Don't Breathe

A beautiful blue sky met me as I was drinking my morning coffee on my deck. The air was beginning to nudge toward cool autumn temps almost demanding a light sweater until the bright sun coaxed me into a lighter t-shirt.

Glancing about the yard, I noticed the falling leaves gathering around fading green bushes and piles of mulch surrounding my fig trees. I knew they would soon need attention in order to convert the decaying leaves into compost to augment next years’ garden soil.

It was a routine that annually began roughly the time college football returned to the radio; those broadcasts were important because it permitted my time to be better used for time management allowing raking, mulching, pruning, wrapping, as well as catching-up on collegiate athletics, simultaneously.

Meantime, my sainted wife was indoors gathering and purging stuff we haven’t used – or even seen – for years. “Downsizing” is the appropriate term for ridding oneself of treasures.

Hours later, we met up in the garage to commiserate. While listening to her tales of woe, I was combing through her boxes of exiting goodies. There were precious hats, old kitchen spatulas and tongs, various flatware, along with a handful of cookbooks.

The next box contained VHS tapes, two cigar cutters, three ashtrays, a couple of Zippo lighters, plus a silver plated cigarette case. It was at this point my mind wandered away to days of yore – times when everything was different. Sane. Simple.

Years ago, commercial airlines permitted smoking cigarettes, cigars, and pipes on all flights. No kidding.

And smoking was also allowed in grocery stores, hospitals, malls, on buses, trains, and sidewalks. “Sidewalks,” you say?

Sidewalks. Office buildings had open cigarette smoking policies, too. That was until some whiner insisted everybody cater to them and their whims. Push back was fierce because then, just as now, tobacco products are subject to something called a “sin tax.”

Sin tax: Palm grease for politicians

Sin tax is a tax applied to anything that appeals to morally suspect, harmful, or costly to society products. Included in this list are gambling, smoking, and alcohol. Since we’re talking about cigarette smoking, this is the fork in the literary road we’ll take.

I smoked ciggies since I was in my teens. Quitting was the hardest thing I ever did in my life, and I’m old. In fact, I’m old enough to remember when the Dead Sea was just sick. Now that’s old.

Throughout the years I was able to smoke anywhere because of the sleazy relationship between the anti-smokers and the guvment. Anti-smokers hated anyone puffing on a cigarette, while the guvment loved anyone buying tobacco products.

Anti-smokers delight in making smoker’s lives miserable; they encouraged statutes to penalize smoking indoors within offices, businesses, or anywhere that was previously a sanctuary to smoke. Airports used to accommodate smokers in ‘smoking lounges,’ until the antis felt unable to use that space to conjure up new ways to ruin smoker’s lives.

Suddenly, no smoking signs were erected near offices, airports, in airplanes, and stores. Seems pretty complete, right?

Wrong.

To further exercise their newfound muscle, anti-smokers ‘allowed’ smokers to puff outdoors but in all weather – inclement conditions such as excessive heat, cold, wind, and pestilence included – but 50-feet away from the entrance doors.

It didn’t take long to realize the smokers were on the ropes in this fight. Soon thereafter, that fifty-foot range was increased to 500 feet; a sleazy ploy to make going outside to smoke an opportunity to punish smokers into taking vacation time to get their smoking fix.

You see, smoking is an addiction – not unlike the addiction associated with ‘protected’ addicts now wrestling with cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines – all of which are now guvment-approved addictions subject to special protection against discrimination.

The glee from the anti’s incremental victories to summarily punish anyone with a tobacco product in their pocket was clear. And this crusade was just the beginning.

Realizing the power of whining, in conjunction with the media, these self-anointed do-gooders turned a simple complaint into a cottage industry. Witness the climate change fictionalization.

All these efforts created a giant chasm in society. If someone disliked the words “Merry Christmas,” they could be outlawed. “Columbus Day” was equally spited, as was the definition of specific sexes.

