Swedish House Mafia

The song of the day is Don't You Worry Child from the 2012 album Until Now by Swedish house music supergroup Swedish House Mafia (Axwell, Steve Angello, Sebastian Ingrosso) with vocals by Swedish singer-songwriter John Martin (John Martin Lindström). This song is Swedish House Mafia’s final single before the group split up in 2013.

Dinner

Until the age of 6, I lived with my grandparents. Grandmother prepared three daily meals and they were called breakfast, dinner, and supper. We ate them in that order: breakfast in the morning, dinner at noon, and supper in the evening.

Then I began school. Everyone, both teachers and students, ate in the school cafeteria. The midday meal was called lunch and it was served up by stern-looking women we called lunch ladies. So one would think that now the three daily meals would be called breakfast, lunch, and supper. But not so! Dinner slid to supper and supper slid off the page. My three daily meals became breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My six year old brain was confused. So one day I asked my mother a simple question.

Me: “Mom?”

Mom: “What?”

Me: “If dinner is supper, and dinner is lunch, then when do we eat dinner?”

Mom: “Dinner is always the biggest meal, no matter when it’s eaten.”

Me: “So if my biggest meal is breakfast, is breakfast dinner?”

Mom: “No, breakfast is always breakfast.”

Me: “So when is dinner?”

Mom: “We eat dinner at suppertime.”

Me: “So dinner is supper?”

Mom: “Aren’t you listening? I told you, dinner is the biggest meal of the day.”

Me: “Except for breakfast.”

Mom: “Yes.”

Me: “So dinner is lunch and lunch is dinner.”

Mom: “You’re exasperating.”

Me (after thinking it over): “So supper is dinner?”

Mom: “Yes. Except when dinner is lunch.”

Me: “Oh. Mom?”

Mom: “What is it now?”

Me: “I think my brain is going to explode.”

Mom: “I know the feeling.”

I could hardly wait to ask her the hard questions. And I did. To this day, I can recall my mother saying, rather more often that I like to admit, “You’re going to put me in an early grave.” But we both survived those years. And now I eat lunch at lunchtime and dinner at suppertime. Except when I eat breakfast at lunchtime, which is rather often, but everyone calls that meal brunch. On those days, supper is dinner, unless dinner was brunch, in which case supper has to be supper. Follow me?

I’ve done research on this conundrum, and apparently no one is quite sure of the names of meals. Or rather, they are sure but their answer depends on where they’re from. Southerners have one set of names, Northerners have another set, and so on. Except for Texas, which can go any which way.

Whitesnake

The song of the day is Is This Love from the 1987 album Whitesnake by English rock band Whitesnake. The girl in the video is Tawny Kitaen. Kitaen starred in several Whitesnake videos. She has also appeared in TV shows and films (filmography).

Trump Calls Sexual Harassment ‘Fake News’

Sixteen women have now accused President Trump of sexually harassing them: doing various acts ranging from pushing the woman against a wall and sticking his tongue down her throat, to running his hand under a woman’s skirt and touching her vagina. Trump says it’s all “fake news” that never happened.

There are two big problems with calling this fake news. One problem arises because some of these women’s accusations are corroborated by witnesses who say the victims discussed the incidents with them at the time they allegedly happened.

Another problem is the Billy Bush audio tape that surfaced during the campaign. Trump was on a bus talking with Billy Bush, then of “Access Hollywood”, and a hot microphone caught Trump in a lewd conversation about women.

At one point in the audio, Trump and Bush notice Arianne Zucker, an actress waiting to escort them onto the set of a soap-opera for a cameo by Trump.

“I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump says. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Later, Trump admitted the words were his, but claimed he was lying.

I call that the “Cosby defense”. When 59 women accused Bill Cosby of various sex crimes, including rape, Cosby said all the women were lying.

So we’re supposed to believe that everyone who has accused Trump of being a sexual predator is a liar – including Trump himself. It’s interesting that Trump would believe people are gullible enough to believe his “they’re all lying” story.

