4775 The Manchin on the Hill

 Capitol Hill really isn’t a hill. And there’s nothing mansion-like about Joe Manchin. Here we have a yokel from a state that doesn’t need to exist tying the United States’ legislative branch in knots by holding his votes for ransom.  

In a halfhearted effort to be fair and balanced. Let’s look at the good side of Joe before we get to the point. 

 

OK, the good stuff: um… well, he’s not a lawyer. That’s always a step in the right direction. He represents a state owned and operated by Big Coal and represents his corporate sponsors well.  It’s always nice when an elected official stands for the corporations who elected him.  Also, Wait a minute.  Also…

 

Nah. That’s it. 

 

He’s a registered Democrat and gets elected because the republicans are too busy out trumping each other to figure out to topple him. So, he stands out from the crowd.

 

And he’s in a really good position right now from a politician’s perspective.  A democrat in an evenly divided senate, meaning his vote counts more than a person of that caliber from a state of that caliber deserves.

 

So let’s all get together and kiss Joe’s… um… ring. He’s sitting so pretty that he can topple the rest of his party by casting a “no” vote. You can say that the United States Senate is coal-powered.  You can also say if the guy has a grain of sense, he’ll hire private security.

 

Operating behind a facade of representing his state, (“the only people who can hire or fire me,” he says) he is the go to guy for getting anything done in the Senate.  He’s built a pretty good mousetrap.

 

The former Senator Biden of another small and relatively inconsequential state is pretty good at glad handing his former legislative colleagues and is trying his best to get a huge package of spending on social and infrastructure repair approved. It seems to have worked. But the vote hasn’t yet happened.

 

Now, it all depends on Joe Manchin.

 

Oh, some version of the Biden agenda will pass. It’s nice to see Moscow Mitch sit on his hands and not count.  But Manchin counts.  All he has to do to screw things up for America is wave the West Virginia flag and vote with the disloyal opposition.  No one person of any affiliation belongs in that position.

 

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4774 Dollar Tree Sort Of

 

You can’t see the whole storefront in the picture.  But the smaller signs on the left and right each say “Everything’s $1.00.”  Now, they’re busy clipping the sign’s wings.  Why? Because they’re no longer true.  The company finally knuckled under to cost pressure and raised some prices above a buck.

 

The other so-called “dollar stores” did it years ago. So it was only a matter of time.  DT was the only remaining place of its ilk that’s held on to the one price model since the beginning, which in this case was 35 years.

 

These stores peddle name brands that were made for export or made offshore or looked a lot like stuff you buy in the supermarket for a few cents more, or were a little lower in weight, though always clearly marked. And they sell brands you never heard of.

 

The end of an era.

 

The higher prices don’t apply to everything. In some cases, it’s only a few items.  But now that they’ve broken the dollar barrier, you know what’s coming next.

 

This, of course, is understandable. Stuff costs more to make these days. Imports are getting more expensive from sitting in cargo ships lined up and waiting for the docks to clear.  All that costs.  So, the alternatives were to cut the selection or raise some prices.

 

Empty shelves in a store emit a poverty vibe. So if a high stack of party plates or a package of plastic tableware costs a few cents more, well… either suck it up or buy a smaller stack. Those shelves have to look full else that’s a turnoff.

 

Retailing is show biz.  Even high end retailing.  In fact, you can know the act by just walking in.  If you’re looking for shoes and there are 100 pairs sitting in disarray on racks, you automatically know what the place is about.  If there are ten pairs, each in its own lighted glass cubes on pedestals or in recessed spaces in the walls, you know what that means, too.

 

Old school discounters knew this.  They used a display protocol called dump-stuff-on-a table and let people pick through it.  Mid-price department stores kept three foot walking space between racks. Real high enders: Lighted glass cubes on pedestals. 

 

Dollar Tree is kind of in the middle.  There are no tables on which to dump tubes of toothpaste, but by the time they’ve been open for half a day, the shelves often are in chaos, with 25% of the merchandise on the floor.

 

No beef with DT. They fill a niche somewhere between what Woolworth’s once was and Wal-mart is now.

 

We Americans love tradition, even if we don’t admit it. This one inflicts pain. Not major pain. But something. Now which aisle has the BenGay?

