ROLEY

Category: Articles

  • ARTICLE: Maybe We Should Start Learning Swedish

    Today’s Supreme Court decision on immunity doesn’t fill me with confidence. To look at social media today, there’s a lot of spewing on both sides about which side ‘won’.

    No one ‘won’, but I think *we* lost.

    This argument isn’t about Trump. This is about the Presidency. It doesn’t matter who that person is, but everyone you see or read is preoccupied with the short term. They’re also reading for the lowest of hanging fruit. Democrats are saying “Well, that means that Biden can (insert wet dream here)!” Over on the MAGA side they’re dragging out the ‘mug of liberal tears jokes’ again. Neither side is interested in looking beyond November of 2024 out of political convenience.

    As an example, take a look at what happened when Harry Reid nuked the 60 vote cloture rule for all judicial nominations except for the Supreme Court in 2013. In the short term it gave the Senate Democrats the ability to confirm their nominations to the bench with a simple majority. Great news for the Democrat majority, until they lose that majority.

    In 2017, Mitch McConnell—having regained the position of Majority Leader— stepped through the door that Harry Reid opened and nuked the 60 vote threshold for Supreme Court Justices. As a result, Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett were confirmed relatively easily without a vote from the Democratic side. We all know the rest of that story.

    The point is that what was politically expedient for one party in the Senate in the short term worked against them in the long term. Presidential immunity will be no different. There’s nothing to stop a President from taking any action they like as long as it can be justified as an official action. That means that they will find a way to argue that everything they do is an official action, and litigating that will take longer than these Trump cases. The President—any President—is now unburdened by the threat of prosecution, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

    What will change is the group that thinks that it’s not a problem.

  • ARTICLE: More Unsolicited Olympic Opinions

    With the possible exception of the Salt Lake City Olympics, most Games lose money. Most cities that agree to host the Games lose money. After the Olympics leave a city, in some cases those venues fall into disrepair (See: Rio). Finally, depending on the location or other circumstances, some countries boycott the Games like Moscow 1980 and LA 1984. I’ve always felt there’s a viable solution to this, and for that we look to a little cartoon from 1980.

    Animalympics was an absolute sendup of the Olympics, voiced in part by Harry Shearer, Billy Crystal, and Gilda Radner. That alone should get you to watch this movie. Back in the day, you could count on HBO or Cinemax to have it in rotation during the Games. I’m not sure if it enjoys the same attention today, but that’s beside the point. The point is that all the games took place on Animalympic Island. One location made for the Games. Now, it’s not realistic for anyone other than Dubai to whip up an island out of thin air, but that’s not where you’d want to have Summer Games in any event. What would be more realistic would be for the IOC to pick one place where the Summer Games have been played, and one place where the Winter Games have been played. Bonus points if one location could do both, and the event venues are still in good condition or could be repaired for a reasonable amount. It’s got to cost less money than selecting a new place that’s never had the Games before, and possibly even less than a place like LA, who has hosted the Games twice before and about to have it a third time.

    It’s time to give some consideration to making a permanent venue for the Olympic Games, so that we can remove the politics, territorial disputes, and the river of red ink that has followed it for decades.

  • When I-95 Isn’t a Route, It’s Content

    I swear, there are some days when I happen upon something so weird out here on Beyonce’s Internet that it beggars belief, but then I have to remember that it is the Internet we’re talking about.

    On my bucket list are items like driving to Key West, Route 66, and the Pacific Coast Highway. On a lark, I decided to see if anyone on YouTube had ever recorded it, and not only had they but there’s a whole genre on YouTube of POV driving. To my amazement, this stuff gets massive subscribers and views. After thinking about it, I suppose it might be a kind of white noise or something someone puts on while doing something else. I find it fascinating, so I decided to make a few videos and see how they performed on my channel. To my surprise, they are the most popular videos I’ve made.

    I’m not sure if I should be grateful for the new subscribers and likes, or bitter that my podcast performs so poorly by comparison.

