A BRAIN FART by Miss Fanny: PLASTIC PLEASURES?

The other day I hit a light pole with my car, and I was pissed, especially since I was trying to be safe by looking to my right to make sure no cars were coming down this one way driveway before I turned left to leave the parking lot. Little did I know that while I drove slowly looking right, ready to gun the engine and turn left, my car had drifted toward the light pole that I thought that I had cleared on my right.  I stepped on the pedal and BAM!  My left bumper hit the light pole.

It wasn’t a major accident. I couldn’t have been going more than 5-10 miles an hour, if that.  My air bag didn’t deploy.  I wasn’t hurt.  I was more surprised than anything, and although I knew that I had scarred the bumper of my brand new car, I didn’t even bother to get out to see the damage. I figured that I’d look at it when I got home.  It couldn’t be that bad.  I was just hurt that my new car didn’t look new anymore.

As I had suspected, the paint was rubbed off of my bumper and there was a small gash above it. I figured that I could pay for the damage out of pocket and not contact my insurance company. It couldn’t be more than the $500 deductible that I’d have to pay anyway.  Well, was I in for a surprise! By the time the estimate came back to me it was over $3,000.  All I could do was laugh. Was this a joke?  I discovered quickly that it was not.

What I found out was that the car that I was driving was the joke.  It was explained to me that the cars these days were made out of plastic and the thing that I called a bumper really wasn’t a bumper. They don’t make many cars with bumpers anymore.  Cars made out of steel were a thing of the past.  The man at the Collision Center told me that:  “Everything is plastic these days.”

Later I thought about what he said and realized that he was absolutely right.  I’ve lived long enough to be driving a plastic car, put my groceries in plastic shopping bags, drink my milk and juice out of plastic jugs, which I pour into plastic cups. I can eat off of plastic dishes, with plastic knives and forks.  The toys that I buy for my great-grandchildren are all plastic and most of the purchases that I make are made with a plastic credit card.   Just about everything around me these days that is manmade is made out of plastic and worst of all, every day I speak to plastic people who show no emotions for others, and things are not getting better.

Usually I try to get too serious in these little messages that I write, but I can’t find one thing amusing about what’s happened.  As I watch my great-grandchildren and their friends sit before plastic computer screens every day for hours with little human interaction, I can only see things growing worse.  Real is becoming a thing of the past, and pretty soon that will become a plastic memory.  Lord am I grateful to have lived in that past, because you see a plastic world just is not for me.   Now you can muse on that.

SMART PHONE AND OTHER DUMB DEVICES

Hello, its Bea here and I have a question for you.  Have you noticed that everything is smarter these days?  There are smart houses, smart cars, and smart phones; just about everything is smarter.  It seems that as inanimate things get smarter, people seem to get dumber by the minute.  Somebody has to be inventing these things so there must be a small pocket of smart people out there.  I think most of them are advertisers.

Take my cell phone, no really, I wish someone would take my cell phone.  It constantly sends my text messages to the wrong contact people.  It randomly dials numbers in my contact list.  It cuts off calls—before I even dial!  It purposely refuses to disconnect when I finish a call, causing me to be overheard saying unflattering things about people.  Of course, I then have to pretend that I knew they were listening and the whole thing was a joke. 

The other day I was thinking about a friend who lives in California.  The phone dialed her!  I hadn’t touched the phone.  It was laying on the car seat beside me and I heard her voice saying hello. 

This phone is very sensitive to touch.  It was three months before I learned to control my breathing because, if I so much as breathed on an application, it connected me. Once the smart-ass phone connected me to the internet so many times that I needed to recharge after only one hour of use! 

I’ve been using the telephone since I was five years old.   The device is for talking to people who are not close at hand.  I f I wanted to send a written message, I’d write a letter.  If I wanted to get on the internet, I’d go to a computer where the screen is big enough that I don’t have to squint with one eye to see it.  I have a perfectly good radio, so I don’t want to listen to music on my phone, or play games.

Now this is the part that shows how dumb people are getting.  If all I wanted to do was talk, why didn’t I just get a plain dial-and-talk phone instead of a “smart” phone?  Not likely. Everyone made me think I needed that phone.   People told me that if I was driving alone and got lost, I could use the GPS; if I ran into trouble or just had a flat tire, I could call for help; and  in case of an emergency I could reach 911.  The list of reasons goes on and on.  I had to have that phone!  If not, I would be at the mercy of every calamity known to man and would be cut off from civilization without a life line. I became completely paranoid. I felt that I had no choice but to get the latest technology had to offer.   The only thing is, I hate that phone!