But rather than having a sensible discussion about things, agendas, ideas, or beliefs, a knee-jerk response seemed in order to demean others not aligned with the cause du jour.

Under the smokescreen of personally-perceived pain and suffering from any- and everything, the legalization of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), aka.: marijuana, weed, reefer, Mary Jane, among others, was implemented in many states and municipalities.

Hyping the recreational and medicinal benefits of marijuana with the complicity of the media created an avenue virtually guaranteed to shoe-in the decriminalization and eventual legalization of this drug. Touting the additional bonus of adding more sin tax monies to the coffers encouraged greedy politicians to approve any pro-weed legislation.

Soon, weed shops were popping up everywhere like, uh, weeds; how appropriate. Those guvment run or regulated businesses were gleefully opened, albeit with caveats. Some of the more “fair” and “equitable” municipalities were quick to offer marijuana vendor licenses to only minorities. No discrimination there.

Of course once open, many of these guvment regulated dispensaries became targets for thieves in the form of armed robberies, and smash and grab capers, largely because drug users are unable to carry firearms to protect themselves. Can you say, “Gun-free Zone?”

The good news, though, is that a variety of these newly-created sin tax collectors were found to be unable to sell enough product to make good on their promises of additional revenue and the elimination of illicit street sales.

It seems as though once again, guvment greed forced its way to the consumers. “The multitude of approaches makes any apples-to-apples rate comparison difficult. New York and Connecticut are the first states to implement a potency-based tax per milligram of THC. But most states levy an ad valorem tax on the retail sales price of cannabis sales – ranging from 6 percent in Missouri up to 37 percent in Washington,” according to taxfoundation.org.

There’s an old saying from Milton Friedman about the guvment’s ability to handle money: If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.

Because of the dollar sign tax greed, guvment-approved cannabis operation is clearly unable to compete with illicit street corner sales making turning a profit for the dispensaries and guvment unlikely. Underground sales, on the other hand, appear to be vigorous.

But how are these drugs – legal or otherwise – being used?

I’m glad you asked.

Largely smoking them. Rolling papers, pipes, hollowed-out cigars, and hookahs are all ways folks ingest weed. More industrious pot users chemically transform their products into edibles that take the form of gummies, brownies, and cookies – all are efficient means of getting a buzz.

Remember the cigarette smoking from the first part of this essay? Countless people were treated as lepers who, overnight, became banes of society because the smoke encroached on the fresh air space of others.

Whether on the street or in an apartment building, cigarette smoking was summarily outlawed because of the health and feelings of our fellow humans.

Why is cannabis smoking seemingly exempt?

You know the answer.

Taxes. 

Bad Rash

 Throughout this world lives roughly 8,045,311,447 people, and although many of them are noble and righteous, honest and caring, this breathtaking number of inhabitants contains at least a smattering of those who are simply evil.

Witness the world-wide pandemic of COVID-19 that swept the world allegedly taking 6,956,173 lives. While that’s a huge number of deaths, that number represents a 0.0864245 death per populace number – something that is largely unreported. Yes, it is far less than 1% of the population of Earth that succumbed to COVID-19.

In case you thought the COVID scare was over, you thought wrong. It seems as though another American presidential election is on the horizon – 2024 – already with lots of speculation about even who may be running to represent two of our political parties.

Backpedaling to the 2020 presidential election, which was a contest between current President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and former President Donald J. Trump, the upcoming 2024 election proves to be anything but tame.

In preparation for this rivalry, the mainstream media (MSM) has been busy handpicking their favorite candidate (a Democrat or Communist) and an opponent in the form of a certain loser (self-absorbed Republican without a spine or foreign policy experience.)

Recall January 6^th, 2021, when Donald Trump asked his followers to peacefully protest what seemed like a contest full of questionable activities which allowed Biden to apparently win the election. That election, and months leading thereto, were laden with pandemic fears, modified voting methods, problematic videos of vote-counting locations, and mysterious ballot discoveries days after the polls closed, allowed any free-thinker to conjure up possibilities of fraud.