    Of course, I plan to continue making my podcast. However, this driving content works for me on a few levels. First, it’s bringing people to my YouTube channel. Secondly, I am one of those freaks who likes driving long distances for the view and the quiet so I get some therapy out of it. But most importantly it’s a kind of content I’ve found that I love and that I can do. I can start here in my hometown and grow outward to a regional thing. I’ve already made videos of driving the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, Ocean Highway in Ocean City MD, driving to Williamsburg, Shore Drive, and Atlantic Avenue here in Virginia Beach. Shortly, I plan to drive from Nags Head to Hatteras and make the circle from Virginia Beach to Elizabeth City, taking the Currituck Ferry. At some point, I wish to take the Cape May-Lewes Ferry and drive to Atlantic City.

    I’ve also decided that some longer journeys will require train or plane journeys and a rental car back, like trips to DC and Maine. These are in the more distant future because that will require a budget. It was suggested that I push the Patreon for stuff like this, but I don’t know if I want to do that. Right now, this is just for fun.

    I’d like to increase my subscribers and views on the YouTube channel to join the Partner Program, that much is certain. That takes 500 subscribers and 3000 watch hours in the last 12 months. I’m a long way off, but it’s not a sprint. Even if I don’t make it work in the next year, I’m happy for whatever I get.

  • This Used To Be My Playground. Or Drug Of Choice. It’s One Of Those.

    I realize that it might be a bit counterintuitive to talk about overusing social media on social media, but let’s talk about overusing social media on social media.   

    This has been weighing on my mind ever since Elon, who I will from this point forward refer to Incelus Maximus, Sooooper Geeeeeenius, bought Twitter.  It’s clear to me that he wishes to normalize the kind of toxic wasteland you’d find on 4chan or 8chan or worse.  Yes, I’m pretty sure there’s worse even if I’ve never seen it AND WHY WOULD I WANT TO SEE IT?  This rant is about not social media-ing, for crying out loud.  

    Grover Norquist, on an NPR interview in 2001 famously said “I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”  That’s what Incelus Maximus is doing to Twitter, or X, or whatever he needs to call it to make himself feel like a man.  He bought the playground we all use, and he’s systematically taking away the swings, the slides, the merry-go-round, and the see-saw, until it’s a bare patch of land that he can pave over. 

    As a result, I’ve been roaming around all the new playgrounds to see what I like, but then I had a thought.  Why am I doing that?  Why do I feel like I have to find a new place?  I’m not sticking around the old one much longer, but who says I have to *go* anywhere?  

    I know, I’m telling you this on a podcast that I also post to TikTok and YouTube.   Not the LEAST bit hypocritical.  Hear me out.  There’s a difference between creating content and consuming it.  One actually puts something out into the universe, the other will take your time and your health if you’re not careful.   I think one of my problems has been the mindless consumption of social media instead of sitting down at my desk and creating something.   You know how this goes, right?  Sit down, pull out your phone, open a soul-stealing app, and then the next thing you know the kids have Masters degrees and you’re in a home needing a wipe and the nurse can’t understand front to back like the rest of the staff.  

    The only solution that makes sense to me is to create before I consume.  I will pick a home for social media, but create my content primarily for my own website instead of giving the techbro of the month the fruits of my labor.  

    On a completely unrelated note, there should be some labor.   Some kind of labor.  

    Any kind of labor.   

  • How I Manage To Make It Through Christmas Alive (Or, Roley’s Christmas Club)

    I don’t think I’m telling you any tall tales when I say that a lot of us have trouble putting a little something away.   I remember seeing a story on more than one occasion that a good chunk of us in here in America would be in some real trouble if we got sick, or if we had a car break down with something major, or a major appliance breaks down and need replacing.   I’ve certainly been in this place, I feel like a lot of us have.   On a related note, no matter how much our young folks save, it seems like simple housing—even a studio apartment—appears to be out of reach of the younger generations.   I have three kids, my youngest is gonna be 24 in October.  They all still live here at home, because they can’t afford to live anywhere else.  It’s at the point where I feel like the best course of action is to pay off this house and give it to them with the understanding that you keep a room handy for Kim and I, and we go traveling in our later years.  That’s the goal.  

