Quiet Quitting

As opposed to noisy quitting?

Image by Alexa 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  

"It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man." -Benjamin Franklin

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

I get it, I do. I quietly quit more than one of the jobs I had prior to retirement, but "quiet quitting" sounds appalling to people with good work ethics. 

{Just how many jobs did you have?}

In my defense, Dana, I had a good work ethic. I never quietly quit before coming to the conclusion that trying to be a conscientious employee at a given job was pointless. Even when I was in my hippie with a job stage (long story) I tried to be as good an employee as was practicable. 

Comic Interlude:

Me: "Hey, _______, I hear ya got a new job."

Unnamed acquaintance: "Yup, minimum wage and all you can steal." 

While I didn't/don't approve of that attitude it's still a great line. 

I never quietly quit just because of the nature of the work itself. As has been said, that's why they call it work. If it's that awful, you need to actually quit and find another job. Note to Stickies: I highly recommend securing the next job before quitting the current one.  

I did quietly quit once or twice while looking for another job once I realized there was just no way to make the situation work. Also, I occasionally took on a job out of sheer necessity, when times were tough, knowing that I'd be outta there ASAP so you could argue that I quietly quit the day I was hired. 

But I never ghosted anyone. I gave as much notice as I could. I apologized.

{What about the time you worked as a busboy for nine days for that psycho that ran the dining room of a Holiday Inn like a female version of Joseph Stalin?}

I ghosted her out of fear for my life. I hope she's long gone or doesn't read this. Shudder...

Sometimes the boss is so incompetent that it's not even possible to manipulate him/her/them into doing their job. You may need to quit quietly while looking for another job and struggling to keep your current boss from screwing even that up.

Some advice for Millies, I'm a Boomer, a population cohort often under attack by succeeding generations. I'm told that many unemployed/underemployed Millies are counting on inheriting some of the wealth my generation has stashed away. Sadly, this isn't something I need to concern myself with. 

Careful, If you plan on killing someone you need to be that much more careful if you stand to inherit anything. The more dough involved, the closer the Homicide Division is likely to look. A given Millennial should be patient and let nature take its course... perhaps with a judiciously applied nudge. 

I'm willing to wager that the parents of most Boomers didn't tell their offspring to find and follow their passion, mine didn't. I think that an often somewhat less-than-ideal childhood, the Great Depression, and a worldwide hot war followed by a worldwide cold one tended to dissolve the stars in their eyes.

I don't think they imagined a future that included an ever-expanding welfare state financed by an ever-expanding national debt, or the decline of a moral consensus that included a work ethic based on paying your own way to maintain your pride and dignity — and three hots and a cot.

I learned the hard way that most people are unlikely to be able to pursue their passion at work. But if you work hard you can build the best life possible under your circumstances, and with a little luck, you'll have a few bucks left over to pursue your passion on your own time.     

The current "quiet quitting" kerfuffle is a new wrinkle for which the wrinkling Boomers are partially responsible. Notions like follow your passion, you can have it all, etceterall, began with the Boomers. We meant well, but it turns out that most people won't make the big bucks, or even adequate bucks, by following their passion.

Trying to compete at work with those who seem to thrive on "hustle culture" sucks as much nowadays as much as it did back in the day but the answer isn't quiet quitting, embracing mediocrity, and hoping for the best. 

Most people can't/won't have it all and chasing that notion is too much like work. But you can figure out what you really want (which will change as you live your life), what you really need to do to survive, and chase your dream — while taking care of business and making the world a better place just by doing your j.o.b., and doing it well,

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Feel free to love, hate, or troll me on my Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays, other things other days. Cranky don't tweet, but in light of recent events, I'm considering it... Go Elon, go!

Baltimore (Or Less)

 The more things change...

Image by Bruce Emmerling 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  

"When it comes to Baltimore I want to say that it's actually a lot worse than what you see in 'The Wire.'" -Gervonta Davis

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

I've never been to Baltimore, Maryland and I don't even know anyone from Baltimore, Maryland. But like all fans of The Wire, which I've recently rewatched, and anyone paying even minimal attention to the state of the republic, I'm aware that its current reputation isn't the best.

