Controlling the Narrative

The 24-hour news cycle is easy to manipulate.

Boeing launched its "Starliner" capsule (not to be confused with SpaceX's "Starship" - right?) to the ISS after many delays.  A conspiracy theorist might argue that these delays were awfully convenient for Boeing, as it drowned out SpaceX's latest Starship launch. Starliner was in the news, while Starship was not. But we don't truck in conspiracy theories here.

The Starliner is a capsule mounted on an existing launch vehicle, designed to take astronauts to low earth orbit, a feat SpaceX has already accomplished with its Dragon Crew module.  The Starship is a giant rocket with over dozen engines and a built-in crew compartment - sort of how science fiction authors envisioned "space rockets" back in the 1930's and 1940's.  Flash Gordon, your rocket has arrived!

What SpaceX is up to with the Starship is anyone's guess.  One theory is that they are just setting fire to a pile of government money as fast as they can - and pocketing the difference as profit.  It is weird, but NASA gave them a contract for a lunar lander and they are delivering a rocket that, theoretically, can go to Mars and back and then land on Earth - and be re-used!  The Starship is larger than the rocket that will take the astronauts to lunar orbit.  It makes no friggin' sense. It is like you contracted for a rowboat and they show you plans for the QEII.

Why bother taking off on one spacecraft and then transferring to a second one to land on the moon, when the second craft could have taken you directly there in the first place?

SpaceX seems to have a different philosophy than NASA.  During the "space race" NASA carefully tested each component of the Apollo program (particularly after the Apollo 1 fire) over and over again.  It was a careful, incremental approach that still does not guarantee failures will not occur.  How components test individually in the lab is not the same as an "all up" test in real life.

So SpaceX is blowing up Starship after Starship - on purpose - and using each mission to learn how to make the system better.  It is one approach, although the "all up" testing technique is blamed for at least one of the Shuttle disasters.  Supposedly, SpaceX will blow up two more Starships this summer - with more to come.  Eventually, I guess, the hope is to get one into orbit and then back to a landing pad before they put humans aboard.  You go first.

What troubles me about SpaceX (at least the Starship division) is the cult-like behavior.  I watched the video of the launch and they had a room full of SpaceX groupies and employees (I guess) cheering loudly at certain stages (apparently on cue) as though it were a rock concert or football game.  This isn't how you do science.  I mean, I get it, they cheered when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, but that was about it.  SpaceX groupies go beserk when the second stage adapter is successfully jettisoned.  Big deal.

While it is quite an accomplishment to launch such a large rocket, it still is puzzling as to why such a large rocket is needed as a lunar lander.   The Soviets, oddly enough, used a similar approach in their aborted space program.  Unable to master the art of really huge rocket engines (as in the Saturn V) they came up with a design that used 30 smaller engines firing simultaneously.  As you might imagine, it is hard to get so many engines to work all at once, and oftentimes, weird effects that are not anticipated in testing one engine may appear when you group a dozen together (e.g., harmonics).

The program never took off (sorry, pun) but they built dozens and dozens of those engines.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, the unused engines were snapped up by the West and used for satellite launches, until the supply was exhausted.

It seems like SpaceX is following a similar design philosophy. By using the same engine design for multiple purposes, the cost-per-engine may be far less.  And if they are reusable, so much the better.

While it is an interesting line of development, I am puzzled and a bit alarmed by the cult-like behavior of the employees - cheering on cue like a bunch of Scientologists.  We'll see if this technique yields a usable rocket or not.  In the meantime, NASA has awarded a contract to Blue Origin for a second lunar lander, apparently hedging their bets.  Blue Origin seems to be taking a more traditional approach similar to the Apollo program.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, less cheering, please.  This isn't Swift concert!

Life After Death

What do you do after a spouse dies?  Life, it turns out, goes on.

