Anatomy of a rock album.

 

The formula of stupid ideas.

I have wondered if there is some means to get an idea of how many stupid ideas we have. I think there must be a finite number. Perhaps if we had a formula to find that number we might be better able to prevent them, or at least cope with their effects. 

Some definitions are in order here. By stupid ideas, I am referring to bad ideas for actions that may be put into effect. "I am cold, so I will leap into the sun" is stupid, but impossible. "I am cold, so I will start a fire in the kitchen" is stupid, but possible. The latter would count toward the total, the former not.

The universe may be infinite, or infinite for our practical purposes, but human intelligence can only grasp so much. Therefore we may assume it has an upper limit to its generative capability, which we will call i. The total number of humans to have ever existed to the present moment we will indicate by the symbol h. We will further want the number of dumb ideas generatable by i over the course of the average lifespan (g). That gives us the base formula of:

(i x g) x h = theoretical total of dumb ideas 

But wait! Perhaps we want to remove all the redundant ideas -- like, instead of counting each incidence of "I'm going to wrestle that polar bear" as 1, we just count every incidence of that exact idea as a single idea, allowing for similar but not identical permutations of it. I propose that for this purpose we use the amended formula thusly:

(i x g) x h - dittos = theoretical total of unique dumb ideas 

Now, if it wasn't obvious before, it will be clear that I am talking through my hat. I can barely make my checkbook balance. So while it might be a nice idea to get a grip on our total number of possible bad ideas, I have no idea how to do that. Plus, in practice, human ingenuity toward bad ideas may actually be infinite.

I'm kind of sorry I started this whole process. Just add this blog entry to the pile of bad ideas and proceed with your day.   

Heels at a wake.

I predicted that this might be a bad year for funerals, and indeed, I was obliged to attend one last week. In a way it was a happy occasion, in that the deceased had once been estranged from his family, but by his passing was sorely missed by all. A wake with a prayer service was scheduled, and I got there just in time for the prayer service, which was standing room only. 

Then the weird thing happened. I bring all this up because I found it very odd and slightly entertaining. 

As the service concluded, I made my way to the front to bid farewell to our friend and to offer condolences to the family. I happened to notice some black flecks on the ground as I waited -- black flecks that stood out against the beige carpet -- black flecks that followed my path to the front. 

Had I stepped in some foul substance on my way in? How embarrassing! Time for a quick goodbye and exit. 

Except on my way, I saw something sticking out from my pants cuff. The very thing that was leaving the trail. 

The heel of my left shoe had chosen this sacred and solemn occasion to disintegrate completely. 

I ripped the heel off and continued. As I ducked down the steps to the funeral home, the heel from the right shoe, not to be outdone, emerged from beneath my shoe. I paused, ripped that off too, and proceeded to the car posthaste. 

Now, this is an odd thing to have happened. This was a pair of well-made Ecco shoes that were in apparently fine condition when I left the house, shoes that were comfortable and buffed up nicely. But note too that these shoes had been in my possession for well over fifteen years -- I can't actually remember when I bought them. Since I've been working at home for more than nine years now, they have not gotten as much use as they once did. But meanwhile the rubber was slowly rotting away until bam! In the presence of death, they themselves gave up the ghost. 

Funerals and weddings have a way of disclosing unfortunate couture situations at the last minute. The suit you like no longer fits (damn you, Doritos!). The tie you intended to wear has a coffee stain you missed. The cuff links no longer sit together in the box; one has gone roaming. Anything can happen. I would not have minded discovering the shoe issue at home; I have other dress shoes. I did mind the heels sitting under my feet through the event like a sooty time bomb.

I've had heels detach from shoes before. I've even had the entire sole with heel detach from cheap uppers in my young days. But I've never had a heel just disintegrate. Had the dog gotten to them and chewed at the heels? No, it would have been plain to see. Nope, this was just a case of rubber deterioration, I suppose. Even silicone lasts only 20 years. 

Well, that's the way the heel bounces. 

For the men whose funerals I've attended recently: May their souls rest in peace. 

As for my shoes, well, may their soles rest in peace. 

Springshots.

Ah, spring! What joy! How well the great poet Chaucer put it: 

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, 

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, 

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur 

Of which vertú engendred is the flour; 

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth 

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth 

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne...

Yeah, dude. Righteous.

You gotta love spring, if only because winter sucks so much. Yeah, the bugs are back, and some of the birds make a lot of noise, and some of the neighbors make a lot of noise, but it's okay. Why, I saw a pileated woodpecker the other day, not twenty feet away! Almost fainted with excitement. 

The bird was camera-shy, alas, but I offer these simple pictures of spring in her splendor. 

Okay, so this doesn't look like much. But when I see long, dead grass strands under my deck, I know what it means...

Construction time for the Robins again. 

The blooms look so wonderful that I hope we don't get snow in May again this year. Kills flowers dead.

The dogwood's already losing its petals. Lazy, that's what I call it. Well, let sleeping dogwoods lie. 

The maples are finally unfurling their leaves. Baby steps, maples. 

This tree always looks great. Except the year we got a late blizzard and it had so many leaves up already that the weight tore down several limbs. But it bounced back after a decade or so. Can't kill this guy.

And finally, daffodils. Maybe my favorite flower.
You forget the bulb is there and suddenly: Bing! I'm back!

The sunlight colors always look like hope. 

Sike?

Honestly, I wonder what kids are thinking. I didn't know what they were thinking when I was one, to be frank, so you can imagine how bad I am at it now. 

Today's complaint concerns the abuse of an interjection that my generation made great, a tagline so profound and so much fun that it arose from nowhere and became universal in no time. 

Of course, I am referring to

PSYCH! 

It seems that youngsters, who literally know nothing, are rendering the word as "Sike!" Which is inscrutably dumb. If they aren't doing this as some parody of Gen X, which Occam suggests is not the case, then they are making a silly mistake. 

