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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Few things scare humans like the prospect of living, dying alone

By David McElroy · February 5, 2019

I never met Jimmy Grammer. As far as I know, we were never even in the same place at the same time. But I find myself wondering tonight who this man was.

This was his driver’s license photo, but I can’t say he looked very happy when it was taken. Maybe he was having a bad day. Maybe the camera operator pushed the button before he was ready. We’ll never now.

Jimmy Grammer was found dead last Tuesday at the age of 70 — in the cheap motel in a seedy part of town where he had lived since 2011. As far as anyone knows, he had no family.

Motel employees hadn’t seen him in a few days, according to the newspaper account, so someone went to check on him and found him dead in his bed.

Every time I see a story such as this one, I feel a shiver of dread. I look into the eyes of the dead man or woman and I wonder how this person ended up so alone in life. But it’s not just empathy for strangers, of course. Their deaths scare me.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: death, family, fear

Changes are destroying culture, but we can build beautiful dream

By David McElroy · January 6, 2019

You were shaped by the dominant culture in which you grew up. You probably didn’t even think about that, but your values and way of living came together based on what you saw and heard.

Your family is your first dominant culture. For some people, the culture of a church or other religious group comes next. The next culture to dominate your life comes from media and (for most people) schools. Because of the way schools operate today, the school culture and media culture are almost the same.

Without thinking about it, you learn to look and talk and think and act like the people of your culture, for good or bad.

The dominant culture in this country is very sick today. That’s my value judgment. You might have seem similarly disturbing things. I’ve come to understand that if we don’t intentionally develop a culture in which we want to live — in our families and in the groups we join — we will default to becoming like the depraved dominant culture. And so will our children.

The bad news is that technology and various forms of media are destroying what’s left of Western culture as I’ve known it. The good news is that you and I can choose a culture — can build a culture — that we want for ourselves and for our children.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: culture, development, family, ideas, real estate

I can’t help wanting to replay life with emotionally healthy parents

By David McElroy · December 13, 2018

When I was born, babies were kept away from families for awhile. Even the mother didn’t have a lot of time with the baby right after birth. For the most part, the babies spent their time in a nursery, separated from visitors by a huge sheet of glass.

I’m one of those babies in the nursery above. I’ve been told that I was the one on the front left, but I can’t be sure of that. The man you see reflected in the glass — the one in the short-sleeve dress shirt and tie — was my father. For days, he couldn’t hold his first-born child — and I’m told that he spent hours watching me, just like this.

My father could be a very loving man at times. Because I had to go so many years without being able to talk about his terrifying narcissistic side, you’ve heard me speak quite a bit this year — since he died in April — about the awful side of growing up with him.

But when I look at a picture like this from my baby book — with him longing to hold and love his new son — it breaks my heart, because it reminds me how much he wanted to love me and how much he wanted me to love him.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: dysfunctional family, family, father, narcissism, parenting, parents

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Have you felt as though you’re living through Grou Have you felt as though you’re living through Groundhog Day lately? Me, too. Here’s a quick-and-dirty political satire I made this evening for fun and stress relief.
About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color is poking through the skies to the east of my back yard.
The lights and color might have been more spectacu The lights and color might have been more spectacular a couple of minutes before this, but this was the best view I had of the Monday afternoon sunset from a bridge over I-20 in Moody, Ala.
I just remembered this shot I got a couple of hour I just remembered this shot I got a couple of hours ago of the fading sunset while I was in the Publix parking lot on the way home. If you suddenly find yourself craving Arby’s or Wendy’s, blame the giant icons in the sky, not me. 😃 (BTW, this was with the iPhone’s 8X telephoto lens.) #nature #naturephotography #sunset #birmingham #alabama
I had just pulled into a parking lot Friday night I had just pulled into a parking lot Friday night and was watching traffic through the distortion of the gently falling rain on my car window when I realized that the abstract view I had matched the way I was feeling tonight, so I turned it into a brief abstract video to match my mood.
Get ready for the next great animated Christmas cl Get ready for the next great animated Christmas classic, featuring singing and dancing and danger from Alex, Oliver and Sam. Coming soon to a theater near you. (The funniest part is that if I cared about this as anything more than a Christmas joke, it strikes me as something that could be profitable with the right story development and the right animators.)
Here are a couple of views of the sunset I just wa Here are a couple of views of the sunset I just watched on my way home after showing houses. I didn’t have my camera with me, so these are just iPhone shots. #nature #naturephotography #sunset #birmingham #alabama
This is what it might look like if the cats and I This is what it might look like if the cats and I were cast in a Wes Anderson film.
This is one of the funniest things that ChatGPT ha This is one of the funniest things that ChatGPT has done for me. I asked it to create a movie poster showing what a movie poster would look like for a film starring me. I told it to use my previous writings (from my website) to come up with a title and subject matter. And this is what it came up with. I can’t stop laughing. Also, the software decided on its own to included Oliver. 😺
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Oliver is obsessive about demanding attention toni Oliver is obsessive about demanding attention tonight. Even though I keep putting him down so I can get some work done, he keeps coming back. I find it impossible to refuse his demands for attention, though, because I can’t help but remember that the day will one day come when I will eagerly wish he could be demanding attention again. One of the things I love most about cats is that they are unashamed to demand whatever they want.
Alex and Oliver are napping on the top level of th Alex and Oliver are napping on the top level of the castle Thursday afternoon. Sam is in a front window watching the garbage truck make its way down the street.
Here’s the next ridiculous parody ad that I’ll be Here’s the next ridiculous parody ad that I’ll be using on an upcoming video on my YouTube channel. 😺
I just noticed that the CritterCam happened to cat I just noticed that the CritterCam happened to catch me telling Alex goodbye as I was leaving the house earlier today. He was obviously more interested in sleeping than in saying goodbye.
Sam is on Neighborhood Watch duties Wednesday afte Sam is on Neighborhood Watch duties Wednesday afternoon, so the entire neighborhood  is safe from criminals and ne’er-do-wells. At least for today.
Some neighbors across the street have put their ho Some neighbors across the street have put their house up for sale and Sam has been keeping his eyes on anybody who comes to the house to look at it. There was someone there just a little while ago and Sam was making sure he wasn’t a danger to us. The two men left without causing any harm to the neighborhood, so Sam obviously did his job.
Alex woke up early Tuesday afternoon just long eno Alex woke up early Tuesday afternoon just long enough to see if I had come to play with him or not. When he realized I was leaving the house instead of coming to play, he curled up and went back to sleep.
Sam relaxes in my arms at an office window just af Sam relaxes in my arms at an office window just after midnight Monday. He would still rather be left alone, but he tolerates me pretty well most of the time. 😺
Alex is hanging out with me just a bit after 3 a.m Alex is hanging out with me just a bit after 3 a.m., but I think he’s about ready for us all to go to bed.
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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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