Sunday Rerun (from 2018): The Whole Tooth

 Every now and then, we see someone so seized with Holiday Fever that they do something they will regret later. Not much later, in most cases.

Like the guy who chooses the office Christmas party to tell the boss what he really thinks about some of the boss's rules and regulations...or the one who decides to plant a big smackeroo on the new coworker from Accounting.  Both of these failed plans usually come after a few sips of the dew, as they like to say, and both of them will make for sadness later, not to mention unemployment.

And the legends always sprout about the guy who cuts a hole in his ceiling so he can display, in all its yuletide glory, a 12-foot Christmas tree in a ten-foot living room.

And the less said, the better, about people who get "Super Bowl Champs!" tattoos saluting their favorite team before a game their team goes out and loses.

Now comes a warning from Mobile County, Alabama, telling us not to glue fake fangs in our mouths if we are going for Halloween as a vampire.

After Anna Tew spent three American dollars to add the phony choppers to her outfit, she came home from the revelry and went to brush her real teeth, and couldn't pry loose the store-bought fangs.

Halloween night was ruined for her. In fact, she was up until 2 AM with wire cutters and other home tools trying to remove the man-made molars.

At length, she sought professional help, winding up in the chair of Dr. John Murphy at Alabama Family Dental. Dr Murphy told WKRG TV that sometimes, imitation eyeteeth can stuck because of the natural shape of our real teeth and gums.

“He talked about drilling. They had a saw, talked about taking them off in sections, and they couldn’t numb it because they were scared they would actually pull my teeth out,” Ms Tew told the news outlet. “So he went in and picked and pulled and I squealed like a baby and they got them out.”

Demonstrating that there's no lesson like one hard-learned, Tew says she will never again use simulated teeth for comic effect.

“I will never do it again,” she told WKRG. “I will never put anything like that again in my mouth.”

Good, because she was really gonna play hell eating corn on the cob next summer.

The Saturday Picture Show, October 30, 2021

 

People will tell you that birds aren't smart, hence the term "birdbrain." Yet, look where this family chose to make a home...elevated, protected, out of sight...

Here's a dental clinic with a great idea - comfort dogs on duty all day!

My search for the perfect English breakfast continues. I still don't know how baked beans fit in, but this all looks great!

Someone was peeling a mound o' spuds, and got this sideeye in return. He stopped peeling right away.

The worst case of poison ivy I ever had came from a day of berry pickin' in the country. Even as I swabbed on the calamine lotion the next day, I went right on eating the berries. How could I blame them? Now, when I pick berries, I'm at Aldi.

Early airmail pilots flew in open-pit Curtiss "Jenny" biplanes. They wore wool and leather up and down, and these leather masks to keep their faces from freezing off. There is no record of any pilot asking if enough research had been done on them.

Night street scene captured on a cellphone camera.

Those whose main experience of seeing giraffes came from the front of the animal cracker box might be interested to see the size comparison between the leopard strutting by, and the towering giraffe in the mist. Photo by Dylan Royal.

You might want to back away from your screen a bit to see this picture, drawn in one continuous line, of your favorite actor.

"Ramp is for baby ducks." Stay and watch the show!

There's also good

It's hard to figure the ratio, but it does add up that for every bad person in any profession, you'll find x amount of good ones. I'm saying you can shop at a grocery store for months on end and be treated kindly by the people working there, and then one day the kid slicing your mortadella gives you a little attitude. That doesn't mean that everyone there is a nincompoop.

Yes, there are nasty doctors and nail technicians and refuse collectors and state senators and bakers and government clerks and DJs and newspaper editors and the list goes on. But we have learned, one bad apple doesn't ruin the applesauce.

Which is why I wanted to share this release from the Howard County (Maryland) Police: 

As a woman and her mother took their regular walk around the Columbia Lakefront recently, they were confronted by a stranger who threatened them with a homemade knife. They called 911; the man fled but was later arrested by Police Officer Lily Schmulowitz. When PO Schmulowitz made a follow-up visit to the victims, she learned that they felt nervous and reluctant to resume their walks around the lake. So she took community policing to the next level and organized a group of officers to accompany the women on their walk. 

Officer Schmulowitz

PO Schmulowitz was joined by the watch commander, patrol supervisor, platoon members and neighborhood resource officers to help restore a sense of security for these two shaken-up local residents. After the walk, the officers provided refreshments and spent time with the women, focusing on ways to help them feel safe. The kind of empathy and compassion shown by PO Schmulowitz and this team of officers is just one of many examples of the HCPD’s commitment to ensuring people feel safe and are safe in our communities. We don’t just serve the community…we are proud to be a part of it.

