They just crowned the winner of the 'World's Ugliest Dog'
contest. A
huge headed, duck footed mix of beagle, boxer and basset hound was the
upset winner over such ugliness as the hairless Chihuahuas, dogs that
look like unknown animals and even a few who have a resemblance similar
to me. The question is, Why have such a contest? After all, I have yet
to hear of a ugly human contest. Who wants to see that? Anyway, there
are many weird contests being held all over the world that are just as
inexplicable. I think it might be more interesting to observe the
people at those contests a than to see the contestants. Weird loves,
weird is.
You guessed it. I'm going to inform you of some other weird contest so
you lose your innocence and learn to appreciate the bizarre. Did you
know, for example, that there was a Miss Atomic Bomb contest? It
started in the 50's, the age of the development of nuclear weapons .
Tacky Las Vegas saw an idea to combine two of its major attractions –
nuclear bombs and showgirls – into a beauty contest. I'm not sure mom
would be proud of a daughter who was Miss Atomic Bomb. But the whole
idea exploded and the contest was ended forever after a winner of the
contest wore a cotton mushroom cloud on the front of her swimsuit.
And I thought those competitive eating contests were weird. Here's a
few currently very animal contests to prepare for...
World Championship Duck Calling Contest- It is the longest
running calling contest in history having its start in 1936 and is held
in a small town called Stuttgart, Arkansas. I always thought they
called ducks with those little duck calling instruments we used to use
to drive our teachers crazy when we were in first grade. Since I don't
shoot ducks I have no reason to call them. I'll skip this one.
* Shearing and Wool handling Championship- It's held in sheep country,
New Zealand. I'm not sure since I haven't asked any of the sheep their
opinions, but it seems to me shearing that fast can't be comfortable
for the sheep. There's also wool handling and wool pressing events.
No, I have no idea why.
* National Chinese Kissing Contest- While you're puckering up, check
out the activities in Shenyang, China. Couples ranging in age from
twenty to eighty gather at a ski area to do some creative kissing. The
most creative kissing I was told to do wasn't so nice...something some
guy who was made at me when he told me to kiss his ---. Anyway,
contestants in the National Chinese Kissing Contest are challenged to
eschew the peck on the lips routine but instead strive to come up with
the most difficult kissing position they can muster. Considering that
China has the world's largest population I don't see why they need
contests to encourage more kissing.
* World Beard and Mustache Contest- This is held in Hofen/Enz, Germany.
Contestants work in teams and attempt to grown the most elaborate
facial hair. Judges choose the best in several categories from delicate
mustache to outrageous beard. My beard and mustache is too straggly to
even merit an entrance into this contest and those crazy, hairy Germans
still dominate the event. Well, at least concentrating on their facial
hair will give those Germans less time to invade other nations.
* International Whistler's Contest- Whistlers gather in the whistling
capital of the world, Louisburg, North Carolina, for this. I have no
idea how a small city in North Carolina came to be a whistling city. I
wonder how the residents ever get any sleep. The judges look at your
whistling technique, presentation, stage presence and self confidence
to pick the whistle champ. I'm uncertain of how often a person needs
to use whistling in this modern age of electronic communication devices.
I bet you feel a little odder now.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Oh No, Not Another Holiday
we had a big public holiday the other day, Independence
Day. This is
one of those, "what should I do except, go ot a parade, watch fireworks
and picnic" (if it's not too hot) day. Independence Day was first
declared n 1870, the U.S. Congress made Independence Day (the day in
1776 that the colonists in America began to overthrow the British
government who ruled the area) an unpaid holiday for federal employees.
But many people have no idea that 's why we celebrate it. With time
memory even about holidays fades, I guess.
They didn't shoot fireworks or picnic much in 1870, but they did have plenty of those patriotic parades that we still have today. In 1938, Congress changed Independence Day to a paid federal holiday. You can bet when the workers found out they were going to be paid for not working that it seemed to them that it was a real holiday. Today, it's more ritual and one of the less celebrated days in the U.S. Maybe we should become independent again to make it more meaningful.
I think many countries have Independence Days holidays, given that people by nature are constantly revolting against something and demanding to be independent. Independence Days are probably outdated in this age in which only the now seems to matter. It's one of the holidays on the calendar that might better be removed. People don't like patriotic things anymore. If some want to celebrate an independence, let them do it independently....or something.
I think what might doom many of the anachronistic holidays is the proliferation of the religious and ethnic holidays here. It's ironic that so many of so many religious sects today demand a religious holiday or two be celebrated by the whole country because church attendance and religious belief is said to be at an all time low. They get it too. It's hard to understand some of the holidays we have because they are obscure to many. Politicians love to add them to the calendar because they get votes from all those who want them. Maybe the non believers or doubters just want to make noise and pretend they love religion to relieve their guilt for being heathens. But too many religious holidays makes me confused.
In India, for example, there are now over 40 separate religious holidays that are officially celebrated there. No work those days. Hmmmmm Maybe that's why India is so bad off economically and why there are so many people in India. They get bored by not being at work, don't have the work time to make more of their products and instead have the time to make more kids on those holidays. They could control their population if they wiped out those 40 religious holidays. Even Japan, which most westerners don't see as a "religious place" has almost twenty religious days off. And in the U.S. every religion, and just about every religion known is here, wants their own holiday to be made official. I don't know how our schools can function because there must be a high absentee rate when the little heathens are not attending classes in favor of celebrating their religious holiday.
Do we really need so many holidays? In truth the proliferation of so many cheapens each. Why worry about recognizing a holiday since there is always another one coming soon. Better to nap or watch TV that day. Fact is, almost all holidays are just an excuse for a day off. Hey! That's it! Cancel all of them and just have one holiday. We can call it
"Excuse For a Day Off" Day.
They didn't shoot fireworks or picnic much in 1870, but they did have plenty of those patriotic parades that we still have today. In 1938, Congress changed Independence Day to a paid federal holiday. You can bet when the workers found out they were going to be paid for not working that it seemed to them that it was a real holiday. Today, it's more ritual and one of the less celebrated days in the U.S. Maybe we should become independent again to make it more meaningful.
I think many countries have Independence Days holidays, given that people by nature are constantly revolting against something and demanding to be independent. Independence Days are probably outdated in this age in which only the now seems to matter. It's one of the holidays on the calendar that might better be removed. People don't like patriotic things anymore. If some want to celebrate an independence, let them do it independently....or something.
I think what might doom many of the anachronistic holidays is the proliferation of the religious and ethnic holidays here. It's ironic that so many of so many religious sects today demand a religious holiday or two be celebrated by the whole country because church attendance and religious belief is said to be at an all time low. They get it too. It's hard to understand some of the holidays we have because they are obscure to many. Politicians love to add them to the calendar because they get votes from all those who want them. Maybe the non believers or doubters just want to make noise and pretend they love religion to relieve their guilt for being heathens. But too many religious holidays makes me confused.
In India, for example, there are now over 40 separate religious holidays that are officially celebrated there. No work those days. Hmmmmm Maybe that's why India is so bad off economically and why there are so many people in India. They get bored by not being at work, don't have the work time to make more of their products and instead have the time to make more kids on those holidays. They could control their population if they wiped out those 40 religious holidays. Even Japan, which most westerners don't see as a "religious place" has almost twenty religious days off. And in the U.S. every religion, and just about every religion known is here, wants their own holiday to be made official. I don't know how our schools can function because there must be a high absentee rate when the little heathens are not attending classes in favor of celebrating their religious holiday.
Do we really need so many holidays? In truth the proliferation of so many cheapens each. Why worry about recognizing a holiday since there is always another one coming soon. Better to nap or watch TV that day. Fact is, almost all holidays are just an excuse for a day off. Hey! That's it! Cancel all of them and just have one holiday. We can call it
"Excuse For a Day Off" Day.
United Nations Population Report
The United Nations just released their annual world
population growth
report, so I also give you my annual rant about why too many people on
earth is really the only environmental problem humans be concerned
about. The whining of the global warmers never seems to be directed in
the right direction. Fact is, whether the earth is warming, not warming
or warming because humans have so much power that they can change
climate, doesn't matter a bit if the world population continues to grow
so large that it is unsustainable.
Uh, citing too many people as the real environmental problem is not politically correct these days, given that most of the population explosion is in Africa and Asia. It might offend the crazy liberal notion that the underdeveloped nations are innocent victims of the developed ones, and that those underdeveloped countries need not be responsible because of it. The United Nations forecast the other day said that the world's population will increase from 7.2 billion today to 8.1 billion in 2025, with most growth in developing countries and more than half in Africa. By 2050, it will reach 9.6 billion. The report found that most countries with very high levels of fertility (more than 5 children per women) are on the U.N. list of least developed countries. Most are in Africa
But to defy reason, the United Nations (which has more underdeveloped nation members than developed ones) projected population increase will pose challenges but is not necessarily cause for alarm. Odd, given the United constantly groans about silly environmental issues (like global warming) and warns that the world is being killed by "human abuse". Rather the U.N. said that the worry is for countries on opposite sides of two extremes, developed and undeveloped. Countries, mostly poor ones, whose populations are growing too quickly, and wealthier ones where the populations is aging and decreasing, is the problem. No recommendations to correct this....just another "warning" it is a problem. It seems that to suggest that those undeveloped nations stop producing so many babies would offend them.
Fact is, in order to slow down the birth of so many babies in those poor countries, basic ideas held there about proper fertility rates, birth control, the necessity of installing non corrupt government, and improved education must change. It won't. The societies religious and cultural forces alone often stop birth control from ever having a chance to happen. So it should be elemental for the world to see that when there are too many people for the amount of resources available, environmental problems are inevitable. Instead, the global warming nuts just keep chanting.."It's global warming and we are all going to die".
Uh, citing too many people as the real environmental problem is not politically correct these days, given that most of the population explosion is in Africa and Asia. It might offend the crazy liberal notion that the underdeveloped nations are innocent victims of the developed ones, and that those underdeveloped countries need not be responsible because of it. The United Nations forecast the other day said that the world's population will increase from 7.2 billion today to 8.1 billion in 2025, with most growth in developing countries and more than half in Africa. By 2050, it will reach 9.6 billion. The report found that most countries with very high levels of fertility (more than 5 children per women) are on the U.N. list of least developed countries. Most are in Africa
But to defy reason, the United Nations (which has more underdeveloped nation members than developed ones) projected population increase will pose challenges but is not necessarily cause for alarm. Odd, given the United constantly groans about silly environmental issues (like global warming) and warns that the world is being killed by "human abuse". Rather the U.N. said that the worry is for countries on opposite sides of two extremes, developed and undeveloped. Countries, mostly poor ones, whose populations are growing too quickly, and wealthier ones where the populations is aging and decreasing, is the problem. No recommendations to correct this....just another "warning" it is a problem. It seems that to suggest that those undeveloped nations stop producing so many babies would offend them.
Fact is, in order to slow down the birth of so many babies in those poor countries, basic ideas held there about proper fertility rates, birth control, the necessity of installing non corrupt government, and improved education must change. It won't. The societies religious and cultural forces alone often stop birth control from ever having a chance to happen. So it should be elemental for the world to see that when there are too many people for the amount of resources available, environmental problems are inevitable. Instead, the global warming nuts just keep chanting.."It's global warming and we are all going to die".
Impending Death Of A Newspaper
Today my local newspaper here in Portland, 'The Oregonian',
announced
it will only be published as a paper edition 4 days a week, beginning
in a couple of months. Just as when I lived in New Orleans, the only
local print edition of the daily newspaper in the city in which I live
is dying. Hmmmmm I wonder if I caused this. Newspapers seem to die
where I live. Regardless, it is distressing. Local newspapers are a
long standing tradition that are, in my view, essential to informing
the citizens of the area where the paper operates.
On-line versions that seem to b e replacing printed ones are slimmed down, entertainment pieces devoid of real or important news. They are essentially entertainment, not news organs. The nonsense 'The Oregonian' spouted to justify cutting back its printed newspaper came with an unconvincing rationale statement. "Our print products will be driven by our digital focus. More than ever, we're going to be a digital first company. The major driver of this change is the devastating loss of print advertising. They're not maintaining their share in what is the biggest ad boom in history."
What 'The Oregonian' means is they can eventually make more money selling ads for an on line version than the printed paper. I wonder if the decline in advertisement sales for it's printed version is because people prefer digital news, or if the lousy job 'The Oregonian' did in printing news made the advertisers give up on investing their money for newspaper print ads. Too, on line newspapers have smaller staffs, do little investigative journalism and are more entertainment oriented pieces filled with fluff and gossip "news" that syndicated services sell.
People like me who read real newspapers every day will greatly miss having their newspaper delivered to the front porch each morning. I read a newspaper every day in it's entirely and think the hour I spend doing so is time well invested. It makes me better informed about issues and community issues where I live. But I will not spend more than a few minutes to read a degraded on line version. I find those newspapers to contain far too much fluff. An analogy of the two might be that a printed newspaper is a Shakespearean play and the on line version a comic book.
'The Oregonian' will fire much of it's staff when it switches to all on line (that should happen soon after the idiotic four day a week print experiment fails) and make a whole lot more profit for doing it that way. It's much cheaper to fire staff and instead buy and print nonsense from syndicated sources. An on line product that serves no one in the community leaves the community less informed and proves that silence is not golden. Rather it is what those who are behaving badly (particularly the politicians who will not have to worry about being accountable when the printed newspaper is gone) in the community will rejoice in being able to more easily hide their deeds because serious investigative journalism is not present.
Too, the way we most get information on the web is to look for what we think we want to know.....to confirm our perceptions, prejudices and misinformation. But when I read a daily newspaper, there's often a headline about something that hadn't occurred to me. And that format calls me as a citizen to some new issue or problem that I would not have shopped for online or listened for on the radio. On line entertainment newspapers kill our curiosity to know and do something about what is truly important to the community in which we live. Real newspapers make us engaged in our community. Issue based reporting from the newspaper is essential to civic life. I fail to see many issue based reporting in the digital versions of the newspaper.
The value of a newspaper is not replicated by other mediums, even with advances in technology. Just look at how people use cell phones today and ask whether their ascendancy over land line phones improves lives. Seems to me the cell user of today is far more anxious and addicted than phone users in pre cell days. In an age when more and more consumers read little of anything, much less newspapers, can a newspaper in digital format make enough money from digital advertising to pay for quality reporters to cover local news, sports, investigative, etc.? Likely not. 'The Oregonian' will over time probably morph into an aggregate news product with a few local pieces from contract writers, not staff.
Uh.....looking more like those gossip newspaper headlines we laugh at when standing in the checkout line of our supermarket. Can a general purpose news organization like 'The Oregonian' make enough money from digital advertising to pay for quality reporters covering local news, sports, investigative, etc.? Likely not. 'The Oregonian' will in time probably turn into an aggregate news product with a few local pieces from contract writers, not staff. It will make itself irrelevant to and not be considered a real news source. I wonder what the publishers of 'The Oregonian' are thinking about their readers. Maybe it's whether their readers are dinosaurs that needs to be exterminated?
May another newspaper and we dinosaurs rest in peace.
On-line versions that seem to b e replacing printed ones are slimmed down, entertainment pieces devoid of real or important news. They are essentially entertainment, not news organs. The nonsense 'The Oregonian' spouted to justify cutting back its printed newspaper came with an unconvincing rationale statement. "Our print products will be driven by our digital focus. More than ever, we're going to be a digital first company. The major driver of this change is the devastating loss of print advertising. They're not maintaining their share in what is the biggest ad boom in history."
What 'The Oregonian' means is they can eventually make more money selling ads for an on line version than the printed paper. I wonder if the decline in advertisement sales for it's printed version is because people prefer digital news, or if the lousy job 'The Oregonian' did in printing news made the advertisers give up on investing their money for newspaper print ads. Too, on line newspapers have smaller staffs, do little investigative journalism and are more entertainment oriented pieces filled with fluff and gossip "news" that syndicated services sell.
People like me who read real newspapers every day will greatly miss having their newspaper delivered to the front porch each morning. I read a newspaper every day in it's entirely and think the hour I spend doing so is time well invested. It makes me better informed about issues and community issues where I live. But I will not spend more than a few minutes to read a degraded on line version. I find those newspapers to contain far too much fluff. An analogy of the two might be that a printed newspaper is a Shakespearean play and the on line version a comic book.
'The Oregonian' will fire much of it's staff when it switches to all on line (that should happen soon after the idiotic four day a week print experiment fails) and make a whole lot more profit for doing it that way. It's much cheaper to fire staff and instead buy and print nonsense from syndicated sources. An on line product that serves no one in the community leaves the community less informed and proves that silence is not golden. Rather it is what those who are behaving badly (particularly the politicians who will not have to worry about being accountable when the printed newspaper is gone) in the community will rejoice in being able to more easily hide their deeds because serious investigative journalism is not present.
Too, the way we most get information on the web is to look for what we think we want to know.....to confirm our perceptions, prejudices and misinformation. But when I read a daily newspaper, there's often a headline about something that hadn't occurred to me. And that format calls me as a citizen to some new issue or problem that I would not have shopped for online or listened for on the radio. On line entertainment newspapers kill our curiosity to know and do something about what is truly important to the community in which we live. Real newspapers make us engaged in our community. Issue based reporting from the newspaper is essential to civic life. I fail to see many issue based reporting in the digital versions of the newspaper.
The value of a newspaper is not replicated by other mediums, even with advances in technology. Just look at how people use cell phones today and ask whether their ascendancy over land line phones improves lives. Seems to me the cell user of today is far more anxious and addicted than phone users in pre cell days. In an age when more and more consumers read little of anything, much less newspapers, can a newspaper in digital format make enough money from digital advertising to pay for quality reporters to cover local news, sports, investigative, etc.? Likely not. 'The Oregonian' will over time probably morph into an aggregate news product with a few local pieces from contract writers, not staff.
Uh.....looking more like those gossip newspaper headlines we laugh at when standing in the checkout line of our supermarket. Can a general purpose news organization like 'The Oregonian' make enough money from digital advertising to pay for quality reporters covering local news, sports, investigative, etc.? Likely not. 'The Oregonian' will in time probably turn into an aggregate news product with a few local pieces from contract writers, not staff. It will make itself irrelevant to and not be considered a real news source. I wonder what the publishers of 'The Oregonian' are thinking about their readers. Maybe it's whether their readers are dinosaurs that needs to be exterminated?
May another newspaper and we dinosaurs rest in peace.
What A Gift
On his birthday this year, that crazy North Korean
dictator, Kim Jong
Un, gave every child in North Korea candy. That's nice. But what did he
get for his top officials? Err, something not so sweet or appropriate,
I
think. Little Kim gave everyone of them a copy of Hitler's 'Mein
Kampf'.
Well, at least Little Kim is consistent in his lunacy. Supposedly, Kim
wants to encourage his military leaders to study Germany's post-WWI
reconstruction and copy the mode for use in dreary North Korea. If they
like that hate book, we may be seeing even more goose
stepping from the North Korean military in the days ahead.
I wonder what are the lessons in Mein Kampf that Little Kim likes? Is Kim going to tell his generals how the Hitler's story ended? I think that in the fantasy North Korean version, Hitler will win. Mein Kampf is essentially the angry ranting of an obscure, small party politician (Hitler in his youth).... mindless rants....sort of like what I do here. Hey! Maybe Little Kim will also make them read what I write too. The world would certainly be a more odd place if he does.
Anyway, that kind of gift has to be put in the inappropriate category, like those 'glow in the dark socks' Aunt Ethel gives to everyone as Christmas gifts. But will any of the dictator's generals or cabinet member to try to exchange his Mein Kampf book when Little Kim is the giver? Never. You may not wear the glow in the dark socks, but I bet those North Korean officials will let Little Kim know they love Mein Kampf.
Kim Jong Un has issued the order for the Third Reich to be studied in depth in order to help toughen the dumpy little guy image the world has of him. Yes, Little Kim wants to act more like Hitler to "improve" his image. One has to have a horrid image if he wants to upgrade to the one Hitler showed. Ah, living as a maniacal despot is not as easy as one would think these days
I wonder what are the lessons in Mein Kampf that Little Kim likes? Is Kim going to tell his generals how the Hitler's story ended? I think that in the fantasy North Korean version, Hitler will win. Mein Kampf is essentially the angry ranting of an obscure, small party politician (Hitler in his youth).... mindless rants....sort of like what I do here. Hey! Maybe Little Kim will also make them read what I write too. The world would certainly be a more odd place if he does.
Anyway, that kind of gift has to be put in the inappropriate category, like those 'glow in the dark socks' Aunt Ethel gives to everyone as Christmas gifts. But will any of the dictator's generals or cabinet member to try to exchange his Mein Kampf book when Little Kim is the giver? Never. You may not wear the glow in the dark socks, but I bet those North Korean officials will let Little Kim know they love Mein Kampf.
Kim Jong Un has issued the order for the Third Reich to be studied in depth in order to help toughen the dumpy little guy image the world has of him. Yes, Little Kim wants to act more like Hitler to "improve" his image. One has to have a horrid image if he wants to upgrade to the one Hitler showed. Ah, living as a maniacal despot is not as easy as one would think these days
Driving Drunks
Now that Father's Day is over I
have a story that will make you appreciate that there is a dad out
there to take over on those occasions when mom is completely
incompetent or unwilling to be responsible. In my former home city of
Kenner, Louisiana there was an interesting arrest report, and it
probably explains why I think that people should be licensed to certify
competence before giving birth to a child. You know...as in having to
have a permit to have a dog.
Police got a telephone call at 1:15 am (an hour that should be past both adults and children's bed time) about a car that was weaving recklessly along the interstate highway in Kenner. It was said to be driven as if the operator was drunk or impaired in some way, swerving, starting and stopping etc. When police pulled over the car they discovered that the driver was a child, a 10 year old, with a 15 year old passenger, his 54 year old grandma and her 48 year old friend. Yep! Grandma was using the 10 year old as her designated driver.
Granny and her buddy were so drunk they could hardly stand. Both of the oldies, granny Brenda Boyd and her drinking partner, Sheila Joiner, admitted to telling the 10 year old to do the driving and were arrested and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile and allowing an un licensed driver to operate a motor vehicle. Mom....uh...mom is missing as so often in these days of selfish parenting. It seems she designated granny to raise the child she bore, and the idea of turning junior over to a drunk isn't bothersome when the alternative for mom is having to be a responsible parent.
Police said that they released the 10 year old driver and his 15 year old sister to "other relatives". Hmmm Child protection services will probably return the two kids to granny as soon as she sobers up. Haha Maybe the whole crew can drive to another bar and celebrate together. Hey mom! If you don't want to raise your children, at least make sure the adult you give them to can make proper decisions and isn't tanked on booze when with to your children. The most we can do now is to forget granny and her drinking buddy. They are already guilty of both drunkenness and gross stupidity. Sigh
Police got a telephone call at 1:15 am (an hour that should be past both adults and children's bed time) about a car that was weaving recklessly along the interstate highway in Kenner. It was said to be driven as if the operator was drunk or impaired in some way, swerving, starting and stopping etc. When police pulled over the car they discovered that the driver was a child, a 10 year old, with a 15 year old passenger, his 54 year old grandma and her 48 year old friend. Yep! Grandma was using the 10 year old as her designated driver.
Granny and her buddy were so drunk they could hardly stand. Both of the oldies, granny Brenda Boyd and her drinking partner, Sheila Joiner, admitted to telling the 10 year old to do the driving and were arrested and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile and allowing an un licensed driver to operate a motor vehicle. Mom....uh...mom is missing as so often in these days of selfish parenting. It seems she designated granny to raise the child she bore, and the idea of turning junior over to a drunk isn't bothersome when the alternative for mom is having to be a responsible parent.
Police said that they released the 10 year old driver and his 15 year old sister to "other relatives". Hmmm Child protection services will probably return the two kids to granny as soon as she sobers up. Haha Maybe the whole crew can drive to another bar and celebrate together. Hey mom! If you don't want to raise your children, at least make sure the adult you give them to can make proper decisions and isn't tanked on booze when with to your children. The most we can do now is to forget granny and her drinking buddy. They are already guilty of both drunkenness and gross stupidity. Sigh
Planet Of The Apes
I always claim that the modern world has gone ape. Well, I
think I have
a little evidence of that to share today. It seems that word has leaked
out that a set of photos taken by a Russian chimpanzee sold at auction
the other day for $76,680. They are, crude, blurry images the ape took
at Moscow's Red Square that were sold at the most prestigious auction
venue in the world, Sotheby's in London. Yep! They handed an ape a
camera and called him an artist after he randomly pushed the take
button. (I can almost do that!) And I thought it was all those
Japanese
tourists who had a camera fetish.
Uh, not to also insult anyone who is Russian, but where else could that happen but in the land of Alexander Putin? They were also bought by a Russian buyer whose lineage should probably be checked to verify that we humans are indeed descended from as well photographed by apes. Mikki is the name of the ape photographer, just in case you thought about hiring an ape event photographer. Just think how crazy Aunt Mildred would react to having her picture taken by an ape at your next family reunion. It seems that Mikki was also a performer with the Moscow Circus, and was trained to take pictures in the 1990s as part of a project to challenge concepts of artistic value. But alas! Mikki has passed away, leaving the ape photographer's union with a very short list of ape photographer candidates from which to choose.
As one can see from the pictures Mikki took, they look pretty much like what a 5 year old human might snap, but then scientists say that apes have a mental level equal to a very young toddler. So it makes sense. I doubt I would pay $76,680 for a toddler's pictures either. Hmmm I wonder why the purchaser bought the photos at that price. But then, Michael Jackson treasured his dead ape skeletons and Justin Beiber carted a live ape around Germany for awhile, and they both had/have many ape like behavioral traits during their lives. It must be the descended from ape gene that explains it.
Maybe the next edition of those dummy book series out should be, "How to Photograph Like a Monkey - For Dummies". The art curator at Sotheby's calls Mikki's photos well....art. "It's an alternative view of Moscow as seen through alternative vision," he said. I must say that some of "modern art" produced by humans today looks about as sensible as the blurry images of an ape camera chimp. This all confirms my long held suspicion that the monetary value we assign to much of what we call art is not about the "art" itself, but is more about how we explain it to people who have money to spend to buy it. And perhaps next, Nikkon or Cannon will find the next ape photographer to endorse their cameras. I think I can wear an ape suit and take blurry pictures if they offer me a big enough camera endorsement contract.
Ah, the world seen though the eyes of a monkey. Together with those alleged elephant paintings that were so popular a few years ago we might be able to throw out human philosophy in explaining the world and instead make the world a little more apish than it already is. But is possible that we humans could behave any more ape-like than we already do when we use a cell phone?
Uh, not to also insult anyone who is Russian, but where else could that happen but in the land of Alexander Putin? They were also bought by a Russian buyer whose lineage should probably be checked to verify that we humans are indeed descended from as well photographed by apes. Mikki is the name of the ape photographer, just in case you thought about hiring an ape event photographer. Just think how crazy Aunt Mildred would react to having her picture taken by an ape at your next family reunion. It seems that Mikki was also a performer with the Moscow Circus, and was trained to take pictures in the 1990s as part of a project to challenge concepts of artistic value. But alas! Mikki has passed away, leaving the ape photographer's union with a very short list of ape photographer candidates from which to choose.
As one can see from the pictures Mikki took, they look pretty much like what a 5 year old human might snap, but then scientists say that apes have a mental level equal to a very young toddler. So it makes sense. I doubt I would pay $76,680 for a toddler's pictures either. Hmmm I wonder why the purchaser bought the photos at that price. But then, Michael Jackson treasured his dead ape skeletons and Justin Beiber carted a live ape around Germany for awhile, and they both had/have many ape like behavioral traits during their lives. It must be the descended from ape gene that explains it.
Maybe the next edition of those dummy book series out should be, "How to Photograph Like a Monkey - For Dummies". The art curator at Sotheby's calls Mikki's photos well....art. "It's an alternative view of Moscow as seen through alternative vision," he said. I must say that some of "modern art" produced by humans today looks about as sensible as the blurry images of an ape camera chimp. This all confirms my long held suspicion that the monetary value we assign to much of what we call art is not about the "art" itself, but is more about how we explain it to people who have money to spend to buy it. And perhaps next, Nikkon or Cannon will find the next ape photographer to endorse their cameras. I think I can wear an ape suit and take blurry pictures if they offer me a big enough camera endorsement contract.
Ah, the world seen though the eyes of a monkey. Together with those alleged elephant paintings that were so popular a few years ago we might be able to throw out human philosophy in explaining the world and instead make the world a little more apish than it already is. But is possible that we humans could behave any more ape-like than we already do when we use a cell phone?
Changes In Telephones
You can relax. Today I am not going to rant again about the
evils of cell
phones. Instead, I want to make some comments about pre cell phone
days....you know...the civilized times in the history of humanity.
Haha It's because I was thinking the other day about how far the
telephone technology has come in my own relatively short lifetime.
Perhaps the automobile is the single greatest technological invention
of man, and the computer the greatest of the late 20th century, but the
telephone changes the way humans live and behave constantly every day.
It's one of those always evolving (though in my view, devolving)
technologies that is now the dominant device in the world.
It's my belief that today's cell phone technology has made the telephone an indispensable technology of the day. People used to love their cars. Now they love their phones, to the point of almost being emotionally tied to them. It wasn't that way when I was a boy. Telephones then were all land line rotary dial, heavy, black (to paraphrase Henry Ford's comment about the selection of car colors... you could get any color phone you wanted then as long as it was black) objects mostly located in a the home living room and largely ignored both day or night. People used a telephone then when they needed to, and charges for use were based on the number of calls. The phone had yet to become the socialization outlet it is today.
I even remember party lines. The person wanting to have a phone installed (people could not buy telephones at stores, they were always rented or sold by the phone companies) in his or her house had the option of having private line or the much less expensive party line. The party line could be interesting for kids like myself and my brother because we could listen in to other phone calls made on the same connection as our home line. When listening in I sometimes made a sound or short comment and then hung up in order to drive the calling parties crazy. We had a party line briefly when I was small boy, but as costs came down and technology improved the party line concept quickly disappeared.
A big change in phones then came when the cost of use suddenly dropped. Once the phone companies started charging a monthly bill rate, with unlimited calls allowed, the use of the phone became associated more with entertainment than necessity. Yep! That's when teenagers first started talking and talking and talking to each other by phone. I remember a fad in our neighborhood at that time in which both my brother and I engaged. It was the fake/crank radio contest call. In those days when am radio was hugely popular,
stations would give away prizes to listeners if they answered rather simple questions posed by the station DJ when he called listeners at random. Well, my brother and I sometimes deepened our voices and used to pretend to be DJ's, giving away prizes for correct answers. " For a new Whirlpool refrigerator, can you tell me who is buried in Grant's tomb?" We would ask that or some other idiotic question. Some we called truly thought we were calling from a radio station and may still be waiting for their prizes... I gave away a lot of refrigerators until my mom found out and stopped contests by terminating my refrigerator business.
Prank calls were not the main use of the phone in those days. It was used more for appointments than anything else. The homeowner made doctors appointments, arranged appointments for service repairs on something in the house, contacted a preacher or school teacher etc. Conversations tended to be brief and to the point. It was considered rude to talk too much while making a telephone call. There was no such thing as the 911 call in those days, answering machines were not yet invented, long distance calls outside the country was so expensive that option was rarely used, and many people in the neighborhood could not afford a telephone. They used the neighbor's instead. Uh..yelling out the window to summon a neighbor was the preferred method of communication. I still think that yelling out the window is more polite than today's loud chattering on cell phones.
I think that while the old rotary phone system was in use we still lived in the "good old days" of better manners and behavior, if much less reliable technology. The invention of the touch tone dial seemed to correlate with the beginning of the age of modernity. I notice that with every new technology humans drift a little farther from each other, seem to care less about each other. Anyway, it seemed a miracle that a person could push a button to make a call. In the early 1960's, telephones were so much used that big phone company, Bell Telephone, could no longer continue to use the alpha-numeric codes for telephone exchanges (I remember using numbers like Normandy 7610 or VE 7894). The telephone numbers switched to longer and to all numeric numbers. At the same time, transatlantic cables were being laid to accommodate the increased demand for intercontinental telephone communication. Long distance calls became normal and much cheaper when the Tel Star satellite was sent into space to replace the old cable wires that were laid underground.
But today I read that few people except me are using land line phones anymore. The old phone booth on the corner is gone, as cell phones have or are killing all other options for telephone use. In fact, cell phones can't be avoided anymore. They intrude on everyone's life by making a constant presence, even for dinosaurs like me who somehow think that life was both simpler and better when phones were a cruder technology and not a lifestyle. Make my gravestone epitaph read- "He Never Owned A Cell Phone"
It's my belief that today's cell phone technology has made the telephone an indispensable technology of the day. People used to love their cars. Now they love their phones, to the point of almost being emotionally tied to them. It wasn't that way when I was a boy. Telephones then were all land line rotary dial, heavy, black (to paraphrase Henry Ford's comment about the selection of car colors... you could get any color phone you wanted then as long as it was black) objects mostly located in a the home living room and largely ignored both day or night. People used a telephone then when they needed to, and charges for use were based on the number of calls. The phone had yet to become the socialization outlet it is today.
I even remember party lines. The person wanting to have a phone installed (people could not buy telephones at stores, they were always rented or sold by the phone companies) in his or her house had the option of having private line or the much less expensive party line. The party line could be interesting for kids like myself and my brother because we could listen in to other phone calls made on the same connection as our home line. When listening in I sometimes made a sound or short comment and then hung up in order to drive the calling parties crazy. We had a party line briefly when I was small boy, but as costs came down and technology improved the party line concept quickly disappeared.
A big change in phones then came when the cost of use suddenly dropped. Once the phone companies started charging a monthly bill rate, with unlimited calls allowed, the use of the phone became associated more with entertainment than necessity. Yep! That's when teenagers first started talking and talking and talking to each other by phone. I remember a fad in our neighborhood at that time in which both my brother and I engaged. It was the fake/crank radio contest call. In those days when am radio was hugely popular,
stations would give away prizes to listeners if they answered rather simple questions posed by the station DJ when he called listeners at random. Well, my brother and I sometimes deepened our voices and used to pretend to be DJ's, giving away prizes for correct answers. " For a new Whirlpool refrigerator, can you tell me who is buried in Grant's tomb?" We would ask that or some other idiotic question. Some we called truly thought we were calling from a radio station and may still be waiting for their prizes... I gave away a lot of refrigerators until my mom found out and stopped contests by terminating my refrigerator business.
Prank calls were not the main use of the phone in those days. It was used more for appointments than anything else. The homeowner made doctors appointments, arranged appointments for service repairs on something in the house, contacted a preacher or school teacher etc. Conversations tended to be brief and to the point. It was considered rude to talk too much while making a telephone call. There was no such thing as the 911 call in those days, answering machines were not yet invented, long distance calls outside the country was so expensive that option was rarely used, and many people in the neighborhood could not afford a telephone. They used the neighbor's instead. Uh..yelling out the window to summon a neighbor was the preferred method of communication. I still think that yelling out the window is more polite than today's loud chattering on cell phones.
I think that while the old rotary phone system was in use we still lived in the "good old days" of better manners and behavior, if much less reliable technology. The invention of the touch tone dial seemed to correlate with the beginning of the age of modernity. I notice that with every new technology humans drift a little farther from each other, seem to care less about each other. Anyway, it seemed a miracle that a person could push a button to make a call. In the early 1960's, telephones were so much used that big phone company, Bell Telephone, could no longer continue to use the alpha-numeric codes for telephone exchanges (I remember using numbers like Normandy 7610 or VE 7894). The telephone numbers switched to longer and to all numeric numbers. At the same time, transatlantic cables were being laid to accommodate the increased demand for intercontinental telephone communication. Long distance calls became normal and much cheaper when the Tel Star satellite was sent into space to replace the old cable wires that were laid underground.
But today I read that few people except me are using land line phones anymore. The old phone booth on the corner is gone, as cell phones have or are killing all other options for telephone use. In fact, cell phones can't be avoided anymore. They intrude on everyone's life by making a constant presence, even for dinosaurs like me who somehow think that life was both simpler and better when phones were a cruder technology and not a lifestyle. Make my gravestone epitaph read- "He Never Owned A Cell Phone"
Jury Duty
I had a one day jury duty this week along with about
200 others for
three cases (one criminal and two civil) that were on the docket. In
Oregon one can be called to serve for jury duty once every two years.
Because the jury pool is big, the vast majority of candidates are not
picked to actually
serve on a jury, and since they are no longer needed once the juries
are selected, are released from jury duty after the jury panels
are selected.
I was in a group interviewed by the defense and prosecution for one of the three cases, a criminal case. In this case a man was accused of stealing books from libraries in the Portland area. Since I was in the last tier of those randomly chosen to be interviewed, most of the jurors had already been picked before my interview. This was good because I was able to leave jury duty and return home, though I would not have disliked being a part of a jury panel. Seeing the nervous defendant seated at the defense table makes one realize the importance of the jury system. Only 80 of 189 independent nations of the world use a trial by peer jury system, but many of those do not have a free jury by peer system as here in the U.S. Almost all of those 80 are among the more democratic of nations. So trial by jury of one's peers often correlates with the amount of freedom in a nation.
Trial by jury has had a central role in U.S. courtrooms since the beginning of America, and it is probably the best way to keep the government from becoming too powerful. Having a person's innocence or guilt judged by other than the government is fundamental to fairness. It is a constitutional right that I take serious, given that one day I might be accused of a crime and judged as well. I would want serious jurors to judge me if I were in a criminal or civil trial. Having ordinary men and women judging on the basis of an impartial hearing of the evidence is a far better situation than a "professional jury".
Hmmmm I better hope I never am charged with ranting too much. Any jury would convict me of that in less than five minutes..
I was in a group interviewed by the defense and prosecution for one of the three cases, a criminal case. In this case a man was accused of stealing books from libraries in the Portland area. Since I was in the last tier of those randomly chosen to be interviewed, most of the jurors had already been picked before my interview. This was good because I was able to leave jury duty and return home, though I would not have disliked being a part of a jury panel. Seeing the nervous defendant seated at the defense table makes one realize the importance of the jury system. Only 80 of 189 independent nations of the world use a trial by peer jury system, but many of those do not have a free jury by peer system as here in the U.S. Almost all of those 80 are among the more democratic of nations. So trial by jury of one's peers often correlates with the amount of freedom in a nation.
Trial by jury has had a central role in U.S. courtrooms since the beginning of America, and it is probably the best way to keep the government from becoming too powerful. Having a person's innocence or guilt judged by other than the government is fundamental to fairness. It is a constitutional right that I take serious, given that one day I might be accused of a crime and judged as well. I would want serious jurors to judge me if I were in a criminal or civil trial. Having ordinary men and women judging on the basis of an impartial hearing of the evidence is a far better situation than a "professional jury".
Hmmmm I better hope I never am charged with ranting too much. Any jury would convict me of that in less than five minutes..
Happt Birthday, Mr. Zip
Zip-a dee-do da! I'm excited..... 2013 is the 50th
anniversary
year of the invention of
the zip code. Yes, I know that with all the electronic communication
today
there is a step decline in snail mail, but the zip code should get a
mention or two of praise for all the good it did in speeding up the
delivery of mail here in the U.S., and in every other country (since
they all adopted the zip code in their own countries). So for those
born after 1963, they have never known anything mailing format except
the zip code. But
for oldies like me who remember when the zip code system first started
this is a big anniversary.
Hmmm I can actually remember the first time I used a zip code on a letter. It was considered a clever and high tech invention at the time. In 1963, the Postal Department selected a system advanced by department officials after trying many others that didn't measure up. Since developing the zip code was a collaborative effort from within the Post Office no body ever got credit for inventing it (though some try to credit a postal employee named Robert Moon with inventing it). That in itself makes it a unique discovery. Surely today, every invention has many who claim it and, of course, they all want to profit off the idea invented. Anyway, the ZIP Code which stands for mailing 'zoning improvement plan', begin on July 1, 1963. A five digit code had been assigned to every address throughout the country. The first digit designated a broad geographical area of the United States, ranging from zero for the Northeast to nine for the far West. This was followed by two digits that more closely pinpointed population concentrations and those sectional centers accessible to common transportation networks. The final two digits designated small post offices or postal zones in larger zoned cities.
We oldies know about Mr. Zip, who seems long gone now from public view. The Post Office Department introduced Mr. Zip, who was a friendly looking cartoon character, to give personality to the ZIP Code campaign. Mr. Zip’s main job was to make the idea of the ZIP Code stick in the minds of Americans and to pass on the message that ZIP Code use would lead to faster, more efficient mail delivery for the entire country. Sigh, but I guess if Mr. Zip were still in use in today's politically correct world, Mr. Zip would have to be transgendered and simple called "Zippy".
Here are some zip code facts that might interest you.
- The White House, the World Trade Center (prior to Sept. 11), Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, and most recently, Dodgertown in California are all places that have their own private zip code.. Smokey Bear also received his own code at the height of the "Only you can prevent forest fires" campaign in 1964 ( it's 20252). - There are a total of 41, 812 zip codes in the United States. The average population in a zip code is 7473, with the most populous zip code area being the El Paso, Texas zip code of 79936. That one has 116,860 people in it. I guess they either have more mail carriers there or people get their mail later than does the rest of the country.
- If you want to send a letter or live in the priciest zip code in the U.S. it would be sent to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, NYC. The average house there costs over 6 1/2 million dollars. I think I will mail to that zip rather than buy property there.
- There is no requirement to place a zip code on a letter. But if you don't, be prepared for a long wait for delivery.
Happy Birthday Mr. Zip!
Hmmm I can actually remember the first time I used a zip code on a letter. It was considered a clever and high tech invention at the time. In 1963, the Postal Department selected a system advanced by department officials after trying many others that didn't measure up. Since developing the zip code was a collaborative effort from within the Post Office no body ever got credit for inventing it (though some try to credit a postal employee named Robert Moon with inventing it). That in itself makes it a unique discovery. Surely today, every invention has many who claim it and, of course, they all want to profit off the idea invented. Anyway, the ZIP Code which stands for mailing 'zoning improvement plan', begin on July 1, 1963. A five digit code had been assigned to every address throughout the country. The first digit designated a broad geographical area of the United States, ranging from zero for the Northeast to nine for the far West. This was followed by two digits that more closely pinpointed population concentrations and those sectional centers accessible to common transportation networks. The final two digits designated small post offices or postal zones in larger zoned cities.
We oldies know about Mr. Zip, who seems long gone now from public view. The Post Office Department introduced Mr. Zip, who was a friendly looking cartoon character, to give personality to the ZIP Code campaign. Mr. Zip’s main job was to make the idea of the ZIP Code stick in the minds of Americans and to pass on the message that ZIP Code use would lead to faster, more efficient mail delivery for the entire country. Sigh, but I guess if Mr. Zip were still in use in today's politically correct world, Mr. Zip would have to be transgendered and simple called "Zippy".
Here are some zip code facts that might interest you.
- The White House, the World Trade Center (prior to Sept. 11), Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, and most recently, Dodgertown in California are all places that have their own private zip code.. Smokey Bear also received his own code at the height of the "Only you can prevent forest fires" campaign in 1964 ( it's 20252). - There are a total of 41, 812 zip codes in the United States. The average population in a zip code is 7473, with the most populous zip code area being the El Paso, Texas zip code of 79936. That one has 116,860 people in it. I guess they either have more mail carriers there or people get their mail later than does the rest of the country.
- If you want to send a letter or live in the priciest zip code in the U.S. it would be sent to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, NYC. The average house there costs over 6 1/2 million dollars. I think I will mail to that zip rather than buy property there.
- There is no requirement to place a zip code on a letter. But if you don't, be prepared for a long wait for delivery.
Happy Birthday Mr. Zip!
Did You Eat Your Insects Today?
The environmental crazies are at it again. They have become
ecstatic
about the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
report called 'Edible Insects: Future prospects for food safety and
feed security' that triumphs why you should eat crickets and ants and
all the rest of those critters we hate to see in the house. Yep! They
want to "save the planet" (again) by changing my diet from donuts and
burgers to sautéed moths or something like that. I think their eating
so many ants may be affecting their brains.
It's all in the name of the latest trendy crazy environmental types who claim that eating insects is great for the "planet" insects are a "great source of protein with a tiny carbon footprint". Odds are your dog wouldn't eat an insect dinner, so I am not going to either. If the global warming nuts really think that humans are killing the world with their...er..human habits, why don't they address the only real environmental issue that threatens humanity. That one would be overpopulation. In truth, overpopulation is the cause of almost all environmental stress today, but they won't admit it. That too many people competing for a limited number of resources is a problem should be common sense. It seems that mentioning that the undeveloped world, which creates most of the excess number of babies born today, can't be told to stop having babies that are not properly cared for. Mentioning that fact is not politically correct. Instead, they want me to eat their cricket entrees.
I know that most of us eat a quarter of a kilogram of insects by accident each year because those insects find their way into our food no matter how hard we try to keep them out. Interestingly, if you eat organic, your rate of insect consumption is much higher. I am glad those heath bad environment crazies are eating a bigger share of what they like, but keep the bugs off my dinner plate. And I know that is not true that the eating of insects is something that humans resort to only when they are starving. Many cultures cherish the flavors and texture of insects because they got used to it long ago. They can have my share if they want.
Yes, I also understand that the only insects that produce methane as a waste product (global warmers hate methane) are cockroaches, termites and scarab beetles. Yes, it is true that getting our protein from insects would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But I doubt it is necessary or has much impact on nature. In nature many animals eat other animals. Few don't eat ants. Just cutting the population would do far more than eating bugs. Too, the quality of life, at least most lives, is more greatly improved when eating a burger and fries instead of crickets and moths.
We live in an age in which information technology can make anything instantly trendy, After all, people are encouraged to let others do their thinking for them and even identifying with crazy causes can make humans feel solidarity with each other. I just which that the trendy types would find more meaningful causes, more legitimate ones. Maybe if they set aside their bug dinners for a while and enjoy a nice steak or a plate of meatball lasagna they might be better able to focus on the real than the imagined.
It's all in the name of the latest trendy crazy environmental types who claim that eating insects is great for the "planet" insects are a "great source of protein with a tiny carbon footprint". Odds are your dog wouldn't eat an insect dinner, so I am not going to either. If the global warming nuts really think that humans are killing the world with their...er..human habits, why don't they address the only real environmental issue that threatens humanity. That one would be overpopulation. In truth, overpopulation is the cause of almost all environmental stress today, but they won't admit it. That too many people competing for a limited number of resources is a problem should be common sense. It seems that mentioning that the undeveloped world, which creates most of the excess number of babies born today, can't be told to stop having babies that are not properly cared for. Mentioning that fact is not politically correct. Instead, they want me to eat their cricket entrees.
I know that most of us eat a quarter of a kilogram of insects by accident each year because those insects find their way into our food no matter how hard we try to keep them out. Interestingly, if you eat organic, your rate of insect consumption is much higher. I am glad those heath bad environment crazies are eating a bigger share of what they like, but keep the bugs off my dinner plate. And I know that is not true that the eating of insects is something that humans resort to only when they are starving. Many cultures cherish the flavors and texture of insects because they got used to it long ago. They can have my share if they want.
Yes, I also understand that the only insects that produce methane as a waste product (global warmers hate methane) are cockroaches, termites and scarab beetles. Yes, it is true that getting our protein from insects would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But I doubt it is necessary or has much impact on nature. In nature many animals eat other animals. Few don't eat ants. Just cutting the population would do far more than eating bugs. Too, the quality of life, at least most lives, is more greatly improved when eating a burger and fries instead of crickets and moths.
We live in an age in which information technology can make anything instantly trendy, After all, people are encouraged to let others do their thinking for them and even identifying with crazy causes can make humans feel solidarity with each other. I just which that the trendy types would find more meaningful causes, more legitimate ones. Maybe if they set aside their bug dinners for a while and enjoy a nice steak or a plate of meatball lasagna they might be better able to focus on the real than the imagined.
The Modern Culture
A few years ago I started to realize that I am out of touch
with what
is called "the popular culture". Now I seem totally in the dark, and I
like it! I think age makes us drift toward that because we simply
don't want to give up what we already treasure. If we do we lose an
identity that we need.
By popular culture I refer to what is currently embraced in art, literature, film, TV, music, technology, recreation, social norms etc. by most of the people in it. In some areas of the popular culture I have no affinity for what is current. Music, film, TV and technology are good examples for me. I not only don't participate much in those areas but am clue less about what they contain. Yet there are other areas of the popular culture in which I am still fully invested. Politics is an example there. It's probably because politics changes less and is effecting us the same regardless of generational view than the popular culture areas in which I have no interest. Conversely, those areas that are faster changing have the least appeal to me.
I think as most of us age we seek refuge in our pleasant past memories, maybe because of a fear or dislike of the current. There is security in what has already been defined, and the current never seems as welcoming. TV is an example of this, I think. I watch little of it outside of sports, news and a few informational programming. The rest bores me. Yet, I do sometimes watch a few programs on the nostalgia channels and not only remember some of them, but feel a sense of security they give me that the "good old days" live on in our remembrances and re runs. As long as I have good memories I do not mind living in them.
I also wonder what kids today, when older themselves, will idealize from their present. Can it be an endearing look at the first cell phones and the wild (rude) behavior people exhibit when using them? I do hope civilization will have come to or replace cell phones thirty years from now with more civil communications. Since technology is such a large part of the lifestyle of the young I suspect that this young generation will always embrace with good memory the kinds of technologies they use today. When older, every generation idealizes the past in its own way and in some way disdains the current. That seems to be the natural process for humans to engage.
I often vent and rant at what I see as the vacuous nature of modern culture, its too great emphasis on informality and its lack of
substance beyond the flash. But that might be a greater normality than to my "adapting" to the current things that I find so distasteful. Too, I think it is good that one lost in the present can point out how he or she is alive in the past. It does give a perspective to anyone floundering in the present. Maybe that's the way it ought to be. It's hard to both belong to one culture and yet feel comfortable in another. Hmmmm I wonder what is on nostalgia TV tonight....
By popular culture I refer to what is currently embraced in art, literature, film, TV, music, technology, recreation, social norms etc. by most of the people in it. In some areas of the popular culture I have no affinity for what is current. Music, film, TV and technology are good examples for me. I not only don't participate much in those areas but am clue less about what they contain. Yet there are other areas of the popular culture in which I am still fully invested. Politics is an example there. It's probably because politics changes less and is effecting us the same regardless of generational view than the popular culture areas in which I have no interest. Conversely, those areas that are faster changing have the least appeal to me.
I think as most of us age we seek refuge in our pleasant past memories, maybe because of a fear or dislike of the current. There is security in what has already been defined, and the current never seems as welcoming. TV is an example of this, I think. I watch little of it outside of sports, news and a few informational programming. The rest bores me. Yet, I do sometimes watch a few programs on the nostalgia channels and not only remember some of them, but feel a sense of security they give me that the "good old days" live on in our remembrances and re runs. As long as I have good memories I do not mind living in them.
I also wonder what kids today, when older themselves, will idealize from their present. Can it be an endearing look at the first cell phones and the wild (rude) behavior people exhibit when using them? I do hope civilization will have come to or replace cell phones thirty years from now with more civil communications. Since technology is such a large part of the lifestyle of the young I suspect that this young generation will always embrace with good memory the kinds of technologies they use today. When older, every generation idealizes the past in its own way and in some way disdains the current. That seems to be the natural process for humans to engage.
I often vent and rant at what I see as the vacuous nature of modern culture, its too great emphasis on informality and its lack of
substance beyond the flash. But that might be a greater normality than to my "adapting" to the current things that I find so distasteful. Too, I think it is good that one lost in the present can point out how he or she is alive in the past. It does give a perspective to anyone floundering in the present. Maybe that's the way it ought to be. It's hard to both belong to one culture and yet feel comfortable in another. Hmmmm I wonder what is on nostalgia TV tonight....
Don't Protest. Just Quit And Find A Better Job
Fast food and other low wage workers are up in arms here in
the United
States. They think their wages should be substantially increased,
doubled in some cases from the minimum wage scale allowed in a state.
They want the the U.S. government to intercede and do it because they
are paid a scale that is barely a living one. It is sad that a hard
working person can't make ends on his or her salary. But in a
capitalist system the employer decides what wages to pay the worker,
not the workers or the government.
The latest case for more pay came from Detroit fast food workers who walked off their jobs in protest, as did workers in several other large cities last week. Supporters of the protesters say this has a broad implication for the low wage workforce in the U.S. (which is a huge segment of it). The reason...it's the decline of once high paying but low skilled jobs that did not require education and have since been sent overseas as manufacturing declined in the U.S. in favor of service employment. Being uneducated or low skilled no longer is a free pass to high pay in the U.S. or other wealthy industrial nations. Education is now more the driving element to success for the average worker.
The future looks more of the same for the lowest paid workers in the U.S. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor the projection is that seven of 10 of the fastest growing occupations over the next decade will be in low wage jobs. Good luck to those poor workers with low skills/educational attainment walking their picket lines. The fact is that they can be easily replaced, given the skill level of their work is so low replacements would not be difficult to find. Too, the fast food restaurant owners counter the protesters by saying that their profit margins are low and do not make it possible to raise pay dramatically. Most fast food jobs they declare are designed to be temporary pursuits, just entrance to the work field and not permanent occupations.
I say to those fast food workers that if they feel they are treated unfairly in their pay and benefits they have an option. They can quit and educate themselves for better paying jobs. Working and study at night was once a common path to providing workers with a higher paying job. It seems to be used less and less now. The fact is that low skill jobs are held more often by workers who rejected the idea that education is the avenue to higher wages and more job satisfaction. In other words, if one doesn't like working at Mc Donald's the option is to quit and work elsewhere or work their while attending educational training that will allow more employment options. It may be a struggle to upgrade one's ability but it's less of s struggle than the fantasy that a low wage worker in a capitalist economy "ought to be paid more because it is fair to do so".
The latest case for more pay came from Detroit fast food workers who walked off their jobs in protest, as did workers in several other large cities last week. Supporters of the protesters say this has a broad implication for the low wage workforce in the U.S. (which is a huge segment of it). The reason...it's the decline of once high paying but low skilled jobs that did not require education and have since been sent overseas as manufacturing declined in the U.S. in favor of service employment. Being uneducated or low skilled no longer is a free pass to high pay in the U.S. or other wealthy industrial nations. Education is now more the driving element to success for the average worker.
The future looks more of the same for the lowest paid workers in the U.S. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor the projection is that seven of 10 of the fastest growing occupations over the next decade will be in low wage jobs. Good luck to those poor workers with low skills/educational attainment walking their picket lines. The fact is that they can be easily replaced, given the skill level of their work is so low replacements would not be difficult to find. Too, the fast food restaurant owners counter the protesters by saying that their profit margins are low and do not make it possible to raise pay dramatically. Most fast food jobs they declare are designed to be temporary pursuits, just entrance to the work field and not permanent occupations.
I say to those fast food workers that if they feel they are treated unfairly in their pay and benefits they have an option. They can quit and educate themselves for better paying jobs. Working and study at night was once a common path to providing workers with a higher paying job. It seems to be used less and less now. The fact is that low skill jobs are held more often by workers who rejected the idea that education is the avenue to higher wages and more job satisfaction. In other words, if one doesn't like working at Mc Donald's the option is to quit and work elsewhere or work their while attending educational training that will allow more employment options. It may be a struggle to upgrade one's ability but it's less of s struggle than the fantasy that a low wage worker in a capitalist economy "ought to be paid more because it is fair to do so".
Airline Passenger Annoyances
A Harris Poll of over 20-00 fliers was conducted online from March 13-18,
2013. Yep! they are polling airline passengers again about how annoyed
they are when having to fly. Maybe instead the airlines should simply
quit annoying and stop polling. But then, that isn't what airlines do. Many flyers appear to be unsatisfied
with the current amount of personal space on airplanes was so bad that
they would consider paying extra for more room, as in "how come my fat
butt can't fit in my sit when I sit next to an even fatter butted
passenger"? Anyway, most of the fliers said the most annoying part of
their "flight experience" was the lack of room they were given in their
seating.
The second most annoying airline behavior was the baggage check in charge. That is certainly the most outrageous of charges the airlines give us. Why does a person's clothes and other necessity count as an extra passenger? Do the airlines think we are nudists and can travel without clothes? It's equivalent to the fueling station for the plane being charged a fee for taxing in the plane into position where the plane can be fueled. No doubt, the airlines would scream about that.
Anyway, those two annoyances are so common I thought I might pass on a few more lesser recognized ones that seem to annoy crazies like me but not most other fliers (the non crazy types). How about these four?
* Cell phone chattering in boarding gates- OK, let then text. But do I have to be subjected to every idiotic conversation loudly spewed forth by cell phone zombies? We are all prisoners of the gate, and leaving the zombie boarding gate while waiting to board is to risk missing our flights. I say hire some school librarians to police the boarding gate areas. Anyone caught chatting on a cell phone would be put at the end of the boarding order and be denied any of those airline peanut snacks we are forced to eat!
* The smelly seat mate- This includes the over perfumed or cologned riders- In fact, if they give me a choice between those and a simple body odor type, I'll take the latter. Can't the airlines have a Department of Security Smell, with designated testers at every gate? Anyone who fails the body odor test could be escorted to a shower to clean up his or her act before boarding.
* Sitting next to a passenger and never stop talking to the seat mate adjacent to them the whole flight- Oh wait...that sounds like me...never mind this one.....
* Children boarding early- The rationale the airlines use is that kids take longer to board, but in my view the kids are racing down the aisles and need no extra time. It's the oldie crowd that takes forever to be seated. Ever watch aunt Ethel slither down the aisle of the plane at turtle speed? Also, maybe the airlines should make families with small children board last. Better yet, just leave them at the gate. The other passengers will appreciate the peace and quiet of a flight without those brats!
I hope you will enjoy your next fight...but I doubt it.
The second most annoying airline behavior was the baggage check in charge. That is certainly the most outrageous of charges the airlines give us. Why does a person's clothes and other necessity count as an extra passenger? Do the airlines think we are nudists and can travel without clothes? It's equivalent to the fueling station for the plane being charged a fee for taxing in the plane into position where the plane can be fueled. No doubt, the airlines would scream about that.
Anyway, those two annoyances are so common I thought I might pass on a few more lesser recognized ones that seem to annoy crazies like me but not most other fliers (the non crazy types). How about these four?
* Cell phone chattering in boarding gates- OK, let then text. But do I have to be subjected to every idiotic conversation loudly spewed forth by cell phone zombies? We are all prisoners of the gate, and leaving the zombie boarding gate while waiting to board is to risk missing our flights. I say hire some school librarians to police the boarding gate areas. Anyone caught chatting on a cell phone would be put at the end of the boarding order and be denied any of those airline peanut snacks we are forced to eat!
* The smelly seat mate- This includes the over perfumed or cologned riders- In fact, if they give me a choice between those and a simple body odor type, I'll take the latter. Can't the airlines have a Department of Security Smell, with designated testers at every gate? Anyone who fails the body odor test could be escorted to a shower to clean up his or her act before boarding.
* Sitting next to a passenger and never stop talking to the seat mate adjacent to them the whole flight- Oh wait...that sounds like me...never mind this one.....
* Children boarding early- The rationale the airlines use is that kids take longer to board, but in my view the kids are racing down the aisles and need no extra time. It's the oldie crowd that takes forever to be seated. Ever watch aunt Ethel slither down the aisle of the plane at turtle speed? Also, maybe the airlines should make families with small children board last. Better yet, just leave them at the gate. The other passengers will appreciate the peace and quiet of a flight without those brats!
I hope you will enjoy your next fight...but I doubt it.
Apples
The writer Jane Austin once said that, "Good apple pies
are a
considerable part of our domestic happiness." I believe it because it
is apples season here in apple growing Oregon. I bought a few varieties
the other day from a big bin of apples. Is that not the way apples
should be sold.....just picked, un waxed, barely cleaned and smelling
fresh from meters away? I bought two different varieties the other day
and they are as sweet as candy and juicy as a popsicle.
I am a fan of what some call the "noblest of fruits". What other fruit has so many varieties that are meant for so many different purposes. There is merit in variety itself. It provides leads us away from uniformity and monotony. Ever go to a market and get excited by the endless varieties of apples for sale? I don't think there is a fruit that offers so many choices with so many intriguing names. 7,500 varieties of apples worldwide, including the so called "club" varieties. They are now available because apple breeders commit to grow news apple in the hopes of finding the perfect breed. The apple industry today has settled on a handful of varieties to promote worldwide, and the rest are forgotten....if you happen to shop at a grocery store.
In the fields, apples trees still are thriving and local road side fruit stands still offer endless types for sale. Just like people some they come with interesting names. One of the newer and popular varieties of eating apple is called the "Pink Lady". And I thought "Prince" was a silly name for that musician. There is even an apple called the "Northern Spy Apple". It has nothing to do with the FBI or CIA. Apparently, the Northern Spy Apple was a originally called the Northern Pie Apple. It was accidentally turned into a cloak and dagger variety.
I not only like apples in their original state, but in most other forms. For my taste, it may be impossible to have a bad apple pie if there are enough apples inside. Apple cider, apple juice, apple jack, apple strudel, dried apples, apple pancakes, applesauce, dried apples, apple toffee...are all good to eat. Maybe the banana and mango are eaten more often worldwide, but as Jane Austin said, they don't ensure domestic tranquility like the apple does.
I am a fan of what some call the "noblest of fruits". What other fruit has so many varieties that are meant for so many different purposes. There is merit in variety itself. It provides leads us away from uniformity and monotony. Ever go to a market and get excited by the endless varieties of apples for sale? I don't think there is a fruit that offers so many choices with so many intriguing names. 7,500 varieties of apples worldwide, including the so called "club" varieties. They are now available because apple breeders commit to grow news apple in the hopes of finding the perfect breed. The apple industry today has settled on a handful of varieties to promote worldwide, and the rest are forgotten....if you happen to shop at a grocery store.
In the fields, apples trees still are thriving and local road side fruit stands still offer endless types for sale. Just like people some they come with interesting names. One of the newer and popular varieties of eating apple is called the "Pink Lady". And I thought "Prince" was a silly name for that musician. There is even an apple called the "Northern Spy Apple". It has nothing to do with the FBI or CIA. Apparently, the Northern Spy Apple was a originally called the Northern Pie Apple. It was accidentally turned into a cloak and dagger variety.
I not only like apples in their original state, but in most other forms. For my taste, it may be impossible to have a bad apple pie if there are enough apples inside. Apple cider, apple juice, apple jack, apple strudel, dried apples, apple pancakes, applesauce, dried apples, apple toffee...are all good to eat. Maybe the banana and mango are eaten more often worldwide, but as Jane Austin said, they don't ensure domestic tranquility like the apple does.
Turkish Taffy
World Market, a retail chain that sells goods from
around the world and
the U.S. is having a sale on retro candy and drinks. When I saw their
advertisement in my morning newspaper I had to check it because one of
my childhood favorite (and still today when I can find it) candy treat,
Bonomo Turkish Taffy, was pictured in the ad. Alas! I bought a stack of
my favorite vanilla, a chocolate and a banana Bonomo as well as some
other candy I ate as a child. Those occasional retreat treats are as
good for the sole as the tummy.
Turkish Taffy is not really taffy, but is technically more a nougat. It is also not Turkish nor anything related to Turkey, but instead was created before World War II in the Bonomo factory. From the late 1940s to the late 60's it was made into candy-bar size which the purchaser would whack against a hard surface to break it into more bite-sized pieces. Since the pieces are both chewy and slow-melting in the mouth, it's a favorite for the someone who wants to savor their taffy for awhile. A Turkish taffy bar still cost 5¢ in the 1960s but what I bought at World Market was one dollar. Hmmmm When I opened and cracked one of my Bonomo, let it get soft and chewed the heavenly treat as memories of my childhood floated in my mind.
It's amazing how those kinds of stimulus response situations unclogs the memory. When I was a boy the neighborhood kids used to ride on our bike to the neighborhood drug store that sold Bonomo and various other kinds of slab and bar taffy. We usually ripped open the wrappers on the bars and ate them on the way home or stopped by one of the old 45 record stores and listened to the latest single of what some called "rock and roll" in the booths that customers could use to play prospective buys.
As I write that more memories of my childhood come forth, and I thank that Bonomo Turkish Taffy for open the door to them. No doubt you also have memories triggered by the re acquaintance to some thing or event from your earlier days. To escape our present reality and be young again we must always have old memories to help bring even better new hopes.
Turkish Taffy is not really taffy, but is technically more a nougat. It is also not Turkish nor anything related to Turkey, but instead was created before World War II in the Bonomo factory. From the late 1940s to the late 60's it was made into candy-bar size which the purchaser would whack against a hard surface to break it into more bite-sized pieces. Since the pieces are both chewy and slow-melting in the mouth, it's a favorite for the someone who wants to savor their taffy for awhile. A Turkish taffy bar still cost 5¢ in the 1960s but what I bought at World Market was one dollar. Hmmmm When I opened and cracked one of my Bonomo, let it get soft and chewed the heavenly treat as memories of my childhood floated in my mind.
It's amazing how those kinds of stimulus response situations unclogs the memory. When I was a boy the neighborhood kids used to ride on our bike to the neighborhood drug store that sold Bonomo and various other kinds of slab and bar taffy. We usually ripped open the wrappers on the bars and ate them on the way home or stopped by one of the old 45 record stores and listened to the latest single of what some called "rock and roll" in the booths that customers could use to play prospective buys.
As I write that more memories of my childhood come forth, and I thank that Bonomo Turkish Taffy for open the door to them. No doubt you also have memories triggered by the re acquaintance to some thing or event from your earlier days. To escape our present reality and be young again we must always have old memories to help bring even better new hopes.
No Filthy Gravestones Allowed
There was a strange news item in my newspaper today,
something about a
deceased rap singer. One Sonny Santiago, known as 'Uno' on stage, died
in a crash and was buried in a cemetery that, uh, doesn't like rap
music any more than I do. It seems that Uno's relatives wanted to post
the lyrics of one of Uno's songs on the headstone, and did so without
permission of the cemetery. Trouble is, the lyrics are filthy, filled
with the profanity on which that kind of "music" thrives.
Why do rap singers not only not sing (they talk, and much of the time with profanity) their songs, and adopt inane nicknames like Uno, Ice Cube, Lil Wayne, Ludacris, Snoop Dog and the rest of the idiotic stage names? It could be that it's because most have not one iota of talent and need as much distraction from that fact as possible in order to garner attention. Hmmm I wonder if Celene Dion ever considered calling herself 'Loud Ho' or Taylor Swift suggested renaming herself as 'TS Bitter'. I guess not, since they have talent and can actually sing a song without offending and are not ignorant thug wanna be types as so many rappers are.
Back to Uno. The cemetery denied the family request to go filthy, explaining that it might be inappropriate for the visitors of the cemetery who don't share a love of filthy rap. Just imagine someone's Aunt Gertie reaching down to place flowers on her recently deceased husband's grave and reading an Uno diatribe to his "filthy bitch" or whatever illiterate ramble line comprises his best lyric. Gertie might have a stroke right next to her hubby's grave.
Well, after being told the vulgarity could not be posted Uno's grieving family decided to go with one of Uno's non profanity laced lyrics, one of the few they could find in Uno's works. Trouble is, they also added a 3-foot by 8-foot decoration made from mulch and rocks shaped like the number 1 (which is the English equivalent for the Spanish word 'Uno'). Yep! The family has been asked to remove that as well, as it violates the cemetery rules about good taste. It seems that when a rapper dies, bad taste endures in the behavior of the the family survivors.
So far Uno's mom has complied with the requests to normalize Uno's grave, but she isn't happy about it. "We want to be with him. It's not fair", declared Uno's mom. I have the feeling that if mom and family die anytime soon, that cemetery won't want a literal reuniting of them with Uno on its grounds.
Why do rap singers not only not sing (they talk, and much of the time with profanity) their songs, and adopt inane nicknames like Uno, Ice Cube, Lil Wayne, Ludacris, Snoop Dog and the rest of the idiotic stage names? It could be that it's because most have not one iota of talent and need as much distraction from that fact as possible in order to garner attention. Hmmm I wonder if Celene Dion ever considered calling herself 'Loud Ho' or Taylor Swift suggested renaming herself as 'TS Bitter'. I guess not, since they have talent and can actually sing a song without offending and are not ignorant thug wanna be types as so many rappers are.
Back to Uno. The cemetery denied the family request to go filthy, explaining that it might be inappropriate for the visitors of the cemetery who don't share a love of filthy rap. Just imagine someone's Aunt Gertie reaching down to place flowers on her recently deceased husband's grave and reading an Uno diatribe to his "filthy bitch" or whatever illiterate ramble line comprises his best lyric. Gertie might have a stroke right next to her hubby's grave.
Well, after being told the vulgarity could not be posted Uno's grieving family decided to go with one of Uno's non profanity laced lyrics, one of the few they could find in Uno's works. Trouble is, they also added a 3-foot by 8-foot decoration made from mulch and rocks shaped like the number 1 (which is the English equivalent for the Spanish word 'Uno'). Yep! The family has been asked to remove that as well, as it violates the cemetery rules about good taste. It seems that when a rapper dies, bad taste endures in the behavior of the the family survivors.
So far Uno's mom has complied with the requests to normalize Uno's grave, but she isn't happy about it. "We want to be with him. It's not fair", declared Uno's mom. I have the feeling that if mom and family die anytime soon, that cemetery won't want a literal reuniting of them with Uno on its grounds.
Toilet Paper
I know it is a weird subject to write to you about, but I
am
a little
weird and weird subjects often provoke thought about other weird
things in life. So maybe it will take you out of your normal
conventional mode. Therefore, the subject today is toilet paper. Yep,
I was thinking about that as
I wiped this morning, not about the wiping process (feel relieved I
won't try to convince you about the proper wipe) but on the number and
kinds of
toilet paper out there.
First let me attest that I think toilet paper is a great and useful invention. Once when in Italy in the early 80's while walking in Rome I had diarrhea and searched frantically for a bathroom that was open and had toilet paper. I couldn't find one....in time. The Italian culture may be my favorite, but it needs to upgrade its toilet paper customs. Anyway, the history of toilet paper says that the first use of paper for such hygiene purposes was in China in the 6th century. The Chinese always seem to be first, but having been there a number of times I can attest that Chinese toilet paper today isn't much of an improvement over the 6th century variety. Odd too, that in China it is regularly stolen when placed in public places. What does that say about the Chinese culture today?
Anyway, specifically manufactured toilet paper was first mass produced in Europe in the 14th century. Later, modern commercial toilet paper originated in the 19th century, with a patent for roll based dispensers being made in 1883. An American guy from New York named Zach Wheeler invented modern toilet paper and the roll dispenser in 1877. What a legacy that is! I bet even his mom didn't brag about her son's business. Still today many parts of the world, especially where toilet paper or the necessary plumbing for disposal may be unavailable or unaffordable, toilet paper is not used. Also, in many parts of the world such as India, people consider using water a much cleaner and more sanitary practice than using paper. And what is with those crazy French and their bidets?
I'll spare you the details of any more toilet paper history. It is ...uh.. a messy subject to deal with. Let's look at today's toilet paper choices. Toilet paper products vary greatly in the size, weight, roughness, softness, chemical residues, "finger breakthrough" resistance, water absorption, etc. There may be too many choices in most places in the world. When I was in (then communist) Russia years ago I went to the famed GUM department store and discovered the Russians had their toilet paper (and every other thing for sale) in one available choice. You bought it or not. If not I suppose you never mentioned it. But almost everywhere today, the larger toilet paper companies have very detailed, scientific market surveys to determine the consumer demand for which of the many technical qualities is most preferred.
Today, in the United States, plain unpatterned colored toilet paper has been mostly replaced by patterned toilet paper, normally white, with embossed decorative patterns or designs in various colors and different sizes depending on the brand. But in most institutional buildings the user will find the cheap white paper their only option. Colored toilet paper remains popular in some European countries today. I wonder why the Europeans still want it that way?
Despite singer Sheryl Crows advice to wipe with but a single piece of toilet paper each trip to the pot, we have many options today. One of the unusual ones in the U.S. is the holiday print rolls. At Christmas time, for example, you can buy toilet paper with reindeer and other Christmas scenes . I find it sacrilegious to wipe with Santa's image imprinted, so I abstain from using that. Just as there was a George Bush toilet paper roll, there is an Obama print too. That guy is too present in my life already, so I refuse to wipe with an Obama roll. I also refuse to wipe with any toilet paper that has inspirational or religious messages attached. It's the only thing on which the Islamic world and I agree.
What I want is soft and durable toilet paper...white will do. Hmmmm If I ask you what kind of toilet paper you prefer I might regret asking. Heaven forbid you are the one who uses the inspiration quote of the day paper or who tells me about what type your dog likes. I just hope you wipe! Instead of asking, I sends wishes that your day be on that does not go into the toilet....
First let me attest that I think toilet paper is a great and useful invention. Once when in Italy in the early 80's while walking in Rome I had diarrhea and searched frantically for a bathroom that was open and had toilet paper. I couldn't find one....in time. The Italian culture may be my favorite, but it needs to upgrade its toilet paper customs. Anyway, the history of toilet paper says that the first use of paper for such hygiene purposes was in China in the 6th century. The Chinese always seem to be first, but having been there a number of times I can attest that Chinese toilet paper today isn't much of an improvement over the 6th century variety. Odd too, that in China it is regularly stolen when placed in public places. What does that say about the Chinese culture today?
Anyway, specifically manufactured toilet paper was first mass produced in Europe in the 14th century. Later, modern commercial toilet paper originated in the 19th century, with a patent for roll based dispensers being made in 1883. An American guy from New York named Zach Wheeler invented modern toilet paper and the roll dispenser in 1877. What a legacy that is! I bet even his mom didn't brag about her son's business. Still today many parts of the world, especially where toilet paper or the necessary plumbing for disposal may be unavailable or unaffordable, toilet paper is not used. Also, in many parts of the world such as India, people consider using water a much cleaner and more sanitary practice than using paper. And what is with those crazy French and their bidets?
I'll spare you the details of any more toilet paper history. It is ...uh.. a messy subject to deal with. Let's look at today's toilet paper choices. Toilet paper products vary greatly in the size, weight, roughness, softness, chemical residues, "finger breakthrough" resistance, water absorption, etc. There may be too many choices in most places in the world. When I was in (then communist) Russia years ago I went to the famed GUM department store and discovered the Russians had their toilet paper (and every other thing for sale) in one available choice. You bought it or not. If not I suppose you never mentioned it. But almost everywhere today, the larger toilet paper companies have very detailed, scientific market surveys to determine the consumer demand for which of the many technical qualities is most preferred.
Today, in the United States, plain unpatterned colored toilet paper has been mostly replaced by patterned toilet paper, normally white, with embossed decorative patterns or designs in various colors and different sizes depending on the brand. But in most institutional buildings the user will find the cheap white paper their only option. Colored toilet paper remains popular in some European countries today. I wonder why the Europeans still want it that way?
Despite singer Sheryl Crows advice to wipe with but a single piece of toilet paper each trip to the pot, we have many options today. One of the unusual ones in the U.S. is the holiday print rolls. At Christmas time, for example, you can buy toilet paper with reindeer and other Christmas scenes . I find it sacrilegious to wipe with Santa's image imprinted, so I abstain from using that. Just as there was a George Bush toilet paper roll, there is an Obama print too. That guy is too present in my life already, so I refuse to wipe with an Obama roll. I also refuse to wipe with any toilet paper that has inspirational or religious messages attached. It's the only thing on which the Islamic world and I agree.
