MY Land Line World

As an old fossil who disdains most technology because, well, it's too new for me and will change my old habits (that I like) too much, I am here today to report on one of my favorite old technologies. It's the land line telephone. Remember that? Since I have never had, nor will I ever have a cell phone, the land line is still as useful to me today as it was in the past. That is, I use a phone when I have to, nothing more or less. it is not an amusement, not an addition and  the fewer rings form it I here each day the better.

My nightmare is what will happen to me if I don't die before the land line phone does? Oh well, no need to worry too much about that. I will probably die from shock if the land line passes away before I do. That's because I refuse to enter the insipid, idiotic world of cell phones.

Here's the state of the land line phone in my own small world. I have the two land line phones in my three story house. If I don't reach one before the ring tone stops, I rejoice with the admonition that, "If it was important the person will call again". If not, then I escaped being a Pavlov dog responding to a ring tone. I smile and picture the cell phone addicts who race to their phones with every ring or ping and feel superior in some small way.

Attached to one of my land line phones is an antique you may have heard of. Yep! I have an answering machine on the phone that filters the nuts from the non nuts, the annoying from the essential. I estimate that I do not return at least 60% of the messaged calls. Most of those are advertisements or request to donate money to some organization. As to the donation harassment, the answer machine and the caller ID is a joy to me. When I see "unknown number" displayed or a number that I do not recognize I never pick up my receiver to answer.

The odds are it is either a donation plea (usually from the same organization I donated to recently, because once you give you are on the donation call list forever) or one of the many phone scams those people in Russia, India or some off shore island robot call direct to fool the person on the other end into forking over money.

Some scammers are even so emboldened to leave a message threat. One very common is the Microsoft support scam. In that one, an Indian accented voice with dozens of other Indian voices toning the same spiel in the backgrounds says if you don't let them take over your computer an unknown virus on it will destroy it. The ruse is the phone microsoft people plant a virus on your computer when you allow them access remotely and continue taking money away from you until you finally realize it's fake. I wonder how anyone can be so gullible to succumb to that obvious fraud. But it must work on some people because it's been on going now for many years.

I am  ridiculed by cell addicts every day as to "How can you survive" without a "cell". Very well, thank you. The few times that I am inconvenienced by not having access to a phone in a situation when it would be helpful to have one, I remind myself of how pathetic a cell addict is, how out of touch with life those "in touch" with cell phone people really are. And I say a little prayer that soon, the Microsoft scam crew will connect them and disable their phone...

Coffee Bagel

Ever eat a bagel for breakfast? Well, in this country a lot of people do. I like them once in a while with jam or plain butter or just cream cheese spread on top. A good bagel should be boiled and then baked for that chewy texture that distinguishes bagels from an ordinary bread. Some people are snobby about bagels. They refuse grocery store bagels, any bagel really that is not from a delicatessen or a bagel shop that makes their own bagels. I have some shocking news for them.

I just learned that there is a coffee bagel. It's the Expresso Buzz Bagel made by bagel king, Einstein Bagels. It contains 32 milligrams of caffeine, about a third of what you’ll find in the average cup of coffee. The Expresso Buzz is made with espresso, coffee-cherry flour, and protein derived from cocoa. That sounds like it may taste a bit too much coffee for me. I like coffee with my morning bagel, but not necessarily in the bagel. 

I should wait to try it before judging, but the problem for me is that the best bagels for my taste are the plain ones. That would be the bread product originating in the Jewish communities of Poland, traditionally shaped by hand into the form of a ring from yeasted wheat dough, roughly hand-sized, that is first boiled for a short time in water and then baked. The originators of the bagel didn't flavor them like bakers do today.

Real bagels stay fresher longer than ordinary breads because the boiling gives it an outer sheen and a crunchy, protective crust. Even when it gets a little stale, you can dunk it in coffee or whatever you are drinking to bring it back to life. But bagel snobs don't ant any of that. They won't have any of the endless flavors of bagels either. I tend to agree with the latter. I will never understand, for example, why someone would want a jalapeno bagel. I suspect no Jewish deli today would let that in their store. When I buy bagels from a grocery store I look at the containers with so many flavors- blueberry, cheese, cinnamon raisin and on and on. But I always buy a plain white flour bagel. The trendy food police bagels made with quinoa, spelt or any of the other "healthy" grains never get eaten by me.

Well, that decides it for me. I will skip coffee bagels and all the grains and flavored ones. I'll have a plain bagel with butter for breakfast tomorrow morning. shalom!

Public Rest Room Confusion

I have a new anxiety, thanks to the crazy left wing Obamites who redefined what using a public rest room is supposed to be. My anxiety is in using a public rest room. It's because it is hard to know what the P.C. police define as proper poop and pee etiquette in choosing and using the "right" public bathroom. Forget the days of "Male" and "Female" sign age, pictures of each sex included. Today the public bathroom labels are as hard to decipher as is the Rubic cube. Now those doors have terms like "Non Binary" and "Transgender" for those people from places where kids are bring without a real sex. I think their mom or dad must have given them an imaginary sex to replace the lost real one.

So I am always a little anxious that I am in the right rest room for my sex. But there is reason fro the anxiety, like the time the 50 year old bearded man entered the same rest room as I was in, the one I thought was labeled as "Male". Hmmmm, I thought. I must have read the label wrong and had entered into the bearded, dress wearing rest room instead.  No, I didn't need therapy after that incident, and I even managed a normal pee stream before escaping that mystery rest room. But it added to the common bathroom anxiety syndrome many of us in the U.S are experiencing.  I am developing it thanks to the left wing bathroom Democrats.

After one makes the problematic bathroom selection, the anxiety doesn't end there. Strange things are happening in rest rooms these days. There are the people with cell phones chatting to invisible people while pooping installs. They speak so loudly that escaping their chatter is difficult, and for some reason the normally odd cell phone conversations we are forced to hear in public become even weirder when they are made while the cell nut is sitting on the pot taking a dump (the poo dump, not the dump of their cell abuse on us). Then there are people taking baths in the rest rooms. Maybe they are homeless, but it is unsanitary for everyone to allow it. In the old days there were "rest room attendants' to police such things The attendants would summon police and the bath houses would be closed. But in the age of P. C. everyone is allowed to do whatever they want. Otherwise, we are sexist or racist for saying the now forbidden word- NO.

The there are the "lookers", creatures who stare at the pee-er's love muscle.  It's enough to make most people escape with urine unloaded. There are also the "messy" ones. They throw paper on the floor. They urinate on it for fun. They never flush. They leave water running. Perhaps they never had a mom to teach them common courtesy and cleanliness. maybe they never had moms. They could be space aliens, f given their non human behavior. I think that if they are caught defiling a public rest room, a suitable punishment from a clever judge would be 6 months of bathroom clean-up duty. I am not sure the "messy" would be rehabilitated, but I know the rest of us would have nice rest rooms to use.

My rest room rant is getting smelly. I better do my business, flush and depart.....

Is That The Truth?

Are you as suspicious of what you hear from people today as you were 20 years ago? I am. Truth has been replaced with agenda and lies. I wonder why the change has come so fast. In our world, the idea of absolute truth, something that is true at all times in all places and has relevance for our lives, is about as extinct as the dinosaur. In fact, most people everywhere in the world say there is no such thing as ultimate, or absolute, truth. The media lies, politicians lie, friends lie to friends and strangers, religions lie. It's so rare what Mark Twain once said when he uttered, "When in doubt, tell the truth," may be the truth.

Perhaps the way we communicate today makes lying easier for us. It's surely easier to lie on a social media web site or when talking on a cell phone. Maybe that makes it easier to lie still more when we speak face to face. And the death of religion removes sanctions against lying.  Those who believe in religion may or may not lie more or less. But they surely will hesitate more often to lie and feel guilty more often when they do lie.  Our cold, electronic society is one in which  truth is treated like a fairy tale, an outdated idea or even an insult to human intelligence. We have all become politicians! (I hope I am not Hillary Clinton, the world's greatest liar)

It's hard to know if what we are told is the truth. Trying to figure out if we have been lied to or not is complicated because we may have been told some part of the truth but not all of it. Part truth may be worse than a lie because it is more difficult to recognize and much harder to correct.  And "the truth is" that if we were only told the truth in life we would be more miserable than hearing truth only some of the time. I suspect not many of us could survive or live comfortably in a world of only truth.

