Category Archives: Opinion

Finances, Government, Humor, Opinion, Politics

The Maths

07/19/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

I’m innumerate more often than I care to admit. BUT… I was spouting off the effects of inflation to someone who wasn’t buying it, pun intended.

(Generally speaking, for those keyboard correctionists out there. If you’re looking for logic, we broke that door hinge again, possibly forever. If you’re looking for impeccable writing or ironclad mathematics, ask your doctor if Givafocken is right for you.)

If I net $40,000 this year and the inflation rate stays at 2.7%, that means I will “lose” $1,080 in buying power compared to a year ago. Without a change in income or spending, $1,080 will vanish from my wallet. Sure, it will be the same of dollars, but WHAT I can buy with those dollars will decrease by 2.7%. The percentage sounds small, whereas the dollar amount tends to raise eyebrows.

Much like buying things is harder when you calculate how many minutes, hours, or days you have to work to buy it. Especially if your boss is a micromanager, a dude named Steve or Kevin, or says BS like, “you need to circle back and touch base after you drill down and leverage your blue sky thinking.” You’re sacrificing your life segmented into minutes to buy every item you choose to purchase.

That’s before the additional tariff nonsense, which is a tax regardless of how it is defined. The next effect is that higher costs will be passed to you, regardless of whether it is small or large. I assume you’ve noticed that highly profitable corporations tend to love their billions of dollars. They are the modern day dragons that we feared when we were children. They are resting on a reprehensible amount of wealth that should be taxed at a rate comparable to a couple of generations ago. But we’re stuck worrying about Karen maybe getting a few too many dollars that she has to stretch further than a Dollar Store condom.

Conclusion: you’re losing a lot more money than you believe you are. Percentages are misleading because we don’t connect the concept of inflation to disappearing purchasing power.

PS Rich people take a lot longer to feel the effects of economic factors because they do not need to spend all their money once earned, whereas we poor people are spending all of our money in an attempt to avoid a free month’s stay in the tent out back of our brother-in-law’s garage, or to avoid buying canned goods with pictures of animals on them.

Although I make jokes in the telling of my point, I remain cautiously cynical about people who think economics is simple, straighforward, or honest. It’s like expecting your drunk, cheating husband to tell you why he has a pair of panties stuck in the glove box. You’re going to hear a mountain of nonsense. By the end of their excuses, they will have launched a campaign for the US Senate.

Economics is the lie we tell ourselves that we can comprehend a global financial market with a million moving parts, while almost none of the variables are within our control or comprehension.

This concludes my wildly strange TED talk. Please sign the guest register on your way out.

Behavior, Opinion, Personal, Photography, Politics, Religion, Social Media, Social Rules

Social Media Isn’t The Problem

06/27/2025 X Teri 1 Comment

On a recent friend’s post, people seemed to agree with “Social media destroys friendships.”

Do you mean to say, much like telephones did when they were introduced? Or computers?

Blaming technology is a vacuous accusation.

Social media is problematic because people do not use it in the same way that they hold conversations in their living rooms.

Much for the same reason, when people enter vehicles, it adds a layer of impersonal anonymity. That’s why people do and say things that they most likely wouldn’t do in person. It leads to road rage. Cursing. Aggressive behavior.

Social media gives people the power to reveal themselves. It does not create problems out of thin air. It strips back the ignorance we have about the things the people we know believe. It reveals resentment and anger hidden below the surface. It gives access to rudeness and poorly planned responses. That behavior is the responsibility of each person who engages in it. It does not fall on the outlet of expression we use as social media.

Social media is a virtual living room and the modern town square. Personally, I treat mine like my living room. If you go to my pages, you don’t see hostility. That’s because I don’t typically engage in it, and it’s not welcome in my virtual space.

If, however, I visit a page or website that’s not mine, I expect it to look and sound exactly like our society. If you are expecting kumbaya in content outside of your control, you should probably take a dosage of reality pills. People in groups are crass and argumentative. Logic is not the presiding factor. But people are also creative, compassionate, and informative. If you judge one portion of social media without consideration for the other, you’re missing the point.

