Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

CNS for May 20, 2012

Posted by Ralph at 04:57 Headline News, Uncategorized

May 202012

What’s wrong with what we’ve always done?

One thing this Coot notices is that there seems to be a conspiracy going on. Everyday we are bombarded with news stories, research and other bullshit telling us that everything we know, everything that has been part of human existence, and frankly everything that is good about life is bad for us. Take food!

All the food that has always been such a pleasure is, of course bad for you. Healthy used to mean hearty natural food like eggs, meat, cheese. The food our farmer forebears needed to fuel their bodies for work on the farm might have been good for them but it is no longer good enough for modern times. Nothing that brings pleasure or tastes good is fit to eat. At least according to the ‘experts’.

Don't get between a man and meat.

Any what’s more, we buy this drivel. We starve ourselves. We eat tasteless meals and live an existence deprived of enjoyment. All because we want to me one of the sophisticates and fit into the clothes we wore in high school, impossible as that may be. Well today’s first story just shows the desperation and determination of all these revisionists. They want to eliminate meat from our diets.

Meat has always been the perfect food for real men. It’s what has fueled the growth of civilization and powered the great men of history. It is proved in cultures around the world and throughout history. But that is no excuse for the revisionists. In our modern times we have learned the truth about meat and the truth is ugly. Don’t do old Dad in on Father’s Day by cooking him a big steak. Fix him a nice veggieburger.

Men, Meat and Masculinity Linked

Drink up!

Those same revisionists can’t seem to make up their minds about coffee. (Just one more reason to stop listening to them) But today they decree that, in spite of everything published in the past about how bad coffee is, coffee is really good for you- TRUST US.

Does a Coffee a Day Keep the Doctor Away?

Then there is all the buzz about organic food. The ‘experts’ go on and on about the poisons from pesticides and chemicals and how unhealthy they all make the stuff in the grocery stores these days. It makes you sick just to read them but then you go to the grocery store and find that the ‘healthy’ organic stuff costs twice as much. Maybe it is better for you. But then again maybe not. It just might be that we need those extra chemicals.

Does organic food turn people into jerks?

It’s enough to stress you out listening to all these studies and all this revisionist propaganda about how to live. As if thousands of years of history hadn’t already sorted it out. Maybe it’s just that the younger generation is too stressed out. Maybe it is time to teach our kids to relax and go with the flow. In the UK they are putting this into practice so that maybe the next generation will be ready to stop trying to change things and just enjoy life.

The world’s first health resort for stressed-out toddlers

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Down with Negative Thinking

Posted by Ralph at 04:07 Down with

May 162012

If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy expectations, you put yourself into a condition conducive to your goal.

Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Positive Thinking

Norman Vincent Peale, Christian preacher and author of The Power of Positive Thinking (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Back in my formative years (the 50’s) positive thinking was the rage. It was like the world had discovered something brand new- the power of positive thinking. Of course it was new to me. I was a teenager and everything was new- even if it wasn’t. Still there was lots of buzz on TV, my mother;s book club and even on the street. It was a big deal and in those days, a big deal lasted for months, not hours.

Like most big deals, it didn’t have a lasting effect on me, possibly because when I went to college I learned how superficial such thinking was. I came out of college full of sophistication and negative thinking about just about everything. Not only was I not positive about the world around me, I wasn’t even positive about myself. The 60;s did nothing to reduce that negativity, The world was a mess. You couldn’t trust anybody over 30 and the world was in a conspiracy to put you down.

Then I got old.

In the 70’s I crossed the great divide and became untrustworthy myself. This was disconcerting for me. It left me without meaning or direction but over time the fog began to clear. I began to ask serious questions like ‘Why wasn’t I trustworthy anymore?’ and ‘Who came up with those silly ideas?’ Life had taken a turn and become serious. I had a job and was considering marriage. How was I going to manage these completely new life concepts? I did what everyone I knew was doing. I winged it and hoped that nobody would notice.

In some ways all those years working and raising my family are like a long dark tunnel. My nose was so buried in details that I never understood where I was going or even why. Using the sophisticated reasoning I learned in college, I didn’t expect much, and didn’t dream about much. The world about me and everyone in it was up to no good and I wasn’t going to expect special treatment.

Too late now, I see the light!

The Power of Positive Thinking

Well I blew it. The whole darned thing. I’d have been much better not to have bought into the negatives foisted on me by higher education. Not that I failed. The kids turned out OK after several scary side trips. I’m still married. I retired- twice. It’s just that if I had raised my eyes and seen the world as a wonderful place full of opportunity and rewards, I could have done better.

It’s all spilled milk now. You don’t get a do-over and , frankly, I don’t think I really want to go around again. These days, I’ve learned to see the world differently, more like Norman Vincent Peale. I thought that college was my way out of the boring life of my childhood. It sure was but looking back, boring looks pretty good to me now.

Has getting older given you an attitude adjustment? Is it like mine of something else altogether?

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Coot’s News Service for Mother’s Day

Posted by Ralph at 04:50 Headline News, Uncategorized

May 132012

Happy Mother’s Day

Mother's Day card (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

from the Cantankerous Old Coots.

We love mothers.

We love Mother’s Day.

We love all the corny, sentimental music.

We do draw the line at Mother’s Day Brunches however. If Mom needs a Mother’s Day Brunch, she should have had a daughter.

So where did Mother’s Day come from?

If you are like me, you have no idea who thought up the idea of Mother’s Day although you might have suspected that it was dreamed up in the Hallmark Cards back office. It wasn’t.

