Empty Tissue Box

Today began as per usual – checking the interweb to see what Robert DiNiro and Adam Schiff were saying about President Donald Trump.

Adam Schiff imposter

Then it was off to the store to buy a get well card for a neighbor.

My sick neighbor was suddenly hospitalized.  I’d tell you what her ailment is, but the HIPPA law precludes me from doing so.

HIPAA is an acronym for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and serves as a protector of privacy for individuals.  This is the reason crazy people buy guns with impunity.  But I digress.

My sainted wife and I thought buying her a hanging basket and card would be a nice gesture.

At the store, we were coincidentally greeted with copious amounts of various hanging baskets, all of which were so beautiful the selection process became difficult.

We chose a Gerbera Daisy and began looking for a card.

Our search logically started in the greeting card section.  There, we stumbled upon birthday, Easter, Passover, graduation, anniversary, retirement, sympathy, and congratulatory cards.

If you read closely, you would have noticed there was no mention of get well cards discovered.  In fact, I likely could have discovered platinum buried in a jar of tomato paste before I found get well cards.

My sainted wife, undeterred, left for a scavenger hunt to locate a sales nitwit to direct us toward the get well card section.  Eventually, she returned with a cross between an angered facade and baffled appearance. 

She was directed to the birthday, Easter, Passover, graduation, anniversary, retirement, sympathy, and congratulatory card section.

It should be mentioned that all these greeting cards were Hallmark cards, not inexpensive by any means.

We celebrated our wedding anniversary just recently.  I reluctantly purchased a piece of cardboard with printing and a ribbon for nearly six bucks!  Every day I toss out tons of cardboard that I will be “recycling” into greeting cards from now on.  But I digress, again.

On the way home, we stopped at the Dollar Tree and bought a get well card, of which they had plenty.  And, they were a reasonable fifty-cents, each.

As always, there is a valuable lesson hidden herein.  People on The Eastern Shore don’t sell or buy get well cards.  The only reasons I can think of is because Eastern Shore folks don’t get sick; but if they do, they don’t get well, and no one wants to offer false hope to the dying.

Visit our site again next week for tutorial on how to turn an empty tissue box into a greeting card.  A recycled greeting card, that is.

Where’s the Outrage?

There’s a place in the mid-west called Chicago, Illinois.  It’s big enough for Frank Sinatra to sing about it, and have a play and movie named after it.

I was in Chicago a couple of times – both for my job and pleasure – and enjoyed myself on each visit.  The pleasure part was when I visited two of the nicest people alive, my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law.

They don’t actually live in Chicago proper.  They actually live in an outskirt town of Pig’s Knuckle, or something.  I don’t actually remember.

If you’re from New Jersey and are now staring at your fingers in an effort to figure this out, they belong to my sainted wife; there’s no blood relation between them and me.  But I digress.

Chicago back then – which was at least a decade ago – has changed.  Rather than morning news and weather, Chicagoans watch news and body counts.   It seems the murder rate there, depending on the source, was about 550 for 2018, alone.  That’s a lot.

I’m sure the Chief of Police is doing a yeoman’s job, but many of those killings go without resolution.  In fact, 11 Alive, a local television station, said fewer than 1 in 6 killings are solved.  That’s not a lot.

But the good news is that Chicago is “gay friendly.”

I believe that your personal sexual preference is yours and yours alone.  It is difficult to find a significant other, although we have a planet of over 4,500,000,000, people from whom to select.  So, of you’re gay, I wish you well.

Chicago had the first gay community, and even rents gay-friendly hotels through Expedia.  The LGBTQWERTY community must be agog.

But just a few weeks ago, America learned people who voted for Donald Trump, President of the United States, are racists and homophobes.

A black gay man named Jussie Smollett claimed he was attacked by a couple of white racists.  He was allegedly approached and beaten, doused with bleach, had a length of rope tied around his neck, all by racist homophobe white guys wearing red MAGA hats.  Did I mention the assailants were white racists and homophobes?

MAGA is an abbreviation for “Make America Great Again,” the slogan for President Trump’s election campaign in 2016.

Chicago police set out to locate the perpetrators of this heinous hate crime.  By the way, a “hate crime,” according to Wikipedia, is defined as follows: A hate crime is usually defined by state law as one that involves threats, harassment, or physical harm and is motivated by prejudice against someone's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability.

And the Chicago police did their job and found the racist homophobe white guys wearing red MAGA hats.  The bad news is that those white guys turned out to be two black guys, and one of them actually worked with Smollett.

A grand jury was convened to find evidence of a crime, and the results were less-than-positive for Smollett.  Is seems as though Smollett wrote a check to these non-white, white racists bought some bleach, and rope, and perhaps Slim Jims – perhaps not – with that check money.

That grand jury found enough evidence for 18 felony indictments against Smollett.  Unfortunately, the Chicago District Attorney’s Office has someone named Kimberly M. Foxx on its payroll.  She is the first African-American to hold that position.  Yeah!

Kim and Jussie

Foxx allegedly recused herself from this case leaving another attorney in her office to handle matters.

Foxx proudly announced that no charges would be filed against Smollett by her office because _______________________________________  (you can fill-in-the-blank with your own lame excuse.)  She allegedly received a phone call from former First Lady Michelle Obama’s staffer about leniency, or some such nonsense.  I’m certain that call had no bearing on any decisions made by the first African-American District Attorney in Chicago.  Wink, wink.

The Chicago Police Chief went ballistic, as did Mayor Rahm Emanuel.  They feel their valuable time has been wasted, as well as thousands upon thousands of taxpayer dollars.

It should be recalled there are tons of unsolved murders there from which resources have been detoured.

Chicagoans should be outraged and demand absolute prosecution of Smollett and Foxx, both.  These actions by Smollett brought America closer to a civil war over racism.  Thanks, Jussie and Kimberly.  You made us all proud to be Americans.

Special Special

What a treat we have for you today.

This week’s story is not just special, it is special special.  Yep, it’s so good we labeled it special twice.

In honor of Earth Day, which rolls around every April 22^nd, this special special story addresses this gala and actually helps solve some major problems.

In the 1970’s a fellow named Paul Ehrlich proudly, but sadly, announced the Earth was freezing.  After years of astute research, Ehrlich claimed Mother Earth was quickly becoming a giant walk-in freezer, and the entire population would be dead within a few years.

National magazines and newspapers climbed aboard his ice train o berate everyone who disagreed with his astute postulation.  His face dotted television shows while his books flew off the shelves.

Of course, he was wrong.  We are still alive and really sweating during the summer months, and have been doing so for centuries.  Unfortunately, those ninnies who embraced Ehrlich’s hare-brained postulation, refused to be wrong.

After realizing the Earth wasn’t freezing, they claimed it was warming, instead.

Those changes were grabbed by the freezing crowd, likely because they were now perspiring as a result of summer weather.

 But when the sweating changed into freezing again, something new was needed to latch onto.  That is when “climate change” became vogue.

Climate change, as a term, is sufficiently vague to describe, well, nothing except weather.

The good news was that when it was hot outside, it was because of global warming; when it was cold outside, it was due to global cooling.  Wow.

Today, however, we now have esteemed researchers and scientists such as Bill Nye, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Albert Gore, Tilda Swinton, Leonardo DiCaprio, Harrison Ford, Matt Damon, Olivia Munn, Jessica Alba, Don Cheadle, America Ferrera, and Michael C. Hall, all of whom believe climate change is something that should be addressed NOW!

Too bad none of those aforementioned walk or ride bicycles to climate change conferences, or are actual researchers or scientists.

Ocasio-Cortez said our home planet only has 12-years left before something really bad happens.  She made that juvenile statement on the U.S. House of Representative floor inasmuch as she is a newly-elected Congressperson.  The brain trust is clearly dwindling.

AOC, as common sense people call Ocasio-Cortez, just had an epiphany she needed to share with stupid Americans: Immigrants are leaving Central and South America to come to the United States, because of climate change.  How she made that absurd leap is baffling to me.

Not to be left out, USAToday, a really good fish-wrapping national “newspaper,” printed an Onion-like story that pollen sufferers could blame their sneezing and runny nose maladies on climate change.  Of course.

Among other reasons for climate change include cow flatulence, exhaling, not enough trees, too many trees, the internal combustion engine, burning coal, and burning oil, are to blame, all of which are man-made.  By the way, I know cow farting is not man-made, but we should take the blame anyway.  Bad humans.

Always overlooked reasons are volcanic eruptions, orbital changes, solar radiation, and crustal plate movement, all of which are out of anyone’s control.  Oh, no.

So it was on this special special Earth Day that I felt such FACTS be published to help the nitwits spouting lies and their own manufactured “truths.”

Bottom line: If we had the power to change the climate of planet Earth, we would likely first focus on tornadoes, hurricanes, and excessive precipitation, and that would be special special.  We can’t change any of it, though.

It’s about time to get on with our lives and plan on living more than 12 additional years.

Happy Get A Life Day!

The Unwell

Back in the 1960’s, there was a popular television show, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.  It centered on a hick-like, goofy soldier whose good heart and honesty helped him and his platoon through most of their Marine Corps base adventures.

Gomer’s astonishment always shone through when he simplistically voiced, “I’m lucky, lucky, lucky!”

Those words were usually uttered when he and his barracks mates got KP duty for some sort of punishment.  Of course, his Corps brethren would have strangled him if it wasn’t a comedy, family show.

But it was Gomer Pyle of whom I thought when I read the latest plot by smarmy Democrats to alter the future of America and its free elections.

You see, for two years, Democrats have been trying to nurse their 2016 election wounds by attempting to paint and furnish a cell for the duly elected president, Donald J. Trump.  To get him into that cell, Adam Schiff, Congresswienie, Maxine Waters, Congresskook, and Nancy Pelosi, Congresshag, have been actively trying to get President Trump impeached. 

Of course, impeachment doesn’t mean prison – it only means a good talking to, and a scowl and finger wag from the Democratic leaders seeking impeachment.  Prison would be appropriate when and if a crime was discovered.  And so, a fellow named Robert Mueller, III, was hired to search for a crime.

And search he did.  Bob, spent over $25,000,000, and two valuable years, investigating whether President Trump colluded with the Russians.  Unfortunately, collusion is not a crime.  Still, for two years, Democrat knives were sharpened in anticipation of the discovery of something truly nefarious.

None was discovered, though.  So, the Dems are now calling for something more creative to ruin America.  Lucky, lucky, lucky!

A March 24^th 2019, byline from the Washington Compost, er, Washington Post, headlined “Trump could be shut out of some states’ ballots in 2020,” caught my eye.

Un-president Hillary Clinton 

This story explains that 18-states are considering legislation “that would require presidential and vice-presidential candidates to post their tax returns to appear on the ballot during a primary or general election, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.”

Some of those states include Washington, California, Hawaii, and New Jersey.  Other states have tried to pass similar legislation, but have failed because of Republican control in those places such as Mississippi, New Mexico, and New Hampshire.

This would mean President Trump would be precluded from seeking re-election unless and until he releases his tax returns.

I recall when Barack Hussein Obama ran for president, and curiously absent were his birth certificate, college grades, critical writings from school, pictures and any guest list from his wedding, and visa for his grandmother.

When asked about these items, America’s inquisitive populace was descried as racist and bigoted.  And while that was patently untrue, people stopped asking out of fear and for civility’s sake.

President Trump could simply tell America that his tax return information was submitted to Hillary Clinton during the election debates in 2016.  The only reason they’re not available is because she destroyed them from her illegal e-mail server.  Wink, wink.

It’s time to begin the immediate removal of sore losers on the Democratic side of the country once and for all.  They are very tiring.  Seeya!

Greed vs. Stupidity

Back in the late 1970’s, an international push began to help foreigners, and Americans, alike, to better maneuver through society.

This effort began the transition from worded/written signs to pictures that could be easily deciphered by anyone, anywhere.

If you’ve ever left your home, you likely witnessed crosswalk signal figures – hunched over stick people appearing as if suffering from scoliosis – to indicate the appropriate time to cross the street, or wait.

This is important to the safety of non-English speakers visiting America, and non-foreign language adept people remaining safe in America while on-the-go.

Speaking of going, bathroom signage has also been artistically manipulated to allow the quick and efficient identification of the “men’s room” over the “women’s room.”  Those readers wanting to know more about cross-gender and bi-sexual bathrooms need to wait for a future story.  But I digress.

Driving along major arteries, commuters can expeditiously see which exits offer food, gas, and lodging, because of pictures of eating utensils, a petrol pump, and a bed, respectively, on blue signs.  Pretty efficient, I’d say.

Whether in Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, or the United States, anyone with the IQ of a rake is now able to navigate to their destination or service of choice.  But these signs also include warnings about possible dangers to be found in the immediate area, thereby providing not only conveniences, but potential life savers, as well.

As an aside, I’ve traveled around the world and stumbled into an occasional time or two when I found myself lost for direction and the ability to communicate with others.  As such, I feel this initiative created a great tool for everyone.

It’s been roughly 40-years since this international program began here, and seems to be a success.  Well, a partial success, if you want to be petty.

A newspaper article I was reading explained that a Guatemalan family brought a lawsuit against Universal Orlando Resort regarding warning signs.

Per the Associated Press article, “the family’s 38-year-old father suffered a fatal heart attack two years ago after going on the Skull Island: Reign of Kong ride.  Jose Calderon Arana, who had prior heart problems, didn’t speak English…”

Arana’s family evidently decided Universal has really, really deep pockets and needs to be summarily punished for “not displaying warning signs in Spanish.”

Of course, the family’s attorney doesn’t feel it’s unreasonable to force Universal to post warning signs in varying languages, to include Spanish.

In 2017, local tourism figures show that over 6,000,000 of Orlando’s 72,000,000 visitors came from outside the United States.  It is unclear how many of those visitors don’t speak English.

In any case, the Kong rollercoaster ride had been open for about 18-months at the time of Arana’s unfortunate death.

“A sign at the entrance of the ride says in English, “Warning!  This ride is an expedition through rough terrain of King Kong’s natural habitat.  The movement of the truck is dynamic with sudden accelerations, dramatic tilting, and jarring actions.”

As you can probably tell, this was penned by some corporate lawyer, the same type that writes warning notes posted on those cheap, plastic butane lighters that tell you to keep them away from children and open spilled gasoline.

The last sentence of the article reads, “Each of the situations has an accompanying drawing.”

It is here where I ask the simple question: Why did the world go through all the trouble and expense of changing and modifying signs to cartoon-like pictures?

What am I missing?