In the Event of My Death

 Cheat Sheet No.1

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors 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  

"Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die." -Unknown 

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

I'll be turning 70 this year. As I've mentioned in previous letters/columns if I were to wake up dead on any given day, although an international tragedy, it wouldn't be shocking or unusual. 

After all, H. sapiens of all ages die every day, all H. sapiens die eventually, and according to World.Data.info "A male child born in the United States today will live to be 74.5 years old on average." If you haven't been paying attention, this statistic has been trending in the wrong direction.

{Yeah but you were born many thousands of days ago, lighten up. I'll bet you're not scheduled to meet the Grim Reaper for a while yet.}

He/she/they self-identifies as the Happy Recycler nowadays, it's a rebranding thing. 

For some mysterious reason, I've yet to become the wildly successful, beloved, well-known columnist that I obviously should be by now so it's also occurred to me that it also wouldn't be particularly shocking or unusual to wake up one day and discover that I'm 80 years old, still writing columns, and still waiting for fame and fortune to find me. 

And still telling myself that starting (later) today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or next ______ that I'm going to _______. That's human nature, mine anyway, although I strongly suspect I'm not the only one. 

So I plan to crank out a series of "cheat sheets" before my deletion.

(While I'm thinking of it, for the record, I've no idea if virtue, prayer, daily affirmations, positive thinking, etc. actually make any difference. But to be absolutely clear, all I ask for is good health and plenty of money. I'll take care of the rest.)

Anyways... given that I'm mortal, and given that I have no desire to be immortal via any sort of technology currently under development by those who think that living forever wouldn't be a profound bore... 

{What about some sort of spiritual immortality after your body is deleted?} 

Since I have no way of knowing with any certainty what's next I don't dwell on it. Perpetual bliss also sounds boring; being sentenced to perpetual torment by a loving (or even vindictive) God for my, or the average Joe, Joan, or J. Bagadonuts' mediocre sins, seems highly unlikely.

{What about reincarnation?} 

Boring. 

{So what do you think happens, and for that matter, what's life on Earth about for H. sapiens?}

I don't know what will happen. Big picture-wise I suspect not much, that there's only one whatever it is, that's what we call "God," and God's having a very vivid dream, us. In my semi-humble opinion, that's what life on Earth and the whole universe is (universes are?) about.

{Would you care to elaborate?}

No. 

A gentleperson must decide on such things for themselves. However, decide, or decide to not decide, the important thing is to leave each other alone about such things as much as possible. A semi-wise person of my acquaintance once said:

"I want the playground to have minimum rules and maximum fun. I want just enough rules to give everyone an equal shot at some swing time and neutralize the bullies." -me

{You can't...}

I can and I did. Cheat Sheets are a sort of distillation of all the stuff I would like to mention, or reiterate, to the Stickies and my daughter and son-in-law in the event of my sudden demise. Hopefully, this will provide some life guidance and provide comfort for their devastated hearts (and for the lack of cash left on the table).

This then is my introductory Cheat Sheet. Since the purpose of my Cheat Sheets is to make sure I say all the things I'd like to say while I'm still here to say them, and since this missive hasn't used up its word quota:

You've likely heard that there's no such thing as a free lunch. While this is mostly true, like most rules, there's an exception that a discerning individual should be aware of.

Sometimes, someone that loves you, or perhaps even an occasional stranger with a kind disposition, will provide a free lunch. The "price" is the pleasure your benefactor experiences and as you hopefully are aware, this sort of thing can supply a really good buzz.

Buy somebody's lunch occasionally... BUT, be circumspect. As you may have also heard, there's a sucker born every minute.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Dear Uncle Joe & the Donald

An open letter.

Image by Marc Hatot 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  

"Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit." 

                                                                                              -P.J. O'Rourke

Dear Uncle Joe & the Donald,

Gentlemen, many of your fellow Americans believe that one of you clearly suffers from age-related cognitive decline and that the other is a megalomaniac. 

Never having met either of you, and since the closest I've come to medical training is driving by a highway exit sign for the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, far be it from me to judge.

However, I do know that the Donald (6/14/46) is barely young enough to be a Boomer and that Uncle Joe (11/20/42) is too old to be one.  

I also know that regardless of the state of your physical and/or mental health, biologically speaking, like me, you're old. More importantly, you've both led unusually full lives compared to the average American H. sapien. It's time to get off the stage and give the kids a chance to show us what they can do.

You've both become the face of powerful, polarized factions within your respective parties and are both exploited by the purple press and armies of tireless algorithmites on duty in the social media platforms, both of whom serve the Outrage Industrial Complex.  

Too many Citizens of the Republic have forgotten, or perhaps have never learned, that for a democratic republic to thrive and survive, constant compromise combined with a willingness to live and let live is required. 

For the sake of the Republic, if I were the benevolent, primarily ceremonial monarch that I should be, I would order that you two...

{Ahem.}  

For the sake of the Republic, the two of you should announce, together, that you've both decided that neither of you is running for president in '24, that given the current state of overheated political polarization, you've decided to step aside. 

That you hope this will set an example for both major parties to offer the nation younger nominees who publicly commit to seeking a compromise on the issues that divide us. 

That it's time, across the board, for Boomer pols to get off the stage, and for Americans of all ages to step out of their comfort zones and readopt the attitude of the country that put a man on the moon in less than a decade when we worked together.

That it's time to reconsider what's happened since: embracing self-centeredness and safetyism while simultaneously culturally shooting ourselves in the foot on a daily basis.

