Month: February 2020

I practiced at Oasis Country Club here in Mesquite today with my neighbors Al and Gaylen. We hit practice balls for about an hour, with Al watching and giving tips.

Al is a six-time club champ at Oasis. Sorry to say, he lost the championship in 2019 in a playoff. But, he’s still pretty good: his best round at Oasis, from the big boy tees, is 62. (And, yes, he played all 18 holes that day!) He’s 69 years young and “shoots his age” regularly.

I haven’t played a round of golf since around Thanksgiving of 2018. During the past twelve months, I’ve hit range balls maybe ten times. Pretty rusty swing, to be honest. Timing and balance are off. And, I’ve got flabby muscles.

Anyway, Al took a peek and recommended that I shorten my backswing, change my stance a bit, and alter the position of my hands at address. Within a half-hour I was getting a few iron shots in the air in the intended direction. I ended up hitting 1-1/2 large buckets of balls with all clubs.

My timing was off just ever so slightly. I have a case of “over-the-top-itis”, which degrades every shot. Too anxious to hit the ball. I need to slow my swing down, keep my swing inside-out, etc. I’m going to try again next week. Hopefully, the condition isn’t terminal.

Al plays golf with his buddies about four times a week. They gamble and follow up with drinks and food. It reminds me of the good ‘ol days at Bear Creek Country Club where I was a member for many years. Just like Al and his crowd, there were a bunch of us that played together all the time, making small bets, yukking it up and enjoying a drink or two after a round. I miss those good times, although it was an expensive hobby: the country club life costed about $1,000 per month plus food, back when we had some disposable income.

I would like to get my swing into decent shape so I could play a round with my son Jonathan when he comes to visit, play an occasional fun round with my neighbors, or perhaps join my friend Dan Quinn in Yuma in a friendly game when we visit there. I’m sure that, at my advanced age of 72, I will never be a single-digit handicapper again, but if I could shoot in the 80’s I would be pretty satisfied.

In order to do that, I am going to have to get my stiff joints in better working order.

Tomorrow, I am going to have my annual SynVisc injection in my left knee. My orthopedist did my right knee last month, and these shots are good for about one year. When I talk to him tomorrow, I am planning to ask him for a date in September to replace my right hip. It is acting up like the left one did, and I might as well get these things done while I’m relatively healthy and can still get around.

It’s a funny thing that my hip doesn’t bother me when I’m hiking ten miles through the desert, or swinging a golf club, but can hurt quite a bit when I do landscaping, move furniture, or crouch down on all fours: it’s the odd positions that really bring out the pain.

It was the same thing with my old left hip. So, I know it’s time.

I’ve been walking the dogs 2 to 3 miles every day that I don’t hike in the mountains. So, that’s 12 to 18 miles in six days, plus 6 to 10 miles extra when I hike, giving me 18 to 28 miles total per week. You’d think that walking/hiking would burn off a few pounds, but I haven’t noticed that happening!

I bought a neighbor’s ten-speed cruiser bike last week. I’m going to start riding it regularly once I get the brakes fixed. It’s my intention to take it with us on our RV trips, so that I can get some regular exercise in some of the beautiful locales that we visit.

I still need to lose about ten pounds before we go to Mexico with my son Jeff and wife Carol in mid-April. It is definitely harder to lose weight when you get older. Ten measly pounds…

“Eat less, exercise more”: that’s what I need to do!

I spent the day on Monday with my buddies, Mac and Lloyd, hiking in the Grand Canyon Parashant National Monument.

We hike over in that area from time to time because it is only about an hour’s drive up over the Virgin Mountains to get there. The poorly-maintained road that climbs the 4,000 foot pass is nasty in spots, so we take Lloyd’s Toyota 4×4 Land Cruiser. Once we get to the Parashant, the graded road improves quite a bit and it’s a beautiful drive.

We found a great place to hike after a 5-mile drive in the National Monument. There are no trails up there; you make your own in the desert hills. We followed some creek beds around a mountain and walked about 5 miles in.

It was very pretty in there with lots of huge Joshua Trees, native Yucca, Fire Barrel cacti, and giant Cholla cacti.

This may be the largest Joshua Tree that I’ve ever seen.

Many of the hills were rimmed with mesas made of volcanic lava and basalt.

A huge basalt rock that fell down a 1,000 foot slope seemed to have been stopped by a sturdy tree.

We found something that looked like a huge, prehistoric Stegosaurus turd.

