The most Worcester thing ever?

The other day, the Worcester Red Sox - a.k.a. the Woo Sox - unveiled the jerseys and caps that the players will wear when the team (fingers and toes crossed) takes to the field for the first time in the Heart of the Commonwealth (following a move from Pawtucket, RI, where the team was known as the Paw Sox). They've had gear for sale before this. Take it from me. Since last winter, I've purchased nine - count 'em, nine - ball caps for friends and family, including a couple for myself. 

This one incorporates the smiley face which, as everyone knows, was invented in Worcester. 

The team will not be wearing the smiley face for formal play, however. They'll be sporting more serious caps, and traditional baseball player player shirts. Which were what was revealed last Monday. 

Shortly after the unveiling, the jerseys and caps went on sale in the Table Talk Pie store, which is near the under-construction Polar Park where the Woo Sox will play.

Ah, Table Talk Pie...

There are few things more iconic in Worcester than a Table Talk Pie.

My mother was an excellent baker - apple, blueberry, lemon meringue (leaving pecan and mince to my Aunt Margaret) - so there wasn't much call for a Table Talk Pie to cross our threshold. But one summer, my sister Kath had a job near the Table Talk Pie factory, and sometimes she'd bring a bunch of day-olds home for us. We fell on those suckers. 

As an adult, I bought them on occasion, preferably cherry, second place lemon. (Couldn't find a pic of cherry. Alas.)

Since my mother made the best apple and blueberry pies in the world, there was absolutely no need (nor desire) to have one from Table Talk. But their cherry pie... What I wouldn't give for one at this very moment! 

Anyway, selling Woo Sox gear at the Table Talk Pie store strikes me as THE most Worcester thing ever. Could anything top this for peak Worcester? Maybe selling them at Coney Island Hot Dogs? Nah! This is it. Woo Sox jerseys at Table Talk. Wish I'd been there for it. 

Angels we have heard on high,

Like everyone else, there's a lot I miss about the before times. Seeing friends and family beyond my small-ish bubble. Eating out. Hugging. Volunteering at St. Francis House. Smiling at babies. And dogs. Bustling shopping areas. Store fronts that aren't empty. Store browsing and occasional impulse buying. Fenway Park (even if the team is a complete and utter suckfest). The library. Not expending any energy whatsoever worrying about where my next roll of toilet paper is going to come from. Not having to wash my hands with the attention and fervor that would in the old days be expected only from a surgeon prepping for a 10-hour operation. 

And events. I miss events.

Not that I'd be caught dead at it, but I missed the St. Patrick's Day Parade. The Patriots Day buzz around the Marathon. The Pops and the fireworks on the Fourth of July (traditionally observed from the comfort of my home, but an event nonetheless).

And I missed the Italian saints festivals down in Boston's North End.

Some are just processions, in which members of a society rooted in some region of Italy parade around carrying a statue of their patron saint, accompanied by the Roma Band. The society members are typically descendants of immigrants from the whatever region, carrying on a tradition that came over on the boat with their grandparents or great-grandparents.

Some are just processions, in which members of a society rooted in some region of Italy parade around carrying a statue of their patron saint, accompanied by the Roma Band. The members are typically descendants of immigrants from the whatever region.

Here's a before times shot of the Madonna delle Grazie, Our Lady of Graces. Or, as I like to think of her, The Curly-Haired Madonna. With Curly-Haired Child. 

The bills and checks are pinned on, and they fund the society (many still have club houses) for the coming year. 

Other North End happenings are bigger deals, full blown festivals running multiple nights and featuring concerts, food (calamari, fried dough, cannoli...), carnival rides, carnival games, trinket sales, processions, and - in the case of the Fisherman's Feast - a flying angel. 

