America is a Spaceship

Imagine a group of people formed a plan to colonize a distant planet.  They knew that the journey to the new planet would take a very long time, so they built a multi-generation ship with just enough food and fuel to last the entire journey to the new planet.

They left Earth, and after some time, they started having children and raising them on board the spaceship, all the while, telling their children about the new civilization they would build when they reach their destination.

Occasionally, there would be some problem with the fuel or food reserves, but careful rationing would see them through the crisis, and eventually, they would get back on track.  The children watched the adults do this, and learned, by rote, to imitate them.

More time passed, and the children eventually grew up, took over the operations of the ship, and had children and grandchildren of their own.  The original crew got old and died off, until one day, there was no one left on the ship who had ever experienced life on a planet.

Eventually, the day came when the new planet to be colonized came into view.  It was exactly as expected, with plenty of air and water and vegetation, and the supplies stored on board would help them build their new civilization.  The youngest of the crew and passengers look to the planet with excited anticipation.

However, among the eldest of the crew, there was a problem.  They didn't seem excited or even interested in the planet.  They just kept going about their duties in operating the ship.  When someone pointed out that they were approaching the planet, they simply made a course adjustment to avoid the "obstacle," just as their parents had shown them to do in the event of a meteor or asteroid.

The ship continued on a course that would avoid the planet.  The young ones saw what has happening, and they argued with the elders that if they did not reverse the course correction, they would miss their destination.  The elders replied that they were trained by their parents to maintain life on board the ship, and that is what they would do.  The new colony, to them, was something that only existed in stories about the future, and not something to be actually experienced.  The young ones realized that the elders had become so accustomed to life on board the ship, that they could not imagine living any other way.

The young ones argued that the ship did not have enough food or fuel to last forever, and that if they missed their destination, they would eventually run out.  The elders remembered their parents rationing supplies when there was a crisis, and after a short while, things returned to normal.  The elders assured the young people that this situation was no different.

Finally, in a desperate plea, the young ones begged the elders to land on the planet, let the young ones off, and then allow the elders to live out the rest of their lives inside the parked spaceship.  The elders refused, assuring the young people that all people, as they get older, come to prefer living aboard the ship, and the elders could not risk the young people making a mistake such as leaving for the planet.

The spaceship continued drifting along, missing the planet.  The people rationed their resources.  As food and medicine ran out, the crew increased the rationing, causing an entire generation to suffer hardship of disease and famine, nearly wiping them out.  When the last of the elders grew old and died, and the younger members of the crew, having now grown old, took command.

They burned up the very last of their fuel reserves by turning the ship around and heading back toward the planet, which by now, would be a long journey to return to.  Time passed, and the children of the next generation grew up and joined the new elders in maintaining the ship, still ravaged by disease and famine.

When the ship returned to the planet, it had insufficient fuel to settle into an orbit before landing.  The crew went straight into the braking thrusters, forcing a risky crash landing, in which many were either killed or injured, and much vital equipment was damaged.

The survivors set out onto the new planet.  Their new home was beautiful, and after much equipment repairing and scavenging for supplies, they began to build their colony, just as had been planned.

The crew remarked on just how many of their friends and family missed out on seeing the beautiful new planet, how many years had been wasted drifting through space only to turn the ship around, and how much trouble could have been avoided if they had landed while they still had enough fuel and supplies.  If only the first generation born on the ship had not become so set in their ways.  If only their parents had done a better job of teaching them WHY to maintain the ship instead of HOW to maintain the ship, had not failed to inherit their parents' spirit of adventure and curiosity, had not become so routine as to fail to think logically.  If only those who had spent their lives living in a particular way aboard the spaceship had not closed their minds to changing the status quo.

So too, in modern America, we see the world changing around us.  We see a future that is different from the world we grew up in, economically, socially, technologically, politically, religiously and culturally.  We see the needs for reforms in labor, transportation, education, agriculture, taxation, electoral procedures, environmental protection, health care and foreign policy.  And yet, our nation's progress is being held back by those in Washington who are too old and too set in their ways to stand aside and allow change to happen.  Do we really want to allow this nation to drift through an age of recession, unemployment, poverty, pollution, war, extremism, traffic congestion, job stress, wasteful spending, ovetaxation of the poor and undertaxation of the rich, unwarranted invasions of privacy, and the exploitation of those incarcerated for victimless crimes, only to reverse course after the oldest career politicians have died off, only then to implement the changes in our nation that should have been implemented many years earlier?  How many lives can be saved, how many freedoms protected, how many lives made more meaningful, how many hardships avoided, and how many dreams realized, if we just open our minds and hearts to the idea of embracing change rather than delaying it?

