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.