Glass Balls

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”  Christmas is quickly approaching on the calendar.

Sugarplum fairies are dancing about, candy canes are everywhere, and people are, once again, saying “Merry Christmas!” to one another.

I’ve had Sirius satellite radio for nearly two decades.  Although it is now SiriusXM, I enjoy their service because commercial ads are limited or non-existent.  They also offer specialized programming of sports, live concerts, and music by the decade.

But this time of year they offer around-the-clock Holiday Music; that’s their term, not mine. 

Christmas is a Christian holiday, honoring and remembering the virgin birth of Baby Jesus.

As a Christian, this holiday is a pretty big deal.  Just behind Easter Sunday, this day is held special, but not for presents and such.

Decorated trees are great, gold and silver tinsel, glass balls, lighted angels, miniature lights, and gaily wrapped gifts remain integral parts of the season.

SiriusXM have it right.  As of November 1^st, they began broadcasting that non-stop Christmas music, albeit on a limited basis.

Burl Ives, The Carpenters, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and the normal host of familiar others sing their way into the New Year, commercial free.  Yea!  Countless replays of Mariah Carey caterwauling – as if she was being beaten with a violin – are some of the special “gifts” that keep me coming back for more.  But I digress.

As an aside, while we’re talking about Christmas tunes, one song mentions “figgy pudding.”  This is ridiculous, as I have three fig trees and figs are not in-season in December, November, or October, and they won’t keep until Christmas Day.  But I digress.

Everyone tries to get in on the holiday spirit.  Stores have continuous sales with Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  Countless trees lose their lives for all those extra newspaper flyers and cheesy wrapping paper.  And craft fairs are beginning to popup at nearly every Eastern Shore church.

All this commerce is terrific for the economy.  Practically everyone wants to either sell something or buy something for the Christmas season.

So it was with interest that I noticed, for the past decade, or so, that the easily offended among us wanted America to stop using the words “Merry Christmas.”

The reasoning behind this verbal communication campaign was to protect the ears of our Jewish friends.  They don’t believe Jesus was the Son of Man, the Savior.  With such reasoning, Merry Christmas is offensive to Jewish folks.

On the other hand, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, Jimmy Buffet, and Adam Sandler, all Jews, don’t mind cashing in on the Christmas season with their songs.  I’m sure their royalties make them feel better about themselves and their bank accounts.  And so, the words “Happy Holiday” are not really necessary since our Jewish brethren are giddy to participate in this profitable season.

So, if it were not for Saint Joseph, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Baby Jesus, the Christmas season would be less lucrative for so many.

Merry Christmas to all!

I’m Not Kidding

Growing up, I heard plenty, on the news, about airplane hijackings.  Nutjobs, seemingly monthly, would take an airplane’s crew hostage with some sort of weapon, and then make them fly to a place other than its original destination.

Although this happened world-wide, I recall the flights that were often diverted to Cuba.  Perhaps not limited to what is today known as terrorism, these criminal acts certainly fit today’s definition of terrorism.

Terrorism is the act of putting fear into people through frightening occurrences that the victims feel could cost them their lives.

September 11, 2001, marked a day when foreign terrorists, who were in this country illegally, four hijacked commercial airplanes loaded with innocent passengers were sent into oblivion.

Until this day, counterterrorism experts are attempting to figure out why those mentally ill cowards commandeered those planes to kill nearly 3,000 blameless Americans.

Varying excuses for these heinous deeds include they were subjected to poverty at an early age, they were angry at sexual freedom in America, and they simply hated non Muslims.

Just today I came across something I consider frivolous, but is pretty costly and totally unnecessary.

This item is a pancake printer.  These are two words I never thought I’d put together, but now I can without ridicule.

It seems as though a company is selling something called PancakeBot, which is a printer of sorts.

PancakeBot

You merely connect this 3-D printer to your computer, place the carriage that dispenses the pancake batter atop a griddle, and voila!

The computer is used to generate pictures of nearly anything you’d like to create as a breakfast treat.  Company ads for this must-have gem show an Eiffel Tower flapjack cooking away.

The best news is one of these contraptions can be had for the low, low price of $300.

If anything, I’ve got my Christmas wish list nearly complete, now.  But I digress.

In any case, it was some serious philosophical introspection that got me thinking.

Those wacko terrorists could have another reason to hate Americans, other than for its non-Muslim majority.

Perhaps, just perhaps, it is an invention that can create a work-of-art pancake in the likeness of the United States of America, Donald Trump, or even Smokey the cat.

You see, many of those psycho terrorists live or lived in desert conditions without air conditioning, indoor plumbing, running water, or electricity.  They don’t use toilet paper, yet they consider bacon unclean.

