Truth

 

“Ukraine has no reason to exist.” —V. Putin

“Right back at ya, Vladimir.” —Ukraine

 

Overzealousness

I love the function on my bank's ATM that ensures I'll never leave my card behind because it requires me to remove it before I can retrieve my cash.

And the dual-function trunk/fuel filler door release on my Accord. Mindful that it could unknowingly be engaged by someone pressing down on it with their foot, the worst-case scenario would only release the fuel filler door—not the trunk lid. (Opening that requires a more-purposeful pull of the floor-mounted lever.)

And since the fill pipe is covered by a cap, no harm, no foul.

So, yeah. These are two examples of simple, smart and effective design.

If only we could apply same to school zones.

Why must I slow to 35 MPH from 50 because I am nearing the entrance to a school driveway, which by my calculations is used just twice a day? The school itself is several hundred feet from the roadway. Limiting the hours it was in effect would make this semi-palatable.

But until then, on a Sunday afternoon in July I need to slow to 35 MPH? Really?

Then there is another school zone which requires me to slow to 20 MPH from 50 whenever school is in session. I'm guessing the teaching is suspect because students are clearly not captivated and are making a break for it. All. Day. Long.

Has anyone tried locking the doors?

I can go on, and will.

School buses. You know, those roadway nuisances public opinion demands that we love, honor and obey.

I have nothing against the buses themselves. Just the layers of overheated legislation we cloak them in with the expectation that this will forestall even a single mishap. Ever.

But however much we want to, we cannot legislate bad and unwanted things out of existence.

With bus operators forbidden from releasing students into oncoming traffic, why is it necessary that all traffic must come to a complete halt while a school bus is discharging its passengers? There are no roads to cross! Why are students running straight into their mom's/dad's/guardian's arms so ridiculously over-protected?

And what of the five-foot arm that swings down to corral all but the most-addled child from ever running into stilled traffic?

Sigh.

PC cowardice is the reason. No elected school official or politician will stand up and say we have sufficiently protected our students on their treks to and from school and that no further action need be taken.

(Can't we get this safety-crazy about the ocean of guns out there? Please?)

From our collectively warped perspective, that would qualify as being anti-kid. Which is almost as bad as being anti-dog.

What next? Do we empty the streets whenever school buses are in service? These physical manifestations of 'Baby on Board' signs need to cease and desist.

At some point during Dubya's administration I stopped asking 'How bad can it get?' because I would invariably find out.

Ditto.

Mulling Over a Mall

It was a beautiful place. I ended up there a couple of times a year, going wide-eyed in the toy department at Marshall Fields and loving the ocean of books at Kroch's & Brentano's. Billy Williams even autographed a copy of his biography for me there.

It was an outdoor shopping mall. And it was human-scaled, with architecture that seduced you with sublime proportions and grace instead of bludgeoning you with overkill.

The shopping mall had but a single two-story store. with the remainder contenting themselves with single-story spaces. Islands of grass and planters and a fish pond lent a park-like atmosphere to the center, to the point where I regret never settling into one of the brown wooden benches and cracking open a book or two.

Old Orchard was that kind of place. 

Subdued outdoor lighting created an intimate feel after dark, especially during autumn when windswept leaves would crackle and scrape across the pavement. The barren bushes were a natural host for Christmas lights, which provoked still more wonder. 

Unlike nearly everything that followed, it was understated. It didn't scream—it whispered.

As it turns out, that was a sin. As was expecting it to somehow duck the twenty-first century and its obsession with size and ostentatiousness.

The stores grew bigger and taller. Pretentious, oversized facades compete for attention. A two-level parking deck was constructed and the fish pond paved over. Overseen by an international real estate holding company, it was sanitized. Standardized. And homogenized.

There is virtually no risk of ever feeling you are somewhere...different.

Despite this, the mall has fared well. It isn't clotted with empty storefronts and whitewashed windows. (Given the current interest in all things mid-century, I can't help but wonder how popular the mall would be had it never been “updated”.)

But it isn't enough. Because its owners haven't been made exponentially wealthier every year, they demand redress from anyone able to provide it. As it happens, that would be the Skokie Village Board, who voted 7 – 1 to add a one-percent (how symbolic!) sales tax onto every purchase made at the mall.

But the most interesting component of this is that this “tax” won't be going to Skokie, IL. It won't be going to Cook County. It won't be going to the state of Illinois. It will be going to the owner of Unibail-Rodomco-Westfield.

Yay.

This to (nudge, nudge) “enable” that struggling real estate colossus to “improve” the mall. Even more than it already has, I mean.

Yeah.

What's really interesting is how this places the mall at a disadvantage relative to the extensive retail developments that surround it. I can see their banners now: “Shop here and save one-percent compared to Old Orchard!”

