Monday, November 28, 2016

Hammond

I left the house yesterday at 5 am and didn't get back until about 8 p.m., a long day. Instead of driving they had me walking in some scenes. No excitement in this production but it was shot in Hammond, Louisiana. Hammond is one of those small cities in Louisiana with nice charm and old buildings.


We shot the scenes in which I participated in the old historic district of Hammond, a curious thing given the film is supposed to be set in Oklahoma, which looks nothing like Hammond. But that is the way Hollywood works sometimes. It reconstructs the city of the film to fit the locale when entertainment value is upped or the economy of the shoot makes it advantageous to do so.Hammond has about 20,000 residents an increase since the great Hurricane of 2005 chased so many of the citizens of the New Orleans area northward to Hammond and other places that are safe from future flooding.


It's biggest industry is Southeastern University (with a famed research department on mosquitoes and other insects). During the Civil War the southern army got many of its shoes from Hammond, which was the leading manufacturer of shoes for the Confederate army. That was also the time when Hammond became famous for producing sweet strawberries. it no bills itself as the strawberry capital of the U.S.That is essentially the a story of Hammond, a similar one to many other cites across the country.


I like to drink in the ambiance of a place I do not know and when there I did that, noticing the atavistic nature of the city. I saw signs of businesses that once were once bade in and New Orleans staples but no long gone. Whether they are related to those today or new ones who kept only the name I do not know, but seeing the signs made me flash back to when I remembered those same ones here in New Orleans. Small cities like this one hold a historical treasure for us, keeping alive and even idealizing things we have forgotten but are reminded again when visiting those places.


But you may ask, "What is there to do in a small city like Hammond?" The same thing there is in a large city. There are the same books, the same movies, the same sports, and for the most part the same social activities.


Hammond is really just a microcosm of New Orleans and a reminder that little or big most cities are more alike than dissimilar

Sunday, November 27, 2016

Frozen To Death

Here's a weird case for the modern age. A 14-year-old girl in the Britain. who was dying of cancer and since has passed on, won the right to be cryogenically frozen after her death. Yep! A juvenile has decided to be put on ice.  in a case that's the first of its kind. The girl's identity is being kept a secret. She wanted to have her body preserved in the hopes that scientists someday would be able to bring her back to life and cure her illness. I suspect she has been watching too many bad Hollywood science fiction movies.

So what does a court do when a kid wants to make the decision about her body after death? Mom and dad are called in.  The Ice Maiden's wishes were initially supported by her mother but not her father, which led the girl to seek a judge's intervention to ensure that her mother would decide what would happen to her body. The judge granted her request  because, we all known that in domestic matters men lose.  The good news is that  her father changed his mind and agreed to support his daughter's last wish.

During the last months of her life, the teenager, who had a rare form of cancer, used the internet to investigate cryonics, and when convinced she did not want to be buried she sent a letter to the court the following: "I have been asked to explain why I want this unusual thing done. I'm only 14 years old and I don't want to die, but I know I am going to. I think being cryo‐preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up, even in hundreds of years' time. I don't want to be buried underground. I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they might find a cure for my cancer and wake me up. I want to have this chance. This is my wish."

But can a14 year old make that kind of decision? Cryogenic body freezing is still just a bad movie plot, not science. Even if more than just at theoretical possibility, preserving and reconstructing a human brain, for instance, is not remotely possible now, and it's not at all clear whether it's even possible at all, ever. But the Ice Maiden believed that future science may make it feasible.

I wonder if that child would find being thawed 200 or 300 years from now, the ideal she thought it to be prior to her death. She would awaken in a strange world, perhaps a hostile one. There may be no relatives and certainly no familiar faces nor a familiar culture relative. She might not remember things and be left in a desperate situation. Even the most comfortable of us today is often uncomfortable in this world we know well. But alas! Blame mom for a bad thaw if the Ice maiden is ever brought back.

The girl was too young to make a legally binding will, so she asked the court to intervene to guarantee that her mother would be solely responsible for determining how her remains would be handled. The judge visited the teenager in the hospital and said he was impressed by the "valiant way" she faced her death, and that he had no doubt she had the mental capacity to file a lawsuit. The girl died with the knowledge that she would be frozen, and her body has been sent to the United States for long term cryogenic storage at a cost of $46,000.

Even if cryogenics were possible, would someone from 2016 think the world is better that what she once knew?  Too, organisms die. It's what life is about. Are we selfish to want to cheat or delay death?

Saturday, November 26, 2016

More Drivel From Pope Francis

Pope Francis delivered another speech to the world and his own Catholic Church to reject "the virus of polarization and animosity" and the growing temptation to "demonize" those who are different. He made the remarks during a ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica to elevate 17 new cardinals from six continents. Did he say not to "demonize those who are different". If so, he needs to direct his statement to the progressive left, for they are the ones who do not tolerate anyone straying from left-wing propaganda about "diversity" (for the left this means "do only what I approve as acceptable or be called a "racist"). Most of the intolerance I see in the world is by the left toward those not in line with their orthodoxy.

The pope's sermon was viewed as an indictment of the populist and nationalist anger seen in countries around the world who are fighting for their national identity and for their right to regulate who enters and lives in their countries. Of course, this liberal pope is also referring to the election of Donald Trump as president of the U.S., because, well, the liberal left says that Trump is not one of them and therefore is a heretic. "In God's heart there are no enemies," Pope Francis told thousands of religious, political and civic leaders gathered for the formal induction of the churchmen into the cardinals' ranks. No enemies? I thought the "devil" was the enemy of the church. Isn't that the line we have heard and read in scripture since the beginning of the church?

