Crime And Punishment

 Okay, okay. I know that recently I have been prattling on here about the wonders of socialism and how it's not so awful. 

Into that pleasant conversation blows the boisterous opinion of one Emily Gallagher, New York State Assembly person from Brooklyn. It is Ms. Gallagher's assertion that shoplifting should be legal for products connected to "biological need." 

I will let her explain: “Most of what we saw were crimes of poverty-people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap. And that means if you’re stealing those things, you need them,” she said at a news conference outside a Manhattan Criminal Court. She continued, “And we are choosing to protect billion-dollar companies, like CVS and Walgreens, over the people who are struggling to get by. So I would say that the true crime is that there is such incredible wealth disparity in this city that there are people who can be thrown in jail simply for having a biological need.”

Okay. Valid point there with the "wealth disparity" thing. The trouble arises when it comes time to figure out how we go about dealing with it. My guess is that the employees of the local CVS or Walgreens are living somewhere right around the poverty level. The money they bring home each week for "biological needs" is a means for survival, not buying a mansion or a yacht. If those ginormous profits from these billion-dollar companies are affected, it will not be the millionaires who feel the pinch. It will be those employees who are let go, or the stores in which they work will be shuttered, creating even more "biological needs" that might not be met. 

On a purely bourgeois level, I can also attest to the ridiculousness of having to wait ten to fifteen minutes in the aisle of my local "convenience store" after I have pushed a button summoning one of these hard-working wage slaves to some and open the plexiglass case where the Crest is kept safe so that I might take some toothpaste to the register to pay for it. This experience coupled with the price increases on these basic-needs items are the other side of the story. 

Like the corner stores that sell products for "biological needs" that are routinely the scene of multiple and sometimes extraordinary theft. These events are often pitched in a tone of "us versus them," but they are really "us versus us." I don't know how much toothpaste you would have to score in order to decrease that previously mentioned wealth disparity. Food banks and local assistance organizations for housing are sometimes forgotten in this chain of injustice. They attempt to bridge the gap that all of us eventually feel. Maybe now would be a bad time to bring up Ms. Gallagher's annual salary of one hundred forty-two thousand dollars a year. I can only assume that she is parting with a sliver of that each month to help support the "biological needs" of her constituents. Unless she needs the cash to pay for her traffic tickets. 

Crisis

 Just after seven o'clock on Monday evening, I asked Google for the time.

"Hey Google, what time is it?"

I was preparing to set our cuckoo clock, which tends to drop five to ten minutes over the course of the day. It is a nighttime ritual at my house for me to try to catch up.

Our Google assistant never answered. 

I asked again, "Hey Google, what time is it?"

Nada. 

So I went to another room where we have a colorful puck of all-knowing and asked it the same question. This was by no means a challenge for this machine in most cases. Not compared to some of the inane requests my wife and I have made of it over the years. Opening the pod bay doors, Hal being one of the most frequent. 

I leapt into problem solving mode and power-cycled two of the previously all-knowing pucks in hopes of getting them back to their all-knowing selves. No such luck. 

That's when panic set in. How were we supposed to turn off lights? How was I going to wake up the next morning? Would our robot vacuum know when to start its rounds? And most importantly, how was I going to know what time it was in order to reset our cuckoo clock? 

I turned to our IT specialist. Our son. Sitting at his desk in his home an hour away, he took my call while playing a video game. To his credit, he took my request and made an immediate test. He hollered across his bedroom to his all-knowing puck: "Hey Google, what time is it?" 

No response. 

We were in big trouble now. Breaking away from his game for a moment, he did a cursory search of Al Gore's Internet with his gaming computer to ask the rest of the planet if Google Assistant was having issues. Moments later, he found a Reddit post that suggested that pucks across the globe were losing their minds. How was anyone going to be able to reset their very-not-digital cuckoo clocks?

Sensing my panic, my son soothed me with the notion that the folks at Google made a boo-boo and were working feverishly to correct the problem, since that is their business, after all. I went to bed with my cellular device tucked in beside me, hoping it would have a reliable alarm for the next morning.

I slept fitfully, but somewhere in the middle of the night, I called out: "Hey Google, what time is it?"

"The time is two forty-eight." 

I breathed out for what felt like the first time in hours. 

I made a mental note to set the cuckoo clock once the sun came up.

All was right with the world again.

Reality Check

 Communism is bad.

Communists are the bad guys.

