I Hope He Was Planning to Leave a Big Tip

June 21, 2018

An Arkansas man was arrested for using a stolen credit card at a restaurant.

He should have been more careful: The card he was using had been stolen from his waitress a few days earlier.

Unlikely Collaborations

June 16, 2018

From the U. S. to the Catholic Church:

Here’s the deal: We will not break up families as they immigrate. You will stop forbidding birth control, which will allow parents to have smaller families and give them a better chance of supporting them in their native countries.

From the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which is losing members, to a televangelist:

Want to come and do our marketing?



June 18, 2018

From people who wear expensive clothing to Workers’ Rights advocates:

Let’s make sure that the manufacturers pay the garment workers a decent wage.

That will drive up prices; then our clothes will be so expensive that only a select few can afford them. And the world will know how truly exclusive we are.

From gun control advocates to the NRA:

Let’s all lobby to make sure that any state legislature that won’t pass gun-control laws must allow visitors to have guns in the state capitol while the legislature is in session.

Food, Drink, and Community Service

June 13, 2018

I’m used to businesses donating money to sponsor this and that for name recognition; but these two businesses caught my eye because what they’re doing is not only helpful, but makes so much sense:

Country Time Lemonade is paying for permits and legal fees for kids under 14 who operate lemonade stands. They thought that the stories of kids getting fined for not having permits were an urban myth; but, distressingly, the stories are true. So Country Time will pay up to $300 for fees or fines for the young entrepreneurs.

Domino’s Pizza is helping pay for repairs to potholes to avoid “letting bad roads ruin good pizza.” They’re accepting nominations on where to repair the potholes, so contact them ASAP. (Chicago Citizens: A ride to Midway Airport lingers in my memory because of the number and size of the potholes on the way. Call Domino’s. Call them now!)

Now THAT’S the kind of community involvement I can appreciate!

Where's Jack McCoy When You Need Him?

June 13, 2018

I was talking with another adult at the pool about how kids will jump over (or almost on) people swimming in the Adults Only lane, just to be spiteful. The really horrible thing about this is that their parents encourage them to do it.

One almost landed on me yesterday. I wrote a letter to the head of the Parks District saying that I understood that the lifeguards might be under a bit of a handicap in dealing with parents who were so clearly not amenable to reason; but that the kids actually might hurt somebody if they are not taken in hand.

I started wondering what the consequences would be if they did actually hurt someone because their parents were encouraging them to be little jerks.

I’m hoping it would involve jail time—at least for the parents. (Lots of community service, at the very least, for the kids.) 

Thanks to all that time I spend watching “Law and Order” I thought up a list of possible offenses: Reckless Endangerment, Grievous Bodily Harm, and Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor came to mind, just off the top of my head. 

Now I just need a Jack McCoy on my side.

Sore Loser

June 7, 2018

A sheriff in South Dakota fired the deputy who beat him in his bid for re-election.

It wasn’t a hasty decision, though. As evidenced by the time stamp on the termination letter, the sheriff waited a full minute after the polls closed to fire his successor.

No More Blog Notifications

June 7, 2018

It looks like the blog isn’t sending automatic updates by e-mail any more. (Maybe Google is mad about the crack I made about Google Sheets.)

I tried resetting it, but no go.

So I guess everybody will just have to look it up manually.

I'm Betting on the Dinosaurs

June 4, 2018

Another Jurassic Park movie is coming out soon. I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that something has gone wrong with the dinosaur engineering, and the lizards are going to try to take over the park.

So: Five times the dinosaurs have taken over the park; because five times, the humans haven’t figured out that what they’re doing is dangerously flawed.

I hope that the owners of Jurassic Park have a meteor on standby; because in a battle of wits, there’s no way these dinosaurs will lose.

June 11, 2018

Oops, I got it wrong! The humans have left the dinosaurs alone; but when a volcano threatens to destroy the island, two humans want to save the dinosaurs.

So things go pretty wrong, but at least it’s not from greed this time.

Why Do One or Two People Get to Destroy So Many?

May 28, 2018

We watched “Dunkirk” over Memorial Day weekend, and I couldn’t help but think of the millions of lives lost to, in most cases, the ambition of one or two men. 

Why do we keep putting up with this nonsense?

Wasting Your Human Resources

May 30, 2018

Companies are leery of hiring older workers because they want people who will stick around for more than ten years.

They’re joking, right? Who is more likely to stick around—a younger person trying to move up the career ladder, or a settled person who doesn’t want to move around the country in order to find greener pastures?

Use your heads, HR people!

Introducing the Twitter-Bit! (I Wish)

June 1, 2018

Wouldn’t it be swell if Twitter and Fitbit combined to make the Twitter-Bit? The phone app would measure pulse and breathing to see if the person making the tweet was at least calm, if not rational.

And there would be a 30-second delay after the person hit “Send”, so that if s/he realized that the tweet wasn’t saying quite what s/he intended, s/he could delete it and try again.

Maybe that would cut down on the amount of outrage being whipped up on our news feeds.

Maybe not.