Category: Political

Suffer the Little Children

Image representing YouTube as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

Most people, myself included, love looking at videos on the net about babies. YouTube is full of them. They all make you laugh or go “aww.”

They are almost as popular as the animal videos. You know the ones I mean. Cute kittens and cats and dogs and puppies. These also make you go “aww” or laugh.

There are even a few about the older ‘babies’ you know, toddlers and above. There are less of those but, some not all, are truly hilarious. A little girls states solemnly that if a monster comes in her house she will, “Kick his ask.” David Goes to the Dentist, are just two that spring to mind.

Real life however is not as endearing.

Folks who let their ‘little angels’ run riot all over the place are not amusing.

The little ones who feel it is their God given right to throw things into your garden. Sweet wrappers, balls, toys in various stages of dilapidation, plastic bags and anything else their little hands get hold of.

The same little ones also like noise. The louder the better. They also like repetitive noise; banging, screaming  (the exact same decibel level each and every time) and thundering through their house with reckless abandon.

“Kids will be kids” is the old adage that most parents trot out when little Junior or Missy commit an act of hooliganism.

HAH!

Like the obligatory old fart (I am in my fifties) I will also trot out the old faithful, “We had discipline when we were kids.” And we did. Our parents didn’t beat us with a hose-pipe or a wooden  two-by-four. They did give out the occasional belt ‘stropping’ and they did utilize the switch.

*I don’t know about your parents but I do know some who  had the nasty habit of making you pick out your own switch.*

We were taught not to intrude upon other people’s space. That space included their home, their garden and their personal space. My parents were very good about not believing in the old ‘children should be seen and not heard’ and were vigilante in the art of teaching us to be polite and respectful.

I know this all started in the Dr. Spock days of parenting. The days of, “If I discipline my children they won’t like me anymore.” This started in the 1970’s and it has gotten worse. It has created a generation, or two, of parents who will not take the responsibility of parenting.

These irresponsible parents are churning out babies and not helping them become ‘people’ or teaching them about encroaching on their fellow man. These babies are growing up to be thugs and hooligans and are filling our jails as juvenile delinquents.

I am not lumping every young person into this category. There are some who don’t do any of the things I’ve mentioned. To those upright and stalwart young citizens I offer a salute of gratitude.

To the rest, I want to offer a swift kick in the seat of the pants of their parents.

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Singing the Cigarette Electric

English: Electronic Cigarette
English: Electronic Cigarette (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am trying the new E cigarettes…again. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, I’ll give you a crash course in these electronic smokes.

As far back  as four years ago electronic cigarettes have been making the rounds. I remember vividly a Russian (well, he sounded Russian) cabdriver trying to sell me some from the boot of his car. Essentially a cigarette with no tar, no harmful chemicals (if you discount the nicotine, which we all know is bad for you) and no nasty smoke for non-smokers to bitch about.

E-cigs produce a vapour that you can inhale and exhale just like the real thing. You can also get them in different flavours. *Avoid the cinnamon like it was the plague, blecch!* Of course the big selling point is that you can smoke these babies anywhere. Although it is interesting to note that the “anywhere” e-cigs have a blue glowing tip instead of the red one, in case a non-smoker freaks out when you “light up” in you local pub.

Just like real cigarettes, there are loads of E-cigarettes to choose from. And believe me, friends and neighbours, you need to be careful which ones you try. Oh, they are not dangerous, but, they can be labour intensive and a downright pain in the Ass.

Of course the biggest pull for me is the fact that these things are about a third of the price you spend on a pack of smokes. Oh yeah, a big pull. But when you look at the downside, are they really worth it?

The downside is that some (not all, I hasten to add) of these fake cigs have about a five puff limit on each battery. You then have to plug the cigarette into a charger, either a usb charger or other more time consuming chargers. The time it takes to charge varies, but let me tell you, it is always a lot longer than the amount of time that you got smoke out of it.

I first tried these new fangled smokes two years ago. After a couple of months of dicking around with the damn things I went back to the real thing. But they have gotten better, improvements have been made. Although they are still a bit of a pain in the butt. They aren’t as bad as they used to be.

its hard keeping this one on one hand and the ...