Psych! as an exclamation, of course, is something one says as to indicate that the other has been fooled, gulled, pranked, or otherwise tricked -- from the expression psych out. I think Webster's errs in listing as synonyms for psych (out) words like terrorize, frighten, and discourage. Psych out was and is a less serious term in common use, at worst meant to intimidate or distract an opponent, not drive him into the fetal position. 

Obviously this term comes from psychology, "from scientific Latin psychologia 'the study of the mind and behavior,' derived from Greek psychē 'soul, mind' and Greek -logia 'science, study,'" according to Webster. Pretty common terms, especially in this over-analyzed era, no? Been around in English since at least 1749. And yet the youth of the country has to make up some strange spelling for psych?  

If only there'd been a popular TV show, one that lasted, say, eight seasons, using the term as a title; perhaps a show featuring a fake psychic, a member of Gen X; a show titled after the term that would have the double meaning of psychic and psyching out (since the hero is a fake). Perhaps the show's theme song might even use the expression "psych you out". 

Maybe then, kids today might remember how to spell the word. Oh, who knows. Probably not. 

Tax Day, Fredcoin, and You!!!!

Today is the income tax deadline in the United States. Talk about rending unto Caesar -- the whole process leaves you feeling pretty rended. 

Of course, you know what the answer to all your tax problems is: Fredcoin! Not just the only cryptocurrency with the imprimatur of Fred himself, but also the only cryptocurrency with a secret toy surprise!*

Before or on tax day, the teeming hordes of Fredcoin customers always come to me with questions. "Fred!" they say, "we have questions!" And I say, "My friends, I have answers!" But since we're up against the deadline for filing income tax, I figured I'd better give you an FAQ list rather than trying to help each of you individually. Plus, I hate to see a grown man cry. 

FREDCOIN AND TAXES: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1. Is Fredcoin considered a tax shelter?

Yes, and by that I mean, no. If you leave your cash invested in Fredcoin, then yes, you don't have to worry about paying taxes. If you should foolishly want to reconvert your Fredcoin to worthless U.S. currency, then consider your shelter as firm as Dorothy's Kansas farmhouse.  

2. Which IRS form do I need to file to lay out my Fredcoin investments? 

You need to file a Schedule FRD, form 8712-P, with a side of pickled beets. 

3. Are my vast Fredcoin profits taxable income?  

Yes, I certainly believe they would be. 

4. Can I buy Fredcoin if I live in Austin?

I'm sorry, this is a "Fredcoin and Texas" question; that's a different FAQ.

5. Is Fredcoin a form of money laundering?

No, no, of course not! Now, it's possible that some unscrupulous characters might slip some ill-gotten gains into their purchase of Fredcoin -- how would I know? And it's possible that they might convert their Fredcoin back into some crummy U.S. currency, minus a large fee, to claim it was all Fredcoin profits and totally legit. Ha! Ha! What a funny little totally fake scenario. No, we never talk about money laundering here at Fredcoin. We much prefer to call it money fortification.  

6. Why is Fredcoin the best cryptocurrency out there, bar none, hands down, hands none, bar down?

You have to ask? Look at it! No other currency of any kind has Fred on it. And I think that says it all. 

🪙🪙🪙🪙

*Secret toy surprise offer may not apply. See side of box for details. Do not use Fredcoin internally. Some patients reported that Fredcoin caused dizziness, nausea, and elongated nostril hairs. Fredcoin is a registered trademark of Fredcoin Inc. LLC LLP MNOP. All Rights reserved. Lefts are up for grabs.   

Dogs in the comic books.

Throughout the history of American comic books, dogs have played an interesting but not dominating role. There have been a number of famous canine characters who appeared first in comics, and others who appeared elsewhere and made their way into comics. But considering the enormous popularity of dogs as pets in our history, they actually seem underrepresented. 

Note here that I'm not referring to funny-animal type dogs, like Snoopy or Pluto or Droopy or Huckleberry Hound or even Underdog. I'm thinking here of action hero dogs. And no, Scooby-Doo does not count. Jonny Quest's dog Bandit is close, but he's not a headlining character, I'm afraid. The same goes for Snowy and Dogmatix. 

Lassie, however, was not just a star of film and television; the world's favorite collie starred in comic book adventures by Dell from 1950 to 1962; then Western picked up the series until 1969. And I am not kidding about being the favorite of the world, or at least what we used to call Christendom -- those comics were also published in Canada, Brazil, the UK, Australia, Scandinavia, Germany, and so on. Rin-Tin-Tin didn't have as long a run in comics, but his adventures appeared in most of the same markets and Lebanon as well, according to the Grand Comics Database. 

Less down-to-earth dogs were featured in comics, of course, and we've covered a couple of the most famous ones on this blog. Krypto, Superman's super pet dog, was unleashed (ha!) on the American public in a March 1955 issue, and Batman got a part-time dog helper named Ace a few months later. Older than both of those characters by three years is Rex the Wonder Dog, a heroic white shepherd who was so smart and whose adventures became so fantastical that in more recent years has been said to have superpowers, and be a superhero in his own right.

When Marvel comics decided to have a dog character, it was of course Lockjaw, a monstrous teleporting bulldog, as part of the Inhumans, because we can't just have friendly pets when Jack Kirby is involved.

But speaking of Marvel, I'm proud to report that the inspiration for this post today is my own dog Izzy, America's Sweetheart. Yes, I was amazed to discover that before he lived with us, he was actually a friend of the Fantastic Four's Human Torch, appearing in an issue of Strange Tales in 1965.

Therefore, as I own Izzy, I am the official agent of a Marvel character. If Disney wants to go ahead and ruin the Fantas -- that is, make a new Fantastic Four movie, they will need to pay us a small fee -- perhaps two or three million dollars -- for the rights. 

🐕💰🐶💸🦮🤑

Okay, maybe it's just possible that Izzy did not appear in the actual comic book. I say that based on the fact that his head is not as big as a human's, as shown above, and in 1965 he was not born yet -- and would not be for 56 years. The actual panel from the story, courtesy of the entertaining Comics Archaeology site, is here: 

But if Disney would like to send us a bushel of money anyway, I'm sure we can accommodate them. Come on, Mouse House! Look at my dog! He's cuter than anything you've coughed up in at least twenty years and has universal appeal. (Oops -- maybe I should not have mentioned Universal.) 

A little travelin' music, Sammy!

It's an odd fact of life that sometimes funerals come in bunches. In 2015 I went to so many that my suits were getting tired of being dragged out of the closet. Then, 2016 was quiet. But this year is not starting off well. It's not like I live in the Villages or work for a funeral home, but I fear there may be a more funerals in my near future. I hope not my own. 

One common feature of the two funerals I have attended thus far in 2024 is the bagpipes. Now, in both cases, the deceased was of Irish descent, straight up the potato tree. Prominent Catholics, too. Also, they were affiliated with either the Ancient Order or the police or firemen, and those fellows always keep the pipes close at hand for such occasions. 

I have nothing against the bagpipes, as long as I'm not standing directly in front of them. But I'd rather not have them played when my time comes. I'm only a fraction Irish personally, a fraction that would balloon up considerably on St. Patrick's Day of course, but no one in my family ever got all weepy over "Danny Boy" or anything. So I think I'm not deserving of the bagpipe treatment. 

No, there are other instruments that I think would be better suited for my funeral. If I don't get them written down in my will, please remember these and instruct the funeral home and church accordingly. Any of them will do. 

1) Slide Whistle

Putting the fun in funeral comes the slide whistle, and the cheaper the better. Bonus money for the musicians if they can do a long "beeeeewooooop" sound as the coffin is lowered. 

2) Kazoo

Similar to #1, but as anyone can play the kazoo, they will be distributed to the crowd. Imagine a whole bunch of mourners on the sidewalk outside the church playing "Amazing Grace" on the kazoo. It would be appropriate for my level of sanctity. 

3) String Quartet Marching Band

To reenact the Woody Allen Cello in a Marching Band moment from Take the Money and Run, but with a standing-bass player as well. Cheer up the bereaved!

4) Mouth Harp

You know, the goinkitty goink thing you put in your mouth to bang along with the tune and wreck your bridgework. It's not that loud, so for ceremonial purposes we might have to find someone who plays an electric mouth harp. Hey, I might be the proximate cause of someone inventing a musical instrument! The electrical mouth harp. It'd be like Dylan at Newport, only dumb. 

5) Ukulele

This only applies if we go with the Hawaiian Shirt Themed funeral, which would require me surviving my wife. I recently gave her a gift -- I put my ugly Hawaiian shirt into the charity clothes drive. She'd never put up with a Hawaiian Shirt funeral unless she was already dead, and even then I'm not certain. 

6) Sjøfløyte

I'm actually more Scandinavian than I am Irish, so it would be more appropriate to play something from the frozen north like the sjøfløyte. What is that, you wonder? It's a Norwegian version of the recorder. Everyone makes fun of learning the recorder in school -- Why didn't they teach me how to fill out a tax return instead? Wah wah wah! (Like third graders could grasp tax law. Adults can't.) But no one would make fun of the sjøfløyte. They wouldn't be able to even pronounce it. The word looks like the sound of a stifled sneeze. I'm sure the instrument is more melodious. 

7) Big White Piano

Why? Well, I like the piano all right. The main thing is, Elton John famously hates white pianos. That'd keep him from trying to muscle in and do a Fred-themed version of "Candle in the Wind." There's only room for one star at my funeral, Reg, and that's going to be me. 

8) Flugelhorn 

No particular reason except I think flugelhorn players need the work.

9) Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ

Okay, maybe you won't be able to get the grieving millions to agree to a small musical accompaniment. In that case, rent the Midmer-Losh organ in Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall, the world's largest pipe organ. This thing is so huge that they don't even know for sure how many pipes it has -- somewhere around 33,113, but no one knows for certain. The stops on the organ rate their own Wikipedia page, which I never will. Just see if they'll lend it out for the day. Probably not a lot of call for it. Maybe get a discounted rate.  

10) Saxophone 

"But Fred! You hate the sax! You say it sounds like a flatulent duck!" That's true, and the only reason the saxophone is on this list is if "Yakkity Sax" is played. The coffin must be carried in a complex path at running speed to the graveyard, while the mourners chase after it, and dropped in the hole. Somewhere up there, Benny Hill would be smiling.

Super eclipse!

Today, of course, is the total eclipse of the sun in the United States and elsewhere in this hemisphere, the first one here since 2017. Where I am in New York we won't get the whole magilla, but it will be a nearly total eclipse, hitting around 3:30 this afternoon. 

Meanwhile, at the Super Museum in Metropolis, Illinois, Superman has made preparations. 

 

It seems kind of silly for the one guy who could always look straight at the sun to wear eclipse glasses, especially since they could compromise his secret identity. (Clark Kent -- shhh.) However, it's possible there is a villainous plan by the evil Eclipso, a DC Comics villain since 1963.

Eclipso is a scary evil dude, with a variety of superpowers, but in his early stories he was mostly a menace to ordinary people. He was the alter ego of the magically cursed solar scientist Bruce Gordon; in the event of an eclipse, Eclipso would arise from Gordon and wreak havoc. In more recent years Eclipso has become a worldbeater, a menace to millions, capable of taking on DC's mightiest heroes. So maybe Superman's eclipse specs are part of a plan to save us from Eclipso today.

Elsewhere in the funny pages, others have also had a bad time with eclipses. 

Let it be noted that Charlie Brown is not the only hard-luck character in Peanuts.

The other Goldilocks.

One of the joys of ambling through used-book stores, back when such things existed, was the fortuitous find of books long out of print, forgotten perhaps but still worth reading. I discovered quite a few authors that way in my younger days. 

Most of those stores are gone now, but at least we still have Project Gutenberg, which is quickly becoming the repository of the literary past. In Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451, there is a group dedicated to committing books to memory so that civilization can be restored when the dystopic government falls. Project Gutenberg is certainly doing its bit to help. 