If you gather a group of people, you’re going to hear a huge variety of opinions, interests, and hobbies. You’ll see people whispering to each other if they’re having conversations about other people. Uncle Larry is going to say something racist. Someone will likely show up drinking – and you know darn well they aren’t going to behave. Others will attempt to hog the conversation or say outrageous things for the reasons that people say and do those things. Social media works the same way.

Social media did not become massively popular by accident. It is the result of our individual choice and vote to use our precious time and energy engaging with it.

Social media does not destroy friendships. People do. One crass comment at a time.

People who focus exclusively on the negative aspects of social media ignore the power and beauty of collective expression. It’s easy to dial in to cynicism and hate. These aspects of social media are exactly what people exploit when they have agendas.

Each of us has tools to limit our exposure to things we don’t want to see. It works exactly like a TV guide. We can ignore platforms, programs, and the stations we choose. I don’t get angry because MTV has cooking shows. I scroll past it. I roll my eyes at what some people say, just as I expect them to roll their eyes or get pissy when they see mine.

If you’re looking at content from your friends, family, and acquaintances that makes you angry, it might be better to take a second look at who they are, how they behave, and what they believe. Act accordingly. They are revealing themselves. And while it might frustrate you, you at least have a means to see what occupies their thoughts and time.

Social media is what you make it. You can’t control collective communication. But you can control your exposure and how you choose to use it.

Social media per se is not the problem. It is us. All the defects and things about it that you do not enjoy are a reflection of our society.

Social media is exactly like alcoholism. Alcoholics falsely like to claim that their behavior is the result of drinking. It’s not. Alcohol removes their inhibitions and their control regarding what’s already in their heads. It is not a creator. It is a revelator.

X
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Ancestry, Biographical, Brinkley, DNA, Family, Monroe County, Opinion, Personal

Revelations of Dad

06/24/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

This is personal. I’m not overthinking these words. I just want to get them out.

I’ve written about some of this before. My dad was in prison in Indiana. I heard so many different stories when I was younger. The Terry family was cemented into compulsory silence about this and many other things. (Such as the fact that I had another sister until a few years ago.) To find any truthful reference to ‘why’ my Dad was in prison, I had to do it the hard way: I searched THOUSANDS of pages of newspapers across Indiana. I’ll never forget that feeling of finding specific information. I had a cousin who probably knew most of it correctly. But she opted to adhere to the family code of silence. That’s why I had to do it the hard way. When she didn’t provide the information, I told her that I was patient and that I would find it.

I don’t disclose these things to shame members of my family. Apart from the fact that you can’t shame someone who is no longer alive, facts don’t bring shame. They bring revelation. I’ve proven time and time again that anyone who stays at it will uncover most truths. That’s how I used DNA and a decade to find my sister. It’s also how I kept at it to substantiate the details of some of my dad’s life.

I received the Indiana Reformatory index card out of the blue today. The prison stopped maintaining most old mugshots. But in those few lines of information, there are massive implications.

I was born in March 1967. My dad was imprisoned on February 1st, 1967. He was in prison for two years, ten months, and six days. That’s a lot longer than anyone ever mentioned to me when I pressed them for information. Dad was living in Indiana before his arrest, which is the first documented proof that my parents were not living together. Dad joked that he had been in Alaska. He didn’t make the joke often because being in prison wasn’t something he talked about unless he was drunkenly telling people.

Less than four months after being released from the Indiana prison, my dad was involved in the death of a maternal cousin during a DWI incident. My Dad didn’t suffer any charges for this. Regardless of how people feel about me saying so, connections kept him out of trouble. Monroe County, Arkansas, was a different place then. The Terry family didn’t hesitate to use those connections to quash any concerns. Had my Dad been held accountable, it might have caused him to return to an Indiana prison. His parole wasn’t discharged until almost eight months after the DWI death.

When I’m thinking about my life or talking about it, I mention that I lived with my maternal grandparents while Dad was in prison. I wonder what life might have been like had he not returned. Whether his presence would have been substituted for another man of similar temperament. It’s all speculation. I wouldn’t have my other sister had Dad not returned, or if he had been put back into the system.

