I am old and out of touch

First: my reduced workout: 5K walk in chilly but sunny temperatures. My piriformis was ready for me to stop. I rolled it afterwad.

Yes, it was chilly.

Social issues: With respect to the pandemic; yes, I’ve been one of those who has saved money, SO FAR. Reason: I stayed employed, nothing terrible has happened and the pandemic has had me staying home; no games, etc.

There are a lot of us, evidently. And so, appeals such as “what would a 2000 dollar stimulus check mean to you and your family” generates a shrug from many of us.

Yes, I voted Biden for a variety of reasons and am delighted that he won. And yes, I know that lucky has played a role and my being ok for now, and not everyone has had such luck.

So I’d love to see a “pay the businesses to stay closed and people to stay home” stimulus for a while and I’d be willing to pay higher tax for that.

But, the Democrats really struggled in the downticket races and there are many reasons why. And as far as the “new blood”: too many of them cannot distinguish “activism” (as ineffective as it often is) from politics:

“Both Obama and the African-American congressional whip James Clyburn blamed “defund the police” for repelling critical voters. In response, Ilhan Omar wrote “it’s not a slogan but a policy demand,” while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chastised Obama for missing that the whole point was “to make [people] uncomfortable.”

As a party Democrats emphatically support African-American calls to combat police brutality, and to reform law enforcement in fundamental ways. But, pace Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, the whole point of an election is to win over your constituents—or lose the ability to effect real change in areas like policing.”

See that? “The whole point was to make people uncomfortable” is no way to win an election, at lest outside of D +15 Congressional Districts. I’d think that President Obama is better versed on that than she is.

The rest of the article I quoted from is pretty good too; I can recommend it.

Old School Values This widely spread op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (about Jill Biden and her title) got lots of people up in arms.

Personally, the article appears to be written in a way to provoke rather than to persuade; it actually kind of reminds me of leftist attempt to “convince by insulting” and so falls flat, unless its intent WAS to insult on the behalf of the right wing and the “who does she think she is” crowd.

I’ve already stated what I thought about people who self refer with that title (overcompensation). But I’ll go a bit further: I think my values are now out of touch with society values in many ways. Here are a few:

1. Humility is good (in most situations anyway); let the praise be genuine praise from others.
   But in this era, it seems to be common to tell others how you are “smart”, “bad ass”, “awesome”, etc. This is especially bad on Twitter.
2. If standards are changed such that it is now easier to do, the prestige of doing it is lessened. Example: marathons. I remember a time when a 3:30 was an average to a below average time and courses closed in 4-5 hours. Yes, that means my marathon “career” would have been over for at least a decade, probably more. But marathon finishers, well, the average one at least “looked in shape.” And yes, the same applies for honorifics.
3. It is good to know something about a subject before expressing an opinion on it, and no one is entitled to be listened to. If you want an audience for your opinions, how about actually learning enough to where you know what you are talking about so that people actually WANT to hear them?
4. If one wants to be regarded as a peer, one needs to actually BE a peer.

But alas, these do not appear to be popular ideas to express. I suppose it is a bit like this: