The Way Some People Spell

I don't see any use in having a uniform way of spelling words.

— Mark Twain

Mark Twain thought that policing the way people spelled was a merry chase, like policing the way people dressed. Thorstein Veblen called it a "conspicuous waste," "archaic, cumbrous, and ineffective."

My grammar school teachers, on the other hand, taught me that spelling was like math: there was one, and only one, right answer.

Of course, that was the early 1960s. 

They also taught us that policemen were our friends, that beatniks were dirty, and that America was the greatest country on earth.

Critical Race Theorists would say they were abusing their authority in order to oppress us and make us conform to the "dominant identity;" but, actually, they were following the lead of a mild-mannered Connecticut teacher, Noah Webster, and teaching us to be Americans.

Frustrated by the outdated teaching materials on hand, Webster revised America's grammar school textbooks immediately after the Revolutionary War, to rid them of references to the king. He also wrote a famous dictionary to rid the new nation's language of Briticisms. In the process, Webster simplified the spelling of hundreds of words. Travelling, for example, became traveling; colour became color; and publick became public. 

Webster believed his spellings, being humbler than their British counterparts were "of vast political consequence" to the young republic. 

And perhaps they were.

But we're an old republic now, soon to become a dictatorship. 

Humble is passé.

We don't care whether you spell smoking as smocking or coffee as covfefe. Just as long as you don't mention white supremacy, marginalization, or dominant-determined identifies.

For my part, call me a dinosaur, but I like Webster's democratic way with words.

Lonely

 

If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

Solipsism—the belief that nothing exists except my self—would feel comfortable were it not for the fact that beliefs are social in nature.

And yet we often feel alone sometimes, and frighteningly so. 

The lockdown has heightened the feeling.

Despite solipsism's logical impossibility, loneliness has held center stage since Ancient times.

It's a key part of the picture of the world drawn by poets, lyricists, novelists, and philosophers.

Theologian Paul Tillich called loneliness our "destiny."

"Being alive means being in a body—a body separated from all other bodies," he said. "And being separated means being alone."

Psychiatrists worry that our "hyperconnected" state is making us even lonelier.

Mobile phones and computers are amplifying our tendencies toward solitude, anonymity, isolation, social distancing, and the willful avoidance of others.

Those behaviors, in turn, are increasing the instances of mental disorders like anxiety, depression, and paranoia.

Psychiatrists call this phenomenon the "Internet Paradox" and suggest that social media isn't social at all, but antisocial.

Social media is worsening our craving for loneliness.

The Internet Paradox could explain the sharp rise in severly abusive comments appearing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

It could also explain the sharp increase in impulsive and aggressive behaviors on our streets and public forums.

Gossip

He who never says anything cannot keep silent.

― Martin Heidegger

Facebook's outage this week—a form of compulsory digital minimalism—reminded me that the world's religions advise you to avoid gossip, "in the sight of God an awful thing."

Gossip is an awful thing, even if you're not god-fearing.

Philosopher Martin Heidegger explained why in his magnum opus, Being and Time.

Gossip tranquilizes—sparing us the job of discovering our life's purpose. Every minute spent engaged with it is one less minute spent in contemplation of our inevitable death.. And that escape from the thought of our own death Is comforting, even anesthetizing.

In Heidegger's view, gossip delivers us over to prepackaged ways of interpreting life's meaning. 

Like a cranky letter, gossip has already been "deposited" before ever reaching us, denying us the chance to decide for ourselves whether its malignant interpretation of life is really useful. 

Worse yet, gossip conforms us to the role of an average listener in a superficial conversation. Gossip dictates what's worth discussing—what's appropriate and intelligible talk—and what isn't.

By listening to gossip, "we already are listening only to what is said-in-the-talk." We already are allowing that we're unthinking, uncaring and unoriginal people. "Hearing and understanding," Heidegger says, "have attached themselves beforehand to what is said-in-the-talk."

