[Warning: Spoilers]

Well, the Devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal,

But he stopped himself at a greasy spoon to gobble up one last meal.

There he came across a bus boy slopping up crumbs with a filthy rag,

And said "See, boy, I bussed myself; cleaning up is in my bag!"

The bus boy shrugged, handed him a tub with a shake of his floppy mane,

"I dealt with the cook, I dealt with the host, dealin' with the Devil is no real pain."

So Beelzebub, he grabbed that tub; the lad's eyes glowed with joy,

The cook came out and ripped a belch and shouted GET BUSSIN' BOY!

The plates went a-flyin' and the Devil he was tryin' to find in a boy a wedge,

But the plates kept a-comin' and the Devil got stuck on a crusted table ledge.

"If I can be so bold, I'll win your tub of gold," the boy said with a mighty sneer.

Then the fat men shouted for another round of pie and the Devil, he knew fear.

The boy set to scrubbin' while the Devil began blubbin, the boy's rag as fast as wind.

With one last swipe the boy showed his might -- then said the Devil with a voice of tin:

"You won my tub, you lanky schlub, but the Devil will have his due!"

Then the host smacked the Devil with a greasy copy of the slop shop's menu.

Warning to Wannabe Adults, or YOU COVETETH MY ICE CREAM BAR!

Just don't. Don't aspire. But since time marches on and there's nothing you can do to stop it, I guess be prepared.

If you think you'll get to do more of what you want to do when you're an adult, all I have to say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

If you think you'll get away from pettiness and popularity contests, well, see the response above.

I'm dealing with some things right now that I don't really want to enumerate here. Suffice it to say I'm looking for greener pastures careerwise -- and what aspect of career I'm not going to discuss.

I'm looking to exit some things, but to do that, first I have to find people to onboard and disguise my wanting to do this as soon as they're settled:

I think it's fair to say that a good portion of adults you see ambulating about today are only one stolen ice cream bar away from losing it totally. So be warned.

What Arguing on Social Media Sounds Like

Prompted by bickering along similar lines over similar arguments in a few Facebook groups I belong to. The arguing does little to persuade, does nothing to convince the other side of the "error" of their ways, and leads to dissonance in what should be a cooperative environment.

Jim Lovell's reaction here is to point out that the arguing will only serve to rile people up, not doing a thing to solve the current problem we all face together: Trying to stay alive.

As a corollary, I thought this was interesting: Substitute "GamerGate" for whatever problem or demon or institution being argued over, and I think the logic displayed here applies.

 

Tell Me You're Overthinking Sneaker Marketing Without Telling Me You're Overthinking Sneaker Marketing

From the Facebook(!) and I have to wonder why:

I mean, I know sneakers are a highly-competetive market. So doing something to make your own brand stand out is essential.

But clearly, I am not the demographic for these particular shoes. I'm not in the New Balance demographic either, but that's the direction I'm trending. It doesn't seem to matter to them that their ad spread preferences include "50+ Gen Xers who've seen this kind of crap "edgy" marketing their whole lives and are so damn weary of it they only look at it to pick it apart for its humor value," but I guess they know best how to spend their online advertizing dollar.

Their "storyline," for the curious.

A few snips, in case it's memory-holed:

And it goes on like this. AI-generated twaddle that, as far as I can tell, isn't even skeaner-adjacent, let alone sneaker-relevant.

But it doesn't have to make sense; it's marketing. It's supposed to appeal to the bad boy who thinks writing stories about demons and reading stories about demons make them unique and edgy, when all it really means that if they buy these sneakers, it's like they bought any other kind of sneakers, and very likely overpaid for them.

And I'm pretty sure the sock shown in the upper left-hand corner says "Kill all fascists," because that's also storyline adjacent, if only sneaker-adjacent because it's printed on a sock.

Continue thinking you're expressing your individuality by walking in unison in branded, mass-marketed sneakers that tell stories hokey enough the could be produced by sellers of supplements and anatomy enhancers. Because if you buy these sneakers, you're cool-adjacent.

Brains Trusting, the Pappy O’Dan’l Way

A few weeks ago, students began circulating a petition at our kids’ high school, asking for a day off.

Their reasoning? Surrounding school districts were cancelling school because a virulent flu bug swarming the area had caused more than 20% of the districts’ students to be absent from school.

