Are You Going to Wear That?

I do not lay claim to being a paragon of male fashion. Like most men, I'm comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, hate to wear a tie unless I have to, and - because I'm pretty color-blind - my clothes don't always match. Agnes usually vets my wardrobe for me each evening when I set out my clothes for work, and I've grown accustomed to the arch of an eyebrow and the accompanying question, "Are you going to wear that?"

I generally take her advice, because she has a far better sense of style than I, and because she can tell colors apart that I can't, but there are some things I'm just not willing to compromise on. Like socks.

When I was on active duty in the Air Force and wore a uniform every day, I never had to worry about matching colors ... every day was blue shirt, blue pants, blue tie, black socks, and black shoes. Heaven on earth for a guy with defective color vision. But let me tell you about the socks ...

Agnes's mother enjoyed knitting, and made a lot of great things for us. For me, she made socks. Lots of socks. For the whole time I was in the Air Force, about twice a year she'd send me a big box full of beautiful, hand-knitted, black wool socks, suitable for wear with my uniform, and with anything else that wasn't ... say ... brown. I almost never had to buy socks.

When I retired from the Air Force and began working in the civilian economy, Mom suddenly realized that there were now new horizons of sartorial possibility. I could wear things other than blue, which meant that I could wear socks other than black. And so it was that the boxes began arriving with some very ... interesting ... socks.

I believe that she scoured the stores of her town in search of the wildest, most garish yarns she could find. I started getting socks that were blue with yellow flashes, red shot with blue and green, green with red and purple highlights, and just about anything else you can imagine. None of them came close to matching anything in my wardrobe. So I figured, what the heck?, and decided that I'd just wear whatever socks came out of the drawer first, regardless of whatever else I was wearing.

I quickly became known as "the guy with the socks." People I met at conferences might not remember my name, but they remembered I was "the guy with the socks," and I got used to people walking up to me and asking to see my socks. It was fame of a sort.

One time I had to make a formal presentation of a project I'd been working on to a murder board of retired senior generals. For the occasion, I wore my best double-vested sober gray suit with power tie, black shoes, and the loudest socks I had ... which was saying something. They were bright red, shot with bolts of yellow and orange, and were hard to look at without squinting.

I spent all morning presenting my project and answering questions from the assembled demigods, and eventually we broke for lunch. As we were walking through the halls of the Pentagon to the dining room, the chairman of the panel - a retired four-star general - fell back to walk next to me. He threw an arm around my shoulders, leaned in close, and whispered, "Bilbo, I've just got to ask you ... where did you get those damn socks?"

In the end, they endorsed my project, but I never knew whether it was because of the excellence of my analysis (which, of course, it was), or because they had to get away from my shrieking socks.

I'll take success where I can get it.

Have a good day. Wear what you want. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo, aka "The Guy with the Socks"

Bilbo's Plan for Peace in the Middle East

There's an old joke about a man who finds a bottle on the beach, rubs it, and releases a genie who gives him one wish. The fellow thinks for a moment, then says, "I've always wanted to go to Hawaii, but I don't like to fly and I hate ships. I'd like you to build a bridge to Hawaii for me." The genie looks at him in amazement. "Are you nuts?," he asked. Do you know how much concrete and steel I'd have to come up with to build a bridge like that? How much asphalt? I'm sorry, it can't be done. Pick something else." The man thinks for a moment and says, "Teach me how to understand women." The genie looks him in the eye and says, "Would you like two lanes on that bridge, or four?"

Yes, Dear Readers, some things are just about impossible: things like responsible, statesmanlike behavior in Congress; a decent American-built car; gentle and forgiving jihadists; reasonable and accommodating Chinese real estate claims in the South China Sea ... and peace in the Middle East.

You may recall that I have already published a comprehensive, workable plan for immigration reform, one that was ignored by every elected official to whom I offered it. But I am undeterred in my desire to improve the world, and so I have decided to offer yet another brilliant plan - this one to achieve peace in the Middle East.

It's actually very simple, and there are only three steps:

1. Build a wall 150 feet high and 75 feet thick around the entire Middle East (Egypt, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen, Syria, Oman, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, and anything ending in "-stan").

2. Fill the area thus enclosed up to the top with sand.

3. Start over.

Of course, I may need to track down that genie to get a little construction help, but my plan is still more likely to work than any other.