Some may point out that other presidents have indulged in acts that were illegal and/or immoral. That is true. But claiming innocence because another person is also guilty is a child’s excuse. “But mommy, Bobby did it, too!” is a defense that didn’t fly then, and it won’t fly now.

Nothing Fishy Here

A Montana firm (Whitefish Electric) that is only 2 years old won a $300 million no-bid contract with the Federal government to help restore Puerto Rico's electrical grid. According to this Federal Vendor website, the company's annual revenue to date is $1 million and the company has two full-time employees. The company is based in Whitefish, Montana, which happens to be the hometown of Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. Secretary Zinke says he had nothing to do with the contract. I’ll take him at his word, but it seems to be a very large contract and a very large job for such a tiny company.

According to The Washington Post:

Under the contract, the hourly rate was set at $330 for a site supervisor, and at $227.88 for a journeyman lineman. The cost for subcontractors, which make up the bulk of Whitefish's workforce, is $462 per hour for a supervisor and $319.04 for a lineman. Whitefish also charges nightly accommodation fees of $332 per worker and almost $80 per day for food.

And there you have it – your tax dollars at work.

Live

The song of the day is Lightning Crashes from the 1994 album Throwing Copper by alternative rock band Live.

Cursive

Cursive writing was once a beautiful thing to look at, with flowing streams of connected letters that kids spent months learning to do well. But cursive appears to be on the way out. Many school districts have decided kids don’t need cursive, and kids are more comfortable with the block letters that appear on computer screens and mobile phones.

But not everyone is okay with kids not knowing how to read and write cursive. A Louisiana state senator, Beth Mizell, has introduced a cursive writing bill in her state. She says she did this after a surveyor complained to her that he couldn’t find young people who were able to read the cursive writing on old land documents.

I have many old letters in my family, some of which were written in the late 1800s. All of them, of course, are written in cursive. I find them interesting, but if I couldn’t read cursive they would be meaningless to me.

I can recall, during my first three years of elementary school, sitting at my school desk and practicing cursive writing. Not only that, but teachers required kids to bring fountain pens to school. The use of ball-point pens was equated to  “cheating.” Ball-point pens were looked down upon. A ball-point pen was not a “real” pen – it was a gimmick. Every kid was expected to know how to fill a fountain pen from a little bottle of black ink. As old-fashioned as that sounds, at least we kids didn’t have to learn how to make our own quill pens from the flight feathers of a goose. Thank goodness for modern times.

Cursive writing will probably fall out of use before long. But can’t computers learn how to read cursive? Can’t we have a cursive-to-speech app on our phones? And how about a speech-to-cursive app? (For what reason I can’t imagine.)

I have a compromise suggestion. Don’t make kids learn how to write cursive. Learning that skill requires many hours of handwriting drills – hours that can be put to better use. Instead, let kids learn how to read cursive. Reading old documents like deeds and contracts will be useful to many kids when they become adults. Not everyone will need to know cursive, of course, just as not everyone will need to know trigonometry. But being able to read cursive seems likely to be a useful skill for far longer than people will be writing cursive.

R.E.M.

The song of the day is The One I Love from the 1987 album Document by alternative rock band R.E.M.

Condolences

November, 1864:
President Abraham Lincoln pens a letter to Lydia Parker Bixby, a widow who lost five sons in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Executive Mansion,
Washington, 21st November, 1864.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln.

October, 2017:
President Donald Trump phones Myeshia Johnson, the grieving widow of Sgt. La David Johnson who was just slain in Niger.

“He knew what he signed up for.”

As condolences go, Trump’s economy of words is hard to beat. But I have to ask Trump, whatever happened to a simple and sincere “I’m very sorry for your loss”?

