Cagle World

President Biden recently sent an email to 153,000 student-loan borrowers reminding them to vote for him this autumn.

Actually, his email said that he is going to put America into even more hock to repay the college loans they had willingly taken out years ago.

Putting it bluntly, his email said that the millions of Americans who repaid their student loans, or worked two or three jobs to minimize their college borrowing, or who never went to college at all, must cover the debt of 153,000 people who did.

As it goes, last summer, the Supreme Court said Biden’s ambitious $20,000-per-student college loan-forgiveness plan — which would have cost the rest of us $420 billion — was unconstitutional.

Not to worry, Biden’s staff quickly went to work looking for other avenues to relieve student-loan debt.

They looked for wiggle room in a law that was passed nearly 60 years ago, the Higher Education Act, that they said gives the Secretary of Education the ability to waive student-loan debt.

That bureaucratic trick gave them the authority to forgive debt for the 153,000 people enrolled in the income-driven SAVE program — Saving on a Valuable Education — who originally borrowed $12,000 or less and have made payments for at least 10 years.

Of course, the program doesn’t “save” anything. It simply transfers the bill for about $1.2 billion to the rest of us.

To date Biden boasts he has “saved” $138 billion for 3.9 million borrowers.

But those savings are tacked right onto our $34 trillion national debt that, thanks to the reckless spending of both parties in Washington, is on track to hit $54 trillion in 10 years.

Which brings us back to the student-loan situation.

The New York Times shares the story of Biden visiting the home of one student-loan borrower, 49-year-old educator Eric Fitts.

The middle-aged elementary school principal, who still owed $125,000 in college loans, told Biden “how much of a burden it was and how much of a barrier it was for certain things and opportunities,” reports the Times.

I feel for Fitts. Debt is unpleasant. But why didn’t he consider the consequences of all that debt BEFORE he willingly signed the paperwork to borrow it and promise to pay it back?

Why didn’t millions of other young Americans – or their parents — think things through before they took on a cumulative $1.7 trillion in student-loan debt?

I’m not sure how this student-loan situation is going to play out come voting time.

On one hand, no small number of able-bodied young people feel it is not their responsibility to pay off the college debt they willingly took on. They will vote for the candidates who promise them more forgiveness.

On the other hand, I’m betting a lot more people who did make great sacrifices to repay their college debts are not only angered at being forced to repay other people’s loans, they’re worried about this country’s financial future.

They’re worried that millions of Americans feel no shame about letting others relieve them of their financial responsibilities — and that millions couldn’t care less about America’s runaway spending and debt.

They’ll likely vote against candidates like Biden who are trying to buy their votes with their own taxpayer contributions.

Then, again…

Hey, Joe, if you cut me a check for the $15,000 in student loans and interest I paid back years ago, I’ll consider giving you my vote!

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Copyright 2024 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

When I read about the “silent book club” trend, it filled me with instant calm and hope.

As it goes, in 2012, two friends in San Francisco came up with the idea for a non-formal social event in which book lovers can gather at a coffee house or pub, then read together in silence for an hour or so, after which they may discuss any thoughts about what they are reading and socialize.

There is something very special about being immersed in a great work of fiction or nonfiction that brings about a peacefulness and enrichment that few other activities can bring.

A deep dive into someone’s life story, economics, history, the cosmos or so many other curiosities in our incredibly rich world not only makes us calmer, but it improves our ability to think and concentrate and become wiser and more open to the thoughts of others.

Goodness knows we need more free-thinking in these highly-agitated and partisan times.

Book reading has been in decline for a long time because it must compete with other forms of entertainment.

I remember seeing author Kurt Vonnegut, whose colorful writings are still enjoyable, talking about this challenge to book reading with other now-deceased authors on a talk-show clip on YouTube that must be 40 years old.

He said that until radio came along, books were the only form of entertainment for most people, particularly in the winters when there was nothing else to do in the evening but read.

