The Curmudgeonly Professor

The End of the World Will Occur When We Can No Longer Buy Batteries

The world runs on batteries.  Batteries control almost every aspect of our lives.  We cannot exist without batteries.  The inventors and manufacturers of batteries should, by rights, be the richest creatures on earth, subject to a 1% rise in taxes from the Obama administration.

The thought of a global battery brownout occurred to me in a momen't inspiration a few minutes ago when my Kindle belched rudely to announce that I only had 15% battery life left.  How rude.  What am I to do while this marvel of human invention gets itself recharged?  When will someone invent a battery with perpetual life?

Just think about it.  Some of the things I depend on for batteries include my blood pressure monitor.  The other day while checking my blood pressure for the umpteenth time before I see my mean cardiologist this week my pressure shot up to 200.  "I'm a goner," I yelled to my wife.  But then I noticed that the dead battery signal was on.  So in went 4 new double A batteries and my pressure was 120/72.  Miraculous.  Crisis averted.  

I have several clocks that depend on batteries.  Usually when a battery dies, the clock stops.  Imagine.  Then I have to actually look at my watch to see what time it is until I get inspired, some times months later, to put a new battery in.  Putting the battery in isn't such a difficult thing, but twirling the teensy little wheel that resets the clock is a real pain, taking up to 15 seconds of my valuable time.  My electric toothbrush dies when the battery dies, so then I have to push the thing around manually.

Every time one of our dozen TV remotes doesn't work it usually takes a day or two before we wake up and realize the batteries have become deceased.  Why is that?  TV remotes are among the most crucial elements of modern life, without which we cannot watch NBA, NFL, Matlock, and my wife cannot watch All My Children, the abominable soap.  Computers die if not plugged in and are dependent on a battery.  I can't take photos on any of my cameras unless I have brains enough to check to see if any battery life remains. I used to have a self-winding Seiko watch which I had worn for 35 years and gave to my son who is still wearing it and it is still running without a battery.  I bought a new Seiko with a bright blue dial and stylish hands.  One day the thing stopped.  "My watch is broken," I yelled to my wife.  "I'll have to buy a new one."  "Check the battery," she said.  So I went to the watch battery store and paid 12 bucks to keep my watch going.  Cheaper than a new Seiko but meanwhile my son is still wearing my other watch, and it is still running, free of charge.  Where is justice in that? I had no idea I had purchased a battery operated Seiko.

In the days when we had kids at home, everything we bought them required 12 Double A batteries, which usually lasted a day or so.  Fortunately we are past that problem.  I no sooner put my hearing aids in when I get "beep beep beep", and then a bit later, more insistently, and rudely, "beep, beep, beep, beep, etc."  Usually at the start of a TV show or in the middle of church or at a restaurant.  Loosely speaking, as our restaurant life is typically limited to places like Carls' Junior.  What does that name mean?  I used to know but can't remember.  Then I have to take those little bitty things out and use my big fumble fingers to put a teensy little battery in and then stick the thing back in my ear again.  For something costing thousands of $$$ you'd think they could invent something better than that, wouldn't you?  Of course, they used to have to adjust them with a screwdriver and not on a computer, so I guess that is some improvement.

Do pacemakers run on batteries?  I wouldn't be surprised.  Every so often we have to make a special trip to Costco just to buy a whole new shopping cart full of batteries.  Then the garage door opener died and turns out that took a little teensy battery.  And the smoke detectors keep yapping at you until the 9V batteries are replaced at $100 apiece, usually placed 20 feet up in the air.  Then, rudely, my Toyota key no longer worked to open the doors or the trunk after lasting for 10 years.  I didn't know the key pusher thing had a battery in it and I had to hunt all over town until I looked behind me at the FreshMarket Pharmacy desk and behold, there it was, 9 bucks.

I'm sure I have only touched the surface on this battery business, but you get the point.  Our lives are useless, meaningless without batteries.  Without batteries, we cannot text while driving, thus endangering our lives and the lives of others, talk on our cell phones, often meaningless chatter, run our iPads, iPods, Kindles, Nooks, and all the other necessities of life.  Some politicians want to take us back 80 years to simpler days.  I say have at it.  Then I won't have to worry about buying so dang many batteries and replacing them or recharging them every five minutes.  After all, those folks 80 years ago got by without so many batteries, so why couldn't we?  Have a nice day.

