Turning Left

One year ago (well, a year and 2 days to be precise) I posted a piece about intersections (Courtesy On the Road Chapter 5 - Intersections). The piece talks about two behaviors that inconsiderate drivers commit - blocking the box, and not taking the intersection in traffic. Well, of late, there are two more bothersome behaviors I’ve noticed at a particular intersection. One is just peculiar, the other absolutely infuriating.

 

Let’s talk about the peculiar one first. At most intersections, when you turn left, you will pull almost to the center of the intersection, tack slightly left, and wait for a break in traffic so you can continue safely. If there is a car turning left in the opposite direction, that driver will do the same thing so that his passenger side and your passenger side are adjacent. That way, if someone behind him also wants to turn left, it doesn’t block you, and vice versa.

 

I have recently been driving a different way home and this way takes me through an intersection of two 4-lane roads. It’s a large intersection and logic would indicate this gives you more room for a proper left turn. However, for whatever reason, most drivers decide to treat this intersection differently from every other intersection in the world. They drive forward to the other side, then turn left, kind of like an upside-down ‘J’. This means that if there’s a line of cars trying to turn left, the first person in one direction will be blocked by the last person in the other direction. It makes no sense but the people seem almost militant about doing it that way.

 

INCORRECT!
 

CORRECT!
 

Above you can see a diagram of how people turn left through this intersection, and how they should turn left through this intersection, and every intersection.

 

The other issue also involves this intersection, but most other 4 lane intersections, as well. If I am turning left onto a 4 lane street, and the only traffic coming the opposite direction is someone turning right onto the same street, I have the right of way to turn into the near lane, and the person turning right, has the right of way to turn into his near lane. 2 cars, 2 lanes, no problem. When I take my right of way, I get so many dirty looks from people who think they have the right to both lanes just because they’re turning right. I even had one douche-nozzle in a BMW (I know, I’m being redundant) follow me for the next mile so he could flip me off. You see, he wasn’t paying attention to the road around him and he turned right then decided just to drift over, not realizing I was in the left lane - he didn’t bother to look, either. When I honked to let him know I was there, he got pissed. Look - more diagrams!

INCORRECT!

CORRECT!

 

Folks, there are certain things that are simply logical, considerate, and efficient. If we all practiced most of them, most of the time, the world would be a better place.

Happy Driving!

Minimum Wage

President Obama wants to raise the federal minimum wage from the current $7.25/hour to $9.00/hour. It doesn’t take a mathematician to realize that’s an increase of $50 a week, for each full-time, minimum wage worker. While it’s certainly a noble cause to want to help people out of poverty, this is a wrong-headed approach, and it always has been.

We are lucky that we live in a wealthy country that provides for minimum standards for its workers. However, there will always be a portion of the population living below the poverty line, and an arbitrary raising of minimum wage standards will not fix this. In fact, it will likely exacerbate it. With new “Obamacare” costs breathing down the necks of small businesses, an increase in minimum wage might do serious damage to an already delicate economy.

Follow the logic - if I own a small business and I’m required to insure all my full-time employees, or be fined, I am likely to cut the least valuable employees to part-time status. Worse yet, with the minimum being 15, I might outright fire employees to get below that number. That’s not to say that providing insurance for employees is a bad thing, but it oughtn’t to be required - my boss’s promise to me is a paycheck for a job performed, why should any government have the right to add on more responsibilities? He just wants to make widgets. Now, tack on an extra $50 a week, just in pay, per employee, and there is even more incentive to cut hours, fire people, or not expand. And don’t forget, that increases his Social Security contribution, as well.

This is not a matter of being a cold-hearted, Randian, social Darwinist. It is math. When the job creators spend less money and create fewer jobs, there will be higher unemployment. When their costs go up, their prices will go up, and with it the poverty line. So right now $9.00 an hour might elevate someone out of poverty, but if we raise the mandatory minimum to $9.00 an hour, the cost of living will go up for everyone, and those very same people will find themselves in the same boat - it’s a vicious cycle.

Let’s quit with the band-aids and the hyperbolic panaceas. We’ve danced long enough - it’s time to pay the piper.

Kill On Site

The most efficient form of government is an absolute dictatorship. It’s also the most dangerous. We developed in this nation a libertarian form of government that puts freedom - and power - in the hands of the people. We gave ourselves due process and protection from crooked and tyrannical justice systems such as prevailed in the middle ages in Europe. In those days, church leaders, fiefs, and potentates had the power to act as policeman, judge, jury, and executioner basically on a whim. And in case you haven’t been paying attention, the Obama administration is pointing us in that direction again.

Recently, a justice department white paper, leaked to NBC, detailed all the contorted reasons that the administration may use drones, or other means, to kill even US citizens on suspicion of being involved in terrorist acts or with “known terrorist organizations.” If that doesn’t send a chill up your spine, you probably don’t understand what you just read.

This isn’t about arresting or holding someone without evidence - which is bad on its own. This is about killing without evidence, an arrest, an arraignment, a trial, or any kind of judicial exercise guaranteed by the constitution. This puts absolute power into the hands of just a few people, with one holding all the cards. Checks and balances be damned.

Maybe we can trust the Obama administration with this kind of authority, maybe not. But the reason we never entrusted our government with all the power resting on one head was because we knew history. And never mind what the guy in office is like now, what about the next one, and the one after that? We don’t know what’s coming.

I know we can’t trust congress to do anything that requires more intellect than your average Bonobo ape could muster, but we have a  tripartite government for a reason. The War Powers Act gave too much authority to the Executive Branch to prosecute wars. The Patriot Act further abdicated authority to the Executive Branch to eavesdrop on the citizenry. And now the Executive Branch is using legal gymnastics to wrest authority away from the Judiciary.

This is not a slippery slope. This is a swan dive off a cliff.

Monkey Shines, Part II

Go to Part 1



He was a big fella. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one so big. He must have been 30 pounds. Vervet monkeys don’t normally get that big, or so I thought. Admittedly, I’ve never been in the same room with one, I’ve only ever seen them up in trees. He and his female were busily rummaging through the cabinets. They had done this before - they almost seemed to have a system. Clever little buggers.

The good news was that we didn’t have much they could hurt or that could hurt them. Instant coffee, sugar, non-dairy creamer, and a few snack items. They seemed curious more than anything else. Then I looked out on the veranda and saw their buddy - he was busy working on one of the aforementioned snacks. We had brought some peri-peri cashews with us. Tasty things but quite spicy. This little guy was out on the stone patio, pulling the cashews out of the bag, one at a time, and rubbing them on the grout until he could get all the peri-peri off. He was, apparently, not an aficionado of Afro-Portuguese cuisine.

We sat and watched for some time before Becky, out of the blue, sneezed. The vervets noticed us and stood, stock-still, for a few seconds before beginning to tiptoe around, hopping from one perch to another - counter top, to the back of a chair, to the chandelier, to the refrigerator, then finally figuring out where we were.

The big one, I call him Hairy Potter because he had a bolt of white running right down the middle of his black face, was curious of us, but a bit leery. He mostly just stared at us and we stared back for what must have been 2 minutes. It seemed much longer at the time. Finally, Hairy hopped up on top of the glass wall - not too quick, almost as if he were trying not to scare us. We slowly shifted till we were sitting on the edge of the bed. When he saw us move, he hopped back down to the sconce he had occupied previously, until he realized we had stopped moving, then he came back up.

Any wild animal can be dangerous. For their size, vervet monkeys are quite strong and can do a great deal of damage with their canine teeth. Of course the prehensile tails make them incredibly agile, too, so it’s not likely you’ll outrun one. Typically, if they get scared, they will immediately look for a way out - and that’s when it gets most dangerous. If they can’t get to a tree, or out of a corner, they will attack. This monkey was in an enclosed space. There was an open door but it was at least 20 feet away and since Hairy isn’t accustomed to his surroundings, he might not realize he can get there before we could say boo.