This is why MAGAts are all up in arms about Communists running for office here in the Communist-Free United States of America. 

And winning. 

It is difficult, if not impossible, to explain the concept of consequence to someone who does not understand cause and effect. These so-called Communists are showing up as a result of the past ten years of authoritarian MAGAt rule. New York City now has a *gasp* socialist mayor. This minor revolution is what happens when you can show up with a plan and a promise to serve the community, and the community responds by voting for that promise. No blood was spilled. No shots were fired. 

Which is more than we can say for the Second Trumpreich. 

Who, by the way, seem more than happy to cozy up to (wait for it) real and true Communists. This past week the convicted felon whose fondness for other authoritarian dictators is well known, chose to renew his bromance with Kim Jong Un. As with so many of the policy decisions made by this regime it was announced on social media: “Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.” 

In case you haven't watched a M*A*S*H rerun in a while, the North Koreans were the bad guys. 

The Communists.

Which seems to suggest that we are more than happy to nuzzle up to Communist dictators from other countries, but a mayor of a major metropolitan city here in the United States or a candidate for a Michigan Senate seat who holds values left of the incredibly right vision of MAGAts will earn everlasting condemnation from Vladimir Putin's bear wrestling buddy. 

For the record: Pedophiles are bad. Rapists are bad. Business frauds and slum lords are bad. Take a look in the mirror, MAGAt. 

Funny How Time Slips Away

 I dreamed that I was being asked to perform at a college standup comedy event. 

The trouble was, I had no material. 

So I started scribbling. What could I possibly have to say into a microphone that would elicit the slightest amusement in a crowd of moderately inebriated liberal arts majors? 

I decided to highlight my own journey through higher education, focusing on the notion that binge drinking is the exact wrong hobby to take up once you start paying for those eight AM classes. Pretty hysterical, right? 

It was my hope that I wouldn't come off as some old guy lecturing the youth of today. Instead, I was looking for some sweet spot between laying out a sermon and pointing out just how ridiculous it is to believe, as I did, that everyone in their twenties is indestructible. 

Because it turns out we are not. Searching for those anecdotes that rang true without overt moralizing became more and more difficult as I waited for my name to be called by the Master of Ceremonies. Why didn't I have that job? A quick two-minute bit before I announced the next victim to be ushered to the stage. That was where I would have shone. Now I prepared to be booed off the postage stamp-sized riser in the spotlight. Or worse: to be greeted by complete silence. 

As luck would have it, I woke up before that moment became part of my sleep baggage. was shortly before I reflected on my return to the classroom. Standing in front a group of intense and inquiring faces, waiting for instruction, inspiration, or both. What could I say that would not sound like the lessons I have been spouting for three decades already? I wasn't being tasked with getting big laughs from nine year olds, but I knew that part of my mission was to be a notch more interesting than anything they might find on the phones they were now officially forbidden to look at during the school day. 

I was transported back to those bygone days of yesteryear, when I was first writing a blog, before it ever became a daily event. I was reflecting on Gabe Kaplan, the star of Welcome Back Kotter. He began his career in standup comedy after he dropped out of high school, eventually hitting on a popular bit about the kids he knew from his days in remedial studies. He created his role as a teacher to pitch a TV series. Now he is a professional poker player. 

Isn't that funny. 

Why?

 "This is a very small community, and this type of incident — and it obviously has rocked and crushed that community at this point. They're looking for answers, and they want to know why."

Why would someone roar through a sleepy little community in northern Michigan, killing teenagers and adults before turning the gun on himself? This was the questions local officials were asking.

"This type of incident" is called a mass shooting. According to the government, our government, this is the definition that kicks in once the body count reaches three or more. Our Federal Bureau of Investigation refers to an incident that clocks in at four or more fatalities as a "mass murder." 

The killings in the Missaukee County community of Lake Township ticked both those boxes. 

The question remains.

Why? 

Preliminary reports suggest that the murderer had a "troubled past" and had been involved in a "contentious divorce." 

Oh, and this just in: He had access to guns and ammunition. One of his intended victims, a thirteen year old girl, was shot four times but managed to call 911 and identify the gunman. Authorities were able to track him down, but not before he took his own life. 

"How could this happen here?" Contentious divorces and individuals with troubled pasts can be found in just about every city, county, and town across this great land of ours. Land of the free, home of the brave and home to the glorious Second Amendment. 