What I want is soft and durable toilet paper...white will do. Hmmmm If I ask you what kind of toilet paper you prefer I might regret asking. Heaven forbid you are the one who uses the inspiration quote of the day paper or who tells me about what type your dog likes. I just hope you wipe! Instead of asking, I sends wishes that your day be on that does not go into the toilet....
May Holidays
A late Happy
Mother's Day to you. It's that time of
the year
when everything is blooming in much of the cooler regions of the
world. Given that I prefer the winter and colder days I am not excited,
but I think much of the world is. That's because May is crowded with
holidays and observances. Since the weather is nice outside in more
places, why not stick the holidays in May. It starts fast! The first
day of May is called May Day and descended from spring festivals that
were held in Roman, But now it is a labor celebration in many countries
and the old Communist Party day to show off military objects and lie
about how communism is the best system. It seems that Communism is
almost dead though. So I have my doubts about anyone celebrating
communism on May 1st. That May calendar keeps giving holidays that are better than communist
lies.
On May 5th Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in Mexico a little but far more in the United States, where a huge portion of Mexico has walked across the border and declared "I'm staying". It commemorates a battle when the Mexican army defeated the French at the battle of Puebla in 1862. Any holiday that celebrates the ds defeat of the pretentious French is a good one ion my view. It is celebrated with parades, dancing, mariachi music and other festivities (and plenty of drunken margaritas, an American drink the Mexican crowd seems particularly amenable toward). Take that France!
Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. Every nation likes to over celebrate mom on that day, probably in reward for treating her like a servant the other 364 days of the year. In contrast, Father's Day (in June) is virtually ignored That's because it's mostly a man's world, with male privilege. Why give dad a day when he gets the best of things the other 364 days of the year.
Another big holiday in May is Memorial Day, held on the last Monday in May. This is to make the National holiday into a three day weekend. And isn't that what holidays are about...free time ....no work....an excuse to be lazy. The day is set aside to honor members of the military who died in service to their country. It is marked by parades, displays of the flag, visits to cemeteries, and other solemn activities. But do we really need a three day weekend to celebrate the deaths of soldiers. Most of us don't remember when mom and dad dies, and surely do not celebrate those somber occasions. People who celebrate Memorial Day should just admit that they are taking off three days as a symbol of the start of summer and the time when goofing off is socially acceptable. That holiday has little to do with soldiers.
Those are the biggies in May. But there are many more days that are supposedly right to celebrate in May. Asian Awareness Month, Egg Month, Historic Preservation Month, Older American Month, Teacher Appreciation Month, Get Happy Week, Hug Holiday Week, Online Romance Week, Frog Jumping Day, Turtle Day, and many more (if curious, click the link)
http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/may-2013.html
May showers may bring May flowers, but they also bring way too many celebrations
On May 5th Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in Mexico a little but far more in the United States, where a huge portion of Mexico has walked across the border and declared "I'm staying". It commemorates a battle when the Mexican army defeated the French at the battle of Puebla in 1862. Any holiday that celebrates the ds defeat of the pretentious French is a good one ion my view. It is celebrated with parades, dancing, mariachi music and other festivities (and plenty of drunken margaritas, an American drink the Mexican crowd seems particularly amenable toward). Take that France!
Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. Every nation likes to over celebrate mom on that day, probably in reward for treating her like a servant the other 364 days of the year. In contrast, Father's Day (in June) is virtually ignored That's because it's mostly a man's world, with male privilege. Why give dad a day when he gets the best of things the other 364 days of the year.
Another big holiday in May is Memorial Day, held on the last Monday in May. This is to make the National holiday into a three day weekend. And isn't that what holidays are about...free time ....no work....an excuse to be lazy. The day is set aside to honor members of the military who died in service to their country. It is marked by parades, displays of the flag, visits to cemeteries, and other solemn activities. But do we really need a three day weekend to celebrate the deaths of soldiers. Most of us don't remember when mom and dad dies, and surely do not celebrate those somber occasions. People who celebrate Memorial Day should just admit that they are taking off three days as a symbol of the start of summer and the time when goofing off is socially acceptable. That holiday has little to do with soldiers.
Those are the biggies in May. But there are many more days that are supposedly right to celebrate in May. Asian Awareness Month, Egg Month, Historic Preservation Month, Older American Month, Teacher Appreciation Month, Get Happy Week, Hug Holiday Week, Online Romance Week, Frog Jumping Day, Turtle Day, and many more (if curious, click the link)
http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/may-2013.html
May showers may bring May flowers, but they also bring way too many celebrations
Those Citizen News Posts
The Boston bombing facts aside, and there have been way too
much from the media and from private citizens about the event, I think
the endless barrage of information from those who use social media but
were not there, involved or qualified to report shows how out of control
is social media. For example, immediately after the bombing Redditers
compiled a photo library of whom they believed to be the perpetrators,
Twitter offered minute-by-minute updates and Face book users involved in
the Boston marathon race but unhurt shared stories that frankly were
self serving and irrelevant. The updates were often factually wrong and
absolutely unnecessary to all but the most voyeuristic human. How much
need be said about an event after the story has already been told? It's
overload...too much. It's evidence that when people have electronic
gadgets they use them endlessly and annoyingly. I wonder why so many
give the information and so many more seek it out.
It's bad enough the mainstream news media spreads rumor and falsehood as it desperately tries to beat competitors by revealing the "news" first and more completely. Now we have private users of cells phones and applications who think they are a source of knowledge about things which they have no clue. Today's video tools make it easy for everyone to share what they've seen. Even when told to stay away from dangerous spots, people still can't seem to heed the warnings, often chronicling in real time with smart phone in hand and eager to post on Yu tube. Having their "news story" get hits makes them feel self gratified because they feel pride in being the person who gathered the news for the rest of us.
That information comes in so fast from so many anonymous sources that it can not be filtered readily for accuracy and relevance. I pay no attention to those kinds of "citizen reports", but a growing audience for them has arisen that believes the veracity of citizen reports way too often for my comfort. So the question to ask about the effect social media is whether it is a good or bad for informing and helping the listener form opinions about single events. Does a constant barrage on non professional, anonymous citizen reports keep citizens up to date or misinform them better or worse than does the professional media?
I doubt many who so easily accepts news that a citizen news reporter gives actually cross checks to verify the content. Rumors and false perceptions are created as often as is solid information passed. Anyway, do you find the immediate promulgation of information from private citizen news reporters to be more harmful or more helpful in breaking news situations? Further, do you pay attention to those sources and have confidence in them? I don't.
It's bad enough the mainstream news media spreads rumor and falsehood as it desperately tries to beat competitors by revealing the "news" first and more completely. Now we have private users of cells phones and applications who think they are a source of knowledge about things which they have no clue. Today's video tools make it easy for everyone to share what they've seen. Even when told to stay away from dangerous spots, people still can't seem to heed the warnings, often chronicling in real time with smart phone in hand and eager to post on Yu tube. Having their "news story" get hits makes them feel self gratified because they feel pride in being the person who gathered the news for the rest of us.
That information comes in so fast from so many anonymous sources that it can not be filtered readily for accuracy and relevance. I pay no attention to those kinds of "citizen reports", but a growing audience for them has arisen that believes the veracity of citizen reports way too often for my comfort. So the question to ask about the effect social media is whether it is a good or bad for informing and helping the listener form opinions about single events. Does a constant barrage on non professional, anonymous citizen reports keep citizens up to date or misinform them better or worse than does the professional media?
I doubt many who so easily accepts news that a citizen news reporter gives actually cross checks to verify the content. Rumors and false perceptions are created as often as is solid information passed. Anyway, do you find the immediate promulgation of information from private citizen news reporters to be more harmful or more helpful in breaking news situations? Further, do you pay attention to those sources and have confidence in them? I don't.
They Want To Ban Choclate
They are going after my favorite unhealthy foods here in
Portland. A
politically correct Oregon legislator has submitted a bill for vote
here that wants to ban candy bars and other sugary snacks from vending
machines in public buildings. I thought the crazy New York law banning
large soft drinks for sale in NYC was amusing, but now that the nuts
here are after my junk food I should probably rant a little in
opposition. So get
yourself a candy bar while it's still legal to eat one and relax while
I vent now.
I know that access to chocolate in state buildings isn't a sacred and inalienable right, on par with freedom of speech. But the little naughty things in life are what make life worth living. Too, I am not a child that needs mommy to regulate when I can eat a Milky Way Bar (the dark chocolate version preferred). This proposed bill would set strict nutritional requirements for these vending machines, banning most non diet sodas altogether and forbidding snacks that are not sufficiently low calorie, low sugar and low fat. No snacks with more than 200 calories, and no "entrees" with more than 450 calories would be allowed. That's half my diet! (oops....the sugar inside me made me excitable)
Do we need a food police to tell us what we can eat? Surely not. These days, virtually all of Oregon's public schools are switching to healthier school menus, pushed by federal nutrition rules, state standards and parent demand. These changes are worth supporting since children eat a lot of meals at school, and it is responsible for schools to support their healthy upbringing rather than undermine it with cheap junk food and sugar bomb soda. But adults are capable of deciding for themselves what they will eat. Hmmmm Today it is "No chocolate for you", and who knows is next the government might say.... "You're too fat so no spandex pants for you". I might have to defect to a more reasonable place (Beware....if I move where you are I might take my spandex pants with me).
Banning non nutritious foods for growing children is not a bad policy. Kids need responsible guidance from adults. But treating a candy bar like a cancer causing pack of cigarettes goes too far. And deciding that public employees or adult users of public buildings need protection from their childlike impulses, so that they never accidentally spend on chocolate? For a candy consuming pig like me that's the greatest human rights violation since the rape of Nanking.......
I know that access to chocolate in state buildings isn't a sacred and inalienable right, on par with freedom of speech. But the little naughty things in life are what make life worth living. Too, I am not a child that needs mommy to regulate when I can eat a Milky Way Bar (the dark chocolate version preferred). This proposed bill would set strict nutritional requirements for these vending machines, banning most non diet sodas altogether and forbidding snacks that are not sufficiently low calorie, low sugar and low fat. No snacks with more than 200 calories, and no "entrees" with more than 450 calories would be allowed. That's half my diet! (oops....the sugar inside me made me excitable)
Do we need a food police to tell us what we can eat? Surely not. These days, virtually all of Oregon's public schools are switching to healthier school menus, pushed by federal nutrition rules, state standards and parent demand. These changes are worth supporting since children eat a lot of meals at school, and it is responsible for schools to support their healthy upbringing rather than undermine it with cheap junk food and sugar bomb soda. But adults are capable of deciding for themselves what they will eat. Hmmmm Today it is "No chocolate for you", and who knows is next the government might say.... "You're too fat so no spandex pants for you". I might have to defect to a more reasonable place (Beware....if I move where you are I might take my spandex pants with me).
Banning non nutritious foods for growing children is not a bad policy. Kids need responsible guidance from adults. But treating a candy bar like a cancer causing pack of cigarettes goes too far. And deciding that public employees or adult users of public buildings need protection from their childlike impulses, so that they never accidentally spend on chocolate? For a candy consuming pig like me that's the greatest human rights violation since the rape of Nanking.......
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