Our Sick Society

The entire United States has the mentality of a 15-year-old boy. Ample proof can be found in the ongoing interest in the life of Jeffrey Epstein, a dead man who never held public office, never had any incredible talent that catapulted him to the top of any charts, never appeared in a film or on TV, and as far as anyone knows was just a rich guy with lots of dirty old men as friends, all of whom liked to have sex with young girls.

Who cares? How is this news? So what if one famous person or another shared his prurient interests? How about we move on to other things, like nuclear weapons in the hands of crazy foreign leaders, rampant use of antidepressants, floods overtaking the planet, an increase of cancer and heart disease among young people, rising crime, lowering intelligence and the general addiction to technology that causes most people to spend their days playing inane video games online and their nights binge-watching television shows. 

Before it's too late, that is.

Bored Old Democrats

Unless you are an outdoors adventurer prone to hiking, kayaking, canoeing, camping, surfing, swimming or rock-climbing, Maine can be a boring place to live. Its largest city of Portland has a great symphony, one authentic art museum that never has any major exhibitions, some mediocre theater venues, one children's museum that looks good from the outside but having no kids at home I have not been inside, and one nutty museum devoted to pictures of Bigfoot that's funny one time, especially if you are stoned. Otherwise, cultural activities are nonexistent unless you count going to the movies or eating in restaurants "cultural activities."

So, you might be wondering, what do non-athletic people do for fun besides shop? I'm not sure what Republicans do, but Democrats stand on street corners for hours at a time, holding hand-made signs damning the President. In our little town of Freeport this silliness takes place on Tuesday mornings. In Ogunquit, a popular resort town an hour away, it happens on Thursday afternoons, something we learned firsthand yesterday. It was quite chilling.

Perhaps 40 oldsters -- or seniors or boomers or retirees or whatever you want to call them -- all of them overweight, sloppily dressed and looking like nut cases from the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, lined Ogunquit's main street, waved signs that proclaimed "No Kings!" and "Dump Trump!" and more like that. One man approached our open car window and dropped in a pre-printed propaganda card, both sides carrying incendiary and false statements designed to sway my vote. 

Those poor people should learn to play Bridge to salvage their deteriorating brain cells.

How to Stop Dementia Before It Starts

I can't remember how long it's been since I read a book. In my younger days I read at least one a month. And I'm not alone; a recent publishing study revealed that 23% of adults in America say they have not read a single book in a year. What changed?

The Internet. Now, along with the rest of society, I waste my time watching funny videos, scrolling through Facebook, reading outrageous political lies posted by the enemy or playing Words With Friends. The results are likely cerebral detritus that is surely hurting me mentally, although I scored high on a recent online IQ test so there's hope for me yet.

Still reeling from the news that a good friend of mine had never even heard of the classic play, "Our Town," a production of which is staged somewhere in the United States every day, I wondered if not reading is the cause of dementia in some of those elderly folks lining the halls of nursing homes waiting for their medications and jello cups. (Note to my son: Shoot me first, please.) 

I suggest that everyone still able to read should do so. Stop following the lives of celebrities and pick up a book! A great choice would be the aforementioned "Our Town," by Thornton Wilder. It's immensely enjoyable, an easy read, and as a bonus it holds the secret to life. It will change yours.

Doing My Part

Kamikaze drones are quite popular in Russia.

Money makes the world go round. From the minute I wake up in the morning until I go to bed at night, it's buy, spend, buy more, spend more, buy two and get one free, buy today only and get half-off. 

I realize that if I never turn on the TV, or my computer, or look at a newspaper or my phone, I could avoid all that. But then I would know nothing about what's going on in the world and would be caught by surprise if a random bomb-carrying kamikaze drone falls on my house, which could happen. Besides, capitalism is what keeps America humming, and we all must do our part. 

So I turn on the TV and am assaulted by commercials for things I apparently should not be without but somehow I am and still survive. Even something as innocuous as Words With Friends online bombards me with suggestions about how my life would improve immeasurably by purchasing things I don't have, never heard of or couldn't use if I had one. This is capitalism. 

This is also capitalism: Today I stopped at a deli after my gym workout left me hungry. I ordered a turkey and Swiss wrap with lettuce, tomatoes and mustard and a cup of black coffee. Later on, eating my purchase at home, I discovered that I had paid $12.50 for a wheat wrap stuffed with a fat wad of lettuce, a sliced tomato, a trace of Swiss cheese and a sliver of turkey the size of a playing card, making me see that you don't always get what you paid for. 

Still, I did my part, and so far the sky above my house remains drone-free.