 

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

4773 Mass Media of the Future

 You’re looking at the great leap backward in mass media, the leaflet or the pamphlet.

We all know that newspapers are blowing away with the wind.  Magazine racks are empty. News Radio and over the air television are digging their own graves.  Facebook and Twitter and their kin are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the internet and podcasts are morbidly obese.

 

What’s left? Pamphlets.  Write and photograph the news and put it into small portable pieces of paper segregated by subject. The Daily Crime Watch. The Daily Money Watch. The Daily Political Roundup. The Daily Affliction Summary.  For entertainment, sports and gossip, small media won’t do.  But there are or will be many a printing press for sale cheap so you can produce something large enough.

 

Pamphlets.  Low cost to manufacture, low cost to buy.  No more Cable subscriptions where you never watch 90% of the offerings or full size newspapers where you read two stories and then run for CNN to see what happened at the end of the chase or the raid of a bookie joint.

Freedom of choice. How American is that? Of course, it doesn’t always work.  There are about 6,000 publicly traded companies.  Who knows what to choose?

 

Each major automaker makes a dozen or so models with umpteen variations of each. Who knows what to choose?

 

There are 4,000 brands of toothpaste and deodorant, and soap and body wash and laundry detergent with 75 versions of each. That’s 300-thousand products. Who knows which to choose?

 

At least as many variations of wines, beers, liquors, coffees, sodas, fruit drinks, protein bars, cereals, canned beans, tires, TV sets, computers, pens, pencils, notebooks, fishing gear, guns, Barbie Dolls, cell phones, guitar strings, silverware, dishes, political candidates and more. Who knows which to choose?

 

Too many variations of too many things lead to confusion and it’s a wonder anyone buys, sells, rents, leases or otherwise causes the movement of anything from where it is to where it isn’t.

 

Same with news.  So simplifying makes life easier. Probably also less expensive. 

 

Now, I’m going to stop and get ready to run out and buy the latest edition of the Weekly Kidnapped/Murdered White Girl Gazette.  And maybe I’ll pick up a copy of The Daily Scam Digest. 

 

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

Reminder: Wessays is available three times a week, runs around 400 or 500 words, has no ads, doesn’t need recycling, may contaminate your mind but not the air, water or landfill, and is priced to sell.

© WR 2021

4772 The Wizard of TRUTHSOCIAL

 The Wizard of Oz would be green with envy.  Former president trump is following the yellow brick road with a new social media presence from which he can’t be banned.  Wall St., always following the yellow bricks, got a bit of a boost from the announcement.

 

The new site won’t be ready until sometime next year, although people are testing it -- and hacking it -- already.  Just what we need. “TRUTH SOCIAL,” it’s called.  How Orwellian.  Truth?  

Find a dictionary that defines “truth” as whatever comes into a speaker’s head.  Then repeat the definition until people start to believe it.  This pathetic apparition just doesn’t know when to give up the ghost.

 

The publicists for this burst of brilliance point out that the Taliban can post on Facebook and Twitter but a former president of the United States can’t?  “Where’s the justice,” they whine?  

 

The whiners have a point. Can you imagine what it takes to be considered so bad that the Taliban is better and more deserving of public space?

 

Thing is… don’t underestimate this thing. Yeah, it’s likely to be about as successful as trump’s casinos and his gaudy hotels and so-so golf courses.  But there’s always a chance that it will catch on and the Genius of Jamaica tries to keep his grip on a political party and movement that is marching toward the edge of the earth it flattened and is about ready to fall into space without benefit of NASA or Bezos or Musk.

 

It’s hard not to be trapped in the trappings of an office as lofty as POTUS. But trump’s missing them something awful.  The question is are his followers missing him? Sure. He amuses them. He entertains them. But the movement no longer needs him. It can head for the end of the earth all by itself.

 

What Cadet Bonespurs doesn’t seem to realize is that the movement that coalesced around him doesn’t need him anymore. Oh, they’d like to have him in the same way that bible thumpers wave around their book.  That is, it’s a symbol, an amulet.  But need? Of course not.