Gossip in that sense is deafening: it doesn't communicate, but merely "passes the word along" ("shares," in Facebook-speak). "What is said-in-the-talk spreads in ever-wider circles and takes on an authoritative character." Things are so because one says so—even when what is said is groundless hearsay.

And gossip is irresponsible twaddle. 

"Gossip is the possibility of understanding everything without previously making the thing one's own," Heidegger says. Gossip is something anyone can rake up; you need not be an "influencer."

Gossip discourages fresh thinking, originality, and genuine attempts to understand the meaning of things, because it so dominates the public forum as to "prescribe one's state-of-mind."

By prescribing your state-of-mind, gossip also makes you rootless—cutting you off from reality, so that you "drift unattached" to life and the world around you.

That from a man who chose to spend most of his time in a secluded mountain hut in Bavaria warning the world of the dangers of technology.

This weekend, take a long, soulful break from Facebook. 

You'll be glad you did.

Above: The Wave by Corran Brownlee. Oil on canvas. 47 x 60 inches.

Out of Their Hats

Nothing annoys me more than uninformed people 

not considering the effects of what they say.

— Charlotte Ritchie

The Golden Age of Hollywood is a delightful Facebook group that posts "lost" movie-studio stills.

A still posted yesterday showed an ashen and attenuated Humphrey Bogart, riding on a swing with his seven-year-old daughter. 

One inconscient commentator wrote, "How could this pipsqueak ever have been a romantic interest in film? I will never understand."

Her comment unleashed a predictable torrent  of rejoinders to the effect that Bogie had been the heartthrob of millions, and that the poignant still had been shot only days before the beloved actor's early death from throat cancer.

Granted social media gives a grandstand to goofballs, I still must ask: why do so many uniformed nobodies feel the need to tear down adored icons? 

And why do they always seem to be speaking out of their hats?

The reason is deep-seated: iconoclasm is a handy form of ego defense, a band-aide for wounds received in childhood at the hands of critical parents, caretakers, siblings, and peers.

When those wounds go untreated, the child grows up to be an asshole: an unrestrained critic of all the things others hold in esteem.

And she can't help but come off as a mean-spirited fool.

Going to Pieces

We all could use a little mercy now.

I know we don't deserve it, but we need it anyhow.

— Mary Gauthier

No surprise here: a Gallup poll shows our esteem for Internet providers has tanked.

In the relentless pursuit of profits, these companies have turned a modern miracle into the vilest of cesspools.

Lies, vulgarity and stupidity are the rule, rather than the exception.

In a civil war of words, brothers fight brothers; sisters, sisters; husbands, wives. 

And everyone goes to pieces.

But there is a way to keep it together: do some good.

“I was once a fortunate man, but at some point fortune abandoned me," the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote. "But true good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions, and good actions.”

Don't just stand there: do something good. Today. Tomorrow. The next day. And the next. 

If you expect the trolls to surrender, don't hold your breath. 

If you hope to fix stupid, fuggedaboutit.

Just refuse to be implicated in the lies and the ugliness and do some good.

As the proverb says, "Let not mercy and truth forsake you; bind them about your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart, and so find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man."

Web of Lies

No amount of belief makes something a fact.

— James Randi

Goebbels Didn’t Say It may be the best blog ever. 

Nearly a decade old, Goebbels Didn't Say It is an effort by two professors to explode myths and "put a small dent in the amount of nonsense on the Internet."

The professors have chosen to call BS on the effusion of fake quotes attributed to Hitler's chief propagandist.

"We want to reduce the incidence of a fabricated quotation by Joseph Goebbels," the professors say.

Demanding exactitude on behalf of a liar is an odd mission, but a worthy one, nonetheless.

My hat's off to these two tireless debunkers, saboteurs at loose in the falsehood factory.

Information Compulsion

Everything you say should be true,
but not everything true should be said.

— Voltaire

The late writer Tom Wolfe believed that everyone suffers from "information compulsion," that everyone is "dying to tell you something you don't know."