Perhaps you could even suggest all politicians over the age of 70 currently serving at all levels of government from dog catcher to senator not run in '24, and that going forward, this becomes a tradition, and if necessary, a law.

And speaking of mandatory retirement, how about suggesting that the members of the legal deep state, the millions of unelected bureaucrats we're at the mercy of, should also retire by age 70. We could be spared future Anthony Fauccis (82), who until his recent retirement, was better paid than the presidents he worked for. 

{Hey, are you aware that his wife, Christine Grady (71) is the chief of "the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center?" and is paid $234,284 per year?}

Yeah, I am, Dana. But to be fair I must mention that she and her husband worked for different agencies of the NIH before he retired.

Unfortunately, I suspect that even such a noble and virtuous gesture on your part, although it would likely result in the historians of the future treating both of you gentlepersons more kindly, I'm not holding my breath.  

And even if my fantasy somehow came true, it would be unlikely to make more than a small splash in Lake Zeitgeist given the current state of things. The purple press/social media would both move on as soon as the partner of the love child of a cousin of someone famous for being famous (and who once dated Madonna) died from an overdose of _______.

Perhaps the politicians and "influencers" who are members of the three generations born since the Boomers arrived could form the Neodemocratic and Neorepublican parties and take out the donkey and the elephant in the room with a tranquilizer dart.

I'd suggest they begin repairing the Republic by first freezing the national credit card and ending inflation by living within the nation's means so they don't spend their whole lives paying off their forefather's foreperson's bills. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work or access oldies. Buy an old crank a coffee? Join Cranky's Coffee Club to read Cranky's History of the World.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter where you can go to love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled.  

 

 

Deep State? What Deep State?

Image by Michael Knoll 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  

"You can convince yourself of just about anything when you want to believe a conspiracy theory."  -Brian Stelter                                                                                                                                         

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

I've got some shocking news America. An awful lot of the news media engage in the practice of what I call purple journalism (yellow journalism on drugs). 

From my glossary:

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

Worse yet, many outlets...

{You have a keen eye for the obvious sir!}

I was next going to say, before being rudely interrupted, that many media outlets are apparently part of the deep state but...

{For what it's worth, paranoia strikes deep. Into your life, it will creep...}

But (and that's a big BUT) like many alleged conspiracies, as I've written elsewhere, the term conspiracies of convenience more accurately expresses what's going on. And by the way, fading Boomer cultural references are my job.

{Please forgive me.}   

Conspiracies of convenience (COC) form when there's money and/or power to be had which often leads to the formation of groups of special interests, deliberately or spontaneously, that scratch each other's backs with no collusion necessarily necessary. 

Unlike conspiracy theories, which are by definition usually impossible to prove or disprove (which is part of the fun), a COC is, more often than not, obvious to any individual with a modicum of intelligence.

This brings us to <insert menacing fanfare here> The Deep State. 

{I was starting to wonder...}

The deep state is both a conspiracy theory and a conspiracy of convenience. 

The billionaire George Soros is named as a player in many a deep state conspiracy theory. He filled his money bin by pulling some seriously shady sh... shtuff. But he's since given a lot of it away to all sorts of good causes which would seem to be indicative of just a man with a guilty conscious.  

However, he's also currently (in)famous for funding the political campaigns of several "woke" district attorneys that are helping to trash certain cities by not prosecuting this or that "minor" crime or the rapid release of thugs in the name of social justice. 

Tell us, Batman, what's he really up to? 

On the other hand, we're knee-deep in conspiracies of convenience, many so blatantly obvious that you could easily make the case that they're more like socially acceptable corruption than conspiracies. 

Many people call the hooge and ever-expanding administrative wing of The Fedrl Gummit the deep state. I refer to the thousands of unelected bureaucrats charged with applying and administering encyclopedia-sized bills. 

These laws are composed by another division of the deep state that everyone's aware of. I'm referring to the thousands of lobbyists, lawyers, other bureaucrats, consultants, etc. who also work to get your congressperson to vote yea or nay on bills without ever having actually read them.

This is what a conspiracy of convenience looks like, a whole bunch of people scratching each others... backs on the down-low and the members of the purple press filtering the story (if they don't deliberately choose to ignore it) through an ideological narrative. 

(In their defense, photo ops, attending lunches and meetings with the usual suspects, keeping a weather eye on the next round of elections, and not passing budgets — balanced or otherwise — keeps congresspersons very busy. They even occasionally fly home to meet the folks.

Now, as for the deep state behind the deep state...

{Yes! A real conspiracy theory at last!}  

No. 

I'm talking about the spies, and politicians, that are supposed to be on our side.

They're not supposed to cover for Uncle Joe's clearly corrupt son who was so wasted he forgot about a computer that he used as an electronic journal documenting his bizarre life  — with pictures.

Our professional spooks are not supposed to sign a letter declaring it to be a Russian covert opp and then say — never mind — two years later. 

The purple press is not supposed to bury the story and then say oops — two years later.

The purple press is not supposed to virtually ignore the recent revelation that our current Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, was possibly the mover and shaker behind the bogus letter.  

Go a'googlin', enter "blinken behind letter declaring laptop to be russian info," or something like it, and discover how little coverage the story is getting by prominent news outlets.

My conspiracy theory? We've been programmed to accept blatant government corruption as just another day in the Swamp. Move on folks, nothing to see here.  

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.