J'accuse

"J'accuse"! Relax. I am not accusing you of anything. I just wanted to see how it felt to be one of those accusers. You know, the people who go online and accuse others of a  variety of currently trendy causes. At the moment it seems that every male in the universe has been accused by one or more females of "sexual assault". Sexual assault theses days is ambiguous term. It includes real physical sexual abuse but also "abuse" such as saying something that hurts the alleged victim's feelings. With the proliferation of communication devices (those stupid cell phones) the favorite tweet or social media post is "He assaulted me".

False accusations tend to blur real ones. And that might be a problem now. There is an almost Salem Witch trial sentiment to an accusation today, sexual or any other one. The "He or she is a racist" accusation a good example of today's accusation tyranny. When one person presents an argument with which you disagree, it is easier to call that person a racist than to debate rhetorically and factually. One thing social media does is dumb down conversation, and the dumbest people in the world seem to use social media the most. God! Bring back those cat videos and stop the accusers from assaulting us all with their excess.

There is a saying that the frantic revolution always becomes excessive and then eventually eats its own advocates. So get ready accusers. Your day will come, as you have set a play field to encourage others to also falsely accuse you of something as well. And there is a great likely hood that the accusation is so subjective and so flimsy that you will be as shocked to be accused as were those you previously accused.

In this country we have already damaged essential public institutions by so many false accusations. One example is the ludicrous accusation by people who imagine bigotry is that "police are hunting black people". Our PC media has promoted that one feverishly, with no data to support that allegation. As a result, many Americans now think the police are "racist". Police are now viewed skeptically by many and that crown reacts negatively to the police as a result. Accusations, both the real and merited accusation and the destructive false ones have stained other institutions including schools, churches, The Boy Scouts and other children's social groups, and even out lovable corrupt politicians. Hmmmm Even a politician deserves to not be falsely accused.

Good lucky clearing your name if you are publicly false accused of one of the trendy "abuses" now the rage. If the accusations are not true, the person is in a situation that is similar to being bullied. Once accused and now distrusted and under scrutiny, the sense of helplessness is overwhelming. But the other victims is the real victim abuse, those whose real tragic status is muddied by the false accusers. I suppose if we all unplugged those stupid phones and computers for a while the accuser crowd would go away in frustration. A performer needs an audience in order to perform. But that unplugging isn't possible.

What's more possible is if we resist the false accusers by ignoring their complaints. Better to let the legal system handle such complaints. It is far more capable of separating real abuse from the phony kind. I suspect this won't happen until we all finally say, "Enough"! When we tune them out and stop enabling them they will go on to another attention getting strategy less destructive than the false accusation. Well, I can dream it might happen.

Slugging The Teacher

There was an interesting news story the other day that may or may not reflect society's confusion about it's own identity. Might it show that society has no real identity, or at least no shared one. In Miami, Florida police have arrested a 7-year-old boy accused of hitting his teacher.  A police report stating Mercy Álvarez’s son (sonny boy's identity is not revealed to protect him due to his youth) was handcuffed last Thursday for hitting the teacher. The first-grader slugger was then hospitalized under the Florida Mental Health Act for a psychiatric evaluation for "evaluation". I thought little kids hitting anyone was somewhat a norm from time to time?

Slugger was later discharged. The initial reason the slugging child began punching the teacher was  that he was taken out of the cafeteria for playing with his food. (must have been broccoli day).  He then “attacked the teacher by repeatedly punching her on the back” until the two fell to the ground. Schools Police Chief Ian Moffett says the department's response was standard. But the slugger's mom is fighting mad (oh no!). Slugger Mom Álvarez says the incidents are “police abuse.” That's not a new one these days. Whenever police arrest someone who is not male and Caucasian the cry of police abuse will be toned by some.

It was the second time in less than three months that school authorities punished her son by calling the police for behavioral problems. It seems that two strikes and slugger is out, as far as police are concerned. Is this whole thing a bit idd and a bit overblown? Mom says that little slugger had a tantrum, for sure. But mom Álvarez considers arresting nd cuffing him was disproportionate and outrageous. “This is police abuse; a whim of the officer, because my son was calm when they came to look for him,” said  mom. “The principal, the counselor, and two other people tried to prevent that action and the officer took my child anyway.” Oh.... Police were also called on the child for throwing a tantrum several months ago.

Álvarez says that until she sees the evidence in a surveillance video, she does not believe that her child is capable of being strong enough to knock down the teacher. The family believes that the boy is being bullied and that is why behavior problems arise. Hmmm Now that sounds like a parent too in defense of a child who has misbehaved badly more than once. Slugger Mom even says that her son always dreamed of being a policeman, but these days “he told me he does not want to be because the police are bad.” Thank God for that! If Slugger grew up and became a police officer he might have a body count higher that a Muslim terrorist.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article197039799.html#storylink=cpy

As for the teacher, she is pressing charges against the little boy. That too seems to me to be over reach. But, as I wrote in the beginning, society is so confused right is wrong and wrong is right more often than not. It's because standards of behavior have been too often been replaced with relative ones. It all confuses me so much it makes me want to...well...punch a teacher.

