by Tom Shafer
April 7, 2025
So, I was looking through my Google folder titled “blog crap,” desperate for an idea that might spark my sputtering creative juices — although to be fair, they might be better titled “sterile tobacco spittle.” Anyway, as I was perusing several pages of potential writing fodder, I realized that though most of the entries were interesting and thought-provoking, I knew that I would never write about them. What is it that professional declutterers (as opposed to amateurs waiting to compete in the Decluttering Olympics) recommend about your wardrobe, that if you haven’t worn a clothing item in a year, it needs to go? Well, as I was looking at my own wardrobe of notions and abstractions, I knew that I couldn’t just purge them into the digital ether, that as soon as I did, I would immediately regret it — like tossing out that sleeveless Icky Woods t-shirt adorned with green paint and yellowing armpit stains.
Rather than delete these seemingly extraneous writing thoughts and ideas, I decided to make them the focus of this entry, essentially killing, like Daedalus, two proverbial birds with one sledgehammer (cleaning up the “blog crap” folder and dispatching my writer’s block). Okay, so Daedalus used a pedestrian rock to terminate those birds for their feathers, though I’m sure he would have utilized a nice sledgehammer if he had had one. And actually, in hindsight, Daedalus might still have his son Icarus around (he flew too close to the sun with those feathers and perished when he fell to earth) if he weren’t so proficient at killing birds with stones. Well, actually again, neither one of them are likely around because if they were, they would be almost 3000 years old — like all of the other Greek characters and myths.
Anyway, what follows is a veritable hodge-podge of ruminations and notions that popped into my brain or came to my attention. I may try to expound on them — or at least explain where they came from. Remember, my original intention was to turn these into full-fledged instructive essays or creative entries. For now, though, they will remain part of this greater collective.
Only 43% of U.S. pregnancies are intended at conception — nearly 50% worldwide.
I’m not sure why this statistic struck me the way it did, but it did. So what this suggests is that almost half of the world’s population are here by happenstance or accident. I don’t know if I thought this number would be larger or smaller — and I don’t know what it says about all of us!
Why does time seemingly flow only in one direction?
Okay, so I’ve been reading/studying quantum physics for a while now, and this has been a puzzler for me — and lots of physicists. Given all of the current thinking in the field (dark matter, gravitons, multiple dimensions, string theory), why can’t time flow in other directions, even backwards? Just asking.
My life is like the NTSB — just going from one train wreck to the next.
No explanation needed. I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking this way.
He’s a great man. Someday he might become a good man.
I don’t remember when this one came to me, but it’s good, right? And true as well. I was going to work this into a short story, but I never got to it. I always think “great” is a transitory descriptor, while “good” is more longitudinal. At least that’s how I see it.
I’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever know.
Back in the 1980s, I misspent some time watching random shows on the boob tube — okay, so I’m still doing that. Anyway, our local cable access programming aired something called The Leisure Channel, which I will call avant garde because it defies any other traditional description. My favorite “episode” was one where a man sitting in a chair looked back and forth at two different cameras, an eerie synthesizer providing background music, while pithy phrases scrolled across the bottom — oh, and with a Leisure Channel logo planted in the top left corner of the screen. That’s it, fifteen minutes of a singular man staring at two cameras while self-affirming — and disturbing — statements crawled across the screen: “I’m better than you, and you know it,” “Let a smile be your umbrella,” “Stop thinking so much,” “Everybody loves somebody sometime,” and “Behind every silver lining is a dark cloud.” Don’t judge me, but I find this “entertainment” strangely entertaining.
You can’t spell “American Dream” without “Me, Ric, and Rea.”
Again, what do you do with this? It staggered into my brain, and I wrote it down. Maybe a country song?
Sometimes, to make a point, the train has to derail.
Unfortunately, history has proven this over and over again. American hubris prior to its entry into WWII led directly to the attack at Pearl Harbor.
Stupid is knowing the truth but still believing the lie.
If this statement doesn’t define the politics of today, I don’t know another that will. Donald Trump has made more public lying statements, or what I like to call liements, than any man or woman in human history — and he is still president of the United States. Doesn’t give me warm fuzzies about the judgement of fifty-one percent of the electorate.
Disappointment is anger for wimps.
This quotation came from season six, episode ten of the medical drama House, one of my favorite television series of all time. I’m not sure I believe it totally, but it is impressive psychobabble.
Have you ever noticed that when children are with parents at any age, they play the role of kids again?
I certainly know that this is not a one hundred percent rule, but I would argue that it’s at minimum a seventy-five percenter. At least in my experience. And, it’s not a bad thing. I loved seeing it with my own friends when we were in our 40s and 50s.
When I was a little kid, I wondered why there wasn’t a herstory class to go with the history classes we were subjected to. I always felt bad for women because they rarely played significant roles in history. BTW, isn’t it time that we created a neuter-gender name for our past. How about ourstory or ustory?
