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Most days the news that greets me sets my hair on fire. What?!! is my new greeting. Let me sum up the state of the world we live in with a recent example. After years of strange and tragic mishaps aboard their airplanes and the resulting loss of hundreds of lives, Boeing, once the greatest name in aviation, admitted that maybe there were some problems in the manufacturing plant and within the corporate culture…BUT that didn’t stop them from launching two astronauts into space in a questionably-functioning spaceship for an eight-day trip. Well, guess what? HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM! Since NASA and Boeing couldn’t agree on the risk assessment, Boeing could not bring the astronauts back to earth aboard its Starliner. Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were left behind to float around in the International Space Station awaiting a celestial savior. No one seems troubled. Except me. With all of the political outrage about minor things like the energy efficiency of refrigerators and EVs, this aerospace situation does not seem to be ruffling a feather. The attitude seems to be a yawn, and a “so what?” or “Are they still out there?” Maybe I am too much of a pessimist. Maybe I am too out of touch with the miracles of technology. Who knows? Maybe an ingenious and determined Uber driver will reach those astronauts before the planned February rescue by Elon Musk’s Space-X. In any case, I remain INCREDULOUS. While the culture at Boeing that led to all of this does not surprise me, anyone who has held a job in the last 10 years could see what was happening to corporate culture and the workplace, but what sets the match to my hair is that even with knowing all of this…THE ASTRONAUTS WENT! When most other employees are refusing to come into the office or work overtime, these astronauts went into O-U-T-E-R S-P-A-C-E. And they did so WILLINGLY. It seems we live in a time when people jump into the deep end whistling, “Don’t worry; be happy.” (Except for the ones who are asked to come into the office that is.) I have actually heard people say, while they are JAYWALKING, “If I get hit by a car, I’ll just sue.” The assumption is that I can do what I want and someone else will pay. At the very least, I can get even. Forget the part about being maimed or dead. Of course, should the Starliner astronauts be lost in space forever, the tragedy will become the subject of such notoriety that it will earn itself some additional Congressional hearings to embarrass as many people as possible under the guise of weeding out those responsible. Will it be the left? The right? The woke? Or, maybe in this case, whoever was asleep at the launch pad? I grew up in a time when it wasn’t just the Boy Scouts who had the motto: “Be prepared.” We all did. We were taught to think things through. Do what is right. That went along with wear clean underwear just in case. Which leads me to wonder, what are those astronauts, who expected to be in space for 8 days, doing for clean underwear 180 days later? Maybe I was so preoccupied with the basic life and death issues that I missed the grand opening of the first Lunar Target. Perhaps Williams and Wilmore are just so happy to be free of post-election politics that they would rather be in outer space. Maybe I would too. Hopefully, Elon Musk will stay in Donald Trump’s good graces long enough to get the astronauts home because I heard the incoming president is conducting deportations of immigrants who get on his nerves. My words of wisdom to you are this: if someone offers you a once in a lifetime opportunity, think long and hard…because it just might be.