Other schools were cancelling due to bad weather and closed roads.

Nevermind that absenteeism due to illness in our district wasn’t anywhere near the levels of the other districts – which are in many cases small enough fewer than 100 absent students could mean an absence of 20% of the student body. Nor did it matter that the only difficulties related to road conditions were in the foothills where buses were struggling on one route to pick up and drop off students. Students at our kids’ high school wanted a day off.

Direct democracy, some said, should be applauded. Power to the people. And a pox – in this case, literally – on a deaf administration not listening to the needs and wants of its constituency.

Of course, the petition at its foundation was stupid. Direct democracy doesn’t necessarily mean the wants and needs are reasonable or unlaughable.

And yes, representative democracy – or republics – have their own problems. But reading this article in Wired magazine today got me to thinking that if we jump on any populist or direct democracy bandwagon, we ought to do a lot of due diligence to find out who’s paying for the wagon, the oxen hauling it, and who has got the wagon-master in his or her pocket.

What played out in the Coen Brothers’ 2000 film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” played out in Italy not long afterward: Politically-motivated individuals latched themselves to the star (or five stars) of a popular entertainer and turned the world upside down in the process, while paddlin’ a little Italian behind in the process.



Pappy O’Daniel, in Italy, turned out to be a techno-utopian guru named Gianroberto Casaleggio.

He probably would have signed the high schoolers’ petition. And then taken over the movement to promote his own schemes.

Please stop reading this and read the article linked above. It’s an education on the pitfalls of direct democracy, and the democratization of a lot of things thanks to the Internet. It’s a story of how easily we are influenced by those behind the scenes who want to take populist movements and steer them in the direction they want them to go, often against the wishes or ideals of the movement in the first place.

We’re kinda seeing this firsthand with our own governance. Italy’s showing us what it’s like when that direct democracy is controlled by the same kinds of special interests that are controlling state or party or media or what have you.

A striking line from the article:

“[T]his was Casaleggio Associates’ modus operandi when it came to online votes: Provide a ‘cosmetic’ appearance of choice while pushing for a particular option.”

And it all reminds me of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”

"Gentlemen," concluded Napoleon, "I will give you the same toast as before, but in a different form. Fill your glasses to the brim. Gentlemen, here is my toast: To the prosperity of The Manor Farm!" 

There was the same hearty cheering as before, and the mugs were emptied to the dregs. But as the animals outside gazed at the scene, it seemed to them that some strange thing was happening. What was it that had altered in the faces of the pigs? Clover's old dim eyes flitted from one face to another. Some of them had five chins, some had four, some had three. But what was it that seemed to be melting and changing? Then, the applause having come to an end, the company took up their cards and continued the game that had been interrupted, and the animals crept silently away. 

But they had not gone twenty yards when they stopped short. An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, bangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr. Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously. 

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

I don’t know what the solution is.

Probably internet-directed direct democracy can work. But as rules are being set by such movements, rules also ought to be set by those considering joining them:

1. Find out who is pulling the strings.

2. Be wary of any popular entertainer or guru or any other corporeal entity suddenly spouting politics. Because popularity in one area doesn’t equate to adequacy – or even mediocrity – in other areas. I’m looking at you, Scott Adams.

3. Watch for leadership. I’ve been wary of “leaderless” missions since Occupy Wall Street, where spokespeople didn’t exist because everyone was their own spokesman. I’m seeing this in France’s gilets jaunes, and it’s not helping them in any way. Even direct democracies need leadership.

4. Find out who’s got the money.

5. Don’t ignore traditional politics’ or media warnings. Sure, they may very well be working with their own interests in mind. But a wary mind is an open mind, willing to listen to detractors.

I realize by doing this I have taken a tiny goose-step into, well, something. But nothing will come of it because I’m a nobody in a sea of nobodies. I’m pulling my own string and wishing I could start a petition to get a day off of work. I have no ace of spades up my sleeve.

Anyway, beware the cognitive surplus.

Autism, Vaccines, and "The Debate"

I’m going to tell you what infuriates me about the autism/vaccine “debate.”

The so-called debate detracts from the challenges of raising an autistic child and places the “blame” – and that’s what they want to do is place the blame – on some choice they think they can make to protect their children, when reality tells us things quite different.

