“Remember, Fran: Try To Be Funny!”

     Has anyone ever given you that advice? I got it long ago, from a source not exactly known for counsel of that sort: a Catholic nun. (A Dominican, at that. Ask your nearest Catholic-educated acquaintance why that makes it special.) She felt that I was excessively serious, and therefore not getting the best out of my young life. So she advised me to become entertaining to others.

     Her reasoning was simple: if you entertain others, they’ll entertain you. You’ll smile. You might even laugh and come up with something funnier. And everyone around you will relax and consider you “one of us.”

     The excessively serious have a hard time in society. Regardless of the realities, those around them see them as “bring-downs.” Invisible barriers form to exclude such persons, unless they’re unusually useful. And who among us is useful enough to countervail that?

     I took that good nun’s advice somewhat irregularly, as most six-year-olds would. But over the years, events have confirmed her wisdom. Now and then it comes back to me in its original form: a tall, habited Dominican nun girdled with a rosary and armed with a Bolo paddle.

     “Try to be funny.” How does it sound to you? Trivial or salubrious?

     Persons of high intellect should put special effort into being funny. High intellect is as much a burden as an asset. We think about things, usually too seriously and sometimes monomaniacally. He who concentrates on great problems and involute conundrums can develop a grim aspect that renders him forbidding to others. Undesirable, to say the least.

     Yet the syndrome can be as invisible to the sufferer as water to a fish. He can plumb deep mysteries of all sorts and concoct brilliant theories about them, yet never become aware of his own shortcomings. The somber face that stares back at him from the mirror might as well belong to someone else. Any of his buddies, assuming he has some, at any time could tell him to “lighten up.” Whether he’ll hear it is another question. Some never do.

* * *

     I’ve expressed my admiration for Haretina Kukuri several times here. She’s young, brilliant, possessed of enormous determination to understand the great problems of our time, and penetrating in her analyses of all such things. I believe her insights to be critically important to the future of the First World. I hope her audience continues to grow.

     So it was with a special delight that I discovered that she’s also funny. (You have to have a degree of familiarity with both hip-hop and video-gaming culture to get full value for that quip, but these days that’s fairly common.) People not only enjoy humor and those who provide it; they also derive special impact from it. For humor, even when delivered offhand or indirectly, is a powerful assistant to memory.

     The late Cyril Northcote Parkinson, himself a man of great penetration, was aware of this. He strove to be entertaining in all his emissions. For my tastes, he succeeded brilliantly. Toward the end of his “public” career, he said so explicitly:

     Any effective announcement or message conveys a sense of personality. While precise and terse, it goes beyond precision and brevity. It comes from a known character, not from a faceless management. It never includes long words and involved constructions. Short words are best, each one a hammer blow and not a handful of cotton wool. Last of all, it often includes a touch of humor. This serves more than one purpose. It makes the message human. It attracts attention. Above all, it assists memory. And the secret of humor, employed as a deliberate tool or device, is to tie in the joke with the message that remembering one means remembering both.

     [From Parkinson’s essay “Law of the Vacuum.”]

     The truly inspiring and effective leaders of history have all been funny. Say what you will about Abraham Lincoln, he was the funniest man ever to rise high in public office. It seemed to come naturally to him. Given what we know about the tragedy of his life and work, it may have been what sustained him. Have a sample:

     Once [Lincoln] was looking out the window of his law office in Springfield, Illinois, and saw a stately matron, wearing a many-plumed hat, picking her way gingerly across the muddy street. Suddenly she slipped and fell.
     “Reminds me of a duck,” said Lincoln.
     “Why is that,” asked a friend.
     “Feathers on her head and down on her behind,” said Lincoln.
     […]
     A dozen or more leading Wilmington businessmen called on Lincoln one day. They told him they represented the “weighty men of Delaware” and had come to discuss ways and means of winning the war. After the chairman of the delegation had finished his little speech, Lincoln asked, “So you are the weighty men of Delaware? All from New Castle County?” “Yes, all from the same city.” “Well,” said Lincoln mischievously, “did it ever occur to you gentlemen that there was danger of your little state tipping up during your absence?”

     [From Paul Boller’s Presidential Anecdotes.]

* * *

     I could go on in this vein, but I think the point has been made:

To be effective,
Be Funny!

     Cultivate a sense for the absurd. Observe and remember the contradictions and inconsistencies that abound among men, for these are the wellspring of humor. Don’t wear a grim face when out and about. Make others laugh, or groan. And remember this: if your taste runs to the pratfall, make yourself the object of it. People will happily laugh with you, as long as you aren’t laughing at them.

Laugh! And the world laughs with you.
Weep… and you weep alone.
For this sad old Earth
Must borrow its mirth
But has troubles enough of its own.

     May God bless and keep you all.

Heritages

     We speak loosely of certain things that seem sufficiently common to us all. But we also speak pretty loosely of “us all.” Does it have specific criteria for membership? Are there by-laws? Can you be thrown out of the club for violating them?

     Yes, I’m being slightly silly here, but I do have a point.

     Not long ago, I ran across a rant by an entertainment lawyer to the effect that most of us who write fiction could be sued for zillions for the copyright violations we commit in our stories. Even quoting a few lines from a pop song, he wrote, exposes the writer to legal hazard. Lawsuits have been filed over such things, yes – but how often does the plaintiff win, and on what grounds? How often are such suits dismissed by the court, and on what grounds do the dismissals rest?