    For those of us who have children, we are now entering nervous season.  For me, Fall has meant the anxiety of thinking about Christmas.  Putting stuff under the tree.  Now, I have long since passed the age where Christmas has thrown up all over my Living Room.   I still get gifts for everyone, but nowhere near the tonnage I used to.  The anxiety of putting that money away has lessened a great deal, but I still get pangs as we get closer to Christmas.   But I have found a solution that works for me and mine, and I want to share it with you.    I call it my Christmas Club account.   If you don’t know what that is, I’ll explain.   I don’t know if this is a thing anymore, but you used to be able to go to your bank and set up an automatic deposit into a savings account to have that money there when it’s time to go Holiday Shopping.    

    But let’s say you manage to put some money away for Christmas.  I have a wad of money that needs something to do, but I generally have no idea what the kids are into at this moment in time.  If you’ve bought toy horses for the daughter because she told you she liked horses in May, but has moved on to Anime in September and never mentioned it, you might know what I’m talking about.   So, I’ve devised a solution that makes everyone happy, and I get to take care of Christmas with as little anxiety as possible.  The only thing I have to deal with is the usual Holiday Gloom that I get every year, but that’s another story for another time. 

    The main ingredient you need for this recipe is Amazon.  If you object to Amazon for whatever reason, that’s fine.  I understand, and there’s no hate from me.  Vaya con Dios, compadres.   It’s simple.  First, everyone in the house has a wish list that they’ve shared with me.   Over the year, they can put whatever they want on it.  Second, you have a gift card account with your Amazon account, and it’s reloadable.  I use it as a savings account.  Every paycheck I put a minimum of 25 dollars on that gift balance.  Just using the minimum if you’re paid twice a month, you have 500 bucks in that account by the end of October.  Of course, you need to make sure that you don’t use that gift card if you buy something on Amazon in the interim, so make sure you check how you’re paying for something before you place that order.    

    You must do this first.  Don’t think about it, just do it.   If you sit there and think about it, you’ll find another reason for that 25 bucks.   If you do it and don’t think about it, you may find that you don’t miss that 25 bucks, and it’s residing in a place where it can do some good in the long term.   Of course, you may find that you can contribute more, but I would say this.  If you can find you can contribute more, then your brain has made the jump into knowing you can put money away.   Take that extra money that you’re thinking about putting in the Amazon account and put it in a savings account for when you’ve got to replace that refrigerator.   Like you do.  I hope this helps, and if you have other ways to handle this, I’d love to hear about them.  

  • My Brain Is An Endless Row Of Checkmarks

    For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been possessed with a single thought:  Exactly how much stuff should reside on my to-do list?  If I had a to-do list, that is.   Until a couple of weeks ago, I did not have a to-do list put to paper.  What I had is the same as many of us middle-aged married men have, the HoneyDo List.  It’s an ethereal mass of effort with not so much a starting point as it is the face of a mountain laden with tasks, with the words “YES DEAR” emblazoned on its face in flaming letters.   It’s an intimidating image, and as such it left me stymied as to how to attack it.   

    So I recently decided that there was only one thing for it.  I had to sit down and write it all down.  I sat down at my Mac, opened the Notes App, set a timer for 30 minutes, and wrote down all the things I thought I needed to OH MY GOD THAT MUCH!?!

    I don’t mind telling you that having an ethereal mass of effort is way less terrifying than having an exhaustively detailed list of all the shit you have to do.    Thirty-plus items I came up with in that 30 minutes.  Since then I’ve added another 10 or so when I see something I hadn’t thought of, and in that time I’ve gone from abject paralysis to abject terror.  Not just because of the size of it, but now realizing that I  have no idea which one to do first.  