A friend of ours passed away the other day after falling and hitting their head.  It is what killed Bob Saget, by the way and it kills more people than one would think.  Our bodies are awfully frail and top-heavy and one slip and fall onto a rock, concrete, or a marble floor can be enough to do you in.  And when you get old and lose your balance, well, it is not an unlikely event.

I wrote before how difficult and awkward it can be when someone dies. Many people are so overwhelmed with emotion they fail to think about practical matters, such as, how will I survive from now on?  We've seen scenarios where widows discover, to their horror, that their late husband had hidden debts and basically lived the high life, borrowing from the widow's future - and leaving her to clean up the mess and live in nunnery for the rest of her life.

Yes, life here in God's Waiting Room is instructive.  Some lessons are harsh, though.

But beyond financial matters are more practical life matters. How do you handle living alone after living with someone for 30, 40, or 50 years?  "Two can live as cheaply as one" they say, but the inverse is true too - living alone can cost as much as living together. Yet your combined Social Security may be cut in half when your spouse dies.

It is one reason why divorce is so expensive and messy - the cost of maintaining two households is far more than one.  Yet a lot of people get divorced over silly things, not realizing it will severely affect their lifestyle and your husband leaving the seat up really isn't that much of an issue.  But I digress.

Finding a new partner is one option and men have an advantage in this regard.  Since women tend to live longer than men (and most women marry men three to five years older, as well) single men are outnumbered two-to-one by women in a retirement community.  Widows learn early on that if they want to remarry, you have to bring that casserole to the widower's house right after the funeral - if you don't in fact hit on him at the service. She who hesitates is lost.

We see a lot of second marriages here on retirement island.  One former widower told me quite frankly that "both our spouses died and we were quite happy with that!" which sort of shocked me.  But I guess after 50 years maybe you want a change of pace, or you just get tired of a cranky old spouse.  I am not one to judge - I just hope the same thing doesn't happen with the new spouse as well.

Children - and by that, I mean adult offspring - enter into the picture.  Suddenly, at age 40, you find you have a step-Mother and step-siblings and were not expecting this.  When my Dad remarried, he hoped we would become "one big happy family" but of course, we had little in common with our new step-siblings and live a continent apart.  Dad dove into his new step-family, which is good as it gave him something to do.  Besides, his old family (like an old spouse, I guess) got boring as they no longer heeded his instructions or obeyed his commands.  What's the fun in being a Dad if you can't control people like they are slaves?

Alas, a lot of Dads out there would not understand the sarcasm of the last remark and instead nod in agreement.

Of course, I am not saying I have any answers here, just questions.  This is one of those life events that no one really knows how to handle.

Dying first is always the best option - you don't have to grieve or figure out a new life in your remaining years.  Dying is easy, living is hard.  However, it is a good idea to make sure your spouse doesn't have it too hard when you are gone.

I recounted before how - on more than one occasion - a husband dies, leaving his widowed wife not only to mourn, but to deal with a mountain of hidden debt. "I never knew!" the widow says, "My husband always handled these things!"  And no doubt the stress of managing his financial house of cards was what lead him to an early grave.

It needn't be that way.  But it takes two to tango and many spouses (mine included) put their hands over their ears and cry "La, la, la, la! I can't hear you!" when you try to talk honestly about money.  I don't mind spending money, but I hate wasting it, and paying $50 for a bottle of wine at a restaurant when the same bottle is sold at the grocery story for $10 is ridiculous.  I enjoy going out to eat, of course, but in recent times, it seems like the exeperience is marked by indifferent food, indifferent service, and sky-hiigh prices.

But I digress.

I have tried to get Mark into the habit of balancing his own credit card (which we obtained as I realized to my horror that all our credit was in my name only, with him only an "authorized user" on the cards).  Again, this is something we see with unfortunate widows - more than once.  Once hubby dies, the bills come due all at once as his credit no longer exists.

Another reason to be debt-free in retirement.

I also try to document everything in big binders so he can figure out how much money he has to work with when I am gone - and where it is.  Also, life insurance - at least enough to live on for a few years.

