1617 Kill the Messenger

OK, gang, if you didn’t know this previously, last night’s primary elections should have wised you up. You think politicians are running this country’s government? You think you have free-will voting? Well, bro, you’re wrong.

It’s the media. Not the “liberal” media.  Not the “drive by media,” not the “right wing media.”  It’s just the plain old evil, all seeing all powerful media.

All those modifying labels?  Just media-created subsets to hide the fact that we’re all out here taking our marching orders from someone who controls our every thought, our every feeling and our every action and therefore, yours.

After all, look how some of these terms came to be:

Liberal Media, the creation of the Chicago Tribune.

Driveby Media, the creation of Rush Limbaugh.

The plain old evil all seeing, all powerful media, the creation of everyone who feels left out or that there’s too much coverage of whatever it is they think shouldn’t be covered so much.

Heh heh heh!  We have you right where we want you, suckers.  We control your thoughts, your actions, your desires and most of all, your time.

Let’s blame Ted Turner for the creation of the worst of the Evil Media, the 24 hour news cycle. His was the first national TV news channel.

If it weren’t for CNN, Fox, and occasionally MSNBC, we’d all be better off.  That we can turn them off or disbelieve what we see and hear doesn’t figure into it.

If TV were limited to the morning, noon and evening news, they’d have to be more selective about what’s covered and in what way.

If papers published a few editions a day, we’d have to give up a bit of our “right to know” something that happens within ten seconds of its happening.

Why, there might even be some perspective.

The wire services have always been around-the-clock. But there was never a thought that people would receive wire service reports in their homes and offices.  Now they do.

The monster has to be fed.  The genie is out of the bottle.  TV and the internet.  The evil media.

(Radio doesn’t count because no one listens to all news all the time. They listen in and out periodically. But you can’t go into a bar or an airport or a bus terminal, a medical office and not see CNN or --even worse -- ESPN or “E! News.”)

It’s easy to cast blame in the direction of reports and reporters for the messes we’re in.  Trump, crime, which lives matter, which political party is the more evil of two evils, whatever.

But no one forces you to watch or believe.

Unfortunately, you’re a volunteer.  Where else can you get meaningful information on candidates, cops and robbers?

Certainly not from the candidates, cops and robbers.

What a feeling of power!  Makes those of us who retired regret it.  So many schmucks and dummies left to elevate into positions of authority.  So many good lives to ruin.  So many more snowstorms and hurricanes and droughts and floods still to scare you with.  So much race baiting yet undone. And think of all those highway pileups, especially those involving loaded school buses!

So many Kardashians. So many football scandals. So many vile thugs and hoodlums to hold before you so you can love or hate.

Is your brain really so easy to rot?  Are you really so susceptible to what comes over the tube or the computer screen?

Then shame on We The Evil Media for taking advantage of and victimizing you.  And shame on us for not profiting more by it.

Shrapnel:

--Formerly hyperactive exercise king Richard Simmons has half-broken a two year exile from public view with telephone interviews on “Today” and “Entertainment Tonight.”  He denied he was captive in his Hollywood mansion or under the black magic spell of his long-time housekeeper. But he sounded like the American with a gun to his head praising his North Korean captors and asking for political asylum.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1616 Can I Hear You Now?

Once, a “disc jockey” was someone who played records and talked on the radio, not someone with a turntable and an attitude in a nightclub.

And many, if not most of us cranked the earphone volume pretty high.  The loud music spurred us to the required magnitude of enthusiasm when the mic opened.

As a result, many of us now have at least some hearing loss.

Blame it on age.  Blame it on all those years of high volume headphones.

What now?  Get a hearing exam, the results of which you’ll probably know in advance.  Then get hearing aids, which cost more than you made in a year spinning Stacks of Wax for Jills and Jacks at WJFN in Poquott, New York.

Disc Jockeys aren’t the only ones. Operators of hydraulic hammers and other construction and musical equipment, motorcycle couriers and airport ground crews are also high on the list of the affected.

You go see an audiologist. You get fitted.  You leave the office five grand lighter.

Audiologists, like chiropractors, foot doctors, homeopaths and other variations of faith healers and motivational speakers from pyramid schemes will want to upsell you.

Since the tests are generally covered by your health insurance (remember, you’re now back in the days of slavery because you’re forced to have health insurance,) there isn’t much upselling to do.

The big money is in devices. And mostly they’re not covered.

Congress has been considering allowing the FDA to recommend over the counter low-price hearing aids for ages.  The FDA can’t do that on its own.

But it can clear and has cleared personal sound amplification products, at least some of them.

These are gizmos that look like hearing aids, work more or less like hearing aids and are widely advertised with the required “warning” THIS IS NOT A HEARING AID.

If it quacks like a duck…

It’s true that some people need those audiology tests and of them, some -- probably fewer -- need “real” or prescription hearing aids.

But for most of us, the PSAPs, as they’re called, do just fine.  The best advice around is to avoid the ones that are too cheap.  A little more money and you’ll get a device that’s programmed to emphasize the frequencies of the human voice and reject background noise.

But we’re talking $50 an ear here, not $2500.  And most of the PSAPs come with a 30 day trial period.

Or you could return to those wonderful days of yesteryear and try one of these:

Yes, Martha, I can hear you now.

Shrapnel:

--It’s not true. Mitch McConnell has not written to Al Sharpton asking how to stage better anti-Trump demonstrations.  And what to pay the demonstrators.

--Okay, Daylight Saving Time has arrived.  One reason for having it is so 9-to-5-ers can go home before dark. Are there any 9-to-5-ers left?

Today’s Quote:

“Sometimes, people go to work and they don’t come home.”  -- Governor Andrew “Mr. Sensitive” Cuomo (D-NY) commenting on the deadly crash of a tugboat that hit a barge and sank near the Tappan Zee Bridge.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1615 Replacing Your Pet Rock

Remember the Pet Rock?

Sure you do.  But there are things you probably don’t remember about them.

Like… how yours wandered away one day never to be seen again?  Have you forgotten how you went around the neighborhood stapling “Missing Pet Rock” picture posters on phone polls?

How when you went to the rock pile looking for a replacement they told you that they no longer had any available?  How did THAT make you feel?

Do you remember when Pet Rocks were declared endangered and importing them from Mexico was prohibited? (Yes, Pet Rocks came from Mexico.)

Do you remember the outcry against Pet Rock testing in the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries?

Do you remember when PETR, People for the Ethical Treatment of Rocks would splash red paint on your nice new stone countertops or the slate on your front walk?

How quickly we forget.

Well, now we have a whole new breed of inanimate pets.  So your long, Pet-Rock-Free nightmare is over.

The latest species discovered is called Echo, a cylinder that resembles an elongated oatmeal carton.  It was discovered by biologists from Amazon.com.  And unlike the Pet Rock, this one does tricks.

It can turn on lights, it can play music. It can look up and tell you movie times.  All kinds of things your poor old Pet Rock couldn’t do.

Like the rock, this pet requires no care and feeding.  And unlike live pets, there are no visits to the vet, no food to buy and you don’t have to walk it or even let it out of the house.

You don’t have to worry that it will claw the furniture or bite the kids.

First we started trying to domesticate obsolete cell phones, record players, cassette machines.  We bought wrecked automobiles and put them up on cinderblocks in the front yard.  We went for plastic flamingos.  None of that worked out. Unlike the rock and Echo, they just refused to respond in companionable ways.

Echo is somewhere between a Pet Rock and domestic help (as opposed to a Pet Rock and a Pet Hard Place.) It won’t vacuum your rugs (unless you program it to run your pet Roomba.) But neither will it pee on them. And they come with an actual name.  They won’t respond unless you call them “Alexa” or go through a few hoops to change the name.

We’ve forgotten how to compromise in America.  Here’s a perfect path to returning to that. Echo is inanimate just like the rock.  But it will respond to you, like your ferret or dog, but only when it feels like it… like your cat.

There is, however, a price.  While Pet Rocks sold for only a few dollars, Echos cost $180. And while there’s no mess to clean up, no worry about feeding or housing it while you’re away on business or a vacation, when you speak, Jeff Bezos can hear every word you say.

NOTE: No rocks or Echos were hurt in the making of this blog post.

Grapeshot:

-If you have both Alexa and Siri active in your house, you’ll need a two state solution because the two don’t always get along.

-Some peace seeking people suggest introducing Cortina into the mix as a negotiator, but to do that you have to have Windows 10… so that’s a non-starter.

Shrapnel:

--Semi annual rant.  We spring forward with the time change Sunday. And -- for the eleventy-umphteenth time, there is only ONE “s” in Daylight “Saving” Time.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1614 The Wrong Kind of Gun Control

This space has been on record for decades as favoring stricter gun laws.  But stricter gun laws have no place on the battlefield.

Fact: The US defense budget is roughly half a trillion dollars a year.

Fact: The F-35 fighter plane project will cost more than $1.3 trillion over the life of Lockheed’s multi-year contract.  And that’s without the engines.

Fact:  You can buy a decent “sniper rifle” for $300 to $400 and a really fancy one for ten grand or so.  (Note to gun nuts: yes, you’re right, “sniper rifle” is not an “official” designation.  Most of the rest of us get the gist.)

Fact: If you needed a super duper sniper rifle it might cost, say 20 grand.

Fact:  There are roughly 2500 active service members in the Navy SEALs at the moment.

Possible Fact:  There aren’t enough rifles to go around and guys coming off shift or off mission have to pass along their weapons to those who are going on shift or on mission.