    After thinking about it for a while, I thought it would be best to try to group these things into sections that make sense, and that made things a little easier.  I was able to start things.  The good news is that I’ve managed to clear half the list.   I have now reached the firstiest of the first-world problems all related to this tangent:  Now I’ve cleared all the stuff that requires nothing but time,  I have now reached the things that will require learning time or a budget, and if the past is prologue, that’s my next step.  Trying to figure out what the priority is, and now I just need to see if the priority is the investment in time, or the investment in money to hire a pro for the stuff that’s outside my ken. 

    So that’s one exercise in Executive dysfunction resolved.  Now, we just need to dedicate time to sitting down and keeping that list refreshed.   That reminds me of a technique from one of the mountains of books I’ve read called The Weekly Review.   A way of keeping track of what I have done and keeping track of what I need to do in the next week or month or so.    I realize that this might seem like a no-brainer to a lot of you, but it really isn’t one to me.  The older I get, the more I realize that I need to have alarms and buzzers and notes and things that do everything but explode in front of my face.  

    And today, I realize that this whole tangent is a lesson that I haven’t done.  Or that I have and I let it all go to pot at some point.   

    So I need to set that shit up again, Don’t I?

  • In Praise of the Bad Guys

    In 1979, I was nine years old, and I had this goal to stay up past the 11 o/clock news, past Saturday Night Live, and watch the local horror movie, a guy named Dr. Madblood.  This is a goal I never reached, but what did happen changed my life and gave my Dad one of the larger headaches he ever had to put up with.   I got jarred awake by the TV set by a man screaming at the camera.   Dressed in a suit, sunglasses on, screaming at the camera.  There was some stuff about kiss stealing and jet flying, but then he let loose with the thing we all know that man for.   WHOOOO!   The we cut to a heavy synth beat that I’d heard before on the radio, and went to commercial.  

    That was the longest commercial break of my life.   What I had just found at the early hour of 2am Sunday Morning was Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, and that was my introduction to professional wrestling.  I’ve been a fan ever since.  I never had the luxury of believing it was ever real, that was made abundantly clear to me by the Chief because he couldn’t believe his son was a fan of that garbage.  To be fair, in my defense, I wasn’t THAT stupid to believe that bouncing someone’s head off the concrete floor wouldn’t hurt someone, and frankly, some wrestlers were better than others at making things look real.  The same can be said for folks behind the camera.   Of course, back then, none of that mattered.  What did matter—what has ALWAYS mattered—was the characters.  Some good, some absolutely horrible.   

    Of course, the first person I ever laid eyes on was Ric Flair.  After a while, I wasn’t so interested in him anymore.  There were other interesting characters like Sweet Ebony Diamond, Sgt Slaughter, Blackjack Mulligan, but no one ever grabbed me like that first great bad guy.  Piper.  Piper hooked on the bad guys for life.  I’ve never liked the good guys.  Bad guys were WAY more interesting.  Piper.  Savage.  Snake.  Goldust.  Austin.   Foley.  Taker.  Punk.  

    And then we come to the news from the past couple days.   Terry Funk, of course, although I never saw him wrestle but once in a dumpster match with Foley at a WrestleMania against the New Age Outlaws, but I want to talk about Windham Rotunda, the wrestler known as Bray Wyatt. The first time I laid eyes on Bray it wasn’t as the Husky Harris character from his early days, but as the head of the Wyatt Family, this Apocalyptic charismatic cult leader.  There was a theater to what he was doing that I was instantly taken by.   Also, and this is not something that you could credit a lot of performers with, there was a method to his madness.  If you listened to him, he let you know WHY his character was doing what he was doing.  He was a true storyteller, in the same sense that you understood why a Marvel villain like Magneto was doing what he was doing.  I need y’all to not take that for granted.  In an age where a lot of what you see on wrestling TV is the equivalent of a strip and bang, or spot monkeys doing flippy shit, Windham Rotunda gave you a fully fleshed out character with motivation, reason, and movement.  And why not?  He grew up in the business.   His father was Mike Rotunda, his grandfather was Blackjack Mulligan, Barry Windham—one of the Four Horsemen-was his Uncle.  He had a front row seat to some of the most memorable people and events in the history of the business, and he must have just soaked that right up.  

