Surveillance Capitalism

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"You can't talk about big data without talking about things like privacy and ownership." -Rick Smolan


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

There's this web browser, DuckDuckGo, that I'm seriously considering switching to, but I haven't got around to making a final decision yet due to a number of factors too uninteresting to detail here.

I'm a Google Chrome user and the bits and bytes that make up this missive are generated by a Chromebox. If you've never heard of such a thing picture a tiny little uh, box, that has the same operating system as a Chromebook built in.

If that's not a thing in your world -- I'm speaking directly here to my dozens of gentlereaders, the GrandStickes are highly computer literate -- the Chrome operating system is Chrome on steroids. It's what runs a Chromebook (laptop), and in my case, the Chromebox that my keyboard, monitor, etceteror are hooked up to.

Anyways... I've refrained from running what are commonly called ad-blockers because the Goog provides an awful lot of "free" services that I take advantage of (the ability to publish this column for one) and I happen to know that most of the Goog's profits come from advertising.

Also, I access an awful lot of "free" websites in search of all sorts of input that not all that long ago (well... I am kinda old) I would've had to pay for -- various and sundry newspapers and magazines for example. I happen to know that without the ability to make money from running ads they wouldn't exist.


Big But
As I've mentioned before, I happen to know that I am/we are the product. The Data Dragons, the Algorithmites, and the Bot Monsters are sucking up our data exhaust 24x7x365, selling it to each other, and using it to sell stuff to us. I finally get it Dad, there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

As I've also said before, this is outta control and goes too far. I was reminded of all this when I recently read a review of a book called The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff. I immediately fell in love with the term surveillance capitalism (hence the title of this column/letter) as well as the name Shoshana Zuboff (although that's neither here nor there).

Co-inkidinkily, I have recently installed a browser extension from the DuckDuckGo people that looked interesting that turns out to be an ad-blocker on steroids. Whenever you go to a given web site you can click on its cute little icon, that lives on the bookmarks bar, and it will tell you some very interesting things.


One of the things it reports on is "Trackers Found." It uses trackers as a generic term for all the various and sundry spies that a given web site wants to sneak onto my computer. By choosing to enable its Site Privacy Protection function it keeps these sneaky bastards from taking up residence on my computer and also blocks ads.

I'm rethinking my policy on ad-blocking because of what it has taught me.

One example will serve. Accuweather.com is my weather web site of choice because it's not the Weather Channel's website (it's complicated). Now when I go there to check the weather I'm greeted by a message that reminds me they can't make any dough if I won't let 'em run ads and they're keeping a running total of how many pages I've viewed without ads on them.

In the past, this would've bothered me but thanks to the DuckDuckGo extension I'm aware that there are, as this is being written, 45 trackers lurking outside my locked e-door gossiping, smoking cigarettes, and probably spitting on the sidewalk. 45! Nine of 'em work for the Goog.


I get it, OK? I'm as fond of money as the next red-blooded American (but proud to say somewhat less fond than your average Russian oligarch or the corrupt sons and daughters of the Chinese emperor's inner circle) but where's my cut?

Sure, I get to access Accuweather's considerable resources, but the weather is freely available everywhere. I'm a grup, I know it's not actually free, but considering how glutted the market is it can't be worth all that much. My point is that my financial relationship with Accuweather seems to be unbalanced, that they're getting a lot more out of it than I am. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day. 
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Dear Accuweather,

Fine, I'll be the product, but if my data is worth 45 people spying on me I want my cut. Give me a call, everything's negotiable.

Sincerely,
The Crank


Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements as well as things I find on the web that reflect where I'm coming from.

©2019 Mark Mehlmauer

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.] 

Build The (Other) Wall

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't, yet) -- the Stickies -- to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 Glossary  

                                                   About

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Star: Dana -- A gentlereader

Update: 9.23.19 -- Daniel McCarthy, running for the Senate in Arizona, proposes annexing Mexico, "...probably half the country wants to be United States citizens."

"As a city it is always compelling. But every day in Mexico city I give thanks that I am alive." -Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu



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

[This is a long one. That Polar Vortex thingy that has Ohio by the buckeyes as I write this has me trapped in my chambers trying to stay warm. This has left me with plenty of time on my hands as I'm not about to leave Casa de Chaos unless I absolutely have to.]

