Since I’ve done my share of ripping into thug cops, it always seems fair to give the better ones a tip o’ the hat. And this tale — from a freedomista’s wary daughter — is pretty cute.
Her dad writes:
So my daughter S. moved away from home at the beginning of November. She graduated from a medical arts program in June, and Florida seemed like a good place to be. My mother-in-law lives there in a [huge community almost entirely made up of seniors].
We packed up the car and my wife took S. to FL to stay with her mom to help her out and until she gets set up on her own.
Mom is getting up there, and her health isn’t that of a youngster anymore. Her daughters all live far away, and most of her friends have passed. But 3 yrs ago at 85 she dumped her 75-year-old boyfriend and bought a house for the first time on her own. She’s fiercely independent, and even though her health is declining she will not accept any outside hired help. The only real “service” she has is a morning phone check-in with the county sheriff’s dept. elder unit.
Unfortunately, mom found herself in the hospital on Thanksgiving morning. She had been there a week. But Thanksgiving morning at 9am, the phone rang at her house with the call from the sheriff’s office. They were making holiday dinner and were inviting all the people on their check-in lists. S. explained that Mom was still in the hospital but could get out for the day, and gave them Mom’s direct number at the hospital so they could invite her to their dinner.
S. thought this was the end of the story.
At about 2 o’clock, S. is trying to decide what to eat before she goes to the hospital to visit, and there’s a knock at the door. She looks through the blinds and sees there’s a sheriff’s officer standing on the stoop. Raised the way she was, she’s automatically suspicious. What could they possibly want? She opens the door a crack to say hi and find out what’s going on, and she sees a big box in the sheriff’s hands. “Hello, I’m Sheriff Soandso. Your grandma told us you were here all alone on your first holiday away from home, and she was worried about you being all alone, worried that you wouldn’t eat, etc. So I brought a full Thanksgiving dinner in this box for you. There’s turkey, stuffing, ham, taters, veggies, gravy, everything. Oops, Sorry, everything but pie. The oldsters ate all the pie”
She was floored. She called the next day to say “Dad, I’ve been around enough to see the sheriffs serve papers, serve subpoenas, and even serve search warrants, but I never thought I’d ever see the day when a sheriff came to the house to serve me dinner! And Dad, it was even good!”
Wealth and inequality. No matter what your politics (or lack thereof), these charts are alarming. This is not what a healthy country looks like. The comparisons of perception-ideal-reality are fascinating, though.
Bystander sees masked robber holding store clerk at gunpoint. Bystander pulls pistol and shouts, “Don’t move!” Robber turns. Bystander shoots. Family member of this (chronic) robber whines, “If his (the customer) life was not in danger, if no one had a gun up to him, if no one pointed a gun at him — what gives him the right to think that it’s okay to just shoot someone? You should have just left the store and went wherever you had to go in your car or whatever.” As sick, depraved, cruel, irresponsible, and Snopes-clan inbred as that sounds, what’s even sicker is that that’s precisely what anti-gunners would have us do.
Yes! It’s about time that the federal government found the courage and integrity to go after those greedy monopolistic … er, piano teachers.
People who fall for lottery scams. Some spend their whole life savings and still don’t believe they’ve been duped. Hm. Does that remind you of any good taxpaying citizens anybody else you know?
“My First Mistake.” Hint: It involves a corpse. And a drainpipe. And is a terrific, if weird, little read.
I was going to use this (and may still use it) in a Deep Thought blog. But for the sake of tab clearing and personal evaluation: “The 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People.”
And gifts for the tool enthusiast (and isn’t that ALL of us hereabouts?). In that category, I especially like this cool little stocking stuffer: the MagnoGrip 311-090 Magnetic Wristband to keep nails, screws, and those ever-pesky nuts from going astray while you work.
Thank you for continuing to use my Amazon links for all your Christmas, Hannukah, Solstice, and just-in-general shopping. It makes a big difference. I apologize to those who don’t like these shopping lists, but several people have told me the lists really help them get ideas for gift giving.
When I disagree with some aggrandizing fuss being made over some political celebrity, cause, event, or anniversary, I tend to keep my mouth shut. When I do open my yap to point out what I think should be obvious, it sometimes raises a stink.
So mostly it seems to be time wasted to pipe up to say, “Hey, but …” when the whole propagandized nation is waving flags, worshipping tyrants, or indulging in an uncritical emotional frenzy.
Thus I kept my mouth shut earlier this week as the media went into one of its periodic Honest Abe panegyrics re the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.
But Jim Bovard, never one to be shy about such matters, says it right. The speech, and Lincoln, are still balderdash after all these years.
The only thing I really think is right about the Gettysburg Addy is a rather obscure fact that ought to be better known and puts our current Authoritah worship into perspective. On the day he gave that speech, the president of these united States was an afterthought. He wasn’t even the main speaker. That was Edward Everett.
Can you imagine that? Can you imagine an event organizer placing a Clinton, a Bush, or an Obama as just one more speaker on a slate of talkers? And basically treating him as an ordinary human being instead of acting like he’s some grand pasha or potentate?
In the meantime, assuming you can buy insurance at all, maybe you can get it for free! It seems that the U.S. is developing a kind of ideal income level where you can a) live reasonably well while b) maximizing your tax-provided benefits. Millions more will surely aim for this welfare-state version of “success.” Cockapoo nation!
But some proud traditionalists will not go happily into that EZ future.
Anybody could have predicted that the so-called Consumer Finance Protection Bureau would end up as yet another spy agency. But who would have been cynical enough to think that would be among its main missions from the get-go? Uh. Well. Only people with a brain.
Uh oh. The old assassination market idea gets new life in the age of TOR and bitcoin. Somehow, I don’t think this is going to go any better than it went for Jim Bell.
Looks as if Catching Fire is going to be as good as the first Hunger Games movie. Interesting, too, how this reviewer automatically uses terms making parallels with today’s USA.
Yet another devoted Obama supporter laments his fate under the wheel of Obamacare.
Some good news in that regard: The percentage of poll-answering Americans who think that the fedgov should be responsible for health care vs the percentage of those who say no way has flip-flopped nicely. Let’s hope permanently.
Finally, here’s a bit of strange cheer: The Heidelberg Project brings outsider art to some of Detroit’s worst places.