It seems to me that if more police took the initiative to meet the public where they live, and see their needs rather than their faults, and if people started looking at the world through the eyes of people who are sworn to serve and protect and all too often have to dodge verbal brickbats and real bullets, we might get somewhere. Not all police are perfect or even close to it. Lots of them would never do what Officer Schmulowitz did in Columbia. Just look at the movie currently being filmed here about the crooked city police who robbed drug dealers, stole their money, resold their stashes, and framed innocent people for murders they committed. Every time something like that happens, it ruins a huge lot of good will that good police have engendered. 

But then, look at what Officer Schmulowitz did. She didn't give up being a good person and neither should anyone...including you and I.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” - Theodore Roosevelt

Lookie here!

From beautiful Decatur, Alabama, comes this story of what can happen after one is arrested.

By the way, Marylanders will note that Decatur is named in honor of Stephen Decatur, a man born in Sinepuxent, Maryland in 1779 who later achieved great fame as a naval leader. There is no town of Decatur in Maryland, but there is Stephen Decatur High School outside Ocean City, and that's pretty cool, too.

Meanwhile, back in Alabama, a man was being booked into the local lockup when a routine body scan revealed more than bones inside him...the X-ray showed a shotgun shell in his abdomen.

Morgan County Jail spokesperson Mike Swafford says it looked like a .410 gauge shotgun shell.

It did give the as-yet-unnamed subject a temporary way to stay out of the hoosegow:  “He was never booked in,” Swafford said. “When our medical staff saw that, they said, ‘He has to go to the hospital.’”

They wound up releasing the man, who had been arrested by another law enforcement agency in the county, on his own recognizance, according to Swafford, who does not know what happened to the shell.

We can assume it worked itself out, so to speak, and the jailhouse staff was happy that they would be elsewhere when it did.

The Sheriff’s Department thought it was wise to post the above image on social media as a way to let the public know that they will have to find another way to smuggle contraband, what with the x-ray technology. The jail is used to finding baggies and other makeshift containers inside prisoners, but ammunition, or drugs inside ammunition, are something else again.

“We don’t see a shotgun shell very often,” Swafford said. “We speculate it had drugs in it but we don’t really know.”

Maybe going to jail is a signal that it's time to stop hiding things inside of yourself.

Crabby Appleton

It turns out that a lot of things from the old days - I mean the REALLY old days, like 100-million years ago - are preserved in natural amber, a fossilized tree resin that's been keep things in showcase condition since Neolithic days.

So, here's one that everyone in Maryland will love. There is a crab fossil in amber that old that is the true oldest crab ever discovered!

The story takes us to Tengchong, China, where two researchers were in a market and spotted a piece of amber jewelry that was discovered by miners in Myanmar (formerly Burma). There is a young crab embedded in the resin, not quite 1/4 inch long.

This is what they call a major scientific discovery; the crab answered a lot of questions about the crab family tree. 

And for his troubles, he has been given the name of the species Cretapsara athanata, which means "the immortal Cretaceous spirit of the clouds and waters," in Asian mythology. 

Before Cret (as he likes to be called) came along, all scientists knew that the crabs used to be strictly marine animals, before they started getting invited to cookouts and crab feasts. Science believed that the first crabs started prowling on land between 50 and 75 milion years ago. But the DNA testing on Cret  revealed that he made the jump more than 125 million years ago.

Scientists such as Javier Luque over at Harvard University, said the answers they got from this discovery told them a lot. 

"In a way, it's like finding a shrimp in amber," he says. "Talk about wrong place, wrong time."

These men and women have like the ultimate set of tools for looking at long-ago crabs, and with their micro-CT scans, they got pictures of tiny appendages like the crab's antennae, legs, the hairs on its mandible, compound eyes and even its gills, all there in the solidified tree sap.

I wish I had a camera that time in Ocean City when a crab used its claws to attach itself to my TopSider shoe. He did not want to give up his grip, and it wasn't until the radio played "Feelings" by Morris Albert that he disengaged and crabwalked off.

Luque wants to warn you that Cret is a true crab, not to be confused with hermit crabs or king crabs. Those "crabs" are not crabs at all, but, rather, crustaceans, relatives of the lobster and the shrimp and Mrs Paul's fish sticks.

 Now you won't have to worry about running out of things to talk about, next time you go out for a seafood dinner!

 

Wheels in motion

Add this name to the list of people we like:

Eliot Middleton, out of McClellanville, South Carolina, is multi-talented. He owns a barbecue restaurant (they have a million of them down there!) and he works part-time as a auto mechanic. He began fixing up old beaters and donating them to people in need of transportation, and a news outlet featured him to show his generosity.

