The Flyoverland Crank

Saturday, June 13, 2020

Good Grief! I'm a Conservative?

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids (who exist), and my great-grandkids (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

-Photo by Amber Kipp on Unsplash-

"Conservatives are people who love something actual and want to retain it."

-Roger Scruton

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

Until recently, if anyone at a cocktail party had asked me about my political and/or philosophical leanings I would have described myself as a wild-eyed libertarian and free marketeer with a bleeding heart and conservative impulses.

[You've never been to a cocktail party.]

Well, the game's not over yet, Dana. I wonder if people even still have cocktail parties? I'll be right back...

Clearly, I need to get out more. Cocktail parties are indeed still a thing.

I even found a posting on a website, The Trend Spotter, titled "COCKTAIL ATTIRE FOR WOMEN (THE DRESS CODE DEFINED)" with a picture of five women in need of a bacon cheeseburger (or two).

They look like five variations on a theme: tall, heavily made-up, long-haired, Adderall addled 10-year-old boys with a suggestion of breasts posing on a rooftop in NYC.

"Don't jump! I've got cheeseburgers and CDC approved N95 face masks!"

Sir Roger Scruton, little known outside of certain small circles, is a recently deceased polymath, gentleperson, and one of my intellectual heroes.

[Dana performs a wildly exaggerated yawn.]

I know, I know... what can I say?

In his (and my) defense, he was born into a working-class family and his key to the ivory tower was confiscated early on for the crime of being a true, old school intellectual conservative more interested in conserving hard-learned truths than tenure or trust funds.

Dr. Scrtton wrote more than 50 books, including four novels, lots of magazine and newspaper articles, and a couple of operas in his free time. He also qualified to be a barrister (lawyer) but didn't practice.

[Dana performs another wildly exaggerated yawn.]

And during the 70s and 80s, he helped set up underground universities, gave lectures and smuggled banned texts in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia which at the time, my younger and/or lesser informed gentlereaders, were enslaved by the Russians.

[Oh. Cool. Well, I didn't see that coming but...]

And, for the record, my younger and/or lesser informed gentlereaders, the current dick-tater of Russia, the Pooteen, spent the 70s and 80s working for the KGB. The KGB was to the U.S.S.R. as the Gestapo was to Adolf Hitler's Germany.

[And, for the record, what does any of this have to do with you becoming a conservative?]

Excellent question.

If I should ever actually attend a cocktail party and if anyone asks me about my philosophical/spiritual/political leanings...

And if I'm drunk enough to answer given that the wrong leanings in the midst of the Intersectional Inquisition might get ya canceled or killed...

I would reply that I'm a sorta/kinda conservative with a bleeding heart and a free marketeer with libertarian impulses.

[Sorta/kinda conservative huh? I'll bet the ladies find you irresistible you bad boy you.]

Sadly, no. But I'm still in the process of figuring out how to explain myself so perhaps there's hope. The definitions of what a conservative is by many on the left and the right don't apply to me

But the only thing I'd like to discuss at the moment is how I got here...

[Bless you.]

Which is the same way Roger Scruton did.

In May of 1968, I was 14 years old and trying to figure out how to join the sexual revolution.

Roger Scruton, 24, an apolitical chap at the time, was living and studying in Paris. A bunch of college students, under the spell of many of the same postmodern thinkers now revered by the woker than thou, tried to start a political revolution.

According to Wikipedia, it was to protest traditional institutions, capitalism, consumerism, American imperialism, and etecterism. They began by shutting down their schools and then took to the streets and began breaking things and setting things on fire.

Before it was over, the zany French being the zany French, everybody went on strike but then began turning on each other. Once this particular national Spring break ended everyone felt better and things returned to normal

The young Mr. Scruton, a student living among students at the time, decided on the spot that whatever these well-fed, pampered children of the middle class were for he was for the opposite, and a conservative was born.

In May of 2020, as best I can tell, a thug was murdered by another thug wearing a police uniform. Protestors, exercising one of their fundamental American rights, took to the streets.

However, some of them began breaking things and setting things on fire... and trampling on the rights of their fellow citizens. The hard work and dreams of many entrepreneurs of all races were damaged or destroyed along with a lot of jobs.

I'm for conserving the opposite of whatever the hell that is.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook.

Cranky don't tweet.

