Sometimes Joking is No Laughing Matter

 What?

Can't take a joke?

It's the battle cry of those who actually want to make other people feel bad by disguising their insults as "Just a joke."

When was the last time you heard that one?

Some people are just dense. They mean no harm when they don't get a joke's punchline. It just flew over their head like a flock of flamingos into the sunset.

Then we have people who just don't have a sense of humor. 

They're out there milling around the population like bumps on a log, looking for something to get angry about. 

Anything short of praise pisses them off.

To be capable of understanding humor and separating that from hate seems to be quite the challenge in our stressed-out society. Politicians weaponize humor to troll their opponents.

People who don't get offended by jokes, regardless of how vile, are deemed "good sports." They'll take jokes about themselves in stride and laugh at the drop of a punchline. They are generally good-natured and just want to have fun. There're just not enough people like that these days. 

The difference between a merry prankster and outright troll is vast. We love comedians but loath trolls, especially when they are going after us like rabid skunks.

Just for fun here's some other words for "playing a joke."

* Pulling someone's chain.

* Fooling around.

* Pulling someone's leg.

* Playing a prank.

* Jesting.

* And making a monkey out of someone.

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A sense of humor is a blessing, if you ask me. Think about being able to laugh regardless of the weary world around you that is often devoid of humor. I agree with Reader's Digest that Laughter is the best medicine. And that each one of us should be able to joke about life without negative consequences.

As it Stands, "Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" - George Carlin

The Art of Diversion Exposed

If I wasn't able to divert my thoughts, I'd go crazy.

When daily Trumpian antics become too much, I direct my attention towards more pleasant things. 

Like watching an NBA playoff game. Or a baseball game while quaffing a good stout beer and rooting for the Dodgers.

When life becomes so tedious or serious concerns dominate your attention for hours or days you need a break. It's time to recharge your batteries with some positive ions. Participating in activities you enjoy should be a no-brainer.

Unfortunently that's not always the case. Not everyone can sit down in front of a TV and watch their favorite sport as a diversion for a whole host of reasons. Time is a big factor in making it hard to divert your attention. Availability can be a hurdle.

This is key.

The art of diversion involves a vivid imagination. One that allows you to soar above the idiocy surrounding you and to go places unrestricted by reality whenever you feel like it. In a blink of an eye your sipping exotic beverages on a beautiful beach in the Meditterean somewhere.

You have to be careful not to let on your diverting your attention when confronted by teachers, bores or bosses. I recommend a facial mask of apparent interest regardless of how you feel at the time. A stoic face also works. 

I've been practicing the art of diversion all of my life. It's a passive agressive way of getting some satisfaction without getting into a confrontation. When my math teacher in high school lectured me on division and multiplication, I escaped by imagining him doing a belly flop (he was quite heavy) in a pool the size of a dog bed. It was that easy. And fun. Of course, I failed math but that's another story.

You might even compare my approach to diversion with the hilarious 2013 movie, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" based upon James Thurber's most famous short story.

To summerize, Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller), an employee at Life Magazine, spends day after monotonous day developing photos for the publication. To escape the tedium, Walter inhabits a world of exciting daydreams in which he is the undeniable hero.

I know. That's going a bit too far. We all can't live in a dream world and get away with it like Walter. However, a good imagination will always serve you.

As it Stands, hopefully I diverted you long enough to be entertained today.

America Has Slid into a State of Idiocracy

It's fair to say Trump's efforts to establish an autocracy in the United States has led to an idiocracy where low intelligence is esteemed.

Neil deGrasse Tyson's repeated warnings that our nation is turning into an idiocracy has come to pass with Trump's accession to The White House for a second attempt to destroy our republic. 

To be perfectly clear, an ideocracy is a form of government or social system where abstract ideas or ideologies, rather than practical considerations or evidence, are the primary guiding principles. It's essentially a society where beliefs and doctrines dictate laws, policies, and social norms.

In essence, an ideocracy is a society where the power and authority of an ideology or set of beliefs are paramount, influencing all aspects of life and potentially leading to a rigid and often authoritarian social structure.

Sound familiar?