Baltimore's fellow Citizens of the Republic looking for a geographic cure for the problems of the area where they find themselves currently residing aren't dreaming of moving to Charm City. 

{Wait-wait-wait. The Wire? Ain't that a TV show that came out, like, 20-30 years ago?} 

Ahem. The second-best TV show ever made premiered on 7/2/02 on HBO, back when HBO was busy cranking out several of the best TV shows ever made. Nowadays, well... not so much.

{I think you're just stuck in past, old man, but I'll bite, what was the best TV show ever made?}

Deadwood, of course, another HBO show.

{Huh? Never heard of it. What about the Sopranos?}

Fourth best, and yet another HBO show from the same era.

{Seems like you watch way too much TV.}

I'm retired. In my defense, I spend a lot of time reading and writing, but the former doesn't pay at all and the latter has paid very little but I'm hoping to be discovered after my death.

{Fingers crossed. Wait a sec, what exactly is the subject of this column supposed to be?}

It's about the fact that Baltimore — which I'm cleverly using as a placeholder for any number of cities that are riddled with crime and corruption and are failing their children miserably — is a hot mess even though their systemic problems were revealed, in detail, on a TV show that ran 20 years ago. 

{Far be it from me but when I was in school I was taught that the subject of a given essay should be made abundantly clear right from the start.}

Harumph! You're the one who doesn't know what Prestige TV is and sidetracked me with a bunch of inane questions.

{Go harumph yourself, I'm just a charming literary device, you're the writer.}

Anyways... Baltimore is still a city in freefall, one of many devastated by America's dramatic and rapid switch from making stuff to selling stuff made elsewhere. 

The final season of The Wire centers around the damage that can result when high-tech gleefully "disrupts" a given industry, in this case, daily newspapers. The economic tsunami spawned by Silicon Valley continues apace.

{Well yeah, but there's a nationwide employee shortage so...}

True dat, there aren't currently enough people, or enough people willing to work, to fill all the open positions. But politicians spending money we don't have to buy votes, fund folks who don't want to work, and pay for the social justice/green agenda have roused the inflation dragon we were told was long gone. For half a hot second the employee shortages drove up the stagnant wages of the little people that keep the country running but then the inflation dragon ate all the wage gains and is still feasting.

{Don't be such a Debbie Downer, the impending recession will put an end to the transitory inflation.}     

And now the Wokies — a strange alliance of certain highly skilled (at least theoretically) well-paid people and moderate to low-skilled poorly paid individuals — want to disrupt everything that made America the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen in the name of "equity."

That's how you wind up with cities wherein criminals are victims, members of an ever-growing list of "marginalized minorities" are victims, everyone is a victim of white, heterosexual, cis-normal, toxic men and the kids are being taught by "activist" school teachers that aren't teaching critical _______ theory, they're practicing it.    

  

Ronald Reagan is famous for (among a few other things) asking us if we were better off at the end of Jimmy carter's first (and last) term than before. 

Now that a relatively small, hardcore group of Wokies have captured control of most of the media, Hollywood, Big Tech, the Democratic Party, the universities, the UN, several globe-straddling corporations, and have even infested the US military — are you better off?

Or do you feel like you're living in Baltimore?

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

{Hold up, what's the third-best TV show ever made?}

Justified, an FX show that came out in 2010.

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Feel free to love, hate, or troll me on my Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays; other things other days. Cranky don't tweet, but in light of recent events, I'm considering it... Go Elon, go!

At The Movies

With apologies to Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.

 

Image by rosi capurso 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  

"A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet." 

                                                                                          -Orson Welles

Dear Grandstickies and Gentlereaders,

We moved across the semi-mighty Monongahela river from D'bluff to the SouSidah Pittsburgh in the summer of 1961.