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I am here to warn you: if you are having trouble sleeping, do not turn on late-night television. I repeat: DO NOT TURN ON LATE-NIGHT TV. You will be transported to hell and will spend the night circling all nine rings. You will wish you had pulled your left kidney out through your navel with a fork instead of picking up the remote. The heat you generate will not be from tossing and turning. It will be the actual flames of hell. I have the burns to prove it. When we were young, our parents warned us that nothing good happens after dark. I will add an adult corollary: There is nothing good on TV after 12:30 AM. As a matter of fact, the FTC should require an automatic warning beginning at that hour: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. The anguished screams you hear will be your own.” Once you turn on late-night TV you will be tormented by commercials for identity protection services. Don’t bother changing channels. The same ads will be on every station. These infomercials will remind you how right now, at this very moment, bad guys are stealing the deed to your home and trading national secrets with foreign despots using your passport. What else? These monsters may even be stealing your butt prints as you lay on your sheets, prints they will use in some future diabolical scheme to pretend that they are you as they back out of a lead vault with a briefcase full of nuclear codes. And do not stare, because the bad guys may take an iris scan as you watch… By the time these infomercials are through with you, you will have visited all nine rings of hell, and you will be regretting your life. All of it. You will regret not accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior, having pre-marital sex, helping yourself to seconds at Thanksgiving dinner every year, squandering precious allowance money on baseball cards when you were 10, screaming at that scam caller who tried to get your Medicare number, refusing to buy a flower from the Hare Krishnas at the airport in 1965, voting for a questionable politician one too many times, and being a rude host at that professional convention back in 1990 when the hall was packed and the air conditioner broke down. No Minotaur will need to eat your flesh. You will have bitten your nails to the quick. This nighttime experience will add to your daytime hypervigilance. You will be reminded that scammers are stealing your voice by calling you on your phone and waiting for you to say “Hello,” and that your image has been stolen from your g-mail profile picture and now your head is on dozens of indecent photos that are going viral on some dangerous porn site where they are sure to ruin your future except now you don’t have one. The pervasiveness of these identity threats will haunt you and rob you of your faith in humanity and in your higher power. Will there be anything left of your identity to show at the Pearly Gates? You wonder: “What if someone already took my spot?” It’s possible. Let’s face it--Santa has already been scammed by identity thieves. We all know some very naughty people who have gotten some mighty fine presents. Now I understand why. If you unwittingly do turn on late-night television some sleepless night, I strongly suggest that you do not open your email the next morning because you can be sure another ring of fire awaits you due to the internet’s Lucifer having heard of your vulnerability by spying on your smart TV. An automatic subscription renewal notice will be waiting. It could be for some add-on to the identity theft package you purchased in your middle-of-the-night-panic or one of those “free trials” and “one-time purchases” you made because you believed them when they said “free” and did not see the fine print that said what they really meant by “free” was “you will be billed forever.” No matter how desperate you feel the morning after, don’t think you can call the authorities to report this violent mind-rape. It will be deemed your own darn fault for being up in the middle of the night and inviting these strangers into your home by turning on the TV. And weren’t you already in bed? In your pajamas? Well, then, you were just asking for it. And forget a morning-after pill to calm your frazzled nerves. They have disappeared from the shelves because, after all, two wrongs don’t make a right. Unfortunately, you will not be able to leave the country because your passport has been compromised and no country wants stinking American immigrants with guns in every pocket--especially illegal ones without a passport. If your mind is already overwrought and the anguished screams you hear are your own, then late-night TV is not for you. For your own sake, ask someone who loves you: “Please! Hide the remote.”  