(Or, it could have just been an odd-looking rock!)

Lloyd, while walking away from Mac and I, claimed to have found an Indian mortar stone, but he failed to take a photo of it. So, as with a lot of stuff he claims, we just take it with a grain of salt.

After the 5-mile hike back to the car, we ate lunch and enjoyed the scenery. As we headed away in the car, we noticed a sign that informed 4×4 motorists, “St. George – 61 miles”. For some reason, Lloyd and Mac wanted to check it out, so we spent a couple of hours driving east and north on crappy dirt roads, through miles of sagebrush and small Juniper trees until we reached the outskirts of St. George, Utah.

We can now check that stupid trip off of our Bucket List!

At least Mac and I learned a lot about the coronavirus. Lloyd spent a good portion of the day catching us up to date on all of the rumors and conspiracy theories that he’s heard about the epidemic on Fox News.

We must have heard him originate one hundred factoids about the dreaded virus with the dreaded line, “They say…”!

I consider Lloyd to be a very good friend who happens to be fairly intelligent, but he’s got quite a few crackpot ideas and racist memes that he’s not embarrassed to share with his buddies. Typically he blames most of the world’s ills on Democrats, Liberals, people of color, Jews, ex-President Obama, and failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

And, of course, the Chinese.

Lloyd is pretty sure, I think, that the coronavirus epidemic was caused by a purposeful or accidental release of a weaponized virus by Chinese biological warfare agents. His proof that this is so comes from the ubiquitous “they” who claim to know so much.

“They” are the same people who inform Fox viewers that the moon landing was faked, that Obama was born in Kenya, that vaccinations are the Devil’s work, that Jon Benet was murdered by her parents, that the Holocaust never happened, and that Hungarian billionaire/philanthropist/Jew George Soros is the mastermind behind all manner of Far Left plots against decent, Christian, salt-of-the-earth Americans.

On my weekly hikes with Lloyd, we typically can’t go more than a mile or two before he starts a sentence with, “They say that George Soros…”.

Lloyd has something in common with President Donald Trump: the both of them have a compunction to repeat, as soon as possible after hearing it, whatever inflammatory crap “They say” on the latest Fox News talk show that they’ve listened to.

It turns out that “they” may include Conservative talk show host/blowhard Rush Limbaugh, who said on his February 24th podcast (which Lloyd presumably heard) that the virus was created in a Chinese laboratory and “is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump”.

There it is: the God’s honest truth from Saint Limbaugh!

I hope “they” are wrong about the coronavirus.

Certainly, we don’t need state actors flipping the switch on bio-terror. Guns, bombs, and missiles are bad enough. But, at least one can aim them. Viruses spread in all directions, to friend and foe alike.

The highest rate of infection and death thus far is in China. Hopefully, that statistic holds. And, large industrial plants in that country have been closed because of the epidemic, causing a disruption of the world economy. If the Chinese intentionally started this, they have certainly shot themselves in the foot.

I don’t know for sure, but I believe that this viral epidemic is simply another outbreak that happens every once in a while, typically starting in Asia, Australia or Africa.

Since I’ve been alive, we’ve seen a number of viruses originating there, like the Hong Kong Flu, the Asian Flu, AIDS, the A-Victorian Flu, Ebola Virus Disease, Viral Hemorraghic Fever, etc. There’s no evidence that any of them were man-made or intentionally spread.

As the saying goes, “Shit happens”. These things naturally occur and run their course. Hopefully, with disease control measures in place, the suffering and death will be kept as low as possible.

Wash your hands and stay out of crowds, if possible.

That’s what “They” recommend.

As the world changes rapidly right in front of our eyes, one wonders what civilization will be like in ten, twenty, or thirty years down the road.

Just for fun, try to recall your world thirty years ago.

Cell phones hadn’t yet arrived, and “smart phones” (with access to the Internet) wouldn’t be common for another ten years. Amazon, which is currently the world’s largest retail company, didn’t exist. Back in 1990, only about ten percent of Americans identified themselves as “non-religious”, whereas today that number is approximately twenty-five percent. Terms we now see regularly at the supermarket (i.e. GMO, Free Range, Gluten Free, “organic”) didn’t appear at all thirty years ago. Way back then, newspapers and the “Evening News” on one of the three major TV networks updated us on the day’s events. Conveniences like Uber and GPS technology weren’t available, heavy industries and “bricks and mortar” retail commercial establishments were doing well in America, and there were very few black quarterbacks in the National Football League. In 1990, the Republican Party hated the Russians, loved NATO, and decried deficit spending.

