My laugh for today

 

Power and control

Some of the lyrics from the song Människobarn (Human Child) by Dina Ögon keep running through my head, especially in these weird politically-charged times:

What, what, what is it that you care about?

What is it that you care about?

What is it that you care about

When love and freedom turn into power and control?

Why is it that so many people, mostly men, care only about power and control? When you look at world leaders generally, most of them are men. In fact, about 85% of the world's countries are run by men according to online sources. I've got to wonder why. In any case, these lyrics don't specifically mention men, but in my experience it's mostly men who want power and control. It could be in the personal sphere, where they wish to dominate the women and children with whom they live. It could be in the political arena, where power and control give them the freedom to do what they want when they want and how they want. If you take a look at our political leaders, so many of them do just that. They answer to no one, and when they answer to no one, that's when the trouble starts. Many politicians may start out with noble motives and intentions, but so many of them end up corrupted by power. It's not for nothing that the old adage 'Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely' came about to explain how power impacts people. I am not against all aspects of power and control; after all, one needs some amount of power in order to effect change in society. But we are at an extreme at present, where leaders of presumed democracies are allying themselves with dictators and wanna-be dictators. They want to have the unlimited power and control that these dictators have. 

Back in 2016, when Jean and I visited FDR's library/museum in Hyde Park, NY, we ran into an elderly couple who were visiting at the same time as we were. We got to talking about how interesting the library was, and then our conversation turned to politics. At that point (summertime), it was clear that Donald Trump would be the Republican candidate for president. I remember very well what they said to us. 'We have lost our way' (the country has lost its way). They could not envision a country run by Trump, and they were quite nervous about it. That was ten years ago. No one in their right mind could have envisioned what has come to pass in the USA. No one. The president, his staff, his advisers and his followers are invested in the idea that they should have complete power and control. They may not say it outright, but it's what they stand for. Is the USA still a democracy? I hope so, but it doesn't behave like one anymore. This is the new (normalized) order in the political sphere. Europe be damned, other countries who don't like this new development, be damned. The USA will determine the world order, no one else is really invited to the table to discuss the future possibilities. The USA will determine how they think that peace should be achieved, and as far as I can see, it is via war, never a good basis for peace. 

In the personal sphere, women's rights are under attack. It's an insidious attack, backed by conservative religious people (again, mostly men who behave abhorrently) who call themselves Christians (I call them Pharisees) who would like nothing better than that women should 'know' their place and leave the important stuff to men. Women should stay home and have babies. Women should not compete with men in the workplace. Women should subjugate themselves to their husbands/partners, even though there is no good reason for them to do so. This is not the 1950s, where women returned to the home front after serving their nation by working in factories or as nurses and doctors during WWII. Any normal-functioning human being understands that women are not inferior in any way to men. They are their peers, intellectually and otherwise. They may not be as physically strong as men, but they are psychologically stronger in so many ways. But as usual, women's strengths are downplayed in the media and on social media. 

Men are/will be responsible for ruining the world, and if there is another atomic bomb occurrence, it will be the result of male decisions. Power and control. As I have said before, if Jesus Christ came back to this world in the flesh, such men would crucify him all over again. God forbid they should let a man who stands for peace, love and free will to dictate how the rest of us should live. And yet most normal people I know do not behave like the men who only want power and control. Most normal ordinary people want peace and love and free will in their lives. 

You know you are in the presence of men who want to dominate when the talk is only of money, status, prestige, competition, having control, women as 'trophies', and how others should live. Preferably how the women in their lives and women generally should live. How nervous they become when they don't have that control, when women don't abide by 'their' rules. When you look at the number of spouses who are abused or killed, it's mostly women who are abused/killed and the men who are the abusers/killers. Crime shows overwhelmingly depict men as serial killers, as killers generally, and abusers. This is sadly backed up by real statistics. According to the FBI and online sources, the vast majority of killers are male, globally and in the USA, accounting for circa 88% to 90% of all homicides. 

Many of the rights that women enjoy have been fought for during the past century. Let us not return to a time when women were men's property, when they had to 'ask permission' to do what men take for granted that they can do, when they have to turn over their paychecks to their husbands, or when they are not able to work at all. No society is served by denying one gender their basic rights as human beings. We can see the effects of that way of thinking on a global basis. I will never travel to countries where women are legally denied the rights that men enjoy. I will never spend my hard-earned money in such countries. They won't miss me, and I won't miss them. I avoid men who want to dominate others like the plague, and will continue to do so. The word that comes to mind to describe them is 'yuck'. I don't want yuck in my life. 

Of course, there are women who support dominating men, e.g. some women in the media. They are the enablers of the toxic patriarchy. They enable such men in the hope that some of the money and prestige will rub off on them. They are the trophy women in these men's lives. Or the trophy dollies who work the news shows circuit, who make good money as long as they follow the premises laid down by men. Such news shows have to rake in the male viewers and keep them happy with the women's coiffed perfect hair and perfectly made-up faces, tight skirts and heels. These women survive in a men's world as long as they say and do what the men who own the news stations want them to say and do. When there is no longer any use for them, they get fired. These types of women who work for the current administration also end up in the same place--fired. Because the ultimate goal is to rid politics of women, I'm convinced of that. Again, women should know their place, and never ever challenge the male powers that be. Women who buy into this bullshit already know the outcome. They know that they have no real power or control. Supporting a toxic patriarchy is not the way to go in 2026. Such is the stuff that stupidity is made of. 

I totally agree

 

This is pretty much how it is

Except that I do get tired after working for many hours in the garden. However, it's a 'good' tired--physical tiredness, always active, never bored, always things to do, moving around, bending and kneeling down--you name it. Way better than to be stuck/trapped in a small office with windows that cannot open fully, as was the case with my former office. I'll take garden tiredness over office tiredness any day 

I found this strip on a Facebook site called Happy Gardens . I'm not sure who created it, but I can give credit to Happy Gardens. 

 

This about says it all (no comments needed)

 

Apartment living and respect for others

I grew up in an apartment together with my two siblings. We lived on the second floor of a garden apartment complex. We grew up at a time when children did not have the freedom to express themselves however they like, that they do now. I don't feel that I was unfairly treated by my parents when they told us not to run around, jump up and down, scream or generally make a lot of noise out of respect for our downstairs neighbors. We just didn't do that. And if we were loud on occasion, we risked our parents' anger and displeasure. 

Nowadays it seems that anything goes. We know people who live on the third floor of a four-floor co-op apartment complex; the apartment directly over them is inhabited by a family with two children, one of school age and the other a toddler. During the past several years, they have lived with having to listen to crying (ok for the most part--children cry), occasional yelling, frequent stomping and running heavily around the apartment (the older child), throwing of objects on the floor (the toddler), bouncing balls, and the entire family waking up between 5 and 5:30 am for whatever reason. Neither parent seems to work outside the home (they work at home), so why they need to be up so early is anyone's guess. They are a noisy family and there are no rugs in their apartment to dampen the noise. So the people we know end up waking up around that time as well. Involuntarily. The parents seem to be averse to disciplining the older child, so she does and says basically what she wants. 

This would never have flown when I was a child. Our downstairs neighbors never had a complaint about us. And there would have been complaints had we been noisy. So it tells me that my parents had the right idea in not allowing us to behave like rambunctious children. Children need to be taught when they are young that they cannot behave just as they please. But in society at present, and especially in this country, it seems that anything goes where children are involved. Children rule. You cannot yell at a child without risking criticism. I know that to be true from a younger friend of mine who has tried (in this country) to correct/yell at her child when he did something wrong. Unless you are physically or psychologically abusive, normal correction/criticism/yelling is necessary at times when raising children. You cannot let children do exactly what they want, when they want. They do not know what's best for them. 

Back to the family who live above the people we know. The parents should enforce some ground rules for living above neighbors. They should instruct the older child to stop stomping and running about. They should put rugs on the floors. They should abide by the co-op complex rules about no noise between 11 pm and 7 am. But they don't. I guess it's hard to expect children to have respect for neighbors when the parents don't. 

A twist on an old adage

'Children should be seen and not heard' is an old adage, several hundred years old, that I came across often in children's books when I was a child. Our parents never used this phrase, but I understand that it probably was used more often in their grandparents' generation. In any case, it speaks for itself. Children should not say much, should 'not speak until spoken to' and should not bother adults. 

I remembered this adage yesterday when I had lunch with a friend who was commenting on the behavior of the leaders in her workplace. Her opinion was that there are too many leaders with nothing to do and since they have nothing to do, they have to micromanage their employees. They dissect every little thing, they treat their employees like children who need to be brought up correctly, and they argue and criticize ad nauseam. The readers of this blog know how I feel about most leaders. With some few exceptions, most leaders are not worth their salt and not worth what they're paid. 'To become a leader' is the career goal of many young people, and society accommodates that goal by allowing unprofessional and shockingly unknowledgeable individuals to become leaders. Leadership in and of itself has become a career, a profession. If you've taken leadership courses, the assumption is that you are automatically qualified to be a leader, whether it's of a bank, a hospital, or any other organization that should actually hire leaders on the basis of their professional knowledge of the field. But since the early 2000s, that seems to be a bygone idea. Thus you have the merry-go-round of leaders, who move from leading a hospital to leading a bank to leading a biotech corporation. The key word is that they are 'leaders', that's what's important. This way of thinking has permeated the work world to the point where there are too many unqualified leaders and not enough qualified workers to do the real work. How could there be, when most departmental budgets go to paying the enormously inflated salaries of said leaders. In my former workplace, the end result was that the qualified employees were told by unqualified leaders to strive to work more effectively, as though they hadn't done so before. 'Working more effectively' translates to 'do the work of several people, not just one'. It's just more bullshit to add to the ever-growing pile of bullshit that average ordinary employees are expected to tolerate. 

So my twist on the old adage is 'leaders should be seen and not heard'. My friend agreed. It would go a long way toward making her workplace more tolerable. It would be wonderful if most leaders stayed in the background and let their employees do the jobs they were hired to do, without micromanaging and dissecting every little thing they do. It would go a long way toward creating stable and effectively-functioning workplaces. Let employees do their jobs in peace, without having to listen to the endless and monotonous motivational nonsense that permeates modern workplaces. There should be fewer leaders overall; there is no need for most of them if they cannot justify their positions. It's not enough to have the title and salary of 'leader'. You need to know what you are doing in the field that you lead, and you need to step back and get out of the way of your qualified employees. If they need your help or advice, they'll ask for it. But they will not do so of leaders whom they deem to be unqualified for their positions. The title of 'leader' does not automatically qualify you for respect; you have to earn that. 

A beautiful hymn for Easter

This is not only a hymn but a prayer--beautiful--and just what the world needs at present. Light to shine against the darkness that is dragging down the world. We need renewal, a renewal that focuses on peace, kindness, no violence, no aggression. 

One approach

Thank God for the comics.........

My laugh for the day

 

Don't bother me with nonsense

I read this article today and it resonated with me: Older People Are Holding Nothing Back About What It's Really Like To Get Old  One of the comments from an older man was the following:

"I have friends and family who like to watch Fox News and get all jacked up. They don't see that they are giving away a huge part of their life to unnecessary bitterness. That sucks. I don't watch the news at all, except the weather. It's my life, and I'll spend whatever time I have being happy. If I can't fix it, then I'm not going to fret over it. Peace is a very valuable thing......."

This. I couldn't have said it better myself. What a waste of life to sit and watch Fox News or any news channel for that matter, 24/7. To be so addicted to anger and bitterness and hype and aggression. To be triggered, like he says, by events in the world that you can do nothing about. Like him, I'll opt for peace any day of the week. I don't need to be that informed. I know what's going on in the world, all of the misery, killing, wars, bombings, etc. I don't need to have continual updates. I don't want them. 

And while we're at it, I don't like political extremism of any kind. So while I am not far-right, I am not far-left either. I'm in the middle, always have been, always will be. So kindly leave us alone, us middle-of-the-roaders. Back off, all of you hyped-up, cult-like, aggressive individuals on both sides of the political spectrum. I don't want you or your endless tirades in my life. I don't want to be part of your nonsensical behavior nor do I want to deal with your nonsense. I don't care who you are. Leave me alone. 

Fifteen hundred dollars for lunch?

Who in their right mind would pay this much to eat lunch or dinner at the Noma pop-up in Los Angeles? Yes, it will cost $1,500 to eat at Noma L.A. René Redzepi explains why - Los Angeles Times; Noma's $1,500 dinner is the antithesis of L.A. - Los Angeles Times It wouldn't be me, although I know a few people who would jump at the chance. Because Noma and its world-famous chef René Redzepi are in vogue and no one wants to miss out on this experience.

I tired of the celebrity chef culture and the trendy restaurant of the week many years ago. I got tired of hearing and reading about the cook of the month, male or female, and their elevation to the status of god. Social media and the media generally pushed a lot of them to considerable heights. I am not interested in watching competitive cooking shows or shows dominated by reigning celebrity chefs. I don't like watching famous chefs tear a restaurant apart based on the menu or the way food is prepared, and yelling at and berating the staff or the owners. It makes me cringe. Ultimately, I don't care about what I label as an incredibly over-hyped and fake world. I don't want to pay thousands of dollars to eat at a Michelin-starred restaurant. I don't care about Michelin stars or the competition involved to obtain a star. 

I want to eat tasty food and enjoy a meal out, yes. If that means a really good taco at a local taco chain, so be it. If it's good food, I'm on board. That's all I care about. My tastes are not refined; I veer more toward good barbecue food or good diner food (a la Diners, Drive-ins and Dives). I used to enjoy watching that tv show because it was entertaining and hosted by a fairly down-to-earth man, Guy Fieri. And the prepared food looked so good!  I don't know if Fieri is still a salt-of-the-earth type. I no longer watch such shows so I really have no idea. 

I have eaten at trendy restaurants in Oslo a couple of times during the past twenty years--six- or eight-course meals where presentation was the operative word. Tiny amounts of food presented artistically. Good food, but not spectacular. I remember one of the restaurants served grilled chicken that was actually fried and very greasy. Not at all good. The other experience found me trapped for an entire evening (from 7 pm until well after midnight) at a farm-to-table restaurant that held lectures between courses about the importance of locally-sourced foods. That meal cost well over three hundred dollars per person, of which I paid half as a birthday gift to the woman who was being celebrated by her workplace. I couldn't wait for the evening to end. I finally left when they were talking about serving dessert at 12;30 am. That was enough for me. I understood that we were paying for the experience of eating at a three-star Michelin restaurant. But as I said previously, I just don't care. Give me a good grilled cheese sandwich or a tuna melt with a deli pickle on the side, at the local diner. I don't ask for much more. 

The haves and the have-nots

We often think of US politics in terms of liberals versus conservatives, left versus right, democrats versus republicans. But it's not that at all in my opinion. Nowadays, it's a question of the 'haves' versus the 'have nots'. The gap between them is growing larger with each day that passes. The 'haves' are the millionaires and billionaires--the ones who live well and have no trouble paying any of their bills or their taxes (if they pay taxes at all). The 'have nots' are those others, the majority of Americans who work two jobs to make ends meet, to pay their bills, to buy homes, and to put their children through college. 

According to online sources, there are 900 billionaires in the US, out of a population of circa 340 million people. That translates to about 0.00026% of the population. The combined fortune of U.S. billionaires grew to $6.9 trillion in 2025, according to Fortune.com. The percentage of millionaires is about 18%. Most of the wealth is in the hands of the billionaires and the millionaires. 

According to Census.gov, the real median household income in the US was $83,730 in 2024. Whether or not you make more or less than this figure, the fact remains that you are not likely to become a billionaire. You may have a shot at millionaire after a long work life, so that when you retire maybe you have close to a million dollars in the bank. Unfortunately, a major sickness involving expensive treatments and long hospital stays might deplete half of that. 

According to Yahoo Finance/the BLS Consumer Expenditures Report, the average American spends a total of approximately $78,535 annually (2024), or about $6,545 per month The Average U.S. Household's Expenses Are About $78,535 A Year —Yet The Average Annual Salary is Just $67,080. I include the list of expenditures from this report: 

• Housing: $26,266
• Transportation: $13,318
• Food: $10,169
• Insurance & Pensions: $9,817
• Healthcare: $6,206
• Remaining categories include education, entertainment, clothing, personal care, and miscellaneous expenses.