Saturday, June 6, 2020

Fundamentally Speaking

-Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash-

"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals." -Jim Rohn

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

Fundamentally speaking, these letters are primarily addressed to the Stickie's (my 4.5 grandkids) future selves and the Stickies that aren't here yet. That is to say, I hope to live long enough to meet a great-grandsticky or two.

For the record, I sorta/kinda have three great-grandstickies already, four really. It's very complicated, time will tell, and as the immortal Forest Gump might say, that's all I have to say about that (for now).

Now...

[Wait-wait-wait. Hold up there a second, Sparky. It's complicated? Time will tell? How do you expect to become a beloved American cultural commentator and humorist if you cavalierly cough up clichés?]

According to the terms and conditions of my poetic license, Dana, inserting an italicized very into — it's complicated — mitigates the clichédness of the phrase in question.

Time will tell is more of a tried and true verbal shortcut than a cliché so put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[I see what you did there.]

Anyways, although I often write about current events, and although I've been criticized for disguising cultural commentary as letters to my progeny, things are more complicated than that. And after all, my salutation includes my gentlereaders.

You see, I keep trying (and failing) to write a sorta/kinda (it's very complicated) memoir for the Stickies and my daughter and son-in-law. But I have generated better than 250 (and counting) mercifully brief essays that reflect who I am (or was, if I wake up dead tomorrow).

This is a... fundamental thing. This is why I keep writing this column in spite of the facts that my 15 minutes/underserved riches/white privilege/etceterege seem to be lost at sea.

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." -Samuel Johnson

"No man/woman/non-binary should ever write unless they distribute their profits equitably among the 99%." -Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

"No man, not even broads, should ever write anything. Hire a ghostwriter. Most of 'em don't got any money and won't cost you nothin'. It's a very, very beautiful thing." -Donald J. Trump

[Fundamental thing?]

Yep. Another fundamental thing is that periodically one should stop and consider fundamental things. Why do you do what you do? What would you like to do? What would you be doing if you had achieved (deliberately, dumb luckily, or both) Woo-Hoo! level wealth?

What, if anything, are you doing about what you're doing/would like to do/would do? What do you think constitutes the good, the true, and the beautiful? Why are...

[Could we move on, please?]

Certainly.

What follows are some Fundamental Facts and Things...

[Ain't that the name of the new store in downtown Hooterville?]

It was. Someone smashed out the windows and then set it on fire.

I'd like to list some fundamental things in case I wake up dead tomorrow. You never know, you know?...do you smell smoke?

In the interest of brevity, and due to the fact "lived experience" is, fortunately, replacing the patriarchal constructs and tools of oppression — logic, reason, and proof — there are neither links nor supporting arguments. My lived experience has taught me the following fundamental things.

- Anybody in their right mind thinks that kneeling on even a criminal/druggies neck after they've been placed under control is murder.

- If ya use certain substances — fentanyl with a meth chaser to try and keep the fentanyl from killing you for example — things may not go well for you for all sorts of reasons.

- If you'd like to be a successful, happy, and civilized man/woman/_______:

"Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime." -Amy Waxman

- The preceding paragraph is a list of virtuous behaviors proven to be worth striving for. No sane person expects you, or themselves, to do more than try their best and be open to course correction.

- There's a big difference between substance abuse and the careful use of certain substances.

- Carbs make you fat; refined sugar may be as addictive as cocaine.

- Caffeine, in moderation, is good for the body and the mind. Some refined sugar, in moderation, is good for the soul. Two words, ice cream.

- Sensible fasting and moderate exercise is the key to good mental and physical health.

- "Police brutality against African-Americans is a huge problem in every way except statistically." -Scott Adams

- So-called real life is high school with money.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me some cheap coffee.

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook.

Cranky don't tweet.

Saturday, May 30, 2020

A Conspiracy Theory

"The growth in ethanol and biodiesel is something that I have worked on since I was secretary of agriculture in Kansas. I would like to see a lot more progress, because I think there is a real score to be made on this." -Sam Brownback

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

Since I'm running for king via a write-in campaign, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I should run the country if elected. After all, look at how effective the never-ending conspiracies of the Deep State have been at messing with the Donald.

As you can no doubt well imagine, this is a daunting task requiring much in-depth pondering.

[Almost too much for one mere mortal I would think.]

Too true, Dana, too true.

