Cellphone Dangers

Back in 2007 and 2008, screenwriters in America went on strike.  It seems as though they needed more money in order to write better scripts for television shows.

A few of the shows affected were Moonlighting, Scrubs, and Breaking Bad.  While I enjoyed two out of three of those programs, I’m not going to tell you I didn’t care for Scrubs, whose writers were clearly overpaid.

Obviously television didn’t disappear from existence because no one was writing for its shows.  Rather, TV producers turned to creating so-called “reality” programs that supposedly required little or no writing to create more new programming without unionized workers.  That’s too bad.

Suddenly those all-too-important niche scribes found themselves unemployed, not a fate unknown to everyday factory workers and others who get their hands dirty to eke out a living.

Eventually, most of those idle writers found employment.  And I often think about them whenever I locate new shows that are more inane than those in 2007 and 2008.

I’m not sure if those former writers found gainful employment in fields other than TV, though.  But I believe I stumbled across one writer when I read this newspaper article which I’d now like to share, and let you be the judge.

According to the Associated Press, there is a spike in cellphone-linked face injuries.  I know this because the article was titled, “Spike seen in cellphone-linked face injuries.”

It seems that “facial cuts, bruises and fractures” can be added to the risks of injuries from cellphones and carelessly using them.  Who knew?

This writer discovered (much like Christopher Columbus discovered America,) a study published December 5^th.  Some plastic surgeon thought a bit of research was deserved to be led by him because he realized more and more of his patients were visiting him for physical problems attributed to cellphone mishaps.  (I’ll bet there was a grant involved somewhere in there, too.  But I digress.)

Dr. Boris Paskhover of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, and others, analyzed 20-years of emergency room data.  They “found an increase in cellphone injuries starting after 2006, around the time when the first smartphones were introduced.”

People being people have long-proved their ability to wreak havoc where none is expected.  And this article shows there are few, if any, exceptions to this.

The more creative among us were injured by a myriad of causes, to include phone throwing, texting while walking, tripping, and landing facedown in the sidewalk.

According to this article, most of the cellphone patients were not hospitalized.  It should be noted that “the problem should be taken seriously.”  Uh huh.

This dark-humored article concluded by saying “nationwide, they estimated there were about 76,000 people injured during” the years 1998 through 2017.

As is evident, this AP scribe could very easily been a previously employed comedy writer, pre-strike, based on this very funny stuff.  Perhaps they gravitated to the written word over the more visual medium of television.

In any case, we appear to have a pilot for a new sitcom series here.  Good job!

Mistletoe and Beer Nuts

Outdoor decorating for us for Christmas began a few days before Thanksgiving Day.  My sainted wife dutifully unpacked the spare bedroom closet, jam packed with boxes of cheesy regalia to include colorful lights, a manger scene, and an aluminum tree.

Smokey the Cat was mesmerized to see all this stuff come out, once again, for no apparent reason.  Alas, he doesn’t realize this is to acknowledge and celebrate the birth of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Still, year after year we follow tradition to satisfy our religious fervor and our fondest childhood memories.

And every year, my doctors, of whom I have an entire stable full, make sure my appointments fall during the busiest time of the year – that merry time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.

Rushing hither and yon to have blood drawn only adds to the holiday merriment.  Appointments to see my general practitioner
(GP) and three specialists demand precision scheduling that rivals NASA launches.

This year, though, I headed to see my GP to get a semi-annual berating about my weight, and prescription refills.  But on this visit I brought an ailment for diagnosis I thought was gout.

Gout is known as the “Disease of kings,” because it is usually brought on by eating rich foods.  It seems as though rich foods cause urea acid to settle in the joints of your big toes.  You should be thankful I’m not going to go into a medical interpretation.

Yet, my doctor was anxious to give me his regular tongue-lashing about diet and exercise, and I was hoping he would skip the much-awaited prostate exam.

We chatted about life, family, politics, and refills, to eventually reach the remove-your-shoes-and-socks portion of the visit.

He asked me about what I was hoping to get for Christmas, as I removed my cordovan penny loafers and white athletic socks.

I explained to him that just recently I had rediscovered something called “beer nuts.”

A quick glance in his direction and I could imagine him straining to remember what would cause an ailment of beer nuts, from his medical school days.

Beer nuts, for the record, are salty/sweet peanuts that make you thirsty and so, require you to drink more beer.  Usually found in bars – go figure – they are a true patron’s favorite when it comes to the food pyramid.

Evidently my doctor, unlike myself, spent much of his college years in schools and libraries; he watched me as though I had grasshoppers emerging from my nostrils, as I told this story with gusto.

A few years ago I had participated in a nutrition class that insisted I consume at least one portion of legumes per day.  It was a win-win for me.

He finally asked where he could get some; the definitive answer was, “A bar.”