Let me begin by declaring that I've decided to sort of throw my hat into the ring and forcefully make it clear that I'm kind of running for the office of President of the United States of America. 

I've formed an exploratory committee, I'm consulting with my loved ones, and I've begun a listening tour -- every time I make my weekly trek to Walmart I make a point of speaking to the greeter and engaging my cashier in conversation. 

However, I'm still boycotting the Deli department. Hopefully, your favorite Walmart deli-department is not staffed by employees who seem to have been ordered to wait on customers only if absolutely necessary and to give the worst possible service to anyone foolish enough to request service. 

My theory is that the point of this is to train the customers to either buy pre-packaged products or just go away. 

And for or the record, I never use the self check out even though this usually results in waiting in a long line with other grumpy old people, many of whom have the unfortunate habit of waiting till the cashier announces the total before pulling out their checkbooks, asking to borrow a pen, and then saying, "How much was that again?"

This allows me to virtue signal that I disapprove of self-checkout lanes, and the subsequent job loss, in not only no-frills joints like WallyWorld but also in my local allegedly full-service, high-priced supermarket. Nowadays, full service apparently doesn't necessarily include a cashier.

Baggers (my first job, second if you count delivering papers) also seem to have been added to the endangered species list.

Sorry... where was I? Oh yeah, announcing my bid for the oval office.

What does this rant and your claim to be running for president have to do with, The Wall? asks Dana.

Yeah, Poppa, I don't get it, adds Iggy. (It's like, ninety below zero and most of the school buses wouldn't start.)

Oui, quoi? asks Marie Louise.

                                                      * * *

Oh... well, having an official opinion on the Donald's, The Wall, is clearly necessary if you're running for anything nowadays. My official position concerning the Donald's, The Wall, is that I'm sticking with the plan I've written about previously.

To summarize, The Wall that I'd like to go down in history for would be one built across the southern border of Mexico, not the USA -- after we invade and set them free from the depredations of the oligarchs and drug lords.

I was recently reminded of this when I stumbled over an article in The Guardian (a center-left British publication that doesn't have a paywall but begs for either a donation or a subscription at the beginning and end of every article).

Apparently, they're not having much better luck at getting readers to toss 'em a few crumbs than I am but at least I've had the self-respect to reduce my begging to a couple of buttons and Amazon ads. Not that I'm embarrassed... or bitter... or... anything.

The article's about the fact that no matter whoever/whomever (I can never remember which one to use where) the Mexicans elect, or whatever they try, just about everyone's life sucks except for the merry band of oligarchs and drug lords that run the place, in general, and one Carlos Slim in particular, who keep a boot on the neck of the average Mexican citizen.

I suspect that once I make it clear to my fellow Americans that we share a border with a country that's nearly as screwed up as Russia in its own way -- at least they don't have nukes or a Pooteen -- they'll support my invasion plans.

                                                         * * *

While they don't have nukes or a Pooteen they do have the well-fed Mr. Slim, who has a net worth of $60,000,000,000. If you live in Mexico and want a phone you've gotta' pay (and pay) Mr. Slim to play. Analogy: Imagine what it would be like if our local All-American cable TV monopolies were all owned by the same monopoly, see where I'm coming from?

I propose that after the invasion we sell off Mr. Slim's holdings to the highest bidders. I will then confiscate all of Mr. Slim's ill-gotten gains except for $5,000,000,000 or so. After all, he amassed his fortune legally, technically speaking, and he'll need a few pesos to live on.

This money will be used to pay for a much smaller, The Wall, across the bottom of Mexico till we can straighten Mexico out and then continue our efforts in a southerly direction.

I'll betcha' we have better luck down there than we've had in the Middle East.
There will money left over if we bid the wall building out to private contractors and keep The Gummit out of it as much as possible (they can keep the books).

We're gonna' need money to absorb Mexico into the US. Just putting all those drug lords and corrupted officials responsible for the murders of anyone that got in their way on trial before we execute them is going to cost a fortune.

According to the Guardian, Mr. Slim owns 17% of the New York Times, I wonder how much we can get for selling his stock. If I didn't know better I'd think the NYT was just a tiny bit hypocritical considering they recently devoted a bunch of ink and pixels to beating up on one Ken Griffin for spending $238,000,000 on a penthouse on Central Park South.

They wondered aloud why anyone needed a 24,000 square foot apartment in an editorial masquerading as a news story, actually a couple of articles, and why rich people spend ridiculous amounts of money on ridiculous things.

