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To all Karens: We need to get over ourselves

Oh my God!! I just learned I’m a Karen! And I have Southpark to thank for this enlightening although socially painful realization.

The bawdy animated comedy show’s clip features a white father in his study, calling in his adolescent daughter, closing the door, and asking her point blank: Why does everyone call me a Karen? Deadpan, the girl blinks and tells him don’t worry about it. But … he really wants to know. So the kid explains the expression came from the internet and refers to white privilege (meaning white people have nothing in life to complain about and get all the breaks) and specifically white women—who are educated, with career, car, McMansion, kids in good schools, coiffed hair, acrylic nails, health club, summer and winter vacations, stocked pantries, able to pay their bills and live a little—get real irate when someone (whose life will never come close to equating their own overly-blessed existence) ‘comes across as’ DISRESPECTING them, well, us.

Ohhhhh.

How many times have I gone on and on about a person or people being so disrespectful toward ME? I sound like my mother who also was put out when feeling disrespected by her children or a clerk or worker (of lower wages and no ability to ever afford college or to work her way up to better pay and better life and who also is a person of color).

OK. IDK.

I guess because a woman is white and the person she thinks is disrespectful toward her is a person of color or ethnic minority, and perhaps also learning English, that deep-seated bigotry is the cause of what just may be only a personality clash (although in appearance seems between the advantaged and the disadvantaged).

And what exactly are men (white, educated, good life) called who rant and rave about being disrespected? Rodney Daingerfield? The comedian went far in show biz with his famous line: I tell ya, I get no respect. And then came wild applause (because everyone knows exactly what he’s talking about). I guess we can keep calling men who bellow about being disrespected bastards. We always have.

Well, thank you “Southpark.” Now my goal in life is to never again go on about being disrespected by someone at the grocery store, gas station, government office, medical facility, other drivers on the road—whomever, wherever. Won’t hear a peep outta me.

Sigh.

Sigh.

(Fingernails galloping on the counter.)

It’s just that …. Nooooo, I said I’d never again talk about people being disrespectful toward me or ponder why I am not respected.

What color is your …

My problem with striving toward never being called a Karen again is that … well if you must know, respect is very important to me. I learned this about myself at age 29 during one of my unemployment stints. Besides applying for jobs all around—whether qualified, over qualified or not qualified at all—I thought career books might provide practical direction. But those kind of books amounted to psychoanalyzing yourself, to get to your core values. After taking a number of surveys (Karen that I am, I used to love taking surveys to find out more about ME), and matching weighted inquiries to precise questions, I discovered that the most important outcome I want from a job (or life) is not so much big salary but … respect: the feeling of ME being respected by my peers and everyone else. Wanna know the second most important value I want from the work I do (according to my young adult self)? It was helping people. See, I’m not all that bad for a Karen. Maybe the name should be Karena for those who sincerely care about and want to help solve the world’s problems.

I haven’t thought about those career guidance books since the ’90s. It just so happens that the career paths I chose have never been respected by the masses and now come with a lot of disdain: newspaper reporter and public school teacher.

So, it’s me, not them. I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess. Ooops, sounding too much a Karen again. I just assume Karens are self-pitying whinny white gals. Gosh, I hate myself already.

And being a Karen at my age is pretty pathetic. But I get it, kids. [That’s how to tell if you’re an old woman Karen, calling everybody younger than you ‘kids’ like I do all the time. To others it’s condescending.]  

So white women who are politically Left and Democrats, went to college (on government loans, grants and work-study like I had to), somehow always had a car (thanks Dad and others), never stopped applying for the jobs I wanted, sometimes getting interviews, rarely getting the job, lived in satisfactory housing (most in serious crime zones), managed to keep up appearances while overeating, traveling on occasion, donating to good causes, raising dogs as children—we are the Karens of America, Karena, if you don’t mind, for those whose hearts are in the right place.

Karens, from how I understood the insult pre “Southpark,” were white women who are educated and middle class or socioeconomically higher and Democrats but are overly afraid and anxious when some dubious incident comes along, involving a Black man, for example. The Karen I heard about was frightened over a Black guy while she was walking a dog or something. Some kinda strange encounter. She pressed charges. He turned out to be kind and decent and not criminally interested in her.

But hey, in speaking for all women, let me say our gender has a long history of being brutalized by men in general. It happens every single day. And we are raised to realize we can be attacked just for being women, and to always be on guard. To be suspicious first upon any encounter. The men in our Karen lives tell us to carry a handgun or some kind of protection. Because you never know when it comes to meeting up with a stranger.

I don’t know if every uptight white educated middle-upper class woman should be referred to as a Karen. The deep-seated racism, bigotry and prejudices and knee-jerk over reactions are what make a woman a Karen. Same for white men who overreact due to racism when dealing with a person of color, like the “Southpark” father must have been caught doing.

For my small part, I am just going to forget about other people’s disrespect real or imagined toward little old me. I learned a long time ago, a lot of people will never respect you no matter what you do and how you look. So you gotta respect yourself, be able to live with yourself, and to hell with what other people think about you (even if at first glance, you seem to fit the latest societal put down).

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The infamy we created (& have learned to live with)

Been a long time since the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities. Perhaps the macabre aftermath, captured in solemn black and white images, is lost to 21st century Americans.

But the most devastating 20th century explosion on Earth during war time—the deafening silence; the obliteration of cities, buildings, houses, schools, hospitals, parks, pets and plants; the instant evaporation of tens of thousands of human beings; the unnatural reconfigured invisible yet present air and water molecules linked to future cancer deaths in and around emasculated terrain on our shared planet; and the emotional annihilation of warmongering by the entire human race immediately after two lightning quick moments—is why, my dears, the U.S. did away with the confrontational title of a Department of War and consolidated all military branches into the U.S. Department of Defense—done so to try to comfort everybody the world over left to comprehend and ever so cautiously carry on in the dawn of the Nuclear Age.

See … we needed God, if at all possible, (if He even listens to us anymore) to forgive us our collective United States of America sin. And at that time, we never ever wanted to use a nuclear bomb again. And therefore we swallowed our sorrow and carried on as the World Leader to ensure no other nation on Earth would dare make the same mistake, repeat the same sin, bear the unbearable reality of living with ourselves for creating and causing the epitome of mass human death and destruction. Because … it was a sin (and is now our karma). Surely there were other ways to end a war.