Life is hard when your spouse dies - your whole world is turned upside-down and not only are you grieving, you are trying to figure out how to live from now on.  Adding financial problems to the mix only makes things worse.

Fortunately for the spouse of my late friend, they were debt-free and have their finances in order.  This is the exception, it seems, not the norm.

Just Stop Buying!

The law of supply and demand is largely inexorable - and non-linear!

Recent article(s) online laments that millenials are killing concert events. Just kidding, of course, but it seems that people are indeed turning away from entertainment and other luxury purchases as prices go up and the economy - going strong for the moment - shows signs of fragility.

When you get laid off from your job and are spending months looking for a new one, your behavior changes.  Not a lot at first - most people simply live as before and rack up credit card debt.  But then "suddenly" they wake up one day and realize they have more debt than they are comfortable with - and are struggling to make the minimum payments every month.  "Suddenly" it seems, spending $100 on concert tickets (or far more!) seems like an unnecessary expense.  "Suddenly" buying coffee for $5 a cup seems wasteful.  "Suddenly" it seems that $12 for a fast-food meal is a rotten bargain.

I know this two ways.  First of all, I have experienced this more than once in my lifetime.  You spend more money than you make and it all seems swell and all, until "Suddenly" you wake up and realize you were financing restaurant meals at astronomical credit card interest rates.  Everyone, it seems, goes through a personal credit card crises at least once in their life.

Second, I have witnessed these recessions or whatever you want to call them, more than once my life.  Economies grow organically, it seems, and then they overshoot and collapse "suddenly."  No doubt a chaos theory mathematician could draw you a diagram.  Back in 2005 we sold out of most of our real estate porffolio, convinced the end was nigh.  It kept going for another three years to absurd levels.  Banks kept offering weirder and weirder mortgages - "Payment Optional" they called it - and eventually and "Suddenly" the bills came due, particularly when interest rates went up.

I suspect we are in another one of these overshoots - where housing prices in some markets are so extreme that it is cheaper to rent than it is to buy.  In some markets, even rent is not affordable - although it always seems that way when you are in your 20's.  I know it did for me!

I illustrated long go how housing prices can swing wildly based on small changes in the balance between supply and demand.  If you have 100 people looking to buy a house in Anytown, USA and only 99 houses on the market, well, a bidding war will start.  Since the difference in monthly payment on a 30-year mortgage isn't that great, one buyer will pay more - a lot more - to win the house.  A delta of 1% in the balance of supply versus demand can result in a 5-10% change in prices.

Eventually, if prices go high enough, maybe it might encourage someone to put their home on the market.  But since few homeowners want to be homeless or go back to renting, you have to really jack prices to convince unmotivated buyers to sell.  For example, our house in Alexandria was worth maybe $400,000 on a good day and even that was an inflated price.  We weren't interested in selling, but when they offered $700,000 for the house (the lots, actually) it was SOLD! overnight.

If the situation is reversed and there are more sellers than buyers the same thing happens.  If there are 99 buyers and 100 homes, one homeowner (the most desperate to sell) will easily drop his price by 5-10% to get it sold.  Again, a 1% difference between supply versus demand, a 5-10% delta in pricing.

With concert tickets, the same is true and the supply has been saturated recently as more and more artists are realizing that their Spotify royalties aren't going to pay the mortgage.  Touring has historically been the moneymaker for performers as record company deals yield only trivial rewards.  The Greatful Dead famously allowed its fans to record their concerts - even allowing fans to plug their portable Nakamichi tape decks into the mixing board for a clean copy.

They made so little money from record sales.  The money was in touring.  And tour they did.

Coming off the pandemic, there was a lot of pent-up demand for live music and initially, prices soared.  But like anything else, what goes up must come down.  And as demand was satiated and another generation develops tinnitus as a result, demand has dropped off. As a result, some lesser (and not-so-lesser) artists are cancelling tours or shows or limiting tours.  Prices have dropped - a small amount on average, but a larger amount if you consider how inflation and wage inflation has increased concert production costs.

