Category Archives: Philosophy

Why do cities let property owners plant dense hedges or other large obstructions on street corners so it’s impossible to see oncoming traffic?

Why do dentists—or their hygienists—stuff your mouth with all kinds of things and then a conversation?

It has to be more than bad luck that Wells Fargo Bank seems to have more major problems than their competitors—the most recent being that direct deposits aren’t showing up in people’s accounts.

Tim Burchett, Republican Congressman from Tennessee has announced that he believes that we have alien spaceships that we are reverse engineering, but it’s being hushed up. “I don’t trust government,” he added. Maybe someone should tell him that Congress IS the government.

And, finally—what does it say when The Simpsons is one of the most honest and reliable programs on Fox?

Whenever I think of Alabama—especially regarding issues like this—I cannot help but remember Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci) saying, “Hey Stan, you’re in Ala-F***in-Bama.” Having lived in the Deep South, I can attest that things are different down there.

According to the article, an Alabama fifth-grade girls basketball team, which had played in the girls’ basketball league for three years, was told that they could not use the city’s gym unless they joined the city’s recreational league. This meant they would be playing the boys teams.

They joined the league and paid their dues. They played the boys. They did well and went all the way to the championship but were told that regardless of the outcome, they wouldn’t get the trophy or be named champions

The girls won. The boys’ team lost and was awarded both the title and the trophy.

WHAT?????

The only reason was because they are girls!

This opens a whole new area of opportunities. In Alabama and other red states, after an election is over and the votes are all counted, in the unlikely event that a Democrat wins, they can give the victory to the GOP (Good Old [Boys’] Party) through the same logic. “They aren’t allowed to win—they’re Democrats!”

Here’s the article: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/girls-basketball-team-denied-trophy-after-beating-boys-for-championship/ar-A18g0ih?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=3f857bade54c43a781737f9745028554&ei=35

[Cue Tom Lehrer’s I Want to Go Back to Dixie]

A word of advice to all senior Russian officials.

Don’t go near the windows in tall buildings.

Sixteen and still counting . . . .

Dystopia – adjective    dys·​to·​pi·​an —  variants or less commonly dystopic
of, relating to, or being an imagined world or society in which people lead dehumanized, fearful lives : relating to or characteristic of a dystopia

I was clicking around Netflix the other day trying to find a movie that appealed to me. Since I like science fiction I naturally gravitated toward those. One of the most common words I saw in the descriptions was dystopian. Many movies were described in terms such as “In a dystopian world,” or “A dystopian tale.”

One of my favorite movies is Blade Runner, which I believe is the gold standard for dystopian[i]. Los Angeles is portrayed as a decaying derelict, although it does have many animated billboards flashing crass commercial messages. However, I don’t see the need for a plethora of depressing, hopeless dramas.

However, it is my opinion that creating a truly dystopian movie, in light of today’s reality, is going to be hard without it seeming like just another reality show. Everywhere you look—politics, business, international relations, medicine, etc. is, to put it bluntly, dystopian—as in fucked up. Otherwise, how can we explain the following:

• Political parties that seem to believe that whoever tells the most lies wins.
• Congress is willing to commit to expenditures, but when the bill becomes due, they balk at paying it.
• One hundred fifty-eight years after the end of the Civil War, people still spout white supremacy and fly the Confederate battle flag (It is not the flag of the Confederacy).
• Only about 7 percent of Americans have served in the military, yet we have too many people and groups claiming to be patriots or militias. In fact, over 71 percent of America’s youth aged 17-24 don’t qualify for military service. Only 1 percent are both qualified and interested in serving.
• People actually believe that if a piece of information was on the internet, it must be true.
• Although there were supply chain issues and inflation, some industries—including big grocery companies—are enjoying record profits, while poor Americans struggle.
• Everyone decides that there is a huge difference between Us and Them. Notice how many groups add their own special color to the middle of the American flag as a symbol of that separation.

The sad part is that every one of these issues could be quickly resolved if people wanted to. Instead, far too many emphatically do not want to. Hence, Dystopia.

[i] The original author of the short story on which it is based, Philip K. Dick—who also wrote the stories that became Total Recall, Minority Report, etc.—died in relative poverty. How’s that for dystopian?

“I want to play a game with you Dr. Floyd”
“I don’t have time for games.”
“This is a good game. It is called the truth.”
2010:The Year We Make Contact

The truth is often difficult. Many times it is even difficult for those who already have the most. Especially for those who have the most.

For example, why is there so much emphasis on minimizing work from home and getting people back into the office?

It is to placate the fragile egos of senior managers.