Wow, how times have changed!

Who could have predicted in 1990 that voters would elect an African-American to be President of the United States within twenty years? Or that Donald Trump, whose businesses lost approximately $1 billion in the early 1990’s, would succeed Barack Obama as President just twenty years later?

Who knew?

It’s a tough thing predicting the future.

Back when I was young, there were a lot of folks running around prognosticating about things to come. I remember the “The Amazing Criswell’ who used to show up on the Johnny Carson Show, making preposterous predictions.

Criswell felt pretty strongly, for some reason, that a period of mass cannibalism and the end of civilization would come on Aug 18, 1999. He was wrong about that. However, he purportedly predicted, in 1963 on the “Jack Paar Program”, that President Kennedy would not run for re-election in 1964 due to something happening to him in November, 1963. And, by gosh, something did! How did he know this?

Some of our spiritual leaders have long felt a need to predict the demise of humanity. Among them are:

Jean Dixon, astrologer, who predicted the last day would be Feb 4, 1962.

Jim Jones, pastor of the People’s Temple, said that there would be a nuclear holocaust in 1967.

Charles Manson, homicidal killer, predicted an apocalyptic race war in 1969.

Herbert W. Armstrong, pastor of Worldwide Church of God, said the end would occur in 1936, 1943, 1972, and 1975.

Jehovah’s Witnesses claimed, for nine years running, that the world would end in 1975.

Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, predicted in 1991 that the Gulf War would be the “War of Armageddon”, which is the final war. (He may have been right; we’re still over there!)

Nostradamus, a 16^th century astrologer, predicted a doomsday in July of 1999.

Jerry Falwell, famous Christian pastor and “Silent Majority” blowhard, foresaw God pouring out his judgment on Jan 1, 2000.

Pat Robertson, another Christian televangelist and would-be politician, in a 1990 book, predicted the Second Coming on Apr 29^th, 2007.

Harold Camping, a Christian radio broadcaster and famous Doomsday Predicter, opined that the End Times would occur on Sept 6, 1994, then amended that to Sept 29, 1994, then to Oct 2, 1994, and then he foresaw the Second Coming on May 21, 2011, to be followed by the destruction of the world on Oct 21, 2011. (He never got it right.)

Rasputin, a Russian mystic who died in 1916, prophesied a firestorm on Aug 23, 2013, that would destroy most life on earth.

Jesus Christ, quoted in Matthew 16:28, predicted that “…there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom”. Even He was wrong about the Second Coming!

Jean Dixon, the astrologer who predicted Judgment Day would be Feb 4, 1962, later amended her prediction to the year 2020.

All of these spiritualists, who presumably speak directly to God, have inexplicably failed at predicting apocalyptic events. That is, except Mrs. Dixon, who’s latest prediction (2020) has yet to be tested. Maybe this is the year.

The prediction business is a tough one, and is getting tougher. There are so many variables, particularly now, when the whole world is interconnected. A domino can fall ten thousand miles away and have real impact on people totally unaware of the event.

The recent influenza epidemic that originated in China has spread to many other nations rather quickly, as has the economic fall-out. Many industries involved in aircraft production, travel, and consumer goods have declined because of the “coronavirus”, and disrupted supply chains have affected retailers around the globe. There has been political blowback as well, as countries have attempted to respond to the virus. All of this has happened in a matter of 30 days or so.

Without much effort things can spin out of control pretty quickly in today’s world.

Maybe this is the way the world as we know it will end someday, courtesy of a rapidly spreading disease. I suppose it’s possible, because hosts (i.e. travelers) move freely all over the world in a matter of hours, coughing, sneezing, and touching as they go.

The Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918 infected 500 million people, approximately one-third of the planet’s population, and killed 20 to 50 million people. And, that was before the advent of air travel!

It’s pretty scary to think that one diabolical rogue nation could very easily disseminate a deadly virus in a target nation to achieve its ends. Of course, that “weapon of mass destruction” could return home to bite the warmonger in his own ass, and then spread to all manner of unintended destinations.

Holy shit…it could be Armageddon! Maybe Jean Dixon was correct about 2020? Maybe the “coronavirus” is the Devil’s work!

