Stuff...

So I was just thinking about all the stuff we have now that we didn't have Way Back When.  As in, several decades ago.  The stuff I grew up not having.  

And the stuff we no longer have so much of that I sorely miss...

I can say that clicking on a picture and having the product arrive in hours is a blessing sometimes.  As opposed to Sears or Wards, which took a couple of weeks.  But it makes you much more careful about what you order.  Or should.  To prevent "binge ordering."  Or "I just got dumped" ordering.  Hard to return that stuff sometimes.

And I can tell you that a visit to the Woolworth store for lunch was a blessing.  A chicken salad sandwich for 15 cents.  And fountain cherry Cokes for a dime.  They had 20 stools to choose from.  No waiting.  Except Woolworth has been out of bizz for two decades.

Sorry to see it go.

And I can say that having 500 TV channels to choose from should let everyone find something they want to watch.  Except maybe the quality and talent that used to be offered on channels 2, 4 and 7 has now been spread thinly across those other 497 channels.

Very thinly.

It seems having 500 channels lets them hire all the unemployed actors in Hollywood.  Who were working as waiters waiting for That Call from their agent.  Which is nice for them.  But since dammm few of them have any talent to speak of, it isn't so nice for us.  Think Meghan Markle among them.  And BTW, big t*ts is not the same as talent.    

Are they a half-mile tall and an inch wide?  Or a half-mile wide and an inch tall?

So I can tell you having a cell phone is a wonderful improvement over my yout ("What's a yout?").  When we had to find a phone hanging on a wall and then ring up the operator.  On a party line.  With eight other homes happily listening in.

And then there were phone booths.  When we needed to make a call we looked for a phone booth.  They were everywhere.  Especially at hotels and convenience stores and under street lights. 

And then there were pagers!  What a great day that was!  Before pagers we'd have to just find a phone booth and call in, just to find out if we were needed (my sainted wife and I ran an emergency medical service!).  Then we got beepers and "Voila!."  Leave me alone unless I'm needed.  Then a page comes in and I'm Johnnie on the Spot!

And then, joy of joys, car phones in the '80's!  Hard-wired in, permanently installed, whip antennas and all.  Those who were first with car phones, like me, felt like we were special.  Really something.  We would invite people to sit in our cars and make phone calls.  At $2.00 a minute.  It was that big of a deal...

That was 40 years ago.  Imagine what $2.00 a minute equates to now...

Some of us even had CB (Citizens Band) radios installed to keep in touch about then.  Sort of like an audio Facebook.  "Breaker, Breaker, One Nine!  County mountie at the next overpass!"  We made fast friends among the long-haul trucker community.

So when actual "carry 'em around" cell phones became available it was magic!  The first ones were called "bricks," because they were the size of bricks.  But we had a phone.  A personal phone!  One of those remarkable, life-changing events that improved our lives.  Or should have.  Except in many cases, it didn't.  

And doesn't.

So now everyone walks down the street with their faces glued to their phones.  Like zombies.  They fall into manoles.  They trip off curbs.  They look like fools.  

So no, we didn't have that wonderful convenience back then.  And another thing we didn't have was transgenders.  We had women, and we had men.  And we were taught in school that these were the two choices.  The ONLY two choices.  It was preordained.  X's and Y's, etc.  Either, Or.  Ying or Yang.  

Except if you live in the once-Golden State.  Here, there are 57 genders.  That's what they told us.  Officially.  Right from up there in Sacrascrewyou's Dept. of Health.  The same guy who's now our Secretary of Health and Human Services.  About which he knows absolutely nothing.  So no explanations were provided.  Just swallow it and go on.  

No pun intended.  

And that, coupled with the never-ending negative effects of the Summer of Love, has so corrupted this place that those born-and-raised here will believe anything.

So here came the Transgenders.  Those dressing as the opposite sex.  Both men and women can, and do, do it.  But 87% of all Transgeders are men.  Far outside the realm of probability.  Making the reasonable among us to doubt their honesty.  And sanity. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey 1.7% of our population identifies as Transgender, whether they are or not.  That's about 3,000,000 adults.  That also means 97.3% of the population identifies as "cisgender."  Meaning, normal, I think, as it's another made-up word.  And another 1.52% identify as neither male, female nor transgender.  I guess that where the "Furries" come in... 

Think about that:  2,500,000 million of our citizens have no idea which sex they sport!  Don't know which bathroom to go to.  Don't know who to try and pick up at the bar come Friday night.  Or perhaps it enables them to pick up anyone at the bar on Friday night!   

I cannot think of a single girls sport that has not been co-opted by men pretending to be women.  And they win nearly every contest.  Not just in track or basketball or volleyball or archery or boxing or swimming or wrestling, I just read a story about a guy who took up fencing a month ago and just beat up on a female Olympic Gold Medalist.  With the Liberals who permit this abberration politely applauding.  Working hard not to see the obvious.  Painfully avoiding the fact that the Emperor has no clothes.  And they've underwritten it.  

No, we didn't have too many of those folks back when I was coming up.  As in, none.  But now?  

About 5,000,000 of our neighbors, give or take, "identify" as something besides the reality of their birth.    

And since our society has been thus co-opted, we manage it for the fringes.  The "LGBTQABC123+++'s."  Not the majority, as it was and should be now, but the tiny minorities among us.   

I can tell you for dayummm sure that we had a whole lot fewer cell phones when I was coming up.  As in, somewhere near none.  And a whole lot fewer transgenders when I was coming up.  As in, absolutely none!  And all of a sudden we've got millions and millions of both!  And I could personally do without either!

Was it in the water?  Flourides, perhaps?  Or maybe the stuff we poke into our beef causes that causes Transgenderism?  Or TV psychologists spewing "Spare the rod, spoil the child?" Or maybe civil rights lawyers, suing big corporations because they don't want female secretaries with mustaches?  Or perhaps it was the constant bombardment of TikTok videos, letting you know how to ride this abberration to the Top Floor?  And win lawsuits for $Millions in the process?

Or win the next 100 yard dash, when they cannot beat the men.  Or the next 4x50 relay when they cannot beat men.  Or the next volleyball tourney.  Or the next wrestling match.  When they cannot beat men.  When will we decide to protect our daughters by enshrining Title IX and sending male pretenders back home to mama?

But we have them now.  And just like cell phones, I don't think they have improved our lives all that much.  What do you think?