Radio and TV offered alternatives to reading. And now social media, streaming TV, podcasts and so much more have really put a dent into our book reading.

According to a 2022 Gallup survey, the average American reads about 12 books a year, two or three books fewer than 20 years prior.

However, the steepest decline, according to Gallup, is among people who had been the most avid readers — college graduates but also women and older Americans.

“College graduates,” Gallup found, “read an average of about six fewer books in 2021 than they did between 2002 and 2016, 14.6 versus 21.1.”

To me this is concerning because book reading improves your ability to concentrate and focus — skills that especially need to be nurtured at a time when attention spans are also in steep decline, as millions jump from one short TikTok or Instagram video to another.

Why is this concerning?

Because concentration and intelligence go hand-in-hand.

The ability to evaluate ideas and delineate between ideas that are silly and false and ideas that are effective and true is important in any democracy.

If we lose the ability to see through bunk, we are at risk of electing officials who put their personal gain before the good of the republic.

Concentration and clear thinking are also important to engaging in thoughtful conversation with others who hold different ideas than our own — and books can nurture our ability to get back to more thoughtful discussions.

Gathering together to read, talk and socialize is as good an idea as I’ve heard in a long time. I am hungry for such camaraderie.

Besides, I’ve got a stack of classic books I’ve been meaning to get to that include Mark Twain, O’Henry, James Michener and Mary Shelley.

Did you know Shelley wrote her famous Frankenstein work when she was only 18?

Now there’s an anecdote to share at a silent book club gathering.

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Copyright 2024 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

With all the changes modern life is bringing us, here’s one that makes me sad: romance is dying.

Here are some interesting romance trends, as reported in CNN health:

– The percentage of Americans who don’t have a steady partner is up 50% since 1986.

– Americans are less likely to have sex than at any point since 1989.

– Fewer Americans are celebrating Valentine’s Day now than they did at the end of the 2000s.

Psychology Today reports that millennials between the age of 27 and 42 are “resisting entering into serious relationships because they may involve love.”

“With many millennials up to their ears in college debt and children of divorced parents, love is often perceived by members of that generation as a luxury they cannot afford, or as a foolish enterprise on which to embark,” says Psychology Today.

It’s heartbreaking to see so many people so cynical at such a young age. Their lack of hopefulness is costing them so many opportunities, including the opportunity to experience lasting love.

Pursuing lasting love is risky. It means you must open yourself up to the possibility of tremendous hurt.

But as the great poet Tennyson wrote, “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Love is one of the strongest feelings or emotions a human can know, yet strong feelings have been on the outs since the early 1970s, according to Manhattan Institute scholar Kay S. Hymowitz.

A Wall Street Journal article she wrote in 1995, notes Psychology Today, argues that strong feelings, such as love, became frowned upon as far back as the early 1970s, partly as a result of the feminist movement.

Terms such as “boyfriend,” “girlfriend,” “dating” and “commitment” started losing favor, as they limited one’s personal freedom.

Fast forward to 2024 and the “rigid” past in which couples courted with the end goal of marriage has given way to a meaningless hookup culture that robs individuals of experiencing a deep, lasting, highly-satisfying connection with another human being.

We need only examine modern love songs to see how well the hookup culture is working out.

Consider the lyrics to Dean Martin’s 1953 hit song, “That’s Amore.”

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie
That’s amore
When the world seems to shine like you’ve had too much wine
That’s amore

The longing for an innocent, romantic love was very strong in 1953, when my mother and father were courting — their love story still fills their offspring with tremendous joy and satisfaction.

How do Dino’s innocent, hopeful lyrics compare with those of modern love songs? Let’s take a look at Billboard’s top three “Hot 100 Songs” for 2023:

Number 1: “Last Night,” by Morgan Wallen, shares the details of a whiskey-fueled argument a fellow had with his girlfriend, who slammed the door in his face on the way out.