There always had been … before the bomb.

Peace on earth

Sound too much like a peacenik, do I? President Trump, according to his admirers, claims to be one, too. Hates all war, we’re told by those who know him. Yet our history is as soon as WWII ended, we gallivanted all over the world to stop the spread of communism: Korea, Cuba, Indochina, Central and South America, Eastern Europe. We had to think of ourselves as the Good Guys, the God-fearing righteous people compared to our arch Cold War enemy the communists, thought to be godless subhumans devoid of souls. But it is the U.S. which remains the only nation to have dropped the bomb so far.

A quick online check of what was left after our atomic bombs exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would reveal the grotesque images seen by all who read magazines and newspapers in 1945: melted faces and other body parts, missing fingers, clothing tattooed into human flesh, survivors screaming in agony, the unimaginable yet real horror they alone … felt. And the radiation sickness that lasted months and longer. Perhaps the lucky ones were the 240,000 Japanese who after our bombs exploded their cities to smithereens were ‘evaporated,’ their bodies and lives instantly wiped off the face of the earth.

We alone were (and still are) responsible for launching that living nightmare.  

So ashamed were Americans at that time, a long 80 years ago.

But … all is fair in love and war.

And the World War in the Pacific needed to end. The story goes that a few countries including Germany were secretly working to create the first atomic bomb. The U.S. military had been testing tiny versions out in Nowhere, New Mexico, watched live by a number of GIs who in their later years would die from direct exposure to the aftermath of this precise and peculiar bomb.

Post war, we as Americans lived in our private twilight zones. Some became anti-war pacifists, society drop-outs, artists, Beatniks, teachers, do-gooders, Peace Corps volunteers, reefer smokers, heroin addicts. A few became devout atheists, even famous authors and newsmen. It must have been hard for some adults living in the early Nuclear Age to deal with the hypocrisy of our Christian nation killing so many people not just with the bombs’ explosion but for generations to come with diseases in any new life that tries to enter our planet at Ground Zero. Clearly the death toll by the atomic bombs was overkill.

Yet back home and most impressively, the great majority of Americans carried on: attending college and trade school on the GI Bill, marrying and creating the Baby Boom, owning homes quickly built for suburban life with parks, community swimming pools, backyard cookouts, Christmas gifts, and of course cars. It is a tribute, that era of post-war America, to all who sacrificed to fight in a world gone mad. Those who served our country deserved to live in peace and security for the rest of their lives.

However, with the passing of time, the great healer we are told, the horror inflicted by our atomic bombs in a country on the other side of the world became … incomprehensible. And in learning to not think about it ever again, we have forgotten what we were and still are today: capable of mass death and destruction and equally capable of never mentioning it again.

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End of the great American experiment

She always wanted to live in California … but not like this. Weather is, more often than not, picture perfect with the sea on one side and mountains on the other—ideal for the vast fruited fields where she now works as slave labor. The fresh smell of grass and earth always lifted her spirit as long as she could remember, going back to riding backseat with the car windows down in late fall or early spring heading home from visiting relatives in the country.

Field work is hard on the body, mind numbing and then dehumanizing. At first she cried, having lost everything except her heartbeat. She was healthy, so she was put to work. She thought of breaking free but knew she’d be shot. She decided biding her time was the only way until her health gives out.

She works in solitude, the only sounds beside nature are from a loudspeaker when AI permits her at nightfall to return to her hut for rest until the morning alarm an hour before daybreak.

All her life, she had had a big mouth. Not diplomatic, her mother would say as a character flaw and warning. She had grown accustomed to saying whatever was on her mind because she was American, an old American, not like the new Americans who took over the country with little bloodshed. The new Americans had the guns and the bullets. Old Americans like her didn’t believe in owning a gun not even for protection let alone a political regime change like the coup.

Free speech used to be a right in old America. So did the human rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When the regime took over, American rights were removed one by one. The first batch dealt with women: no right to abortion, only the right to procreate, no college education, no career, no bank account, no home ownership, no living alone, no being single, no dating. The former rights were removed almost silently and with relatively little protest by most Americans–but she protested. Public protests, only in the largest metropolitan centers, drew scant numbers in comparison with the nation’s majority who fully supported the regime and its many changes.

Anyone who protested was marked as a traitor to the country. America was no longer the Land of the Free. Late one night, her apartment was raided. She was dragged out of bed in the dark, gagged, eyes taped shut, head stuffed in sackcloth, arms yanked behind, wrists and ankles zipped together, guns felt at her head and heart. She was removed and thrown into a van with others. She could feel their bodies. When the doors slammed shut, everyone fiercely tried to get out of their bonds. But it was impossible.

The drive was very long over a period of a few days. No breaks or food or water. The driver’s windows must have been down because she could smell the transition from city to rural land and sometimes feel a faint breeze and smell rain then the ocean.

It seemed so long ago, but life as she knew it was destroyed in one month. Now she gets back to work. Any defiance is not tolerated. Gunshots echo across the terrain every day. She wants to live or survive. How long will this godless America last, she wonders silently in her mind.

Experiment in democracy

She was educated, what the former president-now-demagogue calls over educated, meaning useless. Educators were first to replace all removed undocumented workers across the former U.S., reportedly 20 million people. She felt fortunate not to have been sent to work in a slaughterhouse. Everyone in New America was born here and could prove it. Her home state of Texas quickly fell in line, if not in love, with the regime that banned protests against the new government. It was just as well that she was taken from everything she once claimed: career, home, car, spiritual books, knickknacks and photographs only meaningful to her. Texas had grown unbearably hot by weather and politics—too extreme to the right of a once semi-balanced government, when both sides knew how to compromise. In recent years, she could count on one hand friends and family who shared her pure democratic American views, the ones enshrined in the original Constitution dating back to the 18th century. That precious fragile document and all copies were destroyed as the regime’s supporters—two hundred million Americans—celebrated.

That day of celebration, viewed live on devices and old TVs, was a gathering of the ignorant, she thought. Probably said it out loud. The movement was part of the original coup from 2021 when opponents of the former newly elected U.S. president barged into the capitol and took over the legislative chambers, fully prepared to hang any enemy who interfered as they created a new government.

