Personal Musings category archive
Stray Thought 0
Methinks the Heritage Foundation has let slip whose legacy they actually yearn to restore.
Hint:
Think first name “Jefferson.”
Stray Thought, Veterans’ Day Edition 0
We’re doing it wrong if military families need SNAP in order to afford food.
Election Day 0
We shall be going to the polls in a little while.
As my father taught me through example, voting is not a right. It’s a duty.
And I am certain that, if more persons had done their duty a year ago, the country would not be facing the dangers it faces today.
Birds of a Feather 0
In the Las Vegas Sun, letter writer Tom Harper observes that Donald Trump has but one interest. A nugget:
It appears somehow appropriate that he now commands leads a political party that seems no longer to care for the common good.
Stray Question 0
Does this article remind you of anyone in the news?
Courting Disaster 0
It should come as no surprise that the product of incompetents is incompetence.
Stray Thought 0
The raison d’etre of a “Customer Service Department” in today’s business world is to ensure that there is a space between the “Customer” and the “Service.”
Stray Thought 0
I’m starting to wonder which is worse: being the citizen of a rogue nation or being the citizen of a laughingstock nation.
Stray Thought 0
Who other persons idolize can tell you a lot about the character and beliefs of said idolators. Indeed, they may even be said to hold up a mirror to said idolators.
For example, what can you induce about those who find this person to be admired?
The Sound of Silence 0
About this time 24 years ago today I was out back of my workplace in the smoking area with my boss and several other persons. (As an aside, he was one of the best bosses I ever had and no, I no longer smoke.)
We were listening to the silence–silence because the building was under one of the approaches to Philadelphia International Airport directly across the river, but, that day, no planes were flying.
I remember my boss saying, “I’m glad there’s a Texan in the White House.”
How wrong he was.
Stray Thought 0
The success of “Reality TV” over the past three decades has proven one thing.
Stupid always finds a market.
The Archtype 0
Jonathan Alter offers an alternative angle:
Alter may be onto something. Hitler and Mussolini had ideologies. Warped and cruel ideologies, but ideologies non the less.
Avarice, vengefulness, and racism do not in and of themselves constitute an ideology.
But it’s difference without a distinction to his victims.
Follow the link and see what you think of his reasoning.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 0
For years, the right-wing has been telling us that the federal government can’t be trusted.
And they’ve given us one.
The “Attention Economy,” Dis Coarse Discourse Dept. 0
The “attention economy” refers to how hockey puck spread on “social” media can lead to–er–less than optimal decisions.
That phrase was mentioned almost in passing early in Harry Shearer’s interview with Edward Niedermeyer about Niedeermeyer’s book about Tesla, Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors. I commend the interview to your attention, if only through the example of the “attention economy” at work.
And, remember, “social” media isn’t.
Stray Thought 0
As I watch the ads for sports gambling on my telly vision, I can’t help but wonder whether the prospect of a new Black Sox scandal might be more than a mere farfetched fantasy.
Stray Question (and Answer) 0
Why do the announcers in ads for pick-up trucks always sound like they stepped out of bad 1940s western movies?
Because they want guys who think they are Real Big Men to buy I-am-an-inadequate-male pick-up trucks to drive to the 7-11.
Full Disclosure:
I used to a have pick-up truck, a GMC Sonoma. I was raised Ford, but, I must say, it was a darned fine piece of work that served me well for over a decade.
And I didn’t buy it to go to the 7-11. I bought to pull a boat, back when I had a boat.
Stray Thought 0
If Donald Trump is going to going to reinstate the Presidential Fitness Exam, perhaps he should take it himself to show the kids how it’s done. Or at least let the kids know how he did on it when he was in school.
And, yes, I remember taking it. It wasn’t such a big deal, but that was back in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un, and kids stilled played non-video games.
Devolution 0
We seem to be going from a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, to a governemt of the Donald, by the Donald, and for the Donald.
Influencer Idiocy in Dis Coarse Discourse 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Alexander Danvers explains why you can’t trust many “internet influencers.” The short version is that they try to use what they claim is logical reasoning, while ignoring actual evidence. Here’s a bit (emphasis added):
A caveat: It’s not the best piece of writing I’ve seen; there are a few times when his wording could have been a bit clearer. For instance, he uses the term “logic,” when what he means in context is “logic based on false premises” or “reasoning unsupported by evidence.” (A fitting synonym might be “sales pitch.”) Nevertheless, in this age in which uncredentialed and unqualified yahoos seem capable of attracting many ears and turning many heads, methinks it a worthwhile read.
Alternative Realities 0
As I was driving home from the nuptial ceremony I attended over the weekend, I found myself behind a car sporting a bumper sticker that read
Guns Save Lives.
Yeah.
I have no idea whether the person who placed that sticker on that car actually believed that or was simply proffering an offering at the feet of the idol of the portable phallus, but it indicates the extent to which persons are willing to live in alternative realities because, well, actual factual reality conflicts with their lusts and desires.
Speaking of alternative realities, Fox News is running an ad (no, I won’t link to it) about how Fox News unites the country.
Perhaps persons who watch Fox News (and its imitators) will fall for it.
I suspect that no one else will.