Comparing Two Billionaires

At 53, Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. Jeff Bezos is the second-richest man in the world. It's interesting to see how the two handle their fortunes.

Elon Musk and his son, X.

Musk uses his money for the betterment of all. As the force behind DOGE, the newly-formed agency tasked with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse from our government, he has saved the average taxpayer $938.61 so far. He founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of reducing space launch costs and enabling the colonization of Mars. The company has achieved significant milestones, including the development of reusable rockets and successful missions to the International Space Station. 

Most recently he sent a rocket to the International Space Station to rescue two stranded American astronauts who were there for almost nine months and whom our government under Joe Biden chose to ignore. His Tesla, the first modern electric car, continues to drastically cut our air pollution created by traditional gas-powered vehicles. Basically, Musk is committed to doing as much as he possibly can to protect and improve the future of mankind.

Bezos and fiancee Lauren Sanchez.

Bezos, on the other hand, is a self-serving clown who wants nothing more than to bask in the spotlight of fame and flaunt his fortune. The 61-year-old founder of Amazon, which is certainly a good thing, has since done little of benefit for anyone but himself. First he purchased The Washington Post, a liberal rag so slanted you have to bend over to read it, and so what. 

His latest stunt this very week was to send his sexpot fiancee and five other "celebrity" women untrained for the job to "outer space" for an undeclared amount of money, but use your imagination. The cost of the ladies' matching designer flight suits alone likely could feed the inhabitants of a small African nation for a year. This space ride did nothing for anyone except for the riders, who, besides a new blue jumpsuit,  got to "experience weightlessness" for ten whole minutes. But it made the narcissistic Bezos front-page news for at least a few days.

So I ask you, which billionaire brings more shame to America?

Genetically Speaking

My father died of colon cancer when I was 40 years old and pregnant. His doctors told me that as soon as I gave birth I should schedule a colonoscopy and have one every four years after that, since colon cancer can be hereditary. They also suggested I eat plain popcorn daily, and vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower which "act as Brillo pads in the colon," keeping it sparkling clean. Since 1988 I have undergone ten colonoscopies, consumed lots of popcorn and about a million servings of broccoli and cauliflower, and have avoided getting colon cancer.

My mother died when she was 62 as a result of early onset Alzheimer's. Her doctors told me I should do daily crossword puzzles and learn new things to exercise my brain since her disease can be hereditary. I am now too old to get early anything, but I still do a crossword puzzle every day, except on foreign vacations or while deathly ill. Had I done one every day since she died it would have added up to 16,060 puzzles. Since I have traveled abroad often and have been deathly ill  a couple of times, I haven't done that many. But it's part of my morning routine, along with drinking coffee and scooping my cat's litter box.

I'm 78 now and have grown weary of having colonoscopies and doing crossword puzzles. Occasionally I wonder what will get me in the end and what I should have been doing all along to avoid that.

Update On Girl Scout Cookies

Last week our son arrived with two boxes of Girl Scout cookies, hoping to cheer us up as both my husband and myself were down with a nasty strain of bronchitis. He had chosen our two favorites from the past: Thin Mints for his dad and Peanut Butter Sandwiches for me.

My thoughts exactly!

Mitch reported that his cookies were "as good as ever." He recommends sucking the mint icing off, "being very careful to keep  it flat on your tongue and leaving the chocolate wafer intact. Then you get to eat the cookie itself. It's fun," he said, adding "you can also eat all of it at once and then it's crispy, chocolatey and minty." 

As for the Peanut Butter Sandwiches, which years ago were very peanut buttery and satisfying, I took one bite and spit it out. Then, thinking that perhaps I had rushed to judgment, I took another bite but had to spit that out too. It was hard and tasted what I imagine how a piece of cardboard or a bit of a tree branch tastes. Either way, certainly nothing edible. I gave one to Mitch who basically likes any and all foods regardless of quality (except cottage cheese) and he agreed, declaring "Ugh." I trashed the box.

FYI: In March of 2025, the Girl Scouts of the United States were being sued over dangerous heavy metals and glyphosate found in the cookies, which currently cost $6.00 per box. Hey, I don't even use Roundup* on my lawn, I definitely don't want to eat it in a cookie.

* Glyphosate is the pesticide marketed as Roundup.

Have A Woke Passover

Traditional seder plate

For 3,000 years, Jews all over the world have been preparing the same dinner to celebrate Passover, marking their escape from Egyptian enslavement. Passover starts this evening with a feast called a seder. Central to the dinner table is the symbolic seder plate, which has always held bitter herbs, a hard-boiled egg, a green vegetable, charoset (an apple and walnut paste) and a shank bone, each representing a crucial part of the Exodus story: The bitterness of life, the cycle of life, springtime and rebirth, the mortar that enslaved Israelites used in Egypt, and the sacrificial lamb offered to God.

