Every Wednesday: I never fail to be disgusted with advice columns. I am unsure why they still get paid to do what they do. As always, I am in awe when it comes to awful examples like Dear Prudence and Ask Amy. The columnists seem to get rewarded for giving you bad advice. I think that people get terrible advice from them. I don’t blame anyone that calls advice column responses garbage. I use my postings to correct these responses and help society by being an utmost asshole, (as always, a hat tip to Aaron Clarey at Asshole Consulting).

Consider this Dear Abby article (courtesy of Arcamax) from May 24, 2022:

Dear (Matters):

 I am a 57-year-old male. I have no children, and I was forced to move back in with my mother to start my life over again. I divorced my wife because she was cheating.

I have a cousin from Alabama who is 30. I love her dearly. She’s my favorite cousin, and I have begun having feelings for her. I think it may be my body’s way of telling me it wants to procreate and leave a legacy. I feel guilty about these thoughts and feelings. In my heart, I believe they are shameful. These thoughts are something I must take to my grave and never act upon. But the urge is growing stronger and it’s becoming a losing battle.

Telling her (or anyone else in my family) my true feelings would be a terrible thing for me to do. Can you please help me rid myself of these feelings for her? I will take any advice into consideration.

— Ashamed

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                         Dear Ashamed:

Jeff Foxworthy, creator of You Might Be A Redneck, had a way of skewering people from the southeastern United States. I once took offense being grouped in with such ridiculous creatures. I had always thought we were beyond these jokes.

I will level with you, you are being one of those ridiculous creatures. We have been bestowed, especially by fancy programs like TVA, technologies that have changed how we live. We have phone lines, cell phones, and a myriad of computer programs that help us communicate with other people. I would even like to mention that we have had a large expansion of interstate highways that have overshadowed the logging roads that we traveled in the past. Now for the kicker:

If you combine all of these factors, there is no reason why you need to find romance with someone of the consanguinity that a first cousin brings to this earth.

I am not a moron. I know beauty where beauty lies. I have beautiful relatives amongst those that don’t have the hugest blessings.

But I know that I should find love outside of my family. We are not wondering the desert where we are only exposed to grains of sand and camels. We have nearly hundreds of thousands of women to choose from and join together to make lives with. Why not pick one you aren’t “that related to”?

Make our home state proud. Keep it out of the family. Show yourself some dignity. Move On.

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I don’t imagine that I will have a shortage of emails to answer. I would love to start doing this for anyone that sends me an email. If this is you; email us at freemattpodcast@gmail.com If you hate advice columns; I don’t blame you. If it isn’t soft people giving advice; it is someone trying to justify acting like an insensitive asshole. Till next week.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/dearabby/s-2825156

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Your Own People May Not Believe In You

I was digging around my notes and I found something from history that stuck in my craw. This day in history had an interesting tie in with some modern existence.

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake on this day in 1431.

Although France was split between various parties (Armagnac and Burgandy), history recognized Joan w/ Charles as what “France” was.

Not helping optics, the Burgandians also were allied with the English.

I wanted to mention that Joan proved that your own people may not believe in you. She had detractors that thought she was a crazy person or a delusional teenager. The Burgundians had political reasons to not follow her reasoning, but they had more of an ethnic connection with Joan’s people compared to the English.

I’ve had people that did stuff to destroy something I had been working on. I had someone tank our friendship so he could look cool in front of someone that he was trying to impress. I noticed that many people in my corner did not believe in me.

(Never mind having a family member verbally destroy something I was working on but not offering support in other ways).

You and I may never be burned at the stake, but we may always have someone amongst our ranks that does not believe in us.

Inherent Ramblings and Stuff I Let Slip By

April 21^st came and gone. I wandered what was bothering me. It was another anniversary of the death of Manfred von Richtofen, better known as the Red Baron.

It sent me into one of the shortest deep dives. I remember a weak American Christian nationalist talking about how the US had done the supposed lord’s work in overthrowing unworthy leaders overseas. It stunk of the vein that “Protestantism saves everything” and that democracy was what certain “peoples” needed. (I often make the argument that many people are not smart or savvy enough to rule themselves. The weak often deserve a despot or a strongman).