     In looking into such things, the inquirer will find a particular phrase prominent: “The common cultural heritage of Mankind.” Certain artistic treasures are regarded as being part of that heritage. Therefore, quoting them or referring to them is regarded as legally protected. Their originator is regarded as having lost copyright protection, often by having had the grace to die long ago.

     But admission to “the common cultural heritage of Mankind” is a rather informal process. It’s a prestigious thing, something to which many an artist would aspire. However, there are no strict criteria, other than some legislated magic numbers that are also legislatively alterable.

     I’ve occasionally “taken liberties” with a song lyric. I did so in this novel, and have done so occasionally in my pieces here. Perhaps I was legally assailable for it, but no lawsuits have followed. Many other writers have done the same. Yet those song lyrics are supposedly copyright-protected.

     Will those lyrics and others like them ever pass into “the common cultural heritage of Mankind?” It’s not possible to know. Some will be forgotten entirely, which would render the question moot. Others, possibly including some that are current as I write this, will be celebrated for decades to come. Yet at some point their legal protections will lapse. Will they then be deemed to be part of that cultural heritage?

     It’s a loose category, and fairly recent at that. I rather doubt that Ludwig van Beethoven bothered to ask Johann Friedrich von Schiller for permission to use the latter’s “Ode to Joy” in the final movement of the former’s Ninth Symphony. I could be wrong, of course.

     At this time, American copyright protection for written material extends throughout the life of the writer plus seventy years. (However, several contemporary writers have placed some of their novels outside copyright, as is their right.) After that, the work passes into the “public domain” – which is not the same as “the common cultural heritage of Mankind.” That more august category omits much that’s deemed unworthy to be so designated, and includes many works that were never deemed legally protected.

     We’re not done here. There are “fair use” provisions in the law, which permit modest quotes in reviews and other commentary. Other nations have other laws. Figuring out which laws apply to which writers and which of their works can cause headaches. And of course, some of those other nations have no standing to sue in an American jurisdiction. Often no such suit is ever contemplated, as the possible return is less than the cost of the plane ticket.

     In general, it’s courteous and good practice to ask a writer for permission to include a bit of his stuff in yours. However, I draw the line at song lyrics that pop into my head spontaneously. I deem them to be part of my “cultural heritage.” I’ll use them any way I damned well please, as compensation for their presumption in appropriating space in my brain.

Feeling Old

     Now and then, my years weigh upon me in a commanding way. It’s like they’re saying “You’re an old man! Why aren’t you acting like one? Get to it!” And of course I must comply. Anything else would risk… uh, well, something.

     We all have our roles to play. Mine is Funny Curmudgeon. I must make people laugh using my years and the lumber-room of my damnably retentive memory. While that might not seem consistent with the curmudgeonly mentality, it is nevertheless a public service of sorts. Among other things, it extends the probable lifetimes of curmudgeons everywhere.

     But I must admit that it doesn’t always work out. I just had an encounter that made me wonder about our young folks. You know, the ones who don’t know how lucky they are.

     It started thus:

How does a person get the Holy Spirit?

— YellowJacket 🐝 (@yellowbee0) October 22, 2026

     Being a religious man, such questions will always get my respectful attention. So I provided a perfectly responsive reply:

@yellowbee0 You have to save 500 S&H Green Stamps and bring them to an authorized redemption center. 😉

— Armand Morelon (@ArmandJville) October 22, 2026

     My interlocutor replied thus:

@ArmandJville ?

— YellowJacket 🐝 (@yellowbee0) October 22, 2026

     …and I had a moment of pure existential despair.

     She didn’t know about S&H Green Stamps! How is this possible? Is there anyone whose parents didn’t save Green Stamps?

     Well, all right, yes, there were a lot of other “loyalty program” stamps:

     Greenbax Stamps offered by Piggly Wiggly, Gold Bell Gift Stamps (in the Midwest), Triple S Stamps (offered by Grand Union Supermarkets), Gold Bond Stamps, Blue Chip Stamps, Plaid Stamps (a project of A&P Supermarkets), Top Value Stamps, King Korn Stamps, Quality Stamps, Gunn Brothers given by Safeway, Buccaneer, and Eagle Stamps (a project of several divisions of the May Department Stores Co. of St. Louis, Missouri and offered, notably, by May Company stores, supermarkets, drug stores, gas stations, and dry cleaners in the midwest area).

     …but Green Stamps ruled in the Northeast until the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company – that’s the A&P, to you Philistines with no respect for great corporate institutions – introduced Plaid Stamps to our district. My mother became an A&P fanatic and accumulated thousands of them… and forever after wondered what to do with her leftover Green Stamps. Well, into every life and all that.

     But seriously, how could any product of a Twentieth Century upbringing not know about loyalty programs? Didn’t her dad collect the game cards, cheap steak knives, and fragile tumblers from the local gas station? Today’s version of such programs may be found at credit-card companies, with their gift programs and cash-back deals. The idea is the same: Get the customer locked in. It’s one of marketing’s perennial agenda items.

     The story behind loyalty programs is bittersweet. Back then, most goods for sale were somewhat price-controlled, if not by the State then by the manufacturer. That applied especially to bulk commodities such as gasoline. So discounting had a lower bound: when a retailer reached that bound, he had to come up with something else to offer the customer for his loyalty. That happens with goods that are oversold, or for which there are too many sources.

