THIS & THAT VII

In our wimpified world, snowfalls are given names, like the recent 8-inch dusting dubbed Winter Storm Hercules. News reports on these events now tell us not only the “wind-chill factor” or the “real-feel temperature,” but also how long it takes for exposed flesh to freeze. This is especially troubling since exposing my flesh is pretty much all I ever do in the wintertime. It's all I have left, and now I'm afraid to do it.

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surfstop, n., a television show the entire audience of which consists of people who, while flipping through the channels, pause briefly out of curiosity, horror, ennui, or some combination thereof; a television show virtually no one ever intends to watch but which is viewed by a few people anyway.

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I have never understood why Republicans, and even some conservatives, always refer to the Democratic Party as the “Democrat Party.” It's pejorative---I get that--- and it's done to annoy Democrats (which it does), but why? I've always assumed that there is some underlying implication that the Democratic Party should be called the Democrat Party because they're not “democratic,” whatever that means. But I've never actually heard anyone make that argument, and I can't guess what the argument would consist of.

Taking the most charitable view of this, let's assume there is some historical reason for “Democrat Party” that once made some sense. Even so, doesn't it now just seem churlish and mean-spirited and lame? Why do Republicans do this? Isn't it like those people way back when who insisted on calling Muhammed Ali “Cassisus Clay?”

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The latest craze in faux politeness from the corporate world is thanking you for asking a question. I have encountered this several times. You call a help line or a benefits office or a phone bank set up to take calls from the public, you spend eight minutes navigating the menu options until somebody picks up the phone, you finally pose your query, and the person says, “Thank you for asking that question!”

The first time you hear it, you are puzzled. The second time, you're amused. Now it's just annoying. And there is nothing more annoying than being thanked for asking a question by a person who doesn't know the answer.

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Pope Francis showed up in Davos this year to tell the billionaires they need to cough up more cheese for social justice and such. This takes a lot of nerve with Bill Gates sitting there, whose business activities have improved the life of every civilized and semi-civilized person on the planet. As for the non-civilized folks, he has done a lot for them as well with some of the $28 billion he has contributed to his Foundation. Then there's Warren Buffett, who doesn't attend Davos but who gives away more money than Gates does.

This pope's a dope. As pope, he has some responsibilities as a head of state and one of those is to have, or acquire, some minute quantum of economic knowledge. The guys he was castigating are the reason the number of poor countries around the world has been cut in half over the last twenty years. Economic freedom, business innovation and entrepreneurship are what, over the last 300 years, has made all of our lives significantly less “solitary, poor, nasty, brutal and short.” Francis, however, doesn't understand that.

I'm finding it hard to like Francis. He seems smitten with various fluffy-headed socialist ideas that have failed wherever they were tried. It is only democracy and economic freedom that have put food in the mouths of the poor. Also, anyone who looks at the 20^th Century and cannot see the 100 million corpses produced by those who were opposed to economic freedom is a bit of a fool.

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First we had the coincidence of Thanksgiving and Hanukah, and then we found that Superbowl Sunday and Groundhog Day also occurred on the exact same day. Between these two synchronous double-overlap celebrations on November 28 and February 2, we were attacked thrice by the bone-chilling and mysterious Polar Vortex during which exposed flesh freezes within twenty seconds or three minutes or sixteen parsecs (depending on the meteorologist).

Next winter, I want everything to happen on a different day.

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As the years go by, the list of email contacts on my computer is increasingly populated by the dead---friends, relatives, acquaintances who have passed on. I can't bring myself to delete their email addresses. It would be so final a goodbye, I can't bear to do it. It would feel like a betrayal somehow, as if I were personally consigning them to oblivion. Yes, they're gone, but they're still on the list, right? They may be dead but I can still send them an email, can't I? Can't I?

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ESPN reports that the NFL is giving serious consideration to a new rule that would penalize a player on the field for using the word “nigger.” The first offense would draw a 15-yard penalty and the second violation would result in ejection.

Or as Adam Carolla has pointed out, “In twenty years, we'll all be chicks.”

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Working with and among the public, I see a lot of women who accessorize for the Christmas season---Santa hats, jewelry, knee socks, antlers, etc. And what I have noticed is that some women look really good in antlers and some do not. So here is my fashion advise for women at Christmas: find out whether you look good in antlers. Ask a trusted girlfriend and demand the truth. If you do not, NEVER WEAR THEM. On the other hand, if you are one of those lucky women who look smoking hot in antlers, wear them all year long. Please.

Copyright2014MichaelKubacki