I Could Be Dead Any Minute...

And so could you.

Image by Lothar Dieterich from Pixabay 

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

About 

Glossary 

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

"The idea is to die young as late as possible." -Ashley Montagu 

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

If you're still young enough to shrug off my headline/subheadline faster than a wet dog dances the wet-dog shake, good for you. I myself vaguely recall being immortal. 

And yes, I know, that you know, that you're not — unless you're a transhumanist hoping to live long enough for someone(s) to figure out how you're going to live forever — actually immortal. But one's mortality is not something most people dwell on till they reach an impossible to predict tipping point. 

And attempting to accurately portray how this is going to feel, and the implications, to someone that hasn't reached that stage yet is as pointless as trying to accurately portray just how brief a period of time their allotted threescore and ten actually is. 

And anyway, this is as it should be. 

{Why? And by the way, the actuaries have changed three score and ten to four score and gravy.} 

 

For the same reason I still believe in true love... as well as Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, et al, Dana. 

"Scratch a cynic and you will find a disappointed romantic." -Christopher Moore 

"And that's all I have to say about that" -Forrest Gump 

{Sheesh, have your Cancer cooties returned or something?}

"Nope, knock on wood," replied the author, gently tapping his prodigious noggin. 

However, 

Most geezers, geezerettes, and even many on the cusp of geezerhood are quite aware of their inevitable deletion. Some are obsessed, some embrace denial, most just keep their awareness in the box where they keep things they don't want or need to deal with on a daily basis but won't (or can't) toss in the trash. 

Given that we're all born with a terminal disease I wish to point out that even the currently statistically fortunate should pause occasionally to contemplate the big picture. 

{Your keen eye for the obvious is obvious. Is there a point to this melancholy rambling?}

Absabalutely. Given the undeniable fact that you could be dead any minute and eventually will definitely be, I have a question, what are you doing about it?

You've (hopefully) learned by now that your time is limited and that you can't have it all despite what all those articles, commercials, videos, etceteros claim. And if you just happen to have a former acquaintance that you haven't seen since they were an attractive, healthy, thirty-something who recently died at the age of 51...

 

{There it is. Now I get it.}

This sort of knowledge is a gift. So, are you gonna place this gift on a shelf with your other tchotchkes or get off your tuchus and act?

{Oy vey, it's the bucket list thing... Wait, are you familiar with the term cultural appropriation?} 

No, it ain't. Yes, I am. No, it isn't. Cultural appropriation is mostly Wokie bonkercockie.    

Bucket lists are about the pursuit of fulfilling dreams, fantasies, and elusive goals. Go for it. Just don't forget to apply the While Lying On My Death Bed test and also give a passing thought to the other kids you share the playground with, particularly the ones who share your DNA.

Big BUT, I'm talking about the day after your last day.

{Huh?} 

It's been 24 hours or so since you shuffled off your mortal coil and you're sitting in a very comfortable chair while sipping on your favorite beverage and thinking about how you lived your life. Not necessarily about the sort of things found on a bucket list — ordinary, everyday sorts of stuff.  

{No way! After you die you...} 

Please stop poopin' on my metaphor. 

You ask yourself, given what I had learned (often the hard way) about myself and life on Earth prior to being deleted had I consciously/deliberately tried to make the best use of my limited time once I grokked just how limited my time really was, that life often really is what happens to you while you're making other plans? 

{YIKES! You're one of those Intentional Living people, are you selling a book, a membership, grooming cult members or...}

I apologize, I literally didn't know till just now when I googled the phrase living intentionally — that I picked up from I know not where, because wait a sec', that sounds like something from a book, a club, or a cult — that there's a veritable industry out there. Thanks, Dana, YIKES! indeed. 

It's just that I've been trying to live intentionally for quite some time and now that I'm retired it's become an obsession. Maybe I should write a book, or start a... 

Nah, never mind, I'll leave my Stickies and gentlereaders to figure it out for themselves. All ya gotta do is look your life straight in the eye and then act appropriately. Easy-peasy.   

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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A Temporary Third Party

The pop-up political party is born.

Image by Septimiu Balica from Pixabay

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

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

About

Glossary 

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

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'rourke

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

As my gentlereaders are already aware, although my write-in campaign to become America's first (but only temporary) king failed and I was considering trying again in '24. 

