He Wants More

A unimaginably wealthy businessman has so much money, he could give a million dollars to every person in the country, and he'd still be the richest guy in the world. Yet this person wants to reduce the resources available to the rest of us. Why? Why would someone who has everything want to take away the relatively small amounts others have?

The answer is greed. Most of us can understand ordinary greed, the desire to have more than you've already got, the wish to be rich and to have fancy things. But few of us can comprehend the special type of ultra-greed that drives the oligarchs. They are NEVER satisfied. Five yachts aren't enough, if it's possible to get one that's fancier. A fleet of private jets isn't enough, if there's a chance a new one would be faster or more luxurious.

While we can, on an intellectual level, comprehend that someone might feel driven to improve upon his already excellent situation, what we can't understand is why someone who already has everything desperately wants to take the little we have away from us.

The problem with the never-satisfied, ultra-greedy oligarchs is that they don't just want a lot, they don't just want more, they want EVERYTHING. Anything you have, no matter how small, is something they don't have. They want it. This is why they don't care if we die of preventable illnesses, or starvation, or nuclear holocaust. Only if we are dead can they feel sure that we have nothing and they have everything.

As they build their doomsday bunkers, they fantasize about a world in which more than half the population is annihilated. Unfortunately for them, they need workers for a few things, so they can't quite wish for everyone but themselves to vanish.

 

Random Stuff

I'm fed up with "safety" caps that can only be opened by a magician or a contortionist. Squeeze here while twisting and pressing there. Push down while pulling up....

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Some people seem to think that any well-known abbreviation is an acronym. Actually, an acronym is an abbreviation that is also a pronounceable word (not just pronouncing the letters of the abbreviation). NATO and FODMAP are acronyms. FBI and NAACP are not.

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I am really tired of packaging that is deliberately designed so that it can't be opened, but must be destroyed.

Sometimes when I'm ripping and cutting a package, I remember an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" where Larry complained about items that were sealed in plastic clamshells. His friend said he should use a box cutter. He bought a box cutter, but couldn't use it because it came sealed in a plastic clamshell.

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Please stop putting peanut butter in everything.

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The Mail

Punch Lines

My work friend Alice was great at telling jokes. Her delight was infectious, and every joke she told seemed hilarious. Even a bad joke sounded really clever when Alice told it.

I wanted to be funny, too, so I tried telling some of Alice's jokes. Clearly, I didn't have her talent for entertaining. People rarely laughed, but just sighed. The truth is that most of Alice's jokes were terrible, the kind of material one might expect from dirty-minded twelve-year-olds. They seemed funny because Alice was energetic and happy when she told them, her timing was excellent, and she usually told them in a bar after everyone had had a few drinks.