The tradition of a young girl flying over the crowds at the Fisherman’s Feast is so entrenched in the North End that the apartment she flies from has a special provision in the lease to allow it. The building even has a permanent hook used to hoist the angel above the noisy, packed streets. (Source: Boston Globe)

Festivals ain't flying this year, so the Madonna del Soccoroso Society, which runs the Fisherman's Feast, went virtual. One of the Society's leaders, Dom Strazzullo:

...developed a virtual feast with videos of the festival’s traditional activities, which he called a “three-part documentary series,” to keep the streak alive. The series culminated Saturday night with the flying angel ceremony.

If you've got 20 minutes, the video they pulled together is definitely worth watching for a little slice of Italian-American life, North End of Boston style - accents and all! 

I usually get to one or two festas/processions a year. Last year, it was the Feast of St. Joseph, which I went to with my sister Trish and our niece Caroline. As is my long standing tradition, we first ate Chinese on the outskirts of the North End, then dove in and waded through the crowd, saw part of the procession, then hung in for part of the concert - long enough to hear them play "Eh, Cumpari", to which Trish and I happily sung along. (We may not have been Italian, but we had that Julius LaRosa 78 at our house.)

My husband and I always hit a couple of festivals, often with kids in tow, and Jim would get to show off his sharpshooting skills on the game where you use a tethered squirt gun to stream water into the mouth of a clown. First one to explode the balloon growing out of the clown's head wins a swell prize. We never came away empty.

We'd often hit a concert, and one evening even heard Al Martino sing.

And I'd always get a ten-second catch-up with a former colleague who played the drum in the Roma Band, as Steve from Wang and his band mates marched along behind whatever statue was being carried through the streets. 

Like everything else in the world (at least in Boston: c.f., the Marathon, the Pops on the Fourth), over the years, the Italian festivals have become too much of a thing. The crowds are crazy and it's just not as enjoyable as it was when you could more casually stroll around.

Still, the North End crowds were never so awful that I stayed entirely away. The Italian Festivals are, of course, yet another reason why it's wonderful to live in a city. 

Just not this year.

I will note that this year's virtual angel has been promised the slot as flying angel next year. I plan on being there for her flight. It'll have been way too long since there was an angel to hear on high.

I say GUN! You say NUT. GUN! NUT! GUN! NUT!

Apparently, there's a new genre on social media, Facebook edition. It's the gathering place for a stellar group of brilliant, thoughtful and ever-so-careful gun enthusiasts whose special interest is sharing pictures and videos of themselves pointing their weapon of choice at their private parts.

First off, who thinks this stuff up? 

It's not like trying to convene online with your high school classmates, or fans of The Bobbsey Twins, or slow cooker addicts. I mean, who wakes up one morning and decides to do a bit of thrill seeking by pointing a gun at their man thang? Let alone take a picture of it. Let alone go trawling out there to see if there are any other folks who enjoy the same sort of perverto hobby. Which apparently there are.

Second of all, isn't the inevitable going to happen to one member of the gang? I guess the thinking (or non-thinking) is hey, that would never happen to me. 

Of course, it didn't happen to most of the "mes". But it did happen to someone.

A member of a Facebook group dedicated to taking pictures of loaded weapons pointed at dicks finally shot himself in the balls, according to bloody pictures and video he posted on social media and the Imperial County [San Diego] Sheriff's Office, which confirmed the incident to Motherboard. Rather than step back and start questioning whether the practice is wise, the group made him an administrator and are now celebrating him as their king.  (Source: Matthew Gault in Vice)

The member who'd shot his member kept posting in real time, and offered a bit of a confession:

"...I might have fucked up,” the man who shot himself in the balls wrote above a picture of his naked legs and splattered blood on the carpet of his floor. A towel is stuffed between his legs and a printed out copy of the constitution is crumpled on the edge of the photo.

Um, might have fucked up? I guess that depends on the definition of "might". Or of "fucked up." 

Maybe, I thought, it was a prank. After all, the copy of the constitution seems a bit much, even by gun nut standards.

But, no.

The guy kept posting about the incident, including a pic of himself in the hospital, in his green hospital gown, laid out on a gurney, and telling his little corner of crazy world that the "round went right the fuck through me." Or his scrotum, but they may well be one and the same.

