Dealing with Assholes

I'm number 14 on the waiting list at my local library for a book I couldn't possibly pass up - The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt.

Author Robert Sutton defines an asshole as "... someone who leaves us feeling demeaned, de-energized, disrespected, and/or oppressed. In other words, someone who makes you feel like dirt," and goes on to theorize that there are two types of assholes: "certified" and "temporary." Dr Sutton suggests that we all have the capacity to be temporary assholes under the proper conditions*, while a certified asshole is someone who always treats people poorly, and takes pleasure in the misery of others. For an interview in which he spells out his theories of what assholes are and why they act the way they do, check out this interview on Vox.com - "A Stanford Psychologist on the Art of Avoiding Assholes."

In the course of my life, I've had to deal with some pretty despicable human beings who reveled in making my life, and the lives of those I love, miserable. Sadly, dealing with people like that is never easy, particularly when they can't be ignored or avoided. Nevertheless, Dr Sutton suggests that one of the best, if most difficult, approaches to dealing with an asshole is to "... simply learn not to give a s**t. Not giving a s**t takes the wind out of [his] sails." He won't change, but if you're able to ignore him as if he were an annoying insect, it can help you get on with your life.

My most annoying asshole, sadly, can't be ignored ... and so I'm waiting rather impatiently for my name to creep up the waiting list for Dr Sutton's book to get some other ideas. I'm willing to try just about anything that won't attract the attention of the coroner.

Suggestions welcome.

Have a good day, and avoid assholes when you can. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* This is true. I try hard to treat everyone well, and it takes quite a bit to wake up my inner asshole, but if someone is willing to go to enough trouble to do it, I'll gladly try to make it worth their while. The problem, sadly, is that a true certified asshole doesn't care about the feelings of anyone else, and I'm not sure that I could out-asshole a true professional.

Poetry Sunday

We're well and truly into autumn, now, when the days are getting shorter and cooler and the nights longer and deeper and more mysterious. Halloween is only about two weeks off, and after that the holidays tumble over us one after the other through the end of the year. Today is October 8^th, which is two days too early for this poem, but it is October, and the imagery applies ...

October 10 

by Wendell Berry 

Now constantly there is the sound,
quieter than rain,
of the leaves falling.
Under their loosening bright
gold, the sycamore limbs
bleach whiter.
Now the only flowers
are beeweed and aster, spray
of their white and lavender
over the brown leaves.
The calling of a crow sounds
Loud — landmark — now
that the life of summer falls
silent, and the nights grow.

Have a good day, and enjoy the crisp days and the cool nights so good for sleeping with open windows. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

New month, new bad news ...

Nearly 60 people were murdered and more than 500 injured by a man who used high-powered weapons to shoot indiscriminately into a crowd at a Las Vegas music festival before killing himself; investigators have discovered that the murderer who massacred dozens and injured hundreds of people had used inexpensive kits to - legally - modify his guns to fire in a fully-automatic fashion; Donald Trump visited the devastated island of Puerto Rico and heaped praise on his administration for doing a marvelous job while 95% of the island was still without power, most hospitals were still out of operation, schools remained closed, food and clean water were short, and many remote communities remained cut off; Hurricane Nate is closing in on New Orleans; and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is in hot water following reports that he referred to Donald Trump as a “moron.”

Since we're into the month of Halloween, when ghouls, ghosts, goblins, Republicans, and other horrifying things emerge to scare us, each of this month's Cartoon Saturdays will feature cartoons about a different sort of scary creature. We'll begin our month of terrifying cartoons with a collection featuring zombies ...

Even the walking dead aren't beyond politics ...

Zombie ladies have special problems ...

Obviously ...

Zombie toys ...

I feel like this often ...

Some dietary beliefs survive beyond the grave ...

It was a good question ...

Now introducing the Zom-BeeGees ...

I think she's talking about much of modern America ...

Sorry, Shirley ...

 

And so it goes ... the first of our October Halloween-themed Cartoon Saturdays. Come back next week for cartoons based on another frightening thing.

 

Agnes and I are in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania, where Agnes is taking a class in embroidery techniques and I'm killing time with a visit to Penn State (yesterday) and visits to various farm markets to stock up on fresh vegetables, meats, and other good stuff. Not looking forward to the long drive home tonight, but I really did enjoy the visit to Penn State.

 

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow.

 

Bilbo





The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for October, 2017

The seemingly endless year of 2017 is grinding mercilessly on, filled with legal, meteorological, natural, and other disasters piling on top of each other in a relentless assault. And if hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires weren't enough, we continue to add layers of ass clownery atop the misery to make it worse.