However, there was something very gentle about him. Sometimes when you look into the eyes of an animal, particularly another primate, you can almost literally see a “divine spark”. He was sizing us up. Not for any nefarious purposes but he seemed to intuit that we meant him no harm. Then he reached his hand straight out toward me, palm open and up, and slowly enough that I could tell he was only trying to touch me. It was as if he wanted to shake my hand. So I obliged. Slowly I raised my arm and extended my hand. “Tommy don’t” Becky said. “It’ll be okay. He knows I’m not going to hurt him. And he won’t hurt me. I don’t know how I know, I just know.”

I reached out and took his fingertips between the fingers and thumb of my right hand; gently, so he would know I wasn’t trying to hurt him. I gave an ever slight squeeze and then let go. He hopped off the wall and began walking closer. Now he was sitting on the floor, right in front of us, looking back and forth between Becky and me.

Pietr Kruger, the head referee assessor from the local South African society, knocked at the door and called inside to let us know breakfast would be served in 15 minutes. With that, Hairy got a start, hopped onto the glass wall, then the sconce, then the refrigerator, cabinet, floor, and out the sliding door where he and his female and their other mate gathered the snacks they could carry, and headed off into the bush to share the bounty with the rest of their troop.

Monkey Shines, Part I

It was certainly the nicest safari lodge I had ever seen. Rebecca and I had been on so many safaris we had eventually become inured to the conditions. Dirty linens, spider webs, clogged toilets, and indifferent staff. Well, to say they were indifferent belies the fact that, culturally, they just didn’t understand the big deal. These were people who had typically grown up in rondavels in the bundu. Indoor plumbing? What’s that? But this place was different.

We walked inside our hut and were immediately taken by the charm and, well, cleanliness of it. As we wandered around inside, marvelling at the deceptive size and attention to detail that was given, we hardly noticed that the master bedroom was on a loft at the top of a small spiral staircase and it featured a half wall of glass, overlooking the main lounge and the veranda. And the veranda... wow. What a view.

The lodge was situated in the hills overlooking the Olifants river in the middle of the Kruger National Park in northeastern South Africa. From our veranda, we could not only hear the elephants and hippos taking their evening swims, we could watch. And because we were at the top of a cliff, we were protected from most of the animals that could potentially do us harm. Most of them.

This trip was one of the few benefits I got from being a rugby referee. Because it’s not an actual paying gig (tax reasons or some other such nonsense), we got some perks for putting up with the whiny-little-bitch coaches and the know-it-all, pretty-boy players. One of those perks was a biennial trip to one of the big rugby countries. This year it was South Africa.

Of course it wasn’t all fun and games. Part of the reason for the trip was that the high level referees in the States needed to be seen and assessed by the guys who’d been doing it since they were 10. So each of us refereed a couple of local matches and then had our rectums summarily increased in number by a new one. For my part, I watched my video over and over again and still couldn’t see half the things the assessors saw. And if I hear one more assessor issue that overused platitude that “it’s your job to bring the level of play up”, I might punch him in the throat.

After we got our bags unpacked and read the rules - don’t leave food out, pull the key card out of the power slot and take it with you when you leave, close the lid on the toilets, don’t leave the enclosure after dark, etc., etc., then we headed off to the dining hut where we would be served a smorgasbord of grilled game and local vegetables. Gem squash, taro, okra, pap, zebra, kudu, impala, ostrich, crocodile, giraffe, warthog, and wildebeest would all be on the menu tonight. Yum.

After dinner and a few too many ‘cane and cokes’, we headed back to our hut and crashed. In the morning, much too early for my liking, I heard Becky knocking around in the kitchen. I didn’t know what she was doing but I could only assume making coffee. We had a group breakfast scheduled so there would be no reason for us to cook. But then I heard the toilet flush and Becky walked back to bed, rubbing her eyes. So who was banging around in the kitchen?