Answer: None of your fuggin' (*) business. Perhaps they're just laying the groundwork for certain Democrats to run on a Confiscations and Firing Squads platform.

I've got a question. If the millions of victims of greed and violence living just south of here pay some of the highest phone bills in the world, why ain't the NYTimes bitching about Mr. Slim? 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

(*) Jagoff, a word that doesn't mean what you may think it does, is Pittsburgh (with an h) -ese for, well, believe it or not, it's a socially acceptable way to say, um, butthole.   

If elected president I'm going to promote the word fuggin' as a replacement for its guttural sounding cousin in an attempt to render it as socially acceptable as jagoff is in Pittsburgh (with an h) and get it out of the uh, gutter.

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P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains. Just click here or on the Patreon button at the top or bottom of my website. 

Or, If you do your Amazon shopping by clicking on one of Amazon links on my site, Amazon will toss a few cents in my direction every time you buy something.

Or, you can just buy me a coffee.  

                                                   *    *    *

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post an announcement when I have a new column available as well as news articles/opinion pieces that reflect where I'm coming from or that I wish to call attention to.

©2019 Mark Mehlmauer As long as you agree to include the name of my website (The Flyoverland Crank) and the URL (Creative Commons license at the top and bottom of the website) you may republish this anywhere that you please. Light editing that doesn't alter the content is acceptable. You don't have to include any of the folderol before the greeting or after the closing except for the title.


  









  

Preparing For the Singularity (News That You Can Use No. 3)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Cheese is milk's leap towards immortality." -Clifton Fadiman


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-grandstickies,

First I need to take care of a bit of housekeeping. That is to say, I need to answer a question someone recently asked me about these letters.

"I get that the great-grandstickies ain't here yet but the grandstickies are, so why (eventual) at the beginning of every letter?"

While the Stickies know about what I'm up to, and are free to access my feeble scribbles if they wish, they are still a bit on the young side to grasp much of what I'm saying. But if and/or when they want to, they can easily access every letter I've written.

Also, they have access to a bunch of columns written prior to my adoption of the Letters to Stickies format via the Blog Archive function at the top of my web page. They may decide/may have decided that I'm an old blowhard and not worth the trouble. After all, what self-respecting callowyute takes the advice of a sexy seasoned citizen seriously?

But if and when they do decide that I just might have a clue my missives will be patiently waiting. And now, on with the show.


This particular bit of news that you can use is as potentially relevant to the Stickies as it is to my gentlereaders. Raise your hand if you've heard of the singularity. I'm not talkin' 'bout the one that gave birth to the Big Bang; I refer to Ray Kurzweil's version.

Mr. Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is near; When Humans Transcend Biology, predicts that at some point in the near future we punny H. sapiens will merge with machines and become immortal geniuses. This may occur as soon as 2045 so we need to start getting ready.


Now, if you've never heard about this and your first reaction is a sneer and/or a giggle hold it right there smarty pants. There's no shortage of people that are more intelligent than I who take this quite seriously. Rumor has it that it's a popular notion amongst our Silicon Valley overlords.

Personally, I'm open-minded (as to whether or not this is possible) considering the pace at which technology is evolving and considering the pace at which H. sapiens have willingly tethered themselves to smartphones and/or made them the focal point around which their lives revolve. Resistance may indeed, be futile.

Open minded, yes, willing to participate, no. First, for metaphysical reasons that I'll not explore here. Second, I was born with a severe case of Been There Done That syndrome with complications from Is That All There Is? disease. Immortality sounds boring.

Odds are better than average that I'll be dead by 2045. However, if you're old like me and would love a chance to become a cyborg, hang in there, Nectome is working on it.


"Nectome is a research organization dedicated to advancing the science of memory. We design and conduct experiments to discover how the brain physically creates memories. And, we develop biological preservation techniques to better preserve the physical traces of memory." -From netcome.com

[What's that got to do with...]

The last sentence Dana, look at the last sentence.

[So what? Are these the guys behind, whatchamacallit, um...]

Prevagen?

[Yeah, I couldn't remember what its called.]

Nope, Netcome, and its founder, Robert McIntyre, are working on a way to embalm brains. This ain't your momma's old school brain embalming; this is high tech brain embalming. That way, if you should expire before the technology to upload yourself is ready your brain will be perfectly preserved so that you that you still can.