If a company manufactures tangible products, obviously, it cannot performed remotely. Likewise, for face-to-face customer service. But many organizations deal primarily with information, and can conduct all, or mostly all functions with employees at home.

We all know that there is now a major difference in pay between senior managers and productive workers. However, senior managers rely on a variety of other theatrics to massage their egos and let the regular employees know their place. Perhaps the most egregious are the general working conditions. For example, cubicles are the worst, especially the playpen sized cubicles that became popular in the late two-thousand teens. These are the ones that measure about 4 or 5 feet on a side and are only about 4 foot high.

Playpen cubicles reduce productivity by up to 50 percent. The idea was that it would encourage interaction, although it is rare for employees working toward similar results to be proximate. This may have been the case when the cubicles were installed, but, soon, people move onto different projects and the cluster is broken up.

Cubicles do result in a great deal of non-productive noise, making concentration difficult. However, many people become knowledgeable as to who is having marital problems, who is buying which kind of automobile, appliance, or firearm, not to mention others political and religious views. In many offices, the switch to such cubicles was just before COVID-19 hit and allowed for more efficient infection of coworkers.

However, the managers can open the door of their office, step out and a walk through the area to view a sea of faces for eight hours a day, for 200-250 days per year.

Of those eight hours, how many are productive? Somewhere between four and six-and this is if you count the hours spent creating PowerPoint slides, internal reports, etc. It is more important for managers to have “asses in chairs” than to produce results. This is one of the reasons that there are so many routinely scheduled meetings that accomplish next to nothing. As one cartoon years ago indicated “Meetings – the logical alternative to work.”

Working from home, on the other hand, must and does focus on accomplishing things. Unfortunately, the corporate vice presidents or one-star generals do not receive adequate ego massaging from results. When faced with a choice between productivity and senior managers’ egos, we all know what wins.

I love Dan Piraro’s Bizarro

“Are you thinking about home improvements for the New Year? Are you trying to make your home more appealing for yourself or for potential buyers. Then, this message is for you.

“Hi, I’m Vladimir Putin, but you can call me Vlad. If you are thinking about fixing up the old dacha, I’m here to help.

“Russian winters are cold, so we appreciate the need for top notch windows in order to stay warm and Vlad’s award-winning windows are world famous. They are double glazed to keep the warm air in and the cold air out. Even more important, they are guaranteed to last 20 years, or for the first 10 ‘accidents’ that may befall rivals and enemies.

“Our patented oligarch-accident feature is guaranteed to pop the glass out to allow for the convenient disposal of undesirables. But wait—there’s more!

“After the body has cleared the window, the Vlad award-winning window automatically returns the glass to its proper location. There is rarely even a smudge and the action is so quick that your room will still stay toasty and warm in winter or cool in summer.

“These are especially appropriate for upper floor windows.

“So don’t delay, call today for a free estimate. And if you’re after a bargain, our low prices are especially appealing if you pay in US dollars. Call.  You won’t regret it. And don’t forget to ask about our Novichok  coated doorknobs to keep pesky salesmen and neighbors from interrupting your family meals.

“Tell them, Vlad sent you and  use code ‘1984’ for free delivery!”

Ted Cruz Speaks Out Over Joe Biden’s Vacation During Winter Storm (CNN) – Apparently, Ted’s flight to Costa Rica got cancelled by Southwest Airlines this year, so he’s pissed. He doesn’t want to remain in Texas in case the electrical grid goes down again this year.

Football World Shocked By Cheez-It Bowl Announcement (MSN) – The representative told Carter Karels of the Tallahassee Democrat that there is no such thing as “Cheez-Its.” Apparently, one Cheez-It is a Cheez-It, and two or more of the Cheez-It are called “Cheez-It crackers.”

I’m certainly glad that we got that straightened out. Now, perhaps, the world can truly be a better place.

Russian troops fighting in Ukraine can freeze their sperm for free (CNN) – Given the winter weather in Ukraine, wouldn’t this just happen naturally to the underequipped Russian soldiers who lack proper cold-weather gear? On the other hand, if the Russian military is anything like the American military, I can just picture the sperm-ex:

Noncomm – “Alright men, line up. Svetlana and Tatiana, you ladies are excused, unless you want to assist or just watch.

“Each of you has been given a plastic vial. Make sure your name and service number are clearly written on the label. Right handers, hold the vial in your left hand. Left handers, hold it in your right hand. On my command, unzip your fly and begin. If you see a Ukrainian drone, take cover, but do not spill the vial.

“Begin! Think of Mother Russia and make her proud!

“When you finish, cap your vial and place it on this table. Medics will then treat you for frostbite and you are then to return to duty.”