This year we planned on using a modern guidebook, or Haggadah. Perhaps too modern, suggesting these additions to the sacred seder plate: a piece of fair trade chocolate demanding fair labor conditions in developing countries, pine cones calling out for criminal justice reform, an orange showing solidarity with the LGBTQ community, cashews to support the troops and bananas to stand with all refugees.

Oy vey, that is one ginormous seder plate, loaded as it is with all that woke shit. It would take up the whole table! But honestly it doesn't go far enough, excluding many worthy groups from salvation. So we are adding an extra leaf to our dining room table to accommodate a larger seder plate, complete with: 

Two or three Valium, acknowledging the struggle of addiction

A marshmallow Peep, for Christians who believe in the Easter Bunny

A caramel, for those stuck in wheelchairs

A carrot, showing solidarity with the myopic

A pea, for all the little people

Some stewed prunes, for the perennially constipated

A few macaroons, some sponge cake, several candied fruit slices and a chunk of chocolate, for the obese

May all peoples be free from enslavement!

Don't Shoot, I Have A Reese's!

 

Like many people the world over, my husband loves chocolate. He finds it delicious and comforting. And it's quite diverse, being available in so many different forms. You can bake it into a cake or cookie, suck on it, chew it or drink it. Chocolate candy melts on your fingers, offering the extra fun of licking it off. The only down side is that some people become addicted and eat too much of it. (Personally I find it cloying and it usually gives me a stomach ache.)

One positive use for chocolate has gone overlooked: If they gave all the soldiers candy bars instead of guns, wars would turn out much better. Deaths would be greatly reduced, what with all the soldiers busy licking their fingers instead of shooting strangers in the head. And forget PTSD -- returning vets would suffer from diabetes, which is at least treatable.

I suppose this is why Pete Hegseth is Secretary of Defense and not me.

The Height of Stupidity

Nail salon in a shopping mall in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Admit it -- humans are a strange species. Some are extremely brilliant and have invented amazing things, like electricity, penicillin, skyscrapers, the atom bomb, airplanes, anesthesia, space travel and this very computer on which I write these words. So it's hard to grasp how so many members of that same species can be so dumb. In fact, examples of human stupidity far surpass examples of their brilliance, which is sad. So much potential, and often cold hard cash, wasted! 

If my nails looked like this I'd rush to the ER.

A stronghold of the human being's muddled thinking can be found everywhere, across the country: the nail salon. Tucked into suburban strip malls and found on virtually every block in every major city, these businesses rake in millions annually by selling a service that anyone with two functioning hands can accomplish at home for very little cost, and without an appointment: a manicure.

A home manicure costs an average of about six bucks, depending on the cost of the nail polish used. Add another $1.50 for a nail file. That's it. And that same bottle will last for perhaps ten manicures! Whereas a "professional" manicure runs anywhere from $20 to $100, not including a tip for the "manicurist" who dips the little brush into the bottle of nail polish and applies it to the nail while muttering insults at the client under his or breath in a foreign language, often Korean or Vietnamese.

Women and gay men with money to burn have added to this ridiculous practice by painting their toes, called a pedicure. Having painted toes does nothing for anyone, not even the owner of the toes, yet prices for this silliness run from $30 to $180. But here's the best (worst) part: Manicures and pedicures are neither permanent nor long-lasting, so they must be repeated on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. And for what purpose? 

None.

Happy Birthday, Whatever That Means

Today is the birthday of a dear friend of mine who I met when I was about 12 or so, I can't remember. We were pals all through junior and senior high, then lost touch, then found each other on Facebook many years later and renewed our special relationship. I certainly wish her a "happy birthday," as is the custom. But what does that even mean?

My mother always said that she should be the one celebrated on my birthday since she went through nine months of hard labor and then many hours of really hard labor on that particular day. I agreed with her and so always gave her a small gift on my birthday, despite feeling entitled to all the big gifts and parties she piled on me, while nobody else congratulated her.

As for being the birthday girl, like my friend Melva is today, I'm not sure what saying "Happy Birthday" means. I wish for her to be happy every day, not just on the day she was born a million years ago, oops, not really, more like 79 -- which in our society is akin to a million years. (She looks 20 years younger, really.)

And what's with the gifts? Buy me something any day the spirit moves you, I always tell my husband and son. Send me flowers on a random Tuesday. Show your love all year long, not just on the day I escaped the abortionists and made it through the birth canal alive. I know, I know -- I'm wringing the joy out of the celebration. But still, think about it: What's so special about getting a year older, besides not dying yet? Why must we focus on our age so much? Are we trees? Historic buildings? Fighter jets?