There's a fly in the embalming fluid, however. your brain needs to be still working when the chemicals are administered, and they'll kill you.

[C'mon! You're making this shit up!]

Nuh-Uh! Check this out. See, the idea is that terminally ill souls can take themselves out while simultaneously preserving themselves for eventual uploading to a, well, who knows, but...

[C'mon! Who in their right mind would sign up for this!]

There's a waiting list. The technology is not quite there yet. If you plunk down a mere, refundable (in case you change your mind) $10,000 you can get on the list. Last I heard, 25 people have signed up.

[Oh...]

I know, right? Hey, I'll bet by the time the grandstickies are grups there will be a do it yourself kit so you can do it in the comfort of your own home and save some money. Living forever can't be cheap. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day. 
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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements as well as things I find on the web that reflect where I'm coming from.

©2018 Mark Mehlmauer

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.] 

Designer Babies

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Families with babies and families without babies are sorry for each other."                                                                                                          - E.W. Howe


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (assuming that there's anyone left to read this, that this exists in some form or fashion and that if it does, the technology to access it and the wherewithal to read it also still exists -- and that the world hasn't been ravaged by packs of mutant babies),

By nature, I see the glass as being half empty but I have two cunning strategeries to avoid succumbing to a terminal case of Fugiden. Til relatively recently my only defense was to try and find the smile/giggle in a given situation. Your arrival, actual and (hopefully) imminent, provided a second reason to bother getting out of bed in the morning and to not have brownies for breakfast.

I've no idea why grandstickies have this effect on (most) sexy senior citizens, it's probably something clinical that can be scientifically explained by some combination of DNA/evolution/acculturation/etceteration. Who cares if it works?

Speaking of science run amok...

[Huh?]

Work with me Dana, quantum literary leaps for artistic purposes are covered under the terms of my Poetic License.

[Whatever.]

Man, it's hard to work with a philistine running loose, dare I say, amok, in one's subconscious.

[I'm going to eat a brownie and go back to bed, please don't bother me.]

Amok!Amok!Amok!Amok!Amok!


Anyways, recently a Chinese scientist at a conference in Hong Kong claimed to have successfully implanted genetically altered embryos in a woman who gave birth to twin girls.

Hoo-Boy.

He said that he had altered a gene in such a way as to make them resistant to infection from H.I.V. For some reason I'm reminded of the favorite phrase of marketers everywhere, "New and Improved!"

Dr. He Jiankui (who has denied reports that he's a first cousin of Dr. Who) offered no proof and published no reports or data for peer review by his fellow scientists, mad or otherwise. Maybe, hopefully, he's an incompetent mad scientist or just nuts in an ordinary, non-mad scientist sort of way.


Vaguely remembering that some Chinese scientists were in the news a few years ago for this sort of thing I went a-googling and sure enough... There was a group of scientists in 2015 that messed around with some damaged embryos and who had no intention of trying to make a baby. They were seeing if they could successfully complete the first step of what Dr. He claims to have done, edit a gene. Baby steps.

Bad news (well, for them at least): they only succeeded in altering the DNA of 4 of the 85 embryos they tweaked. Worse news: they triggered accidental mutations in those four. The good news was that they published and scared the hell out of everybody... but apparently not Dr. He and who knows who else.

Tweaking embryos (making designer babies) is illegal in most countries, but not China. I guess you can't blame them since they can't follow their usual policy and steal what they can't develop on their own since theoretically, hopefully (but I don't believe it), somebody else isn't trying to perfect the tech.


Now -- legal, illegal, or whatever -- for a minute there Dr. He was thought to be missing. Not to worry, he appears to merely be under house arrest. Or not. Various and sundry gummit agencies, spokespersons and others swept up in the drama, such as many of Dr. He's fellow scientists, have come down hard on the good doctor.

However, from what I've been able to ascertain his official status appears to be that he's consigned to limbo till the current Emperor of the Middle Kingdom's vast bureaucracy decides what to do with/about him.

[Geez, sucks to be him, but what, pray tell, has any of this to do with the vague, lengthy, and paranoid salutation that began this incoherent rant?]

C'mom, Dana, that's painfully obvious don't you think? Somewhere out there may be not one, but two seemingly innocent babies mutating into God only knows what...

[Oh please...]