We are suspicious of those who claim to tell the truth. And those of us who have been lied to more often, more often distrust that there is truth. That's my conclusion, but I am not sure it is the truth...

The Art Of The Goof-Off

I have always preferred goofing off to obligations. You know what goofing off is, because we all do it from time to time. It's the art (good goof offs are true artists) of engaging in recreation or an idle pastime while obligations of work or society are neglected. That's a fancy way of what your mom and dad you so say about you when they subtly declared, "sometimes I think you are a bum." But then when wasting time and getting away with it we feel we are winning the game of life. Under those circumstances being called a bum by mom is a badge of honor.

I think we goof off many different ways because our personality guides us to choose which way. There are many traits that also make us goof off in certain ways. When we are old we goof off differently than when we we did when we were young.  An old person might goof off by taking a number of naps during the day while a young person may goof off in a bar at 3 am. There is no way they will reverse roles at their age because the body, mind and soul won't allow it.

I always thought an employer could better choose from applicants for jobs by asking about how the applicants goof off. Forget those phony resumes' and recommendations.  If you were an employer, for instance, would you hire the brilliant Harvard grad with pristine job skills and experience instead of the average slob, of the Harvard goof off played with his cell phone all day (probably at work too)? Not I. Give me the average goof off who wastes his time more productively than showing an addiction to a cell phone device.

Our environment largely determines how we goof off. If we are busy with real obligations we will goof off much less and do it productively. The educated goof off reading too much. The product of an environment in which education was not stressed goof off too much watching TV or playing video games. People who have responsibilities to children or others who need help goof off the least. 

Hollywood air heads goof off the most, but they are good at pretending self-importance and involvement.  One would think the wealthy goof off more, but they probably don't because to become wealthy often requires hard work and little distraction. But then people who are wealthy through the lottery or inheritance seem to especially goof off prone.

The gig question is whether we can be happy if we don't goof off at least a moderate amount of time. Probably not. People who are driven and have all of their day committed to obligations are often too stressed to be happy. That type never retires from work because all they want to do is work themselves to death. I think that I have written enough about this because t's taking away too much of my goof off time!

Men, The Most Hated Humans

Just a brief observation today about something I see growing and growing. It's the negative characterization of males, mostly by the media, but  in all aspects of society. Today's male, minorities excluded since minorities are one of the protected groups the politically correct see as perfect humans,  is portrayed as a pretty awful human. I think that white males may be the most hated human affiliation since the German Nazi party of Hitler's day (ironic that those people were mostly white males too). To often the lie is told that if one is male he must be a “skirt chaser,” or “metro-sexuals” or a “macho men”, or  a hater and abuser of women. It's just not true that men are made in the image of Harvey Weinstein.

To make those kinds of charges against women today would be  an invitation for disaster. Yet, society seems to like to have a villain, and in the west white males are the chosen ones. It is probably because in former times white males dominated this society and excluded others legally or culturally. They discriminated against women, but now most discrimination against women is by other women or imagined discrimination. The crazy idea that there is a war on women in the United States, but that the nuts claiming that we westerners are fighting women also they love Muslims and their women hating men is bizarre until one realizes nothing makes sense in the politically correct world. The real war on women is in the Mid East, not in modern western society.

How many times in the media, for example, do you see men portrayed as good-hearted, hard-working and self sacrificing men who are just trying to take care of their friends and families? Not often, and if so the character pegged that way is an outlier, a freak.  Feminists often  paint men as evil and anti women. We are seen as "oppressors" I can understand that false images from feminists because they hate men and want to use them as a scape goat whenever it is convenient. But normal sensible women should not create false images of men. Perhaps the average women today has been brainwashed by the "I hate men" agenda.

Men have been perceived as the head of the household and women were mainly housewives. Nowadays the differences between male and female roles are smaller, however the mass mediums still perpetuates traditional gender stereotypes. The fact that they can get away with that shows that men may have a farther way to go to reaching equality than do women.

Corrupt Information Mediums

It's time for another rant!!! I think I am ready to make a pronouncement. A few years ago as I noticed the media was becoming an organ for the left, part of the Democratic part, I thought to myself, "At what point will the newspapers and other mediums become opinion pieces rather than impartial vehicles of news to the ignorant masses" (that's you and me)? I decided if reading the front page of a random newspaper and finding that more than 50% of the articles are opinion that the newspaper is a partisan opinion sheet. Bad news...we are at that point.

Here's a few examples  from U.S.A. Today of how a newspaper gives its opinion in the form of an alleged impartial news story; "President Trump's a liar; Now what?", "Why you shouldn't expect much from Social Security", "James Comey testimony a disaster for Trump",  "Trump supporters concoct their own Comey story". And those a few headlines. If you read the content of those and other more harmlessly entitled articles you'll read opinion after opinion, often in the form of an assumed truth. There often is a false premise on which the story is based, but that premise is assumed to be true by the author of the article.

If you look at the headlines I mentioned in the paragraph above they all are the trendy "I hate Trump and I'll lie about him to convince you to be mindlessly trendy too" category.  Any issue the liberals embrace and define (often falsely) will be so defined by the media in a shameless attempt to win favor. The public be damned! That seems to be the motto of much of the public mediums today. They basically have decided what truth is and will not allow the real truth to surface in their publications in an objective way. The biases the media has are much bigger than even to promote liberalism. They're about getting ratings, about making money, about doing stories that are easy to cover and keeping us in a confused or false state.

The media can be accessed from almost anywhere. In several ways it's lodged itself in American culture and replaced what once were common outlets of information. Television and printed words were at one time the only ways of receiving news.  Now a lunatic in pajamas can spew falsehood and hate on a social media site and be seen by more people in a day than the total number of people who read a daily newspaper in a year's time. The development of the endless Internet mixed sources of information and the expanding accessibility of unchecked information raises a  question; What is the quality of the information we are getting?  The answer is that most of it is damaging to truth and or it is an attempt to control the minds of the masses.

With cell phones committing a virtual lobotomy on many humans today it's unlikely many people will notice or understand how they are being manipulated by the communication they love so much.That is the ultimate irony.

Everbody Loves A Fat Man

Wow! It's not just me that is tubby. According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine stated the United States had the highest number of obese adults at 79.4 million, while China followed with 57.3 million. But wait! They are fat everywhere in the world. Researchers learn that one third of the world's population is overweight Researchers  also used data from a recent Global Burden of Disease study  to learn that obesity has doubled in the last two decades in 73 countries. I wonder if more people starve today or more are obese.

It seems that we are facing a wave of obesity in both high and low income countries. That indicates that feed the multitude and modern agriculture has won the starvation war too well. How do you take those Snicker candy bars away from the once hungry but now overfed?  The 27 percent of those on Earth who are  now obese equates to more than two billion fatties. The fat problem is growing worse in the almost developed countries, like China and Brazil.  The root of the problem, is that children are much more likely to be fat now, and once fat a child usually remains fat as an adult.

Ton determine obesity a simple formula is used. It is calculated as a person's weight (in kg) divided by his or her height (in m2). It and does not distinguish weight associated with muscle from weight associated with fat and therefore provides only a crude measure of fatness. A BMI of over 30 is considered obese. More fat means a bigger chance for disease and a shorter life span. But eat too much is an addiction and that is hard to stop. To see where the obesity is most prevalent click this link that shows an interactive obesity map of the world. https://www.worldobesity.org/data/map/overview-adults

You can see that Egypt, Iraq and Paraguay have among the highest obesity rates. That's odd given the poverty there. Pizza, anyone?

Drive-In Movies

This summer brought the arrival of the anniversary of an entertainment vehicle that is almost gone totally today but ruled from the 1930's until the late 60's. The word "vehicle" was a hint. Did you guess it? It's the 84th anniversary of the first drive in movie theater. That the first drive-in movie theater was opened by Richard Hollingshead in Camden County, N.J. The movie shown was “Wives Beware,” starring  someone named Adolphe Menjou. How society has changed. if there was an opening today the movie might be entitled "Husband's Beware", given this is the age of feminist activism.

Anyway, Hollingshead came up with the idea of a outdoor movie theater where patrons watched movies in the comfort of their own automobiles. Since autos were becoming the rage it wa a smart move by Hollingshead. He first experimented in the driveway of his own house with different projection and sound techniques, mounting a 1928 Kodak projector on the hood of his car, pinning a screen to some trees, and placing a radio behind the screen for sound. The final product was about as crude as that, but people loved escaping outside to watch movies.

To keep costs lower, drive-in theaters showed mostly second tier films or more popular films that had their initial run some time earlier. But some theaters featured the same movies that played in regular theaters. The poor sound quality was annoying, those big metal speakers one attached to the driver's side of the car never seemed too clear. Mosquitoes and heat were a burden to those watching, but drive-ins became an icon of American culture with more than 5000 theaters at peak.

The huge  drive-in screens were a site to behold and a big attraction then. I remember as a child, my parents taking the family to the local drive -in, me and my brother in our pajamas because it was inevitable we would fall asleep before the film was over. It was cheap and fun family entertainment with a very tasty snack area in the middle of the theater area one could walk to for burgers, hot dogs, popcorn and the rest of the comfort food of the era.

"Going to the drive-in" was a typical weekend destination not just for parents and children but also for teenage couples seeking some privacy. Tens would often load the car with as many people as possible, hiding a couple in the trunk until past the admittance portal to avoid the small per person entrance fee.

But drive-ins were doomed to die. Technology was to make the drive-in outdated and passee. The the rising price of real estate, especially in suburban areas, combined with the growing numbers of walk-in theaters and the rise of video rentals did in the drive-in industry. Today, fewer than 500 drive-in theaters survive in the United States.

Age Of Victimization

We seem to be a society of people who think they are treated unjustly. Many say they are "oppressed" and complain constantly that whatever bad happens to them is not their fault. If they are poor it's because the rich hold them down. If they are arrested for drunk driving it's because someone gave them too much alcohol to drink. When their children fail in school it's because the teachers are lousy. If they lose a job opportunity to a person of another race or religion it's because of racism or religious persecution. You get the idea. These people, and there are too many of them, are today's imagining victims. They are the have nots in a world that says have nots should never exist.
The victim usually seeks solace in numbers and joins odd groups to fight for their imaginary causes. They find refuge and support in groups like 'Black Live's Matter', 'MoveOn.Org', 'AARP', 'National Rifle Association', 'Hispanic Federation', 'Antifa' 'The Feminist Majority', and so on. There are thousands more of these victim organizations similar kind in this country. None is reasonable and all are as interested in creating social turmoil and inequality, even anarchy, as in promoting fairness in society. Essentially, these groups are hate groups that disparage anyone or anything that is against their cause or complaint. But they are popular with the victims they recruit as members.
If one speaks out against the imagined victim or his or her special interest group there will be repercussions. If not violence and boycotts of various sort, the critic will be use an often complicit media to brand as "racist' , "sexist", "elitist", a "right or left winger" or whatever diverts the issue from fact  and instead to emotion. Victims can not be debated, nor will they listen to the other side of an issue because doing so might expose the shallowness of the imaginary member or group.  Free speech is defined as "hate speech'" when any of the spoken words are critical of the imagined victim.
But the media today loves the victim and promotes the cause of the victim at all costs. It helps media profitability to be an advocate for the imagined victim. In fact, many media outlets become partners with the victim groups, promoting and elevating their ideas as serious ones and helping the victim groups prosper. They do so with such effectiveness that today many special interest grievance groups have great control over politicians and political parties. Politicians of all persuasion are frightened of the victim groups and  ask their vote in exchange for helping them with their causes. The Democratic Party today, for example, is  especially the refuge for many crazed fringe groups who achieve success by using the Democratic Party to pass favorable legislation that the victim groups want. A good example is the transgender bathroom "rights" cause.
The use of the politics of victimization in order to achieve goals is an established success for those who complain. It is the largest counter attack in maintaining a society based on equality and fairness. It's insidious, hateful and a threat to democratic societies everywhere, but sadly, in this age of the uninformed citizen it works. Maybe someone should form a new grievance group to fight all the others.

Is She Guilty?

If you tell someone to kill him or herself, and do it a number of times, and if that person does take his or her own life, is it a criminal act for which the person can be prosecuted? That issue rose  this summer and now been adjudicated.  A woman who sent her boyfriend a barrage of text messages urging him to kill himself when they were both teenagers was just convicted of involuntary manslaughter in a trial that  decided that words can kill. An involuntary manslaughter charge can be brought in Massachusetts, the venue for this case, when someone causes the death of another person when engaging in reckless or wanton conduct that creates a high degree of likelihood of substantial harm.

With social media and cell phone addicted messaging everywhere, I suspect the courts may see more of this kind of case. You better not tell someone to "jump in the lake", for fear they may drown and that you will be cited as the cause of death. In this case of the manslaughter conviction, Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz found that Michelle Carter caused the death of Conrad Roy III, who intentionally filled his truck with carbon monoxide in a store parking lot in July 2014.

Never mind whether her actions caused his death.  It was stated in the transcripts of the trial that the victim was well on the way to killing himself when he began texting her. The judge said (Michelle asked for and received a trial by judge, not jury) Michelle should be held liable for his death. Is the judge assuming that he would not have killed himself had she not sent the texts? Should judgments be based on hypotheticals?

It's an interesting new way to be held responsible for the death of another without doing more than suggesting it isn't a bad idea to consider suicide. On the other hand, Michelle was at least cruel and negligent toward her former by friend. After 18  year old Conrad climbed out of the truck as it was filling with toxic gas and told Carter he was scared. "Get back in," Carter told Conrad, according to a friend who testified Carter described the conversation in a text message to her about a month after he died. "This court finds that instructing Mr. Roy to 'get back in' the truck constitutes wanton and reckless conduct by Ms. Carter," the judge said. He said Carter had a duty to call someone for help when she knew Conrad was attempting suicide. Yet she did not call the police or Conrad's family, he noted.

Michelle could could face up to 20 years in prison. The case does show how teenage depression and suicide through text messages and Face book communications can and dos lead to tragedy. I wonder if the parents of deceased Conrad will blame social media and even Michelle's parents by filing a civil lawsuit against them for allowing the platform that led to the crazy texting between Conrad and Michelle. Michelle was 17 when she sent Conrad dozens of messages urging him to take his own life. "I thought you wanted to do this. The time is right and you're ready, you just need to do it!" Carter wrote in one message. Sounds like immature and dangerous provocation to me, but teenagers do that to each other every day.

Michelle's lawyer argued Conrad had a history of depression and suicide attempts and was determined to end his own life. He said Michelle initially tried to talk Conrad out of it and urged him to get professional help, but eventually went along with his plan. In effect, he intimated that somehow Conrad convinced Michelle that his suicide was the right approach to the end of a failed love affair. The judge disagreed, saying he did not take into account in his verdict Conrad's previous attempts at suicide.

The American Civil Liberties Union denounced the conviction, saying it "exceeds the limits of our criminal laws and violates free speech protections guaranteed by the Massachusetts and U.S. Constitutions. It is not a reason to stretch the boundaries of our criminal laws or abandon the protections of our constitution." Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist testifying in support of Michelle not being held responsible, said Conrad was a "very troubled youngster" who suffered from depression. At the time of Conrad's death, Carter was taking Celexa, an antidepressant Breggin said targets the brain's frontal lobe, which controls empathy and decision-making.

Another sad part of the affair beyond the tragic loss of life is that the relationship between Michelle and Conrad was built almost entirely on texting messages in a phone, a typical teen romance today. "You can't think about it. You just have to do it. You said you were gonna do it. Like I don't get why you aren't," was what Michelle wrote to Conrad the day of his suicide.

Do you think Michelle should be held liable in full or in part for Conrad's death?

The Non Binary World

As much as I would like to ignore the non binary gender evolution trend, it's probably not possible. The world has become so non identity oriented that it accepts the idea that a person is "non binary. That is, the person sees sex as so relative that one can be born either male or female. It's great from my perspective that anyone can identify the way the wish. Yet, when I have to pay taxes to support that imaginary identification I part ways with supporting the creation of tansgender or non binary rest rooms and the like. I support everyone's right to identify with whatever they wish, until I am asked to pay taxes to support those choices.

One study in the American Journal of Public Health estimates that there are almost 1 million adults in the U.S. that say their sex is transgender (a person whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth).  The number of non-binary (someone who doesn't identify exclusively as female/male) people in the U.S. is estimated to be between 245,000 and 350,000. Essentially, psychiatrist as recently as 50 years ago identified those tarnsgender and non binary people as "gender confused", giving their claims no validity. But today we can be what we want, I guess. That includes demanding that other people pay for what is either gender confusion or third fourth or even more new sexual classifications.

Enough of the population of t he U.S. has slowly begun to accept, or at least not oppose that for many people, gender is much more complicated than simply being a man or a woman. That third gender, neither exclusively male or female,  is the new non binary sex.  More than one third of transgender people describe themselves as non binary, which the National Center for Transgender defines as "people whose gender is not exclusively male or female, including those who identify with a gender other than male or female, as more than one gender, or as no gender, identifying as a combination of genders or not identifying with either gender at all."  Are you confused too?

Right now there is little controversy about the concept of non binary here. We are a nation that approves of people doing their own thing. But as the transgender and non binary lobby pushes for more and more "rights" to accommodate their demands for recognition as a third sex, I suspect the issue will be a hot button one. As the non believers to pay for the non binary/transgender demands with additional taxes will push a few buttons that could result in ugly discrimination and treatment against the non binary/transgender population.

Social change used to come slowly, but society today is an instant gratification realm, and this issue will probably bring about a new social paradigm that will lead to society approval or rejection of non binary sexual being. Where do you stand on public financing, as in requiring all businesses to build transgender and non binary rest rooms, of additional sexual identities? Are you willing to provide that funding for even more new sexual identities?

Technology Is Imprisioning

Technology is for everyone! That's what I hear from the many people who are addicted to using technology to hide from reality and create an alter universe. I don't buy that line, seeing many flaws in the, "If it's high tech it's better" philosophy. I think I am be a chorus of one, because  documents obtained from the Justice Department  through a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered more than a dozen attempts to transport contraband, including mobile phones, drugs and porn, into federal prisons in the past five years. State facilities have also reported similar incidents.

The prisoners are high tech. I guess it figures, since they are clever enough (well, those not caught committing their crimes) to use technology in many of their crimes.  Prison drone drug delivery makes since because current anti drone technologies fail to protect jails against the unmanned drones  that transport dangerous items, including firearms, which are almost impossible to sneak in via traditional prison smuggling methods. Drones are inexpensive, easy to operate and powerful. A growing number of criminals seem to be recognizing their potential value as tools for breaking their rules.

Here's an example of how technology moves faster than legislation to regulate it. While smuggling anything into a prison through any method violates federal law, no statute currently bars drones from flying near correctional facilities. One example of how the smuggling works comes from a federal prison in California where a prisoner recruited someone to use a drone to smuggle in two cell phones in 2015. The prison didn't discover the transfer of illegal goods for five months. Similar incidents occurred at a number of other U.S. prisons. The documents didn't reveal specifics about high tech prison about other events, citing privacy and security issues.

But public trail records show that last year a recently released inmate and two accomplices were convicted of smuggling drugs and porn into Maryland's Western Correctional Institution via drone. They were paid $6,000 per porn entrance drop.  Well, it's nice to know that if I go to prison whether will be something worth watching

Gender Difference Wars

The political correctness rage goes on to sports. From the recent less than honest look at the Billie Jean King/Bobby Riggs 'Battle of the Sexes' tennis match of decades ago to a bizarre interview with ex tennis great John McEnroe it is getting curiouser and curiouser.

During a taped segment with National Public Radio interviewer Lulu Garcia Navarro, retired tennis great John McEnroe said of the current best female in the world tennis star, Serena Williams, “If she played the men's circuit she'd be like 700 in the world. That doesn't mean I don't think Serena is an incredible player. I do, but the reality of what would happen would be I think something that perhaps it’d be a little higher, perhaps it’d be a little lower. And on a given day, Serena could beat some men's players. I believe because she’s so incredibly strong mentally that she could overcome some situations where players would choke ’cause she’s been in it so many times, so many situations at Wimbledon, The U.S. Open, etc. But if she had to just play the the men’s circuit that would be an entirely different story."

And all hell broke loose because McEnroe had the audacity to suggest that females and males are different enough physically that females rarely can compete on equal terms with males at the highest level. Given the speed at which men pick up returns in their tennis game, the velocity and power of their serves and the fact that the men's side focuses on aces and ace returns, Serene or any woman would be facing a wholly different sort of challenge at a man's event.  If one checks times in Olympic events, any Olympic event that is judged objectively by time, it is obvious why men and women compete in different divisions, by sex. It's because men have a huge advantage in sports that require speed and strength. If those women were entered in those Olympic events none would win, according to the times of all winners in male and female events.

So why is it a sin to say what is true? Why is it offensive to say that Serena is the best in female tennis as McEnroe has said over and over, but she could not compete as a winner on the men's tour?  Because in our politically correct age we are supposed pretend that we all have equal ability, not just equal opportunity. It should be enough to say that Serena Williams has dominated her sport (women's tennis) in a way and to an extent that makes her almost inarguably the greatest tennis champion ever and one of the greatest athletes of all time.

She need not be compared to men, elevated artificially to their equal on the court to be the greatest tennis chap of al time. Yet, the crazy PC crowd  wants more. It wants us to pretend an apple is an orange and a better orange than all other oranges. McEnroe was asked a question which he answered honestly, so why is there a need to pull the sexist stunt of claiming that when one says men and women have differences  we are anti female or pro male.? McEnroe said that Serena was the greatest female player ever. Why does her greatness have to be validated in comparison to men to be legitimate? Ask the PC world that one.

The New Nursing Home

In the United States there has been an explosion in the number of elderly living centers that meet the increasingly long life span of people today. Those nursing homes, assisted living centers and a multitude of other places where the kids can stash away mom and dad when age makes it difficult for mom and dad to live alone or with the kids. It used to be that "being sent to the nursing home" was almost like a prison sentence for an oldie. But today, those homes are lavish, all because the government has made assistance to the elderly an entitlement that makes it possible. It's expensive to be live in a nursing home, but today's welfare and/or the usual large life savings of the candidates makes it possible for quite a few oldies.

I see ads for new nursing homes and assisted living communities every day. They are big money makers for the people who run them, and some oldies don't mind living there, given the amenities of those places verses trying to struggle each day maintaining a home alone. The new nursing homes have it all. They have barber shops, restaurants on campus, planned excursions for the residents, community activities, musical and theater performances at the homes  and much mire. Uh, to show you the latest example, and one which might make me sign up for a nursing home, look at this community announcement from my local newspaper as it appeared today.

DRAG QUEEN SHOW
Rose Villa Senior Living will host a drag queen show in honor of Pride Month at 7 p.m. at Rose Villa Living, Performance Arts Center, 13505 S.E. River Road. The event is free and open to the public.

I''m not kidding. The ad announcement is real. (I wonder if I can reserve a room at Rose Villa?) But is this kind of activity for the elderly over the top? I am not sure if the queens will excite the residents or overexcite them. I suspect there will be some defibrillators brought in to restart hearts as need. It sure is a novel way of attracting the new residents. I wonder if that place has porno night or an elderly resident strip show. Hmmm If they have the latter I will give up my room reservation at Rose Villa. There is nothing like a strip show by 80 year old women to make one glad that he she is mortal and the end is near.

Free enterprise is more alive at elderly homes than are the residents. I suppose it's for the better, given the image of a nursing home of the past as a place to dump relatives who are mentally or physically so deteriorated that they can't be handled by relatives at home. But I hope I never see either kind of nursing facility. Better to be independent and functioning alone that seated in front of 80 year old bare breast competitions! (I hope that last line is not a sign of my senility, but if it is, please send me to Rose Villa in time for the drag show)

The Vultures Are Swarming

The Vultures are swarming around me. This is my figurative way of saying that the telemarketers who call me by phone and send me mail to buy their oldie products assuming that I am so old that I am near death....or if they are lucky already dead.  Let me look....Hold on....Ok, my mirror says that I am indeed old but still alive. I have to check my mirrors sometimes to be sure because those people keep suggesting I am dead or should be.

What I most object to is their constant mailings trying to seduce me into buying hearing aids of all sorts. They even offer to test my hearing "to find suitable hearing support". My hearing is perfect, probably because as a teen I never belonged to a piercingly loud kid band with guitars that killed the inner ear. They assume that because I am old that my hearing is floundering. It is not.

When one reaches a certain age in this country the mailing list syndrome starts. At that point there is an assumption of failing hearing, the need to buy a burial plot, bad teeth, sexual dysfunction, the heartbreak of psoriasis (whatever that it) and more. The most common maladies an older person gets are the ones those telmarketers assume we all have. But I am a weird person. That means I have only weird health issues. Why don't they put me on the weirdo health list and send me those. I might buy from them if they do.

I don't answer my phone unless I recognize the caller from the caller ID, so avoiding the phone sellers is easy. And, I can toss the hearing aid mailings, and the others into the trash without opening them, but what is harder to ignore is the E mail sales pitches for old age illness and other oldie "needs". It's the bizarre nature of those E mails that aggravate me. The mailing suggesting that at my age it's time to have my breasts lifted is not going to be a win for them. However, if they are clever they might ask me if I want a breast reduction. Many men my age need that.

To Insure Promptness

Tipping is a cultural norm in America. In fact, those who don't tip at a restaurant in this country are seen as abnormal. The word cheapskate might be applied with reason. I always tip about 20% of the restaurant bill because servers are typically paid with low wages and tips. Removing either is unfair to them. Besides, restaurants build the tip into the bill, meaning you pay a fair price for your meal one way or another. By using tips the serve staff will make more money than just with wages.

Tipped workers generally make about $2.13 per hour as base pay and the rest of their salary comes in the form of tips, with many having to split tips with other restaurant staff. That job is the ultimate in produce to earn. Bad servers are tipped less or not at al. Good servers make  more money than they would if employed strictly with wages. Restaurants that have tried to eliminate tipping have abandoned the practice because employees quit in disgust at their much lower take home pay.

So who tips best and worst when dining out in this country? A recent study by Credit Cards.com gives an answer. Their web site teamed up with researchers from Princeton and surveyed hundreds of adults across the U.S., and their study  says that the best tippers, who tip a medium of 20% on each restaurant bill, are 1) men 2) members of the Republican Party  who are more conservative 3) people who live in Northeast United Sates and 4) those who use credit or debit cars to pay their bill. The worst tippers, with a medium tip of 16%, were found to be 1) women 2) members of the Democratic Party who are more liberal 3) people who live in the Southern United States (restaurant costs are much lower there, so it figures their tips would be lower) and 4) those who pay their bill with cash.

The question to ask is why are some groups better tippers than others? It's probably based on income. As in every other money transaction in life, those with the most money part with the most. But most people tip at least 15% of the bill's total. The Emily Post Institute (It's watching if you are behaving, so mind your manners) recommends diners tip at least 15-20% a sit down restaurant. Fast food tipping is not expected and is rare. Surprisingly, 20% of customers at regular restaurants don't leave any tip at all. I wonder if the servers spit in their soup....I won't tell if I find out they do.

Weird Superstitions

 Happy Halloween! Superstitions are imaginative and lasting. They also are fun. This country has more than its share, things like it is dangerous to walk under a ladder. Most of ours are the result of repeating those we inherited from Europe long ago.  In the case of the ladder, for instance, Europeans once believed that the ladder symbolized the gallows where people were hanged.  Or what about the broken mirror and evil eye superstitions we have and everyone else seems to know? Anyway, most superstitions are old and came from outside of this country. Therefore, today I'll give you some of the weird ones from other parts of the world. make sure you have your good luck charm near in case these superstitions are real and infectious.

In Portugal, it's considered bad luck to walk backwards. The common belief is that if you do, you're showing the devil which way you're going. Here walking backwards is considered a sign of stupidity, particularly if you fall in an open man hole cover because you are walking backwards. But in Sweden you have to watch out for manholes. If you step on one with the letter A, this will bring you a broken heart and bad luck. At least they step on closed manhole covers there.

In Italy, if you say the same word as someone in unison, you'll never get married . To undo this, you must immediately touch your nose. Of curse those of us who are divorced might not consider saying the same word in unison as bad luck. But wait! That's not all, In Hungary sitting at the corner of the dinner table also means you'll never get married. Some people in Italy are said to fear Friday the 17th because the Roman numeral XVII can be arranged to make the word "VIXI" which means "my life is over" in Latin. I think they would be wiser to fear marriage as the possible end to life as it should be lived.

In the Netherlands singing your favorite tune means you're singing to the devil for your food. However, if the evil is serving donuts, I'm singing. But in nearby Denmark discussing a private  matters when a cat is in the room is said to be bad idea because cats are believed to be gossipy. In this country we believe discussing anything in front of a CNN reporter is guaranteed to be reported on the cable news network shows erroneously and attributed to Donald Trump.

In Britain, saying "rabbit rabbit" or "white rabbit" on the first day of every month ensures good luck for that month. It's because back in the 7th century people believed rabbits communicated with the spiritual world. Later the rabbits foot for luck replaced this idea. I think one thing is certain, the rabbit whose foot you have was unlucky for losing it that way.  Those crazy Brits are imaginative. Women in Ancient Britain often kept acorns in their pockets to ensure a youthful complexion. If you have ever seen a British beauty contest, where pockets are not on the swimsuits, it explains why the women look mire like acorns than women.

In Spain walking into a room with your left foot will bring you bad luck. For Spaniards it's always better to enter or leave with your right foot. No wonder the Spanish are out of step with the rest of the world.  Also in Spain, instead of kissing someone at midnight to celebrate the New Year, they're encouraged to eat 12 grapes one after the other for good luck. See! I told you the Spanish are weird. People in Spain  also believe that Tuesday the 13th and not Friday the 13th is an unlucky day. I am not going to visit Spain on the 13th, Tuesday or Friday.

In ancient Egypt came the idea that opening an umbrella inside before leaving the premise ensured bad luck. Today men believe that if you carry an umbrella inside at 3 am after sneaking out on your spouse, you will have both bad luck and an umbrella stuck in you butt when she awakens to discover you are sneaking home. Also, owls are said to be unlucky in Egypt, as they bring bad news for the one who happens to see or hear the bird.

In Japan, when walking through a cemetery, you must tuck your thumbs in to protect your parents from death. And this is the most normal thing the Japanese do. They also believe that cutting your nails after the sun goes down can cause premature death. And in Japan unintentionally breaking a bottle is said to lucky. I guess intentionally breaking one  means grandma's china set is out of luck again.

In Turkey,  chewing gum at night is apparently the equivalent of chewing on the flesh of the dead. Wait! Never mind that. The economy is so bad in Turkey some people have to chew on the flesh of the dead to prevent starvation. The Turks also believe that you must never jump over a child. Doing this will curse you to be short. Also, I suspect that anyone who finds it appealing to jump over a child will probably be arrested and confined for psychological evaluation.

If you  kiss a baby in Nigeria, legend says you'll condemn them to spend their entire adult lives drooling. Maybe that's why all the women ran  away when I tried to kiss them. They're secretly Nigerians. And I thought it was just my bad breath.  Also in Africa, in Rwanda, superstition says that women who eat goat meat are likely to grow beards or become stubborn. Well  can any man deny that goat meat or chicken eaten, the last part of that superstition is evidently true.

In Brazil, putting your purse or wallet on the floor means you'll become penniless.  In this country we believe that if you put your purse on the floor it will be stolen and the credit cards inside will be used to access internet porn sites and to buy Star buck's gift cards.

In Ireland and Scotland people believe seeing a single magpie bird is bad luck. But in South Koreans, the bird bringing bad luck is the crow.  But also, many South Koreans also do not sleep with fans running in closed rooms because they claim that if they do, it's a death sentence.  To combat that "fan death," Korean legend says to leave windows open.   I suggest they just buy air conditioning units and forget that  legend nonsense.

In Russia, they say that carrying an empty bucket or even seeing someone carrying an empty bucket is a bad omen. This probably stemmed from the fact that Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by a man with an empty bucket, but the left in this country blames it on Putin and Trump. Next door to Russia, in  Finland, killing a spider means it will rain the next day. Of course the left also insists it is Putin and Trump, not the spider, that is responsible for the rain.

In Malaysia is that if you sit on a pillow, it will cause your bottom and backside to be covered in boils, blisters, and other sores. I'll take their word for that because I don't want to see it myself. Strangely enough, this superstition does not specify as to whether cushions instead of pillows are included. Still, pillows are mostly meant for your head for when you sleep, so would you really want to share the pillow with your butt. I don't need to see your answer!

In France, it's believed to be good luck to step in dog poop with your left foot, but bad luck to step in it with your right. Given the source being France this makes more sense. It's more logical that the rest of what the French say and believe. In the rival of France, Germany, it is bad luck to cheers with water because it is said you are literally wishing death to everyone you are drinking with. Actually, those Germans are probably wishing death to the French, who have annoyed Germans with pretentiousness for centuries.

In Denmark, they save broken dishes all year long to throw at the houses of friends and family on New Year's Eve. It's believed that the larger the amount of porcelain, the more good luck bestowed upon friends and family. Or maybe the Danes are just cheap and plan on gluing those broken dishes together for reuse.

Oh before I forget. There is a superstition if you read the junk I write your brain may fall into decay.  But I guess you already knew that.

You Are What You Eat

You ever heard the expression, "you are what you eat"? I'm suspicious of that! The first mention of the phrase "you are what you eat" came from the 1826 work Physiologie du Gout, ou Medetations de Gastronomie Transcendante, in which French author Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote: “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what your are.” Hmmmm The French think they know everything about food, but they are delusional. Just think of what those crazy vegans and vegetarians would be if they looked and acted like the plants they ate? Oh, wait. Some vegans don't even look as healthy as a carrot or as asparagus.

Basically, the idea of that phrase is that to stay healthy, it’s best to keep off junk food because "you are what you eat".  When I meet a convert to a "healthy food diet"  they mumble that they are superior. The exclaim that, "I feel more energetic and fit now that I’ve given up processed food and eat more freshly prepared local and seasonal foods.” At that point I tell them I love donuts and hamburger. What normal person doesn't? But that falls flat, so i ask them about drugs, whether they take any.

Most health nuts pop a lot of pills. They love things like steroids, smoking joints and supplements. They eat allot of supplements, foreign, mostly made in lab drugs that they seem to think are not "junk foods". But they are. I say let me have my junkie donuts and hamburgers in peace, without any pretentious preaching about your "natural diet" and I'll shut up about your addiction to all those drugs.

To show how off those health nuts are, just look at how food changes as to whether it is healthy or unhealthy. Once butter, for example, was deemed unhealthy because it was too fatty. Margarine was invented in the lab as a "healthy substitute", but now we believe that butter is far better and far more healthy than margarine. For a long time, eggs were thought to be bad for your heart. A large egg contains a hefty 185mg of cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol was believed to contribute to high blood cholesterol levels. But for the last 20 years, nutrition and medical research has shown repeatedly that at normal intakes dietary cholesterol has very little influence on a person’s blood cholesterol levels. Take that, healthy eaters!

Potatoes are considered to be unhealthy by some, but healthy by others. That's because they have plenty of carbohydrates, but how you prepare potatoes also changes the aspects of those starches that get a bad rap and makes kit healthy. Sigh. How is one to know this good/bad food dynamic. It's the same with milk and cheese, once considered bad for the heart but now treasured by many because dairy products include the high protein and calcium content.

I think that the you are what you at motto should be thrown down the garbage disposal with the Quinoa that I hate so much. Remember, when it comes to food and health: all foods, even my donuts, can fit into a healthy diet. There are  no “super foods” or “food villains”. Enthusiastic consumption of one particular “super food” can be worse than consuming a so called “food villain”. Uh, with that remark, I think that I just endorsed eating donuts for healthier living

World Of Plastic

We live in a world of plastic, for better or worse. I suppose there are more good  than bad things about the invention of plastic. But the biggest negative to it is it is growing our trash way too much. Humans have produced 18.2 trillion pounds of plastics since large scale production began in the early 1950s and we've put most of it in the trash. If you took all the plastic in the trash today it would be equal to 1 billion elephants. Scientists say that by 2050, another 26.5 trillion pounds will be produced worldwide. The problem with durable and faithful plastic is that most  plastics don't biodegrade.

Just think, those Mc Donald's kid meal plastic toys will be with us for thousands of years.  If you pay attention while you walk you'll see plastic often. You can't go anywhere without finding plastic waste in our environment, including in bodies of water. A recent study by the British research firm Eunomia (No, they don't make plastic)  said there may be as much as 70 million tons of plastic waste on the sea floor alone. Eunomia also found that. It found only about 9% of plastic has been recycled. About 12% is incinerated  (I'm not sure what environmental impact incinerated plastic has).

If I asked you what is the most produced man-made substance, you might say plastic, and you would be almost correct if you did. Only steel and concrete are more often produced. Most of the plastic produced doesn't last long. In fact, half of it becomes waste after less than 5 years. Yet. most of plastic products are made only for short term use.

China, the U.S. and Europe produce the most plastic. The best recyclers are Europe and China. The largest market for plastic is packaging, which increased worldwide as consumers shifted from reusable to single-use containers. I think the person who invented those plastic food saver containers should be transported to the moon. And scientists say they know that plastic production isn't going to stop or even slow down because there are some legitimate uses for it. Plastics are indispensable in products designed for durability. Plastic is like the roach that no one can kill.

Filming A Jail Break With One's Cell Phone

It's time to take nominations for the yearly award of 'Most addicted to a Cell Phone'. I've got my own nomination. It's from three prisoners who just had to record their jailbreak on their cell, presumably because the world would be deprived if not seeing it. This happened in the land of the bizarre, California. What a surprise, unreality is bred faster than rabbits there. While sneaking out the three recorded their escape with a contraband cell phone and later cut a video narrating the details of the jailbreak. The 15 minute, heavily edited clip of that escape includes a voice over by one of the alleged escapees explaining the daring escape from the Orange County Jail.

“My name is Adam Hossein Nayeri,” the lead addict/imbecile says on the video. “You know, a lot of people like to credit us with some Houdini escape act all in eight minutes flat. It's an interesting myth: Three guys sneaking out of a maximum security module right after a supposed 5 a.m. count without anyone noticing.” Adam seems a little short in the literacy department. But who needs to be able to express his thoughts cogently when he has a cell phone. Cell phones are almost the equal to God!

A fool like Adam is surely going to be caught when he announces his escape publicly. But who cares, I suppose he thinks. He''ll obtain another cell while in jail, thereby fulfilling his life dreams. When nabbed Adam said,  “In reality, it is true, we did leave that mod after count. Not the one they're claiming, though, I left that module at least eight hour earlier, the night before … As far as setup goes, well, we had a duffel bag and a backpack full of stuff.” Huh?  I need an interpreter for him. But police did confirm that the three thugs used hundreds of feet of industrial grade rope, a toolbox, shoes, clothes and  more.

“But this was no secret, I mean, they knew about all this within hours afterwards,” Adam said. “I don't know why they still chose to stand with the string story, the 5 a.m. count and whatever else. I'm sure they have good reasons, they always do. They even tried to blame an innocent person initially.” The video abruptly cuts to show what appears to be the inside of the jail, with dozens of inmates in orange jumpsuits in cell blocks. The camera also briefly shows Adam's fellow escapee Bac Duong, who smiles for the camera. Maybe Bac will smile if they execute him? That might make a more appealing You Tube video than did the escape.

Anyway, I prefer to skip a  full report on the escape. Lt. Lane Lagaret, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman, declined to comment on the video saying  only that “The video released today contains footage that is part of an ongoing investigation and is consistent with information OCSD has already supplied verbally to the media,” Lagaret said in a statement. “We will not provide additional comment on a video narrative that seeks to make light of criminal actions.”

But the good news is all three are back in a prison cell, and authorities are searching them regularly in case they acquire another cell phone in prison. In case you are as addicted to cell videos of prison breaks as is Adam, here is a 54 second segment of the break. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mDQB7F56DA&ytbChannel=New%20York%20Post

TV Technology Is Too Complicated Now

As I am an old man now I was thinking the other day (old timers think allot and do little) about whether life is better for we who are breathing today than it was for the ones that we  visit in the cemetery. I have not quite come to a conclusion, so since I am confused let me confuse you as well by making a case for both views. Case one is that life is better for us than the last three generations. The explosion of invention and new technology makes it far more comfortable for us. When we are sick we receive better treatment and recover. Our technology makes life less boring today.

We have more free time to do more interesting things and we are less tired due to having to do strenuous labor (like tilling the farm fields). Medicine helps us live longer and feel better more often than those earlier generations. We have more opportunity today. We can travel more easily and more often and can be lazy without worrying about things get done because our machines do so much of what we used to do. All the modern inventions have made life better, proving that "the good old days" were really not so good.

Case two says we are worse off today. Life is more stressful and less meaningful. Instead of talking to each other, eating diner together and conversing about important things, we instead chat or post idiocy on cell phones. We are more informed on triviality, like actors and movies and trends and the reality world, but uninformed on the cerebral and what really should matter to us. We have closets of clothes, but dress poorly compared to the earlier times when a suit and tie was standard wear, even at sporting events.

We don't know our children as well because we don't relate to them anymore. Our kids are parented more by their technology than by their parents. Quantity has replaced quality. In those earlier times we knew what we believed. Our religion guided our life. Today our celebrity tweets enlighten us. Our technology is better today, but we are less free because of it. It enslaves us.

Maybe it' not fair to compare times because can only live in one. But those who do question probably do so because they feel some discomfort with or estrangement from our lives today. But perhaps those earlier generations felt the same way about their own lives. What do you think?

Blaming The Web Site

I know we in the United States are lawsuit happy, but news of a woman's suit against her husband may  be one of the more novel attempts to extract money from others with the frivolous lawsuit. The suit involves a woman only identified as "Mary" and a web site called Persopo.com that is a resource for people to check arrest records, marriage records, contract info etc. that is public record. Persopo not only pulls from public records but many different social and dating web sites around the internet.  Mary's husband checked to see if Mary was cheating with another person and hit the jackpot.

"When I searched her name it came up. She had accounts matching her name and email on cheating wives.com an many others. I just couldn't believe that this was the woman that i married," husband Frank said. The husband found enough evidence on Mary to fueled his divorce suit against her. Her match.com profile, for example, where stated she is “never married” for relationship status. Mary said it was unfair and wants Persoco to pay for providing information on her cheating. Nowhere in the lawsuit does it dispute if the information is accurate or not. Nor that she was having an affair on her husband with multiple men.

Mary is now stating that, “Persopo.com ruined my life by revealing private information about me.” She is currently seeking unspecified damages from Persoco. Apparently, for Mary, cheating is fine as long as you are not caught. If you do get caught, blame it on  the technology that nabbed you. It also reflects another instance of how technology is winning over humans. Using background check services is becoming increasingly commonplace. It seems logically that spouses might use it to check on a questionable husband or wife.

Too often human beings become so enthralled with their technology they forget that it can be an enemy as well as a friend. It should be noted that we live in a digital age in which technology allows us to both hide and seek.

Group Think

In this age of  instant and consuming communication technology  have we moved into a new era of group think? You know group think. It's the state in which everyone seems to believe the same thing, largely because society coerces the individual to do so. How ironic we have group think at the same time that information is available more than ever. In medieval times there was one narrative and once source of information, churches and rulers of the area.  But now we have multitude of sources. Problem is, they are all in "agreement", all repeating the same narratives.

In the United States the group think narrative is overwhelmingly liberal, leftist scripted. That's largely because the media sources here are also overwhelmingly left, so there is little push back when the leftist group think script is promoted. It explains sudden shifts in public opinion, as in the case of transgender being a "third sex" or claims that Republicans are "racist" because they believe in tradition. The definition of group think is the practice of approaching problems or issues as matters that are best dealt with by consensus of a group rather than by individuals acting independently. And that is anathema to a democracy.

To identify group think one need only look at any of the progressive liberal groups that push an agenda. Look at 'Black Lives Matter' for example and you'll see many symptoms of group think. These include unquestioned belief in which BLM members  ignore possible moral problems and ignore consequences of individual and group actions., their violence when protesting for example.

A second symptom is he BLM rationalization of every point the group claims to be true. This prevents their members from reconsidering their beliefs and causes them to ignore warning signs about what they pro port is true but may not be.

Thirdly is the stereotyping by BLM members. This leads members of the group to ignore or even demonize out group members who may oppose or challenge the groups ideas. Thus the "Black Lives Matter" (but other lives apparently not as much) scenario.

A fourth symptom that BLM is a group think mess is that the group and other liberal or conservative group thinkers, pretend to be mind guards who act as self appointed censors to hide problematic information from members of the group. One way is by the use of slogans that are oversimplifications or untruths. The classic one for the BLM group is that "police are hunting blacks".

A fifth characteristic is that of  holding the belief that everyone should or does agree with the narrative of the group think organization. This lead members to believe that everyone is or should be in agreement with them. An example of this is "the system is rigged against minorities."

A fifth symptom is that there is great pressure for BLM members to conform. Pressure is often placed on members who pose questions, and those who question the group are often seen as disloyal or traitorous. It's why BLM uses hate rhetoric against any black who does not support the group.

The group think phenomenon is a growing one as we deaden our brains with superficial communication technology and tend to be herded to one group think or another. It is a threat to human freedom and individual thought.

Is A Vulgar Protest A Protected One?

When protesters use inappropriate language or hand gestures to police officers is at least vulgar and disrespectful to society. But are they committing a felony or are they being simply disrespectful?  Because the U.S. is a democracy with individual rights guaranteed, there is no law against being disrespectful. There is a law against making a threat, but pointing the middle finger at a police officer is not threatening him or her.

As much as I hate vulgarity and disrespect, I am grateful to have free speech rights, and that they are protected by the courts her. That concept will be tested in Louisiana after a "finger protest" there got the pointer a citation for threatening a police officer. The pointer's lawyer and the ACLU say that Louisiana State Police troopers violated the Constitutional rights of their client after they arrested him for giving the police "the finger," this the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana said in a letter toLouisiana police Superintendent Col. Kevin Reeves.

"A Louisiana State trooper took retaliatory action against a driver who engaged in speech protected by the First Amendment," said  ACL Executive Director Marjorie Esman. "We appreciate that the job of policing in the 21^st century can be difficult, and we hope your officers will focus on more serious and legitimate threats to public safety." State Police spokeswoman Trooper First Class Melissa Matey said, "The Louisiana State Police has tremendous respect for the First Amendment even when the citizens we serve choose to be vulgar and disrespectful. This was an unfortunate incident which will be used as a training opportunity."

Hmmm They seem to agree that the police were excessive in citing the vulgar finger pointer. I agree, but the larger issue is why so many, and many are doing it, stoop to vulgarity like the finger pointer. It may reflect the vulgar culture in which we live today, and that is a crime bigger than all the finger pointer incidents out there. The pointing incident happened Dec. 28, 2016 when a man driving on Interstate 20 near Rayville gave "the finger" to a trooper he passed. The trooper then pulled the driver over and issued a citation for "public intimidation," a felony that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $1,000 fine. Wow! That's a pretty stiff penalty.

Public intimidation in Louisiana is defined as "the use of violence, force, or threats upon (a public officer or public employee) with the intent to influence his conduct in relation to his position, employment, or duty," according to Louisiana law. "The driver used no violence, force, or threat on the trooper, and there is no evidence of intent to influence the trooper's official conduct," said the ACL. "His gesture does not fit the statutory definition of 'public intimidation,' and it was not a crime."The trooper engaged in "illegal First Amendment retaliation," she said. Among the freedoms this country provides is the right to criticize the government and public officials, including police officers".

I have to agree that people have the right to be idiots, including making vulgar gestures when frustrated. But I sure wish the world was a nicer, more tolerant place.

Doing Cocaine In The School Lane

How do you know when the country's drug culture is getting out of hand? I guess there are many indicators, the legalization of marijuana, the abuse of prescription drugs, the casual approach to using drugs as a diversion are all ways. But wait! Here is a practical example of the drugs for everybody anytime American cultures. A sheriff's deputy recently arrested a woman outside a Florida middle school after he allegedly spotted her chopping up and using cocaine while waiting in the parent pick-up line Tuesday. Yep! mom shoots up while waiting for her children's' school dismissal and pick-up.

The deputy who arrested loopy mom said he was patrolling Lexington Middle School just before 4 p.m. when he saw 39-year-old Christina Hester snorting drugs off the screen of her iPhone with a straw. It figures, a drug addict also addicted to cell phones uses both simultaneously. The deputy took Christine to his office where he arrested her. A field test later determined that half a gram of white powder found in her purse was cocaine. Christina has been charged with cocaine possession and possession of drug paraphernalia.

So much for those anti drug educational sessions a t the school. Instead, the kids can look out their school room window and get a real life demonstration of the power of drugs to ruin lives. This one incident is probably not the exception, as drug use to escape reality is now considered by many an alternative lifestyle. Society today has embraced illegal drug usage by legalizing more and more drugs and using more and more via prescription.

When life is so bad one needs to get high to avoid it, especially when doing it in a school carpool lane, perhaps that society should put down the drugs and start thinking clearly about the impact they are having on all of us.

Sex On A Plane

Remember that awful film entitled "Snakes on a Plane".  The premise was so lamb and unbelievable that the film was laughable.  The idea that number of poisonous snakes was on board threatening or killing passengers is so as ridiculous as people having sex openly on a plane. Wait a minute! I retract the last remark, because according to Southwest Airlines it happened last month. One couple on a Southwest flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas reportedly didn't hold back on hanky panky, engaging in sexual activity while on board.

That's right. They did the nasty right in their seats. “Apparently, they just couldn't control themselves,” Michael Oram, spokesman for McCarran International Airport in LasVegas. “They were all over each other.” I guess the old adage of "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, doesn't apply to people having sex on the tarmac. Anyway, as they were high altitude humping the couple was informed to refrain from such actions while on the flight, but ignored the instructions.

Police met the couple at the gate but no arrests were made, and the investigation will not proceed with an arrest at this time. In other words I might be wrong about that adage. It's fair to say that what happens in Vegas really does stay in Vegas, at least in this instance. A spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines confirmed the incident, saying “Southwest does not condone this type of activity and we apologize to the other passengers onboard who were potentially exposed to this activity.”

This is the second time this summer that someone's been caught engaging in sexual activity while in flight. In June, a passenger filmed and place on You Tube a video of a fellow who was engaged to be married getting a lap dance from a female who was not his fiancees on a Ryanair flight. The man, who was traveling with his bachelor party, was reportedly sad to leave his fiancé at home for the event, which is why his buddies asked the woman cheer him up. I suspect that his bride to be might be sad to see that video as well.

Communication Technology Confounds Me

I long ago concluded that technology and I are not partners in this world. Everywhere I turn there are machines, most with computer chips for brains. They stalk me to use them, mainly because to not do so is to be left in the non machine world, a place in which only a few oldies feel comfort. But I like the non technological world. I have greater control of it and a far greater ability to function in it that in the microchip universe.

I think those of us born and who lived most of their lives pre computer chip. see the world differently. We feel secure outside of technology because we both have little desire to become a slave to it, and little understanding as to how it works. Even though the VCR machine has long ago died, I never learned how to use it beyond turning it off and on. We are in a throw away technological era.

Communication technology is the technology that is most enveloping for us. It changes so fast that for many of us it comes and goes before we realize it was here. It represents speed, not contemplation and quality. The value of communication technology today is often placed on how fast it works, yet when we go too fast we miss the scenery (the world outside of that technology).

I know I am ignorant of most technology, just by the fact that if I use it I always try to find the simplest technology. My computer is still using Windows 7 and I am sure if Microsoft makes me use Window's 10 it will take me at least a year to understand a significant part of it. For me, "upgrade" is the new obscenity. I have no desire to install anything else on my computer, given it will only be more technology I do not understand, want or know how to use.

Sometimes I wonder if humans will ever revolt and spurn the communication technology that is thrust too quickly on them, finally realizes that that kind of technology controls them too much.. I know that they won't because none of us has much choice as to using this technology. It is not an option. It is an imposition. I fight it still because to not do so will mean I will live in a world that I consider superficial and unimaginative. And I will also harass others with my anti technological rants, because someone has to do it, or we will never have the option to reject it. The more advanced the communication technology becomes, the more it seems to have control over our lives. But we seems to like that.

I believe that people have too readily embraced some of that communication technology, seeking only the benefits, and ignoring the many downfalls. It's because much of that technology today does not improve our lives. When we became addicted to the technological achievements of recent years, we forget to be thrilled and amazed. We lose that great sense of wonder, of awe that makes life unique for each of us. If the whole world reads Face book, is Face book worth reading? We ignore the human elements of creativity, and imagination way too much now and I am sure that the technology that enslaves us is primarily responsible for it.

Old Furniture

I like old furnishings. Old things have character and will since they have survived so long. If the survival of the fittest works when applied to humans I think it does for furniture as well. Most bad furniture doesn't survive long enough to be seen. But the new factory made furniture, best exemplified by that cheap particle board furniture IKEA sells in record numbers. That humans buy so much of that junk reflects the decline in life today. In past times furniture was hand made to specification and it lasted for a long time. Now IKEA junk is quickly replaced my newer IKEA junk.

I am one who likes new houses with old furnishings, sort of like the 50 year old woman who has had plastic surgery, wears great make-up and looks 30 years old. But inside she is old and not unhappy that her life is clarified more by the experiences she had that made her who she is today. My preference for new houses is practical. I prefer a house that is not in constant need of repair, the new appearance is not what drives me to want it "new". But furniture is different. What is on the outside is what is also inside.

Old furniture has character, When I touch a 200 year old wooden table I feel a difference from touching IKEA particle board. The older table has a history and story that, although secret and a mystery is still significant. To handle a table that was handled by other humans 200 years ago is to bind with them spiritually. It makes me appreciate what has come before me and made me what I am. Too, the style and design of old furniture tells something about the attitude of people of that day.

I think people like me who love the old more often than we love the new are a dying ember in culture. This is the age when statues are torn down because they represent imagined "sins" of the past. A statue of a person who behaved contrary to what we see as ethical today, but whose behavior was the norm at the time, needs to remain in place. Those two degrees give us a frame of reference and if we are smart enough, an opportunity to learn from the past.

The many pieces of Victorian furniture I have in my home has made me appreciate that era and the overall good it gave to humanity. It also made me aware of how shallow a person is who rejects the era or persons from it because it does not fit into today's throw-away. trendy, shallow, IKEA culture.
But there is one positive, at least that IKEA junk won't survive long enough for the next generation to place a value on it.