Francis also lamented the tendency to "demonize" one's opponents, "so as to have a 'sacred' justification for dismissing them." Hmmmm It seems to me that the people most demonizing their opponent are on the left.  In the U.S. presidential race, for example, the left made it their whole campaign to do so, and even after their defeat continue it on a regular basis today. The also disagreeable Trump has become the new devil figure of the left and of pope Francis.

Hey Francis, how about sticking up for Christians being persecuted around the globe? You know, those Christians killed or maimed by non Christian extremists. Oh, I forgot, the 11th commandment of the left is "Thou shalt not criticize or defend against any from the left or any Islamics who threaten. "Perhaps the pope should take a look at where the extreme reactions are being emitted. It's not from traditional Christians in his church. It's largely from the secular progressives who own intolerance and practice it in the form of political correctness.

Until institutions come to terms with who are the actual offenders in this intolerance dispute we'll only continue to live in an us against them world. The reality is both the left and right are intolerant of each other these days, but the left is about 20 meters ahead in the race to the 100 meter finish line to being insufferable. The pope might be better off just letting the intolerant crowds slug it out. Preaching to them to stop is futile.

Friday, November 25, 2016

The Fate Of The Turkey

Thanksgiving is done so I thought it would be nice for my annual turkey report.  Since turkey is the standard Thanksgiving meat and the big turkey eating season is from Thanksgiving to Christmas it might be interesting to see how that turkey on the dinner table has changed through the years. But first, an oddity about the Thanksgiving holiday that few if any ever noticed. That is, why is there no (ok, maybe there might be a few bad ones no one has heard) Thanksgiving music? There's none. not a single Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer equivalent. Halloween has songs, Christmas does, Easter, even St. Patrick's Day. I think the turkeys would appreciate a song or two about their fate as they are slaughtered for the dinner table.

Anyway, turkeys in the United States have fallen on hard times recently.  Many commercially raised turkeys on industrial farms cannot even mate properly, leaving the turkey industry almost completely dependent on artificial insemination.  Consumer demand and technological innovation have made sex obsolete for the dinner table turkey. I guess there aren't any cruise bars for turkey's either.

Turkeys with large breast and thigh muscles are prized by farmers because they're the most valuable parts of the bird at sale. So turkeys that naturally had those traits were selected to breed by farmers, increasing their size through generations. Technological advances in artificial insemination before W.W. II allowed for turkey semen to be distributed. This and the almighty steroid have made for giant turkeys today.

The European settlers  in North America would have seen the turkey as a common North American bird. Like wild turkeys today, the wild turkey was dark in color, sporting barred white feathers with a green and bronze iridescent sheen. But the color of turkeys have changed. The old natural dark colored pin feathers is out and the more desirable looking clean pink skin is in.

The wild turkey of the easily days of America were sleek and quick, and could fly short distances when they needed to. But as they became breed birds that changed.  In 1960 the average wild turkey matured in 36 weeks and weighed 15 pounds. Today's commercially bred turkey takes 18 weeks to mature and weighs on average at 31 pounds. Their breasts are now so big they can no longer fly. Wow! Turkey on steroids.

Having said all of that, maybe the perfect Thanksgiving song would be one to document the sad decline of the once glorious bird into a sex deprived, overly breast laden, steroid freak. Gobble, gobble to that.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Listening To Christmas Music, Already

I know it's early, even for a Christmas music fan, but I already have my favorite Christmas music station on lock and load. About five days ago I click the bookmark on the computer and listen. It invigorates me and after a few sappy tunes I forget about the horrid world in which we live. In short, for a few weeks during the Christmas season those songs make me feel better. But is that why I listen to Christmas music on my computer every year at this time? Is it because of tradition and rote or is hearing I'll Be Home For Christmas by Perry Como ingrained in my DNA?

Computers are anew technology. They were not around when I was a kid, yet I suspect my affection for Christmas music began in my childhood pre Christmas days when I listened to my mother play her Christmas records at home. She had one of those old console stereo record players and among her favorite albums were quite a few Christmas albums, recordings by the biggest recording stars both deceased and alive.

One ritual we had that started the Christmas music listening fest was to play the albums all Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving meal included not only fluffy white mashed potatoes, but also Bing Crosby's White Christmas. Post Thanksgiving to New Year's Day the residents or visitor to our home was likely to be assaulted with Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer or Nat King Cole's German language of  O'Tannenbaum.

Even at age 10 or so I was a conspirator to this house Christmas music. My mother would hand me money to pay for the latest Goodrich Tire annual Christmas album that I bought for her after a short bike ride to the nearest Goodrich store. The Goodrich  business is long gone but those albums live on. I see them at thrift stores even today when I sift through the records area of the store. It was the biggest music promotion of the holiday season and millions awaited it like a child awaits opening Christmas day presents.