 

Let’s say you stick up a 7-11.  As you run out the door, the book you always carry falls to the ground and you don’t pick it up. Only later, you realize it’s missing. No real loss.  All you have to say is you have a personal relationship with the author and start quoting what He tells you.

 

trump may need them. But eventually he’ll get over it. One way or another.

 

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

4771 G The Cop

 G the cop was going to work the minimum, retire to a life of leisure and maybe start a daycare hovel.  The minimum was 20 years.  When 14 rolled around, she took the Sergeant’s exam and passed.  When nothing happened for six years, she put in her papers. 

G never fired her gun, on or off duty except on the range.  Never was invited to join a task force, go undercover, pose as a streetwalker, wore a wire. She never worked a Big Case. Never discovered a body in a back alley, a park or a parked car. Her picture was in the Daily News once, or maybe it was the Post. But women in uniform photographed walking away from the camera, pretty much all look the same. 

 G wrote a lot of tickets.  Went a lot of places where you get dirty.  Never was injured in the line of work. Or shot. It’s the kind of cop career that would make you bored and your parents grateful and able to climb off the ledge labeled “what if?”

Such it is with many a cop who steps down at the first possible moment with no special medals, no special complaints, no bonus money in the pension check and a life expectancy instantly extended by the actuaries.  Never took a bribe. Never was offered one. Never put a knee on a supine suspect. Paid for her own coffee and the occasional apple or orange from one of the semi open air delis of Midtown Manhattan. (and -- shhhh -- the occasional box of Malomars.)

Her marriage didn’t end in divorce, or at all. She got vaccinated even though her union told her she didn’t have to though her mayor and her kids told her she should.

Turned in the papers, the badge and the gun.

Dull as can be, right?  Right. 

“Putting the uniform on for the first day at the academy was a thrill,” she said, adding “got old really fast, but saved a lot in work wardrobe choices.”

 Dull work can breed wholesale boredom.  Being a cop can not only bore you but custom fit you with a dismal and dour view of your fellow critters.

 So, what about that day care center? “Maybe. Depends on what hoops I have to jump through to start and run one. I’m not a kid anymore.”  

 I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4770 Area Code 516

 NBC PHOTO

As Ernestine the operator, Lily Tomlin said it best: “We don’t care. We’re the phone company. We don’t have to.”

Well, they’ve spread out the uncaring since when she said that there was only one major phone company. Now there are many.  And while area codes became standard in the 1940s, they were optional and for the longest time, we didn’t need to use them most of us didn’t know they existed.

 

Now there are so many and so easy to fake they’re all but meaningless.  Except to those who -- unusual as it seems -- live in the same area code their phone number says they do.

 

You figure they have to subdivide big places like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.  So, multiple area codes in the same geography have become common.  But in the suburbs?

 

The original Long Island, New York area code was 516. But the Island was still growing in those days and eventually, they had to restrict 516 to Nassau County and gave Suffolk a new code, 631. Now, even with sky high taxes, widespread traffic jams and fuel prices for the rich and famous, Nassau has outgrown 516 so the deities will assign what they call an overlay.

 

The new three digit number?

The envelope please.

(Narrator opens the envelope)

And the new added area code for Nassau County is….  Wait. Something went wrong here.  Where’s the number?

 

There’s no number in the envelope because they won’t disclose it until they’re ready to use it.  

 

They sometimes do.  Not this time.

 

OK, we know this much: The second digit can’t be a zero because all the center-zeros were taken by the original codes.  It can’t start with a “1” because nothing can start with a 1 which tells the machinery that an out-of-area call is about to be made, at least in some places. (Sometimes you don’t need the 1 for that anymore.  But you never know when.)

It can’t start with a zero because that would mean an international call.  It can’t end in “11,” because that’s used for tech support and directory assistance and emergencies.  It probably won’t start with “5” because overlays never start with the same digit as the code they already use in that place.

 

So, we’ve narrowed it down a bit.  There are only 720 combinations of three digits. There are 320 area codes in use in this country.  That means we’ve narrowed it down to 420 possibles. But since they can’t start with 1 or have 0 in the middle there are about 70 choices, 61 if you don’t count 11.

 

So let’s say 60. Make it even.  There’s a money game possible here.