I’m not the only dummy who fell for all the hype.  It started out with advertisers making business people think that they needed a mobile phone to keep them connected to their busy lives.  Soon everyone wanted to look like the busy executive on the go but who was still taking care of business.  Then they convinced everyone else of the “joy” of staying connected.  What do we really have to say that is that important?  The clincher was when pay phones began to disappear so that you felt you had no choice but to have a cell phone.

We dummies that let smart phones run our lives shouldn’t all feel bad.  Sometimes we rebel.  I know recently I refused to listen to my GPS when it tried to navigate me into a river. Why in the world would I keep going when the voice on the GPS said to turn right and I was looking at a large body of water?  Unfortunately some people would follow that GPS voice into hell. That’s how bad it’s gotten.

What’s even worse, many of us dummies are posting all our personal business on social networking sites.  Now we realize that thanks to smart web sites, we have no personal business. Now that’s something to muse on.

A LESSON ON THE BIRDS AND THE BEES

I’m Hattie Collier and if you’ve been reading these postings you know I usually have something to complain about.  Today would be no exception except for one thing:  I sat on my back porch today.  Now if you’re thinking ‘so what’ I don’t blame you.  But this is what happened.

I’ve been so busy for the past year that I can barely think.  What with vacationing with my friends and keeping them out of trouble, starting a business of my own, learning to drive and so on, it has not been easy to take some time off for me.   Today, the thought suddenly came to me that I had not sat on my porch in…well I don’t know when.  It seems like a century ago I did things like that.  So with a cup of tea and a good book, I sat on the porch and settled down.

For a second, I thought I remembered why I didn’t sit outside.  I could hear the kids at a nearby school screaming and laughing at recess.  I could hear the loud engines of trash trucks as they empty trash cans and the clatter and rolling cans when they were thrown back in the yards and I could hear the roar of car engines being gunned on a nearby street.  I was determined to ignore the distractions and start reading.  Well, after a few minutes something happened; there was this eerie quiet that made me look up from my book.  It seemed like there was no one on earth but me. 

Slowly, I did notice sounds.  There was a consistent chirping sound.  Then I noticed lots of birds in the yard.  Well when I was in high school many moons ago, I used to study birds and could recognize quite a few.  Like I said, that was many moons ago.  I did notice robins, and red birds, and I think I saw a morning dove or two.  Two black birds flew over my head—my Lord, I didn’t know there were so many birds in my back yard! 

I was thinking about starting a garden, so I started plotting out where I would put it.  Now, Hattie, I thought, let’s not get carried away.  When I looked up I could swear that the tree buds had opened a little! Now before you start pitying the mutterings of an old fool, let me tell you that I am not crazy.  I didn’t actually see the buds open but for a moment is was like I could see them.

Let me stop right now before somebody starts fitting me for a straight jack.  I’m trying to make a point.  I sat on that porch watching birds, and bees and grass and watching trees sway in the wind.  At that moment I was thinking, yes, there is war, famine, hatred and disease all over the world and every day of the week; but for this brief moment in time I really connected with nature and recognized that samples of all the greatness and the goodness of the universe were there in my backyard!

Anyway, the kids are back outside and some fool in blasting his radio so loud I can hear it all the way back here.  Times up!  I’m just saying; don’t forget there is beauty out there.  Take time to smell the roses. Now muse on it.

THE RICH ARE DIFFERENT

Now I’m not a part of the top 1% of the wealthy in the United States, but I’ve earned a couple of bucks with my business, Palmer Realty. People have  often said to me “Connie you look like a million”, and I’ve taken  the compliment in stride—who wouldn’t—but having a couple of million bucks and looking like you have it are two different things. I’d rather have it and so would most people I know. However,  I’ll venture to say that the truly rich don’t have to flaunt their wealth, because its what’s in their bank account and not what’s on that backs that really matters.

You see, the rich are different, and we can stand around debating that statement until the end of time, but it’s a fact. The United State of America has never been without class divisions, and if you think that it ever has then I’ve got a gold mine in Manhattan that I’d like to sell to you.  Shoot, the Founding Fathers weren’t a bunch of dirt farmers scratching to make a living. They were the nation’s elite.  The vast majority had money and money means power. If I’m lying then somebody has got to prove it to me. 