The Curmudgeonly Professor's Ode to the Daily Newspapers

We take four daily newspapers: The St. George Spectrum, USA Today, and the two Salt Lake papers, The Deseret News, and the Salt Lake Tribune.  My wife complains about the huge bills for these papers and thinks we should just read them on line.  However, there are certain features and advantages to having the print copies around.  For one thing, you can feel happy that you are responsible for cutting down more trees, using up fuel to haul the Salt Lake papers 300 miles in the middle of the night through snow and ice to St. George, get a paper carrier out of bed to drive around and make a feeble toss out his car window that usually ends up on the end of the driveway.  I used to take a few more papers, like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. However, when the US Postal Service began to go down the tubes and they raised postage for newspapers to astronomical rates, I had to give these up.  Too bad, because the Washington Post always had the best funnies.  I required all my students for decades to subscribe to the student rate for the WS Journal, and many often said the most useful part of their college education was learning to read it, interpret all the data, and get the general drift of business and economic news.  I warned them, however, not to pay any attention to the far-right main editorial page except for entertainment purposes. 

Another advantage to having so many papers is that they tend to pile up and cause consternation in the mind of my dear spousal unit.  However, have you tried to do a crossword puzzle on a computer or Kindle screen? Just doesn't work.  My Saturday NYTimes Xword puzzle ends up being half black with strikeouts and writeovers so that unless I have the letter memorized in a particular box, and have an approximate idea of what the box number is, I have a tough time finishing the puzzle.  I never give up on the Saturday NY Times puzzle, however, even though I gag every time I read some hotshot who writes on his blog that it took him nine minutes flat to solve it, and that without having to look anything up.  Aside from that, trying to read anything on my Kindle means that the battery is always going dead, and reading on my computer means being hunched over, squinting, and torturing my herniated back disc.

 So I persevere in my love for newspapers so I can yell and cuss at the contents and haul the papers out to the trash, feeling guilty for not being green.  But we all know the litany: environmentalists are all nuts anyway, according to some learned politicians.  Besides, where else can you read so many obituaries, study the comics, read all the inane letters to the editor, and find out little-known tidbits about your community?  So three cheers for the daily papers.

If Only I Had Done Things Differently . . .

We tend to waste a lot of time thinking and worrying about whether we should have done things differently in the past.  Here are a few of our favorite "if onlys":

• If only I had not put my money in a stock or investment scheme recommended by my friend.
• If only I had kept my spending within my means.
• If only I had paid more attention to my kids when they were growing up.
• If only I had appreciated my spouse more over the years.
• If only I had become a teacher instead of a lawyer
• If only I had followed everyone's advice and not married so-and-so.
• If only I had followed my doctor's advice and lost weight ten, or even twenty, years ago.
• If only I had stayed more active and more physically fit instead of becoming nearly sedentary.
• If only I had read more books instead of watching so much time-wasting television.
• If only I had stopped being a Lakers fan.

You get the idea.  You can make out your own list of "if onlys".  Then if you wish, you can spend the rest of your life crying your eyes out about your past mistakes, indiscretions, shortcomings, bad habits, inattention to details, egregious sins, or whatever.  By doing so, you can focus totally on your past and on your pitiful condition.  Truth is, no one is going to pay much attention to you if you wallow in past miseries.

Economists have a concept called fixed costs.  Fixed costs are costs we incurred in the past that we can no longer do anything about.  That is why such costs are called fixed costs.  They cannot be changed.  Furthermore, Econ 110 teaches that you should ignore fixed costs.  To the uninitiated, that advice sounds stupid.  But the reason you should ignore fixed costs is that you cannot go back as if you had never incurred them.

