Kill All the Robots

I feel sorry for young people who have no memory of a time when calls to businesses were answered by real live "receptionists" who said, in dulcet tones, "Hello, how may I help you?" And they really did help you, instead of putting you on hold and forcing you to listen to a bunch of drivel or bad elevator music. 

Sadly, those days are long gone, with all those nice ladies replaced by bizarre robots answering virtually all  phones, including at your doctor's office. 

Robocalls flood our homes with nonsense and probably have a lot to do with the rising murder rate. I know I feel like killing someone when I have to listen to one more robot tell me old news about Covid-19 and how I have to wash my hands and use a mask, as if robots have hands or a face! What do they know? Making matters worse, often every word is in a totally different voice, or pitch, making them  sound like creatures from Dr. Fankenstein's laboratory.

I say kill them all.

Things I'm Sick Of

Trans woman: "Hey, look at my big sexy breasts!"

diversity

mixed race couples in every commercial, like life is really like that

transgender women dressing like sexpots, wearing lots of makeup

transgender men who still look and sound like women

Democrats 

people who think that more diversity will fix things

Joe Biden

black lives matter signs

babies and toddlers in Chicago and DC getting killed on the streets

hearing about Covid

hearing about the vaccines

hearing about masks

Dr. Anthony Fauci

pictures of Anderson Cooper's baby, as if it's his baby

the border crisis

Killing Time with the Olympics

Last weekend my husband and I spent some time doing a jigsaw puzzle I gifted him for his recent birthday. He caught the bug early in the pandemic and did a few of them, then got over it, so it was fun to reignite an old passion. But after awhile he said he didn't want to "waste too much time" doing the puzzle, especially since the Olympics were on TV.

So he sat down in from of the TV and proceeded to watch a bunch of young women, some of them just girls really, do backflips and jump off of balance beams, then watched a different bunch of young women play beach volleyball. I couldn't help but think that was a far greater waste of time than doing the jigsaw puzzle, which at least was something he was actually doing himself.

Many people believe that watching the Olympics is something to be admired. They feel self-righteous, as if they themselves were exercising and thus reflecting good health, when all they're doing is just watching TV like always, sitting on their butts and maybe eating some snacks at the same time. Instead of a detective show it's people swimming or lifting weights. Big whoop.

Besides, who decided what is a respectable way to spend time? It might be playing chess for one person (yawn) and baking blueberry muffins for another (ask me for my recipe, they are to die for). Or doing nothing but walking and listening to the birds. After all, those Buddhist monks who live in complete silence on a mountaintop for 20 years are still living legitimate lives. I say do whatever you want with your allotted years and if it's not hurting anyone else, enjoy it.

Biden's Blatant Racism

I've been denying it all along, but I finally have to concede that systemic racism is alive and well in America, most obviously in the Biden administration. As proof look no further than this development as reported in today's Wall Street Journal: 

"President Biden put forward his first set of nominees to lead U.S. attorney's offices across the country..... The eight picks unveiled Monday include the first black Americans to lead several offices..... Mr. Biden's picks, six of whom are black....."

In a transparent and grasping attempt to compensate for the horrors of years of discrimination against blacks, our government is now engaging in discrimination against whites. Let's not forget that our current Vice President was chosen because she is a "woman of color." Was she, and all those attorney nominees, chosen for the content of their character or the color of their skin? 

Call it what you will -- payback, reparations, justice -- it's still racist. What would Dr. Martin Luther King say?

Fact-checking the New York Times

Goodbye Jackie, we will miss you!

We buy the New York Times every Sunday in order to do the crossword puzzle in the magazine. Usually that's all I look at, but yesterday something else caught my eye: the obituary of Jackie Mason, one of my all-time favorite comedians. A Jew and a Gemini like myself, also born in June very close to my own birthday, I always related to Mason's humor. Besides seeing him on TV countless times since I was a kid, I have seen Mr. Mason perform live on stage at least three times, and each time almost busted a gut laughing. (One time I'm pretty sure I peed in my pants.)

The headline of the obituary was, "Jackie Mason Dies at 93." But the article cited his birth date as June 9, 1931. Wouldn't that have made him 90 at death? After researching a few more reputable sources, I learned that he was actually born in 1928. 

Those folks at the Times are at it again. If you read that paper, best to take it all with a grain of salt.

