Category: News

  • ODDS and ENDS: Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Balloons, and Formal Clothes

    (Help me find the funk…)

    The Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame is bullshit, but it can be fun bullshit. Like last year with Dolly being inducted. She was right, as a county singer and songwriter, she didn’t belong there. But Dolly is such a huge influential talent across all music, everyone wants to claim her as their own. Even when Dolly logically and politely protested the induction, no cared, and in the she agreed to join. See, that was fun bullshit. The fact that Soundgarden still hasn’t been inducted is real bullshit… if the RnRHoF was a real institution that had any bearing on anything. Soundgarden was one of the founding bands of the Seattle sound and grunge music. Shit, if lame ass Jackson Browne is in there, surely there has to be room on the shelf for Soundgarden.

    And China is sending balloons to spy on us, which is a novel approach. No one is surprised that China is spying on us. Everyone spies on everyone. What this reminds are the Fu-Go Balloon Bombs that Japan tried to use against the us in World War II. The purpose was to start large forest fires, but it never really worked as planned, though one bomb killed six people in 1945. (The part of the story that I find the most interesting is that unexploded bombs were found in forests years, and years after the war. There is a good chance that there are still bombs in the woods of the Pacific Northwest.) So, I’m not really surprised that China revamped the idea. At the same time, it also feels like an idea that is doomed to fail. Either it won’t travel where you want it, or it will be discovered.

    Since the Pandemic, I would say that my clothing has been rather casual. Like, casual all the time. I am comfy. I have a huge, blue cardigan sweater on, and it makes me feel like I am being hugged all day. But, I think I want to go back to wearing sports coats and blazers again. Not sure about ties, but I feel I am lacking in a sense of formality, which could be detrimental when I start interviewing for jobs again. All actions in life are a skill, and if you don’t practice those skills, they are doomed to fade away. It might be a sports coat with pajama bottoms, but it is still a sports coat.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Adjunct Professor Strike, Christmas Trees, and What’s the Deal?

    (I say what I say…)

    There is a brewing movement underway being led by adjunct faculty and students. Hell Gate ran this story yesterday about students at the New School, here in New York City, joining the faculty strike, which has been going on for 23 days. If you didn’t know, University of California academic workers, have also been on strike. For far too long, adjunct professors, basically part-time teaching staff, and academic workers, who are teaching assistants, tutors, graduate student researchers and postdoctoral scholars, have been doing more and more of the actually teaching at universities. Across the country, full-time and tenured positions at universities have been shrinking, while at the same time administrative positions have been growing. I don’t think anyone will find it surprising that administrator salaries have been growing, while faculty pay has remained flat for years. A reckoning is coming. For the past forty years, American universities have become little corporations – making money and growing endowments comes first, and education is second. And to accomplish that, administrators have to keep their labor costs low. It has gone on for too long, and now faculties are pushing back. I see strikes like these growing and continuing in the coming years.

    Tomorrow, our Christmas Tree arrives. We ordered one, it’s fake, which was designed to fit specifically in small apartments. The base diameter is like 23” and it’s 6’ tall, so it’s a think pole of a tree. I can admit that that since we put up decorates after Thanksgiving, it really hasn’t felt like Christmas in the apartment, and that’s not really surprising. The Tree does tie the whole thing together.

    So, what’s the deal with all the views on my post: Short Story Review: “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid? When I originally posted it, I received 11 views which, for my humble little blog, was rather respectable. In the last two weeks, the same post has received 42 views, which is an outlier for me. So, what’s going on? If people are enjoying what I wrote, then that’s cool, but being that this blog is, well, little, then I find it odd when people notice it. Or is this just a bunch of bots screwing with me?

    (INSERT JOKE ABOUT LIKING THIS BLOG.)

  • ODDS and ENDS: World Cup Starts on Sunday, Twitter-ageddon, and Thanksgiving

    (I came all this way…)

    I shouldn’t watch the World Cup. FIFA, the organization that runs the World Cup, is corrupt as the day is long, and they were paid off by Qatar so that this authoritarian nation could host the competition. Just gander at this, if you haven’t heard it yet. That’s bad, but let’s not forget that Qatar has a history of human rights abuses, and in the rush to build these stadiums in the desert, thousands of migrant workers died. That is truly horrendous, and unconscionable. Then today, Qatar banned beer sales at the stadiums. Now, now, wine and alcohol will be available in the VIP boxes, but not for everyone else. Yes, fans will be able to get alcohol at their hotels, and other designated spots. I don’t know much, but I do know that when you ban something, people will just find a way around it. That leaves me to believe that there will be a whole lot of pre-gaming from certain fans from England and Germany. Well, actually, all the teams from Europe, if I am to be honest. The World Cup in Qatar is a shitshow before it even started. And yet the whole world will watch. Myself included. There is a little shame in that, sure, but I really like the idea of a global sports competition. It’s not the equalitarian event I want it to be, but I keep hoping that if all of us who love this event keep putting pressure on the organizers, that soon we can have the fair, sportsmanship advocating event that we all really want. Also, Mexico will choke in the group stage, USA will make it to the knockout round but lose their first match, and England takes third place. That’s my prediction, as I have no idea who will win the whole thing.