     Well, tempora mutantur, and so forth. But my incredulity at my interlocutor not knowing about Green Stamps sent me swiftly to the sideboard. I’ve enjoyed a chilled glass of Harvey’s, have started on a second one, and reality’s edges have grown agreeably soft. Never mind the exceptionally clever pun; I toss off a dozen of those in a ten-minute conversation. Besides, I’m sure it will come in handy at some future time.

Clean Dirt Versus Dirty Dirt

     I suppose this particular dichotomy had to be addressed eventually.

     It happened yesterday. Sunday is our day here at the Fortress when I empty, clean, and refill the litter box. It takes a while, as we also clean the room. I vacuum, and the C.S.O. steams the floor. Every now and then the C.S.O. pleads for a day off from steaming duties on the grounds of whatever, but it usually works out fine.

     Yesterday, when I was refilling the litter box with fresh granulated clay litter, I had a moment of inattention in which I spilled some litter onto the floor. I grabbed a broom and dustpan, swept up the spillage, and made to put it into the litter box, when the C.S.O. stopped me:

CSO: Don’t do that!
FWP: Why not?
CSO: It’s dirty!
FWP: Huh? It just came out of the bag.
CSO: But you spilled it on the dirty floor.
FWP: Sweetie, it’s cat litter.
CSO: Well, don’t you want the cats to have clean litter?
FWP: It is clean litter. For the moment, anyway.
CSO: No it isn’t. Not once it’s touched the floor.
FWP: (bemused) Just because I haven’t vacuumed yet?
CSO: Well?
FWP: Sweetie, cat litter is dirt. It’s granulated clay. What difference does being on the floor for a few seconds make?
CSO: (looks exasperated) Oh, never mind.

     Mind you, the cat room floor was pretty clean. All right, there was some dust and cat hair, and the C.S.O. did intend to steam-clean it. But the idea that the granulated clay in the freshly opened litter bag was “clean” but spilling it on the floor made it “dirty,” and therefore unfit for our cats to pee and poop on, befuddled me. I know I shouldn’t expect to understand female logic, but still!

     Anyway, “dirt” is a tough thing to define. The very same substance from the very same source would be considered “dirt” in one context and a vitally necessary resource in another. Consider potting soil: first as normally deployed around a potted plant; second after the cat knocks the pot over and scatters the contents.

     Truly, our perceptions are shaped by our definitions.

Wisdom Is Where You Find It

     And who would know better than history’s most celebrated villains?

     And they dreamed big.

I Almost Missed It

     Glory be to God! Today, as I’ve only just discovered, celebrates my favorite ASCII character: one without which a great many important phrases – including a lot of company names – would be both longer and less memorable:

It’s World Ampersand Day!

     Yes, Gentle Reader, the mighty ampersand has been honored with a special day to be celebrated around the globe for its contributions to concision, calligraphy, conjunctionless conjunctions, and…and…

     Well, and!

     According to the National Day Calendar, here are the facts:

• The ampersand used to be the last letter of the alphabet.
• It is a ligature of “e” & “t”? That’s “et” in Latin, meaning “and”!
• The word “ampersand” is a slurring of “real words” run together over time.
• Even the plus sign is actually an ampersand!

     Why, there’s even a website devoted to Ampersand Art!

     So get out there and use it! It’s fun! It’s quick! And it’s international! The ampersand isn’t just an American thing; it’s celebrated around the world for its contributions to our written and printed text.

     Here’s a teaser for you: My novel Doors contains more ampersands than any of my previous novels! Yes, Gentle Reader: I’ve embraced the glory of this elegant and supremely useful character. And if I can, so can you!

Which Way, Indies?

     The question of the hour among those of us who write and self-publish fiction is what to do about piracy… if anything. Here’s a typically impassioned statement on the matter:

Do not pirate books. Respect the work of the people who spend hundreds to thousands of hours writing, refining, rethinking, and revising their work—and especially those trying to create something different. pic.twitter.com/ta5rpf4VLg

— DanNeo S.S. ✮ 𓂃🖊 (@DanNEO_SS) July 8, 2026

     Piracy is indeed dismissive of the author’s work and rights. But there are other perspectives, chief among them this one:

Would you rather make money or be read?

     And it is not to be fliply dismissed.

* * *

     When I started writing fiction, I had a spread of reasons, including the need to know whether I could do it. But paramount among those reasons was this one: I had stories to tell that I felt deserved an audience. Whether I could tell them effectively, affectingly, was to be determined.

     Now, a story worthy of adults’ attention must involve things adults care about. Were the stories in my head of that sort, or were they inane juvenilia fit only for children? (Let’s leave out that a lot of them have adult characters doing adult things.) There was only one way to know: I had to write them and find an audience for them.

     In my review of Martin McPhillips’s brilliant first novel Corpse in Armor, I wrote:

     Many fiction writers claim to write for the sheer pleasure of it. Some claim they only write for the revenue – "to buy groceries," as the late Robert A. Heinlein put it. But all of us, without exception, write to be read. Anyone who claims otherwise deserves no more of your time.

     And so it is. Yet the tension between wanting one’s book to be read – or at least, wanting to believe that one’s book is being read – and the desire for a tangible return from all the effort that went into it can be agonizing.

     I have no idea how other writers feel. Why do I write? See previous answer. Why do they write? You’d have to ask them. I haven’t done much of that. But I’d bet heavily that it does a lot for them when a reader writes to thank them for their books. It’s more or less what I live for.

     What’s noxious is when other people manage to profit from the writer’s efforts. I don’t know how many book pirates manage to do that. I doubt there are many; if we indies can’t pull it off, why would anyone else be able to manage it? Yet the problem is not illusory; piracy is rife.

