Friday, December 22, 2023

Why Old Men Cry (Part Two)

CC0 Public Domain

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice." {Um... shouldn't that be updated to their choice?} -Dave Berry


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

This is going to be a relatively short one, my dear gentlereaders. I'm busy dashing through the snow (Hootervile got its first real snowfall recently, ain't global warming cool!) this week trying to get ready for Christmas. As usual, it snuck up on me when I was busy doing other things.

{I call bonkercockie, you're not a dasher...}

Or Dancer? Or Dunder, or Blixem?

{Say what?}

Dunder and Blixem had their names changed to Donner and Blitzen when they passed through Ellis Island.

{Right... Anyway, when people repeatedly ask you, "Well, are ya ready for Christmas!?!" don't you automatically respond with "Yup, that's why God made gift cards."

Also, I've noticed that all sorts of events that normal people regard as important have a way of sneaking up on you because you don't take them seriously anymore... and snuck is not a word, by the way.} 

Yup, that's why God made gift cards, you can't go wrong with $20 bills, and snuck's been an acceptable irregular verb conjunction for so long that sneaked sounds wrong, by the way.

{Twenty dollar bills! That explains why...}

We must all do our part to roll back transitory inflation. Now if you don't mind, I have a part two to attend to.


Part one can be found here. But if you're dashing today, here's a quick summation. 

My Overflowing Cistern hypothesis, reduced to its most simplistic explanation, maintains that many men who've been "sucking it up" all their lives reach a point when all the tears they haven't shed over the years start spilling out, often at inopportune times. 

This is why old men cry, but this is a vast oversimplification, there's a bunch of devils thriving in the details that I didn't go into in part one.  

Most old men nowadays are Boomers. However, current geezers that were early Boomers are less likely to suffer from overflowing tear cisterns as they are less likely to have been influenced by the rise of widespread feminism in the late 1960s.

Men were told they don't have to be such hard cases. They should be "in touch with their feelings" and their "inner child" and that it's okay for men to cry. That's the kind of man a modern, liberated woman wants. 

[Younger gentlereaders please note: I speak of the Stone Age. In the 60s and 70s, LGBs came into their own and Ts were making a bit of a splash, but Q+++++++++++++ers were still maintaining a very low profile. If ya didn't know better you might think that the Ts, and all the others that came (and are still coming) after actually constitute a rather small segment of society who are currently enjoying a radically oversized moment. But I drift...] 

Many of my fellow heterosexual, male, mid to late Boomers and I embraced this notion enthusiastically. You don't have to be a badass, or cool, or rich, or pretty (or fake any/all of those things) to have lots of sex, maybe even find an excellent wife — just be more sensitive, and cry occasionally? Where do I sign?

More sex and permission to relax the stiff upper lip. Cool.


Ruh Roh, Raggy, we have a problem. We should've realized it wasn't going to be that easy. It's okay to cry, dude, except for when it ain't, which, as it turns out, is most of the time. 

Without going into detail, I'll stipulate that at least some, and in some cases, a lot of the radical change that rocked traditional Western culture, beginning in about 1965, was necessary and inevitable. But in my dotage, I've come to certain conclusions that aren't currently fashionable. 

Heterosexual male and female H. sapiens are in many respects quite different creatures and in most respects are the same as they ever were (I won't presume to speak for the Ls, the Gs, and the Bs). 

It's now okay for men to cry in front of other men or women. But the only thing that's really changed is that the contexts have broadened, slightly. A man may shed a tear, maybe two, in emotional situations deemed appropriate to bring a tear, maybe two, to the eyes of most men. 

Completely losing it over something deemed sufficiently appropriate like the death of a spouse or worse, a child is fine, in fact, recommended, but should be done in private if at all possible because if it lasts bystander sympathy quickly morphs into uncomfortable, then embarrassment, and eventually, contempt. 

{That's cold!}

That's realistic, but it's all about context. 

