Welcome aboard …

Just a reminder:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. -H.L. Mencken

Steve and I looked high and low for a header for our new blog some years ago, and settled on that one … it is timeless and true. There is no “War on Terror”, for instance, and if we wanted to we could all just get on airplanes and fly, and nothing bad would happen. The “shoe” and “underwear” bombers were probably stupid people who were conned for political purposes into futile acts. There was never a threat that they could actually blow up a plane.

The chances of being mugged or burglarized are fairly slim, and oddly, we are safer in big cities than small ones, since numbers provide good odds. Shit does happen, but it is random. The odds are that your neighbors are nice.

Young people today are like young people have always been.

There never have been two parties, never really. Liberals have always been malleable, and right wingers have for years masqueraded as Democrats. The idea of “gradualism” is not even an idea, but an excuse for inaction.

Aspirin doesn’t work on pain, coffee doesn’t hurt you, living to be 90 is overrated, especially if your brain is not active. Viagra is not a good idea, as women tire of sex in their older years. It only makes men want what is not desired by their partners.

Drinking too much is not good, but so is not drinking at all. Smoking is both openly discouraged and and sublimely encouraged at once (it’s actually nice that you die shortly after your working years, as you are less a burden). Tobacco companies need young smokers, and so aggressively pursue them, but very subtly.

Our professions are not that difficult, and easily learned. Other people do our stuff pretty well after a few weeks or months except for law, which really is difficult. (Lawyers have constructed a large set of illogical rules which can only be memorized by rote). Doctors are mystified mythologized, and they like it that way.

Our kids mostly don’t think about us. Most exceptional kids turn out pretty ordinary. We all think we are special though we don’t say so.

Religion is nice and stupid all at once, and those who realize it is stupid and still practice it know more than those of us who are too smart to practice it.

Movies are mostly bad and quickly forgotten.

There is a level of discourse among smart people that bypasses me. They are talking about concepts I do not grasp, and so I do not even notice the things they mean. This is the problem I have when I talk about propaganda, as most people are unfamiliar with it and do not think it exists, and so do not pay attention to it. Nothing penetrates the mind controlled by it – one cannot even get its attention.

Scientists don’t get politics, which is why the global warming deniers won the public mind. Scientists have to be honest, while the deniers do not, and are not.

Most businesses are simply trying to get stupid people to buy useless products. Advertising has two purposes: 1) to make us unhappy so that 2) we change our behavior.

Family gatherings are tense, but what choice do we have? We mostly imitate emotions all day long- the real ones come out at sporting events.

We are really lucky if we are married to a friend and lover both. It’s hard to stay in love, but it helps if your partner stays physically attractive. Most don’t.

Everyone is insecure about money, especially those who have more than they need.

Meetings are pointless and boring. Blogs are only interesting if they say something different. Most don’t. I live in fear that 1) I don’t say anything new or different and that 2) I am, as usual, the last one to know that.

And neck ties – there is something going on there, something in our subconscious that makes us hang a perfectly useless piece of cloth around our necks. I get that the Pope’s hat or a king’s crown is a penis symbol, that a tailored suit conveys a sense of power, that a motorcycle is power between the legs otherwise lacking, that a Hummer screams small penis … I get all that. But neck ties … I’ll get back to you.