But since no one with a clue would want to be the king, or even president, of a republic that's in the middle of a cold civil war (so far anyways, fingers crossed...) and facing a future of financial and epidemiological uncertainty, who's more qualified than me?

[Exactly!... No, wait a second, are you saying that...]

I'm saying this would be the perfect time to insert an Uncle Joe/Daffy Donald joke but I'm above that sort of thing so I won't.

The Original Persons (OPs), aka the Founding Fathers, having read the classics, set up a republic because they knew that the fly in the democracy ointment was that democracies tended to devolve into rival factions competing for power and goodies (sound familiar?) and tyrannies (fingers on the other hand crossed).

This would be the perfect time to insert a joke about all those folks who are still waiting for the Donald to declare himself Lord High Muckety-Muck and start locking people up in all those FEMA built concentration camps. It's almost as if most of them never really believed what they were saying in the first place.

I believe that conscious conspiracies, that is to say, secret evil plots designed and implemented by an evil genius/family/organization/etceteration, are, at best, mostly crap.

[Mostly?]

Wiggle room, Dana, wiggle room. Anything's possible, although many things are unlikely.

However, I'm a firm believer in conspiracies of convenience.

[And what exactly are...]

Read on, my imaginary friend.

A conspiracy of convenience is one that doesn't require a Dr. Evil or even a Simon Bar Sinister to concoct and control.

A group of people who just so happen to benefit from particular policies or Rules&Regs can find themselves involved in the same conspiracy without ever having met most, if any, of their fellow conspirators.

The pursuit of riches and/or power creates conspiracies out of thin air.

[This would be a great time for an example.]

For example, ethanol.

Let the game begin!

In 2005, The Fedrl Gummit gifted the republic with the Energy Policy Act. Like all big honkin' laws created by the Leviathan, dissecting which senator, congressperson, lawyer, or lobbyist is responsible for what provision is virtually impossible.

Not a conspiracy, just a whole lot of people chasing money, power, and reelection. This is how a nationwide game of You Scratch My Back and I'll Scratch Yours gets started spontaneously.

The act, among many other provisions that provide subsidies from Uncle Sugar, mandated blending ethanol with gasoline via the Renewable Fuel Standard.

The Renewable Fuel Standard is a sprawling mess that's been a very effective jobs program. As for cleaning up the environment, not so much.

I found an excellent article in Reason from 2014 that tells the whole awful story. The following paragraph from the article sums things up nicely.

"America's ethanol requirement destroys the environment, damages car engines, increases gas prices, and contributes to the starvation of the global poor. It's an unmitigated disaster on nearly every level."

[What?...why?...I mean...]

Simple, so many people are feeding at the corn trough that ethanol is now an industry.

Meet the Renewable Fuels Association. "We are the leading trade association for America's ethanol industry, working to expand demand for American-made renewable fuels and bio-products worldwide."

Check out their website: They are literal flag wavers.

Mission statement translation: We're the leading cabal (there's so much money to be made it takes more than one) in a conspiracy of convenience. Unleash the lobbyists!

Jim Doti and Laurence Iannaccone conveniently published an article in the Wall Street Journal just as I was trying to figure out how to end this column. Thanks, guys. You can access it via my Facebook page without having a WSJ subscription.

Bottom line? We're swimming in ethanol because so much is being produced, but "...fuel producers can’t use it, since adding any more to gasoline will damage car engines."

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me some cheap coffee.

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook.

Cranky don't tweet.

We are the leading trade association for America’s ethanol industry, working to drive expanded demand for American-made renewable fuels and bio-products worldwide.

Saturday, May 23, 2020

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandchildren (who exist), and my great-grandchildren (who don't) — the Stickies — to haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

-Image from dracomania.org-

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

  Glossary

  About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Thomas Edison

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

I've been thinking about karma lately and it's occurred to me that perhaps bad karma explains the fact that the phrase a day late and a dollar short neatly encapsulates a recurring theme in my life.

I've also been thinking about the fact that a pair of large corporate entities, at whose hands I suffered, have gone out of business.

Are these two phenomena related?

Nah... Right?

Once upon a time, In Youngstown, Ohio, a man named Harry Burt, who owned a candy shop, invented what is now the world-famous Good Humor bar. Mr. Burt was a little known business genius who died when he was only 51 years old leaving his widow to fight his (patent) battles.

