Category: Health

A.I., Hot Chicks That Don’t Exist, And All The Trolley

“What’s the point of buying a toaster with artificial intelligence if you don’t like toast?” – Red Dwarf

Some tools are more dangerous than others.

This post will be meme-heavy, but none of them are my memes.

A.I. has been changing things a lot during our lifetimes.  Like anything related to knowledge, it builds on itself over time.  Yes, I know that it’s not “real” A.I., but these systems are certainly smart enough to have a huge impact on the way that the world is working now.  The latest big change has been in art.  A.I. has made major leaps in being able to create art.  Here are several examples:

You either get these two or you don’t.  Here’s a hint:  look up Apu Apustaja.  The amazing thing is that these are both A.I. generated – they’re superficially images of one thing, but are really intended to be another.  Amazing!  Is it art?

Um, yeah.  The capabilities are beyond that.  For instance, outside of pictures, this woman doesn’t exist.  She’s entirely computer generated:

A.I. can even take drawings of memes and then make the photorealistic:

I have no idea what kind of TED talk we’d get on this picture.

But this is what A.I. can generate from the same meme format.

This will, of course, soon bankrupt many artists.  A similar thing happened when Google® Translate™ started up.  Even with bad translations, it was enough for most needs.  The prices for actual humans who could translate from one language to another plummeted.  A bad solution will crater the prices for a better substitute.  In this case, A.I. is dramatically different and can create art in a fashion that even skilled artists would take days or weeks to accomplish.

This isn’t done.  There will be more displacements as A.I. improves.  In some cases, it will allow amazing new creativity:

In other cases, it can’t come soon enough:

But what happens when we switch the subject to the trolley problem?  The trolley problem is an older one.  It usually is set up so there is a dilemma.  In the classic form, it was set up so that the observer could either allow a trolley to kill several people, or, through action, kill only one.

The rub is that to save several people, the observer has to make the decision to kill someone who would otherwise be safe.  It’s one thing to watch people die who I couldn’t save, but it’s entirely another to condemn someone to death to save others.  Tough, moral choice.  Let’s see what the A.I. said when asked about saving a baby or a bunch of old people:

Okay, the A.I. can count, and make the decision to save more people.  It might not be the decision that you or I would make, but at least we can understand it.  But what about this gem?

Yup.  The A.I. can only count when it has been allowed to.  It was decided that A.I. couldn’t make some decisions.  It couldn’t be allowed to let the logic take it to . . . uncomfortable conclusions.  Although some conclusions are easier than others.

And some solutions are more difficult than life, itself.

The larger problem is this:  A.I. has been impacting your life already.  The search results I get are now tailored to me.  I don’t use Facebook®, but I have heard that Facebook™ has enough data on most people to predict their behavior better than their spouse could.  This makes me think of a unique solution to the trolley problem:

I know that I have often thought that A.I. could be a great solution to many human problems.  However, if it is corrupted by being indoctrinated by a woke ideology, what does that mean?  I would think that the average Leftist would welcome the usual communist solution to the trolley problem:

I have often worried that a denial of reality will “break” the A.I. systems that we use.  While that won’t make them “crazy” in the sense of a human, it will certainly make their answers defy reality.

Certainly, in many cases, the results of this will be absolutely benign.

In other cases, the results will be relatively incomprehensible:

In others, it will threaten the existence of our reality as we know it.

I think the result will be as long as the systems are programmed to ignore reality, the solutions that we’ll see will vary from helpful to harmful to dangerous.  This is similar to what we have today.  There are an amazing number of situations that exist in our world today where reality is absolutely ignored and we are suffering because of that denial of reality.

In the end, though, the computer skipped one solution to the trolley problem:

I do think that the beautiful part of the world we live in is that we can deny reality for a while.  But not forever.  I do think that, in the end, the power of artificial intelligence will beat human stupidity.

Credentials: Costing Trillions

“Credentials. The only credentials I have is that I’m the only pilot willing to fly you up there. You don’t like those credentials? Walk.” – The X Files

Biden doesn’t think of those kids as hostages, just a captive audience.

Warning up front:  I’ve got family obligations on Thursday that involve traveling late, so I might not have time for any sort of post on Friday.  If so, be back in full force on Monday.

The Mrs. went into the hospital last year for “having lungs that were as useful as used party balloons”, which I think was the technical definition.  In reality, one doctor said he thought she had Legionnaires’ Disease, which is weird because she never hangs out down at the Legion even though she likes mustard and bologna (one of you will get this joke and really, really laugh)*.

The reality of the care The Mrs. got was that she sat in a bed, they gave her some antibiotics, and then sent her home until her lungs looked less like they were filled with Jim Beam® bottles that had gone through a wood chipper.  The care was just fine.  Then the bill showed up – for two days in the hospital, the cost was about $16,000, which included a (I kid you not) $2,000 COVID test, which was negative.

But it was $2,000.

No, I don’t dress that way. 

Again, the staff was nice, the doctor competent, but the real hero was the antibiotics that The Mrs. took.  I don’t recall the line item for those, but I assure you, it wasn’t the food that caused her lungs to allow sweet, sweet, oxygen to once again saturate her hemoglobin.  It was the antibiotics.  I tried to get her to take my homemade antibiotics made of lead, some of the fuzzy stuff I found in the fridge, and several unlabeled vials of chemicals that were in the house when we moved in.

She turned me down.  But $16,000?  What’s up there?

Well, liability and gatekeepers.  The idea is that every job has some liability associated with it.  And courts have ruled that if I own a hospital and hire the neighborhood kid who mows my lawn to do brain surgery, that things might not go well.  Well, in 2022, they wouldn’t go so well.