     Can anyone think of a way to poll book pirates for their motivations? Has anyone ever buttonholed a book pirate and tortured an answer out of him? If any of my Gentle Readers can think of a way, please let me have it! After all, there might be a book in it.

The Great Men Of Our Time Have Their Own Fears

     Consider this one:

“Communities”

     BREAKING NEWS! It has come to my attention, which, yes, has been slipping a bit, that a large percentage of the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch are stressed. It’s perfectly understandable, what with conditions these days. High prices, racial and ethnic strife, government surveillance, Gerrit Cole’s uneven mound performances… I must admit that I’ve been feeling a touch stressed myself.

     But this is America, where there’s a supply for every demand. Yes, friends, here you can find relief for… well, for some of your troubles, at least. For the rest, there’s always alcohol. Anyway, if you feel that your ability to cope is slipping, take a minute to watch this video, and enjoy an admittedly ephemeral moment of relaxation:

     There, wasn’t that pleasant? Now, on to the topic of the day.

---

     We hear about various communities rather frequently these days. The black community. The homosexual community. The transgender community. The community of brain-damaged Russo-Turkic welders. Communities, it seems, are everywhere.

     Why don’t I see them? Many voices prattle about these communities, yet all I can see are individuals. The media harp on them, especially after some distressing event. You know, like the senseless murder of a White teenager by a black thug, or a transgender somebody shooting up a tavern.

     With the conviction and sentencing of Karmelo Anthony, we got a lot of pontificating about the “reaction of the black community.” Tell us, oh omniscient media pundits, where is The Black Community headquartered? Did you go there and interview a spokesblack? Or did the organization issue a formal press release to be aired on the six o’clock news?

     Nope. Just individuals. Some are horrified that “one of ours” did such a heinous thing and got caught, while others jump up and down screaming that a black kid who killed a White boy shouldn’t have to do time for it. (A lot of time, I hope, but that’s a subject for another tirade.)

     When a pedophile rapes a child of the same sex, the media immediately leap to proclaim that the “gay community” – they’re homosexuals, but that word has some negative implications, so they’ve adopted “gay” as a synonym in hope of averting mention of those implications – is utterly opposed to such practices and shouldn’t be tarred with them. Once again, I’m unable to find The Gay Community in the Yellow Pages. Nor does Directory Assistance have a number at which they can be reached. Puzzling.

     Once again, just individuals. Some homosexuals live quietly and keep their business to themselves; others parade around in all manner of dress (and undress), wailing about how “invisible” they are. We hear a lot about their “community,” but when I raise my gaze to the passing scene, all I see are individuals.

     What are these communities of which the press so confidently speaks? Are they occupational groupings? Social associations? Voting blocs? Are there subjects on which these communities have official positions? Do they all support the same charities, or the same volleyball teams? Answer comes there none.

     Media promotion of such communities is intended to make them seem larger and more unified than they really are. When some pundit proclaims that the Z Community is outraged over some unpleasant event, it’s an attempt to efface the divergences and divisions among Zs. This is especially important when an issue routinely associated with Zs is in the news, and an election is looming. It’s the ink-on-newsprint version of whipping the vote.

     Bless their shriveled little hearts! As insubstantial as they are, such communities are staples for promulgation and prognostication. The statements of a vocal few are presented to us as the voice of their community. We accept it without question… unless we’re members of the relevant group and know better. Then we’re told to sit down and shut up. For the greater good of the community, of course.

     It’s amusing and tiring, but it never seems to end.

     For myself, I have no community. Not even the neighborhood in which I’ve lived for 46 years. No one speaks for me but me. I’d venture to guess that other software engineers, writers of fiction and nonfiction, Americans of Irish and Italian descent, and persons who share my Zip code would say the same. But when some “issue” that involves one of those groups rises to public attention, I won’t be surprised when the regional media proclaim what my position must be, on the grounds of affiliation.

     Do you belong to any notional communities, Gentle Reader? Make sure you know how to cancel your membership. It might prove to be important. Especially if you’re behind on your dues.

Our Invisible Servants

     Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Gentle Reader! As befits one who has “green blood,” here at the Fortress it’s a day of celebration. Bet you didn’t know that Patrick was born in Scotland, kidnapped by Irish raiders, and sold as a slave to a Druid priest. Or that missionaries he ordained were deemed responsible for converting much of Europe to Christianity. But that’s why Patrick is considered high in the Church’s hagiography.

     However, I’m not here to rhapsodize about ol’ Paddy. I’ve been thinking about what most of us take for granted nearly all the time. We hardly ever see it. We almost never think about it. Yet it makes our lives possible and pleasant… until it doesn’t.

     On Sunday evening, the Fortress suffered a “backup.” Water that was intended to run down the kitchen sink drain and thence to the cesspool came back up through the shower drain instead. Very unpleasant. But one doesn’t call a plumber on Sunday, especially after 6:00 PM.

     Monday dawned bright and early. Thank God, Roto-Rooter of Long Island was answering its phone. By 9:00 AM, a tech was here to deal with the problem – and what a problem it was! A significant segment of outfall pipe had clogged so completely that water could no longer pass through it. To compound the damage, that pipe – originally installed in 1959 when the house was built – was close to rotting through. The tech had to take down a piece of wall, cut into the pipe, remove and replace it. He managed it, and before 11 AM, at that. Moreover, he put the wall back up and cleaned up after himself. I wanted to applaud.