    The people that were closest to him have long said that he was a never ending font of creativity.  A stream of consciousness that threw out story upon story upon story, and I believe that.   I can also relate to that.   I guess that might be a reason why this particular death has hit different for me, but it’s also a reminder that like so many creative geniuses that left us so early, he burned so very brightly that it seemed almost inevitable that it would only burn half as long.   One of his last bits of merchandise, from a vignette marking his return after being laid off during the pandemic told us to revel in what you are.   That hit me so powerfully, that it’s how I choose to remember him.   I’ve wanted to get a 2nd tattoo for a long time, I think that’s what it’s going to be. 

  • Getting In Trump’s Ear

    In October of 1973, Spiro Agnew pleaded No Contest to tax evasion and escaped prosecution over many more counts as long as he agreed to probation, a fine, and that he resign from the Vice Presidency.  One might think he ‘got away with it’.

    On August 8th, 1974, my parents were racing across Arizona, heading towards my dad’s new duty station in San Diego, they pulled into a motel, ran into the lobby, and pleaded with the desk person to just give us a key, we’ll settle up in a few minutes, Nixon’s about to resign.  Nixon, of course, had to admit that he knew about the Watergate break-ins soon after they happened, and tried to cover it up.  I don’t think anyone knows if a deal got made for his resignation, but on September 8th, 1974, Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon.  He escaped prosecution and impeachment.  One might think he ‘got away with it’. 

    In both those cases, someone got in Agnew’s and Nixon’s ears and said something to the effect of, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.   If you don’t want to go to prison, I suggest you exit stage right, fucking now.   Agnew and Nixon, to their ONLY credit, realized that it was time to go, and did so in order to not put the country into a crisis we hadn’t seen before.   Everyone involved was concerned about the effect these events would have had on our country, security, and safety, and everyone involved acted to put the country first when it counted.   I tell you all of this to ask a simple question.  

    Do you believe that someone hasn’t gotten in Trump’s ear and tried to tell him the same thing?  Someone has.  I feel very sure about this because there are still people that have the interest of the country, our security, and our safety at heart.  There are still people that care enough not to plunge the country into a crisis. Someone has surely told Trump if he doesn’t want to go to prison, there’s a way out of this, and herein lies the difference.   In Trump, there is no desire to put the country first and avoid a crisis.   If you read or listen to him, you might come to the conclusion that he doesn’t think much of this country at all.   Nation in Decline!  American Carnage!  I mean, it’s not exactly Shining City on the Hill, is it?  

    Here’s the thing:  If we’re going to talk dystopia, I can’t think of anything more dystopian than a person who is running for President getting convicted of Federal Crimes, and insisting “Nothing to see here folks, all completely normal.”   How does this work, exactly?   Where do you put a President convicted of Federal Crimes?  Not Leavenworth, that’s for damn sure.  Is he gonna be Charles Foster Kane isolated in Xanadu for the rest of his life?  Is Rosebud actually the name of his junk?  I thought we might have a picnic tomorrow, Melania.   And then, what if he actually wins AFTER he’s convicted?   I know, I know, OWN THE LIBS.  No, we need to stop and think about this.  The sitting President of the United States, a convicted felon, serving a sentence for Federal Crimes defines Constitutional Crisis any way you look at it.  

    Trump wants to be president to try to get out of the nightmare that awaits him.   His cult wants him to be President to own the libs.    Neither of these are workable situations for the country.   Surely you can see this.   

    The way out is through, I suppose—strap in, kids.  

  • Yay. More Reality TV. Great.

