He Said, She Said, They Said, It Said

Life in the Dizzinformation Age.

Image by hakelbudel 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  

"Advances in automation, artificial intelligence and robotics, while increasing productivity, will also cause major upheavals to the workforce."                                                                                                     -John Hickenlooper

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

Sometimes I wonder if certain Luddites of my acquaintance are on to something.

"You could look it up!" -Casey Stengel... or James Thurber... or maybe Yogi Berra.

{You should look it up.}

I tried that, Dana. I was looking for the origin of the phrase you can look it up. No joy. What I found was that there's an out-of-print book called You Could Look It Up: The Life of Casey Stengel (my emphasis).  

Mr. Stengel was apparently well-known for frequently saying you could look it up to sports writers, hence the title of the book, but if I were the King Solomon of quote attributions I'd go with James Thurber. I'll spare you and my gentlereaders the details. I find them interesting but... 

{Yeah, fascinating, although I don't know or care who Casey Stengel is. I've heard of Yogi Berra but I wouldn't know who this James Thurber dude is if I ran over him with my car.}

Not to worry, Thurber, Stengel, and Yogi Berra for that matter are no longer with us but that's not the point. My point is that even though most of us can easily and instantly "look it up" nowadays, most of us don't. 

And if we do, we often discover that the answer we seek is elusive and we give up for the same reasons we don't "look it up" in the first place: who's got the time, motivation, or attention span to follow a given rabbit hole to the end?

DING!

{Sorry, dude, I've gotta check this notification.} 

While we carry around a virtual Library of Alexandria in our pockets neither Siri or Googella are very good librarians, often offering up multiple, conflicting answers when we ask a question.

{What a coinkydink, somebody's selling a collection of Yogi Berra baseball cards on eBay. Who's Googella?}

That's the name of the woman that responds when one says, "Hey, Google."

On the trail of an idea I had for a column I next googled the question, "Do people still say you can look it up?" 

{Why didn't you just ask Googella? You've got an Android phone, right?}  

Because I'm one of those Geezers who prefers using my computer to using my phone for such things and disembodied creatures such Googella, Siri, Alexa, or whoever are not welcome at Casa de Chaos. Remember, a vampire can't enter one's home without an invitation.  

I mostly use my phone as a phone. When I leave my cave, although I do bring my phone with me in case I need directions or have a massive heart attack or the like, it's often not even turned on. And even if it is, it's only permitted to notify me of incoming texts, and that's only because I set it to make this really cool BOING sound that I never tire of hearing.  

I prefer interacting in the real world without an electronic buffer betwixt me and it, and often as not, I don't even feel compelled to take pictures or record a video. 

{Huh. Well, do people still say you can look it up?}

I don't know. 

The first hit returned was the title of an article from GrammarBook.com titled You Can Look It Up. Summary: When reading you should look up every unknown word because your best guess might be completely wrong. 

{Words to live by... or read by anyways.}

Followed by: People also search for... (dead end).

Followed by: People also ask... (dead end). 

Followed by a hilarious and accurate definition of, "look it up" as supplied by the Urban Dictionary. 

Followed by: "8 Words That Totally Reveal You Are Not a Millennial," a 7-year-old article from Inc. magazine. I gave up. 

However, I did follow a fork in the road rabbit hole and discovered that the original Luddites weren't Luddites, there was no such person as "Ned Ludd," and that we're all using the word incorrectly.  

I found an excellent article published by Smithsonian Magazine in 2011 written by Richard Conniff titled What the Luddites Really Fought Against. Long story short, "...the original Luddites were neither opposed to technology nor inept at using it. Many were highly skilled machine operators in the textile industry."

England's "seemingly endless war against Napoleon’s France" caused food shortages and rising prices and "...on March 11, 1811, in Nottingham...British troops broke up a crowd of protesters demanding more work and better wages. That night, angry workers smashed textile machinery in a nearby village." This resulted in a violent, bloody labor dispute that lasted till 1816. 

You can look it up.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Comments? I post my columns on Facebook and Twitter where you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled. Don't demonize, seek a compromise.

