1110 Real Gun Control
It starts at home. And it can’t start at home until parents take control of their children. And that can’t happen unless they start early.
“Now, Bobby, don’t be shooting that handgun inside the house.” Bobby is eleven. That’s too late.
Let’s say you’re a rootin’ tootin’ card holding member of the NRA, with guns all over the place and antique rifles and blunderbusses and pistols going back nine generations, enough ammunition for a regiment and mooseheads on your wall. Big John Roberts and the Supremes confirm it is your right to “bear arms.” Okay. There are other interpretations of the second amendment, but that’s the one we have to live with for now.
So it’s pointless to try to stop someone who wants a gun from getting one. But all the safety courses, and lectures about “respect for the weapon” and “respect for life” from gun advocates don’t mean much if some out of control nut job of a kid doesn’t learn early that these things are dangerous and people with warped minds or uncontrolled anger can be death walking. Your death.
You combine a loose cannon with a real cannon, sit him down at a video game console for a few years while he zaps zombies or space aliens or cartoon terrorists, sometimes you get a guy who transfers the animated fantasy into a pile of un-animated corpses and wounded.
The Connecticut shooter was no kid. But it’s impossible to say “no one saw this coming.” Someone had to. Even if it was his gun-collecting parents.
Newtown, CT is a lovely little town surrounded by nothing. It's upscale, quiet and now a living hell. Junior is mad at mommy, goes to mommy's house and shoots her dead. So it shouldn't be a total loss, he also goes to a grade school and offs 20 babies, six adults and himself. At least he's not here to reproduce and we don't have to hear about his tough childhood and how the big kids bullied him.
When the President of the United States is driven to tears during a post-massacre speech, maybe that’s a sign that we need to be doing something more than advocate the elimination of guns in the hands of the public.
Of the loose cannons with real cannons on the street today, there’s little we can do. Little, but not nothing.
Rat out your kid/husband/lover/pool-shooting pals when they make noises like they’ll become the next Adam Lanza or Jacob Roberts or Jared Loughner or Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold or Charles Whitman or Seung Hui Cho. Let people know about their angry bragging... let them know that they soak up half a bottle of Old Grand-dad each night and then polish and load their 9mm Glock and old grand dad’s 1943 M-1.
It’s simple, though not easy. But it’s one way to cut down on some of this violence.
The Brady bunch for handgun control hasn’t made enough of a dent. Neither has Mayor Bloomberg’s laudable effort to protect the city from itself.
Time to bring out the big guns: Mom and dad.
Shrapnel:
--Stories like this are miserable to cover, not only because of the profound tragedy but because they are complex and we’re all trained to report the newest available information -- or misinformation post haste. Early on, the shooter’s mother was widely identified as a teacher at the Sandy Hook elementary school. She wasn’t.
--It took 32 hours for that information to emerge, understandable because fixing a mistake like that is far from everyone’s mind. And it’s not a terribly important datum, given the circumstances. But you can be sure other early “facts” will be turned around.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
Friday, December 14, 2012
1109 Wandering Plants
1109 Wandering Plants
It’s magic. The various flowers and mini-trees migrate from one part of the house to another. Somehow.
There are 20 live ones and about a half dozen fakes. But they all must have legs.
They are rarely in the same place today that they were yesterday. There’s no telling how that happens, though I suspect there is a Prime Mover.
A “money tree,” a few orchids, a couple of bamboos, a vase of wheat-like stalks. A glass bowl of curly willows, and on and on. They switch places, usually overnight but sometimes in broad daylight. And figuring out how they swap places or find new places? That’s a complete mystery.
They find new corners. Surely, they must walk. But without legs, how do they do that?
They travel silently. But they travel. And never when you can see them do it.
Orchids have a wide following of people who have huge books on how to take care of them. Ours just grow and make new flowers.
Poinsettias are fragile and last only a short time. Except ours. One has lived for two or three years with absolutely no care except a daily watering.
Okay, okay, the fake ones stay as they are forever because they’re made of plastic and paper and wire. Easy to understand.
But the vines? The ignored vines? They just keep growing. You can’t kill them. And putting them in the trash is murder! You trim them and they just grow back.
Your correspondent has a black thumb. He can’t grow a decent potato in Long Island sand, famous for its potatoes. You can grow a potato in air, for cryin’ out loud. Here, they flourish.
Onions here grow scallions. Bury them in the woods and they still grow scallions.
Okay, maybe it’s because everything grows well in central PA. Or maybe it’s magic. We live on what used to be farm, forest and deer country. The deer still show up. The trees still grow. The plants still move around as if they had legs.
Even inside the house.
There are a few exceptions to the constant growth. Around here, you plant tomatoes, and nothing happens. But throw a few watermelon seeds into a pot of dirt and ignore it, and six months later you get a watermelon.
Fellow citybillies take heed: there’s no telling what happens in nature.
In the meantime, if anyone can say how the plants migrate from room to room, please speak up.
Shrapnel:
--President, George W. Bush appeared astounded at the way grocery checkouts work (unlike his father who was also once stalled on a supermarket line, but didn’t really care.) So amazed was Bush II, that he honored the inventors of the barcode at a ceremony in the White House. Now, one of the two co inventors, Norman Woodland has died at the age of 91.
--The other co-inventor, Bernard Silver died in 1963. These two college boys earned their patent in 1949. It took awhile for the thing to catch on, but now it’s yet another techno-thingy we can’t live without.
--Soon, babies will be given barcodes at birth along with their social security number. Then they’ll have those microchips embedded under their skin and their DNA will be taken into the national data base. You think you have no privacy now, just wait.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
It’s magic. The various flowers and mini-trees migrate from one part of the house to another. Somehow.
There are 20 live ones and about a half dozen fakes. But they all must have legs.
They are rarely in the same place today that they were yesterday. There’s no telling how that happens, though I suspect there is a Prime Mover.
A “money tree,” a few orchids, a couple of bamboos, a vase of wheat-like stalks. A glass bowl of curly willows, and on and on. They switch places, usually overnight but sometimes in broad daylight. And figuring out how they swap places or find new places? That’s a complete mystery.
They find new corners. Surely, they must walk. But without legs, how do they do that?
They travel silently. But they travel. And never when you can see them do it.
Orchids have a wide following of people who have huge books on how to take care of them. Ours just grow and make new flowers.
Poinsettias are fragile and last only a short time. Except ours. One has lived for two or three years with absolutely no care except a daily watering.
Okay, okay, the fake ones stay as they are forever because they’re made of plastic and paper and wire. Easy to understand.
But the vines? The ignored vines? They just keep growing. You can’t kill them. And putting them in the trash is murder! You trim them and they just grow back.
Your correspondent has a black thumb. He can’t grow a decent potato in Long Island sand, famous for its potatoes. You can grow a potato in air, for cryin’ out loud. Here, they flourish.
Onions here grow scallions. Bury them in the woods and they still grow scallions.
Okay, maybe it’s because everything grows well in central PA. Or maybe it’s magic. We live on what used to be farm, forest and deer country. The deer still show up. The trees still grow. The plants still move around as if they had legs.
Even inside the house.
There are a few exceptions to the constant growth. Around here, you plant tomatoes, and nothing happens. But throw a few watermelon seeds into a pot of dirt and ignore it, and six months later you get a watermelon.
Fellow citybillies take heed: there’s no telling what happens in nature.
In the meantime, if anyone can say how the plants migrate from room to room, please speak up.
Shrapnel:
--President, George W. Bush appeared astounded at the way grocery checkouts work (unlike his father who was also once stalled on a supermarket line, but didn’t really care.) So amazed was Bush II, that he honored the inventors of the barcode at a ceremony in the White House. Now, one of the two co inventors, Norman Woodland has died at the age of 91.
--The other co-inventor, Bernard Silver died in 1963. These two college boys earned their patent in 1949. It took awhile for the thing to catch on, but now it’s yet another techno-thingy we can’t live without.
--Soon, babies will be given barcodes at birth along with their social security number. Then they’ll have those microchips embedded under their skin and their DNA will be taken into the national data base. You think you have no privacy now, just wait.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
1108 Lincoln
Surprise! This is about the car, not the movie.
Ford, the only American carmaker operating without a bailout from the government and/or a deep pockets foreign buyer, made its way through the great Detroit upheaval by building relatively good stuff and carefully building up its bank account.
It’s remarkable, even more so, because the guy who kept them on track, Alan Mulally, a former Boeing executive, had zero background in the business, though you can argue that running a major aircraft maker is similar work.
As his era runs out -- retirement looms -- Mulally is leaving behind a winning record, but certainly not a perfect one. Two things loom beside his stepping down: the horrible electronic interface on the cars and the superannuation of the Lincoln brand, at least in the mind of potential buyers.
