1292 Valentine's Day

You didn’t forget, did you?  If so, and if you’re reading this early enough in the day, you still have a few hours to redeem yourself… and you know you’d better.

Pick out something romantic for him or her.  Jewelry, flowers and candy are traditional. Toasters, gift cards from Taco Bell, and cactus plants are not.

In the age of equality, it’s not just the guys who buy the gifts.  Ladies, since you saw your guy for more than the customary half hour on Sunday, you should take that for a sign that the football season is over, so tailgate gifts are out.

Men… depending on YOUR significant other, a heart-shaped box of candy will usually do, though she’d probably prefer a tastefully elegant diamond and won’t eat much of the candy because she thinks she’ll get fat… which even if she does, you have the good sense not to mention... and to lie about when she asks you.

If you’re going for the diamond and she isn’t with you when you bought it, make sure the return policy will let you take it back because …  It’s too small… It’s too big… we can’t afford that… it’s not her style… it’s the wrong color… she doesn’t have pierced ears… she DOES have pierced ears and by now you should know that, you dummy.

The same advice holds true for shoes and handbags unless they’re sold as an ensemble… they have to match.  And what guy knows what THAT means.

If you and she are not married but are “together” making her February car payment is acceptable. Paying her rent is not.

You have to wonder what the real St. Valentine thought about that back in the third century.  Probably nothing.  They didn’t have heart shaped candy boxes in those days. And you couldn’t just pop into Zales or Kay for something shiny and expensive.  Pretty much everyone grew her own flowers and anyone with a couple of sticks of wood to rub together had her own toaster.

Happy Valentine’s day.  May your relationship mark Valentine’s day EVERY day.  And if it does, please spill the beans about how you make that happen.

Shrapnel:  

--The areas hardest hit by the latest snows along the east coast and a bit inland are starting to dig out.  But mass transit still is telling lies about on time performance.  All except the airlines which have no way to hide those cancellations.

--The Comcast acquisition of Time Warner Cable? Both friend Tom Preston of Freeport, NY and Andy Borowitz made the same point, which Tom put thus: “A representative of the new company will explain the deal a week from Tuesday, sometime between 9 AM and 7 PM.”

--Apparently there’s been a string of safe stealing in North Woodmere on New York’s Long Island.  One resident tells the local CBS TV station that hers weighed 500 pounds and burglars just pried it off its footing. No seasoned safecracker would pull a job like that.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

1291 Zimmerman and Dunn

You remember George Zimmerman, right?  He’s the guy who killed Trayvon Martin, who was walking while black -- and wearing a hoodie, each of which may be a crime in parts of Florida.

Zimmerman celebrated his acquittal by getting arrested on other charges in other places, not the least of which was getting physical with his wife.

Well, George has been having a tough few months.

He was scheduled to be in a prize fight with the rapper DMX.

Seemed like a pretty good matchup.  DMX’s rap sheet is a match for Zimmerman’s.

At the weigh-in they could not only weigh in and have their measurements taken, but they could determine who actually has the top number of felonies.  Height. Weight. Reach. Assaults.

Zimmerman has the age advantage… he’s 31, DMX is 43.  

But then, out of the blue, the promoter cancelled the fight.

All this came a relatively short time after Zimmerman’s wife filed for divorce, seeking what in Florida is called “Equitable distribution of assets.”  That means she gets both dogs.  

But she doesn’t get a share of his criminal record.  She has her own… charged with perjury at George’s bail hearing.

And they share an overdue income tax bill.

Other than the shooting death of the teen, this sounds like the plot for a segment on the Jerry Springer show.

In a way, you have to feel sorry for this guy.  It’s going to be tough getting a job with all that baggage.

Maybe someone will give him a radio talk show.  Ours is a business that disregards peoples’ arrest records. Check out people like Watergate break in figure Gordon Liddy, old time financial scammer Sonny Block and accused former drug abuser Rush Limbaugh.

Zimmerman could cry wolf and give us marriage advice. He could help us learn to be better hoodie spotters and which weapons to conceal.

Meantime, people are asking if Zim is the role model for one Michael Dunn, accused of shooting another 17 year old black teen, Jordan Davis for playing his music too loud in a car at a traffic light.

Dunn is 47, white and like Zimmerman is claiming self defense. He fired at the kid who was a passenger… and then defended himself further by shooting at the car as it sped away from him.

Zimmerman got off the hook for murder because there was so much fog fired at the case that no one knows what really happened.

The Dunn case is not so foggy.

At this writing, the case hasn’t been decided.  But from an outsider’s perspective, it looks like no amount of fog will help establish reasonable doubt.

Was Dunn too tanked up to know what he was doing?  Hard to tell because after the shooting he and his companion went to their hotel room, ordered a pizza and rented a movie.

Shrapnel:

--Lincoln’s birthday used to be a holiday, at least here, up north. Now he’s lumped in with all the other presidents, which is kind of a shame. Lincoln would be 205 today.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

1290 Panhandling in the Parking Lot

Well, not only in the parking lot, but that’s a good start.