I also make the argument that we reveled in the destruction of the French monarchy out of leftist influence in our lives. People ate the token idea of the Enlightenment and many of their thinkers without thinking about their concepts. Everyone “kumbyahs” their way into the happy thoughts of overthrowing their oppressor. In reality, no one was suited to do the job. People ran around like petulant assholes and created new enemies. They were supposed to be the cooler heads that should prevail.

Just a handful of people would defend “Louis the Variable” as the god fearing, God appointed king he was. In France, many of their people turned from God when the god of apostasy (leftism) came around over time.

I found the American propagandists were wrong to slander the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs. They had their decent rulers and just a few family members that withered from affluence, mental defect. I would say that many of the west’s leaders and their scions are rife from the affluence disease. (They overlook their duties or callings, purposely thumbing their noses at the divine overseer). The US and its allies from WWI were able to write the “Huns” down as the terrible party, but it was a bit of a problem.

The Hapsburgs were godly people and desired to do God’s work. The US, pushed on by business interests, found a way to get involved, outside of the forewarned entangling alliances.

(If you don’t believe this, as General Smedley Butler).

We still have a few students of history that pat ourselves on the back when it comes to the Spanish American conflict. It was a land grab at best. The US found a convenient excuse to justify politically connected business interest’s push for war. The irony is that we fought the Spanish kingdom, whose family were mostly observant Catholics. (The US proudly saluted ourselves, calling ourselves liberators of Cuba and the Philippines. If it would have meant that much to those people, shouldn’t they have just fought until capitulation or victory?)

A Dumb Man’s Folly: Virtue Snitches

At one time in our lives, we looked at a tattletale in a negative light. We didn’t label them as snitches outright, but those with the habit of tattling often earned the distrust of the most “lilly livered” of the people I knew.

As we became young adults, we had some value for not ratting. If it were so, it was out of a need to steer clear or actual physical harm or an actual concern. (Steering someone clear of suicide or a redneck whose cousin loving dad could produce an arsenal at a moment’s notice).

We found ourselves connected to people outside of our group that had somewhat congruent aims. I had a beef with some of them, but I did not think it was proper to proverbially hang them out to dry. I had a code that most understood.

If you fast forward to today, people would rather put themselves on the back for snitching. I had found a great example of this on New York Post:

https://nypost.com/2023/05/08/capitol-riot-suspect-in-pink-beret-ided-by-ex-boyfriend/

A man dated a woman who happened to be of a different political slant. He found it virtuous to call the federal authorities when he saw a resemblance between her and someone who was spotted at the US Capital during the January 6^th event. The guy sounded like a schoolyard tattler when he told everyone that he was concerned because she read Mein Kampf and espoused certain beliefs.

(Please note: I knew an Israeli Jew that has read and owned a copy of Mein Kampf. They also show several indicators that they could throw a red flag for someone like that chickenshit in question).

I just wish that the liberals and conservatives amongst me would steer clear of a path of virtue snitching and burning someone out of feelings of contempt, especially when it comes to former lovers. People either find their own comeuppance or they grow.

I imagine that there will be worse punishment for virtue snitching than rewards. I at least hope that people may develop a sense of guilt or the ability to realize that they are running out of people in an already shallow community. They won’t be able to build relationships built on trust because they built relationships on nothing. (We can’t always bank on people forgetting things until it is advantageous to remember them).

Weird Historical Event That I Forgot To Mention

Several months ago was the 13th anniversary of the “2010 Austin suicide attack” on an IRS building in Texas.

People bickered as if this event was considered a domestic terrorist attack.

Long story short, Joseph Stack flew an airplane into the IRS building in Austin, Tx. There were 13 injuries and two people lost their lives, including Joseph Stack.

Joseph Stack had a myriad of reasons why he did this. He had originally had tax issues connected to several businesses. I faintly remember a mention of a tax audit when he pulled off the plane crash.

He had a beef with a ton of people he was mad about. Churches, politicians, the church, amongst others. (Irony is that he had a legitimate beef over Arthur Anderson and a few other things).

This event was largely buried after it happened.

I remember the news reporting that the IRS spent hundreds of millions of dollars after this event. A few million for security, a million for consultants, and plenty of money to throw around.

Many feel that although Stack seemed off and ranted against a list of unrelated targets, his accusations against the IRS might have been proven in a weird way.

