"No Kings" Protests Reveals Some Harsh Truths & Should Comics Have Performed at Saudi Arabia Festival?
October 21, 2025
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: Plato tells us what’s important as we age.
Ahead of No Kings events, Republicans’ anti-protest rhetoric takes an ugly turn: What’s dangerous to America isn’t the actual protest but the GOP campaign to characterize ALL people who disagree with Trump as terrorists or terrorist-adjacent.
Trump and White House Busted Using Red State Footage to Show ‘Chaos’ in Chicago: Trump tried to prove there was chaos in Chicago by showing footage of raids in Florida and passing them off as raids in Chicago.
Video Break: A goat protects a cat from an eagle. You’ll feel better about the world after you watch it.
Kareem’s Kvetching Korner: The Ethics of Comedy: A bunch of famous comedians performed in Saudi Arabia. There was major backlash. What I’m interested in here is how we decide where to draw the line between what’s ethical and unethical.
Sports Spout-Off: Egregious Hooks, Poor Conduct Earn Player 90-Day PPA Tour Suspension: America’s fastest growing sport is suffering from the same issues as other professional sports. This is a wake-up call to fix the issues or suffer the consequences.
What I’m Reading: You Are Fatally Invited is a flawed first mystery novel, but the suspenseful and twisted plot will put you in a forgiving mood. Classic Re-read: The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry is just as good now as it was 60 years ago when I first read it.
Magical Moments in Sports: I used to think I was pretty good at darts. Until I watched this.
Marvin Gaye Sings “What’s Going On”: Every once in a while, I will post this song—not just because I like it, but because I need it. Its message of love and peace may seem clichéd…until you look around at what’s going on.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden.
Plato (427-346 B.C.), Greek philosopher
Yes Plato, I think we all know that already. You’re basically saying that if we’re happy, we won’t be unhappy. The challenge, my friend, is how to achieve the “calm and happy nature” you’re talking about.
He’s right about youth and old age being similar burdens. They are both about coming to terms with your limitations. Youth is about limitations on freedom—the strong and passionate body’s actions being confined and controlled by adults. Age is about having control of your actions, but being confined and controlled by the waning body.
About aging: Imagine your tire developing a slow leak while you’re driving on a desert road with no civilization for 500 miles. You can’t find the leak and you don’t have a spare, but you do have a pump. So you keep driving, occasionally stopping to fill the tire with more air. But the leak persists. Each time you fill it, the leak empties the air faster. That leak is what being old feels like. I’m 78, so I have some experience with this leakage metaphor.
To many older people, this slow leak has to do with a feeling that some essential part of ourselves is constantly leaving the body. It shrinks, not just in size but in the sense of our presence in the world. We are always getting smaller—in terms of how others see us as oldsters and in how we see our own self-worth. That is the burden of age. Live with it.
Actually, learning to live with it goes back to Plato’s obvious observation. The best way to cope with shrinking is to not mind. We are important to those who love us, but not in the same way we were. Where once we were the powerful parent and spouse, we are now the kindly and benign grandparent. Where once we were bosses with responsibility, or formidable athletes running for hours, we now plod along as others rush past us like we were inconvenient obstacles rather than people. Better to embrace that rather than rage against it. It is the emptying of the ego and all its insecure needs to take on a new, more realistic identity.
Mostly, the younger world sees us as temporary, short-term renters in a world of house owners. They aren’t wrong. But within that view we oldsters are gifted with the superpower of no longer caring so much what other people think. One of the things I’ve done in my life to achieve some state of calm and happiness is to avoid people I don’t like and have little chance of liking in the future. There was a time when I would try to overcome my own pettiness in such matters. But I realize that not everyone deserves that effort. So, when there’s someone I can’t stand, I won’t go anywhere they are. It’s surprising how much difference that has made.
I also stopped doing a lot of things that were more an obligation than a joy. Once I realized that the world will get along just fine when I’m gone, I decided that so would a lot of social functions get along without me right now. What a relief that has been.
I’m not saying I’ve withdrawn from the world—just the opposite. I visit family and friends more. I read, watch movies and TV shows, write, and think. I’ve embraced the world I want to live in, creating more time for that world by jettisoning the things that interfere with my calm and happy nature. Works for me.