They arise in the morning to learn how to jump off a moving motorcycle and shoot at random people at cafés and citizens with baby strollers, all to make a point.  In-between, they school one-another in how to build bomb vests.  All this sounds pretty angry.

Perhaps if they used the PancakeBot they would enjoy life a bit more to be able to

skillet-up a facsimile of a Koran.  I may be on to something.

America is still the greatest pancake country in a world of infidels.

Liar, Liar

In September 2017, United States Air Force Academy Superintendant Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria made a fiery speech to USAF Academy students, berating them about their racial prejudice.

Just hours before that general lacing-out, an African-American student was targeted by racist thugs.  Lt. Gen. Silveria spoke about the “power of diversity,” and further expressed his outrage that people of different races couldn’t get along.  That’s the good news.

“If you can't treat someone from another race or different color skin with dignity and respect, then you need to get out,” he said.

The bad news is that it was all a hoax.  The punch line is that the only one not being able to get along was the African-American hoaxer.

But this is not an isolated incident.

Tawana Brawley, also an African-American, claimed sexual assault and berating by six white men.  This late 1980’s attack – also deemed a hoax – involved prominent figures to include Al Sharpton and C. Vernon Mason, also African-American.

She was eventually sued by a white man she falsely accused and lost the lawsuit.

The Duke Lacrosse Team was similarly charged with raping an African-American woman who was a student at North Carolina Central University, and who worked as a stripper, dancer and escort.

Alas, she too hoaxed America in this national interest case that ruined the lives of several team players.

Then in January 2016, three African-American University at Albany – SUNY students, accused a dozen white men and women.  Their claim was that racial slurs were used against the three women.

This time, this hoax triggered protests that resulted in several of the innocent accused leaving the school and distancing themselves from social media as a result of threats.

Not to be outdone, a Kansas State University student reported racist slurs on his car.  This African-American man defaced his own vehicle because he allegedly started this as a sick prank that “got out of hand.”

The student eventually apologized, but not before the damage was done.  Meetings were called to discuss the racist environment on KSU campus.

Let us not forget the Eastern Michigan University case where an African-American man spray painted racist graffiti targeting blacks.  This October 2017, case was also found to be a hoax.

Not limited to stupid students, a Petersburg, Virginia City Attorney made phony racist calls to himself, in 2016, threatening other city workers and leaders – to include himself – from a phone that was purchased at his request.  Yes, another hoax. 

And so it goes.  Mentally ill people are trying to become celebrated victims of seemingly non-violent crimes.  However, protests, riots, ill-feelings, distrust, and disruption of personal lives are the result of such malicious behavior.

The little boy who cried wolf is alive and well.  No one believed him when a real wolf approached the town.

I’m just saying…

We’ve Got This

Since the holidays are nigh I thought this would be an appropriate time to wade into good news territory.  I like to keep things upbeat by shunning bad news and focusing on positives in life.

 Unfortunately, there is so much negativity in today’s world, I am forced to point out what I feel is the obviously inane.

But getting back to the holidays, I am pleased to report that our local Tallmart is really on top of things; that is satisfying, to me.

Prepping for Thanksgiving Day dinner, Christmas gatherings, and New Year’s Eve parties, had me and my sainted wife shopping for necessities.

We traditionally make decorations, crafts, bake our own goods, and even grow some of our own produce and organic herbs.

This dictates packaging a la homemade wood working, painting, paper crafting, and canning, for the effective distribution of safe gifts for our closest friends and associates.

Tallmart seemed to be the one-stop-shopping place for most, if not all, our supply needs.

We handily located the spray paint, aerosol whipped cream, and some craft adhesive, along with an assortment of food stuffs and festive paper goods.

Not Craft Adhesive

 At the checkout, the apparent Tallmart mastermind suddenly reached a scanning roadblock.  The first item that scanned, but insisted on more intrusive information, was the red spray paint. 

A glance behind our cart at the nine other impatient gum-snapping, camouflage-clad fellow shoppers – all yakking on their unaffordable cellular phones – began giving us the ol’ stinkeye.

“I need to see your ID,” was the demand of the cashier to me.

This is where I need to point out that although I am a spitting image of Tom Selleck, I don't look anywhere near the age of a minor.  You see, in the People’s Republic of Maryland, consumers must be at least 21 years-old to purchase spray paint.

As a kid, I used literally gallons of spray paint to customize my well-used bicycles, in an effort to both confuse my pals into thinking I got a new bike, or amaze them with my impressive painting skills.  Neither happened.

Still, I passed my driver’s license to the Tallmart cashier who gave me the “OK” to purchase this legal product.

