Good Enuf

 Here’s something to put a smile on your face. Decades ago, Americans were goaded into what became known as “recycling.”

I used the word “goaded” because we were shamed, badgered, even threatened with arrest, to separate our garbage into neat piles ahead of curb pickup.

Before that time, people would place their trash into a receptacle that eventually wound up on the curb to await a garbage truck for collection. Once collected, that spaghetti sauce covered plastic bottle, dirty jug, and greasy newspapers would make their way to the dump where it all was summarily buried.

Involved in this operation were the following: homeowner, garbage can manufacturer, garbage truck driver, garbage truck loader, landfill bulldozer operator, and some city or county supervisor. All this worked well for decades, generously employing all these honorable people who performed valuable services while paying taxes.

That tax money became a self-perpetuating operation resulting in a virtual zero-sum activity.

But suddenly, The Smart People rose to the surface of that well-oiled guvment activity to insist everything up to this point was wrong. End of debate.

These Smart People dissected everything mentioned above and did so cogently. From the garbage truck to the dump to the individual employees, each item was addressed seriatim before one city and county meeting after another.

Soon, television stations, radio media, and newspapers, alike, were proudly spreading the word that our new national religion was “recycling.”

Recycling is a system that involves the homeowner sorting their garbage before it makes its way to the curb. Sounds pretty simple, right?

Wrong.

Is seems garbage all has its own pedigree: cans, bottles, newspapers and cardboard, and miscellaneous trash are separate and distinct from one another. Now, the simple becomes the complex. Why?

The Smart People.

A very noble worker

The way it was explained was as follows: Landfills across the planet were filling up at an alarming rate. To prevent the soon-to-overflow dumps from, uh, overflowing, our trash was mandated to be sorted before disposal.

Let’s take a minor detour here. Decades ago I remember my Mother placing empty milk bottles into our milk box that sat on our front porch. Along with a note, those empties were normally exchanged for full bottles of milk or cream, butter, plus eggs, and other dairy products delivered to our door.

No milk or cream bottles were disposed of, rather they were reused or, in other terms: recycled.

One milk truck made its way throughout the town, instead of every car in town driving to the store. Sounds pretty efficient to me; less pollution, you see.

But The Smart People thought otherwise. Now back to the story.

Once the old wave garbage collection song was transformed into a symphony, everything connected therein became convoluted by adding new recycling bins: one for plastic and metal cans, one for paper, one for glass, and yet another for raw garbage.

All these added costs and steps needed another element added to this equation: one special truck for each of the sorted garbage bins. That hidden snag abruptly introduced many more trash trucks to the streets thereby polluting and causing more congestion for other traffic. Oh, my.

After a number of years, the populace was still apathetic about separating garbage and letting those expensive guvment-issued recycling bins sit idle, much to the chagrin of the guvment itself.

It was no longer an option to recycle in a growing number of those once-agog municipalities that eventually switched from optional to mandatory. Those simple color-coded plastic bins were re-issued with barcodes that became germane to discovering who was, and who was not, recycling.

Of course, thoughtful fines were added to tax bills to demonstrate the genuineness of this earnest effort to save Mother Earth.

And so it continued all the while the guvment and its official propagandist, NPR, repeated the mantra of “Reduce, reuse, and recycle,” as well as a catchy one from has-been actor Ed Begley, Jr., “If you’re not buying recycled products, you’re not really cycling.” How’s that for hard-hitting?

These references were to the re-manufacture of plastic bags and bottles into carpets and clothes, while glass bottles were transformed into sand. Wow! Who knew sand was in such short supply?

Still, this recycling effort quickly transformed into a grift which was clearly evident when, after thirty, or so years, the big announcement was made – nation-wide – that recycling glass was no longer an option; it seems a though recycling glass is much too expensive. Oops!

I’ll wait while you go back and re-read that last paragraph.

What once resulted in a lien possibly placed on your home for not recycling was magically transformed into a “good enuf,” shrug.