Single families spend less while families with two children spend more. For those families who have children that end up going to college, they must start saving toward tuition already when the children are toddlers. According to EducationData.org, the Average Cost of College [2026]: Yearly Tuition + Expenses are as follows (their list): 

• Public 4-Year (In-State): ~$10,634–$25,890
• Public 4-Year (Out-of-State): ~$31,009–$41,950
• Private Nonprofit 4-Year: ~$41,942–$52,500
• Private For-Profit 4-Year: ~$16,579
• Community College (2-Year): ~$7,196–$17,930 

If you have two children of college age and neither of them qualify for tuition aid or do not get scholarships, parents are looking at a minimum of $100,000 total for four years at a public 4-year in-state college. I would hazard a guess that the total amounts are way more than this. How do parents do it? No wonder parents are working two or more jobs to make ends meet. 

I am far from the only person who thinks the distribution of wealth in the US is entirely unfair. I am no socialist, but I do think that the US would benefit from a more equal distribution of wealth. As far as I can determine, the average American is just expected to make do, to grin and bear the hardships. Food prices continue to increase, ditto for gas prices. College tuition is out of sight. God forbid there should be a major health issue in any average family. Young couples starting out are having major difficulties saving money to buy a home without substantial help from parents. And yet Americans continue to defend this system and to criticize countries where taxes may be higher, but basic needs like healthcare and college tuition are essentially free. In Norway there is a deductible of about $300 before healthcare coverage kicks in. Doctors' visits are much less expensive than in the US, ditto for CAT scans, MRIs, etc. College students can take up loans for room and board or they can commute to school from home or off-campus housing, but they don't have to worry about paying tuition. Taxes on gasoline, alcohol and tobacco, as well as higher taxes on food and clothing compared to the US all contribute to funding free healthcare and free tuition. Why don't Americans want this kind of system? Norway is a mixed-market capitalist economy just like the US, except that it has tighter governmental regulations on industry. It's not a perfect system, but it has no national debt (the US debt is over $38 trillion). Norway has the oil fund that at present tallies at about $2 trillion. This too helps to fund the welfare system from which most Norwegians benefit. 

I don't have solutions to the economic problems in the US, but I've got to wonder why more Americans don't demand their fair share. Most of them work themselves to the bone for very few monetary rewards. Yes, there is freedom of speech and thought, but there is not much freedom in being a wage slave or in living from paycheck to paycheck. It's not fair when those few percent at the top live like kings, spending millions of dollars on yachts and weddings and God knows what else. The wealthiest among us should pay their fair share of taxes, and the government should provide better healthcare coverage for its citizens. Why this is even an issue in 2026 is beyond my comprehension. 

Resetting the world

I saw this yesterday on a pedestrian signal pole and took a photo. Struck a nerve, especially with the world as it is at present......

Learning to say no

I thought learning to say no during my life thus far would be easier than it has turned out to be. I thought I had mastered some aspects of it, but it turns out that I have a long way to go before I master the art of saying no. Because it is an art. It must be learned, over and over again. There are many ways to say no, brutally, softly, charmingly, assertively. It's difficult to know when to be brutal and when to be soft. But the overall point is to say 'no' and mean it in situations where a 'no' is warranted. When the word 'no' will protect your sanity and your health. 

Why am I bringing this up today? Because I recently read Gabor Maté's book When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress. His book is a good presentation of what happens to the body when its owner becomes overwhelmed by stress. I started reading the book as a skeptic but finished it with an (albeit grudging) acceptance of the premise. I didn't want to read yet another book that told me that illness is of our own making. That if we only think positive, that we'll never get sick. That's bullshit. Genetics play a big role in the illnesses that we suffer from; I know that from my own family, where cardiovascular disease occurs frequently from generation to generation. My father and brother died of heart disease; my aunt and uncle on my father's side and many relatives on my mother's side did also. So just so it's clear where I stand. Cancer and heart disease are not your fault. That's often how sick people are made to feel. Maté does suggest that there is an association between what you do/how you think and feel and the development of different illnesses. What he observes as a doctor and researcher is that many of his patients with cancer and neurological diseases are good, caring, giving people. Many of them are women, some are men. What is common to all of them is that they cannot say no to anyone, but especially to loved ones and family members. They take on a lot of stress in the form of caregiving and serving others, putting themselves last (neglecting their own wishes, dreams and health), and giving of themselves until there is nothing left to give. They have a lot of repressed anger and they are the types that won't say no because they will feel guilty. But as Maté says, better to live with the guilt than with the resentment that stems from repressed anger at never standing up for yourself or what you want and need. He doesn't blame his patients for their illnesses, rather, he explores their mindset with them, trying to get them to see how their life situations/emotional responses are impacting their health. Our bodies can only take so much until they say stop--enough--we're exhausted, tired, worn out, used-up and if you don't wake up, we won't be able to sustain you. Chronic stress can kill you, as a lot of research can attest to. The link between chronic stress and illness is an ongoing topic of research, as is the role of epigenetics.  