All this happened while the world was battling the aforementioned COVID pandemic, machinegun-style impeachment efforts of the Democrat Congress under then-president Trump, and America’s struggle to plug the numerous Southern border holes against the better wishes of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer who feel otherwise.

A series of missteps were listed in the column labeled “Lessons Learned.” And perhaps that’s the reason we are now quickly approaching the 2024 election with more of the same.

Republicans are now beginning to circle the wagons in an attempt to call endless meetings to discuss, ad nauseam, the possible actions to stop any and all shenanigans the Dems have planned.

Democrats, on the other hand, are already using the MSM to ready the weak-minded voting populace that a new strain of COVID is being found – with contrived solutions to stifle its spread just like the last carousel ride in 2020.

Federal and local District Attorneys (DA) have been using the last four months ginning up any and all possible infractions with which to charge Donald Trump in an apparently clear effort to financially, morally, and emotionally break the will of both Trump and his supporters ahead of the Republican National Committee (RNC) candidate selection.

To better ensure a more certain outcome favorable to the Left, the MSM and their Democrat Congressional and Senatorial buddies are attempting to invalidate the First Amendment, among others. George Stephanopoulos, currently a TV personality and former Democratic advisor, recently mentioned he was “shocked” at the astronomic poll numbers of Trump supporters. As such, he alluded something must be done to stop Trump in his tracks.

The non-stop indictments against Trump, along with the January 6^th participants, have been front and center in any and all news events for several years now. That’s an attempt to alter the narrative by controlling the language – a time-tested Communist Party trick.

In this instance, Democrats and their sleazy lawyers – but I repeat myself – have been manipulating their Trump indictments to fit neatly into the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, disqualifying him from running for office. An aside: Suddenly that outdated, archaic Constitution has merit for the Dems.

In short, Section 3 disqualification appears to apply to any covered person who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and thereafter...engages in insurrection or rebellion against the United States...

Hence, the reason our Democrat politicians, and Republican RINOs, have been constantly beating the proverbial drum of an “insurrection” caused by Donald Trump. See how neatly that works for the Democrats?

Still, it’s always good to have a Plan B for ‘just-in-case’ scenarios. Just-in-case Trump beats these phony charges, how will the Democrats be able to continue to hold their Executive Branch power while systematically destroying America’s economy, education system, borders, energy independence, world strength, military might, sovereignty, religious freedom, and freedom of choice in so many areas?

Return to what works best; the tried and true method of controlling people, their thoughts and actions, ability to freely travel, make personal choices for medical care and treatment, along with free and fair elections...COVID.

Indeed, another COVID scare is on the rise. People I wouldn’t trust with two-day old garbage are suddenly making headlines, warning us non-anointed of another round of impending medical chaos – a chaos whose origin seems unimportant to the powers-that-be, but whose control is very critical to society.

Like The Bible’s Lazarus of Bethany, not only is COVID itself being resurrected from the dead, but authorities who drove the proverbial bus to health off the cliff during the original COVID pandemic are, as well.

Remember the highest paid person in the United States guvment? It was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the same person who managed the HIV-AIDS crisis in the 1980’s. Being the foremost authority on infectious diseases, Fauci was tapped by then-President Trump as a logical choice to lead America through the pandemic of the century, COVID-19.

In the event you missed it, Fauci lied his way through most of the COVID craze by telling susceptible citizens that wearing N-95 masks was no way to stop the spread of COVID; a week later, he insisted the only way to stop the spread was to wear a mask. And he flip-flopped on this gospel for years thereafter.

Eventually, he lost track – as did the complicit MSM – which position was current. This is important because Fauci’s make-it-up-as-we-go-along leadership style was used to create some unique situations directly affecting COVID attending doctors and nurses, police, military personnel, supermarket clerks, chefs, prison guards, and guvment employees. If you were “ordered” to receive a COVID vaccination, you either got it or lost your job. That is pure evil. Amen.

