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Rants December 9, 2012

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1. The newspaper headline said, “"Wells man catches lobster with 4 claws" We are not surprised to read this. I still remember very clearly that in 1951 one of my classmates from Port Clyde told me that the boy who sat next to her in the school bus had four hands.

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2. There was nothing exciting in my on-line Maine newspaper this morning. We see the usual number of people going through the ice, school financial crises and mentally ill shenanigans. Not enough snow for snowmobile crashes and too cold to be out on the ATV, so there’s nothing under “alcohol and high speeds contributed to the accident.” And there is only a glimmer of hope on the weather page in the “Stories that Affect Me.” “Is the World Coming to An End?” Because what goes up must come down the end of the world is inevitable and I turned to Google for times and places. Someone certainly gave this world-ending crisis some serious thought because a search turns up one billion seven hundred million results. Although we won’t review them all, the first one says, “The world will not end. There are such beings called Indigo's that are from the stars to help us. They are the special one that bring peace, love and help.” Then this: “Dr. Bill … explores the question ‘When will the world come to an end’ with both biblical and scientific facts.” That was on YouTube and although the sound was off I saw movies of dragons eating people. Page three said, “Predictions have snowballed in recent years that the world will come to an end on 21 December next year [2012]. The claims are based on the fact that the current Maya calendar cycle ‘ends’ on that day….. The Maya themselves don’t seem too worried by these alarmist claims” and for that we are grateful. So much for science. No study being complete without a seasoning of local erudition, I called my friend Julian. He said the end of the world was a particularly serious problem for Maine merchants because people were now only buying soap and breakfast cereal in very small sizes.

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3. After becoming conversant in the impending end of the world, I read that by not allowing your batteries to discharge below a certain point you can greatly improve their performance and extend their life. Did you know that? By not allowing your batteries to discharge below a certain point you can greatly improve their performance and extend their life. Think of all the batteries you and I could have saved if we’d known that 60 years ago and had kept a small trickle charger on the Model T and rider lawnmower batteries that we don’t use in the winter. And now it’s too late.

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4. Here’s an email from Washington County. “We have 2 gift-type stores downtown. They were offering 10% off today. Both are husband/wife teams. The one husband, Jerry, is 6' 5". Today he stood out front wearing a lobster suit beckoning with his claws for people to come in. The highlight was when he began shouting "Let my people go!" as the lobsterman were driving by. If you’re from away this email from Down East certainly offers you some insight into Maine marketing. And how do we know you’re from away? What differentiates you from those of us who were born here? Because the world is about to end, Maine natives are no longer buying the large economy size.

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5. Here’s what it said in the paper: “What happened was the freshmen were chased down by upperclassmen and were held down against their will and beaten with plastic hockey sticks and Wiffle ball bats to the point of drawing blood,” Well, although I have never seen an entire hockey game the scraps of the hockey games I have seen on TV show the players pounding each other with sticks. Perhaps children wanting to get into serious hockey were only manifesting professional hockey behavior. And would not those who know no more of hockey than what is aired on the evening news have the impression that hockey is no more that fist fights or pounding each other with sticks? From time to time we hear on the news of hockey players with broken necks or concussions. We have to assume that the only folks who suit up for hockey and football can cheerfully tolerate or inflict the crunching of bone and tearing of ligaments. But then perhaps the rules permit one to only pound the members of the other team.

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6. One morning before a shower and breakfast, I sat at my computer and wondered if my right knee would hold up long enough to lug the computers up out of my solar radiant heated cellar. I've been a wimp all my life. I started high school at 12 because I did grades two and three in one year. I was always little and was never allowed to play anything at school. In St. George we had a baseball team and a great band. My banker, Mr. Johnson, limped, and I was amazed when he told me that if he had his life to live over again he would destroy his knees all over again playing high school football. The game meant that much to him. And while thinking about this I experienced a great epiphany. Or, as my friend Jazz Man Ames would say, "a blessing." As I painfully limp through my remaining golden years, I'm going to look up at inquiring friends as I thoughtfully lean over and rub my knee and say, "Old football injury. A wide receiving quartermaster shouldn’t have tried to take out Joe Namath.”

