I Hate Houseguests

…Judy Woodruff and this is the PBS Newshour.

Before we get to our top stories, including:

• One of the Kardashians was seen leaving a breast augmentation clinic in Tijuana, complaining that the “view was lousy and the food even worse.”
• North Korea has launched a nuclear missile at Japan.
• And Half Dome (we have pictures), the granite monolith in Yosemite National Park, has collapsed due to so many climbers poking holes into it with sharp objects.

(Left) Yosemite’s Half Dome before climbers, and (right) thanks to climbers.

But before those and other stories, here at the PBS Newshour our motto is, “First things first.”  So we’re going to your local public broadcasting station with this very important – and personal – message.

Because it’s time for your local station to piss you off with…

Hello, everyone!

I’m Maya Repulsive, your host for this KPBS Spring Pledge Drive, here to ask you for money, money and more money.

During this and every pledge drive we put our heads together and decide which of your favorite KPBS programs we’ll interrupt to ask you for money, money and more money.

We also make crucial decisions about which of your favorite programs to not interrupt, but instead cut those programs short by 10 minutes to ask you for – yup, you guessed it:  money, money and more money!

Don’t you just hate this?

I can’t tell you how many people stop me on the street every day – and I do mean every day – to tell me, “Maya, I hate pledge drives!”

But never mind that.  Because they also tell me every day – and I do mean every day – “Maya, I love your hair!” and, “Maya, your makeup is just so, like, totally perfect!”

So as a public service to you, our donors, during this pledge drive break I’m going to be sharing some different looks I’ve been trying out – just to keep things lively!

And while I’m doing that, I want you to pick up that phone, call the number on your screen – strategically placed so as not to cover my face – and pick a nice, round number to donate to KPBS.  Say…$100,000?

“OMG, Maya” you might be saying.  “That’s a lot of money!  What do I get for that?”

And I’m here to tell you exactly what you’ll get.  With your continued support, you’ll have the ongoing pleasure – and I do mean pleasure – of seeing me, Maya Repulsive, on The Maya Repulsive Show, right here on KPBS, weekday mornings from 2 to 3am.

But wait – there’s more:  Gifts!  When you give us money, we give you gifts!

And for that $100,000 you’ll receive this genuine – and genuinely cool – KPBS license plate frame!

Uh…guys?  Can we get a bigger picture of that?

There we go!

And there you go!  For just $100,000!

And think how proud you’ll be, displaying your support of KPBS with this license plate frame on your soccer mom SUV, or that car you stole or…or whatever!

So grab that phone and call the number on your screen right now.  And be sure to check out my next new look while you’re doing that.

Right now you’re probably thinking, “Maya, maybe I can do more than $100,000.”  And you’re a “can-do” person and I know you can do more.  And so can we.

When you cough up – I mean donate – $500,000, to show our appreciation, you’ll receive both the KPBS license plate frame and…

This gorgeous KPBS travel mug!  With our very own new and improved KPBS logo!

Are you getting the synergy here?  You’re driving around in your soccer mom SUV or maybe you’re in a car chase with the San Diego police in that car you stole – or whatever – proudly displaying your KPBS license plate frame and sipping your fav beverage from your KPBS travel mug!

Not just anyone can have that experience!  But you can!  How?  Just pick up that phone, call the number on your screen – being sure to check out my next look – and make that donation now of just $500,000.

That’s right!  Just $500,000 and you’ll be stylin’ all around town…well, unless you’re in jail because the police caught you in that car chase.

And finally – yes, generous viewers, all good things, even pledge drives, must come to an end – when you really open your heart and your wallet and donate $1 million dollars, you’ll receive…

And I hope you’re sitting down because this is so amazing…

You’ll receive KPBS’ ultimate gift:

The Maya Repulsive Tote Bag!

This beautiful tote bag is imported, probably from our trading best friends, those darn Chinese.  It’s made of water-resistant fabric with full grain leather trim, and can tote just about anything.

But the best part – obviously – is this exclusive collection, and I do mean not seen anywhere else, of five, yes five, Maya Repulsive “looks,” some of which I’m previewing for you tonight.

Wouldn’t you give just anything to be the proud owner of this amazing Maya Repulsive Tote Bag?  Well, you’ve come to the right place for that giving!

So sell your car, your clothes – hell, sell your house!  And make that $1 million pledge to KPBS right now.  And before you know it, all your friends will be green with envy when they see you totin’ the Maya Repulsive Tote Bag.

Our volunteers are standing by to take your call – and your money, money, money – so call the number on your screen and donate now.

And now we return to your regular programming…um…what were we airing?  The PBS Newshour?

We now return to the PBS Newshour…or what’s left of it:

Publication date:  December 2018

Review, short version:  Three roses out of four.

Review, long version:

When a book has the words “beauty pageant” in the description, I’m as likely to read it as I am to watch a beauty pageant:

But…something about The Accidental Beauty Queen caught my interest.

It wasn’t the author’s name – I’d never heard of Teri Wilson, though, according to her website, she’s published a number of “fun, flirty rom-com novels,” and some of those have been made into Hallmark Channel Original Movies.

It’s probably just as well I didn’t learn that until after I’d read the book.

Because I enjoyed The Accidental Beauty Queen.  The book actually had more depth than I’d expect from a “fun, flirty rom-com novel”; it had sibling rivalry, mistaken identities, and a first-person narrator – Charlotte – who’s quite good at making wry observations about herself, life in general, and, of course…

Beauty pageants.

My curiosity was piqued because the central characters – Charlotte and Ginny, age 29 – are identical twins.  I have twins in my family, and that experience showed me that twins have a unique dynamic, to say the least.

Charlotte and Ginny’s dynamic:  Charlotte is a school librarian.  Ginny’s life centers around entering beauty pageants.  Says Charlotte, “I’m used to being the less attractive sister, the invisible one.”

Many years before, the twins’ mother was also a beauty pageant contestant, and won the prestigious title of Miss American Treasure.  When the book opens, Ginny is a contestant in the very same pageant, and determined to win it.

Then Ginny experiences a serious food allergy, leaving her looking, as Charlotte describes it, as “a stranger with a blotchy, swollen face, narrow slits for eyes, and lips at least four times the size of Angelina Jolie’s.  Not in a good way.”

Ginny’s solution?  Charlotte – after an exhaustive makeover – will take Ginny’s place in the pageant until Ginny can resume the role.  Charlotte refuses.  Ginny insists.  Eventually, Charlotte gives in.  Along the way, she discovers the pageant experience – and her fellow contestants – are not what she expected.

She also discovers a lot about herself.

There are many literary references in the book; Charlotte considers Ginny the “Jane” to her “Elizabeth Bennet” (Pride & Prejudice).  Charlotte meets a man she likens to “Rhett Butler in Armani” (Gone With The Wind).  His name is Grey Beckham, “an undeniably sexy name.  Very 007” (the James Bond books).

There are also references to the Harry Potter books which I didn’t get because I haven’t read them.  But when Rhett/007/Grey nicknames Charlotte “Hermione,” I knew this could be The Start Of Something Big.

OK, so The Accidental Beauty Queen is no Gone With The Wind – or Pride & Prejudice.

But it is an easy, fun read that held my interest, provided some surprises and even some chuckles.

And sometimes, that’s exactly what you want.

Almost nobody was paying attention when the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced a new policy.

Why?

The announcement was made:

1. Late on a Friday afternoon, when we’re winding down, not up.
2. On December 28, in between the holidays, when lots of people are tuned out.
3. Six days into the government shutdown, when no one was talking about anything else.

One critic called this “the trifecta of bureaucratic underhandedness.”

And it wasn’t even an announcement – there was no public press release or other notification.  The policy was simply posted in the Federal Register, which most of us haven’t even heard of, let alone read:

It was very easy for the DOI to “Quietly Propose New Rules To Deny Public Access to Documents,” as one of the few headlines put it.

“Quietly?”

I’d add “stealthily.”  And “furtively.”  And “Let’s-do-this-when-nobody’s-looking-and-see-if-we-can-get-away-with-it.”

The policy applies only to the DOI and its 12 related agencies:

• Fish and Wildlife Service
• Bureau of Indian Affairs
• Bureau of Land Management
• Bureau of Reclamation
• Federal Consulting Group
• U.S. Geological Survey
• Indian Arts and Crafts Board
• National Park Service
• Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement
• Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
• Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement
• Office of Natural Resources Revenue

Said another critic, the proposed changes “would limit the public’s ability to access department records, and would make it easier for the Department to deny requests and keep documents secret.  Specifically, they would limit the number of FOIA requests the Department of the Interior processes each month.  They would also allow the Department to reject any requests deemed ‘unreasonably burdensome’ or which require ‘inspection of a vast quantity of material.’”

In other words, these vague restrictions will make it easy for the Department of the Interior to deny FOIA requests for public records.

And “FOIA” – what is that?

The acronym for the Freedom of Information Act.

What’s that?

According to FOIA.gov, since 1967 the Freedom of Information Act “has provided the public the right to request access to records from any federal agency.  It is often described as the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government.  Federal agencies are required to disclose any information requested under the FOIA unless it falls under one of nine exemptions which protect interests such as personal privacy, national security, and law enforcement.”

But if the DOI’s proposed changes become policy, that would all change, and access to public records by media outlets, organizations, and we citizens goes down the tubes.

And then it’s only a matter of time – probably a very short time – before the 14 other government departments line up like good soldiers to secure the same restrictions:

• Department of Agriculture
• Department of Commerce
• Department of Defense
• Department of Education
• Department of Energy
• Department of Health and Human Services
• Department of Homeland Security
• Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Department of Justice
• Department of Labor
• Department of State
• Department of the Treasury
• Department of Transportation
• Department of Veterans Affairs

That’s a whole lot of departments and agencies denying a whole lot of Freedom of Information Act requests.

And as those forces unite, there goes our ability – our freedom – to find out just what’s going on beyond closed government doors.

Fortunately, it turns out that some people were paying attention to the Department of the Interior’s “trifecta.”

On January 29 CNN reported that the proposal had drawn more than 46,000 comments, and I suspect this one is typical:

In addition, CNN said that on January 24, The Southern Environmental Law Center filed a 63-page objection signed by more than 130 groups that called the proposal illegal and claimed that it would provide “the agency with unlimited discretion to deny FOIA requests.”

And another group, OpenTheGovernment.org, said it and other good-government and environmental groups would challenge the department with a lawsuit if changes to the DOI’s proposal are not made:

I’m grateful for these organizations and especially the threat of a lawsuit, because based on my interpretation of the Federal Register Rulemaking Process, the Department of the Interior is basically free to ignore the public comments:

This is government-ese for:

So where do we go from here?

Going back to the Federal Register Rulemaking Process, there’s a lot more bureaucratic ya-da, ya-da, ya-da like in the green box above, but basically:

• The DOI “may decide to terminate the rulemaking.”
• The DOI may decide to continue “but change aspects of the rule.”
• The President and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) analyze the final rules.
• The final rules must be sent to Congress and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) “for review before they can take effect.”
• The House and the Senate can pass a resolution of disapproval and if the president signs it, the rule becomes void.  Note:  This has happened once since 1996, when the process started.
• Individuals and corporate entities “may go into the courts to make a claim that they have been, or will be, damaged or adversely affected” by a regulation.
• If the court sets aside all or parts of a rule, it “usually sends the rule back to the agency to correct the deficiencies.”

The last step can send the whole process back to square one.

Or the DOI’s new policy may fly right through the process – and become law.

Should anyone care about the Freedom of Information Act and the Department of the Interior’s policy changes?

Only if you care about 500 million acres of public land throughout the country including national parks and monuments, wildlife refuges, and water reclamation projects.  Only if you care about how public lands are managed, and about activities ranging from oil drilling, mining, and livestock grazing to the protection of wildlife.

Only if you care that if this policy comes about as proposed, those 14 other government departments will race to propose the same restrictive policies.

Only if you care about being “in the know” about your government.

Maybe you don’t care about any of that.

Maybe you should ask her where she bought her jacket:

Question:  What’s more fun than making fun of someone?

Answer:  Organizations that hand out awards making fun of someone.

And there are lots of these organizations, close to 50 by my count.  Here are just a few:

The Doublespeak Award, from NCTE, the National Council of Teachers of English.  An “ironic tribute to public speakers who have perpetuated language that is grossly deceptive, evasive, euphemistic, confusing, or self-centered,” recent winners include Rudy Giuliani (2018), Kellyanne Conway (2017), and Donald Trump (2016).

The Carbuncle Cup, an architecture prize given annually by the magazine Building Design to “the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the last 12 months.”  The name derives from a comment made by Charles, Prince of Wales, about a 1984 proposed extension of London’s National Gallery, which he called a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.”

The True Stella Awards, for frivolous lawsuits.  Sadly, now defunct, the last (2007) winner was Roy L. Pearson Jr, a 57-year-old administrative law judge from Washington DC who claimed that a dry cleaner lost a pair of his pants.  He sued the mom-and-pop business for almost $65 million, citing inconvenience, mental anguish, and attorney’s fees for representing himself.

How to choose just three from that long list for further exploration – it was a struggle.  Until I realized…

What better place to start than that capital of award giving:

Hollywood!

Because “Hollywood” means “movies,” and that means the Golden Raspberry Award, affectionately nicknamed “The Razzies.”

Even the name is irreverent, as in “blowing a raspberry,” defined as “a sound made with the tongue and lips in order to express derision or contempt.”

The annual Razzies have been around since 1981, and it’s not one, but multiple awards:  Worst Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and so on.  The event is held the night before the Academy Awards and, perhaps not surprisingly, most winners don’t attend the ceremony.

One who did was Sandra Bullock in 2010, who won for Worst Actress in All About Steve.

And when she arrived, she was towing a red wagon full of copies of the movie for the audience, which, for a dramatic actress, I think shows Bullock has a pretty good sense of humor.

More recently, Melissa McCarthy won not one, but two Worst Actress Razzies for her 2018 performances in The Happytime Murders and Life of the Party.

Though considered a comedian, McCarthy declined to show up to receive her double Razzie, which I think shows she has no sense of humor at all.

Sandra Bullock (left) at the Razzie awards, good sense of humor; Melissa McCarthy, a no-show at the Razzies, no sense of humor.

Then there’s the Ig Nobel Prize.  This is a parody on the Nobel Prize, a prestigious annual award given for outstanding work in physics, chemistry, medicine and other big-brain categories.

Likewise, the Ig Nobel Prize is also given annually in multiple big-brain categories including biology, chemistry, economics and others.

And “Ig Nobel” is also a play on the word “ignoble,” meaning “of low grade or quality;  inferior.”

The most recent winner in the Medical Education category was Akira Horiuchi for his Report, “Colonoscopy in the Sitting Position,” in which he describes the ease and comfort of performing a self-colonoscopy.

“Many people are afraid of getting a colonoscopy,” said Dr. Horiuchi, “but if people watch a video of my self-colonoscopy, they think colonoscopy is simple and easy.”

I did wonder if, like Sandra Bullock, Dr. Horiuchi arrived at the ceremony towing a wagon full of his videos?

And how many times did he have to practice this procedure before it was prize worthy?

But rather than dwell on that, let’s move on to our final selection:

The Bad Sex in Fiction Award, issued annually by Literary Review.  This is a legit British publication that’s been around since 1979, publishing reviews of books – all kinds of books.

So it stands to reason that the Literary Review team is going to see books with depictions of sex scenes, and it’s inevitable that some of those will be bad.

Wilbur Smith’s War Cry, a Bad Sex in Fiction 2017 nominee, contained this relatively tame but still awful simile: “He kissed her and she responded and the boundaries between them blurred, like two watercolours on a piece of paper, joining as one to create something entirely new.”

So bad that in 1993 the team felt compelled to start its annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award to honor “an author who has produced an outstandingly bad scene of sexual description in an otherwise good novel.  The purpose of the prize is to draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction.”

Whew!  I’m guessing the recipients of this award must have written some pretty funky stuff!

But why guess?  I hastened to the Literary Review’s website and…

I was so shocked I couldn’t stop reading – for hours!

Release date:  2018

Review, short version:  A thumbs-up for Dafoe’s acting; a thumbs-down for dialogue decisions.

Review, long version:

After I watched At Eternity’s Gate, the 2018 movie about artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), I wondered:

Whom did the producers and others envision as the audience for this movie?

• Fans of Willem Dafoe?
• Fans of Vincent van Gogh?
• Fans of both?

If someone saw this movie because they’re Dafoe fans, they got their money’s worth.  Dafoe does a remarkable job of both looking like van Gogh, and portraying the artist’s tortured, talented mind:

But if someone saw At Eternity’s Gate because they wanted to know more about van Gogh, they would have been better off watching a van Gogh documentary.  As it says on the DVD jacket, the movie includes “facts, hearsay and moments that are just plain invented.”

The problem is, you don’t know which is which.

I can confirm these two facts:  As portrayed in the movie, van Gogh did paint Madame Ginoux in 1888/1889 and Dr. Gachet in 1890:

Another problem, and I don’t know if this was an affectation or just asinine – was the movie makers’ decisions about dialogue:

• The movie opens with a monologue in English, no accent.
• Followed by a scene with male artists speaking in French with subtitles.
• Then there’s dialogue between van Gogh and man, both first in French, then switching to English, unaccented.
• Then comes dialogue between van Gogh and female, van Gogh speaking English, no accent, she in English with French accent.

  

So you’ve got people speaking English with no accent; speaking English with a French accent; and speaking French with subtitles.

Why not have everyone speak English, or English with a French accent, or French with subtitles?

Mixing up language styles was both confusing and distracting, and it continued throughout the movie – van Gogh and his brother, Theo, speak English with no accent, though they’re Dutch.  Van Gogh meets a woman on a country road and they both speak French, with subtitles.

And when two young men attack van Gogh, they speak English with French accents.

Confusing and distracting.

Which brings me back to what were the facts, hearsay and inventions in this movie?

Did van Gogh cut off his ear?  Yes, he did.  But how much of it and why have a plethora of answers, none definitive.

Did van Gogh commit suicide?  This is the widely held belief, though some believe otherwise, and the movie suggests murder rather than suicide.

In the movie van Gogh says, “I’m selling some paintings,” but another widely held belief is that he sold only one in his lifetime.

So here is one fact, for me, at least.  I worked at an art museum that owned four of van Gogh’s works, and I loved spending time with them.  I don’t consider them paintings – I consider them magic.