Looking through old books is quite educational. For example, I happened to discover the story of Goldilocks in an old kids' book on Gutenberg while looking for something else. 

What's that, Fred? You don't know the story of Goldilocks, the food thief, vandal, and squatter?      

No, not that Goldilocks; the other one. 

Her, I know.

This other Goldilocks is a princess! Her story can be found in two books on Gutenberg: The Blue Fairy Book edited by Andrew Lang (1889) and Fairy Tales (vol. 1) by M. F. Lansing (1907). She is called either Pretty Goldilocks or Fair Goldilocks; she is a princess and has no need of raiding bears' houses. The only thing she has in common with the more famous O.G. is the color of her hair. 

Royal Goldy, the Hot Tomato

This Goldy is such a stunner ("the prettiest creature in the world") that a foreign king sends a massive retinue to her place, with a pile of loot that Musk and Bezos would envy, to ask for her hand in marriage. She says no thanks, and politely returns the presents, only keeping a box of pins (either because she liked them or to show the king that she appreciated the gesture, depending on your story source). The king is miserable at this rejection. One of his courtiers, a fellow named Charming, says that he thinks he could have gotten Goldilocks to come back with him. So you know what comes next. The king says Go get her, then! No, these are medieval types; the king, feeling mocked, orders Charming to be locked in the tower and starved to death. 

Of course, all-around good guy Charming had not intended to mock the king; he is hurt by this injustice. The king later has a change of heart and speaks with Charming, who explains that he meant he could bring back Goldilocks for the king. Oy! After seeing to Charming's needs, the king wants to send the boy off with a bunch of court suck-ups to get the girl for him. Charming says nay nay -- just a horse and the king's letters to the girl will suffice. 

On his way to see the princess, Charming has some minor adventures that demonstrate his kind heart (you can read them yourself; trust me, he's a nice kid), and word gets to Goldilocks that he's a great guy and one fine figure of a man, too. Nevertheless, Goldy gives him some quests. He must find a ring that she lost in the river a month ago, kill a murderous giant, and fetch a potion from the terrible Gloomy Cavern. Easy-peasy! Fortunately, Charming has a dog named Frisk (or maybe Frolic) who talks to him, and the help of the animals he was kind to on his journeys, so it all works out.    

Satisfied, Goldilocks agrees to go to the king's city and marry the guy, although she says Charming and she could have stayed at her place and she would have married him. Of course, Charming is an honorable man of his word, and would not backstab the king that way. 

The king marries Goldilocks and does what you'd expect -- get jealous and have Charming arrested and thrown in the tower to starve to death. You might think that we're dealing with one of the more soft-headed variety of fairy-tale kings. All this chucking people into towers to starve -- where does that get you in the end? You think the mournful cries of the victim will warn everyone that the king will tolerate no disobedience, but it just brings the mood of the place down. 

It all works out, of course. The king accidentally poisons himself with the potion from the Gloomy Cavern, Goldy sets Charming free and marries him, and Frolic (or Frisk) lives with them happily ever after. 

This is such an interesting story, where kindness is rewarded and duplicity (and stupidity) are punished, and a nice cautionary tale about the problems of absolute monarchy. It doesn't really have the homespun charm of our better-known porridge stealer, and it's got some noble quest/bad monarch/talking animal stuff that could be added to and taken from other fairy tales like so many software plugins. But it's pretty good, and the fact that the princess proposes to and saves the hero is different, so it definitely does have its merits. 

Like I said, you never know what you might find when you start poking around old books. There's all kinds of gold in there. 

AFABs and AMABs.

Five years ago, this blog joshed about California outlawing gender-reveal parties as part of a "Gender Prenatal Nonassumption Act." Well, we're not there yet, but we're getting closer. 

No less a popular authority on medicine than the Cleveland Clinic is tying itself in knots over having to use terms like "man" or "woman," lest they offend women who think they are men and vice versa. The problem is, they're trying to write about health concerns that may only affect one gender or the other, and it's making them crazy. Pity them: Here they are trying to educate the public for its own good about, say, prostate cancer, but they can't say this affects men (although women have no prostates) because men who call themselves women will be offended and -- I'm not sure what. Ignore the advice? Be angry because it applies to them (they, having prostates)? 

One way out of this inability to tell the truth is the "assigned" gambit. Instead of calling human beings men and women, which has worked pretty darn well through history, we now can say "assigned male at birth" and "assigned female at birth." As if the obstetrician just made some arbitrary decision when yanking the baby from the mother (or "birthing person"). Even the baby has to be covered by gender newspeak. As the Cleveland Clinic writes: 

"The fetus gets its assigned sex around nine weeks of pregnancy, although your healthcare provider can’t detect it on ultrasound yet."

In other words, the growing baby's sex organs are showing at nine weeks of pregnancy, but they cannot be seen yet on ultrasound. Does the Clinic have any idea how weird their phrasing sounds?

If these geniuses have their way, we'll all be known as AFABs and AMABs -- Assigned Female At Birth and Assigned Male At Birth. Of course, it won't stay there -- it never does. Remember, terms like "handicapped" and "colored person" were once the polite terms, but once they became common they became insulting, and new terms had to be put into use. I suspect AF/MAB's days are numbered already.  

In the meanwhile, though, we can still celebrate true love in a modern way. Instead of Boy Meets Girl, of course, we will have:

"AMAB Meets AFAB"

 A Poem

An AMAB a-wandering near the windmills by the bay
Distressed by the eagles, chopped up below them lay
Was suddenly, like chance, taken at the flood
By a lovely young AFAB, xer eyes as dark as mud.

"That's my kinda AFAB," the youthful AMAB cried
"I must go and meet xer; I'll not be denied!"
The AFAB, quite lightly, trotted down the road
Xer coveralls, quite tightly, xer tuchus they showed.

"Hello there!" said AMAB, "And please pardon me!
I hope you have interest in an A. M. A. B."
"Why, yes," said the AFAB, "and you seem okay.
It's just about lunchtime; what do you say?"