Take A Knee

This business of NFL athletes kneeling instead of standing for our national anthem is silly and I refuse to take sides. My choice would be to stand for the anthem, but if the person next to me wants to sit or kneel, that’s his choice. Maybe he hates this country, or maybe he loves this country. Whichever, that’s his business, and my threatening him with retribution for kneeling won’t change what is in his heart. If I force him to stand when he doesn’t want to stand, what have I gained? What has anyone gained? Nothing at all.

A bigger question is: why is the anthem played at the beginning of sporting events? Sports leagues are multi-billion dollar private-sector businesses that exist to make huge profits for the players and owners by entertaining their fans. The games aren’t government events and have nothing to do with politics, so why is the Star-Spangled Banner played or sung at every game?

The origin of that goes back to baseball and the year 1918, before the Star-Spangled Banner became the anthem. You can read about it in detail on History.com, so there’s no need to retell the story here. But basically, playing the anthem was a gimmick to rouse the fans and get them more enthused about the game. It worked, so the sports leagues decided to play the anthem before every game.

Players who take a knee will offend some fans, but many of those fans disrespect the flag in their own way. Quoting History.com:

The anthem’s adoption also gave way to a new American pastime, almost as beloved as sports itself: complaining about people’s behavior during the national anthem. By 1954, Baltimore Orioles general manager Arthur Ehlers was already bemoaning fans he thought disrespected the anthem by talking and laughing during the song. Ehlers briefly stopped playing the anthem altogether, before relenting to pressure and reinstating it a month later.

My opinion about this whole take-a-knee affair is that it is, as William Shakespeare might have put it, “much ado about nothing.” If it offends you so much, don’t buy the product. Don’t watch the games. Problem solved.

Guided By Voices

The song of the day is Teenage FBI from the 1999 album Do the Collapse by indie rock band Guided By Voices. Teenage FBI was named 160th of ‘500 Greatest Modern Rock Songs of All Time' by WXOY.com in 2006.

Tony Joe White

The song of the day is Tunica Motel from the 1991 album Closer to the Truth by singer-songwriter Tony Joe White.

Carolina Reaper Challenge

YouTube has become a repository of challenges, such as the ice bucket challenge, the cinnamon challenge, and the ghost pepper challenge. That last one dared people to eat a ghost pepper (Bhut jolokia), which until recently was considered the hottest chili pepper in the world. At one million Scoville units, the ghost pepper is hot enough to kill a person.

That challenge morphed into the Carolina Reaper challenge. In 2013, the Carolina Reaper pepper (bred in a Rock Hill, South Carolina greenhouse by "Smokin" Ed Currie, proprietor of the PuckerButt Pepper Company) was certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s hottest chili pepper at 2.2 million Scoville units.

(In May 2017, the Dragon's Breath Chili Pepper achieved an unconfirmed heat of 2.48 million Scoville units, which would surpass the Carolina Reaper if confirmed.)

So, of course, when faced with a chili pepper so hot it can kill you, many people decided that the thing to do would be to eat one. Thus, the Carolina Reaper challenge was born, featuring videos in which people chew up and swallow an entire Carolina Reaper pepper. The very predictable result of such foolishness is a whole lot of pain and suffering.

Why do people do this? Is it because they want to show the world they can be as brainless as the next idiot? Search YouTube for “Carolina Reaper challenge” and you will find videos showing people eating these peppers and immediately regretting it. What’s next – the “Wild Dogs Gnaw Your Arm Off” challenge? Or the “Poke Your Eye Out With A Sharp Stick” challenge? Do you really have to hurt yourself before you decide it’s a bad idea?

I’ll admit the videos provoke a certain interest. Schadenfreude is a real thing, and it’s even more satisfying when the pain is intentionally and needlessly self-inflicted. But people who refuse to use their common sense are no better off than those who have no common sense. Your brain: use it or lose it.

Windows Update Hell

I have a little notebook/tablet computer with Windows 10 installed on it. It came from the store with factory-installed Windows 10. Which is to point out that Windows 10 was not an upgrade over an older operating system, which is something that can cause problems.

