New View Askew

  "Good Times, Bad Times . . .       You Know I've Had My Share"   (Led Zeppelin 1969) After a lot of ominous news and scary headlines - including some of my own somber assessments of our country -  it occurred to me that i t's impossible to live in a constant state of fear;  some balance is necessary. Humans, by nature, are optimistic (albeit sometimes with zero reason!) so this is my effort to restore a little balance here.  For example . . . Every election is touted as the most important one ever and I suppose in their own way they are. This one is certainly different and consequential and is especially true with recent electoral upheaval. We went from one with two unpopular,  geriatric candidates to  one  with the  oldest  candidate ever  (clearly, also with advanced dementia) who happens to be a convicted felon and an insurrectionist.  Oh yeah, he also had two (very poor) assassination attempts made against him - by Republicans. W orst of all, he's a guy wh

It Ain't Over 'til it's Over!   (Brought to you AI-free) I have wanted to create a post with no politics, philosophy, economics or (alleged) humor for quite a while; just a post about the vagaries of life. Some time ago i n my internet wanderings,  I stumbled upon the  question/answer social media site Quara.  Among the many political arguments,  er, discussions,  I discovered responses by  older Quara users  to two different questions: one was for positive things about aging and the other the opposite.  Bingo,  I had my topic!   Of course, it happens to everyone but if you’re like me it seems like  one day it  just  sneaked up on me on little cat’s feet  – and pee'd on my shoes!     Anyway, it is something I, for better or worse, have first hand experience with (and strong opinions about.)  As an aside, one of my daughters has a PhD in Gerontology (yahoo!) so  Dear Leader gets lots of positive vibes and reinforcement in this whole aging thing - thanks only to  her infi

    . . . Actual Intelligence? Much to my chagrin, a  while ago my oldest daughter suggested that I give ChatGPT (AI) a try. After my damaged ego recovered, I decided to give it a whirl. It's very simple. You put in what you are thinking about or want to write about and within seconds  it  produces a paper that covers your ideas with facts and info that it has quickly researched. (No wonder it's so popular with college kids.) For this test I thought I'd use a theory that I've been kicking around for a while; h ere’s the gist of what I put in: In a nutshell, my theory is that over the past roughly 40 years,  as we watched the middle class get whittled down, prices on most everything have been set more and more by those of us in upper income levels maybe the top 20% - okay, the bottom half of the top 20% -  and some help from misguided from government policies. The result is the price of houses, cars, rent, education, restaurants – really most things that everybody needs

One of the Saddest Months ?   That's me in the blue shirt  First a big thank you! My last post regarding the Constitution had among the most readers of any one in my many years of posting. There must have been some serious sharing and I greatly appreciate it. And now for something completely different . . . What is that I smell in the August air? Could it be Pronto Pups and cheese curds? Yes, the State Fair must be just around the corner! (And with it the first hint of winter?) Sorry, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, there’s enough time to lament the cold scourge coming for us Minnesotan's. First, let’s talk about one of my least favorite months of the year (and coincidentally the second consecutive one named after a Roman emperor.) Why is that you may ask (but probably shouldn’t ? ) Well, let me tell you how summer goes.  First is lovely May; nice weather and no bugs. Then June, the first real month of summer. The weather is (usually) very pleasant, flowers in full bloom an