I explained they sold them in the snack aisle of most grocery stores as well.  He took out a pen and wrote something down.  I’m hoping it was “beer nuts,” and not psychiatric referral.  But I digress.

In any case, I needed to ask an obvious question of him:  Why wasn’t he wearing that chrome thing attached to a rubberband, around his head?

He chuckled and said nobody wears those any more.

Then finally, he gave me the gout verdict.

He said it wasn’t gout after all.  It just so happened I was developing an acute case of Christmas mistle-toe.

Here’s wishing everyone their own special Merry Christmas with their own mistle-toe and beer nuts!

Not A McRib

As a kid I used to love riddles.  Riddles are designed to be brain teasers, and for some they wind-up absolutely impossible to solve.

For example, being an omnivore, I enjoy eating and eating meat.  Herbivores, on the other hand, avoid meat for any number of reasons.

The good news is there are plenty of animals for me, and plenty of plants for herbivores.

The bad news is more and more butinski’s feel the need to try to change my behavior; they desperately want me to stop eating meat.  But it’s not just me as a target of diet modification; rather it is anyone with teeth.

Now for the riddle part of this story.

Q:  What does the hamburger chain, Burger King, sell?

A:  I don’t know.

Plant-based patties that are not meat.

A photo of a real hamburger

Don’t misunderstand me.  Burger King sells juicy, flame broiled burgers in a variety of sizes and weights.  But their latest ad campaign centers around befuddled people eating what they thought were meat burgers.  They weren’t.

The gist of these ads, I believe, are supposed to make you think these folks were duped into eating lawn clippings rather than a juicy, broiled burger.

But enough about Burger King.  Tallmart has been selling plant-based patties that closely resemble a hamburger.  However, it seems that if it doesn’t contain meat, it cannot be advertised or sold as meat.  That makes sense.

Clever names such as Impossible Whopper and Beyond Meat are supposed to assuage any confusion about exactly what is in that hamburger imposter.

Ingredients in Beyond Meat’s meatless patties include water, pea protein isolate, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein, and other natural flavors, including apple extract and beet juice extract (for color).

Not being raised in a scientific household, the pea protein isolate, and the expeller-pressed canola oil, tickled my curiosity.  It seems as though pea protein isolate is good for you, unless you are allergic to it.  It is used in smoothies and is high in protein and iron.

Expeller-pressed canola oil is also supposedly good for you, in that it is processed mechanically, but more expensive.

Why has this mechanically processed canola oil been such a secret?  But I digress.

And this is reflected in the price of these planet-saving veggie patties which cost as much, or more than, meat patties.

Environmental nut jobs have been blaming something they call “climate change” on Donald Trump and his supporters and cows.

They feel they are much, much smarter than the rest of Earth’s populace, and now demand the end of the use of cows for food because they – uh, well – fart.

Bearing some really bad news to these environmental nut jobs, I feel the need to tell them that eating plant-based anything will cause you to fart.  In fact, anybody would fart.  That includes yours truly.  Yep.

Now that we have a meat-free direction for the planet’s roughly 6,000,000,000 inhabitants, and realizing there’s a difference between beef cattle and dairy cattle, I’m curious to know where the planet’s babies going to get milk?  I believe dairy cows fart, too.

Back in the 1980’s Burger King ran an advertising campaign that asked a simple question: “Where’s the beef?”

Well?

You’re Lying, Again

If you are pro-Second Amendment (+2A), you may have already heard why the low-intelligence anti-Second Amendmenters (-2A) so ardently want to revoke your God-given rights.

The anti argument is that guns are dangerous and they can kill.  End of story.

Subject of the Second Amendment.  FYI.

That’s akin to the lazy, inane government campaign of the 1980’s about speeding on the nation’s highways.  It used two words: Speed kills.

Thinking members of society will analyze these two words and determine some facts.  First is that the government hires largely stupid people who make equally stupid statements.  Secondly, if speed kills, everyone driving in the annual Indianapolis 500 race would be dead.

Of course, guns are dangerous, but so are chainsaws, ladders, skateboards, ropes, and fire.  All those can be used for good or for evil.

Take snow skiing, for example.  You buy overly expensive clothes, skis, poles, long underwear, and a ski rack for your electric car.  You drive countless miles to a ski facility where you purchase a ski lift ticket.  At this point you are in for hundreds of dollars to have fun.

Sonny Bono, the late singer and better half of Sonny and Cher, died while having fun skiing.  You see, it can be dangerous, too.  Yet no liberal wants to outlaw skiing.

But the -2Aers would have you believe people only buy guns to rob liquor stores and convenience shops. 

Self defense is rarely, if ever, mentioned in their tired arguments of how guns are used for individual and societal good.

Self defense is one of those instances where the mere presence of a firearm can help a potential criminal re-think his actions.  In other words, a bad guy will like it less if he were shot, convincing him to abandon his nefarious plan to a path to incarceration or death.

If no one is shot, the potential crime is less likely to be printed in the newspaper or aired on television, making this effort to stop a serious crime a success.

But to tilt the scales of opinion, -2Aers use all sorts of straw grasping to make their point, often using the words “common sense,” “public safety,” and “for the children.”

Unfortunately for them, we are at a position in the gun debate where the truth is emerging, much to the chagrin of the -2A Left.

To bolster their numbers of how many people have died as a result of guns, lectures on banning firearms often include the shooting of youth gang members, most of whom use stolen guns to break other laws.  This is what is appropriately termed a “criminal enterprise.”

All the laws in the world will not prevent someone evil from stealing a gun, committing an armed robbery, then killing someone.  You just read about at least three felonies in the previous sentence.  What extra law would correct that trifecta?

So to help make their point about saving lives, the -2A people have been inserting the unfortunate deaths of suicides into their argument.

For the record, people can die from so many things, as the human body is a fragile temple.  Heart problems, cancer, HIV, and renal issues take innocent lives every day.  And so do falls, car wrecks, boating mishaps, and airplane crashes, take people to meet God.

Still, the -2A crowd insist suicide victims would be alive today if only everyone else was summarily denied their +2A rights.  They are wrong.  And they are lying.

In Southeast Florida, their Brightline fast rail service, which has been in full official use since 2018, has seen 40 deaths.  The footnote to that number is that some deaths are due to impatient drivers, and others who simply misjudged or ignored warning bells and signals; the majority has been suicides, though.

So it seems that not having access to a firearm does not necessarily correlate to preventing suicides, as the -2A folks would lead you to believe.

Here’s the rub.  Ropes, razor blades, bridges, medications, skyscrapers, and superhighways, can all potentially contribute to the suicide rate, still they are not the target of the soulless anti-Second Amendment crowd.

Here’s some free advice:  Find another phony cause to massage your egos.

They Really Hate You

Most people hate the truth.  If you don’t believe me, ask your spouse how you look.

That new outfit, haircut, pair of shoes, hat, or weight loss program, can all lead to an early death or divorce court, depending on the answer.

Diplomacy is the art of taking lying to a new level, and should be a required course for all relationships – both personal and professional.

Still, people wade into deep waters by continuously asking questions to which they may not want the unvarnished truth.

And then there’s something called PolitiFact. 

PolitiFact is a smarmy, Left-leaning column that appears in newspapers throughout America under the guise of fair investigating and reporting.  They don’t and aren’t.

PolitiFact's idea of Republicans

For the most part, their writers have a flair for a lack of diplomacy.

And most of PolitiFact’s columns are inane and pretty thin, making them fairly easy to see through.

But it was the one that appeared in the November 29, 2019, edition of the Tampa Bay Times, which made me unwrap the dead fish and re-read this smear column.

It seems as though PolitiFact Staff Writer Louis Jacobson, was on a roll whilst attempting to poke sharp sticks in the eyes of Republicans, in general, supporters of President Donald Trump, in particular.  And a fine job he did.

This specific hit piece addressed political polls and how to appropriately decipher them.

Section headings included “Margins of error,” State polls,” "Likely voter screens,” "Poll wording,” among others that desperately tried to carefully hide the writer’s bias.

Mr. Jacobson shouldn’t shoulder all the blame because PolitiFact appears in newspapers to include the Washington Post, owned by mega billionaire Jeff Bezos.  He’s the fellow who also owns Amazon, and is the target of deep-thinkers such as Alexandria Ocazio-Cortez, the wealth hater.

This strange relationship hasn’t kept PolitiFact from attacking half the people in America, namely President Trump supporters.

Normally, I would simply pass over these clearly partisan digs by Democrats.  But this shin-kick was just so blatant.

Under the “Education,” heading, Jacobson’s true feelings about his fellow subway riders and neighbors slipped out.

“What the past few years have demonstrated is that electoral outcomes are increasingly driven by a few key demographic factors, notably educational attainment.  Those without college educations are increasingly backing Republicans and Trump, while college-educated voters are increasingly voting for Democrats.” 

There you have it.  Quite a summary from a PolitiFact putz.

There used to be a sense of decorum throughout life – unwritten rules for keeping the peace and excluding one’s personal unbiased thoughts.  It’s clear those efforts have been abandoned by “professions” in the mass media business.

The bottom line is that if you are a Republican and/or support President Trump, you are looked upon with a disdainful eye.  In other words, “stupid.”

Diplomacy at PolitiFact is nonexistent; stop patronizing them if you’re a Republican and/or President Trump supporter.

Ask Me! Ask Me!

In the Sunday newspaper, a column appears that addresses any number of questions plaguing readers.  Marilyn vos Savant is the columnist whose claim to fame is her astronomical IQ.

Through her columns she often fields questions and introduces puzzles to the average reader under the guise of informing people; she actually winds up demonstrating how uninformed they are, though, and that includes me.

Here’s a puzzle that would be right at home in her wildly popular space:

Q:  What do these things all have in common?

Tables, chairs, wristwatches, boxes, jars, bags, countertops, Venetian blinds, cars, refrigerators, trucks, computers, toilet brushes, flatware, pens, Al Gore, and carpets

Normally, this is when Ms. vos Savant announces the answer “appears at the end of this column.”  I, on the other hand, won’t make you wait.

A:  All these items are made totally or partially from plastic.

And this is where the story begins.

May sainted wife was wiping down the refrigerator when she stumbled upon a secret of mine.  I use the fridge as a filing cabinet.

First up was a calendar affixed to the big fridge door.  “Does this need to be hanging up here?” was her initial silly question.

“Of course,” would have been the answer if I wasn’t drinking hot coffee.

But before the words could sneak out of my unzipped mouth, she asked another question, then another, and another…

Quickly resembling an action-packed game show, I felt I was losing this machinegun-like interrogation.

We’ve been married for about three blessed decades, and have had a refrigerator in our home for all those years.  But suddenly she discovered that it was covered with stuff that wasn’t applied at the factory.  Sherlock Holmes would’ve been proud.

Calendars, baseball game schedules, business cards, lists of prescription pills, are among the precious reference materials, within easy reach.

If it's important, it's here

The reason all this stuff is attached to the refrigerator is that the exterior is made of ferrous metal.

Ferrous metal is a metal that contains iron, which is smelted into steel.  Being ferrous means it will handily hold magnets.  Magnets hold papers.  Hence, you now have a kitchen filing system.  You’re welcome.

Unfortunately, not all people are visionaries.  And since my sainted wife doesn’t read this stuff I write, I am able to tell you the unvarnished truth.

I often give her things – warranty related – to submit and file, for future reference, and all that paperwork winds up in one of those giant plastic bins under the bed without rhyme or reason.  If I should need one of those documents, it takes roughly two or three months to locate.

Ergo, I now file most of my own paperwork on which I will likely need sooner, rather than later.  And that is why the refrigerator was made from ferrous metal.

Now, in the vein of Ms. vos Savant, I offer my own puzzle for you.

Q:  Where can calendars, business cards, baseball game schedules, grocery lists, and prescription lists, be found?

The answer can be found at the end of this column.

A:  On my refrigerator.

Waterboard Me, Please!

My school grades one through eight were spent in a parochial institution of learning for wise guys.  Sure there were girls that attended classes with us, but they, too, were equally guilty of driving the teaching nuns crazy.

Back then we didn’t learn about having abortions or protesting civil matters or demanding action for climate change.  Rather, we studied such inane things as geography, history, arithmetic, foreign languages, art, and English.

We were expected to excel at all of these disciplines with the addition of homework that needed to be addressed at home, hence the name.  The main reason for this was to see how much our parents knew, and whether or not they would help us with these extracurricular assignments.

Two different times required me asking my parents for help; one was for my Polish class, the other was for my arithmetic class.

Since both my parents and grandparents spoke fluent Polish, their help was certainly instrumental in getting a good grade in that class.

It was during my arithmetic class, however, that nerves and familial ties were threatened.

My Dad was a machinist, by trade, who used fractions every day, all day.  My Mom was a housewife who excelled at taking care of the family, but didn’t need to know much about math except for making change and during cooking.

One day, I remember coming home from school with what I, in the third grade, remember like I remember the thorough disciplinary beatings I received from my Dad.

We were trying to get though something called “fractions.”

It seems as though fractions are a way to test the cohesiveness of families, and secretly conduct a comprehensive analysis of the intelligence of a student’s immediate relatives.

After nearly sixty-years, I still recall that day just as if it was hours old.  Sister Agnes began drawing a circle on the blackboard.  As an aside, a blackboard was what us old relics wrote on before whiteboards were invented.

Sister Agnes made that circle nearly perfect before drawing a line straight down the middle; the class carefully duplicated her every move.

She turned toward the class and told us that each side was one-half.  She then turned away to secretly take a sip from what appeared to be a silver hip flask similar to that of my Grandpapa.

More lines were drawn and more sips were taken.  And with each line, the class became more baffled, to the point where we all needed a sip from that flask.

My crude circle with lines made its way home with me.  When my Dad finished his dinner, he asked how school was, and then asked the question for which he was sorry the rest of his life.

“Do you have any homework?”

After a few tears of failure streamed from my eyes, I produced the papers upon which the infamous circles and lines were scribbled.  “Fractions,” I whispered.

My Dad didn’t have much in the way of patience, so I knew this was going to be tough.

Making kids bald after many years

He produced fresh paper and a pencil and began with the circles again.  Again. And again.

He kept drawing circles and lines.  And each circle got larger, as if it would be easier for me to comprehend it if they were more visible.

It didn’t take long before he ran out of both paper and patience.

My tears reappeared and my Dad became more contemplative.

After a break, he returned with scissors and more paper and a magic marker.  The paper became a pie.  He snipped long the lines, and eventually we had ourselves a pie with numerous slices.

As he reassembled the paper pie, the varying slices made more sense as ¼, ½, ¾, and one whole pie.

He even taught me how turn ¼ into 0.25 – fractions into decimals.  After all, that was his job as a machinist.

Success, at last!  But then I was mistaken because my Dad didn’t let me have a sip from his silver hip flask.  Alas.

Up or Down

Good lessons in life are the ones learned.  Falling off a bicycle, for example, is one lesson that will teach you to pay attention to where you are and what you’re doing, or you should just dismount and walk.

There are many more examples that would take too much time and space to address anywhere except the Halls of Congress.

When I was a child, my Dad taught me how to use the bathroom, in general, the toilet, in specific.

It seems as though he got ‘The Lecture” from my Mom.  Being a Johnny-come-lately, I was subject to all house rules without the benefit of any personal input.

Being a quick learner in a house split evenly between testosterone and estrogen, I realized my opinion mattered less than that of the family dog.

I can’t recall the exact date or time when my Mom screamed from the bathroom.  It was something about that mystical device called the “toilet seat.”

People in Canada should pay attention as some good trivia is on-deck.

A toilet seat consists of two moving parts: 1.) The lid, 2.) The seat.

Simplicity, at its best

I called them moving parts because, well, they move.  They go up and down to form a variety of configurations, creating a stool, or a cover to prevent things from going into the toilet.  The seat also moves up and down to accommodate uses for those who sit or stand to perform their duties.

Women, I learned as a youngster, had great difficulty operating the aforementioned seat portion of the toilet.

Again, during my formative years, I learned how to better aim and shoot with each use of the toilet.

Unfortunately, before my aim improved, I was less than stellar at hitting the water inside the commode; it occasionally found its way onto the seat part.

That didn’t bother me too much.  My sister and Mom, well, they were less forgiving.

Still, it didn’t take long for me to learn to pick up the seat at the appropriate times.

Unfortunately, there was a part that was baffling.  When I was done, I left the seat in the “up” position.  Remember, there are only two positions.  No matter how I left it, it was wrong.

Thank goodness a lecture was involved and it was déjà vu all over again.

And, much like bike riding, I brought these valuable lessons into my marriage.

This is where the point of this exercise is revealed.  For decades, it was drummed into my thick skull that women could do anything a man could.  The one exception is repositioning the toilet seat.  There – I said it.

Many decades later, I’m still married and remember how to make the toilet seat function to everyone’s delight.

But I was in the doctor’s office yesterday, and I needed to use the bathroom.  I opened the door to the unisex facility and broke out into a cold sweat.  There in the corner was a toilet with the seat in the down position.

My mind began spinning like wheels in a slot machine, searching for an answer to a long-solved question.

I picked the seat up and did my business.  I didn’t put it back down because of consideration to the next man who wouldn’t have to lift it.  I was also thoughtful so as not to leave the seat down and possibly damp.

If you were next in the bathroom cue, you’re welcome.

Misplaced Punishment

During the presidential debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Carter accused Reagan of opposing Medicare and Social Security.  Reagan simply said "There you go, again."

That was a defining moment in the debates, thereby giving a distinct edge to soon-to-be President Ronald Reagan.

It was truly the same ol’ smoke and mirrors foisted upon the country by disingenuous Democrats attempting to create and maintain a firm hold on its subjects.

As an example, this morning’s television news aired a story about the dangerous world of “vaping.”

Although available for about a decade, vaping is something that has seen a meteoric rise to attention over the past few months because of vaping-related deaths.  Maybe. 

Cigarette smoking is a dangerous activity.  But vaping has been used by many – including myself – to stop using tobacco products.

Cigarettes contain many, many chemicals that are satisfying, and addictive and poisonous.  In one word, tobacco is B-A-D.

But in case you missed that addictive part in the previous sentence, tobacco is said to be every bit addictive as heroin.  Through experience, I believe that statement.

The self-righteous among us forced smoking Americans into all sorts of compromising places and weather conditions to get people to stop smoking.  Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple.

Try to lose weight by simply not eating.  It doesn’t work.  And just like smoking cigarettes, shaming and berating will not convince anyone to modify their behavior.  Period.

Vaping uses an electronic cigarette-like device that turns additives and flavorings into water vapor; this process emits no odor or dangerous chemicals into the environment, unlike cigarettes.  Marketers-being-marketers, discovered a way to add nicotine to these vaping devices.  Most of the killer ingredients found in ciggies are not found in vape pens.  This created a safer alternative to smoking tobacco products.  Yeah!

However, marketers-being-marketers realized that since vaping was a safe alternative to cigarettes, they could market these money-makers to kids.  And kids-being-kids jumped onto the vaping bandwagon, much as they did with Beanie Babies, Pogs, fidget spinners and cigarettes.

Today’s kids are more informed than I was as a kid; they are not necessarily smarter, though.

Although feeling invincible, today’s kids have been vaping, something I’ll bet would go the way of Beanie Babies, Pogs, and fidget spinners.  But, we’ll never know.

Marketers-being-marketers realized keeping kids using their products would be financially beneficial to the companies marketing vaping products by introducing flavors kids like.  Bubble gum, mint, and watermelon, are just a few of the more popular ones available.

Of course the inventive among us realized that adding THC oil to the vaping system could make you high.  Not tall, but stoned.

Tetrahydrocannabinol, otherwise abbreviated as THC, is the active ingredient in marijuana. Marijuana is the drug that psychologically alters your mind to affect thinking, pleasure, time perception, and pain management.

Now THC is being illegally added to vaping devices to expedite that high.

Yes, it seems as though about 25-people have died from vaping THC, as of this writing.  So those phony politicians, who have everyone’s best interests in mind, are making vaping illegal, while ignoring legal vaping products.  Other politicians are trying to hold vaping device manufacturers liable for any, and all, deaths associated with their products..

Now it would be sensible if those politicians made cigarettes illegal, but they won’t.  And that reason is because cigarettes are taxed, and taxed heavily.  NYC collects $4.75 per pack tax.  There are 20 coffin nails in a pack, for your information.

That’s a lot of wealth for greedy politicians to leave on the table; damn smoker’s health.  Keep ponying-up taxes for your sins, and all will be forgiven, which is exactly why marijuana is being made legal.  Maybe marijuana users will be shamed to quit, someday.

There you go, again.

Long, Long Ago

What amazes me to no end is how houseflies can sleep clinging upside-down to the ceiling, and Halloween.

And you should realize that this week’s literary adventure isn’t going to be about houseflies.  Rather, it is about Halloween.

Halloween is a minor holiday that can be interpreted as either religious or secular.  It is believed to be a celebration about the dead on the eve of the Christian day, All Hallows Eve.

It is also interpreted by non-Christians as being a celebration by Druids, which began in old world Great Britain.

No one is quite sure, but we celebrate this last day in October, nonetheless.

And we do so by carving pumpkins into Jack-o’-Lanterns, dressing as alter egos, and exchanging treats in lieu of tricks.

All this activity begins with extreme enthusiasm because little kids get to dress up as so many different things.  Some of these costumes are store bought, while others are hand-made by creative, crafty parents.

It doesn’t matter because it is often as big a deal and exciting for the parents as for the kids.

My formative years were spent in a northeast industrial city.  Those words should give you an idea of our average October 31^st.  Cold with a good chance of snow was the normal forecast from roughly early October until May.

It didn’t really matter what your costume was or what it looked like, it was usually hidden by a warm, hooded parka.

Smokey the Cat's buddies trick-or-treating

Still, my earliest recollection of Halloween was me dressed as a bear cub.  This store-bought costume was made of highly flammable Nylon and finished-off with a hard plastic mask that was held in place with an elastic band.

The costume caused profuse sweating, while the mask succeeded in limiting your vision to near zero, and crushing all your facial features.  Talk about waterboarding…

My Grandmother, Mother, and Father, all oohed and aahed as I was crying and whimpering.  It was awful.

Awful, until I was led from house-to-house by my tiny hand and given goodies, that is.

I was careful to use the word “goodies” instead of candy.  Our neighborhood was flush with widows who were likely living on meager earnings.  In any case, they didn’t hand out candy like other homes did because it was pretty expensive.

After ringing the doorbell, we, as a group of neighborhood friends, would step back to shout, “Trick or Treat!” with gusto.

Apples were proudly turned into candied apples on sticks, by Mrs. Jones.  Mrs. Kaiser gave out popcorn balls, and Mrs. Beblowski tossed a concoction of pretzels and melted chocolate into our trick-or-treat bags.

None of us could see what, in the form of loot, was being deposited, though.  So, after the door was closed with a genuine smile, we would turn, lift our masks, and try to decipher what we had just scored.  Then it was off to the next house with an illuminated porch light.

And then, just as today, Halloween is one of those really iffy events.  No one knows how many kids are going to show up to extort for swag.

One year we it would be 30, the next year 10, another year 50.  So getting enough treats was difficult to anticipate.  Kids grew up, some would rather attend church parties, and some were remanded to serve jail time.  But I digress.

It was those years when the homeowners failed to anticipate well.  We knew because we found loose change, sticks of chewing gum, and pencils in our bags.

Today, trick-or-treaters show up wearing street clothes and sporting beards – real beards, that is.  Sometimes it’s difficult to tell who is wearing a costume, period.  Some parents look as though they are costumed as trollops when they are not.  Alas.

Still, it didn’t matter.  We had fun traipsing about the neighborhood, all dressed in different costumes, but still looking like a tribe of Michelin Men in our toasty parkas.

In any event, have a safe and enjoyable Halloween!

Pumpkin Loophole

It’s been over ten-years since EasternShoreFishAndGame.com began, and after all those years we are still proudly providing weekly stories that are gluten-free.

Which leads me to today’s story.

Halloween is quickly approaching; we know not because of any calendar, but because Christmas decorations are springing up in all the major retailers’ stores.

Everything is coming up pumpkin, too.

You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting pumpkin beer, pumpkin latte, pumpkin bathroom spray, pumpkin automobile air fresheners, pumpkin cookies, and even pumpkin pie filling.

Most politicians are lawyers, and not very good lawyers.  That being said, how competent do you think they are to serve as a governmental representative for you?

If you’re reading this stoned, now is not the time to get ahead of me.

Every year for Halloween I buy a pumpkin out of which I fashion a Jack-o’-Lantern that usually resembles a train wreck victim, not by choice.

While I possess many skills, carving wood, soap, stone, or pumpkins, is not one of them.

Pretty regularly I receive comments from trick-or-treater’s parents shaming me for leaving hideous gourds out for small, impressionable children to see.  A few others thank me for creating pumpkin parodies; of course, they were not intended as such.  Alas.

In any case, I went to buy my blank pumpkin canvass for this year’s messterpeice.  I carefully studied each of the 271 pumpkins for the idea size, shape, and weight.

I could envision something spectacular – along the lines of the statue of David.  Unfortunately, I was unable to find a pumpkin that large.

So it was a scary face with squinty eyes and large teeth, but nothing several glasses of fermented beverages couldn’t readjust your eyes to enhance its intended beauty.  But I digress.

It was the quest for that prefect gourd that made me think of those greedy politicians.

More often than not, that hand in my pocket belongs to a local, state, or federal politician, searching around for my money to fund their new project that will benefit everyone except me.

The pregnant pumpkin store cashier asked me if I was going to eat this pumpkin or carve it.

Example of my Nancy Pelosi masterpeice

I immediately thought word had gotten out about my poor knife skills, and perhaps the community-at-large was attempting to institute a “Save the Pumpkins” program.

No, this nosy cashier needed this information in order to determine if tax needed to be collected.

After my head stopped spinning atop my neck, I asked her about this new-to-me overstepping of the government.

I was truly surprised that the store had to collect sales tax if this innocent produce item was used for anything other than food; that “anything” included carving.

It seems as though those thoughtful politicians, who often carp about loopholes in the law, luckily found a way to summarily plug these 8¢ from skating past the local coffers.

This suddenly makes the self-checkout line more attractive to me.

But now we know how these slimy politicians keep getting elected and re-elected to introduce their brilliant plans to extract more money from their constituents. It must be the gluten.

Mission Accomplished

Democratic Party playbook

Way back in 1949, George Orwell wrote a novel “1984.”  It described life in a future dictatorship where mere words were bastardized into twisted slogans.

“War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength,” was a memorable one that likely went over the heads-of-mush reading it in high school.

When I read it in 1969, it was time-wasting nonsense.  Fast forward fifty-years to 2019, and it is clear this novel has been turned into a user manual for political society.

Presidential candidates, who are not only narcissistic, but also deluded by their mental abilities, have been touring the country in an attempt to connect with potential voters.  And part of that connection effort includes opening their mouths.

The bad part for them is some Americans own calculators and some own recording devices.

Regularly spouting off are candidates such as Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren, all of whom have been in political office of one form or another for years; in Senator Biden’s, Senator Warren’s, and Senator Sanders’ cases, they have been riding the guvment gravy train for decades.

Throughout those 40-years, or so, the Four Horses Butts of the Apocalypse have had the opportunity to enact or veto many, many bills affecting all of America.  They didn’t.

Senator Sanders served as the Chair of the Armed Forces Services Committee – the Committee that oversees the Veteran’s Administration.  He didn’t handle that issue when he was in a prime position to do so, alas.  Now he wants to be elected President so that he is able to effect change.  I’d say it’s too little, too late.  Forty years too late.

Senator Warren has been on the election trail complaining about big banks taking money from their borrowers and taxpayers, alike.  She claims it’s unfair to target people who are unable to afford a house, over an apartment, just because they can’t repay mortgage loans or taxes, or both.  Her solution to rectify this injustice is to make other tax payers buy homes for the deadbeats, and give them a $1000 per month stipend.  Brilliant.

Then there is Senator Biden who also feels he knows what American voters want: lame lies that are converted into stories by him.  He can’t remember when he served as Vice President, how he told people to illegally use firearms, and that he was a ‘touchy-feely’ kind of guy, hence the reason he can’t keep his hands off of constituents.

Now “Lunchbox Joe” is trying to keep from drowning in graft and corruption accusations being levied against both he and his son.  Unfortunately, neither can agree on an alibi.

Lastly, Senator Harris, who served as a state attorney general, prosecuted drug cases with aplomb, exercising little restraint or mercy.  Unfortunately, she was caught on videotape bragging about how she, too, broke controlled substance laws herself; in an effort to appear more hip than the wooden spoon she’s impersonating, she giggled while lying about the time-frame involved.  Oh, my.

But on a positive note, all four of these self-centered phonies want to really rub everyone’s noses in the guvment poop on the carpet, including yours.

They feel illegal aliens – criminals who are trespassing on America’s sovereign soil – deserve some bonus for simply breaking our laws.  These miscreants would be eligible to receive free health insurance.

That’s the same free health insurance President Obama forced you to buy at premium prices, with attached astronomical deductibles.   Free to the criminals, though!

Not to be outdone, the Four Horses Butts of the Apocalypse promise to guarantee free college educations to not only illegal aliens, but also they will forgive any and all debt for the kids who would like to attend institutions of higher education.

As a bonus, all of this brain trust would sell their souls – if they had one – to confiscate your Constitutionally protected firearms.  They may be lawyers, but not good ones.

This is terrific news.  But the terrific news only applies to the unstructured, unlawful, and uncaring, which enjoy taking, taking, and taking.

In pre-school, American kids were given free lunches, out of compassion.  In kindergarten, they got free cookies and milk.  In elementary school, they got free breakfast, lunch, and afterschool snacks.  They went to high school and received free lunches, free extracurricular activities and team uniforms and instruments.

Now those kids and their families expect free college tuition, books, and accommodations.  And why not?  They have been trained to expect free stuff for nearly two decades.

George Orwell got it right.

It’s Easy Being Green

Muppet, Kermit the Frog, sang the song, “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”  He was wrong.

Of course, he was talking about his “frog” existence; I’m speaking about the environment.

Today’s young pukes genuinely believe they own the market on ideas.  They don’t.

Practically daily, we hear about awareness of the environment and protecting it.  Evidently, these intellectual youngsters have one thing on which they can rely: OPT, or other people’s thoughts.

I believe that in school, these non-thinkers are taught just that – non thinking.

Allow me to explain.

Anything offered to these brains of mush will stick, much like wet pasta laden with plenty of starch.  Throw stuff at a wall and it becomes gospel.

Recycling bottles and cans, using less electricity, keeping plastics out of dumps, using cloth washrags and napkins, and avoiding paper plates, are just a few brilliant changes Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Zers are pushing as original ideas.

Of course, these are ideas their parents have foisted upon us as a society for some decades now.  Now it’s the turn of their progeny.  Alas.

I was in kindergarten when there were forty-eight states in America.  For all you New Jersyites, there are now fifty.  I am old enough to remember when the Dead Sea was just sick.  That’s pretty old.

Back then, my Father would load up empty beer and soda bottles into the family sedan in order to return them to the store.  There, they were exchanged for several cents each, with that money applied to the purchase of new cases of beverages.  Pint bottles got you 2¢ each, while quarts garnered 5¢ per bottle.  That’s incentive to recycle.

Beer and soda manufacturers met the demand of consumers to not make returning anything mandatory.  They created bottles with twist-off caps, and aluminum cans to replace returnable bottles.

Paper napkins quickly disappeared because of the inconvenience of washing out linen napkins, as did dish washing rags; they gave way to paper towels for handiness.

Being berated for using too much in the way of fossil fuels, the new-thinking kiddies insist we drive electric cars, use curly-q light bulbs, and sit in the dark to conserve energy.

My Mother used a clothesline – now called a solar energy dryer – for our laundry.  We didn’t own a dryer, only a wringer.  Look it up.

As an infant, I was clad in a diaper.  However, it was a cloth diaper.  They were washed out, then laundered, and hung our on the solar energy dryer.  Wealthier neighbors used diaper services that came by to pick up and sanitize their diapers.  But I digress.

The way milk arrived at your home in days of yore

Milk was delivered in glass bottles that were rinsed out and returned, when empty.  They were picked up and delivered by milkmen, every few days, along with eggs, butter, cream, and whatever other dairy good you desired.

That effort kept countless one-passenger cars off the roads, thereby saving gas and preventing pollution.

Baked goods and seafood were also delivered to your door.  A fellow even came by to sharpen your kitchen knives for a pittance; as a bonus, he could repair your umbrellas, if you so desired.

In other words, we oldsters were practicing a green existence for generations.  Suddenly, “progress” happened.

Now, Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Zers are reinventing the wheel through OPTs.

If anything, they learned something in school – plagiarism.

Good job!