{Aw geesh, here we go...} 

I have a better idea, Dana.

Come 2024, thousands of us should simultaneously run for the House of Representatives as (temporary) third-party candidates for a brand-spankin' new, pop-up political party, the Party of the People, the P.O.P. This gives us plenty of time to organize, fundraise, and have fun. 

{Fun?}

What could be more fun than saving America from the current partisan Swamp Dwellers by promising to only serve two terms and then rejoin the real world — as heroes. I already have a slogan perfect for campaign buttons, bumper stickers, and chanting. 

"Only four, not a single day more!"

{Thousands?}

Although there are only 435 possible job openings, anyone that wants to is welcome to apply for the job of representing a given district in the House of Representatives. Let the cream rise to the top. Let there be so many candidates that the partisan media, the Depublicans, the Republicrats, and the tech oligarchs are overwhelmed and have a hard time knowing who to support/throw money at. 

The P.O.P. doesn't endorse candidates and it doesn't expect candidates to swear fealty to a party platform; the P.O.P. is more virtual than actual. The P.O.P. embodies a notion of the Founding Pasty Patriarchs that there wouldn't be political parties, just free people freely choosing their representatives to The Fedrl Gummit.  

There's no self-serving, hidebound party apparatus to vet candidates, get their names on the ballot, and funnel money their way, if, they behave and do as they're told. All that's required is that a given candidate declare that they're running, that they are a write-in candidate, and that they will abide by self-imposed term limits. Their policy positions are strictly up to them. 

{Wait-wait-wait. Why two consecutive terms?} 

Everyone knows that congresspersons spend a good deal of their time raising reelection money and that the second year of their two-year term is focused on getting reelected. For all intents and purposes, Poppies are running for a four-year job that doesn't include a pension program, effectively establishing term limits.

Without an end-run around our current situation, federal term limits will never happen. Without federal term limits, the nation is fecked. A class war is breaking out in America and the oligarchs, with good reason, think they've already won; the "Deplorables" are ripe for exploitation by hustlers and demagogues.  

{But what if...}

The voters can can 'em, replace them after the first two-year term is up before they can do any more damage.  

{But what if...}

I must warn you that I'm prepared to deploy the phrase, "the voters can can 'em" indefinitely. 

{Okaaay, but the...}

Yes, The Fedrl Gummit is HOOOGE, and employs roughly 2,000,000 people, so yes, for now at least, we need professional pols that excel at getting reelected, and know where the bodies are buried.

They're called Senators, and each and every state gets two. Poppies that prove themselves to be faithful public servants who are capable of fulfilling their commitments will provide a deep bench of potential Senators. 

And I don't know (not sure I want to) how many of those 2,000,000 souls are professional congressional staffers...

Big BUT,

I think we'd all feel better knowing that this particular component of the deep state was subject to the same sort of occupational churn as the rest of us and that Poppies will be judged on who they hire and how well they manage the help. If you're prone to hiring weasels your political opponents and wannabe replacements will be delighted to call you out. 

A Poppie is a Citizen of the Republic — Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Wokie, Greenie, etcetereenie that holds that a democratic republic — the system set up by the Founding Pasty Patriarchs and that is the foundation of the American experiment — is the best form of government we imperfect and fragile H. sapiens have come up with so far and would like the experiment to continue, not be burned to the ground by the Wokies. 

 

{But a pop-up party consisting of former members of Team Red, Team Blue, and who knows who could eventually become permanent, or quickly wither away, or...}

After hopefully getting the Republic unstuck and back on the road to sanity. Perhaps even forcing the two traditional mainstream parties to reform if they want to survive. 

In the — New and Improved! — American republic, you do you and I'll be me. We'll hammer out the rules and then go get a beer. Or you go your way, I'll go mine, and we'll agree to... 

{Disagree, right?}

I was going to say leave each other the hell alone. That's what people in a free country should do, need to do, if they wish to remain free.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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The Never Ending Abortion Debate

Howsabout a compromise?