Number 2: “Flowers,” by Miley Cyrus, is about a woman who leaves her man and convinces herself she doesn’t need him because she can hold her own hand and love herself better than he can.

Number 3: In “Kill Bill,” by SZA, a woman plots to kill her ex and vows that his new girlfriend is going to be next!

Well, there you have it.

Modern love songs capture well the sorry state of romance in 2024.

And now you know why the death of romance is making me so sad.

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Copyright 2024 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

I’m in hiding again, as I always am this time of the year.

We’re in the thick of Girl Scout Cookie season, after all, and I’m on my winter diet.

I’m easy prey for the young, highly skilled sales ladies who will no doubt one day run our companies and government organizations with tremendous cunning and skill.

So incredibly organized are they, avoiding them is no easy feat.

When I go to the grocery store, I duck in and out through back doors, avoiding the front entrance, where they are posted like security guards.

At home I pull down my blinds and lock the doors, on guard for small gangs of young ladies at my front door who, chaperoned by parents eager for their future CEOs to break Girl Scout sales records, brazenly push their sugary addictions.

I shun social media, where “friends” with Girl Scout-aged children and grandchildren pressure me to buy in bulk — which is the only way I buy once my inevitable relapse occurs.

Wild West opium dens were more energetic than I am after guzzling a gallon of milk and falling asleep on a half-dozen empty boxes of Thin Mints.

(I can’t bear to do the math, but if you want the latest nutritional stats on Girl Scout cookies, four Thin Mints cost me 160 calories, 7 grams of fat and 22 grams of carbs.)

Each of my relapses is followed by incredible remorse — a remorse recently made worse by one Girl Scout mom whose Instagram post initiated a backlash against adults like me who joke with Girl Scout salesgirls about why we are not buying their high-fructose-corn-syrup treats.

We are asked to NOT explain that we’re on a diet, worried about calories or trying to correct our chubby body flaws.

Worst of all, we should never tell a Girl Scout that we can’t keep her cookies in the house because we fear we will eat the whole box before our next meal.

As if there’s any other way to consume a box of Girl Scout Cookies.

We are asked to simply tell Girl Scout sales reps, “No, thanks,” and move on any without any further editorial commentary.

Why?

Because Girl Scouts are in their formative years and any negative talk about the dangerous products they are hawking, or the dietary struggles of people who hope to avoid them, can food-shame the girls, according to CNN.

OK, fair enough.

But how do we reconcile the concern about protecting the body image of Girl Scout salesgirls with the simple truth that they are hawking unhealthy foods, asks International Business Times?

Ironically, Girl Scouts probably would not be permitted to sell their own cookies at a school bake sale, which many schools ban now.

They’ve been banned over the past decade because federal government programs are fighting childhood obesity — a national problem brought on in part by the sugary, high-calorie, highly processed junk foods that fill grocers’ shelves.

Foods pretty much like Girl Scout Cookies.

Hey, times have changed, Girl Scouts of America. The cookie is on the outs.

The Department of Education suggests school bake-sale fundraisers should be replaced by healthier fundraisers that feature things, such as T-shirts, jewelry and school supplies.

I can think of nearly $1 billion reasons why that’s never going to happen.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I just heard some young voices approaching my doorstep, and I need to escape to my hiding place.

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Copyright 2024 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

You had a great 100-year run, AM radio, and your demise is breaking my heart.

According to the Wall Street Journal, carmakers such as Tesla, Volvo and BMW are no longer providing AM radios in their new vehicles.

Why? In part, because of the emergence of electric vehicles.

As the WSJ explains, quoting the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a car-industry trade group, the onboard electronics on EVs “create interference with AM radio signals — a phenomenon that ‘makes the already fuzzy analog AM radio frequency basically unlistenable.’ ”

EV makers can apply shielding cables and other components to make AM radios work, but, says the Alliance, that would cost $3.8 billion over seven years — which is why some companies are simply doing away with AM radio.