My story does not end with a description of how the colonists set up their new civilization on the new planet, and my plea to be open to change does not specify what sort of new system of government or economics will replace the old.  The moral to this story is not to prescribe the perfect society, but instead, to be open to change.

Names to Avoid

If you're planning on having a kid, here are a few names to avoid:

JOHN or MICHAEL:

If you name your kid John or Mike, he can expect a lifetime of someone yelling, "Hey, Mike," and five guys turning around at once, going, "Which Mike are you talking to?"  Don't give your kid a name that he's likely to have to share with a bunch of other people.

DANIEL or STANLEY:

If you give your son a name that rhymes with "man," he can expect that about ten times a day, some wiseass is going to walk by him and say "Dan the man!" with the exact same amount of self-amusement every time.  It's going to get old really quickly, and if Dan or Stan are, in actuality, not particularly masculine, the guy saying the line will enjoy it even more, because of the irony.

CHASTITY:

If you give your daughter a stripper name, she can expect a lot of people asking if she's a stripper, and finding the question amusing every time.  This will be even more awkward if she actually does become a stripper, because not only will she have to deal with people asking her if she's a stripper when she's not performing, but she'll also have to deal with people in the club who don't believe her when she says, "Yes, that actually IS my real name."

CHRISTIAN:

Unless he actually becomes a practicing Christian, this name is just going to confuse people.  Imagine if he converts to Judaism, and has to introduce himself as "I'm Christian; I'm Jewish."  It's like a religious Who's-On-First routine.

SHAWN:

I speak from experience on this one.  Most people are familiar with the traditional Irish spelling of SEAN.  If you give your kid an alternate spelling of a common name, he's going to spend the rest of his life having to correct people on it.

ALEXA:

Every time you call her name, your appliances will answer.

ADOLPH:

For obvious reasons.

I'll add more names to the list as I think of them.

Bad Luck

 Don't walk under ladders.  Seriously, what kind of an idiot ducks underneath a ladder while someone is up there trying to work?  Go around, you idiot.

Don't break a mirror.  Those things can be expensive to replace, and nobody wants to deal with broken glass all over the floor.

Don't step on cracks.  You might trip over uneven sections of the pavement, and it's much easier to avoid them altogether than it is to stop and look closely at each one.

Don't spill salt.  If you do, you'll have to clean up a mess of spilled salt.

Don't hand someone scissors.  Those things are sharp, and you might accidentally stab someone in the hand.

Don't put your shoes on the table.  Shoes are dirty.  What idiot comes in from outside, takes his shoes off, and then puts them on top of the table?

Don't mention Macbeth.  Dropping Shakespeare into conversations just makes you look pretentious.

Don't let a black cat cross your path.  Pick him up and snuggle him instead.

Don't seat thirteen people at a dinner table.  That's way too many people to have to interact with.  Who even has a table that big, anyway?

Don't light three cigars with one match.  By the time you get to the third one, the match will have burned down to your fingers.

Don't leave a pin on the floor.  Pick it up.  You don't want to step on it later and get it stuck in your foot.

Don't let the horseshoe above your door hang down.  How are you going to open the door when it's stuck against the horseshoe?

Don't let one bird fly into the house.  Birds shit on stuff.

Don't open an umbrella indoors.  Those things open quickly, and can knock things over.  What's it going to do, rain in the living room?

Don't walk out a different door than you came in.  That's not where you parked your car, dummy.

Flird and Swish

 Imagine that we didn't speak the same language, and you want to learn what my words mean.  I might point to a tree and say "blork."  You don't know if I just taught you the word for tree, bark, leaf, trunk, green, wood, plant, tall, solid, or over there.  I would have to point to several other trees before you completely understood that I was actually teaching you the word for "maple."

Now let's say that there is a river with fish swimming in it, and the sky is full of birds flying overhead.  I point to a sparrow and say "flird."  Later, I point to a trout and say "swish."  This goes on for some time.  A hawk flies over and I say "flird," a salmon swims by and I say "swish," a crane flies over and I say "flird," a bass swims by and I say "swish," and so on.