Image by Augusto Ordóñez from Pixabay 

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

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

About

Glossary 

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

"Wait a minute! Perhaps we should hold off on deciding this [issue] until cheap birth control is available at every convenience store and science develops a morning-after pill that’s available over the counter." -me

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

This is the third time I've written a column about abortion, "but I'll repeat myself at the risk of being crude..." -Paul Simon, from the song 50 Ways to Love Your Lever.

{Wait-wait-wait. It's leave your lover not love your lever, and there's no such word as howsabout.}

Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe. 

{And I only recall one column.}

Well, the first was written in 2015, and you hadn't been born yet, Dana. It was the first time I suggested that perhaps a civilized compromise was the best way to resolve a controversy that's been raging since 1973 when the Supremes, invoking pretzel logic, declared that the Constitution guaranteed a woman's birthing person's right to have an abortion. 

{Well, it's obvious where you stand on the matter.} 

Yes, obviously the Constitution doesn't guarantee the right for birthing persons to have an abortion any more than it guarantees the right for gay Homo sapiens to get married. 

{I meant that you're obviously pro-life.}

I mean that I'm pro-Constitution. 

The founding pasty patriarchs codified the fundamental Rules&Regs — including a bill of rights — that apply to all the kids on the playground and that can't be altered without going to a great deal of trouble. 

They were aware of the power of the K.I.S.S principle (keep it simple stupid) more than 150 years before the late, great engineer Kelly Johnson named it and applied it masterfully in the middle of the last century before America started losing its mojo. 

The unspecified details were left up to the individual states, where the people actually lived, for the sake of what nowadays might be called that liberty thing. But I drift.

{Goes without saying. Hey, what do have against gay people?}

Nothing, and I don't care if gay H. sapiens get married. In fact, if I were king, I'd authorize generous (means-tested) tax deductions for every child gay couples were willing to adopt that had been created by illegitimate parents and/or were innocent victims of circumstance. 

{And?}

And what?

{This is where you would normally mention that you had a gay roommate back in the late 70s long before having gay friends was officially cool, a fact which you never seem to tire of mentioning.} 

I don't know what you're talking about.

I'd also proclaim that unrestricted abortion be available for the first trimester, with exceptions for rape, incest, and health problems beyond that. It just so happens that a majority of my future royal subjects feel the same way, and I'm a very responsive and benevolent monarch. 

{But meanwhile, back in the real world...} 

Let the people decide, state by state. 

{But the pollsters say most people don't want Roe v. Wade overturned.}

Well, then the people's representatives to the Swamp are going to have to pass a law. But given that Congress these days tends to be more performative than productive, don't hold your breath. Twice a year, year after year, they threaten to decide whether to make daylight savings time permanent or get rid of it and save us all a lot of unnecessary trouble and aggravation.  

So far, no good. And speaking of threatening...   

{I knew it! You're an alt-right extremist!}

Nah, just a center-right, slightly cranky (more or less) Normie endlessly striving to keep my epigenetic mordancy under control so as to retain some semblance of the cardinal virtues — as passed on to me by the late, great Sister Mary McGillicuddy  — in the midst of a culture currently in decline.

{Doesn't Pfizer make a pill for that?}

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, speaking of threatening, Uncle Joe has recently announced his support for pro-choice members of the IUPPPP&PPVTTOT (International Union of Professional Perpetually Protesting Protestors & Perpetual Victims of This, That, and the Other Thing) taking it to the streets. 

The streets where the judges and families of the Supreme Court of the United States of America live — as long as the protests are peaceful.

However, according to federal law...

"Whoever...with the intent of influencing any judge...pickets or parades...in or near...a residence occupied or used by such judge...shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."

It would appear that Uncle Joe has encouraged people to break the law.

{That sounds eerily familiar... Maybe Congress should launch an open-ended investigation.}

I just hope that the protesters are more peaceful than the mostly peaceful protesters of 2020.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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The Ministry of Truth

Unleash the fedrl fact-checkers!

Image by www_slon_pics from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.   

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

About

Glossary 

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

"Wikipedia does a great job on things like science and sports, but you see a lot of political bias come into play when you're talking current events." -Jonathan Weiss ("top 100" Wikipedian, 500k edits) 

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

When I heard that the Department of Homeland Security has created something called the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) I immediately knew I'd be writing a column. I didn't know that I'd be writing a different column than the one that sprang immediately to mind.