As luck has it, “in February, a major study from the Cochrane Library found that wearing them was pointless,” per The NY Post. Continuing, “There’s still no evidence that masks are effective during a pandemic,” Tom Jefferson, the study’s lead author, said in February [2023].

Imagine the mayhem caused by medical personnel being given pink slips because of that pesky freedom of choice thingy about eliminating freedom of choice for individuals. Choice suddenly dissolved when it was applied to mandating vaccination receipt, but it remains applicable to abortion-on-demand. Wow!

By the way, many doctors and nurses, police, military personnel, supermarket clerks, chefs, prison guards, and guvment employees who exercised their choice to not received a vax were terminated from their jobs leaving a gaping hole in their fields because they were noncompliant.

But it is Dr. Fauci that just recently climbed out of his retirement burrow under the tool shed. Probably responding to the Batman-like spotlight in the sky pleading for superhero help, Fauci began anew appearing on television talk and news shows to offer his usual expert advice on how to combat the new COVID strains.

It seems as though Fauci dusted off his ol’ spiral bound notebook containing all his thoughts and plans for eradicating the ‘new and improved’ COVID virus. Speaking with his annoying gravely Noo Yoik accent, Fauci earnestly squinted while uttering “he admitted that a wide-ranging study found that face masks made no difference in the course of the pandemic,” added The NY Post.

Allow me to reiterate: Fauci earnestly squinted while uttering “he admitted that a wide-ranging study found that face masks made no difference in the course of the pandemic.”

Fauci’s solution? Mandate masks for everyone on Earth for this next go-around. Yep. Follow the science. Hmmmm, Where have we heard that before?

Remember those compliant mask-wearers in the grocery store and Walmart? They proudly shoved their carts up one aisle and down the other with a mask in their shirt pocket, or dangling off one ear, or wearing it well beneath their noses? All useless. But apparently compliant according to the COVID cops.

In an effort to further spread the good ideas, pharmaceutical companies are already ardently working on creating a viable vaccine plus boosters that will, once again, drive a firm wedge between Americans who feel superior to their less-compliant, more disobedient counterparts.

Politicians-aplenty seized the first COVID battle to their advantage by insisting people vote by mail rather than in-person. This sleazy measure opened the door to voter fraud and other questionable activities that are still being debated. Hey, let’s try that again in 2024!

This is nothing more annoying than discovering your once-cured bad rash has returned to cause nettlesome discomfort by playing along to get along. It’s high time to say, “STOP IT!” and let people decide for themselves.

Lastly, vote in-person in order to end the shenanigans, and if people want to wear a mask, wear one. If you feel you should receive a vaccination, get one. Just leave me and others who fail to share your thoughts, alone.

Perhaps the two new COVID strains should be called Bad Rash-1, and How About a Punch in the Head-23.

Ne’er-Do-Wells

 
Those who engage in games involving cards will be familiar with the word “ante.” Ante means adding money – akin to an admission fee – to the prize pot as a means of ensuring all players have a stake in the game. This applies to those who “fold” or quit before the end of the hand.

Unfortunately, in football, baseball, soccer, tennis, bicycle racing, NASCAR, even pickleball, the players have no obligation to ‘give it their all’ when participating in their respective activities.

Keep in mind I am not a card player to any extent and would much prefer a sharp stick in my eye than play poker. That being said, those professional or amateur gamblers should be delighted their activities are more equitable than most because of the ante before each hand.

My past few weeks have largely been spent indoors because of the oppressive heat and humidity; during a local forecast, a weather babe said the temperature was 98º Fahrenheit with 94% relative humidity resulting in a heat index making the air feel like 187º Fahrenheit; that’s 3,087º Celsius, I think.

In any case, those indoor days were spent by reading the news during which I discovered there is an epidemic of monumental proportions of juvenile delinquents on the loose committing crime after crime after crime. These crimes consist of armed car jacking, robbery, assault, car theft, evading and eluding, drug possession, narcotics sales, and home invading – all of which I consider violent and dangerous.