First let’s clear up what panhandling is and what it isn’t.

Panhandling is putting someone in a position where he feels bad if he doesn’t donate.  Bad or embarrassed.

So if you give a guy on the street a couple of bucks for food, that’s cool. Even if the money doesn’t go for food.

When a bunch of excited high school kids hold up or wave “Car Wash” signs and flirt with motorists at the red light, that’s not panhandling, that’s paying a little bit for a good cause … and it’s entertainment for the donor. Plus your car might actually get cleaned.

But when a group you’ve never heard of stands at the train station or in front of the big box store and rattles a can for a donation to their “fight against” this or that… THAT’s panhandling.  

When a cashier asks if you’d if you’d “like to donate to such-and-such” and there you are paying for your groceries and the people on the line are your friends and neighbors…  THAT’s panhandling.

You feel like a jerk if you don’t say “yes,” and you feel like a bigger jerk if you want to contribute but can’t even though you know and like the organization’s cause and have supported it in the past.

Okay, a few bucks is not going to kill you.  But who wants to be in that position.

The money’s not the point.  It’s the exposure.

Of course, the kids shaking cans or waving signs for the high school booster club or the fight against hunger or against drugs or whatever could take some tips from the real pros… the people who panhandle huge sums for the hospital expansion or the renovation of the 200 year old poetry building, that crumbling eyesore on whatever college campus is in your city.

And professional panhandlers -- the kind that raise those big contributions -- are likely to corner their prey in private and embarrass them quietly.

Oh… they call themselves development officials, not panhandlers.  But the only difference is the amount of the contribution and the price of the clothing they wear.

Sure, give or don’t give as and to whom you see fit.  But some of us would rather see a can with a slot than a teen with a table or waving a hand lettered sign on a big piece of oak tag.

Shrapnel:

-- Olympics, Olympics, Olympics, opening ceremony screwup, olympics olympics, olympics.  Okay, heard enough?  Good, now let’s get on to something real… maybe a Kardashian, Pope Francis or some yet to be identified celebrity.

--Apparently, the software Snowden used to get to the NSA data was old fashioned and easily available.  Maybe there’s a lesson in that. Anyone still have a copy of Windows 3.0 which hackers no longer bother trying to invade?

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

1289 The Flagship

It’s becoming one of those overused words like “premium” and “solution” and “signature.”

The word, once two words, comes from the Navy.  It’s the ship on which the commander of a group of other ships is stationed.  It carries a distinctive flag to show who’s boss or best or fastest.

Makes sense, right?  Sure.

But its use has spread to countless other industries.

The radio and TV networks were among the first to co- opt the term. You’ve heard “this is the flagship station of the such and such radio network.”

But others have jumped aboard this… uh… flagship.

Atlanta calls itself the flagship city of the south.  Tell that to the people in Charlotte or Montgomery or Richmond.

For a major city in an important area, that word stealing is at least borderline acceptable.

But how about this one:  The “Moto X” is Motorola’s flagship smartphone.

Budweiser is Anheuser Busch’s flagship beer.

The Impala is Chevy’s flagship sedan.

The 787 Dreamliner is Boeing’s flagship airplane.

Macy’s on 34th Street is the company’s flagship store.

Some of these are real, but even those that aren’t are reasonable given the way flagship is used today.

Language evolves through use.  But it also dilutes through use.  “Premium” used to mean a trinket you got when you bought something. Or a cracker. Now it means “better than the bargain brand.  We have premium ice cream, furniture, carpeting, paint, wool and dog breeds.

“Solution” used to mean either a liquid or the answer to a problem.  Now it’s a synonym for “company.”

“Signature” used to mean when you wrote your name in cursive script. Now, it means…. flagship.

So, how long before fire companies and railroads have flagship engines, funeral homes have flagship coffin carriers and the EMS has a flagship ambulance… that takes the sick and injured to some chain’s flagship hospital where they will be treated using Johnson & Johnson’s flagship adhesive bandage, the Band-Aid, and with its flagship painkiller, Tylenol.

Shrapnel:

--CVS has announced the end of tobacco sales, though has said nothing about e-cigarettes.  Who was it said all publicity is good as long as they spell your name right?  CVS is hard to misspell.

--Philip Seymour Hoffman was said to be one of the great actors of our time and died with a hypodermic needle in his arm and his apartment stocked like an illegal drug emporium.  The medical examiner says the results of his autopsy were “inconclusive and further tests are needed.”  Yeah… take a look at that ingrown toenail.

--A burglar smashed open the locked door to a fishing shop in Rochester, Minnesota only to be faced with a mounted big mouth bass that started singing the Al Green hit "Take Me to the River."  The frightened crook fled empty handed.  And the door was insured.

Grapeshot:

-How do the Olympic games manage to have events a full day before the opening ceremony?

-Did you stay up to watch Leno’s “last” show or at least record it while you slept?

-How long before NBC comes back to Jay, hat in hand, asking him to help them get back the ratings they are bound to lose at 11:35 each weeknight?