For example, Jordan Peterson getting choked up for a minute (but not losing it and maintaining his dignity) while giving everything he has in a public lecture, or even in interviews when he's asked what it's like being known for psychologically salvaging souls from the woke mind virus who have been known to stand in line to thank him, is perfectly acceptable to many... 

But not his ideological enemies who have been known to attack, smear, and sneer at him for it. Even certain woke public intellectuals, like the woke womyn who man the desk of The View, have been known to be less than charitable to men who cry in public. 
     Ladies of The View Mock Weeper of the House...For His...Teary Interview
Being an evil, oppressive patriarch ain't easy, it's enough to make you cry. And thinking about how much more sex I would've had way back when if I had been more bad boy, less nice guy makes me weep.  

{I thought this was supposed to be a "short one."}

Garrulous: given to prosy, rambling, or tedious loquacity (Merriam-Webster)

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day


Scroll down to leave a comment, share my work, or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns on both Facebook and the social media site formerly known as Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me canceled or publically flogged on either site. Cranky don't tweet (X-claim?).  




Friday, December 15, 2023

Why Old Men Cry (Part One)

  
Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"Old men are fond of giving good advice to console themselves for their inability to give bad examples." -Francois de La Rochefoucauld


Dear Stickies and gentlereaders,

I am, officially speaking, a member of the (in?)famous Baby Boom generation, people born between 1946 and 1964. Have you ever wondered who decided on those dates? Or the dates that bracket the Ds.O.B. of other generations? 

I consulted the worldwide web of all knowledge and the very first hit returned revealed that the rumors aren't true. There is not an obscure department — buried so deeply in the Census Bureau and staffed by bureaucrats that are the otherwise unemployable relatives of powerful Senators and Congresspersons who rarely bother to actually come to work — where this sort of thing is decided. 

Pewtrusts.org: "...through a somewhat haphazard process a consensus slowly develops in the media and popular parlance." 

Are you aware that people born in the "early 2010s" aren't Zoomers, they're Generation Alpha? Have we started over? Why wasn't I told?

{Are you wondering what this has to do with why geezers cry?}   

That's easy. A fundamental tenet of my Overflowing Cistern hypothesis includes the age of the Geezer in question, more on that in a minute.   

I recently saw an interview in which Jordan Peterson (Boomer) was asked why he cries regularly, and in public, which reminded me of former Speaker of the House John Boehner (Boomer, Red Tribe) who was regularly attacked by members and supporters of both tribes for being a lacrimaniac. 

{What's a lacrimaniac?}   

Well, technically, there's no such word as best I can tell. 

{Ah, you're making up words again.}

But in my defense, lacrimation (the secretion of tears) is a word so it follows logically that... 

Anyway, I thought the responsible thing to do, before proposing my hypothesis, was to have the research department investigate if there might be a scientific consensus; does old dudes crying have anything to do with the physiology or psychology of old dudes?

Answer, no. There are myriad opinions floating around, but no consensus. The guys couldn't even find an unimpeachable meta-study that'll be debunked at a later date.  

Therefore, for your consideration, permit me to present the Overflowing Cistern hypothesis. 


A cistern, if you're unaware, is according to Wikipedia, "...a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water."

The word waterproof is important in that in this context refers to the fact that although there's a way for water (or tears) to get in it's supposed to stay there. 

{Permit me to cut to the chase to save us all some time, big boys don't cry, right? You're cistern thingy is an obvious metaphor. At some point, the cistern all the old dudes have funneled their tears into over the years starts overflowing, right? Next thing you know a given geezer is crying at both appropriate and inappropriate times, Bohener was famous for crying about all sorts of stuff and...}

Thanks for your help, Dana. Permit me to return a compliment you have paid me on occasion, you too have a keen eye for the obvious. However, there are devils lurking in the details. 


First of all, the reason this missive began with a fascinating and informative digression about where generational names and dates come from is because I came across this information when I was researching the three sub-generations of Boomers, a phenomenon neither widely known nor discussed.