With that in mind, just what is America doing with all the rest of their garbage – sorted and otherwise?

Since you asked, plastic bottles are washed, melted, and reused for not only carpets and clothing, but also containers for such things as new shampoo bottles. The rub is that recycled materials are “three times as expensive as virgin” virgin being brand new plastic made straight from oil and gas out of the ground,” said Ernie Simpson from TerraCycle in Trenton, NJ.

He continued, “It costs a lot. There’s not a lot of money to be made from recycling to begin with, and it’s tough for recycled plastic to compete with virgin plastic made cheap by the boom in U.S. oil and gas production. And there aren’t nearly enough recyclers in the U.S. to handle the tsunami of new plastic pouring out of the petrochemical industry.”

This begs the question: What is the recycling industry to do with so much unused, unrecycled garbage in America?

It seems as though locally, the definitive answer is that the recyclables are being rightly placed in the dumps where they once were to avoid the continued “aesthetic and hygienic nuisance” of misused facilities, per the Wicomico County Executive Office, in Maryland.

I’m pretty sure no family members were involved in a scheme to extract guvment contract monies for their own benefit.

But there you have it. Problem unsolved, but good enuf.

Consumer Summary Report

 Here’s an opportunity for you to stop receiving influencer videos as well as magazine reviews for any and everything. I’m here to provide that data to you in an unbiased and cost-free venue that, by the way, is still gluten-free.

I need stuff and, rather than steal it like so many others, I buy it from stores. Living in a remote section of America, shopping choices are thin, to say the least. You need to travel 12-miles to make a one-way trip for gas, cigarettes, toilet paper, and so on. Some quick ciphering means you’ll travel 24-plus miles for pretty much anything.

Our Eastern Shore proximity to nothing is not unique; lots of tiny towns dot the United States requiring extensive travel to buy beer and rolling papers, and even visit an ATM. But living in such a far-removed situation from civilization is also a benefit. Crime can be low, and guvment oversight nearly non-existent.

In any case, today’s review is along the lines of an earlier story describing my adventure-in-commerce with a pizza joint whose name rhymes with Dominoes. Oh, heck, it is Dominoes, (but I’m too lazy to invent a rhyme,) and they should be very proud of their customer relations. After all, their customer relations plans worked in chasing me away – permanently.

I just recently finished building a front porch/deck on my house and needed to make the new pressure treated lumber stairs less slippery. Until staining time to occur in the spring – once the wood dries enough to accept the stain and wood sealer – I immediately saw a demand for stair treads with a rough face and self-adhesive back to keep visitors from making a trip to the hospital.

A stop at a little hardware store called “Lowe’s” for those anti-slip stair treads was, to say the least, fun. After traipsing through most of the Lowe’s my sainted wife and I were unable to locate any semblance of anti-slip stair treads.

The obvious starting point was flooring. There, we found carpeting, ceramic tiles, marble tiles, fake hardwood flooring, laminate flooring, plastic boot trays, among a compendium of glues and mastics, none of which were even close to our needs.

Off to the hardware department where there were screws and fasteners aplenty, but no anti-slip stair treads. The paint department was without a Lowe’s employee to ask. Plumbing, was also sans any hired help. Lumber was everywhere except nary a stock clerk to question on the whereabouts of our stair treads.

We even decided to maneuver the aisles of overpriced blue tools, to no avail. It was at this time my sainted wife thought it was a good time to check her iPhone.

For your information, our iPhones not only field phone calls, they also take pictures, videos, record voice messages, store music, plus have built-in GPS’ to enable you to see exactly how helplessly lost you are. It also has an app that monitors your health.

iPhone Health screen

Sleep rate, hearing, cardio fitness, walking steadiness, even menstrual cycles, are all notifications available on the iPhone Health app. Additionally, though, is something called “steps.” it seems as though steps provides an educated guess at how many steps a person takes while carrying your handy-dandy iPhone.

“11.7,” was my sainted wife’s comment.

“11.7 what?” I asked.