Next thing you know, he had more than 800 cars donated to the cause and over $100,000 in cash donations.

The thing to understand about McClellanville is, it's a small, rural town. There is no sort of public transportation like buses. No taxicabs or Ubers or anything. You either drive, or get a ride, or you walk.

Middleton takes old, seemingly unusable “junkers” and makes them run again. Then, he gives them away to people who need cars. He does this on his own time and with no payment beyond a heartfelt thanks. So far, he has donated about 30 cars.

People in the small rural community are dependent on cars. There is no public transportation. Taxis and rideshare companies don’t exist here.

Eliot helps a lot of single moms, older folks, and people who are out looking for work. We've all known people with that mechanical gift of taking a wheezy old Wrangler or a crappy Chrysler and getting it back on the road, and Mr Middleton does it for the sake of others. He doesn't take money for the car once he signs it over to someone in need.

So there he was, the day after the news and the social sites showed him, sitting there with over 1500 phone messages. And he already had two jobs plus his car repair thing.

His sister Desiree stepped up to the plate and set up the Village to Village Foundation as a nonprofit organization, and that outfit was given the Jefferson Award for public service.  That's an award created in 1973 "to honor public and private citizens who show the power of service to others in bringing out the greatness that lies within us all.”

The older and wiser among us always counseled, "If you want something done right, ask a busy person." Mr Middleton has his restaurant and his part time job and he still finds time to staff his foundation and get an assembly line of sorts underway, bringing in junkers and sending out hope for those in need.

It's easy to spot the holes in society where hopes and dreams fall through to the ground. People such as Eliot Middleton are fixing the holes in that net and helping. Let's thank them and encourage them!

 

Lava

I watch the evening news (and the morning news and the noon news and the late news) because I love the human parade. I love to read history and biographies, and the news, as someone at the Washington POST said, is "...only the first rough draft of history."

I mean, we see things on the news that are momentous around the globe, and stories just as touching that affect only the residents of a certain neighborhood.

F'rinstance, we have seen tornados strike this summer. No one who saw the news from Mullica Hill, New Jersey this summer will forget how some houses were just torn to smithereens...and often, the house next door lost one shingle. Life and death can be just so random. 

Across the sea in La Palma, one of the Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, the sky is lit up with smoldering lava as a volcano spews for the first time in 50 years. The lava has covered 2,000 acres of land, destroyed 2,000 businesses and homes, and wiped out many of the banana plantations, just since September 19...and there is no end in sight. People - 6,000 of them - are displaced and fearful, naturally.

And in all this, one small house has been left alone.  Locals are calling it "the miracle house."

Somehow the small chalet, owned by Danish couple Inge and Rainer Cocq, stands. The Cocqs have not traveled to their vacation home since the COVID-19 pandemic began (they take these things seriously in other parts of the world).

A friend of the couple says, "They came several times a year, until the virus arrived." 

Locals say the Cocqs chose La Palma for its spectacular volcanic landscape.

Ironies abound. We are reminded every day to enjoy what we have while we have it.

Sunday Rerun (from 2012) Splitting Hairs

 

B. Jones

In our culture, we don't always name hairdids anymore, especially the ones for men.  Used to be, a man could go into a barbershop and ask for a flat top or a Chicago box-car, which was a flattop with long sides and a duck's ass in back.  Or he could say he wanted a Prince Valiant, most notably worn by Brian Jones.  Or of course, there was always the Full Elvis, with the pompadour, slicked sides and a d.a. with sideburns.

D. Beckham

And don't forget the traditional wiffle, or buzz, cut.  I don't know where that name "wiffle" came from, but it's what you get when you just run the clippers all over your melon and cut it down to the lowest length.  This look is popular among David Beckham, Sinead O'Connor, and every male member of the armed forces during their basic training.

S.Keezix

Lately I see a lot of guys - mainly in what I refer to as the "non-retired," or "still working" age group - wearing what I refer to as the "Skeezix" haircut.  That's the one where the hair is pretty short all over and the barber leaves enough at the very front to grab and freeze with hair goo, leaving a look like the picture on the button at right.  That's Skeezix from the Gasoline Alley comic strip.  I know it's an old comic, but everything old comes back again, if you give it enough time.

Isn't that right, Moe?

The Saturday Picture Show, October 23, 2021

 

Would you rather read a book about birds, or look at real birds?