What To Do With All That Money

A street in Haiti's capitol city Port-au-Prince, 2020.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos, a.k.a. the Richest Man on Earth, has spent many years and unimaginable amounts of money in order to strap himself into a tiny little seat and fly around for 15 minutes, all to feel weightlessness and see the Earth from far away. Doesn't he know he can experience weightlessness by treading water in the swimming pool at any local Y? As for the rest, who cares?

What a dummy -- with all the money and time he sank into his little space adventure, Mr. Bezos could have completely rebuilt Haiti by now. A major benefit is it's only 90 miles from Miami, a much shorter flight. He could fly there every day in a more comfortable seat and see how the Earth looks after an earthquake, standing right on it.

Canadian Covid Claptrap

Royal Canadian Mounted Police ready to stick a Q-tip up your nose.

Living up here in Maine, we locals like to visit Canada from time to time. It's the closest foreign country, you can drive there, they speak French and it's beautiful. So the closed border between the US and Canada has put a crimp in many a Mainer's vacation plans. But today I read that the border will open on August 9. Hooray! Quebec City, here we come!!!

Not really. Because while the border will be "open," there are plenty of stipulations. First, show proof you are fully vaccinated. Done. Next, show a negative Covid-test taken in the last 72 hours prior to your arrival. No thank you. Then, once you are in Canada be ready for an impromptu Covid test requested at random by someone in authority, possibly on horseback. Uh-uh, not doing that. 

Additionally you must have a two-week quarantine plan at the ready, just in case. In case of what, I'm not sure. But I am sure of this: I'm not going. Besides, the 5-hour drive in the state of Maine leading right up to the Canadian border is even prettier than what's on the other side.

Lazy Left-Wingers

Although I am registered as an Independent and once worked for the Democratic National Committee, I voted for George W. Bush twice. When Trump ran for re-election I voted for him, despite all his personality disorders. I love Senator Susan Collins and have always regarded the Clintons as heinous. Most of the political leaders I respect are Republicans. (Admit it: Is there any contest between Trey Gowdy or Beto O'Rourke?) I think Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are con artists. 

So according to The New York Times, these beliefs make me a "right-winger." As one of those I am supposed to be against abortion, own a gun and a pickup truck, and be an anti-vaxxer who hates Jews, blacks, Asians and anyone who is not white. 

Of course none of this is true about me. Yet that once-esteemed newspaper continually spreads those poisonous myths throughout their daily articles, editorials and especially Letters to the Editor columns, which are carefully chosen to support their psychotic beliefs.

I'm sick of it. I'm sick of decent people, some of whom are friends of mine, swallowing this hogwash hook, line and sinker. Really people, try doing some critical thinking for yourself. Yeah, I know--it's harder, but what else are you doing?

You're Never Too Old

Few people know I am related to Superman. Not Clark Kent, but another one whose name I will not divulge in the interest of Facebook or Joe Biden or whoever is spying on us knowing as little as possible about me and mine. Suffice it to say that this particular Superman has been posing as a normal -- well, hardly normal -- person who until now has held a regular job -- actually several jobs, some irregular -- in the world of advertising. But driven to doing more than sell toilet paper, or whatever he's been selling lately, he has, at four months shy of turning 69, opted to quit being a Mad Man and become a police officer in a fairly dangerous American city that starts with a B and ends with ore.

As for Superman's age, quite honestly he has the body of a 30-year-old and thus aced all the physical tests the department threw at him. He's also quite brilliant and so they were eager to sign him before he came to his senses and changed his mind. 

Since I love this person, naturally I am concerned since these days being a cop is akin to having leprosy. Granted, you're a leper with a gun, but still, not everyone's favorite party guest. But as Cousin Superman said when I admitted my fear that he could be killed on the job, "Hey, I could be killed doing nothing at all." 

So the bottom line is I am incredibly proud of him, being a white man (thus a racist scumbag) willing to set aside his birthright of white privilege and patrol the streets of a crime-ridden city filled with black gangs, hoping to make it a little safer for all its residents. I say "Bravo!" and "Godspeed."

Just Say What You Mean

Among the things I abhor, flowery writing is at the top of the list, followed closely by Michelle Obama and childhood cancer. But at least most people know that both Michelle and cancer suck to high heaven, whereas flowery writing wins all kinds of awards and is touted daily by critics writing for prestigious organizations.