It’s regrettably true that the economic and cultural heyday of AM radio is well behind us.

America’s very first radio broadcast took place on KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh on Nov. 2, 1920, reports CBS News.

From the ‘30s through the ‘50s, KDKA-AM broadcast news, jazz, big-band music and Pirates baseball games.

In 1954 its in-house genius Rege Cordic created one of America’s first “morning teams.” Cordic & Company brought us several memorable characters and comedy sketches that helped KDKA capture a massive 85% of Pittsburgh’s listening audience.

In the 1970s I remember waking every day before school and listening to Jack Bogut’s wonderful KDKA morning broadcast.

I loved his show so much, my best friend Ayresie and I skipped school one December day in 1979 to watch him broadcast from a department-store window downtown — as he did every Christmas as he raised funds for the local Children’s Hospital.

Now, thanks to the emergence of streaming broadcasts, satellite radio and other options, both AM and FM radio listenership have declined fast.

According to Nielsen, reports the WSJ, America’s 4,500 AM radio stations reached 107 million people every month in the spring of 2016 — but only 78 million people per month in 2023.

Due to the waning listenership and the cost of installing functioning AM radios in cars, then, more carmakers are opting to ditch AM radios altogether.

But not so fast, say AM-radio advocates.

For starters, conservative talk shows — a staple of AM programming since the rise of Rush Limbaugh in the early 1980s — have a lot to lose if AM radio goes away.

More than 600 AM radio stations broadcast in non-English languages — making them invaluable sources of information to people for whom English is not a first language.

And federal emergency officials are lobbying Congress to create laws that prevent carmakers from dropping AM radios from new vehicles because they say AM is still an important medium to convey emergency alerts and information.

The AM radio issue — one of few on Capitol Hill that has strong bipartisan support — is not without irony.

Free-market conservatives generally argue that companies should be free to make their own choices about how they make their products.

In this case, however, conservative lawmakers are pushing for a law that will force carmakers to install AM radios, regardless of the increased cost to consumers.

The fight over AM radio is the kind of battle that always takes place in government when new technology overtakes 100-year-old technology.

Though the eventual death of AM radio can’t be reversed, it does make me sad.

Children today will never know the incredible joy we experienced, as we sat by our radios on snowy Pittsburgh mornings, when KDKA announced that our school was canceled for the day!

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Copyright 2024 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

The city of Toronto is in the news for outlawing sled and toboggan riding on 45 of its hillsides.

According to the Toronto Star, the ban has sparked a robust debate about how far government should go to protect people from themselves while they’re having fun.

To be sure, tragic accidents do happen when frolicking kids and adults hit the sled slopes.

In a case a few years back, a 5-year-old girl in Nebraska hit a tree while sledding and became paralyzed.

In another case, in Iowa, a man suffered a spinal cord injury after slamming into a sign.

The first case resulted in a $2 million judgment and the second in a $2.75 million judgment against municipal governments.

Few sledding accidents are that serious, thank God.

But Newsweek cites statistics that show that every year they send more than 20,000 kids to the hospital — 9 percent of whom suffered a brain injury.

I hit the sled slopes dozens of times every winter as a kid, but I was careful.

I avoided toboggans, for instance, because I had so little control over those things — a concern that may have saved my life the day six of my daredevil friends rode a wooden toboggan down a steep hill on a golf course.

They had to be going better than 30 miles per hour when they hit a three-foot-wide culvert at the bottom of the hill.

It was magnificent to see them flailing their arms and legs as they sailed through the air and also very funny — until each of them landed with a gigantic thud.

Their boots, gloves and scarves were scattered all over the snow. Nobody broke any bones, but they moaned the whole way home.

Being an individualist, I was always a Flexible Flyer sled guy because it offered me superior control as I lay on my belly and whipped around trees and other obstacles.

However, my friend Wes Walters wasn’t so skilled. While speeding downhill on his belly, he tried to navigate between two large trees and broke both elbows.