Especially his self-portraits, of which there are 39 surviving, according to Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum.  The website suggests the self-portraits “reflect van Gogh’s development, both as an individual and as an artist.”

I think they also reflect his tortured, talented mind:

One of van Gogh’s first self-portraits, spring 1886.	One of his last, September 1889.  Van Gogh died in July 1890.

If you look up “square” in the dictionary, there’s my picture.

I am so square.

But I figure I’m doing a public service.  If the world didn’t have squares like me, how would you hip people know you’re actually…hip?

My anthem is “It’s Hip To Be Square” by Huey Lewis and the News.

If you remember that song, then you’re old enough to read this.

Because what follows has so much profanity, this blog is rated “X.”

It appears profanity is necessary if I’m going to talk about Veep.

Square as I am, I’d heard of Veep:  The basic storyline, it’s been around for awhile, it’s on HBO.

But not much else until Time magazine’s March 11 issue, with Veep’s star, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, on the cover.

I read the article and it was interesting.  She was interesting.  It sounded like a fun show, and funny – and who doesn’t need funny?

So I thought I’d find out a bit more about Veep, and what I’ve been missing.

I headed for YouTube and searched for Veep.  First option:  A Collection of Veep Insults, Vol. 1.

Insults!  I love insults, provided they’re not directed at me.

And I immediately learned that the Veep characters – and the show’s writers – are masters at delivering insults.

They’re also masters at using profanities in just about every way imaginable.

The video was four minutes and 21 seconds long, and here’s what I heard in various clips in just the first 60 seconds:

• “Jesus Fucking Christ!”
• Four “fucking” in one sentence. (Used as an adjective.)
• “Pack an espresso machine in your big fucking bitch bag.”
• “Get this freak the fuck away from me.”
• “Dan is a shit.”
• “Your dick is hanging out of your pants.” (This from the star, Julia Louis-Dreyfus.)
• “Dick wad (inaudible).”

Clearly, no BLEEP! in Veep.

Or maybe the clips were “taken out of context.”  Isn’t that the excuse politicians use?  How many times have you heard a politician say,

“That statement was taken out of context to intentionally misrepresent my meaning and intent.”

When what the politician means is:

“Uh-oh!  I didn’t know my microphone was on!”

So maybe Veep wasn’t my kind of show – square, remember?

But I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.  My online reading revealed Veep’s impressive list of honors:  Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series, Writers Guild of America and Television Critics Association Awards.

And Louis-Dreyfus has gotten Primetime Emmy Awards, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, Golden Globe nominations – the lists of Veep’s awards and nominations were a testament to the actors, writers, and entire team.

“There must be something there,” I thought.  “Something really special that I’m just not getting.”

So I moved on to a second video, Funny Moments, Veep, Season 6.

And in the first clip – the first eight seconds – our Emmy-and-SAG-and-whatever-else star Louis-Dreyfus says,

“That just tickles my twat!”

And that just turned me off.

I don’t object to profanity – it can be funny.  If used sparingly, profanity can startle, even shock, and make a point while it makes you laugh.

But an excessive use of profanity shows a lack of imagination.  It gets boring after awhile.  Then it doesn’t startle, or shock, or make a point or make you laugh.

It simply becomes repetitious.

Regarding one of those profanities, in a 2016 Hollywood Reporter article, Veep showrunner David Mandel claimed that:

“Every f-word is written with purpose.   We kind of get to a point where we say, ‘OK, that’s a great joke, that stays.’

“But then we’ll notice, ‘When he bumped into that thing, he said f—, can we get that f— out?’  Because that was simply a f— and not a f— that’s doing much.

“If you can clear out three or four of the f—s, it allows the f—s that are more intricately worded, the good f—s, to really shine.”

Really?

Somehow, “intricately worded” is not an idea I’m associating with the word “fuck.”

Veep has just begun its seventh and final season, so I guess the team will be packing up their profanities – “intricately worded” and otherwise – and moving on to another show.  If they stay true to form, that next show will probably be an award winner, too.

As for me?  I’ll continue not watching Veep.

And I’ll continue saying…

There’s an old adage, “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.”

I’m updating that to, “If you have to ask if you’re a bully boss – you are.”

What brought this to mind was this letter sent to a work advice columnist:

I don’t think I’m a work bully.  But my team is treating me like I am.  They don’t tell me what they really think when we discuss strategies at work and seem to avoid me a bit.  Overall, I’d say I don’t have many satisfying personal relationships at the office.  What should I do?

The columnist had some – I guess – OK advice:

It doesn’t matter that you just have a bad temper, or you had a hard childhood, or that your past bosses were difficult, so you don’t know better.  You are responsible…Don’t change because of the results you want to achieve.  Change because you want to be a better person.

My advice:

First, stop thinking of your colleagues as “my team.”  You, for whatever misguided reason, are their team leader, paid more than they are, have little or no understanding of what each person does, and couldn’t do their jobs if your life depended on it.

Second, you don’t want your employees to tell you “what they really think,” because you’d run screaming from the room if they did.

Third, what do you mean by “personal relationships”?  Work is for work relationships.  If you’re looking for personal relationships, try an online site.  Losers.com sounds like a good place to start.

It’s gotten so bad that there’s actually an organization, the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI), “dedicated to the eradication of workplace bullying.”  WBI founders state that “60.4 million Americans are affected” by workplace bullying…

And nobody bullies better than a Bully Boss.

So are you?  Let’s make it easy for you to find out.

Here’s a handy checklist of typical Bully Boss behavior.  See how many of these you can check off:

Wow, look at all those checkmarks – you definitely are a…

Ah, California.

Land of sunny skies, surf and sand, and…

Sexual misconduct in its legislature:

The skies, surf and sand are glorious – so much so that California is the most popular state for vacations.

The California Legislators, however…not so popular.

Especially since the above story broke earlier this month.

Just think…more than $1.8 million of our tax dollars were spent in 13 months investigating sexual misconduct in our legislature.  That’s almost $141,000 per month.

And $141,000 is more than twice the annual median household income in California.

Spent every month from January 2018 to January 2019.

I’m betting more than a few Californians are not happy about this.

I’m betting more than a few could come up with better ways to spend $1.8 million+.

A number of current or former lawmakers faced allegations of misconduct during those 13 months and here are nine of them.  Keep in mind that these were not the only persons investigated for sexual misconduct; they are just the legislators on a list thoughtfully provided by The Sacramento Bee:

Former Assemblyman Matt Dababneh	Investigators substantiated allegations he followed a lobbyist into a bathroom and began masturbating in front of her at an event in Las Vegas in 2016.  The Democrat resigned but denies the allegations and sued the lobbyist for defamation.
Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia	She was cleared of allegations she groped a former legislative staff member in 2014 but investigators found she used vulgar language in violation of the chamber’s sexual harassment policies.  The Democrat won re-election in 2018.
Assemblyman Devon Mathis	He was reprimanded for making sexual comments about other lawmakers, described by investigators as “locker room talk.”  The Republican won re-election in 2018.
Former Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra	Investigators say he harassed several women while serving as an Assembly staff member about a decade ago.  In one case, he put a subordinate’s bracelet down his pants and asked her to retrieve it.  The Democrat resigned in late 2017 but maintained his innocence.
Former Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas	Investigators found he likely forcibly kissed a woman.  The Democrat denies the allegations but resigned in late 2017, citing health reasons.
Former Senator Tony Mendoza	Investigators say he likely engaged in unwanted “flirtatious or sexually suggestive” behavior with six women, including four subordinates, a lobbyist and a young woman in a fellowship program.  The behavior included offering a 19-year-old intern alcohol in a hotel suite at a Democratic Party event.  The Democrat resigned in February 2018 but denied wrongdoing.
Senator Bob Hertzberg	Investigators found he gave people hugs that made them uncomfortable but concluded it wasn’t meant to be sexual.  The Democrat stayed in office.
Senator John Moorlach	Investigators say he gave a woman a “noogie,” but did not intend it to be sexual.  The Republican still is in office.
Former Senator Joel Anderson	Investigators say he threatened to slap a lobbyist at a bar near the Capitol, which he denied, and rubbed her shoulders.  Anderson, a Republican, was termed out of office in 2018 and lost a bid for a seat on a state tax board.

We have to spend taxpayer money on state senators and assembly persons and staff persons who think…what?

I can’t tell you what they were thinking, but I can tell you what they (or their mouthpiece) were saying:

Oh, I get it.  They’re the victims.

And…it gets worse.

In February 2018 the Los Angeles Times provided this helpful graphic summarizing allegations of sexual harassment by California legislators and staff by from 2006 to 2017:

The LA Times called it “the most detailed information, to date, of workplace sexual misconduct investigations at the Capitol in Sacramento and legislative district office across the state.”

But make no mistake.  See that spike in 2017?  While there may have been an increase in misconduct, that spike was also due to the increase in reported misconduct.

Remember 2017?  The year of the #MeToo movement?

And oh, how people talked.  Here are some (but far from all) of the allegations:

• Sharing pornographic photos.
• Sticking his hands in a women’s blouse at a nightclub.
• Grabbing a woman’s buttocks and genitals.
• Bawdy office banter, unwanted propositions, uninvited touching.
• Sexually explicit talk in the workplace, including inappropriate conversation regarding anal sex with Capitol office staff.
• Inappropriate bodily contact.

Faced with a tsunami of misconduct allegations – and the #MeToo movement – our politicians did what politicians do:

Spend more money.

Form a committee.

That committee eventually led to the formation of another committee, though in this case it’s called a “unit.”

Specifically, the “Workplace Conduct Unit,” or WCU:

On January 18, 2019 Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins proudly announced the California Legislature’s “landmark independent Workplace Conduct Unit, along with a panel of legal experts to review cases,” beginning effective operation on February 1, 2019.

Atkins’ announcement clarifies that:

The Workplace Conduct Unit will:

• Receive all reports alleging workplace conduct violations that affect protected groups in the Senate and the Assembly.
• Assure independent and confidential investigation of allegations.
• Summarize the evidence for the panel to review.

And then the Workplace Conduct Panel will:

• Review investigations referred by the WCU, working in subgroups of three panelists.
• Make recommendations to the relevant house, Assembly or Senate, consistent with the facts found by the panel.

What Atkins’ announcement didn’t talk about was the cost of these units and panels and subgroups and stuff.

But the Associated Press did.

Remember that original $1,831,000 spent on sexual misconduct investigations from January 2018 to January 2019?

Our politicians also spent $1.5 million to get the Workplace Conduct Unit office up and running.

And the Workplace Conduct Unit has a proposed annual budget of $1.7 million.

And some investigations could still be sent to outside lawyers.

And we taxpayers aren’t off the hook yet.

Because every time there’s a substantiated allegation of sexual misconduct and a settlement is paid…

We pay for that, too.

And nobody knows – and the Legislature mostly isn’t telling – what’s been paid out over who-knows-how-many years in settlements.

The Associated Press article did cite one instance of the Senate paying “a $350,000 settlement to an employee who said the chamber failed to accommodate her needs after she alleged an Assembly employee raped her.”

And an April 2018 article in the Sacramento Bee listed a $20,000 settlement in 1996; a $117,200 settlement in 1998; and a $117,000 settlement in 2001.

Rest assured, this is just a smattering.

It is possible that someday we taxpayers will be off the hook from paying for sexual misconduct settlements – in February, Assemblyman Steven Choi introduced a bill that would ban the use of taxpayer money on settlements:

AB-1094 “would, in an action alleging conduct by a Member of the Legislature that constitutes sexual harassment, as defined, prohibit either house of the Legislature from paying any compromise or settlement of the action.”

But there’s some irony in that, as we speak, we are paying California legislators to pass a bill that says we can stop paying for their sexual misconduct settlements.

And we’re still on the hook for at least $1.7 million a year for the Workplace Conduct Unit.

Perhaps legislative staff member Elyse Gore put it best when she said, “We have work to do…The best outcome is we create a culture in which this doesn’t happen in the first place.”

“Doesn’t happen in the first place.”

What a concept.

But in the meantime, for us taxpayers…

Publication date:  January 2019

Review, short version:  One rose out of four.

Review, long version:

Based on my extensive though not-always-discerning reading, it seems that when authors write a novel about an actual person, they do one of two things:

• Stick to the facts as much as possible, and use their imaginations for the rest.
• Use their imaginations extensively, and include facts on occasion.

As I read That Churchill Woman by Stephanie Barron I kept wondering, “Did this happen or did the author make it up?”  I’ve decided the book is a mash-up of both.

The woman in That Churchill Woman is Jennie Jerome (1854-1921) daughter of wealthy American Leonard Jerome.  In 1874 she married Lord Randolph Spencer-Churchill, an English aristocrat and second surviving son of the Duke of Marlborough.

In doing this, Jennie initiated the trend of young American women from wealthy families marrying titled but somewhat impoverished – or very impoverished – European men.  The daughter attains the status of a title, the nobleman gets a large financial settlement, and everybody’s happy.

Almost never.

Jennie’s marriage entitled her to be called “Lady Randolph Churchill,” and her behavior during that marriage earned her the unflattering sobriquet, “That Churchill woman.”  Apparently Jennie had many lovers – possibly 200, according to one biographer.  Among the aristocratic class, extramarital affairs were frowned upon by some, but indulged in by many.

Or as Mrs. Patrick Campbell said at the time, “One is free to do as one pleases, as long as they don’t do it on the street and frighten the horses.”

One of Jennie’s lovers was Count Charles Kinsky, and this brings me my first example of my “How much is fact vs. fiction?” question.

Randolph had contracted syphilis prior to marrying Jennie, something Jennie learned only afterwards, but long before Kinsky became her lover.  On page 262 Kinsky bluntly asks, “Did he give you syphilis, Jennie?”  She assures Kinsky that Randolph “never touched me after that first time,” meaning the first time they had sex, during which she supposedly became pregnant with her first child, son Winston.

Yes, that Winston Churchill.

If it’s true that Lord Randolph and Jennie had sex just that one time, how do we account for her second son, John?  My research indicates that while there were some who believed John was fathered by one of Jennie’s lovers, Randolph’s life appears to show that he had no doubt about either sons’ paternity; on the contrary he went to a great deal of trouble to secure a good future for them.

Then there’s also John and Winston’s striking likeness to their father and each other:

The Churchills, left to right:  John, Jennie, Winston, Randolph.  Sadly, it appears that the Churchills never posed for a family portrait.

So which is it, Ms. Barron?  Jennie never had sex with Lord Randolph “after that first time,” or Lord Randolph was in truth, her second son’s father?

Here’s another fact-or-fiction question.  Barron portrays and Jennie and Kinsky as passionately in love over a long period of time, with Kinsky repeatedly begging her to leave Churchill and marry him.  After Jennie’s repeated refusals, Kinsky married a German countess.

Let’s do the numbers:

• Randolph Churchill died in 1895.
• Jennie remarried 1900, and divorced 1914.
• Kinsky’s wife died in 1909.

So after the death of Kinsky’s wife in 1909, and Jennie’s divorce in 1914, she and Kinsky were free to marry.  If they were so madly in love – why didn’t they?

Fact or fiction?

Jennie married someone else in 1918, and Kinsky died in 1919.

Barron’s portrayal of Jennie is not flattering.  In her Acknowledgements Barron allows that most historians consider Jennie a “bad mother and wanton lightweight,” and much of this book reinforced that.

Like the scene that starts on page 115 and really summed up Jennie for me.  It was 1886 and 12-year-old Winston, who’s away at school, was deathly ill with pneumonia.  Jennie briefly visits him, then hurries back to London because she and Randolph are planning an elegant dinner for 24.  “There was no question of remaining there with Winston – a thousand details required her attention in London.”  Jennie tells Randolph, “Sick child or no, the dinner must go forward.”

No Mother Of The Year, here.

Jennie, as portrayed by Stephanie Barron, was lovely and possibly loyal; selfish and shallow; artistic, impulsive, and in Barron’s words, “a profoundly modern woman who lived and died by her own choices, without regrets – a century before that was either forgivable or commonplace.”

“Without regrets.”  Fact – or fiction?

But…

It is worth remembering that that woman was the mother of that Winston Churchill.

So somewhere along the way, she must have done something right.

Restaurant:  Jeune et Jolie

Opened:  December 2018

Where:  Carlsbad, CA

When and What:  Saturday Brunch

Review, short version:  DON’T, unless you like ear-splitting noise and over-priced faux French food.

Review, long version:

My qualifications to be a restaurant reviewer are the same as my qualifications to be an astronaut:

Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.

But…haven’t you ever eaten at a restaurant that annoyed you so much that you just had to tell somebody about it?

Well, I’m annoyed, and you are the somebody I’m telling.

I’ll start by mentioning an online blurb about Jeune et Jolie that uses the word “unpretentious.”

And a fawning review in the San Diego Union-Tribune that also used the word “unpretentious.”

Because “pretentious” (or prétentieux, as the French would say) is exactly what I thought after I was seated and looked at the brunch menu:

Oeuf?  Pommes Puree?  Lardon?

Oh, c’mon!  This is Carlsbad, not the Côte d’Azur.

And Beignets.  I know what those are – I’ve had them in New Orleans, where they were invented.

They look like this:	Not this:

And how about “limited”?  Though to call the brunch menu “limited” would be like calling the Grand Canyon a “sinkhole.”

I know the theory of “less is more,” and I wasn’t expecting Richard Walker’s Pancake House “with more than 100 items made from scratch daily!”

But the entire brunch offering fit on one side of a maybe 7” x 7” card, with plenty of white space between the items:

The only one that appealed to my dining companion was the aforementioned beignets, “jam, cream.”

I guess that comma is more français than “and.”

And the beignets were $8, not $6.

I opted for the Salad Lyonaisse, “frisée, poached egg, lardon, green goddess.”

Now, I know adding an egg to an entrée – from burgers to pizza to soup – is très de rigueur, but I passed on seeing a drippy, gooey yolk on my frisée.

And the frisée was fine.  There wasn’t much bacon – excusez-moi, lardon – and the green goddess was more oily than goddessy.

And though the Union-Tribune reviewer sounded enamored of the restaurant’s “adding a touch of whimsy to the plating,” I reach the bottom of the salad bowl without a touch of whimsy in sight.

