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.