Category Archives: Opinion

Movie

06/06/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

One of those thought experiments that fascinates me is the movie one. IF your life were a movie being watched by an audience, what would they be screaming at you?

Chances are, for most of you, something immediately came to mind. And whatever that is? That should be your focus of change.

The lights were gorgeous this morning.

…

PS…

I could hear shouts as I cut through the pylons that blocked the side street that once connected traffic coming off of Leverett.

As I approached, I could see two people standing on their tiny outcropping balcony in the dark.

The young guy was angry and said some things that shouldn’t be said. He stormed back inside and shut the door to the balcony.

As I passed, the young woman looked down and saw me. “I’m sorry about that,” she said.

“It’s been a rough night?” It popped out of my mouth before I thought about it. It’s a common predicament for me.

“Yes.”

“It’s obvious I’m old. If you don’t want to be standing on this balcony again in a year, you’re going to have to leave him.”

“I know.”

“I hope you get some sleep and have a better Saturday.”

When I reached Garland, I turned to see that she had gone back inside.

New Word, Opinion

Ignorance

06/03/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

The problem isn’t “not knowing.” It’s the preference toward certainty over discovery.

Curiosity demands humility. Reality is always greater than our understanding.

Do we put in more work to preserve our filters and biases, defending them, or do we recognize our lack of understanding?

Creativity demands alternative explanations for everything, even what “everyone knows.” Intellectual stagnation is a complete failure of imagination, starting with the idea that what we know is incomplete. Or likely wrong.

Ignorance is not about what someone knows. It’s how they respond to not knowing.

Ignorance only survives because we seek certainty, comfort, and identity.

Behavior, Opinion, Safety

Existential

04/30/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

About 1 in 10 drivers in Arkansas don’t have a valid driver’s license. Those 10% are responsible for 25% of accidents.

After rewatching my video yesterday of the highly trained police officer getting seriously injured outside of my apartment, I realized it’s time to once again remind everyone that nothing protects us from the chaos of random circumstance. All those years of training and becoming a masterful motorcyclist amounted to nothing when confronted with an idiot without a driver’s license and in too much of a hurry to yield to traffic.

You can be the smartest, healthiest, most careful person in the world. You can do everything right.

There’s always going to be an idiot without a driver’s license or someone in too much of a hurry to remember that it’s not worth it to be in a hurry, to be angry, or to remember how precarious it is to be encased in a biological body.

You can work yourself to the bone, being loyal, diligent and doing your job. And that job can be swept out from under your feet without warning. Often by people who are callous to the fact that money fails to compare to the impact on human beings.

We can dedicate ourselves to being compassionate citizens, only to wake up one morning and realize that the people in charge have lost touch with their intended purpose.

The balancing act never ends. We have to find a way to keep moving no matter what craziness happens to us. Even when we’re bitter, pissed off, or unsure whether anything we do really matters.

I try to keep an eye out for the people who seem to be positive even when they’re getting slapped. It’s a rare attitude and probably more important than intelligence or hard work.

PS You don’t have to wave at the grim reaper. He already sees you.

Grammar, Humor, Opinion

Axe Me

04/26/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

We all use shorthand to communicate, even if it’s technically incorrect. That’s what fascinates me about language. Whether it’s the grammar police or people who have a pet peeve about things they perceive to be an accurate or wrong, the reality is that usage prevails over perceived correctness. Even if it makes your heart palpitate or your left eye twitch.

Lately, I’ve been biding my time and waiting. The other day, a self-appointed guardian of the imaginary rules of English stepped in it.

“F.B.I. is not an acronym. We describe it as an acronym but that’s not actually correct.”

“What? Of course it is. What are you talking about?”

“An acronym is pronounced as a word in and of itself, like ‘I.C.E.’ If you don’t pronounce the first letters in totality as a word, it is an initialism.”

Silence and confusion.

“That’s a technicality. Everyone knows what we mean when we call it an acronym.”

I smiled, a tiger trap of acknowledgment.

“Duh. That’s exactly how the rest of the world feels when you correct them. They’re communicating, not writing a thesis.”

“If I was interested…”

I cut them off, making a slashing motion with my hand. “That’s a violation. Improper use of the subjunctive.”

I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye as the person walked away.