It's a bit difficult to see how increasing the mall's sales tax from 10.25% to 11.25% is going to enhance Old Orchard's viability.

But as a libtard and a snowflake, what do I know? Nothing, probably.

The dynamic isn't unusual: mollify the billionaire. Fuck everybody else.

Are we an oligarchy yet?

Looking for a Fountain of Mirth

In the aftermath of a twelve-year stretch of life that seamlessly moved from one form of confinement to another like the baton hand off of an Olympic relay team, I need to laugh. Bad. I search like Ponce de Leon for a fountain of, if not quite youth, mirth.

While de Leon reportedly discovered his fountain in St. Augustine, FL. I discovered mine on Peacock. And Hulu.

The first blast o' laughs were provided by Peacock and the raucously brilliant Girls5eva.

Produced (among others) by Tina Fey, it is a note-perfect symphony of four middle-aged women seeking to re-capture their oh-so-brief brush with fame they enjoyed as a girl group. Their earnest but forlorn plans evoke pathos, but never without a sturdy undercurrent of humor.

Flawlessly performed by Sara Bareilles, Busy Philipps, Paula Pell and Renee Elise Goldsberry, the laughs (both obvious and not-so-obvious) arrive like a full-force blizzard. Woe unto those who dare sleep on even a single sentence.

Next up is American Auto. Produced by Justin Spitzer (The Office, Superstore), it evokes the same cringe worthy moments we saw on The Office, where awkward t-bones dim and together, they careen into head-in-hands disbelief.

In other words, imagine an executive suite populated by not one, but four Michael Scotts. Be it a new model reveal, a recall or just shooting a commercial, watching the executives at Payne Motors is a highly entertaining master's class in WTF.

They collectively drive American Auto (sorry) just short of the cliff. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

As with Girls5eva, plans for a second season are unknown.

Finally, there's Dating #No Filter.

I'm normally not a fan of reality shows. They're fake and cruel and as a confirmed snowflake, that is not how I roll. 

So. Here's the format. Decide for yourselves. 

Three team of comedians watch video of couples on blind dates. Snappy commentary and hilarity ensue. It's a bit like Mystery Science Theater 3000 meets Awkward Dating Videos—if that were a show.

The oftentimes hapless participants are left to puzzle out these strange encounters for themselves. Yes, there is some snark. It gets a little catty. But more often than not, D#NF's narrators are pulling for a love connection, giving the show the heart so many others lack.

As with Girls5eva and American Auto, I'm even able to watch three or four episodes back-to-back, which is as binge-y as I get. (This because otherwise, formulas get revealed. Plots get predictable. Episodes grow stale like bread left out overnight.)

And the goal is, after all, to laugh. Remember?

Especially mirthful is the team of Kelsey Darragh and Zach Noe Towers. They animatedly riff on whatever date is in session, poking fun at themselves as often as the participants. Their mix of irony, self-deprecation and utter inhibition is a winning one.

Also worthy of mention is the team of Nina Parker and Cara Conners. Together, they offer a perspective that is equal parts common sense and undeniable truth. Parker in particular is only too happy to call out some of the outsized egos here, be they male or female.

So yeah. It's a good laugh. All of them are.

See you in the funny papers.

The Perfect Metaphor

Yikes! This is the last time I write under the influence!

Did a mild re-do this afternoon, hopefully resulting in a better read and argument.

As an English major, I possessed a deep appreciation of symbolism. Ensconced in a nerdy kind of awe, I marveled at how a single object or circumstance could represent and articulate a far-greater reality.

So when the news that Jeff Bezos and his ostentatious yacht would require the dismantling of a historic and recently-refurbished bridge in the Netherlands in order for it to reach the open sea, I immediately seized on it as the perfect representation of twenty-first century America.

With a combination of our elected representation and the Supreme Court either eroding fiscal legislation meant to keep Wall St. and our banks on a much-needed leash (the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act), or enabling oligarchy (the Citizen's United decision), it's no wonder America enjoys the income inequality of a third world nation.

America's 745 billionaires saw their wealth increase by seventy-percent last year. Yes. You read that correctly: seventy percent. Mine didn't. And I'm guessing yours didn't, either. This teeny, tiny circle of billionaires are now worth more than the bottom sixty-percent of the U.S. population.

Does anyone see a problem here?

So while you and I struggle with inflation and skyrocketing energy costs, the wealthy accumulate their wealth with unprecedented rapidity—even beyond the late nineteenth-century heyday of the Industrial Age, when the tax-free fortunes of J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were amassed.