Adam Smith would be pleased.

There are signs, too, that people are rejecting the idea of the $5 breakfast sandwich.  Well, they are bitching about it a lot, but not changing their behavior.  For many, eating fast-food is such an ingrained habit that they struggle to realize there are alternatives - sometimes even at the fast-food restaurant!

But I suspect we will see the same thing that happened in the past, happen again.  And McDonald's will trot out its "dollar menu" (or maybe this time, two-dollar menu) just as they did in 2008.  In fact, most fast-food places are offering such deals, although mostly to encourage you to add fries and a coke to that - bringing the total back up over ten bucks.

In the grocery store, the same thing is going on.  Our Canadian friends are really feeling the pinch here.  There are signs that folks are ditching brand-names and embracing store brands.  I know that when I was a young hot-shot lawyer I used to pride myself on not checking prices and buying brand names.  In 2008 I ditched that foolishness and discovered that my prejudices about Walmart were unfounded.  Today, when I go to Publix or Harris Teeter, I marvel that people are willing to pay double what Walmart is charging across the street.

Prices will keep going up - or remain high - so long as people keep buying.  When you complain about high prices but then keep on buying at that high price, then you have made a rational bargain according to Adam Smith.  You could argue that the retailer is raking in record profits and the CEO is making too much money, but if you paid, you merely validated their pricing scheme. The fact you are unhappy but still paid only means they extracted the highest price possible.  It is basic economics.

Of course, some argue that things like food and shelter are necessities and there are no substitutes.  But indeed there are.  As the most obese nation on the planet, eating less food is always an option and a healthy one as well.  Relying less on restaurants is also one way to cut your food budget in half - or more.  And while having a roommate or living with your parents may suck, it is something that people will resort to, if they are really that hard-pressed.

On the other hand, the idea that someone making minimum wage and living alone is "entitled" to a two-bedroom apartment at an "affordable" price (or even free!) as some leftists argue, is just insane.  This idea of rent control or socialized housing has been tried, worldwide, in the past and today and it largely doesn't work out well.  Housing will always take up the lion's share of anyone's personal budget.  I know it does for me, and my house is even paid-for.  Yes, it can easily cost $15,000 to $20,000 a year to live in a home even without a mortgage.  Ask your Grandma in Florida about her property taxes!

This, too, shall pass, they say.   And again, I have experienced this more than once in my life - and far, far worse than today.  Few today remember the gas shock of 1979 when you could only buy gasoline on alternate days - if at all!  Or the double-digit inflation or 14% mortgage rates.  Our house in Alexandria had a mortgage over 11%!  Today, I have credit cards with lower rates than that.

We survived the 70s and 80s.  We'll survive this, too.  Step one is to stop bitching about high prices and stop paying them, instead.

Do-Nothing Biden?

Ol' Sleepy Joe has been busy!

I saw this list online and the author cautions that he swiped the data from elsewhere and some details may be off.  But even if half of it isn't totally accurate, it still is quite a list of accomplishments - and far more that Trump accomplished in four full years.  What did he do again?  Oh, right, outlaw abortion.  Nice work, Donnie!

I would also add that attributing economic conditions to a President is a double-edged sword.  As many have noted, there is no knob on the wall of the Oval Office labeled "gas prices" which a President can turn up and down at will.  One item not on this list was Biden releasing oil from the strategic reserve - and selling it on the open market at a high price.  He later bought back a similar quantity of oil at a much lower price, earning a profit for the government.  Too bad a "businessman" President didn't think of that!  Then again, Trump was beholden to the Koch Brothers.  They have a copy of the pee-pee tape and it's worse than you can imagine.

Often economic conditions are beyond the total control of governments.  Or pandemics - but we can control how we respond to them, however.  Trump was booed when he mentioned he got vaccinated - remember?  But he and his toadies encouraged the climate of fear and superstition among his followers as he thought it would be good politics.  Then again, we can't go back in time and do it over again and see whether things would have been different.