    This may not be a very popular take, but what the hell.  I think there are two kinds of reality TV.  There’s one that takes you through a process that has a tangible result at the end.  The other kind is trash tv that manufactures conflict for the effect.  Laughs, Screams, WTFs, whatever it is.   You might have guessed that I’ll watch the former but hate the latter.  It wasn’t always the case; for example, I watched Gene Simmons’s Family Jewels. I’m sure I watched other stuff, but so much of it is so forgettable…I’ve forgotten it.  I have never watched a Kardashian do anything, I have no interest in Real Housewives of Insert city here, I could care less about your love before, during, or after lockup, I just don’t care.  About the only things you can count on in 2023 on TV are a Law and Order, an NCIS, a Chicago, and somebody upending a table and going after someone nails first because they…well, I assume a producer told them to.  

    I mean, we all know the drill at this point, yes?   Reality TV is not real.  Maybe it was at one point that I was naive and gullible in my “When people stop being polite and start getting real” youth.  I thought The Real World NY and LA were legit.  I thought Survivor season 1 was legit.  Of course, living here in Virginia Beach, I had to root for Rudy the retired Navy Seal.   But after that, and before Gene Simmons, certainly, by the time Gene Simmons came around, Reality TV started blurring the lines.  Manufacturing conflicts, Inventing roadblocks, and conjuring plot twists are all designed to get you…to the other side of the ad break.  Cynical, I know, but let’s face some facts.  If reality TV was really “Reality”, as in totally unscripted, it would be boring as fuck.  So they gin it up.  

    The other thing about Reality TV that you may or may not know is how utterly cheap it is to make compared to scripted TV.   The reason is that they have a simple production value and a much higher ROI than NCIS.   Hell, Game of Thrones was around 6 million per episode in the first season.  Reality TV episodes might reach 1 million per episode these days, but that’s probably the big ones like Real Housewives.  They are not paying a million for Mama freakin’ June’s latest train wreck, I promise you that.  

    Regardless, TV is chock full of ‘reality’ish TV, and I hope you’re OK with that because that’s gonna be the only new stuff we see for a minute.   For the first time in 60-some-odd years, the Writers and the Actors are on strike together at the same time.  That pretty much stops everything being filmed right now that’s not reality TV, I would imagine.  Hell, it might stop *some* reality shows but not all, and it certainly won’t stop the networks from coming up with every crazy idea you can think of.    Also, if you believe some reports, management will try and wait this out.  I saw a quote somewhere about the WGA coming back to the table once people start losing their homes.  That’ll be around October or so, and depending on how desperate management is, I expect a phone call.   I’m joking.  Not really.   If you get to me and my crazy ideas, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, I assure you.  And just so we’re clear, I’m not scabbing for anyone.   If someone seriously ever wanted my shit, they will be paying me.  

    But what can we do?  Well, for a start, if you’re a creator, don’t give your shit away for magic beans when they come calling.  Don’t cross the line.  You’ll be remembered if you do.  Consumers?  I’m not sure what to tell you.  I want to tell you to stop watching TV, but that’s tricky.  One of the sticking points that caused the strike is streaming.  If I’m binging Season 12 of NCIS right now on Paramount Plus, for example, am I part of the problem? And what about AI?  I had heard that they want to take an extra, scan them, pay them once, and use that image in perpetuity.  I don’t believe that’s cool at all, and if that’s true, they need to come up with another arrangement. 

    Finally, if we just leave the labor unions’ point of view for a second, I heard something this morning that may not cross your mind so I’ll bring it up.  Keith Olbermann on his Countdown podcast—yes, I’m a fan, don’t hate—brought up the tiers of businesses in and around the film and TV industry that a prolonged strike will hurt.  Caterers, Dry cleaners, Custodial staff, Waitpersons and Bartenders, the people down here like you and me that work in what Keith called possibly the last company town in America.  He may not be wrong.   For that reason alone—the little guys who take your order at that bar on Sunset—that this gets resolved quickly, and someone can get back to work writing Gibbs back onto my favorite GD tv show. 

