Not enough OOOOOOOOs in Smooth

 

I travel these two blocks everyday at least 360 times a year. It is on my daily path to and from the Tummy Temple.

The two blocks show the wear and tear of city traffic and adjustments to sewer, gas and water lines. Every summer the shade would hide the potholes. Every winter new potholes were created. Routine allows me to weave a path avoiding certain death.

One of the NEW neighbors decided the street was shameful and needed to be repaired. He started putting signs in his yard and the roundabout dividing the two blocks.

The signs read ‘These roads are dangerous. Call the mayor to get them fixed’. I don’t know what else went on in the background, but other neighbors started posting signs in their front yards. He had started a movement.

Last week the orange cones blocked my path. Gigantic trucks and loud machinery filled the blocks as all the neighbors were warned to park elsewhere or be towed. Crowds of guys in day-glow jumpsuits and tin hats stood about as orange machines rode back and forth over the pavement under the direction of some white guy in a white hat sitting in a pickup truck with a city seal on the door.

Today, the path was clear and I took a ride on the smooooth asphalt. It seems those signs worked for now it is lacking bumps and holes. Just a long black fresh pavement still smelling of oil.

It won’t be long until some other folks will come back and start digging holes with bad patch jobs, but for now I will enjoy the ride.

My tush says ‘thank you’ to the city for spending my taxes.

WAR? What is it good for?

 

Woke up Saturday morning and there seems to be ANOTHER WAR. All the talking heads shifted focus from Ukraine to Israel.

Since I’ve been living on this blue bubble, my country has been at WAR. After the BIG WAR where we came out as the victor because we were out of range and away from the battlefield, we thought we could beat any other army. We may have forgotten all the other allies who helped?

We also forgot WE were the first country to drop the BIG ONE (thought the technology has spread).

We were not very good at any of the other wars since then. The War Against Communism? The War on Poverty? The War Against Drugs? War on Terrorists?

Korea was a draw. Vietnam was a bust. Invasion of Afghanistan (got Osama Ben Laden in Pakistan) and Iraq (no weapons of mass destruction)? Not to mention all those hit and miss actions like Cuba, Somalia, etc. where we tried to be the World Police.

War: War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces. Warfare refers to the common activities and characteristics of types of war, or of wars in general. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to purely legitimate military targets, and can result in massive civilian or other non-combatant suffering and casualties.

Here is a website that can give up-to-date details on the ‘current’ wars of the world.

https://wisevoter.com/country-rankings/countries-currently-at-war/

If there are no winners to wars (except munition manufacturers and funeral directors). Do we parent children only to send them out in the field of battle to murder each other?

Our ‘action’ movies show the excitement of the propaganda of killing the enemy and coming home to the praise of our country (with maybe a few less limbs and mental disorder).

Subsidized

 

Being subsidized relates to a cost, etc. that is partly paid for by the government or an organization

 

To be subsidized is to give money to, pay a subsidy to, give a grant to, contribute to, make a contribution to, invest in, sponsor, fund, finance, provide finance/capital for, capitalize, underwrite, back, support, give support to, keep, help, aid, assist, shore up, prop up, buttress, pick up the tab for, foot the bill for, shell out for, fork out for, cough up for, chip in for, bankroll, pony up for a service or item.

Your parent(s) subsidized you growing up because you were too young to work and you aren’t born with money, so someone has to pay for the food and clothing and education before you are old enough to be on your own.

When you do get employment, you always want more than you earn, so there are credit plans, loans, banks and securities, organizations that can give you money with a payback plan plus interest. You can rob, but that is against the law.

So, you spend your life begging for money from the folks that have extra. If you are a kick-starter, you can be subsidized by backers and investors hope you will become successful and rich and who intend to get their money back with interest. If you are an established business thinking about moving or expanding, communities will offer you incentives of subsidizing roadways and infrastructures to reduced tax rates to entice you to move to their location promising jobs and additional taxes. If you are a politician your campaigns are subsidized by lobbyist or wealthy donors who want favors in return.

