Briefly

Briefly: We need to learn to walk away from dangerous disputes

By David McElroy · March 29, 2019

If you’re annoyed with someone in a parking lot, it might be smarter to move to another parking place. A dispute over parking at a Birmingham-area Cracker Barrel restaurant Thursday night led to one man shooting another in the head after they argued. It’s hard to imagine that we humans are insane enough that we allow ourselves to get so upset about such trivial disputes that we’re ready to kill someone. I’ve been angry enough to do something stupid, too, so I know what it’s like to feel that way. Most of us need to learn better self-control.

Briefly: Routine tech today would have been black magic 200 years ago

By David McElroy · March 29, 2019

It’s funny how many things we take for granted today which would have seemed like black magic to people of a couple hundred years ago. I just unlocked my car door with the key fob — which almost everyone today does without thinking every day — and it occurred to me that simple action would have been incomprehensible to those people. It would have seemed like amazing magic at best and would have gotten us burned as sorcerers at worst. I find myself wondering (again) what things will be common and routine in a hundred years which are beyond my ability to even imagine.

Briefly: State lotteries are hypocritical and exploitive shams

By David McElroy · March 27, 2019

It disgusts me that state governments steal so much money from people — mostly those who can’t afford the loss — by dangling before them the promise of $750 million in the Powerball lottery. A lottery is nothing but a tax on those who don’t understand probability statistics. If private parties want to operate gambling systems and if ignorant individuals want to throw their money at them, it’s not my business to stop them. But I’m disgusted that governments piously pretend it’s shameful and exploitive for private interests to run lotteries, but it’s fine and dandy as long as the coercive monopoly called the state gets the profit instead. This is wrong on many levels.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.