Okay, this isn’t a rabbit hole I’m crawling into, though I am pointing out flaws in the way we tell stories about our past. If you think I’m wrong, just start listing the names of prominent women from American history. And why are you struggling? Perhaps because of all of the men who were writing our history. Other cultures and countries don’t have this problem because women were deemed more important. Oh, BTW, how about Harriet Tubman, Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, Dorothea Dix, Amelia Earhart, Sacajawea, Clara Barton, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Those I just plucked off the top of my head. Oh, and while we’re at it, take that DEI label you want to attach to me, put it in your pipe, and smoke it!
What is the deepest hole ever dug, you ask? How about 7.6 miles.
Okay, so if you are surprised by this number, join the crowd. Called the Kola Superdeep Borehole (obviously named by Mr. Obvious), this hole was dug on Russian land north of the Arctic Circle from 1970 until 1989, when the drill bit got stuck and the project was abandoned. Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s a pretty deep hole, but when we consider that the earth’s core is approximately 4000 miles in depth, well, we aren’t close to that at all. And, yes, you read that right — it took almost twenty years to achieve that final number. Apparently, reaching the moon — and Mars — is easier than a Journey to the Center of the Earth (the 1959 film version garners an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, the 2008 version 60%).
A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.
I love using this example as a means of demonstrating the differences between these three -illions. I hear people throw them around (she’s a millionaire, he’s a billionaire) without fully understanding their significance. So, the next time you hear that America’s financial deficit is 37 trillion dollars (or $37,000,000,000,000), you will better understand why our sun will go supernova long before we have this debt under control. Oh, and BTW, the last time (and only time) the U.S. was debt-free? From 1835 to 1837 under President Andrew Jackson, who willed it to happen. He hated debt (he called it “the national curse”), so to cure this scourge, he levied massive tariffs, killed the national bank, sold off lots of U.S. land in the West, and vetoed almost everything that came across his desk. How did it end? State banks (with no regulation) started printing huge amounts of money and the land bubble burst, resulting in the longest depression (six years) in American history. Uh, does any of this sound familiar?
A typical nice, white cumulus cloud weighs approximately 555 tons or 1.1 million pounds — or about 100 African elephants.
Of course, you aren’t surprised by this because your high school physical science class taught you that heat convection keeps that cloud afloat — not unlike the cream sitting atop the double mocha latte you are drinking right now.
George Washington was NOT the first president (of the Congress) of the United States.
Sort of like Dwight Schrute being assistant to the regional manager (not assistant regional manager) on America’s favorite binge show, The Office. So follow me now. We, as in America, declared our independence to the world in 1776 (with the aptly named Declaration of Independence). The war we fought with Britain to secure that independence (called the American Revolution by us) didn’t end until September of 1783. The Constitution as we know it wasn’t completed until 1787 and didn’t become fully operational until March of 1789, so who was leading our country for the first fledgling six years of our existence? Actually, it was several people. John Hanson was selected (by the Congress) first president of the original United States government chartered by the Articles of Confederation in 1781. He was followed by John Hanson for a year, Elias Boudinot for a year, Thomas Mifflin for a year plus, Richard Henry Lee for a year, John Hancock for six months, Nathaniel Gorham for six months, Arthur St. Clair for a year, Cyrus Griffin for a year plus, and Samuel Huntington for nearly two years. George Washington was not elected President of the United States of America until 1789. There’s a fun bar bet in here somewhere!
A world in peril. Stay tuned.
So, I entered a writing contest, one where a complete story with a cliffhanger had to be told in just six words. This was mine. I didn’t win, but it was a fun process. You try it.
“One axedental swing,” said the bloody dentist wielding an axe.
This was another contest, to create an original pun. Okay, so definitely not a traditional dad joke (or kid friendly), but I like it.
Dr. Evil: The details of my life are quite inconsequential. Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we’d make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds – pretty standard really. At the age of twelve, I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum… it’s breathtaking. I highly suggest you try it.
Okay, so I’m finishing on a high note(?). I have often been asked what I thought was the funniest movie monologue, and though I love Clark Griswold’s (Chevy Chase) epic holiday bonus rant at the end of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, I have to go with this one from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. In this clip, Doctor Evil (Mike Myers) is describing his childhood to a therapy group. Perhaps it’s the stupidity of the individual life glimpses, the creativity of the sequencing of these life glimpses, or the comedic genius of Mike Myers to deliver this line with such casualness and nonchalance– without so much as a smirk or chortle. Whatever it is, it makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. I could also make a good argument for the humor and stupidity of the entirety of the movie Airplane, but that’s an entry for another day.
So that’s it, my task completed — and it was fun AND educational. I feel so liberated and uncluttered!