Oh Those Hateful Jews

These days, antisemitism is making a comeback across the world, especially at Harvard University. Hopefully none of the Jews still living among those listed below, each of whom has contributed greatly to our society in the areas of the literature, fine art, theater, comedy, medicine and politics, will end up in a gas chamber anytime soon.

Saul Bellow

E. L. Doctorow

Phillip Roth

Estee Lauder

Howard Stern

Elizabeth Taylor

Marc Chagall

Herman Wouk

George Soros

Joseph Heller

Leonard Bernstein

George Gershwin

Isaac Asimov

Franz Kafka

J. D. Salinger

Lillian Hellman

Ayn Rand

Maurice Sendack

Sacha Baron-Cohen

Danny Kaye

Red Buttons

Michael Bloomberg

Ed Koch

Itzak Perlman

Morey Amsterdam

Seth Rogan

Albert Brooks

Robert Klein

David Brenner

Mort Sahl

Lenny Bruce

Jack Black

Goldie Hawn

Ben Stiller

Mark Spitz

Andy Kaufman

Jason Alexander

Eugene Levy

Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Billy Crystal

Rodney Dangerfield

Don Rickles

Sarah Silverman

Milton Berle

Jon Lovitz

George Burns

Sid Caesar

Joaquin Phoenix

Ben Shapiro

Jared Kushner

Gilda Radner

The Marx Brothers

Jack Benny

Jerry Stiller

Issac Mizrahi

Gal Gadot

Jackie Mason

Adlai Stevenson

Mel Brooks

Carl Reiner

Volodymyr Zelensky

Richard Lewis

Larry David

Jerry Seinfeld

Billy Joel

Justice Felix Breyer

Art Garfunkel

Daniel Radcliffe

Justice Elena Kagan

Barbra Streisand

Scarlet Johansson

Neil Diamond

Gloria Steinem

Bob Dylan

Paul Rudd

Seth Rogan

Niels Bohr

Jake Gyllenhaal

Pink

Nora Ephron

Karl Marx

Norman Mailer

Leonard Cohen

Leon Uris

Madeline Kahn

Bette Midler

Harvey Keitel

Kirk Douglas

James Caan 

Jeff Goldblum

Alan Arkin

Richard Dreyfuss

Bella Abzug

Martin Landau

David Schwimmer

Natalie Portman

Willian Shatner

Leonard Nemoy

Michael Douglas

Lauren Bacall

Fran Liebowitz

Ruth Handler (inventor of the Barbie doll)

Lenny Kravitz

Susie Essman

Gene Simmons

Gov. Josh Shapiro (Ohio)

Gov. J. B. Pritzker ((Illinois)

Joan Rivers

Buddy Hackett

Bea Arthur

Elie Wiesel

Irving Berlin

Jerry Lewis

Richard Feynman

Mark Zuckerberg

Jon Stewart

Dustin Hoffman

Abbie Hoffman

Paul Simon

Tony Curis

Phillip Glass

Allen Ginsburg

Arthur Miller

Harold Pinter 

Neil Simon

Woody Allen

Harvey Fierstein

George Kaufman

Marilyn Monroe

Jesse Eisenberg

Mark Rothko

Stan Lee

Paula Abdul

Steven Spielberg

Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google)

Lisa Kudrow

Adrian Brody

Adam Sandler

Chuck Schumer

Cary Grant

Marc Chagall

Diane Arbus

Dr. Jonas Salk 

Albert Einstein

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Childhood's End

The following request appeared on a local Neighborhood Watch website recently. Initially I thought it was a joke or some sort of parody. but judging by the slew of positive comments it received I realized the query was taken to be 100% serious. It  left me feeling stunned, confused, angry and more than a little alarmed.

The mom wrote: "My 11-year-old son has come out as pansexual and aromantic. I am wondering if there are any support groups for similar LGBTQ kids in the area."

Had it been my own son I would have asked if there were any child psychologists nearby who specialize in this type of mental aberration in young children. But no -- this lady was looking for other kids who also had determined, at such a young age, that they wanted to have sex with people of all genders and sexual preferences, but without any emotional attachment.

I wish the government would open up all those mental institutions they closed years ago so I could go live in one for the rest of my life.

.

What About the French Fries?

Sage advice dictates that one should plan like you're going to live forever and live like you're going to die tomorrow. Okay, so then what do you do about the French fries? Because if I were going to die tomorrow I'd be having Nathan's French fries with ketchup and salt for all my meals. But if I do that and then live forever, I'm going to be fat and very unhealthy.

It's a quandary.