Next lesson in Econ 110: Pay attention to variable costs.  Variable costs are costs you can change, omit, vary (that is why they are called variable), fix.  We don't necessarily want to totally forget yesterday, because some times we need to make amends, apologize, make up with people, ask forgiveness, and pay off debts we have incurred.  But then we move on.  Then we make a list of those things we can do today that will make our life better, such as the following:

• Pay attention to our families and our loved ones.  These people are the most important people in our lives and we should treasure them.
• Become a Jazz fan instead of a Lakers fan.  You will feel better, I promise.
• Start moving, walking, getting up and being active, even a little, and then a little more.  You will feel better almost instantly and the more you move the better you'll feel.
• Pay attention to your food intake.
• Get a book and read it.  You might like a Kindle or a Nook or other ebook reader.  People who have them say that even though they like paper books better, they read more ebooks continually than they ever read paper books.
• Learn something new.  Take a course at a junior college or a night school or a correspondence course.  If you are unemployed, spend your time learning a new skill or sharpening up your old skills.
• Get your will, your estate, and your finances in order.
• Quit at least one egregious habit you have had for years.  Just stop it.

Focusing on variable costs, or things we can change, is the most constructive and valuable thing we can do.  We can clean up old messes, make amends where necessary, and then we won't have to fuss over those nasty fixed costs any more.  Who knows, you might actually see some wisdom in the discipline of economics and become an economist.

 

The Curmudgeonly Professor has Become a True Believer in his Horoscope

My regular readers have noted that earlier this month the Curmudgeonly Professor indicated that he was going to pay strict attention to his horoscope readings, knowing that this information provides an infallible guide to his actions in daily life.  My faith in my horoscope was vindicated today when I read:

Your ability to defer needs to emerge. . . All the pushing in the world won't help.  Tonight: know that you don't  need to do anything.

I have no idea how an astrologer could have known exactly how I and approximately 2 billion other Virgos around the world could have known so precisely that I, a consummate and skilled procrastinator, need to have my ability to defer "emerge."  I take that to mean that I don't need to do anything right away, or even in the immediate, or intermediate future.  Furthermore, the astrologer nails it right on the head by instructing me and all other Virgos that "tonight you don't need to do anything."

The Curmudgeonly Professor remains concerned, however, that if all the Virgos of the world are sitting around on their posterior regions doing nothing, what kind of a morality statement does that send to everyone else who believe incontrovertibly that by the sweat of their brow they must earn their bread.  If Virgos can put off everything and don't have to do anything, does that mean they are leeches on the public trough?  What will happen to our work ethic, to our GDP, our tax collections if Virgos just bag it and don't do anything?  Maybe the solution to this dilemma is that today's horoscope is just a one shot deal and tomorrow the grand seer poohbah of the crystal astrology ball will have us arise from our rear ends and go back to work.  But such contradictory messages lead to uncertainty and stress in our lives.

Think of the implications: to-do lists are extinct.  Doors falling off hinges can be ignored. Washers that don't work can be left idle.  Garages do not have to be cleaned.  Clutter can remain wherever it lies.

We may have to call for a Congressional investigation of how astrologers come up with their revelations.  Just to show you how your birthdate can affect your fortunes, consider these messages for today:

• Aries: Understand what is going on behind the scenes. (Aha, this means you better be suspicious and check everything out!)
• Taurus: Zero in on your priorities.  Give up work mentality. (here we go again; just goof off and play).
• Gemini: . . . let a partner or family member assume greater responsibility. (My wife is a Gemini, so that means she wants me to assume greater responsibility.  Dream on.)
• Cancer: go for the goal; give less thought to every detail could trip you up. (read Steven Covey's Seven Habits).
• Leo: a partner could push and push. . . end the game by not playing. (and then what?)
• Libra: tonight: Where the action is.
• Scorpio: your imagination knows no limits.
• Sagittarius: stay close to home.
• Capricorn: you know what you want.
• Aquarius: Aquariuses are "out of kilter" today.  Sad day for them.
• Pisces: You can't wait much longer.

You can see from these nuggets of astrological truth that all you have to do is check your horoscope each day and, according to the luck or lack of luck of your birthdate, you are either condemned to being out of kilter, advised to stay home and quit fooling around, set your priorities, or other important stuff.  As for me, I am concentrating on doing nothing, meticulously following my horoscope guru's advice. I am working hard on seeing that my ability to defer "emerges."  What did you say dear?  The kitchen cabinet door is still hanging by the loose hinge?