Such is the magic of Christmas in childhood… that a single gift can provide one with endless hours of adventure while not even requiring one to leave one’s house. Amor Towles in A Gentleman in Moscow With so much attention on the November election and its potential aftermath, it is hard to believe that the holiday season is not far away. I am doing some light research in case the Christmas miracle is that we do have Christmas this year. What launched my study was a mailing from a large chain store. I received its holiday gift guide, a slender 35-page catalog that I found in a flimsy roll in my four-inch-wide-apartment-sized mailbox. My inner child scoffed at the sight. Talk about shrinkflation! I grew up with the Sears catalog, a compendium of anywhere from 322 to 1,000 pages. I am going to guess that it weighed about half of whatever I did, and it required two hands and a baby brother to lift it into my lap. While it felt disrespectful to Sears and to Christmas wishing, in general, to even consider the flyer a Christmas catalog, I took it to my apartment and smoothed it out on my desktop. I studied the cover. Festive holiday colors formed the backdrop while the featured cover items were some of the classics that have stood the test of time: Barbie dolls, Transformers, and fisher-price Little People. The child in me forced my hand, and I turned the pages. The first page featured gifts “under $10.” There were only nine items in this price category including a Play-Doh Swirln’ Smoothies Toy Blender. Wow! I would have sold my sister for that. Still might. The second page featured items “under $20” and included the classic Lite-Brite. But beyond page two, there were no prices listed as I found myself at a two-page spread for Lego. Perhaps the price tags were missing because today’s parents already know they will need to apply for a mortgage and provide the bank with the credentials of the builder. Curious, I turned to Google for a price check. Most of the Lego sets were priced at $99.99 or more, some topping $499.00. When I was growing up, I could have purchased my first car with that amount of dough and it would have come assembled. Flabbergasted, I moved on to the next pages where my beloved Barbie had been given a two-page spread with similar displays for Disney and fisher-price. Deeper into the catalog, I smiled at the pages of familiar board games many of which still line my closet shelves. The classics still in my possession are also still in the game of games: Clue, Life, Monopoly, Operation, Sorry, Trouble, and the ancient Battleship. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but Nerf had an entire page devoted to its guns. They have gotten much larger and more varied. Nerf now makes a machine-gun named the X-shot Insanity Motorized Rage Fire Blaster. Just keeping up with the times…Rage and insanity, the name says it all. After that bit of discouragement, I rejoiced to find that the arts have not gone out of style. There were pages of craft kits with more Play-Doh items, Crayola products, and the ancient Spirograph. Even a few books were featured on page 27. I was all the way to page 29 of the 35 pages before holiday tech made an appearance: lots of dull-looking headphones, controllers, and keyboards. All-in-all this slim catalog didn’t stink, but it sure did shrink. It made me wonder what has happened to the magnitude of our wishes and the enormity of our gratitude. When I was a child we wished hard and expected little. We hoped something special would arrive by sleigh. We marked just about everything in the book in hopes of getting one item that we prized. Our minds got a workout just by looking and imagining. I closed the catalog filled with mixed emotions: the old joy I felt as a child along with the sadness of wondering what has happened to childhood and imagination in the age of technology and AI. I saw into a future in which the human mind becomes as flabby and diabetic as our bodies did in the age of conveniences. I don’t think I ever realized how much our young minds grew just from imagining what we could do, what we would do. And then, after the present arrived, what we did do: all of those hours of Barbie dramas, Erector sets, coloring books, Play-Doh, improvisation, playing games, learning rules, taking turns, it all amounted to something. Now, at this stage of my life, the thing I prize most is my mind, the one that grew from all of that wishing, imagining and playing. But then came the October surprise. About a week after receiving the catalog, a coworker reported that her nine-year-old daughter watched an old-time detective show on television. The child was fascinated by the lack of technology and the way the investigators used their minds to solve the case. “I want to do that!” she said in awe. Awe and ah! A Christmas miracle in October! I plan to give her the Christmas catalog and show her how it’s done.  I finally bowed to the g force and got a new phone, but no matter how beautiful or capable the phone it does not change what’s on the menu. I had my fresh and fancy 5g phone on board the day I passed a man who had pulled his car into the center lane of a busy four lane highway. He was on the ground next to his vehicle and appeared to be looking underneath, perhaps to identify a problem or to fix one. “Good, Lord,” I said and began praying out loud as it seemed probable that the man would be killed or cause a terrible accident in this very busy high-speed, high-access zone. I pulled over at the first opportunity and dialed the non-emergency number of the nearest police station to see if assistance or safety could be offered to the man with the disabled vehicle. To my surprise and consternation, I discovered that the rascals who invented the phone menu had infiltrated the police department. A lengthy menu of dialing options was offered. After about ten minutes, I gave up on getting help, but curious, I pressed 4 to complete my peace officer training while I waited. When I realized the amount of time that had passed, I figured the man on the road had likely gotten on his way or was dead at the scene. Either way, my Good Samaritan efforts were pointless, and I had had enough time to reconsider a second career in law enforcement. I hung up just before the exam. I now feel the need to swallow some nitroglycerin every time I hear the words: “Please listen carefully to the following as our menu options have recently changed.” Those words offend my moral senses. It should be against the law to lie to the public so flagrantly and so frequently. Do they take the dialing public for fools? I want to call them out on this and scream into the phone, “Liars!” I know the menu has not changed. They are just trying to prevent people from immediately dialing 0 or saying “speak to a representative” or getting any satisfaction whatsoever. By now, we all know there is no representative, no one is listening, no one cares, and the strategy is to discourage people and keep them from calling. The phone number itself is a ruse. Here’s what the truth might sound like:
What’s on the phone menu? Frustration and despair seasoned by outrage. I don’t care much for the entrées, but please may I see the whine list?  “…many of us have internalized the message that our bodies are some kind of burden that must be subdued and transcended.” From Goddesses Never Age Once upon a time there were no exercise classes, no gym memberships. There were no leggings or sports bras, no water bottles or heart rate monitors, no power bars or protein shakes. Daily life was the treadmill. People stepped on when they awoke and off when they fell into bed at night. They moved to the rhythms of life and the changes of the seasons. Out on the farms, in the suburbs, or on the manufacturing floors it was called “work” or “chores.” Out in the yards, in the neighborhoods, or on the school grounds, it was called “play.” Somehow people managed to get motivated and get moving without a throbbing musical beat in their ears. But the war-weary people were vulnerable, and they fell under the spell of the Gods of Progress. The Pharmaceutical Giants gave the people vaccines and antibiotics adding years to their lives and giving the people a false sense of health. The Wizard of Madison Avenue began to speak to the people from a new device called television infiltrating their minds and hearts with yearnings. Everyone began talking about an abundance of cheap, magical, labor-saving devices and convenience foods. The Wizard told the people what they should want, what they deserved, and after a taste, the people agreed. They began to seek entertainment in their homes from their laid-back positions in reclining chairs called La-Z-Boys. And after they finished their TV dinners the people puffed on burning rolls of tobacco that the Tobacco Giants said were healthy and tasted good like cigarettes should. Tik Tok, time passed. Soon the people became spectators to life. And as they watched other people do stuff, the people grew in size along with their sectional sofas and flat screen TVs. They no longer needed to walk upright. Their hand held phones became smarter than the people themselves. With a gentle tap of a single finger, the people worked. They paid their bills, ordered food to be delivered, did their Christmas shopping, wrote to friends, and asked an invisible woman named Alexa to answer the door while a robot vacuumed the floor. And still, the Gods of Progress wanted more, and so they teamed up with the Wizard of Madison Avenue who had already corrupted the Gods of the Metaverse. Together, they hatched a plan to sell more ads while stealing the minds of the people and replacing them with artificial intelligence. “We’ll create a device more addictive than tobacco. It will be so addictive and so distracting that it will rob people of their free will, the ability to think for themselves, the desire to work, or the capacity to love one another. They won’t need to do a thing ever again.” But the Gods were so full of themselves that they forgot that intelligent life still existed where it first began--outside the Metaverse. They overlooked people like Dr. James Levine who were warning that, “Sitting is the new smoking.” People began to repeat this new mantra which angered some of the Gods. They still weren’t happy with the former Surgeon General who exposed their claims about tobacco and nicotine. But ever opportunistic, the diabolical Wizard of Madison Avenue saw a way to turn natural bodily movement into a new product, and he called it “exercise,” and a multi-billion dollar industry was created to press people into buying something the Wizard had already taught them to hate. “Ah, the power of ambivalence,” said The Wizard. “And if we teach people to hate themselves, we shall have it both ways!” As expected people flocked to the gyms and purchased the memberships, the trainers’ time, sports wardrobes, and special shoes. Cinderella looked down on the scene from her throne in the happily ever after. Not a doctor, a god, a wizard, or even Jane Fonda, Cinderella always knew that it was the hard work of life that kept her mentally and physically fit to pursue her dreams, to dare to attend a ball, to climb in and out of a pumpkin carriage, to race up and down the stairs, and to dance all night. She still resents that her fairy godmother was given so much credit for a dress and a pair of ill-fitting shoes.  