“11.7 miles!” she asserted. “We walked 11.7 miles inside this store today,” she claimed.

On the way out of the store we noticed a cashier looking very bored so, we asked her if she knew where the anti-slip stair tread could be located. She looked into our empty, soulless eyes and said, “No. Do we carry those?”

Evidently not. Which is why I’m wagering Lowe’s will be going out of business. Not for not carrying anti-slip stair treads, but for not caring about two customers walking through their store for about an hour, unable to find a knowledgeable store employee to question regarding where to find a product, then finally leaving that store empty handed.

In retrospect, our 11.7 miles walked amounted to us practically walking to the store from our home. I can assure you and Lowe’s that won’t happen again.

And that’s today’s Consumer Summary Report. Use that information wisely.

The Wheel

 If I correctly recall, August is a traditionally hot, humid time of the year – at least here on The Eastern Shore. But it’s been a year since the last dose of this normally blistering month, filled with ripening corn and watermelons, as well as last-minute vacations to the beach. And this year is not much different from the other decades full of ever-changing weather requiring us to adapt to our surroundings.

However, this year is being loudly and falsely announced as the “HOTTEST SUMMER ON RECORD.”

Meteorologists, TV weather babes, news anchors, even the barista selling you that over-priced cup of syrup and unrefined sugar disguised as specialty coffee, have all been talking about this alleged surprise increase in heat which is affecting nearly every American, and most of the balance of the world.

‘Sure, it was hot last year, but it is actually 0.004% hotter this year!’ is the way these inane conversations continue. This is the segue to a thorough lecture, followed by a stern talking-to about the dire situation of planet Earth on the precipice of spontaneously combusting.

Also recalling my time spent as a child, I fail to remember not wanting to go outdoors to ride my bike, play baseball, or simply hop into our modest above-ground swimming pool. It was, after all, summer.

During much of the summer – including June, July, and August – are all known for various activities and free-time, but not necessarily for their downhill skiing and ice fishing activities. Because it’s hot.

In third grade we learned the Sun was closest to the Earth during the winter months; conversely, the Sun was furthest from the Earth during the summer months. I know it sounds confusing and counter intuitive. But the closer the Sun is to Earth, the shorter the amount of time the sunlight can affect the weather so, it is less hot.

To attempt to drum this scenario into our heads of mush, the nuns would break out a model of a globe and a flashlight to prove their point. Of course, no one did, though.

With longer days of light, the warmer the days become. And when days get warmer, people plant and grow gardens of fruits and vegetables which require light for plants to produce foliage and eventually crops.

As previously mentioned, other parts of life are also affected by light: temperature. The warmer the air is, the less our home furnaces need to be run to warm us. It is highly unlikely we will freeze to death inside our homes in the summer season. Those months are especially welcoming to inhabitants of colder climates where gas, oil, electric, and wood, are among the ways people keep their homes toasty warm during those frigid days and nights.

For nearly a hundred years, engineers and scientists and amateur inventors have been struggling to make electricity and associated energy less expensive – even free.

Through solar panels, which are roughly 80-years old; windmills, that were used by the ancient Egyptians; and hydro-electric power which was in use in the late 1800’s, our woes of finding a sustainable form of energy seemed like a closed case.

Unfortunately, successfully run hydro-electric facilities – normally constructed along river banks with the benefit of dams – were the kings of clean power for roughly a century. Using clean, fresh-flowing water, hydro-electric facilities produce no “carbon footprint” which so many environmentalists now see as a scourge.

Why, if hydro-electric power is ideally clean and sustainable, is deemedso dangerous to society and nature in its purest form?

It seems as though a new crop of environmentalists have been busy wasting pencil lead “connecting the dots” of horror created by an inexpensive, efficient, and safe electrical generation, to draw the conclusion that hydro-electric dams are causing fish great difficulty swimming upstream to spawn.

Those environmental do-gooders have been systematically feeding perceived tales of woe regarding swimming strengths of a variety of salmon and trout, and their ability to effectively mate due to the restraints of greedy human needs.