 

A Tale of Two Rose Bushes: A Parable on Judging by Outward Appearances

We have two rose bushes by our front door in St. George.  One looks like a rose bush and has lush green leaves, long stems, and produces beautiful deep red roses.  The other looks like some ugly bare thorny gray sticks poking up out of the ground. I asked our gardener neighbor a couple of years ago to pull it and plant something else, and he replied, "Leave it.  The rose bush is just fine."  He obviously knew more about roses than I knew as, sure enough, the gray sticks transformed into rose stems with absolutely stunning light red roses with luminous white centers.

We like to think that appearances mean everything and, indeed, we caution and train our youth to watch their appearance and remain modestly dressed and groomed.  Yet, some times, the scruffiest person in a group of people will turn out to be the most polite, the most helpful, and the most articulate one among them.  I remember a student at Penn State who, plainly put, was just obnoxious.  He turned out to have the ranking academic record in the senior class.  Another student at BYU who demonstrated his worthlessness the first day, in my skilled opinion, ended up with a Harvard Ph.D. in economics.  I have told this story before, but it will stand a retelling.  My colleague at BYU owned a ranch in central Utah and was hauling a load of horses near Manti when he foolishly ran out of gas.  With the truck bucking back and forth, he pulled over to the side and fervently hoped the truckload of horses would not tip over.  Car after car after car whizzed by him, all nicely dressed and probably headed for the Manti LDS Temple.  Finally a seedy looking geezer in an old pickup stopped.  "You need some help?" he asked.  My colleague said he had run out of gas.  "We can fix that," the geezer said.  So he pumped five gallons of gas out of the barrel in the back of his pickup and enabled my rancher friend to get back on the road.  "Let me pay you," my friend said.  "You can pay me by helping the next person you see who needs some help," the geezer said, and took his scruffy-looking self back to his pickup and went on his way.

We may like to think that our outward appearances mean everything, but we could, after all, be the wolf in sheep's clothing. Our scrubbed and well-groomed appearance could, in fact, harbor a soul full of bitterness, hate, and greed, leading to a miserable life for us and for those around us.  On the other hand, the soul of a homeless or destitute person or a person who just chooses to grow a beard and wear jeans with 200 rips and holes in them may shine with compassion and friendliness.  Christmas is a good time to think about these things.

The Repetitive Details of Daily Life: Taking Out the Trash

I just took out the trash to the curb Tuesday night.  Thursday has already arrived, which means that exactly 2/7 of a new week has elapsed until the next trash day will have arrived.  After retirement, the honored retiree may not have a clue what day it is, so said person needs some kind of benchmark to keep track of time.  Garbage day seems as good a day as any to mark the week.  The only problem is the rapid pace of time between one garbage day and another.  I note that even Ms. Kinsey Milhone, the sassy PI in Sue Grafton's alphabet mystery series who is now up to "U Is For Undertow" had to make a mad dash to get her garbage out before the garbage truck passed her residence.  Sue Grafton is one of the few authors we purchase in hardcover since we have been loyal readers since the letter "A" passed some time ago and would not think of being so cheap that we would wait for the paperback edition or spend 10 bucks to read it on Kindle, although my wife thinks the "U" book is not necessarily one of her better creations.  Nonetheless, Ms. Milhone continues to entertain.  But I digress, as the theme to this post is the repetition of details of daily life.

My wife tells me I should "get a life" since I place so much concern on the weekly garbage detail.  But think about it.  Fifty-two times a year.  Rain or shine.  The week's detritus once again vanishes out the door.  At home growing up on the farm, the food scraps went to the pigs, anything flammable was burned in a big brown barrel 100 yards away from the house, and genuine indestructable relics were hauled to the sagebrush area across the river where we later explored and exhumed them. 