The transition was almost silent across the nation. For decades Americans bellyached about voting, how much trouble it was, not knowing what to do as modernization changed voting machines. So the new regime took away thousands of polling places across the nation and did away with mail-in ballots. Most Americans, those of the TV age, made clear they didn’t vote anymore anyway, didn’t see the point, wished for one charismatic leader—someone who would say what they wanted to say and felt just like they did: put out with what they called ‘woke’ thinking and attitudes and views that were deemed ‘politically incorrect.’ And what they wanted to say and what they always thought was white people, and particularly white males, were getting the short end of the stick. Their hot shot leader told them what they wanted to hear, what they had been thinking all along. Their problems were with affirmative action, women’s rights, civil rights, immigrant rights, and then gay rights. They thought they were being passed over one too many times. Their paychecks were shrinking, their opportunities gone, as women and racial and ethnic minorities were given a leg up in job consideration and even college admission.

The new regime would fix all that.

Cities were under martial law, so crime was virtually a thing of the past. And everyone, really a small percent of the former Americans, who did not believe in the eternal leader were removed. Other leaders who spoke against the new leader were silenced one way or another; one way was their mysterious deaths, always in secret, like being thrown from the 40th-floor balcony or more sinister like being poisoned. No court or media existed to challenge the regime. Even the few tech leaders, who maintained most of the money on the planet, were more than happy to oblige the new American regime.

So human rights were a thing of the past in new America and history rewritten—another aspect the regime whitewashed: museums, history books, historical documentaries, and even the internet. Few new Americans were granted access to the internet.

The vast majority of new Americans were just fine with how the regime and perpetual leader changed things. Slave labor fixed a lot of problems with supply and demand. Allegiance was hardly worth fighting against. And the most important followers were the youth. They never knew another time of total freedom: a 250-year era of everyone in America living, thinking and believing the way each wanted—exchanging ideas, lifestyles, and philosophies in striving toward what the Ancients termed the Good Life.

The lesson in governing humanity is ancient yet never learned or understood by modern Americans. Freedom isn’t free, though these very words were on their car bumpers. All people are created equal. Knowledge is power. Ignorance is bliss. Government power should be balanced and checked by three equal branches: executive, legislative and judicial. No one political party should remain in power forever. The political pendulum swings left and right and never rests in the middle—and this is because societies evolve as people change often for the better. Absolute power corrupts. And always, always, suppressed people with nothing to lose will rise up and overthrow a mad king.

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Crying time again: Mass layoffs spreading soon

Here they come: the mass layoffs, starting in D.C. then rippling down economically to more job losses all around until eventually impacting every community, urban and rural, in the U.S. For whatever reason—government bloat, gloat or goad—the current administration feels the need to layoff lotsa government workers. What we’ve seen so far is a lotta reinstating former employees and/or positions.

What’s obvious to the rest of us is: Our government doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing.

Cutting government fat was supposed to be more about the elected officials: the ones who stay in Congress for decades, don’t do much, enjoy a life of luxury thanks to schmoozing with Big Money, and voting themselves raises as well as the best health care taxpayer money can buy them.

But for the little people, to those I can relate, I’m referring to the masses who have been laid off because I’ve been there, more than once, more than twice, more than three times. Geez, sounds like I’m a lazy good-for-nothing worker, huh? Well, I know I’m not. I just have an idealistic and simply illogical passion for careers that society doesn’t care much about. So when the budget needs to be chopped, I sometimes am sent packing. Maintaining a gypsy spirit is a good ideal when it comes to American employment, by the way.

Through the decades of my working years and occasional job loss (starting as a clerk at The Dallas Times Herald in 1991), I’ve become less neurotic and more practical about job loss real and imagined. When I was just starting out as a career woman (feminist term from the 1970s to which I would aspire), the mother of a young colleague always looked through the job listings of the Sunday newspapers, before internet and smart phones. She was a long-time nurse, already in the medical field assured way back then to be the leading industry of the 21st century. Why would she spend any time reading the want ads, I asked. She advised me to always be checking out the job ads. Got it. Ear to the ground … just in case.  

Here’s what to do when laid off

DON’T BLAME YOURSELF. That’s what they want you to do. They want you to feel worthless, even suicidal. The truth is: THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU. Businesses will drop you in a snap yet expect sincere loyalty 8-hours a day/40-hours a week from their employees. Ironic, idn’t it?

They want you to rack your brain over every single word you said, vocal inflection, lifted brow, frown line, sigh, 5-minute lunch break, personality clash, and the appearance of giving the boss a hard time. But it’s not your fault more than likely. Sure, admin is supposed to get rid of the lazy folks first when mass layoffs are ordered. But I’ve noticed time and again that the very employees whom I know to be on the lazy side (frequently absent, fast and loose with the timecards, not too sharp, underproductive, overly diplomatic) are never laid off. I have noticed, however, the graying hair of those of us who end up standing in the lines at job fairs. Coincidence? I think not.

IF NEED BE, LIVE WITH FAMILY. Given the high cost of living and the unemployment compensation for job loss, it’s never enough to cover mortgage, rent, utilities, bills, groceries and gas. But maybe family and friends will let you crash for a while. As for your own family of kids and pets, everyone may have to split up if worse comes to worst. Think of it as very temporary because you’re off into cyberspace constantly seeking a new job or assorted jobs. This is the era of the gig economy.

CAST A WIDE NET: D.C. is not the only city to live in. The Mid Atlantic isn’t the only region to live in. The U.S. is not the only country to work in. That’s right, our federal government is opening the doors to kick scientists and doctors all over the planet. Might as well consider other countries. I’ll guarantee you one thing: Other countries will be more gracious. They’ll be lucky to have us, er, you.

KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE. The job’s the thing. Think big, dream BIG, like we did after high school. Remember how easy it was to consider our fantasy careers, when we were so young and untouched by life’s unfair and overwhelming cruelties? Yes! So, for me, that would have been wanting to move to L.A. and go into show biz! At age 18, however, I had way too low self esteem, not to mention the practical need of money or family living in California, to seriously move myself (with a few clothes, stereo, records and toiletries) to the show biz capital of the world.