That Goodrich album memory is still pushing me to the Christmas music station bookmark I like. And amazingly, I recognize many of the cuts played on my computer as being from the famed Goodrich albums. Those albums had every sort of Christmas music possible. There is the religious Christmas tune, 'Ave Maria', for instance. And there is the light "modern" Christmas song written and sang in the heyday of Christmas music from post W.W.II to the late 60s', tunes like Johnny Mathis (the greatest singer of all of Christmas music, the man with the Christmas voice) singing 'We Need A Little Christmas'. The novelty Christmas song like Jimmy Durante's version of 'Frosty the Snowman' turns up as well.  And the sappy Christmas tunes that teach the old values of love and respect, so foreign today in our cold and sterile world, are played there as well. The Percy Faith Orchestra's O Come, All Ye Faithful is one example that sappy at Christmas isn't crappy. It's just music for our frustrated souls.

Why there is even a familiar New Orleans selection that I still hear on that Christmas station for which I thank from Goodrich and the other imitators who also put out those Christmas albums. Louis Armstrong's 'Christmas in New Orleans' makes me both delighted and a bit maudlin in reminding me of the great and exceptional old city that I often miss here in  ordinary Portland.

 My love for Christmas music has been transformed from the old LP albums of my mom's Christmas world to the digital version of it on line that guide my own. Tradition is a good thing.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Which One Is The Dope?

Kids today seem less possessed in useful knowledge than ever before. Schools are dumbing them down rather than challenging them. But the ultimate in patronizing students with pabulum happened the other day in suburban New Orleans. A former teacher at Catholic Archbishop Hannan High School has pleaded guilty to giving marijuana laced brownies to two students. Camille Brennan, 31, is scheduled to be sentenced, but after hearing her reason for getting the kiddies high I suspect she east a few brownies herself.

Brownie Brennan told authorities she provided the brownies to make the students happy. Wow! With teachers like that maybe the kids will start paying attention in class. She pleaded guilty to two counts of distribution of marijuana to a student and two counts of obstruction of justice, prosecutors said. Under her plea bargaining agreement, she is expected to receive a 10 year prison sentence, with seven years suspended. She will be ordered to undergo substance abuse and mental health evaluations and have no unsupervised contact with minors.

But in a small a way can we be surprised that teachers are passing out dope to the little dopes? After all, more and more U.S. states have legalized pot. Marijuana is already believed by many to be harmless and less addictive and a better alternative than cigarette tobacco. In this somewhat ignorant society marijuana is considered a healthy drug, while fluoride in water is considered dangerous. Parents refuse to vaccinate their kids for a variety of diseases because "vaccinations cause autism". And then there are those who swear that sugar is more dangerous for kids than is narcotics. It's weird.

What teachers must do today to make learning fun. Well, at least teachers have graduated from merely giving their sexiest students VD.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

11 Billion An d Counting

I have written many times that the only serious environmental problem is not the so-called climate change, but instead the every real and undeniable overpopulation of the earth. Just think. The world's population has grown from a handful of people in eastern Africa around the year 100,000 B.C. to more than 7 billion today.  It's incredible to me also that the world population in my own lifetime has more than doubled. Doesn't anyone out there know what birth control is?

Here's some stats about the growing population.
-For the first 100,000 years, the population did not reach 1 million, according to the post. At 1 A.D., it was only 170 million.
-It took 200,000 years for the number of people on earth to reach 1 billion. But in the next 200 years, the population exploded to 7 billion.
-Only once in history was a significant population decline noted. That was during the Bubonic Plague epidemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people, mostly in Europe between 1346 and 1353.
-The world population will peak around 2100 at 11 billion. That's because fertility rates around the globe are falling.
-Worldwide, approximately one million people die every week. In that same week, two and half million people are born.  That's a 250% birth rate.
-For the past fifty years, between 70 and 80 million new people have been added to our planet each year . That's equivalent of adding a new Canada to the world each year.

How will the earth feed and furnish enough water for 11 million people? It doesn't appear the many people care. Instead, they imagine climate change scenarios based on guesses. The growth of our human population will eventually end somehow, whether we want it to or not. But how will it happen? We can stop growing deliberately, of our own accord. But humans just seem to be unwilling to stop breeding excessively.

 So what will do it? Will the population decline because of war, or famine, disease? You tell me.

Friday, November 18, 2016

Down With Thomas Jefferson

The stupidity of political correctness is now on full display at the University of Virginia, a great school founded by perhaps the United States greatest figure, Thomas Jefferson. Fortunately, Jefferson died more than 20 years ago gone. If alive to see the rank stupidity happening at UV he probably would denounce Virginia, the school he found and the United States. And I wouldn't blame him. Thomas Jefferson embodied the contradictions of his time. He was a slave owner, who wrote "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence. Yet, slavery was the world's most common institution, having been imported into the American colonies after Europeans witnessed it as the universal practice in Africa.

But Martin Luther King Jr., for example, was not so ignorant to hold a 19th century practice against a person who practiced it then. King regularly evoked Jefferson's words in his speeches and idolized Jefferson and the great men of the day, despite their belief in slavery. Not so the students and faculty of current day University of Virginia. A large a group of students and faculty members at the school Jefferson founded have criticized and want the current UV  president, Teresa Sullivan, removed because she quoted Jefferson in a statement she made after the election of the favorite boogie man of liberal extremists, Donald Trump.