If you're living in America today, you're learning all about ideocracy. Depending on how old you are you may have seen the cult classic Idiocracy when it came out in September of 2006, giving you a heads up on the younger generation. It was a social parody that never got a wide screening because 20th Century Fox was uneasy with it. 

Who knew it would someday come down from the screen one day and become our reality?

Here's what passes as presential in these dark days:

* Trump mocks the recently deceased Pope infuriating one billion Catholics worldwide. 

Then he publicly denied posting a picture of himself on his Truth Social account dressed up as the Pope and knew nothing about the photo's mysterious appearance on the internet.

* After watching an old movie about Alcatraz in his Mar-a-Lago lair Trump was inspired to restore the infamous prison to its former state and enlarge it. Why? No one really knows. Apparently, Trump is turned on by all the suffering and the fact Al Copone was held there thrilled him. "The great Al Copone, they called him," he recently told a gaggle of MAGA media reporters.

* New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Trump in the Oval Office and bluntly told him Canada "is not for sale," despite Trump's assertions that it should become the 51st state. What was Trump's idiotic reply? "Time will tell. It's only time. But I say never say never." 

* Asked if he has to "uphold the Constitiution" Trump told NBC News, "I don't know."

The nation has been on a slippery slope since Trump slithered into our politics promoting hate, lies, and misinformation. He has cultivated a cult of idiocracy that is rapidly turning into a deadly autocracy. 

In less than four months Trump has managed to sow chaos throughout the country by ignoring the Constitution and dismantling government agencies that Americans desperately need.

The idiots in this country decided they wanted one of their own in power. Trump has liberated their conspircies and promised them paths to power though him. And he's working hard to fulfil that future shock every day.

As it Stands, it's up to sane Americans now to flip this script and run these idiots out of our besieged government before the damage is permanent. We must keep pressure on them by exposing lies and fighting back against their assault on the rule of law in the courts. Democrats - at the very least - must take the House in the midterms. A blue Senate would be a bonus for the republic. Anything is possible when you stand up to idiots.

Walk on the Wild Side: Sniff Like a Dog

People have always admired dogs' super sense of smell. 

That's why we use them for multiple societal tasks, from tracking down lost people, to sniffing out hidden illegal drugs.

They know when we are happy, sad, or sick thanks to their amazing snouts.

(Photo - my dog Mollie gives me backyard tours of things to smell every day.)

Here's a fun fact, dogs have two dedicated, separate routes in their snouts for sniffing and breathing making them natural detectives.

They can use their highly sensitive olfactory organs to locate substances that we never thought had an odor: cancer cells, minute quantities of TNT; three-day old footprint left by a missing person.

Would you like to have a dog's super sniffing power? C'mon don't tell me it wouldn't be interesting. We may not have the same internal snout system, but all is not lost. We already have the equipment, a nose (albeit not as sophisticated as a dog's).

Recently, John McGann, an associate professor at Rutgers, published a review in the journal Science reminding us that human do, after all, have an olfactory bulb. Swedish professor Matthias Laska has extensively demonstrated that in detecting some odors, such as amyl acetate (which smells like a banana), we are plenty sensitive.

Our experience of the flavor of food is mostly due to smell, experienced through the back of the mouth - retronasal olfaction - instead of through the nostrils.

There's no way humans will ever achieve the mastery of smell that dogs enjoy but there are some ways you can improve your sense of smell.

 I recommend reading Alexandra Horowitz's book, "Being a Dog: Following the Dog in the World of Smell."

The author set out to improve her sense of smell by following a dog's lead, as well as that of some olfactory experts, among them a perfumer, a sommelier, and a pair of animal trackers. Dog's excepted, few of these experts were born noses.

Her advise seems pretty simple and straightforward - Stick your nose in it. Consider a dog's daily behavior and contrast it with the frequency with which you see a person with nose smashed against a surface, inhaling calmly and confidently. No comparison. Humans just have to get closer to the source in order to bring more odor molecules into their noses.

It's a worthy read if you love dogs and wish you could improve your sense of smell. Don't worry, you don't have to follow people around sniffing their butts to recognize them when they come into a room!