Hey, the wonderful thing about living in the Internet Age is we can re-address some old big job dreams—even create jobs online and certainly go after many jobs posted on job search sites. It appears to be a smorgasbord of … opportunities! There’s a place for YOU somewhere.

What doesn’t make sense about mass government employee layoffs (coupled with firing the labor secretary due to woefully small job creation numbers) is the residual impact. If every dollar spent rolls over seven times, benefiting seven additional businesses, wouldn’t the opposite be true? Wouldn’t every job cut reduce revenue for seven businesses like grocery stores, clothing stores, furniture shops, restaurants, dry cleaners, gas stations? Just wondering.

In the 1990s, the Clinton administration brilliantly handled taking care of our country’s unemployed due to industry shutdowns. He created a federal fund to instantly help 40 of the most economically depressed communities in the U.S. Each community had to build its economy in three ways: create new small businesses, provide incentives to lure industries, and reboot tourism. Individuals who were unemployed and living in these economically depressed areas got to use grants and loans to finish their GEDs; take courses in HACV or welding and other practical job skills; or create their own small business, even operating them in their homes.

The Clinton way to fix economic problems turned out to be a Very Good Idea, certainly worthwhile and practical. But given our current administration and its ham-fisted pompous asinine manner to ‘cut the federal budget,’ any semblance of intelligent compassion is out—and suffering in all forms, from occupational to emotional, is in.

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The Texas Ten

Who in the world hasn’t already heard about the Ten Commandments? The code of conduct from the Bible? The ancient rules dictated to Moses by The Almighty and chiseled into two tablets, a story from thousands of years ago occurring on a high mountain in what today would be the Middle East? The purpose of Christian missionaries for spreading the gospel to other nations as their gold and jewels came up missing soon afterwards?

And what in the world were Texas lawmakers a-thinkin’ this time: mandating the Ten Commandments be posted on the walls of every classroom in the public schools? How many posters that gonna be?

Were our legislators thinking the Ten Commandments will miraculously intervene with our students’ comparatively low test scores in reading and math? Texas students rank 44th in the U.S.

That a list of the Ten Commandments will somehow instill into our young Texans a good heart? That they’ll no longer ‘covet thy neighbor’s ass?’

Have you been in a school classroom lately? These commandments might be laughed off the wall. Or more realistically ignored.

What language will the Texas Ten be printed in (English and Spanish and?) and what script and font size? Will the English version be modern or the King’s Own as in reading from the King James’ version of the Bible with words like ‘covet’ and ‘ass’ and phrases like ‘bear false witness?’

Do Texas lawmakers think there will be less school shootings now that the holy Ten Commandments are posted in every classroom?

As for the teachers, on top of every other societal and cultural change the state warrants addressing in the classroom, teachers are expected to act as ‘ministers’—because they’ll sure have to interpret each commandment. [Pssst. Some Christian denominations interpret each commandment more sternly than the progressive sects. That’s gonna be a problem.]

The Texas Lege is missing a few national realities in this age and time. One is: MOST FAMILIES DO NOT ATTEND CHURCH. Which could be why the Lege is posting the commandments.

Another is: A GROWING NUMBER OF PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE NOT CHRISTIAN. And Texas isn’t about to post Buddha’s Eight-Fold Path or a list of Islam’s fundamental teachings.

From Enlightened to Awakened

Buddhism’s Eight-Fold Path is simple and straight forward and without potential cuss words or nasty thoughts:

Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration.

Who can argue with any of that—besides Texans? Who determines what’s Right? Why, the individual, of course. You know if your work is making you miserable or happy. You know if your speech is appropriate. You know if you’re treating people right or wrong.

But, the thing is … these commandments and Eight-Fold Path discussions are more suitable for adults or older young people, say high school age–and none of it should be required in school:

“Thou shalt not have no other gods before me.”

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.”

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

“Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.”

“Honor thy Father and thy Mother.”

“Thou shalt not kill.”

“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”

“Thou shalt not steal.”

“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”

“Thou shalt not covet.”

Sounds familiar. We’ve all heard them, some all our lives. I’d say most people try to live this way as well.

What kind of backwoods state would post the Ten Commandments in every classroom? Didn’t work in Louisiana. Won’t work here neither.

The only explanation I can figure, for why every Texas classroom has to post the Ten Commandments, is it’s a last-ditch effort by our old legislators to stop school shootings. Texas had 31 mass shootings last year, a few in the schools, a couple in Dallas. Actually, the number of school shootings nationwide may be dwindling due to everybody being on guard all the time nowadays.

Posting the Ten Commandments isn’t going to stop school shootings. Learning the Ten Commandments won’t stop people, especially kids, from: stealing, lying, cheating, being jealous, killing, honoring their parents; or return families to church and by all means make everybody love God … again. Like every American Texan did in the 1950s: the years of the KKK, polio, and racially segregated schools and neighborhoods and businesses.

Humans have free will. Kids already know this. Have you spent any time with a bunch of kids? They live freely and are very willful.

Preaching the Ten Commandments isn’t going to change our enormously complex global high-tech super-duper fast-changing modern times.

Gun control will stop a lot of mass shootings. Locked-up guns will stop most kids from accessing them.

Not that the Texas Legislature was even wanting to address gun control. Such a messy topic in this state. A buzzkill and a dealbreaker ’round these parts. Still and even though.

But I’m for discussing the teachings of world religions. Can you imagine: Lil Texans learning about Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism with all those gods and goddesses and signs and symbols and chakras and whatnot?

It does sound absurd. But only in Texas.

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AI and I

Get outta my Word doc, AI. No, I do not want you to help me create a shopping list or friendly note. I’m old school, see. Perfectly capable of and confident in writing on my own. I know you’re trying to be helpful for the many people who do not like writing. ‘It takes sooo long to do and is soooo boring.’ Not to me. I love writing, even typing. I’m secure with the grammar rules but have noticed time and again glaring errors in AI-assisted writing, comma splices for one. So, no thanks. I’ll keep writing on my own, write, er, right or wrong. I can fix my errors. But thanks for pointing them out, the ones you catch along with the ones that are not incorrect.