The votes are in, and there is no doubt in my mind that we have a legitimate winner. The best word won! And in my book, it is the best invention since deodorant. It is just too good to keep to myself. Earlier this week, in a “eureka!” moment I clicked on the link supplied by a friend who is also a lover of words, a thinker, and a seeker. Being from the school of If You Can Name It, You Can Tame It, I am thrilled to have a name for the disease that has overtaken society and an answer to my incessant question, “What the hell just happened?” I feel like a scientist who has spent a lifetime looking down into a microscope or up into the sky and who suddenly arrives at a cosmic breakthrough. What I don’t understand is how this has stayed so quiet. Why hasn’t the inventor rocketed to fame? Applause please for Cory Doctorow and the American Dialect Society word of the year: enshittification. I am no John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman, but my take on economics is that unchecked capitalism moves toward greed and corruption. There are no “free markets” where supply is created by demand. The suppliers psychologically and physically manipulate us into “demanding” their products and services. This is why we need government—to keep us all socially responsible, but enough about online platforms and the state of the economy and American politics. I am bringing this new word of the year into common use to include anything that once was good but has been degraded by negative social forces. Like a kid who just learned the power of dirty words, I find opportunities everywhere to use my new vocabulary. Scrabble anyone? My children will be pleased to know that I am finally replacing the F word in my daily speech, something else that has gone to ruin as I age in this time of general degradation. If you knew me in the past, you might think I am a prisoner of war making coerced statements, but no, it’s really me, another case of the rot done by technology. Enshittification. Say it once more with feeling! We know what we’ve got. Or what’s got us. Get out some hand sanitizer. Put on some gloves. Let’s clean up this mess!  Short of breath from the summer’s lung-searing heat, I collapsed in my car after a short walk across the parking lot. I heard the flesh on my palms sizzle as I grabbed the steering wheel. Cranking up the air conditioning, I got on my way just as the radio announced it was time for the news. The local stories included an update on record-setting gun violence with multiple homicides, police shootings, politicians defying orders of the State Supreme Court, the Governor’s decision to arm teachers in public schools, teenage car thieves as young as 12, and two men cheating in order to win a fishing contest! “Siri, am I in Hell?” “It’s all a mystery to me.” “Thanks a lot, Siri.” I was on my own. I changed radio stations, and then I changed lanes. Just off the busy interstate highway tucked between a rundown gym and a new gas station, I spotted heaven, a single-story building where the air is free. For the uninformed, heaven has many doors. You are in luck no matter which door you choose. You will come out feeling better and more grateful than when you went in assured that your car and your mind will make it a few thousand miles more. When I was learning to drive, neighborhood gas stations still existed. These were places with tiny, dingy, cluttered offices piled high with grease-stained stacks of papers. Adjacent to the office was a single bay for repairing cars. An attendant came out to pump your gas, clean your windshield, and check the oil. Teenage boys helped out in the summers, but it was mostly the owner doing everything. Jack ran the Boron station in my neck of the woods. It was across the street from the grocery store. Jack was the neighborhood car daddy to anxious teens learning to drive. He solved some problems for a few of the overly-confident new drivers as well, and sometimes their parents were none the wiser. I did get a driver’s license as a teen, but after years of driving, things changed--drivers were on their own to pump gas, diagnose their cars’ troubles, and find help in an emergency. This caused a rise in vehicular neurosis, that constant nagging fear that something will go wrong with your car at the most inopportune time and place. By the time I was a professional making home visits for a living, my own vehicular neurosis was at its peak. That’s when I discovered this heaven. Thankfully, said discovery was made just before the tire pressure light became standard. This new heaven is a place where people fix cars and offer life support to keep them running. That alone makes these people gods in my book. In this heaven, there is actual customer service where you can speak to a live person, get answers, understand your bill, and make an appointment that is convenient. The main act here is honesty combined with courtesy toward their many new and lifetime customers. It was in this heaven that I received an extra measure of grace: the manager and assistant manager, Steve and Jim, became car daddies to my teenage daughter as she learned to drive. How blessed can a single mom be? A far cry from the old neighborhood garage of my youth, this heaven has multiple bays. When one of the doors opens, my eyes are blinded by the well-lit, pristine shop that could substitute for a surgical suite at the Mayo Clinic. The people inside wear clean uniforms and manipulate the many high-tech instruments that now diagnose the functioning of our automobiles. Enter through the front of the building, and you will find a spacious, well-lit waiting area where travel experts are on standby to help you plan your next vacation. Interested? Don’t ask Siri. Artificial intelligence is missing wonder, heart, and conscience, all necessary for an understanding of heaven and hell. But do Google AAA Car Care Plus Grandview. You can get there on your own, or they can send an angel to tow you in. In the meantime, remember to change your oil. For that heavenly peace of mind, you must grease on earth. |
AuthorLilli-ann Buffin Archives
April 2025
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