Kids Say The Darndest Things...
When the Baby Boomer generation got into its teens, a lot of stuff was either happening or about to happen.
Rock and roll had taken the world by storm; there was just no way to stop it anymore. Cars were becoming more a part of the teen scene, even if it was just the newly-minted driver borrowing the family wheels for a Friday night date. And television was replacing radio as the entertainment medium of choice, at least in the realm of the dramatic arts. Except for variety shows hosted by people like Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan, music was still more a radio thing--especially if Dad's car had a radio built in!
We were finished in Korea, but Vietnam would be in full swing by the mid-60's. Freedom Rides, bus boycotts, and lunch counter sit-ins were highlighting uncomfortable questions about the civil rights of people of color. And the threat of nuclear war loomed just at the edge of everyone's thoughts. The USSR's first Sputnik was launched into Earth orbit, soon to be followed by American satellites, with President Kennedy pledging to actually send a human to land on the moon.
Scientists were discovering new things all the time, and many older folks were feeling overwhelmed by it all. But just as it is today, so it was then: the kids jumped in with both feet. Young people are quite adaptable, and they took to all the changes around them like ducks to water. Which might have been okay, except that the young people also had more money, independence, and knowledge than their parents, raised during the austerity of the Great Depression, could ever have dreamed of.
Also, these teens had questions.
Like: Why are we fighting far-away people who have never hurt us? Or: If God created the world and everything in it, where does evolution fit in? Or even: Why shouldn't black people be allowed to eat in the same restaurants or use the same bathrooms as white people?
Parents--even churchgoing parents--had no answers to these questions, or at least none that could be intelligently discussed. The same old boilerplate statements, such as the one for evolution ("Evolution is a lie of the devil") weren't going to cut it anymore; it was rather the same as when a kid asks "Why?" and is told "Because I said so." The older the kid gets, the less satisfactory that answer becomes. The older kid needs more explanation.
But this new world was too big for most parents, and they weren't equipped to move around in it as easily as the younger generation was doing. And because of the automobile, the teens weren't always under the supervision of the adults anymore. And when the kids got to college...
You Say You Want A Revolution?
As I have pointed out before, college is a much larger world than the one most kids grow up in. You are exposed to more opinions, facts, people groups, and societal mores than you've ever seen before. Suddenly you're reading Marx's Das Kapital and considering its pros and cons, or debating the merits of laissez-faire capitalism (of which Ayn Rand would approve). You're learning that you don't need to conform to traditional gender roles. You're learning uncomfortable things about the way our government works, which looks very much like a bunch of old men deciding that young men have to go fight somewhere else to defend our freedom here (yeah, doesn't make sense to me either). There are all kinds of new forms of art and music. And check it out--here are some folks who aren't even Christians, and they seem like kind, friendly people! Faced with all this, it's no wonder many of the collegiates of that era began to think it was time for a change.
And once you mixed in a little botany and chemistry, why, then you had the perfect recipe for revolution...or at least the kids thought so....
Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out...
About the mid-60's, LSD began gaining steam as an experimental drug among younger members of American society. Along with marijuana (which had been illegal since 1937), pills such as amphetamines and barbiturates, cocaine, and heroin, it made for quite a colorful--or should I say psychedelic?--medicine cabinet.
If you believe the media on this subject, drug use exploded during the last half of the 60's, but many of the drugs mentioned either had legal uses or had been criminalized under false pretenses. Marijuana, for example, was demonized not because of its true effects, but because it was used mainly by Mexican immigrants of the early 1900's. Use of pot spread to jazz musicians and aficionados, and because white kids and women liked jazz, the ugly rumor was started (and eagerly spread by the Hearst newspaper chain) that marijuana caused kids to go crazy (Reefer Madness did a lot to legitimize that lie), caused white women to desire dark-skinned men, or dark men to rape white women...or, worse yet (?!?), made "darkies" think they were as good as white men! The Marihuana Tax Act of '37 was the noxious weed that grew out of this bullshit pile of rumor.
But I digress. Give me a few deep breaths to lower my BP...
Anyhoo...
Because of the questions their elders either could not or would not answer for them, and because they were learning that the things they had been taught could not always be trusted, many of the college-age kids decided to find a new way of life on their own. They were helped along by such "fly-high" teachers as Timothy Leary (who first spoke the "turn on, tune in, drop out" catchphrase at San Francisco's Human Be-In, held in 1967 in Golden Gate Park), Ken Kesey, and Hunter S. Thompson; musical groups such as Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, and the Grateful Dead; and alternative religionists such as Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, both of whom founded American spin-offs of Hinduism (the Hare Krishna movement and Transcendental Meditation, respectively) which are still operating today.
There were any number of expressions of this "new rebellion"--communes, nomadism, protests (nuclear war was, quite rightly, seen as insane by people of all ages, and Vietnam was unpopular even before the Pentagon Papers were leaked), and music festivals (Woodstock wasn't the only one--it just got more media attention). The young people, along with some older folks who were also sick and tired of the status quo, wanted change. But what kind of change? Should it all be burned to the ground to make way for something new? Should small changes be introduced into the existing system, making way for larger changes later? Should people just abandon the cities (symbolic of the ugly, polluted, corrupt status quo) and go back to living off the land? No one really agreed, even within supposedly like-minded groups, and a lot of those groups failed to have any impact at all and eventually fell apart.
Meanwhile, Back In the Studio...
The counterculture spawned an incredibly diverse array of musical forms. The Doors, the Airplane and the Dead were the vanguard of the "psychedelic" movement. My best description of this music is that they already recorded the drug trip in their songs, so all you have to do is listen and ride along!
Folk music was already a staple of the hippie movement, but Bob Dylan, the Mamas and the Papas, and Peter, Paul and Mary offered a pot-laced twist to the mix.
Heavy metal, with its pounding guitar riffs and wailing vocals, had its roots in some of the "bad-boy" blues of the 30's; bands like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, the Jeff Beck Group, and later lights such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath, embodied both the sound and the lyrical double entendres of those early (alas, often uncredited) blues pioneers.
Then there was art rock, also known as progressive rock, with such groups as the Moody Blues, Yes, the Nice (whose keyboardist eventually became one-third of Emerson, Lake and Palmer), and King Crimson (ditto for their vocalist). These groups were strongly influenced by classical music, and the resulting sound was more ornate. There was a lot of chemical influence as well, but again, they already took the trip so you don't have to!
Call Out the National Guard!
Needless to say, all this experimentation--societal, chemical, and musical--alarmed the people in power. The FBI gathered data on various groups, most of whom were not worth the time or the money; the police began cracking down on the "freaks," who, in turn, returned insult for insult by referring to the cops as "fuzz" and "pigs"; and the Church? Well, some of them got their own weird ideas...
More on that later.
(Note: I am indebted to Amy Hart's paper, "Religious Communities in 1960s America," for much of the "Anyhoo..." segment in this post. Find the complete paper here:
https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&context=forum
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Saturday, January 4, 2020
Something Stupid!
Saturday Morning...
Here I am, writing in my blog when I ought to be at work.
So, why is that? Did I get fired? Am I sick? Am I playing hooky?
Nope. None of the above.
The reason I'm at home on my computer, sipping a hazelnut latte and writing in this blog, is because somebody did something stupid.
Breaking News!
We've had some new construction going on nearby for a few months now. They've got the building mostly up, the parking lot asphalted, the enclosure for the Dumpster built...and this week, they started laying some underground power lines. This morning, they'd gotten to right in front of our building when one or more of the diggers hit a gas line. Not a minor one, either--one of the biggies. The fire department showed up, inspected, and finally told us to clear out. Which we did. According to the firemen, somebody's going to have to come from the city to make the repair, after which we have to wait for the gas in the air to dissipate. They'll notify us when it's safe to come back.
Now, I've had minor gas leaks in my home before, primarily due to changes the gas company has made from time to time--such as replacing a gas main or installing a higher-pressure meter. I am quite familiar with the smell of mercaptan. But the little whiffs I've encountered were nothing compared to the miasma I walked through as I left the store at my fastest walking speed. It's not a good atmosphere for lighting a cigarette, I can tell you.
Aren't Builders Supposed To Call First?
Here's the thing. When a project like this is going on, all the utility companies are supposed to be notified ahead of time, so they can mark where all their lines are and how deeply they're buried. I never saw any of those bright paint arrows on the ground, at least not where they dug this morning. No marker flags, either. So somebody screwed up, and badly.
Meanwhile, our store loses business, and the workers lose wages. All because somebody didn't call before they dug.
Oh, well...
I don't get paid for this mini-vacation. I'll be behind on all my tasks when I get back today (provided there are no complications that prevent us from returning).
But oh, well...at least I had a great story to tell on my blog. Happy 2020. everybody!
Here I am, writing in my blog when I ought to be at work.
So, why is that? Did I get fired? Am I sick? Am I playing hooky?
Nope. None of the above.
The reason I'm at home on my computer, sipping a hazelnut latte and writing in this blog, is because somebody did something stupid.
Breaking News!
We've had some new construction going on nearby for a few months now. They've got the building mostly up, the parking lot asphalted, the enclosure for the Dumpster built...and this week, they started laying some underground power lines. This morning, they'd gotten to right in front of our building when one or more of the diggers hit a gas line. Not a minor one, either--one of the biggies. The fire department showed up, inspected, and finally told us to clear out. Which we did. According to the firemen, somebody's going to have to come from the city to make the repair, after which we have to wait for the gas in the air to dissipate. They'll notify us when it's safe to come back.
Now, I've had minor gas leaks in my home before, primarily due to changes the gas company has made from time to time--such as replacing a gas main or installing a higher-pressure meter. I am quite familiar with the smell of mercaptan. But the little whiffs I've encountered were nothing compared to the miasma I walked through as I left the store at my fastest walking speed. It's not a good atmosphere for lighting a cigarette, I can tell you.
Aren't Builders Supposed To Call First?
Here's the thing. When a project like this is going on, all the utility companies are supposed to be notified ahead of time, so they can mark where all their lines are and how deeply they're buried. I never saw any of those bright paint arrows on the ground, at least not where they dug this morning. No marker flags, either. So somebody screwed up, and badly.
Meanwhile, our store loses business, and the workers lose wages. All because somebody didn't call before they dug.
Oh, well...
I don't get paid for this mini-vacation. I'll be behind on all my tasks when I get back today (provided there are no complications that prevent us from returning).
But oh, well...at least I had a great story to tell on my blog. Happy 2020. everybody!
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Parental Guidance Requested!
From a fellow worm, IRL:
"I'm a manager at the local movie multiplex. Someone came to me to complain about some kids who were disturbing others during a movie. I went to see what was happening, and sure enough, several tweeners were being loud, throwing popcorn, running around...you know, the usual stuff you see from kids off the leash. So I rounded them up, refunded their ticket money, and told them to leave the building (it was nice out, so no problem).
"Their mom drove up and found them sitting on the curb, and they told her I had made them leave. She marched in and asked me why, and when I told her, she got really mad at me and told me that her kids would never do anything like that. And even after I explained that I had seen her children's bad behavior, she continued to defend them."
Dude, I feel ya.
I've worked retail for years, and it astonishes me how kids have become--well, not more wild, but less supervised--in stores, museums, and other public places. And now that we are well into the Christmas season, with entire families out shopping, we clerks are up to our ears in childish misbehavior...and the grownups are often just as bad!
