This Ain’t No CNN.

There is a certain amount of danger with having unqualified people in high positions of power, for example, a federal judiciary position. Trump placed a lot of unqualified people in these positions and they make uninformed, reckless decisions that affect the entire country.

Enter the ending of mask mandates today per one unqualified judge in Florida.

This is just another round of bringing the country to the absolutely lowest common denominator and catering to the folks that don’t like to feel as stupid as they are. They’re offended by common sense, more fragile than the common snowflake, and a plague on our society. For years we’ve heard, “it gets better”. The country as a whole will not get better.

I don’t care if you wear a mask or not. I’m doing everything scientifically sound to keep me and my family safe from the lingering pandemic. If folks want to be reckless and want to risk permanent health concerns or even death, that’s fine. Thin the herd.

I just wish someone else in power would be reckless and negate any insurance coverage when someone chooses to go unvaccinated and then wants to be cured of their foolishness.

There was a line in a recent episode of “Star Trek: Picard” that really struck me. This season’s story arc takes place primarily in the year 2024; the cast has gone back in time to “fix the timeline” again and they’re in 2024 Los Angeles trying to figure out what’s wrong and make it right. They meet up with a young Guinan, who is ready to leave the planet because of the turmoil of 2024.

The line that struck me was in regard to the rampant racism, obviously a commentary of what we’re seeing today: “They took off hoods and put on suits”. A simple, in your face statement of what’s happening, especially since Trump’s run in office.

I don’t follow the news as much as I used to, namely for the sake of my own mental health. However, I was quite happy to see sense prevail when the Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as our newest Supreme Court Justice.

Perhaps things won’t be quite as bleak as portrayed in Picard’s version 2024 when we get there just two years from now.

Be Prepared.

I haven’t been on Facebook in a while and I hadn’t ranted on Facebook in a much longer while, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore.

It’s been decades since I’ve sat in a social studies class, and even when I sat in a social studies class I wasn’t really that enthralled with the subject. But, I do remember that gas prices in a capitalistic society are determined by supply and demand, the free market in general, corporate greed, and probably too many taxes. No one in the US government issues a decree declaring what gas prices will be. Demand a year ago, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic was low. Now that folks are out and about (since COVID is “over”?), demand is high. Because of worldwide angst, supply is low. The US Government is releasing barrels of reserve to help with the supply. Supply and demand + corporate greed (you don’t see oil corp profits declining, do you?) = higher prices at the pump. If you need to blame someone, blame an oil exec while they fan themselves with money on their million dollar yachts. Yes, prices are absolutely painful. Yes, there’s a lot of turmoil in the world. Yes, all governments involved in all of this could do a heck of a lot better, but when you drive a large vehicle that requires a lot of gas, it’s going to get pricey in times like these. Trade in for a Chevette or plan your trips to the market a little better. And yes, this all sucks.

Lura Sharp Elementary school, built in 1939 and having originally housed grades K-12 until 1969, still stands today. There have been many upgrades and improvements to the structure over the years. Asbestos has been removed, windows replaced a few times, the light brick has been fixed up, new bushes, an annex in 1956.

It wasn’t until over 70 years later that bullet proof glass and a reinforced safety partitioning of the impressive main lobby took place. The building that once welcomed fresh air from Lake Ontario through side doors propped open now has metal detectors, intercoms, and worried students behind her walls.

These improvements to this well established building are a horrifying commentary on the direction of our society today. Our children should always feel safe within the walls of any school. Our children should always be safe at school. Barricades, fences, bullet proof glass, and metal detectors is not the answer.

Better gun laws are the answer.

How can I sit here and type about the wonders of the latest ABBA album or the corporate greed around the latest season of “Star Trek: Discovery” and its distribution or any other trivial thing in my life when a Wisconsin jury decides a man killing another man is not guilty of all charges?

I don’t recognize the United States of America anymore. I really don’t.

