on because there is wisdom in it. Yutefull idealism is, fortunately, still a common, though not universal phenomenon.
Unfortunately, some didn't, get over it I mean. For example, Bernie Sanders, a professional outsider who has been a member of a very powerful club that has only 535 members, for 25 years. I believe Mr. Sanders believes what he says. I also believe I'm still a sorta/kinda idealist, but I'm a grup, and grups face facts. Free market capitalism, with all its flaws, and despite the warped versions of it practiced in places like China (where they cross out the word free), has lifted, and continues to lift, literally billions of people out of poverty. Democratic Socialism has given us Greece (remember Greece?) and an economically stagnant Eurozone a half step ahead of recession. Which is my second point.
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 2016
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It began early on. In the course of my eight years of Catholic grade school, I was constantly being reminded that God wanted me, no, required me, to help the less fortunate -- even the pagans -- if I expected to have a chance to get my sinful butt into heaven. (I was never directly told that other alleged Christians who weren't Catholic were essentially pagans, but it was implied.) However, I was also taught that going to heaven was just the cheese on the fries. It was just as important that I do all in my power to establish a heaven on Earth. For example, the church fully supported the civil rights movement and the abolition of the obscenity that was/is Jim Crow. It was made abundantly clear to me that this should be, no, was, my position as well.
It wasn't just talk, we were expected to walk the walk, literally. Seemed like we were always going door to door peddling something to raise money for this, that and the other charity. It occurs to me that my grandkids, who attend public schools, are also peddling something or other every time I turn around. However, it's always about raising money to pay for some extracurricular activity they're involved in that's not covered by taxes or the seemingly endless fees for this, that and the other thing. Hmmm...
This eight years of my life referenced above coincided primarily with the early sixties but slopped over into the late sixties. I point this out because making reference to "the sixties" is a very common phenomenon. And while most of you that hadn't been born yet are justifiably tired of the dated cultural references (sorry...), I rarely hear anyone talking about the fact that the early sixties was a radically different era than the late sixties.
See, the early sixties was mostly the fifties, part two. But the seeds of the late sixties had been planted and were starting to sprout. Fear not, I'm not going to belabor this point with a lengthy thesis, that would not serve to get me where I'm headed. If you were there, or at least have a working knowledge, compare and contrast "I Want to Hold Your Hand"/ "Helter Skelter," or, Martin Luther King/Black Panthers. If you weren't, or don't, sorry, your gonna' have to do some homework. I...
[Is this rambling bonkercockie going somewhere? inquires Marie-Louise. She's in a foul mood today and has yet to scratch my back, not once.]
Patience, ma cherie, patience. I'm just laying out the groundwork necessary to make the first of my two points. First point: I get it, I understand why Bernie Sanders is so appealing to callowyutes. Also to limousine liberals, many of whom have never made the transition to grouphood.
I had/have (but it's evolved) an idealistic ethical system that began when it was pounded into me (sometimes literally) from the age of 6 to the age of 13 by the Sisters of Charity. By the time I had reached the end of what I thought, at the time, was my sentence, it was officially the late sixties. As I slowly but steadily drifted into another large sect, people who used to be Catholic, I simultaneously got caught up it the secular religion of the moment, what for lack of a better term, I'll call the yute movement.
I use the term yute movement (a phrase not original to me), an ideology that included several different strains of thought, some of which contradicted each other, because it was powered by callowyutes. Teenagers (a group invented by America in the fifties) and twenty-somethings rose up and sank their orthodontically coddled teeth into the hands of their enablers. "Don't trust anyone over thirty."
[Reminder, if my slightly unconventional vocabulary proves confusing, the Glossary tab of The Flyoverland Crank might help.]
So, though I don't feel the Bern, I get it. Many of us coddled boomers, flush with the untested knowledge every new generation has that they can and will do a better job than the previous one, were let loose on the world oblivious to the fact it was (relatively) free market capitalism that made possible the unprecedented affluence that we took for granted, due to our shallow grasp of history and economics. Many of us became socialists and armchair revolutionaries -- for a minute. Most of us got over it. To quote something Winston Churchill didn't actually say, "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." Though he didn't actually utter the words the misquote lives on because there is wisdom in it. Yutefull idealism is, fortunately, still a common, though not universal phenomenon.
Unfortunately, some didn't, get over it I mean. For example, Bernie Sanders, a professional outsider who has been a member of a very powerful club that has only 535 members, for 25 years. I believe Mr. Sanders believes what he says. I also believe I'm still a sorta/kinda idealist, but I'm a grup, and grups face facts. Free market capitalism, with all its flaws, and despite the warped versions of it practiced in places like China (where they cross out the word free), has lifted, and continues to lift, literally billions of people out of poverty. Democratic Socialism has given us Greece (remember Greece?) and an economically stagnant Eurozone a half step ahead of recession. Which is my second point.
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 2016
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