     No, it wasn’t cheap. $1500! But that’s the sort of thing one faces when plumbing from 1959 goes bad.

     But it got me thinking about our invisible servants. Plumbing is certainly one such. When it’s working more or less to specification, there’s no reason to think about it. When it fails, as ours did Sunday evening, we start to froth at the mouth. We don’t thank the failed parts for their service as they’re hauled away. Then there’s the cost, about which let no more be said here.

     Plumbing. Heating systems. Floor joists. The foundation itself. The roof overhead. All doing what they were designed to do, continuously, whether or not we take notice. Until they don’t, of course. Then the swearing begins.

     I steeled myself and said a prayer of gratitude. I gave thanks for them all, and promised that I would henceforth try not to take them for granted. I also gave thanks that I could afford the repairs. And I think I’ll be doing more of that in the future.

     God didn’t provide those things to us directly, of course. Rather, He equipped generations of men with the imagination to conceive of them, the skills to design them, the power to fabricate and install them, and – insert extra thanks here – the talent required to diagnose and repair them when they fail. Those men are the “proximate causes” for our invisible servants and why they serve us so faithfully for such long stretches of time. They too deserve our gratitude, even if we have no idea of their names, faces, or the lives they led.

     Other men with talents other than ours are gifts to us. The division-of-labor economy that makes their specialties viable is a gift, as well. The free market economy that smoothly provides them in the necessary quantities is beneath it all, of course… and let’s give special thanks that the Big Parasite (you know what I’m talking about), for all its attempts, hasn’t yet managed to destroy that completely.

     No, it’s not cheap. Neither the products nor the services come to us for free. But let’s also give thanks that, with a few pitiable exceptions, we can afford both to purchase them and to service them when they fail us. That, too, is a gift, for who among us, were he transported to North Korea, Cambodia, Burma, or Laos, would be able to maintain an American standard of living and all the servants that go with it?

     Enough of that for now. My cesspool service has just arrived. I must brace myself for his exactions. If the week continues in this vein, I expect to be bankrupt by this coming Sunday. Pray for me. When you’re finished giving thanks for your plumbing et cetera, that is.

Your Morning Firebranding

     My admiration for the great Charles Murray grew by an order of magnitude after this recent episode. First, the windup:

I’ve stayed in hotel rooms over the past week and was wondering if anyone else wishes manufacturers would write “shampoo” and “conditioner” in a bigger font so we could read them in the shower without our glasses. FFS 😖

— Mike Bales 🫡🇺🇸 (@MikeBales) February 18, 2026

     And now the pitch:

Occasionally someone makes a point on X that I've been fretting about for years but was too timid to raise. But now that Mike has broken the ice, I also demand that the color of the font have more contrast with the color of the bottle. We've been victimized long enough. https://t.co/l00ol9tPSW

— Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) February 18, 2026

     To which I was compelled to respond:

     Yes! Ditto! And why isn't the music on hold Beethoven, Bach, or Chopin?
     We declare the Revolution!!

     Now, who will man the barricades alongside me?

This Greenland Thing

     Greenland in the news! Contention over Greenland! NATO roiled by tensions over Greenland! War threatens! Film at eleven!

     I know, I know: you’ve been there. Actually, for those with short memories, I too have been there, and if the tune is the same, the words differ somewhat:

     President Donald Trump and his top officials have framed their drive for Greenland — a semi-autonomous Danish territory — as all about U.S. national security, broader NATO footprints in the increasingly competitive Arctic and grabbing critical minerals.
     This is a somewhat thin justification. The U.S. has for many decades had a defense agreement with Copenhagen to keep a military presence in Greenland.
     Plus, much of the concern plaguing Europe for the last year is built on a fear of the U.S. pulling away from the continent — not committing more American troops to a region NATO is desperate to safeguard against growing Russian and Chinese influence.

     Please read the rest. It’s not bad for a Newsweek article. But most of the salient points are already part of public discourse.

     There’s a strange feel to President Trump’s desire that Greenland become a part of the U.S. Since this is the second time around for this initiative, I have to wonder whether America’s national interests are his real reasons for pursuing it.

     A few things that Greenland is not:

• It’s not arable.
• It’s not “living space.”
• It’s not easily exploitable.

     I’m told it’s valuable for military purposes. I’ll accept that; many harsh places stand guard over strategic travel routes, and the North Atlantic is forever full of vessels, both surface and subsurface, that bear watching. But the U.S. already has military bases on Greenland. Denmark, which claims sovereignty over Greenland, has expressed willingness that American military exploitation of Greenland should increase.

     I’m also told that Greenland is rich in natural resources. That may be so, but again, the Danish government has been accommodating toward commercial exploitation of Greenland’s resources. We must ask why the formal acquisition of Greenland – its transfer from Denmark’s jurisdiction to ours – matters so greatly to President Trump.

     The simplest explanation may be the correct one: Trump’s a real-estate man. Any real-estate man would rather own than lease. And there are possible advantages in not having to bargain with another power for the use of Greenland. But responsibility for the people of Greenland would come with it.

     Another, somewhat darker explanation, would be that contention over Greenland makes an ideal lever by which to pull the U.S. out of NATO. NATO is the conduit through which American resources are pulled into Europe. The drain NATO places on American military power and funding was the original reason that President Nixon ended the redeemability of the dollar in gold. Fomenting discord over Greenland might be an indirect method for ending NATO, an alliance long overdue for dissolution.