Wolfe relied on the compulsion to draw secrets out of the hundreds of people he interviewed during his career, including Ken Kesey, Chuck Yeager, John Glenn, Junior Johnson, Hugh Hefner, Phil Spector, and Leonard Bernstein.

We're taught as kids to be discreet, not to volunteer information or share "family business."

And we learn as young adults the numerous penalties attached to having loose lips, when we see peers chastised, ostracized, marginalized, demoted or fired for compulsive blabbery. 

We even take a formal oath of secrecy whenever we're forced to sign one of those sinister-sounding NDAs.

So why do we so readily cave to "information compulsion" when it comes to social media?

In the past 24 hours alone, I have learned through Facebook:

• Despite her need to, a painter I know cannot sell any of her artwork.
  
  
• Another painter I know has been "blocked" for more than a year.
  
  
• A student in a group I follow is clinically depressed.
  
  
• A publisher I know can't stop grieving over his father's death.
  
  
• An event planner I know can't find a job—or even get an interview.

I'm no Pollyanna. Like everyone else,  I too have my share of irksome troubles.

But sharing them on social media, as if it were one big recovery meeting, makes no sense to me.

Surrendering to information compulsion may reduce your anxiety, but it confers no honor upon you, and is sure to haunt you in the long run.

"The ideal man bears the accidents of life with grace and dignity," Aristotle said, "making the best of circumstances."

You want to be that man (or woman or neither).

Because dignity is non-negotiable.

Keep Me Posted

Too much of nothing can make a man feel ill at ease.

— Bob Dylan

"Keep me posted."

The idiom is thought by some linguists to derive from the Old English word postis, borrowed from Latin and meaning "doorpost."

As did many ancients, the Romans believed evil spirits lurked about their doors. To ward them off, they'd nail amulets to their postes and slather them with potions—combinations of things like salt, cumin, chewed buckthorn, and monkey urine. They'd also nail a variety of "danger" and "no trespassing" signs to their doorposts, meant to deter the devils.

In the Middle Ages, wooden posts were erected in village squares, meant for the display of public notices, and postis in Middle English came to mean "to announce," as when a couple would "post banns" before their wedding. This practice is the more likely source of the modern idiom "Keep me posted." (The later-arriving expression "posting a letter" is unrelated; it derives from the French noun poste, which means "courier.")

Today, social media is our postis, the way we all—except for a few Luddites—spread and follow news.

But when is too much posting too much? When does posting become spamming?

The social media mavens at Hootsuite have the answers:

• On Instagram, you should post no more than once a day (either a feed-post or a story). Posting daily will double your following every week. Posting more frequently is spamming.

• On Facebook, you should post no more than twice a day. Posting at that frequency will quadruple your following; but posting more than that will cost you followers.
  
  
• On Twitter, you should post no more than six times a day. One-third of your posts should comprise self-promotion; one-third, stories; one-third, insights.
  
  
• On LinkedIn, you should post no more than five times a day. However, having been banned for life from LinkedIn (for opposition to gun ownership), I urge you to boycott this nest of right-wing vipers and post zero times a day. Better yet, delete your LinkedIn account.

All Hootsuite's rules of course take a back seat to the prime directive: your content should add value. Posting crap, even once, is over-posting.

Adding value—when you consider all the clutter—is a feat. 

Adding value is something. 

Adding crap is nothing.

Too much of nothing can make a man feel ill at ease.

When I'm Sixty-ur

It's 64 AD and the Stoic philosopher Seneca, by coincidence, is 64. 

He's been retired from his job as Nero's chief of staff two full years now, and has time on his hands. 

He likes to sit by the waterside near his villa outside Rome and people-watch.

Seneca sees the sail of an incoming mailboat one day, and studies the sudden stirring of the "rabble" on the docks.

"While everybody was bustling and hurrying to the waterfront," he writes to his friend Lucilius, "I felt great pleasure in my laziness, because, although I was soon to receive letters from my friends, I was in no hurry to know how affairs were progressing abroad."

