One year ago today: February 13, 2014, I study sugar.
Five years ago today: February 13, 2010, I fix a Win 95 computer.
MORNING
My day off. I’ll find something to do in the cold. But I’m not getting out the toboggan just yet. It has not snowed in Florida for, what, ten thousand years. My agenda for today involves finding the schedule for the Oscar nominations (short films), finding a decent place for brunch this Sunday, and watching for that Radio Shack sale.
I may have conveyed a mistaken impression and that concerns the foreign cinema. They tend to be located in renovated landmark buildings, but I did not mean to imply these are older or rundown theaters. Far from it. They are the most modern cinemas in town, at least this town. Sparkling clean and all computerized. And that is the part that causes some consternation. Some of the shows are digitally piped in.
That raises the question, when you watch a movie, how long is going to be before the movie is watching you? It is a minor step to implanting a reading device at the theater entrance, or a camera behind the screen with face recognition software. Gauging your presence, monitoring your reaction, adding to your centralized database. Far-fetched? The authorities love those who think so, it makes their job easier. They love couch potatoes.
And remember to lump anyone who merely doesn’t like surveillance into the same boat as the conspiracy theorists. It is very important that the considerably stupid do this, for their own sanity. The government loves civilian logic, “You have nothing to hide unless you are a terrorist.” Not long ago it was communists, now it’s terrorists. There is no in between, if you have even one eentsy tiny thing to hide—you are an enemy of the state.
What? You just didn’t want your mother-in-law to know about the poker game? Uh-oh, that’s something to hide. We don’t make distinctions. Off to the FEMA camps with you!
NOON
“I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating, and in fourteen days I had lost exactly two weeks” --Joe Lewis
These mothers would leave their kids at the lifeguard station or city park, then go sit in the shade and judge how the hapless staff dealt with the situation, always complaint-ready. The said kids were invariably the most unruly brats who quickly picked out that strangers were less likely to cuff their ears than the old lady. And away they went.
I think it may have something to do with the level of education of the mother. You don’t need much to become one. As a child, I was allowed to do “anything” to protect my property, except lock it up or hit others for stealing it. What is it about motherhood which drives so many women so ignorant on that point? My own mother lived in a dream world that in her family, they always got along. They all left home and never spoke to each other again, but she insists they shared everything. I get the feeling she means she shared their property whether they liked it or not. Losers always tout the moral value of sharing.
In the big picture, I am against any policy of letting the state or strangers take over responsibility for disciplining children. They are not qualified to do so. Plus, when one parent does it, you get the spreading problem of forcing others to do the same. People who slough off their personal duties on others this way are not civilized. Sadly, they generally prevail because they can always accuse their opponents of “not cooperating”. Yeah, I know—it sounds familiar.
The peanut thing typifies the problem of those who refuse to take personal responsibility. If your child has a peanut allergy, it is up to you to educate him to avoid peanuts, to modify his behavior, that is, to take responsibility for his own circumstances. Only a truly evil person instead sets out to ban peanuts from other people. I should be able to bring and eat a peanut pretty much anywhere I please. It is up to allergy people to take precautions instead of constantly trying to change society in their favor. I know driving gives me high blood pressure, but I'm not lobbying that others should stay off the roads. But some people just don't get it.
AFTERNOON
Who remembers this actress? Dihanna Carroll, I think I spelled it right, you can check it yourself. She was the first black lady to have her own show who did not play a domestic. The reason I remember her is not the show, which I’ve never seen, but because of her reputation as a poor black child who made it out of Harlem. The only part that’s true is she made it out of Harlem--which is not something the really poor can do. She was 6-foot-1 and modeling at age 15. Her parents put her through Manhattan’s School of Performing Arts, so don’t talk to me about hard times.
A guy came to the door an hour ago, just asking for a place to sit down. Said he was sixty and just needed a place to sit down. I know there are no benches in town, so I gave him the porch chair. I thought, man, does that guy look old, way older than Viet Nam age, but he said he was there, so he wasn’t much older than what, sixty-two? I gave him a glass of juice. Then sure enough, he started to ask for money in a roundabout way, like do I have any work he can do for enough to get a meal.
Sorry, that’s where I draw the line. Maybe the newspapers want to hear about what you did forty years ago for a living, but I don’t. He was not officer material, but said he did two tours, my guess is he was under the 20 years required for the lowest pension, which is if you are still buck private. That’s $579 per month from potentially as young as age 37. Note: I could be totally wrong about this, but if so it is because somebody has taken pains to make sure the information is not easy to find. No, I don’t know anybody in the army.
Hence, I found myself looking at the guy much as I did others at the phone company when I was 37. How they laughed at me for going to accounting school as many as four evenings per week. Didn’t I know there was a stripper bar on the way home? Why worry, they sniggered, the government will take care of you, they said. If you consider that I have never in my life met a person who had to start with less than I did, you can gather what I think of people who had opportunities and wound up with nothing.
I also know what it is like to be without work. That’s why I devoted a good 20% of my life to making sure I always had an alternative. True, I missed out on a lot of stripper bars and casinos, but I learned one does not become a loser overnight. It takes years of dedicated goofing off and ignoring life’s lessons. I’m no expert, but vets get preferred job offers, job training, and I don’t know, but doesn’t anyone who served in the military under any capacity get a monthly check of some kind? Either way, nobody in the military was ever as destitute as I was, so I’m not the guy to be hitting up at this stage of the game.
Call me hard-nosed if you will, but it will take some kind hand out to make me care. Every penny I get is from plans I actively paid into. I went without when I was younger to qualify. So if you are broke, cry to somebody else, because free money is the only thing ever going to change my mind—and even if I ever do get any free money, it’s been far too late getting here.
EVENING
The stolen bicycle. How could we be so stupid? Easy. Surprise attack always works, and it always will. Offerup.com carries the glitch that the buyer and seller meet. Quite unlike eBay. The buyer must know the seller’s address. And that is how the $400 Raleigh bicycle was pinched. Agt. M gave the address, a well-know, well-lit, open courtyard. Here’s what happened.
The thief, whose race and color was so absolutely and politically correct that nobody would dare mention it here, waited until Agt. M had his black, I mean, back turned to the window. The crook grabbed the Raleigh and was down the alley in a wink. I went over afterwards and brought M a hot sandwich and grape drink in the freezing cold. I won’t point out that the club did that, not others supposed to help. Who 'ya 'gonna call?
It’s nothing probably but the bad buy snagged his hand on the back fence, leaving a great DNA trail, which the police wasted no time gathering. Somehow, I just don’t think jail time is ever going to deter these men who have legislatively neutral skin shades. Prison is little more than the opportunity to spend time with their relatives. Oh, and if I’m wrong, why don’t you just show me? You know how easy it is to convince me by using facts. Alone.
Last Laugh
It says, "Have you seen this cat?"
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