It doesn’t make sense that truly rich people would think the way that average income or poor people think. If you’re rich you don’t have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, or how to pay the light bill or how to keep the heat on in your house.  You see, money gives you a freedom and independence that poverty does not, and with freedom comes privilege.  You’re going to be treated different in society if you’re privileged.  The rules that apply to those with money aren’t always the same as those that apply to those without it.  If you’re rich and you steal some money that doesn’t belong to you then it's called “misappropriation of funds”.  If you’re poor and you swipe the same money from the same people then it’s called “stealing” or "robbery". The rich can afford high priced lawyers who can get them off with a hand slap—a suspended sentence, maybe home detention or a fine. The poor get a public defender assigned to them and more often than not they will serve some jail time.

I even read an article on line with the following headline:  Wealthy More Likely to Lie or Cheat. The headline implied that we were supposed to be surprised. The article reported that researchers had conducted experiments with hundreds of wealthy people, defined by the study as the “upper class”, and it was found that this class was “more likely to break the law while driving, take candy from children, lie in negotiations, cheat to increase their odds of winning a prize and endorse unethical behavior at work.”  Okay, and?

It went on to say that with a few exceptions (i.e. Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates) “upper class individuals are more self-focused, they privilege themselves over others, and they engage in self-interested patterns of behavior.”  That’s a lot of hot air simply to say that rich folks know that they’ve got it like that and they mean to keep it that way. I have no doubt that they will fight like hell if anybody tries to interfere.

Well, all of this doesn’t make rich folks look too good in general, but of course it’s not all bad.  The wealthy contribute to a lot of good causes in this country.  Their generosity can change a lot of lives.  Money does make a difference and there’s no sense in denying it.

I don’t remember who said it but the quote went something like this:  “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor and rich is much better.”  So we can all muse on that!

Brain Fart by Miss Fanny: Growing Old Can be Fun

The other day my great-grandson was at my house and I was helping him with his homework when suddenly he looked up at me and said “Granny, I don’t want to grow old.”

What he said didn’t take me by surprise.  I’ve heard people say that before. What bothered me this time was that it was someone in my family speaking those words, and I took it as a personal insult because I’m old and proud of it.

I was curious about why the boy would say what he did, and asked him about it.  Do you know what he told me?  “If I grow old then I’m going to die.”

I couldn’t argue with that, but I had to give the little guy a reality check, so I told him:  “If you don’t grow old, that means you’re going to die young.”  That got his attention.  

It’s a sentiment I use often when I hear folks talking about not wanting to grow old.  It seems to me that anybody ought to be grateful if they reach “old age”, whatever that happens to be.  Everyday somebody doesn’t’ make it.  Every day, maybe every hour, somebody doesn’t wake up in the morning.  Others don’t live to go to bed that night. I asked my great-grandson did he want to be one of those. Of course he said no, so I told him to stop that foolishness and be grateful for everyday that’s given to him walk the earth.  We all ought to be grateful, but we live in a country that worships youth and looks at aging as something to fear instead of something to respect.

What’s wrong with this country anyway?  It’s not like that in other countries that have been around much longer. Maybe the fact that the United States is a young country is the reason that it worships youth so much.  Maybe it hasn’t been around long enough to have learned to respect age. Shoot, I live in a city that tore down its basketball arena because it was twenty-five years old.  Yet, I bet the same folks that made that decision will travel across the ocean to take pictures of ancient monuments and that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If folks can respect aged buildings, why not aged people?

You’ve got to be tough to grow old in America. It ain’t easy.  Older folks are often treated like children, or too often we’re the object of ridicule and bad jokes. The contributions that we have made to this society can be overlooked or unappreciated.  Still I ’m thank God that I’m old. I’m in my eighties now and a lot of my friends didn’t make it this far. 

As we grow older we should gain more wisdom and more insight. I say should because unfortunately I’ve met some older folks who are as dumb as a box of rocks. I take that as being heredity.  I guess nothing can help that.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I do know that as I aged my confidence in myself increased.  What used to be so important I discovered didn’t matter anymore and I certainly stopped trying to please others.

Yep, I’m enjoying this growing old thing.  Of course, I’m still pretty healthy.  I’m still mobile and independent.  I might not feel his way if I wasn’t.

The day might come that all of these good things might not be so good anymore.  Yet I can’t let what might happen tomorrow stop me from living the best life I can today.  I’m an old lady and I’m loving it!  Go muse on that.