Culturally Irrelevant

The news media, newspapers and the rest, are all aflutter about the 2018 Grammy Awards. I know nothing about of any of the artists, their music, or anything related to them. It's because I have long been done with today's popular culture. I pay no attention to it and only find refuge in the past. It's sad, but common culture today is not something I respect or like. I think the explosions of media connections today has dumbed done popular culture to the extent it is both uninteresting to me and irrelevant to real life.

In the past there was not the cultural generation gap that exists today. In short, there is now no common culture. The days of a family listening to the same music, reading the same books, dressing the same way etc... are bygone days. Rather there now are a series of sub cultures and one must navigate those to find in which he or she fits. Many are defined by the age of the person interested, but the sex, political persuasion, ethnicity and more of the things that divide humans rather than unite them are what steers us to the sub culture of choice.

As to which subculture dominates, it is clear that the economy of scale determines that. The one which has the biggest financial impact of society dominates that society. Thus, I see Grammy winners who produce what I would not even define as music, praised for their "genius". Art is relative, but there is usually a standard from which art must start, a platform. Forget that today.

Perhaps that is the normal life cycle of change for a culture. But surely it is now a rapidly evolving cycle. Our communication technology changes so fast we have little or now time to even evaluate what that technology tells is is desirable. But it does mean more and more people are left behind and must find solace in past culture. When they do so they lose power in the culture, as they are ignorant of what it is about. Oh well, I think I'll just listen to an old Beatle tune and forget those 2018 Grammy Award winners, whomever they are.

Camel Beauty Contest Scandal

Cheating in international sports has got to stop. We all know about the Russians and their nonstop cheating in international contests. They use drugs or bribery of judges to win contests. Everyone knows it, but then, we all expect a dictatorship as corrupt as the Russian one to cheat abroad. Cheating is the norm internally and in fact, some think it is a long held cultural in Russia right to cheat. It takes a culture a long time to disinfect the stains of communism. But now there is word of cheating by non Russians.

The biggest international camel beauty contest is now in the midst of a cheating scandal. That's right, rigged camel beauty contests are now a problem. It seems that at least 12 contestants in the 2017 Saudi Arabia beauty pageant have been disqualified because their owners injected their lips with Botox. I resist any urge to comment on the beauty or non beauty of Saudi women here, but relate to you that camels are considered very sexy things in the Mid East. Maybe its because the camel is uncovered while the Saudi woman is hiding among all those sheets of camouflage the men insist the ladies wear.

Camel looks are so important that at this contest the judges  hand out millions of dollars in cash prizes to the breeders of the most toothsome beasts. The camel teeth and fullness of the face are seen as the main standard of beauty. But the sexiest camels are supposed to be all natural ones, not Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenneger chemically enhanced ones. "They (the camel breeders) use Botox for the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw,” Ali al-Mazrouei, the son of a leading Emirati camel breeder. “It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes, it’s like, ‘Oh, look at how big that head is,’ ” he said. “It has big lips, a big nose.”

Forget the steroid infused humans at the Olympics! The Camel festival in Saudi Arabia where the cheating has been unmasked  involves up to 30,000 camels and has so far attracted at least 300,000 visitors, organizers said. Camels also compete in races, with total prize money for the festival of $57 million; of that, $31.8 million is set aside for the beauty pageant. Wow!  For $57 you can botox me.
Botox injections and collagen fillers alter a camel’s appearance for months.

By the time a buyer finds out they’ve been had, it is usually too late for action against the seller. The camel competitions may ban camels for years but owners can continue to enter other camels. Anyway, the cheaters have been unmasked, so the offending camels, enhanced lips and all have been sent away from the contest and into the desert. In camel land, all natural is in and Hollywood botox is out.

To Climate Change Zealots- Shut Up And Cool Down!

Those idiots who throw "climate change" into my face just won't go away. They are armed with a smug  theory that humans have the power and are in control of nature. Yet the source of their belief is a slither of truth and a whole lot of speculation, based on false information turned into climate science truth. I wish they would shut up and let the earth and me alone. I challenge the source and the citations of "expert" analysis of this strange climate change religion.  Is it possible for science to know the truth about climate changes, whether they are a normal up and down variable or, is it as the climate change adherents say that climate is under control of humans.

Skepticism and uncertainty have always been the heart and soul of science, but irrational confidence and certainty is the  belief of the realm in much of today's public discourse about climate and most other things that are said to be "proven to be true by science". But this is anti science in mindset. Unquestioning confidence is deeply troubling for the scientific community because it is not the currency science uses, and it has led people in America and around the world to question scientific enterprise itself. We should all be troubled when science is treated as if it were an ideology rather than a discipline. I say that the hysterical belief in human control of temperature is insane. Too, the reaction to that belief is far more harmful to humans that would be the case if the climate religionists were right in their theory.

The point of science is not to produce doctrines that initiate policy, often costly and harmful in the name of the "truth" abusers of science push. Real science, not the pop science that climate changers cite too often, collects and test evidence that points toward conclusions. These then are used to create approaches, treatments and policies based on rigorous research. The amount of evidence produced ion the subject of climate change will fit on the head of a pin. Yet, climate change believers can't wait for truth. They instead create it. This is an insult to real science and real scientists who are afraid to challenge these narratives publicly, lest they be branded with the scarlet letter 'D' (for "climate denier").

Scientific investigation should be undertaken to question today's knowledge, to seek new evidence through research and experimentation. But that's not the way it works for climate change. Governments promote the theory as truth and punish those who disagree. They support the climate change religion with taxpayer funding and ;propaganda. And so it goes, and goes and goes on.  Today's sheepish culture of the endless annoying communication devices, with the help of stupid celebrities a shallow media as popular cultures love of the trendy versus the real, assist the climate change narrative as gospel.

Since 1895, the media has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods. From 1895 until the 1930’s the media peddled a coming ice age. From the late 1920’s until the 1960’s they warned of global warming. From the 1950’s until the 1970’s they warned us again of a coming ice age. This makes modern global warming/climate changers the fourth estate's fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears during the last 100 years. I wish they would just shut up and let science work. The media promotion of climate change, that there is scientific “consensus” of impending climatic doom is wrong and an insult to the scientific method.  After all, there was a so-called scientific “consensus” that there were nine planets in our solar system until Pluto was recently demoted.

The climate changers are as silly to me as those who insisted a thousand of year ago that the earth was flat, that this was a fact that was not up to debate. We should let science try to find the cleanest forms of energy possible, wait for it to be economcially feasilble for use and well.....just stop the nonsense about how humans are changing climate.

The Death Of Jazz

I grew up and lived most of my life in New Orleans, hearing jazz as a small boy I remember those sounds so well. There were old jazz clubs everywhere in the city and all little boys were taken to them from time to time. I liked that jazz...until  it was when in my 20's or so when old jazz, traditional jazz seemed to fade away into whatever old jazz is today. As far as some people are concerned, jazz, meaning old jazz, isn't just lost today. It's dead.  Few people pay attention to any kind of jazz anymore. Instead, musicians who play it present us with a strange aberration it is many find boring and without any "soul" at all. Modern Jazz seems like a McDonald's hamburger. It is full of sound and fury, signifying little.

What we have now is a commercialized idea of what old jazz was. But then, I am not a musician I am just an observer of culture and think that the death of Jazz is the same dying of culture that we have and are experiencing in the dawn of the computer chip and other technological assassins. When culture changes so rapidly we hardly realize what we lose it is a particularly bad form of change.

One can still visit the "museum" of old jazz at Preservation Hall in New Orleans, that music venue for those who want to remember the spirit and soul of a form of music that used to excite the listener, but which is less today even than elevator music. Beyond Preservation Hall, it's hard to find old jazz in New Orleans anymore. Instead we have that bubble gum of jazz everywhere there, Neo jazz. But then I am just a little informed person who remembers old jazz and laments what it becomes.

Too, I am inadequate in knowledge of the field and incapable of defining old jazz. Thus, I am only capable of lamenting its passing. I do know that something of great cultural value came quickly and has now evolved into something mush less. Perhaps too few others have that recognition. Here is a vintage clip of Mardi Gras scenes from the 40's and of an New Orleans old jazz tune, 'Eh La Bas', by Kid Thomas Valentine (a trombone phenom). Sadly, real jazz is hard to find anymore, even in modern  New Orleans. If you don't feel sad that this kind of jazz is gone then I have just been whistling an empty tune here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quyHJODhyvo&index=2&list=PLZryXP-J6HpNtVZgURyOIxm1TnNscn7Lw

National Pie Day

Did you know that January 23rd is National Pie Day? It is supposed to be a day for all to bake or cook, and of course to eat your favorite pie.  Uh, maybe eat one piece, not the whole pie. People who study pie history say that pies have been around a long time. The first pies appeared around 9500 BC in the Egyptian Neolithic period or New Stone Age. I doubt that first pie resembled in any way what people like to eat now. Pie is one of the most versatile foods, with endless filling possibilities, but Pie Day is supposed to be as much about remembering famous "pie" moments in our lives and trying to make new ones.

I think my first remembrance of home made pie was my grandmother making lemon pies. She was from County Cork Ireland and brought the local recipe which used lard in the crust. Today, lard is on the food police list of forbidden products. I just use butter or shortening in my pie crusts. This grandmother made an exquisite filling for her luscious lard crust. The recipe, which I have and use ( without lard) from time to time uses  more lemons than should be allowed. It produces a tart and deep filling.  No one refuses my lemon pie, especially since I eschew meringue and go for fresh lightly sweetened whip cream as the topping for the tart filling.

Maybe you have a pie memory too. Perhaps you hate pie, But you'll never top a pie baker known on Instagram as@ThePieous. Pieous makes pies with celebrity portraits baked into the top, so-called “pietraits”.  Ms. pietrait has created  pies with a David Bowie and Prince image. Those would be fine. But who would want to eat a Hillary Clinton pie? Not I!

One oddity about pie day is that every January 23rd is also 'Measure Your Feet Day'. I never measure my feet and am not sure why anyone would. But I refuse to research that. I don't want to be convinced that I need to measure my feet. Someone may be watching and that may be the final straw that sends me to the nursing home. Luckily, we can eat all the pie we want and eat it any day we want. No one will send us to the nursing home for doing so.

Best Jobs

Few are happy with their jobs, their life time occupation or workplace.  It's human nature to feel dissonance. We want what we don't have and appreciate less what we are than what we could be.  Even though I am long retired. I enjoyed my work, I understand this reality about work. Just the other day U.S. News and World Report released its annual list of "Best Jobs" in America. Hmmmm Can there be a universal best or worst job? I doubt it,. We are all so different, with different likes and dislikes, I suspect there are even people who like the job of cleaning public toilets. Why I would rather that than to be a politician. Though they both shovel it, the toilet cleaner leaves it alone at the end of the day.

In this year's best job list, software developers replaced dentists for best job. U.S. News and World Report  uses seven measure, including salary, stress level, work life balance and the number of future job prospect to decide which job is the “best.” Another factor, demand in the labor market means whether we like being at work or not is irrelevant. So the list isn't just how happy we are at work. A job such as magician, for example, is so specialized there is little demand for it. Scratch that kind of work from the U.S. News and World Report list.

The criteria used to select the seems a little specific and rigid. What about, "Is the job fun"? Sure, a low paying job might be fun, and is it more important to make money or to have fun at work? I think it depends on who you ask. Perhaps making lists like this is too limited in scope and too universal in intent to be accurate. Besides, attempting to create a list that is so precise usually is doomed to failure. Humans are rarely precise in attitude, output or orientation. For the year 2017, the top five "Best" jobs on the list are: 1. Dentist 2. Nurse Practitioner 3. Physician Assistant 4. Statistician 5. Orthodontist   At my first glance they seemed not too exciting, maybe boring. I wouldn't be interested in any of them.

If you are a crass materialist who only wants to work for the highest pay, the top five Best Paying Jobs  are  1. Anesthesiologist  2. Surgeon 3. Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon 4. Obstetrician and Gynecologist 5. Orthodontist  And finally, in this world of business first, there is a Best Business Job category, with the top five for 2017 being 1. Statistician 2. Mathematician 3. Financial Advisor 4. Actuary 5. Operations Research Analyst

None of those appeal to me either. Well, maybe my current job, retirement bum, is my ideal! Who needs lists anyway?

Spying On Shoppers

Technology, oh technology. I like you less and less every day. Well, at least that electronic communication technology that spies on you and me. Guess what spy technology is now becoming standard at public retail spaces like your favorite shopping venue. Here's a hint. The next phase in data collection is right under your feet....literally It's a question Milwaukee, Wisconsin based startup Scanalytics is helping businesses explore with floor sensors that track people's movements.

When you walk in the store gazing at all that junk that you are dying to buy but don't need their are sensors you step on in the floor, sensors that read a customer's unique foot compressions to track that person's path to a digital display. It's big shopping brother! The sensors even report back to the store spy how long the person stands in front of it before walking away. Based on data collected over time, the floor sensors can tell a retailer the best time to offer a coupon or change the display before the customer loses interest.

Wow! This is terrible. Maybe we men can use this as an excuse to not go to the mall with women who want us and our wallet for their mall purchases. Ok, that's sexist joke. But it could wind up to be a blessing for us. Excuses to avoid malls are rare. Anyway this technology is already in use in Europe and some places in the U.S., and it is not a costly expense for businesses. The cost of having the sensors ranges from $20 to $1,000 per month, depending on square footage and add-on applications to analyze data or interact with digital signs.

Retailers make up the majority of Scanalytics' customers, highlighting one of several efforts brick-and-mortar stores are undertaking to better understand consumer habits and catch up with e-commerce giant Amazon. Spying this way makes sense to the stores trying to compete. But will customers "stand" for it? The argument for the spying is that  it is harmless outside of tracking customer wants and spending, and that physical stores (as opposed to online shopping) have been at a disadvantage because they 'don't have understanding as to where users are entering, what they're doing, what shelves are not doing well, which aisles are not being visited. But it's become easier for stores to track customers in recent years. In the case of buying on line, with Wi-Fi  businesses can follow people when they connect to a store's internet. One drawback is that not everyone logs on so the sample size is smaller.

In the case of in store spying sensors, another disadvantage is that with the sensors it's not possible to tell whether someone is inches or feet away from a product. Also it is that it's not possible to tell whether someone is inches or feet away from a product. Some companies already use artificial intelligence with video cameras to analyze body motions. Based on data collected over time, the floor sensors can tell a retailer the best time to offer a coupon or change the display before the customer loses interest.  Scanalytics' sensors, which can be tucked under utility mats, count the number of customers entering each of its eight stores to help schedule staff.

I wonder at what point the consumers, so addicted to accepting any technology that is new, will see that cute and trendy isn't necessarily good. Maybe this kind of consumer spying will push us off the all technology is wonderful cliff. I hope so.

The Brawny Woman Arrival

My how times have changed our perspectives and our sexual identity. It used to be that men were men and women women. It was easy to tell and there were no social movements to label people as either a transgender or binary sex humans. But now it's hard to tell is acceptable and real.  Even corporations are changing sex roles. Last year Georgia Pacific's Brawny paper towels brand payed homage to the strength of women during March, Women's History Month, by replacing the Brawny Man with a Brawny Woman on limited edition paper towel packages. The packages included the hashtag #StrengthHasNoGender. Gender roles are dying when you can't buy a paper towel that doesn't advertise for gender neutral.

When is it going to end? I suspect that in the end the binary types will lose the battle. Gender neutral will never happen unless human beings can be born without genitals. The Brawny Towel example is just one movement to do away as any kind of gender identification . Women who have educated themselves and accomplished great things in life are equal to men who have done the same, but they are not physically the same.  Men and women will always be different physically because we are designed differently and we function and think differently, largely because we program each sex to be different. It seems to be a natural way for humans to achieve the most when they do not deny their chromosomes and genes.

What's wrong with being different ? Why do so many seem to deny that all of us differ from others in many ways. I understand that Brawny is putting the "Brawny Woman" on its towels because it is riding the ridiculous P.C. trendy denial of separate sex mentality. They probably will benefit from the publicity of their Brawny Woman and make a lot more money while the subject is still fresh. But still, the Brawny Man pictured on Brawny towels is a lumberjack. How many women today are lumberjacks or want to be?

If Brawny wants to celebrate female achievements on it towels, why not do so in a sensible way. Show all the great things women have done in sports, science, music etc. Trying to create an image of a gender, neutral, rough woman who is physically intimidating does not represent either an achievement by women or the typical woman. Also, last year,  Brawny Towels also announced it is making a $75,000 donation to Girl's Inc., an advocacy group focused on inspiring young girls to enter fields that have been traditionally closed to women in some countries. Now that's a positive approach that will have a real impact.

New California

California, once the model state for progressivism, stability, wealth and fairness is today a disaster. Too much liberalism, idealism and unfairness is making California the worst state of them all. Middle Class and some wealthy Californians are ,leaving the state in droves, making it even more impoverished. Today California has the nation's highest level of poverty, caused by a shortage of housing and its sky high costs. A third of Californians are poor enough to qualify for Medi-Cal, the free medical care privilege for those "too poor" to pay their own way. It has the nation's worst traffic congestion and second worst pavement conditions.

It has a water supply that is inadequate to the state's needs. California's K-12 schools rank near the bottom in academic achievement, largely through the tens of millions of uneducated illegal immigrants who keep pouring into the state to get "free stuff". It has ever-growing debts for public employee pensions and retiree health care. Its state budget is a disaster, said to be “balanced,” but only if one ignores the huge debts its dishonest politicians hide. And perhaps worst of all in "diverse" California, the state is dependent o taxes from a few wealthy Californians, given most of the state is welfare dependent and very lightly taxed.

Ugh! Who would want to live in that mess? Apparently, besides the mass exit by people of wealth, education and hope for the future, there are some Californians who want to stay. The founders of New California took an early step toward statehood Monday with the reading of their own Declaration of Independence from California, a state they describe as "ungovernable." Their solution is not a legal or practical one, but one that is beautiful in the figurative sense. That group wants to take over most of current day California  including many rural counties, and leave the liberal, in the bubble coastal  and urban areas to themselves.

"The current state of California has become governed by a tyranny," declared  chairman Robert Preston the New California succession group, led in part by vice chairman Robert Paul Preston.. There is a "decline in essential basic services" including education, law enforcement, infrastructure and health care." Claiming the authority of Article 4, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, the aspiring 51st state plans to convince California's legislature to split the state before submitting the resolution to Congress. That's an unlikely prospect because it is virtually impossible for any part of any state to legally break away and form a new state.

It's a shame that la la land can't be held accountable for its own destruction by way of crazy and dishonest left wing politicians, the flight of productive Californians to better states in which to live, and an invasion of tens of millions of uneducated and unskilled illegal immigrants who see gold in the California welfare programs,

Nuclear War Fears

This past weekend the country has a flashback to the late 50's and early 60's in the form of a missile attack false alarm in Hawaii. The computer technology that you love and I hate had a malfunction because of human programming error. It bv basically said that Hawaiians had 10 minutes to prepare for a nuclear attack. We Americans are  worried about nuclear war and but not seriously prepared for it. But then how can individual citizens avert immolation when a nuclear attack is launched?

Uh, I think they can't. The only defense might be defensive measures by the military, but then, that is unlikely as well. But the problem goes far beyond the inept handling of an emergency alert system. The old 50's "duck and cover' to protect yourself was laughable even in those days of much smaller nuclear explosions. Today, weapons are so powerful one can only wait and say good bye to loved ones while the rockets head toward we rats trapped in a maze.

At least most of us are aware of the futility of defense. Well, the Trump haters of course are politicizing this false alert, which had nothing to do with Trump. They say that the Trump administration is raising the risk of nuclear war. "That is an amazingly or dishonest idea, given that the inept Obama administration  that the left idealizes was engaged in the exact same nuclear strategy as the Trump administration.  When Barrack Obama was president the physics of war worked the same, no matter what your politics are. The crazy left elements should try to get serious about the possibility of nuclear attack. Essentially, the government and those horrible politicians Americans seem to love should tell Americans the facts about what to do if there is a nuclear attack.

There are a few things one can do to slightly minimize the impact of a nuclear explosion...if the explosion is not to close to the individual. But informing us what they are might make us feel slightly hopeless about the event, sort of like sugar cube placebos. In the meantime nations should try to disarm their nuclear stockpiles as swiftly as possible and keep or take away nuclear weapons from nuts like Little Kim in North Korea.  As Poet Robert Frost once wrote:

'Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.'

When To Give A Child A Cell Phone

What's the biggest social problem today? Ok, I am leading you for the answer that I want, which is a huge one even without my lead. When to allow children a smart phone has become among the biggest of parental decisions today. Nearly 75% of teenagers had access to smart phones, according to a 2015 study by Pew Research Center.

Those little ones use their devices about 95 times a day on average, according to research firm Verto Analytics. The average kid spent, on average, close to nine hours a day blankly staring into screens while away from school, according to Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that promotes safe media use for children. About half the teens in a survey of 620 families in 2016 said they felt addicted to their smart phones. Nearly 80% said they checked the phones more than hourly and felt the need to respond instantly to messages. Cell phones create great social anxiety in kids. And society does not seem to mind that fact.

Only 12% of  teenagers have no access to cell phones. Lucky they are, though they probably feel they are being deprived. The average teenager with a cell phone accesses or sends more than 60 texts per day. How do those kids even have time to use a rest room? It's no wonder. Face book's Kid's Messenger has an app for 6 year olds. Well, addicting children is easy when you start early enough. Even though the electronic cocaine dealers ( the Google and Face books of the electronic world) scream that they have apps for parents to monitor their kids as they waste time and rot brains each day, the reality is it is not possible to control kids usage on their cell phones absent taking away all access to them.

Cell phone cocaine is too complicated  and changes too fast for parents to understand it. Too, for kids, mobile devices are a social lifeline, and many wage a relentless lobbying campaign at home for permission to join the crowd of kid robots who suck their electronic cocaine non stop. Forget the pleading in previous kid generations for a driver's license or to go on a first date. Kids today see getting their first "cell" as a passage of rite beyond all others.  Thus, the pressure on parents to give in and let them have their own phone is  non stop and deep.

Given that adults seem incapable of sensible use of those phones, how can kids, who do not have the judgment skills of adults, resist using their phones for every imaginable and harmful  use? The can't. Yet, society continues to feed its children the electronic cocaine that so harms those kids. When should a parent give a child a cell phone? There isn't unanimous consensus answer to the question, though most psychiatrists say 16 seems appropriate. Good luck with that! A a baby without a cell phone today sees him or herself like a an adult at a shopping mall without a credit card.....unaddicted and not happy about it.

Coke Laxative

Those clever marketers in Japan are at it again. The once attractive soft drink, like Coke, now fallen in favor after attack from the politically correct food police, may be making a small comeback in winning the hearts and butts of the consumer. Yes, I wrote "butts". Coke is now a health drink for some in Japan and a laxative as well. In the name of health, Japan's Coke Plus now features a government approved laxative ingredient, hoping it would help their bodies absorb less fat from the "unhealthy food" that even the Japanese population now loves.

The Japanese government has given that coke thing that the food police thinks is killing us, a gold label (Foods for Specified Health Uses, or Foshu) certifying its benefits. Wow! Can my beloved donuts be the next healthy food? I am a dreamer. Zero calorie Coca Cola Plus features a substance called indigestible dextrin. It joins two other designated “healthy” colas in Japan Pepsi Special, and Kirin Mets Cola. It seems that just as Americans throw their money away on over the counter bogus health pills, like melanin or various vitamin supplements, the Japanese are throwing away theirs with something that tastes good. I like it.

Many consumers in Japan doubts about health benefits of adding a laxative to coke but figures there is nothing to lose by adding that stuff and because by declaring the once unhealthy foods "healthy", there is a guilt free reason to enjoy good taste over healthy eating habit. The Coke Plus drinker hopes the fat absorption properties of the dextrin  in it will help then stay slim and make the daily poop a sure thing.

Hmmm, a coke addict who drinks a lot might have a permanent home on the toilet every day. This Coke with laxative/slimming property seems to me to be a passing marketing fad, like passing gas after drinking it. But if you are ever in Japan, order a coke with your sushi. That way you ae covered, eating a healthy and an unhealthy food at the same sitting.

Decorating For Mardi Gras

I took down my inside and outside house Christmas decorations this weekend as leaving them up too late after Christmas brands one as gauche. I am many negative things, but gauche is not a, label I seek. Decorating the home for holidays is a tradition of New Orleans and was of my my mom, two forces that trained me to also decorate. In New Orleans, the day after the formal end of Christmas (January 6th) the locals start putting up their Mardi Gras decorations. January 8th is King's Day and the start of Mardi Gras King Cake season.

Every New Orleanian declares Mardi Gras (carnival)  present  and accounted for on January 6th. Yet here I am in Portland, Oregon, a place that has no Mardi Gras tradition, no Mardi Gras.  It doesn't stop me from acknowledging Mardi Gars (I wear one of my Mardi Gras shirts from time to time in public during Mardi Gras and get quite a few comments from strangers about Mardi Gars, New Orleans and their visit at Mardi Gras to New Orleans). Today the Mardi Gras wreath on my front door and the Mardi Gras door mat at the door will let those Portland heathens know they are missing a fun holiday.

Most of my Mardi Gras decorations are what I brought from New Orleans when I moved to Portland, or things I brought back to Portland after visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras since I have moved. But my thrift store habit (I love to search for things like holiday decorations at thrift stores, There is great volume and low price for that kind of thing) brings surprises.

A few years ago I found  a Mardi Gars flag in a Portland thrift store. The kings of various Mardi Gras parades display a Mardi Gras colored (purple, green and gold) flag with the crest of their carnival crew the week before and the day of that krewes parade and ball. This flag was a generic, not an official one, but a beautiful one to displace in my home at Mardi Gras. I suppose a tourist from Portland bought it in New Orleans and brought it back to Portland. Then it would up at the thrift store where an ex New Orleanians found and bought it (for just a couple of dollars, as I remember).

Anyway, I have am decorated with every imaginable Mardi Gras artifact I would want and feel in the Mardi Gras mood. Mardi Gras Day is February 13th this year. Going from one holiday to the next so rapidly makes it an easy separation. I have a few pieces of King Cake in my freezer that I brought back to Portland after last Mardi Gras to attack if I need reinforcement in generating more of the Mardi Gras milieu. To all who know or do not know Mardi Gras I send you a 2018 'Happy Mardi Gras' greeting.

Advice For Cell Phone Addicts

Given I hate cell phones with a passion , and I don't want to start hating the addicted users it's time for a year 2018 remark or two about those ---- cell phones (I promised myself to be polite here). It's been more than 20 years since the cell phone has become the standard communication for its legion of users. Get over it! It's no longer a novelty to have a cell phone, and if you think kit is you are making a fool of yourself. You do not need to spend a $1000 for the latest apple phone. In fact, those who think trendy is being the first with the latest phone or phone app are likely to be the least trendy.

Relax! Use your phone sparingly, as needed. It isn't an all purpose entertainment device, as those killed while chatting and texting as they drove an automobile found out. If you think you need to be "on your cell" to not be bored you're probably a boring person. Attractive personalities are not those who live inside your phone. Instead, they are people who think for themselves, who read, who experience reality outside their phones. Your addiction to your phone isn't making you cool. It's making you ordinary, no it's making you insipid.

Also, you do not need to walk about the civilized world with your head down, staring into your phone. If you want to relate to others try doing it face to face with conversation. Tweeting, texting and the other communications you use to avoid real interaction in the real world will only isolate you more. When you use your phone to research information you are probably communicating what you want, not what you think is true. Knowledge is not a property based on speed. In fact, those who are rapid in response generally are thinking less about their response. They are more apt to be propagandized and not know it.

As to your apps, they are now annoying. Do you need an app to have a bowel movement? (Please do not respond, I fear your answer will make me want to have a bowel movement). Wake up and realize that those apps are just controls put on you. Commercial enterprises love apps because they use them to know your habits and all the things you do that were formerly private. They make you predictable and controllable. They make you ordinary. They are turning you into robots. Life is not about cell phone applications that make things easy and vacuous. It is about living in the real world and contributing to it positively.

I hope you will take my admonitions well and....opps...I think my land line phone is ringing. But then, why answer it..... May all your cell phone usage be only necessary ones.

Thinking Too Much

I've been sick with a virus and then sinus infection for more than two weeks. And in keeping with a pattern for me, it's the second time in two years I have had that infection at holiday time. Being sick is never fun. Being sick two weeks before and the after Christmas is annoying. When one is locked in the house while the world engages with Santa Claus there is bond to be a mental affect that can be worse than the physical illness. I am not sure which is more uncomfortable, the physical or mental symptoms.

This virus made it impossible to read for any length of time, to sit in front of a computer for more than 20 minutes at a time, and it reminded me of just how bad TV programming is today. That leaves little else to do. I felt too bad to cook, clean or the house, so my last alternative and the most common method of avoiding cabin fever was the "thinking" position. That is, I sat in my favorite chair or reclined on my favorite couch and thought about everything, past, present and future. This is not a recommended activity. As they say, "You think too much" is an aphorism of truth.

No doubt you have also been inactive and resorted to thinking too much.. The result is a state of equilibrium resulting in near depression. The reason animals don't think is because they might hurt themselves if they did. Humans, on the other hand, can damage themselves from thinking to much. Many of humans worst characters have been people who did too little and thought too much. They made mischief when they thought too much, mischief that often resulted in tragedy for themselves or for others.

Humans are more productive when their thoughts are spontaneous, not when they are contrived , as when whey are ill or when they have nothing else to do but to think. Remember that Hitler wrote 'Mein Kampf' while in prison. He had nothing else to do. Yet what else are we too do when we can do nothing else but think too much? I shoulod think about an answer for that, but I am already in too much do do from thinking too much the past two weeks.

Someone Likes Fruitcake

There's good news for the often maligned Christmas fruitcake. Finally, someone wants you! That holiday dessert favorite (Well, I love it) studded with neon colored candied fruit and nuts, lathered in rum or bourbon that no one except grandma likes and many people re-gift has a new receptive audience. It's the hiker and exercise crowd who have fallen in love with fruitcake.  They say it is an efficient way to refuel. Loaded with dried fruit, nuts and just enough cake to hold the mix together, fruitcake is full of vitamins and minerals and is a great food for someone hiking 2,000 miles with a quarter of their body weight on their back.

It seems that hikers and other energy users are sick of those energy bars, which are much nastier tasting than any fruitcake I have ever eaten. Too, those energy bars are fragile while fruitcake stores well. The Pioneer Heritage Museum in Hurricane, Utah, has a 110 year old fruitcake on display.  Ugh, I doubt anyone would want to eat it. But it is still there. That may be the exception, but they do last a long time and store easily.

The disparaging of the noble fruitcake is a good example of popular culture's assessment being wrong, as we see it proven to be so when one examines the many crazy leftist narratives pushed during the Obama reign of terror on culture. The two biggest American  makers of high end fruitcake, Collin Street Bakery and Claxton Bakery have plans to expand their market, largely to appeal to their new fans in the exercise world. Collin Street plans to start selling fruitcake bars in 2018 made with fruit, nuts and brown rice syrup. Millennials are already wild about those kinds of energy snacks. Claxton already sells individual pre wrapped fruitcake slices that I personally love.

This is good for me because I don't have to make my own fruitcake at holiday time when there are tasty alternatives to purchase at stores and bakeries. But then...I have heard more than one person say that I am as "nutty as a fruitcake".

Ditch New Year's Resolution Day

Did you make New Year's resolutions this year? There's an unofficial holiday called Ditch New Year's Resolution Day that may interest you.  It's always on Jan. 17 because those resolute experts say that's when we beginning abandoning our New Year's resolutions. According to 'Statistic Brain', nearly 40 per cent of us never make resolutions (I don't), and of those of us who do, only 8 per cent of us actually end up achieving our so called "resolutions." Most New Year's resolutions, about 40%, are already broken by February if the same year.

Hmmm People may not follow through because they're making the wrong kinds of resolutions.  Most people start the New Year with good intentions, but after returning from holidays and getting back into the busyness of life, resolutions have a tendency to be forgotten. And the resolutions are unrealistic. Besides, some people think they have to make the resolutions and have no real desire to fulfill them.

Making New Year resolutions is an age old practice. It can be traced back at least to ancient Roman times when citizens would pledge to the god Janus, after whom January is named. Most Romans resolved to be better neighbors, more honest or more obedient to the gods. Today the resolutions are more personal. like getting another cell phone (The replacement for God Janus for many today) or becoming wealthy. In a 2013 study, some 60% of Americans in early December said they would make a resolution, but only 40% of them actually did by Jan. 1. However, those who did were 10 times more likely to succeed than those with the same goals who didn't make a resolution.

I wonder about resolutions made at other than New Year's time. It would seem to me to be a better time for making them, given the impetus is need as opposed to the ritual of New Year's resolutions. I suspect only certain personality types are good at making and keeping resolutions. Imagine for instance, a politicians making a resolution to vote on the basis of public need rather than the need to be re elected to office. But of the New Year's resolutions the ones that most likely are kept include those that involve self improvement. The vast majority include health; such as losing weight, going to the gym, stopping smoking, money; including reducing debt or getting a new and higher paying job or of relationships; such as being in closer touch with friends and family.

When specific and realistic they may be upheld. New Year's resolutions work best when they are specific, realistic, publicly proclaimed and pre planned, But what's the fun in that? This is the age of the superficial, not the serious. Maybe we should just skip resolutions and just live life as it comes.