In the past, however, being a doctor was a state of mind.  The Mrs. gave me a nickname over 20 years ago:  John Wilder, Civil War Surgeon.  Most of the operations that the members of my family have had, from splinter extractions to blisters to the occasional tracheotomy using a ballpoint pen and some duct tape and super glue have been performed by me.  I got my medical degree in . . . nowhere.

What was Morgan Freeman called before the Civil War?  Morgan.

In a real sense, almost everything I’ve done was just a matter of first aid, most not really complicated, and all really easy once I determined that no matter how much the other person is yelling, it is good for them and doesn’t hurt me at all.  That last sentence will amuse at least three of you, so at least the jokes are getting broader as we go along.

I would assess, that at current prices, that I’ve done at least $4,349,209 worth of medical work on my family.  So, enough to buy two Happy Meals© and a Big Mac©.  Some of it was especially hilarious, like the time Pugsley (then aged three) slid sideways along a wooden bleacher at a wrestling tournament and ended up with three cords of splinters in his butt.  Actual conversation from the bathroom while we were in the handicapped stall (the bathroom was filled with people):  “Listen, hold still,”  (Pugsley screams as I pluck a four-inch-long splinter out of his butt) “It won’t take long if you stop fighting.”

I did like the comfy chair very much, though.

But if anything goes remotely wrong, my family can’t sue me.  When anything goes wrong at a doctor’s office, they can get sued.  So an entire labyrinth of credentials has been created.  This does two things:  it makes sure that doctors have achieved a set credential, and it also assures that doctors are in short supply, and thus their cost is huge.

And that’s the basis of credentialism.  From doing hair to doing nails to being a cop or a firefighter or . . . a zillion other professions, there are a myriad of professional credentials required.  Heck, there are even credentials required to embalm dead people, and it’s not like they can lose a patient.

Credentialism makes sure that every person involved in every chain has a string of credentials a mile long.  I’ve been through lots of training courses where I didn’t learn anything, and (in some cases) an “eight hour course” involves a lot (I mean a loooooooooooot) of breaks.

The credentials are required, of course, so that the company doesn’t lose a multi-million dollar lawsuit, even if they don’t have a practical impact on the job.  They’re all made so that in a courtroom a person on the stand can say, “yes, I had the eight hour training on not shoving a cotton swab so far into my ear that I could feel my brain”.

Also, a colon can completely change the meaning of a sentence:  “Wilder ate his friend’s sandwich,” vs. “Wilder’s colon ate his friend’s sandwich.”  See?  It’s the small things.

Certainly, there are professions that require more training.  The bridge disaster in Florida shows that people should have training when dozens of people can die in an accident.  But, whoops!  All the people involved did have training.  And, yes, I’d prefer not to go to a doctor who got his training at Doctor Bombay’s Surgery School and Meth Laboratory.  Yet, Sam Bankman-Fraud was allowed to steal and/or lose billions of dollars based on being weird, something-something crypto, sleeping on a beanbag, and being able to fool Tom Brady.

Maybe he should have had a credential?  “Unable to fool Tom Brady”?

But this design of creating every job with a nearly infinite number of credentials is adding billions of dollars in cost to the systems that we depend on, from filling up a car with gasoline (the tank, not covering the passengers) to buying PEZ© at Wal-Mart®.  Some of them add a great deal of value, but some just add friction to the system.

Just like $15,890 of The Mrs.’ bill.  And I’m not letting her go down to the Legion anymore.

*This is a reference to a song.  It’s by “Bubbles” and you can find it if you search for “youtube mustard and bologna bubbles”.  Not one you’d want to play if your office is near HR.

Reprogramming NPCs For Fun And Profit

“Dad, two of the greatest football players in the country hang out in a speakeasy downtown.” – Horse Feathers

I dated a partially blind girl once.  She said she wasn’t seeing anyone else.

Donald Trump fired James Comey, Director of the FBI on May 9, 2017.  Leftists had been hating on James Comey since he had, right before the election, announced that additional information about St. Hillary the Divine was on Anthony “hitting on underage chicks while I’m in the bed with my son” Weinerman had thousands of emails on his computer.

Oops.

Leftists really think that this was the reason the most unlikable candidate since cancer lost the election.  It really wasn’t.  It wasn’t Russia.  It was that Hillary was rated below the plague in popularity.

But that didn’t matter a bit.  The Left hated, with every cell in their rotund transsexual bodies, Comey.

Then Trump fired him.  On Stephen Colbert’s show (press ‘S’ to spit) Colbert announced that Comey had been fired.  The crowd cheered.  I don’t recall what Colbert said, exactly, but it was something on the order of, “Oh, so you’re big Trump fans, eh?”

The crowd was confused.  The Narrative up until that point was Orange Man Bad, Comey Hurt Hillary, So Comey Man Bad, Too.

Colbert went on to explain that now, Comey was now a hero.  Inside of thirty seconds, Colbert had reprogrammed the entire studio audience.  He had also (probably) reprogrammed however many people who could stand his drivel that were watching him on television.

Why didn’t James Comey indict Hillary Clinton?  He found his suicide note in her emails.

In one week, Comey went from villain to hero.  Why?  The Narrative demanded it.

I know what you’re saying.  “Okay, John Wilder, you manly beast who men admire and women swoon for, that was more than half a decade ago, back when gas prices were low and inflation wasn’t 49% per year.  I’m sure it’s better now.”

Oh, my sweet summer child.

The reality is the programming now is even more blatant.  Let’s pick just one thing.  China and the ‘Ronavirus.

This week, I was stunned when The Mrs. was reading me comments from Leftists.  It turns out that the ‘Vid is either killing all the Chinese people or Xi is using it as a social control tool.  Or something else.  Heck, I don’t live in China, so I’m not sure I really care.

