Smokey Robinson Knows What He's Talking About

This year, politicians have created an entirely new approach to the old saw that goes something like this--"How do you know when a politician is lying?"  Oh, that's easy--whenever you see their lips move."  

"Say one thing and do another" has become-"say both things and keep everybody guessing."  With help from our fading memory skills, they can assert that--whatever they actually do--they told us the truth, conveniently ignoring the opposite statement either made by the same person at another time, or that voiced by a representative or subordinate of theirs.

Most of the latter statements arise when the speaker is saying whatever will please the particular audience they are addressing.  The former, it's hard to say.  Apparently this new development also pleases the media, whose spokespersons gleefully report the latest contradiction.  However, they have had to re-learn the lesson about not calling the statements that are, either inconsistent with earlier statements or with the actual facts, “lies."  Use another term, you all, you don't know what was in the mind of the person uttering said statement.  They might only be "inconsistencies," or "contradictions," "misstatements" or "errors."     

In the U. S., it breeds further mistrust of government.  In other countries, who knows?  But seriously, how can this keep up?

Short of an epidemic of senility, amnesia or apathy driven by the obvious one-sidedness of all the media--whether left or right, I don't see how this can go on.  I mean a single gathering of people at the Boeing plant in North Carolina actually produces three different descriptions.  One side views this as no more than a "campaign-like" appearance, where the President returns to the campaign rally persona people liked so well last year.  From another's viewpoint, it was merely a celebration of the creation of new jobs, boosting the area's economy, led by a President happy to have some good news to talk about.  From still another view, it was a show that people in North Carolina still love Trump, even as his administration has hit some bumps in the road as it has tried to get things off the ground.  Oh, and yet there is a 4th viewpoint, this was viewed as a gathering of those who opposed unions, celebrating the almost annual vote rejecting union representation a few weeks ago.  Come on people, report the event and then describe some of the views expressed by those in attendance--don't just portray it from one narrow viewpoint.  

There's another view on these practices--and it all revolves around smoke as a metaphor for speech, e.g., a person misrepresenting the truth or true intent can be said to be blowing smoke.   This next one applies to international relations and I think it can involve smoke, we are sending mixed signals to our friends and our foes.  Looking at the smoke signals they are sending, especially when amplified with smoke and mirrors can be confusing.  It might lead you to ask, what have they been smoking?  Or, like me, you may be experiencing again what it's like when, as the venerable Smokey Robinson put it "the smoke gets in your eyes."   Ok, that was a little "smoke" of my own.  It was really the Platters who recorded it, it just seemed like it might fit.  Blowing a little smoke really, Ain't That Peculiar? (and that last question is really a song that Smokey wrote for Marvin Gaye)

  

   

Do You Subscribe To Unsubscribing?

This morning I unsubscribed from seventeen (17) mailing lists.  This is the second time I have been so mean as to unsubscribe from many of these same devoted correspondents.  Last time, some (a very, very few, I am disappointed to report) were unable to overcome the pain of my stinging rejection, and have not returned.  Others left, but mysteriously returned a couple of months later.  Just letting bygones be bygones, I guess.  Several, I am almost certain, never left.  Now, the nuclear option would be to change my email address and simply disconnect myself entirely.  The trouble with taking that approach is nearly one half of the one hundred twenty-five passwords of which I keep track have an email address as their "User ID."  Now you know--I actually do keep a list (not on my computer) of my various identities with the web sites of the world.  Going to all of those web sites to determine how (or if) I can change my user ID (not password, mind you--user ID) sounds even more boring than unsubscribing to umpteen newsletters/ad messages.

Back to that written list of ID's and passwords--yes, an enterprising burglar could break in and steal all those passwords and my identity.  It seems funny to me that growing up, the only identities I heard about were "secret identities" that Superman, Batman and Spiderman  (and, not to be sexist--Superwoman, Wonder Woman and Supergirl), etc. had assumed, presumably so they could have a little privacy themselves.  Now we all have "identities," which we are expected to keep "secret."  I'm starting to feel pretty important, having a "secret identity."  Is superhero status in my future, or (unbeknownst to me) is it already here? (Hello, i am Unsubscriberman, and no, I don't like the nickname Unsub--that's a fancy name for a suspect on lots of police shows ...)?  

But I've gotten off track.  This was about unsuccessful unsubscribing to which I am unaccustomed.  Until now, I, unsuspecting--as you probably are--had assumed my correspondents would not be so uncooperative (ugh!).  I am giving all of them another chance to drop out of my correspondents list.  My guess is they don't care.  Heck, I'm dumping them anyway, so what do they care what I think of them?  Maybe they don't realize I am on my way to becoming a superhero.

