Dear Grandpa Diff,

I have not written for a few months and thought it was about time to update you are the world’s latest insanity.

This bit of silliness involves television advertising and a big football game this weekend. I can’t mention the name of the game because the football gurus carefully guard the rights to the use of the name. However, it seems it is the network broadcasting this particular game – Fox – that has created the latest slice of cultural craziness.

It costs lots of money to run an ad during this particular sporting event. But even in our capitalist culture, an ad can be rejected because it violates current norms of what is socially acceptable.

As a result, the television network has refused to air an ad that is pro-life; it has testimonies of people who survived abortions. (I believe we covered in earlier correspondence the fact that abortion is legal now, something that would not have been thought even faintly possible in your time.)

Anyway… the pro-abortion folks have pressured the Fox folks not to run an ad that favors babies being allowed to be born alive.

However, the network plans to run an ad that features “drag queens” promoting a brand of hummus. The previous sentence likely contains two terms you are not familiar with, what with being a long-time resident of Hayesville, Ohio. Hayesville has never been a place of cosmopolitan taste. So, let me explain…

Hummus is a dip made from mashed chickpeas with spices added. I’m thinking you lived your entire life without eating a chickpea let alone hummus.

A drag queen is a bit more difficult to explain. It is a man who dresses up like a woman and usually behaves in a flamboyant manner. Libraries frequently have drag queens read stories to children is a misguided effort to promote gender fluidity and tolerance. Yes, libraries have lost their way.

I realize I have used another term (gender fluidity) that likely makes little sense to you. In your day men were men and women were women. Today, it seems there are some people who are unable or unwilling to choose one or

the other and stick with their choice. They exhibit gender fluidity.

Grandpa, I miss you and wish you were here. But were you here, I don’t know that I could tell you what I am writing here straight to your face. It would be so awkward and you would probably say, “for the love of our country, what has your generation done?”

I’d probably try to keep the conversation focused on who will win the big game and can grandma bake a batch of sugar cookies.

Grampa, our world is upside down.

Love… Jim