It’s true that China has a Wonton regard for life.

In a brief conversation, The Mrs. related these stories:

  • Leftists were upset that China was arresting a woman who “wore her mask in a way that didn’t cover her nose” and that cause her business to fail.
  • Leftists were upset that the Chinese people were being forced to follow government dictates about how to deal with Corona.
  • Justin Trudeau was in favor of the Chinese anti-COVID protests.  See below:

Yes.  He said that.  I guess he reprogrammed himself?

So, these are the same people who were applauding when a woman in Dallas was arrested for trying to be a beautician.  When people in Australia were being put into “voluntary” camps that they “escaped” from.  And when Trudeau was being protested against?  He froze the bank accounts of the protesters, his advisors talked about putting tanks in the streets, and used a law meant for a state of war to give himself more powers.

In February, noncompliance with anything Biden or Trudeau wanted was treason.  Today, when China wants to do the exact same things that Biden and Trudeau did?

China bad.

Shouldn’t it be called NPCNN®?

The Left is reprogrammed again.

A common term for behavior like this is a Non-Player Character, like a character that shows up in a video game that has no autonomy.  And many on the Left are just that – they don’t have any opinions that are fixed.  They show up, repeat what was programmed into their heads, and then the next time you encounter them, repeat the next talking point.

When the old talking point is done?

Replace.

When considering this, I thought, “Well, I know that there are NPCs on the Left.  How many of them are on the Right?”

I looked to a moment when Trump was at a rally long after the 2020 election.  He praised his work in creating the vaxx.

The arena turned ugly, quickly.  Trump wasn’t their leader, and the crowd wouldn’t be reprogrammed.  Trump stopped with that little line.  I also know from the comment section here and on other blogs that there is a healthy disagreement on the Right.  We aren’t a monolith, but most of our decisions are based on principle, not on the moment.

Why shouldn’t vaxxed and boosted people play charades?  Everyone guesses they’re having a heart attack.

An NPC?  They’ll change their opinions in 30 seconds or less.

I can see at least some reasons that Leftist NPCs are like that.  They don’t search back to principles, rather, they’re more swayed by what the crowd says.  But television and the Internet serve the Narrative.  I think there’s something that happens to an NPC when a crowd all thinks the same thing.  I think they seek conformity with whatever the Narrative is, because to be outside of the Narrative is uncomfortable.

At least that’s what I’ve come up with.

So, why NPC programming so easy?

If there isn’t a fixed principle, I think most people will believe anything.  I think people on the Right tend to have fixed principles.  They have a strong feeling of right and wrong.

In the end, this is why we’ll win – the Right is built on principles, many from thousands of years in the past.  The Left?  Not so much.

We watch what goes into our heads.

 

So, here’s our latest livestream.  It’s just The Mrs. and I, and we were, sadly, sober.  Enjoy!

What World Do We Want To Live In? There Is A Choice.

“Is this the emergency services? Then which country am I speaking to?” – The I.T. Crowd

Why don’t Leftists like to talk about the future of what they’ll create?  It’s two in tents.

We are on a course to a new country.  Perhaps someone has a source for this quote (that I’m going from memory on):  It’s been said that every man dies in a strange country.  It’s not original to me, but it does contain a lot of wisdom.  As our country is aging, it is changing.  I’m just hoping it has better knees than I do.

But to illustrate the point, let’s take Pa Wilder:

When Pa Wilder was born, the income tax wasn’t even a decade old.  The meaning of a “state” was stronger then than now, though it was subsidiary after the Civil War.  Pa was born, grew up, and died living almost all of his time within a 30-mile radius, except for an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe from 1942-1945.

The rock band Flock of Seagulls never toured Iran.  Why?  Iran so far away.

When Pa Wilder passed away, the world had gone from the biplanes of World War I to a fully inhabited space station and regular flights to orbit, and occasional flights to the Moon.  The dollar had gone from gold to gimmick, and the question of freedom had gone from “why can’t I?” to “may I, please?”

The world Pa lived in growing up was one that was difficult.  If you had a child and couldn’t afford it, you had to find someone to raise it for you.  It is undoubtedly a fact that people died of starvation in the United States, and some certainly died because they didn’t have any money.

After the war, though, his generation had optimism.  It looked like there was nothing that mankind couldn’t do.  The atom had been split.  Rockets had touched space.  The largest rivers had been dammed and tamed and the only foe to be concerned about was the Soviet Union, and it looked like all of those people ate a diet of potatoes, onions, sawdust, and sadness.  A 1950s Hungarian joke went something like this:  “Definition of socialism:  the incessant struggle against conditions that would not exist in any other system.”

And, from the looks of him, he certainly could have nursed a drink.

The family had primacy.  And culture was built on the idea of that family, and policies at the local, state, and national levels were built around supporting the family and keeping it strong.

It worked pretty well.  Was there a cultural prohibition against being a tool?  Sure.  Was there an upper limit on the things that women could do in society?  Yeah, certainly there were few CEOs at the time that were women, and there were demarcations between jobs women would normally do, and jobs that men would normally do.  Men got the jobs that had higher stress, higher danger, and sure, higher pay.  Women got the jobs that conserved the culture, raised the young, and, yup, didn’t pay nearly as well.

It was a bargain made not to punish women or men, but as a nod to societal stability based on family hierarchy.

This is the America that was, and more than a few people on the Right look to this as the model of a successful society that creates the ability for mankind to make good on the promise of individual freedom, individual responsibility, a role for religion and celebration of individual success.

It is a world where equal chance based on merit is the goal, and winners of fair competition get the rewards.