The Place I'm In

The Place I'm In

I live in a place that seems odd to me, if to no one else.  People have flocked here for just over twenty years, which may not seem like a long time to you, but if you do the math this phenomenon began in the century  previous to this one.  I know that doesn't quite sound right, but neither did "the previous century" or "the last century" or "the prior century."  

Either way, it was longer ago than you might have thought.  To my eyes, where they have been flocking to for the past three or four years, the houses resemble each other so much that they almost always bring to mind the lyric from Pete Seeger's cover of "Little Boxes, which was written by Malvina Reynolds even further back in that century I was talking about." The lyric goes on about those "Little Boxes, which were "...all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same."  While some might observe that the Hardi-Plank cement siding that covers all of the houses here, which is made of  a fiber cement that is a composite material made of sand, cement and cellulose fibers is the closest thing to "tacky-tacky" they have ever seen, my brain associates them with the phrase "and they all look just the same."  

It doesn't bother most residents.  They can see it when the sales person drives them around here to show them available lots, and they buy regardless.  It's not that I am looking down my nose at these folks--I bought here, too.  But there's a sameness that seemed to grow as the hundreds of houses built since I moved in a little over a year were occupied (by people all of a "certain age.").  Pete Seeger was singing to these people just as he sang to me back in 1968.  

Each time I drive along the highway leading past this place, I am reminded of a lament I heard from many folks raised in the South.  They waxed nostalgic about the bountiful swamps that lay along both sides of the road in these parts until they were all drained and filled to be used for "homogeneous pine plantations."  Me, I'm a latecomer here and I mourn the loss of the pine plantations replaced by all these little boxes.  (Please note that I resisted the temptation to say I "pined for" the days of those plantations--I guess I didn't resist it after all now).  

Inside the walls of this place (it is surrounded by berms rising above eye level, and the roads in are guarded by manned and unmanned entry gates), there are quite a few odd things, but I won't try to describe them all.  I'll just share today's simple sight.  As we drove home from visiting the beautiful May River to inoculate ourselves against the sameness here, I once again saw just a few of the hundreds of dog owners in this place.  There are so many you might think that a dog is offered as an option available in every model of house here.  I see these folks all walking their dogs, which stop whenever they please--whether it's to lie down to scratch their backs, or relieving themselves to mark some territory, or to do that one thing that signals the end of their trek for the day--taking a poop.  Immediately thereafter you see the owner bending down to pick it up in a plastic bag (ultimately the most immediate, if not most common, form of recycling of said bags), while the dog watches proudly and sniffs, as if to say "pretty good sh-t, huh?"  

Ah, just another marvelous facet of the place I'm in.     

Just for the Rhymes Sometimes

  

I once read faint praise that was quite the reverse

About a particular rhymed sample of light verse.

The reviewer it seemed was put off

By some of its rhymes at which he did scoff.

The poor man, though, was misunderstood

Indeed his view was just the reverse.

When he noted the words had been twisted

To create the rhymes real words had resisted.

He really expressed admiration

When he asked “what in tarnation

Made the poet believe that in his creation

He could use such rhymes so many times

And not one day face condemnation?”

When he rhymed the roof’s eave

With his friend Murphy Steve

To describe what he could not retrieve

He was criticized like you wouldn’t believe.

But in fact this critic was expressing admiration.

On the Occasion of My Daughter's Fortieth Birthday

I’ve learned a secret that I’ll share for free.

I know it will be true if you’re at all like me.

About this birthday you may be grumbling

And when asked your age, you might be mumbling.

But one day you’ll wish you were forty-something.

Goodbye Obama of the Graying Hair--Hello Tweety Bird

Why is it that politicians seem to become more lovable after they leave office?  I see it happening right this instant with President Obama.  He has softened his tone, spoken from his heart—much more so than it ever seemed before, at least to me.  His hair is markedly turning gray, which accounts for his growing wisdom (Just check my picture and you will see the same sign, only more pronounced).  Anyway, whatever the cause, my opinion of our outgoing president seems to improve daily, or so it seems.  He has held a difficult job for eight years and has learned a few things; some of which he is now unveiling, a little at a time.

I am also becoming increasingly aware of our incoming President, who like other humans has his faults.  Like some other humans of a certain ilk, however, he is unaware of any of those faults at all.  Increasingly, I am hoping for that day when he becomes our “outgoing President.”  Which is, I am afraid, probably the next time my outlook on his antics will improve.  So Tweet that one, Mr. President.