As it Stands, there are so many odors we don't stop to take the time to appreciate like the smell of freshly mowed grass or the advent of spring.

The Internet is the Worst That Ever Happened to Mankind

Some people may find it amazing to know that the world actually functioned without an internet once.

It's the one modern invention that keeps on attacking...and upsetting societies with floods of misinformation that no other media has been able to match in modern times.

The internet is an evil Pandoras box that disgorges lies, filth, and hate 24-hours a day. Since the early 1990s when the internet became available in homes with dial-up internet the flow of filth has increased yearly, until now it's one of the biggest threats to our society and civilization overall.

There's no doubt in my mind Trump would not have been able to do what he has, turning our democracy into an autocracy, without the help of the internet and the bad actors who abuse it. The original intent of the internet was to allow information exchanges in real time, with a data base that included pathways to knowledge never experienced before. Mountains of information available on every possible subject was part of the package, but it came with unexpected side effects that have grown more deadly every year.

There's never been a propaganda device that can rival the internet's steady streams of lies 24 hours a day. Truth has become a casualty and people don't know what to believe anymore.

Please...don't try to sell me on the benefits of the internet. I would gladly do without it. I would happily give up blogging to see an end to this threat to civilization. I'm confident I could get by without it and so could others. We did once. Remember?

What are the risks of using the internet?

For starters, viruses and hackers. Users' personal information gets extracted by bad actors and their world is never the same after that.

* Malware, also known as malicious code or software is a constant threat.

* Ransomware. It limits users from accessing their system via malware.

* Distributed Denial of Service (DOS) attacks are also common.

* Spam and phishing are a daily challenge and if the user doesn't have protections they are going to regret it. Sometimes these precautions fail to the sophisticated attacks.

* Corporate Account Takeover (CATO) where a company gets held hostage until they pay a fee.

* Automated Teller Machine (ATM) hacked by sophisticated software. 

But the threats don't end there.

You have to protect your children when they use the internet. 

Because there are so many sites designed for kids, they also have become easy targets for bad actors. Predators prowl video games and chat rooms looking for easy victims.

It just gets worse.

Cyberbullying has led to teen suicides. Then there are hackers posting the personal information of young people that will later come back to haunt them. Teens are easily scammed. They also accidently download Malware and infect their computers.

Cyber risks users have to be aware of.

* Drive-by-Cyberattack.

* Poor cyber hygiene.

* Cloud vulnerabilities.

* Mobile device vulnerabilities.

* Poor data management.

* Inadequate post-attack procedures.

As it Stands, I firmly believe that the internet is a threat that has gotten out of hand despite its original intent to benefit mankind.

Trump's first 100 Days: Democracy Assaulted but Americans Weathering the Storm

It only took 100 days for Trump to seize unrestrained power by breaking every rule in the Constitution and defying nearly every norm in our society.

As promised Trump launched Project 2025 within hours after slithering into office.  The whole goal was to flood the zone with so many executive orders any opposition would have trouble keeping up with each new attack against all of the branches of government. A siege against sanity has shaken Americans to their core.

Americans watched with growing concern as the mass firings, cancellations of research grants, university funding cuts and what should be studied in schools unfolded like a horror show. ABC News recently reported about doctors and public health specialists who view these actions as an "attack" on established science.   

The attacks have become daily against our judiciary system and civil rights. Arresting immigrants (and in some extreme cases American citizens) has left a trail of tears across the country as families are deported or rounded up like cattle and denied any rights. 

Laws are flagrantly ignored as undercover masked ICE agents' storm into court houses, schools, and churches. 

They roam the streets of America not showing any ID and kidnap whoever is on their hate list. There's no due process despite the fact the law affords everyone due process.

It been like watching a gang led by the world's richest man as Musk ravages every government department with his Doge boys. Trump gave him carte blanche to gather every Americans personal information, from their Social Security to the IRS no one has been safe. 

Between firing and forced layoffs, many people are quitting for integrity reasons. Take the Department of Justice Civil Rights division for example. Over 100 attorneys left rather than compromise their values and/or lie for a corrupt government that doesn't give a damn about the common man.

