Sung to the tune of Row Row Row Your Boat:
♪ Blow Blow Blow Your Nose
Blow It Off Your Face
Merrily Merrily Merrily Merrily
Blow It Into Space ♪
I have not been able to blow my nose for two weeks ever since The Night Of The Nosebleed as my left nostril has been packed with something to stop the bleeding and to help with healing. I have had to sneeze with an open mouth as well.
Meshugana is either a Yiddish adjective meaning “crazy” or noun meaning “crazy person.” Of course, “Meshugana” is the English/Latin transliteration for the Yiddish word, which is spelled in the Hebrew alphabet. I have heard Yiddish described as sloppy German (70 percent of Yiddish words derive from German, but usually with a slightly different pronunciation) written in the Hebrew alphabet.
Mishegas, as in Monday Mishegas, is a Yiddish word meaning “craziness.” By the way, the linked post is one of the most read in this blog’s history.
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Without question Sean Payton is an excellent football coach. Without question Sean Payton is not an excellent person. Some historians subscribe to the theory that greatness and goodness are incompatible traits. I disagree.
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More WordPress bullshit: one of the suggestions to fix the ongoing issues was to change the publication theme to a “default” theme. I tried that and, of course, it didn’t work. However, when I tried to return to the original publication theme all of the side widgets, such as the Search area, were deleted. The “button” allowing people to follow the blog by submitting their email address has also disappeared. The clock is ticking loudly…
UPDATE: Apparently, I have been able to restore the Search widget and the Follow button. Still a pain in the ass…
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This CNBC article is titled, “‘There is no safe level’ of alcohol to drink, doctor says–not even one glass of red wine per day.” A new advisory from the US Surgeon General states, “Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States – greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S. – yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk.” In fact, the Surgeon General wants a cancer warning label placed on all alcoholic beverages sold in the US.
The Prohibitionists were right. By the way, people living unhealthy lives raise the cost of healthcare for EVERYONE!
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Here is the beginning of a Free Press article about TikTok:
“Since its U.S. launch in 2018, people have worried that the Chinese-owned social media giant TikTok is vacuuming up data on America’s teenagers and transforming them into modern, digital versions of the throngs who once enthusiastically waved Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book.
Now, an updated study conducted by Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI)—provided exclusively to The Free Press—finds that those fears may be justified.”
Duh! TikTok is nothing more than a giant operation by the Chinese government to infiltrate and to indoctrinate the US population. I sincerely hope the US Supreme Court throws out TikTok’s challenge to the “ban or sale” law that is supposed to take effect on January 19. The fact that ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, is trying to overturn the law–instead of making a huge profit on a sale of the company to a US entity–is prima facie evidence of how much the Chinese government wants to continue to spy on US citizens. Again, I trust the Chinese government as far as I could throw Mount Everest.
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Not surprisingly, Canada has more readers of Disaffected Musings than any other country except the US. This Free Press article, which I think/hope can be read without a subscription, is about Canadians who want to be part of the US.
Granted, the percentage is 10%-20% depending on political orientation and province of residence. Still, in light of the reports that Prime Minister Trudeau is about to resign, which could lead to new elections and–if current polls are correct–a landslide victory for the Conservative Party (Trudeau leads the Liberal Party), I would love to hear from the Canadians who read this blog on their views about joining the US, Canadian politics, etc.
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More and more school districts across America are banning the use of smartphones by students during classroom hours. Another Free Press article gives much of the credit for the move to common sense to Jonathan Haidt’s best-selling book, The Anxious Generation. Here is a long excerpt from the Free Press:
“This past fall, the Seaside School District became one of the first in Oregon to ban cell phones for both middle and high schoolers, forcing kids to lock their devices in pouches near the school entrance until the end of the day. Seaside has joined thousands of schools nationwide in recently banning smartphones, as a growing body of evidence shows they’re linked to falling test scores and rising rates of teen mental illness. This January, just over two million students will return to phone-free schools as statewide bans go into effect in Virginia and South Carolina. The following month, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest in the nation, will join them.
Over the past decade or so, the warnings about smartphones have reached a fever pitch. Netflix’s The Social Dilemma, a blockbuster 2020 documentary, revealed just how badly social media algorithms warp our brains, changing our behavior and beliefs. The star of that movie, computer scientist Tristan Harris, had been calling out the dangers of social media for years through his Center for Humane Technology. Parents across the country have campaigned to get phones out of schools, launching groups like Wait Until 8th or OK to Delay.
So why is this movement finally getting results now? I [Olivia Reingold of The Free Press] spoke to a dozen people—educators and activists and parents—and they all offered the same answer: Jonathan Haidt.”
I think ALL social media should be unavailable to those under the age of 16. No algorithm has any “free speech” rights.
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Here are links to two Hagerty articles. The first is titled, “7 Vehicles We’re Going to Miss in 2025.” One of them, which has actually been out of production for quite some time, is a car near and dear to me.
The second Hagerty piece is titled, “What Happens When Cars Sit?” I really like the second paragraph of the article, which I will “re-print” not quite in its entirety:
“The trouble is that automobiles, like everything else, are subject to the law of entropy. “Preservation” is about more than just keeping the odometer reading low. “Like-new” means something different after one, two, or three decades, even if the car still has plastic wrap on the steering wheel. The paint, upholstery, and trim may look flawless—but what about the bits you can’t see, like the complex systems and different materials that make up the driveline? Just because a car is like-new doesn’t mean it actually is new, or that you can just hop in and drive it home.”
One of the things about Jay Leno that I admire is that he tries to drive all, or most, of his vehicles as often as possible. As I have often written, I don’t believe in owning de facto museum exhibits. Cars should be driven. Oh, 99+ percent of cars are not classic collectibles. Virtually every new car depreciates in value by 10%-20% once it is driven off the lot after purchase.
In case I haven’t dropped enough hints, the end of regular posting on WordPress is right around the corner. Once again, IF I keep writing with any frequency, here is where you can read my ramblings.
#MeshuganaMonday
#WordPressIsAShitShow