The pc auto-updates itself, but I can also manually check for updates. I hadn’t turned on the pc for about a week, so I decided to turn it on and run the “Check for Updates” service. It ran and said a cumulative update was available. The update had a long name: “2017-10 Cumulative Update for Windows 10 version 1607 for x86-based Systems (KB4041691)”.

As an update was available, I decided to start the update process. Then the problems began. The update package refused to download. The progress bar stayed at 0%, no matter how long the pc was left on. Restarting the pc did not help. The progress indicator was stuck firmly at 0%.

Using my Desktop pc, I started hunting for answers. I saw that I was not alone with my Windows 10 update problem. Lots of people seemed to have the same problem. A user pointed me to a Microsoft web page where I could download a script that would fix the problem. When I tried to run the script, I received an error message, which I’ve already forgotten. But whatever, it didn’t fix the problem with Update.

A second person posted a procedure for fixing Update. I was supposed to begin the procedure by opening a command prompt window in administrative mode and then typing net stop wuauserv followed by net stop bits to stop the Update process. I did that but no luck – it reported the Update process could not be stopped.

A third person suggested running chkdsk. You can’t run chkdsk on a drive that is mounted and being used, such as the system drive. So I told the pc to run chkdsk the next time it was started, and it did. Chkdsk found no problems.

Next I found a tool on the Microsoft website that was supposed to find and fix problems with Windows Update. I downloaded it and ran the installer. The installer reported that some files it needed couldn’t be found and gave up.

At this point it occurred to me that the Control Panel might be helpful. Under “System and Security” there was a troubleshooting section and in that was an option called “Fix Problems with Windows Update.” I ran that and it said “Detecting problems” and I got a little bar that looked like a progress bar but wasn’t. It had a moving green band that moved left to right over and over and, I suspect, was only there to give the user something to look at.

Next I got a window that said, “Repair Windows Update Database Corruption” and I clicked on “Apply this fix.” Then it said “Resolving problems.” It never got any further than that. Eventually I closed the Find & Fix tool and re-opened it and ran it again. When it got to “Apply this fix” I chose the alternate button, which was “Skip this fix (and keep looking for problems)”. That didn’t help, either.

Then someone suggested running the system file checker: “sfc /scannow”, which is a command prompt file. It took a while to check the files, but finally sfc reported that it found no problems – or, as sfc put it, no “integrity violations.” I was in the windows/system32 folder so I moved up to the windows folder and looked around. I found a folder called SoftwareDistribution. Moving around in the command prompt window was awkward, so I closed it and opened File Explorer. I went to the Windows folder and there was the SoftwareDistribution folder. For a minute I pondered deleting it. I suspected it held temporary files and if deleted, Windows would just recreate it. But deleting a Windows system folder is a rather big step so I decided to hold that as a last chance fix.

I went back to Control Panel and ran the “Fix Update” tool one more time. I got the window that said, “Repair Windows Update Database Corruption” and I clicked on “Apply this fix.” It said “Resolving problems.” Finally it said all problems were fixed and told me to try whatever I was doing before. I went back to the Update window and lo and behold, it began downloading the update. Then it installed the update. Hallelujah.

I find it telling that Windows comes with a tool that lets you fix problems with Windows Update. Wouldn’t it be easier on their customers to fix the issues with Windows Update? Perhaps Windows Update is so buggy and complex, and possible errors are so obscure, that Microsoft coders don’t know where to start fixing it, so they devised a tool that would cover all bases.

I have to wonder, how do people who don’t know much about computers handle problems like this? Probably, some of them use their pc and never know it can’t be updated. Some of them don’t care. Some of them are paranoid about not being able to install security updates, and they stick the pc in a closet, or give it to some kid on their street who knows how to fix it.

