Education Is A Wonderful Thing or What We Can Learn from Other’s Mistakes 

     Lesson 1 – If you’re going to rob a bank, don’t leave your name and address on the back of the note demanding the money. Although, the police do appreciate it. 
     Lesson 2 – If you’re on your way to the police station to bail out your brother, on the charge of stealing a SUV, don’t drive there in a stolen SUV. 
     Lesson 3 – If you video yourself climbing into the lion’s enclosure at the Bronx Zoo, then doing a dance in front of a very surprised male lion - - well, you’re probably not capable of learning from the mistakes of others. 
     Lesson 4 – Don’t shoplift from the store minutes before and after you’ve applied for employment. Surprisingly this type of activity does get the attention of future possible employers, but not in a good way.
    Lesson 5 – If you are going to snatch and grab a baby stroller from a store, don’t leave your kid behind in the store. 
     Lesson 6 – If you want to impress your significant other, don’t do it by firing a gun multiple times in the middle of the Bronx, even if it is just into the air. Gunshots are gunshots and they will draw attention. Probably not the kind you’re looking for. 
     Lesson 7 – If the police are looking for you, because of a little misunderstand concerning your robbing a bank, don’t show up at the police station to interview for the job of dispatcher. 
     Lesson 8 – If you’re going to use Play Doh to block a security camera before you do your shop lifting, wear gloves. Otherwise the fingerprints you leave in the Play Doh will lead police to your identity quicker than you can say, “Boy, was I stupid!” 
     Lesson 9 – If you’re just dead set on robbing a grocery store don’t take a selfie of yourself doing the crime, then post it on Facebook, with a caption explaining what you’re doing and showing the knife you used to scare the clerk. In this case it took the police 15 minutes to catch this guy. 
     Lesson 10 – If you can’t afford a gun, stay home. Using a cucumber, wrapped in a sock, to rob a bank, just doesn’t work. Besides it gives professional bank robbers a bad name.

“Don’t Cut Yourself,” or “Burn The House Down” 

     A rite of passage for any young boy is when he gets his first jackknife. Of course, with it always came the admonition, “Don’t cut yourself,” as though this was high on the kid’s bucket list. The admonition had no effect on whether or not he cut himself. For some reason the parent felt better for having issued the warning. 
     Sporting a bandaged finger or hand, or some other highly visible body part, if the kid was lucky, and then being able to say, casually of course, “Oh yeah, I cut myself with my knife,” was also part of the rite of passage. And if it left a scar, that was the trifecta of knife ownership. 
    But a young boy who asks for a magnifying glass, and then has parents that are surprised when he starts a fire with the thing, has just got parents who didn’t think his request through thoroughly. I mean, what else would a young boy do with a magnifying glass? Read some fine print? Not likely. 
    Well, one set of Texas parents, who seemed to be pleased when their son asked for a magnifying class for Christmas, were then surprised when the boy and his brother came rushing into the house to tell them that their lawn was on fire. These are folks who probably had been deprived of a magnifying glass when young. 
    When young, my cousin and I used my family’s magnifying glass to burn all sorts of stuff. Small stuff or course. We didn’t start any fires we couldn’t put our ourselves, but a magnifying glass can burn a hole through a beetle slick as a Star War’s light saber. It was a slow, but organic way to get rid of the things that ate the garden.
    That wasn’t as entertaining as feeding the dog the milk from a poppy, but it was right up there on the list of entertaining things to do around the farm. 
    And at that time we had to take what entertainment we could get, where ever we could get it.

Two Observations on My Last Blog 

     My last blog was about a man who walked into a Texas church shot two people who died, and was himself immediately shot and killed by church members, who were carrying fire arms. 
     Two observations come to mind. One: I can hear people saying, “See, if there were no guns this wouldn’t happen.” And that’s surely true. The dilemma, for me, comes in how to get rid of the guns, or in fact, get rid of anything a great many people want and think it is their right to have. Prohibition springs to mind and we know how well that worked. Legislation didn’t work for that and I can’t see it working for guns, at least not in a Democracy. I don’t have an answer, just an observation. 
     The second observation; I’m sure these church members were praying for God’s protection. But obviously they believe that God expects them to do some of the work. I am guessing that along with the prayers for protection they also pray for a quickdraw and a steady hand. 
     Somehow this attitude appeals to me. God gave us brains and I think he expects us to use them. 
     I don’t see this as a lack of faith but a belief that God intervenes after man has used his God-given abilities to the fullest. 
     Now, why bad things happen to good people? That’s another subject entirely.

