The History of the World

A multi-column series originally published in 2016

Part one: Bang!

Image by Gordon Johnson 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 

"Not Again!" -History

Dear Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

I'm spending the summer in a cabin on a beautiful lake somewhere in the Swiss Alps, working on my memoirs, and trying to decide if this column will resume post-Labor Day. The market has found me wanting; I'm buying all of my own coffee. So be it, I remain an unrepentant supporter of capitalism. 

My big brother Eddie is currently my only financial patron so I'm starting to feel like Van Gogh... without the world-class talent, but with both ears. I'm also considering publishing only when the spirit moves me. Cranking out columns week after week, while enjoyable, is hard work — well, intellectually speaking — at least for me. 

{It sure ain't roofing or the like you whiney b...}

In the meantime, I'll be republishing (relatively) gently edited columns with updated statistics and fun facts in [brackets].

The universe we inhabit appeared 13.772 billion years ago on a Tuesday.

A single, unimaginably dense point began rapidly expanding and a lot of complex stuff happened and continues to happen. The most interesting thing that resulted, from an Earthlings perspective, is that 4.543 billion years ago the Earth appeared. The Earth is the result of some of the complex stuff that happened and continues to happen.

Wikipedia says that about 300,000 years ago anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged in Africa.

{So we're all Homos and we're all Africans?}

Yours is a, um... unique perspective, Dana, but I like it.

Or… to one degree or another, everything mentioned in the preceding paragraph and what followed happened because God decided when and if it should be so.

The details depend on your personal beliefs. I know some very nice, perfectly normal H. sapiens that believe what I consider to be some very strange things (of course I’m not talking about your beliefs). I freely concede that one of them may turn out to be right and that I may be wrong. I’m wrong with disturbing regularity so I try to keep an open mind. I highly recommend this approach as I’ve found it to be the only effective defense against blind panic when a high-velocity radioactive fact comes crashing through the roof of my thought structure like a blazing meteorite, and lands in the chair I just got out of to answer the phone.

For the record, the meteorite analogy is a paraphrase of a bit of a Marc Cohn song, “Live Out the String.”

Regardless, tools already existed by the time we came along although hardware stores/departments did not appear till much later on. The controlled use of fire for warmth, light, and most importantly in my semi-humble opinion, cooking (I've never cared for cold cuts) also likely preceded us but this is a matter of some dispute. Along the way, the attributes that distinguish us from the other animals on the planet such as language, art, religion, warfare, etc. developed.

Agriculture came along roughly 12,000 years ago and changed everything.

Our ancestors had been hunters/gatherers for eons. Since grocery stores hadn’t been invented yet everyone had the same job — killing something or harvesting something that nature had randomly produced — to avoid starving to death. Now, on a good day, this wasn’t a half-bad way to make a living. If you, or you and the gang (odds are you belonged to some sort of tribe or odds are you would be dead) managed to find something to kill and eat without getting killed and eaten in the process and/or stumbled onto an apple tree full of ripe apples early in the day, why, you could go home early! Assuming you had found enough food you were free for the rest of the day.

Of course, this could be quite boring because there wasn’t much to do since they had neither cable nor computers, not even smartphones. This was why sex was invented. I refer to sex as practiced by homo sapiens, which tends to be a somewhat frequent and obsessive activity as compared to most other animals.

Anyway, various someone's at various locations gradually figured out how to plant and nurture crops as well as domesticate animals. While this required a lot more work than hunting and gathering it was a somewhat more reliable way to keep from starving to death or from becoming some other species' lunch.

Also, there are some scientists, and some evidence, that suggests getting high was a significant motivation as well. Turning grains into beer is easier than turning them into food, and beer was just as popular then as it is now, even without clever commercials — please drink responsibly. Eventually, we got good enough at this agriculture thing to produce more food than was absolutely needed for the gang to just scrape by. This made it possible to settle down instead of wandering all over the place looking for enough calories to keep body and soul together.

Man, by nature and necessity, is a social animal. It takes quite a few years before we reach maturity so we’re dependent on our parents (a mom and a dad if we’re lucky) much longer than the average creature. Also, survival is considerably easier and our lives are potentially much more pleasant when we work together. For example, everyone knows that bringing down a wooly mammoth with the tribes' help is much easier and more efficient than trying to do it yourself. That’s why most people naturally prefer to hang out or at least affiliate with a clique of some sort, it’s a  survival mechanism. Getting along with the inhabitants of the other huts on the block not only promotes regular meals and security, but it also enables you to get your fair share of woolyburgers without having to slay the neighbors.