The slow-to-respond, geeky touch screen system they have is only slightly worse than everyone else’s. They’ll fix it after enough drivers get distracted using it and crash into something or someone.
Lincoln is another story. They’re re-imaging the brand and fancying up the cars but it remains to be seen whether this all is window dressing and whether it’ll work.
They’ve created a new mini ad agency called Hudson Rouge to promote Lincoln and it’s off to an awkward start with a print ad that asks “Does the world need another luxury car? Not really.” What? The ad -- black type on lots of white space -- also says “...this is how we will become great again.” An admission that it isn’t? Unusual. But not as unusual as “not really.”
“Not really” says “we’re making this car, see, and since you have a bazillion other choices, don’t bother with us.”
You think the guys who buy Lexus and Audi and BMW are going to swap those for a gussied up Taurus with a glass roof and leather seats? Not a chance.
In fairness, Cadillac no longer is much of a contender in the luxury field, either.
Why do people buy Lexus? Well... it’s pretty. It IS luxurious. But the main reason is all that plus when you turn it on, it starts. When you step on the gas, it goes. When you step on the brakes, it stops. Boringly, it does this time and time and time again.
Instead of bells and whistles and Benz Envy, Lincoln should look in the mirror. There, it might see a glimpse of their real competitor, the one great -- great -- car they ever built: the 1956 Continental. Small enough to drive. Practically handmade. A decent competitor against everyone else. Came wrapped in cloth. Did that boring start-go-stop thing better than anything else Ford built before or since.
That’s the benchmark, guys.
And by the way: Mentioning Edsel in print -- even if it’s only the guy, not the car? -- that’s not a good idea. Edsel Ford knew cars, alright. But the car itself remains a laughing stock.
Shrapnel:
--Why is it the shipping lines never offer free shipping? For that matter why is sending a package via the post office or one of the private carriers called “shipping” in the first place. And you can ship by train, but you can’t train by ship.
--Ahah! Half the packages for which you pay shipping and handling are never actually handled. They come from the factory pre-boxed for the carrier, picked from warehouse shelves and labeled by robots.
--The Stage Deli on 7th Av. is closing although someone surely will buy the rights to the name. They’d better hurry if they’re going to occupy the restaurant’s present space. That’s because the owners of the cholesterol pipeline are getting ready to close it down, a long and arduous process.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Surprise! This is about the car, not the movie.
Ford, the only American carmaker operating without a bailout from the government and/or a deep pockets foreign buyer, made its way through the great Detroit upheaval by building relatively good stuff and carefully building up its bank account.
It’s remarkable, even more so, because the guy who kept them on track, Alan Mulally, a former Boeing executive, had zero background in the business, though you can argue that running a major aircraft maker is similar work.
As his era runs out -- retirement looms -- Mulally is leaving behind a winning record, but certainly not a perfect one. Two things loom beside his stepping down: the horrible electronic interface on the cars and the superannuation of the Lincoln brand, at least in the mind of potential buyers.
The slow-to-respond, geeky touch screen system they have is only slightly worse than everyone else’s. They’ll fix it after enough drivers get distracted using it and crash into something or someone.
Lincoln is another story. They’re re-imaging the brand and fancying up the cars but it remains to be seen whether this all is window dressing and whether it’ll work.
They’ve created a new mini ad agency called Hudson Rouge to promote Lincoln and it’s off to an awkward start with a print ad that asks “Does the world need another luxury car? Not really.” What? The ad -- black type on lots of white space -- also says “...this is how we will become great again.” An admission that it isn’t? Unusual. But not as unusual as “not really.”
“Not really” says “we’re making this car, see, and since you have a bazillion other choices, don’t bother with us.”
You think the guys who buy Lexus and Audi and BMW are going to swap those for a gussied up Taurus with a glass roof and leather seats? Not a chance.
In fairness, Cadillac no longer is much of a contender in the luxury field, either.
Why do people buy Lexus? Well... it’s pretty. It IS luxurious. But the main reason is all that plus when you turn it on, it starts. When you step on the gas, it goes. When you step on the brakes, it stops. Boringly, it does this time and time and time again.
Instead of bells and whistles and Benz Envy, Lincoln should look in the mirror. There, it might see a glimpse of their real competitor, the one great -- great -- car they ever built: the 1956 Continental. Small enough to drive. Practically handmade. A decent competitor against everyone else. Came wrapped in cloth. Did that boring start-go-stop thing better than anything else Ford built before or since.