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7. Here’s another poor man who was killed in an accident. We read that he “was ejected from the car." Obviously another case of a malfunctioning seatbelt. Probably the stitches broke or the half inch solid steel anchor broke off or pulled out of the steel frame. Don’t you think that if we could get auto companies to improve their seatbelts many lives could be saved? Because when seatbelts do work your car can take a wicked pound and you can walk away. The other night I saw James Bond roll over 7 or 8 times and when his car stopped moving he was unconscious. I don’t recall seeing him buckle up his seatbelt before peeling out to rescue the fair young maiden because if he had, the bad guys might have had a chore on their hands when they showed up to collect the remains. On the other hand, I was hit broadside by a Belfast fire engine that ran a stop sign on route one while coming home from a fire. Pinwheeled two or three times. And played for a dance a couple of hours later that night in Camden. I could have also easily dispatched a bloodied James Bond who was out cold in the wreckage of his Austin Martin Healy Rolls. Nothing like a seatbelt when they're working right.

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8. Do you know if the programs you watch are on NBC, CBS or ABC or cable? And if you do, how do you know it? My wife watches the Today show in the morning but how would I know if it were NBC or CBS? And does it matter to me or anyone else but advertisers? They tell us that this is why stations are always doing something to pull in more viewers. The way I understand it, people who sell air time predicate the cost of running an ad on the number of people who watch at any given time, so the more viewers they have the more they can charge. I don’t know if they factor in that some of us immediately click to another channel whenever a commercial comes on. Or use that time to read or get a cookie in the kitchen or write up the day’s events in a journal. What I started to say when you got me off on this other thing was that from time to time you see a news item that tells you how to prevent unscrupulous computer gurus from hacking into your computer and stealing your money. Hacking is obviously a very lucrative occupation and there are probably many schools for it. If you listen closely you will realize that on top of the great pay, you don’t need to advertise your business and because you’re already in your office you don’t have to get up early to fight your way through commuter traffic. So, what is the result of these programs on cyber crime? Do they motivate seniors to change their passwords every six months? --- Or do they encourage young people to become very wealthy hackers?

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9. I very often comment on an article I’ve read on line. If it’s really good, I recycle it on my radio and TV shows. If it’s even better than that, I’ll probably use it on the stage. How do you know when you’ve written something that really hit the nail on the head? --- That it’s really good? Forty five people will check the little box below your comment that says that they like it and one will post a note saying that they found it to be disgusting. What do you do when forty five people find your comment disgusting but only one said it was wonderful? You marry her.

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10. We read in a newspaper that a couple of entrepreneurs who brought over 400 pounds of marijuana into Maine will probably serve 5 years if convicted. A reader asks, “So who is the bad guy in this story?” This is a good question that should be answered over and over until taxpayers fully understand it. Prisoners are one of America's most lucrative cash crops. If it weren't for the great amount of money to be made by putting people in prison and keeping them there for as long as possible, pot would have been legalized many years ago and half the prisons in this country would be empty. It takes dozens of different businesses to service your average state-run prison. Does it help explain why we are told that the US locks up a larger percentage of its population than any other country in the world? If it were not for the obscene amount of money corporate America makes feeding them, prisoners would still be raising their own meat and vegetables. Because privatized prisons cost taxpayers even more than prisons run by the state you can expect to see a lot more of them. If you'd like to double your cash in a short amount of time, you might consider investing in privatized prisons. Privatized prisons are a growth business that will probably outlast the world’s oil supplies. So who do you think is the bad guy in this story?

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11. One morning I was in a building --- I can’t remember now where it was --- and the sound system was playing a song, “I’m going to yump dumpy dumpy deedle all night long.” I don’t hear well so the only words I heard were, “I’m going to yump dumpy dumpy deedle all night long.” Hearing these lyrics, you might well ask why there are so many songs written for children and so few songs written for old folks. Because even though I couldn’t understand all of the words to this song, I do know that the only thing a 76-year-old man wants to yump dumpy dumpy deedle do all night long --- is sleep.

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