These subdivisions are important to my Overflowing Cistern hypothesis and I was searching for the approximate date Sub-2 ended and Sub-3 took over.

{Hoo-boy. Here we go again.}

Remain calm, it's really quite simple. Sub-1s are the early Boomers, and were as much influenced by the previous two generations (the Greatest Generation, 1901-27, and the Silent one, 1928-45) as they are by Sub-2 and Sub-3 Boomers. 

{Fascinating.}

Right? I was trying to determine at what point during the rise of the Sub-2s (when Boomers started tossing out the tot with the Jacuzzi water) the big boys don't cry ethos morphed into the big boys should be more gentle, sensitive, and not hide their feelings ethos that the feminists convinced us would get us laid more often (which unfortunately turned out to be B.S.). 

{Oh my dog! you can't...}

That's a subject for an entirely different column I'm highly qualified to write because I confess I bought it -- hook, line, and sinker. But unfortunately, the rest of this column, for reasons not interesting enough to bother you with, will be published next week. Think of it as a cliffhanger, but in compensation... 


Update: as to the ongoing tempest in a teapot that is the Ohio legislature's stumble-bumbling-fumbling attempt to legalize weed, Ohio's five-foot-tall governor is upset.

While our state senate quickly passed a law overriding the citizen's initiative we morons recently voted for (yeah, they can do that) the house (and senate) left town to begin a month-long break for Christmas without taking any action. 

Fun facts: Our legislators have to scrape by on only $70,000 a year, but "leadership" positions pay a little better. According to ZipRecruiter, the average Ohio working stiff makes $47,000 a year. As for what the mean wage is, which I would guess is closer to 40k based on my 38 years of living here in paradise, I couldn't find it on the worldwide web of all knowledge. 

Also, according to Open the Books, Ohio has 164,821 state employees whose wages add up to $9,517,773,573.09 a year.

Anyways... It's occurred to the governor (Mike DeWine, multi-millionaire and full-time politician since 1976) that since the initiative remains in effect till our betters fix it for us it's now legal to smoke weed in Ohio but there's no place to legally buy it so people will be risking their lives by buying it on the "black market" (and not paying the 10% sin tax, which Mr. DeWine would prefer to be as much as 18%).

All over Ohio people who would never even dream of buying weed when it was illegal to smoke it for fear of paying the $100 fine if they got caught are roaming the streets in search of a connection. 

{You're making that up!}

Not the $100 fine part, that's actually all that happens. But I must also confess that our governor is at least 5 foot 6, a solid 140 pounds, and pretty sharp for a geezer pushing 80 and who doesn't cry, not in public anyway.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day


Scroll down to leave a comment, share my work, or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns on both Facebook and the social media site formerly known as Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me canceled or publically flogged on either site. Cranky don't tweet (X-claim?).  

Friday, December 8, 2023

Like, Wow!

A Random Randomnesses Column

Image by Terre Di Cannabis from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

“To inspire himself, he lit up a marijuana cigarette, excellent Land-O-Smiles brand.” -Philip K. Dick, from The Man in the High Castle


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

Like, wow. I've written several columns that use the now apparently ubiquitous discourse marker (aka a filler, filled pause, hesitation marker, planner, or crutch) like. 

For the record, I wish to point out that I was like, being sarcastic.

However, I've recently encountered the word here, there, and occasionally even over there, and spoken out loud and repeatedly, by seemingly intelligent and rational people. Given how rapidly f-bombs are becoming f-firecrackers I expect it's only a matter of time before I encounter a demure, genteel-looking woman of a certain age exclaim — like, FUCK!  — while rooting through her purse in search of her car keys.

{That's sexist and agist! You can't...}

According to Wikipedia, "Christopher Hitchens described the use of the word "like" as ..."a particularly prominent example of the 'Californianization of American youth-speak.'" 