That’s the benchmark, guys.
And by the way: Mentioning Edsel in print -- even if it’s only the guy, not the car? -- that’s not a good idea. Edsel Ford knew cars, alright. But the car itself remains a laughing stock.
Shrapnel:
--Why is it the shipping lines never offer free shipping? For that matter why is sending a package via the post office or one of the private carriers called “shipping” in the first place. And you can ship by train, but you can’t train by ship.
--Ahah! Half the packages for which you pay shipping and handling are never actually handled. They come from the factory pre-boxed for the carrier, picked from warehouse shelves and labeled by robots.
--The Stage Deli on 7th Av. is closing although someone surely will buy the rights to the name. They’d better hurry if they’re going to occupy the restaurant’s present space. That’s because the owners of the cholesterol pipeline are getting ready to close it down, a long and arduous process.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
1107 Death Knell for Newspapers
#1107 Death Knell for Newspapers
(Note to readers: Our “Least Worst of Wessays” continues with this piece from December, 2007. If ordinary people saw the death of newspapers coming five years ago, even before the advent of smart phones and iPads, why have they only now started hauling out and using the defib machines?)
Paulie always said there'd always be newspapers because you can't take the computer into the bathroom. Paulie was wrong. Just ask him. He's got this mini computer, weighs maybe a pound and a half and has wireless internet. Now, his big worry is getting electrocuted. But he just shrugs: "how much electric can there be in that little battery. No worries."
He's right. You can take the computer into the john. You can take the computer on the line in the supermarket and read all about it without getting ink all over your hands.
This, says Paulie, is the end of the newspaper. "I paid 350 bucks for this thing. A year away, I've made it back by not buying the Post." Rupert Murdoch should worry. When Paulie says stuff like that, it's time to sell your stock in Ink-O-Rama and The National Newsprint and Tribune Company. That's because Paulie is always the last guy to latch on to the latest.
If he could have kept it going, he'd still have his '48 DeSoto on the road. As it is, he made it last longer than anyone else. The Last DeSoto.
Paulie isn't overjoyed with its replacement, a 1966 Oldsmobile. And he isn't overjoyed with the mini computer, either. But he's a man of his word and now that he can read it on the throne he's doing it. Even though the typing keys are much too small for his stubby, arthritic fingers. Even though you have to remember to charge up the battery at night. Even though the screen is only seven inches, which means there's some squinting involved. He's not complaining because he doesn't need the keys all that often, and he has to squint at the paper these days, anyway.
Paulie's particular interest in the newspaper centers around the stuff that's really important in this life. The racing and sports pages, the TV listings and the obituaries. He doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to the other stuff. And he recently got a geeky school kid to see if there's a way to make the box scores a little bigger on the page.
There isn't. But maybe the kid can figure something out.
Paulie doesn't quite trust the machine, so he hasn't canceled his subscription to the Racing Form yet. But he's come over to the tech side of life, and is ever discovering new things. Like e-mail ("these guys want to lend me money? Send me coupons? Enlarge my, um... well, you know.") And...
"Hey, did you know you can play solitaire on this thing? AND you can cheat?"
The only thing that'll change his mind about the machine is if it lands in the sink when he's washing his hands afterward. So far, he's been pretty careful. And he's invented his own security system for the thing. No one else who knows where it's been will touch it.
This is the final Least Worst Wessay in this series. New posts resume Wednesday, 12/12/12.
I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2007 This ran originally as #330 on December 6, 2007
(Note to readers: Our “Least Worst of Wessays” continues with this piece from December, 2007. If ordinary people saw the death of newspapers coming five years ago, even before the advent of smart phones and iPads, why have they only now started hauling out and using the defib machines?)
Paulie always said there'd always be newspapers because you can't take the computer into the bathroom. Paulie was wrong. Just ask him. He's got this mini computer, weighs maybe a pound and a half and has wireless internet. Now, his big worry is getting electrocuted. But he just shrugs: "how much electric can there be in that little battery. No worries."
He's right. You can take the computer into the john. You can take the computer on the line in the supermarket and read all about it without getting ink all over your hands.
This, says Paulie, is the end of the newspaper. "I paid 350 bucks for this thing. A year away, I've made it back by not buying the Post." Rupert Murdoch should worry. When Paulie says stuff like that, it's time to sell your stock in Ink-O-Rama and The National Newsprint and Tribune Company. That's because Paulie is always the last guy to latch on to the latest.