 

I suppose it’s a case of getting use to the things. I do know that they provide the same pleasant satisfying feeling I got when I smoked the real thing. They are more socially acceptable ( I don’t have to hand a sign around my neck with the word “Unclean” written on it) I also suppose that not being able to chain-smoke them is also a bonus.

Essentially I am getting the best of both worlds, I am smoking without really smoking and I am saving money. I do need to point out that the initial outlay can be a little pricey.

I do worry though. With the new electronic cigarettes, you have no need of a lighter or matches. That makes me a little uneasy. I keep thinking about the last few scenes in The Fifth Element. Our heroes have figured out how to operate the device that will save the world. One of the little boxes requires fire.

cigarette lighter
cigarette lighter (Photo credit: viZZZual.com)

Out of the five people in that room only one person had fire in the guise of one solitary match. So call me paranoid, but, I will still carry a lighter or a box of matches. I mean, just in case I need to save the world or anything.

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The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – Celebrate??

The fifth of June 2012 or next Tuesday in fact will be the day set aside to celebrate the Queen’s sixtieth anniversary of her ascension to the throne. Although the fifth is the “official” day set aside for these celebrations, British people will be having their own celebrations throughout the whole Bank Holiday weekend.

On my street for instance, a few families have got together to organise a “Street” party. Everyone in the street has been invited to attend. The party boasts a barbecue, drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), although I think the general idea is for everyone to bring their own food and drink, and many other party-like activities. There will also be activities for those party goers too young to quite enjoy the grown-ups ideas of festivity.

I don’t begrudge the organisers asking for everyone who’s attending to BYOB and BYOF. After all, they have spent quite a bit of money renting a bouncy castle, and setting up other various activities for the little ones.

I do find it highly amusing that the government had boasted of an extra Bank Holiday in June which would  officially be the four day holiday for Jubilee celebrations. In actual fact, the June Bank Holiday is not extra at all. It is just the May Bank Holiday which usually falls on the last weekend in May moved forward to June.

If the British public are going to really celebrate Queen Elizabeth II and her sixtieth anniversary as the honorary head of the British Empire, wouldn’t it have been nicer and that bit more special if they had really put in an extra Bank Holiday?  In a time when it is increasingly difficult to get folks to show national pride, patriotism and support of the Royal Family, how hard would it have been to make the June Bank Holiday a real addition to the already existing Bank Holiday’s. Just a ‘one off’ would have been very nice. It will be another ten years before another “special” anniversary date comes up. And the Queen, as hale and hardy as she evidently is, may not be here for that one.

I am guessing though, that with the world in a recession (just scant millimetres from a depression) the government doesn’t feel we can afford to have that extra Bank Holiday. The earners of the country need to keep earning as much as possible. After all it is the earners who pay the government salary. Heaven forbid that they should not get the maximum tax benefits from the working populace.

I  will not actually be attending the street party. I cannot really afford it. On top of that it generally rains in this country on Bank Holidays and I don’t think that sneakily changing the Bank Holiday dates will prevent the weather from performing on cue.

Racism

The word racist is an ugly word. It immediately conjures up images of white robed people burning crosses and hanging black people from trees. No, not a pleasant word at all.

It is also “over-used.” Let me explain.

My heritage is strong Native American. Both sides of my family tree in the not too distant past married “full-blooded” Native Americans. Cherokee on my mothers side and Choctaw on my fathers side. We also have a smattering of Wyandot (goodness knows where that came from). In essence, using the Old West term for it, I am a ‘breed.’

Granted, through the “watering down” process that comes with generational growth, I am only about one-quarter Native American. Not a lot, but enough that the US government uses that as a gauge for handing out benefits. Interestingly, none of my family are eligible. Why? Because our ancestors did not have reservation numbers. The reasons for this I won’t go into here.

So when I fill out the ethnicity forms I always have to pick the “other” box. Because I am not “White Caucasian” and living in the UK, they do not have a box with “mixed” that includes Native American. At any rate I do not think of myself as “white” nor do I think of my self as Native American. I just think of myself as a person.

The same way I think of other people.