And even if this guy failed, or even made the whole thing up for whatever reason, given the nature of the beast do you believe for a second that someone('s) not working on this sort of thing somewhere?

[I'm gonna eat another brownie, good night.]

Some days I'm glad I'm old. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day. 
Please scroll down to react, comment, or share.

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements as well as things I find on the web that reflect where I'm coming from.

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the [I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 1 author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.] 

Manhood (Part Three)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional." -Chili Davis


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

This is the third and final letter to Anomy.

Dear Anomy,

The subject of last week's missive was mostly about the fact that you're sensitive and intelligent enough to have figured out that life requires tolerating no shortage of bullshit. I pointed out that you've figured out that grups have feet of clay and that the wildly imperfect world we live in reflects it.

Your reaction -- a not uncommon and understandable one, particularly nowadays -- was/is to embrace nihilism and cynicism. Let's party! I didn't point out that this path is a dead end, that even partying all the time eventually gets boring, just like doing anything all the time eventually gets boring.

The problem with revealing that bit of wisdom to a young person is of limited utility. You're going to have to live a bit longer to realize just how true it is.

It gets worse.

I hope you're an exception but for most people -- even me, and I've had a life that's a bit more interesting than average -- life is (mostly) one damn thing after another and is what happens to you while you're making other plans.

[FYI, the two "life is" quotes above are attributed to lots of people, I threw in the "mostly" because life is occasionally awesome, usually when you're least expecting it. The one damn thing version is often attributed to Winston Churchill, I suspect because it sounds like something he'd say. 

But since "Winnie" is famous for playing a key part in saving the planet during the last worldwide war there's a lesson there methinks.]

"Fugihden, life sucks and then you die so..."

If life sucks and then you die the question is what sort of life should you live and your answer seems to be, PAR-TAY! As I pointed out above, this only works temporarily (trust me on this), so the next question is, how should you pass your time while waiting to take a dirt nap?

And by the way, I don't mean to embarrass you but people who've figured out that PAR-TAY! is not the answer understand that PAR-TAY! is often just an excuse for doing nothing. It's the easy way out for people suffering from Peter Pan syndrome. Or worse yet, addiction.


Passing the Time
I've written about what follows before, and I have to acknowledge the fact that Jordan Peterson explains it better than I can, but here's the Reader's Digest version.

For myriad biological, psychological, philosophical, etceteralogical reasons H. sapiens need to spend their lives in the pursuit of goals and ideals and once a given goal/ideal is reached, or discarded, a new goal/ideal must replace it in order to feel... right. To feel like you're functioning as designed. To experience meaning and purpose.

It's really that simple, and that hard.

Hard, because anyone can say my goal is _______ and I'm going to start seriously pursuing it... next week, or next month, or next year, or as soon as the bottle or the bag is empty, or after I move out of here, or after I find a job/a better job, or _______. And then pull the covers up and go back to sleep.

Hard, because every time you reach or discard a goal/ideal you're not suddenly going be happy once and for all. You can't actually pursue happiness any more than you can force yourself to go to sleep, or to love (or even like) someone. Or to be loved (or even liked) by someone.

All that you can do is all that you can do.

To occasionally experience happiness be worthy of happiness. To be loved (or even liked) be worthy of it. To sleep well, work hard at something worth working hard for, which often means working hard at something you hate so you have the opportunity to work hard doing something you love.

Work hard at something you hate, or are indifferent to, so you can pay your own way, or pay the way of your loved ones and deep, restful sleep will follow.

Hard, because you have to choose to be a grup, you have to choose not to see yourself as a victim. We're all victims of something, so what? What are you doing about it? A grup understands everything we want, that makes us "happy" is an opposite of something and that the nature of reality is that it's made of opposites. Happy/sad, up/down, yin/yang. Deal with it.

Hard, because if you want to become a wise, contented, well-respected soul the only path available is to consciously decide to be the best person you can be on every level and get off your ass and do it.

No matter how rough things get at any given moment there are literally millions of other H. sapiens, at that exact same moment, with problems that make yours seem like a walk in the park on a beautiful day.


What will be your legacy? Choose one. He always tried to make things a little better for himself and everyone he could. He spent his life covering his ass and enduring the day. He was an asshole and we're glad he's gone. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day. 

P.S. Speaking of Jordan Peterson...