But before I get any parents yelling at me about how I "hate their children," allow me to clarify. I don't hate kids. I do get upset at kids who misbehave in public, because as a child I was taught that in a public place--and this included any homes our family would visit--you were supposed to behave like a young lady or gentleman. I was expected to obey and respect all adults, not just Mom and Dad, and if I didn't, I'd get in trouble. (Yes, we knew not to obey an adult if we were told to do something wrong. We also knew to report such adults to our parents. It was the 70's, not the Dark Ages.)
But since some folks nowadays don't seem to have a very good grasp of how either they or their kids ought to behave in public, here are some of the lessons I was taught. Use them if you find them useful, pass them on if you think others could use them, and do feel free to get mad if you think I'm being "too mean" or "shaming" your kids. Just remember, if you don't teach them proper public behavior now, they will grow up to be very unpleasant adults. And society at large will not be so lenient then.
Remember, too, that children learn much of their behavior from watching you. So be sure you're following the rules, too.
1) No Food!
Don't let your kids bring food or drink--not even candy--into any store, even if there isn't a sign forbidding it. I have seen preschool-age kids carrying drinks and food containers that are way too big for those little hands, and you can guess the result. Most parents will notice their child spilling bits of food or drink and simply go on without informing store employees of the mess...and if the floater has just made his rounds through that area, other customers will have walked through and spread the mess around by the time he makes another pass. That's just plain rude.
It's far better to just finish your food before you enter the store. That way, there are no spills and no messy hand prints on doors, shelves, or merchandise.
There are three exceptions to this rule:
- Kids do get thirsty, so water in a kid-sized cup is okay. That can spill, too, but it's far easier to clean up than soda or ice cream.
- Infant formula is not only an exception, it's a necessity.
- Food for a special-needs kid, like the fruit or candy a diabetic would need to balance his blood sugar at set times of the day, is also necessary.
Notice that in all these cases, the parent should be in control of the food or water, not the child.
One more thing. When you go to a restaurant and bring in a fast-food kid's meal for the fussy son who doesn't like anything else, expect to hear from the server. Not only is this behavior rude, it may be in violation of the restaurant's set policy. (Note: if you call ahead and ask, most places don't object to a birthday cake.)
If your kids are that fussy, try doing what my old college friends used to call "Build A Meal." We would visit several restaurants and get "to go" orders of our favorite foods--burgers at one place, Thai food from another, etc--and then take them all back to our apartment or dorm and share them like a buffet. On nice days we would go to a park. It was a neat way to get the best of everything.
2) Keep Your Children With You.
If I've seen it once, I've seen it a dozen times this month: I'm on my way somewhere, and I see a school-aged kid in, say, our gift section, handling something breakable. "Where's your mom?" I ask, and the answer is "With my dad looking at tools"--said section being halfway across the store.
Parents, please don't allow your kids to wander around a store while you're shopping for a particular item. It's a place of business, not a magical land of exploration. Not only can your children get lost, they can also break things or get hurt messing around with things like nails, garden shears, and poisons like drain cleaner and mouse bait (leaks and holes happen, even if the inventory was thoroughly checked before it went out on the shelf).
And don't send your kids to the toy section "to play" while you shop; the toys in that section are intended to stay packaged until they are bought and taken home. It's frustrating to have a parent bring us a packaged toy with the package torn open, complaining that he doesn't want to buy this one because it's obviously been used!
Which reminds me: never, never, never give a toddler a toy "just to occupy him" as you're pushing him around in the cart. Two reasons: first, if he gets it grubby from handling and soggy from chewing, it's no longer a new toy, is it? I mean, if someone else's kid had done that, and his parents put that toy back, and then you came along...honestly, would you buy that toy for your little one? I thought not. So please don't do that to anyone else. And second...to a little kid, possession is ten-tenths of the law where toys are concerned. When you get done with your shopping, you will probably have a fight on your hands with kiddo screaming "MIIIINNE!!!" So if you aren't intending to buy him a toy this time, don't take the chance.
Please be aware that although we expect you to keep your kids in line, we will intervene if we see your child doing any of the following:
- Climbing any sort of shelving or display (most of them aren't designed to hold human weight)
- Handling anything dangerous or breakable ("looking" is done with eyes, not hands)
- Running up and down aisles (if she runs into an elderly person, guess who gets hurt worse in a fall?)
- Entering any area not intended for customers (including warehouses, equipment sheds, workshops, and back offices--our insurance doesn't cover customers or their offspring back there!)
If you are in sight, we will tell you that this behavior is inappropriate; but if not...please don't get mad at us for "ordering your kids around." Trust me, if I'm warning your kid not to do something, there is a good reason, whether you understand it or not.
3) Use Carts Properly.
There is only one safe spot for a child to sit in a shopping cart: the fold-out seat designed for that purpose. Hanging on the outside of the cart, lying on the shelf underneath, or sitting in the body of the cart are all unsafe methods of transporting your child around a store. I have seen carts that were more full of kids than of merchandise...and suppose the merch gets dirty, torn or broken as the kids climb and squirm around?
Then there's the other thing I once saw. A kid was hanging off the side of a cart; his little brother was sitting in the seat of the cart. Big Brother's weight tipped the cart over, and cart and Little Brother landed on the kid. Fortunately nobody got more than bruised, but as a store, we would have been liable if there had been serious injuries. So be safe, and be smart: if kiddo's too big for the seat, he needs to walk at your side (see Rule 2).
4) Teach Your Kids "Politeness Words."
And be sure to use them yourself.
Shopping can be a stressful time, and I know everyone's in a hurry; but don't forget to be polite and kind while you're out and about. Teaching your kids to say "please," "thank you," and "excuse me," when appropriate and without prompting, goes a long way toward making everyone's experience nicer. As an added bonus, your children will discover that politeness toward others will make their path smoother as they go on through life. It won't solve everything (let's face it, there are some incorrigible assholes out there), but a polite person is generally welcome everywhere.
5) Potty Time?
If kiddo's doing the "potty rumba" in the store, don't just send him to the restroom--go with him and at least wait outside. If you know he's not able to manage in any way--clothes, getting up or down from the toilet (or aiming, if it's "number one"), using toilet paper properly, flushing, or hand washing--then you need to be in the room with him. (If there isn't a family/unisex restroom, it is perfectly okay to to take your opposite-gender child into "your" restroom.)
Older kids should understand that "skipping steps" in the restroom--like not flushing or failing to wash their hands--is not only rude, but also unsanitary. Washing hands is particularly important; there are a frightening number of diseases that can be transmitted by dirty hands, like viral meningitis, Hepatitis B, staph, e. coli, and listeria. Your kid might think he didn't get any poop on his hands while he was wiping up, but it's probably there. Don't take the chance.
Oh, and about flushing: I had a relative who was on a trip with his family. They made a potty pit stop at a state rest area, and he sent his youngest daughter in on her own. The toilet flushed, and the kid started shrieking. When Dad went in, the little one was scared out of her wits--turns out, the toilet was one of the new ones that flush themselves! The girl had never encountered such a thing before, and it scared her so bad that for years afterward, whenever the family was in a strange place, kiddo would insist that Daddy check out the toilet to make sure it wasn't "a scary one."
Funny story, sure...but it's one more reason to go in the restroom with your child. And BTW, if the toilet has a handle on it, it's meant to be manually flushed!
6) If Your Child Breaks Something, Offer To Pay.
Every parent has experienced this: you turn your back for five seconds, and smash, your child knocks something over and breaks it. Or tears a book page. Or grabs a forbidden candy bar off the shelf and gets one end open and a bite taken. Whatever the case, please don't grab your child and run. Own the mistake and offer to pay for it, whatever it may be.
It's true that there isn't a real "Pottery Barn Rule"...at least not at Pottery Barn, or any of the big box stores. But small mom-and-pop businesses are at a disadvantage when customers are negligent about how they treat merchandise. Every item lost through damage or breakage is a financial loss, and over time it can affect a store's ability to keep its doors open.
Okay, I heard that: "It was just a lousy paperback book (or knick-knack, or lollipop)! It's no big deal!"
Sure. Just one item. But imagine a hundred people with that attitude, per year let's say, and multiply that times the cost of that paperback. Even a cheap one goes for $7.99. 100 x $7.99 is...$799.00. That's not chump change anymore. To this loss you can add the extra time an employee must take to mark the damaged book out of inventory, plus the cost of a new book. Times our hypothetical 100. Given the misbehavior I see on a daily basis, that hypothetical number is probably larger in real life!
Oh, and eating food in a store without paying for it is called theft. The sooner your child learns this, the better.
Okay, I heard that, too: "Well, aren't they insured?"
Depends on the store. But even if they are...you know what happens if you have to file an insurance claim--c'mon, all together: the premiums go up! The higher the premiums, the less likely a small business can afford them, and therefore, the less able said business is to just blow off the loss of an item.
"I'm a manager at the local movie multiplex. Someone came to me to complain about some kids who were disturbing others during a movie. I went to see what was happening, and sure enough, several tweeners were being loud, throwing popcorn, running around...you know, the usual stuff you see from kids off the leash. So I rounded them up, refunded their ticket money, and told them to leave the building (it was nice out, so no problem).
"Their mom drove up and found them sitting on the curb, and they told her I had made them leave. She marched in and asked me why, and when I told her, she got really mad at me and told me that her kids would never do anything like that. And even after I explained that I had seen her children's bad behavior, she continued to defend them."
Dude, I feel ya.
I've worked retail for years, and it astonishes me how kids have become--well, not more wild, but less supervised--in stores, museums, and other public places. And now that we are well into the Christmas season, with entire families out shopping, we clerks are up to our ears in childish misbehavior...and the grownups are often just as bad!
But before I get any parents yelling at me about how I "hate their children," allow me to clarify. I don't hate kids. I do get upset at kids who misbehave in public, because as a child I was taught that in a public place--and this included any homes our family would visit--you were supposed to behave like a young lady or gentleman. I was expected to obey and respect all adults, not just Mom and Dad, and if I didn't, I'd get in trouble. (Yes, we knew not to obey an adult if we were told to do something wrong. We also knew to report such adults to our parents. It was the 70's, not the Dark Ages.)
But since some folks nowadays don't seem to have a very good grasp of how either they or their kids ought to behave in public, here are some of the lessons I was taught. Use them if you find them useful, pass them on if you think others could use them, and do feel free to get mad if you think I'm being "too mean" or "shaming" your kids. Just remember, if you don't teach them proper public behavior now, they will grow up to be very unpleasant adults. And society at large will not be so lenient then.
Remember, too, that children learn much of their behavior from watching you. So be sure you're following the rules, too.
1) No Food!
Don't let your kids bring food or drink--not even candy--into any store, even if there isn't a sign forbidding it. I have seen preschool-age kids carrying drinks and food containers that are way too big for those little hands, and you can guess the result. Most parents will notice their child spilling bits of food or drink and simply go on without informing store employees of the mess...and if the floater has just made his rounds through that area, other customers will have walked through and spread the mess around by the time he makes another pass. That's just plain rude.
It's far better to just finish your food before you enter the store. That way, there are no spills and no messy hand prints on doors, shelves, or merchandise.
There are three exceptions to this rule:
- Kids do get thirsty, so water in a kid-sized cup is okay. That can spill, too, but it's far easier to clean up than soda or ice cream.
- Infant formula is not only an exception, it's a necessity.
- Food for a special-needs kid, like the fruit or candy a diabetic would need to balance his blood sugar at set times of the day, is also necessary.
Notice that in all these cases, the parent should be in control of the food or water, not the child.