Seneca's bemusement stems from the thought that he has "more travelling-money than journey;" in other words, that he won't outlive the wealth he's accumulated, because his remaining life will likely be short.

He can travel as much as he wants—or not at all.

A journey is frustrating, he tells Lucilius, if you quit half way before reaching your destination; but, as a metaphor for life, a journey need not be completed to be rewarding. 

"Life is not incomplete if it is honorable," Seneca writes. 

"At whatever point you leave off living, provided you leave off nobly, your life is a whole."

Leaving "nobly," Seneca says, is leaving "bravely" and "resolutely;" "gliding from life," no matter the reasons. 

Those reasons—the reasons for your death—"need not be momentous," he says; "for neither are the reasons momentous which hold us here."

The rabble on the docks awaiting the news amuses Seneca, because it never stops to ask, what bearing does the news have on the journey?

Why should I care that Jeff Bezos will blast into space? That Britney Spears refuses to tour? That the Queen remains disappointed with Meghan Markle? That Trump now hates McConnell?

Like Seneca, I'm in no hurry to know how affairs are progressing abroad. 

So please don't ping me, text me, tweet me, or IM me.

I hit yet another sexagenarian birthday yesterday and, in Stoic fashion, am content just to sit and watch the rabble rush to the mailboat.

If you have news to share, please, as the expression goes, tell me something I don't know.

How to leave here nobly would be a great start.

NOTE: You can read Seneca's whole letter to Lucilius here. 

Grammatically Incorrect

Your blind or stupid or both.

— Trump follower

More offensive than refusing to get the vaccine or wear a mask, in my book, is refusing to learn grammar.

You can always spot a Trump follower on line: like the boss, he can barely spell and doesn't "get" contractions.

Last week, one of them replied to a comment I posted by saying, "Your blind or stupid or both."

Grammatically incorrect moral outrage is as offensive as anything on the Internet, including insults, slurs, profanities, and untruths.

The tech platforms like Facebook should cancel the accounts of anyone who can't spell can't.

Were they to do that, the nation would be a step closer to preserving democracy—not to mention my sanity.

More fundamental than being politically correct is being grammatically so.

"Change your language and you change your thoughts," futurist Karl Albrecht said.

Mark Zuckerberg, are you listening?

The Suspense is Killing Me

On a technical note, Google will suspend its Blogger email delivery service on Wednesday. (Blogger is the platform I use for Goodly.)

Beginning July, Goodly subscribers will receive emails from me weekly. 

Each will contain links to my newest posts.

Sadly, several great blogs that I read have decided to shutter due to Google's short-sighted move.

The lesson for content producers: don't build your house on "rented" land.

Why Google is suspending Blogger's email delivery service is a mystery, until you realize that shareholders are nervous about the company's profitability.

It's plowing billions into more servers and "moonshots" such as the driverless car—billions it may never earn back.

Will Blogger go on the cost-cutting block next?

Above: Paranoia by Gregory Guy. Acrylic on canvas. 24 x 18 inches.

But is It Scalable?

There are no accidents in life.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

I'm sick of algorithm-writers trying to manipulate me.

They suggest who I should follow (like Tomi Lahren, someone I loathe); what I should say (they autocorrect "You're my honey" to "You're my hiney"); when I should shop ("It's time to add more data"); and where I should go ("Belize awaits you!" So does Hell.).

It seems no matter where I turn, an anonymous algorithm-writer—likely to be wrong about my wants—has his grubby finger on the scale.

Even book-writers—some, anyway—are trying to manipulate me, by "click-farming" their way onto Amazon's best-seller lists.

Book-writers hire Chinese click-farms to fake Kindle downloads of their books, which Amazon counts as "sales."

A couple thousand Kindle downloads, which today would cost about $400, can put a book—even one with no previous real sales—on the top of Amazon's Top 10 charts.

The fake Kindle downloads also feed Amazon's "Books you may like," suggested purchases served by—what else?—algorithms.

Whatever became of scrupulous writers? Writers who trusted to the originality and incisiveness of their books to boost sales?