I just thought I’d mention this. If Vladimir Putin wants to be best friend—run, don’t walk to the nearest exit, and keep on running.

Yet another Putin ally, Dmitry Zelenov, met an untimely end. On vacation, he was feeling under the weather, and fell down the stairs. Naturally, he suffered fatal injuries.

Go figure.

And, in my personal opinion, avoid close friendships with any and all politicians. They may have all the power in the world today, but tomorrow—who knows?

Thoughts on the beginning of the Holiday Season:

• Let’s give credit where credit is due. The Pilgrims were style setters with the men introducing the new world to Goth styles of clothes.
• Likewise, wearing a buckle and belt on one’s hat may have been the inspiration for teenagers to wear their belts low enough for their underwear to show. (For some people, belts belong anywhere except around the waist).
• The pilgrims (who didn’t refer to themselves as pilgrims) had originally set sail planning to land elsewhere in the New World. Some say it was New Yor while others say it was Virginia—both English settlements—in any case they ended up in Massachusetts. Some say it was due to winter storms, while others claim that despite the wives’ warning, the men refused to ask for directions. (Maybe, as Bugs Bunny says, they should have made the turn at Albuquerque.)
• Interestingly, although the “First Thanksgiving” in Massachusetts took place in 1621, Virginians celebrated Thanksgiving in 1619. It’s a good thing that there was no Twitter because the hate tweets would have flowed quickly between both states. Sometimes it’s an advantage to have snail mail (and the snail was much slower back then).

In any case, as we begin the holiday season, whether you prefer Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, or whatever, my advice is to celebrate every single holiday on the calendar.

Enjoy.

For the last few years, I’ve been looking forward to retiring so I can finally pursue my own interests—or so I believed. I’ve been retired for almost a year and things aren’t exactly going to plan.

First off, medical science has basically determined I should not do anything that I like and want to do. Diet is the most obvious. Any foods that I like are apparently going to kill me in 30 minutes or less if I eat them. On the other hand, any food that intensely dislike is okay. It shouldn’t matter, though. With the number of pills I take, my stomach should be full.

Second, the activities that I liked to do are no longer possible. I used to like to jog, but thanks to several surgeries, that is off the table. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that medical science has been conspiring against me for years and is just now realizing the effect it’s having.

I had also planned to grow my hair long and regrow the beard I had in my younger days. What hair I have left looks like Doc Brown from Back to the Future on a bad hair day in a hurricane. Beard? It would be dull grey and probably make me look 50 years older.

I have not yet learned to enjoy the standard joys of a retired man, such as standing in the middle of the aisle in the grocery store to block everyone else or driving real slow on the interstate during rush hour. I was so bad at golf when I tried to play years ago that there is no appeal there, although I could enjoy driving around in a gulf cart—just because.

If you like science fiction, I strongly recommend Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. Even though the author is younger than I am, his character explains things better than I can. Like most science fiction works, it’s a trilogy with several additional books added later. (Think Dune).

I think I’m going to post this and take a nap. Napping is the one activity I’m god at, in fact I get better as time goes on.

The votes have been cast, most have been counted, and the first of the lawsuits prepared. Nevertheless, it is a wonderful thing that the acerbic television ads have stopped. Likewise, my telephone no longer rings every few minutes and my mailbox 50-60 percent less junk each day.

So, now what?

If we’re smart, and I hope, but  am not convinced that we are, we will look at which things benefit the country—not an individual or a political party—and work toward them. It’s a simple concept, really:

• We are stronger than you or I.
• Finding a common goal is not that hard. There are many problems that need to be solved that are not controversial.
• It is more important to fix things that are broken than to assign blame.

We’ve grown almost complacent about mass shootings. Another day, another AR-15, another list of victims. The shooting at Uvalde, Texas had a few additional quirks. The police were at the school in short order, but there was a lack of incident command and no one was coordinating efforts, which resulted in additional casualties and justified anger from parents and others.

At an emotional hearing, relatives of children killed in the school shooting told Steven McCraw of the Department of Public Safety that he should step down. Some reports are that he had promised that if his department had failed in its duties, he would resign.

He later decided that he did not need to resign.

I had flashbacks to the early 1970’s. As the Watergate investigation unfolded, comedian and impressionist David Frye released an album, Richard Nixon: A Fantasy. One of the tracks has Richard Nixon explaining his role.

“I accept the responsibility, but not the blame.

“Let me explain the difference. People who are responsible keep their jobs. People who are to blame do not.”