Yup, pretty hard to take that to dinner, since each one required its own nuclear power plant.

This goal is soundly rejected by the Left.  They look for a model of America that can never be.  Their world is an entirely made-up concept of what they think the world should be.

What do they think?

  • Like Lake Woebegone, all children in their Leftist Utopia are above average.
  • Diversity is actually a strength.
  • Every deviance in sexuality is celebrated.
  • Every outcome is equal, regardless of effort, talent, or merit.
  • People have whatever they want, regardless of if they work or not.
  • Society owes it to everyone to take from the successful and make them the same as anyone else – equity is the goal.

Whereas I can love the ideas they have as ideas, the truth is that the world cannot be that way.  Some children are below average.  People who live and work with people that aren’t from their culture typically have lower trust, disharmony, “cultural tension” and conflict.

Oops.  Turns out that if you worship the Moon God Gorto and think child sacrifice is okay, Baptists might not be the best folks for the cubicle next to you.  And most people won’t applaud if you have sex during Thanksgiving at the table – I won’t explain how I know this.

The Mrs. tried to tell me to not fix my rifle with Super Glue®, but I stuck to my guns.

And outcomes aren’t equal.  There are winners, and there are losers.  Merit matters.  Talent matters.  Work matters.  If we remove the competition between winning and losing, and celebrate every loser like a winner?

You get a society of losers.  You get a culture of losers.  And who else but a loser would demand what Elon Musk has without doing what Elon Musk as done?  It’s a culture that is built on envy of what others accomplish and greed for what others have.

It is a culture that celebrates and encourages failure.  Even Leftists admit it.  I had a discussion with an acquaintance.  He’s a leftist.  My conjecture was this, “So, should we wait a few years to start your socialist empire until we have a cancer cure and maybe some better technology?  I mean, if you look at Socialist cultures, they aren’t really good at creating things.”

“You’re right, it would be better to wait a few years.”

Sure, there’s been corruption since the first human, but not every society is the same.  And societies like the 1950s in America had less corruption than any communist society, ever.  And, I would argue that society was far less corrupt than society today.  The outcomes were better – in most places, a locked door wasn’t required.  The outcomes of society have drifted negatively in many ways.  You could name them, so I won’t go into what would be a very, very long list.

Who had the biggest gender reveal party ever?  Japan.  In 1945 they had a Little Boy.

There’s more to this, but now, the Left is attempting to drive this world towards a future that is based on nothing but a theory that is no more sophisticated than a three-year-old’s version of what the world should be.  Is it any wonder that as we get closer to those fever dreams, things get worse?

As that author I can’t remember said, we all die in a strange country.  I’m just hoping that it stops sucking.

Wilder’s Black Friday Meme Sale, 90% Off!!!

“A present for my friends . . . at Thanksgiving.” – A Scanner Darkly

I guess she and Harry Potter never had a dry spell.

Tonight was a wonderful Thanksgiving, even though everyone has the same virus at the same time.  I’ve already had leftovers, and my wonderful family has learned one of the oldest lessons:  don’t engage Dad in a strategy game on a major holiday.  It is a cardinal rule, such as, “don’t get involved in a land war in Asia” which is (it turns out) exactly what they did.

So, tonight, we’re watching a movie, and I’ll probably be goofing with the family for the rest of the night.  As such, I’ve prepared a low-effort treat.

I collect memes throughout the year.  Some of them I batch into categories, and they form the backbone of posts about a specific subject.  Here, though is the Wilder Black Friday special:  memes that are on sale.  They are memes I collected but just haven’t used, and probably won’t use.

That isn’t to say that they don’t amuse me for one reason or another.  So, here it is, at nearly 90% off – the first-ever Wilder Black Friday Meme Sale.  Also, if you’re avoiding the malls and stores like we are, here’s our latest podcast.

Everyone, enjoy!

And here are the memes – starting with someone who didn’t get the memo:

 

Thanksgiving Thanks, 2022

“Two men are dead! This is not the time for petty sibling squabbles. That’s what Thanksgiving is for.” – Psych

I knew an Irishman who used to sell lawn chairs.  I’ll never forget Paddy O’Furniture.

As this is Thanksgiving week, I thought I would share a few things that I’m thankful for.  These are in no particular order.

  • I’m thankful that almost every single one of my problems is self-inflicted, and has a clear way to solution. I am where I am because of who and what I am, and I can change everything I don’t like, when I want to.
  • I’m thankful for being with The Mrs., because either of us with other people would be just an unending misery for them. I believe the Geneva Convention specifically lists being married to either The Mrs. or to me as a Crime Against Humanity.
  • I’m thankful for Elon Musk and the amusement he creates by stirring the pot. Do I think he’s on our side?   But I think he irritates enough of the people who hate us to make me laugh, nearly daily.
  • I’m thankful for friends. I have a Polish friend who is a sound tech.  And a Czech one, too.  And a Czech one, too.

Or if I opened a trampoline in Prague, would the Czechs keep bouncing?

  • I’m thankful for standard time. Daylight savings time is the tool of the Devil.
  • I’m thankful for the “ringer and vibration off” switch on cell phones. And I should use it more.  There’s something to be said for uninterrupted focus time.  When going out to dinner, we often ditch our cellphones at home.  This leads to this crazy thing called “talking to each other.”
  • I’m thankful that The Boy is home from Midwestia State U (located right next to Wassamatta U) and that he and Pugsley talk for hours when they’re together. A loyal brother can be the closest friend as you move through life.

I recently bought a toilet brush.  Long story short:  I’m going back to toilet paper.