Writers of books like Being and Nothingness.

Written by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, 722-page book examines the experiences of individuals from the standpoint of radical subjectivity.

Weighing precisely one kilo when published in Paris in 1943, Being and Nothingness sprang to the top of the best-seller list, to the author's surprise.

Who were all these Parisians in the midst of the Occupation so eager to read a philosophical investigation of human existence?

They were grocers, it turned out. 

Grocers were using the book on their scales to replace the one-kilo lead weights that had been confiscated by the Nazis, to be melted down for bullets.

Money for Jam

I believe in everything until it's disproved.

— John Lennon

French jam-maker Bonne Maman is cashing in on a myth, thanks to a law professor's tweet.

Michael Perino claimed in February Bonne Maman's founders helped Parisian Jews survive the Holocaust by hiding them from the Nazis.

His proof? A remark by a nameless old lady he met in a New Jersey supermarket.

The tweet caused social mentions of Bonne Maman ("Granny's" in English) to surge.

Reporters who've fact-checked Perino have come up dry. 

But Perino has defended the claim, saying, "What possible reason would this woman have to go out of her way to lie?"

The professor should know better. He's making what philosophers call the "appeal to ignorance."

The appeal to ignorance—a logical fallacy—insists a claim must be true because we don't know any facts that would make it false.

Two prime examples of the fallacy are the claims, "Hilary is a secret sex-slave trafficker" and "Santa Claus is coming to town." 

You can insist either claim is true because there are no facts that disprove the claim; but you'd be wrong from the logical point of view. And there are plenty of facts suggesting the two claims are false.

Speaking of facts, as it turns out Bonne Maman's founders (whose descendants have refused to comment) didn't live in Paris during World War II; nor are they considered "righteous gentiles" by Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Center.

And yet people want to believe. As philosopher William James said, "your belief will help create the fact."

Above: Bonne Maman by Robert Francis James. Oil on canvas board. 8 x 10 inches.

Dim Bulbs

Stupid people have all the answers.

― Socrates

No industry—events included—is spared its share of dim bulbs.

You encounter them every day on social media platforms, where they continue to insist the pandemic is "fake" and that Covid-19 precautions are a "Socialist plot against America."

I encountered a dim bulb recently: a CEO who, ironically, runs a company that sells light bulbs to tradeshow exhibitors. 

The proud leader of a "dream team" (according to his company's cheesy website), he went ballistic when I questioned his dimwitted thinking.

Our confrontation began when an accomplished events-industry journalist I follow posted a comment on LinkedIn.

She lamented the fact that the states are inconsistent about their Covid-19 precautions concerning crowd-sizes.

"It's only gonna get worse under Biden," the CEO shot back, ignoring the fact that states set the rules. 

"He's not about business, like he claims. All shows are moving dates. Exhibitors are getting pissed. ISC WEST moved from March to July now. Then what? Canceled again. Either just shut all shows down until we can get back to normal, with people interacting, or just open up and let who wants to come, come."

I replied to him, "So you're willing to risk the health and safety of attendees, so you can make money? Nice!"

The CEO replied, "Do you go to stores and shop or do you sit home by yourself? If the stupid masks worked, why is there still this widespread virus? Many stories of the tests not being accurate. You just need to stay home by yourself and think the Democrats didn't lie and cheat in the last four years. I see where you're from. Don't tell us how to live our lives. This is the USA."

I replied, "Not logical or informed."

The CEO replied, "Crawl back under your rock."

I replied, "I am in the majority of Americans. Sorry, pal."

The CEO replied, "Sorry, you're not, you just think so, you're not American, you're a Socialist in hiding. Again back under your rock with your mask and gloves or maybe in the basement with Joey. You don't want to fight like true Americans. By the way, tough guy, I'm not your pal."

I replied, in kind, "You strike me as a fascist. Do your customers know you are a fascist?"

The CEO replied, "You strike me as an idiot that can't paint, Demtard. Back under your rock, Demtard. Back under your rock."

