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Weak V

30 January 2013

No. 5,530 (cartoon)

I want to go somewhere.

I want to be somewhere.

This isn’t working.

31 January 2013

The Mystery of Parenting

Andrew is not impressed the fact that Walter and Colleen—or, more accurately, Colleen—are/is about to give birth to their first child.

“It’s not like it took any skill or effort to make the thing,” he explained, “and she has no choice but to expel the parasite from her body. What’s the big whoo-whoo?”

“I agree,” I replied. “The real challenge is to stop it from turning into a leech and returning to live with them in twenty or thirty years when it can’t survive on its own.”

I’m glad my parents decided to have children, but I still can’t understand why anyone would choose to do so.

1 February 2013

Gratuitous Photo of the Weak: Aerosol Art

My friend Morgan told me to refer to graffiti I liked as “aerosol art,” so I do.

2 February 2013

Garrison Keillor’s Retirement

Garrison Keillor is retiring soon, but not soon enough. His radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, has been vapid and hackneyed for decades. Even so, I decided to listen to it today. I must have a masochistic streak, what other possible explanation is there?

And so, I was quite surprised to discover the show was rather good. I wonder when he got his second wind? The unfortunate answer is that he didn’t get better; I was listening to the wrong radio station. Or, rather, the right one.

I’m looking forward to Keillor’s retirement, especially since it’s at least a couple of decades too late.

3 February 2013

You Will Die

Colin tells me people from Asian and Hispanic cultures usually smile and frequently say hello when they spot him walking with his frail ninety-year-old mother. Apparently, age is respected in those cultures. It certainly isn’t among people of noncolor; Colin reports that they look right through her as if she were invisible, which she probably is to them.

I thought of Colin and his mother when I read an interesting observation by Ricky Gervais.

There are no Hollywood stars speaking out for the elderly. They’re forgotten, bewildered, and I don’t think it’s because people are cruel or don’t care. It’s because you don’t want to think about your own mortality. I think people don’t talk about it enough. There’s a strange arrogance. Sometimes being old is used as an insult, which is bizarre because, if you’re lucky, that’s literally going to happen to you. It’s a strange thing to gloat about: being born recently.

I think avoidance of the elderly is understandable. Unless you’re very, very old, you’re going to live forever. Octogenarians and their elders are unpleasant reminders that some day—some day a lot sooner than you imagine—you will die.

4 February 2013

Penniless Canadians

The Canadian penny is being retired, but virtually won’t go away.

Bureaucrats at the Canadian mint decided to stop making the coin, which cost a hundred and sixty percent of its face value to produce. Over the coming years, the eighty-two million kilograms of steel, nickel, and copper and copper pennies will be withdrawn from circulation and recycled.

Merchants are supposed to round the prices of cash purchases to the nearest nickel. I can’t imagine anyone rounding the price down, but, when it comes to Canadians, who knows? People who dress in plaid flannels stained with maple syrup are as inscrutable as they are amusing.

Still, the Canadian cent will live on in virtual reality. Electronic commerce will continue to use conceptual pennies and myriad fractions thereof. Beauty, eh?

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©2013 David Glenn Rinehart