However, I'm sticking with the obvious title that came immediately to mind in spite of the fact George Orwell's Ministry of Truth also came immediately to mind to all sorts of writers and talking heads who are Orwell fans, like me, or who are at least familiar with his most well-known book.     

At the very least it serves as world-class clickbait. It's hard out here for a writer, one must never pass on the unlikely chance he/she/they will go viral and be famous for a few seconds. 

{I thought it was 15 minutes?}

When Andy Warhol predicted that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes his vision didn't include the internet, but this is a win/win/win situation from my perspective, Dana. If I'm accused of click-baiting I can claim I'm just an Orwell fan (true), that I think everyone should be (still true), and that I'm just trying to get the word out. 

Also, I predict that the woman person that Uncle Joe has designated the first Minister of Truth, Nina Jankowicz, will quickly go viral assuming the journalists and pseudo-journalists of the left start devoting as much coverage to a certain TikTok video that the journalists and pseudo-journalists of the right are. 

Clickbait + virtue signaling + wacky video = win/win/win.

But, as I hinted above, I've decided that instead of writing specifically about the Biden administration's version of the Ministry of Truth I'm taking a different tack. Besides, The Fedrl Gummit's already dancing the Biden Backpedal and it's hard to tell exactly what the DGBs who/what/when/where/why is going to be. 

It occurred to me that I could avoid having to write a synopsis of Orwell's literary version of what a very powerful government's ministry of propaganda would be like for the uninformed or the uninterested...

{I don't suppose it had anything to do with your lifelong hatred of writing about writing?}

I figured I could turn to my old but estranged friend, Wikipedia, although our relationship ain't what it used to be. 

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I no longer cough up the occasional requested donation when founder Jimmy Whales asks me to although I feel guilty about using and often enjoying, but not paying for, the hard work of others. In my defense, no less a personage than John Stossel is on my side.   

Anyways... I found a thorough and otherwise reasonably well-written article titled "Ministries of Nineteen Eighty-four" that starts off by providing the names of the ministries and explaining that the names are radically contradictory to their actual function. But it also states that:

The use of contradictory names in this manner may have been inspired by the British and American governments; during the Second World War, the British Ministry of Food oversaw rationing (the name "Ministry of Food Control" was used in World War I) and the Ministry of Information restricted and controlled information, rather than supplying it; while, in the U.S., the War Department was abolished and replaced with the "National Military Establishment" in 1947 and then became the Department of Defense in 1949, right around the time that Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. (My emphasis.)

May have been inspired? This is pure speculation/bias on the writer's part, that's been included in an encyclopedia. The author then cites three footnotes that don't even mention Orwell's "inspiration," making it look like his/her/their notion is widely shared... unless you read them. 

{You actually read footnotes?}

Rarely, but the "may have" set off my bonkercockie detector for valid reasons that would require another column to explain.

{Valid reasons... that are probably quite boring?} 

That's not the point.

[Dana executes an exaggerated yawn] 

{There's a point?}

Yup.  

The Wikipedia entry a given H. sapien may stumble on while trying to discover why there's such a fuss over the establishment of a disinformation governance board by unelected bureaucrats, that's run by an unelected bureaucrat here in "the land of the free," begins with misinformation.

That irony alone is enough to...

{I just don't see your problem. Would you like to co-sign my email alerting Ministerette Jancowitcz? I wonder if there are going to be bias response teams like they have at colleges and universities nowadays? Even Harvard's got one... or better yet, misinformation SWAT teams.}  

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Lost In Space

Your tax dollars at work. 

Image by nini kvaratskhelia from Pixabay 

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

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

About

Glossary 

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

"If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?" -Steven Wright

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

Remember NASA? Well, they're in the news again and trying to get the most powerful rocket ever built off the ground so personkind can once again walk on the moon, perhaps even Mars... eventually.  

{The people that invented Tang, right?}

Those of us, well, many of us of a certain age (there were, and are, no shortage of Citizens of the Republic opposed to spending money on space exploration) fondly remember watching Neil Armstrong taking "one small step for (a?) man, one giant leap for mankind" on the surface of the moon. However, nobody has walked on the moon since 1972.  

