I am so damn smart, I scare me sometimes.

by Angela K. Durden


Dear Reader,

I am so damn smart, I scare me sometimes. Used to scare my ex, too, because he often said, "Well, how about that. You're sooooo smart. You know everything, don't you?"

Of course, given that I work hard on staying humble and making the most of my humility, I would try to disabuse him of those notions and would purposefully say something that would make him think he was so much smarter than me and that whatever smarta— errrr...I mean to say — whatever wisdom had fallen from my lips was purely accidental and in no way meant that he was stupid. He would then say, "You damn right, woman, and don't you forget it. Where's my coffee?"

Oh, yes, I knew just how he liked his coffee, and never forgot. Which means he benefited from my smartness but did he appreciate that?

Thank goodness I don't have to play those games anymore — especially with you, Dear Reader. Which brings us to the reason for today's column.

I've been saying it forever.

I've been writing it for years.

I even put it into a novel I wrote.

And now — finally! — agreeing with me are researchers at the American universities of Arizona, Southern Methodist, Iowa, and Indiana, and an Australian organization called First Person Consulting, whose mission statement says they are seen as "a leading contributor of services which strive towards a sustainable, just and fair world", have officially come out and said —

HELLO! WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!

Following the headline above were 154 comments. A perusal showed some women agreed with me, though there were the other women — you can be sure they are pussy-hat wearers — who got snarky and started with the insults. But let's focus on those who agreed. (See below.) Quite a few did not want to put their picture with their comment, preferring the old "egg head" for fear of reprisals from female coworkers. They aren't stupid. But just because one is smart does not guarantee success.

The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 9:11 that "the swift do not always win the race, nor do the mighty always win the battle, nor do the wise always have the food, nor do the intelligent always have the riches, nor do those with knowledge always have success, because time and unforeseen occurrence befall them all."

And that, Dear Reader, explains a lot. You can thank Yahweh, another writer, for that wisdom. He is smarter than your Citizen Journalist.

Citizen Journalist.  Novelist. Author of other stuff. 

Business writer.  Songwriter.  Protecting creator's copyrights. 

Hello. My name is Angela and I am powerless over...

I hide my addiction and
powerlessness well.
I know. I am living a lie,
but what can I do about it?

by Angela K. Durden

I am ashamed to admit it, but chasing after my next hit of cheese has been the main theme of my life. I once drove from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia to the state's capital city to buy ten pounds of the most pure sharp cheddar you can imagine. My eyes still glaze over when I think of those highs.

Anyway, I had to pay for the gas I just pumped. What was I going to do? I watched as, one after another, people exited the convenience store.

Finally, I said, "Hey, buddy. Pssst...over here."

He leered at me. I said, "So...ummm...I've got something mighty powerful you might like...[I gestured nonchalantly]...in the back seat." I lifted my eyebrows and slowly sucked air between my teeth on the inhale.

He smiled bigger and drawled, "Oh, yeah, suhweet baybee? And just what might that be, littul laydee?"

"Oh, honey," says I, "you are gonna like this." I opened the back door, picked up a corner of a blanket covering a cooler. Lifted the lid so he could get a peek. His semi-sexy leer dropped away and he licked his lips.

Can I pick a fellow addict out of a crowd, or what? I sold two pounds of it to him for just enough to fill my tank. He was desperate and I got a price above market.

Once [tee-hee-hee] I sneaked three cubes of cheese into a music concert at The Tabernacle in downtown Atlanta. It was missed in a cursory search. Security may have been a bit lax because the band was not a former or upcoming Grammy winner though at the time hopes were high. Still, they were good. Who was the band? Let me think...

Well, you know what they say? If you remember it, you weren't there.

And then there was this other time [hahahahahahahaha] I got some primo product past a TSA agent coming out of the BVA. Ah, yes...good times. But, that's what we addicts do, right? Take chances because that just increases the high.

However, all that is nothing compared to what I did regularly at home.
I peddled cheese to my children.
Yes! I did. And was not ashamed of it.

