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Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Professional Sports and Hummingbirds


You might be thinking, no connection. But au contrair, mon ami.

What if I were to tell you that hummingbirds are only found in the western hemisphere and as a resident of that hemisphere I felt extremely proud of this fact? What if I inexplicably claimed, “They are our hummingbirds!”.

You might fail to see a connection between the random evolutionary and geological events leading to hummingbird range, the random evolutionary chances of me being born within that range, and my feeling a certain pride of association or feeling of ownership with regard to these facts.

I might argue, “What you fail to account for is, these stunning creatures possess amazing near-magical abilities and I very much enjoy observing their behavior”. You might then concede that, by comparison to mere humans, the physical abilities of hummingbirds are indeed extraordinary and observing these beautiful creatures is a worthy pastime. However, you may still feel this falls short with regard to my prideful-kinship or ownership-like feelings.


What if I told you how, when relating to friends the amazing achievements of my humming birds, I would excitedly claim, “We did it! We won the gathering nectar game!” Your first thought might be (as you began backing away), “WTF is this guy talking about? He played no part in the gathering the nectar game. In fact, he appears to be conflating his mere observation of the events with the events themselves. Stranger still, he may be laboring under some illusion that his excited observation, in some way, contributed to the outcome”.

Now you may, perhaps, uunderstand how I feel when you share with me about "the game" you recently watched in a stadium or on a television. I will stick with my hummingbirds.


Wednesday, May 10, 2017

SOS



SOS

Once upon a time a fellow had a big sack of shit. Hereafter known by the shortened moniker, SOS. Now, the fellow was, for the most part, quite happy with his SOS. It did exactly what one expected from a SOS. But, after owning the SOS for a short time, really deep down, the fellow felt somewhat less happy with his SOS. Now, mind you, the SOS had totally lived up to its end of the bargain. The SOS was being itself. The fellow knew this and berated himself for even thinking about expecting more from his SOS than could be reasonably expected. 

The fellow decided to give the matter a little time to sort itself out. Of course, he could have done some research or consulted the best minds regarding his dilemma, but he didn’t. He decided to ruminate of the situation all by himself. And by ruminate, I do not mean to suggest the fellow engaged in deep deliberative thought. He happily chewed and re-chewed his favorite dietary foodstuffs.

After a short time the fellow came up with what he named in his own mind, “The Best Fuckin Idea Ever!” or (TBFIE).  Parenthetically, for a man for whom prescience was not a strong suit, the idea bore a striking resemblance to a great idea. Arguably, demented, but great.

The idea was this. The fellow would spice up his SOS. Now, for the thoughtful reader who is already jumping ahead with probing questions, let’s take a deep breath and slow down. Sure, on some philosophical level, one might indeed wonder if a SOS is still a SOS if you add extraneous ingredients. And so on. However, the fellow with the SOS simply wanted it to do more, be livelier, more interesting. In short, he did not concern himself with matters of philosophy. At all. The man straightforwardly took TBFIE and ran with that puppy! 

With items presumably found at his local SOS improvement center, the fellow set to work. First he added a liberal dose of narcissism. The fellow noticed some hopeful rumblings almost immediately. He followed that with a solid sprinkling of wacky ideology (largely scrounged from bits and pieces discarded by more thoughtful people). The SOS began to show signs of liveliness beyond his expectations. Sure, the liveliness was unpredictable and erratic but, hell, who cared about that shit. Finally, he added the pièce de résistance, although the fellow thought of it as, “the crazy shit that should get this train moving”! Either way it was a healthy sprinkle of latter-day-Three-Stooges-like incompetence”. I am sure there are young people for whom this, admittedly outdated, reference means nothing. Please feel free to substitute a more current popular reference. Think of a group of individuals who act in a manic fashion, are comically incompetent, and possess little or no self-reflection. Every age has its version.


I am going to leave the story here. For those of you wondering what happens next, I can say this much. History forgot about the fellow. Some would argue that is for the best. Others vociferously contend it is quite a shame. These folks will enthusiastically tell anyone who cares to listen, about we should go back and find the fellow. If he is alive we should slap the snot out of him. If he’s deceased we should pull out all the stops and bring his sorry ass back to life- so we can slap the snot out of him. On the other hand, the SOS will not soon be forgotten. Though many people wake up each morning with that fervent wish on their lips. “Please wipe this SOS from all memory.”

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

HEADLINES

Two Recent Headlines

Administration aides reel after Trump's nonsensical 24 hours: 'He just seemed to go crazy today' according to The Week magazine.

Psychiatry experts claim that Trump is unfit for presidency due to ‘dangerous mental illness’ according to The Blaze.


My Headline: New Prez folds like a cheap suit.

On one recent day, when a journalist inquired about his, now insider, perspective on the position of POTUS, this poor pathetic fellow had the temerity to respond, "I thought it would be easier". To be clear he was referring to the Presidency of The United States of America or, as the position is otherwise known, The Leader of the Free World. This is the sort of thing that bears unpacking. One wonders what sort of arrogant dim-bulb expected to embark upon one of the most difficult and complex jobs on the planet without training, experience, or topical knowledge. In the vernacular, he was going to "wing it". Long story short, the new POTUS, operating under his own delusional reality, happened upon the idea of employing his freakishly outsized ego to, in effect, bitch-slap into submission, the most intricate, inextricably interwoven, decades old, global problems with a few executive orders.

This is only one of the reasons many thoughtful observers took seriously the claims made by a number of Psychiatric experts recently. They publicly claimed, This man is unfit for the presidency due to "dangerous mental illness".

And now, just for grins and giggles- a thought experiment. If one leaves a toddler alone with nothing but a big glass of milk and a bag of cookies as he sits at the control panel of a nuclear power plant, chockablock with brightly colored knobs, buttons and levers, how long before something really bad happens? The answer is, while we are quite certain we don't know, we are equally certain it won't end well.