I’m not always the most politically correct guy on the block, admittedly. I don’t go around calling people names, and I do generally believe in the principal of human equality. But I don’t instantly buy into every particular complaint regarding prejudice, injury or unfair treatment to alleged victims who are gay, female, persons of color, or members of a certain religious heritage. (E.g. I didn’t automatically jump on the liberal bandwagon for Treyvon Martin; I felt that Martin’s tragic death was a rather nuanced situation, one not entirely free from prejudice, but not entirely driven by it either.)

I’m even more wary when such claims are based on the alleged “subconscious intent” of the alleged oppressor (who is usually a white male, just like me — or sometimes ALL privileged white men are cast as the “oppressor class”). I.e., that I’m a racist or anti-feminist or gay-basher or anti-Semitic without even knowing it. Human beings come in all shapes and sizes, and some humans are known to take historical wrongs and use them to drum up exaggerated or distorted tales of personal exploitation, so as to claim attention and perhaps money from their accused oppressors.

On the other hand, I will admit that I did grow up and developed my present ways of thinking under social circumstances that contained many misunderstandings and unhealthy or fearful presumptions regarding minorities, women and gays. Even though I  »  continue reading …

I joined the ratings web site Yelp about about a year ago, and I put up a couple of reviews for some local establishments that I frequent. Given that I frequent them because I actually like these places, I gave them all good reviews on Yelp. Well, wouldn’t you know it . . . a few months later, Yelp took down all my reviews. I never got an explanation, but I have heard that Yelp puts every rater thru a credibility analysis, and if you give good ratings all the time, they decide that you must be getting paid or otherwise have a vested interest in promoting the places that you write about. So you get booted.

Well hey, Yelp . . . maybe I just wanted to tell the world about the good places, and not bother to bitch about the not-so-good (I mean, isn’t there enough bitching about life already?). Perhaps I like to commend, and I don’t enjoy criticizing. But I WILL now criticize Yelp; sure, they need to maintain credibility with their viewership, but in the process they make the assumption that every honest person is going to gripe on-line about their bad experiences. Honesty = bitchiness. People who just don’t like to complain, who like to share the good but perhaps keep the bad to themselves, just don’t fit into Yelp-world. I just don’t see this as a positive social trend; it is NOT an example of how modern technology is “bringing us all together” – just the opposite, I’d say. But that’s just me, I guess, living in the past.

Hey though, I could try to “modernize myself”, and perhaps I will start by doing a bad review here. I’m going to pan most recent versions of a famous cookbook, the  »  continue reading …

A few days ago, I tried to get on a web site for a local utility company, to get a copy of a recent bill. I had entered the usual ID and password, but this time the site also wanted me to answer a security question. Problem was, I had not selected the question that I was being asked to answer. I tried logging in again just to make sure I got my credentials correct, but the same question popped up. I finally pushed the button saying that I had forgotten the answer (really, I never knew it in the first place!). And after some back and forth, I got my credentials reset and I successfully logged on, with a new security question and answer.

One reason that I knew that the unrecognized security question was not mine was that it dealt with vacations. “What is your favorite vacation spot?” I would never have selected that question, because . . . well, I don’t have a favorite vacation spot. Actually, I don’t have any vacation spots at all. I basically don’t take vacations; I use up my vacation time at work by sprinkling days off throughout the year. But as to taking 2 continuous weeks off and getting on a plane or driving all day to get to some wondrous spot . . . no, I just don’t do that. I’m just not a vacation person.

Why not? Well, partly because I’m trying to save up as much as possible to get ready for retirement. A good vacation trip might cost a few grand (or so says my brother, who  »  continue reading …

If you’re tired of reading about the crazy winter weather of early 2014 and about Flight 370, or about Crimea or Beyonce or Ashley Judd or Johnny Weir or Phil Jackson and the Knicks, there’s an interesting article in The Atlantic about fraternity life in the 21st Century (“The Dark Power of Fraternities” by Caitlin Flanagan).

I wasn’t aware of the bad things that have been going on at the frat houses over the past decade or two. I’ve been out of college for almost 40 years now, and during my undergrad years I had almost nothing to do with fraternities. (More on that “almost” qualification in a moment).

There were a handful of frats at my engineering school, and like all frats they offered their members more beer, partying and sexual adventure than the average schlug got. But most of us average schlugs were still  »  continue reading …