I would love to go back in time and attend a college football game in 1928, driving around in a Stutz Bearcat, drinking bootleg hooch in a hip flask hidden beneath my raccoon coat. By the way, it was Peter Arno (born Curtis Arnoux Peters, Jr) whose 99 covers over the years defined The New Yorker's sense of style very well. I miss those days and I wasn't even there.

The views in Scotland are lovely all year 'round! I once met a man from Edinburgh and he told me it rained there virtually every day. Sign me up.

No we know why Seattle is considered the hippest town of all. Even back in the era when Grandpa looked like Martin Van Buren, they let kids have a beer. I wasn't raised to think that beer was the devil's brew, and maybe that's why I never abused it. It's basically liquid bread. Have some tonight!

Outside of some elaborate combovers, you don't really see people putting a lot of effort into the length of their hair and beard anymore, which is probably for the better.

I assume the wearer is safe from electric shock in case of rain. A solar-powered fan hat! Hello, Santa?

This is what dollar bills used to look like. You will still see one in your change from the BuySumMor now and again. The story was that you could go to a bank and get a dollar's worth of silver in exchange for your dollar bill. I don't recommend trying that.

So! On March 13, 2020, you had a sesame seed bagel on your last day at the office, and look what sprouted while you were WFH!

Available soon for lunch: the McCicada!

Even as we speak, American confectioners are busy making caramel for your candy apples. THIS is the most wonderful time of the year!

Tag Party

Most every state has had a person at their Department of Motor Vehicles Department whose job it is to guard the public from seeing obscene or suggestive vanity license tags.

And most every state has a couple of hundred people dedicated to applying for tags like KIZMYAZZ or PB4UGO, to confound the authorities.

A guy here in Maryland fought in the courts for years (and spent who knows how much on lawyers) to keep his MIERDA tag. If you don't know that word, ask a Spanish teacher. PS, he lost in the end.

Maryland's MVA allowed the WTF tag to remain on someone's Studebaker, because the owner claimed it celebrated their WaTerFront property. 

Sure.

Someone stupid at the MVA tried to disallow ALLAH, but that was reversed and chalked up to an "overcautious employee." Yes. Can't be too cautious about mentioning God.

Maryland actually has a list for their MVA employees to see what is banned, although the newspaper can't print it. WTF?

Well sir, up in Maine, there has never been any sort of regulation about what your tag can say, but watch out now; a new law just went into effect. What the state will do all about all those UPURS and 4Q2 tags is not quite certain. Chances are, they won't be renewed when the time comes.

As of now, there are all sort of tags up there - even one with the most common, two word seven letter profanity. I would like to talk to the man who has that tag!

Heavy traffic in Wiscasset, Maine.

So the Maine lawyers will work to, at once, make sure your First Amendment rights are safe, while getting rid of obscenity on your Pontiac.

“Rule-making will delay the process of active removal of plates from the road but will help us balance the free speech rights of citizens and the public interest of removing inappropriate license plates,” said a state spokeperson.

Shenna Bellows is the Secretary of State in Maine, and she says the state became "the Wild Wild West of vanity license plates" when they dropped their review process in 2015.  “Our anything-goes approach was unusual," Bellows said.

Bellows used to be executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, so she is all about free speech, but she acknowledges she didn't understand the extent of “really disturbing” license plates before she became secretary of state earlier this year.

Bellows says her stance mirrors that of the FCC:  “If you can’t say it on the 6 o'clock news, it shouldn't be on a license plate."

And she points out, “The license plate is the property of the state,” she said. “If you really want an offensive slogan on your car, then you can use a bumper sticker.”

My all time favorite, seen in Towson, was #LB SAND. I hope it's still out there somewhere!

And then...

Sports fans are quite used to sudden reversals of fortune. A baseball team will fight back to take a lead in the ninth inning after being behind all night, only to see a couple of cheap hits score two wins and lose in the bottom of the ninth.

And we've all seen football teams that score on a long touchdown drive at the end of a game, going ahead by two points, and then the other team runs back the ensuing kickoff for the winning touchdown.

Life takes funny twists and turns...well, funny sometimes, and downright tragic sometimes.

Take the up and down luck of Gregory Jarvis, pictured above, in Michigan. He bought a lottery ticket that paid off with a $45,000 prize.

And then, within two weeks, he drowned.

I guess most of us have been to, or at least picture, places like Duffy's Blue Water Inn in Caseville, Huron County, MI. Mr Jarvis was there all the time, and he hit the Club Keno game "The Jack" for $44,983, but he never got around to claiming the prize.

Days later, he was found dead on a private beach near Saginaw Bay.