I'm available at any time to fly to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

Have a good day. What's your plan? More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Point Shaving of an Entirely Different Sort

Yesterday I was in a bit of a funk, being completely overwhelmed by my outrage at our political classes, and felt the need to engage in a full-scale rant of the sort I haven't done for a while. But now that I've gotten it out of my system, perhaps we can move on to other, more interesting (if offbeat) things.

You may be familiar with the concept of "point shaving," the system of cheating on sporting events in which, in exchange for a bribe, one or more players agree to ensure that their team will not "cover the point spread" - that is, that the team will run up a score that is outside the margin predicted by the oddsmakers. The gambler then wagers against the bribed team and is guaranteed to win.

Point shaving as such doesn't matter very much to me, as I never bet on sporting events, but I ran across an article the other day that brings a whole new meaning to the term "point shaving" - University Offers Female Students Extra Credit for Not Shaving Their Armpits.

It seems that Arizona State University professor Breanne Fahs, who teaches Women and Gender Studies, challenged her students to explore the differences in gender expectations by having her female students stop shaving their legs and underarms for the ten-week term, and keep a journal which documented the reactions they received. Male students in the class got a somewhat different assignment: they were to shave their entire body from the neck down and keep a similar journal. The point was to allow the
students to reflect on gender inequality as reflected in how society reacts to women with body hair and men without. Both the male and female students received extra credit if they shaved (or didn't) and maintained the journal. This picture accompanied an article on the program from the Arizona State University newspaper.

Now, I personally don't have an issue with whether women shave or not. I think hairy arms on a woman can be very sexy, and I never cared one way or the other about leg and underarm shaving ... probably a reflection of going to college in the late 60's and early 70's when many coeds burned their bras or stopped shaving as a perceived act of rebellion against male standards of beauty. I also lived in Europe in the late 70's and early 80's, when it was very unusual to find a woman who bothered to shave*. But I found the reactions to the story about Professor Fahs' class to be interesting ... men tended to get hysterical at the very idea that a woman would choose not to shave, and the trolls came out in force to fulminate that a lack of female depillation clearly heralded the end of civilization as we know it.

Have a good day. Shave if you want to. Or not. It's all the same to me.

Bilbo

* The situation is much different now, with most European women - at least in Western Europe - just as likely to shave as American women.

Who Speaks for Me?

It's venting time, so this post is going to be a bit longer than usual, and more of a political rant. If you'd rather come back another time, I'll understand.

As you, Dear Readers, know as much as anyone, I’m pretty well disgusted with the current state of political affairs in the US of A. I’ve written about it often enough in this space, and I’ve gotten involved in a lot of political discussions in the office and on Facebook that usually end up with agreements to disagree. And a lot of people accuse me of beating up on the Republican right and giving the Democratic left a free pass.

To a certain extent, I'm guilty as charged. As I have explained ad nauseum, I am, in fact, harder on the GOP than I am on the Democrats, because I think I have a right to expect more from them. While it’s true that both parties share the blame for the current miserable state of affairs, I honestly believe it’s the GOP that bears the lion’s share of the responsibility. And it’s not just my opinion, either. Consider this excerpt from this 2012 article by Thomas E. Mann of the centrist-liberal Brookings Institution and Norman J. Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute …

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

That’s a pretty serious smackdown, especially coming from a representative of the conservative AEI.

I was a proud, registered Republican voter for many years. I cast my first vote for president for Richard Nixon in 1972 and voted Republican all the way through the Reagan years. But then, by the time of the second Bush administration, I started to see things a little differently. The party that stood for the conservative values I supported – individual responsibility, prudent economic policy, strong defense, justice, and respect for traditional American values – was leaving me behind. The party leaned more and more to the extreme right, embracing ideas that were blatantly contrary to the intent of the Founders (such as the bald assertion that the nation was founded on the basis of the Christian religion) and openly scorning not only competing visions of America’s future, but the motivations of anyone who dared to propose other than hard-core conservative ideas. As Mann and Ornstein pointed out in their essay, ignorance of science … and, indeed, of facts and evidence … became the norm. Worship of individual rights became paramount, with no equivalent regard for the responsibilities that go along with them. The GOP became the party that deified Ronald Reagan, but would have scorned him as a RINO ("Republican in Name Only") for his willingness to be realistic and to embrace principled compromise if he were running for office today.

So, what’s left for someone like me – a conservative at heart who doesn't much care for the Democrats, but has been driven away from the GOP by its ludicrous antics? I need a new party ... one that combines the common sense of the traditional American conservative with the social conscience of the liberal. Here are some of the ideas and programs my ideal party would support:

- Legal immigrants absolutely welcome. America is a nation of immigrants, as were my grandparents. If you break the law to come here, you should not expect to be coddled - you should expect to be deported. Period. And a responsible Congress interested in what's best for America would get off it's dead rear end and deliver a comprehensive and realistic reform of our immigration laws that addresses every aspect of the problem ... not just the one that meets the demands of one side.

- Government at every level should be as small as possible consistent with the demands we place on it. This means that the Federal Government ought to deal only with those things that must be done on a national level (defense, international relations, trade, etc), while state and local governments should deal with the programs and services that touch individual citizens.

- Law and order.

- A strong defense.

- A foreign policy based on a realistic appraisal of America's true national interests.

- Absolutely no intrusion of religion - any religion - into the policies of the government.

- Protection of the environment and preservation of our natural wonders. We need air to breathe, water to drink, and natural beauty for the refreshment of our minds.

Who speaks for me and for the people who truly love this country?

No Republican.

No Democrat.

No Libertarian.

Nobody.

Sorry for the rant, but completely and totally fed up with brainless louts who are unwilling to work together in the interest of the greater good, and who believe completely and totally in their own holier-than-thou bullcrap. Screw you all.

Have a good day. More ... and, hopefully, more pleasant ... thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Poetry Sunday

Looking back to last Monday's post about the sounds our children will probably never hear, I thought about this poem by Marvin Bell ...

Catalog with Illustrations

by Marvin Bell

The beauty of an old desk blotter where ink stains grew into
       the shapes of ships in a turbulent ocean,
and the ticking of the clock in the sunlight thickened by dust.
The clacking of the typewriter keys, the big zipper sound of
       the carriage return,
and the sound of the struck bell muffled in the drapes.
The air was rich with time, when there was still time.
The letter ripened slowly in the typewriter.
The minute hand took a second to move one digit.
Under the glass that covered the desktop, a map and
       family photos.


Have a good day. Enjoy the time you have, and use it - perhaps - to ripen some letters in the typewriter. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Ah, yes ... it's been another wonderful week ...

Facebook is in hot water for manipulating its members' news feeds to conduct psychological experiments; the Supreme Court, to the delight of social conservatives, legislated from the bench*in several landmark cases; Chinese authorities arrested hundreds of demonstrators at a peaceful rally in Hong Kong calling for democracy in the territory; Police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, are searching for a serial rapist who has attacked at least eight women; and more than 4,000 acres in California's wine-producing Napa Valley are threatened by out-of-control wildfires.

Ears still ringing from yesterday's Fourth of July celebrations? How about some nice, quiet cartoons ... starting with this week's theme selection: cartoons based on awful puns ...

Oops ... wrong AA meeting ...

And speaking of battery ...

I really need this app ...

So that's how sumo wrestlers pump up ...

I guess this is how it worked back in olden times ...

Hollywood scrapes the bottom of the monster movie barrel ...

And now we turn to other cartoons ... starting with a look at how modern one-upmanship works for children ...

Ha, ha ... 

I wonder which merit badge this one would be ...

And finally, something to worry about during the graduation season ...

I hope you all had a safe and happy Fourth of July holiday yesterday. We spent ours with our daughter and (two of our four) granddaughters at King's Dominion, along with about 96.4% of the rest of the population of the east coast. It's a wonderful place for people-watching ... it's where the Wal-Martians go to enjoy a wave pool.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Today promises to be very pleasant here in NoVa before it starts heating up tomorrow and into the week, so enjoy the temperate weather while you can.

Have a good day. See you tomorrow for Poetry Sunday.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* There being no legislating done in the legislature to speak of.

Revocation of Independence Day

Today we celebrate the most uniquely American of our national holidays – the Fourth of July, otherwise known as Independence Day - the day in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress. Adoption and publication of the Declaration of Independence marked a watershed moment in the movement by many (although not all!) in the thirteen American colonies to break away from Great Britain and establish the United States as an independent nation.

It’s a day marked by picnics, family reunions, and displays of patriotic fervor including parades, the prominent display of flags, consumption of large amounts of hamburgers, hot dogs and beer, and the launching of millions of fireworks.

In honor of this year’s Fourth of July, and in acknowledgement of how well and truly our elected reprehensives are trying to screw up the nation, here is a classic piece of what-if satire, edited by yours truly to bring it up to date (I first saw it back in the early 2000’s) ...

NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE

A Notice from Her Majesty's Government to the Citizens of the United States of America,

In the light of your demonstrated failure to adequately govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories, except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable David Cameron, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded, and a questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition of the former United States to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. Look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up “aluminium.” Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as “favour” and “neighbour;” skipping the letter ‘U’ is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell “doughnut” without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter ‘Z’ (pronounced “zed,” not “zee”) and the suffix “ize” will be replaced by the suffix “ise.” You will learn that the suffix ‘-burgh’ is pronounced ‘burra’ e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as ‘Pittsberg’ if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary.” Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed.” There will be no more bleeps on live television. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as “US English.” We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of “-ize.”

3. You should learn to distinguish the various English accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to “Cockney” and “Upper-Class Twit,” and you will also have to learn how to understand regional accents. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is “Devon.” If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become “shires” e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British shows such as “Fawlty Towers” and “Sherlock” will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience with short attention spans, a limited vocabulary, and an aversion to political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen.”

6. You will stop playing American “football.” There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American “football” is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays “American” football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football, which for some reason you insist on calling "soccer." Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls, as it is a difficult game and they will be able to teach you. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American “football,” but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2015. You should also stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the “World Series” for a game which is not played outside of America*. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a children's game called “rounders” which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hot dogs.

7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde**.

8. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle dangerous weapons, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will be required to learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French - they are Belgian, though 97.85% of you (including the chap who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called “crisps.” Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. Speaking of beer, the cold and tasteless stuff you insist on selling under that name is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as “beer,” and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as “lager.” The substances formerly known as “American Beer” will henceforth be referred to as “Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine,” with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as “Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine.” This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

12. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

13. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will correspond with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your cooperation.

Have a good day. Be of good humour, and be safe on this happy holiday. Don't drink and drive. Or drink and play with fireworks. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Other than in Japan, which does not count.

** The French word for excrement.

Yes, It Appeared in Print. For Real.

Yes, Dear Readers, it's time once again to check in with our collection of amazing items found in print*. Some are editorial mishaps, others may be intentional, and all are ... well ... odd ...

Would you like the three- or five-pack of nutguts, ma'am? ...

Most people wouldn't mistake a cat or a fox for a chimichanga, but then, people in Maine may not be so quick to recognize Mexican foods ...

You just know someone with a label maker had a good time with this. Right before he got fired ...

I always appreciate the bathing regularly part ...

Now, that's what I call a cooking school ...

Oddly enough, we saw similar things in Mexico ...

No extra charge for the vermin ...

I would have thought that the grilled cheese sandwich came with cheese, but I could be wrong ...

As selling points go, this isn't a bad one ...

And finally, where was this when I was in high school? ...

They keep publishing 'em, I'll keep sharin' 'em. If you find any, send them to me at der(underscore)blogmeister(at)yahoo(dot)com. I'll even give you credit in print ... humor and credit, how much better does it get?

Have a good day. Come back tomorrow for some commentary on the Fourth of July.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* Yes, this should have run tomorrow since it's on an every-other-Friday schedule, but since tomorrow is the Fourth of July and I have a special post scheduled, we'll do it a day early, okay?

I Know You Understand What You Think I Said, But ...

One of the interesting things about the Internet is that it puts all sorts of information at your fingertips that you never knew was there. I often run across a reference in one online article that leads me to another place, and then to another, and then ... well ... eventually you learn something. Often, what you learn is that web surfing is a waste of time. But not always ...

Yesterday I was reading an OpEd article about the Supreme Court's decision in the Hobby Lobby case which referenced something I'd never heard of before - the "Dictionary Act" - as it related to the definition in law of a "person." I googled "Dictionary Act," and - lo and behold! - I was directed to Title 1 (General Provisions), Chapter 1 (Rules of Construction), Section 1 (Words Denoting Number, Gender, and so Forth) of the US Code, which is familiarly known as the "Dictionary Act." It begins, "In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress*, unless the context indicates otherwise...", and then proceeds to specifically parse a number of words and phrases frequently used in the law. I found these to be of particular interest:

"words importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things" (this makes sense to me);

"words importing the plural include the singular" (I can agree with this one, too);

"words importing the masculine gender include the feminine as well" (this is, I'm sure, aggravating to many women, who resent the exclusive use of masculine pronouns in official writing, but it does make certain sense ... it saves having to come up with wordy circumlocutions that incorporate both sexes**).