I’m not a computer geek. I do have years of experience with Windows, going back to Windows 3.1. But the main thing I have going for me is persistence. I won’t give up as long as there is one more thing I can try. Sometimes it pays off.

Nils Lofgren

The song of the day is Shine Silently from the 1979 album Nils by solo artist and member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band since 1984 Nils Lofgren. This performance was recorded November 1, 1995 on the Dutch TV show 2 Meter Sessies. Lofgren was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the E Street Band in 2014.

Fake News

President Trump is angry at NBC News for reporting that he wants to increase the size of the US nuclear stockpile tenfold. He says it’s not true and he called the report “pure fiction made up to demean” him.

But Trump once promoted his own “pure fiction” with the accusation that President Obama was born outside the US. This fiction was invented in an attempt to demean and delegitimize the first African-American president.

When Obama produced his birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii, Trump insisted the birth certificate was fake and demanded to see the long-form birth certificate. When Obama produced that and it, too, showed Obama was born in Hawaii, Trump demanded to see Obama’s college applications, transcripts and other records, while asking how such a “terrible student” got into Ivy League schools.

Trump lied repeatedly about Obama. If NBC News really was inaccurate in their reporting, I feel no sympathy for Trump. When you intentionally and repeatedly lie about someone, you have no grounds to complain if someone lies about you.

Jeff Buckley

The song of the day is Leonard Cohen’s 1984 song Hallelujah, covered here by singer-songwriter and guitarist Jeff Buckley (Jeffrey Scott Buckley) on his 1994 album Grace. Buckley died in 1994 at age 30 from an accidental drowning.

Reality Deniers

America now exists in the Reality Denial phase of its existence. Don’t like the impact of global warming? Then all the thousands of climate scientists are wrong. Or the decades of climate science are just a world-wide hoax. Do deniers have proof of a hoax? No. In fact, there is absolutely no evidence of a hoax, to say nothing of proof. But deniers don’t need proof, because reality is whatever they choose to believe.

Climate scientists long ago predicted that as the earth heats up, climate will change, causing more severe weather events. Hurricanes will become more intense. Droughts will become more severe and longer-lasting. And that has happened, but deniers say it’s a coincidence.

When the president doesn’t like something he sees on the news, he calls it “fake news” – as though calling it fake makes it fake. He can say one thing, and say the opposite an hour later, and then deny he ever said the first thing. He gets away with this because his supporters are reality deniers. To them, reality is simply what they want it to be, or whatever their leader says it is.

Want to keep your kids safe? Don’t vaccinate them. Of course, the reality is that thousands of children once died every year from diseases that are easily prevented today. And researchers who have studied vaccinations for years say there is no connection between vaccinations and conditions such as autism. But vaccine deniers believe all the research is wrong or fake. There is no longer belief in objective reality. Reality has become whatever they want to believe.

According to this Wikipedia article on Denialism, “In the psychology of human behavior, denialism is a person's choice to deny reality, as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth.”

There are many kinds of deniers: flat-earthers, moon-landing deniers, Holocaust deniers, AIDS deniers, climate-change deniers, evolution deniers, and animal-pain-and suffering-deniers, to name a few. When the New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto and sent back photos, deniers said it never happened. There is historical denialism such as Armenian Genocide Denial and Japanese War Crime Denial.

Denialism can destroy lives and damage economies. In California right now, Los Angeles is fighting the worst wildfire it has ever experienced. Northern California is experiencing huge wildfires that have destroyed much of Napa Valley wine country. This is the predictable result of the recent long droughts there. Of course, many people will choose to deny that reality.

Ironically, deniers are in denial about being deniers. Only when they rush head long into a wall will they consider the possibility that the wall is real.

Tasmin Archer

The song of the day is Sleeping Satellite from the 1992 album Great Expectations by English pop singer Tasmin Archer.

Trump-Russia

Since July, 2016, the FBI has been investigating the Russian government’s attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election, including whether President Donald Trump’s campaign associates were involved in those efforts. But the story began long before then.