Mr Jarvis's life ended at age 57. The autopsy revealed he had drowned, according to Caseville police Chief Kyle Romzek, who told the local news that no foul play was suspected, and that from all evidence, Jarvis had fallen and hit his head while tying up a boat.

And he had not yet claimed his prize. Someone from the Blue Water Inn told the news that ID issues had prevented Jarvis from getting his loot. In Michigan, if you win a lottery prize worth more than $600, you need a photo ID and a Social Security card.  

Jarvis had no Social Security card, but in the time between his Keno hit and his death, he had taken steps to get a new one issued to him. Who knows how having that sort of a stake could have turned his life around to a better way of living? 

Blue Water Inn owner Dawn Talaski told WJRT News that Jarvis was a regular at the Inn.

"Very nice guy, he was here every day."

And now he isn't.

  

​

Dis 'n' Data

The second thing we all learned about the internet, after we found all the pictures of cats playing the piano, was that some emails have the power to ruin your computer. Be they spam (unsolicited messages that might have a link to a virus) or phishing (malware that appears to come from a legitimate source) you should avoid them.

I get mail and texts that make no sense, such as the person who keeps texting me, claiming to be looking for "Anthony" and asking if I am interested in taking out a loan at very favorable terms, or repaying my nonexistent student debt, or this latest one that says I should open the attachment because they are the BMW recall division and they are trying to get in touch with me concerning my Beamer. 

I have never owned or driven a vehicle from the Bavarian Motor Works, so no. Perhaps they just send this email to everyone in the world, hoping to reach the millions of happy BMW owners. Or perhaps the link will give some hacker control over my computer with my unrivaled cache of Jerry Lee Lewis mp3s.

The other day I received a few (148) texts from someone making an offer to buy our house. Our house, that is, if we lived in Mifflinville, PA. The goal here is to get me to reply and say, "Hey! This is not my house!" and then they would reply and say, what IS your address, and then they have their hooks in.

On Instagram, I get follow requests from Chesty LaRue and her callipygian friends, none of whom are ever named Mildred or Lorraine, and of course I know they are enchanted by my saggy, craggy looks and my constant references to things that took place before their parents were born. So, no again. 

Speaking of the long-ago, I never tire of telling young people about the days when it was possible not to call someone when they weren't at home, or work, or the fire house. And the only way you knew someone was having a baby or buying a Prius was by phone call, which no one makes anymore anyway. I mean, if you can't say it in a text, it's not going to be said.

That's all that's on my mind today.  As of now, I won't shave or shower until after Halloween, or even change my clothes. Very simple costume this year - I'm going as Steve Bannon.

Heading to trouble

It is required of Muslims to dress modestly. Many, but not all females of the faith who have reached the age of maturity choose to cover their head with a head covering, a scarf or hijab, the belief being that only close relatives and their husband should see their hair in all its glory.

I have checked into this matter thoroughly and the results of my investigation are this: It is exactly 0% of my business what a Muslim woman does with her hair. Just as it is none of my beeswax what a Presbyterian, a Zoroastrian, or a veterinarian does. 

In fact, I sit and shake my head at people like this:

In New Jersey, the South Orange-Maplewood School District is looking in to why a teacher pulled the hijab off the head of a student in her class. Allegedly, she told the young lady she "didn't need" to cover her hair at school.

News alert: this local version of Ms Krabappel has secret powers and knows just what everyone needs to do!

This all happened recently at Seth Boyden Elementary School in Maplewood. People first learned of it via social media posts from Ibtihaj Muhammad, the Olympic bronze medal winning fencer who just happens to be from Maplewood. Muhammad is the first Muslim American woman to compete in the Olympics while wear a hijab.

"The young student resisted, by trying to hold onto her hijab, but the teacher pulled the hijab off, exposing her hair to the class," Muhammad wrote on Instagram.

She added that the teacher said to the student "your hair is beautiful and you don't have to wear a hijab in school anymore."

"Imagine being a child and stripped of your clothing in front of your classmates. Imagine the humiliation and trauma this experience has caused her.  This is abuse," Muhammad wrote, aptly.

The school district is doing the sidestep, telling a news outlet that they are looking into it, but "social media is not a reliable forum for due process."

"We must abide by our legal obligations to keep personnel and student matters confidential," the statement said. "We will utilize the existing District due process mechanisms to ensure fair and just outcomes based upon the results of our investigation. Any decision or outcome related to this will be reserved for after the completion of the investigation."

As if reading from a mimeographed statement handed out last summer to all principals, the district added that it "remains committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as regular anti-bias and anti-racism training for educators."

"Regardless of the results of the investigation, we are committed to restorative practices to help our students, staff and families process the social-emotional harms done," the statement added.