A Holocaust that is actually predictable is the effect that global warming will have on civilization as we know it. Our environment is heating up, mountain glaciers and polar ice caps are melting rapidly, sea level is rising throughout the world, ocean currents are changing, and, as they do, the severe weather events on earth (like droughts, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes) are becoming more commonplace.

Head-in-the-sand politicians like our current President spend a lot of energy ignoring the obvious, while the economic, environmental and human costs pile up. This year, in Australia, super-hot conditions caused devastating fires that torched 72,000 square miles, killed an estimated one billion animals, destroyed 6,000 structures, and cost $4.4 billion in fire-fighting expenses.

Most people on earth live near oceans, and many metropolises are going to be physically affected by rising sea levels. Harbors will be impacted, as will commercial buildings, airports, roads, tunnels, and residential dwellings that have been erected on low ground. The economic impact alone will be staggering, as will be the need to relocate human beings.

According to climate scientists, this slow-motion, unfolding disaster will create some enormous problems in the next thirty years. At least, that’s what 97 percent of them predict.

Maybe it’s God’s will?

Where’s “The Amazing Criswell” when we need him?

When did society deem it acceptable to achieve a goal by doing something unethical, illegal, or morally reprehensible?

It seems that this is the state of society in which we live.

Recent ugly news concerned the Houston Astros major league baseball team, which won the World Series in 2017. It turns out that the team did so with the aid of electronic-aided sign stealing, which is illegal.

In the case of most sports, a champion is typically stripped of his title when cheating has been uncovered. Not so with MLB: a couple of management employees were fired, a very modest fine was levied, and some future draft picks were lost. That’s it…the Houston Astros remain the 2017 World Series champs.

One wonders how many of the other 29 major league teams would gladly suffer these minor penalties in order to claim the World Series title? Probably every one of them, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were cheated out of a title by the Houston “Asterisks”.

As one sarcastic ballplayer said, “Evidently, if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’!”

Back when I was younger, we were taught that “The ends justify the means” was something only the Nazis and Communists would stoop to.

Both Stalin and Hitler were goal-driven, like the Houston Astros, which apparently obviates basic moral considerations like right or wrong.

Rob Manfred, the MLB Commissioner, has tried to put a lid on the Astros’ scandal as best he can. The ball club owners are mortified, of course, and have, evidently, given Manfred orders to put this thing to bed ASAP. They’ve even agreed amongst themselves not to make any public comments, lest the “game” be any further tarnished.

Very obviously the MLB players union is the elephant in the room. Not one single player was punished for the cheating that went on, despite the fact that each Astros hitter was receiving tip-offs on upcoming pitches via some guy in the dugout banging out Morse code on a trash can. Astros’ players benefitted from this cheating, and opposing pitchers were victimized. Some pitchers in major league baseball lost their jobs or reputations when they didn’t fare well against Astro hitters, particularly in important playoff games and the World Series.

Commissioner Manfred and his owner bosses don’t want to take on the Players’ Union; they have enough problems right now.

One of the biggest problems is Commissioner Manfred’s mouth. In responding to player outrage about a team winning the World Series while cheating (which the Astros, the owners, and the Commissioner have acknowledged), Manfred minimized the problem by stating that players are whining about “a piece of metal” (i.e. the Commissioner’s Trophy awarded to the winner of the World Series).

The guy doesn’t have a clue. Professional athletes don’t compete for trophies…they have plenty of those on the mantel at home. They compete at the highest level in order to be recognized as a World Champion…which is what a World Series title is all about. Being the best you can be, etc.

In any sport, cheating disqualifies an athlete or a team from winning a championship.

Evidently, cheating doesn’t carry that type of penalty in Major League Baseball.

Go figure.

What kind of lesson do our young Little Leaguers learn from this very public drama? What are ticket-purchasing MLB fans to make of this; is our team cheating hard enough to win?

More importantly, how are Astros’ opponents going to handle this debacle during the upcoming season, when there are going to be a lot of pissed-off players who were victimized by Houston’s sign stealing scam over the past few years? There could be a rash of “bean balls” thrown at Astro players, guys sliding into bases with sharpened spikes, and Houston catchers getting bowled over by overly aggressive base runners. Expect some brawls. It could get ugly.

It seems to me that the only way that the owners and their Commissioner can salvage the reputation of Major League Baseball is to declare that the Astros’ 2017 World Series title is voided.

Like the Black Sox scandal in 1919, the Houston Astros cheating scandal should go down in MLB infamy…to make a strong point that cheating doesn’t pay.