At the time it was possible to see a double feature, at least one cartoon, and previews — no commercials — for 35¢ at the SouSide's Arcade movie theater if you were under 12. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons the Arcade would be bulging with kids. 

If I could scrape two quarters together I could also buy a snack. I saw a lot of the movies released in the early 60s. The Arcade, now long gone, specialized in first-run schlock and second-run mainstream movies. I thoroughly enjoyed both categories. 

Godzilla! Godzilla! 

Access to cable TV, which, believe it or not, dates to 1948, was rare but the theater owners knew what was coming. They organized campaigns to "stop pay TV" in its tracks. Imagine having to pay to watch TV, that's what commercials were for! You paid to see movies, movies unlikely to turn up on your local 3 or 4 broadcast TV stations till years later.

{And yet nowadays ya have to pay your local cable monopoly to watch shows saturated with commercials.}

Well, Dana, I guess that's the price you pay for not having to deal with set-top antennas decorated with wads of aluminum foil.

{Huh?}

For the record, endless fundraising by PBS stations was a thing from early on, but commercials that are not commercials, "underwriting spots," were not. Also, commercials that were admittedly commercials were limited in number and didn't take up nearly 20 minutes of every hour of viewing on the commercial stations. 

{I see what you did there.}

As the years rolled by, going to the movies got more and more expensive, there were more and more of them, but less and less of them were worth the time/money. 

I hadn't gone to the movies in quite some time when my late wife talked me into going to see Forrest Gump at one of those theaters where you can enjoy the sound of other movies playing in miniature theaters bordering the one you were sitting in. To this day it's my favorite movie of all time. 

But at the time I was unaware that being subjected to a commercial before being allowed to watch the movie I had paid to see — after having to arrange financing in order to buy some popcorn flavored with melted margarine — had become the norm while I had been busy living my life. 

So of course I did the only rational thing a man of principle could do under the circumstances. 

I started complaining to my wife in a deliberately loud voice, as though my hearing aid had shorted out. I was cleverly attempting to prompt my fellow Citizens of the Republic to start complaining in equally loud voices. 

Up the revolution!

Instead, they looked alarmed and began whispering to each other, looking around for the nearest exit. And this was prior to 9/11 and before mass shooting incidents initiated by addled whack jobs off their meds running merrily amok became commonplace.    

Obviously, I was unaware of a minor shift that had occurred in the zeitgeist. That's what happens when you don't keep up with the newsletter.

My wife didn't get upset, she just started giggling and looked at me in surprise. I'm not normally the one who leaps upon the barricade to inspire my fellow revolutionaries.

Fortunately, the police weren't called. As far as I know, no one even complained to the manager, probably because I quickly surrendered. That's one way to tell the difference between a full-blown wack job and a mere cowardly crank by the way. 

However, I like to think that I inspired a dinner table conversation or two. 

"Hey, I went to the movies today and saw a really cool movie called Forest Gump. The popcorn tasted like it was topped with melted margarine but the movie was the best one I've seen in a while, the only one I've seen in a while actually... She talked me into going.

And there was some free entertainment before the movie even started. Some whack job that was so loud he sounded like his hearing aid had shorted out started bitching about a commercial they ran. Pretty funny. I complained to the manager who gave me a free $10 soft pretzel to go away."

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Feel free to love, hate, or troll me on my Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays; other things other days. Cranky don't tweet, but in light of recent events, I'm considering it... Go Elon, go!

Little Men With Little Feet

Image by Mohamed Hassan 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  

"I am not a woman, so I don't have bad days." -Vladimir Putin

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

My late wife's grandmother, whom I never met (I've been told this is not necessarily a bad thing) because she was my late wife's, late grandmother by the time I came along...

{There's something really, really wrong with you, you know that, right?}

...is famous for, among other things, advising that one should avoid short men with small feet. She thought that men of diminutive dimensions could not be trusted. 

I have no firm opinion to offer as to whether or not encountering a little man with little feet is necessarily indicative of anything, but I have personally known several short gentlemen in my life that, if given the chance, I'd cross the street to avoid encountering. 