One more thing. When you go to a restaurant and bring in a fast-food kid's meal for the fussy son who doesn't like anything else, expect to hear from the server. Not only is this behavior rude, it may be in violation of the restaurant's set policy. (Note: if you call ahead and ask, most places don't object to a birthday cake.)
If your kids are that fussy, try doing what my old college friends used to call "Build A Meal." We would visit several restaurants and get "to go" orders of our favorite foods--burgers at one place, Thai food from another, etc--and then take them all back to our apartment or dorm and share them like a buffet. On nice days we would go to a park. It was a neat way to get the best of everything.
2) Keep Your Children With You.
If I've seen it once, I've seen it a dozen times this month: I'm on my way somewhere, and I see a school-aged kid in, say, our gift section, handling something breakable. "Where's your mom?" I ask, and the answer is "With my dad looking at tools"--said section being halfway across the store.
Parents, please don't allow your kids to wander around a store while you're shopping for a particular item. It's a place of business, not a magical land of exploration. Not only can your children get lost, they can also break things or get hurt messing around with things like nails, garden shears, and poisons like drain cleaner and mouse bait (leaks and holes happen, even if the inventory was thoroughly checked before it went out on the shelf).
And don't send your kids to the toy section "to play" while you shop; the toys in that section are intended to stay packaged until they are bought and taken home. It's frustrating to have a parent bring us a packaged toy with the package torn open, complaining that he doesn't want to buy this one because it's obviously been used!
Which reminds me: never, never, never give a toddler a toy "just to occupy him" as you're pushing him around in the cart. Two reasons: first, if he gets it grubby from handling and soggy from chewing, it's no longer a new toy, is it? I mean, if someone else's kid had done that, and his parents put that toy back, and then you came along...honestly, would you buy that toy for your little one? I thought not. So please don't do that to anyone else. And second...to a little kid, possession is ten-tenths of the law where toys are concerned. When you get done with your shopping, you will probably have a fight on your hands with kiddo screaming "MIIIINNE!!!" So if you aren't intending to buy him a toy this time, don't take the chance.
Please be aware that although we expect you to keep your kids in line, we will intervene if we see your child doing any of the following:
- Climbing any sort of shelving or display (most of them aren't designed to hold human weight)
- Handling anything dangerous or breakable ("looking" is done with eyes, not hands)
- Running up and down aisles (if she runs into an elderly person, guess who gets hurt worse in a fall?)
- Entering any area not intended for customers (including warehouses, equipment sheds, workshops, and back offices--our insurance doesn't cover customers or their offspring back there!)
If you are in sight, we will tell you that this behavior is inappropriate; but if not...please don't get mad at us for "ordering your kids around." Trust me, if I'm warning your kid not to do something, there is a good reason, whether you understand it or not.
3) Use Carts Properly.
There is only one safe spot for a child to sit in a shopping cart: the fold-out seat designed for that purpose. Hanging on the outside of the cart, lying on the shelf underneath, or sitting in the body of the cart are all unsafe methods of transporting your child around a store. I have seen carts that were more full of kids than of merchandise...and suppose the merch gets dirty, torn or broken as the kids climb and squirm around?
Then there's the other thing I once saw. A kid was hanging off the side of a cart; his little brother was sitting in the seat of the cart. Big Brother's weight tipped the cart over, and cart and Little Brother landed on the kid. Fortunately nobody got more than bruised, but as a store, we would have been liable if there had been serious injuries. So be safe, and be smart: if kiddo's too big for the seat, he needs to walk at your side (see Rule 2).
4) Teach Your Kids "Politeness Words."
And be sure to use them yourself.
Shopping can be a stressful time, and I know everyone's in a hurry; but don't forget to be polite and kind while you're out and about. Teaching your kids to say "please," "thank you," and "excuse me," when appropriate and without prompting, goes a long way toward making everyone's experience nicer. As an added bonus, your children will discover that politeness toward others will make their path smoother as they go on through life. It won't solve everything (let's face it, there are some incorrigible assholes out there), but a polite person is generally welcome everywhere.
5) Potty Time?
If kiddo's doing the "potty rumba" in the store, don't just send him to the restroom--go with him and at least wait outside. If you know he's not able to manage in any way--clothes, getting up or down from the toilet (or aiming, if it's "number one"), using toilet paper properly, flushing, or hand washing--then you need to be in the room with him. (If there isn't a family/unisex restroom, it is perfectly okay to to take your opposite-gender child into "your" restroom.)
Older kids should understand that "skipping steps" in the restroom--like not flushing or failing to wash their hands--is not only rude, but also unsanitary. Washing hands is particularly important; there are a frightening number of diseases that can be transmitted by dirty hands, like viral meningitis, Hepatitis B, staph, e. coli, and listeria. Your kid might think he didn't get any poop on his hands while he was wiping up, but it's probably there. Don't take the chance.
Oh, and about flushing: I had a relative who was on a trip with his family. They made a potty pit stop at a state rest area, and he sent his youngest daughter in on her own. The toilet flushed, and the kid started shrieking. When Dad went in, the little one was scared out of her wits--turns out, the toilet was one of the new ones that flush themselves! The girl had never encountered such a thing before, and it scared her so bad that for years afterward, whenever the family was in a strange place, kiddo would insist that Daddy check out the toilet to make sure it wasn't "a scary one."
Funny story, sure...but it's one more reason to go in the restroom with your child. And BTW, if the toilet has a handle on it, it's meant to be manually flushed!
6) If Your Child Breaks Something, Offer To Pay.
Every parent has experienced this: you turn your back for five seconds, and smash, your child knocks something over and breaks it. Or tears a book page. Or grabs a forbidden candy bar off the shelf and gets one end open and a bite taken. Whatever the case, please don't grab your child and run. Own the mistake and offer to pay for it, whatever it may be.
It's true that there isn't a real "Pottery Barn Rule"...at least not at Pottery Barn, or any of the big box stores. But small mom-and-pop businesses are at a disadvantage when customers are negligent about how they treat merchandise. Every item lost through damage or breakage is a financial loss, and over time it can affect a store's ability to keep its doors open.
Okay, I heard that: "It was just a lousy paperback book (or knick-knack, or lollipop)! It's no big deal!"
Sure. Just one item. But imagine a hundred people with that attitude, per year let's say, and multiply that times the cost of that paperback. Even a cheap one goes for $7.99. 100 x $7.99 is...$799.00. That's not chump change anymore. To this loss you can add the extra time an employee must take to mark the damaged book out of inventory, plus the cost of a new book. Times our hypothetical 100. Given the misbehavior I see on a daily basis, that hypothetical number is probably larger in real life!
Oh, and eating food in a store without paying for it is called theft. The sooner your child learns this, the better.
Okay, I heard that, too: "Well, aren't they insured?"
Depends on the store. But even if they are...you know what happens if you have to file an insurance claim--c'mon, all together: the premiums go up! The higher the premiums, the less likely a small business can afford them, and therefore, the less able said business is to just blow off the loss of an item.
(Update: A coworker who used to work for an insurance company tells me that the deductible for a store with merchandise-loss insurance is $10,000! Definitely not chump change.)
So please do offer to pay. And encourage your child to apologize to the store manager. Maybe it was just an accident, but that's all the more reason to say "I'm sorry."
(A friend of mine who caught her child opening a bag in a store told her kid, "Okay, I'm paying for it now--but when we get home, you have to pay me out of your gold dollars." He'd been saving those gold Presidential dollar coins, and yes, Mom really did make him pay her three of them--the candy was $2.99. It may sound harsh, but if you do something wrong, there are consequences!)
Finally...
Kids develop at different rates. Some are easier to teach than others. So if you've done everything you can and your children continue to misbehave in public, they may not be "ready for prime time" yet. Consider leaving them at home when you're shopping. If there's not another parent of relative to leave them with, consider tag-teaming with a play-date mom to take turns, with one mom watching kiddos while the other mom shops.
But whatever you do, don't just excuse the bad behavior and say "Well, kids will be kids--they'll grow out of it." Because they won't--not without your guidance.
So please do offer to pay. And encourage your child to apologize to the store manager. Maybe it was just an accident, but that's all the more reason to say "I'm sorry."
(A friend of mine who caught her child opening a bag in a store told her kid, "Okay, I'm paying for it now--but when we get home, you have to pay me out of your gold dollars." He'd been saving those gold Presidential dollar coins, and yes, Mom really did make him pay her three of them--the candy was $2.99. It may sound harsh, but if you do something wrong, there are consequences!)
Finally...
Kids develop at different rates. Some are easier to teach than others. So if you've done everything you can and your children continue to misbehave in public, they may not be "ready for prime time" yet. Consider leaving them at home when you're shopping. If there's not another parent of relative to leave them with, consider tag-teaming with a play-date mom to take turns, with one mom watching kiddos while the other mom shops.
But whatever you do, don't just excuse the bad behavior and say "Well, kids will be kids--they'll grow out of it." Because they won't--not without your guidance.
Thursday, September 26, 2019
These Are The Times That Turn Our Stomachs
Laugh, Cry, Or Vomit?
Molly Ivins once wrote that when following modern politics, you had three options: laugh, cry, or throw up. But since crying and throwing up are bad for you, you might as well laugh.
Me, I think there is a proper season for everything. And now is the season to look at this swollen pimple of an administration...and then take that important call from Ralph on the big white phone. Because the things our so-called President says and does on a near-daily basis are the rough equivalent of riding a runaway Tilt-A-Whirl right after eating an ipecac-flavored Sno-Cone. If Molly were here to see the Thing that a bunch of angry, fed-up right-wingers sent up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, she'd agree--right before gagging and losing her lunch in the nearest waste basket.
Surely they didn't invent Twitter for this...
Even before Day One, Donald Trump communicated with the world mainly via Twitter, the app made for those with short attention spans. Messages at that time could be no longer than 140 characters, including spaces, emoticons, and symbols. And boy, Trump took to it like a pig to a mud hole. He used lots of all-caps words and phrases, which I was taught was rude because it was the cyber-equivalent of shouting. He splattered the Twittersphere with diatribes and insults against everyone he didn't like (a veeeerrrrrry loooooong list, apparently). And he created hashtags that are still sliming around the Internet, like #MAGA and #AmericaFirst...both of which have been eagerly ingested and regurgitated by white nationalists and other haters.
It's worse now.
Remember how up in arms folks got over President Obama's BlackBerry? And all the fuss over Hillary's non-secure server with all those classified e-mails? Well, O Best Beloved, we now have a President who tweets more than he actually works at the job he was elected to do. Not only that, his tweeting fingers are apparently faster than his brain, because he posts the most outrageous shit--like his threats against Iran, or the horrible things he tweeted about Puerto Rico, or even government actions he's planning...things you'd think he would discuss in private with his Cabinet and then announce in a TV broadcast or at a press conference. Worse yet, he doesn't find out whether he can legally do what he intends until after he tweets it. Plus, he tweets about important, sensitive diplomatic stuff that his people are trying to do--like negotiate with guys like Kim Jong Un--and says things that sabotage those activities! And to top it all off, he doesn't give a flying shag at a rolling donut whether he even has his facts straight...the most egregious example, of course, being his attempt to one-up the National Weather Service about Hurricane Dorian hitting Alabama.
Oh, and that 140-character limit? Some non-genius decided to double that. So now we get twice as much of Trump's empty-headed Twitter use. Because, to add yet more bales of misery to our already-overloaded backs, the news media reports every damn tweet that Trump sends!!!
Ready...aim...