Hallmark has profited from Mother’s Day just like the florists and restaurants but the idea was first proclaimed by Julia Ward Howe following the Civil War. It started it’s climb to prominence when Anna Jarvis trademarked the phrases “second Sunday in May” and “Mother’s Day”, and created the Mother’s Day International Association Creating Mother’s Day was no bed of roses however and Anna had reason later in life to try and reform her creation when it became too commercial for her tastes.

Mother’s Day’s Dark History

Moving right along to today we find many examples of good mothers. For example the Mother of the Year selected by American Mothers Inc.

MOTHER OF THE YEAR

Motherhood

Time Magazine has it’s own ideas about motherhood and issued this challenge.

Are you Mom enough.

Of course no Mother;s Day is complete without a good movie to celebrate the joys of motherhood and how important mothers are to their sons.

Mother knows best!

Even today, many sons find the movie inspiring and use it’s example to honor their own mothers.

B’klyn man guilty of stealing $100K in benefits by dressing up as dead mom

I hope that learning more about Mother’s Day gets you in the proper spirit to honor the mother’s in your life today and that the news stories provide inspiration for your celebrations.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Down with computers

Posted by Ralph at 04:34 Down with

May 092012

No. I really don’t mean that.

the personal computer

Computers have become like women. Absolutely essential, high maintenance and utterly impossible to understand. Today I intended to get some writing done. I was just planning a quick survey of email before I started and then everything got complicated.. My computer told me that something needed updating. Did I want to continue? You know how that goes. You can’t win. If you update, you have no idea how long it will take and what may actually be required. If you decide to pass, you get annoying reminders and sometimes the computer will go ahead anyway at a time even less convenient. I decided to go ahead. From there on it was hurry up and wait while it checked for viruses and other mischief. Meanwhile no writing happened.

So much for my plan!

My plan for the day was simple. I got up early, inspired to write. I had a few ideas competing in my head while I showered and had breakfast. I got to the computer at 7:00, inspired and ready to rumble. By the time the update was finished it is 9:00. My computer is once more behaving but the muse is dead- or at least on vacation. I don’t remember what was in my head. It wasn’t my fault. It was all because of a silly computer. These days we are completely depended on the darn things.

Where did it all go wrong?

How did we get to this state of affairs? What made us so dependent on an electronic assistant? It is so unnatural and for a guy that completed his education before anybody even invented a personal computer, so unexpected.

I grew up before computers took over life. I used pen and paper to compose my school work all though school. In those days I could write anywhere. I just needed a pen, some paper and a flat surface. Writing was valued and it was important that your writing was legible. People wrote letters to friends and family and mailed them. You used to actually like getting mail because there might be a letter. Letters were considered literature. Not any more. Now all you get is email and test messages. Who looks forward to them?

It all started at work.

Remember the typing pool?

When computers started invading the workplace, it was quite an adjustment for me. My brain got stuck when I fingered a keyboard. It only worked when I had pen and paper. Some folks learned to dictate memos and the like but I never mastered the organization it required. Unless your brain had it worked out from the start, your document was fatally flawed. I had to write.

Then they put a computer on my desk and told me to use it like a typewriter. Happily, the computer was nothing like a typewritier. I spent six months of my Army career typing Morning Reports for Bravo Company at Fort Leanoard Wood. Typing Morning Reports meant multiple carbons and only 3 errors per report. (Errors could be crossed out and corrected but if you made too many you had to start again.) Typing was torture and an endless task until I discovered corrasable typing paper.

Typing morphed into word processing.

I learned to love word processing because it let you fix errors before ever producing a document. It took some time to master the brain connection however so that I could actually compose at the keyboard. My brain still required a pen in hand to operate. It went blank when I sat at the computer. At ifrst I would write out a draft and then type it just like I used to type my college papers. Over time, however, my brain made a new connecting and I could think and type at the same time.

Then the computer came home.

Then came the idea that everyone needed a personal computer and here we are. These days it seems that everything I do depends on my computer. It’s where I make notes, store documents and organize my activities. Now that I am absolutely dependent on a computer for almost everything I do, I approach each day with trepidation. I am completely at the mercy of my computer and I don’t have a clue what to do when it gets tempermental or balks. I’d love to say goodby and good riddence to my computer but I’m afraid it’s too late. Without my computer I’m helpless.

TabletPC2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t know that everyone is as frustrated and torn about computers. Maybe you love them or just tolerate them. What’s your computer story?

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

Coot’s News Service for May 6, 2012

Posted by Ralph at 04:51 Headline News

May 062012

Sense about cents!

Finally!

Large amount of pennies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s another bad week for news. I don’t mean that there isn’t any. There are plenty of news stories but nothing you really need to know. If you wait ‘tll the end of the post, I’ll share Bob’s stories. You don’t need to know them either but, they may provide some diversion.

This week only one story has news you can use. It’s another example of why Canada is eating our lunch these days. Quietly and in small increments, our neighbor to the north is making tweaks that improve their economy. Today’s tweak is the elimination of the penny. It’s a small thing but imagine the many ways this will simplify life for Canadians (and save money to boot).

Do you love pennies?

In the US, pennies have been nothing but a nuisance for years. People throw them away or stick them in big jars at home because they are such a nuisance. Sixty years ago, we had mills (plastic coins representing one half a cent and one tenth of a cent). Those disappeared after the War as irrelevant. With sixty years of inflation, the cent is worth less than the mill when it disappeard and yet we still are stuck with it. How long before our leaders in Washington show the sense of the powers in Ottowa?

Don’t hold your breath.