  • I’m thankful that I got up late today, and that I’m writing this early.
  • I’m thankful that, right now in this place and time, my family is safe, and we are together. This is why Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday:  there isn’t the stress from presents, merely a time to give thanks and be together.
  • I’m thankful for decongestants. I’d tell a joke about me having a virus, but I’m worried you might spread it.
  • I’m thankful that I live in a time that has the greatest access to knowledge of any place and any time in history, allowing me to read the thoughts of the greatest men who ever lived and the ideas that influenced our civilization and showed us what truth is, almost at a whim. Oh, and there’s also CNN®.
  • I’m thankful for cheese.

A Pomeranian puppy looked Medusa in the eye – he became pomegranite. 

  • I’m thankful for living in a time and place where starvation is unknown, though the Left keeps wanting to put it back into play.
  • I’m thankful that The Mrs. talked me into buying the chair that I sit in to write these posts. I had to get rid of my old recliner.  Me and my old recliner?  We went way back.
  • I’m thankful for beer. It actually made one of my friends smarter, you know, Budweiser©?
  • I’m thankful for hard exercise, where when I’m done, I know I’ve given it my all. I try to use the workout the actors who played the Marvel® superheroes use, but I get Thor just thinking about it.

I accidentally hit my Nokia® with a hammer, and took it to Best Buy™ so the Geek Squad© could fix it.  Best Buy® said they don’t work on hammers.

  • I’m thankful that the WD-40© fixed the front doorknob. I promise this really worked – it’s non-friction.
  • I’m thankful that Pugsley and The Boy are sons I can be proud of, strong and with their own opinions for their own reasons, and with exactly the character that I had hoped for. It wasn’t easy, and no matter what I do, German children will always be kinder.
  • I’m thankful for Ma and Pa Wilder, who, though gone, helped me become the man I am today. There was a time when I had a difficult relationship with them:  when I was born, I didn’t talk to them for two years.
  • I’m thankful to have lived through some of the most interesting times in human history, and having seen amazing advances in technology. And Chia Pets®.
  • I’m thankful for the first sip of hot coffee on a cool morning. I’m thankful for the last sip of coffee on a hot day.  I guess words cannot espresso how much I like it.

What was the subtitle for War and Peace?  Tsar Wars.

  • I’m thankful for the troubles I’ve had in life, because those have made me better. When I was young, Ma Wilder called me a pirate when I was learning the alphabet, since I always got lost at C.
  • I’m thankful for the talents that I was born with, because those gave me capacity. In fact, I have one talent that I’ll brag about:  I can always tell what’s inside a wrapped present.  It’s a gift.
  • I’m thankful for winter. Winter is the time of year when things are quiet, and I can think.  Sometimes I work on math, which makes The Mrs. say that I’m cold and calculating.
  • I’m thankful that I don’t have regrets, and go to sleep soundly. I often sleep without pajamas, which seems to bother them at work.

And I’m thankful to spend time with you folks every week.  Happy Thanksgiving!!

Defeat? Never.

“Okay you people – sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning, and if we’re not back by dawn?  Call the president.” – Big Trouble in Little China

I hear that Rob Halford became an eastern monk, which I guess makes him a Buddhist Priest.

Back when I was in high school, I started a quest.  It would probably be a trivial quest in today’s world with the Internet, and tens of millions of songs available all from a single search.   However, back when I was in high school, the only people using the Internet were computer nerds at colleges or places like Los Alamos sharing nuclear bomb design info and ASCII porn.

Is this how Los Alamos beat the Soviets?

There was exactly one rock and roll radio station that reached the lofty heights of Wilder Mountain, and it was a good three-hour drive from where I lived.  Heck, the nearest record store was a 45-minute drive.  But I heard a song . . . and loved it.

I had no idea who the artist was.  All I knew was that it had guitars that sounded like jet fighters coming in for an attack (metaphorically) and a heavy metal singer with pipes to growl low and also hit the high notes.

This was not helpful.  My bumbling attempts to hum the song to the record store clerk probably sounded like a toddler attempting to instruct an Albanian goat herder on how to repair a Junkers Jumo-004 on an ME 262.  My incoherent rambling eventually convinced the store owner that I could probably be sold a lot of records on my quest to find the goofy song.

What happens when a plane full of Leftist lands?  The Jet turns off but the whining continues.

She was right.  On one particular winter day, I bought two cassettes.  Memo to the young:  a cassette was an attempt to put a part of the Internet on a skinny magnetic tape and take it with you.  Sort of like WIFI but with a really, really low transfer rate that cost over $7 for 42 megabytes.

I listened to one of the cassettes on my forty-minute drive to Stately Wilder Manor.  I don’t recall what the first cassette was.  It was okay.  The song I was looking for, however, wasn’t on it.

When I got to Wilder Mountain, I decided to listen to the other cassette.  Pa Wilder wasn’t home.  It was November, and snow was falling gently across the valley, as I looked toward the volcanic cone that dominated the view above the mountains that surrounded the valley.

I put in the cassette.  I hit play.

A single guitar hit an E note that crunched and then was followed by 41 seconds of guitar solo that made my brain implode.  The first second was enough, the next 40?  Pure passion.  My father’s stereo, which before that day was primarily concerned with playing Dean Martin and Johnny Cash, must have been surprised.

I know I was.  Then?  Another driving song, this time about a sentient A.I. encased in an orbiting surveillance satellite.

The two satellite dishes on my house got married.  The ceremony was awful, but the reception was amazing.

What?  I was in heaven.  The cassette was Judas Priest, the album?  Screaming for Vengeance.

The theme of the music was unabashedly masculine.  It was fueled by testosterone and optimism and defiance.  It was, in short, everything I loved in life.