Ah, how things change. Once upon a time, a flag flew at half-mast on national holidays honoring veterans, when an important political person died, when a prominent local figure who had passed was declared worthy of the honor by the city fathers, or--much more rarely--during a time of national crisis. At any rate, we all pretty much knew why the flag was flying low.
These days, that half-mast could happen at any time, and more often than not, it's because some angry /nutty person with a gun went and opened fire on other people. So now, when that flag flies low and it's not a suitable national holiday, I find myself sighing, "Oh, Lord, not another one."
And how has our leadership responded? Better care for the mentally unbalanced? Waiting periods for gun purchases? More intensive background checks? Or how about banning the kinds of guns that are made (or can be converted) only for killing people in large numbers?
Nope. None of the above. Because the National Rifle Association has elevated the 2nd Amendment to an almost idolatrous position. And the NRA has money--big money--which it donates to the political campaigns of those it deems most likely to support its cause.
Now, I am not against gun ownership. That nice hunting rifle, or that handgun for personal/home defense...I'm fine with that. But do you really need something with a bump stock for that purpose? If you've had your training and kept up with your target practice at the shooting range, you shouldn't. And remember, Good Guy, the more shots you can fire at once, the greater the chance of an innocent bystander getting hit, as well.
Hey, by the way, check out this image of the magazine used by the Dayton shooter (lower left):
Dunno about you, but I think somebody's compensating. Maybe that's the whole NRA's problem.
But Trump is a Christian!....Wait, what???
I couldn't believe it when I first heard it, but apparently, Donald Trump is a Christian. However, he's not the kind of person who immediately comes to mind when you think of that label...you thought Mother Teresa, didn't you? So did I. No, Trump's brand of Christianity is the type espoused by the so-called "prosperity preachers," who believe that monetary wealth and physical health is a sign of God's favor--a reward of faith. So if you are a child of God, you are entitled to have lots of money, a nice house, and three luxury vehicles! And bless God, you can just rebuke that sickness in Jesus' Name, because you're a King's Kid, and He takes care of His chosen ones! Just the thing that a narcissistic, money-loving man like Trump would be attracted to.
It's no surprise, therefore, that Trump's spiritual adviser is a woman pastor named Paula White, who has been investigated in the past for shady practices but was never found guilty (sound familiar?). She also once told her viewers to send their first paycheck of the year to her ministry, or God would be angry. (That is a distortion of the Old Testament doctrine of giving the firstfruits of the harvest to God...a segment of the Law which, being fulfilled by Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, is no longer necessary.)
The prosperity preachers cherry-pick verses from the Bible to support their "name it and claim it" message, but when it comes to holiness in life, compassion toward the poor, and showing forth Christ in word and deed to the unsaved world, they fall very short. I have listened to many of these guys and gals, and I hear almost nothing about any of the virtues I just named--in fact, I once heard one guy, Creflo Dollar, (what a name, right?) make the appalling claim that people don't want to worship a God whose people look poor, because it's unattractive; but if you follow the prosperity doctrine and get rich, the non-Christians will "want what you have"--i.e., a pipeline to the God Who's showering you with everything your little heart desires!
When you know all this, it's easy to see why there is a massive disconnect between what Trump claims to believe, and what he actually does and says. When you've got your eyes and your hands focused on seeing and grabbing that next blessing, you have no time or means to have compassion on, say, refugees from war-torn countries who want to come here. Since you're focused on the bits of the Bible that talk about blessings for you, you completely miss the much larger parts telling you to love your neighbor as yourself, to be a good steward of whatever God has given you, to be generous to the poor, to be humble, to be kind...not to mention the long section in Matthew 25 describing the Last Judgment, when Jesus defines the kind of behavior that is the mark of a true King's Kid--feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and welcoming strangers into one's home. He tells us that doing these things for "the least of these, My brothers" is the same as doing them for Jesus. By the way...do you notice that if Trump signed a new executive order granting all those migrants asylum, he would be ticking all but two of those boxes? And if he actually visited the overcrowded refugee camps and offered the inhabitants real hope, he'd clear the list?
Unfortunately, I don't have enough faith to believe in a miracle that huge. I could see Jimmy Carter doing it, and if Liz Warren were President right now, she would already have most of them settled in where they were most needed. But Trump? Sorry, no.
Cha-CHING!
With Donald Trump, everything is about money. He defines people and countries by how much "business" he does or can do with them. As President, he was supposed to step away from his holdings and businesses and hand them off to a third party. He refused to do so, and the cesspool of profiteering, shameless promotion, and even accepting taxpayer funding when his aides and other members of his administration visit his hotels (remember Pence staying at the Trump Hotel in Doonbeg, when his meeting with the Irish PM was in Dublin? You and I are paying for that. Trump has plenty of money--why couldn't he have comped his VP and family?) has created a stench so bad that every window in the White House will have to be opened for at least a year to air out the building when Trump leaves. Even then, it might be like pig manure--that aroma may be permanent. Hell, we may have to change the name to the Brown House!
Here's a link to an article that tells you just how bad Trump's conflicts of interest have gotten:
https://www.citizensforethics.org/presidential-profiteering-trumps-conflicts-got-worse/
Birds of a feather...
Trump is a shameless bully toward those with less money and power than he has. But when he hangs out with other bullies, he's like a Zen novice at the feet of a master--he drinks in every word, watches every move, learns whatever he can, and always acts like a sycophant. The worst example was the Helsinki summit, when he kowtowed so shamelessly to Vladimir Putin. It was a horribly embarrassing incident. Even if we never have such a bad President ever again, the entire world will remember Helsinki...and it will make them think twice about trusting us.
Unclear on the concept...but that's nothing new...
Trump does not believe in climate change. Or at least, he doesn't believe that what humans do affects the earth's climate over time. He has in the past said (or tweeted) that man-made climate change is a hoax, foisted off on us by--of all people--the Chinese! He sees no need to do anything to rein in the use of fossil fuels, even though these resources become scarcer as time goes on; worse, he scoffs at the efforts made by others who are trying to conserve natural resources and find new, cleaner ways to produce electricity.
Needless to say, Trump's appointees for Secretary of Energy, Secretary of the Interior, and head of the Environmental Protection Agency neither know nor care about the departments they are supposed to run. That's not their job in this administration. They are there solely to create (as Molly Ivins used to say about Texas) "a healthy bidness climate." That means adjusting rules, rolling back standards, ending long-standing regulations--anything that helps big, wealthy corporations...more of Trump's like-feathered friends. Of course, a lot of endangered species will go extinct, and a lot of national parks will be ruined, and people will die from poisons and pathogens in the environment...but oh, well.
The most recent salvo fired by Trump at conservation efforts was aimed at California, whose emissions standards are by far the strictest in the country. But those high standards go back a long way; back in the 40's and 50's, when "photochemical brown" was the color of the skies over Los Angeles, and people were getting sick from all that smoggy air, two scientists named Arie Haagen-Smit, a flavor chemist, and Arnold Beckman, who built advanced detection equipment for emissions, determined the cause to be automobile exhaust and the smoke belching from industrial chimneys. After a big fight pitting lobbyists for the oil and auto industries against a bunch of ordinary citizens who were tired of the dirty air, California's state government took action in 1959 by setting up a pollution control board for motor vehicles. With ozone having been identified as the worst of the various tailpipe emissions, the new board set a limit--150 ppb (parts per billion) of ozone per cubic meter of air. (This limit is still way higher than the federal standard.) Because the "car culture" really started in California, the auto makers would have to find ways to reduce ozone emissions before Californians could buy their cars...and with over 2,000,000 cars on CA state roads at the time, Ford, General Motors, and all the other automakers listened. Particularly since 22 other states jumped in and followed California's example by setting their own clean-air standards.
During the 60's, the federal government began catching up and setting standards of its own. But they were lower than those of California and the states who had followed their example, and by 1970, when the Clean Air Act was ratified, California was worried that the new federal standards would be a step backward that would reverse the gains the pollution-ridden state had already made. So Congress made an exception for California: they could set whatever clean-air standards they wanted, so long as they were stricter than those set by the federal government.
Then the catalytic converter was invented. California mandated that it be installed in all cars produced from 1975 on, and since the automakers weren't about to produce two sets of cars each year, catalytic converters became the standard. This reduced not only ozone emissions, but also carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide. Since leaded gasoline (the "lead" is a compound called "tetra-ethyl lead," or TEL) could not be used in an engine with a catalytic converter, that fuel was finally phased out--a good thing, too, because it turned out that the combustion of leaded gasoline released the lead into the air, where it became yet another dangerous substance when breathed in by animals and humans. Eating paint chips or drinking lead-heavy water weren't the only ways to get lead poisoning--if you lived in the middle of a big city, all you needed to do was breathe the air!
BTW, we have a geochemist named Clair Patterson to thank for the new knowledge concerning lead and its effects on living things. While doing research on a meteorite, using uranium-lead dating to determine the age of the earth and the solar system in general, Patterson found that his samples were being corrupted with lead in the environment. After he built a "clean room" to eliminate the problem, he was able to finish his research, no problem...except he wondered about all that lead in the air. Was it normal? After testing deep-sea ocean water and finding that its lead content wasn't even close to that in L.A., where he worked, he did some more experiments and found that the culprit was--no surprise--the TEL in gasoline. He fought like an avenging angel to get it banned, despite opposition from the makers of TEL, the auto industry, and even fellow scientists, some of whom were bought and paid for by the TEL and auto folks! But in 1986, Congress banned "leaded" fuel in all but a very few, limited applications...and we're now testing at 80% less lead than we were in the 50's.
Okay, back to the present and Trump. He says that California's strict standards cause cars to be too expensive, and so people keep their old cars longer, which makes them unsafe. Forcing the state to back away from high emissions standards will take the pressure off the automakers, who can then make cheaper cars, which will make everyone safer.
Sure...unless you live in L.A., or Chicago, or any of the other large cities where smog is a problem. And even the auto industry is unhappy with Trump, because they think he's gone too far. Oh...and ironically, the day I read about the California-Trump rumble, I also read, in the same newspaper, that the pollution a pregnant woman breathes in goes through her lungs and winds up in her placenta. Imagine how much of that could end up in the unborn baby. Are you sure you're pro-life, Mr. President?!
Of course, California has vowed to fight. Along with 22 other states, the District of Columbia, and the Cities of Los Angeles and New York, California is suing the Trump Administration, and so far, a few judges have sided with the plaintiffs.
But here's the thing. Trump doesn't give a shit about the environment. He never even goes outside unless it's to golf, and I doubt he's ever seen an eagle in its natural habitat. He knows nothing of the various ecosystems that make up our country (let alone our planet!), and I doubt it would make any difference to the way he thinks...because when he talks about "excessive regulations" that restrain the damage that industry and business do to the environment, it's another way of saying, "we could make a lot more money if we didn't have to worry about the junk we dump into the water, the ground and the air--and anyway, it's not really that harmful."
Because Trump's abiding passion is to make even more money...and who cares about what troubles his grandchildren will inherit? All that fast food he eats, he probably won't last another decade, so he'll never have to worry about it.
So, what do we take for this intense nausea?
There are two Constitutionally-approved treatments for our gastrointestinal woe. The first is, we invoke the 25th Amendment and get Trump declared unfit for office. Honestly, how hard could that be? He tweets such incoherent sprays of liquid pig shit that you could get him out of the White House just by presenting his Twitter archives as evidence.
The second is, we impeach the man. That's a little harder. See, the House of Representatives impeaches, but the real trial is held in the Senate. We have a split Congress--Democrat House, GOP Senate. And the GOP, however they may loathe Trump privately, probably will vote along party lines to exonerate him. The Dems worry that this could energize his base and help get him elected for another four years.