The Trump-Russia story began in the ‘90s when a string of bankruptcies made loaning money to Trump too risky. New York banks wouldn’t loan him money, but he continued to get money from somewhere. But from where?

Some of the money came from Deutsche Bank in loans that Trump ultimately defaulted on, leading Germany’s biggest lender to sue him. Trump countersued for $3 billion, claiming he was the victim.

And some of the money came from other sources. According to Trump’s sons, those other sources were in Russia.

Donald Trump Jr:

"Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of ... our assets."

Eric Trump:

"We don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia."

Meanwhile, ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin was seeking to install a puppet in the office of president of the country he still hated. Trump was running for office and so, according to ex-spy Christopher Steele (formerly of M.I.6), Putin reached into his old bag of KGB tricks to compromise Trump, not just with the bank loans but allegedly with Russian prostitutes.

In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine, causing the US, the EU, and Canada to impose crippling economic sanctions on Russia. The sanctions scuttled a multi-million dollar oil deal between Russia and Exxon-Mobile. Who headed Exxon-Mobile at the time and received Russia's Medal of Friendship? That would be Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Putin didn't like his oil deal going south so he did what he always does to influence Washington: he used money. He paid millions of dollars to Paul Manafort, currently under investigation by multiple agencies in the US.

One day, out of nowhere, Manafort became campaign manager for Trump. He even offered to do the job for free, though the buzz was that Putin was paying him. By "coincidence", Manafort used to be partners in a lobbying firm with Roger Stone who happens to be Twitter pals with "Guccifer 2.0", a.k.a. Russian Intelligence, which had been hacking the DNC email server and sending the emails to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.  (“Guccifer 2.0” denied links to Russia, but digital fingerprints lead the US intelligence community, and several cybersecurity firms, to conclude that the cyberattacks were largely, if not entirely, carried out by two Russian intelligence groups.)

On October 7, 2016, the famous Access Hollywood tape was released, which should have ended Trump's bid for the presidency. But less than an hour later, Wikileaks announced a trove of DNC emails and released the first 2000. Every intelligence agency in the US government said the Russians were behind it. But Trump, a supposed defender of our country, disagreed and said it could have been anyone. "It could have been," he said, "somebody sitting on their bed who weighs 400 pounds."

Don Jr set up a meeting with several Kremlin-connected Russians during the middle of the campaign and claimed the meeting was about "adoptions".  Later, an email turned up addressed to Don Jr saying the meeting was to be about "very high level and sensitive information [that is] part of Russia and its government's support of Mr. Trump."

Instead of going to the FBI with this Russian attempt to influence the election, Don Jr’s response was, "I love it!"

Also at the meeting with the Russians was Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner. Kushner needed Russian money to cover some bad investments so he met secretly with Russian ambassador, and alleged spymaster, Sergey Kislyak, a meeting that also included Michael Flynn, who had accepted loads of cash to "advise" Russia, and then served as National Security Advisor to Trump, a position Flynn had to resign after being caught lying to Mike Pence.

Everybody lied about knowing Kislyak except for Trump, who invited him into the Oval Office the day after he fired James Comey, who had been investigating the whole mess. Trump said in a TV interview, "When I decided to do it, I said to myself, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story..."

Who else met with Russians?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the head of the US Department of Justice, recused himself from the Russia investigation on the advice of the department's ethics office after he had failed to disclose several meetings he had with top Russians during his confirmation hearings. The recusal angered Trump, who had counted on Sessions to quash the Russia investigation.

Former Trump campaign director of national security J.D. Gordon met with the Russian ambassador.

Former Trump advisor Carter Page met with Russian officials including the Russian ambassador and Igor Sechin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Page also had business ties to Russia.

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen met with Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Artemenko.

And for the capper, there is the Ukrainian-born millionaire businessman with ties to Trump who died in unexplained circumstances.