 

Up, Up and Away

{In your beautiful balloon?}

Image by Susann Mielke 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  

"...aerial military surveillance dates back to the Civil War, when both the Union and the Confederacy used hot-air balloons to spy on the other side..." 

                                                                                         -Michael Hastings

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

When recently spooked by a hooge spy balloon launched by the People's Republic of China, that sailed across our republic, American politicians of all stripes responded promptly: by attacking each other. 

Uncle Joe decided to wait till it completed its mission before ordering it shot down over the Atlantic with a $400,000 missile to insure that no pieces/parts would land on innocent civilians. 

Fortunately, so far at least, Chinese dicktater Xi dada has shown restraint and not cut off the flow of any vital imports like designer sneakers. 

{I'll bet Tom Cruise could've just popped it with a big-ass bayonet mounted on the front of a F/A-18F Super Hornet.} 

Doubtless, Dana. Subsequently, when three more balloons were brought down, demonstrating to the Chicoms that messing with the USA might blow up in their faces I couldn't help but wonder if bored teenagers had found a way to warm up life in the frozen North. 

In their defense, it might've been an accident. When I was a teenager my baby brothers and I once accidentally fooled our subdivision into thinking that a strip of adjacent woods had caught on fire. 

I went a'-googlin' and discovered that even as you read this there are all sorts of balloons bob, bob, bobbin' along the bottom of the stratosphere launched by everyone from hobbyists to government agencies. Turns out you can buy one for about 12 bucks. I'm thinking about...

{Wait-wait-wait. Hold it right there, Sparky. You and your little brothers once "accidentally" set some woods on fire?}

No, definitely not, the neighborhood just thought we had, that the significant billows of harmless smoke that drifted out of the trees and into our hood might be the result of a fire or some other disaster. But given that any applicable statute of limitations has (hopefully, surely) expired by now I can explain your honor. 

{Please do.} 

It was 1966 and one of my older sisters had brought home her new husband, a Green Beret, to meet the family. 

{What's that got to do with setting the woods on fire?}

I repeat, we didn't set anything on fire. I must beg the court's indulgence, a bit of context is required if it pleases the court. 

{You may proceed.}

There was a patriotic hit song out at the time called The Ballad of the Green Berets. The Green Berets,  Wikipedia: "... are a special operations force of the United States Army." Due to the song, and other factors, the Green Berets were "having a moment" not unlike the one the Navy Seals are having nowadays.

To my little brothers and me, this guy was an American warrior right out of central casting. And he brought us green berets. And he told us some cool, toxically masculine inappropriate stories.  

We were in love.  

Now, as to exactly why he had brought a pair of official United States Army-issue smoke canisters/bombs (I don't remember how they were labeled) and gave them to us, I can't tell you. My guess is that being a semi-good ol' boy from the South combined with the aforementioned toxic masculinity led him to believe that boys will be boys and that we would be impressed and enjoy using them.

He was absolutely right. 

We took them into a modest-sized strip of woods behind our house and popped the tops on what looked like large, Army green (soda) pop cans and were shocked and awed. The amount of smoke them babies produced was amazing.

Totally cool. 

But then, thanks to a light breeze, significantly sized billows of smoke began rolling out of the trees and into our neighborhood. We beat a hasty retreat to the first and only house my parents ever owned, the first suburban house my little brothers and I had ever lived in.

Picture a teenage boy, his two younger brothers, a small crowd, and a couple of fire trucks. Firemen were combing the woods in search of where all that smoke was coming from. Fortunately, they didn't find it. 

I confess we were more frightened than exhilarated at that point but we got away with our accidental crime and the adults involved didn't rat us out. I apologize for whatever it cost the township to pointlessly dispatch two fire trucks but I'm sure it was less than $400,000 apiece. 

We were only accidental juvenile delinquents for a minute and grew up to be productive members of society.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work or access oldies. Buy an old crank a coffee? Extra content is available to members of Cranky's Coffee Club.    

Comments? I post my columns on Facebook and Twitter where you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled. Don't demonize, seek a compromise. 