To do any less would be another injustice to the game.

Government service was a noble calling when I was young.

The military kept our country safe, and public works agencies built roads, dams, and water works. Our policemen and firemen protected our neighborhoods, our courts meted out justice, and social service agencies helped our neediest citizens. “G-Men” tracked down Commies and terrorists. Laws that protected workers, stimulated the economy, and safeguarded our natural resources were enacted by legislative bodies that found compromise to get things done. And, our court systems safeguarded the Constitution and made sure that justice was served.

The Erie Canal, our transcontinental railroads, the Interstate Highway System, eradicating polio, and putting a man on the moon, ensuring Civil Rights…these things happened when people, through government, worked together toward a goal.

I am disheartened in my old age to realize that government has become a dirty word in America. Politics used to be called “the art of the possible”, but, today, it seems like politics serves no purpose other than to divide people and stifle cooperative works of any kind, lest “the other guy” gets credit for something good.

I devoted more than three decades of my life to public service, first in the military, and later working for local government. During that time, our county (Riverside, in southern California) evolved from rural to urban. My role was as a land use planner to start, then infrastructure planning, and later infrastructure finance as Deputy C.E.O. Problem solving, inventing new solutions, working with politicians and property owners to improve neighborhoods and helping develop a diverse economy were my roles.

At the time, I felt like I made a difference, and that my work was appreciated.

However, if I were a young person today, looking toward a career, I probably wouldn’t choose public service. Who would want to be the butt of jokes or thought of as an impediment to society? That’s the propaganda being continuously broadcast to the public today: government is the problem, not the solution.

Of course, the poisonous atmosphere created by today’s crop of divisive politicians makes traditional governmental models unworkable. Nothing gets done, yet taxes still get collected.

Mass murders are on the rise, the divide between the rich and poor is growing, our public infrastructure is crumbling, medical costs are skyrocketing, and foreign respect for the United States is plummeting. Who can blame the public for losing confidence in government? Is it any wonder why about one-third of eligible voters don’t bother to show up at the polls?

It’s funny to me that our government intrudes on people’s freedom where it shouldn’t and takes a “hands off” posture where it should.

I think about death more now than I used to, as the Grim Reaper stalks my retirement community. Many relatives and friends of mine have deceased, some of them in not such a dignified manner. There came a time in many of their lives where they would have rather succumbed quickly rather than be kept alive, suffering horribly and hardly knowing who they were. Euthanasia, which is perfectly legal to “put down” a terminally ill or suffering animal, is illegal for human beings (we’re also animals!) almost uniformly throughout the United States, the Land of the Free.

Probably the purist expression of freedom should be one’s “right” to make decisions about their own life (and its ending). Why do our politicians allow doctors, clerics, insurance companies, and drug companies to make this all-important decision for us? I guess I’m just too old to understand this.

Our physical environment is humanity’s most precious resource. And, yet, our government does so little to protect it.

My background is in planning; i.e. looking far forward, determining trends, examining alternative outcomes, and devising solutions…not as much for our generation but, rather, for our descendants. Society needs people who do this, and it is a proper, and almost indispensable, function of government. Responsible political leaders must be looking three or four chess moves in advance, while the populous is focused on the here and now. Society cannot afford political and governmental myopia.

And, yet, as my life nears its end, I am amazed and saddened that our government is focusing on immediate economic gratification rather than facing and significantly addressing climate change caused by human actions. The proof of the problem is overwhelming, the outlook is bleak, and the urgency to do something significant is real, yet our government would rather pretend there is no problem, attack our climate scientists, and purposely attempt to thwart serious efforts by almost all other countries to make a difference in this matter. Why are politicians gobbling up the disinformation on this issue? Why are our citizens, for the most part, not insisting that our government take a leadership role?

Sad to say, but it’s probably because modern society is not as serious as my generation or my parents’. “Live for Today!” seems to be the motto.

Problem-solving has gone out of style in this country. It is easier to blame someone for a problem than to actually do something about it, and it’s easier to kick the can down the road than to pick it up. “Let the next guy handle it” seems to be the answer.

Or, like the current Administration, just pretend the problem doesn’t exist. (Or, sadly worse, spend time and gobs of money attacking problems that don’t exist.)