When I was younger and experiencing difficult relationship situations, I thought about the role of chronic stress and resultant illness. I 'knew' somehow that living in situations that caused me chronic stress would wear me down and wear me out and make me ill. I am not a passive person by nature, I am instead proactive, so I want to prevent the negative impact on myself of such situations. Prior to my divorce when I was in my twenties, I remember thinking that if I continued to live in such an unhealthy relationship, that I would be severely sick by middle age (forties/fifties). Luckily that did not become the case. Our environment contributes to the epigenetic influences (behavioral and environmental factors) that end up turning specific genes on and off without altering the underlying DNA sequence. This basically means that having to deal with chronic stress situations can result in the turning on or off of specific genes that deal with inflammation and immune response, for example. Perhaps those genes are protective against the negative impacts of chronic stress, but over time, the protective response can go awry. Too much of a good thing? There are a lot of unknowns when it comes to this field of study. 

Last year at this time I was dealing with a defective cardiac mitral valve that resulted in open-heart surgery to repair the valve. The operation was successful and here I am, a year later, back on my feet and in reasonably good form. I was born with a benign heart murmur as were several people I know; when we were children such things were registered/graded but there was little to do about them since they were classified as benign and harmless. I imagine that there is some hereditary component to the actual defect underlying the murmur, but the murmur itself is not inherited. But do I think that life's stresses can contribute to the worsening of the defective valve? I do. I think the chronic stress during the last ten to fifteen years of my career, a career that I loved deeply, contributed to the high blood pressure that perhaps impacted the functioning of the valve. I'm guessing at this point, but the chronic stress I experienced due to poor and harassing leadership, and the subsequent 'divorce' from my job (learning to let go of it while remaining in my position, and grieving the loss of something I loved) over a long period, contributed to the heart problems I had, in combination with the hereditary aspects of familial cardiovascular disease. If I had not experienced harassment (emotional trauma), would I have had the mitral valve problems I had last year? Did my job 'break' my heart? It's hard to say. But now that I no longer work, I realize that the stress associated with my former job was insidious. I gave my all to that job and then some. I realize now that I could have cut my dedication by fifty percent and the result would have been the same. My work was not appreciated and that wears a person down, especially a person who defines himself or herself as a loyal, intelligent and dedicated employee. Knowing that it didn't matter whether you were there or not does not contribute to overall good health. I should have learned to say no when the leadership problems first started. I should have stood up more for myself. It took me some years to learn to do that, to fight back and to say what I meant. Not that it mattered. But at least I did learn, although the stress had already done its damage. 

People say that you have to die of something, whether cancer or heart disease or neurological disorders. I don't know. I think about family members and friends who passed way too soon (when they were in their fifties, sixties, early seventies). Without exception, all of them were good people, stuck in overwhelmingly stressful situations. Some of them could not say no because had they done so, their families would have fallen apart. So they stayed in jobs they hated, they stayed in unhealthy marriages or unhealthy family situations, ignoring their own health needs and ignoring the signals their bodies were giving them about overdoing things. There are no do-overs in this life. At some point, you have to look at yourself in the mirror and say--today is the day I prioritize myself. Even if it's just one day a week. Shut the door, listen to music, go for a walk, tune out the world, tune out your job, don't respond to work emails 24/7, tune out demanding family members. Just tune out. Give yourself the gift of that one day. I don't know if it will make a huge difference health-wise, but it's worth a shot.