The thing that bothers me so much about trash day is how often it rolls around.  I no sooner get the blasted stuff collected and out the door and the next Tuesday has already arrived.  On a good trash week, we manage to fill the can to the brim.  On an unproductive week, we scarcely fill it one-third full.  As a general rule, the more one can throw out, the more simplified one's life becomes.  The more worthless stuff one hangs onto, the more complicated one's life is.  Accumulated stuff must be dusted, sorted, kept out of the way so one does not stumble over it, admired from time to time, and protected from vandals, depreciation, and deterioration.  Throwing it away immediately saves all this trouble.  As a general rule, one should not buy any stuff in the first place, although that is counterproductive to the economic stimulus needed to awaken us from the moribund and anemic economy that was presumably caused by the Other Political Party (Not our fault, certainly not) and could adversely affect the composition of Gross Domestic Product.  Being an economist, I must always remain cognizant of these factors in my analysis of garbage.  On the other hand, the more garbage one gets rid of, the more landfill space is required, thus causing a deterioration of the environment, a bigger hole in the ozone layer, more carbon dioxide, and more polar bears floating away from the North Pole on melting glaciers, and a greater glorification of idiotic junk science to prove icebergs aren't floating to Australia just now. 

Thus, it is not an easy or simple matter to evaluate how much stuff one should buy or how much trash one should chuck out the door on a periodic basis.  If we don't buy stuff, merchants go broke.  They lay people off and these people do not have health insurance, savings, or a new HD flat screen TV with which to watch such epics as Dancing With The Stars.  Such people collect unemployment, which then raises the federal deficit a whole bunch, and leads to criticism of socialism running rampant through our handout economy.  If we do buy stuff, chances are we could have got by without it anyway since it either won't fit, will look like heck, or will quickly snag or develop a hole in it.  If we buy gifts, chances are the recipient won't like them or  stuff won't fit them and so they put it in a dresser drawer or take it to their next white elephant gift exchange, hoping the giver of the gift isn't there to select it and take it back home again.  If we buy any new electronic stuff, it will go on the blink soon and be obsolescent in six months and parts will be unavailable to fix it so we need to chuck it out.  And that raises a whole bunch of environmental stuff to worry about, since there are all manner of poisons and junk in electronic stuff that will kill all of us off.  And if we didn't buy stuff, but lived off dandelion leaves from our lawns, we could take life easy, thus further deteriorating the GDP and ticking off the White House for our indolence and lack of patriotism.  So there you have it.

The moral to the story is this:  Taking out the trash is not a trivial matter.  Rather it is a task fraught with a plethora of interconnected and interrelated paramaters and paradigms, worthy of a thirty-equation econometric model producing a paper that could be presented at the annual meeting of the Econometric Society, a promotion to full Professor, and a testimonial dinner.  So the next time your spousal unit reminds you that it is time to take out the trash, ponder these points of analysis before you decide to take care of it.  You may just want to get your grandson to tamp it down, as my grandson Daniel became an expert at, jumping in the can and jumping up and down on it to create additional space, saving you having to roll it out to the curb.  Assuming the stench doesn't knock you over during the ensuing week.

Words of Wisdom for December 16 2009

From the cover of our church program last Sunday, author unknown, apologies to whoever wrote it:

Don't let the pain of one season

Destroy the Joy of all the rest . . .

Don't judge life by one difficult season.

 

Questions for which I need answers about new Canon 7d camera

1. I've been waiting to buy a new camera to upgrade from Sony alpha 300 10mp which replaced Canon Rebel 6mp.  I'm looking at the Canon 7d. Costs $1800 bucks with 28-135 f3.5-5.6 kit lens.  Is this lens any good, or is it a typical kit lens of minimal quality?

2. Will 18 mp clog hard drive and do I need another external drive to hog up all the mps from storing and processing photos?

3. One of the attractions of the canon 7d is taking HD video.  I'm assuming this is a big hard drive space hog as well.

4. Not that I have 1800 bucks. Am assuming I can apply for federal stimulus money.  But then I'm not getting any younger either, I discovered today.

5. Notice that canon 40d is coming down in price.  I could buy a 40d with two good lenses for about the same as the 7d.  Is that a good option?  Frequent complaint about the 50d is soft images requiring sharpening, so some recommend 40d instead.  Or would I just regret not jumping on the 7d bandwagon?

If You Don't Change the Calendar Page, Does Time Stand Still?

I just noticed that the calendar in my den is still turned to June.  Next Tuesday will be September 1.  Two months have elapsed.  Four trips to Costco, one trip to Kohl's Department Store, three trips to WalMart, 3-500 photos posted, Zenfolio photo gallery site started, many reruns of Matlock, nasty political bad manners and childish behavior, loss of Ted Kennedy, five ripe tomatoes, three cucumbers (finally, one overdone), several thousand photos edited, started Twitter, started Facebook, solved nearly 100 New York Times crossword puzzles, and that's about it.  Two months gone.  Just like that.

I wonder if that is what time travel is like, just big holes in time.  I thought time travel had some possible merit until I realized the guy who was the time traveler showed up stark naked every time he time traveled and had to steal clothes.  I wasn't sure of the propriety of him showing up in the presence of a six year old girl, but he seemed to cover himself with bushes.  What I would like to know is this:  Did two months really elapse for me?  Or did time stand still, waiting for me to turn the calendar page?  Christopher Reeve seemed to have a somewhat better deal in what he got out of going back in time since he at least had some clothes on when he met up with Jane Seymour.  I'm still looking at June.  In a couple more months, it will be November.  I wonder what pictures I have missed in July and August, and what the pictures are for September and October.  Maybe my wife will wander in and change the pages. I would have to walk around my desk and stumble over about three electrical cords to change the page, and that seems to be an insurmountable burden.

Besides, a brief power outage turned my bedside clock into a blinking 12:00, and for about a month now I only think about changing the time in the middle of the night, when I wake up and wonder what time it is.  Then I realize we are stuck on 12:00 and so, once again, time is standing still.  So, insofar as I can deduce, it is now 12:00, a.m. or p.m. doesn't matter, on the 30th of June 2009.  If someone wants to come by and change my calendar page and reset my clock, perhaps I will join the happy throngs in the present moment.  But that would mean watching several dozen Matlock reruns that have been recorded during my absence, and I'm not sure I'm up for that.

The Importance of Trivia and Information Tidbits in Our Lives

Think about it:  Every day the mountains and piles of trivia and information tidbits grow. Every day new facts, data, incidents, economic statistics, demographic shifts, ideas, inventions, mistakes, crimes, idiocies, bloviations, lies, ingenious aberrations of behavior, and events occur.  Consider the fact that knowing trivia and information tidbits can change our lives.  For instance, a few people exist who know everything, or at least act like they do, and the rest of us have a hard time remembering what movie we saw or what book we finished reading an hour ago.  But, armed with trivia, we can go forth to the morning coffee break and wax eloquent on trivia and tidbit gleanings, showing our superiority over the clods who know only the top five persons surviving on American Idol.  We might eventually end up on Jeopardy.  Or we may need a fund of trivia and meaningless information to finish the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle.  We may want to impress our date, our family, our mother-in-law, our boss, or some one we are standing in line with at the grocery check-out counter.  Ignore the fact that some will complain that you are merely showing off and being obnoxious.  Knowledge is better than ignorance.  Trivia and information tidbits are the foundation of daily existence.

In recognition of this  profound observation, the Curmudgeonly Professor is launching a new and important feature on his blog, to wit, "The Curmudgeonly Professor's Daily Trivia and Information Tidbits."  If you read this epic information daily for a year, you will be armed with 365 items of trivia and information tidbits.  You will shine as an educated and interesting person.  At least, if anyone is still speaking to you.

Things I Learned From Reading the Obituaries

Most seniors read the obituaries religiously, mostly to see if they have put in an appearance yet on those pages.  Here are a couple of items gleaned from reading recent obituaries:

1. Members of the LDS (Mormon) faith typically list many, if not all, of the church service assignments they fulfilled during their lives, referred to as "callings."  For one recent obituary of an elderly man, I learned of a unique calling:  "His calling was to trap gophers on the church farm."  Actually this calling may have been more useful than many other possible service assignments.
2. So-and-so is survived by his family of four cats, Katie, Kylie, and I can't remember the other two.

No Cussing in LA County and We're Not Kidding

We are told that the sound of silence in LA County comes from 10 million people not swearing as the LA County Board of Supervisors did or was about to designate the first week of March as No Cussing Week.  The Curmudgeonly Professor rates this event right up there with other significant March happenings such as Ceasar saying "et tu" to Brutus during the Ides of March and serving corned beef and cabbage on  St. Patrick's Day.  

