Authority Figures

Not just the police and government, but anyone in charge:  the bosses, the landlords, the business owners and the like.

The most annoying characteristic of such personality types is their eternal hubris.  The way they assume they're a "special breed" of humanity.  In this case, the "parental" attitude they harbor wherein they figure the average person to be little more than an "overgrown child", devoid of self-discipline and self-restraint and "in need of" constant supervision and frequent punishment.

Sort of along the same line as the "intellectuals" who figure themselves to be such "unique individualists" in a world of "cookie-cutter"/"carbon copy" brainwashed "gnomes" and "drones".

Or the "intelligentsia" who view themselves as among the "enlightened" in an eternally "formulaic" monolithic world.

The Officious Ones III

As I get my "assigned" computer and proceed to sit down at the computer the public library system designated for my use that day, I immediately notice the last person who used that terminal left a mess of wrappers and grunge and such.
I respond: "I wish these people would clean up their  fucking mess!"
The woman in the adjacent terminal blurts out ever-so-surly: "Excuse me?  We don't use that kind of language in the library!"

Okay ...who is SHE to be addressing me in such a condescendingly strongarm manner?  Like it's her job to exercise some kind of authority or command over me?
Unless she's either  one of the library staff, or, maybe, an off-duty police officer, I think she should just mind her own business and look the other way if she's just another patron.

True, the library most likely DOES have rules against "profanity" and "abusive language", being that it IS a place where families and children routinely patronize its facilities.  But shouldn't it be the task of the library's staff members to do or say something about it?

And just where is this eternal "crusader" and "reformer" when people shout into their cellphones during loud conversations while at a computer terminal?
And when these teeny-bopper "gamers" are getting intensely involved in their on-line games to the point where they're cussing out their bad luck:  "Awww, FUCK, man!  I missed that one!"?

Why was I the one who "needed to be controlled" and "put in my place" while all these other people can just go about their on-line business in a freelance manner?

             More on "Liberties" and "Rights"

One of the great ironies of the United States is its eternal grandiose promises of "individual liberties" and "personal rights".

It gives people their exaggerated sense of entitlement and self-importance, along with extreme notions of what they "deserve" to have the "right to" do or say.

And then there are those 10,000 laws or so, most involving what's "forbidden" to do, say, or even what to possess.

Most people who are incarcerated are most likely victims of their own delusions of "personal entitlement".

Most laws concern themselves with profit/financial/property/revenue issues or with regulating and controlling human behavior.  That's what society's true priorities are.  It doesn't care about any of its citizens' well-being.  No-one matters as far as it's concerned---except politicians, elitists, and celebrities.

So much for any "Black Lives Matter" rhetoric.  The reality is: NOBODY'S life matters.  All that's important to society is its "system".  (Oprah Winfrey may matter to the world, for example, but obviously her ancestry is not a factor in her "importance" status.)

                          User Friendly

If the industries wanted to they could build products with high-quality materials and design them to be more efficient and easier to use.

They could build kitchen sinks deeper and wider with taller faucet heads and T-stick handles instead of separate "hot" and "cold" knobs.

They could build multi-residential apartment buildings with solid structures able to withstand high winds, with soundproof walls and floors which would enable each individual tenant to create their own private domestic climate and not have to have their private lives "determined by" the lifestyles and schedules of those living above, below, or right alongside of them.

They could build appliances made of quality materials, impervious to damage or rough treatment, with manual and computerized controls accurately programmed to respond properly to whatever setting the user puts it on.

But quality materials cost more.  And good craftsmanship is done by trained professionals who demand union-level pay.  And good service is provided by highly-trained individuals who, likewise, expect to be paid accordingly.  
But, of course, the businesses and industries are so "profit obsessed" they just will not invest in those things that would improve goods and services.  Their concern is always with "cutting corners" and "cutting costs" any way they can.  It seems they're always trying to "save money" any way they can (just WHAT they're "saving" all that money for, one can only guess.  MY guess is obviously not for investing back into any community for the purpose of improving anyone's quality-of-life).

Instead, everything is mass-produced in the most slip-shod manner with cut-rate materials assembled by for-hire temporary contract workers whose experience and expertise are questionable.

And the service industries employ the clueless, the incompetent, and unknowledgeable.
Which is why "customer service" is more "customer punishment" instead.

Societies could improve themselves at any time.  But the "probability factor" of that ever happening is pretty much nil.

You have to watch yourself.  Should you do anything inappropriate or improper others will get offended and you stand to incur great wrath.

If it's the other guy who behaves inappropriately or improperly you still have to watch yourself.  If you dare say anything about their behaviors (or try to approach them over it) they may take offense and you still stand to incur great wrath (from them).  You just have to suffer and endure them and just HOPE someone else will do something about it.

Is it just me, or is something wrong with the above picture?







McDonald's of Japan introduces "chocolate-flavored french fries".
Ew-u-u-u-u-u-u-u!  I don't think so.
I'll just have my chocolate in Milky Way bars and chocolate-frosted donuts, thank you.  Keep the french fries separate.
It's a matter of boundaries and good taste.
What's next? Denny's introduces "liver and onions a la mode"?




        The above 2 are my Musings For Today

                      Gentrify Me (Revisited)

CVS.  A corporate drug store chain, yes.  But a USEFUL business.  It's a place where one can buy essential items like toothbrushes, shaving razors, deodorant, cold medicines, hand soap, shampoo, napkins, and so forth.

THOSE are the kind of businesses all neighborhoods need.  The coin-op laundries, the grocery stores, the hardware stores, the gift shops, and the like.

It seems these days all the practical-minded businesses are being eliminated and replaced by upscale bistros, restaurants, "trend-obsessive"-minded clothing stores, grossly overpriced high-rise residential buildings.

Now, essentially, there's nothing actually wrong with upscale bars and restaurants, or with trendy stores.  So long as they can co-exist with the practical-minded businesses and modestly-priced restaurants.  But, for whatever reason, this equity-minded compromise concept is being forsaken for some kind of "favoritism ethos" geared towards a perverse type of social engineering leaning heavily towards an "ultimate social-rank fascism" environment.

It's a shame that all factions of society cannot simply co-exist together.

Cosbism

With all the media attention being given to Bill Cosby's latest dilemmas I have created a term whose definitions are that of an otherwise brilliant and gifted individual who otherwise shows considerable scrupulousness in most common areas, but is beset by extreme obsessive eroticisms which he cannot shake and, thus, gives him some kind of "split personality" syndrome, as, sooner or later, these desires, being obsessions, he'll "have to" act upon them eventually, ending up self-contradicting his usual outer demeanor.

And, when these erotica obsessions of his become known and revealed to the general public his long-standing reputation stands to be tarnished due to the nature of these erotica obsessions in relation to cultural dogmas and popular prejudices.

I, hereby, christen the term "Cosbism".

            My New Years Resolution

I have none, actually.  Except to remember the year now ends in a "6" instead of a "5".
Otherwise, "business as usual".

Apartment Dwellers

are a dippy bunch.

First and foremost:  If you live above, below, or right alongside someone else and you do anything beyond "tiptoeing and whispering" EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU!!!!

It's amazing how many can't even figure this one out.
Especially the ones who seem to be doing remodeling work at all hours of the day and night.

And what's with throwing marble statues on the floor repeatedly at 4 o'clock in the morning?  One would think the Feds would come around to investigate sooner or later considering it must be registering on the Richter scale.  Not to mention the tenant below will probably get blamed for the cracks that form on his ceiling.

And how come most people have to yell and shout every time they speak?  Don't they have "normal speaking voices"?  Christ, one can hear them ten miles away---with the windows closed and the doors shut.