"words used in the present tense include the future as well as the present" (clearly, you want the law you write today to apply in the future ... it's not much good if it applies only at the moment it was written);

"the words 'person' and 'whoever' include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals." (this is the one I have trouble with, as do many others who are concerned about the implications of decisions like Hobby Lobby and Citizens United. Equating a "corporation, company, association, firm, partnership, society, or joint stock company" to a person seems pretty ludicrous to me, even if the law can be tortured into declaring that they're the same);

but I think the best part of the Dictionary Act is this one:

"the words 'insane' and 'insane person' and 'lunatic' shall include every idiot, lunatic, insane person, and person non compos mentis***." I think that should cover Congress, the Supreme Court, the far right, the far left, and every ludicrous troll that spews venom on the Internet without knowing what he⁺ is talking about.

I'm so glad that the very first part of the US Law Code clarifies that.

Have a good day. Use the right word the right way.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Good luck with that.

** And it could be worse ... how long will it be before the LGBT community decides we need utterly non-gender-specific pronouns, and what should they be?

*** "For real!", as my granddaughter Leya would say.

⁺ Remember, "words importing the masculine gender include the feminine as well."

Sounds Our Children Will Never Hear

I'm not sure if I've written about this before or not ... my memory isn't what it used to be, and I can't keep more than 2700 posts in my head. If you've heard me discuss this already, just smile benignly at forgetful ol' Bilbo and come back tomorrow.

Not long ago, my friend and former coworker Brenda dropped this article from Mental Floss onto my Facebook page, reminding me that we'd discussed the topic in the office one day: 11 Sounds That Your Kids Have Probably Never Heard. Considering that I'm a great deal older than Brenda, I suspect that she may not have actually heard some of these sounds, either. Here are a few, with my commentary and observations added in as well:

The "thunks" and "ka-chings" of the old-fashioned cash register. Nowadays, when cashiers just wave bar codes across a laser scanner to check out our purchases with a little beep, it's hard to remember that there was a time when individual keys had to be pressed on a huge cash register, and the amount totaled by pulling on a lever like a Las Vegas one-armed bandit. The sounds of the old-fashioned cash register live on today in some of our expressions: we still ring up a sale, even though there's no ring at the end of the process; and we've all heard someone shout ka-ching! to indicate the successful making of a point or consummation of a deal.

The sound of a manual typewriter. It's true that the "clackety-clack" of the keys, the "ding" of the end-of-line warning bell, the "chunk" of the shift key, and the "zip" of the manual carriage return are pretty iconic and are long gone with today's word processing programs. But not mentioned in the article is another set of related sounds that have disappeared as well - the sounds of the electric typewriter. Many years ago, a group of us (Arizona Dave will remember this) would let ourselves into the offices of our college ROTC detachment and sit at various desks where there were IBM Selectric typewriters. We'd then call our friends and, using the typewriters, pretend that we were in the middle of a fierce gun battle ... holding down the space bar gave the convincing "rat-a-tat" of a machine gun, the tab key simulated the "whoosh-thud" of a near miss, and the backspace key created a heavy "thump, thump, thump" similar to mortar fire. It was cheap entertainment for college students who were perpetually broke. Today, those sounds are gone, too, replaced by the nearly-soundless tapping of soft computer keyboards.

The pneumatic hose that rang the bell that told the gas station attendant that a customer had arrived at the pump. Gas station attendants? What are those?, you ask. Those are the guys that used to come out at the sound of that bell, fill up your tank (and give you change for a five), check the oil and the tire pressure, and clean your windshield in the days before "self-service*." They're long gone ... just like the bell that used to tell them you'd arrived.

Back in the early days of television, before multifunction remote controls and your choice of 200 cable stations**, if you wanted to watch a different station, you had to get up, walk to the TV, and physically turn a dial that clunked its way through the available channels (there were usually three - the local ABC, CBS, and NBC network affiliates). The on-air announcers would exhort you, "Don't touch that dial!" to keep you in place through the endless commercials before your show came back on.

"Please" and "thank you." It doesn't seem as if many parents nowadays are teaching those sounds to their children.

And ...

The sound of polite, well-reasoned and factually-supported comments responding to news articles and opinion pieces on the Internet. They've been replaced by drivel spouted by brainless trolls who know only how to shout rather than think.

Which leads me to wonder ... what are the sounds of today that we won't hear in another 20 or 30 years? Leave a comment.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Translation: "We jack up the prices and let you do the work yourself!"

** How did we live before The Golf Channel, the Oprah Winfrey Network, the Karaoke Channel, and Long and Foster's Parade of Homes?