While the Curmudgeonly Professor certainly supports cleanliness of language, he is known to have slipped a mild expletive here and there as the need arose.  But he does have a few questions and concerns about the operative conditions of this decree, as follows:

• What exactly is cussing?  If we can't say d--- and h---, can we say darn and heck?
• In Utah, if we had a similar decree, is the favored expression "Oh my heck" swearing? 
• What do we say when we see morons and idiots driving on the streets and highways?  Is it o.k. to say "you moron" as long as we leave out the "you blankety-blank *#@& moron?" 
• Or if we stub our toe and it really, really, really hurts, and we have a reflex action which causes us to say exactly the same thing as an automatic reflex that we have said since we first learned to talk, will we get demerits? 
• Can you cuss in private, or is it just public cussing we are concerned about? 
• What is the fine for cussing?  Who are the cussing police? 
• Will all movies and television programs that employ undesirable language be closed down for a week so our tender ears are not polluted with undesirable language and cussing words?  
• What if you are a dairyman and must milk cows for a living?  Do you get a special dispensation? 
• Or what if you try to load a bunch of hogs, what should you tell them?  Please, piggy, piggy, move your hams up the chute and get ready to ride to the slaughter house?  Thank you.  Have you ever tried to load pigs?  
• And what will you do if you see your most detested TV ad, talk show bloviator, news anchor, or opposing athletic team?  What will you say?  Have a nice day? 
• And here are some other instances of concern:      
• (a) you can't find the TV remote. 
• (b) you are parched and the kitchen is a half block away. 
• (c) McDonald's forgot to put ketchup on your cholesterol triple burger.
• (d) Your shoe lace breaks and you don't have another one. 
• (e) The seat of your pants splits out when you stoop over as mine did yesterday. 
• (f)  You spill something all over your clean shirt, blouse, carpet, or whatever. 
• (g) You're wife, or husband, lost your glasses and you can't find them. 
• (h) You wake up in the night and have to go to the bathroom. 
• (i) You have no friends on FaceBook. 
• (j) Your neighbor's dog does it's business each day on your front lawn. 
• (k) Your neighbors are having a loud and raucous party and ignore your phone calls to keep quiet and you have to call the police. 
• (l)  You are out of money and you find out at the ATM that your debit or bank card expired last month and you need bus fare to get home. 
• (m) You have spent an hour gathering the best bargains at the grocery store in two carts and the checker has rung up your $200 order and you discover your credit card was left at home and your cell phone is dead.
• (n) You discover that you have seen the episode of Matlock that is on today ten times before and you hate this episode anyway. 
• (o) Pierce Brosnan begins warbling in "Mama Mia." 
• (p) You discover you are one point short in getting an A and your B grade may jeopardize your application to medical school.
• (q) Your computer crashes, it is 1:00 a.m., and your spread sheet, or term paper, or whatever is due at 8:00 a.m. and your life, job, career depends on delivering your completed project. 
• (r) You see the photo opportunity of a lifetime and discover your battery is dead. 
• (s) You are about to run out of gas, you are ten minutes late to an important appointment, there are no gas stations in sight, and you have no cash. 
• (t) You forget your wife's birthday, your wedding anniversary, mother's day, or that you were supposed to be home early to go out to dinner.  

You get the general idea.  To enforce the No Cussing Rule, government would have to appoint a special enforcement and monitoring commission.  Bad cussing will warrant washing out one's mouth with soap.  Intermediate cussing will cause being grounded and no TV sports for two weeks.  Marginal cussing will just be posted on a fridge magnet.  I think LA is on to something.  I inform my wife each day that this is the day I will avoid all cussing, so this is nothing new.  I wish LA County well.  I hope this goody-goody rule never hits Utah or I am sunk. 