AMAB and xe went to dine at McKlaus's
On hot roasted mealworms and crickets with louses
They toasted each other with beetle juice soda
And strolled to the lake by the People's Pagoda.

"You're just right for me," said the AMAB with heat
"What a great fortune we happened to meet!
What a great future we'd have! Can you see?
You, me, and unassigned baby makes three!"

"Cool your electrons," the AFAB said ruthlessly.
"I like you, but thus far I have acted truthlessly.
In fact, I'm an AMAB, but wished to be other,
So my assignment was changed by birth parent (mother)."

"Worry no more," said AMAB with a cry,
"For no more truthless has one been than I!
For I am an AFAB but lied on the form.
I'd say I was anything for your love so warm!"

They were bonded together in ceremony
No one was sure who was he or was she
But they vowed to be one if their hearts still were in it
And truth never entered their lives for a minute. 

When is Men's History Month?

I demand a Men's History Month. We're a minority in America (49.6% of the population are women) and we need to stand up and be noticed. 

And who knows? Maybe if there is a little more respect for the men in our culture, they'll stop putting on women's gym clothes and trying to pretend they think they're girls so they can beat the snot of out ladies. 

Of course, the argument is that men, especially white men, have all the power in the country and so they don't need any recognition for their accomplishments. As one of the white cisgendered oppressors, I say to that: Nuts! If we have it so great, why are men almost four times more likely than women to commit suicide? 

But let's get back to sports for a moment, because the just-completed Women's History Month likes to shove the famous 1974 Billie Jean King/Bobby Riggs tennis match in the Houston Astrodome in our face every year, and it ought to be addressed. In fact, except for women's tennis, which it publicized, I think it's done a disservice to other women in sports in the long run. 

I have no doubt that the match was honestly won by King; moreover, I don't care. Bobby Riggs was a washed-up 55-year-old man when he played that match, and his opponent was 29. Riggs had retired from professional tennis 11 years earlier. The last time he'd won a major, Harry Truman was president. Sure, he was shootin' off his mouth, saying he could beat a female opponent regardless of her age, but that was all in service of his main mission: to Promote the Career of Bobby Riggs. And in that event, he succeeded admirably. 

Meanwhile, on Earth, a man of competitive age beat both the Williams sisters at tennis in 1998 -- in back-to-back matches. The Williamses claimed to be able to beat any man ranked under 200, so Karsten Braasch of Germany (ranked #203) obliged. The pack-a-day-smoking Braasch beat them 6-1 (Serena) and 6-2 (Venus) while drinking beer. Sure, this was a funsies match, and no one involved was too caught up in the result, but then again, how different would it been if they had? Maybe not a lot. Serena was always a ferocious competitor (a trait that served her well, but also led to some John McEnroe-type hysterics later in her career), and I can't believe she took it easy on Braasch. 

The Riggs/King match, though, made it seem more plausible that a woman could beat a similarly able man at a physical challenge, when in fact this not true. Sure, there are plenty of women who could beat me any anything -- I'm not proud, or competitive, or athletic -- but they could not beat a man at the same level of ability. Which is why they are being viciously routed by jerks who claim womanhood but have the physical advantages of manhood. 

We're not celebrating those dudes in our Men's History Month. We're celebrating the ones who gut it out every day to do the right thing for those they love, who show honor and courage and deal squarely and honestly with everyone. Those are traits men respect, traits we need more of in society. 

Easter!

 It is Easter! 

I've written about my religiously ignorant childhood before, about how little I knew of Christmas (but not as little as my younger cousin, who thought it was the birthday of Santa Claus). I was so ignorant of Easter that I don't even know if I had any guesses as to its significance. Maybe I just thought it was one of those inscrutable adult things, like banks and insurance. I knew the Easter Bunny brought baskets of cheap chocolate and jellybeans that tasted of nothing but sugar, and those were fine by me. Years later I would learn two important things: 

1) What Easter really means.

2) That even poor chocolate can be coated with peanut butter and made into a tasty mock-Reese's treat. 

About eggs, I had no idea. The association with new life is obvious, but spring less so. Chickens don't just lay eggs in the spring, as other animals have their young in the spring; they pop out eggs all the time. Not a great symbol, but I guess we're stuck with it. 

I'm going to turn to Robert Lynd (1879-1949), an Irish writer who lived in London and wrote reviews, light ephemera, and pieces in favor of Irish nationalism. His 1921 collection The Pleasures of Ignorance contains an article on Easter eggs. It includes some wisdom on the topic that could have been written today, or at least before the Internet removed the necessity to go to actual books to look things up. Nevertheless, just as today, the author begins his search (in the Encyclopedia Britannica) and immediately becomes distracted:

The egg I was looking for was the Easter egg, and it seemed to be the only egg that was not mentioned. There were birds' eggs, and reptiles' eggs, and fishes' eggs, and molluscs' eggs, and crustaceans' eggs, and insects' eggs, and frogs' eggs, and Augustus Egg, and the eggs of the duck-billed platypus, which is the only mammal (except the spiny ant-eater) whose eggs are "provided with a large store of yolk, enclosed within a shell, and extruded to undergo development apart from the maternal tissues." I do not know whether it is evidence of the irrelevance of the workings of the human mind or of our implacable greed of knowledge, but within five minutes I was deep in the subject of eggs in general, and had forgotten all about the Easter variety.

But does he lose hope of finding out anything? He does not:

In order to learn something about Easter eggs one has to turn to some such work as The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which tells us that "the practice of presenting eggs to our friends at Easter is Magian or Persian, and bears allusion to the mundane egg, for which Ormuzd and Ahriman were to contend till the consummation of all things." ... Next Easter, I feel sure, I shall look it up again. I shall have forgotten all about the mundane egg, even if Ormuzd and Ahriman have not. I shall be thinking more about my breakfast egg. What a piece of work is a man! And yet many profound things might be said about eggs, mundane or otherwise. I wish I could have thought of them.