Like all dictators Trump has relentless attacked legitimate media going back to his first term. With no guard rails in his second term, he's been successfully bullying all of the major TV networks that don't comply with his demands. 

The latest media causality is 60 Minutes where the executive producer, Bill Owens (40 years there) resigned on April 22nd citing an inability to make "independent decisions" about programing amid Paramount's battle with Trump. Insiders say Paramount Global (CBS News' parent company) has been influencing the show's coverage in order to please Trump.

I think it's safe to say these last 100 days have been the most concentrated attack on everything this country has ever stood for. That's why it's no surprise that Trump's approval rating is the lowest 100-day rating of any president in the past 80 years, with public pushback on most of his policies and extensive economic discontent, including broad fears of recession, according to today's ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos.

It's rapidly becoming clear that Trump's policies have caused chaos in all sectors of our society and many Americans must be wondering why they voted for the man who would be king. It's been a harsh wake-up for millions but it's not too late to fight for what is right. 

So far, we've seen organized anti-Trump protests in all 50 states. They are going to continue to grow as more Americans decide they can't live this way.

As it Stands, it's not going to be easy to turn the Trump tide, but I have faith in America that when push comes to shove, we'll protect our republic.

A Look at Luck in Our Lives

There are many theories about why some people are luckier than others. 

I have a sister-in-law who I call the slot machine whisperer because she walks into casinos, plays Blackjack on the waiting machines and wins way more than a normal player could ever dream of. Generally, she leaves after getting a nearly impossible hand like a Royal Flush.

There must be a good reason why some people seem inherently luckier than others. Psychologists think they have the answer to that. The consensus is lucky people have a combination of factors that favor their efforts like a positive mindset, proactive behavior, and an ability to notice and act on opportunities.

There are some aspects of luck that are just beyond our control. 

Some people are born into circumstances that provide them with advantages, such as supportive families, good health, or access to resources most people couldn't get. Therefore, I think it's fair to say luck is not an equal opportunity blessing. It depends upon the cards you were dealt.

When I was in Vietnam in 1970 one of my duties as a Combat Engineer was to sweep roads for enemy mines.

I walked miles every day swinging my heavy mine-detector from side to side. 

One day I was careless and nearly lost my life. I somehow stepped onto a mine and froze when my squad leader yelled at me to freeze! Long story short. It was an anti-tank mine and I simply wasn't heavy enough to set it off. Luck? You tell me.

After extensive research luck is, by all accounts, not an outside force. It doesn't "enter" people or "bless" anyone from time to time. 

Researcher Richard Wiseman found that luck is largely a self-controlled force. According to his findings people can actually increase the amount of luck they experience.

Wiseman also claimed that luck is rooted in science and when you believe you're a lucky person it can make you luckier. 

Whatever. Doesn't sound too scientific to me but everyone has an opinion on luck.

In essence, luck is not solely about chance; it's also about the mindset, actions, and opportunities an individual creates for themselves.

Despite all the scholarly papers done about luck I'm hesitant to embrace them all. Instead, I also draw on my personal experiences and that of others around me to try and decode what luck really is. 

As it Stands, I've come to the conclusion that I'm a lucky man for a lot of reasons - not least that I married the love of my life and we've been married 51 years now.

Researchers Gone Wild

Because scientists 

have to get an alphabet of scholastic degrees the general public assumes they know what they're doing when they make discoveries that would/could benefit mankind.

I'm here today to explore what really happens (in all too many cases) in labs - usually funded by grants - where millions go toward such important breakthroughs like teaching Panda bears how to play the drums. See new product, Panda Drums for relaxation. No, really. It's a popular product for Zen devotees.

The following are real studies that have zero benefits for humans and are just plain wild and crazy.

* High flying lunacy: researchers have been studying the ability of pigeons to create art, and the potential for pigeons to be used as artists.

One of my favorites...

* There's been a year's long study that has explored whether woodpeckers experience headaches due to the rapid impact of their beaks on wood.

* Dog fleas vs. Cat fleas: Someone got paid to find out which type of flea can jump higher.