Social cohesion increased the likelihood, and quality of, survival. Having to share the playground with the other kids is where morality (the rules) comes from. Please see, The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt.

And somebody came up with monogamy. If all the dudes could count on access to, um, companionship, it made the cooperation needed for the hunt less prone to social drama. The dudettes could count on access to, um, companionship, and protection for the kids. This arrangement was/is disproportionately beneficial for dudes. Dudes need their significant dudette to be, among other things, a good mom, a good wife, and often as not, willing and able to work outside the home. This is necessary to counter a given dude's natural tendency to rapidly devolve into a naked ape when left to his own devices.      

   

We figured all this out long before agriculture made villages not only possible but necessary and humans began clawing their way to the top of the food chain (the original corporate ladder). When we reached the point where we could produce more food than we needed it was only natural that folks began to specialize. Most remained farmers, but surplus food made it possible for some people that had abilities that benefited the community to do their thing without having to farm. A relatively reliable supply of food and water (and/or beer) leads to increased populations. If enough people can produce enough food to keep themselves alive and have enough left over to feed specialists such as craftspersons, cops, kings, etc. — before you know it, a village becomes a town becomes a city becomes a civilization. The rest is history.

Civilization began in Mesopotamia, an area that corresponds roughly to greater modern-day Iraq, that fertile crescent thing that gets so much press. Ain’t that ironical? This happened about 3,500 BCE.

To be continued...

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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

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

  

Another Day (or two) Older And...

Original title: Two Reasons I'm Glad I'm Getting Old 

Image by annayozman 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 

"To me, growing old is great. It's the very best thing—considering the alternatives." -Michael Caine


Dear Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

I'm spending the summer in a cabin on a beautiful lake somewhere in the Swiss Alps, working on my memoirs, and trying to decide if this column will resume post-Labor Day. The market has found me wanting; I'm buying all of my own coffee. So be it, I remain an unrepentant supporter of capitalism. 

My big brother Eddie is currently my only financial patron so I'm starting to feel like Van Gogh... without the world-class talent, but with both ears. I'm also considering publishing only when the spirit moves me. Cranking out columns week after week, while enjoyable, is hard work — well, intellectually speaking — at least for me. 

{It sure ain't roofing or the like you whiney b...}

In the meantime, I'll be republishing (relatively) gently edited columns with updated statistics and fun facts in [brackets].

I've heard the cliche all my life: you're only as young as you feel. This is utter nonsense. Nobody feels old.

You may feel older than a H. sapien who's younger than you or you may even feel older than a person that's older than you are (who, of course, should be old enough to know better).

And, as I've written elsewhere (but I'm too old to remember exactly where) that feeling of superiority, perhaps even contempt, that third graders feel for first graders never goes away. The age gaps just widen, 8 is to 6 as 30 is to 20.

And, while you may be feeling your body's age, particularly once the inevitable long, slow decline sets in, or you're the victim of a string of serious medical problems and it feels like your body has turned on you... 

In your heart of hearts, you never get old, unless whatever it is that constitutes you dies before your body does. 

You're still, fundamentally, you. You're still pretending to be the grownup they told you would be someday. They likely didn't tell you that you will always feel more grown-up than some, less than others, and that the game never ends until you meet your end.

{Um... while I agree that the above is probably true, your garrulousness, I fail to see what it has to do with why you're glad you're old.}

Well, Dana, while it's one of those many life lessons that you might grasp intellectually as you begin racking up the decades, odds are you're not going to really know the truth of it in your very bones if, and until, you become a sexy seasoned citizen.
 
{Uh huh... but I still don't see why...}

It makes me happy? It's very liberating. You're not seeing the big picture, this knowledge applies to everything. You're never going to be done. You're never going to be secure. You're never going to wake up one day and finally know what, it, is. No matter what you've got, even if it's more than you need, you're never going to stop wondering what's missing.

And you're never going to be old.

Once you truly know this, externally speaking it may or may not change things much, but it will definitely change you.