In my defense, I don't automatically assume that short men, anyone actually, should be avoided based on their physical appearance with the exception of anyone carrying a machete or a machine gun while hanging out at the mall. 

I take 'em as I find 'em. I pride myself on attempting to maintain an open mind at all times. I'm willing to interact with anyone, for at least a minute or two, before going to DEFCON 1. 

Also, I don't think that most problematic short men are overcompensating for their height, I think they're more likely to be burdened by a shoulder chip that is the result of having been physically bullied by men and psychologically bullied by women as they were coming up.

I once met Dick Goddard "an American television meteorologist, cartoonist, and animal activist." He was the creator of the Cleveland area's world-famous Wollybear (caterpillar) Festival. You may have never heard of him but he's (regionally) famous enough to have his own Wikipedia entry.   

{What's that got to do with anything?}

Well, he is, or was (he's now the late Dick Goddard) a very small man with very small feet who was perfectly proportioned from head to toe. This was rather shocking to me because when my late wife and I watched him "do" the weather on Cleveland's channel 8 there was no way to discern his diminutiveness.

{I still don't see what...} 

Well, he was as nice in person as he appeared to be on TV. Also, maintaining a reputation as an all-around nice guy in a blue-collar metro area like Cleveland, Ohio — a city wherein a river used to regularly catch on fire that's now knee-deep in rust — would be tough to fake.   

This brings us to the Pooteen.

{Who? It does?}

I speak of Vladamir Putin, Dana. Who, it turns out, is a relatively little fella.

He's not even all that short, being either 5'-6" or 5'-7", depending on who ya believe. That's about the same size as America's favorite fighter pilot, Tome Cruise. But I recently saw a picture in which the Pooteen and some of his minions are celebrating annexing a chunk of Ukraine. He looks like he would've been the last kid picked when the other kids were choosing up sides to play basketball.  

I don't know his shoe size but I can't help but wonder if Mrs. Pooteen's little Vladdy, who began his working life as a KGB agent and rose through the ranks to become a world-famous brutal and corrupt dicktater, was picked on by the boys and rejected by girls back in the day:

-  From Wikipedia, "At age 12, he began to practice sambo and judo. In his free time, he enjoyed reading the works of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Lenin."

-  He's well known for photo ops in which he appears without his shirt. 

-  He's also well known for breaking into his neighbor's houses countries, folks who would just like to be left alone to pursue happiness as they define it, and breaking things just because he can. 

- Also, he...

{The breadth and depth of your scholarship are truly impressive.}

I'm just sayin'. If it walks like a duck...

Fortunately for his fellow young communists, little Vladdy didn't start killing his enemies, real and imagined, till after he matured, at least as far as we know. 

Unfortunately for the planet Earth, little Vladdy is now aging Vladdy; H. sapiens and chimpanzees share a common ancestor; the Pooteen is the boss of a nation with 6,300 nukes, and history seems to bear out the truth of Lord Acton's observation that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Brothers and sisters (and others), let us pray.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share this column or access my golden(?) oldies. You too can be a patron of the arts! Click here.    

Feel free to love, hate, or troll me on my Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays; other things other days. Cranky don't tweet, but in light of recent events, I'm considering it... Go Elon, go!

Based On Facts That Meet Fiction

A Random Randomnesses column. 

Image by Magic Creative 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

"We'll try to cooperate fully with the IRS, because, as citizens, we feel a strong patriotic duty not to go to jail." -Dave Berry 

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

The title of this column is a phrase that was displayed on the screen at the beginning of a TV show I watched relatively recently. I'd give credit where credit is due but I can't remember which show it was. 

{The old gray horse's short-term memory, it ain't what he used to be.} 

Harumph, gray stallion is more like it.

{I was going to say gray gelding given the state of your sex life, or the lack thereof.}

Double harumph, As it happens I'm a vcel thank you very much, Dana. Unlike incels, vcels are voluntarily celibate H. sapiens who have chosen this path for a variety of reasons. 