Indeed. The Boomer legacy continues. 


The recent off-off-year election (that I wrote about not long ago) here in the Buckeye state went off without a hitch, unlike the inevitable cluster coitus next year's national election is already shaping up to be. The post-election hitches, unfortunately, are legion.

Let the litigation begin! continue! 

While weed is now legal in Ohio ya can't just show up at any of the existing outlets that already sell medicinal weed and cop some chronic. From the Akron-Beacon Journal: "The Division of Cannabis Control must first set rules on licensing, product standards, packaging and more." 

They have nine months to do so, so I figure it will be a year or so... maybe.

"The state can't dole out additional licenses for another two years." Enter the Social Equity Program.

"This aims to help business owners who are disproportionately affected by the enforcement of marijuana laws. That includes people who are disadvantaged based on their race, gender, ethnicity or economic status.

"The law reserves 40 cultivation licenses and 50 dispensary licenses for these operators and provides them with grants, loans, technical assistance, and reduced license and application fees. The Department of Development is tasked with setting specific rules for the program."

If I were a lawyer I'd be salivating. 

{What about the abortion rights amendment to the Ohio Constitution?}

Passed. 56.6% yea, 43.4% nay. 

Big BUT, there were already various and sundry related legal actions tied up in the courts  the infamous six weeks with no exceptions for minor problems like rape, incest, or the mother's health law for example  prior to the vote, and more are being filed even as I write. 

But in the meantime, the same law that was in effect before the current kerfuffle remains in effect. Abortion is legal with certain civilized restrictions (such as no partial-birth abortions). 

{Then why on Earth...}

On a possibly related note, statewide primary elections are just around the corner.


If two people with two last names get married, do their kids have four last names? I went a-googlin' and can confidently report that I have no clue. In my defense, neither does anyone else. 

As best I can tell, there are no legal restrictions. Like gender choice and pronouns, you can follow your heart. 

Perhaps this will serve as a wakeup call to all the hes, shes, and theys out there to think twice before saddling their spawn with bizarre first names, or even traditional ones with mangled spellings likely to lead to a lifetime of peer abuse, psych meds, and therapy. 

On a practical note, filling out a form when one's last name is something like Smith-Jones-von Pufendorf-Garcia is clearly potentially problematic.

{Congress needs to step up and do something about this!}

Don't hold your breath. Congress can't seem to deal with truly important issues, like whether or not we should get rid of daylight savings time or make it permanent. On the bright side, twice a year the endless controversy gives reporters and commentators something to write about on slow news days.


This just in... henceforth December 7th will not only be famous for being Mark and Ronnie's wedding anniversary, Aunt Brenda's birthday, and some other thing... Oh yeah, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Today it's legal to smoke weed in Ohio. 

Big BUT, a few days ago it occurred to our five-foot-tall governor that there was no place to actually buy recreational weed — well, at least no government-approved, licensed, inspected, all fees paid outlets —and he has sprung into action. 

At his behest, the State Senate passed a new law, on December 6th, to replace the ballot initiative the hoi polloi passed last month that, among several other things: 

Cuts back on the amount of weed adults can grow in the privacy of their homes, raises the sin tax from 10 to 15%, permits local jurisdictions to add 3% on top of that, and allows existing dispensaries selling medical weed to start selling to the public — 90 days after (and if) he signs the new bill, as long as they comply with the new Rules&Regs.  

{I smell a rat... wait, if he signs?}

That's the smell of a new strain called Ratso Rizzo, my priest stopped by this morning. 

Ohio also has a full-time House of Representatives who will consider the new bill next week and who knows what sort of mischief they might get up to. Cluster coitus is always possible in Columbus. Irregardless, I'll bet the current black market merchants of the Devil's Weed are partying. 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day


Scroll down to leave a comment, share my work, or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns on both Facebook and the social media site formerly known as Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me canceled or publically flogged on either site. Cranky don't tweet (X-claim?).  