To be fair, the modern online Britannica has much more to say about Easter eggs, some of which you can find in this essay. Personally, like Mr. Lynd, I'm not very much interested in Easter eggs, and not just because, as when I was a child, I am much more interested in Easter chocolate. 

Now I focus on the true significance of Easter -- which, if I believe it, must be the most important thing to have ever happened on this Earth; and if I don't, is of no significance whatever. (But I do.)

Still, there's nothing wrong with Easter chocolate. Even the cheap stuff can be brought around with a little Jif. 

Smart cart? Or dumb?

ShopRite, my favorite local supermarket, has gone beyond testing robots for pushing candy, as I noted with the adventures of Smiley in 2021. Nay, it has gone further, past even the inventory robot named Tally, discovered by me last October. Now we're entering the brave new world of the smart cart. 

Out: Smartcars. In: Smartcarts. 

The Caper Cart, a shopping cart supposedly driven by artificial intelligence, has been developed by Instacart and is being field-tested in ShopRite markets.

Here's how Instacart describes these new wonders:

Caper Carts are part of Instacart’s Connected Stores suite of technologies, built to help grocers bridge the online and in-store shopping experience. By using computer vision and AI, the cart can automatically identify items as they are placed in the basket, allowing customers to bag as they shop and checkout directly from the cart. Customer reception to Caper Carts has been strong with users offering a net promoter score of more than 70. In addition to the new ad capabilities, customers appreciate the ability to link their loyalty accounts to the carts, giving them access to personalized promotions and savings while shopping in-store. 

This doesn't sound like AI so much as old-fashioned computer coding -- the computer reading the bar code on what you put in the cart and spewing ads that are paid for. As I've said before, AI in the 2020s is like dot com in the 1990s, a frosting you have to put on every cake to sell it. Still, the idea of avoiding the checkout would make the shopping process faster and easier, so I can't argue with that advantage. Of course, the upselling of crap while you shop will also make it more irritating. The main advantage to the store is customizing ads based on what you put in the cart, which online retailers have been doing for decades. Imagine putting hemorrhoid cream in the wagon discreetly, and your cart starts bleating an ad for adult diapers.

Lucas Frau of NorthJersey.com took one for a test drive, and explains the supposed advantages:

Some fellow shoppers found the cart amusing, with one saying, "Do you got blinkers on that thing?"

Sure, the build of the cart feels a little heavier than your average metal rolling bin. And yes, it lights up like a Christmas tree when you put an item in the basket. Don’t be alarmed.

He explains that the cart registers whatever you get, even weighing produce, and keeps a running list of what's been put in it. If you put something back on the shelf, its removal from the cart is also noted. At the end, you just wheel the cart to the checkout area designated for smart carts and pay -- no need to unload and reload the cart. 

Loyalty card holders may like the carts the best, Frau says, but the sheer weight of the cart may make it less attractive to other shoppers.

The shopping may be easier if you are a Price Plus member, because you can see the deals and where items are found. The average shopper, however, may not feel that lugging the cart is worth it to save a few minutes at the self-checkout.

I am skeptical, especially since I've used too many carts with bad wheels. If stores can't keep the wheels turning, what are the odds that they can keep delicate electronics working? 

If I get a chance to try one, you'd better believe you'll be hearing about it. Until then, Shopinator II: Judgment Day will have to wait. 

Miscellaneous science stuff.

It's our Tuesday random science feature! Of course, we don't do a regular science feature on Tuesday or any other day. That just shows how random it is! Probably determined by Brownian motion or something. Anyway, here's stuff. 

1) The Can

Today's first item is about the age-old question: Do women really take longer in the can than men? How much longer? And we find that a groundbreaking study back in 1988, woefully ignored by the so-called Nobel Prize committee, answered this question: 

The study, conducted in cooperation with the Washington state Department of Transportation, concluded that the standard 50-50 ratio between men's and women's public toilet facilities is unfair.

[Researcher Ahn] Tran established that it takes men an average of 45 seconds to use a public facility, compared to an average of 79 seconds for women. The study thus recommends a new standard involving a 60-40 ratio of women's to men's toilet facilities.

So there it is! Of course, we know it's just a wee (ha!) tiny part of the real problem women face. If the whole difference was 34 seconds, it wouldn't account for the tremendous lines for women's rooms that exist in places like theaters where no line at all is seen for men's rooms. There is more to it.

If we acknowledge that when a lot of these venues were built, equal space was allotted for men's and women's rooms, that still meant a big plumbing gap -- you can fit a lot more urinals onto a wall than toilet stalls. But even then, we're barely getting into the nitty-gritty. 

When men go to the public can, they go alone, and unless they're up to something shady, they get out as fast as possible. That's why we so often forget to zip up. We're running. Women, on the other hand, still treat the sacred grounds of the ladies' loo as a place to gather, to chat, to fix hair and makeup, to criticize their dates, and so on. Those gals aren't getting out of there in 79 seconds. And even if they're not actively taking up a stall, the sheer number of bodies in the room at intermission means the line is going to have to wait until someone leaves to advance. 

If we really want to give women what they want, their restroom facilities should be planned and built first, and everything else added as secondary -- the restaurant, theater, stadium, whatever it is. Everything is just an addendum to the toilet. 

The Justice Bader Goldberg Memorial Bathroom and Stadium. Is that so much to ask?

2) Animal Testing?

My wife bought some pet wipes for the dog, because sometimes he gets dirty paws (but not dirty enough all over to have to bathe), or he needs his ears cleaned out, or he just needs to have a little stink wiped off him. Toddler wipes work okay, but dogs usually can use something stronger -- and sometimes need to. 

But this was one of the screwier things I've seen of late on packaging: 

Look, I get that your heart is in the right place. You love animals and we love our pets. But seriously -- if you didn't test these pet wipes on animals, you know what that makes my dog? Your test subject. 

I think just this one time you could test a product -- a product meant for animals -- on an animal before you release it to the public. What do you think you're doing, manufacturing COVID vaccines?

