4714 The Plasticarians

 

Say, someone tells you steak is nothing more than the recycling of cows.  Even the biggest meat eaters would say that’s nuts, and it is.  Cows, after all, are alive.  They breathe, they (occasionally) move.  They go “mooooo.” 

 

So, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” doesn’t apply to cattle ranches.  But what about plastic.  Plastic is made from carbon and oil and such.  Oil comes from... plankton?  Dinosaurs? 

 

So when Alexander Parkes made the first plastic in 1855, was he fooling around with what we now call celluloid, or was he creating life in a test tube?

 

The Plasticarians think the latter.   When your grocery bags no longer are useful, do you recycle them like cows?  Or do you give them a proper burial, either in a landfill or your back yard.

 

It may take them millions of years to come back in an equally useful form, but they WILL come back.

 

Do plastic objects have souls?  Ask any practitioner of Voodoo and you’ll get a “yes.”  And they’ll tell you the same about logs, little stuffed dolls, statues and drums.

 

So when you’re finished with the Glad Wrap or the grocery bag or the water bottle and you just casually throw it into a recycle bin somewhere, do you know what happens to it?  

 

Maybe it goes to the landfill.  But maybe it’ll be cruelly tortured by being melted down and made into something else.  There’s no way you can be sure unless you bury it yourself.  While burying a human corpse in your backyard is illegal in many places, burying a zip-lock bag is not.

 

Would you tear a six-ounce soda bottle from its two liter mom?  Not if you think like a Plasticarian.  Are you sure the bottle of liquid detergent and the bottle of liquid fabric softener that sit on your shelf have not fallen in love?

 

It’s a good thing Guinness and Newcastle Ale don’t come in plastic, else there might be a mini war between the Irish and the British at the bottle melting factory!  These also deserve proper burials.  And not in the same place.

 

Time to organize!  Prevent the abuse and torture of plastic.  Eliminate the death penalty.  Keep families together.

 

And while you’re doing that, please pass the recycled cow.

 

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4713 Bad Bets

 

What’s the difference between Wall Street and Vegas?  Vegas has better security. More cameras. More safeguards. More and tighter regulation. Fewer shady characters.  Less risk.

 

The fall of a few stocks lately has sent one of the megafunds into a tailspin after making what the financial journalists call “bad bets.” 

Earth to financial news media:  Bad bets? When you put two bucks on a horse that can barely make it out of the starting gate, that’s a bad bet.  When you bet against the UConn Women’s basketball team, that’s a bad bet.

 

When you bet on GameStop or Archegos Capital, that’s not a bad bet, it’s financial ruin waiting to happen.  And as both outfits have proved recently, things that are waiting to happen often do.  And with predictable results.

 

Not much point in beating the deadish horse of GameStop again. Everyone knows that story by now.  But here’s a good bet: you’d never heard of Archegos until now.  Except some people had and invested. A lame horse if ever there was one.

 

In a nutshell, here’s what happened.  Archegos went big on media companies like CBS/Viacom and Discovery Networks.  Money is so easy to borrow now that big banks lined up with shopping carts of cash to lend.

 

When media stocks tanked, that hit Archegos, and when Archegos got hit it fell over on giant banks which are today a little less skyscraper and a little more pancake than they were a short time ago.

 

The security cams weren’t working … or maybe the screen watchers were bored into slumber as those media stocks kept rising.  Maybe the downturn started during a security shift change and people were just opening their coffees and not watching for nefarious deeds as they are paid to do. But what goes up comes down, sometimes unpredictably.  Oops.

 

Two big banks mentioned in news releases that their dealings with an “American client” might cost them billions of dollars in earnings in their next reporting period.  They didn’t mention names.  They didn’t have to. The screen watchers had awakened too late to save their paper investments -- or their actual dollars.

 

Smart gamblers will limit the amount they’ll allow themselves to lose at the tables and the slots.  You’d think all those well-educated Wall Street Masters of the Universe would learn something similar.