In the spring of 1981, a hippie with a job quit and became a Good Humor man on a whim. Like almost everyone who ever drove an ice cream truck of some sort, I stumbled into the business. I needed the cash.

The bad news is the business had already peaked and a long, slow slide had begun.

I loved the work, the money was good, and I was in and out of the business over the course of the next several years. However, I was involved in a business of slowly diminishing returns.

I was a day late and had accidentally entered the field when I was a dollar short.

Not long after my first foray into popsicle peddling, I found myself working for Kmart as an overworked, underpaid stockroom boss and then, briefly, a store manager trainee.

This was all about "getting straight" (which didn't mean then what it does now) to qualify for getting married to a blond girl next door type and making a baby, maybe two.

Neither I nor the Kmart corporation knew that they had peaked and were about to be destroyed by WallyWorld.

First, Kmart broke my heart, and then she did. I was training to become a computer programmer (the getting married thing again) when she started using my testicles as a trapeze.

This was just the first time Kmart would break my heart (more on that anon), it was the second time a woman did — there had been this hippie chick with a job...

Fast forward to our hero attempting to heal his broken heart via a geographic cure. When I came to I was managing a fleet of ice cream trucks in Austin, Texas.

As my dear Stickies know, I hired the woman who would shortly be my wife. She came pre-equipped with a ten-year-old who grew up to be their mom. Lured to Ohio by my late wife to meet her family, I got stuck and took up temporary residence.

We were supposed to return to Texas but 35 years later I'm still living here
temporarily. But the mountains of North Carolina are calling out to me in my dreams...

[Are they yodeling?]

Anyways, being an allegedly full-fledged grown up with a wife and daughter, I became an assistant warehouse manager for Toys Were Us. They eventually discovered that they had also peaked and would, in short order, also be destroyed by WallyWorld.

Toys etc. treated me even worse than Kmart had.

BIG BUT
There was a management buyout eventually and I had gone to a great deal of trouble (I had been tipped off) to be one of the folks invited to leave while not getting fired while waiting for the ax to fall.

This enabled me to buy an ice cream truck — almost an exact copy of the one pictured above — and start dreaming about becoming a goody bar mini-mogul.

ANOTHER BIG BUT
Life happened to me while I was making other plans and when I came to this time I found myself a widower managing a crew of 18 for a commercial cleaning contractor. We cleaned a hooge warehouse.

It was a distribution center owned by a much diminished Kmart.

Once again, I (and 18 other victims) were screwed over by Kmart Inc. and I found myself a fifty-something white, cisgender male without privilege at the height of the Great (so far, stay tuned...) Recession.

Hilarity ensued.

I limped — literally, I had what turned out to be a busted hip — to early retirement and was appropriately punished for my crime by the Social Security Administration.

I derive no joy from the fact Kmart and We Were Toys (effectively) are history. All those lost jobs... Nothing to do with me, right?

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me some cheap coffee.

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook.

Cranky don't tweet.

Saturday, May 16, 2020

Make America Polite Again

"The only rules: be charming, be humane, be smart, and never take yourself too seriously." -Jeffrey A. Tucker

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

Spread the word, King Crank has decided on his campaign slogan, Make America Polite Again (MAPA).

Uncle Joe and Uncle Bernie were more or less shunted aside when folks became preoccupied with surviving the plague. Uncle Joe is still shunted but apparently has secured the nomination as long as Tara Reade's charges don't stick, he doesn't drop dead, or isn't benched for dementia prior to the general election

Meanwhile, the Orange One canned the guy whose job it is (make that was) to keep an eye on how the $2,200,000,000 was spent.

Not to worry though, Aunt Nancy is creating a congressional committee to keep an eye on the checkbook while she's busy printing more money.

Not content to have spent all the money, and then some, and then some more, my fellow Boomers refuse to get off the field/leave the stage. OK, Boomer, retire for God's sake, if you can afford to.

There are three generations lined up behind you waiting for a turn. We need 'em to make babies and keep Social Security and Medicare afloat.

At least we can take comfort from the fact that all right-thinking Citizens of the Republic have signed on to a provisional ceasefire, putting the culture war on hold...

Dana, what's with the cynical chortling?

[Sorry.]

And since the ravenous pack of professional pols at all levels of gummit, for the time being, are placing what's best for the citizenry ahead of what's best for the career of a given pol...