You Gotta Love Those Texans 

     Recently a man walked into a Texas church, observed the service for a time, then pulled out a shotgun and shot and fatally wounded two members of the congregation. In less time than it takes to write this sentence, two other church members pulled out handguns and shot the shooter dead. 
     When I read this I was neither shocked nor surprised that two Texas church members would be carrying firearms in church. I lived in Texas long enough to get a feel for the Texan attitude about people who are trying to kill them and what they should do about it. 
     In Texas it is legal to carry licensed firearms in a church. Outside of church, the law concerning the carrying of firearms gets even looser. The citizens have the strange idea that it is okay to shoot back if someone is shooting at them, and to have the where withal handy to accomplish that. 
     The two congregational shooters were part of a trained volunteer security force the church maintains. Having and training such a force is also legal in the state. 
      During the time I lived in Texas, one church at Christmas time, in keeping with the Christmas spirit of love and peace to all, announced that they were having a gun drive and paying $50 for every gun turned in. There never was a follow-up report on how successful they were. They were doing this in a part of the country where giving a loved one a firearm as a Christmas present is considered quite appropriate as a gesture of love and thoughtfulness. 
     Like I said, “You gotta love those Texans.”

It Makes a Person Wonder 

   Our democracy is based on each person having one vote to use in determining who they will send off to govern us. In actuality that means that we have given that individual either 2, 4, or 6 years to lay the ground work for getting re-elected. And in today’s environment that means laying the groundwork for destroying the reputation of anyone who might run against them in an upcoming election. 
   The whole country might be crumbling down around our ears, but our elected officials seem to be only able to concentrate on making sure they are part of the winning majority come next election. They think nothing of creating hate between the haves and the have nots, or between immigrants who have been here several generations, and those immigrants who have only been here a short time, and those who would like to become immigrants. Why would anyone want to live in the United States is the big question? It just goes to show you how messed up other parts of the world are. But as a famous person once said, “Just because the other guy is an asshole, doesn’t mean you have to be one also.” 
   But back to the one vote issue. Having worked as a precinct-judge on election days for several years in Kentucky, I know that a lot of care goes into feeding the precinct-voting-workers the right information so they can hopefully keep it one person, one vote.  
   We moved out of Kentucky about seven years ago. For the past several weeks we have been getting politically motivated phone calls, you know, vote for me, to the tune of about a dozen a day. And these are all from Kentucky politicians. And we have been getting literature also. An example is one we got today, November 6th, from the Americans for Prosperity, urging us to vote on November 5th. This was addressed to us in Oregon. 
   Now this piece of literature does not represent a great deal of money, and the phone calls are automated; [I guess the politicians are trying to reach the same high standards as the telemarketers.] But the expense of all this does represent the donation from some little old person who worked hard for the money to send me that pamphlet. Or, again, the money might have come from some large distillery. 
   My question is this: if my name is on the rolls in Kentucky and in Oregon, would Kentucky let me vote if I showed up there yesterday?

WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH? 

     Two days ago, I spent six hours with a ten-year-old patient. This is a smart kid who was not feeling any physical pain. He was however having a problem with boredom. To help pass the time we played some video games, then he watched several hours of TV. I was able to catch enough of the programing for kids his age to get a taste of what they have available to them in the name of entertainment. Man, oh man, I’d hate to be hiring people who had had a diet of this junk while they were growing up. 
     Some of it was cartoons and some of it was live actors. Most of the plots revolved around conflicts of some kind or another. In nearly every case the kids worked out the situations despite the bumbling efforts of the adults. Mostly the male adults. 
     Some of the programs featured black families or black communities with a few clownish people of other ethnic origins thrown in. I was surprised at the black on black racist content. The dialogue was mostly mind-sapping clichés – it certainly didn’t show black people, or anyone else, as being anywhere near smart, articulate, or respectful of anyone who was any of those things. 
     Whatever happened to good old Wile E Coyote, who would encounter at least thirty life-ending encounters per thirty-minute show and be alive tomorrow at 3:00.

TELEMARKETERS ARE GETTING DESPERATE 

     Between my cellphone and my landline phone I get at least several telemarketing calls each day. I’ve signed up for whatever don’t-call-this-number sites and services that are available and I call-block all numbers from callers that get past that. The problem is that I will get a call from the same telemarketing entity several times per week and each call will come from a different number. 
    It is somewhat interesting. To start with I am listening to a recorded voice, or a real person following a specific script. If it is a real person anything that forces them away from their script discombobulates them to the point of not being able to answer a simple question. 
    Occasionally, if my life is lacking in entertainment at that moment, I will lead one of these callers on until I get to a real person, where I will ask some questions as would any sane buyer. This is not appreciated, and here again, the caller will only be able to respond to whatever fits into their script. 
     But yesterday telemarketing reached a new low. I got a call and the whole pitch was in Chinese, or some other oriental language. No English at all. I would like to talk to the originator of this marketing strategy. Whoever it is, they don’t mind playing the long odds. 
     I’m now wondering how soon before I start getting calls in Swahili or somesuch.