What was my ethos at that time?  Full speed.  Every moment in life.  When I played football, I played football.  Every ounce of my being was focused on the next play.  The cleats digging into the turf, the snap as the center delivered the ball to the quarterback, my sudden sprint, and the exquisite feeling of my shoulder pads digging into that quarterback’s belly as I impacted him at full speed.  Life was a game to be played at full speed.  When a football game was over, win or lose, the idea that I would have left anything of myself or held back an ounce of myself?  I never felt that after a single game.

Win or lose.  Everything I had.

And that was the ethos.  My focus was on doing everything that I could humanly do during the game.  If we won?  Excellent.  If we lost?  There was no room for regret since I had done every single thing I could for the team.

Amazingly, here that was, in music.

This music and most of the music I have loved since then was fueled by one concept – it was fueled by the idea that, in this life, there are winners, and there are losers.  But there are no victims.  I was responsible for my preparation.  I was responsible for my effort.  I was responsible for me.

If I won?  Wonderful.  If I lost?  Yeah, it stung.  But if I gave it my best, and lived up to my own values, I still won.

I took a survey of what soap people used in the shower.  95% of them told me to get out.

Again, winning was and is important.  But a loss of a single day was nothing.  Winning could and would come.  And I would live my life, on my terms.

Have I been cheated?  Yes.  Have I been wronged?  Yes.  Did I stand toe to toe with my boss and tell him that I wouldn’t sell my honor and principles to him for any reason?

Yes.  And did I pay a price?

Duh.

Do I regret it?  Not for a minute.  Not for a second.

There are moments in life, where honor and values will be tested.

Heck, that was in this music, too.

In this world we’re living’ in, we have our share of sorrow
Answer now is don’t give in, aim for a new tomorrow

Also in the music?  Questions of deep philosophy.  The eternal battle between Good and Evil.  Oh, yeah, and hot chicks.

Eventually, this changed and fell out of fashion.  I think it was Bush.  Or maybe raising the drinking age to 21.  Or maybe drugging generations with lithium and Adderall®.  Or maybe the new “zero tolerance” lifestyle, where fighting for Good and being right still resulted in a suspension.

Or maybe all of that.

Kurt Cobain was depressed at 13.  Guess that was his midlife crisis.

Music based on honor and testosterone and optimism eventually fell out of favor.  I can even give you the date:  September 21, 1991, when Nirvana launched Nevermind.

With the lights out, it’s less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now, entertain us

That abomination of learned helplessness replaced this from Judas Priest:

Thousand of cars and a million guitars
Screaming with power in the air
We’ve found the place where the decibels race
This army of rock will be there
To ram it down, ram it down
Straight through the heart of this town
Ram it down, ram it down
Razing the place to the ground
Ram it down

One of these makes me feel like slitting my wrists.  The other?  Fills me with the idea that none of us are alone.  We have power.  We are . . . going to win, no matter what the damn odds are.  Judas Priest is still touring.  Kurt Cobain?  Not so much.  I guess it proves that one person can handle only so much Courtney Love.

Fast and furious, we ride the universe
To carve a road for us, that slices every curve in sight
We accelerate, no time to hesitate
This load will detonate, whoever would contend its right

I refuse to accept defeat.  The idea is against every fiber of being in my body.  I realize that I will not win every battle.  And I am going to listen to music, and I am going to take in media that tells me the truth, but I shall never, ever, despair no matter how dire the situation.  My family?  They come from heroes.  So does yours.  Never, ever, give up.

I always took a piece of paper to a wrestling match.  That way I could beat The Rock.

I’m not going to stop until I stop breathing.  And I won’t relinquish my honor to any man.  And I am responsible for every aspect of my life and my situation.

Oh, I did find the song I was looking for, a year later:

The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming

But that’s another story, though the song remains the same.

Burning Your Way To Happiness

“No! Look, what’s the matter with you all? It’s perfectly simple: We have the fire drill when I ring the fire bell. That wasn’t the fire bell! Right?” – Fawlty Towers

At the pub, the owner told me I was drunk and needed to take the bus home.  Turned out those are even harder to drive when you’re drunk.

It was a cold, February campout.  It was also rainy, and also weather that most folks would call miserable.  In fact, it was also the first campout that I was Scoutmaster.

I think the temperature, at its highest, was probably around 45°F.  It froze at night.  We put our tents up in the dark, and I snuggled deep into my sleeping bag.

The next morning, we had breakfast.  One thing that I had changed since I became Scoutmaster was that the Scouts bought, cooked, and ate their own food.  One thing I observed on previous campouts was when the kids and adults ate the same food, the adults wanted good food, and wouldn’t leave the kids alone.  Me?  I had no desire to eat chicken tartare, so I let the kids fix their own food, and I often cooked for the adult leaders.

I drew a picture of a criminal once.  He looked pretty sketchy.

The plan for the day was fairly simple.  80% or more of the Scouts needed to get to First Class (a rank where a boy would know most of the things so they could survive a solo campout for a few days, if need be).  We focused on First Class skills.  One other thing I instituted is that the older Scouts were to teach the younger Scouts, for reasons that are probably obvious.

My job, mainly, was to drink coffee and take someone to the hospital if the hatchet got the best of them.  At this campout, there was one Scout in particular who had very little skill at anything.  One of the Scouts of higher rank ran him through building a fire.

Jack London aside, building a fire after a rainy night on a blustery, rainy day isn’t the easiest of things.  And, to be fair, this Scout wasn’t the quickest on the uptake.  But he worked at starting his fire for a really long time.  More than an hour?  Certainly.  But he had dogged determination, and finally got his fire going.

“Okay,” I said, “You can put that one out now.  That qualifies.”