I should have axed them if they wanted to go get an expresso with me. I could of, but I didn’t feel like being pacific about it.

¡Viva el caos!

Government, Health, Medical, Opinion

Saturday

04/11/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

Which weirdo has all the magenta light coming out of the window? Additionally, how did I not know that the word ‘gulab’ is a synonym for rose?

The thunder of the birds started early this morning as the moon drifted down.

As I walked this morning, I listened to an amazing article in Spanish this morning regarding the new unified universal health care system for Mexico. There’s no reason we don’t have the same here except for ignorance and profit motive. Maybe one day after enough people have suffered we’ll tear down what’s obviously not working here. Probably not.

New Word, Opinion, Personal, Politics, Psychology

Dumbass-Keurig Effect

03/15/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

Maximum confidence. Minimum information.

People who know the least tend to be the most certain. I see it day in and day out. I modified the original name of this and call it the Dumbass-Keurig effect, because it’s likely you’ll hear the dumbest nonsense when someone’s holding a cup of coffee and giving an opinion, completely oblivious to the fact that you want to put in an MRI order for them just to determine whether there’s a brain in there or not.

As an example, someone close to me recently had to deal with someone calling one of the most knowledgeable, educated people she knew “dumber than a box of rocks.”

It’s a tactic employed by ignorance to dismiss the presence of knowledge and intelligence. It’s corollary is the boring and clichè “no common sense” accusation.

Ignorance is a fixable condition. We’re all ignorant about a variety of things, often including things that deeply affect us. That’s okay, provided that we accept our lack of knowledge and understanding.

Which leads me back to my original point: Don’t leave your fingers inside the door frame when you close the car door.

Opinion, Personal, Psychology

Observation

03/11/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

“It’s not that evil wouldn’t recognize itself in the mirror. It never pauses for self-reflection. Evil is compromised by certainty. It’s not that all certain people are evil, but it’s demonstrably true that all evil people are certain.”

-Quote from an obscure American

Güino is incredibly close to being 18 now. I put him on a freshly-washed towel so that he could enjoy the warmth.

English, Grammar, Language, Opinion

Villainous Language

03/02/2026 X Teri Leave a comment

Very few people know that the word “villain” originally meant ‘farmhand’ or ‘villager.’ It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how the word morphed from descriptive to pejorative.

Our language is riddled with words that are based in class and hierarchy, which fascinates me.

I’ve always been interested in the pretentious rigidity some people judge language, both grammatical and orthographical.

It’s all made up. Struggling against it is a loser’s battle.

Behavior, Business, Humor, Opinion, Organization, Social Rules

03/01/2026 X Teri 2 Comments

Big Arch Madness

If you’ve not seen the McDonald’s CEO eating a Big Arch burger, you’re missing out. It comes across exactly like Zuckerberg’s reptilian testimony a few years ago.

As I see people mock the McDonald’s CEO, it fascinates me. A lot of people aren’t aware of the critical defect in most larger organizations: hierarchal insulation.

People do not want to share bad news or criticism. The people with authority seldom get exposed to those on the ground doing the work. It’s filtered by successive layers of containment, each motivated by their own objectives.

Additionally, if you’re not familiar with The Abilene Paradox, you should look it up. Summed up, it explains why a group of people can end up deciding to go eat somewhere that no one really wants to go to. It results in Jessica being as pissed as everyone else.

That’s how you end up with a strange marketing video with the CEO coming across as alien and off-putting. The majority of people watching the video immediately recognize that something’s off. There’s no question multiple people at McDonald’s wanted to speak up. But they don’t have an institutional means of being heard.

Who in the McDonald’s corporation would dare question all the departments and people involved in the result? Much less the CEO.

The insulating factor of organizations is everywhere once you recognize it. Products that defy customer wants. Logos that look like someone dropped pixie sticks on the floor. (Studiously NOT mentioning Springdale’s from a few years ago.)

Our laws, which often ignore what most people want because committees have to come to an agreement, and often only because someone needs to pee really badly – or realize that no one’s going to get what they want. That’s how we ended up with the platypus, by the way.

If you haven’t seen the Big Arch commercial, I highly recommend it. It is the embodiment of what happens when a vocal cross-section of other people aren’t involved.

“The people who know have no say. And the people who have the say quite often don’t know.” – X