I replied, "Business failing? Panicking? No surprise." I included a link to my recent post about increasing mask-wearing at tradeshows.

Without reading my post, the CEO replied, "We really don't care what you think. Back under your rock, basement dweller."

I replied by posting a meme:

The CEO replied, "Again, back under your rock. Go look for your little tree, basement dweller. Did you paint that? Back under your rock."

I replied, "I see from your website you are cashing in on Covid-19 by selling 'social distance' crap. What unmitigated hypocrisy! And what a crappy website. All the photos for the social distance crap have fake captions. Funny! Chump."

That ended our back and forth. 

Dim bulbs always burn out.

NOTE: The above is unedited, except for corrections to the CEO's abysmal spelling and punctuation.

We Want You, Big Brother

We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.

— George Orwell

Incredibly, the Kremlin has targeted LinkedIn users, with the result that Microsoft (LinkedIn’s owner) is punishing liberals and rewarding right-wingers.

After receiving a half-dozen emails from Microsoft in the course of two days, each advising me the company had censored one of my comments in response to a Kremlin post, I have now been “disappeared” from LinkedIn—as have several of my contacts on the platform, both here and in Europe—for posting “harassing comments.”

In other words, opposing viewpoints.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin—with the aid of thousands of hapless Americans, eager to amplify its stock messages—continues to push out hackneyed pro-Trump statements, all blatantly racist, homophobic, anti-intellectual, jingoist and nativist. 

Weary of the Trumpian twaddle, I tried to “unfollow” the Kremlin’s account before I was “disappeared,” but learned that you simply cannot do so. 

Like the telescreens in 1984 (monitored, of course, by the Thought Police) the Kremlin’s account is ubiquitous.

We want you, Big Brother.

UPDATE: Microsoft this morning has asked me to prove I am an American and asked me to warrant in writing that I will "adhere to LinkedIn policies from this day forward." I guess after that, I can kiss the bride.

UPDATE, OCTOBER 8, 2020: It appears LinkedIn has "disappeared" the Kremlin-backed user this morning. But for how long?

Liking to the Limit

We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.

― Jerry Garcia

My father liked licorice. He really liked licorice, and kept the trunk of his car filled with big cardboard boxes of the stuff. I guess he needed assurance, were the Soviet Union to attack or a pestilence fall upon us, he'd never go without.

Thanks to social media, we've all become too cavalier about "liking" things. Liking today is an indoor sport demanding no effort of any kind.

But true liking―liking to the limit―takes a village (no pun intended) of "like-minded" people. Jerry Garcia understood that: when it came to liking psychedelic bluegrass, Deadheads were indeed a breed apart.

And so are other die-hard fans―of actors, movies, musicians and more―as proven by the honorable names they've earned over the years.

Fans of musicians 

• Apple Scruffs, those hardest of hard-core Beatlemaniacs
• Beliebers, the fans of Justin Bieber
• Bobby Soxers, fans of Frank Sinatra
• Diamond Heads, fans of Neil Diamond
• Dylanologists, fans of Bob Dylan
• Elvisians, fans of the King
• Fanilows, fans of Barry Manilow
• Kellebrities, fans of Kelly Clarkson
• Metallicats, fans of Metallica
• Parrotheads, fans of Jimmy Buffett
• Phans, fans of Phish (also known as Phishheads)
• Sheerios, fans of Ed Sheeran
• Swifties, fans of Taylor Swift
• Vanatics, fans of Van Morrison
• Wayniacs, fans of Wayne Newton
• Wholigans, fans of The Who
• Zepheads, fans of Led Zeppelin

Fans of actors

• Cumberbitches, the fans of Benedict Cumberbatch
• Deaners, the fans of James Dean
• Fanistons, the fans of Jennifer Aniston
• Pine Nuts, the fans of Chris Pine
• Streepers, the fans of Meryl Streep

