Should I hate Lyle for causing me a decade of pain or is his willful ignorance its own punishment?
Part II - Exciting conclusion
As promised, this is the exciting conclusion. You can refresh your memory of Part I by clicking HERE. We ended last time wondering what restaurant Broomhilda was going to pick as winner of a most despicable bet. But here’s the thing:
Lyle does not honor his bets. It's probably wrong to even use his name in the same sentence with the word honor.
The restaurant of her choice turned out to be whatever Lyle wanted to do, which is generally the way things work with him.
He barbequed ribs that had to be chewed quite thoroughly and did not take into account that both Broomhilda and her husband would have preferred any restaurant where they could have gotten a nice piece of fish.
In terms of character, integrity, honesty and such, reneging on a bet is the pits.
A man is only as good as his word and if his word is no good, then neither is he. Breaking a bet with a friend is literally stealing from that friend and, for me, the end of the friendship.
Lyle and I had a couple of bets involving the 2016 election, both of which he lost. He mentioned it a couple of times in subsequent years, but at no time offered to pay me the $100 dollars he still owes me.
I have to think that when golfing with his business buddies, bets are made that involve beers, dinner or actual cash payments. I can't imagine anyone doing business with a guy who reneges on those little golf wagers.
Maybe as someone who offers no financial benefits or business opportunities, I have no value to Lyle.
I always thought that they way you treat people who can't do anything for you is what really speaks to your character, but that may be outdated.
Then of course, there's the good feeling of graciously paying off a bet and saying, Looks like you were right, my friend.
At any rate, I wrote Lyle off as a ne'er do well, petty liar.
Lyle is a successful businessman and a pretty good athlete. He's sociable and funny and I'm sure, in some circles well regarded. He just doesn't know anything.
Yes, he knows a lot about his business, maybe even more than most in his line of work, but in terms of history, civics, the Constitution, law or current events, he knows nothing.
He repeats whatever TuKKKer Carlson says and if you question it, he just keeps yelling at increasingly louder volume, It's a fact. IT'S A FACT. IT'S A FACT!
Like all in the Fox bubble, Lyle can't tell the difference between bias and outright lies, a common trait among those whose lives are immersed in lies; lies that they tell themselves and lies that they tell each other.
They don’t know that most of the folks on MSNBC are former Republicans who got fed up with Fox and their fellow Republicans covering for the most prolific, anti-American liar in American political history.
They left their party after it abandoned conservative principles - all principles, in fact - for Donnie Trump.
Joe Scarborough was a Republican congressman who was deemed too far to the Right to get elected in Florida’s 1st District (he served from 1995 to 2001).
Nicolle Wallace worked in the Bush 43 White House, could probably hear Dick Cheney’s pacemaker clicking from her office.
Charlie Sykes has been a Conservative commentator for decades.
Michael Steele was the head of the Republican National Committee, for Pete’s sake. Lyle doesn’t know any of this, of course, because Lyle doesn’t know anything.
He made a point of telling me after the election that he sold all his stocks, no doubt because Donnie told him that the stock market would die if President Biden was elected.
As of December 31, 2023, Lyle missed about 10,000 points of the Dow rally, simply because he’s a lunkhead.
Lyle can yell Benghazi with the best (worst) of them, but he couldn't find it on a map with a headlamp and magnifying glass.
If you're worried that he is going to read this and take offense, don't be. Lyle takes pride in not subscribing to my work.
If you send it to him, he won't read it. Too damn many words.
In 2014 a questionnaire was given to the graduating class of Harvard, most of it just some random informational stuff. One of the surprising things that came out of it was that only about half of the graduates could correctly identify which countries fought on the side of the Allies in WWII and which were the Axis powers.
My contemporary, Malcom and I always laugh about how "younger" people never get our movie references. For a lot of them, there is only Top Gun Maverick and they have no idea who Goose was.
We live in a world of now and history has no meaning. Without any historical reference of how we got here, we have no basis for rejecting nonsense. It's OK if what you tell me today completely contradicts what you told me yesterday, just point me to the enemy.
It's those who should know better that break my heart. I find it very hard to accept that people who have lived through the same era as me, who have seen the same things as me can now redefine America's enemies as anyone with whom they disagree. And there is nothing to suggest that it will get better in my lifetime.
I struggle with those whom I categorize as willfully ignorant as well. If one likes to watch tucker, one should seek out opposing views such as maddow. I've somehow retained my compassion for those who are simply caught up in the tribalism of our ever increasing polarized society who are simply ill-informed or indeed ignorant. You don't know what you don't know. Sadly, I've lost hope for all past college age or so. Most are no longer able or willing to have an open mind. I still have faith in our nation/world's youth, well, except maybe for the tide pod eating ones. :-)