The fellow was discharged and was able to go to work the next day. Good thing, I suppose. Imagine having to bring in a doctor's note explaining this one.

This group - and others like it, and there are, indeed, others like it - actually doesn't think this is behavior is all that good of an idea. They just want to "irritate responsible gun owners." I.e., the softies who care about things like gun safety. And to cock a snook at those who consider folks like this well, gun nuts. 

In response to all the hoopla, the site has posted a statement that includes this:

"...we are sick of being told that just because we like guns It means we have to be anti woman, pro life and pro trump.”

Maybe not, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, whether they like it or not, this group is pro stupidity.

Imagine the self-own that goes along with shooting yourself anyplace, let alone in your private parts. Good luck when a girlfriend - or, I suppose, boyfriend, although this sounds pretty hetero -  gets curious and asks you what happened here.

For workers, it's not so super at the supermarket

In terms of the number of different crummy jobs I worked in my youth, I almost ran the table. Factory worker. Waitress. Grill cook. Ice cream scooper. Office temp. Admitting clerk in a hospital. Department store clerk. Admin. I'm sure I'm missing something here, but one commonplace job missing from my grunt work portfolio is grocery store cashier or bagger. Despite the fact that it was in my blood, kind of - my Grandfather Wolf had a grocery store and all his kids worked there at one point or another - I never worked as a bagger at Stop & Shop, a cashier at A&P.

While I do enough grocery shopping to realize that a lot of high school and college kids still work in grocery stores, for more and more folks, it's their real job. And they're considered essential workers, out there on the front lines, making sure we all have access to all the food we want and need. 

When the pandemic shutdown started going into effect here, once I did my panic sweep through the Roche Brothers, I stayed out of stores entirely for a few weeks. Then I started going back, making sure to exchange pleasantries with and thank the stockers, the cashiers, the guys who slice the Cabot's cheddar and weigh out the fresh but deveined shrimp for me. And I'm always, always, always conscious that, for a lot of workers, these aren't the crumb-bum summer and after-school jobs of the teenage years, but their real jobs. 

And they're jobs that, despite all the hand-washing, plexiglass barriers, and one way signs on the aisles, put workers at greater risk than the shopping risks faced by stay-at-home professionals who - if they actually go into a grocery store, vs. taking advantage of home delivery or curbside pickup  - sweep pell-mell through a store every couple of weeks. 

For the first few months of the pandemic, grocery workers were hailed as heroes, right up there with healthcare workers. Many got a hazard pay boost to their hourly wage. And then pandemic fatigue, our sheer boredom with "it", set in. So now:

Grocery workers across the country say morale is crushingly low as the pandemic wears on with no end in sight. Overwhelmed employees are quitting mid-shift. Those who remain say they are overworked, taking on extra hours, enforcing mask requirements and dealing with hostile customers. Most retailers have done away with hazard pay even as workers remain vulnerable to infection, or worse. Employees who took sick leave at the beginning of the pandemic say they cannot afford to take unpaid time off now, even if they feel unwell.

The mounting despair is heightened by the lack of other job options: Supermarkets are among the few bright spots in an industry that has been ravaged by covid-related store closures and a sharp drop-off in consumer spending. The retail sector has shed 913,000 jobs and chalked up more than a dozen bankruptcies during the pandemic.

“At the beginning they valorized what was deemed a dead-end job, but four months later they don’t even treat us like humans anymore,” said Fox Wingate, 24, who works at a Safeway in Maryland. (Source: WaPo)

Okay. I have to get it out there. I'm gonna say that I'm not all that worried about a 24-year-old named Fox Wingate who uses words like "valorized" and "deemed." I suspect that Fox will have other career options to explore. Still, I have plenty of sympathy for grocery workers, many of them women and people of color, who make, on average, $27K a year. There's making a living and there's not making a living and, unless you live in the backwoods, $27K a year ain't a living. And if you live in the backwoods a) there are probably no grocery stores; b) you're probably being paid well below the national average. 