Oh, yeah...there's a third remedy. Vote, dammit! Be creative about it, too. If your state has ugly voter-ID laws, organize a drive and get others registered and ID'd up for the occasion. If you can afford the ID and your neighbor can't, help them out. Same goes for the sneaky polling-place changes--get informed beforehand, and let those who have transportation help those who don't. Don't let evil people in power rob you of your right...which, remember, is just as much a right as that right to bear arms.
And finally...remember that your vote counts. No matter how much money the PACs and corporations spend, no matter how many nasty ads and junk-mail flyers they send out...it's still down to us. Ordinary people pulling levers and filling in little circles at set locations on Election Day.
Think about that. And hopefully, your stomach will feel better.
Molly Ivins once wrote that when following modern politics, you had three options: laugh, cry, or throw up. But since crying and throwing up are bad for you, you might as well laugh.
Me, I think there is a proper season for everything. And now is the season to look at this swollen pimple of an administration...and then take that important call from Ralph on the big white phone. Because the things our so-called President says and does on a near-daily basis are the rough equivalent of riding a runaway Tilt-A-Whirl right after eating an ipecac-flavored Sno-Cone. If Molly were here to see the Thing that a bunch of angry, fed-up right-wingers sent up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, she'd agree--right before gagging and losing her lunch in the nearest waste basket.
Surely they didn't invent Twitter for this...
Even before Day One, Donald Trump communicated with the world mainly via Twitter, the app made for those with short attention spans. Messages at that time could be no longer than 140 characters, including spaces, emoticons, and symbols. And boy, Trump took to it like a pig to a mud hole. He used lots of all-caps words and phrases, which I was taught was rude because it was the cyber-equivalent of shouting. He splattered the Twittersphere with diatribes and insults against everyone he didn't like (a veeeerrrrrry loooooong list, apparently). And he created hashtags that are still sliming around the Internet, like #MAGA and #AmericaFirst...both of which have been eagerly ingested and regurgitated by white nationalists and other haters.
It's worse now.
Remember how up in arms folks got over President Obama's BlackBerry? And all the fuss over Hillary's non-secure server with all those classified e-mails? Well, O Best Beloved, we now have a President who tweets more than he actually works at the job he was elected to do. Not only that, his tweeting fingers are apparently faster than his brain, because he posts the most outrageous shit--like his threats against Iran, or the horrible things he tweeted about Puerto Rico, or even government actions he's planning...things you'd think he would discuss in private with his Cabinet and then announce in a TV broadcast or at a press conference. Worse yet, he doesn't find out whether he can legally do what he intends until after he tweets it. Plus, he tweets about important, sensitive diplomatic stuff that his people are trying to do--like negotiate with guys like Kim Jong Un--and says things that sabotage those activities! And to top it all off, he doesn't give a flying shag at a rolling donut whether he even has his facts straight...the most egregious example, of course, being his attempt to one-up the National Weather Service about Hurricane Dorian hitting Alabama.
Oh, and that 140-character limit? Some non-genius decided to double that. So now we get twice as much of Trump's empty-headed Twitter use. Because, to add yet more bales of misery to our already-overloaded backs, the news media reports every damn tweet that Trump sends!!!
Ready...aim...
Ah, how things change. Once upon a time, a flag flew at half-mast on national holidays honoring veterans, when an important political person died, when a prominent local figure who had passed was declared worthy of the honor by the city fathers, or--much more rarely--during a time of national crisis. At any rate, we all pretty much knew why the flag was flying low.
These days, that half-mast could happen at any time, and more often than not, it's because some angry /nutty person with a gun went and opened fire on other people. So now, when that flag flies low and it's not a suitable national holiday, I find myself sighing, "Oh, Lord, not another one."
And how has our leadership responded? Better care for the mentally unbalanced? Waiting periods for gun purchases? More intensive background checks? Or how about banning the kinds of guns that are made (or can be converted) only for killing people in large numbers?
Nope. None of the above. Because the National Rifle Association has elevated the 2nd Amendment to an almost idolatrous position. And the NRA has money--big money--which it donates to the political campaigns of those it deems most likely to support its cause.
Now, I am not against gun ownership. That nice hunting rifle, or that handgun for personal/home defense...I'm fine with that. But do you really need something with a bump stock for that purpose? If you've had your training and kept up with your target practice at the shooting range, you shouldn't. And remember, Good Guy, the more shots you can fire at once, the greater the chance of an innocent bystander getting hit, as well.
Hey, by the way, check out this image of the magazine used by the Dayton shooter (lower left):
Dunno about you, but I think somebody's compensating. Maybe that's the whole NRA's problem.
But Trump is a Christian!....Wait, what???
I couldn't believe it when I first heard it, but apparently, Donald Trump is a Christian. However, he's not the kind of person who immediately comes to mind when you think of that label...you thought Mother Teresa, didn't you? So did I. No, Trump's brand of Christianity is the type espoused by the so-called "prosperity preachers," who believe that monetary wealth and physical health is a sign of God's favor--a reward of faith. So if you are a child of God, you are entitled to have lots of money, a nice house, and three luxury vehicles! And bless God, you can just rebuke that sickness in Jesus' Name, because you're a King's Kid, and He takes care of His chosen ones! Just the thing that a narcissistic, money-loving man like Trump would be attracted to.
It's no surprise, therefore, that Trump's spiritual adviser is a woman pastor named Paula White, who has been investigated in the past for shady practices but was never found guilty (sound familiar?). She also once told her viewers to send their first paycheck of the year to her ministry, or God would be angry. (That is a distortion of the Old Testament doctrine of giving the firstfruits of the harvest to God...a segment of the Law which, being fulfilled by Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, is no longer necessary.)
The prosperity preachers cherry-pick verses from the Bible to support their "name it and claim it" message, but when it comes to holiness in life, compassion toward the poor, and showing forth Christ in word and deed to the unsaved world, they fall very short. I have listened to many of these guys and gals, and I hear almost nothing about any of the virtues I just named--in fact, I once heard one guy, Creflo Dollar, (what a name, right?) make the appalling claim that people don't want to worship a God whose people look poor, because it's unattractive; but if you follow the prosperity doctrine and get rich, the non-Christians will "want what you have"--i.e., a pipeline to the God Who's showering you with everything your little heart desires!
When you know all this, it's easy to see why there is a massive disconnect between what Trump claims to believe, and what he actually does and says. When you've got your eyes and your hands focused on seeing and grabbing that next blessing, you have no time or means to have compassion on, say, refugees from war-torn countries who want to come here. Since you're focused on the bits of the Bible that talk about blessings for you, you completely miss the much larger parts telling you to love your neighbor as yourself, to be a good steward of whatever God has given you, to be generous to the poor, to be humble, to be kind...not to mention the long section in Matthew 25 describing the Last Judgment, when Jesus defines the kind of behavior that is the mark of a true King's Kid--feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and welcoming strangers into one's home. He tells us that doing these things for "the least of these, My brothers" is the same as doing them for Jesus. By the way...do you notice that if Trump signed a new executive order granting all those migrants asylum, he would be ticking all but two of those boxes? And if he actually visited the overcrowded refugee camps and offered the inhabitants real hope, he'd clear the list?
Unfortunately, I don't have enough faith to believe in a miracle that huge. I could see Jimmy Carter doing it, and if Liz Warren were President right now, she would already have most of them settled in where they were most needed. But Trump? Sorry, no.
Cha-CHING!
With Donald Trump, everything is about money. He defines people and countries by how much "business" he does or can do with them. As President, he was supposed to step away from his holdings and businesses and hand them off to a third party. He refused to do so, and the cesspool of profiteering, shameless promotion, and even accepting taxpayer funding when his aides and other members of his administration visit his hotels (remember Pence staying at the Trump Hotel in Doonbeg, when his meeting with the Irish PM was in Dublin? You and I are paying for that. Trump has plenty of money--why couldn't he have comped his VP and family?) has created a stench so bad that every window in the White House will have to be opened for at least a year to air out the building when Trump leaves. Even then, it might be like pig manure--that aroma may be permanent. Hell, we may have to change the name to the Brown House!
Here's a link to an article that tells you just how bad Trump's conflicts of interest have gotten:
https://www.citizensforethics.org/presidential-profiteering-trumps-conflicts-got-worse/
Birds of a feather...
Trump is a shameless bully toward those with less money and power than he has. But when he hangs out with other bullies, he's like a Zen novice at the feet of a master--he drinks in every word, watches every move, learns whatever he can, and always acts like a sycophant. The worst example was the Helsinki summit, when he kowtowed so shamelessly to Vladimir Putin. It was a horribly embarrassing incident. Even if we never have such a bad President ever again, the entire world will remember Helsinki...and it will make them think twice about trusting us.
Unclear on the concept...but that's nothing new...
Trump does not believe in climate change. Or at least, he doesn't believe that what humans do affects the earth's climate over time. He has in the past said (or tweeted) that man-made climate change is a hoax, foisted off on us by--of all people--the Chinese! He sees no need to do anything to rein in the use of fossil fuels, even though these resources become scarcer as time goes on; worse, he scoffs at the efforts made by others who are trying to conserve natural resources and find new, cleaner ways to produce electricity.
Needless to say, Trump's appointees for Secretary of Energy, Secretary of the Interior, and head of the Environmental Protection Agency neither know nor care about the departments they are supposed to run. That's not their job in this administration. They are there solely to create (as Molly Ivins used to say about Texas) "a healthy bidness climate." That means adjusting rules, rolling back standards, ending long-standing regulations--anything that helps big, wealthy corporations...more of Trump's like-feathered friends. Of course, a lot of endangered species will go extinct, and a lot of national parks will be ruined, and people will die from poisons and pathogens in the environment...but oh, well.
The most recent salvo fired by Trump at conservation efforts was aimed at California, whose emissions standards are by far the strictest in the country. But those high standards go back a long way; back in the 40's and 50's, when "photochemical brown" was the color of the skies over Los Angeles, and people were getting sick from all that smoggy air, two scientists named Arie Haagen-Smit, a flavor chemist, and Arnold Beckman, who built advanced detection equipment for emissions, determined the cause to be automobile exhaust and the smoke belching from industrial chimneys. After a big fight pitting lobbyists for the oil and auto industries against a bunch of ordinary citizens who were tired of the dirty air, California's state government took action in 1959 by setting up a pollution control board for motor vehicles. With ozone having been identified as the worst of the various tailpipe emissions, the new board set a limit--150 ppb (parts per billion) of ozone per cubic meter of air. (This limit is still way higher than the federal standard.) Because the "car culture" really started in California, the auto makers would have to find ways to reduce ozone emissions before Californians could buy their cars...and with over 2,000,000 cars on CA state roads at the time, Ford, General Motors, and all the other automakers listened. Particularly since 22 other states jumped in and followed California's example by setting their own clean-air standards.
During the 60's, the federal government began catching up and setting standards of its own. But they were lower than those of California and the states who had followed their example, and by 1970, when the Clean Air Act was ratified, California was worried that the new federal standards would be a step backward that would reverse the gains the pollution-ridden state had already made. So Congress made an exception for California: they could set whatever clean-air standards they wanted, so long as they were stricter than those set by the federal government.