Science projects are subsidized, exploration is subsidized, medical research is subsidized, education is subsidized, manufacturing is subsidized, munitions are subsidized, wars are subsidized, countries are subsidized, the poor are subsidized, the wanders are subsidized, the criminals are subsidized, food is subsidized, child care is subsidized, the sick are subsidized, the mentally ill are subsidized, the arts are subsidized, the lobbies are subsidized, the unions are subsidized, religion is subsidized, etc.

Now is the holiday season and the end of year giving. The dinners and gifts are just subsidizing your friendship and relationships. You may give a bit extra tithe when passed the plate deciding between Santa Clause and Jesus. Smile at the bell ringer and throw a few shekels in the red bucket to make you feel generous. Give a larger tip or drop a bill into the busking musician’s hat on the street you normally pass by. Make a donation to your favorite public service station for a free tote bag. Give some change to your alumni association so the team can get bigger lockers. Take some flowers out to the cemetery, if you can remember the location of the family plot. Make a donation for your local charity or soup kitchen because it is the time of giving to those who are forgotten the rest of the year. With the elections coming up, you can feed a dollar or two to your favorite happy face who is promising everything you want and denying the other party your cash.

Come the first of the year, you can get all your bills together and then figure out how you will subsidize the country.

Composting the dead

 

Have you written your will? What is going to happen to your corpse when you die?

There are the professional morticians that can drain you, puff you up, make you look really good, even put you in some fine fashion and let the family and friends’ parade by to view the remains. They even have this cool stretch station wagon to put the box in and will slowly transport you to a hole in the ground. It is all very solemn and has a high cost to take up another plot of sacred ground. This has been done for centuries.

You could have yourself freeze dried in a cylinder waiting for a cure to death so you can be thawed out and recovered. You better be rich.

There is an option to cremate the cadaver to dust and put in a can. Takes up less space but not as spectacular as the Indian fire pyres or the Viking burning boats. May cause some pollution but ashes-to-ashes.

If six feet under isn’t your preference, there are storage houses above ground called mausoleums that you can be observed as a powerful or important or rich. This could be a one off, like the pyramids or a multi-housing with other bodies. They may be family or strangers.

Like most offers we pay for, you can be as elaborate or plain as you wish if you plan it before the last breath. Once you are out of site, no one will notice until the archeologist come by to dig you up as a scientific study of history.

Science will also take your carcass straight off the slab, to divide and sliced and diced and stored in jars for teaching assignments or experiments. Don’t cost nothing. Your final resting place may be a land fill or a pit in the ground but there will not be a headstone.

If left alone on the ground the body will decompose. 24-72 hours after death — the internal organs decompose. 3-5 days after death — the body starts to bloat and blood-containing foam leaks from the mouth and nose. 8-10 days after death — the body turns from green to red as the blood decomposes and the organs in the abdomen accumulate gas.

It stinks.

In a temperate climate, it usually requires three weeks to several years for a body to completely decompose into a skeleton, depending on factors such as temperature, humidity, presence of insects, and submergence in a substrate such as water.

Another alternative method of disposing the leftover shell is to compost.

The entire human composting process generally takes between eight to twelve weeks. The staff will communicate timing and key moments throughout the process. Each body spends about five to seven weeks in a Recompose vessel, then the soil is transferred to an aerated bin to cure for an additional three to five weeks. The cost is around $7,000 (comparable to a traditional funeral).

You chose the method of bodily disposal and discuss with your family so there are no surprises.

What do we do with ALL these people?

 

Every day there are news reports of people wandering around the globe. They are seeking refuge or asylum or a better life. Some might be carrying whatever worldly goods they can or just fleeing with the shirts on their backs. Most have the idea that wherever they are headed will be better than where they came from.

What happens when they arrive?

They may be taken in by friends or family, but just like most relatives who overstay their welcome, it is time to move on.  Where?

If a family or a single person has no employment, no money, no shelter, no medical care, and perhaps a child or children; who will take care of them?