And for that $27K, you're in a risky business - 130 grocery store workers have been killed by COVID - and you have to put up with nasty customers.

Thankfully, on my treks to Roche Brothers or, on rare occasion, Whole Foods, I haven't seen anyone ill-treating a grocery store worker. I did, however, see a set-to at the Copley Square Farmers Market last Friday.

During the over-60 hour, I was in a short, spaced waiting line for one of the farm stands. I was behind a guy who appeared to be older then me. In front of him, and next in line to get waited on and buy some corn and blueberries, was a woman who I judged to be younger: early 60's. 

Anyway, the woman felt that the older guy was standing a bit too close for her liking, so she started to tell him off - and rail on him because his mask had slipped down under his nose. They went back and forth for the few minutes we were waiting for our little line to move, and it was all pretty entertaining. I learned that she has a compromised immune system, and he's had prostate cancer. They went back and forth, but it was only with slightly raised voices - this was, after all, the oldie hour in front of Trinity Church in Boston's Back Bay, where you can easily imagine that most of the shoppers still have a McGovern button somewhere in their possession. Insults hurled, but no punches thrown. 

I passed her a few minutes later and she was bitching to two friends about the older guy.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, grocery workers are trying to figure out how they're going to survive, both physically and economically. 

They've had new tasks added to the roles - like disinfecting the card machine after each transaction, and the dreadful enforcing of the face mask requirement - and they've often had their hours cut, as more shoppers opt for home delivering and more former shoppers are standing in breadlines, not checking to see whether there's any TP on the shelves and whether they have their coupon for Skippy Peanut Butter. Many grocery workers don't have any paid sick leave, and when you're only making $27K a year, the idea of taking unpaid time off is not all that attractive. 

It's really not such a super world out there, is it?

When you're not even safe from anti-maskers on Sesame Street..

How much do you suppose a 17 year old kid working at a Sesame Street theme park in Pennsylvania makes an hour?

Minimum wage - which hasn't budged since 2009 - is $7.25 an hour in Pennsylvania. So maybe a kid working at Sesame Place makes a bit more. But probably not much. 

I'm a big believer that everyone should have at least one or two really crappy jobs in their younger days - jobs that are low-skill, boring, aggravating, bottom of the work heap. Sure, fancy internships where you get to sit around pretending you're working, but are really just sitting there all day trying to figure out how you're going to position the internship on your resume - are all swell and good. But there's really nothing like a crummy job where you actually work.  

And you know what? I've never met anyone who regrets for a moment that, along the way, they had those rudimentary punch-clock jobs. (Of course, most of the people I know are cranky oldsters who'd give anything to peel back a few decades or more to be working one of those jobs again.)

But if you're a 17 year old kid working at Sesame Place who got punched in the face for asking some aholes to put on a face mask, you might be wishing you had lined up something a bit cushier for the summer. (Hope their face mask provided a bit of protection.)

Anyway, this kid was "aggressively punched", and it was a twofer: punched by a female and by a male. Who threw the haymaker? The left uppercut? Nice to see some equality of asshole-ishness, isn't it? I'm sure proud!

There was no push back when the teen first approached the guests to remind them to wear their masks, according to CNN affiliate WPVI. But later, when the employee reminded them a second time, the guests turned violent. It's unclear where in the park these encounters took place...

After punching the employee, both guests left, along with their party, accordintg to WPVI. It's unclear if they were asked to leave or left on their own account. (Source: CNN)

No one's been arrested yet, but there are surveillance videos and reservation forms that have let the police make a tentative ID.

Seriously, what is wrong with people? 

You take your kids to Sesame Place, it's supposed to be a happy time. You get to see Bert & Ernie, and Big Bird. It's all about acceptance, inclusiveness, kindness, being good to people. I've never been, but I imagine that, alongside the "let's get you to spend money on crap" vibe, there's also a channeling of Mr. Rogers. 

But these creeps aren't vibing Fred Rogers. Instead, they're showing their kids how to be belligerent, violent, no-nothing jerks. While, of course, interpreting their behavior as standing up for their rights, not getting pushed around by a punk kid, etc. Sheesh. Even Oscar the Grouch would be perplexed by this. 