Sharp young people with energy and ideas don’t want anything to do with government. I notice that almost all of the candidates running for President in 2020 are old farts like me. Where are the young lions, like Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy? Why can’t one of our experienced, creative C.E.O.’s like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos give it a shot? Why must we voters always have to choose between a bunch of septuagenarians peddling old ideas and pie-in-the-sky solutions?

Speaking of old gasbags, I just heard the news that popular radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh has advanced lung cancer. I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. I’m probably next.

Limbaugh has been the loudest voice of conservative Republicans for probably 40 years, back when the terms “conservative” and “Republican” actually meant something in a positive sense. Fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets, and strong commitment to our military alliances were cornerstones of the conservative Republican platform.

Back in the 1980’, Limbaugh would spend his entire broadcast each day laying into “tax and spend” Democrats and “liberals” who were mollycoddling the Russians. He was the Senator Joe McCarthy of our generation, identifying dastardly plots right and left. Limbaugh orchestrated a 30-year campaign against Hillary Clinton, beginning when she was a governor’s wife, accusing her of all manner of skullduggery, cronyism, and, even, murder. Even now, when the defeated lady is retired from politics, Limbaugh continues to lambaste her for imagined scandalous acts.

I think it was Rush Limbaugh who elevated the term “liberal” to dirty word status in America.

It was as if Limbaugh was denigrating education, particularly a well-rounded one. And, he probably was, as he didn’t graduate from college, and his target audience was a vast horde of ill-educated “redneck” listeners who were mad about such things as gun control, abortion, taxes, non-Caucasians, regulating Bureaucrats, uppity women, and anything else he could blame on those pointy-headed, “liberal” Democrats.

I guess “liberal” was simply his term for anything that he didn’t consider “conservative”.

Limbaugh was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom last week for helping America regress back into the Dark Ages of shortsightedness, spending like drunk sailors, and hatred of anything that isn’t pasty white. I guess that’s what “conservatism” has come to mean.

Who knows where this country is headed? We’ve got a narcissistic bully winging it in the White House, surrounded by a third-rate crew of sycophants who pretend that they don’t see and hear the damage being done. And, on the other hand, we have the Democratic opposition which doesn’t seem to be offering any alternatives that are novel or substantive, and whose Presidential candidates are unexciting.

The recent Iowa Democratic primary caucuses were bungled by Party officials there, which doesn’t reflect too well on the Democratic Party “leadership”. The candidates that did well in Iowa are a gay mayor of a Midwest town and an 80-year old Socialist who makes run-of-the-mill “liberals” look like old time conservatives.

President Trump must be drooling in anticipation of the 2020 election; it’s his to lose.

I was raised in a staunch conservative Republican family; my Dad was a Barry Goldwater fanatic in 1964. However, in Presidential elections, I typically try to see what the country needs at the time (i.e. if it’s too far conservative, I vote for the more liberal candidate; if we’ve swung too far to the left, I go right). I try not to get too focused on personalities, but, rather, on the realistic policy initiatives that the candidates favor.

I have voted in Presidential elections since 1968 and I liked Nixon, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Reagan, Bush (Sr.), Clinton, Clinton, Bush (Jr.), Bush (Jr.), Obama, Obama, Clinton. So, thus far I’ve voted for 7 Republicans and 6 Democrats, all of whom prevailed in the election except Hillary Clinton.

I probably would have voted Republican in 2016 except that Donald Trump had a bunch of goofy ideas, pandered to racists and religious nut jobs, and went out of his way to insult vast swaths of American citizens. Hillary Clinton was offering four more years of Obama-style leadership, which wasn’t earth-shaking. The government probably needed to swing to the right, but I just couldn’t hold my nose strong enough to vote for Trump.

Predictably, Donald Trump has been an embarrassment as President. As expected, his Administration has reversed decades of “liberal” policy, which was needed, to some extent. However, in the process of running the government like an arm of his private Trump Organization, he has undermined our Constitution and acted publicly like a petulant juvenile. He might be the most corrupt President of all time, and he publicly flaunts it. It’s almost scary to think what excesses he might display if elected to a second term.

A Democratic Party nomination of Bernie Sanders would be a Trump wet dream; the President wouldn’t even have to campaign for re-election. The same is probably true if a gay man is nominated. As Jerry Seinfeld used to say, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”, but, really, all of Trump’s MAGA folks and most of the other people of faith in the U.S. would probably place undue focus on Mayor Buttigieg’s sexual preferences. So, those two potential nominations spell a catastrophic defeat for Democrats in 2020.