{Okaaay... what's the other reason?}

                                                   
America's having an existential crisis, a cold civil war has broken out, cold enough to freeze The Fedrl Gumit in place till at least November the third, 2020 [November the eighth, 2022].

{This makes you glad?}

Look, While I'm concerned with what the future holds for my grandstickies, because who knows how the war will end, there's not that much I can do about it. 

The Millennials are slowly coming into their own, as far as who runs things goes, and the Boomers have slowly [but not gracefully] begun to fade away. There are about as many of them as there are Boomers and coming up behind them are the 67,000,000 or so members of Generation Z who are now cranking out the next generation [Alpha?].

I'll shortly be turning 39 for the 30th time; my actuarial use-by date is only about 11 years away. My former cash flow has lost much of its velocity but I'm reasonably confident that the two subsequent generations I share a home with will make sure I'm not rendered homeless unless we're all rendered homeless.

So, here I sit in a comfortable office chair in front of a large computer monitor that in effect is a magic window that looks out onto every feckin' thing there is or ever was. But, not having been raised surrounded by screens, even if the entire nation experiences a version of the rolling blackouts predicted for the People's Republic of California this summer I will not be traumatized.

To my right is a bookshelf stocked with several key texts in the dead trees format to keep me amused. The Hooterville Library is within walking distance and stocked with same. There are 7 people living on the other side of my bedroom/office/library door who like me (most of the time) to talk to.

I wish I had a money bin, or more generous readers, or that someone would syndicate/publish me but you can file that under woulda, coulda, shoulda. I'm a lucky sumbitch.

                                                  
{Okay, but...}

Okay but nothin', let me finish, please. I'm slightly smarter than the a-ver-age bear, I was born only eight years after the last world war ended and I received twelve years of what used to be foundational American education before Western Civilization started taking random potshots at its feet. 

Six of my 39 certified college credits are from a comprehensive survey of Western philosophy (taught by an old-school philosopher who used the Socratic method) that were accumulated before my fellow Boomers took over and set the culture on fire.

I mention this because if you combine the above with the fact that I've been a voracious reader and a current events junkie since I was about ten years old you get an old dude with a halfway decent reality-based historical perspective, a currently unfashionable notion. 

I've had, and understand the importance of, a grounding in the traditional liberal arts currently under attack by the armies of the woke. 

So here I sit, a well-informed spectator, watching the game. I'm hoping my team (The Fighting Enlighteneers) beats the other guys (The Squabbling Postmodernists), but as I've mentioned above there's not much I can do. I write, try to influence my dear grandstickies, hope to live long enough to meet my great-grandstickies, and enjoy the game.

And hope and pray Social Security and Medicare don't hit the wall before I do. 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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

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

                                             

A Fun Nun

Original title: My Sister of Charity, 12/21/19

Sr. Mary Clifford Soisson, SC

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 

"For a Catholic kid in parochial school, the only way to survive the beatings-by classmates, not the nuns-was to be the funny guy." -George A. Romero 

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

I'm spending the summer in a cabin on a beautiful lake somewhere in the Swiss Alps, working on my memoirs, and trying to decide if this column will resume post-Labor Day. The market has found me wanting; I'm buying all of my own coffee. So be it, I remain an unrepentant supporter of capitalism. 

My big brother Eddie is currently my only financial patron so I'm starting to feel like Van Gogh... without the world-class talent, but with both ears. I'm also considering publishing only when the spirit moves me. Cranking out columns week after week, while enjoyable, is hard work — well, intellectually speaking — at least for me. 

{It sure ain't roofing or the like you whiney b...}

In the meantime, I'll be republishing (relatively) gently edited columns with updated statistics and fun facts in [brackets].

Six of my first eight teachers were members of a Roman Catholic religious community that has roots extending back to 1809, the Sisters of Charity.

Sister Mary McGillicuddy changed my life, Miss Crabtree, not so much.

[Um, don't you mean Ms. Crabtree?]

No, Dana, I do not. I'm so old that Ms. magazine wasn't published till the year after I graduated high school and which, according to Wikipedia, is when that particular honorific caught on.

Now that name tags read, "Hello, my name is _______ and my personal pronouns are _______  " it sounds/seems almost quaint.

Sister Mary and Miss Crabtree are composite creations. S'ter Mary McGillicuddy represents the six nuns mentioned above. Miss Crabtree stands in for the two lay teachers I had in Catholic grade school. To a lesser extent, she represents the handful of female teachers I had in public high school; the word handful is an indicator of my encroaching decrepitude.