We've made it to the beginning of October, and so it's time to announce the first of our Ass Clown awards for the month. It's always hard to separate the chaff from the lesser chaff, but it's my job and so I'll step up to it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, today we do something special. Today, we announce not only

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for October, 2017

but also our first

Lifetime Achievement Award

for

Superior Ass-Clownery

and the award goes to nine-time previous winner

Donald J. Trump

By presenting this award, I realize I may be accused of simply picking low-hanging fruit. But in my defense, I would point out that few people have worked so tirelessly to prove themselves worthy of this dishonor. Although Mr Trump had already won the award a staggering nine times (either by himself or in combination with another recipient), he has continued to raise the ass-clownery bar (or lower it, depending on how you view things). In the two weeks alone, he has:

- Insulted and demeaned the people of Puerto Rico, including direct personal attacks on the mayor of San Juan, who had criticized the administration's response to the devastation left on the island by Hurricane Maria, and implying that the island had not suffered a "real catastrophe" like Hurricane Katrina.

- Undercut and contradicted his own Secretary of State* on US policy toward North Korea.

- Continued a useless and distracting squabble with the National Football League over players' peaceful protests of violence against minorities.

- Spent a weekend at his exclusive golf resort in Bedminster, NJ, while millions of Americans were still reeling from the disaster of Hurricane Maria ... including dedicating a golf trophy to the people of Puerto Rico at a time when most of the island still lacked functioning hospitals, clean water, power, and basic communications connectivity.

With presentation of this Lifetime Achievement award to Mr Trump, he is longer eligible for future Left-Cheek, Right-Cheek, or On-Crack awards, and becomes the first member of the Ass Clownery Hall of Fame.

We deserve better.

Have a good day. Come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday, when we start our four-weekend Halloween celebration - more thoughts then.

Bilbo

* The Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was reported to have called Mr Trump a "moron" during a meeting at the Pentagon this past summer, a comment he did not directly deny when questioned by reporters.

License Plates Smarter Than Drivers

From the Department of What'll They Think of Next comes the latest high-tech idea: smart license plates.

I call your attention to this recent article from CNET: Dumb License Plates Are About to Get Smart. A new digital license plate called Reviver attaches to your car like any other traditional, convict-made metal license plate, but uses Wi-Fi connectivity and a connection to your car's power system to act like an electronic tablet and display registration (and other) data. The Reviver plate offers a number of possible advantages:

You could instantly update your registration without waiting for your state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to cash your check and mail you stickers to paste on the plate ... a signal from the DMV would remotely update the expiration month. This could also give the option for renewing registration month-to-month, for those who are trying to sell a car and don't want the hassle of trying to get their state to reimburse unused months of registration fees.

You could, theoretically, change the background design of your plate at will, using a menu of options similar to the list of plate designs already offered by most states. This would allow you to support your cause du jour without having to order new plates with the desired design.

If you got tired of your vanity plate message, you could apply online to change it and, once the new message was approved, you could download it and update your plate immediately.

The plate could link to your bank account and pay for parking by connecting to the payment system at parking garages.

Your plate could receive and project Amber alerts and other public service messages (although I'm not sure I'd want this without the ability to public service messages I didn't want or support).

It could streamline the management of large vehicle fleets.

And it could substantially reduce the risk of theft and fraud by ensuring that the plate wouldn't work if it was stolen and mounted on a different vehicle.

There would, of course, also be disadvantages:

The up-front cost of the smart license plate could be prohibitively high when compared to the cost of a traditional metal plate, at least when it was first issued and installed, although it might prove cheaper in the long run. Who would bear the cost?

Your state DMV could decide to generate additional revenue by pushing advertisements to your plate.

Like all Wi-Fi-enabled devices, it would be vulnerable to hackers who could change the plate number or use the connection to interfere with other electronic elements of the vehicle.

And finally, what happens if your car suffers a dead battery or an electrical system failure ... how do you prove to the suspicious cop or tow truck operator that it's really your car?

I think a Reviver-type automated license plate is coming ... it's a natural outgrowth of the available technology and the interconnectivity provided by the Internet of Things. My personal jury is still out on whether or not it's a good idea, but as nobody has asked my opinion, I guess I'll just accept it when it comes ... especially if it comes with an option to send messages to other drivers like, "Back off!" or "Turn down your $#%! high beams!".

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

How "Theologically Dense" Is It to "Love Thy Neighbor?"

Those of you, Dear Readers, who have been following my ruminations over the life of this blog, know that I have a fairly conflicted relationship with religion. I was baptized as a Byzantine Rite Catholic, raised in a Roman Catholic tradition, and now self-identify as a Seventh-Day Absenteeist.

Although I no longer adhere to any particular religious tradition, I follow the influence of religious belief on our lives and our politics with great interest, which is why this headline from CNN leaped out at me last week: Conservatives Accuse the Pope of Spreading Heresy. According to the report, more than 60 conservative Catholic scholars and clergy sent a 25-page letter to Pope Francis, accusing him of spreading seven specific heretical beliefs.

The letter is described in the article as being "theologically dense." This means, if you aren't steeped in the minutiae of complex theological argument, you can't follow it.

And this is my problem with most religions as they exist today. Numerous things, actions, and beliefs are "un-Islamic." Various actions and beliefs are "un-Christian." Arguments are "theologically dense." If you don't worship my way, you're a heretic, an apostate, or whatever.