I sneaked sheets of flat cheese into their sandwiches, and poured a semi-solid version of it over hot macaroni. I sprinkled a dried form of it over their spaghetti, and shredded hard blocks of it, piling two pounds high atop pizza, then melting it, for Gods sake, so that it would string out and we could make a game of it.

But wait. It gets worse.

To entice the children and my husband further into my addiction, once I cut the cheese into little cubes and placed each atop a Ritz cracker covered in liquid yellow mustard. One huge full platter of it I placed in front of them. To keep them from questioning what Mother was doing, distraction came in the form of a movie on the new TV I won in a grocery store giveaway.

The color on that set was Un. Be. Leev. Abul. As God is my witness, my husband, daughter, and children had no idea I took them for a trip around the bay. No worries. We got back the same day.

But, what kind of a mother does that? 

Tell me. Still, the question is: I know I am addicted to cheese, but why? That answer is now here thanks to researchers at the University of Michigan.

Let me publicly thank U of M for revealing that cheese contains a chemical found in addictive drugs. It is called casein and is found in all dairy products, though mostly cheese is the worst as it is so highly concentrated. Pound for pound, cheese has ten times more of the offending chemical than milk.

"It can trigger the brain’s opioid receptors, producing a feeling of euphoria linked to those of hard drug addiction," reports the Standard.com.uk.

They say the first step is admitting. Well...here goes.

"Hello. My name is Angela and I am powerless over cheese."

As of today, my drugs of choice, fully stocked in the fridge. 

There. I've admitted it publicly. Step One is done. Now you and the whole world knows why my life has always been so unmanageable.

But Step Two is problematic. If you can tell me what is more powerful than cheese, I sure would appreciate it because supposedly that will be the only thing to restore me to sanity.

Citizen Journalist.  Novelist. Author of other stuff. 

Business writer.  Songwriter.  Protecting creator's copyrights. 

No easy answer to the question of gun violence.

by Angela K. Durden
Technology inventor protecting creator's copyrights. Business writer, novelist, songwriter, and Citizen Journalist.

I made this short video of me using the interactive chart on gun deaths at FiveThirtyEight.com. I encourage you to go to the website and use it yourself. But...

...more important than this chart are the methodologies to collect information that goes into it. For instance, how a medical examiner labels a gun death decides which category in the above chart it will go into. 

Liberal Democratic Socialist Politically Correct Commie RINO Fascists who scream gun control and the NRA is the Devil, would never see an ambiguity if it walked up and slapped them in face. 

Yet the subject is full of ambiguity. Suicide, accicental, homicide, or unintentional death involving a gun? Which is it? You might think the answer is cut and dried, but it often isn't. Two medical examiners can see the same situation and come to different conclusions. And if the case goes to court, the surrounding facts can then change. Was it an intentional or accidental homicide? 

Does the technical term for the death reflect the situation on the ground? Often, no. In fact, all parts of the subject of guns are...well, subjective. 

Given that, the folks at FiveThirtyEight.com have done a fine job of parsing the data. They did such a fine job, that even that bastion of Liberal Media itself, the Washington Post, ran a story on the ambiguity of the subject. You can read that here. 

Of course, the big challenge is...

...how to get the Liberal Democratic Socialist Politically Correct Commie RINO Fascists to understand ambiguity. I don't think we can. 

The laws of probability say that if you are reading this article, then you understand the nature of ambiguity and the role it plays in life. You then can extrapolate from that its role in the subject of guns. 

But how many Liberal Democratic Socialist Politically Correct Commie RINO Fascists are reading this? If you are one of those, it would be most helpful if you could, pretty please, self-identify by leaving a comment below or emailing me at angeladurden@msn.com. 

Think about the Las Vegas shooting

When I hear "mass shooting", I always think it is one, maybe two, actors. But it can be more. Democratic government representatives, despots, dictators, and others in power, have ordered mass shootings. We tend not to think of those incidents if they involve race riots or genocide. But they are. 

See? Ambiguity quoted by MSM equals misled public. 

Which is why the likes of me are on the rise. 

Your Citizen Journalist thanks you for your time and patient consideration.