If he could have kept it going, he'd still have his '48 DeSoto on the road. As it is, he made it last longer than anyone else. The Last DeSoto.
Paulie isn't overjoyed with its replacement, a 1966 Oldsmobile. And he isn't overjoyed with the mini computer, either. But he's a man of his word and now that he can read it on the throne he's doing it. Even though the typing keys are much too small for his stubby, arthritic fingers. Even though you have to remember to charge up the battery at night. Even though the screen is only seven inches, which means there's some squinting involved. He's not complaining because he doesn't need the keys all that often, and he has to squint at the paper these days, anyway.
Paulie's particular interest in the newspaper centers around the stuff that's really important in this life. The racing and sports pages, the TV listings and the obituaries. He doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to the other stuff. And he recently got a geeky school kid to see if there's a way to make the box scores a little bigger on the page.
There isn't. But maybe the kid can figure something out.
Paulie doesn't quite trust the machine, so he hasn't canceled his subscription to the Racing Form yet. But he's come over to the tech side of life, and is ever discovering new things. Like e-mail ("these guys want to lend me money? Send me coupons? Enlarge my, um... well, you know.") And...
"Hey, did you know you can play solitaire on this thing? AND you can cheat?"
The only thing that'll change his mind about the machine is if it lands in the sink when he's washing his hands afterward. So far, he's been pretty careful. And he's invented his own security system for the thing. No one else who knows where it's been will touch it.
This is the final Least Worst Wessay in this series. New posts resume Wednesday, 12/12/12.
I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2007 This ran originally as #330 on December 6, 2007
Friday, December 07, 2012
1106 Grand Theft Dairy
1106 Grand Theft, Dairy
(MOOTE POINTE NY) -- It wasn't intentional. It really really was an accident. But shoplifting is shoplifting.
In the supermarket parking lot, lifting the bags of groceries into the trunk of the car, there it was.
A package of cheese.
And while not the exotically and sometimes criminally expensive gourmet stuff, the stealing of which might be considered grand theft dairy, not one of the cheapies, either.
How did this happen? How did a scrupulously honest long time resident of the neighborhood whose lawyer surely would ask for no bail because of deep ties to the community, manage to sneak out an item priced at something between seven and eight dollars?
Well... how about blaming those deep ties to the community, which in this case meant chatting with the cashier who is a near neighbor, with neither of us paying close enough attention to the checkout to notice the small, flat package sitting in the cart.
What to do.
There were alternatives.
Return the thing.
Take a chance and just make off with it? That's not right.
Go back and stand on line again for half an hour to pay for it? That's unbearable.
Buy a postal money order and send it to the store's headquarters anonymously?
Ah, but where IS the main office? It could be in East Islip, New York, or Montvale, New Jersey... or Melheim, Germany... in which case we'd have to buy the money order in euros.
How about donating the package to a food kitchen. A noble thought, relative to the other thoughts that you are hearing. But that doesn't answer the ethical dilemma which, by the time you read or hear this, is more than a week old.
The guilt is overwhelming.
How can a thief like this show his face back at the store?
Who or what to blame!
The lateness of the hour... the laxity of the staff?
Sure the cashier should have eyed the cart.
But it was near closing time and very busy.
No, really. It was just carelessness.
The nightmares begin: guilty with an explanation, your honor.
Wait, how about this for a solution. After all, what they don't know won't hurt them.
Next time before heading for the market, slip the loot from the heist into a shopping bag.... sneak it into the store... and when checking out, pay for it.
Unless, of course, store security discovers the theft and views the checkout videotape first.
In which case you shall hear the next broadcast version of these reports over a cell phone...
meaning a pay phone in a real cell.
Shrapnel:
--Semi reformed smokers unite! Slam your window shut, making it loud as possible. Maybe that'll teach the yutz next door when he smokes his two packs a day, others dislike the stink.
--There's going to be a federal summit on distracted driving. So, attendees, get behind the wheel, start the trip, put on your makeup, turn on the radio, and if you can't make a phone call, at least text someone. And please do it in that order.
--You gotta love the Iranian National Travel Agency. So welcoming are they that when you visit, they'll provide you with free accommodations. Tehran has more five star prisons than anywhere else in the middle east.