One of my favorite questions: How would you act/feel if you didn't know your own age? My personal answer: A heckuva lot better! I'm only two months behind my friend, and I gotta say turning 79 sounds pretty sucky to me, although God, if you are reading this, I definitely want to, so don't try any funny business.

And Life Goes On....

I have been sick for the past 10 days, who knows with what. Bronchitis? The flu? One doctor said no pneumonia, another said yes pneumonia. Cough, cough, cough, hack, hack, hack -- all day and all night, enough to wake the dead, although none of them have shown up at my house. Anyway, to put it mildly I'm miserable, so when I read the headline on AOL , "Stanley Tucci's 6 Tips for Making Soup Are Life-Changing" I jumped on it, since right now changing my life sounds very appealing.

Sadly, the headline had over-promised, suggesting things I already do. So my life wasn't going to change after all. But at the end of the article it referenced another one entitled, coincidentally, "Ina Garten's 6 Tips for Making Soup Are Life-Changing." So then I clicked on that one right away, thinking who knew making soup could be so life-changing? Alas, it turned out that Ina's suggestions, like cooking the soup on simmer and using a Dutch oven, were also things I already do.

Damn those headline writers! I guess I'm stuck with this cold for a while. 

Live Well While You Can

New York City fashion designer Kenny Bonavitacola, dead at 71.

Go ahead and waste your precious life fighting with strangers online over things beyond your control, what do I care? Your life may be shorter than you can imagine, and if you choose to fritter it away by slinging insults into the global system of interconnected computer networks, go for it. But first listen to this story.

Two weeks ago a friend, age 71, complained of "not feeling well" and so went to see his doctor. The doctor ran several tests which resulted in a diagnosis of Stage-4 pancreatic cancer. After spending the next thirteen days in the hospital, Kenny died. You heard me -- just shy of two weeks from diagnosis to death for this wonderful and talented man who leaves behind scores of grieving friends and family members.

Imagine that's you. I know -- it sucks. So spend each day wisely. Spitting hateful invectives into the void does not qualify.

What Kind of Moron?

What kind of moron thinks that settling political differences in the United States, arguably the most sophisticated and powerful country in the world, should involve setting cars on fire, defacing cars, destroying car dealerships and protesting outside of those dealerships with handwritten signs accusing the maker of a particular car of being a Nazi, based on absolutely no evidence?

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Especially when you consider that the very car being discredited, defaced and defamed is the same one that just a year ago was thought to be The Savior of the Planet and the MUST HAVE car of the century if you cared at all about the environment and the future of the planet's very existence, and if you called yourself a woke liberal.

In case you are slow, the kind of moron described above is a Democrat and the car in question is a Tesla and the maker of the car accused of being a Nazi is Elon Musk. Now we all know that Democrats have been stupid in many ways before this, like electing an elderly man with Alzheimer's as President and a dumb black woman as his Vice President, then denying that he's demented and she's totally unfit for the job.

Think about it. Are you a moron?

We Need A Vaccine for TDS

Lately I've been hearing about an uptick in pancreatic cancer, one of the worst kinds of cancer. It has stricken two of my friends, and several friends of another friend, causing speculation that it is the result of the Covid-19 vaccine. I'm not saying that's a fact, but some of those people received many Covid shots over the last three years. 

Like with most diseases, patients have no recourse but to do what their doctors advise, although research  reveals there is little consensus among the medical community. But at least there are treatment options available. That's not the case with another disease that is spreading wildly, ripping apart families and friendships: Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). 

Stage 4 TDS patients, ranting about Elon Musk.

What started as a jokey term for people who loved Trump beyond all reason has jumped over to those who hate him in the extreme, and turned into a veritable sickness. Now it's causing otherwise normal citizens to resort to violence for no good reason, like setting fire to Tesla dealerships, defacing Tesla automobiles parked on the street and in private driveways, and even confronting Tesla drivers face-to-face with evil intent.

A recently emerging symptom of TDS seems to be the delusional belief that Tesla's inventor, Elon Musk, is a crazed Nazi bent on world takeover who steals money from old people, wrecks our government and enriches his billionaire friends. This hogwash is based on nothing but Democrat groupthink aimed at ruining the presidency of Donald Trump, much as the Russian collusion hoax dominated his first term. 

If any of the stricken Democrats ever heard an interview with Mr. Musk they would know that he has nothing but good in his heart. Instead TDS has them foaming at the mouth and hearing voices, including those of Anderson Cooper, Nancy Pelosi, Senators Schumer and Sanders, nutcase Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and those two old devils, Maisie Herono and Maxine Waters. 

I just hope they find a vaccine soon, before it's too late.
.