 

Friday, December 1, 2023

What Would I Do If I Knew I was Dying?

What would you do? 

Image by Lothar Dieterich from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"Dunbar was lying motionless on his back again...he was working hard at increasing his life span. He did it by cultivating boredom." -from the novel Catch 22 by Joseph Heller


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

I'm in no immediate danger of deletion as far as I know, but obviously I'm slowly but steadily dying, just like you. Actually, I know what I would do, and I'm doing it, but I don't have any advice to offer. Most people would find this particular geezers lifestyle rather boring I suspect.   

{You're doing it again.}

Doing what?

{We've talked about this. All the many writers and teachers out there who try to earn their daily bread by writing about writing advise crafting killer first sentences. It's the age of too much of everything so ya gotta reach out and grab 'em by the... throat in some form or fashion if you wish to succeed.}

"Having recently turned 39 for the 31st time it's occurred to me that at any given moment if the doorbell were to ring and I peered out my peephole to see who was standing on my stoop I might see a tall individual wearing a black, full-length hoodie with a hood that completely shielded his/her/their face, assuming he/she/they even had a face, and carrying a large scythe."

Better?

{Too long, H. sapiens devolving attention spans will soon rival the attention spans of goldfish, but it could be worse... What's a scythe?}

That large, scary-looking, curved blade with a long handle ("...an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or harvesting crops") the Grim Reaper is always pictured with. The Grim Reaper's called the Grim Reaper because he/she/they use theirs to harvest human souls. 

For the record, I'm not speaking of the (almost famous?) heavy metal band called Grim Reaper formed in the 1980s who apparently have been breaking up and reforming ever since. I've never heard of them but when I typed Grim Reaper into the Googometer the first hit returned was a Wikipedia entry about the band.

{Just because you've never heard of them... wait, do you mean a sickle?}

No, a sickle is a small scythe, picture the symbol for communism, the hammer and sickle? In fact, my family owned a sickle (I assume it was originally Grandma Barbs?) when I was a kid. For the longest time, I thought sickle was how you pronounced the word scythe as I couldn't imagine how you would pronounce such an ugly word. 

{Were your parents communists?} 

No, Senator McCarthy, not to my knowledge, merely traditional working-class Democrats back when the Democrats were the party of the working class and it was possible for a privileged patriarch to support a family while simultaneously oppressing his stay-at-home wife. 

However, given he had seven kids to feed and had to paint a lot of walls and trim to do so, I suspect that neither he nor Mum felt particularly privileged. 

{They should've had fewer kids. Three is enough to keep the Social Security Ponzi scheme going and prevent the pending population collapse other countries are already starting to experience.}

You make a valid point but since I'm number five I confess I'm glad they didn't. Oh, and for the record, I don't have a doorbell or a peephole as all visitors to Casa de Chaos must first be cleared by security at the main gate. Just putin' that out there. 


Life's a bitch and then you die. How many times have you heard someone say that? Have you ever thought about the logical contradiction expressed by that statement? If life's a bitch isn't death an effective solution to the problem? 

I was taught by Sister Mary McGillicuddy that if I followed all the Rules&Regs she and the Roman Catholic Church were going to a great deal of trouble to teach me, by marinating me in them all day every day of the school year, that when I died I would live in paradise, forever and ever, amen.

And yet, various believers in various ideologies, religious and otherwise (Muslims and the multiple virgin thing springs immediately to mind for some reason), most of us (fortunately) don't have a death wish. 

Just the opposite in fact.  


I'm old, so I read the obituaries every morning in what's left of Hooterville's daily paper. I do this in case someone I have, or rather had, a connection with that wasn't close enough to result in the dreaded phone call has died. It's a sorta/kinda socially responsible thing to do. 

