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The Scott Foster Effect and Hand Wringing
9.27.17

If you read my fictitious, fabricated, completely made up out of my imagination story about the company idea program, you'd get the impression that the Scott Foster character, that I created from my imagination, was kind of a douche.

Let's say, just for giggles, that we lived in some kind of ridiculous universe where someone like the (imaginary) Scott Foster character did exist. Chances are he'd never come across my whimsical little story, since there are literally dozens of web sites out there. But let's imagine that he did.

What's he going to say?

"Hey! You know that sneaky scheming unsavory guy who was always trying to screw over his co-workers? I think that's me."

Oh, really?

But what's he going to be mad about exactly? I accurately depict him as a douche and he's upset . . . about what again? If he doesn't want to be a douche, that's something he controls, not me. Maybe you're mad about being depicted as a scoundrel, but let's get out the pissedoffometer and see if you're as mad as I am about you screwing me out of my idea and implementing it as your own. (You schmuck.)

You recognize that situation as what I call The Concept I Have No Name for But I Always Reference as the Lady Wringing Her Hands About People Trash Talking Democrats.

If you're pissed off about being characterized a certain way you could get your little feelings hurt about people saying that about you. Or . . . you could not be that way.

Obviously this all tracks back to the same elusive concept as all the fleeting precepts that I'm trying to organize. What is true? If someone is depicting a person as a schmuck when he's not, that's grounds for being upset. But it’s a completely different scenario than what we’re talking about here.

You know my advice about people disparaging you: It's all good.

If it's valid, you have an opportunity to improve and that's a good thing. If it has no basis, the person leveling it is a schmuck, and that's a good thing to know also.

(“Schmuck is my go-to word to avoid overusing “douche.” ‘Cause this is a family page. You know . . . if that family is composed of imaginary readers.)

So . . . my imaginary fictitious character could think about not screwing over his fellow employees, or I'm the schmuck for disparaging his fictitious self when he was selflessly trying to save the company twenty bucks and keep the peasants in their place.

You remember back in the day when we still had land lines and cell phones were fairly prevalent but not universal? Right around the 2000-2004 kind of time frame.

Well, somewhere in that time frame we had a fire at work. The people building the addition were welding beams up in the roof and the sparks were spraying down on a pallet of foam and caught it on fire.

I saw the smoke coming up from my second story window and dashed downstairs. The welders were unaware. Another employee and I started putting together garden hoses and trying to move other flammables out of the way. The fire was spreading pretty quickly. So while the other guy sprayed water on the fire I grabbed my cell phone and punched in 911.

I explained the situation and the lady on the other end asked me where I was. I told her. And then she told me I was connected to the wrong dispatch and gave me another number to call.

Uh . . .

I called the number, we got the fire put out, and the fire trucks showed up. In that order.

Apparently because I was on a cell phone my calls were routed to a place that depended on my service provider and had nothing to do with my location.

I thought that seemed like a bit of a problem, so I penned a letter to the editor telling what had happened and questioning whether that was the best way for the system to operate.

A few days after the letter ran, my cell phone rang. I answered it (back in those days we answered numbers we didn't recognize). It was the local 911 dispatcher. She was upset that I had made them look bad by saying that I didn’t get the response I had expected.

Okay. So, what part of my story was false? The problem was that I made them look bad and so I was a jerk and a bad citizen

I was polite, and actually pretty acquiescent. They do an important job and it was never my intent to cast them in a bad light, just shine a light on what could have been a serious problem.

The point is, what part of that was my fault? I guess telling anyone what happened. Because I didn’t do anything to cause them to tell me they couldn’t help me with the fire.

Anyway . . . I was walking through the addition the other day and just remembered and it occurred to me that the incident was a perfect example of . . . of . . . you know, that concept for which I have no name.

Party A does Action A. Party B observes Action A. Party B is the bad guy.

Just kidding.

I used to visit Townhall.com every day. And I’d harvest the best ‘toons and post them here. When you open google on my browser the Townhall site was the first one on the frequently visited dealies.

But I can’t watch. I just can’t.

Maybe I’ll transform this from a blog filled with hate speech to . . . I dunno, music or fitness or something else that’s just as entertaining to ignore.

You may remember the big eclipse we had a while back.

Well, right after that people were selling eclipse glasses saying there was going to be another one the next day at 1:20 or something.

That made me sad on two levels. One, that people are evil enough to rip fellow humans off that way. And also that people were dumb enough to be ripped off that way.

You recognize this. There are two people involved in that transaction. One of them is stupid, the other one is evil.

And that’s how it works. Whether you are stupid of evil depends on whether you are buying or selling the nonsense.

Many sincere good-hearted people buy into destructive ideas, like, I don’t know, like socialism. Oh, I just really want everyone to get free heath care and time off work.

Socialism does not do that. Socialism, when “faithfully implemented” causes poverty and despair. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand socialism. If you don’t understand that, you are just plain wrong. You are buying a flawed premise.

Now, if you do understand socialism, and you advocate it anyway, you are evil. You are selling.

I have spoken.

So some waste of protoplasm named Mario Washington assaulted someone on a BART car (Bay Area Rapid Transit). It happened on a Saturday evening at 7:30 (a while back—I don’t post right away on the premise that something not worth doing is worth postponing). The good news is they caught the whole thing on their surveillance system. Got his face on camera.

Oh, but wait . . . the guy was a black man.

Dave Barry and I are not making this up. The city didn’t release the photos of the guy because they didn’t want to foment bad feelings toward a particular race.

Geez. San Francisco (shaking my head).

I just . . . I . . . wow.

Monday morning they finally released the pictures. Caught the guy within 2-1/2 hours

Do you think we are ever going to get to a place in our society where liberals don’t see race?

Really, if you won’t release a photo of a criminal—he’s not a black man, he’s a person, who is also a criminal—because your thinking is that it makes people think black people are criminals, you, my friend, are a racist.

They guy assaulted a man because of the content of his character, not the color of his skin.

I have spoken.

. . . using Martin Luther King’s words . . .