* Spiderman and adhesives: in yet another mind-bending study researchers looked into the feasibility of a human doing what Spiderman does best - wall-climbing. To their dismay they concluded it would be impractical to have adhesive feet.

* Mosquitoes and cheese: the burning question of what type of cheeses mosquitos prefer has yet to be solved as researchers continue to probe mosquitos eating habits.

When it comes to research no topic is safe as students explore and write scholarly papers that would make the rest of us less scholarly types laugh at their absurdity.

Here's an example: in 2012 a student at King's College in London, Rachel Patterson, endeavored to find out if Unicorns were real. Her paper was titled, "The Possibility of Unicorns: Kripke v Dummett," an analysis of two unicorn theorists." The conclusion that there might be unicorns, was less than satisfying. To date I classify unicorns with Big Foot and Yeti.

Big Breakthrough?

A team of psychologists from Plymouth University and Queensland University of Technology have determined, after many hours of Tetris, that the game can become addicting and distract users from doing other stuff for a while like eating, drinking and having sex. 

The question is how did they manage to finish the study?

Here's Five Funny Research Topics to Choose From

1. How to survive in a society of selfish people?

2. Art of theft: unveiling the subtleties and techniques.

3. The origin of silly laws and their importance.

4.Creative approaches to deal with fake news.

5. LOL or BWL: the psychology of internet acronyms.

As it Stands, I've always been curious just how stupid some studies are that manage to get financed by scholarly institutions. Makes me wonder what I'm missing.

A Day Without Trump

What would it be like having a day without Trump in it?

For starters our judicial system wouldn't have to hear any cases involving Trump.

Judges across the country would take a sigh of relief not to have Trump targeting them for impeachment because they won't break laws for him.

Law firms would be free to represent whoever they chose without the threat of having Trump take away all access from federal buildings or bringing federal cases to court. 

It would be a day free of holding lawyers' ransom because they opposed Trump's views on the constitution, or they committed the cardinal sin of representing clients suing Trump in the past for trying to commit a coup.

Federal employees would get relief from dealing with DOGE's Gestapo unit storming through their offices and demanding personal loyalty pledges verified by a lie detector test. 

A whole day of not worrying about if they're going to get fired or laid off.  

Senior citizens would enjoy 24-hours of peace of mind about their Social Security and 401 Ks. Their concern about healthcare benefits being eliminated would vanish during that special day.

Legal immigrants would not have to worry about being swept away by Trump stormtroopers ignoring the laws of the land and illegally deporting them to hell on earth - a Salvadorian maximum-security prison - where a dictator rules and who just happens to be Trump's buddy.

The mainstream media would be able to report the news without fear of Trump going after them because they reported on one of his many crimes against American democracy. Newspaper editors wouldn't have to hold stories or opinion pieces because of fear of being fired by a cowardly publisher in Trump's back pocket. They would be no Trump to fear on that fateful day. 

Scientists and researchers would not be minimalized by Trump directing his flying monkeys (science deniers) to challenge facts and vaccines.

People of color would be treated with respect and their culture would be celebrated instead of being reviled by the Trump regime. Americans wouldn't arbitrarily be hunted down because they were black, Asian, or brown. 

A day without Trump would be a blessing where reality would hold sway instead of being challenged by lies and misinformation every day. For 1440 minutes the chaos in this country would subside and everyone would exhale and chill out. For 86,400 seconds the hate factor being nourished by Trump would diminish and people would get along better.

My inspiration for this post was a movie I saw years ago - A Day without Mexicans - which cleverly showed how much the United States needs them.

As it Stands, I think it goes without saying life for Americans would be a lot easier if we didn't have Trump seizing our democracy and turning our country into an autocracy.

Life Lesson #1: Bullies Are Cowards at Heart

In the last seven decades I've watched bullies get away with their actions and I've also seen victims turn the tables on their tormentors.

In order to be considered bullying, the behavior must be aggressive and include: 

An imbalance of power: kids who bully use their power - such as physical strength, access to embarrassing information, or popularity - to control others.

In today's world there are four kinds of bullying: physical, verbal, relational, and cyberbullying. 