The humanitarians among us will create food lines, gather thrift shop clothing, give away some toys and offer a hand, but even the best of us can wear out. And the donations can run out.

So, what do we do with ALL these people?

If a busload of strangers arrived in your town, without any direction, what do the city officials do? If left alone, they will just enroll in the homeless community using whatever they can do to survive.

If there are dozens, maybe hundreds of busloads, how will the neighbor’s cope. What about security? Housing and food? Education and language? Employment? Are they here to take jobs? Do they bring disease?

And who pays for it?

In the interim to figure out all these details, what do we do with ALL these people?

Find a plot of land and set up a tent city? Whose land? Put up a fence? Sanitation? Who can come and go as they please?

Detention is the process whereby a state or private citizen lawfully holds a person by removing their freedom or liberty at that time. This can be due to criminal charges preferred against the individual pursuant to a prosecution or to protect a person or property. Custody, imprisonment, confinement, incarceration or internment camps?

Who will be hired to process all these newcomers to get them assimilated? What will be the laws and restrictions on employment, housing, education, transportation and integration take to this diverse group into a new culture?

One side of my family came here in the late 1600s. The other side of the family came in the mid-1700s. Why they left their homes across the ocean is unknown. They could have been given a plot from the King to colonize the new Americas. They could have been escaping persecution from religious, political, financial or other pressures. They could have just heard the ’new country’ was the place to go with wealth in them-there-hills.

The King expected the new world to help support the crowd with taxes until the revolution. The country was a fledgling of government and banking. Each state had their own money and many deals were made with a handshake agreement. Some families became affluent with crops and ‘free’ labor. Some families supported the economy with manual trades and skills required for communities to grow. Others could not find a niche or learn a marketable expertise except to steal or pirate from others.

The same is true today. As migrants assimilate into a new community. They first depend on family members to find shelter, food and employment. Children are put to work before schooling. Businesses are established and others join construction, landscaping, maintenance and other manual labor not requiring in-depth education. Language is picked up from television, they are easy bait for shoddy payment loans, drive third hand cars without a license and are perfect new customers for cell phones.

Still, due to religion or historical background, areas were segregated for support, comfort and protection. There was a Little Italy or Chinatown or Harlem. Conflicts would arise over borders with the same old prejudice of religion or traditional beliefs.

Without them, the pilgrims wouldn’t have had pizza for Thanksgiving. Ukrainian borscht, French baguette, Al-Mansaf from Jordan, Haitian Joumou Soup, Italian Truffles, Ceebu Jën in Senegal from West Africa, Armenian Lavash, Washoku from Japan, North Korean Kimchi, Belgium Beer, Palov from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan’s Oshi Palav, Terere from Paraguay.

Think of the spices, sauces, liquors and teas would not have tasted if someone hadn’t introduced you to them. Desserts! Instead of flying overseas to taste another culture, migrants bring them to you in establishments avoiding fast food franchise.

There is exposure to clothing, dance, writings and music from all over the world now living in the neighborhood.

Flip Top Pour Spout

 

One of the innovations I’ve noticed this year is the flip-top pour spout. I first noticed it on the Texas Pete hot sauce I keep handy. Instead of the screw off top and then shake and hope you don’t drop it under the refrigerator, there is this flip top gadget.

Pretty clever and convenient. Then I notice that the mustard container has one. The toothpaste tube has one. Several different containers that squirt, have this new flip top pour spout.

Like the tab top instead of using a church key or a can opener or the zip top bag. Everyday someone somewhere is experimenting with new ideas of how we can open and reseal frustrating items.

In this period of inflation, don’t know how much more an item cost with this new invention. I don’t know who came up with the idea, but I’m sure there is a pattern. There seems to be variations, but with the popularity of this flip-top, someone is making money.

This is just one of the many changes that happen and we just get used to them. Buttons are still on the same side; shoe laces still tie the same way and hopefully the flush toilet still works the same way. Though the telephone has gone from a pay-booth calling an operator with an extension cord to annoying buzzer in your pocket, televisions has become bigger with better resolution and more selections are still boring.