By now, you think you've figured it out.  "Flird" means "bird," and "swish" means "fish."  Simple.  For the next several days, you seem to be using my words correctly.  Then one day, a duck swims by on the river.  You proudly point to it and say "flird," because the duck is indeed a bird.  I look confused, shake my head, and say that the duck is "swish."  At first, you think I'm insane, because I think that the duck is a fish.  After a while, it finally hits you that I was teaching you verbs, not nouns.  "Flird" means "fly," and "swish" means "swim."

This type of miscommunication as to intent and meaning can get people into semantic arguments which have real world impacts.  If one person thinks that "man" means "person in a masculine role" and "woman" means "person in a feminine role," but the person you're speaking to thinks that "man" means "person with a penis" and "woman" means "person with a vagina," then there is going to be confusion.

If one person thinks that "gay" means "person actively having sex with a same-sex person," but the other person thinks that "gay" means "person predisposed to find a same-sex person attractive," then when the debate comes up as to whether gay is a choice or not, they're going to be arguing from two completely different perceptions.

The problem comes up in translations of old languages, such as Biblical texts, as well.  People like to point out that the creature from the story of Jonah was not a whale, because the English translation calls it a "fish," and whales are not fish.  However, if the translation from ancient Hebrew didn't distinguish between different types of large marine animals, it would be silly to assign modern English classifications.  In some cases, the entire meaning of the story can be called into question.  We use the word "virgin" to describe someone as-of-yet sexually inactive, but if Aramaic didn't distinguish between sexual inactivity and youth or unmarried status, then the conception by Mary becomes a bit less miraculous.

In politics, this type of inconsistent definition can also cause communication problems.  One person might say "libertarian" to mean avoiding government overreach or overregulation, while another might be using the word to mean borderline anarchy.  One person might say "liberal" to mean lack of restriction on people's rights, while another might use it to refer to lack of government restraint.  One person might say "conservative" to mean "proceed with caution," while another might mean "regress."  One person might say "anarchist" to refer specifically to anarcho-communists, while another may be referring broadly to any anti-authoritarianism.  One person might say "Christian" to refer to all religious subcategories which include Christ as a central figure, while another may use the same word to refer specifically to congregational Protestant denominations.

My point is that getting hung up on the definitions of words is much deeper and more important than just debating whether the definition of "sandwich" applies to hot dogs, or "planet" to Pluto.  Personally, I don't care what the definitions of words actually are, so long as we all agree on what they mean before we get ready to kick someone's ass for using them incorrectly.

Nerds, Jocks, Boomers, Gen-Xers, and Political Parties

 Okay, I think I've got it figured out.

Most of the powerful politicians are baby-boomers, and baby-boomers grew up in a time when there was a cultural divide between "young" and "old." So they acted young when they were young, and now they're acting like what they think an old person is supposed to act like.

Except that in order to preserve the political divide (which is important, because the more the two parties hate each other, the more money they donate to their own party), they have to bring the gen-xers on board, except that gen-xers don't see themselves as all that different from the younger generations. (There was no WW2-style drop in the birth rate, younger people listen to a lot of the same bands as we did, and even our music and movies, we can't bring ourselves to call "oldies." We call them "retro.") We're not going to yell at young people for tearing holes in their jeans, because we still think it's cool. We're not going to yell at them to get off our lawns, because we can't afford to buy houses with lawns. And when political pundits try to bait us with "traditional gender roles" and these young people who don't even know what gender they are, the gen-xers just look at our Poison album covers and say, "what's the big deal?" You can't even really scare us with the threat of war, because most of us grew up expecting to die in a nuclear explosion anyway.

So, the political party strategists have finally taken a hard look at the ONE thing that can turn gen-xers against each other. (Sure, make a bad adaptation of Transformers of G.I. Joe, and you'll piss us off, but we'll all be pissed off together, so it doesn't help the political parties.) But anyone who grew up from the late 70s to early 90s saw ourselves clearly divided into two diametrically-opposed social categories: JOCKS and NERDS!

Once the political strategists figured this out, you notice how the political rhetoric changed? Suddenly it was no longer about Christian values, or socialism, or foreign policy, or saving the trees, or the free market, or gay couples. Suddenly, all the Republican rhetoric was "men should be MANLY men!" and "we must not look weak on the world stage!" and "grab that pussy!" and all the Democrat rhetoric is becoming all about "future technologies!" and "I believe in science!" and when there's clear sexual misconduct by a politician, we treat it just like the "Revenge of the Nerds" movies: It's only bad when the OTHER guy does it.

