The downside of that approach, of course, is that I piss off 50 percent of the country.

As a writer, I’d rather piss off everyone.

You can go ahead and call it existential nihilism, if you must.

I prefer to call it something else—the big picture.

To find it, I don’t have to look far—it’s lying on the bookshelf.

It starts here.

…Imagine a world in which everyone, but especially people with power and influence, holds an expanded view of our place in the cosmos. With that perspective, our problems would shrink—or never arise at all—and we could celebrate our earthly differences while shunning the behavior of our predecessors who slaughtered one another because of them.

The cosmic perspective reminds us that in space, where this is no air, a flag will not wave…

And goes here.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

…Lots of the people [are] mean, and most of them [are] miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

The Answer to the Great Question…Of Life, the Universe and Everything…Is…Is…Forty-two.

Where the vinyl lies, there’s more.

A heart that’s full up like a landfill

A job that slowly kills you

—

I’ll take a quiet life

A handshake of carbon monoxide

—

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)

No alarms and no surprises, please (let me out of here)

Not to be outdone by this.

I tried so hard and got so far

But in the end, it doesn’t even matter

I had to fall to lose it all

But in the end, it doesn’t even matter

So please, during election season, don’t ask me what team I’m on.

Because we all know the answer:

The Milwaukee Brewers.

The post How I Deal With Election Season appeared first on ComposeMD.

Back in January 2024, I did one of these, and according to Google Analytics, at least four people engaged with the content.

As they say, don’t argue with success.

That’s why, almost three years later, I’m back with round two.

This time will be a little different.

All you get is YouTube clips, complemented by small blurbs courtesy yours truly.

A link to the answer can be found at the end.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

1. Oprah Winfrey was born in Mississippi but raised in this city, even attending middle school and high school here.
2. Al Jarreau was an R&B legend, winning ten Grammy Awards in his lifetime. He was born and raised in town.
3. Gene Wilder made a career on the big screen, playing all sorts of roles including Willy Wonka. Like Jarreau, he was born and raised locally.
4. Rachel Brosnahan, too, has dominated the acting world, hitting it big in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She was born here before moving to Illinois.
5. Steve Miller made quite a name for himself in the music business, but not before spending his early years in the burg of interest.
6. Liberace, among other things, could shred the piano, thanks of course to his upbringing around here.
7. Dan Jansen, all these years later, is still the only speed skater you know. He won an emotional Olympic gold medal in 1994 and, more importantly, was born and raised you know where.

The answer to Guess the Burg can be found HERE.

The post Guess the Burg… appeared first on ComposeMD.

That’s the question I found myself asking when, on October 9, 2026, I got the following email:

Hi Amol,

My name is Anuj Agarwal, I’m the Founder of FeedSpot.

I would like to personally congratulate you as your blog ComposeMD has been selected by our panelist as one of the Top 20 General Knowledge Blogs on the web (2026 Edition).

20 Best General Knowledge Blogs to Follow in 2026

You can also add your website link and other social media handles to get more visibility in our list. Continue

I personally give you a high-five and want to thank you for your contribution to this world. This is the most comprehensive list of Top 20 General Knowledge Blogs on the internet and I’m honored to have you as part of this!

We’d be grateful if you can help us spread the word by briefly mentioning about the Top 20 General Knowledge Blogs list in any of your upcoming post.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

Best,

FeedSpot

It’s 2026, which means there’s a high risk someone is stroking my ego and/or looking for money. There’s also a high risk AI was used to create the message, but the use of singular nouns where the plural form was warranted seems to rule out that possibility.

Anyway, let’s dig.

FeedSpot is a content aggregation platform, allowing users to interact with their favorite blogs, news websites, YouTube channels, podcasts, RSS feeds, social sites, and so on in one place.

Apparently, the company generates revenue in a handful of ways:

• Content creators can pay for sponsored placements, higher-ranking positions, badges, etc. In fact, the Continue link in the email seems to serve as not-so-subtle bait for these paid features.
• Marketers and PR professionals can pay for access to FeedSpot’s massive database of content creators which includes contact information.
• Regular users can pay for ad-free reading and other such upgrades.
• Ads.

All of the above leads to a few questions.

Is FeedSpot monetizing content that itself is not being monetized?

Is my site still a general knowledge site?

Is the old ComposeMD logo better than the new one?

Isn’t it somewhat flattering to be on the same list as Knowable Magazine, Big Think, and Mental Floss?

Am I not falling for the ego trap?

Regardless, this is the blog post/advertisement that FeedSpot requested, specifically with these two lines:

• Feedspot is an RSS reader that lets you subscribe to blogs, news sites, and any website you want to keep up with.
• To take advantage of our branding features and get enhanced visibility in the list, try FeedSpot for Publishers.

But, again, does this even mean anything for me?

I have no idea.

Nor do I particularly care.

Because for better or worse, whether or not there’s external validation, the blog is here to stay.

The post Does This Even Mean Anything? appeared first on ComposeMD.

And that’s precisely because, well, I don’t really know it.

Such is life when, in 1977, a place watches you open your eyes for the first time but doesn’t stick around long enough for you to remember what you saw.

It’s there, a lingering curiosity, your familiarity with the town coming via a data center.

It’s that dot on the map, about 90 miles north of Chicago, where the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic rivers reach the western shore of Lake Michigan.

There were once multiple native groups, followed by 17th-century French explorers like Jacques Marquette.

The Brits eventually took over, chased by the Americans.

The city was incorporated in 1846, gaining its footing as a wheat shipping hub before branching out and attracting all sorts of immigrants, especially from Germany.

Northwestern Mutual, Rockwell Automation, Harley-Davidson, Pabst Brewing Company, Miller Brewing Company—they were all born there.

Then came the rest—the Great Migration, segregation, suburbanization, and a decline in the number of manufacturing jobs.

The city’s population peaked in 1960 at 741,324, now hovering around 562,407.

Two words come to mind: Rust Belt.

But it’s 2026, and more importantly, it’s October.

In other words, I don’t give a sh*t about any of that.

During the tenth month of the year, the mundane—namely economics and politics—take a back seat to the defining feature of American life: baseball.

Let’s rewind the clock.

Back in 1957, the Milwaukee Braves, recently relocated from Boston and on their way to Atlanta, beat the mighty New York Yankees to win the World Series.

Later, other teams in other sports would make the city proud.

In 1971, the Milwaukee Bucks, led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, won the NBA title. Courtesy Giannis Antetokounmpo, the franchise repeated the feat in 2021.

In 1977, not long before I was born, Marquette University (remember the French guy?) won the NCAA men’s basketball championship.

But in this flashback, only two years truly matter.

The first is 1969, the year the Seattle Pilots joined Major League Baseball, becoming the Milwaukee Brewers (remember those breweries?) the next season.

The other is 1982, when the Brewers made their first World Series, only to lose in devastating fashion to the St. Louis Cardinals, blowing a 3-1 lead in the sixth inning of the seventh and deciding game.

The Brew Crew has never been back, securing the squad’s status as one of five to have never won the Fall Classic.

And that gets me to my plea, the one where a 48-year-old man begs the team that broke his heart at age four (I don’t actually remember) to make things right.

The Milwaukee Brewers are the best team in baseball, and the time has come for them to reach the pastime’s pinnacle.

So please, bring home the bratwurst (remember the Germans?).

The post My Embarrassing Plea to the City of Milwaukee appeared first on ComposeMD.

You’ll just have to trust me on this one.

I’ll even show you the lyrics—in a minute.

Let’s start with the woman who doesn’t rest, like ever.

That’s how, during the highest-grossing concert tour of all time, she worked on two albums (technically three, as the first had 31 songs).

Then, when the tour ended, rather than sleep, she married the man with the goofy smile—you’ll see that in a minute, too.