{Whatever you do, don't tell your gentlereaders about your unfortunate tendency to think, "Ha, beat-cha!" whenever you come across the obituaries of people born the same year as you or later.}

You realize, Dana, that I could start taking my meds again and you're outta here, right? Anyway, I've noticed two things about the use of my favorite obituarial phrase — _______ received his/her heavenly wings (or one of its celestial variations) — seems to be declining. 

Entered into Eternal Rest is topping the charts nowadays, at least in the Greater Hooterville Metropolitan Area. I confess I don't know how they do things in Cleveland. 

Also, I've yet to read an obituary that has used the word their instead of his or her. Too soon I guess.  

{Obituarial is an actual word?}

Yes indeed, as is obituarist, yet another career opportunity I would've been good at that never occurred to me to pursue when I was a callowyute.

Well, I gotta go. I'm off to the doctor's office. Nothing to worry about, it's probably just heartburn. 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day


Scroll down to leave a comment, share my work, or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns on both Facebook and the social media site formerly known as Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me canceled or publically flogged on either site. Cranky don't tweet (X-claim?).

Friday, November 24, 2023

Artificial Intelligenci

Image by Andy from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon." -Elon Musk 


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

I've been watching too many videos about artificial intelligence. I found a YouTube channel, Digital Engine, that has highly informative videos about the subject that predict we're about to enter the golden age of golden ages... or that the end of the world is neigh. 

Too soon to tell. 

I ordered my research department to conduct a sweeping survey of the worldwide web of all knowledge and to consult with various and sundry experts and get back to me ASAP with a comprehensive report.

Result: Too soon to tell. 

As best I can tell all sorts of stuff is happening and will continue to happen, at an accelerating pace. I... 

{Your keen eye for the obvious is obviously not in need of a corrective lens. Hey, ever wonder why monocles have never come back in style? Ya'd think that some fashion-obsessed hip group of the moment would've attempted to reintroduce something that's so distinctive by now.}

As to my...

{How about "smart" monocles? And faux cigarette holders that are actually nicotine/weed vaporizers. That would look cool. You could complete the look with tophats that contain all the electronics an (allegedly) woke capitalist needs for pitch meetings — with a tiny solar panel on top.}

Are you done? As to my keen eye for the obvious, Dana, what I was going/trying to say was that despite all the warnings of potential disaster being issued by the same techies who are racing to develop artificial intelligenci... 

{That's just CYB — cover your bum.} 

...So as to add another billion or two to their pile, the "experts" are now saying we're going to be shocked at how fast the tech is going to reach the point that major disruptions will start occurring. But who knows? I was 17 the first time I heard the classic definition of an expert: a bonkercockie artist more than 50 miles from home. 

{You should insert some relevant links at this point, links to experts contradicting the conventional wisdom of the experts mentioned in the previous paragraph.}

I don't know if you've noticed, but my current policy is to try and avoid links on matters of opinion and try to stick with links to stuff that would at least seem to be a matter of widely accepted fact so as to try and avoid Uh-huh/Nuh-uh syndrome. 

And before you say anything, linking to my opinioned glossary, as I just did, doesn't count. As Lesly Gore sang, "It's my column, I'll opine if I want to." 

{The Artificial Intelligenci will eventually help us to get Uh-huh!/Nuh-uh! syndrome under control, right? Even if it will never be eliminated?}

Too soon to tell.


The real-life Tony Stark, Elon Musk — a man I admire despite and because the neoestablishment is trying to render him de facto canceled (who is also a perfect example of why, if you can't rock facial hair, you should shave every day as I do) — is developing his own version of an artificial intelligence called Grok. 

He's concerned that AI tech might kill off us meat puppets or extend the powers of the neoestablishment. But he also believes that the technology, executed properly, could turn out to be even better than sliced bread. 

(FYI: For those too old/comfortable to remember and/or those of you too young to have been taught much history, we used to admire people like Musk in America despite the fact they were/are as flawed as the rest of us, for creating a world our ancestors could only dream of.