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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements as well as things I find on the web that reflect where I'm coming from.

©2018 Mark Mehlmauer

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the [I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 1 author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.] 

Manhood (Part Two)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Nearly half of the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world. This dewey-eyed nihilism provides absolutely no incentive to build a sustainable civilization. Many of these people are lunatics, but they are not the lunatic fringe."   -Sam Harris  

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

Sorry, I've got to continue my letter to Anomy.

Dear Anomy,

In part one I discussed the fact that I came up in a much more structured environment than you. What I was getting at was, well, I'm trying to answer a question.

"He's been walking along the edge of the cliff for a while now, which is normal and to be expected. Was he consciously waiting to turn 18 so he could jump off with minimal familial restraints and legal complications?"


Before I go on let me acknowledge that your situation undoubtedly seems much worse to us than it does to you. In spite of a normal amount of insecurities -- acknowledged or otherwise -- paradoxically, it's also normal for you to feel like you're bulletproof, ten feet tall, and you have all the time in the world.

We (you know who we are) felt that way too; we learned many lessons the hard way. Knowing that, since we love you and worry about you, we fear you might make even bigger mistakes than we did, perhaps one that you can't come back from. A second cousin of yours who has been locked away for a very long time comes immediately to mind.

I know, I know... we can't help it, we're grups, we worry. But no one would've predicted that what happened to him, would happen to him.


Monkeys & Cliffs
A while back, when you were enduring/surviving middle school I repeatedly pointed out to you that H. sapiens are (hopefully) high functioning primates. This was to teach you why -- since you were part of a troop of young, male H. sapiens, whose brains wouldn't mature (maybe...) for another decade or so and factoring in the power of DNA and testosterone -- you were witnessing insanity on a daily basis. Ooh-ooh, ah-ah! as the evil step-twins used to say.

For the record, I never said that that's as good as it gets.

I pointed out that in high school there would be glimmers of hope. That after that the glimmer would get brighter and that by the time you, and most of your contemporaries, reached the age of 25 or so you would find yourself living in a different word.

That the secret, at that point, was to keep piling up wisdom points as you aged, and to never stop. To keep evolving and never become a frozen caricature of a younger version of yourself, a disturbingly common fate for many.

"Wait a sec' I don't remember you saying most of that I..."

That's because I devilishly came at you mostly indirectly, and tried to teach by example as much as possible, the best way to try and teach almost anyone almost anything about this sort of thing.

The bad news is my devious plan seems to have failed.


Your position is that the world is being run by dumb monkeys and that at least you have the wisdom to acknowledge this and have decided to leap off the cliff and be done with it. What's worth striving for in a world of dumb, often evil, monkeys? The smart money's on "Eat, drink (smoke weed), and be merry, for tomorrow we die."

Everyone suffers a series of kicks in the crotch in the course of their gradual transformation from innocent child to a grup that has to live in the real world. You started early, when your Nana died -- and you're smarter and more sensitive than you realize and/or let on.

Cases in point: the average child doesn't get seriously pissed off because his loved ones have been lying to him when he finds out there's no Santa.

Particularly the kid, not long before that, who looked at me like I was a moron when I asked if he enjoyed shaking the Easter Bunny's hand and said, "That wasn't the Easter Bunny, that was just some guy in a suit, I could feel his fingers through the costume." Just sayin'.


Yes, there's no shortage of dumb and evil monkeys in the world but you're overreacting to discovering that fact. You're using it as an excuse to embrace cynicism, worse yet, nihilism, a potentially fatal cultural virus that's currently considered cool and has gained control of the DNA of our -- everything's entertainment and the circus is always on -- society.

Wikipedia: "Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value."

Trust me on this, self-medicating won't kill this bug. My next letter will tell you what does. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day. 

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P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

For details, click here.

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements and other items of interest there almost daily.

©2018 Mark Mehlmauer

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the [I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 1 author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.] 

Manhood (Part One)

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't yet, aka the Stickies) to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 - Glossary  

                                  - Who The Hell Is This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Marie-Louise -- My beautiful muse  

Iggy -- My designated Sticky

Dana -- My designated gentlereader

"Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all." -Camille Paglia


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies,

This letter is addressed to a specific individual (who shall remain nameless) who knows who they are and why I'm writing this. For the duration of this letter, they will be called Anonmy (short for anonymous) 'cause it's vaguely humorous (humy?) and I'm all about finding the humy in a given situation.