One of the attractions at Jeune et Julie – again, according to the reviewer – is the “full open kitchen smack in the heart of the room.”  And I get that attraction – watching a well-run, professional restaurant kitchen is like watching a thoroughly rehearsed play, or Fred and Ginger dancing.

And Jeune et Jolie’s kitchen may have been exactly that – but I couldn’t see it.  We were seated at one of these tables:

And since I was in the chair, my back was to the kitchen.  So, though I was five feet away and could hear the kitchen, I couldn’t see it unless I turned my back on my companion.

Likewise for most of the 90-seat restaurant; more booths along that same wall, most of kitchen view blocked by the bar.  The bar seating – yes, on high bar stools, but only some with a kitchen view.  Patio seating, no kitchen view at all, though an up-close view of the street.

So if diners can’t see the kitchen – what was the point?

Speaking of my dining companion, I could speak of him…

But not to him.

It was so noisy that conversation was next to impossible.  The restaurant wasn’t full, but between the taped music, the people, and the crying, whining children (more about them in a minute), this is not the place for any meaningful dialogue except,

“Wha (inaudible) -ay?”
“I (inaudible) -oo.”

The children.  Perhaps it’s the restaurant’s name, based on the two owners’ young daughters, that prompts parents to think, “This must be a great place for kids – like Chuck E. Cheese!”

Throughout our meal there were at least a half-dozen small children, newborn to three-year-olds, making their presence known.

Now, the median annual income in Carlsbad is around $100,000, so I’m pretty sure these parents could afford a babysitter.  Instead, they chose to schlepp their young children and all their accoutrements, including strollers – one of which nearly blocked the front door – to this already small, noisy restaurant.

They certainly added to the ambiance – in the worst possible way.  If the place had been packed – merde!

Back to our table.  My companion and I like to share a bottle of wine with a meal, usually a mid-priced chardonnay.  We don’t feel that an expensive wine equals a great wine.

Well, the low-end was a $50 Scribe chardonnay, which I call pricey, and it wasn’t nearly as good as $25-$35 chardonnays we’ve had elsewhere.  The reviewer said, “There’s a 70-bottle program of mostly French wines,” which makes sense, since everybody knows there are no local wines to be had in California.

And speaking of pricey, the reviewer (who was there for dinner, not brunch) mentioned a dinner item:

“The restaurant’s bread pricing, which at $9 for a small baguette and single brioche roll may be the most expensive bread service in San Diego.  A month after opening, the price was pared down a dollar from $10, but it still needs rethinking.”

You think?

The reviewer summed up her experience by comparing the restaurant to her many dining experiences in France:  “Jeune et Jolie captures both the nation’s classic flavors as well as the its joie de vivre.”

I would have enjoyed a bit more joie de vivre and a lot less of the…

The Scenario:

It’s dinnertime and you’re sitting at the table.

You may be by yourself, or with some combination of Significant Other, children, family members and/or friends.

You’ve lit candles on the table; otherwise your home is in complete darkness…

And it’s hot as hell in the house…

And nobody’s cooking…

And nobody’s eating…

Because…

We’re in San Diego and it’s between 4pm and 9pm.

And sometime in March, San Diego, “America’s Finest City,” may become “America’s Darkest City.”

Because 4-9pm will be “on-peak” electricity time, which means using electricity during this time costs the on-peak – highest – rate.

You’ll wait until after 9pm and then turn on the A/C and lights, make dinner, and eat sometime around 10pm.  Your dinner guests, if any, have given up and will stop at McDonald’s on their way home. The kids, if any, will do their homework till midnight.

This evening of heat, hunger, darkness and disappointment was brought to you by…

San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E).

In an attempt to be fair – which, when it comes to SDG&E, I rarely attempt – I can’t blame this entirely on SDG&E.

SDG&E is one of the three investor-owned utilities (IOU) in California – the other two are Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and Southern California Edison (SCE).  These three have about 20 million customers.

All three IOU have been directed by California Legislature and California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to move customers from a tiered billing system to a time-of-use (TOU) format.

Hence, time of use = peak time = 4-9pm = most expensive electricity.

And it isn’t just California; utilities – investor-owned and otherwise – all over the country are considering, or already transitioning to, TOU formats.

What is time-of-use, TOU?

The simplest definition I can find is, “When you most need to use electricity, you’re screwed.”  Sure, it’s cheaper to do my laundry at 10am, but I’m at work at 10am.  It’s cheaper to leave off the lights, but I tend to fall over furniture when I do that.

So, no – a TOU format wasn’t another one of SDG&E’s bad ideas, like the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) which they had to shut down in 2013.  SONGS is now home to 3.5 million gallons of nuclear waste, just waiting for an earthquake to shake, rattle and roll out that waste all over San Diego and Los Angeles and into the Pacific Ocean.

Not that we have earthquakes in California.

And time-of-use pricing actually has some proponents; the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), for one, said TOU pricing,

“…If done right, is a low-cost strategy to help meet California’s climate and clean energy goals.  This innovative tool can help the state rely more on clean energy and less on fossil fuels, at the same time delaying the need for new infrastructure and reducing costs and harmful emissions.”

But therein lies the rub:  that “if done right” phrase.

Because I’d define “done right” as “a simple, straightforward, and clear.”  And SDG&E’s plan – the roll-out begins in March and continues into 2020 – is anything but.

What is clear that if you come home from work and do the normal things – fix dinner, throw in a load of laundry, put on some lights, watch TV – you’ll pay the highest charge for electricity.

Or, you can sit in a hot, dark house and wait for the time to pass.

Your choice.

Hence, The Scenario, above.

Based on many hours on SDG&E’s website, the following is my take on the new time-of-use plan, with this heads-up:  To make sense this you’ll either have to:

1. Ask Albert Einstein, or
2. Be Albert Einstein.

First, SDG&E doesn’t have a time-of-use plan – it has five of them:

1. Standard (DR)
2. Time of Use (TOU-DR2)
3. Time of Use (TOU-DR1)
4. Time of Use Plus (TOU-DR-P)
5. Time of Use (TOU DR)

I requested my options and got the five plans and the cost differences:

Let’s take a closer look at my per-year savings:

TOU-DR1:     $13 per year.
TOU-DR2:     $11 per year.
TOU-DR:        $6 per year.

Impressive (not).

Now I wanted to look at the particulars of each plan and – oh, joy! – SDG&E narrowed it down to four:

From now on I’ll mostly be talking about these plans that apply to me.

I see that my TOU-DR1 and TOU-DR have three time period plans; my TOU-DR2 has two time periods:

I also stumbled across a graph for TOU Plus:

Now, “TOU Plus” doesn’t match any of the acronyms in the numbered items above, so more confusion.  But unlike Standard (DR), TOU-DR1, TOU-DR2 and TOU-DR, TOU Plus does include Reduce Your Use, which you can read about here:

Ready for more?

The Standard (DR) plan has something called “higher usage charge”:

TOU-DR1, TOU-DR2 and TOU-DR are not subject to the higher usage charge.

Then there’s something called your “baseline allowance,” which does apply to DR, TOU-DR1, TOU-DR2 and TOU-DR:

Here’s the formula, which depends on where you live and either summer or winter:

And here’s a handy graph showing “How Time of Use and Baseline Work Together”:

And if you can figure all that out, you either asked Einstein or are Einstein.

Going back to those time periods in TOU-DR1, TOU-DR2 and TOU-DR, they have names:

1. On-Peak
2. Off-Peak
3. Super Off-Peak

SDG&E’s website adds, “Energy costs are lower during the off-peak and super off-peak (TOU-DR1 only) time periods and highest only during the on-peak period.”

But, wait – in my “Compare Plans” image, it says TOU-DR also has “Three time period plan:  on-peak, off-peak, and super-off peak”:

I’m so confused.

But help is on the way!  Because SDG&E cares about us (not), they’ve started airing a commercial starring “Whendell,” a talking watch:

Whendell whispers, “Soon I’ll be sharing SDG&E’s new energy pricing plans with you.  They’re all about when you use energy.  And who better to talk about when than me?”

Whendell.  Clever (not).

Well, let’s try applying what we’ve learned so far to a real-life situation.

This handy graph, provided by our newspaper, shows a TOU plan with three time periods:  on-peak, off-peak and super off-peak.  Is it TOU-DR1 or TOU-DR?

Let’s go with TOU-DR1:

Now let’s say I’m going to make some toast.  Using this graph and the other information I’ve fumbled through, we can figure out the cost per kilowatt hour (kh) for using the toaster.

Note:  SDG&E has established that summer is June 1-October 31; winter is November 1-May 31.

Reminder:  We’re talking about TOU-DR1; TOU-DR2 does not have super off-peak rates.

And – oh, joy, again! – according to the newspaper’s graphic, TOU-DR1 has an extra super off-peak rate time:  Monday-Friday in March and April, during which 10am-2pm is also super off-peak.

Ready?  It’s toast time!

If I’m on plan TOU-DR1 and I make my toast on a weekend in winter at 3am which is super off-peak time, it’s 22ȼ per kh.

If I fire up my toaster on a Tuesday in summer at noon which is off-peak time, it’s 21ȼ per kh.

And if I give in to my craving for toast in summer on a holiday at 5pm which is on-peak time, it’s 44ȼ per kh.

See?  Easy peasy!

But…and of course, there’s a “but.”

Remember when we talked about “baseline allowance”?  All this changes if I exceed my baseline allowance.  When I do that, then with our TOU-DR1 option, making my toast during the summer and during the on-peak rate time, the cost goes from 44ȼ to 65ȼ per kilowatt hour.

Whew!  That’s some pricey toast!

Now let’s do a quick recap of what I’ve learned but don’t comprehend so far:

• Five plan options: DR, TOU-DR2, TOU-DR1, TOU-DR-P, TOU-DR; where TOU-Plus fits into this is unknown.
• Five plan options for me, three with annual savings ranging from $6 to $13, the last being almost enough to buy a large, three-topping pizza.
• A veritable alphabet of acronyms: EDF, SDG&E, CPUC, IOU, PG&E, TOU, SONGS, SCE.
• Lots of new terminology, including:
  • High usage charge
  • Baseline allowance
  • Reduce Your Use
  • Time periods:
    • On-peak
    • Off-peak
    • Super off-peak

One last note.  The four plans I reviewed – DR, TOU-DR1, TOU-DR2 AND TOU-DR – all have something called “1 Year No Risk Pricing.”  That means over the course of the first year, customers can switch to a different plan at no cost.

Probably because it will take us a year to figure out what this all means.

And just when we’ve finally gotten it right – surprise!

In late February the San Diego City Council voted to move one step closer to that “alternative to SDG&E,” something called “Community Choice Aggregation” (CCA).  This system allows “any city, county or combination to form an entity to take over the responsibility for purchasing power for their community.”

If San Diego goes ahead with CCA (likely) and pulls other local cities into the program (also likely), and CCA goes into effect 2021 (iffy), everything above about DRs and TOUs and Super Off-Peak and all the rest is out the window because SDG&E customers will have a choice between staying with SDG&E, or signing up for CCA.

If one chooses CCA there will be all sorts of new things to compare and figure out and commit to, and all I can say is…

Ask Einstein.

Update:

The day after I looked at my plan options on SDG&E’s website, I looked again – and the savings had changed:  The savings on two of the three plans were less the second time I looked:

How did that happen?  How did I lose money before I even chose a plan?  If I look tomorrow, will it change again?

OK, forget Einstein.

I’ll ask Whendell.

Forget tropical beaches, European castles and Disneyland.

I’m going to show you your next vacation destination.

With this caveat:

I’m not a roughing-it kind of person, so I may be a tad biased.

And my idea of the Great Outdoors is what I can see from my living room window.
But awhile back I was reading Sunset Magazine and glanced at an article, The West’s Best Cabins.
Not because I’m interested in cabins, the “West’s Best” or otherwise, but because I was in the mood for a good laugh, and I found it:
Steep Ravine cabins, located in a state park…
on the coast north of San Francisco.
Sunset assured me that I would love Steep Ravine.
Clearly, they didn’t know with whom they were dealing.
And I can assure you that getting anywhere with the word “steep” in it is not on my Bucket List.
But if you’re a camper, once you arrive at Steep Ravine Cabins – and isn’t that an inviting landscape –
the park thoughtfully provides you with a wheel barrow to carry your stuff…
to your rustic cabin.  “Rustic” means…
…no electricity.  No water.  No bathroom.
That means no stove, no fridge, and no ice for Happy Hour.
There’s also no cell phone service.  But there are mountain lions that would like to invite you to dinner.
Inside your cabin, instead of beds there are sleeping platforms.
There are windows in the cabin, but if you want any privacy, bring sheets to cover the windows.
Inside there’s a place to hang clothes – but bring your own hangars.
Inside are also mice; according to one visitor, “I caught 14 before I finally gave up and stopped setting traps,
and stuck some earplugs in my ears so I wouldn’t hear them.
I found droppings each morning.”
To compensate, there’s that view out the windows, if you bring your own squeegee to clean the windows.
Of course, if you know the coast of Northern California, you know that most of the time your view looks like this.
Outside your cabin there is “space for chairs by the barbecue” – but bring your own chairs.
Outside are also two unisex bathrooms
with no shower, no hot water, and no electricity.
That makes using the bathroom in the middle of the night – and who doesn’t? – a particular adventure.
Watch out for those mice!
So, while I’m inclined to agree with the visitors who said…
I’d say the California State Parks system attempted the absurd and achieved the impossible:
They took over some crappy, old cabins…
in a lousy location…
with no amenities, not even a squeegee,
and somehow convinced people it was a cool place to go.
Today you’ll pay $100 per night for a Steep Ravine Cabin.
And there’s a waiting list of six months.

Now you, too, can be featured on the highly esteemed CBS This Morning and CBS Evening News – on the same day!

Just answer these three questions:

1. Are you narcissistic?
2. Are you stupid?
3. Are you a whiner?

If you can answer “Yes!” to all three questions – get ready for your close-up!

Actually, it’s been multiple close-ups; this story was covered not just by CBS, but by NPR, CNN, NBC, ABC, Fox, AP, U.S. News, Inside Edition, The New York Times, People, Washington Post, USA Today, and The Guardian, to name more than a few.

And yes, The Guardian is a British daily newspaper, so, girl – you’ve gone international!

The story I’m referring to involves “Leanne,” who asked that her last name not be revealed for reasons that will soon become obvious.

And the coverage I’m quoting is mostly from the March 11 CBS This Morning and CBS Evening News for the reason that I was too lazy to change the TV station.

It appears that last Saturday, Leanne No-Last-Name was at the Wildlife World Zoo, Aquarium and Safari Park near Phoenix.  Note the word “Wildlife” – it’s relevant.

Leanne was strolling past a big cat enclosure containing a black jaguar like this one:

Impressive, yes?

Well, rather than just pulling out her phone and taking a few pictures, apparently Leanne thought the jaguar would look even more impressive if she was also in the picture.

In other words, if Leanne got up close and personal with a wild animal, and took a selfie.

So, according to CBS This Morning, she crossed this concrete barrier:

The barrier that was put there to protect humans from the wild animals.  You see, Leanne, it’s called the “Wildlife Zoo” because wild animals live there.

The jaguar reached through the fence and grabbed Leanne’s arm, and here’s where the media got creative.  Depending on who’s telling the story, she was:

• Severely scratched (or)
• Clawed (or)
• Gashed (or)
• Mauled (but whatever, she was…)
• Attacked (and)
• Injured (and her)
• Arm was ripped open (or she got)
• Minor arm injuries (but either way, Leanne got…)
• Lacerations

This led to a rescue by some bystanders, while another bystander shot video of Leanne on the ground:

And recorded her groaning, “It hurts.  It hurts.”

Leanne later told CBS News she’s grateful to her rescuers but “unhappy” their video was made public.

And I’d agree, Leanne, this probably wasn’t the best angle for your close-up:

But she was not so “unhappy” that she declined doing another video, this one with the CBS Evening News:

In the interview Leanne said, “I was in the wrong for leaning over the barrier.”

Note, Leanne says, “leaning over the barrier”

But the zoo, “citing witness accounts, has said the woman crossed over a barrier.”

This is a three-foot barrier which does meet federal guidelines, so unless Leanne has excessively long arms – I’d say yup, she crossed it.

“But I do think,” Leanne whined, “that maybe the zoo should look into moving their fence back.”

Gosh, Leanne.  I do think that maybe you should have looked into moving your selfie-taking self back outside the barrier.

And gosh, Leanne.  Wildlife World hosts about 500,000 visitors annually, but it was you who thought crossing that barrier for a selfie with a wild animal was a good idea.

Perhaps Gayle King put it best on CBS This Morning when she said, “At least she knows it was a bonehead move…”

On Sunday, March 10 most of us woke up to Daylight Saving Time, which meant moving our clocks ahead one hour.

Which meant on Monday, if your normal get-up time was 6am, it would feel like 5am.

Which meant that someone came up with the idea of designating the Monday after Daylight Saving as National Napping Day.

On Monday, March 11, National Napping Day was all over the news:

I missed the stories.

I was busy.

Napping.

 

There’s something irresistible about people who act stupidly when committing a crime.

Maybe it gives me a feeling of superiority, to ponder, “What were they thinking?” as though I’d never done anything stupid.

Who, me?

Let me count the ways.

But I have to say – I have not done what these guys did:

Numbnuts #3:

From what I’ve seen and read, being released from prison is something to celebrate.

Thomas Lee Williams, 37, was in Westmoreland County Prison in Greensburg, PA.  He’d been serving time since January 2017 when he’d pleaded guilty to dealing drugs.

Thomas was ordered released, and he was ready to celebrate.

He got started by attacking a woman in the prison parking lot, stealing her car…

And driving away with her one-year-old grandson in the back seat.

Thomas may have got to thinking that an infant would put a damper on his celebration, so right after he crashed the car, he got out and ran into the woods.

He was apprehended, and back in custody on $250,000 bail.  Charges against him included kidnapping, robbery of a vehicle, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.

Grandmother and grandson were taken to hospitals to be checked out, and will be fine.

Thomas’ celebration was postponed until further notice.

Numbnuts #4

As you can see from his photo, Dominick Breedlove got nicely spiffed up for his recent job interview  at Kohl’s in Spring Hill, FL.

Nice necklace, and those earrings – wow!  Talk about bling!

After the interview, Dominick decided to look around Kohl’s for a birthday gift for his mom.  Maybe some nice Nikes, he thought.