Incremental Knowledege: The Key to Getting Smarter

The Curmudgeonly Professor takes inventory each week to determine what specific gems of incremental knowledge he has gained during the previous week.  Without incremental knowledge, the stuff that is already there tends to stagnate and petrify, sinking us in realms of self-satisfied smugness that make us think that we already knew everything.  The Curmudgeonly Professor is all too well aware that he knows very little.  Having taught college for 40 years, starting with 100% of what he knew to begin with, he lost a net amount of knowledge equal to 2 ^1/2% per year, so when he delivered his last scintillating lecture on the perils of deregulating the banking system, he knew precisely nothing.  However, it became apparent during the ensuing eight years that no one in the banking system knew anything or paid attention to what they did learn since we are now without paddles, so to speak.

However, I digress.  I did learn a few things this past week.

• While standing in line at Albertson's grocery the other day, I had a nice red lacy valentine box of chocolates that had been reduced from $10 to $2.50.  The guy behind me couldn't resist:  "A little late, aren't you?" he opined.
• The characters in the comic strip Frank and Ernest have long been my role models, along with Hagar the Horrible, The Born Loser, and Earl, of the comic strip Pickles.  As Frank and Ernest are reporting to Econ 101 class in the morning comics, they note that Economics 101 has been marked down to 79.  Such are the perils of the recession.
• All of the attempts to teach the population some level of minimal economic analysis and reasoning have gone to waste since such principles have become irrelevant in our national policy discussions.
• Leno and Letterman had another week off and the networks are too cheap to hire guest emcees as in the golden years of Johnny Carson.
• Joe the Plumber has become immortal.
• When sent to the grocery store for bread and milk, I came home with bread, milk, Marie Callendar's cherry crumb cobbler, skinless chicken breasts, sirloin mini-steaks, malted milk bird eggs, asparagus, a pizza stone which cost $13 but which included a $2 bag of salad greens, a $2 box of Texas toast, and a $6 frozen pizza, for a net cost for the pizza stone of 3 bucks; jelly beans, and two or three other necessities, total cost $42.  You just have to have a Ph.D. to be a good shopper and spot the bargains.

Tonight's Full Moon Will Be the Biggest and Brightest of '09

The Curmudgeonly Professor is, at last, offering a posting worth reading, but you need to read it today, January 10.  Robert Roy Britt of Space.com has explained why tonight's moon will be nearly full, and will be "sure to wow even seasoned observers."  Go here to read the article posted on MSNBC.com.  Britt provides a perfectly understandable and lucid explanation of the moon, the earth, and the sun.  When the Curmudgeonly Professor was in the seventh grade, Mrs. Strong, our stern science teacher, made us all construct models of how the planets orbit, and specifically, how the moon, and the sun, and the earth behave.  Unfortunately, the Curmudgeonly Professor was destined to become an economics professor where knowledge of astronomical technicalities were not necessary, unless one wished to make economic forecasts by means of horoscopes.

Now, Britt tells me that the earth revolves around the sun and the moon revolves around the earth.  Imagine.  I've gone all these years without having paid a lick of attention to Mrs. Strong in seventh grade science or to my orbiting model.

So go out at sunset and look for the giant moon rising in the east.  It may well be the biggest event of this cold, rainy, icy, wet, and dreary month of January.  I remember a giant moon in Leander TX a few years ago about this time of year when we went there to see our granddaughter play a volleyball game.  The moon took up at least one-third of the sky on the eastern horizon and was brilliant orange.  We marveled at the time and wondered how that could be.  Now we know.

Are You Happy?

As I was checking out at Walgreen's the other day, I was momentarily startled by the young man ringing up my stuff at the cash register. Instead of asking if I had found everything I had been looking for, he looked up at me with a smile and said, "Are you happy?" I must say, no one in my life has ever asked me that question, let alone a typical robotic checker in a store. I stuttered a moment and then replied, "Yes, I guess I am. It was nice of you to ask." I wondered how many of his customers he asked that question, and how other people responded. I have thought about that young man with the smile many times the past few days and of the impact a simple act of friendliness and cheerfulness can have on people with whom we come in contact. I have asked myself numerous times since then the same question and have then asked, "If you are happy, then what brings you happiness? I think that even people who remain grumpy at the moment they see a smile or hear a kind word may even think about experiences like these and, perhaps, even smile a bit and act a little differently the next time. So ask yourself, "Am I happy?" And then, ask "What brings me happiness?" And then express some appreciation for these good things. See what a chain reaction a young store clerk can initiate by a simple question?