Opinion: Pet Peeves

Hard Pill to Swallow

By Mark Crantz

“Pop-Pop, you sure do have a lot of medicine,” one of my grandkids volunteered.

“Why were you in my medicine cabinet?” 

“Because it wasn’t child proof and I could,” he answered. 

A shiver went through me. “Did you take any pills?” The grandkid made a yucky face.  “Of course not. I don’t want to end up like you with all those tics and mood swings. It’s unbecoming.”

Speaking of pills, much of the news is hard to swallow. Take TikTok for example. This is a computer company that has developed a computer program that allows grandchildren and people older, but acting like grandchildren, to film themselves dancing. You then send it out to the rest of the world and wait for word to come back that you dance better than Elaine Benes from “Seinfeld.” The relief that the world likes your moves must be exhilarating because several big tech corporations want to buy this company. But there’s a pebble in the old dance shoe. TikTok is a Chinese company. Now, while TikTok agrees to sell at the right dance ticket price, the rub comes in because they wouldn’t sell the algorithm that drives the software application. For those readers who are not computer literate or have spent their lives like me, being a wallflower, then think of the absence of the algorithm like never getting the names of all the dance partners who refused to dance with you. Without those names, you’ll never get a crack in stealing their identities or financially draining their bank accounts. The algorithm is the key to your revenge.

President Trump insists for the sake of national security that the Chinese hand over the secret algorithm sauce. Really? We are to believe that the safety of our nation rests on protecting our dance moves. That’s a hard pill to swallow. I suspect, if the truth were ever discovered, the Chinese have a Trump dance video that proves he’s a worse dancer than Elaine Benes. That makes more sense than getting worked up about national security.  Trump wants to hit the old delete button for another dosey doe do-over.

Speaking of another hard pill to swallow, I read in the Indy that a city candidate alluded to the fact that 6.5 million tourists visit Laguna Beach each year. This number grows faster than the national debt number. I’ve seen that clock. It spins like mad. I feel bad for the federal print shop employee whose trying to produce greenbacks to keep up.

“How was work today?” the federal wife asks.

“Horrible. I feel like I have to dance because someone is shooting at my feet.” 

His wife smiles. “I’d like to see that on TikTok. How about Chinese for dinner tonight?”

Mark Crantz tells the Indy that he supports having a Laguna clock at the village entrance that records the spiraling number of visitors, while under it residents dance in joy.