{My bad. I just assumed it was because in your case that...}

Could we move on, please? 

{You're the one writing this stuff.}

The phrase in question caught my attention because I also relatively recently encountered the term representationally accurate at the beginning of a different TV show — it may have been a movie — that also caught my attention. 

Both phrases are as disingenuous as the classic based on a true story but both sound way cooler. The same translation will suffice for all three.

The content you're about to consume is an allegedly more or less sorta/kinda accurate depiction that has been sliced, diced, tweaked, sexed-up, dumbed-down, and/or altered in any number of ways to make it more entertaining and hopefully more likely to make some money. It's based on a true story, is representationally accurate, and is based on facts that meet fiction.

I read... well, intensely and purposefully skim, a carefully chosen gaggle of websites dedicated to news and opinion in the course of the day to satisfy my addiction to current events and provide grist for my columnist's mill.

{Grist?}

Cool, huh? I've never written that word and I've been more or less literate for better than 60 years. Anyway, it occurs to me that the phrase based on facts that meet fiction might be a useful addition to the definition of purple journalism in my website's glossary.

Purple Journalism: Journalism as currently perpetrated by many news outlets that claim to be professional, unbiased, and factual. In reality, they are partisan, prone to sensationalism, and motivated primarily by the bottom line — and are based on facts that meet fiction. 

ln case you missed it.., The IRS is going after those rich sons o' bitches that haven't been paying their fair share of taxes. Empowered by a provision of the American Rescue Plan, passed last year by the Depublicans (the party of social justice) without a single Republicrat vote, the IRS is bringing the hammer down.

Americans that received electronic payments for goods or services provided to their fellow citizens via companies like PayPal, Venmo, etc. in 2022 will be receiving some unwelcome mail next month, an IRS form called a 1099-K.

Say you sold off your late aunt Thelma's collection of collector plates this year and used an electronic payment service to get paid. The service will be sending you a form 1099-K to helpfully remind you that this is income that must be reported to The Fedrl Gummit.

They also must report this information to the IRS.

See, the reporting threshold has dropped from $20,000 to $600. Surprise! Now all of those evil, thousandaire blackguards who have been making as much as an extra unreported $19,999 a year (or $601) via the black market will be forced to pay up.  

In case you missed it 2... Last May, the Black Lives Matter organization shared an IRS form 990 with the Associated Press news service. The form in question publicly disclosed BLM finances for the first time. I confess I missed the resulting AP report. 

According to the AP, of the $90,000,000 in donations that were received in 2020 (when all the mostly peaceful protests were on the news every day), $32,000,000 was invested in stocks, "which is expected to become an endowment to ensure the foundation’s work continues in the future, organizers say."

BLMs 2021 fiscal year ended with $42,000,000 in net assets on the books.

My favorite phrase from the AP story is, "...the tax filing shows the foundation paid nearly $970,000 to Trap Heals LLC, a company founded by Damon Turner, who fathered a child with Cullors; and $840,000 to Cullors Protection LLC, a security firm run by Paul Cullors, Patrisse’s brother."

Patrisse Cullors is one of the founders of BLM and a well-known real estate speculator. Follow the link for a, um... highly informative analysis of the BLM organization by the Daily Beast. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

THIS JUST IN! BREAKING NEWS!

{Oh c'mon!}

No, seriously, just today (12/23), Congress has postponed dropping the minimum threshold of 20,000 whopping damn dollars to $600 (In case you missed it...) for a year because we the people have been raising hell. Based on facts that meet fiction, I may or may not have had something to do with this.

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Feel free to love, hate, or troll me on my Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays; other things other days. Cranky don't tweet, but in light of recent events, I'm considering it... Go Elon, go! 

  

  

Welcome to Pottersville

It's a wonderful life.  