It seems as though too many nitwits in Maryland attempt to get a quick, cheap high by huffing spray paint.  Clearly, this carding effort was nipping this epidemic in the bud by making me fumble around for my state-issued ID.

Next on the conveyor belt was the aerosol whipped cream.  Once again, the cash register demanded the cashier check for age appropriateness.  Now it was my turn to exercise some civil disobedience.

“That’s not mine,” I asserted.  “It belongs to her,” I said, motioning to my sainted wife.

 Now she, too, was giving me the stinkeye, grumbling under her minty-fresh breath about killing me.

After opening her red wallet to prove to the cashier she was not my much-desired teenaged au pair, we moved on to the glue.  You know the rest of the story.

But the point of all this is that while creating an overburden on honest citizens buying legitimate, legal items, this same state doesn’t see much of an epidemic with marijuana.  In fact, the authorities are ardently attempting to legalize weed because feel they’re fighting a losing battle.

Evidently the whipped cream scourge I well under control in Maryland.

Sumpin’s wrong.  Elect new bodies with better ideas.  And Happy Thanksgiving!

SHHHHHHH!!!

It was 2:36 AM on the alarm clock.  Those red numerals indicated to me I should be sleeping.  Rather I was awake with my mind racing toward a non-existent finish line.

Often these times in mid-night I begin my conscious time with an earworm.  An earworm is that song that rattles around your cranium and can’t be shaken.

But last night was different.

Just as with pretty much else we’ve been programmed to believe, movie stars and starlets, athletes, and everyday talk show hosts, have felt compelled to give America their opinions.

So it was last night that I spent my waking time wondering what Chelsea Handler and George Clooney thought about the goings-on in our country.  Yeah, sure.

Not George Clooney

After all, Clooney is a television-turned-movie actor who can’t seem to grasp the concept of a free election.  He seems to think the Hollywood elite should vote – much as for vacuous awards already given to his fellow pretenders – for our politicians.  This way, Clooney and his ilk would be assured no one with clear vision and the truth would ever be representing people like me.

Handler is, well, a not-funny comedienne who recently quit her job with Netflix to become more socially active.  She’s another show biz kook who presumes to know more about America’s needs than America itself.  She wants to whine until President Trump resigns.

Of course, that is not the way our representative republic works.  All this verve now gives those unemployed stars and has-beens a cause.  Half-baked singers and comedy writers are canceling what regular work they have just to work for what they term “social matters.”  Yeah!

For your information, the claim to fame for most of those chomping-at-the-bit Hollywood narcissists is the fact they likely slept their way to their once-famous roles.  That fact does not give them the right to lecture or dictate anything to me.

Still, they feel the need to help me make my decisions about who should be elected to public office.

Clooney and his verbose buddies are meaningless to me, and hold no sway with me.  This makes it timely to tell those know-it-all media whores to cease and desist. 

Their opinions are theirs and theirs alone.  Unfortunately, too many weak-minded fellow Americans are easily influenced by these desperate wanna-bes.

Here’s the rub: the day Clooney and Handler, and Rosie and Whoopie and Joyce, and all those late night hosts call to ask me about my thoughts, I’ll begin to listen to them.

Otherwise, please sit your unimportant butts down and shut up.  Thanks.

Scary Stuff

Throughout my years I’ve been accused of many things unfortunately, being smart is not one of them.

Still, I try to maintain the charade by using that age-old saying, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull$#!+.”

Nearly every politician uses that sentence as a motto because it is a proven effective tool.

And it is very often that I am able to see right through all that baloney.  Other people, it’s sad to say, cannot.

As an example, a handful of years ago a woman called a radio station to voice her complaint to a particular road sign.  It seems as though she was traveling on a road surrounded by woods containing a copious amount of deer that were causing traffic accidents.

At first I thought this call was bogus.  Then, more about this arose in the news which changed my mind altogether.

You can be the judge by following this link to that original radio show segment. Simply click on the video below:

The Iowa Department of Transportation used the ever-so-popular social media to attempt to spread the word about deer.

In Iowa alone, this year, over 3,300 crashes with deer have occurred.  There were 156 injuries and one fatality involved with these wrecks.

To help the public better understand the danger, and also help with those ‘deer crossing’ signs, the Iowa DOT issued this message:

“Deer can’t read signs. Drivers can. This sign isn’t intended to tell deer where to cross, it’s for drivers to be alert that deer have been in this area in the past.”

So, the next time you see one of those yellow signs displaying a jumping deer, think about your vote being nullified by fellow drivers who think those signs are for the deer to read.

This has been a public service announcement from EasternShoreFishAndGame.com.

My Goodness

Nearly daily I run across something that makes me correct my age-old statement, “I’ve seen everything.”