YOU HAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO LIE

This Bea is Bell, wondering if the name Xavier Alvarez is familiar? If not let me enlighten you. He is a defendant in a case before the Supreme Court (US vs. Alvarez).  Mr. Alvarez was an elected official of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District in Pomona, California.  While attending one of their meetings he informed its members that he was a wounded veteran and that he had received The Congressional Medal of Honor.  Some other medal recipients checked the Internet and found out that what Mr. Alvarez had claimed turned out to be a big lie. He had never even served in the armed forces.

As a result of that falsehood he was convicted of violating the 2006 Stolen Valor Act which prohibits lying about military honors and records. His lawyer appealed the conviction on the grounds of the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech. As a result the California District Court of Appeals struck down the verdict and it eventually reached the United States Supreme Court.

Now here’s the question. Do people have a Constitutional First Amendment right to lie? Lord, I should hope not! I can just see my granddaughter declaring her right of free speech whenever she got caught in a lie. Not that it would save her from any punishment, but I'm sure that she would think that it was well worth the effort.

From what I understand about this whole thing is that the problem the Supreme Court faces in making its decision is this: is a narrow law designed to prosecute specific lies constitutional? If that's the case, I think that "lying laws" should be directed at some of the biggest liars of all—Congress—no, make that politicians in general.

Imagine if the average citizen could "refresh" the memories of Presidents, Senators, Representatives, governors—all politicians—with evidence of their lies and have them convicted for those lies. I admit that everyone lies sometimes, but lies designed to deliberately conceal wrongful acts, immoral behavior and threats to national security all would be violations of the public trust and would therefore deserve convictions.

It seems that not all of the Supreme Court justices agree with the present Stolen Valor Act. Justice Sotomayor stated that just offending others by itself is not enough to justify limiting speech.

"So outside of the emotional reaction where's the harm?” she asked.

She seemed the least willing to accept the Obama administration's defense of the law.  The argument is that the value of the highest award or any others is diminished because some people lie about having received them. I have to admit that choosing some lies over others sounds like a slippery slope to me.

So I guess I have to ask, do we make a federal case out of lying? Why make some lies against the law and not others? I don't envy the Supreme Court in deciding this case. I bet all of those lying politicians are glad that there haven’t been any "no-lying laws" directed at them.

Too bad, I enjoy musing on that possibility, and that's no lie.

A SOUND INVESTMENT

Hattie Collier here. If you’ve been following my friends and myself, you know that I am not the money wizard of our group.  That’s not going to stop me from offering you a sound piece of investment advice. 

Depending on where in the United States you live, all you need is $5 to $10, and two hours of your time.  My investment tip:   the movie Red Tails.  This George Lucas film directed by Anthony Hemingway is the Word War II story of the first African American fighter pilots.  The name Red Tails was the popular name given the pilots because of the bright red markings on their airplanes.  These men were actually known as the Tuskegee Airman—Black pilots trained at Tuskegee University as an experiment to see if Blacks were capable of being aviators. 

Now, just like I’m not a money wizard, I’m also not a movie critic, so this is not a movie review, yet I’m giving my opinion anyway.  The way the characters talk in this movie doesn’t quite ring true and the story just scratches the surface of the true story, but at least the story is out there. So to get the most out of your time and monetary investment, adults should take their children or some other young person to see this movie

They will probably find it hard to believe that at one time in this country these young men had to fight for the right to fight for America. Black Americans had fought in this country’s wars since the Revolution. It borders on the ridiculous that they had to “prove” over and over that Black men possessed pride, bravery, courage and intelligence, but it happened.  This movie might seem especially significant during Black History month, but as far as I’m concerned this is American history month. 

The best part of the investment that you’ll make in going to see this movie is that it gives movie goers the chance to see that as people we may have different struggles in life but the human connection is the same.  Love, hate, pride and fear are all human emotions and no matter the people or the culture, there are lessons to be learned in how obstacles are overcome in life.

Now here’s how to make your investment grow. Take the time to go beyond this movie and learn more about the Tuskegee Airmen. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you can learn about a subject from watching a movie.  I’m talking about go to your libraries and getting books about these men. Do some research on the internet and if you’re lucky enough, talk to someone with knowledge of the events.  After all, movies can’t capture all of the real human drama of a story.  

It would be hard to loose on your investment on this one, especially if you take your kids. Not only will you spend time with them, but you may help them understand their place in the world, as well as teach them to value the contributions others have made in shaping it.  That’s a lot for a few dollars and 2 hours of your time. 

Just muse on that.