This speculation does not necessarily translate into the plight of whales, however.

The earlier mention of windmills/wind turbines has risen to the surface of another dilemma: sea mammals. You see, whales have long-been the subject of certain demise because of avid hunting by varying native tribes, as well as Japanese whalers, whose ability to find and kill these slow-moving ocean mammals, is truly amazing.

Moratoriums have been in place for decades in an earnest effort to save this close relative of man from near-certain extinction. And quite a success this effort was.

You see, whales are directly affected by wind turbines strategically placed in the oceans far away from picturesque places such as the Obama Estate, Winfrey Estate, Biden Estates, and other wealthy influencers, in order to generate our much-needed electricity.

Unfortunately, it seems as though those wind turbines are affecting the whales’ abilities to exist with the constant drone and associated noise that is amplified in the oceans. As such, it is suspected those same precious whales are committing suicide. No lie.

That is until those same environmentalists thought it absolutely brilliant to reach into time before Christ to resurrect windmills in order to meet the electricity needs of the planet.

This is as good a time as any to ask the question: Why the sudden need for more electricity on the Earth? I’m glad you asked.

As of late, cellular telephones, laptop computers, electric ranges, refrigerators, electric vehicles, dishwashers, along with an array of rechargeable appliances, have created a demand for more electricity to power and maintain our newly-developed lifestyles.

To better coerce the world’s inhabitants to comply with more electricity consumption, those same environmentalists have used sleazy behind-the-scene tactics to outlaw everything from “inefficient” light bulbs, to gas-powered vehicles, to natural gas stoves, non-electric furnaces, plus air conditioners.

Of course any sane individual reading this would imagine how inane these pressures to squeeze their dangerous agenda of ‘saving the planet’ – much as they did in an attempt to ‘save the whales ,’ - is suddenly proving chaotic, at best.

The endangered whales are being found in droves, beached upon sandy coastlines of America by what some scientists believe are an act of whale self immolation. Dying by the literal hundreds, these majestic sea mammals are now collateral damage of non-deep thinkers gone awry on the stage of the environment.

Searching for easy answers that suit their sordid, nihilistic views of humans, environmentalists are again turning their attention to it being August – the prime time of hot, unforgiving, summer months in the United States.

As is apparent, once again the brain trust of stupid ideas is oozing out of that same cadre that gave you the previous twenty-six paragraphs.

Because of the lack of intellectual curiosity available in both the Fourth and Fifth Estates, “news” stories from 2016 are being exhumed to pretend they are fresh from the vine; they are not.

May 2, 2016, was the day an article appeared in yourstory.com with the title How a Giant Space Umbrella Could Fight Global Warming.

Not to disappoint, the brief article examined how this goofy idea was gaining acceptance from the likes of the European Union, and the Royal Society to NASA. “It’s even roused the interest of the most respected authority on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” That doesn’t make me feel any better, though.

“A new study lays out the theoretical plan of tethering a giant solar shield to a captured space rock. Potentially, this contraption could protect Earth from the [sun] sic,” reads a week-old story from space.com.

As is evident, this hare-brained idea is not new, nor novel. It is like much highway debris known as road-gators. Those are the annoying pieces of retread-tires that wind up on American highways that closely resemble lurking alligators in a macadam swamp.

Understanding the concept of the Sun’s role in life on Earth is critical to devising a plan to block its powerful rays from reaching our planet. Many of the ideas floated herein are clearly disconnected from the reality of life the way environmentalism would like to see the Earth in the future.

Recall those aforementioned rechargeable phones, computers, electronic vehicles, solar roof panels, among other forced plans for future lifestyles. If that solar umbrella is, indeed, created and inserted between the sun and the Earth, how will we mere, dumb humans be able to charge and recharge our solar appliances, or allow our important food to grow?

There you have it. We’re clearly moving away from tried and true clean, efficient means of producing renewable energy. Unfortunately, too many non-deep thinkers are reinventing the wheel. And they’re all flat.