That is called a gratuitous assertion.  Of course, I haven’t seen everything inasmuch as I have never been to Thailand. 

The point is that I should say “Nothing surprises me.”  Then again, something always does.

While recently reading a Florida newspaper article, I came across a name – Daniell Rider.  Daniell is a female shopper at Hobby Lobby in Florida.

Hobby Lobby is a well known religious-oriented craft store that showcases crosses, God-related plaques, fake flowers, picture frames, and is always closed on the Sabbath.  The “Sabbath,” for all you atheists, is the Christian Sunday.

It seems as though Ms. Rider is additionally overly-sensitive to her surroundings.

You see, Ms. Rider, while visiting her local Hobby Lobby, noticed a fake cotton sprig hanging on the wall, as a display.  This tragic commentary on the state of slaves sent Ms. Rider into a tizzy.

She felt compelled to publicly shame and chastise Hobby Lobby for pandering to all the Confederate soldiers and plantation owners by using cotton, a symbol of racism, as a decoration.

I completely agree with her in her premise about cotton being “sensitive and unnecessary” to be utilized as a decoration.

This is where I stand corrected.  I never thought I would view my denim jeans and my cotton t-shirts as tools of the Confederacy that are holding blacks in bondage just to pick this racist commodity.  Yes, I was wrong.

Out went my tablecloth, kitchen curtains, flannel sheets, and everything else I could imagine was fabricated from that prejudiced plant.

Ms. Rider has a good point.  Hobby Lobby’s offensive display of bigoted tokens, such as plastic cotton plant branches, clearly demonstrates their thick-skinned approach to the Civil War.

So it is with Ms. Rider that I stand proudly to try to get in my fifteen-minutes of fame by poking my crooked little finger in the chest of a proverbial Goliath so that my fellow travelers – also easily offended types – can cheer our hollow victory, together.

Thank you, Ms. Rider.  You have achieved a once-in-a-lifetime accomplishment of nearly curing cancer, or finding world peace, in the form of a shallow internet posting about a plastic plant.

You go, girl!

Happy St. Valentine’s Day!

Hummingbirds have left The Shore for the season, Canada Geese are heading south, and Christmas decorations are being removed from shelves in the stores to make room for St. Valentine’s Day gifts.  All this can mean only one thing – it’s two weeks before Halloween.

My sainted wife and I were picking up provisions from the big city Tallmart and thought we would buy some theme salt and pepper shakers.

Sure, we have regular, everyday shakers, but I thought this year we would be jazzier and get some special shakers for Thanksgiving.  We wanted some that were both germane and generic so that they can be used for both Halloween and Thanksgiving; they would need to be in an autumn subject.

Just last week we found some that were in the shape of and over-sized acorn, for pepper; the salt shaker was in the image of a turkey.  Of course we didn’t buy them.

Here’s a freebie from EasternShoreFishAndGame.com: to tell the difference between a salt and pepper shaker, count the number of holes.  Salt has two holes, while the pepper has three.  You’re welcome.

We wanted a new set because we are planning for our Thanksgiving Day dinner at which we will host several hungry friends.  The good news is that we don’t need to find space to store these niche shakers; they were sold out.

So we wandered through the candy aisle in hopes they weren’t sold out of the Halloween candy, too.

Of course, only the good stuff was gone.  Peanut butter-filled chocolate cups, twin chocolate and caramel wafer sticks, and filled lollipops, were all but gone.  Plenty of Mary Janes and Tootsie Rolls and candy corn remained on the shelf.  Our only hope rested with non-cavity health food.

We were in luck.  The produce department was chock-full of baby carrots, celery, and bok choy. 

After a brief spat that my sainted wife handily won, fearing a toilet papering, we headed toward the snack area.  There, we found small bags of both pretzels and mini containers of golden fish crackers.  They were packaged for distribution to neighborhood ghouls.

In our little Eastern Shore town, whose population totals just over 140 people, seven of which may already be deceased, parents actually drive their lazy kids from street-to-street to beg for loot.

The way this scenario is supposed to work is they knock on the door.  Upon us opening, the Halloweenies shout “Trick or treat!”  That is the cue for the frightened homeowners to gladly hand out goodies to preclude any Night of the Dead Eve’s shenanigans.

Unfortunately, many of these costumed beggars can’t speak English unless they need to contact a lawyer or demand food stamps.  But, I digress.

And so it goes for a few hours.  Likenesses of Superman, fairy princesses, pirates, and even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – people shop at second-hand stores – filter through the October 31^st process.

Every once in a while, you look up to find one of these trick-or-treaters with a five-day beard and a Marlboro hanging out of his yap, holding a pillow case containing candy, four blunts, and two car stereos.

But kids delight in getting free stuff from the neighborhood, while dressing up for this pagan holiday.

I hope I can still find a Santa and Rudolph salt and pepper shaker.

Time to Leave

Ever since President Donald Trump took office we’ve been bombarded with half-baked garbage from The Left. 

Marches, riots, mindless chanting, false accusations, political snubs, chest beating, and in-your-face illegal activities from self-admitted law-breakers, have surfaced to the front page news like a turd in the punchbowl.

Everyone seems to have a gripe, no matter if those gripes are legitimate or not.  They demand to have their voices heard.  To do so, they need some trauma on America’s streets.

Simply disrupting traffic is not enough.  They feel they need to toss cinder blocks, paint, and bodily fluids, at everyone who disagrees with their elitist viewpoints.

And over the past few months, we have been hearing, from these malcontents, that America is not the great nation people like me thought it was.

I grew up working and self-subsidizing my education.  I never took a grant or scholarship, but I took up a lawn mower and garden tools to earn a living for myself.

My grades suffered because I spread myself too thin.  Yet, I emerged with a sense of worth and a solid work ethic that remains in me today.

In today’s times when nearly half the country’s population is not working, but subsiding on guvment programs for housing, food, phones, cars, and education; it’s no wonder foreigners want to come to America.

Free education, three free meals in school, free clothing, free transportation, free room and board, and free health insurance, all lend themselves as enticements for individuals to visit the United States, and never leave.

Former president Barack Hussein Obama, the great Constitutional scholar, manipulated that stellar document by passing Executive Orders until his pen ran out of ink.  Today, those illegal fiats are being walked back in an effort to comply with the law.

But self-centered politicians and law-breakers are now creating something they call sanctuary cities.  California is actually attempting to make the entire state a haven for criminals.  Brilliant!

Keep in mind that those aforementioned exuberant marchers and protesters invariably carry signs indicating their disgust with all the racism, hate, bigotry, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and Nazis in the White House.  America is so repulsive; they want a thorough house-cleaning from the top-down.  DACA representatives, call your office.

They further want to coddle those illegal aliens – called so because they illegally trespassed into our country – to stay and be given immunity from deportation.

This is where I get confused.  If America is so awful a place with the prejudice and chauvinism running rampant, why do these protesters want their illegal buddies to stay?

You’d think they would all help one another to pack their stuff and leave this dreadful place, post haste.

Then again, I’m looking at this scenario from a patriotic working man’s point-of-view.

Close Your Left Eye

Years ago, on black and white television, there was a popular game show called What’s My Line?  It was a cute display of stage and screen actors and actresses who were attempting to make the transition into the new media, TV.

The premise of this show was to have four star and starlet panelists ask questions of a guest whose job was a secret.  After each failed round of questioning the guest would garner $5 cash.  Five bucks was a lot of money back in the early 1950’s.

A maximum amount of $50 was awarded if no one could guess the profession of the guest-at-hand.

This was so long ago that the host and panelists regularly smoked pipes and cigarettes, and the women panelists wore gloves, the men wore suits.

Some of these contestants include a woman who made wigs, a man who brought an 80-member banjo band, and a set of five twins from one family.  These contestants were selected to make mirth and challenge for the astute idols on the panel.

But one fellow struck me as a bunch of baloney.  He was a small, slender man with a dark (remember it was in B&W,) suit who seemed somewhat shy.  This folically challenged gentleman answered all questions politely and tersely.

Alas, the panel was at a loss to guess the occupation of this middle-aged fellow.

Then, his secret was revealed; he made eyeglasses for chickens.  Yep.

This was not true, I thought. 

Each year, in January, I make a pilgrimage to my eye doctor.  She goes through a series of tests – first testing one eye, then the other by holding a card in front of the non-subject peeper.

Then I place my face into a steampunk-like contraption that places varying strength lenses, to which I respond as to their clarity.  Eventually, I pay my $125 and get a prescription for new glasses that will allow me to read highway speed limit signs.

Which is why I found the chicken eyeglass scenario a total scam.  I have never know a chicken to complain about their vision, or squint to see their food.  Nor do I know if these glasses come as bifocals.

So it was this truckload of curiosity that drove me to the internet.  I searched “chicken eyeglasses.”

Indeed, I stand corrected, again.     

These devices are somewhat misnamed.  They are more in the vein of chicken blinders.  Evidently, these little plastic items are placed on the beaks of chickens in large flocks.  This ocular device prevents the chicken from violently pecking its neighbor chicken while feeding.

I did not know that chickens would literally kill one another over marigold petals, but evidently they do.  Hence the chicken eyeglasses.

In case you’re interested, they sell, in bulk, for about a dollar a pair.  Styles are limited, though, and there are none offered in tortoise shell.

I learned something new, again.

Here We Go Again

More tragedy struck when another innocent person died from an accident.  An 11-year old girl was killed when the ATV she was riding flipped over and crushed her to death, in Indiana.

Clearly her mother was distraught, to the point of leading an effort to make the world safer for everyone else.  In other words, she stuck her nose in the rest of America’s private business.

She fought hard, according to the newspaper article, but finally got a bill passed to dictate all ATV riders under the age of 18 must wear a helmet, both on public and private land.

Pretty noble, indeed. But also pretty intrusive.

Once known as “the land of the free,” America was built on taking risks and being adventuresome.

Today, however, this mother feels she knows better than everyone else on how to parent.  She’s wrong.

Everyday, people jump out of airplanes to skydive, they swim with sharks, they mountain climb, they drive racecars, tame lions, and walk tightropes.  Yet this buttinsky doesn’t feel the need to help save the lives of these aforementioned thrill-seekers.  No, she wants to target other people’s kids because she wants to take “positive action.”

While this all seems pretty harmless, it is intrusive.  Likely out of a necessity to self-heal for her loss, she now wants to save people’s lives.

In case you hadn’t noticed, her daughter tragically died on the ATV this mother bought her. 

It is noble for her to try and save innocent lives but, why not simply encourage others – rather than creating a law to be followed – which would allow for more continued freedom for others?

More than 30 children drown in five-gallon buckets each year.  Why not force a screen to be placed over each plastic pail?

Kids die from falling down stairs, being struck by cars, and baking in side hot vehicles, regularly.  Once again, where’s the outrage and positive action needed to prevent another child from dying.

Using activism as a therapy is terrific, if only to make suggestions.  To enact legislation to limit liberties of everyone borders on criminal.

Sure, this mom feels good but, the balance of ATV riders in Indiana are certainly feeling imposed upon.

We cannot ensure the absolute safety and well-being of everyone in America.  Chances are taken just climbing over the side of a bathtub.  Tainted food can be of a concern, and ladders are merely an accident-waiting-to-happen.

To that end, I’d like to say, “Sorry about your personal loss.  And I’m sorry you feel you are so much more capable to run my life than me.  Now, you need to stop shoving your ideas down the throats of strangers and get on with your own life.”

It’s Job Hunt Time

It’s time to set the record straight about politicians.

Many, many politicians are simply self-absorbed egoists who desire to control and manipulate the lives of others.

I know this because I lived at the seat-of-government, Washington, D.C., for over three decades.  The daily drumbeat dictated more influence over citizen’s rights by greedy politicians who regularly feigned piety as a means to wrest away more individual rights.

Droning on about helping the poor always meant the hard workers needed to pay more; it never meant finding jobs for those poor, though.

Cleaning up the environment called for additional funding for recycling and endless studies, but rarely amounted to more than wealth redistribution.

Taxing food products was aimed to help fund food safety organizations and nutrition centers; those taxes regularly wound up being diverted to local road building and civic center subsidizing.

And most of today’s politicians know very little about working in the private sector, as they acquired their political ambitions during their time in law school, never holding actual jobs that require making a profit.

If more money was needed, they merely raised the taxes of the working class.  Amen.  Problem solved.

And so it goes as far as funding pet projects that keep those political weenies in office.  This system is nothing like the “real world,” where if you want something, you must work and budget for it.

This new America is why we are facing a $20,000,000,000,000 deficit.  And that’s not good.

So in an effort to spend more money they don’t have, the East Coast politicians have become more creative than ever.

Something called the I-95 Corridor Coalition was recently established by a group of state transportation agencies from Maine to Florida.  It seems as though monies paid through sales, excise, local, state, federal, and gas taxes just aren’t enough for these creative thieves.

Now this criminal brain trust is ardently working in a system that would charge drivers based on the number of miles traveled.

Of course, the gas tax would not be repealed because those finds are needed for major maintenance.

An Aside:  Remember when President Barack Hussein Obama proudly announced his program of shovel-ready jobs?  That cash went to replace road signs and guard rails, not repaving or repairing roads.  Why?  Ain’t that maintenance?

And, all those environmentalists touting fuel efficiency have now backed America into the proverbial corner.  You see, the I-95 Corridor coalition needs the money lost through gas tax because of people buying less fuel.  Clearly that needs a stern punishing.

The same thing happened with water conservation.  Save water, was the mantra.  Before long, water rates soared because people were using less water.  Neato, eh?

It’s time to send these money-hungry slugs on their way to jobs that require accountability, and involve profits for the company.

There’s an old saying: “Politicians are like baby diapers; they needs to be changed regularly.”

They are our employees, and they need firing.

Leave Me Alone

A large part of August on The Eastern Shore welcomes the annual harvest of tomatoes, potatoes, and corn.  So it was with great anticipation that I greeted this scrumptious yield of three of my favorite foods.

For the record, my other favorite foods include prime rib, watermelon, rib eye steak, meatloaf, butter, oysters, and the king of that infamous food pyramid, salt.  But I digress.

My sainted wife and I had prepared a pork loin, glazed with pineapple and mango, corn-on-the-cob, and sliced tomatoes.  We were enjoying this modest feast when my phone rang.

Mid-chew, I answered this cellular device only to hear a perky woman’s pre-recorded voice informing me I had just won a free cruise.

I don’t want a free cruise.  I don’t want any cruise.  I weigh enough.  Friends and family have been telling us for years how terrific cruises are.  They dress up for dinner. They dress down for lunch.  They get bottomless drinks.  They have stage shows.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Fantastic desserts on the planet, bowling, surfing, movies, gambling, miniature golf – you name it – it’s the bestest!

Unfortunately, all these acquaintances, except one, return with an extra 25 pounds because of all this wonderful food and lack of exercise.

“You should go,” is the common advice from most of my misery-loves-company buddies.

Thanks anyway.

But the whole point of this is not about all the goodies that can be had on cruises rather, it is about that triggering phone call.

I was home, minding my own business, when I was rudely interrupted by some schmuck who didn’t care about my dinner.

Here’s the rub.  My sainted wife and I shop fairly often.  It seems as though we never have that tub of sour cream, or jar of olives, or splash of Marsala, so we are usually on the road either going to or from the market.

When we are in the store, no one – again, no one – ever asks us if we need help finding anything in their store.  As such, we wind up wandering aimlessly, much as refugees would in a foreign country, searching for our necessary goods.

Or, if I call your business, I’m invariably put on hold for countless minutes, only to eventually hang up without conducting any business whatsoever.

So why would it be better for these merchants to try to sell me something when I’m home, but not when I’m in their store?

That seems counterintuitive still, it happens.

Cruises, vacations, time shares, vacuum cleaners, and steaks, are just a few of the spiels I receive pretty regularly from shady merchants and con artists.

Here’s a business plan you merchants might want to employ on a trial basis: talk to me when I’m in your shop; when I’m at home, leave me alone!  I love fresh corn!

Semi Jerks

On a recent trip to God’s Waiting Room, also known as: Florida, I must have passed 6,318 semi trucks.  There may have been 6,319, but I digress.

They are large, reaching back some 70-feet, and a challenge to handle on a good day without traffic.

Still, those operators are called professional drivers because that is what they do for a living, drive.  The operative word here is “professional.”

But nobody I’ve heard has accused most of them of driving well or courteously.

We are constantly being harped upon to “share the road” with motorcyclists, and to “move over for emergency vehicles.”  Yet, no one calls for those arrogant truckers to share the road with “common folks” operating non-commercial vehicles.

Speed limits on I-95 are generally 70 MPH.  It occasionally fluctuates in high-population density areas where drivers usually make their way on the highways while eating, shaving, and texting.

Yet, as a rule of thumb, the travel speed is generally 70 MPH.

Now some of these truckers are likely bored, and some are also a bit touched in the head. 

I’ve never been accused of driving much under the speed limit – probably never.  So when you see me coming up behind you on the highway, it will be quickly.

Invariably, one of these professional drivers will pull out in front of me forcing me to slow down to somewhere in the vicinity of 60 MPH. 

This artificially created bottleneck has been caused by the touched-in-the-head semi operators who will now poke along adjacent to the semi they “are trying to pass” for fourteen miles.

Those professional drivers appear to be playing a deadly game on the highway with total strangers.  You see, the car behind them may be on route to the hospital, or some other emergency.

It’s clear they don’t care about the rules, and they even make it apparent they are “Kings of the Road.”

So, when you see one of these mentally ill truckers operating their vehicles in an unsafe and noncompliant fashion, I encourage you take action.

Many legitimate trucks have stickers on the trailer that proudly invite other drivers to call a specific phone number and tell them about the professional trucker’s driving abilities.

You also have the right to contact local police and state police to report anomalies in their driving techniques.

If those inconsiderate road hogs refuse to “play nice” with cars and other drivers, perhaps it’s about time to help them find a job at which they can excel.

Truckers, beware.

Stupider and Stupider

Just recently I read about a young man who was in the midst of passing around a petition to get California to secede from the United States of America.  This guy, who appeared to be in his mid-twenties, insisted this move was good for California; this guy is from California.

He had lots of answers, albeit half-baked, when it came time to explain financial matters, immigration issues, military protection, and the interstate highway system.  He wanted out.  Period.

Sure this secession would be good, but not for California.  The state is run by aging communists and socialists, hippies, do-gooders, and illegal immigrants.  They are largely in debt because of all their social programs and socialist grants to solve planet Earth problems related to the environment, and fund anyone with an extended hand looking for a freebie.  The United States government picks up the balance of their frivolities for which California cannot afford.

The country would change its name to the Nearly United States of America, but the good news is that most of the country would stand for the National Anthem.

So it was with interest that I also read a news story concerning the invasion of people in California making their way to their local hospitals.  From a Redding, California, television station news website, people were crowding emergency rooms because of the recent solar eclipse.

Don’t get ahead of me.  It’s not likely what you think.

Sure, their eyes were burning, but that was because – drum roll, please – they didn’t buy those cheesy cardboard solar eclipse glasses.  No, they instead put sun screen on their eyeballs to protect themselves from looking at the Sun.

Yep.  No lie.  I can’t make this stuff up.

It seems as though these mental giants opted for a budget solution to viewing the solar eclipse of a lifetime.  It was broadcast over both network and cable TV for hours.  No one needed to look up, but they did.

Now, they are in a heap of hurt – until the next solar eclipse in 2024, that is.  You know these dolts will repeat their bone-headed stunt in seven years.  But I digress.

I must admit I never, ever thought about putting sun screen in my eyes, for any reason whatsoever, much less to stare at the Sun.

According to the Center for Disease Control, getting sunscreen in your eyes will not cause permanent eye damage.  It will make you wish you weren’t so stupid as to apply it to your eyeballs, though.

The pain should subside in a couple of days.  Yea!

But, California seceding would appear to help the other 49 states’ in their effort to lower health insurance costs.  I’m just saying.  Now secession sounds really promising.

Seeya!

Lightning

Each year at tax time, without fail, some news story will rise to the top of all others.  Invariably that story will focus on the person who feels overburdened; to make that point, they wind up paying their assessment in pennies.

Equally as entertaining are those non-tax time stories about local municipalities who really, really need the money and the taxee doesn’t.  So the taxee gets creative by wheeling a wheel barrow into the tax assessor’s office, closely followed by the eager media.

Camera flashes and guffaws from onlookers fill the television.  A startled, bespectacled clerk in a flowered nylon dress completes this scene, with the narrating news-readers smiling about how all that loose change will occupy the valuable civil servant time.

People like me cheer those rebels of local government because of the creativity and arrogance.  Because the money turned over is legal tender, it must be accepted.  Pesos and Euros are not adequate.

Here is where today’s story begins. 

I am a regular lottery player.  The Powerball and Megamillions are two games that eagerly await my money each week.  Now some readers are laughing at me because what I am doing is paying a “voluntary” tax.

This cash is nothing more than a vehicle to fill the state and local government coffers with money from idiots like me, gleefully sauntering into my favorite lottery-selling store, and plunking down a couple of bucks.

I don’t complain, carp, tear up, or whine; I just hand over the money with a smile.  And each week I discover I didn’t win, again.  And again I go out to pay more voluntary tax for the next drawing.

But today is different.  This next Powerball drawing, for August 23^rd, has an estimated jackpot, for one winner, of $650,000,000.

 

Of course, we must pay taxes on the winnings.  Federal tax alone is roughly $247,000,000!  That’s more money than I spend on cat litter each year.  But I digress.

To sum this up, we pay a voluntary tax to buy a ticket, then we must pay a tax if we win.  No wonder people pay their taxes in nickels.

In any case, this is about the time when all those logical poor folks enthusiastically give people like me their personal sage advice.

They are quick to point out how my chances of getting struck by lightning are 12 times that of winning the lottery.  Or, to put is more succinctly, I could outrun Seabiscuit for the Triple Crown.

Still, to validate my own modest spending on entertainment, I simply look at my movie watching habits.

I subscribe to a mail-order movie service.  I spend $11 per month to get movies sent to my door from a place we’ll refer to as Getflix, whose name I cleverly hid.

Over the years, my sainted wife and I have seen over three hundred Getflix movies and have only genuinely enjoyed perhaps eight. 

Those are disappointments to me, but just as with the lottery numbers, I get to select what I see, and the numbers that I play.  If I am disappointed, it’s my own fault.

But if I do win, I will arrive at Powerball Headquarters with a trailer to pick up my winnings I would like to receive in dollar bills.  Pity the bank.

So there you have it.  If you’re a lottery player and actually do win the jackpot, remember all those naysayers and lighting statistic enthusiasts.

And say. “Hey,” for me.