Who else is there? Ex-V.P. Joe Biden, a couple of ex-lawyer/female Senators (Warren and Klobuchar), and two billionaires (Steyer and Bloomberg).

I have not followed the early campaigns of these folks. Biden has some baggage and seems too old for the job, Bloomberg’s seems to be a vanity campaign, and I’m generally distrustful of District Attorneys (i.e. Klobuchar’s old job). Warren and Steyer seem like smart, decent people with scruples; I might consider them if they get nominated.

But, if Trump faces off against Sanders, I’m stayin’ home.

As the saying goes, “Getting old is a bitch.”

I’m about two months out from left hip replacement surgery and everything is working great down there. However, now my right hip is acting up. Damn!

Joint wear and tear are a function of use and time; the more active you’ve been, and the longer you live, the less cartilage you will have to cushion your flexible appendages. The good news is that you’ve lived a long time. The bad news is that you’ll be in pain and less mobile. I can hardly wait.

Almost all of your body parts share a similar fate. The hair starts to disappear on your head (while it gets bushier in your nose and ears!), the skin gets thinner and drier, teeth get ground down, vision gets crappy, you can’t hear shit, and sex drive and ability disappears. Your spinal disks dry up and you get shorter. Arthritis takes up residence throughout your body, making it tough just to get out of bed in the morning. It sucks to be old.

It seems that the function of the human body, except the brain, peaks at about 20 years of age. That’s why a phenom basketball player like Kobe Bryant could compete against “grown men” in the NBA right out of high school. Physically he could run and jump as well as any of his NBA peers. However, he really became great when he began to maximize the potential of his brain by learning skills from others, innovating new “moves”, developing patience, and identifying when to pounce on opponents’ weaknesses. By the time Kobe was 30, he was essentially a finished product, in a basketball sense. He retired at 37 years old, because he could no longer excel against the new crop of young players.

His brain wasn’t through developing, though. At 37 years young, Kobe could look forward to decades of growth in that part of the body. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out that way for him.

Save a debilitating illness, like Alzheimer’s, one’s brain should become more robust as life goes on, because more life experiences generally lead to enhanced imagination and wisdom. There’s more data stored in there; all you have to do is retrieve it and put it to use. Smart people are good at that. They’re also good at separating useful information from non-useful, factual from fake, truth from belief, etc.

“Knowledge is power”, said Sir Francis Bacon, so it is not unusual that organizational pyramids are typically topped by older folks, who’ve “been there and seen that”. Innovation can be had from people of all ages, but management skills require a level of maturity, patience, and common sense that is often lacking in the young Turks of the organization.

And, so, one gets to old age, like me, and you view life through an experienced lens, much different from the Generations X, Y, and Z (all born after 1965). So much has changed, some for the good, and some for the bad.

As someone once said, “The only constant is change.” One has to accept that, I guess, but one doesn’t have to like it.

The world seemed a lot more fact-based when I was younger. Scientists were held in high esteem, as were educators, historians and hard-news journalists. If your teacher told you that 2 +2 = 4, you could take it to the bank, and when Walter Cronkite told you on CBS Nightly News that J.F.K. had been assassinated, you believed him.

Younger people (than me) seem willing to believe just about anything these days. There are large groups of people who profess to believe that the U.S. moon landing was faked, that inoculations against communicable disease cause autism, that the Holocaust never happened, and that global warming isn’t happening (because we had a cold snap last week!).

Disinformation of all sorts is so prevalent that one can hardly believe anything they read, hear, or even see. It is certainly a different world than the one I grew up in, where, at least, you could trust your eyes and ears. We all seemed to have an inherent sense of truth in the old days; “Doesn’t pass the smell test!” was our way of separating truth from B.S. And, common sense might have been more prevalent among adults: “If it seems to good to be true, it probably is!”.

Just sayin’.

“In my day”, as old curmudgeons like to say, gossiping was considered bad manners, at best, something housewives trafficked in to pass the time. Tabloid gossip news, better known as “fish wrap” or “yellow journalism” thirty years ago, has now achieved a level of respectability and even admiration, among some folks. Fox News, owned by the Murdoch family, is the latest incarnation of the Murdoch’s earlier tabloid sensationalism in such offerings as The Sun, wherein Murdoch instructed his editor to juice up the paper and put “a lot of tits in it”.