Telling the students that they are actin like jerks for denying the free election result of the next president she advocated peace on campus and respect for democracy, writing, "Thomas Jefferson was the first American president to wrest power from an opposing party, yet he also provided a potent precedent for the peaceful transfer of power and the healing of a divided nation." Oops! Never tell a left wing fanatic to not be a hypocrite. That was the gauntlet the students and faculty reacted to. UV Assistant Professor of Psychology Noelle Hurd drafted an open letter addressed to the school's president to denounce her usage of quotations by Jefferson, due to the fact that he was a slave holder.

Four hundred and sixty nine students and faculty members, liberal sheep, signed the letter. In part it said, "We are incredibly disappointed in the use of Thomas Jefferson as a moral compass. Thomas Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves. Though we realize that some members of our university community may be inspired by quotes from Jefferson, we also realize that many of us are deeply offended by attempts on behalf of our administration to guide our moral behavior through their us. For many of us, the inclusion of Jefferson quotes undermines the messages of unity, equality, civility, and inclusivity that you are attempting to convey."

Sadly, the complaining students and faculty of UV seem too far gone, too brainwashed to ever change their mindset. A simpleton knows it is wildly unfair to judge Jefferson 200 plus years later outside of the context of his times. His admirable traits far outweigh what society 200 years later considers an evil practice. Jefferson must be judged within the context of his times, not feel-good PC policing.   But complainers have surrendered even the slightest reason to political correctness. So there it is, a classic example of the stupidity of the liberal gift to the United States, political correctness.

I wonder what those sheltered and mind controlled students and faculty are thinking now....Hmmmm..Just maybe they are mumbling to themselves. "We should invalidate the U.S. Constitution and do away with the that meddling Bill of Rights so we won't have pour feelings hurt. After all, it was all written and signed by slave owners, including Jefferson, so it need no longer be quoted or believed. What did they know anyway!"

Thursday, November 17, 2016

News Of The Dearly Departed

I'm a newspaper reader. The daily newspaper is like water to me in that if I don't have it every day I am exceedingly thirsty for it. So I read at least one each day. That would be all of the paper, including the obituary column. Yep! I am fascinated with those death notices, and after checking to see if anyone familiar is gone I often read through, as much as 30 minutes a day, the bios of the departed. There's a lot to learn and to feel when one reads about the lives of those who have lost there human form forever.

One thing I learn when reading the biographies of the deceased is that human life is quite broad in variety scope and that we have lives as individual as our fingerprints. I often wonder why the deceased embraced the hobbies or work he or she did in life. Why, for example, did a fellow spend an entire life devoted to plotting the movement of a particular bird?  Or what made the lovely lady pictured  in her bio while still young to "show her at her best", travel the world do much and live in so many places? Why did she not settle in one?

The nicest thing about reading an obituary is that only positive and endearing thoughts and news are within. The personal references, the expressed affection from those who remember the deceased, the funny or happy moment from the deceased's life are all important private human moments of lives that are shared in the obit.  There is never criticism, negativity or bad expression in any obituary bio How ironic that in death we find the calmness and niceness we never seem to find while alive. Those obituaries are an unintended reminder to behave better toward each other. I find solace in reading about the best of the lives of the departed.  I share their life adventure and appreciate the value of their life. Even though  a stranger to me I feel a bond reading about them. I often mutter, "Gee, what a nice person. Sorry I never met him/her."

Yes, obituaries give me a kind of hope for the future. Since so many good humans once existed, why not many more now and in the future. Maybe a death notice is not just to announce to family and friends a passing and funeral. Perhaps it is a statement that humans aren't so bad after all.  I doubt there is any written statement about us that is more personal, revealing and and open as what is in an obituary notice. Is there anything more open than the announcement of a death? Too, any obit is a statement that the deceased really mattered to some individual and to the world at large. The greatest conviction in life is to have been loved.  The death notice reaffirms that.

Death ends a life, not a relationship. The daily death column reminds us of that.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

They Puzzle Me

There goes another one of them!  As I look at it go by, it appears this one is tired and unhappy but she keeps it up at a very fast pace. What makes people do that? They get hot and tired and look a mess, but they keep it up, day after day. Most of us are asleep when the most fanatical of them do it. So they must be strong willed and determined. I think they are nuts, because I am certainly not going to run down the street at 5 am every morning in the name of exercise. Yep, it's the puzzling jogger I refer to. What did you think I was writing about?

I both admire and distrust people who jog regularly in the name of improving or maintaining their health. Some of them seem weird. They wear trendy jogging outfits (the old gray sweat pants and shirt isn't good enough for the jogger anymore) and when passing by my fat and misshapen body almost sneer at how I mistreat my health and look so sloppy. But then, they have developed a power and grace by running every morning that one can also admire. Too, they are more self disciplined and determined than we non joggers. For me,  having only one jelly doughnut is self discipline. But the jogger takes great pride in telling you about his or her cholesterol numbers or how they are below the ideal weight level for their height. It seems to me that many joggers have too much pride in their pretty bodies.

Some joggers are obsessed with their running ritual. They even jog to work. Never get a work cubicle next to a jogger who arrives in his suit work clothes after a jog and who is absent a shower after the jog to work. They may not know they smell bad, or is it they don't care? The obsessed jogger even runs up and down the stairways during the lunch  time  work break while people like me prefer to merely stuff our faces with double cheeseburgers and french fries. You can bet that obsessed jogger brought his or her lunch to work. It's most likely just a bag of carrots, broccoli or, God forbid, one of those granola health energy bars.