One such book is "Seed to Dust: Life, Nature and a Country Garden," by Marc Hamer. A glowing review in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago motivated me to buy it for my husband, himself an avid gardener and eager reader of esoterica.

Mitch started it but put it down pretty quick, which saddened me. I asked why and he said that while he liked it, the writing was a bit too descriptive for his tastes. So there it sat on our living room coffee table for weeks, its attractive cover adding a touch of class to the room. My interest finally piqued, I picked it up and started to read. Gagging at the one-page Prologue, I nevertheless started the first chapter, called "White":

"Fallen leaves curl as if to fold their fingers in for warmth. Hot breath steams from the rudely opened gobs of pipes on the outside walls of houses, while inside hungry roaring flames or coiled electric elements nested deep in boilers keep the people safe, away from nature's icy teeth."

What kind of madness is this? First of all, in this author's mind leaves have fingers and nature has teeth. Flames can be hungry and pipes (what are gobs?) have the ability to breathe. Is this some sort of sci-fi thriller? Nope, rather the reflections of a gardener on an estate in the Welsh countryside. If I had written that opening paragraph, it would say, "It was a cold day in winter."

Later in the book, "The moon's bowl tips a group of crows in pairs at dusk, and I am showered with gifts of rain." Not sure what that means, but I guess it's raining even though the moon is visible. Or is it? And what's with the pairs of crows? No idea.

Writing is a form of communication, or should be. If you don't get it you're not dumb, it's that the writer has failed. The same goes for talking: just say what you mean and you'll be amazed at how much easier life gets.

Critical Race Theory For Kids

Many of the Caucasian rioters (563 have been charged so far) who entered and ransacked the US Capitol last January 6 have been tracked down through ongoing police work and will spend from three to five years in jail. Yet none of the African-American looters who crashed through glass windows and ransacked high-end stores on Chicago's Miracle Mile last summer, carrying out armloads of goods worth thousands of dollars, will receive even a slap on the wrist. And thus Critical Race Theory can be boiled down to a few words: Blacks Good, Whites Bad. 

Go and tell that to your children and ruin their childhoods. And while you're at it, in the interest of full disclosure about how terrible life can be, you could also mention to your little ones the existence of cancer, suicide, serial murderers, rapists, thieves, and all the starving people the world over, just so they get the full picture. After all, who says childhood has to be fun?

What Are You Worrying About Today?

I'm still upset about my ugly red hair. I hate it. It's been a couple of weeks since I did it to myself and I still can't stand to look in the mirror. But then I think about that collapsed condo in Florida and what those people lost, and feel like a fool. 

Imagine losing:

Every photo you ever took of yourself and your children, from birth through elementary school and high school and beyond. Graduations. Your wedding photos. Your dead parents. All the pets you once had and are now gone.

All your important papers and documents. Insurance records for your home and car and health. Titles, deeds, wedding licenses. Birth certificates, Social Security info, tax returns. Bank statements. Current and past bills, many now overdue.

Old health records. Mammograms. Results of surgeries. Medications and prescriptions.

Awards you may have won for work, or other accomplishments. Getting that strike in your bowling league!  Starring in the local community play and getting great reviews in the local papers!

All your clothes, shoes, underwear, handbags, boots, hats, gloves, coats, jackets, PJs, umbrellas, bathing suits. Your favorite slippers, all your workout gear. Your prosthetic leg! 

Sheets, towels. Your bed, all your furniture. Technology, iPads, computers, cell phones, TV sets. Books. Art you have may have made or purchased over the years.

Your piano, guitar, violin, cello, drum set, other musical instruments.

Your keys.

The remote.

Your pets.

Your life.

Then consider what petty thing you are fretting over right now. 

On Not Keeping Up

She/Her Jenner

Today in The NY Times I read that someone named Joe Rogan is "one of the most consumed media products on the planet." I never heard of him. I asked my husband if he had heard of him and he answered, "Of course. Who hasn't?" This exchange solidified my suspicion that I am barely alive. At least not in today's world. So where am I?