And Elmo? Poor little Elmo? What must he be thinking? 

I hope they catch the jerks who disturbed the Sesame Street peace. I hope the kid who got punched is okay. At least they'll have a good story to tell when they're an old geezer reminiscing about the crappy jobs they had when they were a kid. 

Kermit the Frog taught us that it's not easy being green. This episode teaches us that, in a time of COVID, it's not easy working at Sesame Place.

The fussy parent variation on the fussy eater theme

Growing up, I was as fussy an eater as one was allowed to be in a large family where you ate what was put in front of you.

I recall only two incidents where I had to sit there after everyone else had left the table to finish my meal up.

One was a breakfast, where my mother was forcing me to finish a fried egg that was not fried to my liking. I.e., it was not completely unrunny, as firm as leather. When her back was turned, I managed to get rid of that oogy egg by shoving it down the broken eye socket of my baby doll. That showed her! (My mother, not the baby doll.) I suppose that she eventually discovered my ploy. Surely the remains of a fried egg entombed in a plastic baby doll would smell at some point. But there were no repercussions. Generally, my mother accommodated my requirement for a tough fried egg. 

I outgrew this requirement, of course, and an egg over-easy, with plenty of yolk to sop up with toast, is today a real treat.

The other mother vs. child food incident I remember was sitting there until I finished my creamed corn. Now who in their right mind would make a child eat something with the look and feel of vomit? The inevitable happened, and I don't remember ever again being forced to eat creamed corn.

I did not outgrow this one. The very thought of creamed corn can summon up a bit of a gag reflex.

But mostly my mother went with the flow. She mostly made things we liked, and if once a year I had to gag down creamed chipped beef - a favorite of my father and my sister Kath - or a bit of liver (yuck!), it was fine.

There was no choice when it came to the meat and the potato. But my mother was somewhat flexible when it came to veggies. When there was something nasty on the menu - like cooked spinach (which at the time I despised) - there was always another vegetable on offer (liked can peas), and all you had to do was eat one vegetable and be done with it. 

Then there were the items that were completely optional. Although we always had tomatoes around - those pink pulpy winter ones, the gorgeous farm stand summer natives - I never ate a tomato until I was in my teens.

For anything I found objectionable - I was never a roast beef/roast veal/roast lamb fan - I developed a knack for filling my mouth with milk and sluicing down something whatever it was I didn't like. This came in especially handy when we were at my Grandmother Wolf's lake house, and every meal seemed to feature the tough and fibrous waxed ("vaxed") beans she grew in her sadismo garden. 

While my mother wanted peace in her time, she would never have done separate menus. I know people whose kids, well into their teens, only eat "white foods" - chicken, pasta with butter, etc. That would not have flown in our house, that's for sure.

But my mother wasn't an especially adventurous cook. My father was a meat and potatoes man, and while she ventured out a bit - she made great spaghetti sauce, for one thing - she mostly stuck to the basics. (One time, for her birthday - yes, you read that right, her birthday - she made chicken jumbalaya with rice and okra. We refused to eat it, and my father jumped to our defense. He was suspicious of it, as well. My parents got over this little set-to - they adored each other - but after that my mother stayed completely on the straight and narrow, cooking-wise.)

Somehow, through all this, I grew up to be a fairly adventurous eater. Not Anthony Bourdain adventurous, mind you, but Main South Worcester adventurous for sure. While there are foods I prefer over others, I'm mostly okay with anything. 

As a kid though...

Once in a while, someone's birthday party would be a lunch. We all went home for lunch anyway, so no big deal to go to another kid's house. Ellen Walsh's lunch party fell on a Friday, and her mother served us tuna sandwiches. Which would have been fine by me, but Mrs. Walsh put green pepper in her tuna salad. The horror. Milk sluice to the rescue. 

