Some Opinions That May or May Not Need to be Expressed
Jerry Stiller recently passed away. He had a second life as George Costanza's father and as a character on King of Queens (a show I may have watched 20 minutes of, all told). To say he played a crotchety old man is an understatement; he played the ultimate in embarrassing elderly relatives. Famously, he celebrated Festivus, with the line, "It's time for the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about 'em."
In the spirit of Jerry Stiller, I'm going to express some opinions here.
1. The opening credits music of To Kill a Mockingbird is the most hauntingly beautiful score.
2. What is this about "Karens"? I certainly hope I'm not one. From the description, I think I'm safe. Definitely not my haircut.
3. We will never know the real number of deaths of coronavirus.
4. We will live with conspiracy theories about coronavirus for many, many years.
5. The government and public health and all of us should have worked harder to protect the elderly and vulnerable and been less stringent on the younger population. All those people did not have to lose jobs.
6. People should have worked harder not to let their lives fall apart during the sheltering-in-place.
7. I don't blame college students for taking a year off if all they can get is online. Online is an alternative, not the norm. Students in that case would be better off to come to inexpensive public colleges.
8. Professors have no excuse to offer thrown-together remote classes in the fall. They should have figured it out by then.
Now, for the controversial ones.
1. There are a lot of people out there trying to make money off of amateur writers, either through contests (always entrance fees) or marketing schemes or editing packages. I decided a long time ago I'm not paying some supposed contest $50 to "read" my work. These semi-scams work because a. traditional publishing can't handle all the legitimate writing out there, b. many of the amateur writers don't realize how bad their writing is and that no one is going to buy it, c. we all are a bit delusional about our talents, and d. the people who want to write don't want to do the hard work of learning to edit their own work. Editing is part of writing. Yes, we need critique and help, but real writers should be able to edit their own work because they understand writing at a deeper level.
2. I'm white. I have no idea what it means to be black, much less a black male, in this world. Therefore, I'm not getting on Facebook and talking about the George Floyd incident like I know something. I wonder why Ahmaud Arberry is not being mentioned in this context; he was killed by an ex-cop acting on his own.
3. I also don't understand why people stood around with cameras and his fellow officers did nothing, while Chauvin suffocated Floyd (very odd that the officer's name is the same as the root for Chauvinist). Could no one have stopped him, and therefore stopped what has come about because of it?
4. What I do know is that looting and rioting never helped anyone's cause. There will always be more National Guard officers to put down such crime--and it is done by criminals, not real protesters--than there will be rioters and looters. The National Guard officers have guns. The rioters target minority-owned businesses. I've seen this since I was a child and still am befuddled about it.
5. I don't care about 95% of what passes for news in this country. Only 5% of it affects individuals personally or is of vital importance. We get almost no valid global news.
In the spirit of Jerry Stiller, I'm going to express some opinions here.
1. The opening credits music of To Kill a Mockingbird is the most hauntingly beautiful score.
2. What is this about "Karens"? I certainly hope I'm not one. From the description, I think I'm safe. Definitely not my haircut.
3. We will never know the real number of deaths of coronavirus.
4. We will live with conspiracy theories about coronavirus for many, many years.
5. The government and public health and all of us should have worked harder to protect the elderly and vulnerable and been less stringent on the younger population. All those people did not have to lose jobs.
6. People should have worked harder not to let their lives fall apart during the sheltering-in-place.
7. I don't blame college students for taking a year off if all they can get is online. Online is an alternative, not the norm. Students in that case would be better off to come to inexpensive public colleges.
8. Professors have no excuse to offer thrown-together remote classes in the fall. They should have figured it out by then.
Now, for the controversial ones.
1. There are a lot of people out there trying to make money off of amateur writers, either through contests (always entrance fees) or marketing schemes or editing packages. I decided a long time ago I'm not paying some supposed contest $50 to "read" my work. These semi-scams work because a. traditional publishing can't handle all the legitimate writing out there, b. many of the amateur writers don't realize how bad their writing is and that no one is going to buy it, c. we all are a bit delusional about our talents, and d. the people who want to write don't want to do the hard work of learning to edit their own work. Editing is part of writing. Yes, we need critique and help, but real writers should be able to edit their own work because they understand writing at a deeper level.
2. I'm white. I have no idea what it means to be black, much less a black male, in this world. Therefore, I'm not getting on Facebook and talking about the George Floyd incident like I know something. I wonder why Ahmaud Arberry is not being mentioned in this context; he was killed by an ex-cop acting on his own.
3. I also don't understand why people stood around with cameras and his fellow officers did nothing, while Chauvin suffocated Floyd (very odd that the officer's name is the same as the root for Chauvinist). Could no one have stopped him, and therefore stopped what has come about because of it?
4. What I do know is that looting and rioting never helped anyone's cause. There will always be more National Guard officers to put down such crime--and it is done by criminals, not real protesters--than there will be rioters and looters. The National Guard officers have guns. The rioters target minority-owned businesses. I've seen this since I was a child and still am befuddled about it.
5. I don't care about 95% of what passes for news in this country. Only 5% of it affects individuals personally or is of vital importance. We get almost no valid global news.
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