After the DWI death of my maternal cousin, Dad jumped into a highly questionable affair. It took me years to piece together that one of my earliest memories of standing up in the back seat was one in which I accompanied my Dad to Clarendon beach with his affair partner. Mom said that I couldn’t possibly remember it. Normally, I’d agree. Growing up that way tends to erase a lot of memory. But that memory stuck with me.

After that affair debacle, Dad engaged in another affair, one that led to the birth of my sister. I didn’t realize until I met her that her birth explained my family’s sudden departure from Dad’s beloved Monroe County to Northwest Arkansas. Away from my grandparents and some of my maternal family, who would have altered the trajectory that Dad’s behavior brought upon us.

I’m sharing this because I feel vindicated for finding more pieces as time passes. I’m not revealing anything that should not have been disclosed to all of us. The foolishness and false family honor of those who demanded secrecy still bother me. Then again, I’ve come to learn that this tendency governed their lives. Several of them were completely different people than their demeanor indicated.

Love, X

Behavior, Opinion, Personal, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Social Rules

Tell Me More

06/20/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

It’s not that most people truly believe that news is fake or not.

It’s identity.

You can’t put all your eggs into a basket and have contradictory information presented to you.

It’s an assult on your sense of identity. That’s uncomfortable for people.

If you are demonstrably wrong, you have only two real options: acknowledge the information, accept it, and incorporate it into changes of belief and opinion. The other option, one we see all the time, is to become defensive and reject both the information and the need to adapt to it.

Information isn’t dangerous. Rejecting anyting that doesn’t conform to objective reality, however, creates a majojr problem for rationality and reason, both of which allegedly drive most of ur lives. This tendency to reject information has significantly warped our ability to live in society. Appeals to reason aren’t revered as they once were.

It can be religion, politics, science, or behavior.

Even though I’m not explaing myself thoroughly, something simliar came up earlier in the week. Someone was incredulous about weather prediction, doubting the way it is done, etc. They lacked a significant grasp of basic science. Among those things were not understanding the proximity of Doppler radar or how the curvature of the earth affects rapid detection of dangerous storms. While I didn’t have to spell it out, I watched in real-time as the person struggled to find a way to admit they didn’t understand what they were complaining about. From that inablity came further assertions that aren’t sustainable. There is no harm in admitting we don’t know. All of us are ignorant about different things. But all too often people double down. I respect people more if they say, “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand.”

Science is the best example to use that creates the least anger. Its very nature is to suggest an explanation and then test it. Conclusions must change with new evidence. It’s how we have medicine, technology, and industry. All progress depends on it.

If you ask science, “Is there a god?” it can say, “I don’t know.” The ability to say “I don’t know” is a hallmark of genius. It doesn’t say, “There is no god,” because negatives can’t be proven. It says, “Tell me more,” because information doesn’t threaten the scientific process. Uncertainty brings investigation and thought. Certainty brings rejection and stagnation.

Any system of thought or ideology that precludes questioning is, by its nature, close-minded. Any answer that is supposedly obvious would mean that most people would agree. Observation proves that to be false.

If you’re not a “tell me more” person, you’ve cut yourself off from knowledge and growth. Saying “tell me more” doesn’t weaken your theology or faith. It doesn’t have to dilute your politics. As I like to say, when we look at our past, we shake her head at some of the things we believed. It’s easy to admit you’re wrong with enough time. But somehow we all too often like to think we’re not wrong, even though our own lives prove we have been multiple times.

I think most of us prefer “tell me more” people.

I know that the bean soup people might read this and completely miss my point. Or focus on one small aspect of what I’ve written. If you don’t know what bean soup people are, that’s a discussion for another day.

Behavior, Lemon Moment, Opinion, Personal, Social Rules

Wisdom

06/05/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

If you’re interested in the wisdom of experience, I’ve got some words for you. I did the peculiar thing that I sometimes do and asked an older man to hit me with some important things he had learned.

“Who we are is who we are going to be,” the older man said, his face rigid with the wrinkles of certainty and experience.