Years later, at age 14, I was given a BLT - now one of my favorite sandwiches - and had a moment of crisis when I had to decide whether to take the tomato out or just go with it. By that point, I was too embarrassed to admit I didn't eat tomatoes, so I took the plunge. 

In any case, I was completely cracked up by a question that was sent into the Dear Prudence column on Slate:

Q.  My son, “Chris,” is 9. A few weeks ago, we decided to open our bubble to include the family of “Neil,” Chris’s best friend. Both of Neil’s parents are doctors, so this seemed like a safe decision. Both parents were born and raised in India. We let Chris have dinner at their place the other night since both boys were having a great time together. When we came to pick up Chris, Neil’s mom recounted to me how much chicken curry and lentils and vegetables Chris ate. I couldn’t believe that they served my son spicy curries without even calling to ask us if that would be OK! I was taken aback and gently mentioned that spicy foods can be hard on small tummies, but it didn’t seem to register. Thankfully Chris didn’t get sick. My wife says to drop it because any conversation will look racial in nature and to only let the boys play at our place. Please help.

Please help, alright.

You're saying your kid ate Indian food for the first time, and apparently liked it enough to eat a lot of it, and you've got a problem with that? Huh?

You should be congratulating yourselves on having raised a kid who's a bit adventurous and plenty polite, rather than a sniveling, whiny boo-boo baby crying about how Neil's meanie parents made him eat nasty "foreign" food.

This reminds me of the night when my mother served spaghetti when my aunt and uncle and their kids were up for dinner. They usually came on Friday, which meant fish, but this must have been a mid-week special of some sort. Pretty bold of my mother to serve her (excellent) spaghetti to folks who were even blander food-wise than we were. 

Anyway, when he saw the spaghetti, my cousin Rob, who must have been 13 or 14 at the time, turned to his mother and asked her, "Do I eat this?" At age 7 or 8, I was a bit shocked by this question. How could you get to the advanced age of 13 or 14 and not know if you ate something?

Anyway, my Aunt Margaret's answer was pretty much "you do now."

Which was, of course, the right answer. 

And here's Prudie's right answer to the idiot-stick father who only wants the kids to play at his house where, presumably, he'll be spooning them pabulum for dinner.

A. At the risk of taking the bait, you must realize that millions of people (presumably both of Neil’s parents, not to mention Neil himself) regularly eat lentils and vegetables as children in perfect safety. There’s something so grotesque about the infantilizing language of “gently informing someone”—especially when that someone is “two doctors”—about “small tummies,” coupled with the racist horror that your 9-year-old ate and enjoyed a few servings of chicken curry, one of the world’s most popular and adaptable dishes. Not all curries are spicy, and not all spices pack heat; your son ate a meal he enjoyed (one you didn’t have to prepare or clean up after ) and continued to enjoy good health for the rest of the evening. Neil’s parents didn’t take him to a ghost pepper festival and turn him loose. Your kid was not endangered by chicken curry, and your problem is not one that Neil’s parents can fix for you. Take your wife’s advice and let this go.

I love that "your problem is not one that Neil's parents can fix for you."

This guy's got to get over being such a fussy parent.

"Pandemic triggers boom in plastic surgery"? But of course...

I must admit that I've been doing a bit of impulse buying of late. 

Sick of my boring (and non-washable) place mats, I ordered a new set (plus napkins) from Wayfair. 

Wayfair always has just what I need, so since I was even sicker of the chrome upstairs bathroom soap dispenser, which was oogily rusting,I ordered a new soap dispenser.

I'm seriously considering replacing the area rug in my den with something a little less cheapo. And I'm deciding whether my 100 year old mahogany dining set needs to go. Nothing against mahogany - I like this set just fine - but I've never been much for furniture polishing, and every time I lean back in one of the chairs, I hear a crack. So far, a jar of Gorilla Glue and a jar of Old English Lemon Oil have been my only recent dining room set related buys (other than the new place mats and napkins), but I've begun checking out tables and chairs and trying to justify this magnitude of purchase.