In a way, the pandemic was the ultimate "pick me!" moment as many protesting the lockdown restrictions felt that the other guy would be the one to get sick and die.  Indeed, when many of the pandemic deniers or their loved ones did get sick and die, they refused to admit it - blaming hospitals and doctors for killing off grandma when in fact it was the unmasked birthday party with 50 people in attendance that did her in.  To this day, people still are in denial.

The economic, employment, and crime statistics may or may not have been influenced by Biden's actions.  However they negate the drumbeat of negativity from far-right news outlets, who have been telling everyone the economy in ruins and Democrats are "destroying America!"  Sadly, a lot of people believe this.  Even on the Left, some young people - encouraged by foreign propaganda - believe that Biden hasn't gone far enough left or denounced Israel strongly enough.

Of course, Presidents can only do so much, particularly if they are thwarted by Congress.  In a way, that is how the system is supposed to work - "checks and balances."  Trump called it "the deep state" and proposes eliminating all checks and balances, if re-elected.

Biden just announced a new border measure - capping the number of people who may apply for asylum every day.  It might not be the perfect solution - and I am sure Republicans will say it is too little, too late.  But those same Republicans voted down their own border bill just so Biden wouldn't score a "win."   They want to keep the issue festering until November so they can make hay with it.

Sort of like how they kept the abortion issue simmering for half a century just to get out the vote.  Now that they "won" on that issue they are like the dog who finally caught a car - now what do you do?  I guess the only thing is to pivot to another self-made "crises" and keep that simmering (and the hatred going) for another 50 years.

Anyway, here's the list that was posted (reformatted by me):

Highlights from Year One:

• Reversed Trump's Muslim ban
• Historic Stimulus Bill passed
• Ended the war in Afghanistan
• Reduction of poverty levels by 45% along with reduction of child poverty levels by 61% by the first 6 months
• 5 Rounds of cancellation of student loan debt totaling almost $10 billion
• Passed largest infrastructure bill in history
• The unemployment rate dropped from 6.2% when Biden took office to 3.9%, the biggest single year drop in American history.

Highlights from Year Two:

• The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022
• 3 Additional rounds of student loan debt cancellation (8 rounds so far), totaling up $35 billion for 20-40 million Americans
• First major gun legislation in 30 years
• CHIPS Act to protect American supply of semi-conductor chips
• $62 billion worth of health care subsidies under the ACA (Obamacare), capping insulin at $35
• Allows Medicare to negotiate 100 drugs over the next decade, and requires drug companies to rebate price increases higher than inflation
• Unemployment at 50 year low

Highlights from Year Three:

• Got republicans to publicly take Social Security and Medicare cuts off the table by tricking them during the State of the Union
• 6 More rounds of student loan debt cancellation (14 rounds so far), totaling up to $127 billion
• As of October 2023, 34 straight months of job growth, longest stretch of unemployment below 4% since the 1960s
• Child poverty rates fall from 12.6% to 5.8% due to Biden's Expanded Child Tax Credits, 2.9 million kids escape poverty
• World's best post-pandemic recovery, doubles all nations except Japan
• Created 14 million jobs since he took office - More than any president in history did in four years (and its only been 3 years)
• Black unemployment rate lower under Biden than any other administration (4.7%) - Compared to black unemployment under Trump was 2nd worst number in history, reaching over 16%
• Diversity in justice: Majority of Biden’s appointed judges are women, racial or ethnic minorities – a first for any president
• Rail companies grant paid sick days after administration pressure in win for unions. Most people will only remember that he forced rail workers to go back to work in December 2022, even now that will be the top answer if you google "Biden Railworker Deal". But most people do not know that the Biden administration continued to pressure the rail corporations and work with the unions so that in June 2023, the corporations capitulated and gave the rail workers what they wanted. Biden knows how to work politics and knows that the real work isn't done with the cameras on you for a soundbite, but in the background where people can debate without a fickle public watching every move.