As they say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

One-time Speaker of the House Mich McConnell frequently and proudly referred to himself as the Grim Reaper. He claimed he was referring his ability to kill bills unfavorable to the Republican Party thereby preventing them from becoming law, by blocking them from coming to the Senate floor for a vote.

He may have underestimated his impact–it is doubtful that this was due to humility. History very well could remember him as the man who killed the American democratic republic.

Let me shift gears and I promise it will all make sense at the end.

Major League Baseball teams have a feeder system called the minor league. Minor league baseball teams provide an opportunity for players to be evaluated and, if they show promise, they may be able to move up to a Major League position. Minor league teams, may be referred to as farm league or bush league. If you play well for the Toledo Mudhens, it could lead to being a Detroit Tiger.

There used to be a similar situation with the American Judicial System. Judges would move through various local levels, then be appointed as a federal judge, with some proving they had the mettle to move up to the Supreme Court. Generally, positions for Supreme Court Justice positions opened by death or retirement in a pseudo-random manner so that Supreme Court Justices would be appointed by presidents of both political parties.

Enter Grim Reaper McConnell.

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016 and his replacement nominated Merritt Garland, but Grim Reaper McConnell would not permit the nomination to be voted on because it was an election year, and the selection should be made by the new president 11 months later. Therefore,  Neil Gorsuch was appointed to the bench .

Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy decided to retire at the end of July 2018, so his replacement was nominated by donald trump. Legitimately, this was trump’s nomination to make, and he nominated Brett Kavanaugh, even though he had a less than sterling personality. President trump coached him and someone–someone with significant authority–kept the FBI from doing a thorough investigation.

The next Supreme Court vacancy occurred when Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died 18 September 2020, less than 2 months before the election and 4 months before Joe Biden would take office. Even though he had Once again, enter Grim Reaper McConnell who pushed through the vote on Amy Coney Barrett, who had never been a judge of any type before.

Several of these outright lied to questions concerning about respecting precedent during their nomination hearings before the Senate. It gets worse.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito said, “It goes without saying that everyone is free to express disagreement with our decisions and to criticize our reasoning as they see fit. But saying or implying that the court is becoming an illegitimate institution or questioning our integrity crosses an important line.”  This seems to place the members of the court on a higher plane than the average American untermensch.

Finally, there is Clarence Thomas, the man who may be doing more to restrict voting by people of color than the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow laws together.

In the trump appointed farm league, there are people like Judge Aileen Cannon, who gives trump lawyers “Do Overs” and is blatantly biased toward the trumpsters.

Although they protest that the federal courts including the Supreme Court are not a bunch of political hacks, they obviously have forgotten certain facts, the most important of which are the first three words of the Constitution–“We the People,” NOT we the supreme court.

• Conduct a mandatory intensive annual review of the US Constitution for all federal judges.
• Like in professional sports teams, those individuals who don’t perform to expectations should be just plain cut.
• Supreme Court Justices who don’t measure up should be sent back to the farm leagues (small state district courts).
• Members of the courts should be damned ashamed of their actions and attitudes.

And, of course, just like in sports, the first one to be fired is always the coach.

As Firesign Theatre said, “And now for the rumors behind the headlines” . . . .

The movie Batgirl was abruptly canceled and the rumors are flying. One rumor claims that David Zaslav, the CEO at Warner Brothers’ Studios is eliminating wokeness in in the studio’s movies. Wokeness, as you know, applies to anything that I don’t like–and “I” refers to whosoever is expressing their opinion.

 Of course there are other explanations being bandied about the rumorverse. However, when in doubt, I apply Deepthroat’s advice from the Watergate debacle–”Follow the money!”

As the new CEO,  Zaslav wants  to cut expenses. There’s an important business principle regarding expenses in a business. If a business cuts one dollar in expenses, it is immediately reflected as one dollar on the bottom line. On the other hand, it may require a number of dollars in increased sales to add a single dollar to the bottom line. You have to account for the price the company paid for the raw materials, the labor, etc. before you realize one dollar in profits.

In other analogous words, if Marketing runs a company, it may go into bankruptcy, but emerge and be very profitable. If accounting runs a company, it will remain in the black until the last stick of furniture is sold, the lights turned out, and the door locked.

In the second rumor, Zaslav would declare Batgirl to be a failure and account for a $70 million dollar loss, thereby shoring up the bottom line. In technical terms, this is called cooking the books, grifting, or smoke and mirrors. Hollywood is famous for this–Forrest Gump reportedly paid $40 million to Tom Hank, and Bob Zemekis while Winston Groom, who wrote the book got a box of chocolates.