                                                         CC0 Public Domain

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  

"It's a grand life, if you don't weaken." -Thomas Carter (and my mum)

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

Yes, Virginia, there is a Pottersville (are Pottersvilles?), several in fact. Also, there's a movie... but it's probably not the one you're thinking of, particularly if you're of a certain age.

{Huh... Well, this is interesting, a pair of dated cultural references and a much newer, but obscure one squeezed into the same opening sentence.}   

Oh... Perhaps I'd better explain. Yes, Virginia, there is (a Santa Claus) is from a famous newspaper editorial written in 1897, Dana.

{Man, you are old!} 

There's a Pottersville in the highly-regarded classic movie It's a Wonderful Life, a movie in which, as hard as it is to believe, no one gets naked "because it's necessary to the story" or gets their head blown off. More on that Pottersville anon. 

Now the 2017 movie Pottersville, which has nothing to do with It's a Wonderful Life, is about what happens when "Maynard, a beloved local businessman, is mistaken for the legendary Bigfoot during an inebriated romp through town in a makeshift gorilla costume." 

It demonstrates that occasionally the preview accurately portrays just how awful the movie actually is and what happens when world-class actors need (or just want) a payday. 

One can easily make a case that America seems to be devolving into a country that embodies the zeitgeist of the Pottersville portrayed in It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

{Pottersville syndrome is ravaging the Republic?}

My research assistant, Dabney, assures me that It's a Wonderful Life is still a very popular movie and...

{How many times are you going to repeat the title? You're a click-slut, aren't you?}

Please! This is, more or less, a family-friendly column. Anyone familiar with... the movie, knows that the town of Frostbite Falls would've become Pottersville — a place that made both Sodom and Gomorrah seem tame and dull by comparison, at least by 1946 standards — if Jimmy Stewart had never been born. 

{That's not... You're... Never mind.}  

However, if the angel Clarance had revealed to Jimmy Stewart what America would be like by the turn of the millennium, Jimmy might've decided the hell with it and tortured Mr. Potter till he gave up the bank deposit that he stole from Uncle Billy and subsequently framed Jimmy for. 

Next, he'd clean out any remaining money in the safe at the "wonderful old building and loan," blow Mr. Potters's head off, tell Clanance to kiss his arse, and then run off with Violet Bick. They would then become a late 40s version of Bonnie and Clyde and have lots of sex... till they eventually got their heads blown off.

Geezers and geezerettes, well, many of them, tend to bang on about the good ol' days, it's almost a rule, droning on about how life in America, when they were young, was so much better than life in the current version of America. 

But any discussion, by almost anybody, about the current quality of life in America (pretty much everywhere I suspect), includes elements of what one (not necessarily accurately) has been told, taught, or remembers that it was in the past.

Sexy senior citizens, grups, callowyutes, and kids are all in the same large boat but living on different decks. Many geezers and geezerettes fondly remember a past that they actually weren't particularly pleased to be living in when they were living in it. 

Many of the grups currently charged with getting out of bed every morning to make sure the lights stay turned and the kids get fed wonder how it was once possible for one adult with a full-time job to support a family and still have a day or two off every week.

Some deluded Wokies, wackadoos, and callowyutes claim America is rotten to the core and run around tipping over statues, "canceling" heretics, and claiming racism is fine as long as you hate the right race. 

Many people, I suspect most (the muted majority?), wonder why everything has been politicized and who it was that decided that everything that was once considered deviant, antisocial behavior — not just behavior the culture at large should, and has, learned to accept  — is not only acceptable but should be taught to the kids A.S.A.P.  

Merry Christmas, and welcome to Pottersville. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Welcome to the Golden Age

Everyone's right... about everything. 

Image by Chaos07 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 

"An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia." -Macaulay 

Dear Grandstickies and Gentlereaders,

I have to admit, I never saw it coming, this golden age we now find ourselves in I mean. In fact, I didn't even know we were living in a golden age till Scott Adams, the Dilbert dude, mentioned it in one of his daily video blogs.