-Can anyone explain in 140 characters or fewer why Twitter stock is such a dog?

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

1288 What Bothers Us About Snowden

Edward Snowden is the American computer scientist and former contractor with the National Security Agency who leaked information on just how much spying the NSA is doing.

He’s been hailed in some quarters as a hero and maligned in others as a traitor.  And at the moment, he’s living in exile in Russia.  

The U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Russia.  But even if it did, what would it matter to them?  It’s Russia, after all.

Many of us have been pondering about what makes this guy and what he did so chilling.  Yes, he disclosed classified stuff.  That’s illegal.  But maybe so are the acts he disclosed.  We don’t know that yet.

The moral issue: by getting us into a passel of trouble with our allies and not so very allied allies did he mess up something we haven’t noticed?  Yes he has.

A friend wrote the other day that what Snowden did was in effect rob us of our myths.  And in doing so, he took other countries’ myths down with them.

Here’s what he wrote “Snowden upset the balance of lies that all nations operate under. They all spy on each other and themselves, but the public, the masses, are not involved.

“Snowdon involved and upset the masses.

“He put the US in a position of having to deal with the feelings of irrelevant people in other counties and our own. Nothing meaningful will change but we have to waste time with cosmetics.”

In olden times, during the height of the red scare, where people like Joe McCarthy were finding commies behind every boy scout leader, school teacher, butcher, baker and candlestick maker, people said don’t be too aggressive, the real communists will just burrow farther underground.

They were right then and they’re right now when they tell us the spy agencies here and elsewhere will just go deeper below, like the worms and moles they are.

There will be court decisions which nations will ignore.  There will continue to be a public outcry.

But at least now, we know more of what’s going on and what to expect.

What’s hard to figure is what they do with all that stuff.  Billions of lines of data, likely each one leading or linking to a page of details.

No one can read all of it.  So probably, they have computer programs to pick out key words.  

This, of course, will provoke terrorists to form a new vocabulary just as the mob did in the relatively primitive early days of phone taps and bugs at social clubs.

Thus:

Attack (n): Playground.

Attack (v): bathe

Improvised Explosive Device: Ice cream cone.

Shoe bomb: Gold Toe

Underwear bomb: Boxers (or briefs.)

Car bomb: Edsel.

Shrapnel:

--The best Super Bowl ad was the one from Dish network seen only by subscribers. No big drama in this one, or cute puppies or patriotic American songs sung in (shudder) foreign languages. It was a simple un-animated blue slate with two words at center: “No Signal.”

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

1287 Walking the Walk

J-walk, that is.  Mayor de Blasio wants to crack down on jaywalkers.  Too many accidents. Too many deaths.

But wait.  In New York, j-walking is an olympic caliber sport. It’s a tradition.  It’s often the only way you can get from here to there. And it stirs the passion of competition and bravery.

The law has been around for decades.  It is not enforced. As a youngster, it was my ambition to get and frame and hang on the wall a ticket for j-walking.  It was a two dollar fine, which I had planned not to pay so I could keep the original art, the ticket.

Never happened. Not even when I was brazen.  On a Sunday morning walking to work, there were three cops standing in the doorway of the target building, Madison and 52nd.  I j-walked perfectly… a figure J on crossing the avenue.  Thought surely, they’d write it up.  Instead, they parted the way and one of them opened and held the door for me.

Total failure.  Abysmal.  Another defeat.

J-walking does not require an actual “J.” It has come to mean any pedestrian violation: crossing anywhere but a crosswalk, crossing against a light, really anything that requires feet on the road instead of the sidewalk.

In Los Angeles, you so much as step off the curb against the light and if a cop spots you, you’ll get a ticket.  In New York, the cops clear a path, hold doors, smile and wave.

If the reports are correct, 172 people were killed while j-walking in the five boroughs last year.  One hundred and seventy two… out of how many million walkers?  Killed?  You have a better chance of being struck by lightning. You have a better chance of winning the lottery. You have a better chance of choking on a stale bagel.  You have a better chance of dying of The Vapors.

Of course, no one’s ever been killed when they “Cross at the green, not in between” as the public service posters and announcements used to preach, right?

You might say “oh, but if a car runs a light, it’s the driver’s fault you’re hit.”  Absolutely.  But you’re dead in either case.

So now, a New Yorker’s natural right to j-walk has been usurped by a freshman mayor and his small crime fighter of a  police commissioner.

They have cops with bullhorns at Broadway and 96th.  And big signs demanding you USE THE CROSSWALK!

News accounts say a man in his mid 80s was roughed up by the cops for j-walking. Cops say he fell.  Yeah. Right.  

Dear Mayor de Blastoff: If you want to start enforcing idiotic laws, fine. But throw us a bone, Bill. Enforce the bike laws too. And while you’re at it, repeal some of the newer idiotic laws… like the big gulp cup ban. Or Stop and Frisk.  And maybe you can even knock a buck or two off the cigarette tax which is high enough for half the smokers to take out payday loans.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014