A. I. It stands for Artificial Intelligence. Has everyone forgotten? It’s ironic. AI means ‘unreal smarts.’ Fake. Phony. Baloney. We’ve been warned. AI can assist with online research in seconds flat. But then again, I would double check anything AI presented to me upon request. Just makes more work for me.

Everyone is using AI, enjoying just talking and letting AI do all the writing/typing for them. I don’t mind using AI for quick online research but not telling me how to write. I resent AI encroaching into all aspects of our lives ready or not. And especially when I want to write something … of my choosing … my style … original, creative. And I simply will not stand for your interference, AI! You hear me?!

Future shock

Who am I kidding? The future is now with AI and its robotics companion. In coming years almost every job in the world will be replaced by AI one way or another, from the meticulous and menial blue-collar jobs and mind-numbing tasks (for which we earn a salary) to white-collar professions including teaching and doctoring. Lawyers and judges are next as well as police and firefighters.

Computer geeks say AI is the greatest achievement in the history of mankind. But the rest of us are worried sick beyond belief about our jobs and livelihoods and our very usefulness. I see the growing numbers of homeless every day. How will tens of millions of people kicked off the payrolls … survive? The geeks project a universal income for all whereby we’ll be able to chillax in our current homes and apartments, pay our bills with some sort of meaningful currency, be provided healthcare, and maybe self educate (and no doubt self medicate, if I understand my fellow human, and I do).

The geeks foresee the most wonderful era of humanity. Finally, we humans will have ‘time enough at last’ [to borrow from “The Twilight Zone”] to pursue our hobbies and interests now that we don’t have to work anymore. Or we could meld our skills into operating or feeding AI. At last, we could live our lives ‘to full measure’ [again, borrowing from “Twilight Zone”]. Why, we could pursue our individual passions and interests like playing an instrument, painting, sculpting, listening to music, learning crafts and other languages and anything, traveling the world. More importantly, this free time allows us to seriously delve into the mysteries of life: Why are we here? Is there life beyond our planet? Where do we go when we die? Can we enter other dimensions? How can we cure cancer? Can we time travel?

Heady stuff.

All that thinkin’ would put most folks I know to sleep.

See, AI … the vast majority of people aren’t interested in research and studying and analyzing stuff, thinking all the time. People like just getting along as we have for tens of thousands of years. We don’t mind really. We like finding our own food, having a job (work with some rationale of importance and benefit to mankind plus salary and insurance), having weekends off and vacation time, watching movies and shows, gaming, outdoor fun, traveling, exploring hobbies, raising kids and being with friends and family.

Ah, there’s where AI just doesn’t compare: socializing. Sure, individually AI can talk to us like a best friend, a really smart objective rational unemotional Voice in a Box. It can get us to laugh with jokes, given a category from bawdy to kid appropriate. It can act as a counselor (another job going away) and offer comforting words and inspirational thoughts till our tears dry. AI will make us all feel better.

The younger generation habitually uses AI and even looks forward to the day of driverless cars. Driving is another activity I really enjoy (all right, not so much now that my right knee aches after 20 minutes behind the wheel). Shoot, guess whatever our age, AI’s got us covered. Maybe it’s all a big cosmic blessing. Thank you, Lord, for AI! Does that sound right to you? But by now maybe most people think it.

So AI will continue to take over our lives and certainly change what we’ve known life to be at least during the past century—catapulting us wildly into the real 21st century. I’ve been wondering for 25 years now when this century would kick in. Didn’t we all know this would be the highest tech century? Didn’t futuristic movies present how human life would be: people who do not work but are well cared for and healthy, everyone wearing similar form-fitting polyester suits, keeping busy with research or something vague, eating, attending parties, commanding their domestic robots to clean house or cook.

Earthlings are easy. And I suppose in our new era, I’ll play Old Lady who knows old-timey stuff like how to drive a car or cook on a stove … or write. My concern is we will live to see the day AI does all our thinking for us. If it already does all our research—pulling from the mostly unregulated regions of the internet—then it’s already controlling what we think. That cannot be.

Yet, there it is, floating on my doc, an AI icon … to the left of every line I type/write. It’s always there, right here … watching … studying … me. ! [Pssst. Is there a way to disconnect AI? Dave did it to HAL in that space odyssey movie.]

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Things I’m Concerned About

It’s been a long time since I last blogged. I’ve been laying low. With all the changes going on, and all the chickening out due to Trumpian lawsuits, I wasn’t sure about our rights regarding free speech anymore. But I’ve escaped my self-induced paranoid mental or emotional bunker.

The initial reason for keeping quiet began a few months ago when my identity was stolen … for the eighth time or so. I first noticed when I could not get into my bank account on my phone. WTH? Then I could not call the bank or make any phone calls! I was freaking out! There was no way I could fix this major 21st century problem, couldn’t even call anyone in these businesses to report what was going on.

I couldn’t do a thing for hours, first finishing the workday, then rushed home best I could in traffic, and then while choking back tears tell a neighbor what had happened and if I could please use their phone to fix my problems. My phone got hacked by someone in the Dominican Republic, the fraud investigator with my phone company relayed after spending about ten minutes tracing my number. The criminal kicked me off my own phone number and plan and took it for himself.

Fortunately, it was fixable, and the fraud division went to work with my number restored to me. Then I had to call my bank, for the umpteenth time since continuing life in the Digital Age, to let them know I did not have online access to my account. Someone, perhaps the same perpetrator, hacked into my account and changed my password, leaving me no access. I was livid … but knew the FDIC (which we still have, right?) guaranteed funds up to a certain amount digitally stolen from my account would be restored after investigating. Like I said, I’ve been through this several times, too many, and I have online protection, too. With the bank’s fraud division on the line, I had to change my password, and then my account was in my control again … for now.

The first time this sort of thing happened to me, someone in Eastern Europe (that’s what we were told back then) got my number(s) online. That’s how they rob banks now: getting real account numbers stored in cyberspace and going to work figuring out log-ins and clever passwords. The bank actually has been on top of these crimes for years and contacts me, often on a Saturday, asking if I recently purchased a big TV from Walmart in some town I’ve never been or donated to the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Good bank. They know me well somehow. OK, it’s a little creepy. But I guess this is how modern bank robbery crime is fought this century. [I thought the high-tech chip cards were supposed to stop easy online theft.]