{What's that (a?) about?}

Long story. Anyway, NASA — for those of you too old to remember, too young to care, or too busy to notice, NASA, a.k.a. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration — is the government entity that managed to get Mr. Armstrong to the moon. On 5/25/61 President John F. Kennedy asked Congress for the money to put Americans on the moon before the end of the decade. Neil Armstrong went for a walk on 7/20/69. 

{What was the hurry?}

The "space race" was one of the battles of the Cold War 1. America used to be able to get at least some things done relatively quickly. Compare that to California's effort, with a bunch o' billions tossed in by The Fedrl Gummit, to build a high-speed rail line from L.A. to San Francisco. They've been at it since 2008; a radically dumb downed version is (currently) scheduled to be completed by 2033.

NASA is still very much with us, but like the old gray mare, it ain't what it used to be. 

Until Tony Stark (Elon Musk) built his rocket ship we were completely dependent on the Russians to shuttle our astronauts/scientists to and from the International Space Station. The tickets are even more expensive than those for a Strolling Bones concert.

NASA's been building the most powerful rocket ever built — to return personkind to the moon, and theoretically, take a stroll on Mars — since 2011. 

The ship was supposed to be ready by 2016. It's currently being tested and NASA hopes to launch a return trip to the Moon in June but without any spoons. It will be an unpersoned flight that orbits the Moon, but doesn't land, and then returns home. 

{Doesn't that make it the ultimate drone? Now that's a kit I'd buy.}

Better start saving up then. The original estimate of $2,000,000,000 per flight is now $4,000,000,000 per flight for a rocket that can only be used once. NASA's spent about $23,000,000,000 on this project, so far, and will probably be looking to recover some of its investment, like any well-run government agency.   

And it doesn't come with a lunar module, the part that will actually land on the moon. Building that has been handed off to SpaceX, Mr. Musk's company. Or not.

Although SpaceX got the contract by beating out the likes of Boeing and Blue Origin, NASA recently announced that it will be seeking bids for someone to build a second lander, while simultaneously expanding Tony Stark's contract.

{This is a goof, right? You made that last part up.}   

Nuh-uh. Follow the link or do your own research. 

The good(?) news is that NASA hopes that someone will be walking on the Moon as early as 2025, the culmination of a 13-year-long project. However, please note it only took them eight years, half a century ago, using computers that were less powerful than the phone in your pocket.

Which brings us to Bill Nelson. 

{It does?}   

Clarence William Nelson, who will be 80 years old next September, has been running NASA for the last year or so. Mr. Nelson, a professional politician since the last time someone walked on the Moon, is highly qualified for the job. 

He grew up near Cape Canaveral and was the second sitting member of Congress to fly in space on the space shuttle Columbia, 35 years ago. Before getting his current job, he served on the NASA Advisory Council for a couple of years, one of 12 committees that meets 3 times a year and offers advice to NASA.

Former Senator Nelson was confirmed by unanimous consent (without a vote) by his former colleagues. 

In other news, Elon Musk, asked if he is worried about NASA getting to Mars before he does while eating lunch, started laughing, and choked on a sandwich. An unknown hero administered the Heimlich maneuver and tragedy was averted. 

{Now I know you made all that up!}

Only the part about Tony Stark Elon Musk's close encounter with a sandwich.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

P.S. 4/19/22, "NASA’s huge 'Mega Moon rocket' is being removed from its launchpad and sent for repairs after failing three fuel tests in two weeks. Following the failures, NASA has said that the rocket’s slated June launch window will be 'challenging' to meet."

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My Favorite Mormons

A Mr. Cranky's Neighborhood Story.  

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

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

About

Glossary 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

{Are you trying to get your butt kicked?}

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which brings us to dogs and canes.  

{Well, obviously.}

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

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

{Maybe even the only part.}   

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

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

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

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

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

{Do they still make sword canes?}  

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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

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

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He Said She Said They Said

Surviving in the Dizz/Misinformation Age

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

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

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

About

Glossary 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

{Oft bandied?}

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

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

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

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

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

Patience, Tonto, patience. 

{Bite me, Kemosabe, bite me.}

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

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

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

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

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

Who said it is more important than what they said

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

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

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

{But you digress.} 

Indeed.

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

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

{Did/does what he does?}

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

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

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

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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