The majority of my teachers in public high school were male, the principal and vice-principal of the two high schools I attended were both also members of the toxic sex, particularly the vice-principals (readers of a certain age nod knowingly).

However, this column is about a real Sister Mary, Sister Mary Clifford who was my teacher in seventh grade and whom I recently discovered died in 2010 at the age of 89.

She was my first and only "cool" nun. She was the first and only nun I liked. She was one of only two nuns I wasn't afraid of. She taught me, at the age of 12 — without meaning to — that nuns were just H. sapiens in peculiar clothes, not members of a separate, parallel species.

Sisters of Charity, New York -1965

Eileen Soisson ("She was a faithful Steelers fan and had a great sense of humor.") was born on the 17th of July, 1920 in the Borough of Bellevue which borders and is butt up against, by gum by golly (sorry...) Pittsburgh (with an h).

Like me, she attended Catholic grade school (hers still exists) and public high school. She received a scholarship to Seton Hill (not Hall) College which was founded by the Sisters of Charity and she took her vows in January of 1942.

She was not only my seventh-grade teacher she also was the principal of the school, St. John the Evangelist, which was located on the Sou'Side-a-Pittsburgh, across the street from the 12th street playground.

For some reason, I was one of her pets. To this day I don't know why.


Being a pet of the principal meant that at least once a week I got out of class to accompany her when she borrowed one of the parish priest's cars to take care of some sort of business, usually grocery shopping for the convent that was right next to the school.

It was never just me—there was always at least one of the other boys, sometimes two depending on our mission—but it almost always included me. In retrospect, I can guess why it was always more than one boy but at the time neither I nor any of my classmates (that I'm aware of) noticed or cared.

Different era...

But, why me?

There was this girl, Ellen (Eileen?) Somebody, who from year to year was always a teacher's pet, but that made sense. She had a beautiful voice and the nuns were always finding excuses to get her to sing.

I didn't give it much thought at the time, just enjoyed it, rolled with it, took it for granted. Somehow, even the other boys in my class didn't razz me about it and normally this was a group that called each out for everything


I have no idea what she saw in me, but I do know why I liked her so much. She was genuinely nice. She kept at least one foot in the real world at all times. She wore her vocation like a corsage, not a crown of thorns.

She clearly enjoyed driving and when I was out and about with her she behaved more like a doting aunt than a school teacher. She'd answer our questions about parish politics, other nuns, her life, etc., questions we'd never think of asking in class (it just wasn't done) as honestly as she could.

But always diplomatically, always taking the high road, never stooping to gossip or backstabbing. Keeping the faith, as it were. Perhaps this was why I caught no crap from my peers — everyone liked her. She ran a tight ship in class but possessed not a trace of Crazy Nun Syndrome.

Please note: If you've ever been exposed to CNS, which was a common malady at the time, no explanation is required. If you haven't, no explanation I can provide will come close to describing it properly. 
 

Prior to Sister Mary Clifford, I had six teachers.

Four Sisters of Charity afflicted with CNS; one lay teacher that was about 150 years old; another lay teacher, for second grade, that taught us how to curse (rather genteelly by today's standards) by conscientiously explaining which words we were not permitted to use under any circumstances.

Eighth grade: different school, different community, unremarkable nun. But I wasn't afraid of her thanks to Sister Mary Clifford's unintentional life lessons. I'm ashamed to admit I don't remember her name as she did an excellent job preparing us for Catholic high school knowing that intellectually speaking, things were about to get a lot more intense.

I do remember that she got tears in her eyes when she discovered I wouldn't be attending a Catholic high school. Callowyute that I was at the time, this baffled me. I think I get it now. Fortunately/Unfortunately (it's very complicated) my parents couldn't afford to send me, so I was off to public high school.

For the record, the nun that ran that school scared the hell outta me, as she would any right-thinking person. Crazy Nun Syndrome. But thanks to Sister Mary Clifford, as my faith slipped away, I knew that nuns were just people, sometimes very special people. Look at her eyes.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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

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

The More Things Change...

Original title: Republicrats v. Depublicans (7/29/15)

Image by chayka1270 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 

"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason." 