Dana, please!

[Sorry.]

Even though I'm running for king I shall remain remarkably restrained and not take advantage of the current crisis to attack my opponents for their world-class ball dropping.

[Their what?]

I won't make much of the fact that the Donald and his minions have had three years to "restock the shelves," cleverly and simultaneously heaping scorn on both the present and the last administration (in which Uncle Joe played a minor role).

[Oh. Why?]

In times of trouble, we must all pull together as a team because when the going gets tough the tough get going, and as Winston Churchill said, "When you're going through hell keep going."

Etcetera.

[Oh. Absolutely. Right.]

Instead, I thought this might be a good time to introduce my campaign slogan, Make America Polite Again (MAPA), given that I've consciously decided to set a good example and not exploit the current situation.

I wrote a column or two now gone missing somewhere in the mists of time about STEM, no, not that STEM. STEM, in this case, is an acronym for strategic good taste, etiquette, and modesty.

In order to MAPA we must implement STEM.

[Impressive. First, a high ground maneuver and then you insert two acronyms into the same sentence, perhaps you're more of a politician than I thought. Pray continue your weaselness.]

I define being polite as an acknowledgment that since we have to share the playground with other kids we need to minimize friction to maximize everyone's fun.

Strategic good taste refers to the fact that what constitutes good taste depends on a given situation and what other kids you're sharing the playground with at any given moment.

Example: A good fart joke, while sharing a drink or two with a like-minded fellow sophisticate, may be just the thing.

Telling the same joke to the minister after congratulating him/her/them on a great sermon may not.

Etiquette has little or nothing to do with extending your pinkie while sipping your tea as demurely as possible. It's simply trying not to irritate/repulse others.

Examples: Chewing with your mouth open is repulsive. Setting your phone on speaker and holding it a foot from your mouth and yelling at it so that anyone within hearing can share in your fascinating conversation is irritating.

It may also result in injury or death — yours.

And finally, modesty. Everyone knows why, or should, that braggadocio is usually tacky and uncalled for. If you don't, ask your mum to explain it to you. Example: Forming a chorus line to celebrate scoring a touchdown.

Also, although the awokened have awakened us all to the fact that males reacting like feral, horny dogs to even the slightest visual provocation, intentional or otherwise by females isn't basic biology, it's toxic masculinity, there are limits.

You may (or not) be hot, but believe it or not, we don't all want to see your _______. We especially don't want our kids to see your _______.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me some cheap coffee.

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Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook.

Cranky don't tweet.

Saturday, May 9, 2020

The New, New Normal

-Image by Jessica Crawford from Pixabay-

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

  Glossary

  About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I believe that starting any business should be as easy as a 10-year-old starting a lemonade stand." -Mark Cuban

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

When I was a kid, normal, if you could marshall the resources and secure mum's permission, was setting up a Kool-Aid stand and investing the profits, if any, locally. That is to say, by purchasing baseball cards and comic books.

[Profits if any?]

Yes, Dana. Drinking or giving away more Kool-Aid than you sold was not unusual.

Until this year, the new normal — once it warmed up to the point that kids started setting up black-market, locally sourced organic lemonade stands to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or the like — was news stories decrying The Man showing up and shutting 'em down.

I predict there will less of the new millennial version of this rite of summer this year given that nowadays when we look over our shoulders to see if someone's following us we're as concerned about whether or not they're maintaining a safe following distance as much as we are about being raped, robbed, or murdered.

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

Oh, before I forget, a public service announcement. If you, like me, still use snail mail from time to time and find return address labels useful you can ensure a lifetime supply of free ones by donating to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital occasionally.

They do much good and work many wonders. By sending them a few bucks whenever the goddess Philanthropia nudges you, seasonally themed labels will continue to appear in your mailbox for the rest of your life, perhaps beyond. Win/win.

Anyways, for your viewing pleasure, Flyoverland Productions presents the following mind movie titled The New, New Normal.

A hot day. A quiet street in a relatively new, treeless (with the exception of the occasional sapling) suburban "development."

On a choice corner lot two siblings, Ludwig and Cornflower, are standing behind a large, plastic, Little Tykes "Old Fashioned Lemonade Stand." Both are wearing N-95 face masks and are staring, slack-jawed, at their smartphones. They are scrolling through their favorite social media sites while listening to different songs via earbuds.

