ARCHIVED POSTS
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May 28, 2020
Peter the Dog
This is a tale from down-under about a loyal dog named Peter, who died, was buried, then dug back up, skinned, stuffed, and used as evidence to convict his master of murder. The master was convicted in 1953, and died in 1987, but his dog lives on – sort of – as an exhibit in Queensland Police Museum Read More HERE
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The War on Bats
Bats are getting a bad rap nowadays from humans, who are more than anxious to exterminate them at every opportunity. But some scientist say, we should learn their secrets about how they live with viruses that kill other species. Read More HERE
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Cancer Sniffing Dogs
We can’t pass up an opportunity to point out how cool dogs are and how they are now being used to help doctors sniff out ovarian cancer in its early stages. This video explains how doctors are using computers to figure out how dogs do it with their noses. See Video HERE
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May 27, 2020
The Power of Magical Thinking
Photo by djwtwo on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA
Americans believe in magic. And why wouldn’t we? We lead lives of such privilege and prosperity that we have come to think of our place of dominance in the world and our style of life as a God-given right.
There may be places in the world where people are starving, where disease is rampant, and where human beings are killing one another in savage ways over nothing more than differences of opinion in how they worship. But not here. Not in America.
We’re special. And we have a government that is going to take care of us, no matter what.
That’s magical thinking. The truth is that the government can’t give us anything that it doesn’t take from us first. A bug from China (in fact, for the nitpickers, a submicroscopic infectious agent, not literally a bug) is infecting people, making them sick and sometimes even killing them – especially those who are old or in ill health to begin with.
So what do we do? Exactly what the government tells us to do. We lock ourselves away, and huge numbers of us start getting paid to do nothing. But, no matter how dangerous the virus may be, this can only go on for so long.
Right now – more than ten weeks into the shut down – many Americans keep insisting that we all stay home and that the economy stays locked up tight. To facilitate that, they’re expecting the government to keep making pay-outs to individuals and businesses – both big and small – to keep everything running.
The funny thing is that a lot of those same Americans, who think they and almost everybody else should stay home, still want some of their countrymen to go to work. They’re thinking that the doctors and nurses in hospitals, the people who work in grocery stores, truck drivers who deliver food to supermarkets, and the farmers and ranchers who grow the food should still keep hustling their butts. It’s OK though, because they are very, very grateful. They are happy to put signs in their windows and applaud public service messages about what super heroes those people are who are expected to be at their jobs. It’s a big, hearty “thank you” to the folks on the front line.
A lot of those “stay at home” people also want people who have been put out of work to get more money, they want everyone who wants to stay home to be compensated, and they want everybody on the government dole to get a raise. A BIG raise.
The problem is this. There is no magic. The government cannot actually create wealth. It can only take it from the wealth-creators – also known as taxpayers. Of course, the government can always turn on the presses and print some more dollars, but those freshly inked pieces of paper only make the dollars we already have less valuable. In other words, they cause inflation, making it a lot harder for Americans to buy things like food and clothes and cars and houses and everything else.
The economic shut down closed supply chains, food distribution lines, transportation services, government agencies and no end of other businesses that are required to get goods and services to the public. Getting food to market has become so logistically difficult and expensive that dairymen are dumping milk and ranchers and farmers are losing money on animals that they cannot get to market because of packing-plant closures. All that dumped milk and stranded meat adds up to two things – a shortage of food in the markets and much higher prices on the food that does show up.
So now steaks, Brussels sprouts, milk, chicken, and other items from soup to nuts is getting difficult to find and more expensive. And it’s going to get a lot worse – even after we open up the country. A shut-down supply chain takes a while to get back on track and up to speed.
The problem is that people believe what they want to believe and politicians will always be there to support Americans’ magic fantasies in an attempt to curry favor in exchange for votes.
Magical thinking goes far beyond the Corona virus.
My brother-in-law, a retired sheriff’s deputy, says all his law enforcement buddies are solidly for Trump and are sure he is going to win. But he recognizes that his law-and-order buds don’t necessarily reflect the society as a whole.
Not everybody is so perceptive.
If you were to go my wife Carmela’s former office at UCLA, you would be surrounded by people who think Trump is so stupid there is no way he can win.