Changes will continue long after we are gone, because we are a curious creature full of notions at the wonder of our natural surrounds. Can we make it faster? Louder? Taller? Should we go where no one else has ever been, just to say we’ve been there and you ought to see it?

If change is so good, why do we remembrance over the good ole days and talk so fondly about the way things used to be. Remember the time before you had a car? Remember the days filled with sitting in a classroom being bored out of your mind and daydreaming about the sunny day? Remember the freedom before you had children? Remember walking home in the rain without an umbrella?

How many times have you changed your dishes? How many times have you changed your automobiles? How many times have you changed your appliances? How many times have you changed your sheets? How many times have you changed your phone? How many times have you changed your partner?

What do you save? Granny’s tea kettle though you don’t drink tea? Your father’s musky ties waiting for them to become retro? Uncle Jake’s old car you plan to someday get running again? Your children’s drawings that used to be on the refrigerator but are stuffed away in a box in the attic? Old love letters where if read today have entirely different meanings?

As fall appears and the temperature drops and the leaves fall in colors, notice the changes around you. Then remember your memories during the holidays.

Fraud

 

“Fraud” is any activity that relies on deception in order to achieve a gain, deceit, trickery. Intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right.

I worked in advertising and public relations. The goal is to sell a product or a person or an idea in a method to convince people to buy or donate or believe.

Was it all ‘fact based’ or exaggeration to persuade the listener or viewer?

 

Lying: to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive. She was lying when she said she didn't break the vase. He lied about his past experience. To lie creates a false or misleading impression.

Think about your social media profile.

Whether trying to find the perfect job or a one-night stand or join some group or present yourself as a wonderful, thoughtful, well-educated and good-looking person; you post it as who you are. Swipe left or swipe, right?

Is this fraud? Is this a deception to the viewer who must decide to take the bait or vet more deeply? 

 

Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight of hand as well as distraction, camouflage or concealment. There is also self-deception, as in bad faith. It can also be called, with varying subjective implications, beguilement, deceit, bluff, mystification, ruse, or subterfuge.

Having faith from what you hear or what you read or what others say, may be true or make-believe. Science is based on facts of repetition results, but created by theory. Much of medicine is educated guess work, hoping for a positive outcome (there are exceptions).

“I’ll love you forever” is said by everyone. Why? What do these words gain your self-interest? Forever is a long time and may work for some, but it is often interrupted by other distractions.

Was it a proposal? A promise? A contract? Or some words to fill the air? Was it fraud?

 

Liable: obligated according to law or equity responsible. Both owners are liable for the debts incurred by the business. Liable is subject to appropriation or attachment. All his property is liable to pay his debts.

If a plumber comes over to fix a pipe and is paid, yet the pipe still leaks, are they liable for the damage? Did they keep their promise to fix it and fail? Do you get your money back?

There is now a clause of LLC or limited liability company that does not guarantee the work and releases any company from completing their work to the customers satisfaction without recourse of payment or additional work.

Is this fraud? Was their promise to professionally perform a task a deception? Were they lying and you believed ‘I’ll take a whack at it’?

Personal property tax is based on a drive by assessment of your house and land. The city or county assembles the prices of houses sold in your area, the renovations approved and additions made to formulate an estimate of what to charge you yearly for living here. Is this fraud?

If a doctor says, ‘This won’t hurt’ and it does, is that fraud? If you pay for a house, based on its assessment, and find it is not worth the price, is that fraud?  If your lover promises you are the only one, then to discover another, is that fraud?

What is the punishment for a broken heart or a falsehood? The courts are full of people suing other people for the injustice of human failure.

Should a book distributed as the answer based on a fictional character be believed as fact? If this book is a fraud, should it be banned? Perhaps it should be read with the children to define the appropriate understanding of the words and meaning?

We humans want to believe in Jesus and Superman and Santa Clause and Harry Potter. We want to escape into our fantasies that can be socially enjoyed or overwhelmingly consumed.

If we present ourselves as better than we actually are or put on a factoid of want-to-be personality, is that fraud?