A bully's behavior runs the range from obvious and highly visible (punching or hitting) to subtle and virtually invisible to everyone except its victim and participants.

I remember when I was in 5th Grade, we had a schoolyard bully named Lyle who roamed about during recess picking on kids (that were usually smaller) and who made lunch time a trial for everyone. He was universally feared.

One day I was playing basketball with some buddies when Lyle walked up and suddenly snatched the ball out of my hands! 

I was so startled I just stood there speechless while anger slowly bubbled to the surface. Before he could react, I grabbed the ball back and started to walk away knowing he'd come after me. At the last moment I turned and said, "You want the ball?" and hurled it at his head. It made contact with his nose and blood gushed forth like a mini fountain from both nostrils.

At this point I should explain that he was a head taller than me and heavier. When Lyle burst into tears and grabbed his injured nose the spell was broken - he ran away bawling like a baby as my buddies and I watched with amusement. I never had a problem with Lyle again after that. I had exposed him as a coward.

Over the years I've seen bullies from all walks of life making it hell for those who are under them.

I've also watched many cases where the bully got what he deserved in the end.

Bullies in power pose a grave threat to societies all over the world. America is currently an example of that with Trump running roughshod over the Constitution, the judiciary, and every other agency in Washington DC. 

Like all bullies Trump is a coward. He avoided the draft by paying a physician to say he had bone spurs when of course he didn't have them. He directs his minions to do HIS dirty work of destroying our democracy.

Bullies have always been around as past civilizations have shown us. It's a character flaw that either comes naturally or by practicing. In Trump's case it's probably both. 

As it Stands, I think there's a time in a person's life when they have to stand up to a bully, regardless of how big he is. Right now, it's time for all Americans to stand up to Trumps assault on our freedoms.

The Brain Drain Has Begun

Trump and his inner cronies hate immigrants and foreigners. Period.

Even the most casual observer can see that Trump's war on immigrants' goes much further than just protecting our borders.

Like Trump and Musk's idol Adolf Hitler, they are going after academia by threatening colleges who have the "wrong ideology" and students who don't conform to the party line.

In particular international students are bad for "American kids who want to go to a nice university but can't because their spot was taken by a foreign student" according to Trump's comedic sidekick J.D. Vance who has regally announced they are "bad for the American Dream."

The flimsy "Antisemitic" excuse for expelling these students is a way to please MAGA morons. 

This sick line of attack is cheap and transparent, though there are no doubt plenty of Trump minions with bad SAT scores who want to believe the only reason they didn't get into Harvard was that a foreign student took their "spot."

What the Trump regime fails to understand (or care about) is foreign students are actually improving the educational experience for all students. 

It's also true when it comes to schools recruiting foreign students. Colleges are looking for the brightest minds in the world. It's a major reason American universities are held in such high regard and why the United States is a world leader in scientific research.

I wonder what Republican voters would say if they realized the purge-them-all attitude meant expelling all of that talent hurts the larger economy. They might be especially perturbed when reminded that the high quality of American health care depends largely on the influx of medical doctors and researchers from around the world.

This targeting of "the small and the weak" - people who don't have as many resources to defend themselves, is part of a larger anti-immigration agenda designed by Trump and his chief Nazi wannabe Stephen Miller.

It's no big surprise that the White House refuses to talk about the real reasons behind most of the visa revocations. Their only evidence is being a foreigner. That's all the MAGA base needs. For example, one student was deported for drunk driving. Others had speeding tickets.

It's gone so far that a Brigham Young University candidate (Suguru Onda) from Japan had his internation student visa revoked because of a fishing violation. Reportedly he caught more fish than his fishing license allowed during a 2019 outing with his Latter-day Saint church group. The charge was later dismissed. 

Ondu is counted among the two-dozen or more international students attending Utah colleges and universities who had their visas revoked in recent weeks. 

They were directed to leave the country immediately. The message was clear to other countries as well, "Don't send your students here."

As it Stands, this brain drain will also have the effect of sending these bright students to our competitors in Europe and Asia. It's just another way that Trump is making America less influential and poorer.