{How about some links?}

Again with the... fine, click on Grok if you're unfamiliar with the word. It was invented by writer Robert A. Heinlein. To grok means fundamentally to understand, intuitively, but has subtle shadings that mean different things to different people. That's the sort of AI Musk is trying to develop 

Links, aka hyperlinks, are a wonderful/terrible invention. They make it possible to send a reader to another source of information without having to write a paragraph (or several paragraphs) to explain something.

They're almost unavoidable given that the foundations of what used to be a more or less shared culture are being eroded by the Dizzinformation Ocean.  

But they also make it possible to send a reader down a rabbit hole from which they may never return, or supply the writer with income via firms who will pay him/her/them a few cents every time someone follows a link that turns out to be a product push.

There are people who make a living selling other people's stuff, via links, who may or may not alert the reader as to what they're up to. There are other people who make a living by supplying the links. There are yet other people who make a living by teaching people how to make a living by peppering their writing with links.

{Tell it keen eye! What's this got to do with AI?}

You created this digression by yammering on about links!  


Anyways... my gentlereaders have no way of knowing if I wrote this column, if an AI wrote this column, or both, so perhaps we've already crossed the Rubicon, excuse me, Rubicon. 

{Both?}

I use the free version of a spelling/grammar checker (Grammarly) as I'm a terrible speller. I've stuck with the free version which is, or at least was, mostly a spell checker as I don't hesitate to go rogue when it comes to grammar/usage rules so...   

{You're a wild man.} 

However, the free version now offers up suggestions about rearranging sentences that "it" thinks would improve my writing style accompanied by sales pitches for the paid version which I gather is chock full of artificial intelligence technology.  

I don't begrudge them for trying to sell a product; I mention this as an example of how fast the technology is spreading. Hopefully, my writing style is idiosyncratic enough that you're confident you're still reading the rants and ramblings of a garrulous geezer, dear gentlereaders.

Big BUT, how would you know punny humans?

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day


Scroll down to leave a comment, share my work, or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns on both Facebook and the social media site formerly known as Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me canceled or publically flogged on either site. Cranky don't tweet (X-claim?).  

          

   

  



Saturday, November 18, 2023

I'm Starting to Believe In Conspiracy Theories

 
Image by Welcome to All ! ツ from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny  the Stickies — to advise 'em now, haunt them after I'm deleted.

Trigger Warning: This column is rated SSC-65: Sexy Seasoned Citizens   

About 

Glossary 

Featuring {Dana}Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device 

"If I don't run for presidnet, we'll all be OK." -Joe Biden (2015) 
"I don't want to be president." -Donald Trump (1987)


Dear Stickies (and gentlereaders),  

Quick! 50 years from now, what will professors, pundits, and scholars...

{Oh my!}

...Say were the major accomplishments of the Obama presidency?

{The fact he and the little woman were worth about a million and a half in January of 2008 and are now worth about $70,000,000 and own four houses comes to mind. I'll bet his daughters aren't dealing with college loan payments.}

I haven't given the infamous Choom Gang's most famous alumnus much thought lately, however...

{Choom Gang?} 

Well, as far as I know (I haven't read any of his books) although Mr. Obama has freely admitted that, unlike Slick Willie, he did inhale, and he did do a little blow, he hasn't gone into great detail about the Choom Gang, which is what he and the dudes he got stoned with in high school called themselves.

However, some of them did, and in case you missed it, google Choom Gang, and all sorts of different tokes takes on the story pop up. But who knows which details are true, which are exaggerated, and which are made up? Or, more importantly in my semi-humble opinion, why did his friends feel compelled to snitch and not avail themselves of a "no comment."  

{Right? With friends like those etc., hey you're not gonna claim that... Wait-wait-wait. Choom?}

Hawaiian slang for smoking weed (pakalolo), Dana, to choom is to smoke weed (at least when Mr. Obama was in high school, I don't know about now). It has other meanings in other contexts. The "gang" traveled around town in a VW Microbus owned by one of its members they called the Choomwagon.    

