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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Ban on saggy pants: Why do we require laws against looking foolish?

By David McElroy · October 5, 2011

With every new generation, there’s some outrage that compels mature adults to get up out of their recliners and shout the current equivalent of, “You kids get off my lawn,” at the teen-aged weirdos. The current outrage to public decency is saggy pants.

When I was a teen-ager, the issue had been longer hair for a couple of decades already. Older people didn’t seem to want to trust kids with hair over their ears, but they slowly adjusted. Eventually, it went out of style. Then came back. Again and again. Fashions are stupid and unpredictable, but they always change.

For some unknown reason, the current craze among a certain segment of youth is wearing pants in such a way that they hang way down. When I see kids dressed like that, I laugh. I laugh even harder when I notice the pretentious looks on their faces that tell me just how hard they’re trying to be cool by trying not to look as though they’re trying to be cool. (Follow that?) But some adults aren’t just laughing. These bozos are in positions of power, so they’re passing laws to do something about the irritation at having to see such idiocy. Sadly, I’m not sure which generation is ultimately acting the silliest about the matter.

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Schools’ one-size-fits-all rules are just excuse not to use judgement

By David McElroy · October 4, 2011

In their mad rush to fight “gang activity,” school officials in a little town just west of Omaha, Neb., have banned a 12-year-old girl from wearing a necklace resembling a rosary — because they’ve been told that gangs in distant states might be using them as symbols.

She really looks like a hardcore ganger to me, even if she says she doesn’t understand what a gang is. So is the school saying that it believes this girl is trying to promote gangs — with the various things she wears to promote her faith?

“I’m wearing a cross necklace, a cross T-shirt and a cross bracelet,” she said. “I’m thinking of how Jesus died on the cross and how he gave up all his sins for us.”

The school superintendent says it’s a safety issue, but it seems that the real issue is school administrators who aren’t smart enough or brave enough to figure out when there’s an actual problem requiring a solution and when there’s nothing wrong.

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Rich black businessman: Obama’s approach to taxes is demagoguery

By David McElroy · October 4, 2011

A greedy businessman is telling Barack Obama that he needs to quit attacking successful people who earn lots of money. The twist is that the “greedy” businessman is one of America’s most prominent black men.

Robert Johnson started from nothing and has built up an empire worth more than half a billion dollars. He doesn’t appreciate the attacks coming from Obama leveled at people — such as Johnson — who have earned their money. On Fox News Sunday, he had this to say:

“Well, I think the president has to recalibrate his message. You don’t get people to like you by attacking them or demeaning their success. You know, I grew up in a family of 10 kids, first one to go to college, and I’ve earned my success. I’ve earned my right to fly private if I choose to do so.

“And by attacking me it is not going to convince me that I should take a bigger hit because I happen to be wealthy. You know, it is the old — I think Ted and Fred and I we both sort of take the old Ethel Merman approach to life. I’ve tried poor and I tried rich and I like rich better. It doesn’t mean that I am a bad guy.

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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. 😺
I just noticed in the past couple of days that the I just noticed in the past couple of days that there’s suddenly far more color in the leaves of the trees, which lets me know that winter isn’t far behind. I took these two photos on a chilly Sunday afternoon nine years ago this week. #nature #naturephotography #colorful #trees #autumn #birmingham #alabama
Some of you might be aware that my dog Lucy died o Some of you might be aware that my dog Lucy died of cancer last weekend. As I’ve been grieving the loss of this beautiful and loving girl, I put together a one-minute compilation of short videos of Lucy from her first two or three weeks with me in early 2016. She was several years old at the time, but living with me provided her first stable home. She was unsure of herself at first, but she quickly developed confidence as she discovered how much she was loved. #dog #dogs #dogstagram #dogsofinstagram #cute #cutedog #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instadog #ilovedogs #birmingham #alabama
Tonight’s moon is apparently something called a be Tonight’s moon is apparently something called a beaver supermoon. I noticed as I was getting home from work that it was a bright yellowish-orange, so I snapped this a couple of miles from home. It’s not a great photo, but I was pretty happy with it for an iPhone shot on the side of the road. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama #iphone17pro
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I just went to tell the three cats good night just I just went to tell the three cats good night just before 1 a.m. They were already asleep when I checked on them, but Oliver got out of his bed when he thought the other two might be getting attention that he was missing out on. 😺
When Alex sits like this, I call it his Jabba the When Alex sits like this, I call it his Jabba the Hutt pose.
Oliver is watching the college football national c Oliver is watching the college football national championship game with me, but he was pretty upset to find out that Alabama didn’t make it to this game. There’s always next year, little buddy.
Early Monday afternoon, Oliver is chasing the sun’ Early Monday afternoon, Oliver is chasing the sun’s reflection on the screen of my Apple Watch on a wall of the office.
From the CritterCam: I don’t know what caught the From the CritterCam: I don’t know what caught the attention of Sam and Alex as they slept on a cold Monday morning — first shot — but they quickly put their heads down and went back to sleep moments later — in the second shot.
When I went to tell the cats good night around 3 a When I went to tell the cats good night around 3 a.m., Oliver got up when he thought Alex might be getting attention that he wanted for himself. Sam didn’t even wake up, though. All three were back to sleep in mere seconds.
Oliver just jumped into my lap at midnight and sta Oliver just jumped into my lap at midnight and started purring. Alex and Sam are already asleep, and it appears Oliver is ready to join them.
This little bed came with Oliver when he was a kit This little bed came with Oliver when he was a kitten, but Alex loves it far more than Oliver ever did. Sam uses it sometimes, too, but Alex seems to believe it belongs to him. He’s sound asleep in it as I leave the house Saturday evening.
From the CritterCam: Just after 7 a.m. on a chilly From the CritterCam: Just after 7 a.m. on a chilly Saturday, Sam watches outside an office window from the warm comfort of the heated pad.
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If you have problems with high blood pressure, I’d like to encourage you to consider making serious changes to your diet. There might be some people who don’t have any choice but to start taking prescription medications for high blood pressure, but I’d like to tell you that I have completely eliminated my issue by eliminating all sugar and almost all carbohydrates. (A couple of months ago, my blood pressure hit 185/144, which was dangerously high — considered stage 3 hypertension.) By completely changing my eating habits, I’m down 22 pounds and my blood pressure is now in the “ideal” range — without taking any medication. In addition, I sleep better and I have more energy. Getting away from the sugar-laden mess that we generally refer to as “highly processed food” has been a life-changer for me. Now my challenge is to avoid slipping back into old habits — by eating in the dangerous ways that almost everyone in our society has come to see as normal.

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

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