Coming Soon to a Mall near you

 

Coming Soon to a Mall near you

I hope this isn’t considered political as I have sworn off political posts.

Of course, if you comment on anything in the news today, it is considered political.  As a matter of fact, that last sentence is probably political in nature.  It may somehow also be racist.

Why…who knows.

Anyway, here is my nonpolitical, but probably will be considered political/racist commentary…ok, rant.

Have you seen the smash and grab store thefts in California?  They seem scary to me.  A year ago, I mentioned to someone that these days, if I was a cop and during an arrest the person just ran away, I would do nothing.  There is no way to stop someone from resisting arrest without some action which might comeback to kick the officer in the butt.

If the perp is hurt, the officer is subject to a law suit, losing his job, losing income, losing his privacy, and maybe going to jail.

“Stop right there, you are under arrest!”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?”

“I am going to leave, what are you going to do shoot me?”

“No, only if you have a gun and threaten me, even then, probably no.”

“Well then…bye bye!”

There is no need to defund the police, just make it so they have no real power, and if they do make an arrest, let the perp off with a promise to behave or at most pay a small fine.

The result of police without power or respect, and justice dismissed, is smash and grab robberies where 40-60 youngsters just rush into stores and take whatever they want. 

The police cannot do much; store workers are fired, and risk getting beaten up or worse if they try and interfere, so the thieves just get to take what they want and leave.

This is mostly happening now in California.  California is first in lots of things, but rest assured thieves in the rest of the country will figure it out and the smash and grab will be coming soon to a mall near you.

Eventually the malls and stores will just be forced to close and thieves will move on.  Maybe to your car, maybe to your homes.

What is the solution?  Not me, I’ve got nothing.  Any proposed solution will be deemed racist whether we know these thieves’ race or not.  I assume the ability to just take what you want without consequence is appealing to scum bags of all races.

Actually, I do have a solution.  Invest in Amazon stock and home security, lock your car and never leave your house.

End of non-political, yet, political, because everything is political, rant.

 

Not a positive person but for once I’m glad to be negative

 

Not a positive person but for once I’m glad to be negative

 Well, Mrs. C just tested negative for Covid.  She was feeling poorly for about five days, mostly tired, slight fever and a headache.  At least that is what she claims. 

Mrs. C is not a complainer.  She used to have a headache almost every day but would never mention it unless I asked.

“You seem extra quiet; do you have another headache?”

“Maybe a little.”

I would tell her she should see a doctor about the headaches and she would ask,

“What is a doctor going to do, it is just a headache?”

Turned out she had blood pressure through the roof.  She now takes medication and has not had a headache since…until she caught the Covid.

Maybe seeing a doctor is a good idea.  Who knows, some of them might know stuff.

Anyway, it seems her symptoms were mild, at least by her standards, and I had no symptoms at all.

I got tested also since we have made no effort to avoid each other while she was positive.

I am negative as well.  I passed the test and didn’t even study.

It seems that for us at least, the vaccine worked to keep Mrs. C’s symptoms mild and the booster shot protected me from Mrs. C.

Hopefully this omicron variant will not be as virulent as other strains and the vaccine will still offer protection.

Speaking of the Omicron variant, they say the strains are named from the Greek alphabet.  How did we go from Delta to Omicron?  What the heck happened to epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, and xi?  

Did I sleep through ten different variants?

 

Appreciation Generation

 

Appreciation Generation

 

On this Thanksgiving Eve, I’ve been a pondering.  Now the fact that I still ponder tells you I am from an older generation.  I don’t think anyone from generations since mine ponder; my generation also tends to wander while we ponder…anyway

While pondering all I have to be thankful for, including the fact that though Mrs. C is still Covid positive, she is feeling much better and is full of piss and vinegar (something that pondering people used to be full of) it occurred to me that I am from the luckiest generation ever.

Why is my generation so lucky?

We have had our difficult times, much as any generation.  A few wars, but none quite as difficult as the World War variety.  We’ve had the Carter economy, but nothing like the depression years.  We had 9-1-1, that was horrible.

We had polio, and now we have a pandemic almost the equal to the Spanish flu of 1919.

Nothing is easy, but we also have things previous generations did not.  TV, computers, I-phones, to name just a few.  Younger generations also have these things and more, so why is my generation the luckiest generation?

Stuff is just stuff.  Unless you have done without, you do not fully appreciate stuff.  My generation remembers when there was no TV, computers or I-phones.  We remember cutting our fingers opening cans, we remember spilling milk trying to gouge those stupid paper tabs out of the bottles.  We remember popping our own corn…OK, that was fun.  Anyway, we remember not having stuff, and the inconvenience of old stuff, and therefore we appreciate what we now have more than subsequent generations that take many things for granted.

We knew friends that suffered from polio and other diseases so we really appreciate vaccines.

Not only do we appreciate things that we once did not have, we had parents who really had it bad during the depression and several World Wars.  Anything which we may have taken for granted growing up, we were constantly reminded that these were things our parents did not have.

I never went without a meal. I also never ate without being told that food abundance was a luxury, and there were people in other countries that were starving.  When the air conditioner kicked in, I was reminded that “back in the day we just slept on the porch and sweated.”  When the heat came on, I was told how much better central heating was than huddling around a radiator.

So, my generation is the appreciation generation.  

No other generation has seen such growth in living standards.  No other generation has experienced the wonders of new technology with the same sense of awe as my generation. Because we can more fully appreciate all the bounty of our times, mine is the luckiest generation.

As you gather with friends and family, you older folks need to express this appreciation to the younger crowd.  Being thankful for what you have requires appreciation that comes from not having.  That includes stuff, it includes friends, it includes family, it includes health, it includes faith.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and as the kids say today, 

“I appreciate y’all.”