Big BUT, Mr. Obama it seems, has no shortage of friends in the news media willing to mind their own business these days when it comes to what The Swamp's most famous resident gets up to when he has friends over.

{He still lives in D.C., full-time?}

Looks that way, but honestly, I don't know. I googled my brains out but that information is hard to come by.

{Probably a Secret Service thing.} 

Perhaps. 


Not long ago, I was in the process of pursuing input via my daily morning routine of carefully constructed input inputting...

{You were sucking on your first cup of Cafe Bustelo while treading water in the Dizzinformation Ocean, yes?}

That's what I said. Anyway, I was reading a Holman W. Jenkins Jr. column in the Wall Street Journal about... 

{Holman who?}

A columnist I follow who writes a column, twice a week, for the WSJ. I'm a fanboy. 

The column was primarily about Mr. Jenkins's opinion that President Biden needs to find a way to push Kamala Harris aside and add a strong VP candidate to the ticket to solve some of the problems standing between Biden and a second term. 

{I see where you're going but I don't see Obama agreeing to be Uncle Joe's VP candidate.}

I don't think so either, although it would be interesting. But my buddy Holman happened to remark in passing on the fact that Obama declined to follow tradition and get out of Dodge, and out of the way, of his successor. 

Instead, the tribune of the downtrodden residents of the Southside of Chicago bought himself an $8,100,000 mansion in D.C., two miles from the White House, one (last time I checked) of four high-end houses he owns.     

{To be fair it's a relatively small mansion. It only has 9 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms... your buddy Holman?}

Yeah... if not for some obviously very bad karma. Holie's point, although it wasn't the point of his column, was that it's strange, that given there are hungry herds of reporters roaming the streets of Washington in search of prey, apparently none of them stake out the Obama House. 

Rather curious given that it seems to be the favorite domicile of our former commander and chief... but I can't say for sure because of the paucity of information referred to above. You can go a-googlin' if you don't believe me. 

Allegedly, there are frequent gatherings of former Obama minions (and others) who are now Biden minions who work at a different but much better-known, D.C. house. 

{Well, perhaps they're just being nice and giving him some space.}

Nice national reporters? In America? In 2023? There's no feckin' way that...

Wait a second!

Your dimwitted columnist has an aha! moment.


Given that the WSJ is a national newspaper that's so committed to old-school, traditional, objective journalism they print the real names of people (subscribers only) who comment on articles and op-eds, with millions of readers, and 1,800 or so reporters in 45 countries... 

Why aren't they staking out the Obama's D.C. digs?

{I hear Secret Service agents carry weapons.}  

As it turns out, the street in front of Mr. Obama's house is blocked off, and only approved (and I assume carefully vetted) visitors and approved (and I assume vetted, at least I hope so) delivery drivers are given access. 

But why aren't any lean and hungry reporters monitoring who attends what are supposed to be regular gatherings at the Obama House just by staking out both ends of both streets and keeping track of who is coming and going?

{What if they do but they're being chased off?}

That would be a story unto itself.

{What if they're aren't any regular meetings/gatherings/whateverings at the Obama House?}

I thought of that but according to Mr. Jenkins, who's in a position to know, this is common knowledge in Washington. Perhaps he was nudging his bosses at the WSJ. 

{Whatever. Why should I/we care?}


Well, let's review. A former POTUS, despite multiple decades of tradition, lives a couple of miles from the White House in a home that's apparently his primary residence and hangs out with former staffers who are now current White House staffers (and who knows who else) and the rabid press isn't interested?

Never mind, I'm probably just paranoid. I gotta go, someone's knocking and holding up a Secret Service badge in front of the Ring camera on my front door. 

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day


Scroll down to leave a comment, share my work, or access my golden oldies.   

I post links to my columns on both Facebook and the social media site formerly known as Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or lobby to have me canceled or publically flogged on either site. Cranky don't tweet (X-claim?).