At least that’s what one active SEAL told congress the other day.

Math problem:  What’s 2500 x 20,000?

Answer to math problem: 50 million.

So if you buy 2500 rifles at 20-thousand dollars each, the bill would come to 50- million dollars.

To most of us that’s a ton of money.  To the Pentagon, that’s pocket change.  They waste at least that much each year old no-show consultants and top secret pay per view sites.

To a SEAL and to many others, rifles are not weapons so much as they are body parts.  They are sophisticated machines, tuned to each user’s body and shooting style.  A guy can spend an awful lot of time optimizing his weapon.  And when one passes it along to the next user, there’s more time and technology to first restore the rifle to factory specs and then to adjust it for its new borrower.

In war, the shooter-holics are right: the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.  And if the bad guy and the good guy are 600 feet apart and in some bushes, the good guy better have the best weapon he can.

Where is the NRA when you need it?

Today’s Quote:  “Tammy Duckworth has a sad record standing up for our veterans.” -- Tweet from the National Republican Senatorial Committee on Duckworth (D-Ill) who is a veteran and lost both legs in Iraq.  The tweet has been deleted.

Shrapnel:

--Mike Bloomberg did the right thing, putting data over desire.  His decision not to run as an independent presidential candidates was based on info that showed his candidacy would likely turn into a victory for Trump. Now, Mike, what if Hillary tanks… are you willing to run as a Dem?

--Mareen Sanchez, 16, probably knew more than the rest of Milford, CT. when she turned down an invitation to the junior prom from Christopher Plaskon, 18 who responded to the rejection by stabbing her to death. Plaskon pleaded no contest. He’ll be sentenced in June and the prosecutor wants 25 years.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1613 The Joy of Cooking

1612 The Joy of Cooking

Quick quiz (and no peaking, now):  The Joy of Cooking is

1. A famous cookbook with about a million pages and type so small you need a microscope to read it.
2. A concept that exists only in the minds of people with too much time on their hands.
3. An excuse or reason to try all kinds of new stuff.
4. All of the above.

The correct answer is D.  But the most important of the correct answers is B.

The book is heavy enough to use as a weapon.  It’s heavy enough to use as a paperweight in a hurricane. It’s strict enough (as dictionaries once were) so that you feel guilty if you substitute cubed eggplant for cubed chicken in a salad recipe without its express permission. And the book isn’t talking.

We are becoming obsessed with food.  While half the world is starving, we’re wondering whether we have enough of the proper croutons.

On the other side of the aisle here in the Congress of Home Cooks, are the TV chefs. They’re like hippies, some of them.

Ever see Rachael Ray measure anything?

Ever see Wolfgang Puck do a dish in which the final ingredient isn’t “whatever you like” or “whatever you want?”

These guys don’t need to crack a book.  (They also don’t need to clean up after the messes they make, but that’s another story for another time.)

All this is leadin to the other night at the Wessays™ Secret Mountainside Experimental Kitchen, where the dish of the night was mac and cheese with ham and mushrooms.

Sounds easy enough.  Boil up some Mac, throw some milk in a pot add cheese as it heats, cube up a little ham, cut up a bunch of baby bellas and combine.  Maybe some onion and a little garlic, “if you want,” as Wolfgang would say.

Stir on the stovetop then bake awhile until a crust develops.

When something is to be baked “for awhile,” you have to keep a close watch or make sure there’s a fire extinguisher nearby… and as a backup for real disaster, a Little Caesar’s or Chipotle (if you want to live dangerously) nearby.

How does it happen that a simple recipe, far too simple for anything in the “Joy” book, ends up producing two sinks full of used bowls, cups, spatulas, plates, forks and spoons plus a pot and cover, four cheese-encrusted burner drip pans (out of a possible four) and two cheese graters?

By some act of the heavens, it tasted okay.  And like most “simple one dish meals” it took a mere 90 minutes to prepare and an hour to clean up.

We’ve ordered one of Wolfgang’s pressure cookers for next time.  And we’ve blocked the TV channel that carries Rachael.

As for the “Joy” book?  It’s in the pile of stuff we plan to take to Goodwill.

Today’s Quote:

“Foul play is suspected.” -- unidentified Nassau County, NY police office describing the death of a woman found bound hand and foot in her bed with a pillow on her face in the Long Island hamlet of Merrick.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1611 Questioning Some Beliefs

Every once in awhile, it pays to rethink something we take for granted.  For ages, we’ve said there are no actual synonyms in the English Language, only approximations.

Maybe that’s wrong.  

For example: people like to use “stupid” and “ignorant” interchangeably. Technically untrue. That’s because “stupid” is congenital but ignorance can be cured.

Maybe that’s wrong.

It may be that ignorance cannot be cured.  Or even treated.  The drug of choice, education, seems not to work anymore.