                                                                                                       -Mark Twain

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

I'm spending the summer in a cabin on a beautiful lake somewhere in the Swiss Alps, working on my memoirs, and trying to decide if this column will resume post-Labor Day. The market has found me wanting; I'm buying all of my own coffee. So be it, I remain an unrepentant supporter of capitalism. 

My big brother Eddie is my only financial supporter so I'm starting to feel like Van Gogh... without the world-class talent but with both ears. I'm also considering publishing only when the spirit moves me. Cranking out columns week after week, while enjoyable, is hard work — well, intellectually speaking — at least for me. 

{It sure ain't roofing or the like you whiney b...}

In the meantime, I'll be republishing (relatively) gently edited columns with updated statistics and facts in [brackets].  

With apologies to JFK, I ask not why the federal government is so jacked up, I ask why it works as well as it does. I'm not an anarchist, only a sorta/kinda libertarian. I believe we need rules on the playground as well as an intelligently designed safety net. I would like the rules to be as few in number as possible and rationally conceived to maximize fun and minimize stepping on each other's toes. 

In light of our national debt, 57,000 [92,000] bucks each as this is being written and steadily increasing as you read this, cutting spending [prior to modern monetary/free lunch theory anyway] is always on the agenda. Both parties define cuts as spending a little less on planned increases over a ten-year period, to make "cuts" appear larger.

Think about that. Congressperson Stumblebum looks into the camera and with steely resolve states that if re-elected she'll [he'll/they'll] battle to get government spending under control. How? Simple. Increase spending by slightly less than already planned, over the next decade, and call it a spending cut. She won't put it like that though. She'll tell you that under her plan spending at the Department of Bonkercockie will be reduced by a billion dollars a year. With a little luck, Congressperson Stumblebum will be a lobbyist long before that decade is up and she'll no longer have to dirty her hands running for office in order to get her dirty little hands on other people's money.

She, and most likely the media source that provides you with this information, won't bother to mention that we don't have ten-year budgets. We have one-year budgets, at least in theory. Congress hasn't actually passed one since 1997. The one currently proposed is a product of the Republicrats, Depublicans don't support it and if it is passed in its present form, Mr. Obama has made it clear he will veto it.   

President Obama created the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission in 2010 to study and make recommendations for fixing our financial problems. You may have noticed The Fedrl Gummit has maxed out its credit cards, but the issuer (themselves) keeps sending out new ones (to themselves).

The commission was originally a provision of a bipartisan law that would require Congress to vote only up or down on the commission's recommendations since apparently Congress long ago lost its ability to compromise on virtually anything. The law didn't pass because some of the original Republicrat co-sponsors voted against their own bill.

Mr. Obama decided to set up the commission by executive order. The commission came to the conclusion that if we were to plug enough loopholes and eliminate enough special favors and social engineering from the tax code we could lower everyone's taxes. Toss in some real spending cuts and entitlement reform and now we're getting somewhere. Mr. Obama, and Congress, stuck the report in a drawer and returned to job one, staying elected. 

Mismanaging our money is not the only task the federal government excels in. No private entity can hope to match the government when it comes to creating Rules&Regs. The Federal Register (which contains 70,000+ pages as of 2020) lists all the rules and regulations you're supposed to follow if you have the good fortune to live in the USA.

If there was a board game called, "Life In a Free Country," in addition to the instructions on how to play the game there would be a multi-volume set of books [PDF files?] containing all the Rules&Regs you need to follow in order to remain on the straight and narrow as determined by Congress and the 2,711,000 [2,878,000] non-military employees of the federal government. 

How many Rules&Regs are there in the land of the free?  According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute's 10,000 Commandments 2021, "Since the Federal Register first began itemizing them in 1976, 208,155 final rules have been issued."

How on Earth did Congress find the time to write so many Rules&Regs? That's where the 2,711,000 [2,878,000] bureaucrats come in. Realizing that writing all those Rules&Regs themselves would be inefficient and detract from time on job one (see above), Congress passes legislation that authorizes the bureaucrats to create the Rules&Regs needed to put the brilliant ideas of their overlords into effect.

This practice helps to stimulate the economy by providing work for registered lobbyists [12,137]. Never let it be said that our fearless leaders can't hold their own when matched up against the folks that ran the Roman Empire into the dirt.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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

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

    

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

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

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