 

Lottery Agencies, those hotbeds of gambling addiction, political no-show jobs and impositional poverty could make a little on a game like this but probably won’t because… they’re like

...the phone companies.  They don’t care. They don’t have to.

 

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

MINI 037 Jack the Driver

 Jack the driver retired from the Gobbleup & Sons Construction Company a few years back and his retirement checks were a lot lower than he expected.  So, paperwork in hand, he asked the human resources department why.

 Pricilla Personnel assumed her official scowl, pretended to read Jack’s papers and then said it was because the market tanked.  Jack hauled out his Wall Street Journal which said the market’s been just fine.  The scowl deepened. Trucker with a Wall Street Journal?  These days, sure. 

 

What really happened was that members of the Gobbleup clan and some of their poker buddies were fudging the figures. The kind of fudge that comes in dollar-green and lands in hiding.

 

The court said give the money back.  They did… along with one of those agreements that says “We did nothing wrong and we’ll never do it again.”  Consent decrees, they’re called.

 

But guess what everyone just now found out.  They had started siphoning a whole lot earlier than anyone told the judge.  So now they’re all back in court.

 

The big question isn’t what the court does, or the company. It’s whether the judge is a member of their weekly Texas Hold ’em circle?

 

I’m wesrichards@gmail.com 

My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them.

© WR 2021

 

4769 The Time Bank

  A little misleading.  There IS no time bank.  But think of what you could do if there were.

First, let’s get one thing straight: Time is your only asset and it’s not renewable.  Forget relativity, spacetime, alternative universes. We get enough of that elsewhere.

Time may be an artificial construct based on observable phenomena.  But in day to day use, it’s real.  

And think of how much you squander.  If you could bank some of it, your life would be longer… generally considered a plus.

As in any market, there are gains and losses.  When the court has a missing item on its calendar and your arraignment comes up early, you gain.  (Unless, of course bail is denied and they take you directly to the electric chair. Or the needle in more humane places.)

When the sign in the doctor’s office says if you’re more than 15 minutes late you will have to reschedule, you’ve lost time even if you’re only 16 minutes late.  Of course if doc is late, no matter by how much, tough, buddy. Live with it.  He’s a doctor, after all. Or she.

You lose time on checkout lines, in traffic jams, waiting for “her” to put on her makeup after taking forever deciding on what to wear (still subject to change after the makeup’s done.)

You lose time when the foursome ahead of you on the 18th hole decides to drink and carouse before they get to the “19th Hole Lounge” in the clubhouse.

You lose time when you use the cash only lane on the George Washington Bridge and eight cars ahead of you is Jed Clampett in his 1928 Model A trying to get directions to Rhinebeck followed by seven cars from Ohio.

These are times you can’t bank.  But think about the time you lose all by yourself. 

 An hour watching “The Voice,” which recently began its 1123rd boring scream season, or the MTV awards is an hour you’ll never get back. A trip to the outlet mall is a day you can’t get back.

 The clock is not syncopated, it counts steadily.

 Grapeshot:

-When you tell the bank teller you want to make a “time deposit” and she asks how much and you answer about an hour” she’ll have you thrown out.

 -Calling a watch a “timepiece” in an ad is pretentious, calling it a timepiece in conversation is ridiculous, printing the word on the watch face is gauche.

-In the smartphone era, watches are just jewelry because there’s no need to have one to tell time.

-Digital watches with LED readouts often have a zillion functions but they lack one you get only with analog: time remaining in the hour at a glance.

-Make that two functions… because a stopped analog is right twice a day but a stopped digital is a blank face.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4768 The Cracked Whip

A guy with four arms can probably also have two faces, right?  This is Rep. Steve Scalise, republican of Louisiana.  Scalise is the number two republican in the House of Representatives, a job they call the whip.  Besides voting against everything, his job is to make sure the rest of his fellow partygoers also vote against everything.

 

Other than that, there’s nothing special about this four-armed klutz.  Oh. Wait. Yes there is.  He’s a refuser.  That is someone in a high ranking job who will not come out and tell the truth, which is that trump lost the election. 

 

Maybe he and the cabal he leads voted more than once… and assumed that everyone else with his viewpoint did.  And with all those multivotes, it was arithmetically impossible for Biden to win.  Chances are high that he only voted once. Chances are high that he isn’t high. Or a lobotomy survivor.