To be out of the Internet world these days similar to living out on the prairie in the 1800s. My good friends live very far away. Some days I never leave home. I rarely listen to the news because it's so depressing. I make art, feed my cat, do laundry. Occasionally I see a doctor or dentist. I go to a gym twice a week to work out with a trainer who is a lot like me, so she has few offerings about the latest trends. My only solid link to 2021 is my son, who is very plugged-in and in fact lives on the Internet more than off of it.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad. I once knew what was going on in the world, but that was before men started having babies and  Bruce "Caitlyn" Jenner became a woman running for Governor of California. 

Come to think of it, I'm good where I am.

The Plus Side of Covid-19

"The Loud Girls"

I am feeling wistful for the early days of the pandemic. Back when everyone stayed home. There was no traffic. It was quiet. Okay, so people got sick and died, I know, and for that I am not wistful. That's sad and awful. But now what's sad and awful are the people are all back, the roads are jammed, the restaurants are full and the diners are noisier than ever after having been pent up for over a year.

At least I'm guessing that's why; what else could explain the obnoxious behavior of a group of young women at the restaurant where my husband and I went for dinner earlier this evening? I say "earlier," but we got served a lot later, owing to the lack of staff due to the ongoing unemployment checks from the government making people prefer not to work. So we got there at about 7:20 and did not see our food until about 8:20. 

This wouldn't have been so bad except for the group of VERY LOUD WOMEN WHO NEVER SHUT UP OR STOPPED LAUGHING, seated right next to us. And they had already eaten, so why didn't they leave? And what was so damned funny? And why didn't they notice that there were other patrons who likely were not wearing ear plugs and perhaps wanted to talk to one another?

I hated them. I wanted them all to contract a horribly painful disease and die the minute they left the restaurant, which they finally did only ten minutes before us. Until then they were hooting and hollering and shrieking and screaming and cackling like a group of wild banshees, or Kamala Harris.

People! They're back, and they're often hard to take.

My Own Critical Race Theory

Growing up in the suburbs of New York City in the 1950s and 1960s I was hardly aware of racial differences. I always attended integrated public schools and had black friends. Not best friends -- those came later. Then I went to college at NYU in Greenwich Village and naturally was exposed to all races and nationalities among my fellow students. It wasn't until after graduating and moving to Washington, D.C., a city so racially divided -- with actual physical quadrants pointing out the "bad neighborhoods" where much of the violent crimes occurred -- that I finally noticed we've got a problem. (Getting mugged by four black guys in a D.C. supermarket parking lot didn't help.)

Since then the situation has steadily worsened, thanks to the Democrats who get off on painting the bleakest picture possible in order to win the black vote and thus grow their power. Now they're bent on teaching even our youngest children in kindergarten that white people are BAD, black people are OPPRESSED and America is EVIL.

Here's my Race Theory: Some white people are bad, some black people are oppressed, and America is pretty great despite partisan politicians focusing on all that is evil about it. One of the most partisan of those politicians is a black man who was ELECTED PRESIDENT and served for two terms.

If those wrong-headed politicians would just shut up about it for five minutes, maybe black people would stop thinking they need to be defended and white people would stop feeling so defensive. It's worth a try. They could start by sticking a sock in Maxine Waters' big mouth.

Black Deaths Matter

We are constantly hearing how much Black Lives Matter. But what about Black Deaths? Don't they matter even more? Last weekend in Chicago 100 people were shot, including two police officers and a dozen innocent children caught in the crossfire. There were 18 fatalities. Not one of the news reports -- online, on TV or in print -- mentioned that all those involved, the shooters and the shot, were black people. 

Although I suspected as much, this fact was pointed out on FOX News by journalist Geraldo Rivera, who complained bitterly about the widespread reluctance to openly discuss the realities of black-on-black crime. The only time race is mentioned, and then it is fairly shouted from the rooftops, is when a white cop has killed a black man.

As Charlie Brown put it so succinctly, "The first step out of Blahdom is knowing you are blah." Come on everybody, let's try to solve a problem.

Throw Out Your TV

There might have been aliens in that pizza.

Surfing around Netflix, we stumbled on a list called the "Top 10 in the US." Number 1 was something called "Manifest," which we had never heard of despite its being around since 2018. Being out of the loop and wanting to get in, my husband and I decided to watch the show.

The pilot was great. Very compelling. We watched the second episode. The next night we watched the third and the fourth. By the end of the fourth episode we started to get a bad feeling, something along the lines of "this sucks, makes no sense, is really dumb and will only get dumber the longer we watch it."

