children

Little blonde cousins are sometimes perfect antidote for life’s bleak days

By David McElroy · August 18, 2018

I was in a bleak mood when I arrived at a fast food joint to have a late lunch. I’d been down all day and I didn’t see much chance of the dark cloud lifting — but I wasn’t counting on Allie and Ella.

The restaurant had a “bouncy house” out front for children today. Cousins Allie and Ella are granddaughters of one of the managers here, so they had come to jump around for awhile. As I arrived, I stopped to talk with their grandmother, who was watching them play. I’d met 7-year-old Allie a couple of times before, but 4-year-old Ella was new to me.

Ella wasn’t a stranger long. I had been watching them for mere seconds when she announced to me that she’s crazy and she loves puppies. After I showed her pictures of Lucy, she acted as though we had been friends for life.

Then they were jumping in the bouncy house for me, each one trying to do stunts to out-do the other — each one wanting to have my attention. And as I watched and talked with them and then laughed with these little girls, I couldn’t help but notice that my dark mood was brightening.

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Time and maturity have changed
my mind on kids and discipline

By David McElroy · July 21, 2018

I might have called this little girl a brat if I’d watched this scene 15 years ago. Maybe even 10 years ago. This little blonde girl appeared to be about 3 or 4. She was with her parents in Chick-fil-A — and she was having a loud and sudden meltdown.

I grew up believing children should always be controlled and composed. That belief followed me into my early adult life. I expected children to be little adults in child suits, always in control of their behavior, always perfectly obedient — like little robots.

The little girl in Chick-fil-A seemed sweet. I had talked with her a little bit in line while her parents and I both ordered. She seemed loving and kind. But she was tired from riding in a car all day. Her mom told me they had left Myrtle Beach, S.C., in the morning and they had been tied up for hours on I-20 west of Atlanta by a horrible traffic accident.

The sweet and loving little girl was just tired and cranky. Where I might once have criticized her — and her parents — I now felt empathy for all of them. And it made me think again about how much my attitudes have changed about how to raise children.

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Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

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