The Ten New Realities of Life

 This is one of those essays that I get on the stump and preach about:

1.  Drugs and broken-homes....tend to lead to an outcome with no positives.  It's like an infestation of termites, and no willing nature to call the bug-guy.  Then one day you wake up and want to take care of the termites but now realize the home is a loss, with value gone.

2.  A kid with no finance sense might be stupid enough to borrow $120,000....get a degree, and discover that the degree will never get him more than $40k a year.  Then the idiot does the math to figure it's a twenty to twenty-five year period to pay back the $120,000 and that $40,000 at some local community college would have gotten you the same $40k a year salary. Around age forty, the 'kid' now comes to you...literally begging for $40,000 to pay off the remainder of the stupid loan.

3.  We are beleaguered on a daily basis by people stating a problem, then giving you two 'false' choices....meaning neither meets an acceptable reality.  You look at the guy explaining this (some intellectual type) and offer up a 3rd choice.  Then you get this ten-minute lecture....that there are only two false choices....don't go messing up their argument.  You wake up at this point, realizing dozens of problems exist, and you are routinely led to the false choice scenario.

4.  You stand in a church atmosphere....realizing one day that of the past twenty-five sermons....at least fifty percent didn't have much to do with the Bible, but more so with political topics or global warming. You confront this reality and start looking at the Deacons and the Minister...wondering about this was a long-term strategy.

5.  Senators and House members are now waking up to the idea that Chinese secret agents are trying to get 'friendly' with them....offering money or sex as part of the deal.  It's going to be hard holding back 'feelings'.

6.  Basically, if you just read a science journal/magazine once a month now....you can be a 'science-guy'.  Its silly and stupid, but there's over 3,000 science-guys appearing on TV in an average year, and a quarter of them are 'just' engineers....not even real scientists.  In the case of Bill Gates....he's just an expert on Excel or Powerpoint. 

7.  Once the minimum wage goes to $15....the clock at McDonalds starts ticking.  If you automate 75-percent of the place.....you can dispose of three-quarters of the man-power over the next decade.  What exactly will marginally-capable do then?  You don't need burger-flippers, ditch-diggers, or shelf-stockers at the grocery as automation arrives.  

8.  The value of a EdD degree (doctor of education)?  You basically can run a school....that's it.  On ranking worthless degrees....this is probably number one.

9.  The value of a trailer-park lifestyle in 2020?  Some folks need the benefit of local characters, drunks, and schizophrenics to liven up their life.

10.  Politics is now 99-percent theatrics.  People are wasting hours of everyday....trying figure out how 'Bay City' will go, if Pamela will leave David, if Doctor Winston is really gay, if the neighbors who just moved in are actually from Paraguay, or if Frederic has a tumor on his butt.  

The Mute-Generation

 I wrote this back in 2020, and came back to review....changing a phrase or two.

In the very early generation delivery of remote controls and TVs....mute wasn't an option.  Around 1956, an Austrian-born guy (electrical engineer) came up with the idea with the Zenith company.  

I suspect throughout the 1960s and 1970s....it was probably the least-used button on the remote control.  Lets admit it as well....folks in this era didn't go and pay the extra for the remote capability.  So in the 1980s....this became more popular.  

Today?  I probably hit the mute-button at least ten times a day.  I might flip over to a CNN news period for half-an-hour, and hit mute at least three or four times.  If I were sitting around for twelve hours and monitoring the various cable networks?  I'd hit the mute button over sixty times.  

The thing is....it's not just for commercial breaks anymore. I hit mute when certain topics come up....like BREXIT.  Or I'll hit it when some PhD guy comes on and wants to talk about polar bears eating too many penguins.  Last week, I was watching some business interview, and journalist was trying hard to get some CEO to just admit failure on some product, and I reached a mute-point with this conversation.

There are certain politicians now that I can stand about sixty seconds of commentary before I hit mute (Pelosi, Romney, and Jeb Bush).  With Dan Rather (of CBS fame)....just seeing him on the screen and about to talk....is enough for me to hit mute.  

Last year, I was watching a basketball discussion (retired players turned journalists and current players), and suddenly it turned into some discussion over social justice.....BAM, I hit the mute-button.  

The thing is....I don't think I'm alone.  I suspect across the US...there are a million of us mute-people.  Some of us have patience and some open-mind.  Some of us have 30 seconds of open-mind before we hit the mute.  I suspect the number increases each single year.  

At some point over the next decade....some Austrian-born engineer will probably come to design a mute-meter and start to report results back to 'MUTE.COM' and tell the world that one out of three people now mute Dan Rather.  Or they will have a 'will-mute' rating on Nancy Pelosi of 60 seconds....before a majority of people hit mute.  Then some discussion group will start up.....hyping that this mute-generation is now controlling a thought-process (actually the opposite....we don't want to hear them chatter).

All of this will start to worry folks because so much money is spent on CNN or Fox, or NPR....and if one out of three people regularly mute their chatter....well, that money is just going into an empty pit.

Yeah, whether it's positive or negative....we mute-people are now a threat to society and the future of America.  Frankly, we've had enough, and mute is our only weapon left. 

Ten Humble Observations

 1.  If you pay attention to the LA fire business....eventually, you realize that you could tell the public that one pump-truck and six firemen for a city of 500,000 would be enough 'protection', and the dumbass public would buy off on this shortsighted nature.

2.  After viewing the UFO interview from last night....I've come to two realizations: if all this stuff is true.....there must be 3,000 crashed alien craft in some warehouse, and these alien guys never get fired for losing craft.  

3.  It just looks bad for CBS...in this Trump legal case where he's suing them for $10-billion.  In the end?  I reckon that the top 20-wage journalists for the network....will be let-go,  and you get a cheapass replacement crew for a while.

4.  If you haven't seen American Primeval (new cowboy series on Netflix)....I'd strongly recommend it. It is about as anti-woke as you can get.  Good guys....bad  guys....blood and guts.   

5.  I'll go and predict from the 20th on....no network goes to interview former President Biden, period. 

6.  Greenland ends up with a exit-strategy from Denmark, and heavily engaged as a 'partner' of the US.....by the end of 2025.  Partnership level?  Closer than the UK, Canada, and Mexico.  

7.  LA has to admit by the end of February.....over 1,500 burnt-out home sites have been  'sold' or transferred.  Meanwhile, over 100 lawyers will have come to admit   contact to sue the planning commission of the county/city....if building permits are delayed in any fashion.

8.  Due to a Trump 'war' on the Mexican cartel folks....pricing for cocaine in the US triples by the end of April 2025.   Half of the cartel folks relocate to Venezuela by mid-summer.

9.  I'm reaching a point where I think 50-percent of the folks finishing high-school....are marginally at the 7th-grade level of 1977.   

10.  If you asked me to go off to a inauguration deal in DC...in mid-January....with a 25-degree temperature...to spend 12-plus hours walking around.  NO....I wouldn't go.  This whole inauguration timing ought to be held in mid-April.