They're hoping that all the gen-xers who were jocks in school will support the Republicans, and all the gen-xers who were nerds in school will support the Democrats, and keep sending in those campaign donations to spite the other guys.

Then Elon Musk comes along and fucks up the narrative.

How to Improve Every Holiday

New Years Day - Give up on making resolutions. You won't keep them anyway.

Martin Luther King Day - Enough with this "closest Monday" bullshit. If you're going to celebrate someone's birthday, do it on their actual birthday.

Groundhog Day - Make it an official holiday, at least in the state of Pennsylvania.

Super Bowl Sunday - Stop "leaking" the commercials as news stories, and stop trying to manufacture "controversy" about the half time shows.

Valentines Day - Lose it. Celebrate one of the lesser-known springtime holidays instead, like National Lovers Day or Walpurgis Night.

Presidents Day, President's Day or Presidents' Day - We need a ruling on where the apostrophe goes. How many presidents are we celebrating?

St. Patrick's Day - I can't think of anything wrong with this one. Good job.

Easter - Quit moving it around! (Same rule for Mardi Gras)

April Fools - Nobody cares.

Tax Day - 😡

Arbor Day - Post a schedule of when this day actually is, depending on the climate where you live.

Earth Day - Big corporations that pollute the earth are not allowed to virtue signal to me how much they "care."

Mother's Day - Get rid of those "to my wife" cards. What kind of Oedipus Rex shit is this?

Armed Forces Day, Veterans Day, Memorial Day - Combine them into one holiday and call it "Military Day."

Flag Day - This is just stupid. Why do we have a holiday for the flag, when the flag is already part of several other holidays?

Father's Day - He doesn't want a necktie. Stop it.

Juneteenth - Needs a better name.

Fourth of July - Don't let stupid people near the fireworks.

August - Why is there no holiday in August? I guess, technically, there's Lammas Day, but nobody seems to notice.

Labor Day - Get off people's backs about wearing white.

Columbus Day - Leif Erikson Day is better. Not only did he get here first, but he actually knew where he was.

Halloween - The second biggest holiday of the year, and you don't get a day off work for it? Fix that!

Thanksgiving - Get Christmas out of it!

Christmas - Tone it down... A LOT!

Christmas Songs

  "The Twelve Days of Christmas" - Nobody celebrates all twelve days, and nobody wants to get a shitload of birds and people as gifts.  Also, too repetitive, and too many lazy parodies.

"Dominick the Donkey," "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" - These are silly children's songs, and have no business being on the radio mixed in with all the "regular" music, even if it's a rock cover.

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" - I get that it was a different time and all, because women were expected to play hard-to-get, but the concept is dated and problematic by today's standards.

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" - How does shining a bright light allow anyone to see through fog?  Doesn't fog reflect light?  I can suspend my disbelief as far as flying reindeer, because magic and all, but the light is explained as just ordinary red light.  It makes no sense.

"All I Want for Christmas is You," "Last Christmas," "Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You," and many others - Stop confusing Christmas with Valentine's Day.  I know love songs sell, and Christmas songs sell, but do we really have to combine them?

"Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" - Has anyone actually done this?  It's like riding is a sleigh or eating figgy pudding and sugar plums.  We keep singing about it like it's an activity we all do, but I don't know one person who does this.

"Jingle Bells," "Carol of the Bells," "Silver Bells" - Why are there so many songs about bells?  Anyone remember the Sweeny Sisters SNL sketch?

"All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth" - This is just a stupid song, and the whistling is annoying.

"Santa Claus is Coming to Town" - I can understand telling your children not to shout, but does Santa also punish children for crying?  What if I'm crying because someone is shouting at me?

"Winter Wonderland," "Let it Snow," "It's a Marshmallow World" - Snow is a pain in the ass, especially for those of us who have to drive in it.  All we do is complain about it.  So why do we sing songs where we pretend to love it?  What about "Little Jack Frost Get Lost?"  That's a good song, but it gets very little airplay.

"Away in a Manger," "Oh Come All Ye Faithful," "We Three Kings," and many others - I appreciate and respect that the birth of Jesus is important to religious people, but why do secular radio stations keep adding them into the mix?