 

Maybe he thinks Kev McCarthy will run for higher office and he’ll get to fill the top spot but needs the votes of his fellow illusionists and delusionalists.  Or maybe his party’s #3 Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-Utica, NY) is nipping at his heels and since electing women is getting popular, she could surpass him when Kev runs for Senate or President.

 

Now, be honest.  If you aren’t from Louisiana or Upstate New York, answer this: did you ever hear of either of these relative newcomers?  Of course you haven’t. Scalise has done nothing to attract your attention, and Stefanik has done less.

 

But wait. How do we know Scalise is a Biden Denier?  It’s not like he has a “trump really won” or “the election was stolen” bumper sticker on his car. No. It’s not like he runs around proudly covering his high forehead or mini hairline with a bright red MAGA cap.

 

None of that.  Someone had to ask him.  And who would do such a thing?  Here are some choices:

1.  The American Society of Four-armed congressmen.

2.  The kid whose lunch bag he stole while passing a touring group of elementary school students from Ohio.

3.  Ivanka trump.

4.  Fox News. 

Whispered hint: pick #4.  There is no association of four armed congressmen, the kid from Ohio bared his teeth and growled during the robbery attempt scaring him off and Ivanka wouldn’t be caught dead with a guy like Steve.

 

Which leads us back to the questions about people (and organizations) getting high, voting more than once and undergoing volunteer lobotomies.

 

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Any Questions? wesrichars@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

  

4767 Party Like it's 1776

 It’s tough to find a picture of George with him facing page-right.

It was a lot less complicated to elect a president back in America’s early days. The idea of political monopoly existed, though they called it something else: monarchy. George Washington put that out of commission.

 

We had the collective sense to reject that and became a democratic republic. Then, everyone began to party. And now we're verging on the very kind of monopoly our ancestors feared.

 

There are ways around that. But even the easiest is hard, forming a viable national third party. Yes, it's possible. 

 

No doubt there's power in numbers. But there's even more power in zero.

 

Washington was the first and so far, the only president without a party.  What did he know that we don’t?  Probably not an awful lot when it comes to organizing. But there were only 2.5 million American citizens in his day. Now there are something like 330 million. So there has to be some kind of organization, right?  

 

Maybe.  

 

Sure, we have to sort these office seekers out somehow. Here’s how:

 

Make a checklist of your most important issues.  Send it to the candidate and promise that you’ll vote for him or her if he checks X percent of the boxes you consider right.  But don’t say which are which.

 

Put the issues in alphabetical order and say so. By all means do not list them by your own priorities.

 

Enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope. You can’t deduct that from your taxes. It shows you put you half-buck (Half a buck for a stamp?!) where you mouth is.

 

Just add thumbs up and thumbs down icon after each issue and the simple instruction “Circle Your Thumb,” and Presto! You have

The Wessays (™) SAMPLE CANDIDATE ISSUE CHECK LIST:

 

Abortion on Demand 

Automatic Weapons

Balanced Budget

Border Walls

Church/State Separation, Absolute

Church/State Separation with Wiggle Room

Climate Change

Concealed Carry

Confederate Statues

COVID Vaccination

Death Penalty

Deregulation

Donald trump 

Electoral College

Equality of Ethnicities 

Equality of Races

Equality of Women

For-profit Colleges

Free Trade

Immigration, illegal

Immigration, legal

Interest Rates

Lobbyists

Math

Medical Ads

Open Carry

Organized Labor

Outsourcing, Domestic

Outsourcing, Overseas

Paid Sex

Pluralizing “anyway”

Podcasts

Political Action Committees

Political Parties

Pot

Pronouncing the “t” in Often

Redistricting

Soaking the Poor

Soaking the Rich

Starbucks

Tax Loopholes

Tax Shelters

Term Limits

Time limits for Political Speeches

Two spaces between sentences

US Supreme Court Membership Limits

Video Games

White Supremacy

Write-in Topic______

 

Much easier than attending rallies, listening to speeches and watching and reading all those ads.  And much cheaper. Of course, we’ll have to establish rehab for the lobbyists and maybe a welfare plan, too.

 

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ® 

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021