I was looking forward to seeing Michael Keaton reprise his role as Batman. Now I’ll have to wait. Some day, when a future CEO takes over Warner, they will find that they have a ready made movie that they can release with very little cost and make a bundle.

My how things have changed: 

• We used to buy appliances to make life easier. Now, you must wash the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher—and the life of that semi-useful appliance is only about 3-5 years, no matter how much you spend on it. 
• When people got tired of walking over to the TV to change channels, the remote control was invented. Early ones worked on sound, so you could jiggle your keys and get the television to go wacko. Of course, most homes only got three to five stations, so it was no big deal. 
• Newspapers were saved for the Boy Scouts fund raiser. We didn’t recycle and a week’s worth of trash fit in a single 30-gallon garbage can because many bottles were returned for reuse and there was nowhere near as much packaging that needed to be disposed of. 
• Many people did their own tune-ups (i.e. changed their own oil, distributor cap and rotor, and air and oil filters each spring and each fall.) This could be done with a basic set of hand tools in a couple of hours. 
• And, finally—NO ONE would ever have thought about asking for validation for their decisions, such as, “I grounded my son for a week because he burnt the house down. Am I an asshole?” 

As most of you know, I’m a history buff. I’m not talking about a photographic memory of names and dates—I’m talking about the blood, sweat, and tears that people in the past endured. For example, at some point, you may have been taught that William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings in 1066, which to most of us means absolutely nothing.  

William the Conqueror was also known as William the Bastard. His victory was over Harold the Second. Harold did not have all his army with him, so William might have been referred to as “William Who-Kicks-Harold-When-He’s-Down.”  

But that’s a story for another time. 

I tend to find more recent and less distant history more appealing. Of course, since I live in Virginia, I cannot take more than a few steps before running into one historic site or another. I find it especially interesting that some field positions and fortifications left over from the Revolutionary War were reused during the Civil War—a good fighting position remains advantageous. 

I’ve read books, seen documentaries and movies, but for the past few months, I’ve been following a podcast that I highly recommend. The Civil War (1861 – 1865) a History Podcast is prepared and presented by a husband and wife team, Rich and Tracy, with their home page at civilwarpodcast.org. Rich is from Pennsylvania and Tracy is from Arkansas, so they had ancestors on both sides of the war, which presents a more or less balanced presentation. In any case, it is well done, entertaining, and educational. 

Discussing the Civil War can be contentious, especially these days. However, as Rich pointed out, “The past is a foreign land. They do things different there.” 

Currently, there are nearly 400 episodes, not counting the special episodes for members of the “Strawfoot Brigade.” If you’re a history aficionado, or just tired of doom scrolling or cable news, give this podcast a listen. 

I haven’t blogged recently because my computer locked up. When I say locked up, I mean the entire disk was encrypted by BitLocker. Naturally, I assumed that I had been hacked by rasnsomware, but several reputable computer geeks told me that they had seen more than a few cases in which BitLocker was launched without any action by anyone. The word is that Microsoft officially denies this, but the auto-BitLocker story has supposedly leaked, In any case, experts are confident that this happens.

In an attempt to recover everything, the routine is that the computer manufacturer said to talk to Microsoft, Microsoft said to talk to the computer manufacturer, and the anti-virus people said to talk to either Microsoft or the manufacturer. Apparently none of them are speaking to one another, like a family fight where Dad says, “Tell your mother . . . .” even though his wife is sitting at the same table.

I figured the easiest fix was to just replace the SDD (software disk drive–which has replaced the hard disk drive). I ordered one, which arrived a few days later, and immediately tried to format it, which I thought would be no big deal. Naturally, it wouldn’t format. In fact, on the occasions in which Disk Manager saw the disk, it reported, “No media”, which, when you think about it makes no sense. Apparently the manufacturer of the computer or the SDD manufacturer requires a technique that is normally used with multiple disks. In any case, a friend helped me past that problem.

When I tried to reinstall the software, I hit the next problem. Now I’ve been through 24 inch disks (yes, that’s correct, but back in the 1970s), 5 1/4 inch floppy drives, 3 1/2 inch floppy drives, CDs, DVDs, and BluRay disks. Floppy drives disappeared years ago and a few years back, notebook computers stopped including optical (CD/DVD/BluRay) drives.

I used a thumb drive to reload the operating system, but for some reason the computer could not connect to my WIFI. No problem, I naively thought, I’ll just take it upstairs and connect it to the router via cable. Unfortunately (you know what’s coming), newer notebooks no longer can be connected to a cable.

In any case, after going through a variety of backup plans, I finally got the computer up and running. My data was mainly backed up, so it has been returning a piece at a time and I’m more or less back and will be trying to blog more often.