I put my finger to my lips to let Becky know to be quiet, then I whispered in her ear that there was someone in the hut. We quickly and quietly flipped over in bed so our feet were on the pillows and our heads were at the foot looking down over the edge, through the glass wall. The kitchenette was just to the left of the sliding glass doors that led out onto the veranda. And those doors were open. One of us (probably me, I was a bit, shall we say, motherless? last night) had left the door unlocked. Hell, I might have left it open, I don’t remember. We still couldn’t see anyone but I must admit, we were bordering on terrified and weren’t sure what to do. The murder rate in South Africa is particularly high and it’s situations like this that you hear about in the news - some American or European couple was kidnapped by a guerrilla militia, fighting for some cause or another. With the rise of Islamism in Africa, these stories rarely ended well. Then we saw him...

Part 2

A friend's response

A friend of mine sent me an email with his response to my piece about the Newtown shooting. He makes some points that I agree with, some others that I don't, but I asked him if I could publish the note and he said "yes". Here it is:

John,

Just read you blog about the tragedy in Newton. Here is a thought maybe to push you off the fence.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety Ben Franklin

Now what really can be done.

First let's look at why the big push now. Of course my opinion.

1. We had other tragedies but no response from the media since it goes right up to the sitting administration so they don't want to look at that, like the border guard that was killed by Fast& Furious by the ATF letting guns walk over the border to make our laws look bad.

2. Then Benghazi where our own people lied or were just incompetent. Most likely both. But we don't want to look into that; makes sitting administration look bad.

3. Oh look, everybody's taxes went up for the affordable care act. But lets sitting administration duck under that kind of bad news.

4. The White House press secretary said if we can save one child then limiting our liberties would be worth it, really? I don't believe they care about the innocent children. Otherwise we would be outraged about the other 914 killed in their mothers' wombs the same day or 334,000 last year alone in this country, what did those kids do? most likely to be inconvenient.

5. We can go after the law abiding citizens since we can find them, The ones that don't follow the law don't care and actually promote getting the laws tougher. This was the same thing the Saudis did when a rugby team mate lost his hand and sight to a small juice box boobie trap. He and his close friends were investigated and some held since they could not find the ones that maimed him.

What to do.

Let's empower the people in harm's way. (Anonymous), my wife, is a school teacher and good at what she does, I would trust her to protect her children in the school if allowed to carry concealed. We could add armed guards but not all schools could afford this so empowering those who work there teachers, principles, janitors, etc. I know this is going against the grain, We want "gun free zones" for our schools, in a perfect world I would agree but we live in a sinful and evil world and the wackos will go after the soft targets otherwise they would go after police stations or military bases like Fort Hood. (Oh that was a gun free zone also.) The same attack would have lasted about 4 seconds in a police station as 14 guys & gals with 40 cal Glocks would have taken him out. Also lets do follow up on the ones who do fail the background check to see why they are attempting to get a firearm.

Why do I think this would work. Lets look at 9/11, When this happened we added a lot of security and check and a huge new government agency Homeland Security. So what has been their track record, Ah the shoe guy, nope the passengers, How about the underwear wacko, darn again the passengers, now the crazy pilot, nutty stewards and passengers, All passengers so far. So Homeland Security 0 and citizens handled all others.

Your comment saying no one needs a Bushmaster is correct, no one needs one, But also no one needs a motorcycle, to play rugby, have a 4 wheeler, go skydiving, have a boat. I have firearms and take the family out a number of times a year, I also go to shoots which I enjoy. Why should I give up my liberties for a few wackos. We got 380 million people in the US now and these types are 1 in 5 million so there is 76 more of them out there. So taking the liberties away from 380 million for 76 this is not correct way of handling the problem.