The jogger usually likes to inflict pain on him or herself. The worst of that breed puts weights on their ankles or around their waist to show (show-off) their no pain, no gain logic. I hate to admit it, but when one of them overdoes it and puts so much stress on the body that a heart attack occurs, I have to try hard to control myself  to keep from smiling when I see them clutching their hearts. If I happen to have a donut in my hand I will make sure that I munch loudly and sigh in wonder that the jogger has yet to learn that "donuts are what life is about". There is great irony in a person who runs so much that it ruins his or her health.

Many of the joggers are also converts to jogging. They were lazy, out of shape bums like me until someone goaded them into jogging. Often the goad demon is a misguided doctor who scares the person into jogging with assurances that death will occur sooner if jogging shoes aren't used regularly. These jogger converts suddenly become jogging Nazi's who insist that you and I also jog. They are like former smokers who have quit and can't stop telling everyone they better quit too. I don't smoke and think it is a horrible habit, but when I see a jogger I almost want to start smoking....just to spite them.

My least favorite joggers are the ones who have things on or with them with which they jog. I think women tend to do that more often. Many female joggers jog with their dogs, wear headphones that play inspirational running music, and of course their cell phones are always in sight. How does a person chat on a phone while jogging? A jogger can tell you, but I can't. Joggers are addicted to their running. It's so sad to be that health conscious....

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Women Stressed Twice As Much As Men

I hear many women complain about men stressing them. Yes, some of them say I am also a stressor. Can you believe that! Maybe it's my rants about cell phones that do it. But I never thought that women were more stressed by men than we men are stressed by the female population. Alas! (I hope my exclamation didn't stress you) According to a study from the University of Cambridge ladies in Western Europe and America are stressed nearly twice as much as men. Too, those females under the age of 35 are the most stressed of all.  Hmmmm  Maybe our control of the TV remote and the fact that we leave our dirty underwear strewn all about the house has something to do with that.

The study says that women suffer mental burnout because of the stress. The National Institute for Health Research funded researchers from the University of Cambridge to review about 50 studies on anxiety disorders. It's estimated that four out every 100 people have anxiety. For every 1.9 females, one male is affected by anxiety disorders, and women younger than 35 are disproportionately affected. People in North America are perhaps the most stressed, eight in 100 people have anxiety. In East Asia, that number is three in 100.

Well, maybe we men are not the cause of the stress. After all, just watching a woman buy shoes makes me worry that she might have a heart attack from worry when making the purchase. Self stressing has to be part of the problem for women.  There are quite a few female induced reasons for their stress as well as the male stressor they like to blame for their anxiety. I also think that the competition between females is a big stress agent. We men don't compete on a personal level as much as do women. I never heard, for example, of two males who had a cat fight because an office co worker wore the same shirt or pants as he.  And what about kids? Women fret about them not being perfect while we just ignore their childish behaviors and imperfections while we practice our own. There is little stress in that.

The researchers at Cambridge say the reason for the increased stress is probably because "women tend to internalize stress more than men". Regardless of the cause of the extra female stress, the study says that anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder, can add double the burden on the lives of those with a chronic health condition. Gee, I am  glad that I was born male.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Tea Anyone?

Besides water, what is the world's most popular liquid drink? It's tea. (just an odd side note in case you play trivia games, number ten in most popular is breast milk) And why is tea more popular? It's probably a combination of, inexpensive pricing, easily availability, low shipping weight and the culture of the tea drinker. China and India, the world's population centers are tea fanatics. Americans drink the most coffee, and we still like that. I do notice an American export named Star bucks is assaulting the Asian market, the one where tea is supreme.

China is credited with being the founder of tea. It's no coincidence that the source of all tea, the Camellia Sinensis plant is native to China. Anyway, enough of the generic history of tea. For me, although there five kinds of tea including black, green, oolong, white, and puer (a super strong, secret recipe Chinese black tea that is uncommon here), I only like black tea. Black tea is the western choice although the bogus claims made about green tea being a "healthy" drunk and curative have made it increasingly popular in the west.  Give me green tea and I'll spout off about it being glorified water. I find that it has little taste. Fortunately, I am only assaulted with that green stuff when I eat in Asian themed restaurants. They bring it to the table as a starter, but I just let it sit and stew..... or brew, I guess. I rarely drink it.

Never has a drink other than tea been credited with so many curative properties, not a single of which is true.  Green tea and Ginseng tea, for example, have the highest concentration of catechins which has falsely been claimed to help prevent cancer. It's absurd because the levels are so low one would have to drink him or herself to death to reach beneficial levels.  Pu-Erb tea and Ku Ding Cha is claimed to reduce cholesterol. White Tea  may have the strongest anti-cancer potential of all teas, promoters say. It is also an unfounded claim.

Then there are the weight loss claims.  Many tea companies flaunt the supposed health benefit that tea "burns calories" and that tea "is scientifically proven to aid weight loss". Ridiculous!  However, un sweetened tea is a calorie free drink that when substituted  for other highly caloric drinks could be a good way to promote weight loss. But the claims that tea actively promotes weight loss, sexual potency, height growth, prevent heart disease and hundreds of other phony claims doesn't hurt tea's popularity. I see right here in sleepy Portland that tea houses are opening to compete with coffee houses like Star bucks.  Marketing can bring about anything today.

I usually have one cup of coffee for breakfast, my ritual. And now I am beginning to read of the same bogus heath benefits of that drink. Sigh.....I wish they would leave coffee along. If they ruin that image too, I may have to switch to vodka instead.