I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmil.com
©WJR 2009, 2012
(This post is a modified version of #581 which first appeared on Wednesday, August 5, 2009. Least worst reruns will continue for a few more days.)
(MOOTE POINTE NY) -- It wasn't intentional. It really really was an accident. But shoplifting is shoplifting.
In the supermarket parking lot, lifting the bags of groceries into the trunk of the car, there it was.
A package of cheese.
And while not the exotically and sometimes criminally expensive gourmet stuff, the stealing of which might be considered grand theft dairy, not one of the cheapies, either.
How did this happen? How did a scrupulously honest long time resident of the neighborhood whose lawyer surely would ask for no bail because of deep ties to the community, manage to sneak out an item priced at something between seven and eight dollars?
Well... how about blaming those deep ties to the community, which in this case meant chatting with the cashier who is a near neighbor, with neither of us paying close enough attention to the checkout to notice the small, flat package sitting in the cart.
What to do.
There were alternatives.
Return the thing.
Take a chance and just make off with it? That's not right.
Go back and stand on line again for half an hour to pay for it? That's unbearable.
Buy a postal money order and send it to the store's headquarters anonymously?
Ah, but where IS the main office? It could be in East Islip, New York, or Montvale, New Jersey... or Melheim, Germany... in which case we'd have to buy the money order in euros.
How about donating the package to a food kitchen. A noble thought, relative to the other thoughts that you are hearing. But that doesn't answer the ethical dilemma which, by the time you read or hear this, is more than a week old.
The guilt is overwhelming.
How can a thief like this show his face back at the store?
Who or what to blame!
The lateness of the hour... the laxity of the staff?
Sure the cashier should have eyed the cart.
But it was near closing time and very busy.
No, really. It was just carelessness.
The nightmares begin: guilty with an explanation, your honor.
Wait, how about this for a solution. After all, what they don't know won't hurt them.
Next time before heading for the market, slip the loot from the heist into a shopping bag.... sneak it into the store... and when checking out, pay for it.
Unless, of course, store security discovers the theft and views the checkout videotape first.
In which case you shall hear the next broadcast version of these reports over a cell phone...
meaning a pay phone in a real cell.
Shrapnel:
--Semi reformed smokers unite! Slam your window shut, making it loud as possible. Maybe that'll teach the yutz next door when he smokes his two packs a day, others dislike the stink.
--There's going to be a federal summit on distracted driving. So, attendees, get behind the wheel, start the trip, put on your makeup, turn on the radio, and if you can't make a phone call, at least text someone. And please do it in that order.
--You gotta love the Iranian National Travel Agency. So welcoming are they that when you visit, they'll provide you with free accommodations. Tehran has more five star prisons than anywhere else in the middle east.
I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmil.com
©WJR 2009, 2012
(This post is a modified version of #581 which first appeared on Wednesday, August 5, 2009. Least worst reruns will continue for a few more days.)
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
1105 Learning Outside the Factory
1105 Learning Outside the Factory Walls
(STATE COLLEGE PA) -- This town is home to the General Motors of higher education, a place with the stately name “The Pennsylvania State University,” Penn State to its friends.
Like GM, it’s huge, ungainly, hidebound, slow moving, over executived, awkward, garish. Like GM produces a mediocre product, but with an occasional and possibly accidental jewel like the ‘54 Corvette, the ‘71 Grandville, the ‘43 M-34 Light Tank and the Volt.
But by being the oversized center of this tiny universe, it has spread the gospel of learning outside its walls -- they’re porous, but only outbound -- and into the community.
First and foremost, this is a football place with more hotels per capita than any other community of its size in America. The local stadium holds almost 108,000 people. These people need places to stay for seven or eight Saturdays a year.
And despite the glut of hotel rooms, there’s often no room at the inn. So enterprising homeowners have long practiced renting their houses or parts of their houses or land to people who are too late to rent a hotel room or whose RVs are too big for the parking lots.
Now comes the education part. And the Department Chairman is a man named Rich Fornicola, the county treasurer. The name translates from Latin as something along the lines of “someone who lives in ovens.” And that he does.
Mr. Fornicola was quoted in the local newspaper as saying he’s on an education kick. By which he meant he wants people who offer their houses as short term rentals to learn they must file proof of insurance with the municipality, pass a physical inspection, pay the state a 6% and the county a 2.5% tax on the income.
That 2.5% goes to the convention and visitors bureau which nominally represents all business and all organizations in the region, but whose actual spending is skewed toward outfits that pay for membership.