{Dilbert dude?}

Mr. Adams created the Dilbert comic strip in 1989 and has been cranking 'em out 24x7x365 ever since. Nowadays he also does a Facebook live stream, 24x7x365, that features his take on current events. He even cranks it out when he's traveling or on vacation.

{Perhaps that's why he's rich and you're not.}

Perhaps, but I think that it's because of my carefully crafted work/life balance, myriad interests that have nothing to do with work, and the fact that I know how to relax and smell the bayberry candle. 

{You mean coffee? I don't get...}

I'd like to get back to that golden age thing I mentioned, please. 

{Well! far be it from me!}

Mr. Adam's pointed out that there's an upside in dealing with the daily deluge of information; there's an upside in the struggle to keep from drowning in the Information Ocean.

Everyone's right - about everything. 

It matters not what the alleged fact is, it's easy to find someone, perhaps several someones, willing to posit a yeahbut, or a maybebut, and confirm what you know to be true in your heart of hearts. 

{Wait-wait-wait. Didn't some famous dead pasty patriarch say, "Facts are stubborn things?"} 

Yup, John Adams, America's second president. “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

In his defense, the internet didn't come along till about 175 years after he was deleted; he just didn't know any better. Nowadays, virtually unlimited access to virtually unlimited information posted by (potentially) 8,000,000,000 or so Earthlings has made it possible to prove just about anything. 

If you know for certain that the World Trade Center was brought down by a covert cabal that included the CIA, the Olsen twins, the Council on Foreign Relations, Mark Zuckerberg, Dr. Fauci, and a handful of members of Skull and Bones to be named later — you'll have no problem proving it. 

Not only will you have no problem proving it you'll also have no problem establishing contact and forging alliances with like-minded H. sapiens via various websites and social media platforms and "calling out" said covert cabal to your heart's content.   

I'm so old that I have vivid memories of when television shows were only shown on televisions and traditional theory (a.k.a. critical thinking) was revered, was one of the reasons Western Civilization was revered, for having made it possible for life to be considerably less "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" than it had been for millennia for the average Joe, Joan, or J. Bagadonuts.  

Wikipedia: Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgment. 

That is to say, we trousered apes attempt to use rational thought to overcome our frequently irrational natures and to discover what is objectively true (or at least close enough) to cure disease, perfect indoor plumbing, etc. 

That's all well and good, but traditional theory is focused on understanding/explaining society, that is to say, how things are, not necessarily how things should be. The next step is to try and work out what should be based on what we know, in conjunction with our fellow H. sapiens.

But this is the Golden Age, remember?  Critical Theory is in full flower, and certain of our intellectual betters have figured out how things should be for us. Marxist utopianism never died, nor has it faded away, it's alive and well and has morphed into (trumpets sound) Critical Theory.

Why should we mere individuals waste time laboriously working out what actually works and what doesn't when it's now widely known that our "social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions than from individuals?" 

It's time to wipe the slate clean...

{What's a slate?}

...and start over again. Myriad academics/activists/etceterists are busy working out the details via various versions of Critical Theories that have been invented, many seemingly out of thin air. 

Social theory

Literary theory

Race theory

Queer theory

Thing theory

Critical theory of technology

Critical theory of legal studies

Critical pottery theory

Gender theory

Etcetera theory

Utopia is just around the corner, welcome to the golden age.  

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

{Wait-wait-wait, Thing theory is a thing?}  

Absabalutely, but I agree with Dr. Severin Fowles of Columbia. "Fowles describes a blind spot in Thing Theory, which he attributes to a post-human, post-colonialist attention to physical presence. It fails to address the influence of 'non-things, negative spaces, lost or forsaken objects, voids or gaps – absences, in other words, that also stand before us as entity-like presences with which we must contend.'"

Scroll down to share this column or access my golden(?) oldies. You too can be a patron of the arts! Click here.    

Feel free to love, hate, or troll me on my Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays; other things other days. Cranky don't tweet, but in light of recent events, I'm considering it... Go Elon, go.