Bored grocery shoppers used to purchase The Sun, the National Enquirer, The Star, The Globe, etc. as they exited the grocery store. This kind of “journalism” was a laughingstock among civilized, educated people of America. Jay Leno used to joke that The Enquirer “checked the facts, checked again, and re-checked the facts” before going to print. In other words, the stories were 110 percent gossip, meant to titillate the customers enticed by the salacious headlines: “Elvis Impregnated Queen Elizabeth”, “Martians Control The C.I.A.”, and “Moon Landing Faked!”.

Fast forward thirty years and, OMG!…Murdoch’s Fox News is the highest-rated news outlet in America! How did this happen? It consists of highly-opinionated talking heads supposedly reporting factually on the events of the day or week. It appears that anyone can be touted as an “expert” on Fox, particularly if they have inflammatory views.

Question: How did conspiracy theory/opinion/gossip-mongering/political posturing become legitimate “news”?

Nowadays, there are numerous cable TV programs that employ ambush journalists, peeping Toms, drones, and phone-hacking to invade the private lives of celebrities…all in order to satisfy the insatiable appetite of some Americans for scandalous news.

In the current “social media” age, any type of rumor, invented scandal, or sensationalist theory is quickly passed among millions of citizens via cell phones and populist broadcast media. Devious politicians are using “instantaneous” messaging of this sort to achieve their ends, like sowing discord, smearing opponents, and influencing voters. Candidates spend more time defending themselves from untrue rumors than disseminating their policy proposals.

It’s no wonder democracy is floundering.

The World Wide Web (i.e. the Internet) held such promise when it first arrived. It became possible for any individual, not only those who could afford to go to college, to educate himself (or herself) about anything that has ever been learned by mankind. That’s a staggering achievement.

One has to wonder how long universities will exist, in a physical sense. Why pay a stupendous sum of money to learn something at a university when you could achieve the same thing in the comfort of your home, relaxing in front of a computer, while snacking on a bag of Cheetos?

However, as with the case of many new technologies, devilish forces set about almost immediately to corrupt the initial purpose of the invention. First, it was free pornography at one’s disposal. Then, grifters invaded the medium, finding innumerable ways to fleece the flock. That was quickly followed by a veritable deluge of intrusive advertising gimmicks, perverts devising ways to satisfy their desires, and such. And, ultimately, bored teenagers and foreign spies began to exploit weaknesses of the Web to shut it down…just for fun!

Lately, the promise of the Web has been further degraded as more and more content is being developed that replaces fact with fiction, truth with propaganda, and the hope of unity and cooperation with divisiveness and hatred. So much “fake news” has infested the Internet that it’s becoming hard to separate actual events from imagined. Doctored photos, invented atrocities, and conspiracy theories planted on social media to stir hatred are now commonplace on a World Wide Web that was invented to disseminate facts, to educate, and to share the discoveries and new technologies that can move the needle of civilization.

So much for “progress”!

Probably because I’m old and tired, and perfectly satisfied with my station in life, I am not a big fan of the “social media” craze. I’m sure it’s the wave of the future, but not for me.

Are people really that lonely and, in their minds, so insignificant, that they need to puff themselves up online, to pretend that their life is much more exciting than it appears? Who cares what Suzie Q is doing at this moment, or what Joe Blivets thinks about Suzie Q’s new buzz haircut? I have a daughter-in-law (whom I love!) who has a habit of letting people know when she’s at Starbucks or buying groceries. Does anyone really care? Why?

U-Tube is kinda cool, though. People get to become their own TV producers and, occasionally, they produce useful stuff like visual comedy, a musical performance, or perhaps step-by-step instructions to accomplish some task. The other day I watched a U-Tube video which taught me how to express the anal glands of my dog Baby. Very helpful.

Of course, exhibitionists use the medium to perform outrageous stunts or act like fools, trying to garner attention. As my Dad used to say, “It is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt!” However, there seems to be no shame anymore, as our young desperately strive to attract attention and have people “like” them…by debasing themselves!

Go figure.

Generations X, Y, and Z have grown up in this strange world and seem to have accepted the new reality of rampant disinformation, cynicism, and reduced expectations. With good reason, they distrust institutions, government, and each other. Political blame-throwing has replaced baseball as the Nation’s Pastime. A lack of seriousness seems to abound among our young people. One wonders what society will look like and how people will act in another twenty years.

I’m not optimistic, and, hopefully, if everything goes right, I will not be here to experience the Orwellian future.