Simplicity Lost
Sam Aurelius Milam III
Every time that I'm disgusted by excessive complexity in a design, I hope that it will be the last time.  It never is.  A friend recently mentioned to me that his computer monitor has a computer in it.  The computer in the monitor controls all those little settings like vertical height, horizontal width, and so forth.  What nonsense.  You don't need a computer for that.  All you need is a little row of knobs along the front of the monitor.  I heard a report on NPR in which a stapler company was praised for its ingenuity in developing high-tech ways to staple pieces of paper together.  For Pete's sake!  The old stapler that I use is so simple that it will never wear out.  I've been using it for so long that I don't even remember when or where I got it.  Why on Earth would I want a high-tech stapler that provides the exact same result — stapled paper — which will cost ten times as much, which will probably fail as a consequence of its complexity within just a few years, and for which a replacement oscillating gravistrut will not be available?  I have an old Sony stereo that was built sometime during the 70s and, after 30 years, it still works.¹  Sure, I'll admit that over the years a couple of its controls have gotten a little dirty.  Sometimes, I have to wiggle one or another of the knobs a little to get it to make a connection.  So what?  The stereo still receives NPR and even plays audio streams and CDs from my computer.  If it had, itself, been controlled by an internal computer then it would have been "obsolete", incompatible, or failed to function about 28 years ago.
I dread the day that my old washing machine finally dies for keeps and all of the available replacements are the kind that talk to me about the way I loaded the laundry.  I dread the day that I need to buy a new refrigerator and discover that every model available includes a computer that scans the labels of the refrigerator's contents and automatically orders milk for me over the internet.  I dread the day that I can no longer unlock my front door with a simple key but must, instead, stare into a retinal scanner, submit a DNA sample to the lock, and type a phrase into the house computer.  There's nothing wrong with technology so long as I have a choice about using it.  If some nitwits want to use a high-tech monstrosity to staple a couple of pieces of paper together then they should have that choice² but I want a choice, too.  If I want a washing machine that doesn't verbally chastise me for leaving out the fabric softener then I want to be able to buy that kind of washing machine.  If I go down to the K-Mart and pick up a product from the shelf and all I want to do is turn it over in my hands and look at it, then I don't want a computer to detect my action and launch an unsolicited dissertation regarding the product's alleged virtues.  All I want to do is turn the thing over in my hands and marvel in smug superiority at its idiotic complexity.
The option to buy simple products is being slowly eliminated — today even some flashlights have computers in them — by the insanely ingenious designers who are designing only increasingly complex products, by the insanely mercenary marketers who are promoting those products, and by the insanely gullible customers who are buying the crap.  In consumer goods, as in everything else today, simplicity is a lost art and complexity is a sign of incompetence.

Letters to the Editor
Sam:
Regarding the food bank requiring you to show identification:  anti-communists like to point out Stalin's use of starvation as a weapon to implement communism in the Ukraine.  But here we have the exact same policy:  either conform to the dictates of the state, or starve.  One wonders how this fits in with President Bush's claims that the United States is fighting for "liberty"?  (Of course, Bush's claims are a hypocritical joke, given the PATRIOT ACT and his pursuit of the war on drugs.) 
You'd think that liberals would oppose the ID requirement as it is a civil liberties violation, and conservatives because it is big government, and clergy because, as you point out, it requires them to serve two masters.  No such luck, they are all on their knees before the state! 
Which brings me to my real point.  When Americans scratch their heads and ask how is it that Stalin could kill millions, that the Nazis could implement the Holocaust, etc., they really do not want to hear the answer, namely that these same Americans would have done the same.  "Just following orders" is the ultimate defense.  At least there was resistance to the communists and Nazis, but in the United States, the sheeple march on blindly.

Anagrams
Original Source Unknown.  Forwarded by Don G.

•		George Bush — He Bugs Gore
•		Dormitory — Dirty Room
•		Evangelist — Evil's Agent
•		Desperation — A Rope Ends It
•		The Morse Code — Here Come Dots
•		Slot Machines — Cash Lost in Em
•		Animosity — Is No Amity
•		Mother-in-law — Woman Hitler
•		Snooze Alarms — Alas No More Z's
•		A Decimal Point — I'm a Dot in Place
•		The Earthquakes — That Queer Shake
•		Eleven plus two — Twelve plus one
•		President Clinton of the USA — To Copulate he finds Interns

Frontiersman  1510 North 22nd Drive Show Low, Arizona  85901          Mandated and enforced equality is a form of repression.

Buck Hunter Shoots Off His Mouth
Dear Buck
How often do you do a fast?

Dear Sanctified Faithful
How often do I do a fast what?

You know you're in California when ....
Original Source Unknown.  Forwarded by David, of Idaho Falls, Idaho.

•		Your hairdresser is heterosexual, your plumber is homosexual, the woman who delivers your mail is into S&M, and your Mary Kay rep is a guy in drag.
•		Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks wearing the baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney really IS George Clooney.
•		It's barely sprinkling rain outside, so you leave for work an hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents.
•		Hey!!!!  Is Pot Illegal????