     There’s been talk about a morphing of the Monroe Doctrine into a “Donroe Doctrine,” under which American authority and responsibility for the Western Hemisphere would justify enfolding Greenland. That’s a bit thin. Greenland isn’t really part of the Western Hemisphere, and as previously stated, our military is already there.

     A minor possibility is that the matter is ego-driven: President Trump may envision American acquisition of Greenland as securing his place in the history books. It would be America’s largest territorial acquisition, edging out the Louisiana Purchase. That would be an impressive enlargement of the U.S., but in practical terms it would change almost nothing. Anyway, President Trump’s place in the books is already secure for other reasons, and I’m sure he knows it.

     Finally, there’s this: Back in the days of the Plantagenets, it was a common practice for the king to “give” a province to a brother or son. If President Trump is thinking of Greenland as a college-graduation gift for Barron, I’d suggest a snowglobe instead. Young men don’t often cherish such gifts for long. They thank Dad for them, but soon enough they stick them in the back of the closet and forget them. There they languish until their wives-to-be decree a “cleanup” that sees them left at the curb for the recyclers. No one would want to see Greenland suffer that fate. Especially the Greenlanders.

     Anyway, I still think if we’re going to go national-real-estate shopping, we should buy Canada. The National Hockey League Hall Of Fame really belongs in America, don’t you think?

Conversations

     Today’s showers are usually equipped with mixing valves attached to a single-lever control. The user moves the lever to set the flow of water to his preferred temperature and leaves it there. But the earliest mixing valves were designed with little or no frictional resistance to movement. That made them prone to changing the setting without the user’s approval, which resulted in a number of scalding victims. Mixing valves were redesigned to incorporate significant friction.

     The C.S.O., though no weakling, has a hard time getting the temperature of her shower just the way she likes it. Apparently the valve’s friction is a little too stiff for her fine motor skills. That forces her to jog the lever back and forth until by sheer chance the Malevolence of the Inanimate relents and the lever settles at just the right temperature for a nice shower. She was complaining about that just this morning, which resulted in the following exchange:

FWP: (Explains the changes to mixing valves)
CSO: We didn’t have that in Queens. We had separate hot and cold taps.

FWP: (becomes expansive) Those were the days! Men were men, back then. You took what you could get, by God! Then you went out to play with your stick.
CSO: And your rock.

FWP: (stunned) You had a rock, too?
CSO: Yeah, we were one of the better-off families.

FWP: I never knew I married into money!
CSO: Ahh, it was nothing. I used to date a guy from Bensonhurst who had two rocks.
FWP: (too astounded to continue)

     (Yes, Gentle Reader. These conversations actually happen.)

Your Inspirational Thought For Today

This is Pluto. Be like Pluto! pic.twitter.com/q0TqTInt0y

— Curiosity (@MAstronomers) December 8, 2025

     Who cares whether Pluto clears its orbit? It’s having fun!

A Treasure That Must Be Shared

     I could not take the smallest chance that my Gentle Readers might miss out on this gem:

This is the greatest description ever, from a bootleg video in China. pic.twitter.com/yCHzeYu3Mq

— Sandy Petersen 🪔 (@SandyofCthulhu) December 3, 2025

     The movie, for any whippersnappers in this old Curmudgeon’s readership, is of course Alien.

Loneliness

     There’s been some back-and-forth over this subject recently: men asserting that women have become impossible to please; women countering that men have very little to offer; and so forth. Meanwhile men seek women with perfect bodies who’ll cook, clean, and meet them at the door in lingerie and heels at the end of the workday. The women, of course, seek Adonises of chiseled perfection who earn seven figure incomes and never ask them to wash a dish. It’s all very sad, especially as I’m no longer on the market and neither is the C.S.O.

     Life is like that. The higher your standards for a mate, the fewer the people who’ll meet them. But I’m not here to tell you stuff you already know.

     Loneliness is also prevalent within marriages. Yes, I said prevalent. After they’ve been together for a while, romantic partners don’t provide one another with a lot of companionship. (Never mind sex.) If you’re married or in a long-term / live-together relationship:

• How long has it been since you and the Significant Other had a conversation about anything but the week’s shopping list or Junior’s problems with school?
• What percentage of the day do the two of you spend in the same room?
• When you’re in the same room, what’s your focus? The food? The TV? Making the bed?

     Don’t be alarmed by those questions or by your answers to them. More to the point, don’t think of your situation as a “problem” to be “solved.” Because the terrifying truth of the matter is that after the intoxication of romance begins to diminish, a space will naturally grow between the two of you. It always has. You won’t be exceptions.

     It won’t matter if John finds a Miss America contestant who loves housework and sex, or if Jane finds a Musk / Bezos-level entrepreneur with the physique of Michelangelo’s David (except in flesh rather than marble). Life is composed of many desires, needs, and challenges, especially in these United States. All of them demand attention. Alternately, as put by an old friend: You can’t spend your whole life in bed. Trust me on that; I’ve tried.

     Yes, anything can be overdone; that’s why we have the word obsession. The goal is to find a satisfactory blend. If that involves spending a large fraction of your time alone, what of it? If you genuinely wanted some other proportion of activities that would involve you more often with your S.O., you’d be working on it. Wouldn’t you, you highly adaptable problem-solving demon, you?

     Time was, you would call your partner “needy” if he strove to have more of your attention than you wanted to give him. So the loneliness condition has an inverse: a lack of sufficient privacy, or in the happenin’-right-now argot of the cell phone generation, “no me-time.” And yes, I know of people who complain about exactly that. They talk about their S.O.s as if they were leeches they yearned to detach... when their S.O.s can be induced to be elsewhere, of course.