I don’t know if TNSD is a thing. I made the acronym up; it refers to “Traumatic News Stress Disorder”, but I don’t know if someone had the same idea as me to call the constant barrage of bad news inflicting PTSD like symptoms TNSD. Maybe I should patent it. Capitalism.

We have Apple News as part of our Apple One family subscription. Apple touts the personal curation of the news feed, but it’s constant bad news. I don’t trust many news sources; everyone has an agenda. Who to believe? I end up reading something from the BBC. Someone without an investment in the success or failure of the United States.

I’m so very tired of news outlets and social media amplifying stupidity. I’m incredibly tired of the stupidity.

Let’s stop being stupid. Maybe the bad news will simmer down.

Contrary to the title of this post, this is not about technology. In this post, I am the device.

Now that the 2021 local elections are over and everyone is weeping into the beer because things ahead look scary for anyone invested in politics, the news media is going to do its best to whip the populace up about the 2022 midterm elections. It’s what they do. They thrive on chaos to drive ratings.

I am not prepared to deal with this. I have said since the beginning of this year that my gut tells me were just in an intermission between chaos cycles, and I am not mentally prepared for what the midterm elections will bring. There’s nothing great about the U.S. Government at the moment, it’s really just less awful than it was. For example, I hear much more about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell than I do about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

We’re going to continue to get creaky old people shoved in onto our ballots because other than the presidency, there’s no term limits. Code words will continue to be bandied about to shake folks into a frenzy. There will be hollering and screaming and lots of exclamation points on social media. Caps lock will abound and people will continue to say stupid, idiotic things because Fox News told them to.

It’s disheartening. It’s depressing.

Build a nest egg best you can and get as many safety mechanisms in place as you can to maintain your personal standard of life. I’ve expressed this morbid thought before, but I’m happy to be a middle aged guy who remembers what the country used to be like and I’m thankful I’m on the back half of my life. A terrible thought for “The greatest country in the world”.

Virgin Galactic’s Sir Richard Branson and former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos are duking it out as to who can get to “space” first this month. I put space in quotation marks because they’re not orbiting the planet or anything; they’ll both be getting to the very beginnings of space and very briefly leave the Earth’s gravitational pull.

While I certainly understand the “cool” factor of flying to space like this, I’m not sure I understand the scientific benefits. When SpaceX provides a ride for astronauts to the International Space Station or launches satellites or brings payloads to wherever they need to go, it’s for science stuff. Or, in the case of Starlink, they’re making the Internet available to remote locations. And that’s rather cool (aside from the pollution it’s providing for astronomers). When the likes of Sir Richard Branson or Jeff Bazos go up, it’ll be to say “look what we can do” and is essentially an expensive amusement park ride. Yes, there is innovation required to make these events occur, but just imagine how the world would benefit if the funds for these joyrides were used to help combat hunger or homelessness.

I really like Sir Branson and Mr. Bezos are just trying to outdo each other, much in the way muscle cars were raced in the mid 20th century. With these two I don’t really care who gets to “space” first.

I just wish the human race could win from these endeavors.

I’m not going to get into a solid review because I really don’t know what I would write about the experience thus far. Well, I’m actually enjoying the experience and I look forward to the next episode, but this show is different than what we’ve watched in the past. I now get what folks mean when they say it’s a “dark comedy”.

I’m talking about the show “Hacks” on HBO Max. We just finished episode three. I haven’t invested enough time to find out how many episodes there are in the series, but it feels like it’s like an eight episode run or something.

Jean Smart stars as a Las Vegas stand up comedian who’s act needs a little punching up. She’s been doing this bit for decades and her agent gets her a young writer to help bring her act into the 21st century. Except neither character is having it.

The pacing is slow but not tedious. The dialog is witty, but the moments between the dialog are just as fun. The humor is not your typical tried-and-true guffaw. For lack of a better word it is a little dark, but I still find it very enjoyable. We get HBO Max for as long as we have our AT&T account, but I would subscribe to HBO Max for this series.

I’m at a lost for words to describe it further, but I recommend you take a gander.