📡📈🔭📱🔬

That's all the science we have today! Join us when we randomly do something like this again, if ever!

Assault on batteries.

I have to say, I have been very let down by batteries. The limits of battery capacity have completely upended any hopes of getting away from fossil fuels. No one seems to want to talk about this in the press, but it's true. 

After 9/11, many people (including me) wondered if we could get rid of our reliance on fossil fuels quickly. Nothing to do with the climate -- this was about starving the petrogarchs who sponsor terrorism. Ruining the garbage nations that only had oil to sell and only hatred to manufacture. It has not worked out. 

Even if we lived in a fantasy world where windmills and solar panels were not a useless boondoggle of limited and ecology-flattening waste, and where environmentalists would let us dam rivers and burn garbage and split atoms for electricity instead of suing and sabotaging to demand the end of these facilities, and where all minerals needed for batteries were plentiful and cheap, batteries would still suck compared to gasoline. 

In 2009, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists noted that "The maximum theoretical potential of advanced lithium-ion batteries that haven’t yet been demonstrated to work is still only about 6 percent of crude oil." Which sucks, because "Renewable energy–unlike fossil carbon–is harnessed dynamically from the environment. Therefore, it won’t be as useful as fossil carbon until it can be stored and transported with similar ease." To carry the magically-generated electricity I mentioned above, cars and other vehicles would have to have a far, far better ability to hold power, resist power loss, and not explode into flames than anything we have currently. So far, no battery like this that I've heard of has even been proposed as plausible. 

We figure that at some point, maybe not for five hundred years but at some point, we're going to run out of petroleum. Assuming Mr. Fusion is not available, what then? All the optimistic science fiction stories tended to have things run on batteries, but it may be as likely as having things run on unicorn farts after all. It may be physically impossible to make the kind of batteries we need for the modern world to rely on them. 

I don't have any answers. I'm just disappointed. You're never going to get a podracer to fly on methane, let alone an Odyssey-class Federation starship. I just don't think the future is working out. Thanks a lot, you dumb ol' batteries.  

Man scammed.

ELDERLY MAN SCAMMED FOR
$3.6 TRILLION

"They Were Very Convincing," Says Befuddled Oldster

WASHINGTON, DC (March 21, 2024) -- The nation's capital witnessed another awful example of telephone scams and elder abuse, as the chief elected officer of the country was bamboozled by an artful trickster. 

"Sounded totally legit," said Mr. Joseph Biden of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. "Said they were calling from the debt service place. Well, I keep hearing about the debt this and the debt that and I was glad that I had started the old ball rolling to get that taken care of. Thought I'd just left the paperwork in Delaware or something. All they needed, she said, was the main treasury account number and some passwords, no big deal. They were very convincing." 

An estimated $3.6 trillion has subsequently gone missing from the United States treasury following this event. Mr. Biden's coworkers were quick to point out that it's not really lost, however. 

"It's not like it's real money," said Janet Yellen, who oversees the treasury for Mr. Biden. "Just a bunch of IOUs, actually. We'll just run out a few trillion on the printing presses and replace it as fast as we can get the paper."

Mr. Biden says he regrets being taken in by a hoax, and intends to find the culprit and press charges. "Sounded like an Indian fellow, or maybe Chinese," he told reporters. "Shouldn't be too hard to track down. Just check the Seven-Elevens and Chinese restaurants in the area code." When asked what area code was displayed when he received the call, he explained that it was from "someplace called Potential Spam." 

Jiggle the handle!

The flush toilet may be the most confounding appliance in the home, at least for non-plumbers. You think, How hard can it be? It's got no electronics, no gears. It's a fixture, not an appliance. And then you have to put in a new gasket or lever or chain, and you try to calibrate the proper length of the chain and height of the float and give in the handle, and pretty soon you're ready to throw the toilet out the window and start doing your #1s out the window as well.  

My dad was not a plumber, but he was extremely handy. And yet even he was reduced to advising us to jiggle the handle to stop the water running when the damn flapper would not close for whatever reason. He got sick of trying to get it to behave.

Toilets are touchy things. A lot of us are confused by fluids anyway. They seem to defy expectations. There's no reason why a siphon ought to work -- but once you start it going, though, the water draws the water behind it in what seems like perpetual motion. Of course, there is a reason why it works, but that involves like knowledge of gravity and air pressure and hydrostatic pressure and capillary action and surface tension, and now your head hurts. All you wanted to do was steal some gas from your neighbor's car and you gotta think about science and math? 

Yes, you do! What, for example, is a ripple? You've seen them in ponds, lakes, potholes -- maybe even a drop in the toilet bowl has created a lovely ripple. But can you describe it mathematically? Well, some very serious thinkers have been working on the ripple situation for some time. It's harder than you'd think. 

Let's face it -- water is weird. Most things shrink when they freeze -- water expands. You can't compress water; there's just no room between the molecules. If water was not so strange, life as we know it would be impossible. Without capillary action, there'd be no plants, no trees, no us. And until we meet the Rock Men of Planet Srumptk, we're looking at our basis of life as the only thing possible in the universe. So thanks, water! 

And don't forget to jiggle that handle. You wouldn't want to waste water!

The lilt of Irish slaughter?

Well, it's that day again.

If I had to guess, I'd say the Irish people have become the most popular immigrants we've ever had in America, and that's not just because they've got a day strongly associated with drinking that goes back to colonial times. Other cultures do just as much whoopin' it up and have more popular food, too. But one thing the Irish people and their US descendants have going for them is their sense of humor. 

At a time when everyone's looking to be angry at on behalf of their long-buried ancestors, do the Irish waste their time doing that? 

You'd better believe it. I know third- and fourth-generation Americans of only partial Irish descent who hate the English as if the English had collectively and personally insulted their mothers last week.

Can the Irish be belligerent? What makes you even ask? 

Look in some dictionaries under the word "belligerent" and you'll see a picture of Paddy throwing a roundhouse. If you're wearin' o' the orange in some places today, you might be wearin' o' the black eye tomorrow. 