And I'm sure some of them, like investor Leon Cooperman (profiled in a recent article in the Washington Post), are thoughtful folk with a sense of the world outside of their own. But it is my belief many more resemble Donald Trump, and are preening, arrogant, amoral ghouls whose selfishness and self-centeredness cannot be measured.

I also believe the overwhelming majority of them are Republicans, and are funding the party's headlong rush towards oligarchy and totalitarianism. (And while I'm at it, who but a blue-collar Republican would swallow the notion that it is Democrats who are the 'elites'?)

What are the consequences when there exists a group of people able to pay 132 million-dollars for a home? Or 500 million-dollars for an outsized yacht? Or even more to build a personal space craft?

How does that resonate through a society where an ever-increasing amount of people struggle to afford housing? Or send their kids to school? Or find enough work to keep food on the table? To what extent are our prices distorted by a billionaire's ability to endlessly consume?

More to the point, what are the effects of such outlandish amounts of money held in so few hands?

One consequence of our enabling an oligarchy is this: While our national infrastructure crumbles all around us, legislation to repair it sits idle because same would reverse a recent trillion-dollar giveaway to our wealthiest citizens and their businesses.  

Beyond that, there are the Republican efforts to gerrymander Democrats out of existence, erect still-more barriers to non-white-voters and their curious take on election reform.

Yeah. 

Once we're done with that voting and voice of the people crap, we can focus on the streamlined, exclusionary government our billionaires deserve! And a country by, for and of the rich! Just like God intended!

Deep breath. 

O.K. Back to Jeffrey and his boat. Given the enormous entitlements Republicans have extended to the uber wealthy, it wouldn't surprise me to learn they feel the bridge should be removed for Bezos' boat. Hey! Bezos doesn't live there! He paid for it! It's his right to build a boat too big for the local infrastructure to handle! Let them fix their own damn bridge!

On the sane and sober side of the aisle, I feel that as a person of unimaginable wealth, it would behoove him to be the bigger man and offer to not only pay for the bridge's deconstruction, but for its reconstruction as well.

Toss in some high-profile public improvements on his dime and we can call it a draw.

Which, going forward, is more than the ninety-nine percent will ever see from a Republican.

Violating the Second Amendment

Advocating for gun control legislation is like iceberg spotting in the tropics. One rarely appears, and when it does it quickly dissolves in a sea of warm water.

Case in point, the brave folk of San Jose, California voted to require gun owners to carry liability insurance. Given the carnage and public expense incurred by firearms, this is a highly-logical idea. It's only fair that those who help enable it pay for it, right?

This isn't the comprehensive national policy that requiring gun manufacturers to assume liability would be, but it's a start.

Ignoring the subsequent lawsuit and gun owner's predictable whining about their Second Amendment rights being violated, let's take a look at the bill.

In that sad and timid way we have of tip-toeing around gun owners, the law would “encourage” same to purchase trigger locks, gun safes and participate in gun safety classes. The actual liability would cover death, injury and property damage emanating from accidental use of the weapon.

No definition on what constitutes accidental use was given.

Lost or stolen weapons would remain the responsibility of the gun owner until they were reported lost or stolen. Naturally, gun owners who don't buy-in won't lose their guns or face criminal charges.

And yet, there's the lawsuit. And the whining.

Sigh.

The American exceptionalism many of us grew-up with no longer exists. Countries all over the world surpass us in dozens of metrics. Access to affordable healthcare. Infant mortality. Life expectancy. Per capita income. Access to higher education. It goes on and on.

For those of you with a need to cry “We're number-one!”, take heart in the fact that America remains the most heavily-armed developed nation in the world. Take heart in the fact there are 120 guns for every 100 people.

If the NRA is correct that more guns = more safety, we must also be the safest. Right?

Wrong. 

According to data on Wikipedia, it's true the United States can't touch places like Mexico and El Salvador and Venezuela when it comes to per-capita homicide-by-firearms rate. But rest assured the U.S. runs rings around virtually every country in Europe. Japan. And Australia.

And presumably unstable places like Cambodia. Pakistan. And Ghana.

This despite the heightened safety and security offered by our guns. Doesn't add up, does it? Someone is—to be as diplomatic as possible—not right. And it ain't the numbers on Wikipedia.

Gun advocates and the NRA are preaching the same gospel they've always preached, which is the gospel of fear. Fear of minorities. Fear of women. Fear of political incontinence.

(Which, for those of you not versed in the finer points of aging physiologies, is the loss of control.) 

So many boogeymen. 

So yes. Get a gun. Get a gun when a pandemic settles in over a nation. Get a gun when Black people protest. Get a gun when Democrats are elected. Get a gun when someone who already has uses it as intended—which, it must be said, is to kill.

We'll shoot our way out of this.

I get what we think we're shooting our way out of, but what are we shooting our way to?

That's what I want to know.