The government wants to restrict our liberty because they fear the law abiding. ( Anonymous's opinion), Think of this, you write a blog with out harassment from a government, What if you where restricted because you could "inflame" a group, (I know that's a stretch) and they told you will need to get government approval to go to print, They tell you it's for safety of said group, They could edit or not allow approval to release, Remember it for safety and security.

In conclusion right now I believe the administration is doing what they do best and not letting a tragedy go to waste. They want to limit or eliminate the 2nd Amendment and hide form the other issues which have dogged them. I would not worry if I believed they were really trying to defend the Constitution as sworn.

Warriors and Lions Part II

And then the fun started. Along with all the guys, who decided they better pay attention, Rhonda woke up. There would now be 2 person shifts at the wheel - one driving, one navigating. And the navigator would get to pull double duty, as he would be responsible for holding onto the back of the waistband of anyone who needed to pee - no time for bathroom breaks. This proved interesting when Rhonda decided she needed to relieve herself and refused to let them stop, making special consideration for her, because “she was a girl”. So, it being her wishes, the navigator held onto her shoulders from the front, while she pulled her pants down and peed out the door of the bus. Of course, everyone thought it was a hoot, but because she lacked the same special aiming mechanism of the boys, she made a terrible mess of the side of the bus - and passing traffic..

This was followed up with a lovely question and answer session where the guys learned that Rhonda was from South Florida, and in high school had a Jeep with a lift kit so high, it’s illegal in most states. In fact, it was so high that when she tried to drive it to Alabama for school, there were state troopers at the line waiting for her to make her turn around and go back. And, apparently, her PT classes, and trainer status were because she was pre-med. Oh, and pre-law.

The questions and answers led, of course, to a friendly game of truth or dare. Rhonda, naturally, always chose dare. One of the dares was to moon passersby. She protested that she hadn’t had enough to drink so one of the guys passed her a 40 ounce bottle of Olde English 800 Malt Liquor. She took a swig, stood up on the seat and dropped trou. Typically when one moons, one will drop his drawers as low on the backside as is necessary, while keeping his bits as covered as possible on the front side. Not Rhonda. She dropped them to her knees, revealing the Ewok she was smuggling in the front, and hanging a rather large pair of buttocks out the bus window.

Keep in mind, this bus had been bought from the First Baptist Church of Milford County. And it still had their name and number on the side. Along with the shoe polish messages on the windows - “Free Jim Bakker”, “Beer, Booty, and Box”, “Driver is Blind”, and now with a large, white derriere hanging out the window.

After several (several) more hours of driving, and encountering a Jesus Freak in Kentucky who wanted to donate to the “Free Jim Bakker” fund, a West Virginia hillbilly using all manner of expletives to describe Jim Bakker to his 3 year old daughter, a stop at a McDonald’s to steal pepper shakers to pour into the leaky radiator, a terrified hitchhiker, and, finally, losing the brakes on a curvy hill in western Maryland, the bus pulled safely into the parking lot of the Nittany Lions Rugby Pitch at 10:00, Eastern Time. Just in time for an 11:00 match. But the first order of business would be borrowing 4 of PSU’s 3rd string players to round out the side.

After a sound 48-0 drubbing, PSU was able to get the Warriors access to shower facilities. While walking through the gym, Rhonda noticed the Penn State Women’s Volleyball team playing against a team clad in Garnet. She announced to us when we returned that she had originally been scheduled to travel with the MASU Volleyball team but decided the Rugby trip would be much more fun. It sounded like a good story until realizing that the team playing Penn State was actually Temple - not MASU.

After the showers, the Penn State team hosted the MASU Warriors at a player’s house for beer, food, and the football game. Since it was such a long drive, they decided to begin the return trip  that night, and take sleeping shifts. By 10:00 Sunday night, the team was home, safe and sound. Rhonda went on her way, and it can only be assumed, is driving her giant Jeep through the everglades still today.