     This is on my mind for a simple reason: these past two weeks, interleaved with all the usual burdens the Fortress of Crankitude lays on me, I’ve been compelled to adjust to the near-constant presence of the C.S.O. in my office, where I write the crap my Gentle Readers come here to savor. Owing to a siege of intense sciatic pain, she tested every seat in the house and discovered that my office recliner is ideal. Sitting in it relieves her sciatica so completely that she’s fallen in love with it. So she’s camped out in my office for two unending weeks. That might not have been so hard to take, except that she brought the dogs, the cats, her cell phone, her laptop, her Kindle, her water bottle and her Salty Snack Of The Day, and Big Fuzzy, her enormous nappy blanket which I bought for her, not forseeing that it would take over her life. It’s made my day’s usual activities much more difficult, and not because she’s always looking over my shoulder.

     I used to sit in that recliner myself, now and then. I’d read, or nap, or jot down notes about some novel I’d probably never write. Ah, those halcyon days of yore. Right up there with the lingerie-and-heels days, I tell you.

     So there can be too much togetherness in a relationship. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Enough of that, for I too am a highly adaptable problem-solving demon. I’ve ordered a duplicate of my recliner for her office. I’m also researching colorless chemical repellants that will keep Joy the Newf and Sophie the German Shepherd / Husky mix on the other side of the house. And can anyone introduce me to music that makes the listener want to be alone? Nothing too coarse or whiny, please. Thanks in advance.

A Day To Remember

     There are many dates on our calendars with historical events attached: the birthdays of presidents; the birthdays of nations; the anniversaries of invasions and the conclusions of the wars they started; and the day Harvey Glumph finally got Jeannie Frizzkopf to agree to go out with him. We celebrate on such days in remembrance of those mighty events and the men who brought them about. That’s part of what it means to know the history of your people. But not every event of great import has a day associated with it. Some such days are forgotten, except for the few fortunate souls who were directly involved in them.

     November 14 in this Year of Our Lord 2025 was such a day:

today I used a wire I’ve kept in my box of cables since 2011. please applaud pic.twitter.com/JRUE94A9IT

— Peyman Milanfar (@docmilanfar) November 15, 2025

     This hero of technology has shown us the fruits of foresight and endurance. We who have our own boxes of cables, and who cherish the memories that reside therein, should praise him. We salute you, Peyman Milanfar! The Fourteenth of November shall be your day henceforth and forevermore.

Important Truths Dept.

     Did you know that millions of people will believe anything at all, however absurd, if it begins with “Did you know that...” -- ?

     No, really! 😉

The Storyteller’s Revenge

     Each of us should do what he’s best at. Hearken to one of my best-loved characters:

     “You know how new I am to all this. I understand about one word in twenty.” Holloway suppressed an urge to fidget. “Most of it goes right over my head. Like how the responsibilities get distributed.”
     Redmond flicked a hand. “We each do what we’re best at.”
     “And you’re best at this.”
     Redmond nodded.
     “It doesn’t bother you to get your marching orders from people who could never do what you do?”
     The young engineer’s grin became wider. “Should it?”
     “Well...”
     Redmond chuckled and rose from his chair. He studied the gray fabric wall of his cubicle for a moment, then leaned back against the edge of his desk.
     “They can’t do what I do—well, maybe Rolf could—but I wouldn’t do what they do. In business, people are placed both for their skills and their willingness to accept responsibilities. Rolf accepts responsibility for the productivity and well-being of the whole Simulations group. For that, he gets a title and a bigger cubicle than this one. Joe Brendel accepts responsibility for the whole Software department. For that, he gets a bigger title, a secretary, and an office with a door.” Muscles quivered in the young face. “Your uncle accepts responsibility for the whole Engineering division. For that, he gets a really big title and wood furniture. I might disagree with some of his decisions, but he takes the heat for them, not me.”

     A storyteller should stick to what he’s good at: telling stories. (This assumes that he is good at that, of course.) In our division-of-labor economy, that relegates certain other components of the business of telling stories to other persons with different (hopefully complementary) expertises. And in accordance with this distribution, some persons will adopt the guise of expertise and hawk themselves to us storytellers as the promoters we need.

     Trouble is, storytellers have a hard time distinguishing the con men from the genuine articles. The con men outnumber the gems by about ten to one. I’ve recently been targeted by several. All of them claim “years of experience.” All of them present skeletal promotional schemes designed to exploit the storyteller’s credulity and hope.

     Seining out the real thing from the con artists is a protracting and emotionally taxing process. An “administrator’s approximation” would be to assume that they’re all con artists, and to proceed on that basis. I’ve made that my working assumption.

     Of course, that assumption has implications that must be frankly faced. If an arbitrary writer – let’s call him Fran, for convenience – is confronted by a come-on from a con man, what’s the most appropriate response? From what response would Fran derive the most benefit and endure the least suffering and cost?

     Right! Fran would tell him a story. I’ve been doing exactly that. And it doesn’t feel like a waste of my time or energies. In fact, it’s been a hell of a lot of fun.

     It’s especially fun when you just know that your solicitor is “working from a template” and hasn’t the least sincere interest in your oeuvre. I have a slew of cold-contact emails in my “Promoters” folder that look as if they were generated from a template, perhaps with the help of an AI or a Microsoft Visual Basic for Word Adapt-o-Gram. I respond to each of them with a freshly generated tale of woe, in my best idiom.