Like she said:

You only need to find one person in this entire world

Who doesn’t find you completely insufferable

And I have an important announcement to make

I found mine

(My wife is still deciding about me.)

Anyway, that man, who catches footballs for a living, happens to be from Cleveland Heights, an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland.

And that’s how the most famous person in the world just released a song called “Cleveland!”

You’ll find it on The Life of a Showgirl (one of the aforementioned two albums), The Encore edition to be exact.

When you read the lyrics, as promised, you won’t find any mention of New York, LA, Chicago, and Miami.

What you will see, after a shoutout to the haters, is a love story, with references to a childhood porch, Cleveland, and The Heights.

It’s a veritable Rust Belt romance.

The lyric video is even rife with images of The Land.

This is something that the Great Lakes, minus Chi-Town and Toronto, never see.

Just run the list, west to east, starting with Duluth, then Milwaukee, Toledo, Detroit, Erie, and Buffalo.

No one famous is crooning about those burgs anymore.

Yet thanks to holy matrimony, we now have the mediocre pop tune “Cleveland!”

That gift, however, does leave one glaring question:

Why, Mr. Kelce, could you not have been from Rochester?

The post Why “Cleveland!” Is My New Favorite Song appeared first on ComposeMD.

And that’s where the similarities end.

He doesn’t know me.

And I don’t know him, even after reading the book he just released.

It’s not necessarily a literary masterpiece.

But it does tell his story—and his version of events.

And it left me with all sorts of questions.

Why did anyone care when an individual kneeled during the national anthem?

Isn’t the right to protest what keeps us from being North Korea?

Why is Colin Kaepernick so obsessed with identity anyway?

Must he describe every single person with an adjective referencing skin color?

Isn’t that archaic?

By doubling down on flawed categories, is he actually moving us forward?

Or backward?

Isn’t identity complicated?

On some level, isn’t it fabricated?

How can anyone argue that NFL owners didn’t collude to keep Kaepernick out of the league?

How can anyone who understands business blame them?

Does anyone actually think the NFL cares about things like player safety and social justice?

Would Kaepernick have been signed if he were playing better?

Did his divisiveness plus mediocrity make him expendable?

Was his way of protesting police brutality the best way?

Could he have gone a different route?

Should he have gone a different route?

Has he accomplished anything?

Didn’t he have an obvious point?

Isn’t police work remarkably dangerous?

Was the backlash proof of racism?

Did the backlash turn a simple act into a national crisis?

Do I need to pick sides?

Is it not okay to see all perspectives?

Isn’t a binary view of the world oversimplified and juvenile?

Why do they play the national anthem before these silly games?

Isn’t that disrespectful of the national anthem?

Why do I keep watching the NFL?

Why do fans embrace those with domestic violence and murder charges?

Yet they shun those who peacefully protest?

Do I agree with Kaepernick?

Do I disagree with Kaepernick?

Will I ever be as brave as Colin Kaepernick?

The post The Truth About Colin Kaepernick appeared first on ComposeMD.

But when you’re immersed in Great Lakes segregation, it’s easy to know when you’re not.

This all started on September 21, 2026.

I was somewhere in the Rochester metro area, partly lost, as the space was new—to me.

Thankfully, I had help.

My first guide came from near Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. We talked briefly of his love for hip hop, agreeing that Kendrick had bested Drake.

The second guide was from Fort Erie, Ontario, just across the Niagara River from Buffalo. The trade war, mercifully, was not affecting the flow of humans.

We devised a game plan, a divide and conquer, if you will.

As I made my way through the maze, I flipped between English and Spanish. Punjabi would have come in handy as well, but that would be a project for a different time.

I stumbled upon a duo with hijabs speaking Arabic. We smiled, introduced ourselves, and discussed a management strategy—in English, of course.

Here, the housing segregation that had decimated the region seemed, if only for a moment, like a mirage. Suburbia bled into the urban, the blend sprinkled with hints of rurality.

Melanin dosing spanned the spectrum, from the no-dose to the low-dose to the intermediate to the frankly dark.