Education should come with a pharmaceutical warning:  “Education is not for everyone. Ask your doctor if education is right for you.”  We have name brands for education.  Harvard, MIT, Cal Tech. We have generics: Fiddlehead Community College, University of Phoenix.  And we have out and out placebos: Liberty University, Bob Jones University, Trump University.

Ahah! Trump.  As you survey the present political moonscape, you will notice the merger of stupid and ignorant into one fat real synonym.

Trump himself is neither stupid nor ignorant (falling back on the original difference between the words.)  But his followers?  And the people who are trying to undermine his presidential candidacy?  That’s another story.

It’s not that Trump plays on our fears; gives “voice to the voiceless.”  It’s that the antidote to Trump is equally death dealing.

Let’s say for some reason, Donny-baby drops out of the race or is forced out. Do you think Dudley Do-right Romney is going to ride in on a white horse and save the day? Ask the 47%. That political coffin is in the ground.

No, Mr. Fake Moderate private equity funder would seem better -- so much does in retrospect.  But that ain’t so. Romney came out swinging yesterday (3/3) but he bats like a girl.

No, we’ll get either Cruz (Looks like Joseph R. McCarthy, talks like Wally Balloo) or Rubio (Trump’s understudy on the Borscht Belt insult-comedy circuit.)

Education in that case is like handiwipes. They kill 99.9% of common household germs.  Side effect: they leave alive only the drug-resistant 0.1% to multiply like… like germs.

At least Carson knows how to do a real pre- op surgical scrub.  Not that he’d be any good, either.

----

Quote of the day:

“That’s because you’re tall and handsome.” -- Former Nightline anchor Ted Koppel answering Bill O’Reilly’s claim to be among the “top ten” most trusted names in television.

Shrapnel:

--Koppel also told O’Reilly that the antidote to Trump is “good old fashioned reporting.”  Meaning instead of mindless commentary, people should be told more of what Trump has said and done in the past.  Billo said people don’t care about that stuff and he probably was right.

--Here’s what we’re focusing on instead of today’s facts.  Someone in Detroit found a cache of Ty Cobb baseball cards from around 1911 and values them collectively in seven figures. Nice to find a few pieces of cardboard whose combined worth is more than the entire rest of the city, but hardly as earth shattering as Republican infighting.

Grapeshot:

-A token mention, now of Bernie Sanders because we’ve said nothing about him recently: Bernie Sanders (oops, that’s two mentions.)

-And here’s a mention for Cillary Hinton.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1610 Inside Report: Why Clarence Thomas Speaks

At last, the truth can be told.  Antonine “Tony Ducks” Scalia was not a real boy.  Like Pinocchio or Jerry Mahoney or Mortimer Snerd he was made of wood and stuffed with kapok.   

For all those years on the Supreme Court “Ducks,” as his friends called him, ran his mouth, telling bad jokes, making worse decisions and spewing pseudo intelligence.

Why didn’t they do an autopsy?  Kapok.  They already knew what was inside him. Kapok.  And termites. Who did he sit next to on the bench? “Silent” Clarence.  

Then, all of a sudden, this week, for the first time in a decade, Thomas spoke from the bench.  He asked questions. Lots of questions.  What ended the ten year silence?

His ventriloquist dummy, Tony, “died.”  A horrible death.  Geppetto was just about ready to have him turned into a real boy when the termites pushed out the last of the kapok and  started to disintegrate the wood.

Silent Clarence is silent to longer because of his puppet’s termites.

That termite problem started to show some years back. Tony lost a limb or two.  They called in the Orkin Man but to no avail.

Did the two justices ever differ on an opinion?  No.  But Thomas, with a history of foot-in-mouth predating his appointment to the court, must have thought it would be better to pull the strings that controlled Tony’s mouth than to open his own.

Now, you court historians may point out that Scalia was appointed years before the puppet master, Thomas.  And that’s true.  In the years before Thomas, Jim Henson operated the Tony dummy until his death in 1990.  The following year, Tony wasn’t around much.

But in 1991, President George HW Bush decided he needed to have a full timer operating Tony and thus hired Thomas, already well known for putting words into other people’s mouths.

And that’s how it’s been since the Orkin man could no longer patch up the puppet.

Shrapnel:

--I lied Monday about not mentioning the Academy Awards, though it wasn’t on purpose and now I have to go back on my word.  How did just about every television report on the ceremony fail to mention “best picture of the year” went to “Spotlight” which is about the Boston Globe’s fearless coverage of the scandal in the Church of Rome? Instead, we got a “breaking news” bulletin every time Leonardo DiCaprio belched.

--Super Tuesday changed nothing.  The pattern will hold until something or someone breaks it:  Hillary and Trump. Deal with it, at least through this month’s primaries.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016