There are no customers as all the other neighborhood kids are inside their comfortable, climate-controlled homes staring, slack-jawed, at their smartphones. They are scrolling through their favorite social media sites while listening to music only they can hear while simultaneously basking in the warm glow of 60" televisions.

Some parents, the laid-off ones that work in meatspace, are also sitting there and doing the same thing. Family time.

Other parents are working remotely in home offices, real or virtual. There are tax deductions available if you follow the rules (or don't get caught).

Back outside, a caravan consisting of an SUV (with police car package)...

Followed by a white, Sprinter style van that says _______ County Health Dept. on both doors...

Followed by an SUV that looks exactly like every other SUV in the world (except for paint color and trim package)...

Followed by another SUV (with the new and improved police car package)...

Pulls up and stops in the middle of Oakview Drive so as to block access to the scene of the crime till the situation can be resolved to the satisfaction of the Health Commissioner, the Police Chief, and the Law Director.

Cornflower texts her mom, who's in the bathroom washing down a Xanax from a flask of Vodka that she keeps hidden there. Not sure what's going on she launches an emergency text that brings members of the neighborhood watch and/or homeowners association running to the scene.

In short order, everyone is yelling at and recording videos of each other — while standing six feet apart. Most of the people in the crowd are wearing face masks of some sort and giving the stink eye to those few that aren't.

Several trendy teenagers, members of the Oakview Posse, who are wearing matching yellow bandanas and yellow Playtex gloves are standing off to one side taking selfies and posting them on their favorite social media sites.

Two hours later, the situation has been resolved. The cops are loading the confiscated lemonade stand into the back of the health department van; the crowd has thinned out; mom is in the middle of an intense, three-way call with her estranged husband and a lawyer.

Suddenly, from opposite directions, two large vans bristling with rooftop dishes, antennas, and other technical-looking stuff converge on the scene and a helmet haired, overly made-up, immaculately dressed reporter from two rival local TV stations jumps out of each van holding a microphone, each followed by a scruffy looking cameraperson.

Ludwig, alerted by his phone that it's time to take his meds, looks up in surprise and says to no one in particular, "Wow, like, what's goin' on man?"

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Please scroll down to react, comment, or share. If my work pleases you I wouldn't be offended if you offered to buy me some cheap coffee.

* * *

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook.

Cranky don't tweet.

Saturday, May 2, 2020

The Return of the Perenniall

  -Image by JacLou DL from Pixabay-

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

  Glossary

  About

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." -Winston Churchill

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

Better warm up that coffee, campers, it's a long one.

The universe began with a big bang, and nothing was suddenly something. The Perenniall returned with a muted pop on Tuesday, 9/9/41, one day behind schedule. They were supposed to be here on Monday (the Bernies B-Day) but had spent a much needed mental health day at a day spa on the planet Tralfamador.

The Perenniall hadn't been to the Earth since 1917. The seed they had planted, here (Socialism) had sprouted (the Communist revolution) and it was time to hit the cosmic road to plant more seeds, nurture more sprouts.

Mad Vlad Lennon (not the Pooteen, the current Mad Vlad) who had lost its last meat-based vessel in 1924 and had been trying to catch up with them ever since had only recently finally found them.

Somehow, its file had gone missing and the Perenniall — always busy planting seeds, nurturing sprouts — had lost track of it.

While Mad Vlad is/was a RBFD here on Earth, to the Perenniall it was/is just another RS (revolution specialist), second class.

It was not authorized to foment revolution, not even pointless violence and disruption without specific orders. Dutifully following standing orders, it had been trying to check back in ever since.

It filed its report and then headed for Tralfamadore for psychological BC&R (bloodshed cleansing and realignment) and a bit of R&R while awaiting its next assignment.

Myriad myths and legends abound throughout the universe as to the origin of the demigod Perenniall.

I personally believe they were created from the combined energies of idealistic, adolescent and post-adolescent members of various and sundry species who have achieved self-consciousness from here, there, and even way over there.

It turns out that it's quite common in our universe for individuals at this stage of development to take a fresh look at the culture their parental units take for granted and exclaim, WTF!

[Wow! So F-bombs are exploding all over the universe at any given moment? I wonder if...]

It's more nuanced than that, Dana. The F-bomb you're referring to, or at least the local equivalent (there are a lot of species out there) is often a sign of cultural decline.