But the Irish have a much-admired sense of humor. The Jewish people in America do as well, famous for it going back to the 19th century, but their humor carries more of the fatalism that centuries of pogroms will inspire. Irish jokes are usually intended to show how clever they are, how dumb others are, or just how silly people can be. And who has a problem with that? We're all doofuses sometimes. Even Chuck Norris, I'd wager, although no one has ever seen it. (And lived.) 

(Chuck's about half Irish, BTW.)

Let us give thanks today for the Irish, for managing to keep a sense of humor in this difficult old world. Life is hard whether you can laugh or not, but it's harder if you cannot. 

Upside-down world.

It's hard not to feel like the world has been turned completely on its head. We have a government in the United States that seems to despise its citizens, monetary policy that makes money worth less daily, militaries that can't win wars or defend the nation, government agencies intended to protect Americans that target Americans, fathers who abuse children and mothers who kill them, schools that teach everything but what they're supposed to teach, recycling programs that stuff landfills, and a ruling class that does not rule and has no class. Sometimes it appears that the airheads are all rising to the top by nature of their empty heads, because that's what seems to be in charge. And sometimes that's the optimistic view. The worse view is that only some of them are stupid; the smart ones are all evil. 

We know in our hearts that things are upside-down and have always been, even if it makes no rational sense -- if things always seemed wrong, why would we expect something better, something right? I find the supreme example of this inversion in the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, where we see that everything is a cruel funhouse image of what it ought to be. The religious class that ought to love God instead persecutes Him. He is betrayed by a kiss, a sign of love, and abandoned by His friends. The Roman authority tries to administer justice by scourging the man declared innocent -- I find no fault with this man, so we'll beat him half to death. The crown Jesus deserves is not the crown of thorns He gets; He is exalted, but by being lifted aloft on the scornful, torturous cross. Everything is a cruel mockery. 

It informs me that while life may get better in many ways, we just can't escape the grip of evil on our own. And now, in this utterly unprincipled era, we find less hope that there is anything to fall back on, any law on the basis of which we can hope for justice among men. 

But we have hope. St. Francis of Assisi, they say, saw the world upside-down, or perhaps right-side up by being upside-down. Writing in The Crisis, Michael Warren Davis notes: 

St. Francis called himself the Jongleur de Dieu—God’s court jester—precisely because his virtue was so absurd by the standards of our own convention. But to say that he looked foolish in the eyes of the world is an understatement. His charity gave as much offense as any sinner’s meanness. St. Francis’s spirituality demands such uncommon virtue it’s offensive to common decency.

The most famous take on the Jongleur in the English language must be from our old friend G. K. Chesterton from his book about the saint, who explains that the jongleur is not a juggler so much as a tumbler or acrobat, and Francis came out of the darkness of despair from his crushed dreams of being a noble knight as if he'd been turned on his head:

Francis, at the time or somewhere about the time when he disappeared into the prison or the dark cavern, underwent a reversal of a certain psychological kind; which was really like the reversal of a complete somersault, in that by coming full circle it came back, or apparently came back, to the same normal posture. It is necessary to use the grotesque simile of an acrobatic antic, because there is hardly any other figure that will make the fact clear. But in the inward sense it was a profound spiritual revolution. The man who went into the cave was not the man who came out again; in that sense he was almost as different as if he were dead, as if he were a ghost or a blessed spirit. And the effects of this on his attitude towards the actual world were really as extravagant as any parallel can make them. He looked at the world as differently from other men as if he had come out of that dark hole walking on his hands.

This may have given him a unique perspective:

This state can only be represented in symbol; but the symbol of inversion is true in another way. If a man saw the world upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasise the idea of dependence. There is a Latin and literal connection; for the very word dependence only means hanging. It would make vivid the Scriptural text which says that God has hanged the world upon nothing. If St. Francis had seen, in one of his strange dreams, the town Assisi upside down, it need not have differed in a single detail from itself except in being entirely the other way round. But the point is this: that whereas to the normal eye the large masonry of its walls or the massive foundations of its watchtowers and its high citadel would make it seem safer and more permanent, the moment it was turned over the very same weight would make it seem more helpless and more in peril. It is but a symbol; but it happens to fit the psychological fact. St. Francis might love his little town as much as before, or more than before; but the nature of the love would be altered even in being increased. He might see and love every tile on the steep roofs or every bird on the battlements; but he would see them all in a new and divine light of eternal danger and dependence. Instead of being merely proud of his strong city because it could not be moved, he would be thankful to God Almighty that it had not been dropped; he would be thankful to God for not dropping the whole cosmos like a vast crystal to be shattered into falling stars. Perhaps St. Peter saw the world so, when he was crucified head-downwards.

We can rail against the upside-down world, but we ought to remember that in the end it is destined to be flipped and placed on a firm foundation as it ought to have been from beginning. That is the hope, that is the divine expectation. 

Off to a bad start.

 

So today started off with a bang. Walking dog Izzy in the dark, thanks so Daylight &@#^* Savings Time. It's recycling day, but unlike our late party dog Nipper, Izzy is not terrified of trash cans. Or at least he wasn't until this morning. 

This morning he decided to dash to the curb and go around the large garbage can someone had left on the sidewalk. That unfortunately put the can between him and me, and when he closed the loop he knocked over the can, sending recyclables everywhere -- mostly plastic bottles but plenty of aluminum cans. This made what is known as a Loud Noise, which startled Izzy, who decided to put a couple of miles between himself and the source of the noise. I, caught by surprise, still had the leash in my hand, which suffered a small laceration between the ring finger and the pinky as the slack zipped through. It was too dark to see how much blood was unleashed (ha) but there was some. 

After restoring order, putting all the stuff back in the garbage can, we returned home -- of course, all this happened at the point of the circle farthest from our house. But we made it, and the injury was not too bad. However, it was a perfect way to start a very busy day, and I mean that dripping with as much sarcasm as I can muster. 

Help me, Obi Mr. Coffee! You're my only hope!