No Mercy

Start here.

Hello again, Boomers, Jonesers, and Non-Boomers alike.

Nothing to talk about lately?

What do we Americans do when the temperature starts climbing above 80, and the lawn needs mowing? 

Well, for the last couple of centuries, there was this thing called Our National Pastime. Notice the word  "pastime" suggests an activity unabashedly and unequivocally meant to be an acceptable and civil way to pass time. I would even go so far to say, pre-Internet distraction, there was a tapestry. a weaving of the fabric of your cultural character in sport, a mythos, conjured and nurtured for the benefit of inter-generational respect and  civility. Heck, even affection. Love you, dad.

Alas, locusts and honey will have to suffice anymore

"Oh, there you go again 15, being literal, and trying to find out what words mean."

I suppose so. Unfortunately, in my blogging experience, if you are a fan of scholarly etymology and  reasonable contextual usage, with a dash of tropism, you are now generally considered to be A REAL ASSHOLE in cyberspace.

I humbly accept your unjustified aspersions, if it means I can "pass time" peacefully, and scribble away this "old man rant" verbiage in a constructive manner, and fully exploit the legal training for which I so sadly (perhaps foolishly) overpaid.

Well, it is indeed the middle of beisból season, and my team is awesome. 

No not the Padres.

I respectfully disagree.

Having relocated to the capital of the third world, Los Angeles, in 1987, I eventually became a Dodger fan. It was like Saul on the Road to Damascus. Do as the Romans do.  I suddenly recalled my Little League team was called the "Dodgers." The circle was complete.  I had left (one of) my childhood homes (San Diego, inter alia), to live under the bright lights of Hollywood, and presto!

Assimilation happens.

Back to baseball. In lower level and recreational leagues, you may know there is a rule called "the Mercy Rule." If a team was leading by more than ten runs after three (or 4?) innings, the game is over. The team leading the game wins, even though you have not played every inning of a regulation game. Simple concept, designed more than likely to save the kids from embarrassment, as well as save the parents' time.

You may ask yourself, as I do, is there a real world equivalent of the Mercy Rule?

Have you ever seen a contest, or conflict, that reached the point where everyone thinks:

 "OMG, this is just not a fair fight. It's almost laughable to continue. We really should \just end it here. We know who will win this thing."

Oh, by the way, 

• Someone in the halls of the Supreme Court of the United States is in BIG trouble. Unless they abort the prosecution.
  

• Congress has indicted itself by sending taxpayer money to their Ukrainian subsidiaries. That should resonate well in minority communities.
  

• John Durham has obtained voluminous discovery documents pointing to a conviction of a top Democrat lawyer, who did NOT act on behalf of the Clinton campaign. Right.
  

• Trump-endorsed candidates are 58-1 (as of this post) in their primary contests. But Biden got 81 million votes.
  

• Middle Eastern governments are reportedly refusing to take calls from the POTUS. But at least we are energy indepen -- never mind.
  

• The stock market has tanked, along with everyone's (hello, Boomers) 401k retirement assets. Capitalism sucks, except when you need a cup of coffee.
  

• Inflation is approaching double digits, eating into retiree savings plans. What COVID hasn't killed, the Federal Reserve can.
  

• Interest rates are projected to rise +/- 50 basis points in 2022. But I repeat myself.
  

• Our Southern Border is worse than a sieve. It is a port of entry for scofflaws. I'm being nice here.

• The newest SCOTUS nominee cannot even attempt to define a "woman." Sheee-iiit.
  

• Parents who disagree with sexual indoctrination in public schools were labeled FBI "terrorists." Poking mama bear, eh?
  

• No one seriously believes anymore the information broadcast from mainstream sources. QED.
  

• What happened to the "pandemic?" I guess we are all sick of the lies.
  

• There is no mercy rule in real life. Only zombies and zombie companies.

• I'll stop here for brevity's sake.

If you don't know by now, the REPUBLIC of the United States was ATTACKED on Nov. 3, 2020. 

From where I sit, we are now in counter-attack mode.

See you in November.

 

 © 2022 by Roy Santonil

Don't Dream. It's Over. (2022 Update)

Start here. 

What a difference a dot makes.

OK, Boomer, do you remember this MTV hit by the band Crowded House? 

That song, "Don't Dream It's Over," used the same words as those in the title of this post. Because we are speaking and writing in English, spacing and punctuation rules are less strict than many other languages. Unless we practice writing in Far Eastern or Cyrillic characters, we don't have to bother much with diacritical marks, where, for example, the French circonflexe (the little hat) means the difference between jeune (young) and jeûne (fast). More on foreign tongues later. For now, let's just agree there's a place in the world for old and slow.

One dot, one period, one space bar, one programmer's keystroke, and POOF!, meaning changes. A glitch occurs in the matrix, and hordes of weasels begin to libel and slander your character. What's worse is they openly criticize your hair color and tan lines.

Meaning is interpreted through a reader's preconceptions. So if a single dendrite misfires in the synapse between pen and paper, between thought and expression, the message is too often received bereft of the writer's intended meaning -- a variant of the writer's idea, if you will. One fat finger fault can lead to a divine comedy of misunderstanding. As the eminent writers Page & Plant once put it:

"Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven." 

Other times, fortunately, the reader or listener indeed "gets it." 

And the messenger lives.

The original song meaning, as I heard it, was one of uplifting encouragement, a hopeful message in the face of numerous and divisive intrusions. The artist is telling you in so many words, "Don't give up. Keep on going, even when you are surrounded by idiots trying to separate you from the bonding spirit of family and friends. Despite forces rending your true soul from your original self, despite day to day annoyances like fixing the hole in the wall, towing your car, rumors of war and waste, despite all that, they won't win. The world comes in, like a deluge to build a wall between us, but they won't win.  

There is Freedom within, there is Freedom without. 

Play.

 

But then --- one dot and one space --- and the message changes. Punctuation turns something once promising and hopeful into a sad anthem of disillusion and finality. We boomers, we've been there and done that.

IT'S OVER. 

Don't dream those dreams . . . of long-haired hippies . . . of chimeric Lennonist utopias. 

Get back. 

To life. 

Get back.

To what is real.

Put simply folks, in order for us boomers to mature gracefully, we must own our generational bias. Step up to your chronological demographic. Challenge the invaders, embrace your misanthropy, your latent liberal racism, your depleted sexism, and hilarious homophobia. Recognize those so-called social injustices of which you have been accused wrongfully, and sometimes, accurately. Pay them no heed. And if you are game, prepare yourself for an occasional slice of humble pie. 

Same goes for the kids out there. Romantic ideals are dead.  

Don't dream. It's over. 

Let Truth be your Master, not pixelated myths from the Reagan era. The Eisenhower era may be okay. Either way, past presidents become dead presidents, but your Time is always your Money. Isaiah 11:6

Remember the Hank Hill cult meme? 

The Liam Neeson warning?

It's over.

Face it. 

EVERYONE DISCRIMINATES. (but not everyone is prejudiced).

To discriminate is to select. Discrimination has been vilified, though merely an expression of intent.

Prejudice OTOH assumes facts not in evidence. It's an infantile state of mind, a sort an inverse Dunning-Kruger situation, where a person jumps to conclusions with faulty logic or false facts. Or narcisstic hubris. (Hello, CNN)

Well, the music break is done.

It's been so long since I'd seen the ocean, I thought I should come to California. As is so often the case, the best expression about my trip borrows from well-known lyrics. 

Watch the video (3:58) and see. We can ALL see through the corporate bullshit -- it's over.

You may let them in, but we won't let them win. 

Hey now. Hey now.

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 © 2022 by Roy Santonil