So, not only a spiffy dresser, but a thoughtful son, as well.

He scoped out the shoe department, then went out to his car and returned with a Kohl’s shopping bag.

I’m betting those job interviewers were as impressed by Dominick as I am:  Spiffy dresser, thoughtful son, and now – recycling a shopping bag instead of asking for a new one.

I should also add “discerning,” because out of all the items in the shoe department, the shoes Dom chose happened to be two pair without security tags.

He put the shoes in his Kohl’s bag and calmly headed for the exit.

A loss prevention employee called the police, who busted Dominick.

Takeaway:  After interviewing in a retail environment, don’t get caught shoplifting in said environment.

Shoplifting before the interview is probably a bad idea, too.

The First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS) recently took a trip without the President of the United States (POTUS).

It was, in fact, “her first solo domestic overnight trip in her official capacity,” according to Time magazine.

Now, POTUS was inaugurated January 20, 2017, which, by my count, was two+ years ago, so I think it’s safe to say our FLOTUS is not one to rush into anything.

The purpose of FLOTUS’ trip was to promote her BE BEST campaign, which she launched back in May 2018.

Yet another indication that our FLOTUS is not one to rush into anything.

On this trip her destinations were:

1. The Dove School of Discovery, a Tulsa, OK elementary school that the White House says incorporates character education in its curriculum.
2. Microsoft in Redmond, WA to learn about programs and apps designed to teach children how to be safe online, and about technology to help children with disabilities.
3. A town hall meeting in Las Vegas on the opioid crisis.

In addition to Time, other important members of the media covered FLOTUS’ trip, such as Footwear News.

How has this important publication escaped my notice?

Upon FLOTUS’ arrival in Tulsa, Footwear immediately got to the bottom of things by focusing on…

The article described FLOTUS’ shoes as “a pair of yellow plaid pumps from Manolo Blahnik’s fall ’18 collection.  The brand’s signature BB style, which is named after French movie star Brigitte Bardot, features a yellow multicolored plaid flannel upper, a sky-high 4-inch stiletto heel and a classic pointed-toe silhouette.”

Add, for those of you who must have them, “The same model is available in white, black, gray and red for $695 on Barneys.com.”

Highlights, Day #1:

At the Dove School in Tulsa a student held up this poster and asked FLOTUS if it was an example of cyberbullying:

FLOTUS had no comment.

As FLOTUS departed, one student summed up her visit succinctly:  “She is, like, the first lady, and I was like, whoa.”

Apparently this school “incorporates character education in its curriculum” but not, I guess, grammar.

FLOTUS then flew to Seattle and visited the Microsoft campus in Redmond.  While at Microsoft, employees demonstrated how they use technology to limit their teenagers’ screen time…

And control the websites kids can access and who can see what they’re doing online:

Highlights, Day #2:

 FLOTUS arrived in Las Vegas and happily, so did Footwear News:

This time FLOTUS was wearing “Christian Louboutin pumps featuring a low-cut topline and vamp on a 4.7-inch stiletto heel.  Louboutin’s pointy So Kate pumps retail for around $675.”

And USA Today noted that FLOTUS’ ensemble included a “belted navy-blue dress with a pussy bow.”

“Pussy bow”?  What the hell is a pussy bow?

As FLOTUS made her way to the Westgate Las Vegas Resort for the town hall meeting, POTUS was doing his part, tweeting an offer of “Free admission for the first 1,500 people!” to the already free event:

Distinguished guests in the half-filled theater included an Elvis impersonator, which no meeting about the opioid crisis should be without.

 FLOTUS responded to challenging questions with thoughtful answers including:

No, she “hasn’t had time to do any cooking yet in the White House” (remember, she’s only been there two+ years), and “a good meal for the Trump family is spaghetti.”

Yes, she “just renovated the White House bowling alley and it looks beautiful.”

And at some point, talked about the opioid crisis.

Then FLOTUS went home, and the Elvis impersonator realized that inspired by her – he, too, could BE BEST:

Publication date:  October 2018

Review, short version:  Four skunks out of four.

Review, long version:

It’s disappointing to reach the end of a book and know I’ve wasted my time.

It’s hugely disappointing to reach the end of an almost-500-page book and know I’ve wasted my time.

That’s how I feel about Kate Morton’s The Clockmaker’s Daughter.

My modus operandi is to give a book 30-40 pages and if I’m not caught up in it – I move on to a different book.

And apparently I was caught up enough in The Clockmaker’s Daughter to stay with it and get my questions answered:

1. Does the Radcliffe Blue exist and if so, where is it?
2. Will Elodie ever discover her connection to the sketchbook and the mysterious woman in the photograph?
3. Is Birdie/Lily/Mystery Real Name a thief or is it Lucy or Leonard or Juliet or Jack or Martin or Mrs. Mack or Edward or James or Ada or Thurston or Frances or, or, or?

As you can see from #3, along the way I encountered way too many people.  And too many storylines, and too many timed periods.  For the latter, the book jumps around in at least six:  1862, 2017, 1899, 1928, 1882 and 1992.

I could have used a flow chart to keep track of who was doing what to or with whom and where and when and why.

In the Author’s Note, Morton says the book is:

“About time and timelessness, truth and beauty, maps and mapmaking, photography, natural history, the restorative properties of walking, brotherhood, houses and the notion of home, rivers and the power of place, among other things.  It was inspired by art and artists, including the English romantic poets, the Pre-Raphaelite painters, early photographers…and designers…”

I think Morton had a list of “My Favorite Things” and decided to throw them all into one book.  What she ended up with was too much of too many people going too many directions and ultimately failing to, as she put it, “…to tell cohesive stories about the disjointed past.”

And plenty of Amazon reviewers agreed with me – check out these headlines:

And yes, there were many more positive reviews – the book’s overall rating was 3.5 out of 5 stars.

But it’s comforting to know I wasn’t the only one who was baffled, befuddled and bummed out.

To:  Gavin Newsom, California’s Brand-New Governor

Re:  The DMV, California’s Way-Old Disaster

Dear Governor Newsom:

Early in January in statement from your office you described the DMV as:

“…chronically mismanaged and failed in its fundamental mission to the state customers it serves and the state workers it employs.”

Governor Newsom, I respect and admire your ambitious plans for addressing the DMV’s multitudinous issues, including appointing Marybel Batjer to lead your new DMV Reinvention Strike Team for six months.

DMV, which also stands for Damned Messy Venue.

May I suggest, as a first step, that you teach the DMV to tell time?

The DMV team obviously can’t, based on my recent call.

At 9:13am the recording said my “wait time would be approximately five minutes.”

You could start by telling the team that 9:13am is when the little hand is a bit above 9, and the big hand is between the 2 and 3.  Here’s a picture the DMV can use as a visual aid:

My call was finally answered at 9:41am.

Tell the DMV that 9:41am is when the little hand is between 9 and 10, and the big hand is just past the 8, like so:

Twenty-eight minutes is not “approximately five,” even by the DMV’s finger counting.

Governor Newson, the DMV has lots of problems, and as our leader I know your role is to prioritize the…um…priorities.  To do my part to assist, here’s a quick recap of some recent DMV issues.

Excessive Wait Times:  As of December 2018, the average wait time was 69 minutes, though there are many reports of waits lasting many hours.  Plus there’s the potential two- to three-hour wait outside the DMV office for customers who didn’t make an appointment.  The DMV blames this on people applying for REAL ID, which, as of October 1, 2020, will be required to board a domestic flight unless you have a passport.

Unfortunately, to obtain a REAL ID we must apply in person at the DMV.  When thousands of people started doing this, the DMV was – to say the least – caught with their Calvins down, even though the REAL ID Act has been around since 2005.

Next, and relevant to the REAL ID issue:

Incorrect REAL ID Requirements:  To obtain a REAL ID, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requires at least two documents to prove where you live.  The DMV was requiring only one proof of residency.  In December the DMV received a letter from the DHS saying California’s process for proving residency did not align with REAL ID regulation.

At that point the DMV had issued 2.3 million REAL IDs, and the DHS says it will accept those IDs.  But if you were among those 2.3 million people who went to the DMV with only one document, are you going to take the chance of going to the airport for your once-in-a-lifetime trip and having someone from the DHS or TSA say, “Nope, not valid”?

The Motor Voter Law:  It was a good idea:  Make it easy for people to register to vote.  And it would have worked, except it involved the DMV.  Californians doing certain tasks at the DMV would be automatically registered to vote unless they opted out.

Since the program launched in April 2018, the DMV has acknowledged three batches of mistakes:

• A software error affected 77,000 registrations, resulting, in some cases, in two registration forms indicating different party preferences being issued for one voter (May 2018).
• A window-toggling error affected 23,000 registrations, resulting in changes to voters’ party preference, vote-by-mail options and language choices (September 2018).
• A data-entry error resulted in 1,500 people being registered to vote even though they were not legally eligible because they were not U.S. citizens, were under 18 or were on parole for a felony conviction (October 2018).

Then there are those pesky problems like the all-too-frequent computer glitches that shut down the DMV’s antiquated systems and extend wait times by hours.

Between January 2017 and mid-August 2018, the DMV experienced 34 IT outages, including six statewide office system outages, ranging from 15 minutes to nine hours.  And let’s not forget of that very pesky outage in 2016 when more than 100 DMV offices were knocked offline for several days.

No wonder DMV customers often look…

Like this…
And this…	And this…

Governor Newsom, you described the DMV as “chronically mismanaged” without naming the person who’s been mismanaging the DMV for the past five years, so I will:

Director Jean Shiomoto.

Jean retired rather abruptly at the end of 2018, but it was under her watch that these and other problems came to light.

While Jean, I might mention, was earning about $233,000 a year in salary, benefits, and “other pay,” whatever that means, and is now collecting a nice, fat pension.

I acknowledge a retired Jean is beyond our shaming reach, so I welcome this opportunity to badmouth her.

Which segues nicely to my final item:

According to the state auditor’s report, this DMV worker napped at her desk for an estimated 2,200 hours of work time between February 2014 and December 2017, costing the state more than $40,000.

The auditor’s report added that “The employee’s behavior may have prevented DMV from providing the public with an appropriate level of service.”

Multiple news stories said the employee’s name was not released.

But I think we all know who she was:

Release date:  February 2019

Review, short version:  All thumbs down.

Review, long version:

Logic indicates that you can’t do a movie review unless you’ve seen the movie.

I can.

I haven’t seen Isn’t It Romantic.  But I hate it.

How do I hate it?  Let me count the ways.

I hate it because it’s derivative.

There’s so much room – and need – for new ideas in the movie industry, but Isn’t It Romantic lifted its premise straight from the 2018 movie I Feel Pretty.

They didn’t even wait a year to do their rip-off.

I hate it because that premise is, a woman who’s unhappy with herself and her life can become happy with herself and her life…

IF she suffers a head injury.

I hate it even more because one of the reasons the woman in  Isn’t It Romantic is not happy with herself or her life because she’s overweight – just as in I Feel Pretty.

Blatant body shaming, in both.

It’s so obvious.  If the lead character’s weight isn’t a factor in the story, why not cast a thin actress in the role?

Rebel Wilson (left) and Priyanka Chopra star in Isn’t It Romantic.  Guess which one gets the head injury?  Hint:  It wasn’t the one chosen Miss World.

I watch a lot of movies so I’m always interested in new movies, and I watched the trailer for Isn’t It Romantic.  In the first 13 seconds we see an overweight young girl, up close to the TV watching Pretty Woman.  The girl is smiling and enjoying herself until…

Her mother walks in, sees what her daughter is watching, and admonishes, “Natalie, life’s not a fairytale.  Girls like us don’t get that.”

“But why?” Natalie asks.

“Well, look in the mirror, doll.  We’re no Julia Roberts.”

Nice.  Thanks, Mom.

We fast-forward 25 years, and grown-up Natalie, played by Rebel Wilson, is working in New York and now a romantic comedy hater.  In quick succession:  mugging, the head injury, and waking up to discover her life has become a romantic comedy.

From there, according to one reviewer, Isn’t It Romantic “simultaneously ridicules and embraces the many, many clichés of the rom-com genre.  It knows these movies are pure formula, and it makes fun of that formula in myriad and amusing ways…”

Another reviewer described theme of both Isn’t It Romantic and I Feel Pretty as “the rather unfortunate high-concept subgenre we could call ‘the head injury attitude adjustment,’” and cited yet a third recent movie – What Men Want – as also in the head injury mode.

This female head-injury thing just transitioned from derivative to epidemic.

Hollywood, I repeat:  New ideas, please!

The reviewers I read were too sensitive – or too afraid of being politically incorrect – to mention the parallel of overweight Rebel Wilson in Isn’t It Romantic and overweight Amy Schumer in I Feel Pretty, but there’s no need to mention it.  It’s right there on the screen:  Schumer in her underwear, staring at herself in the mirror and starting to cry:

Wilson dressed in Julie Roberts’ outfit from Pretty Woman, where the contrast is obvious:

One of those “myriad and amusing ways,” yes?

No.

I don’t know if Natalie ends up with one of the male leads, goes back to loving rom-coms, or if her life goes back to what it was pre-head injury, and I don’t care.

I do know that Isn’t It Romantic is derivative.  And deplorable.

And just plain dumb.

There’s a recent commercial in which male voice deep with gravitas begins, “To Simone, I leave the van Gogh.”

“To Harrison, the wine collection.”

“Grace, you get the beach house.”

This sounds like someone reading his will.

But why?

Each bequest has an appropriate image, and as the voice continues, the images keep changing…

“…my favorite chair…the family recipes…this rock…”

Nice images.  Nice voice.

I still don’t know why.

It’s appears that we may be looking at California.

More images, more bequests, and then:

“I leave these things to my heirs, all 39 million of you…”

OK – we are looking at California.  And we’re hearing California read its will.

Wait.  What?

And why?

After almost 60 seconds this image appears:

And we finally learn this commercial is from Energy Upgrade California, which I’d never heard of.

A bit of research revealed it’s “a statewide initiative committed to helping Californians be more energy efficient, utilize more sustainable natural resources, reduce demand on the energy grid and make informed choices about their energy use at home and at work – all of which goes a long way for California.”

Not that Energy Upgrade asked, but I’ll suggest that Californians could be a lot more “energy efficient” if we worked less.

Less work means less “demand on the energy grid” from all those office computers and lights and landlines and heating and air conditioning and elevators and copy machines and coffee makers.

But less work and more vacation appear to be just what Californian’s aren’t doing, according to this recent article:

Californians left 97 million paid days off unused in 2017, more than any other state.

Which is ironic when you consider that California:

• Is the most popular state for vacations.
• Is the #1 “most fun state of 2018.”
• Had over 30 cities listed on last year’s list of “most fun cities in the U.S.”

It appears that lots of people are using their vacation time to come here, while the drudges who live here mostly aren’t going…

Anywhere.

Let’s look at paid vacation time for a moment.  When you take paid vacation time, your employer is paying you to not come to work.  Your employer loses the benefit of your productivity, and you get paid for not being productive.

Logically, to give up that opportunity makes no sense.

Here, according to the article, are the “logical” reasons that Californians gave up 97 million paid days off:

Afraid of looking replaceable.

Don’t worry about this – you are replaceable.  Everyone is replaceable.  Even the president of the United States.  His vice president exists solely to replace him, and if the president is replaceable, so are you.

Heavy workloads.

This is another way of saying, “I am not replaceable.  I am indispensable.  I am responsible for way too much important stuff to take time off.”

This suggests that you and only you can do the work you do.  News flash:

Lack of coverage at work.

This isn’t your challenge – coverage is your manager’s challenge.  Your challenge is deciding which beach you’re headed for on vacation, and which fruity, tropical drink you’ll enjoy on that beach.

Concerns about leaving pets behind. 

Seriously?  You’d give up that beach and that fruity, tropical drink because you think you’re indispensable to your pet?  Have you talked to your pet about this?

The article concludes with some statistics comparing the no-vacation drudges to people who use their paid time off.  No surprise – those who take vacations are:

• 22 percent happier with their health and wellness.
• 13 percent happier in their personal relationships.
• 11 percent happier in their jobs.

So, come on, Californians!  Let’s get serious about those Energy Upgrade California goals and do your part.

This year use those 97 million vacation days.  Remember, California bequeathed you:

“A big day in Big Sur…

“A wild weekend at Disneyland…

“A tranquil week in Yosemite…

Before we surrendered our hands to cell phones?

We blew kisses…	We dried tears…
We ate politely…	We shared bites…
We hand-wrote…	We whistled…
We hugged…	We sympathized…
We applauded…	We gestured…
We shared secrets…	We kept secrets…
We counted…	We shushed…
We made hearts…	We wondered…
We celebrated…	We slept well…
We held flowers…	We held books…
We held hands…	We held feet…
We held each other…	We held on.

And now…

We…	And we…
And we…	And we…
And we…	Don’t we?

 

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that today, when there’s a news event, large or small, or when someone speaks publicly, truthfully or otherwise, that event or that story is transmitted via the Internet and is on our phones and in our faces in seconds.

It just a fact of our fast-paced world.

This came to mind when I was watching a documentary and the narrator said, “On April 24, 1861, news reached San Francisco via Pony Express that the Civil War had started two weeks earlier.”

It stretches the imagination – it may even be beyond imagining – that news from the East Coast this momentous, this life-changing and eventually, world-altering – took two weeks to reach the West Coast.

And the news wasn’t traveling all the way from the East Coast.  It was traveling from St. Joseph, MO to California – did you catch this? – via Pony Express.

That’s right.  News of the bombing of Fort Sumter and the start of the Civil War would have been telegraphed from the East Coast to cities in the East and Midwest, but only as far west as St. Joseph.  There was no transcontinental telegraph, so the quickest way to move news west was on horseback:  The Pony Express.

Imagine just going about your life, then you hear or read a story that our country was at war – a war that started two weeks ago.

That’s how it happened in California.

And it only happened that quickly because a group of strong, young men on strong, fast horses was willing to make the treacherous, nearly 2,000-mile journey to deliver mail – and news – to the furthest reaches of the U.S.

For a brief 18 months, the Pony Express was the high-tech, fastest means of communication between the eastern and western United States.  The transcontinental telegraph made it obsolete in October 1861, but in its time the Pony Express was considered a marvel.  Advertisements promised “Letter 10 Days to San Francisco!” from New York – once (in a much smaller font) your letter arrived in St. Joseph.