It’s easy to find fault with government busybodies, lawyers and nannies who eagerly ban sled riding and other recreational activities, such as skateboarding, to protect people from hurting themselves.

I understand why towns and municipalities might ban an activity that may cost them a sizable damage settlement.

At the same time, though, I lament the litigiousness and overprotectiveness that has become the hallmark of modern times — and decry governments that don’t know when to stop butting into our private lives to tell us how to behave.

Did you know, for example, that the federal government has created “helpful tips” on how to survive winter weather?

“Stay off roads if at all possible,” our government warns us. “If trapped in your car, then stay inside.”

That’s sound advice for winter, I guess.

They forgot to remind us to wear our wool mittens and earmuffs.

But I’m still grateful my tax dollars are paying some bureaucrat to determine that it’s best that we stay inside a car that we are already trapped in.

In any event, the real problem with life is that living is risky — and having fun can be especially risky.

Take what precautions you can, but remember: Life goes by too fast, so avoid government bureaucrats and do something fun as often as you can.

But never get on a toboggan.

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Copyright 2024 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

Get this:

Gen Z job applicants are bringing their parents to job interviews, reports the New York Post.

As it goes, for several decades America’s children have been over-coddled by their “helicopter parents” — parents who zoom in to resolve any challenge their children may face, even as they become adults.

Now they can’t even conduct a job interview without mom or dad holding their hands and guiding the outcome?

Geeze. That makes me kind of worried.

Aren’t the Zs the generation I’m supposed to count on for paying my future Social Security and Medicare checks?

I’m not exactly sure where American parents first went off the rails, but I suppose this latest “helicopter-ism” is a direct result of the way social media has impacted childhood.

According to Market Insider, some 20% of our young people spend more than 5 hours a day absorbing TikTok — the Chinese propaganda outlet where they learn how evil America is and that the values of their parents and grandparents are incredibly wrong and outdated.

It’s no wonder our children are so confused.

They are being impacted daily by messages in the palm of their smartphoned hands that contradict what their parents and grandparents are desperately trying to teach them.

I suppose it is no wonder, then, why parents are staying so close to their children nowadays.

I suppose parents are doing their very best to control the many outside influences their children are getting.

I also suppose that is why the tough-love approach that was common before social media has evolved into the hyper-coddling “helicopter-parent” approach in which parents are accompanying their adult children on job interviews?

Maybe. Maybe not.

All I know is that over-coddling anyone never worked and never will.

It’s true that older generations often think younger generations are messing everything up — but then again, I can’t imagine ever asking my dad to be my chaperone at a job interview:

“I wouldn’t hire this boy,” he probably would have said. “He was late for school every morning, never took his homework seriously and, by the way, he wet the bed until he was 11.”

Dads from his generation were masters of tough love — because they knew we needed to be tough and alert to flourish in an unpredictable, highly-competitive, often nasty world.

And they were right.

The world is just as unpredictable and competitive as ever — and with our bottomless sea of bizarre social media posts, it’s certainly more confusing than it has ever been.

Sorry, kids, but in today’s world we lack the time or the luxury of having mom and dad accompanying our overly sensitive young adults to job interviews.

Try as they may, no parent can prevent their child from eventually encountering the harsh realities of being an adult in the real world.

Sooner or later a nasty boss is going to snap at all of us, and running to mom and dad is not going to be an option — if we wish to keep our jobs, anyway.

Sooner or later an incredibly stressful situation is going to happen, and you better have the fortitude to navigate it with clarity and good sense.

The lessons taught by my tough-love dad were unpleasant as I learned them, but his wisdom prepared me for some very unpleasant adult situations.

Including going to my first adult job interview alone.

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Copyright 2024 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

I forgot what it was like to experience a good old common cold.

Prior to covid, you see, the cold-getting experience went like this: I’d wake with a stuffy nose and scratchy throat and my only thought was to curse the gods for visiting a new virus cocktail on me that was going to make me cranky for 9 days.