The High Price of Big

Image by StockSnap 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  

"If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world?" -Richard M. Nixon

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

Often, size does matter. I speak, of course, of the wild, wacky, wonderful world of retail. 

{Obviously.}

And when retailers compete, consumers win. Most American consumers, hip-deep in retail outlets, are used to winning, and take it for granted. Unfortunately, business owners and their employees often lose. 

Competition kills. 

From a storied, local family-owned supermarket to a late, great retail colossus (Sears/Kmart comes to mind), no one is safe. 

And bigger keeps getting bigger. 

A globe-straddling economy creates hooge retailers and the little guy person, as if he/she/they doesn't/don't already have enough problems, can't possibly match the big guys persons on price and selection.  

{Trying to write in a Wokie-approved manner so as to not inadvertently trigger a member of a marginalized minority gets ugly fast.}   

Right? Worth it though. I figure it's only a matter of time before an unemployed, deeply indebted individual with a Ph.D. in Critical Pottery Theory looking to break into the social justice industry starts applying ESG ratings to wordsmiths. 

But I drift. 

{As is you wont, your garrulousness. But you do you, as the cool kids say.}

Almost everyone roots for the local store owned and operated by a local businessperson. Hey, you just can't get that kind of personal, hands-on service at the area Mega Lo Mart. 

But not everyone's willing, or can afford, to pay the retail prices a local firm may have to charge because of the wholesale prices they have to pay. Also, how does the local little guy  person compete with their customer's virtually unlimited needs and wants being delivered to their customer's front door by enormous retailers offering virtually unlimited choices?

{Sure, but what about porch pirates?} 

Sociopaths have to eat too. Besides, crime is a fairly stable industry that generates a lot of jobs. 

Speaking of customer service, or the lack thereof, if something goes wrong, that's when the excrement may hit the climate control system.

Don't get me wrong, I hate shopping in meatspace. I'm an Amazonophile who would borrow money "on the street" rather than let my Amazon Prime membership expire. And this is in spite of the fact I think the cash Mr. Bezos spent building his penis-shaped rocket ship...

{It's an investment in the future!}

Would've been better spent on the millions of minions responsible for getting stuff to my front door. Of course, if something goes awry there are all sorts of procedures in place to easily straighten out the problem.

{Do you mean ih-shoe? Problems are called ih-shoes now.}

Big BUT, if your problem falls even slightly outside of established problem-solving protocols... well, I'd think twice before engaging with Lord Jeffry's army of algorithmites if I were you, buddy. At a certain point, the time you spend trying to resolve your problem costs more than the thing you thought you bought. 

{I'll just call customer service and hope that I'm familiar with the English dialect spoken by whoever answers the phone. What's the big deal?}  

Assuming, of course, you're not dealing with a company that's so large they go out of their way to discourage actually talking to customers. Once a company reaches a certain size it's no longer practical, or profitable, to answer the phone.

Regardless, you'll be forced to deal with decision trees, "Please press 13 if _______", and God help you if you press the wrong button and wind up speaking to the wrong person in the wrong department — the adventure begins! 

We're sorry, all of our customer service associates are busy dealing with other people's ih-shoes just now. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received. You are caller number 1,039. Thank you for your patience. 

{I've never understood that ih-shoe. Doesn't India have like, more than a billion people?}

Hey-hey-hey. Are you trying to get us canceled? 

{Sorry, please don't delete me.} 

You can't just go around... wait, I've got an idea. 

Some are saying that we need a "Universal Basic Income" (UBI) to provide for all those people who've lost their jobs to robots, algorithmites, Chinese slave labor, etc. But others are worried that getting paid to do nothing will create a modern version of ancient Rome's mob.

Imagine an America in which most of America, including the ever-shrinking middle class, provides stellar customer service of all sorts for the rest of America, their wages subsidized by a UBI so as to keep the peace between the halves and have-nots.  

Win/win. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work or access oldies. Buy an old crank a coffee? Extra content is available to members of Cranky's Coffee Club.    

Comments? I post my columns on Facebook and Twitter where you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled. Don't demonize, seek a compromise.