The treasurer also says gracefully in that news item that he is concerned the locals might undercut the prices at the motels, most of which charge reasonable rates, some slightly inflated on football weekends and at times when there is a show trial going on... like when every reporter in the western world except Dear Abby and Marilyn Hagerty, food critic for the Grand Forks ND Herald landed here to cover the trial of pedophile Jerry “Tickle Monster” Sandusky.
Digression: The convention and visitors bureau has not acted on the membership application from Jerry’s Kids Tours. But the company already has purchased a bus and set out routes… economy, business class and first class. Visit the locations where the Tickle Monster got his laughs. The two higher priced tours include the homes of the fired bureaucrats and officials said to have been complicit in a coverup and you get an autographed picture of the defense lawyer, Joseph Amendola. End of digression.
But really, this is all about education. After all, this is home to General Motors University’s main campus and headquarters. The other twenty or so factories scattered around the state are just pocket change. And education is our middle name. Well, “Motors” is our middle name. But you get the idea, right?
Note to readers: Wessays™ will be taking a short holiday break. During that time, we will re-post a few “best of” oldies, many of which were in the storage box before the readership of this feature grew to its present size.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
(STATE COLLEGE PA) -- This town is home to the General Motors of higher education, a place with the stately name “The Pennsylvania State University,” Penn State to its friends.
Like GM, it’s huge, ungainly, hidebound, slow moving, over executived, awkward, garish. Like GM produces a mediocre product, but with an occasional and possibly accidental jewel like the ‘54 Corvette, the ‘71 Grandville, the ‘43 M-34 Light Tank and the Volt.
But by being the oversized center of this tiny universe, it has spread the gospel of learning outside its walls -- they’re porous, but only outbound -- and into the community.
First and foremost, this is a football place with more hotels per capita than any other community of its size in America. The local stadium holds almost 108,000 people. These people need places to stay for seven or eight Saturdays a year.
And despite the glut of hotel rooms, there’s often no room at the inn. So enterprising homeowners have long practiced renting their houses or parts of their houses or land to people who are too late to rent a hotel room or whose RVs are too big for the parking lots.
Now comes the education part. And the Department Chairman is a man named Rich Fornicola, the county treasurer. The name translates from Latin as something along the lines of “someone who lives in ovens.” And that he does.
Mr. Fornicola was quoted in the local newspaper as saying he’s on an education kick. By which he meant he wants people who offer their houses as short term rentals to learn they must file proof of insurance with the municipality, pass a physical inspection, pay the state a 6% and the county a 2.5% tax on the income.
That 2.5% goes to the convention and visitors bureau which nominally represents all business and all organizations in the region, but whose actual spending is skewed toward outfits that pay for membership.
The treasurer also says gracefully in that news item that he is concerned the locals might undercut the prices at the motels, most of which charge reasonable rates, some slightly inflated on football weekends and at times when there is a show trial going on... like when every reporter in the western world except Dear Abby and Marilyn Hagerty, food critic for the Grand Forks ND Herald landed here to cover the trial of pedophile Jerry “Tickle Monster” Sandusky.
Digression: The convention and visitors bureau has not acted on the membership application from Jerry’s Kids Tours. But the company already has purchased a bus and set out routes… economy, business class and first class. Visit the locations where the Tickle Monster got his laughs. The two higher priced tours include the homes of the fired bureaucrats and officials said to have been complicit in a coverup and you get an autographed picture of the defense lawyer, Joseph Amendola. End of digression.
But really, this is all about education. After all, this is home to General Motors University’s main campus and headquarters. The other twenty or so factories scattered around the state are just pocket change. And education is our middle name. Well, “Motors” is our middle name. But you get the idea, right?
Note to readers: Wessays™ will be taking a short holiday break. During that time, we will re-post a few “best of” oldies, many of which were in the storage box before the readership of this feature grew to its present size.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Monday, December 03, 2012
1104 It's In the Book
1104 It’s In the Book
Okay, all you foul tempered, tantrum throwing maniacs, you’re about to go legit. Your loutish destructive behavior and lack of self control are about to be labeled a “condition” and now you can throw fits and blame it all on your mental disorder. Your health insurance will pay for your treatment, and your friends will look at you with sympathy and understanding, instead of branding you a body part that handles excreta and running and hiding or cowering in fear whenever they encounter you.
It’s in the book.