Wow. Lawyerese much?

The executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is named Selaedin Maksut, and he said the whole thing came to his attention when the student's mother called him.

"People can't claim ignorance and they don't know. It’s very common knowledge the significance of the headscarf in the religion," he said.

CAIR wants the teacher to be fired and replaced, saying, "Anything less than removing her from the classroom would be unacceptable. If she can't respect the religious practices of her students, then she shouldn’t be teaching."

The whole thing comes down to respect, in fact. How did such a person ever get hired to teach, with such attitudes in her soul? Teach your class and don't worry about side issues, be my advice.

 

That Lone Star is actually a Yelp review

I have a few friends in Texas, so I hope they don't take offense to my saying that I wouldn't live there for all the tea in China Grove. And it's not the people, not the climate, not the Cowboys, it's the people that run the place that make it such a hellhole.

You may recall, Texas is the state whose officials force the publishers of school textbooks to re-write history to suit their narrative, so students are taught that enslaved people were "guest employees" and First Americans were "voluntarily relocated" and Moses was a founding father of the United States. The United States is the country to which Texas belongs, although they often talk about declaring their freedom and setting up their own nation. Until a hurricane or a tornado damages their state, and then they're the first ones to show up in Washington looking for assistance from the federal government they so despise.

The current governor of Texas is owlfaced Greg Abbott. He is a proponent of freedom, unless you own a business in Texas and wish to require your employees get vaccinated. Then he's all Big Government. The duplicity never ends down there.

The latest is, Abbott has an election coming up, and an opponent named Don Huffines is trying to out-Abbott Abbott. Huffines was recently howling that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the child welfare agency, was “promoting transgender sexual policies to Texas youth.”

He said they were doing this by having a web page featuring information about a suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ+ youth. 

“These are not Texas values, these are not Republican Party values, but these are obviously Greg Abbott’s values,” Huffines said.

Within hours of this nonsensical rant, the Houston Chronicle reported that the website was taken down.

Also removed: a website for the Texas Youth Connection, another part of Family and Protective Services. The site offered guidance to young people in foster care with the resources from the LGBTQ+ page, as well as housing and education assistance.

Seemingly proud of denying information to at-risk children, Huffines now bleats, “I told Texans I would get this DFPS website taken down and stop Greg Abbott from using our tax dollars to promote transgender ideology. I kept my promise.”

“We’re just getting started,” he added.

The Chronicle dug into public records of what goes on in the Abbott administration. They found that his minions took action right after Huffines started yammering.

One Patrick Crimmins, a spokesperson for Family and Protective Services, contacted Darrell Azar, who ran the web page: 

 “Darrell — please note we may need to take that page down, or somehow revise content,” wrote Crimmins.

Huffines, (l), and Abbott.

Equality Texas is an advocacy group looking out for the rights of all Texans. Their chief executive is Ricardo Martinez, who says, "The state is responsible for these kids’ lives, yet it intentionally removed a way for them to find help when they need it the most. This action is unconscionable, and it reminds us that political aspirations are part of every attack on LGBTQ+ kids in Texas.”

There is a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth called The Trevor Project in Texas. They report that as of September, they have received more than 4,000 crisis contacts from trans and nonbinary youth in Texas. That's up 150% over last year.

Abbott, Huffines, and whoever else is in office, or wants to be, down there ought to remember that just because they don't happen to practice someone else's lifestyle does not mean that lifestyle is invalid. To say "these are not Texas values" when they are in fact values held strongly by some Texans is to deny reality. 

Which is what they do a lot of, deep in the heart of Texas. 

 

Sunday Rerun (from 2013) Domo Arigato

 Everyone was raising hobs about the Detroit Lions' wide receiver Calvin Johnson, a man said to be so mighty that he could catch a football and thunder to the goal line, no matter the opposition.  That was until this past Monday night, when Johnson, or "Megatron," as he likes to be called, dropped more balls than a clumsy urologist when the Lions lost to the six field goals made by Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, henceforth known as "Legatron."

So of course, all this got me to thinking about robots, which at one time were rumored to be taking over the world, but have seemingly lost interest in doing that.  My dream of having a robot mow the lawn, rake the leaves and fetch the newspaper seems fated never to come true, and while it's true that a robot spot-welded your new Ford Exploder together on some factory production line, robots have not made inroads into everyday America as we were told.

Of course, the same people who told us that also presaged an era in which paper would not be found in the home or office. Everything was going to be stored on computer hard drives, remember?  So now, everyone saves their recipes, tax returns, and pictures of Dick Cheney wearing a propellor beanie to their A: drive and also prints all that out, filing one copy, tacking another on their corkboard, and sending a third paper printout to Ernie down in Accounts Receivable.

