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Rants October 14, 2012

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1. Did you realize that if tiny flies are attracted by your breath, you might be eating too much fruit?

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2. We read in the newspaper that a man is accused of shooting his wife in the head after she nagged him about the cost of a new muffler. He reportedly said that he simply couldn’t take it anymore. How many husbands do you know who will probably cut out that article and paste it on the refrigerator door?

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3. A letter to the editor said, “Johnny, is that you? When did your mommy finally get you internet service in the basement?” Please do knock those of us who have moved our offices into small insulated basements that have solar radiant heat. Last Saturday six very intelligent people came by to see my solar heated cellar office. They wanted to learn how the sun can easily heat an insulated hole in the ground. One sunny day enables my 24 x 12 foot concrete-floor heat sink to keep it well above a comfortable 72 down in my cellar office for at least three cloudy days and nights. And that heat from the sun that wiggles its way through the pex tubing in my concrete floor costs me nothing. $un power is free. (When there’s a week without sun, a few minutes of backup heat from the oil boiler warms it up for another three days. Leaving the backup on for an hour is a mistake, because the room will then be too hot for two days.) Even though my eyes are down below ground level, I have a mirror over my computer screen and the angle of it is such that by just moving my eyes I can see any cow that happens to wander through the dooryard. It took many years of steadily rising fuel prices to pressure this Patriot into putting solar radiant heat in his cellar --- because corporate America’s media continually told him that not buying fuel oil and getting free energy from the sun is un-American.

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4. You heard on national television about a house of ill repute that has been summarily closed in Maine. Do you think the names of the men who patronized the establishment be published? Think about this. What would happen to all the little boys and girls in school when their classmates found out what their daddys did? Is this something that should be considered? Over 60 years later I can remember very clearly the exact words someone at school said about my father. It was a big kid who said it, and for the rest of my life I wondered what kept me from hitting him on the head with a plank when he turned around. I did nothing but remember. But every day we read of a kid who was pushed over the edge and picked up a plank. This is an unfortunate situation and there will be repercussions. Residents say they’'ve heard the list of Johns might include lawyers, doctors, law enforcement officials and a television personality. Of course. Who else could afford to pay those prices? And, by the way, I think that adding the name of the television personality might be going a bit too far.

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5. How good is your memory? You might remember that when some fanatics from Saudi Arabia rammed a plane into a building in New York, Bush bombed Iraq. Think of all the people in Peru today who are grateful that the pilots were not from Ecuador.

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6. You might have heard people say, "If you don't want your name in the paper, don't commit crimes. Hiring a prostitute is illegal." Unless you are so drunk you can't walk isn’t it also unnecessary?

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7. One morning you might have heard on the news that the folks who want Romney to be president watch football and drink Sam Adams beer. They also said that what candidates say and how they come across in debates can determine the outcome of an election. We saw this when Kennedy beat the sweating Nixon. But for years I’ve studied the greatest speaker perhaps the world has ever known because I wanted to know exactly what he did that moved audiences. I wanted to be a more effective speaker. What did this man do with words and his body language that made people leap to their feet and cheer? There is little doubt but what he was arguably the greatest orator the world has ever known because he talked his way right up to the top. But within a few years a few of the people who voted for him found themselves freezing in the snow outside of Stalingrad. It certainly made them realize that being a great orator does not necessarily mean that one is suited to govern a country. Anyway, a few people who don’t watch football or drink beer know that in this country an election simply decides who will get the money --- working people and small business owners or billionaires. So we don't put as much stock in what candidates say as we do in what they have done and what they plan to do. The folks who don’t know this will probably not get the President they need but the one they deserve.

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8. Some people might compare helping the Afghanistan government defend itself against the Taliban to sending Russian troops here to help the U. S. government defend itself against Evangelical Christians. A goodly number of people will evince their displeasure against you in either case. On the positive side, if one has an economy that is geared to having in place a hungry war machine, it is best to waste all of those taxpayer dollars in a country like Afghanistan or Iraq that few westerners care anything about instead of in Belgium or Spain where a few important people might raise questions.

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9. Wouldn’t you guess that it is safer to drive a snowmobile on thin ice than to discuss politics or religion in print or on the radio? Listen to these quotes and tell me if you’d dare say anything like this? “I think the Catholic Church has much more serious issues concerning morality to deal with, such as … allowing child molesters to remain in the priesthood.” Or, “I have trouble seeing our Savior walking down the aisle, decked out in a scarlet biretta and swinging a little smoking ball.” “I’ve been a pretty serious student of the Bible for over 40 years and I have yet to find a verse where Jesus stood before a television camera and begged people to send him money.” “Jesus was a Socialist if not an outright commy. Feed the hungry? Heal the sick? How long you going to be in business pushing that agenda from a pulpit in this day and age? Gotta get a little jealousy and hate in there to push them economic buttons.” “I don’t see no difference between a petofile and a homosexual. If they’d get down on their knees and pray, they could change if they really was sincere.” So much for the quotes. To be fair, organized religion has come a long way. To the best of my knowledge the church hasn’t burned an English Baptist since 1612. That was 400 years ago. It’s been 400 years since the church has burned an English Baptist. In 400 more years same-sex marriage might well be one of the sacraments.

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10. Last week when I sent out my weekly Whine and Snivel email newsletter, a young woman wrote back immediately and asked to be removed from my mailing list. You know, I spent a lot of time getting out that newsletter and it really hurt my feelings to realize that only one person read it.

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11. Have you seen that silly email that’s been going around? It says that someone invented a breast implant that can store and play music. This implant is considered a major social breakthrough, because women have always complained that men stare at their breasts and do not listen to them. You don’t have to think about this too long before you realize that this is true. Women do not want men staring at their breasts --- which is why women wear low cut dresses and suspend on a gold chain, about 8 inches below the chin, a shiny piece of metal. This flashy piece of metal is designed to divert and hold the eye’s attention. Every year loving husbands give their aging wives two or three more gold links for the chain.

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12. My friend Rich says that some people who buy lottery tickets don’t have a firm grasp on what you can do with $30,000,000. Rich says some TV reporter interviewed a man who bought a lottery ticket. Of course the reporter asked him what he’d do if he won 30 million dollars. And the fellow said he’d pay off his house mortgage. Think about this. If it took 30 million dollars to pay off your house mortgage, would you be in that socio-economic class of people who buy lottery tickets at a gas station?

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