So I know that the stir-craziness of pandemic lock-down - however quasi that lock-down is in its present state - can give you the urge for doing a bit of shopping. And think of all that money we're not spending going out to eat. Burning virtual holes in our virtual pockets. Why not treat ourselves to a little something or other?

But treat myself to a bit of plastic surgery? 

Even though when I come in from my walk, I catch my reflection in the lobby mirror and note that I seem to be getting shorter and squatter by the day, and that all the pandemic-related snacking has certainly done wonders for expanding my muffin top, I hadn't really thought about spending any of my COVID savings on liposuction or frozen sculpting treatment.

And now that I've given it some thought, it's a hard - okay, make that flabby - "No."

But Jocelyn - not her real name - a 25-year old NYC actress came to a different conclusion when she found she'd packed on a few lbs:

‘‘I wasn’t able to spend as much money as I would have normally, on eating out or shopping excessively,’’ she says.

As a result of her unhealthy weight and healthier bank balance, Jocelyn splurged on cosmetic surgery; in her case, it was an AirSculpt treatment, a body-contouring alternative to liposuction.

‘‘I got it done on a Wednesday, filmed a commercial that same Friday, and right after, went on a date, because I looked freaking amazing and I darn sure wasn’t going to be the only person to see it,’’ she says. (Source: Bloomberg via the Boston Globe)

"Jocelyn" is not alone, which means that demand is up for Botox, butt lifts, and everything else a pandemic-weary nation wants and needs. 

Some of this is business spurt is due to pent up demand. After all, even in the most lax of states, Botox injectors couldn't have been considered essential workers. So they experienced a shutdown in those dark early days. But there's also new demand, as all the pandemic-inspired navel gazing is causing folks to look above and beyond their navel and take a closer look at their overall appearance. And apparently not liking what their seeing. Thus one NY surgeon is experiencing major growth in requests for breast reduction. (Could this be the result of so many work-at-homies unhooking their bras for the duration?)

The surgeons benefiting from all this have different explanations. 

One attributes it to the "quarantine 15", and the desire to shed those unwelcome pounds fast. Others say that all that Facetiming, all that Zooming, has made folks more conscious of defects like a double chin. According to one doc who does a lot of vanity surgery, "the double-chin business" - and who even knew there was such a thing - "has skyrocketed."

Then there's this, from Dr. Lara Devgan, a New York plastic surgeon who's business is booming:

‘‘There’s something inherently unflattering about a 30-degree, angled-upward, forward-facing camera on a laptop,’’ Devgan explains. ‘‘I had one patient, who was previously just happy with Botox and fillers, proceed with a face and neck lift as a result of being on endless streams of Zoom calls. She saw jowls and neck folds she’d never appreciated before quarantine.’’

Having the time and privacy to recover at home from cosmetic surgery is also a driver. There's something called the Plasma Pen.  

The procedure, often used to erase smoker’s lines around the mouth, results in scabbing that last 10 days or so. Amid widespread mask-wearing, the scabs need never be seen.

Same goes for those looking to plump their lips or resurface whatever plane of their body bothers them.

One person interviewed for the article had a number of small procedures, thanks to her stimulus check and unemployment compensation. 

I don't suppose tossing money at plastic surgery is all that much more ridiculous than my going all-in for a new veggie cutting board. But it does strike me that this sort of superficial appearance-focus when so many tens of thousands are dying, when millions more are ill, when there are so many unemployed, all those small businesses thrown for a loop, and a truly terrible person in the White House doing his damnedest to destroy the country, seems a bit misplaced. 

Guess we'll just have to chalk it up to one more example of American exceptionalism.

Don't worry, about a thing. Just avoid the bad hand sanitizers.

It's hard now to recall the exact timeline for the end of before time. 

When did we start panicking about hand sanitizer? When did we start haunting Etsy to find masks? What was the last time we went out to dinner? When were the t.p. shortages? When did paper towels disappear from the shelves? Etc. 

I'm pretty sure face mask meshugas was early April. That the last supper out was in early March. And that hand sanitizer was the first harbinger of what was to come. So I'll peg it to February. 