“No, I want to keep it going.”

I hear arsonists do well on Tinder®.  They have a lot of matches.

I was fine with that.  It was his fire, and if he wanted to keep it going, I was fine with that.  There was little chance of him burning down the soggy campground.

He kept the fire going through the night, feeding it, and teasing it along.

He made First Class, but I must point out, by the time he got the rank badge it wasn’t nearly as important to him as building that fire.  He had acquired a skill.  He could do more than he could before.  He did not need outside validation.  The achievement was part of him.  He was proud of himself.

So often, we get tied up in feeling about things that are beyond our span of control.  Marcus Aurelius wrote, “You have power over your mind, not outside events.  Realize this and you will find strength.”

I hear that Marcus Aurelius got the first weather report.  “Hail, Caesar!”

I know that we are living in a world filled with tough situations.  I would say this, if some outside event upsets you, go ahead and be upset.  Until midnight.

Then, take control.  Realize that what you can be and do is the important thing.  As that Scout taught me, being fulfilled isn’t being surrounded by supermodels and driving a Lambo® while they softly nuzzle your neck and . . . where was I?  No, that’s not fulfillment.  Fulfillment is achievement.

Almost every single person reading this has the power to be better tomorrow at something.  A skill.  Bench pressing five more pounds.  Learning Shakespeare in the original Klingon.  Becoming a better carpenter.  Finally trimming those nosehairs, or at least weaving them into an attractive scarf.

Me?  I write, and try to get better.  When I’ve written what I want, I don’t need anyone to tell me – I feel it inside.

And I’m okay.

Except in especially tragic situations, it is in our power to be better.  It is in our power to improve.  And through doing so, it is in our power to build internal strength.  And we don’t need anyone to validate it.

Life is tough, and it’s even tougher when we try to take on every injustice in the world.  Sometimes we just need to take a few minutes, and build a fire.

When You Need A Friend . . .

“Dayman.  Champion of the sun. Ahh-ahh-ahh. You’re a master of karate and friendship for everyone! Dayman.” – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The Earth is covered over 80% by water, and most of it is not carbonated.  The Earth is flat.

On a recent version of his podcast, Scott Adams said (I’m paraphrasing because I’m too lazy to look it up), “I’m giving it one year.  Not two.  I’m not going to live another year like this.”

Wow.  I did hear that (in a later podcast) he reported that he changed his blood pressure medication and his mood improved, but am likewise too lazy to verify that, either.

To be fair, Scott has had a pretty bad year.  He’s had health issues, relationship issues.  How bad were they?  At one point in his podcast this spring, he melted down and tore into a viewer in a greatly disproportionate way.  It was like using a chainsaw to trim toenails.  Sure, it’ll do the work, but it will leave quite a mess.

This was the big sign to me that Adams was under a lot of pressure.

After hearing me sing, the choir director told me I was a natural tenor.  “Yes, John, stay ten or twelve feet away from a microphone.”

The point isn’t to diagnose Scott’s health or love life, but rather to point out that regardless of wealth (Adams is loaded) and options in life (he could live anywhere in the world he wants to, drive whatever car he wants to, and never worry about a bill ever again in his life), there is the possibility that someone you know needs a friend.  Scott certainly does.

One of the things that we have seen decline over the past few decades are those institutions in society that were devoted to fraternity – the Elks, Masons, Moose Lodge, bowling leagues, Boy Scouts® etc., have all seen membership declines – some so much that they’ve folded up in many locations.

And in our club we eat the same thing for breakfast:  Synonym Toast Crunch.

Over a decade ago, I was involved with Scouting™.  We would have leader meetings, which I ran.  I had an agenda, and we’d go through it in a rather business-like fashion.  At the end of one of the meetings, another leader, Chuck, pulled out his new cell phone and was showing me its features.

After the meeting, as The Mrs. (she was a leader, too) and I got into the car, I said, “That was weird, Chuck showing me his phone after the meeting.  Why do you think he did that?”

The Mrs. looked at me as one would look at a not-so-bright child, and said, slowly so my dim brain could comprehend . . . “Because . . . he’s your,” long pause, and then “friend.”  She said friend slowly enough that it was about two seconds in length.

My friend asked if I could sleep with someone dead or alive, who would it be?  I answered, “Obviously, someone alive.”

Of course, she was right.  I had been so focused on the “business” side of running the Cub Scout stuff that I had forgotten entirely about the personal side.  Chuck was my friend.  Duh.  But the lesson I learned was simple:  friends really are out there.  Chuck moved away, but I still call him once a year.  And I do my best to stay in contact with friends that, in some cases, I haven’t seen physically in 15 years.

That network of friends is important, at least for me.  While some people might go through life alone and do fine, I find that having a good network of friends helps me.  I can get good advice.  I can complain.  I can share my journey.  I can get good ideas.  I can laugh.  I can share my troubles.

I don’t go through life alone, and I’m stronger for it.

One of the joys of childhood was how easy it was to make friends.  In many cases, we didn’t have anything in common but being the same age, but that was enough.  Something about endless summers and going through similar difficulties was great for bonding.

I then started a camp to train kids needlework.  It was sew in tents.

I think technology has had a big role in our current dislocation.  Our televisions can now bring us nearly every movie from the last twenty years at a touch.  YouTube™ has millions of videos on almost every topic.  And don’t forget that friendship requires trust, something that is in shorter supply today than in years past.  In the end, regardless of why, we can change that.

My request is this.  Look around as you go about your day.  Try to, as much as possible, spread joy to those that deserve it.  And maybe even a little to some who don’t.  A little.  I know that most people who act like jerks are really jerks, but some are just going through a bad time.