It seems that these days, anything goes with writers of TV shows. They must be on some crazy drugs and lots of Gatorade to come up with the stuff they do. I decided I could write one of those shows, even without the drugs and the Gatorade, if I put my mind to it and lacked enough sleep. Here's one idea I've come up with:

The Aliens Inside Us

Pilot: Are You What You Eat?

A dozen brown eggs and a huge head of iceberg lettuce take control of everything inside a Kitchen-Aid refrigerator in a seemingly typical suburban home in Los Angeles. The army of condiments lined up on the door of the refrigerator want desperately to fight back, but they are constrained by the very shelf in which they sit. Chaos ensues. The man of the house opens the fridge and grabs a beer. All is quiet inside.

Episode 2: The Cherries Unite

A bag full of cherries plots revenge. One by one they steal out of their plastic bag and surround the sleeping bag of lettuce. Just then, the refrigerator door opens and the teenage boy who lives in the house, who is actually a CIA agent working on The Living Foods Project, a joint program of the United States and Russia aimed at determining if aliens have invaded the Earth's food supply and ultimately the bodies of humans, which would explain why so many people are so crazy, grabs the bag of cherries and goes away with them.

Episode 3: Questionable Hot Dogs

The mother who rules the roost looks in the fridge and sees that a sealed bag of hot dogs has been compromised. She questions all of her children: One them hears voices and cuts herself to make them stop. Another has an incurable, unnamed disease. A third is morbidly obese and thus is often poking around inside the fridge. The fourth, a daughter, has bulimia and confesses that she opened the bag and was going to eat the hot dogs raw but then heard someone coming and ran away.

And more like that. What do you think? Would you watch it? And by the way, if you think this sounds ridiculous, try a few episodes of "Manifest" and get back to me.

Return of the Porcupine

While the remains of 118 people lay buried under mountains of rubble in Florida and singer Britney Spears can't remove her own IUD without court approval, my husband and I have been battling a problem of less import than the dead Floridians but certainly on a par with, if not greater than, Britney's birth control saga. The dreaded porcupine is back.

I first wrote about Porky -- my husband's name for him -- back on September 27, 2019, describing our frustration at a dumb creature who cared not a whit for other people's property. Instead he came nightly to our beautiful linden tree, climbed up its considerable trunk, spent the night chomping the yummy leaves until he had his fill, then surreptitiously climbed down and headed back to his woodland home to sleep it off. Evidence of his drunken binges were strewn about in the form of stripped and broken tree branches. 

Tree trunk wrapped with metal flashing 

Outraged, we fought back. After much research, we settled on a solution that did not involve an arrow to his heart but rather a simple wrapping of the tree trunk with plastic netting that made it impossible for an animal to grasp the bark and climb up. I say "simple" but it wasn't -- several days were devoted to this porcupine thing, if you count the repeated trips to several hardware stores and all the failed attempts. But at last we were victorious. Free of the intruder, our tree thanked us by blooming beautifully and filling out more than ever before. 

A full four seasons passed with no Porky. Until three days ago, when evidence on the ground hinted at his return. Hoping we were wrong, still we suspected that Porky had cracked the code and was back to his old tricks. Then two nights ago we had proof: Out looking for our cat, I spied Porky lumbering across the front lawn and disappearing up into the tree. Curses!

Further research suggested wrapping the trunk in metal flashing, thus making it impossible to get a foothold, or in this case, claw-hold. A trip to Home Depot was required, and a few hours work over the long holiday weekend led to a successful outcome.

Okay, so I feel sad about Porky and how disappointed he must be, kind of like learning your local Baskin-Robbins has closed permanently. A few half-hearted dents in the flashing made it clear to us that Porky had tried. But too bad. Isn't it enough that the blooms of half my flowers in the yard have been gobbled up by deer in the last few days? What are we running here, a fast-food joint for the local wildlife?

I hope I don't end up going to Hell for this.

Facebook Protects Its Own

I guess there are a lot of gays and all those other letters working at Facebook. For the first time in about ten years of posting my blog on multiple sites so it will be seen by more than just my small circle of friends, yesterday's post supposedly "went against their community standards" and so was not able to be seen by anyone.

The post concerned Pride Month, the annual June celebration of those people who prefer having sex with people of their own gender. In it I mentioned the fact that Jews are rarely celebrated by anyone, except other Jews. 

You tell me what the problem is.