     I told the first of them that I’m a church mouse, that my little family subsists on Scraped Icebox and Dishrag Soup, that we have to feed our dogs mice, squirrels, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. I could never justify spending a small fortune on her eminently worthy efforts! That didn’t quite do the trick; she came back with “Well, what could you afford?” I let her think I was considering it.

     I told another that I’m indifferent to the American market – that my books actually sell quite well in translation. That one wanted to know which nations, of course. I told her Iran, North Korea, and Papua New Guinea. I haven’t heard from her since.

     I told the most recent one that I’m not really the author of the books published under my name. In actuality, I said, I’m a “cut-out;” the author is a crazed Albanian dwarf with a harelip who avoids all publicity for obvious reasons. The dwarf doesn’t care whether his books sell. Indeed, the revenues from them go into a trust for his as-yet-unconceived grandchildren. I expected her to call me out on that one. To my surprise, she didn’t. Well, there’s time.

     They get a politely worded decline-of-service; I get a little exercise for my imagination. It works out for both of us... though I’m sure they’d have preferred a “Where have you been all my life?” response and an offer of riches beyond all avarice. Yes, it also means that if there were an honest workman in the bunch, who really, truly could and would apply himself to promoting my tales, I’ve turned him away all unknowing. Well, there has to be a downside for everything. But as a preservative for a storyteller’s sanity and bank balance, I highly recommend it.

History Always Begins Again

     This morning at X, Clay Travis of Outkick said:

There’s a strong argument America peaked around 1999. Everyone pretty much got along. Most people didn’t have cell phones. And if they did they had no cameras on them. https://t.co/5XH4fiNSPZ

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 7, 2025

     (Note in particular that cell phones were not yet common. Hm. If Clay is right, it’s time to look at the correlation between cell-phone proliferation and our more recent miseries. Maybe the radiation from cell-phone towers really does cook the brain. “They” have been talking about it for a long time, but I’ve persistently dismissed it.)

     For myself, I remember significant tensions between the races in 1999. I remember the ceaseless anti-capitalist agitation of the environmentalists and their BANANA (“Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody”) campaigns. I remember that the media were relentless promoters of government activism. I remember that taxes were high and getting steadily higher. And of course, Black Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was drawing near.

     Yet in some ways it was a better time. America wasn’t enmeshed in foreign wars. There was no open rioting in the cities. The explosion of several destructive themes in politics was still in the future. Interracial and homosexual couples weren’t yet obligatory in TV dramas. Microprocessors hadn’t yet taken over our toasters. White babies weren’t being vaccinated against dengue fever and schistosomiasis. And I was only 47, relatively fit, and relatively healthy.

     And this joke was still being told:

Joe the COBOL Programmer

     There was once a COBOL programmer in the mid to late 1990s. For the sake of this story, we'll call him Joe. After years of being taken for granted and treated as a technological dinosaur by all the UNIX programmers and Client/Server programmers and website developers, Joe was finally getting some respect. He'd become a private consultant specializing in Year 2000 conversions. He was working short-term assignments for prestige companies, traveling all over the world on different assignments, and making more money than he'd ever dreamed of.

     Joe was working 70 and 80 and even 90 hour weeks, but it was worth it. Soon he could retire. But several years of such relentless, mind-numbing work took its toll on Joe. He had problems sleeping and began having anxiety dreams about the Year 2000. It reached a point where even the thought of the year 2000 made him nearly violent. He must have suffered some sort of breakdown, because all he could think about was how he could avoid the year 2000 and all that came with it.

     Finally, Joe decided to contact a company that specialized in cryogenics. He contracted to have himself frozen until March 15th, 2000. This was a very complex process, but totally automated and utterly reliable. He was thrilled. The next thing he would know, he'd wake up in the year 2000; after the New Year celebrations and computer debacles; after the leap day...nothing else to worry about except getting on with his life. He was put into his cryogenic capsule, the technicians set the revival date, he was given injections to slow his heartbeat to a bare minimum, and that was that.

     The next thing that Joe saw was an enormous and very modern room filled with excited people. They were all shouting, "I can't believe it!" and "It's a miracle" and "He's alive!" There were cameras unlike any he'd ever seen and equipment that looked like it came out of a science fiction movie.

     Someone who was obviously a spokesperson for the group stepped forward. Joe couldn't contain his enthusiasm. "It is over?" he asked. "Is 2000 already here? Are all the millennial parties and promotions and crises all over and done with?"

     The spokesman explained that 2000 had gone, but that there had been a problem with the programming of the timer on Joe's cryogenic receptacle - it hadn't been year 2000 compliant, and it was... well... a few years past that. But the spokesman told Joe that he shouldn't get excited as someone important wanted to speak to him.

     Suddenly a wall-sized projection screen displayed the image of a man that looked very much like Bill Gates. This man was Prime Minister of Earth. He told Joe not to be upset, that this was a wonderful time to be alive--that there was world peace and no more starvation--that the space program had been reinstated and there were colonies on the moon and on Mars--that technology had advanced to such a degree that everyone had virtual reality interfaces which allowed them to contact anyone else on the planet, or to watch any entertainment, or to hear any music recorded anywhere.

     "That sounds terrific," said Joe. "But I'm curious. Why is everybody so interested in me?"

     "Well," said the Prime Minister. "The year 10,000 is just around the corner, and it says in your files that you know COBOL.”

     <rimshot />