A quick listen could tell you if an exchange was with an African American or an African. The same, I suppose, was true for those differentiating actual Asia from somewhere like Milwaukee.

When hunger called, which it always does, I ordered the Italian option, served by a Ukrainian.

The process took an extra minute, as income levels were no barrier to intellectual conversation.

Because in the most diverse place in Rochester, we all shared a common goal.

Some focused on prolonging life.

Others discussed dying in peace.

But mostly, what I felt was hope.

The post The Most Diverse Place in Rochester (NY) appeared first on ComposeMD.

No one, making it perfect for this site.

Let’s dive in.

It’s 2026, meaning there are still eight US states that border the Great Lakes. Those eight account for a whopping 12 NFL teams, aka 37.5 percent of the league, a statistic that should end any discussion about the demise of said states.

But alas, you know I’m cheating.

New York: New York Jets, New York Giants, Buffalo Bills

No one in their right mind would consider the Jets or Giants to be a Great Lakes team. A map and home games in New Jersey cement that conclusion, leaving only Buffalo.

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers

Philly—no. Pittsburgh is more complicated—Rust Belt, yes, but Great Lakes not so much. Only pesky Erie can claim that status in the Keystone State.

Ohio: Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns

Cincy is way too Kentucky to be Great Lakes. Cleveland, on the other hand, basically plays in Lake Erie.

Indiana: Indianapolis Colts

Sorry, but Indy is too far from Gary to legitimately enter the discussion.

Michigan: Detroit Lions

Technically, Detroit is on a river, but c’mon now.

Illinois: Chicago Bears

The (current) stadium in Chicago is, for all intents and purposes, on Lake Michigan.

Wisconsin: Green Bay Packers

Green Bay, as in the water, is an appendage of Lake Michigan. Enough said.

Minnesota: Minnesota Vikings

Lake Superior and Duluth are a hike, leaving Minneapolis out in the cold.

All told, there are five teams that can undeniably be considered Great Lakes teams: the Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, and Green Bay Packers.

Have a look.

In terms of the whole NFL preview thing, I’m equipped to make only one set of predictions:

• The Bills will make the playoffs.
• They will win a game or two.
• Then, prior to the Super Bowl, they will lose in absolutely devastating fashion.
• My son and/or daughter will cry.
• The kids will also be somewhat happy that they don’t have to see me in that slightly-too-tight Bills T-shirt until the next season.

The post The 2026 Great Lakes NFL Preview appeared first on ComposeMD.

According to reports, the man did not appear to have Indigenous features, looking almost white except for the distinctly brown skin.

When confronted regarding his actions, the man insisted he had been born in Milwaukee along Lake Michigan and simply enjoyed the Great Lakes.

He went on to claim that his American accent was not a fake—apparently, he just talked like that.

After being taken in for formal questioning, his account of events raised further suspicion.

The brown man repeatedly pointed to his large gut, asking, Is this not American?

He insisted on hating all Canadians except for a former neighbor from Nova Scotia who had once invited his family over for snacks.

Get me a Garbage Plate, he requested. Actually, get me two—one with Zweigle’s white hots and the other with cheeseburgers. I eat beef dammit.

He went on to start naming various Buffalo Bills.

I even know the offensive linemen!

Increasingly desperate, his biography began to lose credibility.

I like Morgan Wallen.

I have family who are members of Mar-a-Lago.

My son is at a Christ-centered school in Tennessee.

I shot guns with a former Marine.

Unimpressed, the authorities asked him to really prove he was American.

What’s the name of the lake we’re on? they asked.

Lake America, the man replied.

Who won the 2020 Presidential election?

White man, said the brown man.

What’s your favorite song?

“God Bless the U.S.A.”

What’s your favorite book?

The Turner Diaries.

After conferring with their superiors, the authorities released the man on the condition that he refrain from eating samosas for one month.

The post Indian Man Found Wandering Along Lake America appeared first on ComposeMD.