“These lips are mine and are the same lips I used to excuse how I wasted my youth. Putting off things I should have done. Listening to what people say instead of watching what they do. ‘I’m gonna’ is for sure one of the dumbest things we say to convince ourselves that talking about it is the same as doing it. And when we hear other people say it, most of the time we know they’re not gonna. Stop drinking. Stop smoking. Not waste money. Get out and enjoy life where they can. How do I know? Because if they wanted to, they would be doing it now instead of talking about what they’re going to do. If we ain’t doing it today, we ain’t gonna. You gotta work with what you have and stop waiting for the perfect day. You might not get another sunrise. Nobody never got anything done by waiting for it. Don’t waste your time arguing with people or the world. Likely you can’t change them. Wanting things to be another way is like trying to get full by smelling what’s cooking on the stove. The fewer things you want or think you need will get you pretty far.”

“Anything else?” I wanted to give him the chance to add if he wanted to.

“Nah. If somebody can take two or three things out of all that and do them, they don’t need much else.”

I thanked him and told him I hoped he would have a good afternoon.

“I will. I’m going to sit down and do nothing. It’s amazing how far doing that can get you most of the time.”

I laughed. He was right.

About all of it.

X
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Behavior, Opinion, Personal, Politics, Religion, Social Rules, Tv

Dynasty

05/26/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

Phil Robertson’s previous fame is an interesting example of someone being used as an anchor to glamorize controversial beliefs. I’m constantly confused by fame whitewashing behavior that violates the precepts of the religion being espoused. It is hypocrisy, one that money conveniently dispels.

Duck Dynasty was marketing genius when it started. The right people at the right time, to get viewers. I don’t fault anyone involved in the project for taking a simple idea and running with it. We tend to reward oversimplification.

Many people don’t know Phil fathered a daughter by having an affair. The family welcomed the newly-discovered daughter despite her origins. That’s a good thing. Regardless of how she came to be, she holds no accountability for the actions of her father. Or her mother. People are complex and where sexuality treads, you can be certain that misbehavior will happen. It always has. I love watching people moan about what others do in the bedroom. I’ve seen too many people do the same thing and then attempt to allege they’ve never behaved that way. It’s the same mindset that allows far too many people to disparage the younger generation, who aren’t straying far from the blueprint we created when we were younger.

In too many ways, my own dad echoed the pattern of Phil Robertson. He was a troublemaker fueled by alcoholism and anger. He too fathered a daughter that we didn’t know about for decades. Like Phil, my dad had affairs, especially when he was younger. I know that Phil had family members to love him. That part of his story makes me happy, happy, happy. He got to know the daughter from his wilder days. That’s the kind of acceptance that I always wish for for everyone involved.

My family comes from Southern roots just as Phil’s did. Both benefited from growing up in a society that legally denied equality to much of the population. It preached superiority and encouraged bigotry, all backed by the alleged support of their relgious beliefs. That stain takes generations to remove, if at all. It’s how we end up with people venerating the flags of defeated ideology and insisting that the cause was something more noble. God must have been wrong about slavery; otherwise, the side suppporting it would have prevailed. (Or so some people say, incorrectly asserting that universal right always prevails. It doesn’t.) The same is true for bigotry associated with being gay. If any book can be used to justify both sides, there’s either a problem with the book, the people interpreting it, or both.

Had a film crew documented everything my dad did and said, he too would have faced a backlash. The only difference is that Phil Robertson had the fame to use his limelight to spout. I’m not saying he was wrong about everything. He wasn’t. But if you look closely, you’ll see that his beliefs coincided with the values and things that supported his small circle’s way of life. His worldview didn’t allow for inclusion of people not like him.

Yesterday, I delved into the complexity of celebrities who believe nonnense. Elizabeth Moss and Tom Cruise of course entered the mix. We can engage with them as celebrities. That same celebrity gives them the money and means to disguise what lies behind their ideologies.

What bothers me most about the example of Phil Robertson is it leads to nonsense like the State of Texas attempting to mandate the commandments in public schools. It hasn’t worked in churches – and it won’t work in schools, either. It’s always about control and the imposition of people’s religious beliefs onto others. I can’t help that saying this pisses off those who follow an authoritarian version of religion.

