Really now, a realistic view: Expect nothing of value to occur. Should anything happen to go well, be pleasantly floored, realizing the usual state of our primitive efforts in any regard usually ends in catastrophe and collapse.
This is a cautionary prescription for improved mental health, as most primate miseries stem from dashed hopes for better, staggering survivors of crashed expectations. This is less pessimism than a Futilitarian view, which dictionaries describe as the belief that human striving most often is futile. Sounds truthful and downright utilitarian, if you ask me.
Anyone claiming devout connections to the universal grid will preach you a warning list said to be handed down from on high, these top ten guidelines to help us crazed monkeys keep out of our own, and harm's, way. The first three items on that stony list are rocky warnings to take the stone tablets seriously. (This may be where the healthy truism started, to take two tablets, and, call me later, although I would not take that tableted tale for, uh, granite.)
Ten items: long enough to seem inclusive, short enough that even monkeys could easily keep them in mind, not that we do, of course, the sanctimonious least of all. The Top Ten includes nothing new: Have no other gods, have no idols, honor the deity's name, honor the worship-and-rest day, honor your parents, do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie, do not covet.
On Monday, August 6, 1945, after six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities,...
In its 38 years of existence, the USA TODAY Editorial Board has never endorsed a candidate for president....