And it’s reintroducing the world to childhood diseases that have been successfully kept in check until the “debate” arrived on the back of one faked study.

One faked study. Take that in.

Meanwhile at our house, we’re dealing with autism all the time. Not brought on by vaccines. But brought on most likely by genetics because the condition gallops on both sides of the family and has for generations, even in generations who lived before vaccines were common.

I’ve learned with autism there’s coping mechanisms. For example, I can ease my own anxiety if I know I have a task coming before me and I mentally go through the motions of accomplishing that task. This “priming the pump” makes performing the actual task a lot easier.

There is no coping mechanism with which to handle the “debate,” except not to engage.

I don’t know what the root of our family’s struggles is, I just know that over the first weekend in February, two things:

1. Super Bowl
2. Autism.

Autism first. Our oldest at the center of it.

First a bit of a story.

The Sunday before Christmas 2018, we were pulled in to meet with the bishop and stake president. The stake president had received an email from Salt Lake, honorably discharging our from the obligation of serving a full-time mission. (We’re Mormons and Mormon boys – and increasingly girls – are expected to serve a full-time mission for the church, giving two years of their lives to spread the gospel. I served in France, by wife in England. In my family alone we had missionaries serve in Argentina, South Korea, two in France, and in Hungary.)

That he received a discharge was real surprise. Back in November, we took him, at the behest of the church to LDS Family Services to be tested to see where he fit on the autism spectrum because we’d known since he was a preschooler that he had Aspergers. At the time, I told the tester that I suspected our would struggle on a regular mission and might be better served as a service missionary, but also tossed in the caveat that he’d go wherever the Lord saw fit to send him. The testing must have revealed my hunch as right. So the paperwork to get him on a service mission, after some hiccups, is underway, with a calling time likely in mid to late April.

In the meantime, we decided to get him enrolled in some BYUI classes. He’s taking 12 credits – a calculus and physics course, a Book of Mormon course, and is in one of my Foundations English classes.

Calculus has proved to be much harder than he expected, so he’s falling behind in his other classes. This past weekend, he had to go to Rexburg to take a test at the testing center – after missing the first test because I don’t know why. He’s done calculus to the expense of all else and wants to drop physics. He’s lost his scholarship for the semester because he’s not taking enough credits, but I don’t see how we can add any more to his load.

So this weekend he snapped at his mother when she asked how he was doing. Thus Sunday after church we had a come to Jesus meeting where we talked about how that kind of behavior isn’t acceptable, and that when we ask how he’s doing it’s not to point fingers or to catch him doing anything wrong, but because we know he’s struggling and we want to know what we can do to help him. So after a rather tense pre-meeting meeting with him on my own Saturday night to prep him for Sunday, the path forward is this:

1. He needs to communicate with us quickly where he’s at in his classes, so we know where he’s at.

2. He has to let us communicate with his instructors to see what he can do to get him up to speed. This might be difficult, depending on the instructor. Calculus instructor, so far, seems to be reasonable. I haven’t winkled a contact number for his physics instructor out of him yet.

3. We’re getting him set up with BYUI Disability Services. Hopefully that ball will roll quickly, but as LDS Family Services is involved, it might take up to 30 days. Hoping we hear much sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, things are in motion.

4. He is also committed to using his planner to plan his weeks out, and to communicate with his supervisor at the DI to minimize schedule changes and duty changes, in order to reduce his stress and anxiety. I might have to follow up on this, particularly to ensure they know he’s on the autism spectrum.

I’m hoping this will help get him back on track and off the thinking that Mom is checking up on him in some kind of GOTCHA capacity. Which she is not.

Because I’ve had the thought – we had pretty easy kids and teenagers, for the most part. Maybe we’ll pay for that in their young adulthood? Then there’s Isaac who’s just barely a teenager and really gearing up to be a pain in the butt. We’ll see.

I shared part of this message from James E. Faust with son and wife on Sunday. Hoping it helps.

The Super Bowl is, of course, anticlimactic after all of this. We watched the boring game and the mostly boring commercials. We had pizza and chocolate milk, which was the best part.
Sounds fun, right?

So the “debate” calls up. If you could do just one thing to help your child – any child – avoid the struggles of autism, you’d do it, right?

My response to this question: Depends on that “one thing.” What do you recommend?

No vaccinations, the “debate” says.

Fine.