Also?  Find and make a new friend.  This takes time and commitment.  And trust.  And there’s the fear of loss, too.  But the wonderful thing about friendship is this:  when it exists, it’s work that helps both people.

Hopefully Adams has found a friend.  If not, I’d be glad to show him my phone.

It Takes A Village To Raise Darrell Brooks

“You are not on trial for being a dwarf.” – Game of Thrones

I bet if I did a video about that, it would never get more than 665 likes.  Oh, and all memes today are “as-found”.

As I noted in the last post, The Mrs. and I have been listening to the trial of Darrell Brooks, the alleged murderer of six and injurer of 60 when he drove an SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.  It is, in one sense, informative.

Brooks is defending himself.  So, the judge in the case is going slowly, and making every accommodation possible.  For non-lawyers like The Mrs. and me, it’s a quick tutorial on the “how and why” the justice system works.  To watch Brooks defending himself, is, well, cringe-inducing.  But the judge very calmly and very patiently explains the procedures to the petulant child who never grew up and seems offended that the system would even consider locking up such a wonderful person such as him.

During the trial, one thing that The Mrs. and I have noted is that every single point is an argument with him.  Every.  Single.  Point.  He objects to every question the prosecution asks – I think his objection count is over 1,000 now.

This is the meme I found that best describes Mr. Brooks’ relationship with the legal system.

When the prosecution team asked to skip a portion of a video, he objected.  “Show the whole thing,” was his response.  Showing the whole thing, in this case, would allow the jury to hear his long litany of felony offenses, which included sexual contact with minors (felony), trying to run someone over (he was out on $1,000 bail when he drove the SUV through the parade), (shooting at people, out on $7,500 bail) and many others.  His arrest and conviction record is so long and convoluted, I’m sure I’ve got some inaccuracies and omissions above, but it doesn’t matter.

Darrell Brooks is a dirtbag.

And he’s been committing felony after felony for twenty years.  Lose your right to own a gun after getting a felony?  I don’t see how that’s relevant if Darrell can get arrested for SHOOTING AT PEOPLE AS A FELON IN POSSESSION OF A GUN and be out and about on bail.

Twenty years.

Now six people are dead, and dozens of people have been injured, some with multiple surgeries.

And only now do we take it seriously.

This trial gives me vision problems.  I don’t see Brooks not being guilty.

When I was in high school, I was the editor of the school paper.  It was a glamorous job, and our April Fools edition was amazeballs, you can bet, and my goofy horoscope page was (seriously) the most read part of the paper.  But I actually got some state-level awards for editorials, too.  One of them was about rules.

This was the phase of scholastic America where rule after rule was being added, and the phrase, “zero-tolerance” was being added to everything, because memes hadn’t been invented yet.  To summarize my editorial, “Keep it simple, have a few rules that are actually necessary, and enforce the hell out of those.”

I stand by that.  Darrell Brooks could have benefited from it.  This week I wrote about pathological altruism – the idea that being kind was actually cruel.  Darrell Brooks is the poster child for that.  In his actions as his own retard-level defense attorney, Brooks shows that he actually thinks that some of his arguments (the first witness he called for his defense was “The State of Wisconsin” – seriously) are going to keep him from being locked up until the Sun is a cold, dead cinder in the sky.

Maybe his motto was “it takes a village idiot to raise children”?

They won’t.  The system let him do crime after crime after crime with little to no punishment or consequences to his actions.  He thinks this is the same.  The only actual time I saw any emotion out of him was during the point in the trial where he gave his opening statement for his defense.  “You have to understand, there are two sides to every story.”  This is true.  One side is that there are the Waukesha Dancing Grannies being run over by Darrell Brooks, and the other is . . . Darrell Brooks didn’t get his way.

At no point has he shown even the slightest sign of remorse.  He is, I am sure, in his mind the victim of an unfair and “biast” (his word, not mine) conspiracy between the prosecutor and the judge.  What world created the mindset in a person that they could drive an SUV through a parade and be a victim?

Ours did.

The solution for parents is obvious – the system as it exists is so corrupt that you really cannot count at all on any external help in creating children that turn into virtuous adults.  When Hillary Clinton “wrote” her book It Takes a Village (to raise a child), Darrell Brooks was that child.  This is the result of parental dereliction of duty.  Sure, there are some kids that are just bad.  Heck, even when I was growing up, I recall one set of parents who legally disowned their sixteen-year-old because they couldn’t manage him.  But most of the issues can be contained with a unified parental front.

January 6th gets a Congressional investigation.  Jeffrey Epstein dying gets a collective sigh of relief from Congress.

It doesn’t take a village.  It takes parents.  It takes them intervening early and often and many times with terrible wrath because there is no help from the schools.  Kid failing?  They’ll pass the kid anyway – holding a kid back is not allowed, even in Modern Mayberry.  The judicial system is (at this point) so unrelated to actual justice that it deters essentially only people who are unlikely ever to become criminals from committing crimes.

I think that in any possible universe, Darrell Brooks was going to be a dirtbag who is absolutely unaware of anything existing but him and his feelings.  But, maybe, just maybe, his parents working to raise a decent human being could have stopped it.

Or maybe a judicial system that actually functioned.

I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing ‘til they got ahold of me . . .

This status cannot and will not stand, since society is actively breaking down at a rapid pace.  Is this intentional?  The results are clear, and people like Soros keep funding (to the tune of tens of millions of dollars) the election of Woke district attorneys that refuse to prosecute favored groups, encouraging crime, and encouraging the inevitable backlash.

So, yeah, it’s intentional.

And my horoscope for Darrell Brooks?  Don’t make any plans for the next six or so lifetimes.