Then the catalytic converter was invented. California mandated that it be installed in all cars produced from 1975 on, and since the automakers weren't about to produce two sets of cars each year, catalytic converters became the standard. This reduced not only ozone emissions, but also carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide. Since leaded gasoline (the "lead" is a compound called "tetra-ethyl lead," or TEL) could not be used in an engine with a catalytic converter, that fuel was finally phased out--a good thing, too, because it turned out that the combustion of leaded gasoline released the lead into the air, where it became yet another dangerous substance when breathed in by animals and humans. Eating paint chips or drinking lead-heavy water weren't the only ways to get lead poisoning--if you lived in the middle of a big city, all you needed to do was breathe the air!
BTW, we have a geochemist named Clair Patterson to thank for the new knowledge concerning lead and its effects on living things. While doing research on a meteorite, using uranium-lead dating to determine the age of the earth and the solar system in general, Patterson found that his samples were being corrupted with lead in the environment. After he built a "clean room" to eliminate the problem, he was able to finish his research, no problem...except he wondered about all that lead in the air. Was it normal? After testing deep-sea ocean water and finding that its lead content wasn't even close to that in L.A., where he worked, he did some more experiments and found that the culprit was--no surprise--the TEL in gasoline. He fought like an avenging angel to get it banned, despite opposition from the makers of TEL, the auto industry, and even fellow scientists, some of whom were bought and paid for by the TEL and auto folks! But in 1986, Congress banned "leaded" fuel in all but a very few, limited applications...and we're now testing at 80% less lead than we were in the 50's.
Okay, back to the present and Trump. He says that California's strict standards cause cars to be too expensive, and so people keep their old cars longer, which makes them unsafe. Forcing the state to back away from high emissions standards will take the pressure off the automakers, who can then make cheaper cars, which will make everyone safer.
Sure...unless you live in L.A., or Chicago, or any of the other large cities where smog is a problem. And even the auto industry is unhappy with Trump, because they think he's gone too far. Oh...and ironically, the day I read about the California-Trump rumble, I also read, in the same newspaper, that the pollution a pregnant woman breathes in goes through her lungs and winds up in her placenta. Imagine how much of that could end up in the unborn baby. Are you sure you're pro-life, Mr. President?!
Of course, California has vowed to fight. Along with 22 other states, the District of Columbia, and the Cities of Los Angeles and New York, California is suing the Trump Administration, and so far, a few judges have sided with the plaintiffs.
But here's the thing. Trump doesn't give a shit about the environment. He never even goes outside unless it's to golf, and I doubt he's ever seen an eagle in its natural habitat. He knows nothing of the various ecosystems that make up our country (let alone our planet!), and I doubt it would make any difference to the way he thinks...because when he talks about "excessive regulations" that restrain the damage that industry and business do to the environment, it's another way of saying, "we could make a lot more money if we didn't have to worry about the junk we dump into the water, the ground and the air--and anyway, it's not really that harmful."
Because Trump's abiding passion is to make even more money...and who cares about what troubles his grandchildren will inherit? All that fast food he eats, he probably won't last another decade, so he'll never have to worry about it.
So, what do we take for this intense nausea?
There are two Constitutionally-approved treatments for our gastrointestinal woe. The first is, we invoke the 25th Amendment and get Trump declared unfit for office. Honestly, how hard could that be? He tweets such incoherent sprays of liquid pig shit that you could get him out of the White House just by presenting his Twitter archives as evidence.
The second is, we impeach the man. That's a little harder. See, the House of Representatives impeaches, but the real trial is held in the Senate. We have a split Congress--Democrat House, GOP Senate. And the GOP, however they may loathe Trump privately, probably will vote along party lines to exonerate him. The Dems worry that this could energize his base and help get him elected for another four years.
Oh, yeah...there's a third remedy. Vote, dammit! Be creative about it, too. If your state has ugly voter-ID laws, organize a drive and get others registered and ID'd up for the occasion. If you can afford the ID and your neighbor can't, help them out. Same goes for the sneaky polling-place changes--get informed beforehand, and let those who have transportation help those who don't. Don't let evil people in power rob you of your right...which, remember, is just as much a right as that right to bear arms.
And finally...remember that your vote counts. No matter how much money the PACs and corporations spend, no matter how many nasty ads and junk-mail flyers they send out...it's still down to us. Ordinary people pulling levers and filling in little circles at set locations on Election Day.
Think about that. And hopefully, your stomach will feel better.
Sunday, August 4, 2019
SSL? Bring It On!
Someday, sooner or later, the United States of America will have more black and brown ethnic minorities combined than people traditionally considered Caucasian or white. The closest estimate is 2040; the "hold up a sec" estimate is more like 2044.
It's got a bunch of white-supremacist panties in a twist, and certain folks on the left end of the political spectrum are citing the coming demographic change as the main reason that Trump and his lackeys have been so hard on both illegal and legal immigrants...and in some cases, even naturalized citizens.
Me, I hope that all the estimates get blown out of the water and the demo shift happens way sooner. Like in 2035. Or how about 2020? And man, I hope that new majority is ready to unite and hit the ground marching, voting, and working like hell. Because that is the only way all the old white farts are going to vacate the halls of power and let the hoi polloi run the country.
I Remember "Schoolhouse Rock"...
When I was a kid, there were a bunch of 2-minute bits that ran during the commercial breaks between cartoons on Saturday mornings. They were collectively known as "Schoolhouse Rock," and they used catchy tunes and fun animation to teach all kinds of things to kids. Most kids of that generation probably learned the Preamble to the Constitution from "Schoolhouse Rock," along with other parts of American history. Plus, there were new-math hacks, grammar usage, science, money and how it worked...wow. It really was a schoolhouse.
But the segment I remember best was the one called "The Great American Melting Pot." It was all about how America wasn't just colonized by the English, but also by the Spaniards, Dutch, and French...and how, later, other people came from many other places to make a better life here (the nationality that gets the most attention is Polish, but I think that's because one of the creators of SR was of Polish descent). The catchiest scene in the segment is the one from the chorus where the Statue of Liberty opens the book she carries to reveal that it's a cookbook, and the recipe for "America" lists many different nationalities as "ingredients."
I saw that segment recently on DVD, and I started crying...both because it's such a beautiful vision, and because we've stopped living up to it. The ugly things I hear on a regular basis regarding immigrants are things I would never have heard as a kid, even in my racist, nowhere home town.
English Only?
It started with language, back in the late 80's: "Why can't these blankety-blank immigrants speak English, for cripes' sake?" (And nowadays, the complaint is that you have a Spanish-language option when you call a company or agency.) But when you've spoken a language from the time you could first form words, you don't realize how hard it is to learn that same language from scratch as an adult. And the less education you have, the harder it is. And English is a language with so many roots, runners and grafts that it's a wonder anyone who comes here manages to learn it at all!
In fact, only a few languages are harder to learn than American English. Magyar (Hungarian) is one, because unlike the Romance languages (like Spanish, French, and Italian), it has almost no European linguistic connections. It has anywhere from 18 to 35 cases, many derived from Latin, and a number of gutteral sounds that a student would find hard to pronounce. Then there's Welsh--that "ll" is nigh on impossible for an adult student. Mandarin has tonal sounds that are treacherous to navigate; get the wrong one, and you could end up speaking nonsense. Or maybe getting your lights punched out.
And of course, there are also a number of African languages that use elaborate clicks as consonants, one of which--Xhosa--is used as the language of Wakanda, the fictional country that is home to the superhero Black Panther. Another, spoken by the Ju'/Hoansi tribe of the Kalahari desert, was spoken by the hero Xi in "The Gods Must Be Crazy."
If you ever tutor ESL (English as a Second Language), you get to see and hear our newcomers struggle with the confusions of English. No wonder some of them give up and let their children (who have little trouble picking up the new language) act as their interpreters.
It Got Worse...
The nineties were no improvement. The things said about immigrants got worse, and for the first time in my life, I had to provide proof of citizenship when I applied for a job! I needed 2 forms of ID--my birth certificate, and a driver's license or passport. Not having one of the latter, I substituted my voter-registration card, and fortunately that was official enough to pass. (Now you can't even vote with one of them...not unless you also have a photo ID!)
Then came the Twin Towers attack, and suddenly all immigrants were suspect--mostly Muslims, but if you even looked Middle Eastern, you were a candidate for harassment. That was when I first heard "send them back." After that came the groundless rumors that terrorists would pretend to be Mexican and cross our southern border and attack us. And that was when the government started talking about fences and walls.
...And Now, It's Silly, Too!
So, as awful as Trump's verbal scours are, they're nothing new. I've heard it for years.
But now, it's gotten just plain silly, too. Not in the fun sense, but in the "this is brainless and unreasonable" sense.
Folks who were little kids when their parents sneaked in? Just as guilty and worthy of deportation as the parents! Never mind that the kids know nothing of the old country, and they don't speak anything but English--send them back!
People who are here illegally, but they've used their time here to work hard and try to fit in? Out with them! But notice that nobody's raiding the houses of idle white people sitting on their asses and drawing SSI on false pretenses. Or rounding up our home-born homeless and putting them to work picking up trash in exchange for "three hots and a cot." No, that's inhumane...but removing a foreigner from the family who loves him and the employer who values his service apparently isn't.
Oh, and it's okay to separate parents and kids when they're just asking for asylum--they haven't even sneaked in, they just walked up and surrendered to ICE and asked to be admitted legally. Time was, their case would have been reviewed, and they probably would have gotten to stay. Not anymore.
(Oh, and by the way...remember when our department for dealing with immigrants was called INS--Immigration and Naturalization Services? Now it's ICE--Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Aren't those initials friendly-sounding? Well, the new department is every bit as cold as its acronym.)
Hurry up, 2040!
Well, I, for one, am sick and tired of all this bigotry and suspicion. If this is how white people in power are gonna act, then it's high time for us to step aside. We deserve to sink into the quicksand of obscurity and do what we ought to have done all along: pass the reins on to the next qualified person in line, regardless of race, color or creed. I'm betting those qualified folks are all around us.
And if that means I have to learn Spanish as a Second Language, I'm ready.
It's got a bunch of white-supremacist panties in a twist, and certain folks on the left end of the political spectrum are citing the coming demographic change as the main reason that Trump and his lackeys have been so hard on both illegal and legal immigrants...and in some cases, even naturalized citizens.
Me, I hope that all the estimates get blown out of the water and the demo shift happens way sooner. Like in 2035. Or how about 2020? And man, I hope that new majority is ready to unite and hit the ground marching, voting, and working like hell. Because that is the only way all the old white farts are going to vacate the halls of power and let the hoi polloi run the country.
I Remember "Schoolhouse Rock"...
When I was a kid, there were a bunch of 2-minute bits that ran during the commercial breaks between cartoons on Saturday mornings. They were collectively known as "Schoolhouse Rock," and they used catchy tunes and fun animation to teach all kinds of things to kids. Most kids of that generation probably learned the Preamble to the Constitution from "Schoolhouse Rock," along with other parts of American history. Plus, there were new-math hacks, grammar usage, science, money and how it worked...wow. It really was a schoolhouse.
But the segment I remember best was the one called "The Great American Melting Pot." It was all about how America wasn't just colonized by the English, but also by the Spaniards, Dutch, and French...and how, later, other people came from many other places to make a better life here (the nationality that gets the most attention is Polish, but I think that's because one of the creators of SR was of Polish descent). The catchiest scene in the segment is the one from the chorus where the Statue of Liberty opens the book she carries to reveal that it's a cookbook, and the recipe for "America" lists many different nationalities as "ingredients."
I saw that segment recently on DVD, and I started crying...both because it's such a beautiful vision, and because we've stopped living up to it. The ugly things I hear on a regular basis regarding immigrants are things I would never have heard as a kid, even in my racist, nowhere home town.