"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" - We're roasting marshmallows and telling scary ghost stories and tales of glory?  Is this Christmas or a camping trip?  The only ghost story I know for Christmas is Scrooge, and I don't think one is enough to justify that lyric.

"Hanukkah O Hanukkah," "The Hanukkah Song," "Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel" - The Jewish calendar doesn't always synch up with the Gregorian calendar.  If Christmas falls on Hanukkah, fine, add these songs to the list.  If not, play them earlier.  Hanukkah isn't "Jewish Christmas."

"We Wish you a Merry Christmas," "Here We Come A-Wassailing" - These are songs about obnoxious drunks bothering people for free booze in public places.  Basically, it's SantaCon.  Don't sing songs glamorizing wassailing while simultaneously condemning public drunkenness.  It's hypocritical.

"Christmas Shoes" - The only reason most people even know this song is because of all the backlash it got.  That being said, all the criticisms are valid.  Patton Oswalt can explain better than I can.

"The Holly and the Ivy" - One of the oldest known Christmas songs and it hasn't aged well.  Half the words don't even rhyme in modern English, and the forced-connection between holly berries and the birth of Jesus just feels like a stretch.

"Good King Wenceslaus," "I Saw Three Ships" - Nobody knows all the words to these songs, but they show up in movies a lot, usually to signify Victorian times or that this is an old-timey sort of Christmas event.  The music to these are actually sort of nice, but like I said, nobody can remember the words.

"O Tannenbaum"/"Oh Christmas Tree" - The problem with this song is that it's translated from German, and depending on who did the translating, you might not be singing the exact same English version as the person next to you.

"The Little Drummer Boy" - Who read the Bible and decided it didn't have enough characters already?  Also, it's already kind of weird that a baby is being given gold, frankincense and myrrh, (I know, it's symbolic), but does the baby also want a drum solo?

"The Peanuts Theme Song" - This is not a Christmas song.  Just because Peanuts had a few Christmas specials doesn't make the main theme a Christmas song, and yet, it keeps getting thrown in the mix with all the actual Christmas music.

"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," "Jingle Bell Rock" - Even by the 1950s standards, these songs barely rock.  Elvis Presley and Bill Haley rocked harder than this and their music was already softened for white audiences.  By the mid-60s, this type of "rock" was already a relic.

"White Christmas" - The number one selling song of all time!  That's impressive!  Too bad all it does is put me to sleep.

"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" - Unfortunately, this starts around Thanksgiving.

"I'll be Home for Christmas," "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" - I can see the appeal for people who are far from home and miss their families (especially the line "if only in my dreams"), but for a lot of people, the travelling and scheduling are a hassle.

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" - This is a good idea.  Too bad modern commercialism has to make every Christmas bigger, longer, brighter, louder and more expensive than every previous year.

"Santa Baby" - I'm really not sure what this song is even going for.  Is it a commentary on consumerism?  Is it a tribute to high society?  Is it just a song for the sake of being a song?  I don't know.

"We Need a Little Christmas" - The idea that Christmas cheers people up when they're feeling depressed doesn't really hold up when you realize just how many people get depressed because of Christmas.

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" - Thanks for making me feel like an asshole.

"Some of My Favorite Things" - This another song that has no business being on a Christmas song list, but for some reason, it gets mixed in very often.

"Mele Kalikimaka" - This is not an actual Hawaiian phrase.  It's just the words "Merry Christmas" with letters swapped out from the Hawaiian alphabet.

"Evergreen Solstice," "Hail Holly King," "Yule is Come" - I love the idea of getting the winter holiday back to its Pagan roots, but these types of songs get very little airplay, if any.

"The Night Santa Went Crazy," "Wreck the Malls," "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" and many others - I love the sarcastic, subversive, rude, or just plain silly songs, but they can be a bit overplayed, probably as a response to all the "traditional" overplayed songs.

The entire musical score from "The Nutcracker" - Has anyone actually sat down and watched this whole play?  Does anyone know what it's even about?  Yet every song from this show has to work its way into every Christmas movie trailer to let you know "This is a Christmas movie."

Christmas song medleys - Stop doing that.  Pick a song.  Chances are, whatever bits of songs you just used are going to show up later on in the same playlist anyway.

"Deck the Halls" - Actually, this one is fine.  I can't find any flaw with this one.