“I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different.

I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.”— J. Stack, RIP

Who Has The Dumbest Ideas? It Might Be You

As a young person, I didn’t want to do much with my life. Other people around me wanted to fly airplanes or be astronauts. I knew a few that wanted to go to med school. I didn’t want to do much.

The only two things I wanted to do were:

 (a) be a duck crossing guard near a certain retention pond

(b) barrel roll a school bus several times

I didn’t want much. I knew too many people that hated supposedly exciting jobs and I had many terrible examples of “professionals” from my church. (Many men I knew were missing fingers and you see how that rubbed off on me).

I have had people tell me how stupid an idea was. The same people who said how stupid something was happened to be people that sat in windowless offices for 3o years looking at numbers.

The same people badmouthed one of my favorite drunks, Evel Knievel. They also badmouth a personal hero of mine, Mad Mike Hughes.

Most of you clowns don’t know who that is. Mad Mike was a flat earther who built his own rocket. He also set a Guinness World Record for longest limo jump.

His rocket launch failed and he hurtled back to the ground. The weird thing is that I didn’t feel bad about it. I feel bad for people that weren’t willing to throw their proverbial chips on the proverbial table. He was a hero to me.

The Gold Watch Fallacy is one of the dumbest ideas. I know of legions of people that should pull their own Mad Mike moves.

“When God made Mike he broke the mould. The man was the real deal and lived to push the edge. He wouldn’t have gone out any other way! RIP”—— Darren Shuster, former representative

‘Mad’ Mike Hughes dies after crash-landing homemade rocket – BBC News

A Verse For Someone, Out of Words of Another

I find myself among a set of the religious. I grew up in a church among two parents that were very religious. It was in their hearts and I believe that they tried to do their best. I don’t remember my parents throwing bible verses at others, but I do remember other religious people doing that.

It rubbed me raw and not in an erotic way. I would see people say things as if they were a parrot, saying something loudly and not showing any signs that the words meant anything.

I have and had problems with parrots. I loathed libertarians that seemed to rock back and forth parroting a quote out of a book. I loath liberals that “believe” something because they are “supposed to”. I can’t stand some of the common sayings that come out of the mouths of conservatives, which are words said as a signaling device, not as an actual belief.

I have held the idea that the bible served as inspiration and a “guide” of sorts. But I don’t think that it was ever meant as something that should be blindly quoted without purpose. Most religious texts aren’t around for that.

I think that “the word” is not meant as a foil which people should swing around. It is one thing if a person wants to aid someone else out of a pure heart, but it looks stupid outside of this. I’m sure that “Rerb” from Rob Says has mentioned this when people quote certain classics. Having met Rerb, I understood his quip like question when he asked: “Have you ever read De Sade?’.

I have. But it doesn’t inspire me. I also feel that I don’t need to parrot juicy bits, given that I would quote it if it was out of aiding someone in a research capacity.

I’m not trying to be a prick to the religious or non-religious, but parroting is no better than ear worms that you choose to create. It is dishonest to a point. 

Leviticus 22:24

The Morale Sickness of The Modern Workplace

I think I might have drummed about most modern workplaces having a morale sickness or at least having no social linkage between its workers. The argument was made that companies did this, on purpose or by accident, to maximize profits. I’m not sure, but the just desserts came for the bad operators too.

Obviously, “we just can’t get people to work”. Most employers make this argument. But in all reality, they can’t give people enough money to work in a soulless environment.

I work in a workplace where my employer can’t entice certain generations to work at our job, doing our work. I work in a workplace that destroyed the “espirit de corps” and the small things that made us overlook low pay, inflexibility. (I made the argument that you have to work really hard to have workplace culture/intangible benefits to overcome lacking pay/failing benefits).

(Many boomers and older Gen-X employees enjoyed small things, like biscuits in the morning/cooked breakfast before work time. They also enjoyed the pre-work smoke and joke, which was destroyed by micromanaging supervisors. The pay didn’t keep up and the health benefits went from 100% company covered to atrocious).

(It also doesn’t help that the company has workers scattered in several locations and it makes it hard for those that desire to expand in their workplace to do so. Leadership is largely unaware of their workforce. Being undermanned exacerbates this).