Highlights from Year Four (So Far):

• Another round of student loan cancellation, $1.2 billion this time, 15 rounds so far, totaling more than $128 billion
• Growth shatters expectations: GDP expands 3.1% - a year beginning with heavy odds of a recession
• Post-pandemic recover still leading the world by far
• Plan to modernize American ports
• Rescinds Trump-era "Denial of Care" rule that allowed health care workers to deny medical care to patients because of their personal religious or moral belief
• Violent crime drop significantly since 2020
• $5.8 billion to clean up nation’s drinking water and upgrade infrastructure

Despite the Supreme Court shooting down Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, he has managed to forgive loans to millions of students, many of whom were victims of ersatz "for-profit" schools.  What did Trump do?  He tried to start his own fraudulent "for-profit" school and had to pay $25 million as part of a court settlement.

That right there shows the stark difference between the two candidates.  When you hear someone say, "both parties are the same!" be sure to cry "BULLSHIT!" loud and long.

Ditto for "crime rates are skyrocketing!' and "inflation is out of control!" and "the economy is tanking" and "there is a crises at the border!"  Bullshit. Bullshit! Bullshit! and Bullshit!

But tell that to old people watching Fox News.  Gee, maybe things would have been different if more boomers bit the dust during the pandemic.  But that's "pick me!" thinking.  The "other guy" is us.

Perhaps the tide is turning - worldwide - against authoritarian right-wing thinking.  Recent elections in India show that a majority of the citizens are rejecting Hindu nationalism.  All across the globe, strong-men and strong-men wanna-bes are seeing support lagging as ordinary citizens are perhaps realizing that scapegoating and hate mongering only go so far, particularly when nothing of substance gets accomplished.

Well, we can only hope people are coming to their senses.

How Television Teaches Us To Not Bother Trying

Only Fred and Barney could fail at fast-food!

Television is the depression box, as I noted before.  It teaches learned helplessness and encourages viewers to be a passive audience in life, rather than an active participant.  And I know this, as I watched an awful lot of television in my youth.  Of course, today we stream video on our phones and gas pumps and that's entirely different - right?

I suppose we were the first generation really raised on television.  Sure, television had been around even before the war.  But it wasn't until the 1950's that it really took off and sets became affordable for the first time, thanks to "consumer financing."  By the time I was born in 1960, the television was present in the majority of American households and was on for hours a day.

It started slowly, of course.  Back then, television stations went off the air after midnight and didn't start broadcasting again until the early morning.  Late-night and morning shows were not widely watched - people needed their sleep and to get to work.  Daytime television was a wasteland of cheap "soap operas" that were frowned upon as low-class entertainment, suitable only for lazy housewives or to watch while you were doing your ironing.  It was "prime time" or nothing.  And there was a lot of nothing.

Saturday morning was kids time - cartoons and other kid's fare which we watched in our pajamas while consuming a ton of sugary breakfast cereals as well as an inordinate amount of advertising.  If only we had the latest and greatest toy, our lives would be complete!  We were saturated with media in a manner unknown to previous generations.

Oddly enough - or not so oddly - the message the television sent was watch more television - which literally became a "thing" by the mid-1970s when half the ads on television were for other television shows - and sometimes even for the one you were watching!  The message was subtle but clear: don't bother trying, don't try to improve your life, don't try to be self-actualizing.  Just watch television, live vicariously through the lives of others, like Walter Mitty!

But just to drive the message home, you start to notice that in each of the television shows, whenever a character tries to better themselves, they end up failing spectacularly.  The clip above is from The Flintstones, which was a cartoon version of The Honeymooners.  In both shows, the blue-collar protagonists get caught up in get-rich-quick schemes that end up in abject failure. The "carhop song" is a earworm that has persisted since the 1960's.  Only Fred and Barney could screw up a fast-food franchise.  It didn't help matters any that their spouses were against it from the get-go.  The message is startlingly clear: Don't bother trying.  Get a "good job" somewhere and show up on time (lest Mr. Spacely fire you!).  Keep your head down and keep working.  Stop trying to better yourself!