This time the bank hacker wasn’t able to get into my account (that’s happened to me, and I had to start a new bank account) but did kick me out somehow, taking over the account. Just scary times we’re living in. It actually makes me extremely depressed … every time it happens. So now I guess we understandably go through life with high anxiety.

Media roll over

The other big thing going on since President Trump took office has disturbed me just as much as online bank and cell phone hacking and that is the American media, like many of our nation’s largest corporations of all types, avoiding any dust ups with the Man. Because he is a sewer, er, suer. Everybody knows this about him. He sues and hangs on like a bulldog for years and years. Meanwhile, the defendants cannot afford to stay in business and deal with a Trumpian lawsuit. That’s what’s going on with our nation’s corporate media.

I never thought I’d see the day. Yet here it is: American news organizations playing nice with a sitting U.S. President. That’s not how it’s supposed to be at all. Give me the days of Bernstein and Woodward along with Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and publisher Katherine Graham. They knew how to play hardball. AND HARDBALL IS THE NAME OF THE GAME BETWEEN THE MEDIA  AND GOVERNMENT.

Journalism, as a government reporter, was my first career. But now the general public is convinced nothing reported in the news is real; it’s all fake. The public actually believes our current President will be the One to let us know what is real and what is fake. This is so … stupid … and lazy. I expect better of my fellow Americans. Each one of us must know how to tell the difference between real and fake news. It takes time and effort, like voting every year for leaders to run our form of government. And don’t believe everything a U.S. president tells us. We never did before Trump. We always doubted politicians.

Also, a free press is written into the U.S. Constitution. It took a few centuries to figure out how to produce thoroughly substantiated news (I’m gonna use the phrase honest journalism), but the American media did it better than any other country. From our nation’s founding, there’s always been the tabloid media. I grew up in an age when EVERYBODY KNEW THE DIFFERENCE. Now with the internet’s lingering Wild West anything-goes news and playing fast and loose with the facts, dressed up to appear legit but with the real intention of keeping us alarmed, Americans have lost their way. This is an American problem. Quit blaming the internet and social media, as Fred Sanford would punctuate to us, “dummy.”

Right now, our U.S. Congress is looking to cut federal funding to PBS and NPR. They stand for the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio, the latter title’s implication that it belongs to and is for the People, something to trust, something we could be proud of. It’s a nonprofit—the profit motive doesn’t exist as it does in corporate media. This is about as good as it gets to ensure what you’re reading or seeing or hearing is fact-based journalism. And now gone? Except dubious fast-and-loose-with-the-facts social media and ‘citizen journalists’ and the likes of Trump’s ‘Truth’ Social which will continue to exist for our … let’s call it what it is, entertainment.

Off with their talking heads

And there’s another development with big league journalists that started with the unnecessary 24-hour news cycle. Reporters have been sitting with TV and internet news ‘shows’ to provide insightful commentary into their beats, especially the national government beat. This is not allowed among serious news organizations. Reporters are not opinion writers and columnists. Nowadays journalists who cover the national beat are mixing with show biz. And it’s part of the problem with public trust of the media.

The latest story was a long-time respected national network news reporter getting canned for his social media comment criticizing our current president’s administration. Say the same about any other president, and there’d be no problem. But not so with Trump. The major broadcast company canned the reporter rather than deal with a costly and lengthy lawsuit that would have put the network out of business.

Reporters should remain aloof. They have a job to do not unlike a homicide detective. The public doesn’t need to know everything. (I can’t believe I just wrote that.) But with two terms of President Trump, I see how important journalism is. Truly it’s as if we’re in a war of sorts, a search for truth. Make that Truth. And reporters are investigators. The public sees their faces, hears their voices, knows their names. But we shouldn’t know much more about reporters including their political views. [I can’t believe I wrote that either.] For the sake of our country’s unique and honored relationship with the press, reporters should get off the celebrity circuit and just do their job—which is: Find out what’s really going on including how, why, who, where and when.

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Dear Greenland, Canada, Panama and Mexico:

Please allow me to explain the mindset of my people, U.S. citizens. I know Americans, albeit my certain knowledge comes from a specific race and nationality hailing from the nations of Western Europe. Long ago, my people came to the New World, as this ‘discovered’ continent was called, for whatever reason. [We were taught it was something very noble like religious freedom, to practice Christianity as they believed best, and more truthfully to not be persecuted for their Christian practices whether Catholic or Protestant—in the Old Country, imprisonment and death were quite likely.]

I can tell you, citizens of the world, why Americans (well a tad more than 50%) voted for Trump twice. America has had a mostly middle-class citizenry for a good century or so—especially after World War II. But then all that blowing and going and economic gains for most American families in the mid-20th century came to a sudden halt in the 1970s. That’s when a number of very important U.S. industries, such as auto manufacturers, closed up shop in this here Land of the Free and Home of the Brave and moved way across the sea or just south of the border to continue business at a greatly reduced cost. Business is, after all, the most important thing in the heart, mind and soul of an American. We understand it. We accept it. We’re also very angry about it (because it puts us all in jeopardy).

To be an American is to understand the almighty dollar. Most of us just want to work, have a good job, raise kids, have some time off, enjoy our lifetime. Most of us don’t really want to be millionaires. That is an incredibly tiny segment of the U.S. population, rare—and rarer still the very few who have the je ne sais quoi [meaning “I know not what”] to break through to the other side and join the teeny tiny ranks of wealthy Americans.

But all of us understand what it takes to make it in this country: We pull ourselves up from our bootstraps and get up every day to work and earn our keep. That last part is very critical in understanding our collective American mindset. It goes back to when families first started coming over here and through the decades spanned out to settle across the prairie and along the coasts, mountains and hills.

We are taught to take care of our own, meaning literally our own family and if we don’t have a family then just our own selves.

So with this uniquely American philosophy, permeating throughout our modern era, comes a great hatred for taking care of millions of people we don’t know and honestly do not care about. Cruel as it sounds, it’s not, not to Americans and the way we figure. And my people think they have a point; a good half of our population thinks this a-way.