In St. Joseph the mail and newspapers were loaded into a pouch, the pouch slung over the saddle, and the horse and rider would set off.  According to a Library of Congress article, “During a typical shift, a rider traveled 75 to 100 miles, changing horses every 10 to 15 miles at relief stations along the route.  Station keepers and stock tenders ensured that changes between horses and riders were synchronized so that no time was wasted”:

And who were these riders?

A Pony Express poster advertised for “young, skinny and wiry fellows…willing to risk death daily.  Orphans preferred.”  Most were in their late  teens and early 20s and earned around $100 per month, when a comparable wage for unskilled labor at the time was about $0.43-$1 per day.

Most of their names and faces are lost, but – incredibly – during that 18 months, Pony Express riders lost only one mail delivery.

Once that nameless but intrepid rider reached Sacramento on April 24, 1861, some of the precious contents of his pouch would have been dispersed locally, and the remainder sent via steamer down the Sacramento River to San Francisco.  News of the war appeared in the next day’s Sacramento Daily Union newspaper under the heading Startling Events:

“The attack upon Fort Sumter, its destruction and surrender, are events which will produce a sensation throughout the country…the first scene in this terrible national tragedy…the overt act of treason committed by the revolutionists at Charleston has forced a condition of things which will compel every man to take sides either for or against the Federal Government…”

When the end of the war came four bloody, tragic years later, that news would have reached the West via telegraph in minutes, not weeks.

Now, this is by no means a history of the Pony Express – there are plenty of those online.

Rather, it’s a reflection.

The next time we get frustrated because Facebook isn’t loading fast enough, let’s take a deep breath and remember that once upon a time, people were getting their news via Pony Express.

In weeks, not seconds.

Although, considering a lot of the news today…

Remember the game “Where’s Waldo?”

The goal of the game was finding a character named Waldo in cartoon illustrations of masses of people doing a variety of things at different locations.

Well, I’d like to invite you to a similar experience, this one entitled, “Where’s The Women?”

See if you can find any women in this picture:

How about this one?

Or this one?

OK, here’s a hint:  These are all pictures of gatherings of the Catholic Church hierarchy, which includes the Pope, and some combination of cardinals, archbishops and bishops.

Let’s looks for women again:

No luck so far?

This week, Catholic Church hierarchy are gathering in Rome for the first-ever “sexual abuse summit” to discuss how to protect minors.  The summit begins February 21, 2019.

Considering that the Boston Globe broke the clergy sexual abuse story in 2002, nobody can accuse these guys of being precipitous!

Let’s look for the women there:

And here:

No luck, again?  How about here:

OK, you can stop looking.

That’s because when the hierarchy of the Catholic Church gathers, there are NO women members.

Not one woman holds a position of power in the Catholic Church:

Top to bottom, it’s men.

So when the boys’ club of the Catholic Church gathers this week for the sexual abuse summit:

There will be NO women included.

Except for the victims of Catholic clergy sexual abuse:

Addendum:

More than 100 Catholic bishops will attend the sexual abuse summit, but no Catholic cardinals.  There are 223 Catholic cardinals – wait, make that 222 due to the recent defrocking of “Mr. McCarrick” – but apparently the cardinals, also known as “Princes of the Church,” were too busy doing…um…princely things.

*****

The summit is officially called “Protection of Minors in the Church.”  It appears that the multitude of raped and sexually abused nuns will have to wait for another summit.

*****

In an interesting bit of timing, we now have this piece of news:

These children – called “children of the ordained” by the church – “are sometimes the result of affairs involving priests and laywomen or nuns; others of abuse or rape.”

The story features Vincent Doyle, who was 28 when he learned that the priest “he had always known as his godfather was in truth his biological father.”  Doyle, founder of the international support group Coping International, says the website has 50,000 users in 175 countries.

*****

And finally, my prediction:  Anyone anticipating the outcome of the summit with great expectations is in for some great disappointments.  The summit will adjourn and the bishops will go home, with promises to continue to “pray and meditate” on the matter.

Even the Pope set the bar pretty low – he wants the summit to be “a powerful gesture* of pastoral responsibility in the face of an urgent challenge of our time.”

*Gesture:  An action performed for show in the knowledge that it will have no effect.

Update, February 20:

The Pope said that those who criticize the church were “the friends, cousins and relatives of the devil.”

Whoa!  I guess I’ve misunderstood this situation.

The Catholic Church is the victim here, right?

Did you say plane crush?

Oh!  I thought you said plane crash!

Well, that’s a relief.

But…what’s a plane crush?

Apparently it’s a phrase invented by someone in Delta Airline’s marketing department, and appeared in news stories that – as so often happens – came and went in 24 hours.

But I thought the story was worth taking a second look.

Delta Airlines has what they call a “brand partnership” with Coke, and it appears they collaborated on what they thought seemed a good idea at the time:

Create a Diet Coke cocktail napkin that encouraged passengers to “write down your number & give it to your plane crush.  you never know…”

Why did Delta and Coke think this was a good idea?  The napkin explains, repeating that “you never know” reminder:

Then on the reverse, a convenient place for your name and number:

I can think of few less likely locations than an airplane to start a romance:

People are jammed together like cattle, and they’re cranky because the flight’s running two hours late and/or there’s a line for the bathroom and/or the guy in front of you has permanently parked his seat back in your lap.

So to lighten things up, Delta and Coke thought they’d encourage a little “old school flirting.”

It’s unclear exactly when Delta began using the napkins, but the Twitter storm started in January.  Some passengers loved the napkins (“cute!), others hated them (“creepy!”).  But Mike Huckabee’s tweet was the best of all:

“Dang!  That’s why so many flight attendants and nice-looking women kept giving me napkins on my Delta flight.”

That’s right, Mike.  You just keep thinking that.

While some media outlets had fun punning:

“…helping love take flight…”
“…after their attempt to spark romance in the air didn’t take off…”
“…the Diet Coke ad fell flat…”
“…That idea fizzled…”

Others including NBC, CBS and The Washington Post appeared to take this event seriously:

After the Twitter tempest in a teapot, Delta and Coke apologized, and responded on Twitter with Coke saying, “Just here to keep things interesting” and the airline chiming in with, “So true.  You just never know.  Thanks for sharing.”

And that good idea – the airplane crush – crashed.

The napkins have been removed.

The tempest has quieted.

Until Delta debuts its new toilet paper:

My – and your – worst nightmare has come true:

What the hell is REAL ID?

Background:  My husband and I each watch/read/listen to about two hours of news every day.

This takes place in the mornings and evenings, so I think we’re reasonably well-informed about current events.

Yet when a mailer arrived from the California DMV last summer, it was the first time either of us had heard about:

We’d neither seen, read nor heard anything about REAL ID.

Yet the REAL ID Act, I’ve since learned, has been around since 2005.

And so has the confusion surrounding REAL ID.

Which should be no surprise, considering it involves – and requires the cooperation of –  the federal government, all 50 state governments, and worse – infinitely worse – all 50 states’ DMVs:

Can you imagine a more ineffectual combination?

I started doing some online research and there’s plenty of information out there, much of it baffling.  Here are just a few of those sources:  the DHS (Department of Homeland Security), TSA (Transportation Security Administration), the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), guidelines from all 50 DMVs, all sorts of media offering their interpretations of what we need to do, and plenty of websites that are opposed to REAL ID, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC.org), the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHFreedom.org), and my personal favorite, RealNightmare.org.

What I couldn’t find was one website with one simple set of guidelines that were

• Clear
• Concise
• Easy to Understand

What was clear – and here’s the nightmare part – is that to obtain a REAL ID, you have to go to the DMV.

Because there and only there can you obtain one of these:  a REAL ID driver license or ID card:

Forgers will appreciate all the details shown in the new compliant REAL ID (left) and non-compliant driver licenses.

Now, I’ve had major surgery, and I’ve been to the DMV, and given a choice, I’d far rather have that major surgery again.

The surgery didn’t involve standing in endless lines outside, then endless lines inside, then dealing with a surly clerk who treats me like scum, and paying – paying – to do all this.

That’s right:  I may not want a REAL ID, I may not need a REAL ID – I hadn’t been able to ascertain that yet – but if I’m going to get a REAL ID, I’ll have to pay for it:

Lines at the DMV were already horrible, and now, thanks to REAL ID and the confusion that surrounds it, the lines are much worse:

Talk about worse!  Now lawmakers are involved, yikes!

In desperation, I decided to call my DMV.

Pure, total desperation.

I had what I thought was one, easy question:

If I have a passport, do I need a REAL ID to board an airplane?

The DMV recording said there was a wait “due to high call volumes,” of course.  Trust me, plenty of those callers were looking for information about REAL ID, due to all the misinformation out there.

If I wanted a callback from a “technician,” the wait was 60 to 90 minutes.  To the DMV’s credit, I did get a callback in exactly 58 minutes.

That’s the first and last time I’ll give the DMV credit for anything.

I spoke slowly and clearly.  I was, after all, dealing with the DMV.

“I’m calling to clarify:  As of October 1, 2020, will I need a REAL ID to board an airplane, if I also have a passport?”

Her response:

“Yes.”

She was certain.  Unhesitating.  Unequivocal.

“Well,” I said.  “I received a mailer from the DMV about REAL ID and I want to read to you what is says:

‘You will need a REAL ID, passport or other federally accepted document at airport security beginning October 1, 2020.’”

I continued, “It doesn’t say ‘and,’ it says ‘or.’  So to me, that means I’ll need a REAL ID or a passport or other federally accepted document.”

Then I said, “I also found an infographic on the DMV website and here’s what is says:

Do you have a valid passport, military or ID or other TSA approved document?”  If “yes” then, “You don’t need a REAL ID driver license or ID card.”

There was a pause, then she said something about REAL ID being a “new program” and they didn’t know much about it.

Excuse me?  The REAL ID Act of 2005 is not exactly a “new program.”

And folks, if the damn DMV doesn’t “know much about it,” how are we supposed to?

The technician wandered around the DMV website for awhile, occasionally reading aloud some of the useless information I’d already seen, then she moved over to the TSA website, or maybe it was DHS website, and more reading aloud, until she stumbled across something, read it and said, “OK, if you have a passport you don’t need a REAL ID to fly.”

Again, she was certain.  Unhesitating.  Unequivocal.

Just like before.

To clarify, I said, “So I think what you’re saying is, as of October 1, 2020, if I have a passport, I do not need a REAL ID?”

She confirmed.

The she said, “Of course the rules could change between now and then.”

Well of course they could!  Because there’s no f***ing way the federal government, all 50 state governments, and all 50 states’ DMVs could come up with a set of guidelines that are

• Clear
• Concise
• Easy to Understand

And then make the guidelines permanent.

I wanted to shout, “No, no, no!  No changes between now and then, now and forever, never, ever!”

But I didn’t.  I thanked her and we hung up.

And I’m still not sure what the answer is.

Here’s the one thing I’m sure of:

On October 1, 2020, there’s going to be chaos at airports.  Do I need a REAL ID or not?  Is my old driver license from a state that’s compliant with DHS standards or not?  Did my state get an extension or not?  Can I use my passport and old license or not?

The airlines will tell us to talk to the TSA, the TSA will talk to each other, nobody will know what the hell is going on, and lots of people will miss lots of flights and…

February 2019 update:  Here are my maybe-final last words on the California DMV and REAL ID:

Publication date:  October 2018

Review, short version:  Four roses out of four.

Review, long version:

I love to read novels.

But I don’t read romance novels.

One Day in December is a romance novel.

And I loved it.

Unexpected.

I don’t recall where I heard/read about this book, or why I paid attention to it – I don’t read romance novels.

But something about the storyline caught my interest.

And, surprisingly, the story held my interest, right up to the last page.  About half-way through I thought, “I don’t know where this is going – and that’s good.”  At three-quarters through I was tempted to skip to the end and satisfy my craving to know, but I resisted the temptation.

It was a struggle, but I’m glad I waited.

According to an interview with author Josie Silver (left), “I had always wanted to write about love at first sight.  It opens with a missed opportunity and then across a decade we see what happens to them and how it all plays out.”

So, not your usual bodice-ripping-uber-macho-male-and-fairly-helpless-female plot.

In fact, Laurie, the lead female character, is far from helpless, and Jack, the lead male, is more of a sweet, hunky, but uber-confused kind of guy.  We hear from both Laurie and Jack as first-person narrators, but the third side of the love triangle – Sarah – makes her presence felt on every page.

Along the way we’re treated to Laurie’s wry observations, like this one:

“I’m not a bitch, though; or maybe I’m just a quiet one inside my own head.  Isn’t everyone?”

And…

“He has this intense way of looking at me that makes me feel the need to glance over my shoulder just to check if Jennifer Lawrence is lurking behind me.”

I find the story about the book as interesting as the book.  Silver had been writing novels and getting published under various pseudonyms for 10 years, but One Day in December was her breakout book.  Paperback rights have been sold in 26 countries, “there has also been some film interest,” says Silver, and as of February 10, 2019 the book had been on The New York Times best seller list for eight weeks:

There’s talk of several “six-figure” deals, and Silver has already sold her next – as yet unfinished – book, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird, due out in the fall.  “It’s about a girl who loses the love of her life and then gets him back again in a very unexpected way…and that’s as much as I can say for now!”

“Unexpected.”

That’s how I felt about One Day in December.

Love at first sight comes in many languages!

England	Denmark
Italy	Hungary
Romania	Portugal

 

And there’s nothing I can do about it.

Which makes me madder than Hell.

Why?

My favorite coffee creamer has been discontinued.

Arbitrarily.  Recklessly.  Thoughtlessly.

Clearly, Coffee mate® wasn’t thinking about me when it stopped making my flavor of choice:  The Original Fat Free, Cholesterol Free.

And since it’s all about me – what were they thinking?

That’s right:  After failing to find my flavor in three supermarkets, I called Coffee mate and was advised they’d discontinued making my one and only.

Really thoughtless.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Coffee creamer?  Is she serious?”

I am.

I love my coffee, and I love my coffee exactly so:

1. Hot.
2. Decaf.
3. Artificial creamer.

Well, I assume my Coffee mate is artificial when it lists ingredients including:

1. Sodium caseinate.
2. Dipotassium phosphate.
3. Diglycerides.

But here’s why I’ve preferred my flavor of Coffee mate for years:

1. It tastes great.
2. Fat: 0%.
3. Cholesterol: 0%.

Seriously, how many things have 0% fat and 0% cholesterol and actually taste great?

I wasn’t always enamored with Coffee mate (and yes, it’s two words, second word with a lower-case “m”).

My earliest recollection is being on an airplane and asking for coffee with cream and sugar.  The flight attendant handed me a cup of coffee, a packet of sugar, and a small, flat package of something called “Coffee mate.”

“May I get cream?”

“This is cream,” she said.

“This” was as close to cream as North Pole to South Pole.

Opening the sugar was no problem – the paper was thin and tore easily.

But this Coffee mate stuff?  The packet was some sort of foil that was uncooperative, and when I finally managed to open it, half of the powdery contents spilled onto my tray table.

Skeptical, I poured the remainder into my coffee, where it immediately congealed into pale, assorted-sized lumps that defied dissolving.

Yuck.

So I avoided Coffee mate for years, until I noticed a liquid form at the supermarket.  Still skeptical, I tried The Original Fat Free, Cholesterol Free and…

I made a commitment to Coffee mate, but Coffee mate didn’t make one to me.

Perhaps because they were too busy making other things, specifically, flavored Coffee mate, and now a veritable plethora of choices has crowded out my favorite:

And since they have that Cheesecake Factory thing – Dessert-In-A-Cup, as it were – why not keep it going?

• Bacon And Egg Flavor – Breakfast-In-A-Cup!
• Big Mac And Fries Flavor – Lunch-In-A-Cup!
• Steak And Caesar Flavor – Dinner-In-A-Cup!

Refusing to rest on their laurels, Coffee mate has also created new products:  Fifteen flavors of “natural bliss,” and yes, that lower case “n” and “b” are also deliberate.

Plus two more products called Artisan Café, and yup – they’re still doing that wretched powder stuff, with 11 to choose from.

Nearly 50 products – so many choices, and none of them mine.

So here it is – my last bottle of The Original Fat Free, Cholesterol Free Coffee mate, possibly the last one in existence.

And it’s final resting place:

I thought the skull at the top of the headstone was a nice touch.

Release date:  September 2018

Review, short version:  Thumbs up for the story; thumbs down for the subject.

Review, long version:

I worked at a well-known art museum for seven years, and if there’s one thing I learned, it’s this:

One person’s art is another person’s garbage.

Deciding what is art, and then what is great art, is completely subjective, that is, “based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.”

By that same token, deciding who is an artist, and then who is a great artist, is also completely subjective.

Case in point:  Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).  Poor Vincent sold a total of one painting in his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, for around $2,000:

The most recent sale of a van Gogh painting – in 2017 – brought $81.3 million.

What changed?

About the painting – nothing.

About the opinions of museum curators, art dealers and other so-called experts?

Everything.

Because I’m interested in art and artists, I recently watched an American Masters production, Wyeth:  The Life of Andrew Wyeth in Bold Strokes.

Wyeth (1917-2009) was controversial artist during his life and remains so after his death.  According one article, he was “one of the greatest artists of the 20^th century.”

That’s one subjective opinion.  Here’s another, describing Wyeth’s art as

“…retrogressive, short-sighted, and strangely empty and banal…fanciful and idiotic…”

And that same critic, on Wyeth’s most well-known painting, Christina’s World:  “…glibly sentimental…I was stunned by its triteness.”

Was Wyeth a great artist?  It’s subjective.

Was he a great man?  After watching the Wyeth film, I decided…

No.

In Wyeth we learn that Andrew Wyeth was the son of N.C. Wyeth, a wealthy, successful

illustrator, who encouraged Andrew and his siblings in their creative pursuits.  Thanks to his well-known and nurturing father, Andrew was free to focus on painting, and breaking into the art world wasn’t exactly difficult.

In fact, in 1937 at age 20, Wyeth had his first one-man exhibition of watercolors at a gallery in New York City and the entire inventory of paintings sold out.

No starving artist here.

Wyeth married Betsy James in 1940 and they had two sons, Nicholas and Jamie.  Of Betsy, Wyeth said, “She’s living with a man that’s wrapped up in my painting.”

As opposed to being “wrapped up” in his wife and children.  With Wyeth it was all about him; he often said, “I paint my life.”

Sounds like his wife and kids got the leftovers.

Just as I was wondering if the Wyeth film would cover the “Helga Paintings” scandal – it did.

Wyeth started sketching and painting Helga Testorf in 1971 and continued doing so until 1985 – without the knowledge of either his wife or Helga’s husband.

Every day, for up to eight hours a day, with Helga dressed or nude, Wyeth painted and sketched.  He promised Helga he wouldn’t release what became almost 250 works until after his death.

Instead – surprise, everyone!

In 1986 Wyeth sold almost the entire collection to millionaire L.B. Andrews for, according to an online article, “an undisclosed sum said by their new owner to be in ‘the multi-millions of dollars.’”  Andrews exhibited the works at the National Gallery in Washington, DC and then on a nationwide tour.

Whatever the aftermath, at the time the story was a sensation – and a scandal.  It made the covers of both Time and Newsweek – in the same week:

Time – August 18, 1986	Newsweek – August 15, 1986

So:  For the movie review, Wyeth:  The Life of Andrew Wyeth in Bold Strokes, it’s well-done and tells the story without making judgments.

But I’m not as fair-minded.

How did Mrs. Wyeth and Mr. Testorf feel about Andrew and Helga’s little secret?

How did Helga feel about that broken promise?

Are we really supposed to believe that this woman and this man spent hours together on an-almost daily basis for 15 years and they were nothing more than artist and model?

Andrew Wyeth was a great secret keeper, but not a great promise keeper.

Great artist?  You decide.

Great man?

I think not.

That’s my subjective opinion and…

The people in the above picture are:

1. Participating in a respectful moment of silence before a meeting.
2. Checking their social media accounts during a meeting.
3. Having a well-earned snooze after a meeting.

If you guessed (2), you’re right:

They’re doing what not some, not many, but most people are doing at work:

“Mindlessly scrolling Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc…” according to a recent article, Kick That Social Media Habit.

There are all sorts of articles online suggesting that people spend too much time on social media, from Put Down Your Smartphone And Get A Life! to Social Media Is Toxic.

I usually don’t pay attention to them because I don’t have a smartphone.

But Kick That Social Media Habit caught my eye because it went on the premise that many folks are indulging in that habit…

At work.

That’s right.

At work.

The article wasn’t aimed at people who almost get killed when they’re checking Facebook as they cross a busy street.

Nor was it addressing those who catch up on texting while they’re driving 80 mph on the freeway.

No, this article was for people who are at work, getting paid by their employer to work, but instead are “liking” pictures of what their friend had for breakfast.

The article calls this “distractions that make it harder to be productive,” and offers some self-help suggestions, classified as “Moderate,” “Aggressive,” and “Extreme”:

• Moderate: Delete the apps from your phone.
• Aggressive: Put your phone on mute and lock it in a drawer.
• Extreme: Ask a co-worker to hide your phone.

When did scrolling social media at work become so “normal” that it’s being addressed in self-help articles?

According to these statistics, lots of time at work wasted on social media for personal reasons is the new “normal”:

Wow!  That’s a lot of time spent looking at pictures of what your friend had for breakfast!

But…Does this mean that the teacher is watching a YouTube video instead of helping your child learn to read?  That the firefighter is liking a Facebook post while your house is burning?  That the surgeon is checking Twitter while he operates on your brain?

Now, I’m not advocating that employers confiscate employee cell phones when they arrive at work, with no access until the end of the work day.

We need our phones available if, for example, a parent is called to pick up a sick child at school; a patient is expecting results from a medical test; somebody pushes the big button and nuclear war has begun…

Well, if somebody pushes that big button, it won’t much matter what you’re doing at work.

In Kick That Social Media Habit, the author suggests that if all else fails, one can become “a born-again Luddite, joining the 23 percent of Americans who don’t own a smartphone.”

Rest assured, I am no Luddite.

Earlier I said I don’t have a smartphone, but I am into 21^st century technology.

See?  Here’s my phone:

Advertisers often exhort us to “get out of your comfort zone.”

As though comfort zones are a bad thing.

And if we buy their:

• Automobile
• World Cruise
• Hair Color
• Sport Shoes
• Mobile Device
• Adult Beverage

We’ll be transported out of our (bad) comfort zones into a happier place.

And advertisers aren’t the only ones; work/life coaches, psychologists and other “experts” all tell us that the sure – the only – road to success lies in getting out of our comfort zones.  Here are some examples:

They’re wrong.

I realize that if some people didn’t get out of their comfort zones to look for a better way, we wouldn’t have marvelous inventions like indoor plumbing, penicillin, and the Internet.

And while I’m grateful to inventors, we can’t all “boldly go” where no one has gone before.  Some of us aren’t wired that way.  Some of us are afraid.  And some of us simply choose not to.

Remember, “They also serve who only stand and wait”?

Well, they also have lives who only stay in their comfort zones.

And that’s me.

And I’m unapologetic, because I know my comfort zone can disappear in one second.

That’s right – one second is all it takes to turn your life into something it wasn’t before, and never will be again.

Like the loss of a loved one.  Whether it’s a slow death that allows you some time to prepare, or a sudden loss from a bullet or a car crash or some other tragedy, when you lose someone you love, it changes your life.

We come to accept the loss of a loved one because we have no choice.  And our comfort zones will never be as comfortable again.

Or a natural disaster.  Think of the 30,000 people who used to live in Paradise, CA until a wildfire destroyed their town.  They’ll get their lives together – well, most of them will – but it won’t the lives they had before.

And don’t tell me that a “new life is a new opportunity!”  Bullshit.  A “new life” without any trappings of the old – your home, your keepsakes, your memories?  Sure, for those who are alive, being alive is most important.  But the losses they suffered are forever.

Or a health disaster.  One minute you’re cruising along, and then – heart attack.  Or a stroke.  Or a cancer diagnosis.

Sometimes a new comfort zone can be created after a health disaster.  But if I have the option of staying in my current comfort zone – I’m staying.

And that’s the issue – I don’t have the option of staying in my comfort zone.  External and/or internal events, out of my control, can change my life, and I have no power to stop them.

So while I can, I’m hunkering down and staying right here, in my comfort zone.

That’s my road to success.

Publication Date:  1995

Short version:  Four roses out of four.

Long version:

When I purchased Susanna Kearsley’s latest book, Bellwether, I was hoping for another Mariana, Kearsley’s 1995 book.

Bellewether is not another Mariana.

I’m not saying Bellewether isn’t a good story – it is.  All 12 of Kearsley’s books are good stories.  But over the years, as I read each one, I was always hoping for another…

Mariana.

Because it is one of my all-time favorite, if-I-was-stuck-on-a-deserted-island-and-could-only-have-one book…

Mariana would be it.

I don’t know why Mariana has stayed with me all this time – perhaps that’s like asking why you’ve been close friends with someone for years.  You just are, and you don’t question your good fortune.

Mariana is set Wiltshire, in the southwest English countryside, and the lead character and first-person narrator is 30-year-old Julia Beckett, an illustrator of children’s books.  Julia leaves her life in London when she purchases Greywethers, an old farmhouse she’d seen once as a child and had, inexplicably, found again.

Greywethers turns out to be a portal between Julia’s world and the 17^th century, so this story is what some would call “time travel.”

But Mariana is not like so many time travel stories; there are no sci-fi explosions, no flashing lights, no mysterious machine transporting Julia – and the reader – back three centuries.  In fact, Julia does nothing to bring this about – she’s just slipped seamlessly from one century to another, and back again.

Unwillingly at first and then…willingly.

In the 17^th century Julia is fully aware that she’s Julia, while her physical self is that of Mariana Farr, a young woman whose parents are dead.  With nowhere else to go, Mariana has left plague-ridden London for her uncle’s house in Wiltshire.

The house is Greywethers.

As Mariana, Julia interacts with other 17^th century people, and no one suspects that Mariana isn’t what she appears to be.  Some of these people are critical to the journey Julia must make to resolve the love story that began with Mariana 300 years earlier, and is continued into Julia’s modern world.

Mariana is wonderfully written, and I never get tired of re-reading it.  The first time I read a book there’s the pleasure of surprise; subsequent readings offer the pleasure of anticipation.  I know exactly what’s going to happen, and welcome the chance to again join Julia on her journey.

But in addition to being a wonderfully satisfying story, I think Mariana resonates with me because it’s also about second chances.

And who doesn’t want one of those?

Second chances, historical fiction, mystery, romance, and suspense that will keep you wondering – will Julia get it right this time?

And characters that stay with you.

They’ve stayed with me since 1995.

And I have no intention of parting with them.

Rancho Bernardo is a community in San Diego, located about 20 miles northeast of downtown.

It tends to be a quiet place – not much making headlines in Rancho Bernardo.

That all changed recently, when an important story was covered by several august media outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and NBC.

Life is pretty good in Rancho Bernardo – the average annual income is around $129,000 and the average household net worth is almost a $1 million.  The median age is 38, and the population about 88,500.

Plus 84 cockatiels.

Make that 84 apparently horny, definitely dirty, and probably very pissed off cockatiels.

That’s what put Rancho Bernardo in the national headlines:

That’s right – 84 cockatiels plus one human were living in an apartment in Rancho Bernardo.

A small, one bedroom apartment.

It seems the vastly outnumbered human resident of the apartment – who was unnamed in the coverage so I’ll call him The Birdman – had purchased a few cockatiels awhile back but had forgotten the famous lyrics about “birds do it…”

The birds did.  And then did some more.  Confined in that small apartment, what else was there to do?

The birds were rescued by Humane Society officials, one of whom said, “The birds were free-flying so there was bird feces everywhere.”  And by “everywhere,” said a TV reporter, it was “on the man’s bed, the walls, the floors, and even his clothes left around the apartment.”

Neighbors said the bird problem had been going on for years:

So I can’t help but wonder – what The Birdman was thinking in the interim?

“Oh, well, what’s another cockatiel or two?”
“I wonder why Mom never comes over for dinner?”
“Will anyone at work notices this stuff all over my clothes?”

Or maybe The Birdman doesn’t work.  Since PetSmart.com recommends spending “at least one hour a day holding or playing with your cockatiel,” with 84 of them, this guy had his…er, hands full.

And as everyone knows, a bird in the hand…

The birds were brought out of the apartment in individual boxes:

The Birdman was brought out in handcuffs by the San Diego police:

Stories noted that the San Diego Psychiatric Emergency Response Team (PERT) was also on site.

Though whether PERT was there for the birds, or The Birdman, was not clear.

OK, I’ll stop making fun of The Birdman.  He obviously has some issues, besides his dirty windows:

I should be more empathetic – you know, put myself in this guy’s shoes.

If they’re not covered in bird shit…

But wait.

I have a recipe that’s almost foolproof.  And when it comes to my cooking, trust me – the emphasis is on “fool.”

The recipe came from Mom, who – bless her heart – knew I didn’t care for cooking.

Normally I’m not one who talks recipes.  But this Crusty Chicken Casserole is so easy and so good, I’ll make an exception.  Another plus – it all goes into one dish, with no mixing, mincing, slicing, dicing, sautéing, deglazing or other such foolishness.

You can tell I’ve used this recipe many times – the stains, tears and fading are for real.  And every time I’ve made this – success!

Here’s the recipe, with my alterations:

“OK,” you’re thinking, “that does look easy.  And good.  But it’s not a full meal.”

You’re right – so here’s what’s on the backside of Mom’s recipe, again, another one-dish wonder:

 

Talk about easy!  And it bakes right along with the casserole.

There’s not much cleanup and, since you cooked – someone else is doing the cleanup.

Yes?

Are you getting a nice, fat 10% raise this year?

Me, neither.

Nor anyone I know.

Or anyone you know.

Unless it’s your CEO – CEO salaries rose by more than 1,000% between 1978 and 2017.

Our wages?  Up 11.2% between 1978 and 2017.

And in 2018?

August 2018:

September 2018:

October  2018:

But the United States Postal Service – hereafter referred to as USPS – is getting a 10% increase effective January 27, 2019.

First-class stamps are going from 50 cents to 55 cents.

That’s right.  USPS is getting a reward, and I can only assume it’s for their stellar delivery service, like these examples:

I especially like the “We Care” example.  USPS is so accustomed to trashing our stuff that they have pre-printed letters to go along with your damaged goods.  It reads, in part, “We sincerely regret…we hope you understand…hope this did not inconvenience you…”

Can you imagine any other organization doing this?

Like an automobile dealership.  You’re driving your brand-new car away from the lot and when you’re a mile away, the engine dies.  You lift the hood, and there’s a pre-printed letter that says, “We sincerely regret…you got stuck with this lemon…hope you have road service coverage…”

Back to USPS.  Here’s how they’ve done over the past 10 years:

• 2018: $3.9 billion loss
• 2017: $2.7 billion loss
• 2016: $5.6 billion loss
• 2015: $5.1 billion loss
• 2014: $5.5 billion loss
• 2013: $5 billion loss
• 2012: $15.9 billion loss
• 2011: $5.1 billion loss
• 2010: $8.5 billion loss
• 2009: $3.8 billion loss

Just imagine if you or I had a record like that.  We go to the boss and say, “Boss, I know I’ve lost a gagglegazillion dollars over the past 10 years, but I’d like a 10% raise in 2019.”

Well, USPS went to its Board of Governors or the Postal Regulatory Commission or whoever’s in charge, asked for that 10% increase.

And whoever’s in charge said, “Yowza!”

And if we, the people stuck with paying for that increase, protest, here’s what USPS will say:

There’s a price to pay for not having kids.

If I had, say, an eight-year-old, I would have known about the hottest-selling item this past Christmas.

Instead I was left to wander in the wilderness, ignorant and uninformed.

So it came as a total – but welcome – shock when I happened upon a recent news article, and the blinding light of knowledge cut through the darkness of my ignorance.

Now I’ve learned.  Now I know.

About Poopsie Pooey Puitton.

Seriously, I never knew about this crap.

And I say “crap,” literally, because that apparently is what Poopsie Pooey Puitton is all about, albeit in somewhat more refined language:

“MGA Entertainment’s Poopsie Pooey Puitton purse is the ultimate unicorn poop kit!  Magically make scented, unicorn poop slime in a rainbow of colors!  With a little unicorn magic, sparkle, and crunch, you can customize your unicorn poop again and again!”

So now I know:

• MGA Entertainment decided kids weren’t making enough poop, so they created a new poop source.
• The Poopsie Pooey Puitton purse is the ultimate unicorn poop kit vs. your average unicorn poop kit.
• The purse retails for $59.99, enabling parents to pay to encourage their kids to make – and play with – poop.

This item is so popular that, according to one website, it was sold out at Target over the recent holidays.  And no wonder – look at all it includes:

A “rainbow of poop”!  Wow!

It’s the purse, however, that’s drawing the national spotlight.

The purse, in case you hadn’t noticed, is shaped very like poop.

And its name – Puitton – is spelled very like that of a famous purse designer:

Louis Vuitton.

Louis Vuitton purses cost thouand$ are considered luxury goods, which means there are also ne’er-do-wells out there making cheap imitations.  This chicanery has been going on since an early cavewoman claimed her new purse was genuine Tyrannosaurs rex skin, but her mother-in-law knew it was a cheap Brontosaurus knock-off.

So nowadays, many luxury goods makers file lawsuits or threaten litigation to stop companies from piggybacking off their names and customer goodwill.

Just in case Louis Vuitton had any ideas about suing over Poopsie Pooey Puitton, MGA pre-emptively sued Vuitton to ensure MGA can keep making their Puitton without interference from Vuitton:

MGA is seeking a court declaration that Poopsie Pooey Puitton does not infringe on Louis Vuitton’s intellectual property rights, and is protected parody and fair use.

That “protected parody,” said MGA, is “designed to mock, criticize, and make fun of that wealth and celebrity” associated with Louis Vuitton products

Which is exactly the message any eight-year-old would appreciate finding under her Christmas tree.

Instead of considering a lawsuit, I think Vuitton should be grateful for Puitton.  Get the youngsters hooked on the look now, and in a few years they’ll be begging to transition from Puitton to Vuitton:

This Poopsie Pooey Puitton retails for $59.99.	This Vuitton City Steamer retails for $55,000.

I have never taken a selfie, or been in a selfie with others.

I have, therefore, never posted my image on social media with a clever caption such as, “I’m eating tomato soup for lunch right now!!!”

You’re probably thinking, “Well, then what do you do all day, if you’re not taking/posting selfies and talking endlessly about yourself?”

Well, gosh.  Work?  Eat?  Sleep?  Face time with significant other and friends?  Read?  Pay bills?  Clean the bathroom?

However, I may have to rethink all that and switch to major narcissistic mode because of this important announcement:

The Museum of Selfies, or TMoS for those in the know, originally opened as a pop-up, but apparently was so popular that it’s now found a permanent home on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.

TMoS promises to:

“Share the unseen depths and history of this cultural phenomenon, with roots going back 40,000 years!”

I’m going to hazard a guess that they’re referring to cave paintings, some of which are, indeed, estimated at 40,000 years old.  And what treasures explorers have found – like these gorgeous horses from Chauvet cave in France.

However, depictions of humans didn’t come along until centuries later, like when this bunch of guys in what’s now Argentina decided to portray themselves giving each other high-fives.

And while the guys might have gotten a bit carried away, you’ll notice there are no faces in this painting, and faces are the point of selfies, aren’t they?

Sure, people do take photos of other body parts, but no matter how…um…stunning those parts may be, they remain anonymous without a face to go with them.

Without my face it isn’t me.

If it isn’t me, it isn’t a selfie.

The museum website lets us know all the exciting things we can do at TMoS including:

“You can take really cool photos in our interactive exhibits that explore the various types of selfies and what they mean.”

I suppose by “interactive exhibits” they mean something like this?

Note the genuine imitation statues of Michelangelo’s David, complete with pink phones and strategically placed pink fig leaves.

The website offers other well-known images, like this one:

News Flash:  The phone was not included in the original 19^th-century Vincent van Gogh self-portrait.  And van Gogh painted selfies because he was too poor to pay a model.  At least he had a good excuse.

But perhaps it is time to re-think my No Selfie Strategy.

I’ll grab a selfie stick – yes, they’re welcomed at TMoS!  And pay the $25 entrance fee and…oh…did I forget to mention there’s a charge to do this?