 

Turning towers into pancakes is nothing new. That doesn’t mean stop building towers.  But not every one of them has to be this week’s entry in the world’s tallest building contest.

 

Maybe make some overlapping shifts for the security cam staff so when the new crew is unwrapping its coffee and doughnuts, someone will still be watching the monitor screens.

 

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4712 The Future of Car Sales

Vending machines used to be for candy and snacks. Now you can buy a car from one.

 

Is this a passing fad or has there been a revolution in car sales?

 

First, move over insurance companies and pharmaceutical makers. A new and growing dominant force in automotives is starting to crowd you out of prime time TV ads.  Commercials for websites like “Carvana,” “CarMax,” “Vroom” and “Autotrader” are almost as numerous as Shaq’s 400 different endorsements and the Geico Gecko.

 

Decide what you want.  A few clicks later you get an offer for your trade-in and a choice of 800 makes and models ranging from new or near-new anythings to old beaters to vintage restored Second Childhood or Middle-Age-Crazies specials.

 

Some offer long test drives, drives measured in days not minutes.  Others offer buybacks at price paid if you’re unhappy. All offer delivery.

 

It’s not the same as when you go for a candy bar or a Pepsi, the machine jams and you shake it until your purchase rattles loose. But these are little more than giant vending machines.

 

Is there a reason to buy this way?  Sure.  The retail car industry has spent enormous efforts to make buying a vehicle as confusing and difficult as possible.  No one has a price. Everyone makes a potential buyer jump through hoops. 

 

There may be a secret handbook of ways to make the buying experience as unpleasant as possible.  It wouldn’t be surprising if there were training schools where ordinary and often decent human beings can learn magic phrases like “Let me talk to the sales manager. Maybe we can shave a few dollars off.” Or “Forget the price. Just tell me what you can pay per month.”

 

 Maybe there are contract writing classes that tell dealers how to slip unnecessary “extras” into payment agreements.

 

Maybe NuCar University, teachers of the “let me ask my manager” school of car selling should have continuing education courses for customers.

 

When the sales person asks you to buy a “special” undercoating you can learn to say either “the bottom’s already sealed why do I need a second coat?” An alternative answer: “No thank you. I like it when the floorboards rust out because that gives me extra ventilation.”

 

When asked if you want the windshield engraved with a number you can say “I don’t need the extra number, but can you engrave “Betty’s My Girl” in the lower right corner? Or a copy of the NRA logo?”

 

And when they ask you if you want Scotchguard on the seats you can say “No thank you, I can spill my own scotch.”

 

Still, it’s nice to see those car vending machines.  Even if it’s hard to insert enough quarters, dimes and nickels to buy the Kia or Chevy you want.  The problem comes only when you have to shake the vending machine if your choice gets stuck in the down-chute.

 

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

  

4711 The Ever Given

 

The containers may look like Legos. Don’t try to lift them.

 The ship says “Evergreen” on its side because that’s the name of the company that owns it.  But the ship herself is named “The MV Ever Given.” It is as long as the Empire State Building is high, and it is blocking the Suez Canal in Egypt. It also is longer than the canal is wide. And it is aground. It is blocking a backlog of watercraft longer than anything you’ve ever seen or will see on a highway or an airport in a snowstorm.

 

We’ve been hearing about the stuck ship, whipped by 40 knot winds and a sandstorm getting stuck sideways in the canal. Forty knots is about 46 miles an hour.  That’s a good stiff wind in a relatively confined space.  It’s not enough to topple a decent size oak tree.  It’s not enough to send cows flying as they do in tornadoes. But in these surroundings, it’s good enough.

 

About that traffic jam:  Fifty or so ships use the canal on any given day.  So in three days or so, that’s a lot of heavy metal waiting at the Cash Only line at the toll booth.

 

Why you may ask, don’t they place canal travel experts on board something that big? They did.  They’re as dumbfounded as anyone else.

 

And why, you may ask, don’t they start taking stuff off, loading it on smaller ships fore and aft, and sending it through? Well, consider the weight of the cargo: 200,000 tons.  That’s almost half a billion pounds of who knows what-all.