Too often, these news stories only cover the heinous crimes themselves, not the follow-up trial results and possible sentencing. And because these crimes are committed by juveniles they are often dropped, reduced, or prosecuted in juvenile court in which convictions are only good until the young criminal’s 21^st birthday.

At that time, these miscreants are turned loose upon society after spending time – usually years – incarcerated with other youthful offenders where they all share stories and techniques ready to be tried on the streets once released.

But watching television shows such as On Patrol: Live, COPS, First 48, and a variety of other crime-related programs, my sainted wife and I are often exposed to gritty, sensational examples of the horrible mistreatment of the frequently helpless in our communities.

As an example, Hyundai's and Kia’s are stolen at an alarming rate because of a reported flaw that enables the less-honest in the world to easily steal these vehicles; instructions were conveniently displayed on the internet. Once stolen, those cars and SUVs are misused to commit other crimes, or exploited by the youthful thieves as a life-size video game of bumper cars.

Police invariably chase these reprobates until they crash into houses, other vehicles, or into trees. Immediately thereafter, a foot chase begins with copious precious resources being expended on tracking and retrieval and apprehension.

Drugs, guns, drugs, stolen items, and more guns are normally found in or near the vehicle-in-question as well as the wrongdoers. One can only imagine why all this contraband winds up in the vehicles; I’m pretty certain, though, that they were not enroute to the police department to turn them in.

Still, the stolen cars, damaged buildings, destroyed mailboxes, parked cars, other travelers, and innocent citizens are regularly subjected to extensive damage or injury. The answer to who is ultimately responsible for the financial damage caused by their mayhem is the same: Insurance companies.

But who pays the ultimate price? The people who own the affected businesses, stolen cars, damaged homes, torn-up yards, crashed parked vehicles, and the physically injured people. All these victims are suddenly forced to pay exponentially more for insurance because of the exuberant young delinquents.

Many years ago, if a youthful offender was brought to court for a crime they committed, the were usually mandated to make restitution to the victims of their follies. For instance, if you stole a car and ultimately crashed or damaged it, the judge made the kid pay for it until the debt was complete. If the kid was too young, the parents were forced to repay any and all damages. That’s equity.

However, along the way, liberal do-gooders constrained the courts of have mercy on the parents – some of whom fully knew of their progenies’ ill intents. Suddenly, the crime became the burden of the victim on whom the onus to “make whole” was squarely placed upon the unfortunate affected party. In other words, since I have no ability to correct your child I should have no responsibility for your brat.

Need proof? Ten years ago Saint Hillary Clinton published a book, “It Takes a Village.” That brilliant literary work was a knock-off of an age old African village slogan about how the entire village is responsible for the upbringing and responsibility of the actions of their children. Awfully convenient timing, I’d say.

Television has become a terrific medium because the freshly arrested teens and tweens and those old enough to know better are exposed as to how they behave and act once apprehended. Smiles, smirks, wide grins, hand gestures, along with unrepentant language absent of sorrow, are excellent reasons to take into consideration any penalties during sentencing.

I propose all the burden – financial and otherwise – ought to return to the criminals themselves plus their parents who created these absolute burdens to society. No ifs, ands, or buts.

My insurance is high enough, my vehicles cost me too much, and my life and that of my sainted wife are too precious to be lost on arrogant deadbeats and scofflaws and ne’er-do-wells. Make them pay and pay dearly.

And just as when you place your ante for a rightful place at a poker game, you immediately – upon birth – have a tacit stake in the game of life by giving birth and subsequently raising that child to be good or evil. The choice is entirely up to the parents, not me.

That’s what we need to end the carnage.

The Devil’s Tools

 A sanctuary, as defined by Oxford Languages is as follows:

sanc·tu·ar·y

/ˈsaNGk(t)SHəˌwerē/

noun a place of refuge or safety. "his sons took sanctuary in the church"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you’ve probably already guessed, today’s story begins with the self-righteous, anointed, better-than-thou, ivory tower-types, who so willingly thought it a splendid idea to turn humanitarianism into a political battle, only to now claim if you are against refuge you are now obligated to receive a “bigot” tattoo.