We see what we want to see and believe what our friends and associates believe, so our view of the world tends to be somewhat skewed.
Remember when Japanese auto makers began taking over the market back in the 70s and 80s. American auto executives were lulled into a sad sense of complacency when they looked out at their company parking lot and saw row after row of American cars. They tended to gloss over the fact that their employees were entitled to deep discounts on the cars they helped build – and so they bought those cars and filled up the company parking lots while much of the rest of America had started buying the Japanese cars.
You see friends on Facebook, on both sides of the political divide, ranting about how stupid the other side is and reinforcing their own increasingly narrow point of view. Anybody who disagrees, even slightly, is instantly pummeled for his or her political blasphemy.
It’s both ugly and crazy. Here are the plain and unmagical facts.
The economy must immediately open and start producing goods and services to get those 30 million newly unemployed people off the government dole – and back to paying taxes.
The government must stop printing money and handing it out like drunken sailors.
And while we’re at it, we’ve all got to find a way to get along a little better. Disagreement is fine, and even healthy. Disrespect, acrimony and boorish screeching is not.
The world is what it is. We can either get along and recognize our differences or break apart and engage in a holy war over politics, money and culture. There is no magic.
And no amount of Abracadabra is going to change that.
Do you have an opinion on the subject? Contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know. Meanwhile, you can always subscribe and get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.
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April 10, 2020
ONCE HOT, NOW NOT
ARE YOU READY BOOTS, START WALKING – Photo by x-ray delta one on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA
One of the nice things about getting old is having been a witness to how things used to be and how they are now.
The older you get, the more you realize that what used to be cutting edge and cool, is now passé. Here are some things that people used to think were so cool, that now are terribly dated.
Home Life:
Did you ever try to get up from a bean bag chair after you’ve had a few drinks or perhaps been indulging in other substances that in the past could get you a shared cell with a biker named Bruno?
The bean bag chair was, and is, a completely useless piece of furniture, except maybe for kids. And yet, as a young man, I thought bean bag chairs were quite bohemian and cutting edge – not unlike beaded curtains, macramé wall hangings, and home-made sand candles.
It wasn’t just the young and stupid who defined the fashion of the day. Style was also defined by those old enough to know better.
If you ever lived in a home with a sunken living room, you know it was really an accident waiting to happen, especially if you had been indulging in alcoholic beverages. That was even more likely, because a sign of success was having your own well-stocked wet bar with stools, a stock of various liquors, and beer on tap.
We lived in a home at one time, in which the living room was one step down from the dining room. We worried all the time that a dinner guest would push his chair back to get up from the table and take a tumble onto the white shag carpet, one six-inch step below the dining room floor.
The television set used to be a giant box that sat prominently in the middle of an open-faced “entertainment center” that also featured stereo speakers, an AM-FM tuner, a turntable for records, a VCR and later a CD player for watching home videos or featured films, all stored on a side shelf, usually behind etched glass doors. Waterbeds in the 60s weighed hundreds of pounds and had heated pads so you didn’t freeze as you sloshed through the night.
And don’t get us started on the combination appliances – the stove, microwave, toaster oven, kitchen clock/timer all in one giant piece that required a major kitchen overhaul or replacement if any one of the elements went bad or became obsolete. And then there were the colors. Refrigerators used to be white, then for a period, avocado and gold became the kitchen colors of the day, before returning to white again and now stainless steel.
Those were the good old days. Or were they?
Fashion:
Remember mini-skirts, afro hair styles, tie-dyed shirts, bell-bottom pants, caftans for entertaining at home, fruit boots, business suits for women with linebacker padded shoulders and a blouse that featured a giant loopy bow instead of a tie. There were perms for men, big bouffant hair for women, and tight leather pants and fanny packs for both.
Many of these fashions – like all past passions – are still around, still embraced by folks who got stuck in a fashion time warp. Guys who are still carrying their cigarettes rolled up in a sleeve of their t-shirts, and old men and women still wandering around in tie-dyed shirts and shooting each other peace signs.