And “take really cool photos” of myself.  Then I’ll upload them to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Flickr and Pinterest, and wait for your wildly enthusiastic responses.

Here I am eating tomato soup while I’m waiting.

Whoops!  Forgot to include my face!

Selfie:  A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.	Museum:  A building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.	Selfie Museum:  A building in which selfies but NO objects of historical, scientific, artistic or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.

On December 21, 2018 a revolution took place in this country.

And nobody heard about it.

Why?

It was the day before the partial government shutdown, and that’s all anyone was talking about.

Unlike 10 days earlier when the revolution was getting plenty of media coverage.

On December 12, for example, the Washington Examiner reported that “a bipartisan agreement has been reached in the House and the Senate.”

That, in itself, should have captured everyone’s attention because, as everyone knows, our esteemed politicians rarely agree on anything.

The agreement – a bill – was intended to modify the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 and would, among other stipulations, hold “lawmakers liable for harassment and retaliation settlements.”

This was truly revolutionary, because ever since the Congressional Reform Act was passed, the law required taxpayer dollars to fund these settlements.

That’s right.  For nearly a quarter century we, the taxpayers, were on the hook for settlements stemming from Congressional inappropriate sexual conduct.

And not only that – the law allowed for the settlements, and the names of the accused Congress members, to be kept secret.

How many offenders?  How many tax dollars?

We’ll never know.

One of the rare exceptions is Blake Farenthold, a Republican Representative from Texas.  He was accused of sexual harassment, and the matter was settled out of court for $84,000.  That was our tax dollars, and Farenthold promised to repay it.  Then he abruptly resigned in April 2018 without repaying us, and to this day has not done so.

But if the Reform Act passed, the members of Congress would pay their own settlements.

And, by law, we’d learn who, when and how much.

The revolution began the day before the partial government shutdown.

On December 21, S.3749 – the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Reform Act – became law:

Try as I might, I cannot find any media outlet that covered this revolution.

Why?

Because of this:

And when I say “try,” I googled “S.3749 – Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Reform Act” and “Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Reform Act becomes law” and scrolled through the first four pages for each.

Nothing from the media.

So it gives me the greatest of pleasure to share with you the full first page at congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/3749, followed by an easier-to-understand one-page summary from Crowell & Moring, and international law firm based in Washington DC:

As I was reading an article about Ellen DeGeneres’ upcoming appearances in San Diego, a sidebar about “Do’s and Don’ts” gave me pause.

Is this what we’ve come to, to attend a live show?

The performances are phone-free, and all phones and smart watches will be secured in Yondr cases, which will be unlocked after each performance.

I didn’t know what a Yondr case was, but now I do:  A pouch that locks when you close it, and requires a device for unlocking it.

Security staff lock your phone in this pouch, which you keep, and can be opened only with the unlocking base.

Attendees can access their phones throughout each show at designated phone-use areas in the theater.

So if you have to use your phone, you go to this designated area, unlock the Yondr, do whatever with your phone, return it to the case and security staff lock it again.

Prior to the show you stand in line to get the Yondr, and after the show you stand in line to get the Yondr unlocked.

Inaccessible phones also prevent the disturbance of ringing cell phones and conversations during the performance, and we know there are plenty of people whose phones ring and have conversations during live performances.

No use of cameras or any recording devices is permitted.  Anyone using such devices during the show will be removed and will not receive a ticket refund.

DeGeneres, and any person who creates something, is proprietary about it, and rightfully so.  They own what they created.  They don’t want us recording their material and repurposing it – like posting it on social media – without their permission.

And we know that happens.  I recently noticed an entire Broadway show, shot with a cell phone and posted on YouTube, and that’s just one of thousands of examples.

Food or drink will be available in the lobby, but are not permitted inside the venue.

This was a new one for me.  I’ve never been to a live performance that didn’t at least allow me to take a beverage to my seat.

But food and beverages can be a distraction for both the audience and the performer – especially when we spill something.  And the trash we leave behind can cause a mess, and even damage, to the venue.

No exit and re-entry will be permitted during the performances.

This was another new one for me.  If you need to go to the bathroom, better take care of that before the show – especially since this show was two hours with no intermission.

Walk-through metal detectors will be used on all attendees, and all parcels are subject to search.

Of course I understand this.  After the horror of the October 2017 massacre at the concert in Las Vegas – and all the other horror stories – all safety precautions must be taken.

I suppose it’s only a matter of time – and money – until all public entrances have metal detectors, from movie theaters to bowling alleys to churches.

And it makes me sad, that yes – this is what we’ve come to:

It’s no longer enough to ask attendees to turn off their phones before the show, because we can’t be trusted, and we don’t.

It’s no longer enough to make an announcement before a show, forbidding the use of recording devices.  We can’t be trusted, so now our phones are locked up.

It’s no longer enough to request attendees pick up their bottles and other trash from food and drinks – we can’t be trusted to do this, because we don’t.

We can’t be trusted not to bring guns or other weapons to the theater, so we have to walk through metal detectors, our purses and parcels searched.

As I said – sad.

Publication date:  October 2018

Review, short version:  Three skunks out of four.

Review, long version:

If you put author John Grisham’s name on just about anything, I’m pretty sure it would be a bestseller – a book, a cereal box, a roll of toilet paper.

And his new book, The Reckoning, stays true to form – as of January 13, 2019 it was #1 on The New York Times bestseller list, its 10^th week on the list:

In the front of The Reckoning there’s a list of Grisham’s earlier books – all 39 of them – so he’s prolific, as well as popular.  Grisham’s books have been translated into 40 languages and 11 of his novels have been made into films, with three more in the works.

Not bad for someone who, according to his website, says, “I never dreamed of being a writer.”

I’ve read many of Grisham’s books, liking some and others, not so much.  But I’ve never done with one of his books what I did with The Reckoning:

Skimmed through more than 200 pages, starting around page 180.

If you go back up to the bestsellers image, there’s a one-sentence summary of the book:

“A decorated WWII veteran shoots and kills a pastor.”

And that’s an accurate summary of Part I of the book.

As for Part 2, in an interview on the PBS NewsHour, Grisham described it this way:

“The book takes a hard left turn and goes off to World War II, to the Philippines, and the Bataan Death March, because our hero, or antihero…went off to fight in the war.”

And that’s where I lost interest.

I read Grisham for stories about law and lawyers and crime and justice – or injustice – and legal shenanigans.

When I want to know more about World War II, the Philippines and the Bataan Death March, I read books on those subjects.

Perhaps Grisham offered 200+ pages of his interpretation of the war as an explanation for lead character Pete Banning’s behavior – committing premeditated murder.  Perhaps those war experiences “speak to his state of mind,” as lawyers like to say.

But whatever the war did to Banning, it makes no difference – he’s arrested, tried and executed.  Starting around page 404 we get The Big Reveal about why Banning did what he did, and whoops!  Maybe he killed the wrong guy.

In the Author’s Note Grisham explains that he based his book on a story he’d heard years earlier:

“I believe it to be true but cannot remember who told it, or where it happened, or when…If any reader out there recognizes this story, please let me know.  I would love to have it verified.”

I would love not to have wasted my time on The Reckoning.

No, wait.  That’s a joke.

Two nuns walk into a casino.

And that’s no joke.

Late last year the story broke that two nuns, Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper and Sister Lana Chang, not only walked into a casino, they walked into a casino many times, or many casinos many times, which of those doesn’t matter.

What matters is that they embezzled money from their school to play at the casinos.

St. James Catholic School in Torrance, CA.

The money came from tuition, fees and donations.

The amount embezzled was $500,000.

Maybe more.

Sister Mary Margaret and Sister Lana are members of The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, whose mission statement, according to their website, declares they “are committed to respond to the urgent needs of our world.”

Apparently Sister Mary Margaret and Sister Lana were more interested in responding to the “urgent needs” of their world.

It turns out that the money was easy pickings for Sister Mary Margaret – she was principal of St. James Catholic School for almost 28 years.  She handled all checks made out to the school before turning them over to bookkeeping staff for processing.

Except for the checks Sister Mary Margaret withheld and deposited into a secret account, endorsing the back with a stamp that read, “St. James Convent” instead of “St. James School.”

Thus flush, Sister Mary Margaret and her best friend, Sister Lana, headed for a, some, or many casinos.  They, like their sister sisters, had taken a vow of poverty, so they explained their ability to take these trips as a treat from a rich uncle.

Can’t you just hear the two of them at the poker table?

Sister Mary Margaret:  These dead presidents are burning a hole in my pocket!

Sister Lana:  Then let’s bet the farm – after all, it’s not our money!

Michael Meyers, the church’s monsignor, said the improper use of the funds had been going on for at least 10 years.

The BFFs both retired in 2018.

Then the story broke, and understandably, the discovery made many members of St. James parish very unhappy.  Some parents were considering banding together to act as the complaining party and bring charges.

Why?

Because the archdiocese declined to prosecute Sister Mary Margaret and Sister Lana.

Though at last report, that no-prosecution approach had started changing as more parents came forward after combing through their financial records.  Some parents are now saying they believe the money embezzled could add up to more than $3 million.

That’s a lot of dead presidents!

In the meantime, the sisters are deeply remorseful, though it’s a mystery if they’re deeply remorseful about what they did – or that they were caught.

And the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet have agreed to pay the school full restitution.

Though where a group of nuns who have taken a vow of poverty will get $500,000+ is another mystery.

And the lesson for all the boys and girls at St. James Catholic school?

That’s no mystery:

Thou shalt not steal…

And get caught.

Sister Mary Margaret and Sister Lana (above) and perhaps in the future (below).  No worries, Sisters – orange is the new black!

 

Drip, drip, drip.

If you’ve ever had a leaky faucet, you know how annoying it can be.

Well, how’s this for annoying?

Leak, leak, leak.

That’s what’s happening in the Gulf of Mexico.

Though we rarely hear about it.

And it’s worse than annoying.

It’s dangerous.  For people, for animals, for the environment.

It’s called the Taylor oil spill.

It’s been going on for 14 years.

Never heard of it, right?

So here’s a little history for some context.

Patrick Taylor founded Taylor Energy Company in New Orleans in 1979.  According to Taylor’s 2004 obituary, “Taylor Energy Company is one of the larger independent oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico to explore for and produce oil and natural gas in Federal offshore waters in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Taylor Energy was doing well, and the price of gasoline was increasing:

Then in September 2004, Hurricane Ivan struck the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana.  Powerful waves triggered an underwater mudslide that wrecked Taylor Energy’s oil platform.

The mudslide also buried a cluster of wells under mounds of treacherous sediment, preventing the company from employing traditional techniques to plug them.  Taylor Energy plugged nine wells, leaving 16 unplugged.

Patrick Taylor died in November 2004.

Taylor Energy “sold its oil and gas assets in 2008 and ceased oil drilling and production operations,” according to its one-page website:

And ever since Hurricane Ivan in September 2004, Taylor Energy’s drilling site has been leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

I knew nothing of this until I heard an interview on NPR’s The Takeaway.  The gentleman being interviewed, Michael Kunzelman of the Associated Press, had talked of and written about the Taylor oil spill for years.

I wonder if Kunzelman felt like the proverbial voice crying in the wilderness – writing and warning and nobody listening.

I listened, and got angry, then started doing my own research, and got angrier.

Based on what I’m learning, from my perspective, here’s one of the reasons no one is listening:  The Deepwater Horizon disaster:

In 2010 BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig exploded.  Spectacular flames, clouds of billowing smoke.  Countless gallons of oil in and on the water, moving toward shorelines.  Countless birds and marine life killed.  Massive oil spill, massive rescue efforts.  Eleven workers never found.

And massive media attention:  The disaster was brought to us live from the flames and smoke to pictures of oil-soaked pelicans staggering at the water’s edge.  “BP” was on everybody’s lips. The disaster was BP’s fault.  BP was the villain, and everybody knew it.

And in case anybody forgot it, a movie, Deepwater Horizon, came out in 2016 to remind us.

But in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan wrecked Taylor Energy’s oil platform – no explosions, no flames, no deaths, no staggering pelicans.

No movie.

No one was paying much attention, and Taylor Energy certainly wasn’t talking about it.

And since 2004:

Leak, leak, leak.

So there’s a brief history of the Taylor oil spill.  As one writer put it, “a quietly devastating oil spill that’s been contaminating the Gulf of Mexico for 14 years.”

Said another, “It threatens to overtake the Deepwater Horizon spill as the biggest offshore disaster in US history.”

Reminder:  Deepwater Horizon:  More than 200 million gallons (more than 4 million barrels) of crude oil pumped into the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2008, the same year that Taylor Energy sold its assets and ceased production, federal government regulators required the company to deposit approximately $666 million in a trust to pay for oil leak response work.

Taylor Energy has shirked its responsibility, and an army of lawyers has fought further responsibility every step of the way.  “The company,” wrote Kunzelman, “has insisted there is no evidence any wells are still leaking.  It claims residual oil is oozing from sediment on the seafloor.”

As for what is we’re seeing on the Gulf of Mexico surface, says Taylor Energy, “The sheens contained an average volume of less than 4 gallons per day.”

Over the past 14 years, Taylor Energy has maintained that the leaks are minimal, as is any environmental damage.  Each time new measurements were taken – by the Coast Guard and environmental groups who insisted the leaks were increasing – Taylor maintained its position.

No, no, insisted Taylor Energy scientists.  The slicks are caused by oil and gas bubbling up from the oil-saturated seafloor, and not from leaking wells.

In November 2018 Kunzelman wrote, “Government lawyers recently disclosed a new estimate that approximately 10,500 to 29,400 gallons of oil is leaking daily from the site where slicks often stretch for miles off Louisiana’s coast.”

But Taylor Energy has held fast.

And William Pecue, Taylor Energy’s president, has consistently referred to the events that led to the oil leak as an “Act of God.”  Meaning that Hurricane Ivan triggered a mudslide in the canyon that the wells were located in, and the event was an unforeseen natural phenomenon for which Taylor cannot legally be held responsible.

In one article Kunzelman quoted Justice Department attorney John Roberson as saying, “I believe that their [Taylor Energy’s] position is there’s no more that can be done and they should be able to walk away from the issue.”

And not only “walk away” – Taylor Energy had sued the Federal government, demanding the return of $432 million of that $666 million.

Take the money and run.  The good old American way.

But…maybe not.  According to a spate of articles on November 20,

“Last week, the Coast Guard directed Taylor Energy to decide on a new containment plan and a contractor to do the work.  The new method of containment ‘must eliminate the surface sheen and avoid the deficiencies associated with prior containment systems,’ the Coast Guard wrote in an administrative order.  The company will be fined up to $40,000 per day for failing to comply.”

And on November 21 Kunzelman wrote,

“The Interior Board of Land Appeals refused to excuse Taylor Energy Co. from requirements to permanently plug oil wells that could be the source of the leak.  [It] can be required to perform more underwater drilling and excavation work to stop the flow of crude.”

Taylor Energy has fought unfavorable decisions in the past and will no doubt fight these decisions as well.

And while they’re fighting…

Leak, leak, leak.

And in the meantime:

I’ve heard more than one police officer say, “The reason some criminals get caught is because they make a mistake.”

Now, we all make mistakes.

But there are mistakes, and then there are mistakes that are so egregious that they deserve their own series.  Without further ado, I’m pleased to announce:

Lest you think the numbnuts definition at the top of this blog is harsh – well, read about these folks and see if you agree.

Numbnuts #1:

If you’ve ever left home without your driver license you know how annoying that can be.

That was not a concern for Wesley Glenn Bost, 27, of Birmingham, AL, when he left home late last year.

Yes, Wesley had his license in his pocket when he went into the local Waffle House.  Whether or not Wesley indulged in waffles is not known, but at some point Wesley headed for the restroom.

Once inside, he took off his pants and used them to tie the door shut.

Let’s think about that for a minute.

If you went into a place of business with nefarious intentions, and knew you needed to secure a door, wouldn’t you bring along a rope or a bungee cord or something to facilitate that?

You probably would.  Hence, you won’t be featured in Numbnuts In The News.

And why did Wesley have to tie the door shut?  Restrooms in restaurants have locks, right?

But I digress.

After securing the door, pantless Wesley climbed into the ceiling, apparently with the intention of using this route to reach the restaurant office, and then rob it.

However, en route to the office, Wesley fell through the ceiling:

I imagine the site of pantless Wesley falling through the ceiling put at least a few people off their smothered hash browns.

Wesley escaped, but remember his pants?  With the driver license in his pocket?

The police found his ID, and they’ll find him, too.

I suggest they try nearby Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL where I’m betting Wesley is – no surprise here – a rocket scientist.

Numbnuts #2

Right around the same time, in Gulfport, MS, Keith Rio Cavalier, 28, was simply trying to do his civic duty:  Report a crime.

Instead of using the phone or waving down a police car, Keith decided on a unique approach:

He crashed his pickup truck into the front of the Harrison County courthouse:

The courthouse, of course, has exterior cameras, and the 50-second video shows the truck driving across the sidewalk and into the courthouse, shattering plate glass.

Unable to open his door, Keith lowered a window and climbed out of the truck:

Keith casually strolled off (but not out of camera view), then turned and paused in a – if I may say it – rather cavalier fashion, and surveyed the scene.

No doubt at this point he was thinking, “That will get the cops’ attention.”

And indeed, it did.  The police apprehended Keith shortly after the incident and charged him with first-offense DUI and felony malicious mischief.

Wisely, Keith took advantage of his proximity to the police to report the original crime, just as he’d intended:

Someone had stolen his drug paraphernalia.

Let’s think about this for a minute.

If someone stole your drug paraphernalia, would you report it to the police?

You probably wouldn’t.  Hence, you won’t be featured in Numbnuts In The News.

What was Keith’s motive?  To help the police catch the person who stole the paraphernalia, and return the stuff to Keith?

“Mr. Cavalier, we found your drug paraphernalia.”
“Oh, officer, thank you!  That’s my favorite Yoda bong!”

See? Like I said…

But no “Happy Days” for more than 800,000 Federal employees.

Because here we are, in our third government shutdown in one year.  Lest we’ve forgotten:

1. January 20, 2018 – January 23, 2018
2. February 9, 2018 – February 9, 2018
3. December 22, 2018 – Till Further Notice

In this current shutdown those Federal employees – about a quarter of the government – aren’t getting paid, though many of those are considered “essential” and have to work anyway.