The “Russia thing”, as Trump calls it, is more complicated than this short blog post can convey. Possibly, it’s nothing more than bad judgment on the part of some administration officials and no crime has been committed. But one wonders, with all the connections between the Trump administration and Russian officials, just how much influence Russia now commands in the White House. That is something the American public should know.

The Shirelles

The song of the day is 1960's Will You Love Me Tomorrow by 4-girl group The Shirelles. The song was written by husband-wife songwriting team Gerry Goffin and Carole King and became the first #1 hit in the U.S. by a black female group.

The NRA Way

One bad thing about the Las Vegas massacre – and there was a plethora of bad there – is something that hasn’t been discussed much, and that is the trend of mass shootings in America. Mass shootings have become more commonplace and more deadly over time. The trend is clear: mass shootings will happen more frequently and with increasing casualties.

I have a gun-collector friend who labels mass shooters as “dumbasses”. And he’s right. But given that the US has far more shootings per capita than any other high-income country, does that mean we have more dumbasses? Probably not. It’s just that we arm our dumbasses with weapons more suited to war than to hunting or target shooting.

Now the NRA is pushing Congress to legalize silencers. Great idea – let’s equip weapons with silencers so people have no way to know from which direction they are being fired on.

As long as the NRA seems bent on an agenda that – intentional or not – makes it easier for a shooter to kill as many of us at once as possible, why not go all the way and legalize pipe bombs? Imagine this scene at your local hardware store:

At the store entrance:

“Excuse me, but where is the pipe bomb section?”

“Bay 29, sir.”

“Thank you.”

At bay 29:

“Can I help you, sir?”

“I want to buy a pipe bomb. Maybe several.”

“No  problem. You’ve come to the right store. We have six inch and eight inch bombs, and there’s the twelve inch for larger crowds. The eight inch is our best seller. It’s good for wedding-party size crowds. How many people are you planning to kill?”

“I don’t know but it will be a large number.”

“Then the twelve inch is your best bet. How many do you need?”

“Maybe three.”

“You’re in luck! This week we’re having a sale: buy one and get one free.”

“Great! I’ll take a half dozen.”

“Very good. And the fuses?”

“What?”

“A thirty second fuse is standard, but we have optional longer burning fuses – one minute, two minutes, and five minutes. We offer a free upgrade this week to any of our other fuses. Of course, if you need a custom fuse you can specify the burn time, but there will be a small fee.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Well, twelve inch bombs have a big blast radius, so I would suggest a longer burning fuse – at least two minutes. Can you tell me more about the slaughter you’re planning? I might be able to give you a more precise answer.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take the two minute fuses.”

“Fine. I can ring up your purchase right here. I have to ask two questions. Sorry, but it’s the law. First, are you insane?”

“I’ve never seen a shrink in my life.”

“Good. Second, are you a violent criminal?”

“No way. Ask my parole officer.”

“Excellent. We appreciate your honesty, because frankly we’ve had no way to check that kind of thing ever since the Hunters and Sportsmen Privacy Act was passed.

We’re all done now. I’ll put these in a bag and get your change.”

Ka-ching!

“Here you go. Have a good day.”

“Thanks. And be sure to watch the news this Saturday. That’s when I’ll be using these babies.”

“Will do. But I have to ask: parade, convention, concert – ?”

“Nope. Girl scout jamboree. I’m tired of getting ripped off buying their over-priced cookies. This’ll show ‘em.”

Some may complain that I’m not being fair to gun culture. After all, no one hunts with pipe bombs. True enough. But no one hunts with fully automatic firearms, so why are bump stocks legal? And no one hunts with a silencer on their rifle. Who needs silencers and for what legitimate purpose?

The Boston marathon bombers used two homemade bombs designed to inflict as much carnage as possible. Hundreds were injured, but only 3 people were killed. So at Vegas and other mass shootings, pipe bombs would have been the less deadly option.