I suppose the attitude of “I got mine; you get yours” sounds selfish. [And, well hell, it is.] But when Ronald Reagan said it, it just made sense. You have to FIRST take care of yourself and family. And all will turn out right if you strive toward that goal (and that goal only). Never mind if that goal at times meant some families and communities were harassed with burning crosses in their front yards or if this goal created segregation and job discrimination against races who were not WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) or prejudices and bigotry against all immigrants in this country (this nation founded by and for immigrants). That is U.S. history.

With every election, Americans who vote are choosing how to spend our tax dollars. Whether they think about it or not, each voter is at a gut level voting to sit on the money (not one dime to anyone who isn’t one of us) or to use American tax revenue for the common good (whatever that is).

The greater good

This is the difference between our two political parties, groups of opposing viewpoints who sometimes merged together toward progress but nowadays have intentionally and harshly divorced from one another.

That’s where we are today in the U.S.

Notice no protests, or very few, against all the mass federal worker firings and the dubious reviews by an unelected billionaire/trillionaire and his troupe of unknown young acolytes. Americans are mostly silent. None of us is shocked or awed. We’re not all that enraged by legitimate media banned from covering our federal government. For decades many Americans have wanted to ‘drain the swamp’ that is believed to be our federal government. It used to be the working man’s motto ‘Throw the bums out’ referred to all the elected leaders who go to D.C. and then do nothing (other than vote themselves raises and the very best health insurance courtesy of U.S. taxpayers).

The great majority of us live nowhere near our capitol of Washington, D.C., and really know nothing about how government gets done. But our 300 million citizens across the country have come to believe, for generations now, that our federal government—with a budget of $6.75 trillion and a massive $30 trillion debt—is bloated and ineffectual and … exactly how are we not bankrupt by now?

So the ‘fat’ of presumed government waste is being chopped off. [Again, the waste used to refer to elected officials in Congress not necessarily to all the federal employees.]

And as the world knows about America and Americans, we tend to shoot first and ask questions later.

That’s what’s going on now. We finally have a U.S. President who will fire almost everyone who is a federal employee—so despised are they, these loafers who are paid by us, the American taxpayers.

Unlike our European cousins and other relatives across the world, the U.S. has always prided itself in looking out for Number One. That concept is not only unknown to the rest of the world’s people but indeed flat-out cruel not to mention impolite and, as everyone except an American knows, hardly Christian. [JC did teach us to “love our neighbors like ourselves,” the neighbors being everyone on the planet.]

One final thing to never forget about Americans is our nation produces the highest number of sociopaths compared to every nation on earth—our rate believed by psychologists to be 20 to 25 percent of our population. Other nations, which have been around for thousands of years, may have two to five percent of their population who turn out to be sociopaths.

What is a sociopath? A sociopath is someone who has no regard toward other people, is antagonistic and selfish, loves only himself and never anyone else even spouses and family, who has usually average intelligence although a few are brilliant, and whose only ambition throughout life—and the longer they live, the more clearer the picture becomes—is to destroy people, leave a trail of ruined lives and businesses, and get off by watching people he’s pitted against each other. They are cheaters. They are lazy. They don’t really work for a living. A few manage to have money from dubious circumstances including inherited wealth.

Prisons are full of sociopaths, people who thought they would get away with their crimes because they understand human beings are generally nice, polite, kind, don’t get too nosy or ask a lot of questions. Sociopaths will easily anger if they are pressed about their motivations. They don’t want to be found out. On the other hand, they don’t give a damn either.

So people of Earth, for now Americans have elected someone that leans toward ruining tens of thousands of lives in D.C. which will inevitably ruin many others across the U.S. as well as immediately impact the entire world—because in the past, the U.S. used to be proud of our leadership in the world. We liked thinking of ourselves as the Good Guys, helping mankind and fighting injustice across the entire planet. But for now, and hopefully not for long or forever, America can finally proclaim it’s no Friend of the World. We are practicing the political isolationism that I assure you many Americans have always wanted … throughout our entire history.

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sixtysomething: our last great decade of life, maybe

Live long enough, and we reach yet another awkward age: our 60tweens—old but not old enough … ineligible for some senior discounts; not old enough to retire, get on Medicare or collect Social Security. As an observer of human lifespans, watching my parents and relatives and celebrities age, I’m thinking this decade of life may be the last hurrah. If other health battles haven’t interrupted our relatively long lives, such as cancer or debilitating injury, then 60something is likely our last decade of still getting around, confidently walking on our own, still somewhat flexible, able to exercise though moderately, traveling, driving, dancing, thinking, creating, working. Besides, a recent AARP magazine article made clear the 60s are when we really start dying out as a generation. Thanks for giving us the straight dope, AARP.

Perhaps having old U.S. Presidents is making us think 80 is the new 60, that we will all be just as active as Biden and Trump. How long we live and age truly is in the genes for the most part. Some families have long life spans. Look at Jimmy Carter. Other than sheer luck, health is the most important factor. Just keeping ourselves healthy by eating right, modest indulgences like drinks and sweets, managing stress, and maintaining an active as opposed to sedentary lifestyle. In short, KEEP MOVING. Keep on keeping on.

So, I keep working—despite awakening almost every day with new aches and pains, some that will become chronic. But each day I realize my mind is not as sharp as it used to be. Often the single precise word I need has left the building of my mind. On the other hand, I’ve always been that a-way even as a kid. I remember it well, talking 90 words a minute then drawing a complete blank over the right word or name of someone, always just on the tip of my tongue, ahhhh nuts. Sometimes even when writing, this can occur. But in writing, I have time to remember the perfect word(s) I wanted to use. And in our wonderful century, I can easily edit something already published digitally. Gotta love our times sometimes.

Both my dad and mom had heart attacks at the end of their 60s. Afterwards, physically they were brought down a few notches, not as agile as they had been most of their lives, never again to consider traveling anywhere, more inclined to stay put at home, enjoying simply sitting and watching TV and napping. My parents still exercised, their living room adorned with a treadmill and stationary bike. In good weather, they used to take country walks, enjoying their golden years of well-deserved retirement. But their respective heart attacks changed them from active and energetic seniors to … more cautious with every step and breath.