Much like the Hula Hoop and Flower Power in the 1960’s, global freezing, World Peace and Save the Whales in the 1970’s, global warming and MTV of the 1980’s crazes, sanctuary cities and eventually sanctuary states became the latest rage just ahead of TY Beanie Babies and Pokemon cards in the 2000’s.

In a concerted effort to push the buttons of the Conservatives during President Trump’s administration, Democrats searched high and low for controversial ways to antagonize non-Lefties; one way was to open America’s doors to anyone with a pulse.

The simplest way to achieve a quick influx was to file endless lawsuits against Trump’s border policy which was working fairly well considering Barack Obama’s ultra-liberal migration debacle allowing tens-of-thousands of immigrants unfettered access to our country.

President Trump attempted to close the border in an effort to exercise a semblance of order on the Southern border to prevent criminals, deadbeats, and other miscreants from entering the United States to cause possible irreversible damage, much as the bulk of immigrants caused in their homelands.

Business as usual for the illegal crowd

The Democrat-controlled Congress – led by Saint Nancy Pelosi, Our Lady of Perpetual Grievances – attempted to trip up President Trump from building the entire Southern border wall, effecting legal change to Obama’s open-door Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, and unaccompanied minors argument, and did so with aplomb.

While the Dem’s border shenanigans are dragging our nation slowly toward a border-less nation, the ultra-smart politicians in many Blue States hold dear the idea of creating more and more sanctuary cities. In 2017, 171 local jurisdictions became official sanctuary cities protecting illegal immigrants and refugees from being subject to American laws, according to Doppler Legal News.

Although this seemingly generous effort to protect escapees from their Mother Countries, the United States has become a bucket catching unwanted reprobates from Third World Nations, without recourse.

Granted all refugees are not law-breakers, but many are. And coupled with the rise of Leftist District Attorneys who have mangled our well-working legal system, those geared to not following the law are merely finding life in America a bonus.

Committing one crime after another with virtual impunity only encourages more of the same.

With an amazing coup that overthrew Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential Election, the Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. administration virtually erased our nation’s four-years of hard work to gain control over the SNAFU created by Dear Leader Obama.

In the 2 ½ years since Biden’s election, more than 7,000,000+ undocumented aliens illegally crossed the Southern border, and are now exempt from following laws here.

Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, proved himself absolutely incompetent by allowing tens of thousands of illegal aliens to cross the border, all the while claiming “The border is closed.”

It wasn’t and isn’t.

But there is good news. All those sanctuary cities and states are currently pretty flush with their much-desired army of mostly under educated, non-English speaking, gimme-your-resources, freeloaders, who now demand more free stuff from their mentors.

Trash left behind for Americans to clean up

Smug faces of super-smart politicians that once adorned television news programs are now turning into pleas for help. It seems as though Biden’s welcome to anyone wanting to change their residences to the United States is now subject to a new scrutiny.

Schools, churches, former shopping centers, abandoned motels, and empty hotels, are suddenly being used to house and maintain the 7,000,000+ aforementioned law breakers, at a premium price, of course.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams is pleading and demanding help from President Biden. And why not? It was Biden’s policy and tongue that invited these largely Spanish invaders into our home – the United States. And wearing a blank stare Biden regularly ekes out a grin when mentioning the bonus these refugees bring to our shores.

So how much are these newcomers contributing to our society? It seems as though because they are undocumented, they DO NOT have paperwork – in the form of Social Security Numbers and Tax ID Numbers – needed to gain legal employment. As such, they loaf around the streets and parks and sidewalks of America awaiting their next free meal and free debit card.

These idlers are now proving the Book of Proverbs 16:27, that mentions “idle hands are the tools of the devil.” This means that people without work or meaningful activities will invariably find mischief. And proof is hidden in the news.