Fans of fictional characters

• Batmaniacs, the fans of Batman
• Fannibals, fans of Hannibal Lecter
• Potterheads, fans of Harry Potter
• Sherlockians, fans of the famed detective
• Xenites, fans of Xena, Warrior Princess

Fans of movies, TV shows & Broadway hits

• Alexander Familtons, the fans of the musical Hamilton
• Colbert Nation, fans of The Late Show
• Dunderheads, fans of The Office
• Finaddicts, fans of Jaws
• Phans, fans of The Phantom of the Opera
• Ringnuts, fans of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen
• Thronies, fans of Game of Thrones
• Twihards, fans of Twilight
• Warsies, fans of Star Wars (please, not to be confused with Trekkies)
• Whovians, fans of Doctor Who
• Windies, fans of Gone with the Wind
• X-Philes, fans of The X-Files

Fans of fanatics

• Dittoheads, the fans of Rush Limbaugh (also know as Walking Dead)
• Trumpsters, the fans of 45―gentlefolk who just haven't quite yet found a fan club to replace the Bund
• QAnon, soon to be the last of the Trumpsters 

Fans of licorice

• Bonapartists, who, like Napoleon, are die-hard lovers of the stuff

Have I left out your favorite?

Paranoid

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.

― William S. Burroughs

Political rancor is fine, when informed; it's uniformed partisanship that makes me cringe.

As we speak, Republicans ad nauseam are socializing this palaver:

No one should be allowed to drive again until there are no fatal accidents for 14 consecutive days. Then we can slowly begin to phase in certain classes of people who can begin driving again, but at half the posted speed limit and while wearing helmets.

This chestnut is rooted in ignorance and denial of the lethal nature of Covid-19. Two statistics and one calculation reveal how vacuous it is:

• 38,800 Americans died in car crashes last year, according to the National Safety Council; but 130,000 Americans have died of Covid-19 since its appearance four months ago.
  
  
• Annualized that's 390,000 dead from Covid-19―10 times the number killed in car crashes.

From the standpoint of body counts, equating infectious people to bad drivers is specious. Covid-19 is 10 times more deadly.

But know-nothing Republicans stand by this myth nonetheless.

Another myth they're peddling: 

Joe Biden molested a junior aide in the 1990s.

Again, a few facts should give any thoughtful person pause:

• Over 200 of his former staffers have told PBS then-Senator Biden never spoke to low-level employees, nor did he harass women. One called the accusations "surreal."
  
  
• The accuser didn't quit her job on the Hill, as she claims, "to pursue an acting career;" she was fired because she couldn't sort the mail. And Antioch University says the accuser never taught there, nor receive the law degree she claims to hold.
  
  
• As recently as January, she still practiced an obsessive hobby: posting pro-Russian propaganda on the Internet.

• The accuser also runs up expensive bills and skips on them; never pays her rent; lets her dogs poop throughout her landlords' houses; once she stole money from an animal-rescue nonprofit; and, worst of all, borrows books and doesn't return them.

The accuser is a whack-job. But Republicans know nothing of her background and insist her accusations are true (while those made by Christine Blasey Ford were, of course, false).

William S. Burroughs was right: paranoids know a little of what's going on. 

But never, it seems, enough.

NOTE: I'm grateful to followers for their many kind notes of encouragement. Goodly has now been read by over 385,000 people.

Cracks

After (in her words) "crossing the line" and offending a respected colleague and Facebook friend, I have resolved, for civility's sake, to stop posting jabs at Trump.

After the president's lazy and inept response to Covid-19, I think my posts are spooking even the most unremitting Republicans among my followers.

Given I've been publishing―with impunity―"never Trump" sarcasms for over three years, my Republican colleague's reaction comes suddenly.

I'm spotting visible cracks in Republicans' denial.

About time.

Republicans' denial to date has been a colossal wall against reality.

It has resembled less your garden-variety credulity than a desperate avoidance of inconvenient truths―a brush-off to the problems of greed, inequity, hate, ignorance, disease and global warming.

But the wall's about to come tumbling down.