Realistically, this might be good advice for the majority of the population, too.  Few of us are cut out to to run a business, which requires you make a lot of hard choices and be strict with your employees.  It also requires a lot of risk-taking and yes, the failure rate is high.

But in almost every television sitcom, the protagonists fail at everything - not just wacky get-rich-quick schemes.  The gang on Gilligan's Island never got off the island, despite their efforts every episode.  Sure, they eventually get rescued in the end, only to return once again.  And it isn't just dumb characters or blue-collar workers. Mr. Douglas was a lawyer in Green Acres, yet was unable to run a farm or even fix up his farm house.  Fortunately, the less educated residents of Hooterville helped steer him toward the light: Give up and stop trying and be like the rest of us.  Even Arnold the pig knew the right answer - watch more television!

And a pig shall lead them...

Not much has changed over the years. Television shows still teach passivity and sloth.  If you are to get ahead in life, it is only through lottery-winning type means - winning at a game show or a warbling vocal competition.  If success is shown at all on television, it is by living vicariously through the lives of "celebrities" who are often celebrated simply for being celebrities.  And often, they are depicted as banal, evil, conniving, drug-addicted horrible people - which satisfies our need to feel superior to them, even as we admire their gold-plated bathroom fixtures.

I mentioned it before that people who are on television don't watch television.  I recall an interview decades ago, where the interviewer asked Katie Couric what her favorite television show was.  She explained that she had to get up at four in the morning, take a limo to the studio, spend an  hour in makeup, an hour going over the plans for the show and so on and so forth.  It was exhausting work that left little time for watching television (certainly not the 4.6 hours a day the average American watches!),  She nearly gave up the game right there, and almost immediately backtracked and listed four or five of the most popular shows of the era.

Today, television is still with us, augmented by even more forms of screen time, in particular, the smart phone.  It is embarrassing how much time we spend on these devices.  They are like cigarettes - we pick up the phone first thing in the morning and look at it all throughout the day until we finally set it down before bed at night - and if we wake up in the middle of the night, we check it again - hoping for a drop of dopamine and another cute kitty video.

Video games are the same way.  Forget the claims they lead to violent behavior (because, yea, shooting people for hours a day could never desensitize you to violence, right?) the far worse effect is the scandalous number of hours - dozens or even hundreds of hours spent trying to "get to the next level" or worse yet, the money spent paying your way through.

Of course, people are free to do as they please.  But many folks complain that their lives are empty or that they are not getting anywhere - but at the same time, watching countless hours of television, glued to the smart phone, or wetting their pants because they can't get away from a first-person-shooter game that can't be paused.

I look back at my life and wonder how I was able to work full-time at a job and then go to law school at night - and come home and remodel the kitchen until midnight.  I would go to bed, get up, and do it all again the next day.  And yet we still had time to do fun things on vacations and during the weekends.

Prior to that, I worked 2-3 jobs and went to night school at SU.  During the day, I would work at Carrier and then deliver pizzas at night - on the nights I wasn't in class and on the weekends.  Where did I get all that energy?  Where did I get all that time?

Well, I had the energy because I was young.  And I had the time because I didn't have a television.  I had also given up drugs and drinking, too.  But eventually, a decade later, we bought a "big screen" tube television and got back on the bandwagon.  I can't say it was an improvement in my life.

I don't have the energy at age 64 to work 2-3 jobs or, in fact, even one.  There will always be time to catch up on your tee-vee watching in the retirement home - trust me on that.  What is sad to me is to see young people, in the prime of their lives, spending countless hours in front of the "boob tube" while complaining their life sucks and getting more and more depressed.

It almost seems like a system designed to keep people depressed and poor, doesn't it?  But we don't truck in conspiracy theories here.