By popular request (one person), here are the gems of inspiration and accumulated wisdom from the Curmudgeonly Professor for November 9 2012:
- The weather forecaster said something about rain showers in the valleys and possibly a few snow showers. The weather forecaster said nothing about six inches of snow. Weather forecasters are no better than economics forecasters.
- I am having withdrawal symptoms after the election is over. What else is there to do? Actually, the 2016 election jockeying began yesterday morning. Will I be around long enough to go through another of these gifts of democracy? I'm clearly too old to run, myself.
- It's hard to watch losers flounder, no matter how much you wanted them to lose, whether in politics or sports or whatever. It's especially hard to watch school kids on losing teams cry and hang their heads while their hated enemies are celebrating and whooping it up out on the floor or the field. Then the excuses and blames start. Best to just say, we lost. They got more votes or points than we got. Face it and go on. And shut up.
- My hearing aid batteries just beeped four times. That means the stupid batteries died again. The batteries are upstairs. I am downstairs. The batteries are little bitty things that you practically need tweezers to insert. The batteries are a royal pain, along with several other features of hearing aids.
- We had planned to migrate to St. George about now, before the snow hit. But the snow hit. And now we are stranded, momentarily. Snow is useful for watersheds and skiing. I do not ski. I do not need snow.
- I remember the day that Truman beat Dewey. I was in the seventh grade. Students came to school repeating stuff they heard at home, such as "Now that rotten Pendergast gang will be running Washington." And such. No wonder kids not only typically inherit their parents religion, they also inherit many biases and political views that last for a lifetime, not to be confused with anything they might learn along the way.
- I wonder some days what good I did teaching economics for 45 years when students typically hated it with a passion because they had to draw graphs, do long division, calculate formulas, and think logically and theoretically. Not many really learned enough about it to do them any good, and our country is far worse for the fact that we bask in low-level understanding of basic economics principles.
- Some of the real heros of this election are the people who waited in long lines for up to eight hours to vote. I shed a tear for their unwarranted plight and congratulate them for their heroic and patriotic devotion to the sacred right to vote. We owe you and honor you.
- The only office I ever ran for was school board in Laramie WY where I got soundly defeated. I decided I was not cut out for running for any office and gave up my ambition to become Governor of Wyoming. At one time, I was actually offered the job of Administrative Assistant to the Governor of Wyoming, but deduced that the Gov was going to lose the next election, so I demurred. so that is as close as I ever got to the Governor's Office in Cheyenne. He lost.
- Congratulations to the women elected to office yesterday. I think that if we can elect more smart and competent women, we men can sit back and watch things run more efficiently. If we can elect women as smart as my wife is, we will definitely be able to watch problem solvers in action and stop dithering around. Good luck to all. And may your example stir many more smart and competent and knowledgeable women to run for office at all levels of government.
Meanwhile, it is still snowing, which makes me grouchy. The new ice maker for my fridge, the third one in two years of a "new" fridge, has not come and probably will not be installed until next year. The fruit flies have not died, as they are supposed to have done. The TV was out this morning so my wife was late in watching All My Children. We are out of milk and the roads are too slick to go to the grocery store. BYU is playing Tennessee State tonight when they should be playing the University of Wyoming. My granddaughter got an A in physical science, the monster freshman class at BYU, and announced she was sticking it "to the man," whatever that means. She also says they are having continual sleepover parties in the dorm so I am not sure how she is studying, maybe by osmosis. I still have a bunch of boxes to pack up in case we can ever get out of here. Meanwhile, have a nice day.
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