# what was the question?

      A long, long time ago, a six-year-old once asked me--"Mommy, where did I come from?"  I spent a half an hour carefully explaining in terms a six-year-old could understand how babies get here, when they weren't here before, and thought I had done a pretty good job. The six-year-old in question gave me an odd look, and said "but where did I come from?" . The six-year-old had expected to be told the name of the town in which she was born, because someone had mentioned it in school.

there are two kinds of people in the world

     There are two kinds of people in the world--the people who are sure that there are two kinds of people in the world, and that they are of the superior set, and the people who are sure that they are wrong.

that door swings both ways

     The young people who sneer at the elderly who can't keep up with all of the changes in technology should stop and think before deciding they are "smarter" than their elders. Some of these same young people make odd mistakes in writing that show they have no understanding of older technologies and ways of life--even those which are still in use. They don't seem to know what a check is, or a print newspaper. Some cannot read a dial clock, and don't know what the mail is for. So, young people, don't forget that old people have been here longer, and may be able to tell you something that could be useful to you.

let's make a deal

     "Let's Make a Deal" was a popular game show, on which contestants might win a new car, or pick the wrong door and win a cow.  Unfortunately, this is often played out in court, and not just on weird escapist television shows. Prosecutors make deals with those accused of crimes--plead guilty to a lesser offense ( lesser than the original charge ) is a common offer--when the defendant pleads guilty, the court has already promised leniency.  Turn state's evidence is another offer, and often misused-- by prosecutors hoping to catch a bigger fish with the testimony of so-called "small fry". For all such deals made by prosecutors, they don't seem to catch very many "big fish". But all this is really beside the point--the point being that the laws were passed by the representatives the people elected for this purpose--and no one elected the prosecuting attorneys. It just isn't their place to rewrite the law.

another modern fable

     One of the fables currently popular is that people are smarter now than they were in the past. The main evidence used to support this belief is that we now have computers, something people in the past weren't "smart" enough to invent. When this "past" was seems unclear. Another piece of evidence used to support the belief that people are smarter than they used to be is evolution, believe it or not. Since people have evolved, we must be evolving all the time, and must be smarter than people in the past, is how the reasoning goes.
     Sorry, but you'll have to show me. That's right, show me. Get along better--stop war, crime, poverty and disease, and I'll count this generation smarter than the generations who did not correct any of these problems.
An invincible ego, firmly grounded in ignorance, is not "smarter" than anyone, or anything.

let's make it a group effort

     Those of us who believe that the Earth is round need to make more of an effort to persuade those who disagree. They ( the flat earth society ) have a web site. Maybe we could have one, too. I found one list of the top ten reasons people believe the Earth is round, but I had already tried them. There's geometry, but people who believe that the Earth is flat may not be persuaded by a geometrical proof. There's my grandpop, who spent most of his life afloat as a merchant ship's officer, but he's dead now. Grandpop never actually circumnavigated the globe in one voyage, but even if he had, the flat-earthers have a theory for that--the theory being that he was only sailing around in circles on a pancake-shaped earth. The pictures of earth taken from space haven't worked, either, although some flat-earthers now concede that the Earth may be a two-sided pancake. The people on the underside are Australians, or trolls, or maybe hobbits.

resolutions

     I don't make New year's resolutions, but many people do. Soon there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. As with other promises to reform, New year's resolutions are an all-or-nothing idea to some people. If you fall off the diet wagon and eat a doughnut, why not the whole box, as long as the diet is "broken" anyway. If you fall off the temperance wagon and have a drink, why not go on a three day toot? If the resolution is broken, all bets are off, or so it seems. No wonder these don't usually work. The approach is extremist, and comes with built-in failure. Perhaps something reasonable--to try to eat more vegetables, or to avoid going to clubs or where "drinking" friends go, would work better. Something with a built in plan for what to do in case of a lapse--for instance, if you eat that doughnut, okay, but now you have to have a cup of raw vegetables. Make a deal you can live with.