“The Book” is “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” It is the bible of psychiatry. Many shrinks and all health insurance companies are fundamentalists.
That means if it’s in the book, it’s legit. If it’s not, it’s not.
A new revision is due out soon and there are two Big Things that have changed. First, and least: Asperger’s Syndrome will be incorporated into the ever expanding universe of Autism. Okay. Fine.
The second is the emergence of a new disorder, DMDD, which stands for Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder. In ordinary terms, “you have a hot temper and you can’t control it.”
This won’t be official until the Big Revision lands on the desks of the shrinks and the executives to whom you and the rest of society have ceded your medical decisions. That’ll happen in May.
And you can bet it will happen simultaneously with the introduction of some drug to fix the problem.
“Have DMDD? Ask your doctor whether Affabillify is right for you.” Then wait for the list of side effects, which ends: “... some cases resulting in death,” followed by the picture of a huge slob in a tattered pullover sweater with a toothless smile and a three-day beard and who is holding a pipe wrench in one hand and a daisy in the other who says “Affabillify fixed me up good. Now I’m a regular human being again.”
All of a sudden it will be cool to be an infant throwing a fit on an airplane or a young kid throwing a tantrum in class or a parent throwing a tantrum on the little league field or a road rager pointing a 9mm Glock at a little old lady because she was going 55 in a 55 zone but in the fast lane.
Or the commuter who takes a swing at the conductor of a train that’s 15 minutes late. Or the boss who yells all the time. Or the worker who brings a pickax or an AK-47 to work one day and destroys the office or mows down a dozen colleagues.
They’re not evil. They’re just sick.
Think of how different history might be if only we had known about all those murderers who just had Mood Dysregulation. Hitler. Stalin. Leona Helmsley.
Shrapnel:
--Shrink encyclopedias have nicknames and this one’s no exception. It will be called DSM-5. Most of us will wait for the paperback or Kindle edition.
I’m Wes Richards My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
Okay, all you foul tempered, tantrum throwing maniacs, you’re about to go legit. Your loutish destructive behavior and lack of self control are about to be labeled a “condition” and now you can throw fits and blame it all on your mental disorder. Your health insurance will pay for your treatment, and your friends will look at you with sympathy and understanding, instead of branding you a body part that handles excreta and running and hiding or cowering in fear whenever they encounter you.
It’s in the book.
“The Book” is “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” It is the bible of psychiatry. Many shrinks and all health insurance companies are fundamentalists.
That means if it’s in the book, it’s legit. If it’s not, it’s not.
A new revision is due out soon and there are two Big Things that have changed. First, and least: Asperger’s Syndrome will be incorporated into the ever expanding universe of Autism. Okay. Fine.
The second is the emergence of a new disorder, DMDD, which stands for Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder. In ordinary terms, “you have a hot temper and you can’t control it.”
This won’t be official until the Big Revision lands on the desks of the shrinks and the executives to whom you and the rest of society have ceded your medical decisions. That’ll happen in May.
And you can bet it will happen simultaneously with the introduction of some drug to fix the problem.
“Have DMDD? Ask your doctor whether Affabillify is right for you.” Then wait for the list of side effects, which ends: “... some cases resulting in death,” followed by the picture of a huge slob in a tattered pullover sweater with a toothless smile and a three-day beard and who is holding a pipe wrench in one hand and a daisy in the other who says “Affabillify fixed me up good. Now I’m a regular human being again.”
All of a sudden it will be cool to be an infant throwing a fit on an airplane or a young kid throwing a tantrum in class or a parent throwing a tantrum on the little league field or a road rager pointing a 9mm Glock at a little old lady because she was going 55 in a 55 zone but in the fast lane.
Or the commuter who takes a swing at the conductor of a train that’s 15 minutes late. Or the boss who yells all the time. Or the worker who brings a pickax or an AK-47 to work one day and destroys the office or mows down a dozen colleagues.
They’re not evil. They’re just sick.
Think of how different history might be if only we had known about all those murderers who just had Mood Dysregulation. Hitler. Stalin. Leona Helmsley.
Shrapnel:
--Shrink encyclopedias have nicknames and this one’s no exception. It will be called DSM-5. Most of us will wait for the paperback or Kindle edition.
I’m Wes Richards My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012
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4759 The Supreme Court
C’mon, guys, we all know what you’re doing. You’re hiding behind nonsense so a black woman is not the next Associate Justice of the U.S....