English Only?
It started with language, back in the late 80's: "Why can't these blankety-blank immigrants speak English, for cripes' sake?" (And nowadays, the complaint is that you have a Spanish-language option when you call a company or agency.) But when you've spoken a language from the time you could first form words, you don't realize how hard it is to learn that same language from scratch as an adult. And the less education you have, the harder it is. And English is a language with so many roots, runners and grafts that it's a wonder anyone who comes here manages to learn it at all!
In fact, only a few languages are harder to learn than American English. Magyar (Hungarian) is one, because unlike the Romance languages (like Spanish, French, and Italian), it has almost no European linguistic connections. It has anywhere from 18 to 35 cases, many derived from Latin, and a number of gutteral sounds that a student would find hard to pronounce. Then there's Welsh--that "ll" is nigh on impossible for an adult student. Mandarin has tonal sounds that are treacherous to navigate; get the wrong one, and you could end up speaking nonsense. Or maybe getting your lights punched out.
And of course, there are also a number of African languages that use elaborate clicks as consonants, one of which--Xhosa--is used as the language of Wakanda, the fictional country that is home to the superhero Black Panther. Another, spoken by the Ju'/Hoansi tribe of the Kalahari desert, was spoken by the hero Xi in "The Gods Must Be Crazy."
If you ever tutor ESL (English as a Second Language), you get to see and hear our newcomers struggle with the confusions of English. No wonder some of them give up and let their children (who have little trouble picking up the new language) act as their interpreters.
It Got Worse...
The nineties were no improvement. The things said about immigrants got worse, and for the first time in my life, I had to provide proof of citizenship when I applied for a job! I needed 2 forms of ID--my birth certificate, and a driver's license or passport. Not having one of the latter, I substituted my voter-registration card, and fortunately that was official enough to pass. (Now you can't even vote with one of them...not unless you also have a photo ID!)
Then came the Twin Towers attack, and suddenly all immigrants were suspect--mostly Muslims, but if you even looked Middle Eastern, you were a candidate for harassment. That was when I first heard "send them back." After that came the groundless rumors that terrorists would pretend to be Mexican and cross our southern border and attack us. And that was when the government started talking about fences and walls.
...And Now, It's Silly, Too!
So, as awful as Trump's verbal scours are, they're nothing new. I've heard it for years.
But now, it's gotten just plain silly, too. Not in the fun sense, but in the "this is brainless and unreasonable" sense.
Folks who were little kids when their parents sneaked in? Just as guilty and worthy of deportation as the parents! Never mind that the kids know nothing of the old country, and they don't speak anything but English--send them back!
People who are here illegally, but they've used their time here to work hard and try to fit in? Out with them! But notice that nobody's raiding the houses of idle white people sitting on their asses and drawing SSI on false pretenses. Or rounding up our home-born homeless and putting them to work picking up trash in exchange for "three hots and a cot." No, that's inhumane...but removing a foreigner from the family who loves him and the employer who values his service apparently isn't.
Oh, and it's okay to separate parents and kids when they're just asking for asylum--they haven't even sneaked in, they just walked up and surrendered to ICE and asked to be admitted legally. Time was, their case would have been reviewed, and they probably would have gotten to stay. Not anymore.
(Oh, and by the way...remember when our department for dealing with immigrants was called INS--Immigration and Naturalization Services? Now it's ICE--Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Aren't those initials friendly-sounding? Well, the new department is every bit as cold as its acronym.)
Hurry up, 2040!
Well, I, for one, am sick and tired of all this bigotry and suspicion. If this is how white people in power are gonna act, then it's high time for us to step aside. We deserve to sink into the quicksand of obscurity and do what we ought to have done all along: pass the reins on to the next qualified person in line, regardless of race, color or creed. I'm betting those qualified folks are all around us.
And if that means I have to learn Spanish as a Second Language, I'm ready.
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Waking Up In Russia
Just When I Thought It Couldn't Get Any Worse...
This last week, I decided to sleep on my day off...like, almost all day. So I was late getting out to run errands, and when I stopped to buy a newspaper--a rare event these days--I glanced at the headlines and screeched to a halt in mid-step. Because apparently, I had awakened in Russia.
The headline that got my attention was from the "illegals roundup" that happened last weekend, brought to us by Donald Trump and his merry band of ICE-men. The idea was to swoop in, arrest all those evil illegals, and deport them. But in this story, there was an interesting wrinkle: the man in question, who was in his car with his girlfriend and their two kids, was approached by an ICE agent who commanded him to get out of the car. The girlfriend says that the agent never said the name of the man they were looking for, nor did he show a warrant. So the family stayed in their vehicle and kept the windows closed. The ICE agent then broke the car window and dragged the man from the car, while his son screamed for the agent not to take his daddy.
Fortunately, the girlfriend recorded the whole incident on her phone, and it's all over Facebook as I write. Hurrah for her. It's about time we Harold Beale this ugly mess.
This whole business of "rounding up the bad guys" smells like a mid-summer mass fish kill anyway. The media have been reporting on it for weeks, which my paper said was problematic for an operation that relied on "secrecy and surprise." Wow. Can you say "KGB," kiddies? How about "police state"? Or "unconstitutional"? Because, kiddies, breaking a car window and dragging a man out of it without showing a warrant is called "illegal search and seizure," and it's something we're supposed to be protected from by the Fourth Amendment. The fact that the ICE agent did not tell the family who they were looking for is also a red flag--what if they had just been profiling anybody who looked Hispanic?
The ICE maintained that the man was an "immigration fugitive" with "prior misdemeanors." But his biggest crime seems to have been that when he was ordered to leave the country, he kept sneaking back in. My bet is that he didn't want to abandon his family here in the States. And he wasn't a shiftless layabout getting free handouts from the government; he was a chef. Whether that means "high-end fancy cook" or "gourmet burger-flipper" is immaterial--the guy worked to provide for his family. He "took care of business," to quote Chris Rock (who had no love for deadbeat dads). Isn't that the kind of immigrant we want to have living here?
But Donald Trump doesn't see it that way. He wants only people from "good" countries to immigrate to the USA. And if you come from a "shithole country," you can apply to come here, but your request will be shunted to the bottom of the heap. An unskilled laborer will wait decades for even a temporary work visa, even with an employer to sponsor him...and he has to leave voluntarily at the end of his term of work and reapply again!
It gets worse. If you come here illegally, then obey a voluntary deportation order, you can't reapply to enter legally until three years have passed. This assumes you only crashed the party for six months, though--if you stayed illegally for a year, you have to wait ten years. And even with employer sponsorship...well, re-read the last paragraph.
In fact, our immigration system is broken, but not in the way some people are saying. Basically, our borders are closed, but with a few holes (got that phrase from an immigration article on the Cato Institute's web site). Rather than potential new Americans being considered eligible until proven otherwise by the government, they are automatically rejected unless they can prove their worth. A poor person from, say, Guatemala, whose only skill is as a farmer and who knows little or no English (and may, in fact, be completely illiterate) just wouldn't be considered a good fit under current immigration law. Never mind that he is quite intelligent and would flourish if he had the chance to learn to read and write, first Spanish, then English. (Where I live, a guy like that would be an asset--we're losing too many family farmers because of age, expenses, or plain lack of interest.) Highly-skilled folks aren't in a much better position. Oh, and remember when we welcomed people who were fleeing oppression? Donald Trump's response is that the present refugee crisis isn't real--it's a gigantic plot by Central America to sneak in gangs and drugs. Yeah, gotta watch those infant/toddler MS-13ers...herd 'em all into detention cages!
How To Get On The Trump Shit List
It's simple. Be a Congressperson of color, and criticize Trump's immigration policies.
Four of those fearless sisters--Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)--did just that. Trump's response? He accused them of being unpatriotic and told them to go back where they came from and fix the messes in their own countries!
At a rally in North Carolina, a chant started up--"Send her back!"--when Trump mentioned Rep. Omar. He just let it go. Later, he flip-flopped, at first saying he tried to stop the chant, then later saying that those NC attendees were patriots, and that Omar and her fellow Reps had said "horrible things" about the USA and some of its people.
Wow. Where to begin...
1) Need A Mirror, Mr. President?
Because the number of horrible things you have said about this country and its people increases with just about every tweet you post. The only thing about this that amazes me is that you are too unaware to realize how ironic this entire situation is.
2) And What About Those Rallies, Anyway?
Aren't you supposed to be fulfilling your duties as President? They're outlined in the Constitution. I bet there's even a cardboard version with brightly-colored pictures and first-grade vocabulary, if eighteenth-century English is too hard for you!
You should not be gallivanting around the country when there's work to be done. And BTW...I'm waiting for one of your "chant shills" to repent and confess. No way are all those slogans erupting spontaneously. Think those paid performers are all completely loyal? Well, you've been fooled enough by this time that we're way past shame on anybody.
3) Send Who Back Where To What???
All those ladies are United States citizens, and only one--Ilhan Omar--has ever been anything else. Omar came here from war-torn Somalia when she was ten, becoming a citizen when she was sseventeen. The other women were born here. And how do you, Mr. Trump, expect the messes in poor countries to be fixed by anybody when thugs and gangs control everything? I suppose it only matters if the thugs and gangs in question allow you to build a golf course or tower, or if they buy arms from us. In other words, if you can "do business" with them.
On Second Thought...
Y'know, I've changed my mind. I'm not in Russia--I'm in freakin' Uganda, with Trump as Idi Amin Dada.
Well, maybe not.
I only know that if we don't all stand up and shout "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" when we meet up with injustices like this...then I'm definitely not in the USA anymore.
P.S. About That Article...
It's really rare that the Cato Institute publishes anything reasonable, but that article on immigration certainly qualifies. If you want to read it, here is the link:
https://www.cato.org/blog/why-legal-immigration-system-broken-short-list-problems
This last week, I decided to sleep on my day off...like, almost all day. So I was late getting out to run errands, and when I stopped to buy a newspaper--a rare event these days--I glanced at the headlines and screeched to a halt in mid-step. Because apparently, I had awakened in Russia.
The headline that got my attention was from the "illegals roundup" that happened last weekend, brought to us by Donald Trump and his merry band of ICE-men. The idea was to swoop in, arrest all those evil illegals, and deport them. But in this story, there was an interesting wrinkle: the man in question, who was in his car with his girlfriend and their two kids, was approached by an ICE agent who commanded him to get out of the car. The girlfriend says that the agent never said the name of the man they were looking for, nor did he show a warrant. So the family stayed in their vehicle and kept the windows closed. The ICE agent then broke the car window and dragged the man from the car, while his son screamed for the agent not to take his daddy.
Fortunately, the girlfriend recorded the whole incident on her phone, and it's all over Facebook as I write. Hurrah for her. It's about time we Harold Beale this ugly mess.
This whole business of "rounding up the bad guys" smells like a mid-summer mass fish kill anyway. The media have been reporting on it for weeks, which my paper said was problematic for an operation that relied on "secrecy and surprise." Wow. Can you say "KGB," kiddies? How about "police state"? Or "unconstitutional"? Because, kiddies, breaking a car window and dragging a man out of it without showing a warrant is called "illegal search and seizure," and it's something we're supposed to be protected from by the Fourth Amendment. The fact that the ICE agent did not tell the family who they were looking for is also a red flag--what if they had just been profiling anybody who looked Hispanic?