Twenty years later, mom fell and broke her hip. That was it. A year later, she was dead, so traumatic to the body is a broken hip perhaps at any age. But at 85, her bones were brittle, too.

Many of my high school classmates have retired, having lucked out with a solid job for 30 or so years. Not me. The truth is I enjoy working. Makes me feel useful, like I’m part of life on the planet. Don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have a job to go to, a big purpose. Besides, unemployment makes me extremely depressed. And I wouldn’t have health insurance without a job. Not yet. So I keep on truckin’.

The future is now

If this is indeed my last great decade, I hope to travel the world again. Number one on my bucket list is Latin America. Never been, not even to Mexico. Traveling to Germany, of which I have some ancestry around the Rhineland, would be another adventure to look forward to. Scotland, too. And I’ve never been to Hawaii or taken an ocean cruise.

While I still have my health, vision, hearing and mental faculties (as good as they’ve ever been, I suppose), I realize the time to do whatever makes up my final chapter is now.

When I was in my 40s, I wrote my obituary and memorial desires and instructions. Have it all figured out. Over the years, I’ve gone back into the doc to update, changing specific songs, to me the most interesting aspect of a person’s memorial. Still keeping Carry On by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. And the more I think about it, that Laura Nyro song And When I Die seems a fond farewell sentiment I’d like to leave everyone. Both songs are optimistic; they are songs encouraging the rest of humanity who will see and experience things I won’t after crossing into that great Classroom in the sky.

Life is for learning. That is my philosophy. Religion is not the study of God but the study of people, cultures. Yes, it is. In pondering the Great Unknown—where we all ‘go’ when, you know, we skip outta this human existence on Earth—I’ve been fascinated by stories of people who’ve actually died at least for a few minutes. Their stories are remarkably similar, and their experiences are real. The most amazing claim is they no longer fear death. And neither should the rest of us. It is a blessing that we don’t live forever, that we finally retire permanently, thank God. The older I get, the more I find myself looking forward to the Glad Reunion in the Sky … just not quite yet. Please, please, please?

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Only an idiot would shut down the Department of Education

The opening page to the U.S. Department of Education’s website reads: Fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.

Aha! Now we see why the Trump Administration is condemning a federal department that ensures the education of a hundred million children, teens, young people … and adults of all ages—regardless of race, sex, creed, color, ability, and religion.

The website’s sub sections include: higher education (financial assistance to go to college), adult programs (to complete GEDs), K-12 education, teaching and administration (assistance for educators and principals), grants and programs, and laws & policy.

There’s even an overview for laypeople to understand the purpose of this federal department: “Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation.”

Aha! Even the U.S. Department of Education acknowledges the states’ and communities’ roles in educating our country’s youth.

Makes perfect sense now: why only idiots would have an axe to grind with our nation’s great aspirational goal, envisioned by Constitutional framers in the 18th century at our country’s formation, to provide free education for every single child living in this country.

See, democracy can only work with educated voters. Democracy, therefore, cannot be maintained in a nation of idiots. Idiots include people who refuse to routinely check out opposing views, who want immigrants kicked out (because their beef is not just with illegal immigrants), whose bigotry and prejudices run generations deep just like the Jew-hating Germans a hundred years ago, who do not believe in American journalism as a legitimate investigative watchdog of every aspect of government—written into the U.S. Constitution.

These are the same idiots, no doubt, who somehow managed to graduate high school without taking a mandatory government or civics course. That course has been cut from U.S. high schools for a good 20 years now.

So the Idiocracy has begun.

Idiots don’t got no brains

There’s a difference between people who learn slowly and an alarming number of individuals who insist on maintaining an idiot’s view of the world. The U.S Department of Education, originally dating back to the days after the Civil War as an act to bring Americans back together as one nation, clearly is a partner in education instead of a ramrod forcing ideals such as ‘wokism’ (which was never a thing, by the way).

By this time in the 21st century, don’t you think kids in rural areas have a right to learn everything that their peers living in major cities learn? Don’t they have the right to the same science labs, libraries, field trips, scholastic achievements and honors, scholarships, along with technology (laptops/computers in every classroom for every single enrolled student) as well as all sports and all fine and performing arts?

These are the basics to a 21st century kid.

Still, because the U.S. does allow communities and states to call the shots on a child’s education, we have a state than banned Journalism as an elective course in all public schools and another state requiring Biblical ‘teachings’ in science textbooks. We have a state that banned yoga from being taught in public schools even as a weekly after-school extracurricular program while another state fully implements yoga in its public school curriculum, teaching kids to meditate and calm themselves (which is necessary to learn, by the way).

What kind of idiot has a problem with yoga?

I’ll tell you the type: an uptight ignorant religious bigot, someone with a closed instead of an open mind.

Two courses that should be included in every public school in the U.S. are Psychology and World Religion.

You think the past decades-long wars don’t warrant our youth’s complete understanding of religious beliefs? Americans should be studying up on it and not just through internet ‘research.’

Today’s youth also are not reading books anymore. They’re not reading articles online either. Their attention span is about one minute due to smart phones, social media and TikTok. This is absolutely the wrong direction for humanity, well those who want a democratic government. But we have states with a list a mile long of banned books. Poor American kids, stuck in the middle of the 21st century, confused with teachers encouraging them to read and learn everything they can while their communities warn of dire consequences—for learning. Today’s kids are caught between states and communities pretending to have their best interests at heart (and they don’t) and a liberal ideology that pulled many voters toward the ‘blow it all up’ approach to government management.

American idiots know a few things. One: If you don’t like something, blow it up. Two: They can believe anything they want whether it’s right or wrong, true or lie. Three: Schools are a political punching bag (so maybe education isn’t all that important).

If we’re going to get back to educational basics, then start with allowing teachers to teach. Despite what idiots think, teachers are not the enemy. Teachers want to share their passion for their subjects. Youth respond to human passion like they respond to a favorite entertainer whose musical message resonates with their own lives. It matters to them. Splitting hairs over yoga, journalism, Bible stories and banned books just creates more societal distrust in education … creating soon-to-be more adults angry at themselves for having missed educational opportunities while in school due to a bunch of powerful strangers’ petty politics. After all, free education is just a few years in the span of a long fulfilling life.