 

Eventually, they’ll get the thing out of the sand.  Bring in enough tugboats, a few hundred divers.  Or maybe they’ll have to take Ever Given apart.

 

That of course will cause a mass movement: “Save the Ever Given.”  There’ll be campaign buttons, street art, bumper stickers.  Demonstrations.  Court cases and the police festivals which seem to accompany certain gatherings these days.

 

Independent filmmakers will clamor for screen rights.  Conspiracy theorists will posit that it was the work of the CIA or the Mossad.  

 

They’ll call for an investigation of the captain, who it will have turned out, came to Egypt, and quit captaining lessons before they taught the navigate-the-canal part of the course. (He knew full well, he would never have to move this monolith out of the canal!)

 

The ship’s flag is Panamanian.  But its owners are from Taiwan. So the expected apologies came quickly.  Say at about 40 knots. But the knot on the waterway awaits Alexander the Great.

 

You want to undo this mess and Alexander the Great isn’t available, someone call the New York office of Moran Towing.

 

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

Any Questions: wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

 

4710 The Soundtrack of Your Sleep

 Woodpeckers are not usually a part of videos that feature bird songs.  But you never know when someone will record them anyway. The rhythm section of the Winged Symphonette.

 

Published studies say the sound of chirping birds can lift your spirits.  It’s in the current issue of Consumer Reports Magazine’s health and better living newsletter.

 

Sometimes CR is right on target.  But remember also, that they recommend Kenmore home appliances and certain brands of undesirable automobiles. So take the birds with a grain of salt on their tales.

 

Wessays (™) conducted informal research.  And there may be something to the case for the birds.  But personally, we still prefer leaving a radio tuned to NPR which can lull anyone to sleep. 

 

And we still like the sounds of ocean waves and tropical rains which you can hear by using one of the many white noise machines that are available.  The machines use no bandwidth and some even work on emergency battery backups when there’s a power outage in your aviary, your make-believe beachfront or your imitation rainforest.

 

Nevertheless, there are things you can’t get with a white noise machine.  So if you have gigabytes to burn by leaving your computer on all night, there’s plenty more to choose from.

 

Some recommendations:  The sound of NASCAR on one of the free music channels.  You get the roar of the engines as the cars make a turn, though sometimes they pause for a brief commercial for GEICO or Zzz-Quil.  That may sound a little off base.  But YouTube has to get in those ads. If you have sleep apnea, you can click on “skip ad” during one of your mini awakenings.

 

If you’re a city dweller living in the country, you can find the sound videos of fire trucks, police cars, subways, buses, and the pneumatic hammers construction workers use to dig up buried broken water mains.

 

If you grew up in the rurals but live in a city, there are videos of bears rummaging through garbage cans. You can even choose the type of can.  Those giant plastic trash cans make a different sound than cans made of metal.  There are reports of someone scouting for locations where cars often hit deer on highways.  We cannot confirm that.

 

If you grew up in the suburbs, there are no choices available since suburbs are silent except for the sound of an occasional speeding car or an amateur attempt at breaking into your kitchen door.

 

You can always make a loop of Paul Simon’s Sounds of Silence. Or maybe you can find and capture an out of work woodpecker and put it in a cage with a hollow log.

 

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

© WR 2021

4709 A New College Exam

 Antioch College circa 1852

Grandpa used to say that college was a great idea.  It helps keep the unemployment rate lower.  These days, we need no special help in keeping anyone out of the workforce.  But that said, there's some truth here.

 

This may be part of the reason so many young people jump through the strangest of hoops to get into the school of their choice, although many will choose "Any school that'll have me."

 

They go through high school, sort of learning and sort of studying what they think or their teachers think will be on the Regents exams or other statewide tests.  They'll join the math club or the debate club or the football team and do community service.   They'll take those awful SATs.  But there's one test they all seem to ignore and it's one that might help them get into schools.

 

The Personality test.