(My current workplace can’t/won’t adjust for newer generations that value experiences with people in their groups more than hanging out with strangers, then counting the days ’till a holiday pops up. Any chance of newer experiences and flexible, meaningful professional engagement is also trampled).

It isn’t that people are lazy. It is that they don’t want to work at somewhere soulless. For my father’s folks, a workplace gave you a career. The workplace, as in the people you worked with for decades, were the folks you celebrated/mourned with. Most companies today chose to pull off a lot of the “contract out”, temp, and craziness that we see. The deleterious effects are there.

The vast majority of people I knew of at one of my last workplaces have seen it hurt a once decent workplace. A lackluster set of managers saw plenty of people “pop smoke” before the ten year anniversary mark. I personally saw one man save all of his money up, after paying off a mortgage, and start his own business. Another coworker, who doubled as a family member, just quit after six years. There wasn’t much in the way of growth, but there was long hours that did nothing for the people’s health. There was no sense of caring, except amongst fellow hourly workers.

(When I told an 18 year old and a 20 year old that they could get a job at my previous workplace, making between $50,000 to $100,000 a year, they told me “no”. One person enjoyed their free time. The other mentioned having the flexibility to go fishing and going to “Rock the South” with their friends. A few other people mentioned to me that they couldn’t imagine being stuck in some of my work locations with a bunch of strangers, for odd timeframes).

Until you fix the jobs and workplaces, people won’t be enthusiastic about working. You will find more people working there and doing the quiet quitting thing. You won’t find productivity.

And yes, if you pretend to pay people, they will pretend to work. The people working will also tell anyone else that might think about interviewing the truth. Never mind your pool of people will dry up.

A True Tragedy That Covid-19 Brought Us

I had felt terrible for a few days. If it wasn’t the rain, it was running into someone that couldn’t be bothered to do something to get me going on my way. Other people felt under the weather and I had reason to believe that it was lingering.

It was lingering before the weather turned stupid. I saw the depressed looks on people’s faces. I saw a few stores that never seemed to open. Boredom and decay.

There used to be a few dens where people could whoop it up after work, especially on a Friday. There used to be a certain somewhere, the kind of place where drinks would flow and people could drop that stupid, lingering feeling they kept all week.

Even after the Covid rules were relaxed, people are so incensed in substitutes. There aren’t frivolities. People are walling themselves off.

People aren’t getting laid, the vast majority of them aren’t caring. No one is drinking in this location.

No one was returning to how it was.

It is a true tragedy that we don’t know what we were then and the government helped make it that bad.

I’m not sure if it is malaise or what have you.

(I sure as hell know that I want to get away from this place, not just because of that one asshole).

In Search For The Great American Pyramid

I found myself driving through (deleted) area in a certain place I had never been. I saw wide expanse where nothing had been built. Outside of water monitoring and access roads, there was little there. I celebrated the fact that no one had built a phony modern American city with fake retail centers.

I traveled through areas that might have been stalked by the American cheetah thousands of years ago. I wasn’t bemoaning that animals extinction, but was celebrating that it had its moment. It also bothered me that the US wasn’t known for this animal.

Many other countries have had something worthwhile to remember them by or something that a civilization had value for.

I had brought up certain temples or Buddhas. I had brought up a certain building or something else held in esteem, or acknowledged as a point of power. I had pondered the ancient Egyptian’s (or Native American) pyramids.

I looked out at that expanse and dreamed of a huge pyramid. At least having a base that was ten times as big as the one’s in Egypt.

I struggled to find if we (USA) had already built a pyramid of our own. I looked past the Memphis Tennessee monstrosity. I looked past the Luxor in Las Vegas Nevada.

I moved on to what we already had. I thought of the Sears/Willis Tower, which was notable for being tall. I easily could see someone demolishing it along with New York’s Chrysler Building, not because of spite, but due to some whims of an investment company. I also see this out of many of Frank LLoyd Wright’s buildings. A few people hold his/students work in high regard. I know of many others that would demo them to put up a modern monstrosity “with no soul”. I know of other unrefined types that would burn them down out of a desire for satisfaction for apparent beefs, to never feel satisfied.

I wish I could build the modern pyramid, not being a gaudy artistic work, but being something that could be carried in the American psyche, if we were capable of having one.