    I keep expecting Twitter to blowup – just explode in a ball of flames. Sadly, I see now that it will be a slow decline, like Myspace and Tumblr. Everyone will migrate somewhere else, and the trolling begins anew. I just can’t make heads or tails of Mastodon. (Seriously, I need to pick a sever? Whatever.) I think my Tumblr account is still active. Just look for me @mlgroff wherever handles are used.

    I’m ready for Thanksgiving. We’ll be shopping for the meal this weekend, as we have had our menu ready to go for two weeks now. I’m looking forward to this holiday because in our house, we hang around in pajamas all day, and eat when the meal is ready. It is a very lazy day in our house. As I have gotten older, and now that I am a father, Thanksgiving has come to symbolize for me the last full day of rest I can get before the crazy marathon of Christmas starts. So, Here! Here! Turkey Day!

    (SAY! Thanks for making it to the end of this post. If you have enjoyed my wordsmithing, then please be kind and give a like. No one shares or comments on my posts, so you don’t have to do that, but following my blog would be a super awesome bonus. I’ll update the website soon. I promise!)

  • ODDS and ENDS: World Cup, Lawsuits, and Reading

    (I Believe That We Will Win!)

    So, the World Cup is almost here, and yes, I am excited about it. I have kept my promise of not blogging non-stop about Tottenham, (even though they have been playing like gash, yet still did make it out of the group stage in the Champions League – but that is a blog for another day) and as the World Cup is about to begin, I will be writing about it. The teams I will be watching are Team USA because you support your home country, Mexico as they have good teams that never deliver and their fans are the best, and England. In fact, The English National Team released a video announcing their team lineup that I thought was rather original:

    Now, I woke up this morning to the news that a Texas Federal has ruled the Biden-Harris Student Loan Forgiveness plan unconstitutional. The lawsuit was filed by a group called Job Creators Network Foundation, which is an organization that was founded by the billionaire and former CEO of Home Depot, Bernard Marcus. What I find the most interesting about Marcus, and this whole situation, is that if you read his bio, after graduating high school, he wanted to be a doctor, but couldn’t afford college, so he went to a state school – Rutgers – back when college was funded by the government, making it affordable for working class kids from Newark in 1947. Added on top of that, I can find no evidence of Marcus fighting against the Federal Government cutting his taxes back in 2017. I mean, Marcus owed taxes, but then Trump passed a law and forgave what he owed, in essence. I love how hypocritical the uber-wealthy are. And they wonder why no one likes them.

    Did you know the average American reads 13 books a year? I was actually surprised by that number, as I thought it would be much lower. I have a feeling there are a few people out there that are reading way more than 13 books a year, which is pushing the number up, and I would like to thank those people for helping make America seem more literate.

    (Say! Thanks for reading this blog. If you like what you ready, please take a moment to give a like, or share this post, leave a comment, or start following this blog. Thanks for your help.)

  • Power to the Twit

    How does the line go? “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” I think it was Maya Angelou who said that, and I also hold that she is correct. If I might add a caveat to that statement, and I am speaking only from my personal experience, I never realize that someone is showing who they are in real time; it’s always after the fact.

    I sort of feel that’s what happening with Elon Musk and Twitter. I don’t think he’s as business savvy as he keeps telling us. I mean, there are a bunch of decisions that he’s made that don’t add up to me. Like the laying off of 50% of the Twitter work force. There is a reason layoffs don’t happen the way Elon is doing it. He’s spending a dollar to save a dime, which generally is the sign that the decision was emotional and not logical.

    Deep pockets do not mean you are a genius at business. Deep pockets mean you can afford to make many, many, MANY mistakes until you figure out the right thing to do.

    Also, there is the whole content curation, and what is and is not allowed in the platform. He says he’s all for free speech, unless you are planning on mocking him, then that speech isn’t allowed. But he’s cool with you mocking, and hate-speeching other people. Got that. Just not him. Mocking Elon is wrong. Remember: You are free to do what Elon tells you.

    You are free to do what Elon tells you!

    YOU ARE FREE TO DO WHAT ELON TELLS YOU!!!

    (Full disclosure; I borrowed that line. It’s based off a Bill Hicks joke.)

    In the end, I think he just wants the attention, and he’s getting it. This is what, like the third time I have written about this, because on some level, this whole situation just gets in my craw. Part of it is that I don’t trust uber-wealthy people. The other side is that I have a hard time not looking at the train wreck happening right before me. But at the end of the day, 3,700 people are losing their jobs for no fault of their own. That’s 3,700 families being upended, having their livelihoods, and futures jeopardized, for what? So, some rich guy can be the global center of attention.

    Elon has been showing us who he is for a very long time, and only now some of us are seeing the morally bankrupt fraud he is.

    (Hey, thanks for coming all the way down here. As long as I have you, could I ask a favor of you? We know how this works, so if you could, please, give a like, a comment, a share, or even follow this blog. This is how the revolution gets televised.)