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This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for May 31, 2015.

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1. You can now watch my television program on YouTube. It is simply this radio show with video film pasted over the music parts. The show for April 5th is now up on YouTube. The first morning it was up there, I gave it a look to see how it came out. Well, I watched it and watched it and nothing seemed to be happening. But I was afraid that if I stopped watching, I’d miss something. After over half an hour I was listening to Stan Getz and couldn’t bring myself to turn the program off and go upstairs and eat breakfast. You obviously see what is happening here. The captivating thing about The humble Farmer’s television program is --- the reason I couldn’t stop watching it was --- well, as I watched the screen I kept wondering if nothing would continue to happen. There is a lesson to be learned here. People are tired of meaningless something on television and, in desperation, have turned to and have been captivated by shows like mine, which is continual meaningful nothing. Right now you’re listening to no things considered. I’m the humble Farmer at gmail dot com. Send me an email if you don’t want to hear from me. https://youtu.be/JkQiQUzJS6o

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2. People are hard up for live entertainment. I have capitalized on this for years. People want to see something different. Something they’ve never seen before. How often do you find a television program or a radio program that you really truly enjoy? How often do you watch something only because there is nothing else on? It’s like an election. How often do you vote for someone you really want? Today you don’t vote at all or vote for the lesser of two evils. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about here. My friend Uncle Jack not only writes stories that make me laugh out loud. He is also a photographer. Uncle Jack told me --- that he made a film of a little dog digging for crabs on a sandy beach. The last time Uncle Jack looked this video of a little dog digging for crabs on a sandy beach had been viewed over 20,000 times. People are hard up for live entertainment.

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3. Every morning for years I’ve eaten a thyroid pill. A couple of years ago I started eating two Vitamin C pills every morning. Then, one time when I went up to the veteran’s administration hospital in Togus to get my hearing aid tuned up, my doctor up there mentioned that men of a certain age take a baby aspirin every day. So here I am at the kitchen counter one morning opening pill bottles when my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, says, “Why don’t you let me put your pills in one of those pill dispensers? Then you’d only have to open one thing in the morning instead of three.” I told her I’d rather open the three bottles because, after all, a man my age should be getting some exercise.

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4. Would you want to run for President of the United States? It might not be a good idea unless you were conceived in a test tube and raised in a monastery, because for some strange reason you will be held responsible the actions of everyone you ever knew. They’d certainly have a great time with me: my first psychology professor committed suicide.

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5. From time to time you expect me to impart something that can pass as wisdom. Because I’m not an oracle, it is hard for me to come up with these little gems. But, from time to time someone wearing a sad face throws one my way and that’s when I pass it along to you. So. Here’s your wisdom for today. If, for the past five years, you’ve been carrying your $2,000 bicycle here and there on the top of your Volvo, think carefully before buying an automatic garage door opener.

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6. Radio friend Tim sent me an email that said, “I tried to sell my soul in the 1980s when everyone else was doing it. I found out it had no market value.” In another email someone else mentioned that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.

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7. You might have seen a recent news broadcast where they interviewed some college kids on a college campus. Do you remember that they said that graduates from this college would be earning $110,000 a year within 10 years of graduation? That sounds pretty good to an old man who bought his first completely furnished house on an acre of land for $5,000. But by 2025 $110,000 might be the price of a tank of gasoline.

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8. Well. Here's an email from Susan that says: I am working on trivia questions for a trivia night I do at the local library. Here's one for you and Marsha: What was the real first name of “Daddy” Warbucks in the “Little Orphan Annie” comic strip? A) Albert; B) Franklin; C)Theodore; D) Wilbur; E) Oliver? --- Well, I don't know if it was the real first name or not, but Daddy Warbucks was Oliver Warbucks at one time or another and everyone knows that. Oliver Warbucks is a part of our culture. I think he attended SUNY at Stony Brook but I forget now how much money he had. 27 or so billion? I once wrote a column on the richest comic strip or fictitious characters. Santa Claus was the richest. Because the Elves were immortal, Santa Claus was able to pocket the change that other billionaires paid out in health insurance for their employees. This Warbucks question is not a good one, in my opinion, because it is like asking people if they know the first name of George W. Bush.

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9. Did you see that the Red River has flooded again? How do people live in a house that gets four feet of water in it every year? The only person you’ve ever heard of who profited from this water rising was Johnny Cash. How high’s the water momma? I had no idea where the Red River was until my friend John Hammer told me. Marsha and I are lucky to live where there is no flooding and no fire ants. In St. George, Maine the closest thing we have to a tornado is Marsha cleaning out the Executive Suite in our Bed and Breakfast after the guests have gone.

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10. In researching honey bees, I read that “In every human society, people cooperate with many unrelated individuals and groups — division of labor, trade, and large-scale conflicts are common. The sick, hungry, and disabled are cared for, and social life is regulated by commonly held moral systems that are enforced, albeit imperfectly, by third-party sanctions.” “In contrast, in other primate species, cooperation is limited to relatives and small groups of reciprocators. There is little division of labor or trade and no large-scale conflict. No one cares for the sick, or feeds the hungry or looks after the disabled. The strong take from the weak without fear of sanctions by third parties." Isn't this revealing? "No one cares for the sick, or feeds the hungry or looks after the disabled. The strong take from the weak without fear of sanctions by third parties." We are all different. And some of us still have this primal "me-first" way of doing things, common in other primate species. You might recall that Stamford professor Robert Sapolsky says that the way we have of looking at things is hard-wired into our brains. Does it explain the need for people who think alike to want to band together and form political parties to protect and advance their way of thinking? Can you think of a political party in this country that might have been formed to advance these principles? ---"No one cares for the sick, or feeds the hungry or looks after the disabled. The strong take from the weak without fear of sanctions by third parties." Why don’t you give that some thought and get back to me?

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11. It is risky to deal in absolutes. For example, my Facebook friend Tesa says, "it corrupts everyone" She is talking about money. It is not true that money corrupts everyone. Money has not corrupted me. So money does not corrupt everyone. Money has not corrupted me because I am not worth corrupting. If I were worth corrupting, someone would have approached me with enough money to corrupt me long ago. The amount of money needed to corrupt someone depends upon the corruptee's financial and social status. Because, as of this writing, there is heating oil in my tank and food in the freezer, it would take a substantial amount of cash to corrupt me. For example, right now I would not write a letter to the newspaper praising Governor LePage's financial perspicacity for less than $20.

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