Accidental Monster

Today's story is a retread from an appropriate time - the 2016 Presidential Election.  It was as timely then as it is now.  Please enjoy it while you recognize the parallels in history.  Thanks for reading.

Part of my misspent youth was shaped watching movies on a local television show, Creature Feature. Evidently many local stations had adopted this kitschy theme of showing old, black and white movies at 11:30 on Saturday nights. I need to add that at this point in technology, there was no such thing as color TV. But I digress.

One of my earliest memories of Creature Feature was a movie called “Frankenstein.” I was likely nine-years old and very impressionable. The darkness of the night combined with the eerie glow of the television, augmented by the occasional neighbor’s dog bark, made this weekly scare-fest extra scary.

If you’ve never heard of, or seen the book “Frankenstein,” it was penned by Mary Shelly in 1818. I’ll skip over most of the details, but the gist of her book was the danger imposed by man acting as God.

Dr. Victor Frankenstein was a doctor who attempted to give life to the already dead. Doctor Frankenstein sent out his money-hungry henchmen to the local cemeteries to exhume the recently deceased and return with those cadavers for the experiment.

He took pieces of various bodies and mixed them together to form a creature known as “The Monster.” A bolt of lightning during a violent electrical storm provided the energy – since there was no such thing as electricity at the time – to give life to The Monster.

The rest of the book twisted around The Monster’s trek through the local village and how he was hated simply for his appearance. Eventually, in my humble opinion, The Monster was misjudged for no particular reason other than he was, uh, different. And different he was.

In 2016, the Republican presidential primaries were filled with a horserace style of candidates. Not unlike previous Republican contests, dotted throughout were staunch Republicans as well as RINOs, Republicans in Name Only.

And because this was a contest, all candidates were vying for THE SEAT on the podium for a chance to debate the Democratic nominee, St. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

St. Hillary was the predicted shoe-in for President, no matter who the Republican nominee was. Standing firmly behind her, just as were her sins and nefarious deeds from decades past, were the main stream media (MSM). She couldn’t possibly lose. Amen.

The Republican list of contenders included Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Scott Walker, and lastly, Donald Trump.

It seemed an appropriate time to for the MSM to begin their awkward game of cat-and-mouse. In this game, the MSM began to magically find information and photos and tax returns and romantic buddies who would be damaging to any particular candidate.

One by one, the MSM started eliminating these candidates from the race by giving Democrat “experts” and pundits the stage. Each candidate was exposed for something, albeit trivial, quickly opening the proverbial exit door to oblivion.

The MSM has a gift for sneakily turning lies into “truths,” and for making a minor faux pas resemble an Earth-shaking tragedy.

Democrats have long excelled at mining this type of yellow journalism; Republicans, not so much, as they play by a different strict set of rules to maintain a sense of decorum. That’s too bad.

Imagine fighting a hungry 15-foot shark in the ocean, armed only with a stick. Now imagine who will win. Hardly fair. But I digress, again.

Eventually, the MSM arrived at the last standing Republican candidate, Donald Trump. Mr. Trump was many things including a real estate developer, builder, real property holder, hotelier, golf course owner, entrepreneur, TV show host, and all-around capitalist.

But one thing Mr. Trump was not was a politician. He never dabbled in local, state of federal politics, which left him at a giant disadvantage. And the MSM were prepared to pounce.

As the last man standing in a political race that was supposed to be one-sided, Mr. Trump as though he was the easiest candidate to topple. He had no political experience, no insider knowledge, and no hope to overcome the garbage about to spread over his campaign and name.

MSM tripe magically surfaced about possible illegal activities, illicit affairs, unbecoming lewd behavior, while potential tax fraud began to dominate the air waves and print media.

Quiet words were leaking out of anointed intelligence organizations that Mr. Trump was under investigation claiming he was caught with a Russian sex worker with an affection for bodily fluids, while his personal attorney attempted to make restitution with nefarious figures for questionable activities. Alas there were none.