That number of unpaid employees does not include the President or Congress, which seem more and more unessential every day.

These federal departments are shuttered:

This list does not include NASA, which stands for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, though I’ve decided NASA actually stands for Needless And Stupid Assignments.

NASA did, however, get nailed in the shutdown – about 95 percent of NASA employees aren’t working and aren’t getting paid.

But never fear.  NASA makes exceptions for the folks responsible for keeping NASA people and property safe.  “Property” includes currently operational spacecraft.

And “currently operational spacecraft” include the New Horizons and its January 1 flyby of Ultima Thule, also referred to as the “celestial snowman”:

That’s right – there were plenty of people hanging around in NASA’s and other control rooms, high-fiving and patting themselves on the back when they verified that New Horizons had, indeed, done a flyby and taken pictures of Ultima Thule, the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft.

That distance is around four billion miles, so well, yeah, that’s distant.

And what is Ultima Thule?

First a definition.  In Latin, it means “the highest degree attainable.”  For NASA purposes, “the farthest point; the limit of any journey.”

In addition to “celestial snowman,” various media have referred to Ultima Thule as “a pristine fragment from the earliest days of the solar system,” “small frozen world,” “distant object,” “minor planet,” “a tiny and mysterious object” and “a bowling pin.”

Why did NASA want New Horizons to do a flyby, aside from, “because it’s there”?

Well, the New Horizons spacecraft was sort of in the neighborhood – it had done an earlier flyby of Pluto, so like the Energizer Bunny, it kept going and going and going…

Cost for Pluto flyby:  $720 million.
Side trip for Ultima Thule:  $81 million.

What we’ve learned about Ultima Thule for that extra $81 million:

“We know it’s not round,” said John Spencer, the mission’s deputy project scientist.

Did I mention “Needless And Stupid Assignments”?

What’s it all mean?

We have more than 800,000 Federal employees who aren’t getting paid, but a bunch of NASA scientists who are getting paid to look at pictures of a bowling pin and ascertain that isn’t round.

If only I’d known, I could have saved NASA the trouble – and us taxpayers the money – by sending this to Mr. Spencer:

Example of “Round”	Example of “Not Round”

 

And now it’s time for another response to the folks who persist in writing advice columns about working.

You know – advice like “How To Shine In A Shit Job!” and “Are You A Sincere Sycophant?”

This time the article is “Signs You Need A New Job,” and here are the writer’s four signs.  With my comments, of course.

1. Your workday drags on and on.

Of course it “drags on and on.”  That’s why it’s called “work.”  That’s why they pay me to do it.  You don’t think I’d do this for free, do you?

2. You haven’t learned or done anything new in months.

I have learned and done something new:

• I’ve learned how, when I’m at my computer, to conceal that I’m shopping pre-holiday sales on Amazon.
• I’ve learned how to siphon off parts of nice, fresh salads in the employee fridge in the morning before my colleagues have them for lunch. Their salad dressing too, while I’m at it.
• I’ve learned how, when a team leader asks for volunteers, to gracefully excuse myself and go to the restroom.

3. You’re embarrassed to say what you do for a living.

I’m not embarrassed about to say what I do for a living.  I’m embarrassed that I’m not independently wealthy.

4. You don’t see how this job will lead to a better one.

The only “better one” has a name:  It’s called “retirement.”

Now for my good advice on…

The Top 10 Signs You Need A New Job

1.     Your hour+ commute is the best part of your workday.
2.     While you were at lunch, your desk was cleared out and someone you’ve never seen is sitting there.
3.     Everyone was invited to the holiday party but you.
4.     Your manager has a voodoo doll that looks exactly like you…with pins stuck in it.
5.     Summons to HR have become a twice-weekly thing for you.
6.     Colleagues are leaving “Good Bye and Good Luck!” cards on your desk…anonymously.
7.     When you stand up in your cube and loudly ask, “Who wants to go to lunch?” nobody does.
8.     You cried at your annual evaluation and your manager hadn’t yet said a word.
9.     You were out sick for three days and nobody noticed.
10. You’re looking forward to life-threatening major surgery because it’s time off work.

If you’re one, some, or all of the above, now you know:

You need a new job.

Publication date:  November 2018

Review, short version:  My usual limit is four out of four skunks, but I made an exception for this super stinker.

Review, long version:

When Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers came out, I didn’t need to read the reviews.

I’d enjoyed her previous seven books, and was looking forward to this one.

Early on we meet the lead narrator, Frances, and I liked her immediately.  She’s on her way to a high-end, out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere health spa because her life was in meltdown.

Serious meltdown.

But that doesn’t keep Frances from being, at turns, wry, funny, wise and foolish.  She says and thinks things that are so well put I started writing them down.

For instance, she had to fill out an online questionnaire to qualify as a spa guest, and since Frances thought most of their questions were none of their business, “She cheerfully lied her way through it.”

Frances is a successful romance novelist, but she doesn’t read reviews of her books because “her skin was too thin.”  Then she reads one bad review, and “A quite extraordinary pain in her chest radiated throughout her entire body.”

I was right there with her.

Frances is one of those rare women who doesn’t have issues with her weight, and she gets bored with women who do:  “The recent weight losers, the thin women who called themselves fat, the average women who called themselves obese, the ones desperate for her to join in their lavish self-loathing.”

“Lavish self-loathing.”  So well put, and so true.

So I liked Frances, and I liked how Moriarty introduces us to, and gets us acquainted with, the other eight spa guests in Frances’ group – the Nine Perfect Strangers – along with spa owner Masha, and her staff.  Moriarty does such a good job of giving her multiple characters different voices and unique circumstances that I had never had one of those, “Wait – which one is this?” moments.

So I was cruising along, really enjoying the story – especially Frances – until I ran into a brick wall on page 225, half-way through the book.

The nine guests and spa staff are together in a meditation room when the guests discover they’ve just consumed smoothies laced with LSD and psilocybin (magic mushrooms), courtesy of Masha.  Her goal was “heightening the senses” of the guests for their “guided psychedelic therapy.”

WHOA.  This is SO not OK.

It’s way beyond not OK, and I was furious.  My first thought was of GHB, the date-rape drug that’s also administered without the recipient’s knowledge.  My second thought:  Slipping anyone any drug without their knowledge is horrible.  And illegal.

Yet Moriarty incorporated it as a part of her storyline, and what followed were way too many pages of the various head trips each of the guests is forced to take.

The head trips are followed by Masha and the spa staff leaving, and locking the guests in the room.  While they try to figure out how to escape, they’re watched and listened to on monitors by Masha and staff in her office.

First drugging people, and then holding them captive and spying on them – this is Moriarty’s idea of good storytelling?

Now I was both furious and disgusted.

At about page 250 I started skimming, right through the next 200 pages to the end.  I couldn’t wait for this book to be over – this book, which I started out enjoying so much.  I’ve never had this experience before, to go from such a pleasurable read to truly rotten one, all in one book.

All I could think was, “I’m so glad I got this from the library and didn’t spend $30+ on it.”

Now I decided it was time to read some Amazon reviews, to see if anyone agreed with me.  How I wish I’d done this before I wasted my time!  Here are some excerpts from the negative ones (and there are 12 pages of them):

• I really disliked this book, and skipped from about the 30% mark to 90% to only know the ending.
• It started fairly well but swiftly deteriorated.
• This book is the first of Ms. Moriarty’s books that is terrible.
• This book is a huge disappointment.
• Wait for reviews before buying her next.
• Oh my goodness, this is her worst book.
• Really awful book.
• This one was awful…a huge letdown.
• Her worst book.  Very disappointed.
• I’m shocked Liane Moriarty wrote this.
• Left me incredibly disappointed.  I do not recommend this book!
• An utter disaster.
• Absolute rubbish.
• I wanted to love this book, but ended up hating it.

At least I’m in good company.

And I hated it, too.

Stupid commercials have been around since, well – commercials have been around.

And commercials have been around since before television.

That’s right – on-air commercials started with radio.  When radio was a new medium, its primary function was delivering commercials to listeners, for which the radio stations and/or networks were paid by the advertisers.

But the guys in charge knew that people wouldn’t listen to nothing but commercials all day and all night, so they came up with the idea of putting on programs to break up the commercials.

Radio existed to bring you commercials, not programs.  The programs were just padding.

Same with TV.

With so many commercials it’s inevitable that there would be some real stinkers, and a recent 30-second Senokot TV commercial has to be the biggest stinker of all.

If you’ll excuse the expression.

The setting:  A woman and man are in a bakery.  He purchases two coffees at the counter, turns and bumps into her.

He smiles and says, “Sorry – first dates can be a bit uncomfortable.”

She responds, “Yeah, I know.  Kind of like my constipation.”

Wait.

What?

The man, eyebrows raised, looks puzzled.  This would have sent any normal guy running for the door, but we haven’t heard the advertiser’s message yet.

“I am so backed up,” she continues.  “Believe me, I’ve been trying.”

He appears to gulp, and perhaps looks paler than a few seconds earlier.

Since when is this a topic on a date, let alone a first date?  Is the advertiser suggesting that this is normal, that this is what dating people talk about?

At 14 seconds into the commercial, this graphic appears:

Of course, for the remainder of the commercial we do nothing but talk about it.

Then comes the announcer, and a new graphic:

Announcer:  Senokot’s natural vegetable laxative ingredient means occasional constipation won’t be on your mind.

She says, “Did I make it…more uncomfortable?”

By “it” I assume she means the awkwardness of a first date, not the state of her bowels.

The poor guy looks plenty “uncomfortable.”

“Nnn – no,” he says.  “It’s fine.”

Well, at least he’s got good manners.

OK, the end is in sight.

If you’ll excuse the expression.

Announcer:  Say “No more” to occasional constipation with clinically proven, effective Senokot!  Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.

I think the guy should get back his money back for the coffees, and now run for the door.

Just think of all the people involved in getting this commercial from concept to in your face:  Creative director, art director, writers, director, editor, lighting and sound crew, hair, makeup and set styling people, actors, set builders, graphics designer, announcer, plus the Senokot people who approved the commercial.

They all thought this message was going to make viewers say, “Wow, that convinces me!  From now on, it’s Senokot for my occasional constipation!” and run right out and buy some.

Viewers who, I’ll mention, are eating dinner, because the only time I’ve seen this commercial is at dinnertime.

Television.

What a wasteland.

If you’ll excuse the expression.

Or, why you do NOT want to come to my house for Christmas dinner…

I am no cook But I like to look At food magazines and such. The pictures are neat And I love to eat But to cook – well, not so much.
I won’t win a prize For my apple pies Of baking I’ve nothing to boast. My cakes turn out flat And much worse than that Hell, I struggle just making toast.
I once had a wish To fry up some fish Which into the trash I did dump. The people I feed Oh, where does it lead? To a date with a stomach pump.
I’m giving up hope My cooking’s a joke No matter how hard I strive. I promise I’ll stay From the kitchen – away So my family and friends survive.

This “Wait…What?” moment is brought to you by your tax dollars.

Specifically, the tax dollars that pay the salaries of both a clerk and supervisor at the District of Columbia Marriage Bureau.

And because the District of Columbia – that is, Washington DC – is not a state but a stand-alone Federal City, we’re talking federal tax dollars.

Your federal tax dollars.

The media thus far have declined to name the clerk and supervisor, so for storytelling purposes, I’ll name them.  Let’s see…

	Abbott and Costello?		No, they were smart.
	Tom and Jerry?		No, they were funny.

Because the clerk and supervisor were just so embarrassingly…nescient.

Last month Gavin Clarkson, a resident of New Mexico, and his then-fiancée Marina, a resident of Washington DC, went to the District of Columbia Marriage Bureau to apply for a marriage license.

Clarkson presented his New Mexico driver license for ID to the clerk, whom I’ll call Dumb.

Dumb rejected Clarkson’s license as ID because…

Are you ready?

“She thought New Mexico was a foreign country,” said Clarkson.  Dumb told Clarkson he would need an international passport for ID, since he wasn’t a U.S. citizen.

Clarkson protested the clerk’s decision to her supervisor, who was obviously Dumber, and who also failed to recognize New Mexico as a state.

“My supervisor says we cannot accept international driver licenses. Do you have a New Mexico passport?” queried Dumb.

Clarkson said the employee checked with the supervisor twice about the issue.

By now, said Clarkson, “All the couples behind us waiting in line were laughing.”

If I’d been in line waiting to get a marriage license, and the line was stalled because  federal-tax-dollars-paid U.S. citizens were unaware that our country has a state called “New Mexico,” I would not have been laughing.

The online stories are sketchy about how Clarkson finally convinced Dumb and Dumber that New Mexico was, indeed, a state.  Did he:

• Google “U.S. maps” and point to his home?
• Find “New Mexico” on Wikipedia, where it says New Mexico has been a state in 1912?
• Show Dumb the Ballotpedia page from Clarkson’s recent unsuccessful run for New Mexico Secretary of State:

Later on Facebook Clarkson said:

The license was issued, the couple married, and in a statement the director of media and public relations for DC Courts apologized for the couple’s “slight delay.”

The director did not apologize for Dumb and Dumber’s…dumbness.

Nor did she indicate if she’d be requiring Dumb and Dumber to memorize our other 49 states.

When PBS television has an American Experience documentary on the schedule, I want to see it.

Because every American Experience I’ve watched has been excellent.

And what’s not to like?  They’re all about us.

According to their website,  American Experience “brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.”  The series began airing 20 years ago, and has featured more than 300 stories on just about any topic you can think of, from The Great San Francisco Earthquake (1988) to Reagan (1998) to The Circus (2018).

It’s two documentaries from the current season that I’m reviewing, The Poisoner’s Handbook and The Eugenics Crusade.  Both are extremely well done, and full of fascinating information that doesn’t feel like facts flying at you, but instead, easy-to-watch stories…

All about us.

One documentary is a story about science gone wrong – and one about science gone right.  But these aren’t “scientific” documentaries, nor are they “dumbed down” for the non-scientific.  Both offer entertainment, information, and will have you saying, “I didn’t know that!”

Science gone wrong:

The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of well-intentioned people whose goal was to perfect humanity, believing that healthy babies made happy families – and who would argue with that?  By the mid-1920s the eugenics movement was mainstream, its beliefs popular and practiced, and supported by law, up to and including a Supreme Court decision in 1927.

Where the good intentions went wrong was in the forced sterilization of those considered “unfit” to have offspring – but who was fit to judge the “unfit”?

In the name of perfection, more than 60,000 Americans were sterilized – many from immigrant groups, the poor, Jews, the mentally and physically disabled, and the “morally delinquent.”

The movement was discredited during the 1930s, and forever put to rest when Hitler became a proponent of eugenics.

Or, chillingly, not quite to rest:  That decision by the Supreme Court has never been overturned and still stands.  Forced sterilization is permitted in half the states in America by laws that have not been challenged or overturned.

Science gone right:

The Poisoner’s Handbook tells two parallel stories:  One, the goal of protecting citizens from the unintended consequences of progress; the second, the birth and evolution of forensic science, the most believed testimony in modern-day courtrooms.

In the early 20^th century, progress in the U.S. was marked by new inventions, discoveries and products, and the widely held belief that “new means better.”  Some of the new enhancements – all in the name of “progress” – included lead in drinking water, arsenic in makeup, and radium in household products.  The average American home was a treasure chest of poison.

As more and more people died of poisoning – some accidental and some deliberately administered – in the 1920s medical examiner Charles Norris and his chief toxicologist Alexander Gettle became pioneers the field of forensic science, solving cases of suspicious deaths and revolutionizing criminal investigation.

If you’re a fan of the CSI:  Crime Scene Investigation shows, you can thank Norris and Gettle for their brilliance – and perseverance.

When you watch The Eugenics Crusade and The Poisoner’s Handbook – or any American Experience – you’ll be entertained and informed.  And you’ll no longer say, “I didn’t know that!” because…

I read it, then blinked to be sure my vision was clear.

I read it again.

And burst out laughing.

I have never, EVER see the word “Farts” in a headline before.

But there it is, from my newspaper, in black and white.

Naturally this required further research, so I googled the story.

“Farts” is not only in the headlines, it’s in almost every headline:

Yes, this was a new one on me.

Perhaps because farting doesn’t generally make news headlines.  Everyone farts, so this isn’t exactly news.

Except, now it is.

Why?

Where:  Dania Beach, FL, in line at a Dollar General in late November.

Who:  Thirty-seven-year-old Shanetta Wilson.

What:  Shanetta farted – or “passed gas” as some stories prefer.  Not yet newsworthy.

Some stories – and headlines – reported the woman farted “loudly.”

Nope.  Still not newsworthy.

Seriously.  Can you imagine if the media did stories about every person who “farted loudly?”

What then:  A nearby male customer, John Walker, complained.  Whether about the odor, the noise, all of the above or something else, isn’t specified.

But newsworthy?  Nope, again.  I’m sure this isn’t the first time someone complained about another’s fart.

And then?

John and Shanetta got into an argument.  Shanetta took exception to whatever John said, and, according to the sheriff’s report, allegedly “pulled a small folding knife out of her purse and told the victim she was going to ‘gut’ him while moving as if to attack him.”

She “cocked the blade back in her right hand as if she was about to strike,” said in another story.

OK:  Now we’re talking newsworthy.

Shanetta left the store without actually attacking John, but instead of cutting out – if you’ll excuse the expression – she was still nearby and arrested by police when John identified her.

She was charged with “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill,” and her bail was set at $2,500.

I’m going to wax philosophical and pose the question:

What would you do?

You, like John Walker, are in close proximity to someone – in line at a store, in an elevator, in bed with your partner, in church – and that someone farts.  “Loudly,” or otherwise.

Would you say something?

I wouldn’t.  As a kid I was taught that the only appropriate comment after a fart is “Excuse me,” and that’s by the farter, not the person/people suffering from it.

Now suppose you’re the farter – again, in line at a store, in an elevator, in bed with your partner, in church.

Would you say something?

This TV news anchor on the left posed that question to his co-anchor.

The co-anchor’s response:  “I would try to say that it wasn’t me.”

I guess that option didn’t occur to Shanetta, in the heat of the moment.

If you’ll excuse the expression.

The takeaway?

The next time you’re in proximity to someone who farts, don’t say anything.  Now that we’ve seen you could actually be putting your life in danger.

Just hold your breath.

It’ll pass.

If you’ll excuse the expression.