I remember at first denying that a cold virus was feasting on me, then, as the hacking got bad, I moved on to the anger stage before finally accepting my fate that the miserable common cold is a fact of life.

But post-covid, few people respond to a common cold this way.

No sooner do our sniffles start than we are searching WebMD, calling doctors and telling family members we’re certain we are suffering from another covid variant that is sure to do us in.

“Headlines warning of new covid variants; unseasonal surges of flu, RSV and human metapneumovirus; and unusual symptoms stemming from viruses that usually cause cold-like symptoms, including adenovirus and enterovirus, have made many of us hyper aware of the germs that make us sick,” reports NBC News.

Experts tell NBC News that our overreaction to the cold is a bit of overkill — that unless it is an unusually strong bug (which means it may be something more serious) or unless you have a weakened immune system, just do what humans with a cold have always done: get some over-the-counter drugs and drink plenty of fluids.

There’s not much else we can do.

Look, back in 2018, Scientific American said scientists were getting close to curing the dreaded cold — two years before covid demonstrated that our scientists aren’t much ready for prime time where preventatives for easily spread respiratory viruses are concerned.

According to Scientific American, the search for a cure dates back to the 1950s when scientists discovered that the cause of the sniffles was a group of pathogens known as rhinoviruses.

The trouble is, there are 160 different strains of these bugs and, said one immunologist, it’s “incredibly difficult to create a vaccine or drug that will target all of those 160 [strains].”

Another idea is to crack the code on the structure that each of the 160 strains shares. Researchers at the Imperial College London have been working on that, which Scientific American reports would let them design a super vaccine.

But again, these reports date back to 2018 and scientists have still not found a cure for the common cold.

Which is why we might just as well enjoy a cold when it comes.

Being miserably sick, as I was last week, gives us license to shut down our most pressing adult responsibilities and completely let everything go.

A few sips of Irish whiskey in hot tea soothe a raw throat — just as a few more make the presidential election a wee bit less frightening.

Being unable to sleep is not so painful once you latch onto a streaming TV series you can binge watch until you finally nod off.

And when you get back to good health, you will be reminded not to take it for granted.

Hey, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports a lot of us are suffering from various bugs right now.

The least we can do is remember how to make the best of it!

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Copyright 2024 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

Cyber attacks will be significantly worse in 2024 for anyone who uses a digital device.

Yet few are aware of, or prepared for, the threats they face — or how their poor cybersecurity skills are putting them and their families at incredible risk.

Case in point:

Last year, the top 10 weakest passwords were pretty much the same as they were in prior years, which offers a tremendous opportunity for cyber scammers to rob us blind.

You see, scammers are really good at guessing passwords — the weaker the password, the faster they can crack our code.

Here’s how scammers work:

First, they send us multiple fake emails or texts that look to be legitimate — spoofed emails from people we know or companies we do business with — hoping we click on the fraudulent links they embed.

Maybe it’s a “receipt” from Amazon that thanks us for our recent $300 order and asks us to click the link provided if we have questions about the order.

Or maybe it’s a special credit-card offer from your bank — except that it’s from an Internet address that has nothing to do with your bank.

If you “click here to apply” you will unwittingly allow scammers to install a malicious code into your computer that allows them to root around, hoping to find login and password details to gain access to your banking or credit card accounts.

Even if they don’t discover the passwords they need, it won’t take them but a few seconds to crack the weakest ones.

According to the password managing company NordPass, the most commonly used passwords of 2023 are embarrassingly simpleminded.

The most popular password was “123456.” Scammers — and my dog, Thurber — can crack that one in less than 1 second.

“Admin” is the second most popular password. It and No. 7, “password,” also can be cracked in less than 1 second.

If you want to see how easy your passwords are to crack, type them into a password detector, such as this one from bitwarden.