Dear Anomy,

Believe it or not, I get it. All male H. sapiens between (roughly speaking) the ages of 16 and 25 have to deal with what you're dealing with. Always have, always will. The age of the onset and the end of this particular stage varies. For some, it starts earlier, as in your case. For some, it ends later but not, I predict, in your case.

I refer to the transition from boy to man. The age range I've chosen isn't based on a particular study I'm going to link to...

Big But
Studies do report that males, roughly betwixt the ages of 16 and 25 commit the most homicides. The whys and wherefores depend on who you ask.

Settled science (and Simon) says that the average H. sapiens brain isn't fully developed till about the age of 25, particularly the area of the brain responsible for inhibiting impulses and making smart decisions.

Interestingly, car insurance companies seem to have figured this out before science officially did.

As hard as it probably is for you to fathom, I was once 16 to 25. Been there, done that. For some, it never really seems to end. Fortunately, for most of those sorts, the problem slowly fades to grey if they manage to stay alive and out of jail, and they mellow out considerably with age.

Finally, these are the peak years of your callowyute stage. While that's perfectly normal, until you advance to early gruphood you're as incapable of fully grasping your situation as a 6-year-old is as incapable of grasping what it will be like to be 16.

For the record, there are some wildly misinformed, narrow-minded souls loose in the world that maintain to this day that my callowyute period lasted into my early thirties. In my defense... nevermind, it's extremely complicated.


As I said, I went through it, but under much different circumstances than the ones you are experiencing. Although the American culture had begun fragmenting it was still early days. I was raised by parents that had survived WW2 and the Great Depression, an experience that left them humbled and grateful. They managed to impart a little of this to me when I was a callowyute; I've (ever so slowly) learned, and verified, the lessons life taught them since.

They could only dream about the lifestyle that you and I take for granted. They would be absolutely delighted, were they still around, that their sacrifices helped to make the life you and I live possible.

When I was coming up, America was still very much a Judeo-Christian nation that (mostly/more or less) believed in (some version of) God and a set of personal Rules&Regs that are more or less summarized by the Ten Commandments.

This way of being, seeing and living was pounded into me (occasionally literally) by Sister Mary McGillicuddy, Father Bing Crosby, and their crew, in the course of my eight years of Catholic Grade schooling at Our Lady of Sorrows elementary school. Although I was incapable of appreciating the firm foundation I stood on as a kid, I do now.


You, on the other hand, are a product of postmodern America and America's postmodern, politically correct public education system.

Teachers unions. Gummit Rules&Regs that just keep on coming. A hooge horde of professional bureaucrats to enforce said Rules&Regs. Platoons of pussified parents (and their lawyers) perpetually protecting Paul, Polly, and Per (short for Person) from potential triggering by everdamnthing. More lawyers. And saints preserve us, anti-vaxxers.

You, on the other hand, are the product of glowing screens that don't play the Star Spangled Banner when it's time for all good people to go to bed, tell you good night, and sign off till morning. Of course, it's too early to accurately predict the long-term effects, if any, of 24x7 electronic media access. We were told we were doomed 'cause of all the TV we watched. I had several moms besides the real one. Donna Reed, Ozzie's wife (not the one you're thinking of), Mrs. Cleaver, and Josie Carey (among others, look 'em up if you're interested).

I used to think that your generation's version of rock-n'-roll (call it what you want, "...it's still rock-n'-roll to me") was probably going to cause brain damage. But Rock was to Swing as Rap is to Rock. That is to say, the current version of the same concept. If your parent's music doesn't suck, at least till you're old enough to appreciate its few redeeming qualities, you may, not necessarily but you may, have "issues" (GRIN).

On the other hand... Oh, crap, wait a sec'. One, two, three, four... Yup, I'm already over the word limit. I'll have to continue this next week. Poppa loves you.

(To be continued...)

Have an OK day. 

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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

For details, click here.

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post weekly column announcements and other items of interest there almost daily.

©2018 Mark Mehlmauer

[I haven't got around to figuring out the official way to do this yet... but as of 12.15.18 I'm offering up my humble scribbles under a Creative Commons License. That is to say, Anyone may republish my columns anywhere -- as long as they don't alter them and as long as they credit me (Mark Mehlmauer) as the author, and, link to my website, The Flyoverland Crank.]