CSotD: Dubious Connections Report
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Here’s what I’m not talking about today, and why.
On the one hand, I agree with the couple in Byrnes’ cartoon, because it’s not much of a surprise and I don’t respect either of them and, overall, I don’t much care.
On the other, I also agree with Deering’s suggestion that we’ve got plenty of more serious things to think about and shouldn’t be wasting balloon juice on this nonsense.
And while I don’t have three hands, here’s the remaining part of the puzzle: These two sociopathic nitwits control a lot of power, so it is necessary to keep track of their squabbling, though I’m not convinced we need quite as many King Kong/Godzilla and Alien/Predator cartoons as we’ve had. But yes, it matters.
But one thing I know about bar fights is that drunks are hard to deal with because they don’t behave sensibly or predictably, and often the safest procedure is to just stand back at a safe distance and let them slug it out until either one of them gives up or they both pass out.
In the meantime, I’m reminded of a local sports show in which the hometown NFL coach was asked about an upcoming game between two of his division rivals. He said he was hoping for a tie and lots of injuries.
Which got a laugh at the time and seems relevant to this situation, but, then again, leads up to this:
The coach who made that wisecrack was Dan Reeves, a former runningback who subsequently died of dementia, and doesn’t that wipe the laugh off your face?
I wish there were some way to see who is vulnerable to brain damage so they could be barred from sports where it’s apt to happen, but in the meantime, I don’t watch a lot of football and it’s been years since I’ve been able to watch boxing, a sport in which brain damage is the point, not the unfortunate by-product.
So I have no problem with flag football, though I doubt it will replace the real thing, but I remain absolutely appalled at the resurgence of prize fighting and got a laugh out of this promoter trying to come up with a reasonable substitute.
Somehow, I seem to have missed pickleball except as something I read about. I suppose if I lived a little closer to Dartmouth, I might get to see it in action, but we don’t play it here in the hinterlands.
I do, however, understand that it’s something of a plague, both in terms of the annoying sound and the even more annoying prattle about a game that may be fun but hardly seems critical to the advance of humanity.
Though I have come up with an idea that also ties in with the graying of America. We have a number of dog walkers in the area, and it occurs to me that, for an additional fee, they could strap on your FitBit and not only get your pet exercised but help you meet your all-important steps total.
Our medical center lets you answer your registration questions on-line before you show up for your appointments, though sometimes the receptionist asks them anyway. This past Wednesday, I was running late, so checked in at the automatic thingy in the lobby rather than standing in line to give my name, DOB and assurance that I don’t have black lung disease.
Got through it quickly but then it said I had to fill out a form, which meant I had to go stand in line after all. The woman handed me a tablet that looks like an Etch-A-Sketch and I sat down to answer all the questions, which were, in their entirety:
- Have you fallen down recently?
- Have you almost fallen down?
- Do you worry about falling down?
Which were all good questions, except that I was there for an arthritis shot in my shoulder.
They should have asked “Does your shoulder hurt when you hurl a tablet across the room?”
Susan has been giving me flashbacks throughout this ghastly story arc, which began with corporate silence and evolved into news that the company was sold and is now at this all-too-familiar stage and thank god I’m retired.
I went through this a couple of times as the vulture capitalists snatched up one fun place to work after another and converted each into a mushroom factory, where you are kept in the dark and fed s*** until they can you.
They have a standard script for each new boss that begins “I’m not going to be making a lot of changes” and ends with a lot of heads being snicked off.
At one paper, the new publisher shook my hand and said he really felt the work I did was very important and of course I was gone shortly thereafter.
It’s possible that everything is going to work out for Susan. It’s also possible that monkeys will fly out of someplace unexpected.
Glad as I am to be retired and out of the line of fire Susan faces, I’m equally glad to be well out of the demographic that includes gender reveal parties.
I’m so old that we used to do gender reveals in the delivery room, and the party consisted of a doctor, a nurse or two and the couple whose business it was, assuming Dad had argued his way in. And, at the last minute, the person whose gender was being revealed.
Life was damned tough in them days. We didn’t even have “Baby on Board” hangers for our cars. We had to dangle the kid out the window by one leg so people wouldn’t bash into us.
I wish Thomas Aquinas were around to discuss the morality of phony meat. Are we talking about chemistry, or about intent?
In olden times, if you wanted to eat meat, you had to kill something. Then we invented supermarkets and “meat” came in clean little plastic trays.
Now we can distance ourselves even more from the fact that we want to tear flesh and swallow it.
As long as we haven’t been properly introduced.
Never mind Aquinas. I need Lewis Carroll.
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