But I have had people in the past accuse me of racism. Generally because I am upholding a rule that they do not like. I have said in the past, “I am not racist, the white man slaughtered my ancestors and stole their land, they were forced to live in hellish places and were given numbers that were in most cases tattooed on their bodies. I’ll put my ethnic background against yours any day.” This usually stops the accuser dead in their tracks.

It bothers me though, that people feel the need in this day and age to pull the “racism card.” Yes I know that racism still exists. But people who suffer these out-dated attitudes are ignorant. I don’t just mean academically. All racists maintain that “pure blood-lines” are tantamount to superiority. I think if they were a little more intelligent, they would realise that “pure blood-lines” are practically non-existent.

As for the people who continually throw out the Racist Card. Please stop. Just because you hear something you do not like or feel like you’ve been ignored or even mistreated. Stop for just a moment and see if maybe these things happened because of you personally and not just because of your ancestral background or ethnicity.

Like I said racist is an ugly word. And until we can get people to stop bandying it about, it will continue to blight the English language with it’s ugliness. Let’s try to eradicate this word’s existence by refusing to utilise the word and  its definition.

 

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Smoking

its hard keeping this one on one hand and the ...

I don’t expect many people to read this post. Smoking has become the new “bad” of this millennium. In this new age of the “Nanny” culture, it has become very popular to sneer at smoking and smokers in general. Smokers have, in effect, become the new social lepers.

I won’t lie, I’ve had a love affair with smoking since I was twelve years old. A few of my friends and I “passed-the-hat” and pooled our pennies together to buy a pack of Winstons. It was love at first inhale. I never had the typical first bad reaction to smoking that most of my friends suffered. It was the beginning of a life long  addiction that I would quit again and again, but still come back to.

Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s bad for me. I also know that it makes my clothes smell…and my hair, skin, etc. But nothing can calm me down or satisfy me faster than that quick puff (or drag) on a cigarette, cigar or pipe. Nicotine patches, or gum, or mints just don’t have the same affect. Oh it cures the nicotine craving all right. It just doesn’t touch the inhale/exhale exercise that also makes smoking so addictive.

I’ve tried electronic cigarettes and they come close, but as the saying goes, no cigar. I’m sure that one day someone will develop one that works as well as a cigarette. But I’m not holding my breath.

English: Electronic cigarette charger
English: Electronic cigarette charger (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am just amazed, and a little shocked, to see how socially acceptable it has become to vilify and castigate smokers. I even had a colleague tell me in no uncertain terms that I was going to die a horrible death because I smoked. Nice. I’ll try to return the favour the next time I see them eating red meat. And no I’m not a vegetarian.

I hate to break it to people, but smoking isn’t the only thing in the world that kills people.   LIFE kills people. Like Katherine Hepburn said, “Of course life is hard, it kills you.” We are all going to die…of something. The human body is not built to last indefinitely. We all just choose our own brand of poison to push it towards it’s expiry date. Look at the facts. Everything is pretty much bad for us. Booze, most foods (at least the ones everyone likes), sun; well you get the point, I’m sure.

I’m just surprised at how hostile folks have become to smokers in general and how phobic they are. Yes lab rats have shown that second hand smoke can kill – and now it seems third hand smoke as well, what ever that is – and that several really bad things occur to major organs and arteries from the same first, second and third smoke inhalation.

So yes I know it’s bad for me. I also know it’s bad for folks around me. I don’t blow my smoke on other people and have never smoked around anyone who is phobic about it or has health related issues. Okay?

So I will be quitting again. But not for any of the above mentioned reasons. I’ll be quitting because it’s become too costly to continue for much longer. The British government has taxed tobacco so much, it’s become the smoking equivalent of caviar. This is all in aid of getting folks to quit. Kind of like killing the golden goose in my opinion. Smokers, like drinkers, put lots of tax dough-ray-me into the coffers of the government. Making it too expensive is cutting off a huge source of revenue.

Still the most annoying thing about the new “smokers are nasty” spiel is how really un-PC it is. How politically correct is it to tell someone they smell. Or to make nasty comments about their personal habits. So don’t be surprised if the next time I’m in town and having a smoke in the open air where my “nasty habit” will not invade your pristine lungs, if you give me a nasty look or comment I might just flick an ash in your eye.

You have been warned.

smokin' the pipe
smokin’ the pipe (Photo credit: leff)
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