So while some are pining to have robot lumberjacks cutting down all the trees we need for these printouts (you saw that one coming, didn't you?), that's not a job on the list I saw of jobs that robots can handle.

If you still have your Mr Machine, he is more than willing to augment the family income by working in the search-and-rescue field, becoming a TSA inspector, teaching children with autism or caring for the elderly and the disabled.

And on his days off, he can come over and shovel snow for me.  I will give him cocoa - not too hot, though. Don't want to melt him!

The Saturday Picture Show, October 16, 2021

 

Talk about being late to the party! Here at the Lazy 'C' Ranch, thanks to Hulu, we are just now getting to enjoy Elementary, which was on CBS from 2012 - 2019. We love everything about it, including closed captioning, which allows me to understand everything Sherlock mumbles. 

In my continued fascination with photorealistic paintings, here is a painting of a glass of water by Emma Lee Riley. Looks just like it!

People used to enjoy making their own pizza at home, from scratch or from a box mix like this. Now, every other car we see on the roads between 5 and 9 pm has one of those pizza delivery lights on top, so why bother getting your hands all yeasty?

Our courthouse was full of oil paintings of former county executives, and I like seeing the results when people commission painters to commit their likeness to canvas for all eternity. This must have been some very important bigshot, about to say, "Now see here!"

Ah, the memories of Y2K. Those of you who were not yet born will never understand a nation driven mad by the simple turn of century. People were sure the world was going to come to an end. Apparently, that didn't happen.

Slightly-odd movie actor Steve Buscemi was a firefighter for the New York FD from 1980-1984. He was stationed at Engine 55 in Little Italy, a company known as  as Cinquantacinque, which is Italian for “Fifty-Five”. They were one of the first two engines to arrive at Ground Zero on 9/11, and Buscemi, long since gone to movie fame, came back to work at the rescue and salvage operation. 

In February, 1954, Marilyn Monroe went on tour to cheer up the troops in Korea as the war there was winding down. At the time, she was on her honeymoon with former baseball star Joe DiMaggio, and when they reunited after the tour, she was happy to have been received so warmly, saying, "Oh, Joe, you never heard such applause!" His ungallant reply: "Yes, I have." The marriage ended soon thereafter.

If you notice the pattern, these color splats follow the color chart: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. The entire spectrum, right here. 

The fear of spies was prevalent during World War II, and posters like this reminded one and all that you never know who was eavesdropping. Now, people sell nuclear secrets to foreign governments for $100,000. How sad.

There was a time before dishwashers, disposables, and carryout food that people actually did dishes three times a day, leading to the Heartbreak Of Dishpan Hands. Even more bizarre, Jergens was able to find "over 450 women" willing to soak in the suds to test their product.

Dreams come true

Just the other day, Peggy was asking me what can be done about the energy and ecological issues facing the nation and the world. Stopping big industry from poisoning rivers and lakes is a nice start, along with finding ways to consume less energy by modernizing the energy infrastructure and using more smart devices. Even the switch to LED light bulbs over the old incandescents is a step up. 

Today, more than ever, it is vitally important for people to stop saying "infastructure." It's infrastructure, thank you!

Carpooling is a great way to use less gasoline and cut down on emissions. Many communities across the nation are using a hyperlocal version of mass transit, and I am happy to say that my old stomping grounds, our county seat, Towson, Maryland, is right in there with this.

The Towson Loop circulator bus is now, well, circulating around town. As the county proudly states: 

"The Towson Loop is a free transit service that quickly and conveniently connects residents, commuters, students and visitors to stops throughout Towson’s central business district. The Towson Loop launched two routes in October 2021 and is Baltimore County’s flagship bus circulator service. Additional Loop routes are in their early planning stages for other communities in Baltimore County."

They have 12 of these air-conditioned buses on the road, with room for 25 people. There is a bike rack on each, and space for wheelchairs, bikes, and strollers.

Note the word FREE! This is good for business and government and the public at large. Now, one can park somewhere and not have to move the car to go to the mall, or the downtown stores (I admit, I am old-days, so I struggle with the term "downtown Towson," but that's what we have) or even the government offices and courthouses for those currently under indictment, etc. 

Here is a link to the map and the routes, etc.

I bring all this up because I hear all day and night that no one cares, no is trying to do anything to make things better, and the old favorite about politicians all being in it to line their own pockets with ill-gotten gains.