The ICE maintained that the man was an "immigration fugitive" with "prior misdemeanors." But his biggest crime seems to have been that when he was ordered to leave the country, he kept sneaking back in. My bet is that he didn't want to abandon his family here in the States. And he wasn't a shiftless layabout getting free handouts from the government; he was a chef. Whether that means "high-end fancy cook" or "gourmet burger-flipper" is immaterial--the guy worked to provide for his family. He "took care of business," to quote Chris Rock (who had no love for deadbeat dads). Isn't that the kind of immigrant we want to have living here?
But Donald Trump doesn't see it that way. He wants only people from "good" countries to immigrate to the USA. And if you come from a "shithole country," you can apply to come here, but your request will be shunted to the bottom of the heap. An unskilled laborer will wait decades for even a temporary work visa, even with an employer to sponsor him...and he has to leave voluntarily at the end of his term of work and reapply again!
It gets worse. If you come here illegally, then obey a voluntary deportation order, you can't reapply to enter legally until three years have passed. This assumes you only crashed the party for six months, though--if you stayed illegally for a year, you have to wait ten years. And even with employer sponsorship...well, re-read the last paragraph.
In fact, our immigration system is broken, but not in the way some people are saying. Basically, our borders are closed, but with a few holes (got that phrase from an immigration article on the Cato Institute's web site). Rather than potential new Americans being considered eligible until proven otherwise by the government, they are automatically rejected unless they can prove their worth. A poor person from, say, Guatemala, whose only skill is as a farmer and who knows little or no English (and may, in fact, be completely illiterate) just wouldn't be considered a good fit under current immigration law. Never mind that he is quite intelligent and would flourish if he had the chance to learn to read and write, first Spanish, then English. (Where I live, a guy like that would be an asset--we're losing too many family farmers because of age, expenses, or plain lack of interest.) Highly-skilled folks aren't in a much better position. Oh, and remember when we welcomed people who were fleeing oppression? Donald Trump's response is that the present refugee crisis isn't real--it's a gigantic plot by Central America to sneak in gangs and drugs. Yeah, gotta watch those infant/toddler MS-13ers...herd 'em all into detention cages!
How To Get On The Trump Shit List
It's simple. Be a Congressperson of color, and criticize Trump's immigration policies.
Four of those fearless sisters--Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)--did just that. Trump's response? He accused them of being unpatriotic and told them to go back where they came from and fix the messes in their own countries!
At a rally in North Carolina, a chant started up--"Send her back!"--when Trump mentioned Rep. Omar. He just let it go. Later, he flip-flopped, at first saying he tried to stop the chant, then later saying that those NC attendees were patriots, and that Omar and her fellow Reps had said "horrible things" about the USA and some of its people.
Wow. Where to begin...
1) Need A Mirror, Mr. President?
Because the number of horrible things you have said about this country and its people increases with just about every tweet you post. The only thing about this that amazes me is that you are too unaware to realize how ironic this entire situation is.
2) And What About Those Rallies, Anyway?
Aren't you supposed to be fulfilling your duties as President? They're outlined in the Constitution. I bet there's even a cardboard version with brightly-colored pictures and first-grade vocabulary, if eighteenth-century English is too hard for you!
You should not be gallivanting around the country when there's work to be done. And BTW...I'm waiting for one of your "chant shills" to repent and confess. No way are all those slogans erupting spontaneously. Think those paid performers are all completely loyal? Well, you've been fooled enough by this time that we're way past shame on anybody.
3) Send Who Back Where To What???
All those ladies are United States citizens, and only one--Ilhan Omar--has ever been anything else. Omar came here from war-torn Somalia when she was ten, becoming a citizen when she was sseventeen. The other women were born here. And how do you, Mr. Trump, expect the messes in poor countries to be fixed by anybody when thugs and gangs control everything? I suppose it only matters if the thugs and gangs in question allow you to build a golf course or tower, or if they buy arms from us. In other words, if you can "do business" with them.
On Second Thought...
Y'know, I've changed my mind. I'm not in Russia--I'm in freakin' Uganda, with Trump as Idi Amin Dada.
Well, maybe not.
I only know that if we don't all stand up and shout "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" when we meet up with injustices like this...then I'm definitely not in the USA anymore.
P.S. About That Article...
It's really rare that the Cato Institute publishes anything reasonable, but that article on immigration certainly qualifies. If you want to read it, here is the link:
https://www.cato.org/blog/why-legal-immigration-system-broken-short-list-problems
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Saving Trees Or Snubbing Bibliophiles?
*Sigh.*
All these years I was worried that one of my favorite authors, Diane Duane, was ill. Or maybe even dead. Because I hadn't seen a new book by her on the shelves in ages.
But she was just fine (sigh again, this time with relief). She wasn't even on sabbatical. She was still writing books...but not for physical publication. E-books, to be exact. Apparently, there's a rather large stack of digital stories that take place between the events of various novels in her Young Wizards series. (Note: this lady was writing cool stories about wizards loooong before Harry Potter was ever created, and Nita Callahan and Kit Rodriguez are well worth your time. First book is So You Want to Be A Wizard. Check it out! Now, back to the original post...)
Now, I really don't have a quarrel with Kindle, and the fact that I am blogging right now proves my status as a non-Luddite. But I am rather old-fashioned in that I love books. I love ordering from my local indie book store, or from Abebooks or Amazon or wherever (I do prefer the actual book store if they can get what I want), and I love opening that new book and turning the pages and devouring every word, and I love shelving that new book in its proper order when I'm finished. A good enough book will catch my eye later on, and then I get the pleasure of re-reading it!
A physical cardboard-and-paper book is very low-tech. All you need in order to read it is enough light. If it's night and the electricity goes out, you can light a candle and carry on. Or just put the book down and go to bed--the sun will rise and give you enough light again! And a blind person doesn't even need light--just a Braille book and sensitive fingers!
Kindle is great in that you can carry lots of books in the same space you'd carry a thin paperback. But it's a machine. You have to be careful not to drop it or get it wet, and if the battery dies, all the light in the world won't get you to that next chapter of The Pride of Chanur, or The Arabian Nights, or even Oliver Twist. And if there's a nasty power surge while you're recharging and the hard drive goes kaput, so does your compact little library...unless you backed it all up on yet another machine. Honestly, a real book is so little trouble by comparison. At least, I think so.
So I will never get a Kindle. Which, unfortunately, means I will also never get to read all those in-between stories about the Young Wizards (some of whom are cats--there's an entire e-novel about them that I just found out about). If I sound like I'm whining, well--maybe I am. But too much screen time isn't very good for people's eyes, filters or no filters. Science has shown that reading a real book before retiring is better for your sleep cycle than staring at a phone, TV, computer...or Kindle. And I'm one of those people who actually can't get to sleep without reading a couple of short stories or a chapter from a novel.
Long ago, when Stephen King wrote The Green Mile as an e-book serial, he subsequently had each chapter published in physical form, then expanded and combined the chapters into an actual novel. He understood that he had fans who might not be computer-literate, or who might--like me--prefer printed words on paper. Diane doesn't seem to know that she has fans who still read physical books; she may think all her readers are wealthy kids who get the newest e-reader every Christmas. But if so, she's sadly mistaken.
Or maybe she's saving trees. It does take wood pulp to create paper. But there are sustainable forest initiatives, and paper is recyclable...and a physical book can be regifted to a friend, donated to a library, sold to a secondhand store, or traded in at the nearest Little Free Library!
But at least Diane seems unaware that she's snubbing people. Other writers, like Charles Stross, revel in techno-snobbery; if the stupid yahoos won't embrace the Technology Revolution, why, they deserve to miss out on the latest installment of that hero who started out on paper but has since uploaded to the Internet, where he and his in-the-know fans can live happily ever after, far away from the Great Unwashed who still write with ink pens.
But technology, besides being fragile, is shallow. And no society lasts forever. And when they finally get around to digging up the remnants of the USA, what will they find that will actually tell them anything about us? Laptops? Xboxes? Kindles?
Or...maybe...books?
That's where I'm laying my bets. Too bad I won't be around to collect my winnings.
All these years I was worried that one of my favorite authors, Diane Duane, was ill. Or maybe even dead. Because I hadn't seen a new book by her on the shelves in ages.
But she was just fine (sigh again, this time with relief). She wasn't even on sabbatical. She was still writing books...but not for physical publication. E-books, to be exact. Apparently, there's a rather large stack of digital stories that take place between the events of various novels in her Young Wizards series. (Note: this lady was writing cool stories about wizards loooong before Harry Potter was ever created, and Nita Callahan and Kit Rodriguez are well worth your time. First book is So You Want to Be A Wizard. Check it out! Now, back to the original post...)
Now, I really don't have a quarrel with Kindle, and the fact that I am blogging right now proves my status as a non-Luddite. But I am rather old-fashioned in that I love books. I love ordering from my local indie book store, or from Abebooks or Amazon or wherever (I do prefer the actual book store if they can get what I want), and I love opening that new book and turning the pages and devouring every word, and I love shelving that new book in its proper order when I'm finished. A good enough book will catch my eye later on, and then I get the pleasure of re-reading it!
A physical cardboard-and-paper book is very low-tech. All you need in order to read it is enough light. If it's night and the electricity goes out, you can light a candle and carry on. Or just put the book down and go to bed--the sun will rise and give you enough light again! And a blind person doesn't even need light--just a Braille book and sensitive fingers!
Kindle is great in that you can carry lots of books in the same space you'd carry a thin paperback. But it's a machine. You have to be careful not to drop it or get it wet, and if the battery dies, all the light in the world won't get you to that next chapter of The Pride of Chanur, or The Arabian Nights, or even Oliver Twist. And if there's a nasty power surge while you're recharging and the hard drive goes kaput, so does your compact little library...unless you backed it all up on yet another machine. Honestly, a real book is so little trouble by comparison. At least, I think so.
So I will never get a Kindle. Which, unfortunately, means I will also never get to read all those in-between stories about the Young Wizards (some of whom are cats--there's an entire e-novel about them that I just found out about). If I sound like I'm whining, well--maybe I am. But too much screen time isn't very good for people's eyes, filters or no filters. Science has shown that reading a real book before retiring is better for your sleep cycle than staring at a phone, TV, computer...or Kindle. And I'm one of those people who actually can't get to sleep without reading a couple of short stories or a chapter from a novel.
Long ago, when Stephen King wrote The Green Mile as an e-book serial, he subsequently had each chapter published in physical form, then expanded and combined the chapters into an actual novel. He understood that he had fans who might not be computer-literate, or who might--like me--prefer printed words on paper. Diane doesn't seem to know that she has fans who still read physical books; she may think all her readers are wealthy kids who get the newest e-reader every Christmas. But if so, she's sadly mistaken.
Or maybe she's saving trees. It does take wood pulp to create paper. But there are sustainable forest initiatives, and paper is recyclable...and a physical book can be regifted to a friend, donated to a library, sold to a secondhand store, or traded in at the nearest Little Free Library!
But at least Diane seems unaware that she's snubbing people. Other writers, like Charles Stross, revel in techno-snobbery; if the stupid yahoos won't embrace the Technology Revolution, why, they deserve to miss out on the latest installment of that hero who started out on paper but has since uploaded to the Internet, where he and his in-the-know fans can live happily ever after, far away from the Great Unwashed who still write with ink pens.
But technology, besides being fragile, is shallow. And no society lasts forever. And when they finally get around to digging up the remnants of the USA, what will they find that will actually tell them anything about us? Laptops? Xboxes? Kindles?
Or...maybe...books?
That's where I'm laying my bets. Too bad I won't be around to collect my winnings.
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