Sorry, folks. It’s sarcasm. Bitter, bitter sarcasm.

Van Morrison

The song of the day is Days Like This from the 1995 album Days Like This by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison (George Ivan Morrison). The inspiration for the song was The Shirelles’ 1961 hit Mama Said.

Lower Than the Lowest

A woman who was shot at the Las Vegas concert reported that as she lay wounded and waiting for help, somebody stole her wallet and cell phone. That reminded me of something that happened to my late father many years ago.

My father and brother were traveling from Virginia to North Carolina to visit me. My brother was driving the car. Another car, attempting to pass on the two lane road, ran my father’s car off the highway. The car left the highway and sailed off a 6-foot high embankment into a field. The car hit the ground upside down on a corner of its roof, then flipped over to end up on its four wheels where it came to a stop.

My brother escaped the car at once. My father was injured enough to require hospitalization. He was also stunned by the impact, and he was unable to open his door because of damage to the car’s frame. The door was jammed.

Several cars stopped along the highway and their drivers ran to the wreck to assist. As people gathered around the accident scene, an unknown man reached through the open window next to my father, grabbed my father’s arm, removed his wristwatch, and ran back to his car and drove off.

People. Some will give you the shirt off their back when you’re in need. They’ll risk their lives to save your life. But the good that those people do is offset by the actions of other people who are – how else can I put it? – lower than the lowest.

En Vogue

The song of the day is Free Your Mind from the 1992 album Funky Divas by R&B / Pop vocal group En Vogue.

Hidden Salt

The time for lunch arrived and so I heated up an entrée: Blackened Chicken Alfredo, New Orleans style. Or as I call it: flavored salt. The little plastic dish contained mostly penne pasta with cheese sauce and a few small lumps of chicken. And, of course, salt – 1000 milligrams of salt. Had I read the nutrition label before I purchased it, I would have returned it to the freezer and bought something else.

Doctors recommend that people limit their sodium intake to 2300 mg per day, and people 50 and older should consume no more than 1500 mg per day. This isn’t because doctors are mean and don’t want us to enjoy our food. It’s because eating too much salt can elevate blood pressure, and high blood pressure over time can do bad things to the body, such as cause heart disease.

The average American consumes 3400 mg of salt every day. Most of the salt in our diet comes from packaged and processed foods, not the salt shaker. The problem is not an occasional salty meal. The problem is the overdose of salt we get routinely, day in and day out, every day of the year, year after year. So what can we do about it? How can we eat less salt?

The foods below have been called the Salty Six:

Cold cuts and cured meats – deli or pre-packaged turkey can have over 1000 milligrams of sodium per serving. Look for lower sodium varieties.

Pizza – one slice may have up to 760 mg of sodium. Have vegetables or a salad with your pizza rather eating more pizza.

Soup – look at the nutrition label on a can of soup. Most cans contain “2 servings” so if you plan to eat a can of soup you can double the sodium on the label. Make homemade soup instead.

Breads and rolls – bread may not taste salty, but one slice can have 230 mg. Avoid eating bread at every meal.

Chicken – frozen and breaded chicken nuggets have a lot of added salt, and even fresh poultry often is injected with sodium solutions. Check the label.

Burritos and Tacos – most of the salt is in the taco seasoning, so make your own. Combine 1/2 teaspoon each of cumin, oregano, chili powder, and garlic powder and you’ll have a tenth the sodium of the packaged seasoning.

Also worth a look is this list of common packaged foods that are loaded with sodium. There are some surprises on the list.

According to the American Heart Association, if the US population moved to an average intake of 1500 mg per day of sodium, it could result in an estimated $26.2 billion in health care savings and reduce deaths from heart disease by anywhere from 500,000 to 1.2 million over the next 10 years.

Salt makes food tastier plus it’s essential for life. But a little goes a long way. We have many choices at the grocery store. If we choose to eat wisely, in the long run we’ll be healthier, live longer, and save money.