Fashion used to be dictated either from where you lived – such as overalls, cowboy hats, and bandanas – or sometimes from influential designers in Paris who developed a following and dictated the latest look. It was an industry built on conspicuous consumption. The more expensive the line one wore, the bigger the boost in one’s status.
Transportation:
Since Henry Ford started producing the Model T in 1908 – making automobiles available to the common man – Americans have been in love with their cars. There is nothing better than the open road, the sound of an internal combustion engine coming to life, and power available just by pushing down on a gas pedal.
A car isn’t just transportation. It is adventure; it is style; it is the freedom to go where you want, whenever you want, at the speed you want. You don’t have to sit on a bench waiting for a streetcar or bus, or at a train station platform waiting for a ride to take you to your destination. You jump into the car, turn on the key, and away you go.
As cars grew more elegant, each had its own style. White-wall tires, fender skirts, fancy hubcaps, gleaming hood ornaments that sparkled in the sun and lots of chrome, on the front and the back and down the sides. Lovely, flashy, dangerous Detroit steel, destined as time went by to become the boxy automobiles of today – fiberglass and plastic bodies designed with an eye toward safety and fuel efficiency.
The family station wagon, the sensible, safe, and boring version of the family sedan, was replaced by the mini-van.
Now the burning public desire for power and fossil-fuel muscle has been taken up by the big pickup trucks – some of them jacked up so high that you need a step-stool to get inside.
And yet, the love affair with the cars of the era lives on.
Much of what used to be family road trips to explore the highways and byways of America has been replaced with airplanes. Air travel was once exclusive and exciting. People dressed up to get on a plane because not everybody could afford it.
Now it has become a default way to travel, replacing buses and trains. What once was luxury has become agony with seats jammed as close together as physically possible and in-flight meals that are tasteless and expensive. Unless passengers are willing to pay big bucks for first class, they are lucky to get a bag of pretzels and a can of soda to ease their journey.
Media:
Before the internet, people used to read newspapers, books, and magazine articles printed on paper – both slick and pulp. They were able to do so because they were literate and had been taught at an early age to read and write.
Every big city had news and magazine stands with publications from around the world and book stores full of fiction and non-fiction works. Lovers of the printed word could gather for hours, looking at what selections were available and rubbing shoulders with other bibliophiles.
Almost every literate person had at least one daily newspaper delivered to their home.
The family would split up the sections, reading the National and International news, the Local news, the latest Sports scores, the Wall Street stock market tables, and the Society pages. Even if you had never been to a major league game or owned any stock or were not included in the hoity-toity world of debutante balls and country club affairs, you would read about them in the newspaper. And there were always the recipes for cakes and cookies, other homemaking tips, and an advice column that provided readers with sneak peeks into other people’s frustrations and fears.
Then there were the movies. In an effort to compete with television, Hollywood tried to offer something more. There were three-dimensional movies that would give flat-screen entertainment a new depth, as long as you wore the special Polaroid glasses. There were also Cinerama screens, which used a large curved screen with three synchronized projectors to put the audience in the middle of the action.
There were also the multiplex cinemas that offered a number of different movies on smaller screens at one central venue.
Let us not forget the art movie theaters, with soft-core nudity and sex of the Russ Meyer’s category, which soon evolved into hard-core sex films in movie houses such as the Pussycat theater chain, founded in the 60s and defunct by the 90s. Porno movie theaters, like the Pussycat chain, were replaced by rented porno video tapes and now the internet. Today any enterprising 10-year-old can learn first-hand about love, sex, and perversion without having to endure the awkward birds-and-the-bees talk of the past.
Miscellany
The changes in what once was and will never be again go on and on. Rotary-dial phones, typewriters, answering machines, beepers, beauty contests, food stamps, 8mm home movies, Kodak and Polaroid cameras, and pictures made on film.
Some of these institutions – such as beauty contests – are still around, but they’re generally campy, dated, and valued mainly for their nostalgic appeal.
The problem with nostalgia, is it’s very selective. It remembers the good times, the good music, and the good friends. Nostalgia, by definition, is a fondness for the past. It overlooks the evilness of past times.
Was the past better than the present day? There are two answers to that question and they are both correct.
Yes and no.
Do you have an opinion on the subject? Contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know. Meanwhile, you can always subscribe and get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.