In just about every city, county and town in this great land of ours there are goons with and without masks, some of them trained, some of them not, to kill. This is how we remind our citizens "thou shalt not kill." At the end of last month, the state of Florida executed two murderers on the same day. For some, this was a moment worth celebrating. One of them was eighty years old, the oldest inmate ever executed in the Sunshine State. The other one was a former police officer. 

Why?

I want to know too. 

Generational Upgrade

 The guy at the bike shop reminded me of the Ship of Theseus.  It is a paradox that poses the question: is a ship that has had all of its wooden planks replaced piece by piece over time remains the exact same ship? He brought it up to me in reference to "Archimedes' Ship," which is a bit confusing, since Archimedes did a lot of work on buoyancy, but wasn't much of a philosopher. Then again, there are those who would insist that Matt Damon has nothing to do with Ulysses. 

That's not me, mind you, but I digress. 

The discussion was based on the top to bottom, over and under, side to side reclamation of my bicycle. After parking my bike in the basement after the last day of school before summer break, I didn't pedal a block on it for two months, moving it from left to right as we hauled things out to give or throw away in an effort to reduce the surplus of stuff and junk down there. It was not until the week before my return to school that it occurred to me that I might want to check out the condition my bike's condition was in. 

A quick ride down the street let me know that I had forgotten just how bad things had gotten in spoke and sprocket land. 

Really bad. 

So I loaded my Dawes Eclipse City  flat bar hybrid two-wheeler on the bike rack and drove it to the bike shop. A brief assessment from an expert let me confirmed what I had already imagined: the patient was critical, and the outlook was better than terminal, but not by much. Chain, derailer, crank, tires, brakes, shifters and overall deportment were all part of a laundry list of maladies that needed treatment. 

I left it there with the understanding that the deposit I had left was going to be a fraction of what it would take to get me back on the road. Sails replaced. Planks replaced. Rigging replaced. When I once again tossed a leg over the frame, would it still be my bike?

In thirty years of teaching elementary school, I have had four bicycles. I bought the first one from one of the accountants at my old job at a book warehouse for fifty bucks. The next one came to me as a gift from my wife who announced that, "We may never own a new car, but you can have a new bike." The third was a replacement for the second which was "donated" to the community after I left it in the front hallway at school while the door was propped open. That was a Wal-Mart special that only lasted a few months. It was not up to a daily commute. 

The Dawes Eclipse City was. It served me well for a good long time, and endured all the DIY fixes I could throw at it until one day it didn't. All the inner tubes and brake pads and WD-40 that I had used up on my trusty steed just wasn't enough. In the end, I paid enough to buy several old accountant's bikes to get mine back on the road. 

The second week of school, I was back in action. On my nearly new bike. 

Media Matters

 Doctors Oz and Phil got their starts under the umbrella of HARPO productions. "Harpo," in case you missed the cleverness, is "Oprah" backwards. 

And doctors Oz and Phil are about as backward as any two medical practitioners could be from the ideals and principles espoused by Harpo. Backwards. 

What does the subject of each monthly issue of O magazine have to say about this disparity? "Everybody has their own path in life, and it has not one thing to do with me, and I don't have one thing to do with them. At the time, the reason and intention behind me giving them their breaks was I thought they had valuable information to share that had been meaningful to me."

At the time. 

That time was the early 2000s, up until just prior to the launch of the Second Trumpreich. Ultimately, Doctor Oz found a spot in the administration, currently overseeing the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Just where you'd expect a guy who plays a doctor on TV to land. He's the guy who decided to end the drug subsidies for elderly Medicare recipients by eliminating Part D. But for fifty bucks a month qualifying Medicare patients can now obtain weight-loss GLP-1 medications. Sure, you're still sick, but you'll look great!

Doctor Phil, who became a multi-millionaire thanks to the start that Ms. Winfrey gave him, now serves as a "commissioner" in the Second Trumpreich, advising the convicted felon on such matters as religious expression in areas like education, healthcare, and the military as well as promoting administration goals regarding faith, traditional values, and government transparency. He also got to ride along with a bunch of ICE goons in Chicago. Which might make more sense on an episode of South Park than on NBC news. 

Come to think of it, this whole mess might be funny if it took place in that mystical construction paper cut-out world of South Park, Colorado. Ms. Winfrey could not be reached for comment on this. But I do believe that Eric and Kyle and Kenny and Stan probably had valuable information to share that had been meaningful to her.