How did we get here? Consider the words of Jesus in chapter 22 of Matthew, verses 35 through 39 ...

35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer*, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

How did we get from two laws - (1) Love God, and (2) Love your neighbor** - to a 25-page, theologically dense letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy for ... well ... daring to suggest we should love our less-than-perfect neighbors?

Those two great commandments expanded into the Ten Commandments, which eventually begat the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church, which is divided into seven books, containing 1,752 individual "canons." Consider also that Islam is wrapped around the theological axle of the Koran, the Hadith, and the millions of interpretations of them that Islamic scholars have generated over the years. And finally, consider that when we describe an argument as Talmudic, it implies that it is "characterized by or making extremely fine distinctions; overly detailed or subtle; hairsplitting."

Love your neighbor. Only three words.

Is that so hard?

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Well, he would be, wouldn't he?

** If you read the seven heretical beliefs with which Pope Francis is being charged, he is essentially charged with upholding the commandment to love one's neighbor. What kind of irreligious bum would do that?

The Hell We Chose

Almost exactly two years ago in this space, Dear Readers, I lied to you in a post titled, The Last Time I'm Going to Write on This Topic. In that post, I laid out what I felt was an even-handed and honest summary of the pros and cons of our worship of the Second Amendment, and said I was through with writing on the topic because I was tired of being treated like the village idiot by my most conservative readers and friends. Nevertheless, since October 5, 2015, I've written on the topic many times.

Since October 5, 2015, we've had 14 people murdered at a Christmas party in San Bernardino (December 15, 2015), 49 people murdered at a gay nightclub in Orlando (June 12, 2016), and now nearly 60 people murdered at a music festival in Las Vegas (October 1, 2017). After each of those incidents (and all the other ones with less horrendous body counts), this is what happened: there were candlelight vigils; politicians spouted platitudes; heaps of flowers and teddy bears appeared at the sites of the murders; the gun industry denied any responsibility and shed crocodile tears; and outrage was expressed in the news media.

That's all.

Vigils. Platitudes. Flowers. Teddy Bears. Denials and Crocodile Tears. Outrage.

No solutions. Not even an acknowledgement that there's a problem. In fact, Republican members of Congress have repeatedly blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from spending any public money on studying any relationship between the proliferation of guns and public health.

Nothing to see here, folks ... just move along. There'll be another coming along soon.

Yesterday I saw this comment on Twitter: "Children died at Sandy Hook & a competent president couldn't push through gun control. We live here now. This is the hell we chose."

This is the hell we chose.

Twenty children were murdered in cold blood at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December, 2012. If we couldn't grow the balls (or the ladies, the ovaries) to face up to that unimaginable horror, we well and truly deserve the hell we have chosen.

I hope you enjoy it more than I do.

Have a good day. Be safe. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Linguistics of the Problem

Here's an interesting exercise in language for you, if you're interested: go back and read every newspaper and online report concerning the shooting in Las Vegas. As you read, count the number of times you come across the word murder.

Unless I've missed something, you will not find it.

Not once.

You will read that 58 people were killed, rather than murdered. You will be told that it was a shooting or a mass shooting rather than a murder or mass murder. The perpetrator is never described as the murderer, but as the shooter.

I'm a linguist. I love words. Words matter. When we cannot bring ourselves to use the right word ... to use antiseptic terms rather than admit that we're talking about murder - the intentional taking of a human life - we are sugar-coating the horror and closing our eyes to the deadly problem that threatens all of us, every day.

More thoughts on this sad topic tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Most Popular Slang Term of 1951

As you well know, Dear Readers, I love language in all its forms, with a particular interest in semantics (the meaning of words) and semiotics* (the study of signs and symbols as a significant part of communication).

This is why an online collection from - of all things - the Good Housekeeping website caught my eye not long ago: The Most Popular Slang the Year You Were Born.

The list begins in 1926 with "gold-dig(ger)" (referring to a woman who is interested in a man only for his money) and continues on through 81 separate screens** to "sick" in 2006. I suppose nobody has yet documented the most popular slang terms for 2007 to the present.

I was born in 1951***, when the most popular slang term was, sadly and probably appropriately, given my high school reputation, nerd. It could have been studmuffin, had I been born in 1986.

Sigh.

What was the slang term for your year? Leave a comment and share it with the rest of us. We promise not to laugh. Well, I do, anyhow.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* One of my favorite posts was "Don't Dig Here!", which looked at the challenge of conveying meaningful information via signs and symbols about dangerous locations to civilizations in the unimaginally distant future.

** AAAUUUGGGHHH!!! There's apparently no way to go directly to the year you want without going through each one in order.

*** Shortly after the sun cooled and the dinosaurs disappeared.

Musical Sunday

As the Trump administration works hard to hermetically seal our borders to protect us from threats real and imagined, it won't be long until only radio freely crosses from our neighbors to the south ...

Border Radio - impervious to walls.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo