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.