What does work? Living the message of compassion. Education. Helping others. Prioritizing policies that improve people’s lives instead of starving them, denying them healthcare, or subjecting them to exclusionary behavior. Stop trying to condemn or control people. If you embody the message, you don’t need coercion or control. People gravitate toward authenticity. Loving behavior is demonstrably loving. That’s why we should value actions over words.

If you’re voting against giving people food, education, housing, or healthcare, but actively funding machinery of war and destruction, you’re not doing it right. If you’re rewarding the wealthy at the expense of those with less, I would say greed and corruption have infected you.

We constantly struggle against the narrow-mindedness of fear and prejudice disguised as both politics and religion.

That’s what got us to where we are. Phil was an integral part of the backlash that allowed an imposter to reinvent himself from a misogynist, failed businessman, and bigoted television star into a leader whose biggest contribution is anger and divisiveness.

It’s what gave us the powerful ficitonal example of those in Gilead, with one side using the name of God to insist they have the right to do almost anything to further their cause. The difference is that one side argues for equality and compassion, whereas the other fights for dominance, subjugation, and control.

Could Duck Dynasty entertain? Yes, of course. But it also masks our perceptions of what lay beneath it. It makes me think of another family member, one admired in his small pond of like-minded people. He despised minorities, gay people, and anyone different. He used his influence to ruin people’s lives if they attempted to ascend to his level. Not figuratively. Literally. And he did those things with God on his lips.

You can’t ignore the smirk and snarl behind the curtain. You get both when you entertwine celebrity and belief, just as you do with the people you know.

Behavior, Opinion

Thinking

05/15/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

Every once in a while I write a list like this one.

… Because the biggest myth of all is that we prioritize and reward logic and reason over emotion and poor thinking. The best idea does not win, nor does the process of discovery and innovation get the appreciation it deserves. It’s how we end up with people criticizing the scientific process or convincing themselves that the world is only 6,000 years old.

Almost every TV show and movie gets the science behind sleeping after a concussion wrong. Just like they do with CPR.

Diverticulitis is the perfect example of how science progresses. Despite the fact that we now know that eating popcorn and seeds doesn’t worsen diverticulitis, It will take years for the previous recommendations to stop affecting how people deal with their disease.

Supplements aren’t regulated like other medicines. While some people need them for specific beneficial medical purposes, they are by large a danger to most of us.

One of my favorites is the idiotic insistence that people not swim for an hour after they eat.

The same is true for stomach ulcers. We’ve known for years that they are caused by bacteria rather than stress.

Debunked claims that vaccines cause autism still cause havoc as poorly-informed people continue to repeat claims that they do. As is the case with the flu vaccine causing you to have the flu.

There’s no correlation to a full moon and aberrant behavior. But try telling people who believe it that there’s no evidence to support the claim.

Parents everywhere continue to believe that sugar causes their kids to be hyperactive. Study after study has shown this to be false.

People mistakenly believe that technology invariably causes social isolation. For every disadvantage, it creates the possibility of enhanced connection. Radio was going to be the downfall of civilization. TV was going to produce a generation of idiots.

Every generation for centuries has insisted that the younger generations are at fault for what’s wrong with society. That includes their work ethic and morals. It’s a ridiculous pyramid scheme of faulty logic and thinking.

The teen birthrate has continued to significantly fall over the last few decades. In general, do people believe it? The same holds true for crime and violence, generally speaking. Yet somehow, if you tell someone we are collectively safer, they’ll argue until their fingers fall off the remote control.

Bats aren’t blind.

Reading in the dark or sitting too close to the TV does not damage your vision.

The eight glasses of water a day myth won’t die either. Water consumed as part of your food counts, just as the water in coffee and soda does. Many people overhydrate, which can cause electrolyte imbalances as well as kidney problems. In general, urine is not meant to be clear all the time.

Napoleon wasn’t short. His height was normal for the time.

In conclusion, expecting people to dedicate themselves to learning is as foolish as deciding that someone who has declared bankruptcy several times is somehow a good business person. Or that someone who spews hate and dissent somehow embodies the ideals of a prophet that preached brotherly love and compassion.

Love, X
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