Our nonpareil county councilman, David Marks, is the man who had the vision ten years ago to start this bus rolling, as it were. In 2014, he set in motion the plans for structuring it and funding it, and now, in 2021, those plans have reached fruition.

So please don't tell me that nothing can be done. It can.  And not all politicians are like Mitch McConnell.

 

Salem? I don't even KNOW 'em!

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 are still in the news, because we keep the notion alive, pretending that witches, ghosts, and goblins still dart around in the ether. No matter what you think of certain in-laws, no one is any more supernatural than anyone else. But they made a big commotion in Salem, so in case you want to check the rules of what made one a witch, here they are, the laws and evidence put forth back then:

Here are the clues they looked for.

1. YOU ARE FEMALE. Even though, for thousands of years society associated women with witchcraft, Salem hanged 19 people convicted of witchcraft and 5 of them were men! But being female was enough to put you on the watch list.

2. YOU LACK THE MONEY TO BE SELF SUFFICIENT. One of the women hanged was named Sarah Good, whose main sin appears to be wandering around Salem begging for food to eat. Tough town, that.

3. YOU  HAVE PLENTY OF MONEY TO TAKE CARE OF  YOURSELF.  They figured that a woman who could feed, clothe, and house herself would also have plenty of money to pay for witchy supplies. A large majority of those women hanged for witchcraft had no sons or brothers with whom to share their inheritances.

4. YOU HAVE ONE OR MORE FEMALE FRIENDS. The belief was that a group of women getting together with no male as a chaperone was a “coven meeting to worship the Devil.”  On the other hand...

5. YOU HAVE HAD AN ARGUMENT WITH ONE OR MORE FEMALE FRIENDS.

Male "witchfinders" so tormented women to discover witches that women would turn in other women as likely suspects to take the heat off themselves.  

6. YOU HAVE HAD A FIGHT WITH ANYONE. To be fair, they took wild accusations that any individual made as gospel truth. A women seen sweeping the front walk might just be riding that broomstick by the light of a full moon!

7. YOU ARE OLD.  A woman named Rebecca Nurse, aged early seventies, was executed for being...old. 

8. YOU ARE YOUNG. 4-year-old Dorothy Goode confessed to being a witch and was put in prison for nine months. She named her mother as being a witch, and mom went to the gallows. Dorothy lived out her days in a state of insanity.

9. YOU ARE A HEALER. Margaret Jones offered healing advice to the women in town and for her trouble, got the noose.

10. YOU ARE MARRIED WITHOUT ANY CHILDREN, OR NOT ENOUGH CHILDREN. It was then believed that your foul womb was cursed by the devil. 

11. YOUR NEIGHBORS CAN'T HAVE CHILDREN. Obviously, you are going next door stealing the fruit of their loins. Off with your head.

12. YOU ARE “STUBBORN,” “STRANGE,” OR “FORWARD."     One Rachel Clinton was deemed a witch because, “Did she not show the character of an embittered, meddlesome, demanding woman—perhaps in short, the character of a witch? Did she not scold, rail, threaten and fight?”

13. YOU HAVE A MOLE, BIRTHMARK, OR THIRD NIPPLE. These were known as marks of the Devil, because that's where a dog, cat, or snake would attach itself to a witch for a nice drink of refreshing blood.

14. BUTTER OR MILK HAS GONE BAD IN YOUR COOLERATOR. Are witchhunters coming up your walkway? Quick! Check the Kelvinator for bad yogurt. It's well known that witches and dairy don't mix.

15. YOU HAVE HAD SEX OUT OF WEDLOCK Martha Corey gave birth to a mixed-race son without benefit of a wedding or even a reception at the local VFW Hall. Even though she got married later on, she chose as her husband Giles Corey, who was called “a scandalous person in his former time.” Martha and Giles both paid with their lives.

16. YOU HAVE ATTEMPTED TO FIGURE OUT WHOM YOU WILL MARRY. Even assuming that you aren't planning to marry Giles Corey or someone of his ilk, even daydreaming about the man who will come along and get you the hell out of Salem was not acceptable. An enslaved woman named Tituba encouraged young women to make spousal predictions, and guess what happened to her.

17. YOU HAVE BROKEN VIRTUALLY ANY RULE IN THE BIBLE. This meant you were in league with the devil. Sorry about that new outfit with the wool sweater and a cotton blouse. Leviticus 19:19 says you're going down: "Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee." 

What's more, make sure no one falls off your roof: Deuteronomy 22:8 says, "When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence." 

The good people of Salem were only trying to keep their town safe from degradations of our goodness such as wearing masks during a global pandemic, so don't be too harsh on them.

Or else.