Weirdness with Richard Bleil
Today, what do you say we just bloviate? I love this word. It’s fun, and everybody feels as if it sounds familiar, but I wonder how many people really understand what it means. See, you can bloviate about anything. I could bloviate about Superman if I wanted to. See, I think that Superman was a coward. Everyone seems to think he was this great heroic (albeit fictional) character, but where is the heroism? Until Lex discovered Kryptonite, he was completely invincible. He couldn’t drown, he could fly into space, he wasn’t harmed by flames, bullets bounced off of him, he could do anything. So, where’s the heroism? Am I a hero when I kill a wasp? The wasp might be able to stink me, but it can’t do a lot of harm to me, so why would I be a hero? Superman could walk into any situation, with as many bad guys as you can imagine, and know he would be harmed no more than if he were facing slugs in a garden.
So if Superman wasn’t a hero, why should I contend that he is a coward? Well, if you think about it, he could have and do anything, and he had no needs at all. So, what did he do? He became a good guy. By being a good guy, yes, he faced the bad guys, but he never had to face the good guys. He never had to face cops, or the military, or anybody. Even as a bad guy, the other bad guys might still be out to get him for cutting into their turf, but by being a good guy, he cut back on the number of people out to get him by more than half. Far more than half, in fact. He never had to face anybody but a few bad guys.
So are you starting to see what it means to bloviate? It means to prattle on. To bloviate is to talk endlessly about something that is basically meaningless. We’re all used to bloviating, especially by politicians. Trump continues to bloviate about winning an election that he clearly lost, and now he can bloviate about how unfairly the FBI is treating him when they executed a properly obtained search warrant. He’s angry because he tried to get the FBI to go after his political “enemies” with no search warrants, and no evidence whatsoever of criminal wrongdoing. It’s just fuel for his bloviating about, well, frankly nothing at all. I’ve stopped listening. I’ve never heard so much whining from any politician before, so let him bloviate on.
So now I need to find another topic on which to bloviate. Of course, I’ve been bloviating here on BleilBanter.Blog for several years now. That’s really all it is, just bloviation? Is that a word? Well, spell check didn’t call me on it, so I guess it is. I miss Bush Jr. making up words, while we’re on the topic. I wonder if presidents are really as dumb as they seem, or if it’s just a game to make them appear more relatable. Quail couldn’t spell “potato”, which wasn’t really an issue, but he really missed a golden opportunity. If I lost a spelling bee to a third grader, I would have told the press that of course I lost, he was such a better speller wink-wink-nod-nod. Instead, there were stories about how some people do spell potato “potatoe”. No, they really don’t. The plural spelling is “potatoes”, but just one is “potato”, even today. And yes, he lost the election.
I wonder what ever happened to that word processor paperclip? “It looks like you’re writing a ransom note. Would you like some help?” No, thank you, I got this. Umm…how do you spell a bullion dollars? I never actually used the paperclip. Usually, I set it to the Einstein. I guess it was a little bit insulting to put Einstein with his brilliance on the same level as a paperclip helping me to write a ransom note. I never thought about that until just now. I wonder if Einstein would be offended or amused to see his likeness asking if I need help writing the ransom note. Uh, not that I’ve ever actually written a ransom note for her.
To bloviate means to prattle on endlessly about nothing significant at all. Like so many Zoom meetings I’ve attended. I’ve signed up for yet another one, this time on Real Estate Ethics. I wonder if it will be taught by the same guy who told our Real Estate class that if somebody wants to actually read the contract before signing, you should lie and threaten and force them to just sign the damn thing because a greasy fast-food burger is calling your name. Somehow, that doesn’t seem very ethical to me. Of course, I haven’t had the ethics course yet, so maybe I don’t know what ethics are. Maybe I’m the unethical one in thinking the individual should have been treated with respect and allowed to read the contract he was about to sign. How do I know? I’m just an unethical punk, after all.
End of bloviation.
Bleil's Banter 