Young illegal immigrants are regularly caught burglarizing, stealing cars and motorbikes, and are often found participating in fights as well as drunken displays on city streets, in parks, plus playgrounds.

As was mentioned earlier, most of these aliens are not vetted for anything including criminal pasts, child molestation, or even rape and murder. Their new homes in or near schools seems troubling since no on can be sure if these new inhabitants can be trusted.

Further, since these folks crossed the border largely without paperwork, no one can prove – or disprove – the receipts of vaccinations for small pox, measles, polio, COVID, tuberculosis, or any other communicable diseases often found in less sanitary conditions – those from whence these invaders originated.

The bottom line: We, as a nation, are destroying our home by allowing in people who have no stake in our beautiful, sovereign land. The Left is attempting to mangle the language in order to placate these foreign occupiers – something that must be stopped lest we become servants to these South-of-the-border con artists who have shoehorned themselves into perpetuity of care.

MAFA: Make America First Again.

Save Your Energy

 
My sainted wife and I regularly watch police-oriented reality shows. I won’t go through the list because it is extensive, but we enjoy a select few that prove to be both entertaining and informative, the reasons we tune-in.

Invariably, during an apprehension, a crowd of non-involved civilians in the form of nosy neighbors and friends and family gather to collect video evidence for later legal actions.

Desperately trying to “help” the ‘victim’ of the police action at-hand, these voyeurs-with-cell phones look like mindless examples of extortion. Of course, if an arrest goes awry, it’s conveniently memorialized for the upcoming court trial and/or guaranteed settlement.

Switching gears to other public activities, protests, lootings, riots, car wrecks, picket lines, fires, inclement weather, and simple family outings and gatherings, are all moments saved and ready for sharing when attempting to provide future entertainment or simply acquire “likes” on all-important social media.

Attending sporting events is amazing to me inasmuch as row upon row of spectators swing their cellphones around in an effort to capture a ball player engaging a fastball, or a diving catch being made by a wide receiver who appears to float across the goal line for a touchdown.

But it’s the avid fans who spend tons of money to attend music concerts that truly amaze me, and where today’s adventure begins.

As previously mentioned, cellphones have become the king of media, summarily replacing video cameras – camcorders – as means of permanently securing memories.

Remember those office retirements, or post-office-game parties, or even end-of-life celebrations, where dusty slides, photos, and scripted stories were offered to recall special times about the honorees? Now we’re regularly exposed to cellphone recaps of any- and everything.

Concert-goers seem to be the most enamored by recording each second of every day, just in case…

Spending seemingly countless dollars on tickets to hear their favorite song performed by their favorite band or artist quickly morphs into a sea of cellphones recording that rare, special concert for, uh, what?

I’ve seen cellphone videos of Uncle Bob water skiing, Aunt Barbara taking a spill from a motor scooter, and neighbor Tom falling off his ladder while installing new windows in his house; most of those videos are simply horrible.

Selfie with a grin - maybe

A cross between not being close enough to recognize the subject, or the videographer shaking to the point of mimicking an 8.8 magnitude earthquake, only detracts from the intended gist of making these recordings in the first place.

While the videographer poses with their phone during the video playback – wearing a stupid, self-congratulating grin – the viewer is left wondering “why” did you bother?

Instead of watching the concert, or enjoying the game, or help rescuing the fire victims in the video, too often do these captured moments demonstrate an extraordinary waste of time and effort.

As an aside, I have a neighbor who is very nice. Unfortunately, I am unable to identify her because after four years of living in close proximity to me my sainted wife, I have yet to see her face due to her incessant cellphone use.

Rescue the dog on the highway, help the victim trapped in a car crash, find and use a hose to extinguish that brush fire – rather than videoing disasters to stroke your own egos.

To sum this up, I beseech everyone with a hankering to whip out their all-important cellphones – ALWAYS – to restrain themselves and perhaps inject their efforts into being part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

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 a 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.

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.