How Much Is That Robot In the Window?

Robots have captured our imaginations for generations. They have won our hearts as well. Some of the most beloved characters in pop culture and fiction have been robots.

But robots have also shown the potential to take over our brains and destroy entire planets. Whew. Take it easy, Big Guy!

Now scientists have unveiled once again plans for caretaker robots that promise to make live easier for all of us.

How about a babysitter robot? Or one that could help police investigate crimes? Or monitor prisoners?

I’m thinking about robots that could even be more practical…mow the lawn…pick the vegetables. WOW! We might not need illegal aliens within a few years! Think about the possibilities! And we could program the robots to speak only ENGLISH!!

SO…maybe robots could work the fast food drive-thru windows and take the toll money, too!

But wait…uh oh. Scientists are worrying about what will happen if robots become autonomous. Right now robots are either connected to a cord or controlled by a remote that HUMANS command. But what happens when the cord is cut? Will robots rebel just like in the movies?

So maybe we should wait a while. What’s the rush? Let’s work out all the bugs first.

In the meantime, I will vacuum my own floors and take care of my children the way I am supposed to anyway.

And we can always pop in STAR WARS or ROBOTS if we need to get our fix.

Sorry To Remind You But...

Today is Friday the 13th. Sorry to remind you, but it is. I know, I know. Your day was going SO well, too, before I had to go and ruin it for you. Now you will trip on the porch steps, step under a ladder, or have your car break down, and it will all be my fault.

So...are you a Paraskevidekatriaphobic? Big word, isn't it? And very hard to say. But it applies to you if you have a fear of today.

The origins of this fear date back to ancient times and various stories have been passed down. But there is no question that many people will not fly today. They will not get married on this day. They will not make important decisions on this day. And many buildings, if you take the time to notice, don't even have a "13th floor" button in the elevator.

But is there really any merit to these fears and superstitions? If you were having a great day before reading this commentary, and all of a sudden things go south for you in a hurry, isn't that just mind over matter? Isn't that just the classic example of a self fulfilling prophecy?

Great things will happen to you today. Maybe. Maybe not. But don't ever let a date on the calendar paralyze you the way it does for some. YOU are the captain of this great and wonderful day. YOU are in control of whether it is glorious or painfully awful. It's your DECISIONS and OUTLOOKS today that will make or break the weekend for you.

So go out and do what needs to be done. Live. Live hard and with purpose. And don't let a term you can't even pronounce get the better of you.

The computer I am typing this on just stopped working, but I assure you, it is purely coincidence. Let's knock on wood and hope so.

See You In The Funny Papers!

See you in the funny papers! I remember hearing that saying a lot when I was a child. You don’t hear it as much anymore, if at all. Maybe that’s because the funnies don’t play as large of a role as they once did.

The funny papers referred to the comic strip section of the newspaper. I have fond memories as a child of grabbing that part of the paper every Sunday when my father came back from the store with San Francisco Chronicle. Or if the paper was delivered, I would run to the door just to read this one section. My parents could take the rest of the paper. As a kid, that was the ONLY section that mattered. And it was no different with the daily comics. I used to cut them out and read them again later, I enjoyed them so much.

Why makes me think of all this today? Johnny Hart died over the weekend. Who? The cartoonist who brought us the comic strip “B.C.” since 1958. He was also known for “The Wizard of Id”, which I personally always enjoyed more.

My comic strip reading days are largely over. Not that I don’t like a good laugh or anything. The tradition just sort of…died somewhere along the road of life. They no longer seemed funny to me. There ARE a few good ones left, but the “Mother Goose & Grimm” caliber strips are a rarity indeed.

Ever read some of the newer strips and feel like you just don’t get them? They ceased to entertain me. Sort of like comedians. It seems like my favorite comedians are either dead or aging rapidly. Will the comedians of today ever reach the legendary status of a Groucho Marx or a Milton Berle? Will there ever be strips to outdo “Hagar The Horrible”, “Peanuts”, or “The Far Side”?

Maybe it’s the nature of humor that has changed? Or maybe I am just getting old and jaded? Maybe so. But give me a good Groucho Marx double entendre or a classic “Garfield” any day of the week.

See you in the funny papers. And if not, I will certainly “see” you on the air.

The News According to Hughes

The title of this blog entry sounds like something a bully would tell some poor hapless kid in the schoolyard. But this message was conveyed most recently by an Idaho Junior High School.

When the kids were $600 in the red for their hot lunch meals, the school tried contacting parents for payment. And then they went to the students themselves when they came to the cafeteria. When all this failed, the lunch crew decided to make a public mockery of the kids who hadn’t paid up.

The school officials took their hot lunches and dumped them into the trash! They then handed them brown bag lunches! In front of EVERYONE!

What on earth? These are junior high students! They are KIDS! Why humiliate them like this! The main point here is that the PARENTS are the ones responsible for the meals of their children. The PARENTS owe that $600, not the students themselves. I don’t know any parent who would make their 11, 12, or 13-year-old pay for their own meals at school! This debt falls on the parents, not the students.

I can understand not wanting to go any further into the red. I can understand the frustration school employees must have felt from unresponsive parents. But don’t take it out on the kids by humiliating them in front of their peers. Why the need to dump their food into the trash? Why waste perfectly good food? Why not take that food to a shelter or save it for the next kid in line?

Public humiliation has its role in our society when it comes to punishing criminals (creative sentences like wearing sandwich boards that admit crimes committed for all to see). But these kids are hardly criminals. If anything, it’s the parents that need the steady pressure to pay up.

The parents and the school employees are the adults here. It’s time that all of them start acting like it.