George Lee Cunningham

ARCHIVED POSTS

July 30, 2023
GIRL POWER – PRETTY OR PRETTY MEAN?

TIM URBAN HAS A WIFE, WHO HAS A THEORY. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Tim Urban, a very witty and smart fellow, recently tweeted about his wife’s theory on girl power and dominance. Here’s what he wrote:
“My wife has a theory that when two girls pass each other on the street, the hotter one just kind of has the right of way and everyone mostly abides by that. And that this creates awkward moments when two people think they’re equally hot. Is this true?”
Like so many things in life, I do think there is some truth in it and some important missing nuance. Yes, I think there are women who dominate because of their looks and desirability to men. But no – and this is a huge no – it is not nearly that simple.
In our white-bread, 21^st Century society, a pretty woman may step aside and yield power to a beautiful woman. But there are a lot of exceptions. My wife and her sisters are half Sicilian and half Calabrese – two societies of pretty mean people.
In my wife’s culture – into which I have been welcomed – the meanest woman gets the right-of-way over the less mean woman. And if two woman both think they are the meanest – well it can get pretty ugly, even if the two women may love one another under normal circumstances.
So in my adopted-by-marriage world, the meanest woman has the right-of-way, no matter how pretty or ugly she may be. If a young and beautiful 21^st Century girl thinks otherwise, she will soon learn her place.
Mean beats pretty every single time.
By the way, Tim Urban is a very interesting guy with a sometimes quirky and unconventional view on life. You can find some of Tim’s thoughts on life at http://WaitButWhy.com
– George Lee Cunningham
 If you would like to subscribe to our work, you may contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know and you will get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.

July 3, 2023
Might vs. Bright

My wife says women are smarter than men. As evidence, she points out how men will strain their backs and struggle mightily to pick up everything they see into one big load and start walking without even considering where they’re going to unload their burden. Women, she says, will assess the situation, decide where they want to put things, make a space for the items, divide the items into two or three easy-to-carry loads, and maybe even grab a dolly to help. She still doesn’t get it. It’s simple. Men, young and old, pick up heavy loads and hold them for long periods of time to show that they are strong and that they can do it – to the rest of the world, including women – and to themselves.

A GENTLEMAN OUTLAW

JUST BECAUSE YOU BREAK THE LAW, IT DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE BAD – photo by Jack Roth
I don’t think of myself as a outlaw although I suppose I am – at least officially.
It’s not just being anti-social, although sometimes I am. And it’s not being dishonest, although sometimes – officially – I am that as well. It’s like seeing the law as it’s written as being a sort of helpful guideline to how we should all behave.
During the pandemic when most places were shut down, Carmela and I traveled across country more than once, stopping at truck stops for gas and food, and when there was no other choice, doing our business by the side of the road.
There are people we know, many of whom we love and like, who hid at home during the pandemic, obeying authority and wearing masks when they went for a walk down deserted streets and while driving in their cars.
Meanwhile the bums by the side of roads and highways roamed freely because they had no home in which to be confined. And while some people were banned from going to church during the pandemic, other people could riot in the street with no masks, because they were doing important “social justice work.”
It’s silliness. During that crazy time, we drove across the California state line to the relatively free states of Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas, living life and not bothering anybody else.
When we got to the free state of Florida, masks were not required, although some service people wore them to keep the tourists happy.
So much of wearing masks was a psychological thing. If everybody else was wearing masks, people thought they should wear masks too just so they wouldn’t be outsiders.
It was just the opposite in Florida. When the tourists arrived all masked up and the locals were going around enjoying life without masks, pretty soon the tourists took their masks off as well. There are lessons to be learned there about human nature and the eagerness to fit in.
And then there were the doctor visits.
I hate going to the doctor, but my wife insists that I do. So I go, both to keep peace in the family and because my wife loves me. But during the pandemic, Kaiser only wanted to admit the patient, nobody else – unless the patient was a child or required physical or emotional assistance.
Since Carmela wants to ask the doctor a lot of questions that I would never ask, she wants to go in to see the doctor with me. Fine by me.
So when we checked in, Carmela would take me by the elbow and lead me in, while I gazed absentmindedly at the ceiling and people passing by. No kindly personnel ever spoke to me. They addressed all their questions to my “caretaker.”
Once we were checked in, Carmela would sometimes forget our ruse and walk away, expecting me to walk with her. I would stand there, slack-jawed, until she would sigh and come back and grab me by the arm to take me along. It was sort of a fun pantomime, and we got really good at it during the lock-down.
Maybe I like breaking the rules because I come from the South and there is a rebel spirit still alive there in both the lifestyle and the music. Country songs are often about life outside the rules of polite and lawful society.
It’s not about doing evil things. It’s about living free. About being your own person and not looking to the the government or anybody else to set down arbitrary rules about how you should behave.
To be honest, I have my own rule and I think it’s a good one.
Be nice, be respectful of others, and live a happy life.
– George Lee Cunningham
 If you would like to subscribe to our work, you may contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know and you will get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.

June 3, 2023
My Sex is Male

I don’t want to be an ass, but in an age when we all want to respect everybody’s language differences, I want to say as a 20^th Century man, my sex is male. There are two sexes – male and female. My dog and I are males. My wife is female. In my native 20^th Century tongue, words have gender, people don’t. Trying to assign people a gender is just 21^st Century nonsense. Every single time somebody wants me to tell them my gender, it pisses me off. Not a lot. Just a little bit. Every single time.

Hard to Read

I know this is a new age and I have to respect that the new people who inhabit this new age have their own ways of doing stuff. But I don’t have to like it. For one thing, labels on bottles are hard to read. The shampoo and conditioner that my wife buys come in an identical bottles – both a light brown bottle with a slightly darker shade of brown printing in small letters. I never use them, because I can’t tell which is the conditioner and which is the shampoo without putting on my specs, which is difficult to do in the shower. So I use Dove. Not because it’s better shampoo, but because it comes in a white bottle with a easy-to-read label. What an old fuddy-duddy concept.