Friday, November 11, 2016

Hollywood Exit

The heck with the joy of seeing Hillary Clinton defeated and headed away from the lives of Americans (but hopefully eventually headed to a prison somewhere) an even greater joy maybe that we will get rid of a batch of ignorant and annoying Hollywood celebrities. At least they have promised to take their unhappiness elsewhere.

Here’s a list of those celebrities who’ve promised before the election to leave if Trump won:

“Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston – “Absolutely, I would definitely move. It’s not real to me that that would happen. I hope to God it won’t.”
Actor Samuel Jackson – “If that motherf–—er becomes president, I’m moving my black ass to South Africa."
“Girls” celebrity Lena Dunham – “I know a lot of people have been threatening to do this, but I really will. I know a lovely place in Vancouver.”
“House of Cards” actress Neve Campbell, already a Canadian citizen, has promised to repatriate herself.
“Orange is the New Black” actress Natasha Lyonne has picked a “mental hospital” for her political exile.
Cher – “I’m moving to Jupiter.”
Miley Cyrus – “I am moving if he is president. I don’t say things I don’t mean!”
Barbara Streisand – “I’m either coming to your country if you’ll let me in, or Canada.”
Singer Ne-Yo, like so many others, plans to bug out to nearby Canada.
Comedian Amy Schumer – “I will need to learn to speak Spanish, because I will move to Spain or somewhere.”
Chelsea Handler – “I did buy a house in another country just in case. So all these people that threaten to leave the country and then don’t – I actually will leave that country.”
Former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart’s getaway plan is among the more extreme. He’s planning on “going to another planet,” although he did not specify a particular planet.
Whoopi Goldberg – “Maybe it’s time for me to move, you know. I can afford to go.”
Keegan-Michael Key’s planned exile to Canada doesn’t sound like too much of a hardship – “It’s like, 10 minutes from Detroit. That’s where I’m from; my mom lives there. It’d make her happy too.”
Comedian George Lopez is the only future emigre who’s vowing to move South. Indeed, he says Hispanics will “all go back.”
Ali Wentworth, wife of ABC newsman George Stephanopoulous, said, “If Trump wins, we’ll start looking at real estate in Sydney, Australia. No crime, no guns.”
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – “Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand” (she’s already backtracked and apologized).
Al Sharpton has plans for destinations unknown and says he has been “reserving my ticket out of here.”
Comedienne Amy Shumer swears she will move to Spain.  "It's beyond my comprehension is Trump wins"

With a list like this leaving the United States will upgrade itself dramatically. Of course Hollywood phonies promise often.  They're still  here and they are still annoying us with their stupidity. We peasants from non Hollywood have been waiting since 2000, for example, for Alec Baldwin to keep his "unequivocal" promise to move. Quit promising and lying like Hillary, you phony. Just go! And three of those "stars", rocker Eddie Veder, actor Matt Damon and director Robert Altman were supposed to go long ago, they said, in the same boat. They haven't, but it they do I hope for the sake of whatever country will get them that the boat will sink on the way. But the top Hollywood "I will go" phony must be Barbara Streisand, who promised to leave in 1992 after the Bush Sr/ Bill Clinton election.

Sigh...she's still here.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

The Defeat of Pure Evil

Ding Dong, the Wicked Witch is dead! Hallelujah to the American voter for sending Hillary Clinton away forever, in their rejecting her and giving their trust for pure evil. But Americans also handed the government to an extremely flawed winner, Donald Trump, someone whose campaign was premised and won on a challenge to the dishonest and unfair status quo of Barrack Obama and his politically correct affiliates. Wisely, the voters expressed their distrust in government and dismissed many of the worst of the politicians from both parties. For president, they chose a man who must be watched,  but who has promised to positively channel the voters anger, as much as carry their hopes.

He didn't merely promise change, he promised disruption. And most voters here feel we need that. After eight years of George Bush and Barrack Obama America is a place of unfairness, a nation that picks and chooses winners and losers best on mean spirited and prejudiced choices, a country where ethics have been replaced with the politically correct. My country's economy is broken, its military in shambles, the strong morality we used to preach if only sometimes achieve has been given a chance to revive. And this is not a fair country anymore.

I am ecstatic about Clinton's defeat, yet under whelmed about the disagreeable Trump's victory. But at least the United States again has an opportunity to meet real and good ideals, not illusory and divisive political correctness. The Wicked Witch is dead, and her enabler Barrack Obama will also soon be gone. There is justice, after all.

Trump's victory was a surprise ballot box silent revolution. But not all revolutions are pure. We shall see both how Trump governs and whether the leftists who hate and fear him even allow him the space to govern. Just as the right feared the end of the world with Obama's election, so does the left today fear Trump's election. The right got over it and most of the left will as well. I have grave doubts about Trump, but I have everlasting hope and renewal in that the evil Hillary Clinton has been sent packing (If we are lucky, for prison).

This is the single best and most surprising election of my lifetime. Despite the left's attempt to scare the voting public about Trump, to hoist the single most disagreeable and dishonest candidate on us (Hillary Clinton), to divide us and to corrupt this country, it was defeated. And that is good.

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

National Redhead Day

November 5 was a holiday for me and a few others, but not for you. You see, November 5 is National Redhead Day. That would be natural red, not from a bottle. If there is anything we natural reds hate more than peroxide red hair it might only be Hillary Clinton  (who is not only a miserable human being but one who once dyed her hair red). According to some promoters of red hair day events National Love Your Red Hair Day is designed to empower redheads to feel confident, look amazing and rock their beauty. Red hair is more than a color, it's a lifestyle.

Red heads are supposed to celebrate their color on their day by posting photos of their red hair on social media using #LoveYourRedHairDay. Not I.  I am so old now that my red has turned to mostly dark blonde and white. There is nothing interesting about that. But I hope the red heads who like their color (I myself have never cared for the red head look) have a ball and show their colors. That's because red heads are the freaks of hair color. We do suffer the slings and arrows of reprobation. Because of our red hair we often are stared at, have our heads rubbed for luck, are thought to be odd, and even, worst of all for a natural red head....thought to maybe have colored our hair from a bottle. 
 
More redheads come from Britain and Ireland, especially Ireland, than any other place else on earth.  My own red hair genes came from my mother's Irish side of the family (Uncle Claude), with my paternal red coming from my grandmother's dad, a giant of a man who also had a shiny red head.  If you are a natural red head you might be more comfortable in Ireland, where their sight is so common no one thinks they are freaks. Celebrations honoring redheads are common all over the British Isles. We should have that here too, because in the United States many of our greatest U.S. Presidents were natural redheads. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Martin van Buren, Andrew Jackson, Jimmy Carter, Rutherford Hayes, Calvin Coolledge, Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy were all redheads. Maybe I should run for president too!

Some very famous people from outside of the United States have had red hair, some good and some evil. Among the many good redheads include; Elizabeth I, Christopher Columbus, George Bernard Shaw, Galileo, King David, Napoleon, Van Gogh, Florence Nightingale, Winston Churchill, King Rameses II and Marilyn Monroe (I'm male...I feel obligated to add here to the list). The evil red heads include; Lenin, Malcom X, Henry VIII, Cleopatra, Genghis Khan and Lindsay Lohan (It's fun to bash crazy Lindsay).

I tip my hat to them all and show my once red hair.

Women Not Wanted

On the "women aren't going to be pleased front" comes news from the Catholic pope that the Catholic Church's ban on women priests will stand forever, Pope Francis said  that the other day. Well, only a non married man could ever utter such words. He made the declaration in response to a female reporter asking if he thought women would one day serve as Catholic priests and bishops, noting the head of the Lutheran Church whom Francis met on his trip to Sweden is a woman.

Oops! Pope's seem not to mind their inflammatory words. "St. Pope John Paul II had the last clear word on this and it stands," Francis said during a news conference aboard the papal plane on the flight back to Rome." Well, at least he blames his chauvinism on St. Francis. Why not? Hillary Clinton blames her own self inflicted problems on Donald Trump and "The Russians".

To make matters worse, the female reporter then asked "Forever, forever? Never, never?" And Pope Francis took the bait again. "If we read carefully the declaration by St. John Paul II, it is going in that direction," the pope responded. The Catholic Church teaches that women cannot be ordained priests because Jesus willingly chose only men as his apostles. And you thought the Islamic religion had credibility problems!  Anyway, those Catholics who are calling for women to be made priests claim that Jesus was only following the norms of his time when he banned females from high clerical position.

Only a pope or clergy member could get away with such blatant sexism today.
A religion created by men for men only?  Wow! That is bait hard for anyone not insulated from real life (like Francis and his Vatican brethren). Yet, Catholic dogma and theology excludes women from the priesthood . This is not going to change. It's core to the Catholic belief of our relationship with God.

No wonder organized religion is a dying institution.

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Kids Don't Read As Much Today

Here's an obvious news flash. Reading for pleasure is no longer at the forefront of activities for today's youth.  That is, fewer and fewer kids read today than in other recent generations. Common Sense Media conducted research that showed that the number of nine year old kids that read for pleasure once or more per week went from 81 percent in 1984 to 76 percent. The numbers are worse for older kids. Only about a third of 13 year old's reported reading for pleasure less than twice a year. Studies in other countries mirror this decline in reading among children.

We all know why. It's the electronic monsters out there who require only short burst reading and writing.  LOL has replaced stanzas of Shakespeare. Because reading is longer termed and not immediately gratifying like those video apps where a kid can zap 100 zombies and save the world in less than 30 minutes. The study confirmed what we have always known as the reason little Johnny reads for fun.
It verified that children who read for pleasure tend to be those kids whose parents read to them and whose parents read themselves. The lucky kids who have parents that turn off reality Tv and instead read with free time,  spend about 30-60 minutes a day reading...... as opposed to none for the kids glued to American Idol on the tube.

I wonder how reading an be made appealing to a child over stimulated on electronics and hungry for instant gratification? Are we fighting a losing battle? Will the future be books as rare objects, with learning by video? I hope not. Will the imagination that books inspire be replaced with electronic diversions? But then, parents will determine the answers to that.


Parents are to blame in part for the decline of reading for pleasure in the lives of today's children because it is too easy to let television or the video games or the computer programs to act as baby sitter while parents are occupied with their work or home responsibilities. To suggest to a child today that they read a book is like to asking them to rake leaves or mow the lawn or vacuum the living room.  Hmmmm I can guess kids don't do those things much anymore as well.

Parents can encourage their little monsters to read more by reading with their children and to their children beginning at an early age to help ensure that the child sees the importance of reading. (Uh, that would mean no reading about the Kardashians...read age appropriate material). Parents have to to model reading for pleasure to their children so those little brats can see their parents enjoying a good book. After all, society is the beneficiary of having literate members.

Research shows a high correlation between reading and intelligence, and can anything stir a imagination better than a book? We do understand and interpret better after reading a book than after playing a video game. It's because books are personal and make us think in ways we do not otherwise think. They cause us to question deeply think deeply and escape with our imagination. What a shame that so many kids today in this country and around the world will never know it.

Friday, November 4, 2016

Clinton Voters Are A Mystery To Me

On the eve of our Presidential election I am perplexed at why so many voters will vote for and elect Hillary Clinton as the next U.S. President. It will be a day of shame if, as predicted, she wins.  As daily revelations of unlawful, unethical, shameful information about Clinton, much of it directly from fellow confederate crooks in the Clinton campaign, shower the public, many seem not to care. They will "vote for the crook" instead of the clown (Donald Trump). This will ensure that the United States becomes, not the beacon of light it has been, but rather the dark shadow of shame and corruption that Hillary Clinton is and always will be.

My ethics tells me I could never vote for one who I know is so dishonest, disloyal and who might be the Al Capone of politics. The mafia could learn much about running rackets merely by observing Hillary Clinton and her confederates. Why will so many choose to vote for her? I wrestle with that and can only speculate. Is it the fact that the media in this country has partnered with her to sell her as acceptable? I think not entirely so, as so many revelations have come forward that only the brain dead would be unaware that Hillary Clinton is without soul but has been enabled by an almost equally corrupt media.

Perhaps all that technology that I hate, but to which most others are addicted to, has taken the voter away from reality and made them uninterested in elections, instead  interested in social media foolishness and the like trivial of modern life? No, that can't  entirely be it. I see many well informed and engaged citizens who support monster Hillary. It must be the alternate candidate, Donald Trump. Perhaps Trump is so unappealing that voters will pick the crook instead.  No, that also  it can't be the full explanation, for if Trump is a sinner, Hillary is the devil. Trump says bad things, Clinton does them.  No sane person could not see that.

Maybe it is the enticement of all those entitlements uses to win votes that will steer them to vote for Clinton. President Obama has so increased public welfare and other entitlements that most of the country is dependent on them. Hillary Clinton promises to expand them. Trump promises the opposite. I ask, are they going to elect Clinton because she gives more "free stuff" to the voters? No, I think that can't be it entirely either. Historically, the voter who votes only for the candidate who promises more freebies is too small in itself a percent to elect a welfare panderer, especially one as despicable Hillary Clinton.

I give up. Human behavior is too hard to understand. On Tuesday American voters will choose either the scandal plagued and  prevaricating Clinton or the blustering and often buffoonish Trump to be their next president. May America rest in peace after it selects either because we are all going to be losers.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Dog Funeral Homes

While driving in Portland the other day I saw a first time site. It was a dog funeral home. That's right, a funeral home for Fido.  I never knew such things existed.  on the past most pet a owners let the vet dispose of the deceased dog boy, or they simply buried Fido in the back yard. No wonder I was scratching my head (or maybe I just have fleas) when I saw that dog funeral parlor. Undaunted, but not willing to howl at this revelation, when I returned home and I logged on line to see what this was about.

Do people today really equate their digs to humans so much that they give them a formal heavenly sendoff at a funeral home? I found one such place to use as an investigator model, Wayside Waifs, and went  about my investigation. According to Wayside, "Wayside Waifs has been helping families for generations with compassionate aftercare for cherished family pets. Your friends at Wayside Waifs truly understand the pain of losing a family pet.

We are here to support you during this time of sorrow and help make final arrangements for your pet." So those dog funeral parlors are not new.  Here are the services offered by Wayside, all of which will take a bite out of Fido's owners.

*Cremation- The site says most pet owners who bury Fido there have him cremated either individually with his ashes returned to them in an urn or instead, have a communal cremation. Just like Uncle Harry or Aunt Mildred.
*Urns and caskets- just like the human burial sites they sell these for dogs, at the same over inflated prices as human vessels.
*Cremation burials- again, this apes human cremations. A cremation burial for Fido includes pet cremation, casket, granite headstone, the plot and interment.
*Burials- This includes the plot, interment, casket, granite headstone, and a one-time grounds maintenance fee.
*Pre need services- Wayside Waifs encourages pet owners to visit Pet Memorial Services to make final arrangements for Fido in advance.  It's a big profit maker for the Dog parlor.

The site says they will pick up Fido's dead carcass from the vet for a mere $85, if that service is desired.  A waste of money, they think! Not according to the dog parlor folks at Wayside. "When your pet passes you will have the peace of mind knowing that plans are in place to take care of your pet", they state. It appears that the dog burial sites are merely shifting from human burial to pet burial.

All these services copy human funeral home services. Human mourners need not bay at the moon in sorry at Fido's passing. They can visit the Wayside cemetery during daylight hours, seven days a week, including holidays. In an age when funeral services are disappearing because of a lack of human stiffs to bury, why not shift to pet burials? After all, funerals for humans are in sharp decline and humans do seem more found of their pets than they do of Grandma Rose.

Not only does "every dog have his day", these days on dog burial day there is not distinction between canine and human.