 

At Antioch, most of the students -- graduate and undergrad -- seemed to have similar personality quirks.  It wasn't universal, and Antioch is a small school with a certain reputation.  It might be a good guess that most of the students at Bob Jones University have the same situation, only with different quirks.

 

Now living in a town that is home to a fairly large college, it's harder to spot these similarities.  There are 44-thousand students attending.  Maybe more.  And yet, most of those encountered seem to have, well, similar personality quirks.  It differs by major; it differs by age.  But it doesn't seem to differ among genders, ethnic groups or backgrounds.  Many many of those kids are remarkably similar in personality.

 

The king of this heap is NYU.  There is a distinctive NYU personality.  Once you recognize it, it's obvious.  You can spot 'em a mile away.  Old, young, recent, ancient, New Yorker, non-New Yorker.  Doesn't matter.  Never met anyone from there who didn't have it at least to some degree.

 

So now comes the hard part.  You have to figure out what your particular quirks are and where they'd be most welcome.  Not an easy task.  In fact, if you actually accomplish this two-parter, you're obviously well qualified for a higher education anywhere of your choosing.  But if you can do it and land the interview, chances are the admissions guy will at some level, possibly subconscious, believe you "fit" and invite you to become a student. “She’s one of us.”

 

So start those college visits early.  Don't go during a semester break.  Don't make appointments.  Just GO.  And see if you can find whether the random students you see, hear or meet are "just like me."  If they are, you're likely to get a "yes" on your application.  If they aren't, move on.

 

Shrapnel:

 

--Parkinson's Law says work expands to fill the time available.  Retirees and those virused out of work want to know if leisure activities expand to fill the time available. Seems doubtful.

 

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

©WR 2021

 

 

4708 He Had a Very Bad Day

The Anti-Asian hatewave can’t be stopped with sermons.  But the sermons can’t hurt.

As the weekend approaches, Asian-led churches are preparing to urge their communities to step up to the wave of violence. It came to a head this week when a man gunned down eight people, six of them Asian women, in three Atlanta-area massage spas.

One pastor put it this way: “I’m going to urge people with love and peace that we need to step up and address this issue.”  Rev. Beyond Han says, “it’s time for us to act.”

Georgia police say they haven’t yet determined whether the motive for the shootings was racial. The shooter said he killed to remove sexual temptation.

 One cop’s public explanation went viral.

Here’s the quotation from the Georgia Sheriff’s Captain that started the backlash against his agency. It’s from Jay Baker who said of the accused murderer:

 "…[he] was pretty much fed up and had been, kind of, at the end of his rope. And yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did.”

 It also was a “really bad day” for those who were shot, only the eight of them who died probably don’t know it.

Just the kind of cop you want on your side.  This wasn’t a sudden, off-the-cuff kind of remark one might make under pressure.  He’d been railing about “Asian-caused” COVID on his Facebook page, promoting the idea.

The company that made anti-Asian shirts featured on Captain Jay Baker’s Facebook page received a $15-thousand loan for Covid- related paycheck protection.

Meantime, the confessed shooter, Robert Aaron Long, 21, has been charged with four counts of murder with four counts still to come.

 Hate Crimes against Asians continue.

--Three people were arrested for beating and robbing an Asian man in a San Francisco laundromat.

--An older Asian woman attacked on a San Francisco street beat her attacker bloody before EMS arrived and handcuffed him to a stretcher.

--A church in Seattle was hit by anti-Asian graffiti written in hay for the fourth time this year.

Police in major cities with large Asian populations... New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, the District of Columbia, Atlanta, and others have stepped up patrols. 

It’s easy to blame the South, well known as a wellspring of racism, for the hatewave.  But it wouldn’t be completely fair. At least in the south, one knows what to expect.  It’s in the supposedly tolerant and welcoming cities of the North where the real work starts.

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

Any Questions? wesrichards@gmail.com

Do I really need a disclaimer about my adult Asian daughters here? Or my Asian spouse?

© WR 2021