Morning newspaper headlines and television news broadcasts bled sensational stories about Mr. Trump hating the military, disrespecting Latinos, and thinking poorly about Blacks. It was time for the voters to turn their backs on this fellow without a clue about running a country. After all, he was a game show host. Ha-ha.

Mainstream media creation

Meanwhile, St. Hillary decided to take a three-month respite from campaigning to appear on Leftist TV talk shows and radio programs geared toward intellectuals. Throughout this time, Mr. Trump took advantage to fight back against all the lies and hate, and began appealing to a large portion of Americans who weren’t as elite or educated as most Democrat voters.

Polls had St. Hillary ahead by a dozen points virtually assuring her a win for the Presidency to make her the first woman to be President of the United States. And the identity politics fight began to rage.

Although always there, with a win assured, women and wanna-be women began celebrating their victory. It was undeniable. It was undeniable.

Donald Trump was lambasted by Democratic pundits and MSM-types; the attacks were relentless. Day-in and day-out the smears persisted while anything positive was trashed as lies and fabrications.

Eleven days before the 2016 election, though, a major leak squirted out of the FBI Cone of Silence relating to St. Hillary’s illegal email system use. Alas, FBI Director James Comey’s days were now numbered.

But behind the scenes, that same FBI was using questionable information from fake dossiers and contrived quality assets to create a counterintelligence case against Donald Trump. Now Director Comey appeared more like a canonized elite member himself ready to save St. Hillary.

That intrusive MSM propped Mr. Trump up because they saw him as weak and unable to win. Their “free” advertising and countless hours of exposure, although negative, allowed potential constituency to get a better view of this guy with whom the voters could more readily identify. They liked what they saw.

The average American – hard working, honest, loyal, all inclusive, charitable, non-confrontational – overwhelmingly voted for the outsider, the non-politician, Donald Trump.

The day after he was elected in 2016 angry, hateful racists began to immediately call for his impeachment and a physical disruption in the daily activities of his supporters. Rep, Maxine Waters led the charge in an embarrassing rant that continues today.

Smarmy perpetual Democratic politicians such as Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer, Gerald Nadler, Nancy Pelosi, Eric Swalwell, and the aforementioned Maxine Waters, eventually revealed the reason for impeachment: collusion by the Russian government to steal the election. Of course there was no collusion, only lies, lies and more lies from the Democrats.

Each day of vile fabrications divided a fractured nation even more, just to encourage hate and distrust among Americans. Their plan worked for a few long years until the truth about this massive deception escaped leaving President Trump virtually unscathed.

Count them: four-years of their bald-faced propaganda resulted in nothing but a severely divided nation which was compounded by an influenza pandemic.

Not unlike Mary Shelly’s story, the ugly townspeople represented by smarmy perpetual Democratic politicians wanted nothing more than to kill The Monster created by the MSM Victor Frankenstein. You see, The Monster was not like them in that he had no desire to be a career teat suckler; he only wanted to make past inequities right, then be left alone to live in freedom of the past.

But with the complicity of the MSM, his job was nearly impossible. His tenacity, drive, loyalty, conviction, and character proved unmatched by government established lawyers-turned-politicians who knew nothing about “getting the job done.”

Their specialty was slow-walking legislation or pandering for votes, usually against the will and wishes of their constituents. But they miscalculated and accidentally helped elect The Monster who, against all odds, survived.

RINOs stood by idly to watch The Monster be berated while the MSM cheered for his demise. But he was much too strong and was beholding to no one but his constituents.

One term – four-years – later he is leaving because he “lost” his bid for re-election.

And to this day, he refuses to die because he has hurt no one except those townspeople that were repulsed by his looks, his being different. Although he is gone, those vindictive townspeople are now chasing The Monster down the road out of town.

But it is not because they simply hate him, they also fear him. That fear is because The Monster is a much better person than the entire town as a whole.

This is the end of my story; I hope this is not the end of The Monster, though, as there is still much hard work to do. Time will tell.  And God Bless Donald J. Trump.