  • It’s Time To Not Be Nice

    In 1968, after Congress passed a gun control bill that was, in the words of the late ABC anchor Frank Reynolds, “emasculated”, Lyndon Baines Johnson asked—to paraphrase—how much more anguish must America endure?   Now, before we start going down the gun control rabbit hole—Trust me, we’ll have time for that—I’m choosing to focus on that quote, and another one.  You’ll know this one, it’s Patrick Swayze from Roadhouse.   “I want you to be nice until it’s time to not be nice.”  

    I find it hard to not be nice anymore.  Here’s another quote for you, Keanu Reeves.  “I’m at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you’re right – have fun.”  I want to be kind or be silent.  I want to get rid of all the drama, go live by the beach somewhere, and just…be. 

    But I can’t.  Because it’s time to ask once again, how much anguish we must endure.  It’s time to not be nice. 

    It’s time that we do not agree with the people that think 1+1=5, and tell them to have fun.  All the fivers believe there is an objective reality where this is true.  They have people in the alternative and mainstream media that pander to their fivieness, They have politicians that lock on this fivedom and run on it.  They post fivist memes on social media to own the twos.   Frankly, I’ve had my fill of fives.  

    It’s time to insist that 1+1=2.   Firmly.  

    It is time to not be nice. 

    It is not time to reason with the fivers that ask “What about the threes?  You don’t mind the people who think 1+1=3?”   It is not time to justify a Two who said something nice, or even something atrocious about the fives years ago.  It is not time to deal with the fives of bad faith who scream about why you, a two, won’t debate them.  

    It’s time to insist that 1+1=2.   Firmly.  

    It is time to not be nice. 

    Fives did not suddenly appear out of thin air.  They weren’t created in a vacuum, they weren’t grown in a vat of ooze, they’re people who, in a lot of cases, hopped on board much later.  It’s kinda like going clear and then they tell you about Xenu and the Space DC 10’s flying Thetans into volcanos.   You, a two, look at these folks and ask HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU BELIEVE THAT? THAT’S CRAZY.   That’s easy.  1+1 didn’t equal 5 originally.   They found time in 1968 while Mayor Daley was out preserving disorder to just bump it up a little.  It equaled 1.1 back then.  And little by little, they bumped up just a tad every year until they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar in 1974.  Then they had to reset.  1+1=2 all the way through to 1981 when they found a guy who was good at making people believe 1+1 was whatever he wanted to be, and we went along with it, mostly, because whatever 1+1 was at the time, this guy had a way of making us feel really good about it.  So much so that we didn’t notice what those incremental little bumps were doing to some of us.  These little bumps continued until someone with a uHaul truck and the belief that God told him the answer was 2.5 said the quiet part out loud and blew the front of a building off, and then things quieted down for a bit.   But one of those guys who got ejected during the reset of 1974 decided he needed to create a platform for all the folks who knew objectively that 1+1 was whatever we say and if you don’t agree, you’re Two Stupid.  They even made up a nickname.  Two Stupid.  If you’re Being Two Stupid you have mental problems.   You might even be what’s destroying this country!   And over the years that number has been growing and growing until some guy who deals with more zeroes than anything else got elected President getting people to believe 1+1 is now 5.   And now you see how things start small and snowball, and it gets crazier and crazier and the people get more and more zealous and…

    It’s time to insist that 1+1=2.   Firmly.  

    It is time to not be nice. 

    I don’t want to be an asshole, I don’t want to cancel anyone, and I don’t want to belittle anyone.  I don’t want to own the fives.   As my Dad used to say “You have the right to be wrong.  You also have the responsibility of what being wrong means.”, and that’s where the proofing meets the problem, which is twofold.   First, the fives believe that there’s no consequence for believing 1+1=5.  Second, and this is more important, there are more twos than fives.   A lot more.  

    And it is time to insist that 1+1=2, it has always equaled two, and it will always equal two. 

    Not maliciously, not condescendingly, but kindly and firmly. 

    Because, at long last, it is time to not be nice.