So I’ll potentially subject my son to this instead:



By golly this guy came up with some coping mechanisms, didn’t he? Right down to having to sleep inside a device for which he can no longer get parts because a vaccine made the machine an antique. A relic.

Or I could have let him die as a toddler from the measles.

Autism is a long road.

But the “debate” offers a string of Hobsons choices. I know what path I’d rather be on. Because I suspect the autism we see would still be there whether the “debate” won me over or not.

Or maybe it wouldn’t be. Because my kids would be dead or crippled and out of the gene pool, killing off the chance that they’d spread their autistic-carrying genes to another generation.

That’s where the “debate” lands us.

No thank you, folks. No thank you.

Spiritual Entertainment

So this past weekend, I did something I've never done in my entire life: I attended the entirety of stake conference, including the leadership session.

Biggest take-home: "Spiritual entertainment without transformative action."

I think it was Elder Rollins who said this. Or maybe it was one of the other guys. My notes are kinda sketchy.

But this is what stuck with me: Am I merely being spiritually entertained, say, by watching videos like the one posted above?

Or am I acting on what's being said to me?

Some days, it's hard to tell.

Lots of stress lately. Full-time job, part-time job. No time to work on the book I started five years ago. Well, there's time. And then there isn't, because of reasons. It's hard.

I'm being pulled in a taffy-puller, and I'm one of the people cranking it to ludicrous speed. So I've got some stuff to sort out. Thinking out loud sometimes helps.

Charlie Hebdo, meet Terry Jones

James Poniewozik is so wrong.

Writing about the terrible attack on the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in which (at this writing) 12 people have been killed, Poniewozik writing for TIME says this:

Maybe you would never have read Charlie Hebdo or seen The Interview. Maybe you think mocking beloved religious figures, or fictionally blowing up the head of a living world leader, is in poor taste. That’s fine; decent people can lawfully criticize speech and still hate it being attacked unlawfully.

That’s fine; I agree with him one hundred percent.

But then he starts to get a little wobbly:

But if you care about freedom, you don’t always have the luxury of defending monumental art. If speech rights only protected polite comments that everyone could agree with, we wouldn’t need them.

If I care about freedom? Why yes I do. But I also care about treating others with kindness. Treating others as I wish they would treat me. I also care about not deliberately poking people in the eye just to see what happens.

Then he writes the horrible sentence:

And no matter who you are or what you like, these attacks are also attacks on you.

No, they’re not.

Don’t get me wrong: This attack is beyond deplorable. If you dislike what someone writes or draws about something you believe in, the answer is not to barge in with ski masks and guns blazing. That’s where Poniewozik and I agree.

But saying these attacks are against me is a false flag. It’s the same false flag many used to justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that spawned this ISIS crisis in the first place. No, this attack is against a magazine that has constantly thrown oil on the fire, doing so rightly behind the protection of free speech, as Poniewozik writes. It's not against me. Or the West. Or any other of the hobgoblins form the long list of terrorist "they-made-me-do-it" targets. If I happened to be foolish enough to wander into ISIS territory, I would be a target.

I’m not that headstrong.

It’s true – we have the right to say anything we want. But we have the responsibility, once in a while, to consider whether the right we have to say whatever we want ought to be tempered by the thought: Should I say whatever damnfool thing pops into my head?

You don’t shake the devil’s hand and say you’re only kidding, as TMBG sings. And there has to be a seed of racism, a seed of xenophobia, that spurs hatred, even hatred that’s legally and rightfully protected by any rights of free speech.

And I have to believe that Poniewozik’s Defense would not be applied equally. Terry Jones’ showing of a low-budget film that depicts the prophet Mohammed as a “thuggish womanizer” and who promoted Sept. 11, 2010, as “Burn a Koran Day” could also rightly hide his hateful message behind any free speech amendment, but you certainly don’t hear the likes of Poniewozik defending him, do you? Nor the Westboro Baptist Church and their anti-muslim and anit-flavor-of-the-week whatever’s flown up their nostrils.

I call it the Myrna Minkoff Defense, named after the character from John Kennedy Toole’s novel “A Confederacy of Dunces,” in which the character Myrna Minkoff is thrilled with a message she believes will save society – until she discovers it’s from a pamphlet written by the Ku Klux Klan. She’s embarrassed by the “right message, but from the wrong people.”