The regrettable fact is, in the digital world in which we all now live, cyber scammers are working overtime to come up with ever-more-clever schemes to defraud us.

For example, ransomware attacks grew exponentially last year.

Ransomware is malicious software that scammers use to encrypt a company’s or individual’s data and block access to it until a hefty sum of money is paid.

Google the words “ransomware attack” and you’ll see a sizable list of individuals, big companies and entire cities that have been completely shut down by increasingly sophisticated scammers.

Another big trend: Activists who support various political causes are launching attacks on individuals and businesses who support their enemies.

Utilities and infrastructure that are using outdated systems are especially vulnerable to attacks.

But our elderly face the greatest risk of cyber fraud because they are much more likely to trust people who email them or call them than younger generations are.

As we head into 2024, all of us must realize we are facing a new level of risk from cyber scammers.

We must learn what these risks are and learn to detect and thwart them so we can protect ourselves, our families and especially our elders from harm.

Improving our password skills is an obvious place to start. Here’s what a secure password might look like:

StopScammers1178#@!!in2024&&!!

According to bitwarden, it would take scammers centuries to crack that one!

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Copyright 2023 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].

Here’s a great New Year’s resolution: get a pet.

As we wrap up a very inflationary 2023, pet shelters across the country are at maximum capacity and they don’t have room to house the pets people are turning in.

ABC News reports that animals entering shelters began to climb in 2021.

During the covid pandemic, you see, many people adopted pets, but as they began to go back to the workplace, some decided they no longer wanted to care for a pet, so they turned them back in.

The past year was significantly worse for pets because adoptions are falling far short of the increase in sheltered pets.

“Shelter Animals Count, a national database of shelter statistics, estimates that the U.S. shelter population grew by nearly a quarter-million animals in 2023,” reports ABC News.

Why?

Because the weak economy and high inflation have made it more costly to care for a pet, in particular large dogs and pets who are in need of costly medical care.

If you’ve not been to a veterinarian recently, you’d be surprised how much many of them charge — which is a good reason to get pet insurance, which I have for my 3-year-old Labrador, Thurber.

My puppy is very healthy and I feed him the best food I can get for him, but when he had a few minor seizures last year, I learned, after taking him to a dog neurologist, that he has epilepsy.

Just the initial examinations cost me about $800. Had he needed an MRI, that could have been in the $5,000 range. Thankfully, pet insurance, which only costs $65 a month, covers about 90% of these costs.

I will pay any amount to get Thurber the care he needs, but fewer people are able to do this now as inflation has done significant damage to their finances and more people are downsizing or losing their homes, reports ABC News.

As a result, dog shelters are forced to house dogs in their offices or with foster volunteers. In some cases, they are being forced to euthanize some of the pets.

There is a win-win solution, however: adopt a pet or more than one.

Adopting a pet will help your local pet shelter get its population down to a manageable number, but you will be the one who benefits the most.

The U.S. Surgeon General reports that Americans are suffering a loneliness epidemic — and one way to ease loneliness is to invite a wonderful ball of fur into your house that will make you laugh out loud, in my case, at least five times a day.

Many Americans are struggling with mental health issues, such as depression — and PsychCentral reports that getting a pet is one of the best ways to relieve depression, as it is hard to not feel joy when your dog snuggles next to you on the couch.

Inviting a pet into your home is a big responsibility and your pet will demand your time and money, but the benefits far outweigh the costs.

Even when the costs include Thurber’s favorite treat, a peanut-butter filled bone that costs $7 and that I give him about 4 or 5 days every week.

Yup, I’ve spent over $5,000 on these treats the past three years, but what can I say. I love my dog!

You will, too.

Contact your nearest animal shelter and bring a bundle of furry joy home in the New Year!

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Copyright 2023 Tom Purcell, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Purcell, creator of the infotainment site ThurbersTail.com, which features pet advice he’s learning from his beloved Labrador, Thurber, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Email him at [email protected].