There is, broadly speaking, another version, the one I prefer, wherein the local version of WTF is equivalent to Wow! that's freaky!

[Po-tay-toe/Po-tah-toe.]

Hardly, but it would take an entire letter/column to explore that one.

Anyways, at some point over the course of the last million years or so the idealistic energies mentioned above, magnified by usually short-lived but powerful youthful optimism hit critical mass and the Perenniall was born.

[Where did the name Perenniall come from?]

They have many names. Perenniall references the fact that even though the utopia promised to the followers of the Perenniall has never actually been achieved, believers, especially fresh converts, cling to the notion it can be.

A significant cohort of disillusioned believers maintains their faith by adopting a canonically approved rationalization: Once, inevitably, socialism or communism is properly implemented — somewhere, somehow — a social and economic utopia will dawn.

The fact that democratic socialism (socialism light) exists helps them to keep the faith. Unfortunately, they tend to downplay or ignore the fact that such a system requires a vibrant, profit-hungry private sector to finance it.

The "Nordic countries" that the Bernie likes to point to learned this the hard way. Even he admits that the middle class foots most of the bill via high taxes. The poor have no money and there just ain't enough evil billionaires to cover the tab.

So that they don't feel marginalized, thus damaging their self-esteem, the poor, along with everyone else, pay high sales taxes.

These taxes are paid by the manufacturers and distributors, who then include them in the prices of their products. This helps to protect everyone from realizing how expensive all the freebies actually are and making them grumpy.

[Works for me, I think I like democratic socialism. We should try that here.]

Works for them, too, but it's not socialism. It's the same system as ours but with a much larger safety net and much higher taxes.

[Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe.]

Hardly, Americans, as George Will has pointed out, want a dollar's worth of services for 80¢, thus the popularity of the let's eat the evil rich meme.

Also, we're already up to our necks in debt, and, unfunded debt obligations so...

[What are...]

Current debt, and, well... let's put it this way. "Vote for me now and I promise that you'll get a check later — paid for by your kids, grandkids, their kids, etceterids — after I'm retired or dead."

[Why ya gotta be such a Debbie Downer alladamntime?]

The demigod Perenniall — not unlike what happens, over time, to the individual psyches and personas of which it's constructed — changed as they aged.

Once (if) an individual entity matures, that is to say, reaches the equivalent of roughly the age of a thirty-year-old H. Sapien and is no longer a callowyute, they take high roads and low roads.

Sometimes they find a comfy chair and stagnate (which is not necessarily a bad thing, it's very complicated).

However, individuals, although not necessarily easily, can change more easily and much faster than a demigod when circumstances, experience, and maturity calls for a change.

As you know, or should, Lord Acton pointed out that, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

To which I would add that the limited but substantial power of a demigod, in this case, power fueled by a seemingly righteous ideology and new believers (callowyutes) constantly coming online is hard to keep under control, nearly impossible to kill.

[Kill the demigod Perennial!]

You can't, and that's a good thing (HT: Martha Stewart).

[Huh?!?]

The universe, this one at least, is one in which everything contains/generates its opposite, that whole yin-yang thing.

Bad craziness ensues whenever opposites get out of balance and stay that way for too long.

[O-kaaay, but you're already out of allotted words.]

Patience, grasshopper (fading Boomer cultural reference).

A policy of more or less free markets leads, and has lead, to unprecedented prosperity on the planet Earth, even the need for a weight loss industry.

BIG BUT: Despite the claims (and fever dreams) of your friendly neighborhood anarcho-capitalist, free markets not balanced by the right mix of ethics/real social security/the rule of law/spirituality/etceterality, are a recipe for disaster.

ANOTHER BIG BUT: Socialism, or socialism light, or communism — advocated by well-meaning, usually young idealists unaware of how and why better than 100,000,000 souls were murdered in the last century in the name of social justice — is also a recipe for disaster.

What we need is a hybrid system that harnesses the power of competition and the free market. That's what I mean by Real Social Security. The city-state of Singapore, as your probably tired of my pointing out, already has such a system that we could adapt to our needs.

It's based on actual money in real-time, works better than ours, and, the people, not just the bureaucrats, decide how their money is spent. Imagine what might happen if the healthcare/health insurance business was as lean and competitive as the car/car insurance business.

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

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