In drips and drabs, in onesies and twosies, I ended up with plenty of hand sanitizer. Some is CVS brand. Some is Purell. I have a couple of small bottles of Meyer's that I got at the hardware store. A few larger bottles - one from my sister Trish, one from my friend Joe, one I found on my own. 

For Easter - when we thought we were going to be getting together for dinner to celebrate a religious holiday, even though we're all atheists; but, family - I had ordered a bunch of cute little birdie hand sanitizers. Three little birds! Don't worry, about a thing. 'Cause every little thing's, gonna be alright. 

We never got together for family Easter, but I've seen everyone since, and they've all gotten their party favor. (Nice touch: in the bottom, there are little wipes. Not so nice: disappointingly, the aqua ones were sold out, so I had to settle for white and gray.)

During the period when I was accumulating all these hand sanitizers, two things were happening.

First, I was a whirlwind sanitizer. Just not so much with hand sanitizers. 

No Clorox wipes? No problem. I made my own daily mix of bleach and water to spray on my doorknobs, kitchen counters, faucets. (You need to make it daily or thereabouts, because bleach loses its effectiveness fast.)

When I got back from a walk - even if I didn't touch a thing while I was out - I soaked my keys in isopropyl alcohol.

I use alcohol wipes to wipe down my glasses, my phone, and the ID I carried in my pocket. (For whatever reason, alcohol wipes, which never seemed to fall out of supply.)

And although I didn't go anywhere, I didn't go anywhere without a bottle of hand sanitizer in my pocket.

But, the second thing is this: As it turns out that, because I don't go anywhere, I don't really use much hand sanitizer.

I wash my hands a lot, surgical scrub to Happy Birthday or Thunder Road, using whatever liquid hand soap I have around. And I have quite a supply.

When I'm in a store, and there's a sanitizer dispenser, I'll take a squirt. But mostly, I don't use hand sanitizer. And I really don't need it. 

I suppose that if I ever do get out of the house for something other than a grocery or drugstore run, if I ever need to use a public restroom, I'll be happy to have my supply. But right about now, that supply I do have is looking almost lifetime.

Since most of what I have is Purell or Purell wannabe from CVS, I'm not worried about whether it's any good.

But the FDA is doing some worrying for all of us, and they've identified 135 versions of hand sanitizer that are no good, and they're urging us hand sanitizing types to avoid them.

...because they lack a sufficient level of alcohol to kill germs or because they contain dangerous and potentially deadly levels of wood alcohol...Many of the products’ labels say they contain ethanol (also known as ethyl alcohol) but FDA tests show that they contain methanol, or wood alcohol...

Methanol can be toxic when absorbed through the skin, the agency said in an advisory, and can cause blindness. It can be lethal if ingested. (Source: WaPo)

What doesn't make you stronger can kill you?

Anyway, because some of the products are improperly labeled, it's tough for consumers to figure out which ones to avoid. And it's especially worrisome that they've been sold at reputable stores, like BJ's, Costco and Walmart. For the most part, the pisspoor hand sanitizers are being produced by those that are new to the game. They're first time sanitizers that have "failed to ensure rigorous product quality."

A handful of people have died, and dozens hospitalized, from ingesting hand sanitizer that contains methanol. No, they're not all following the Prime Directive issued from the Oval Office. Some of those who've died are alcoholics. Which doesn't make it a good thing, just a more understandable one. (This reminds me of a guy my husband and I saw lying in a gutter in South Boston on the day of the St. Patrick's Day parade. This was way back, before liquor stores were open on Sundays. Anyway, the poor bastard was there, clutching a bottle of Listerine. Which reminded us of the scene in the movie Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex in which a shepherd, distraught over his unrequited love for one of his charges, ends up in the gutter guzzling from a bottle of Woolite.) And if someone's gone blind, or been killed, thanks to mislabeled hand sanitizer, I'm thinking law suit time. 

The FDA also advises Americans to be wary of products that claim to be “FDA-approved,” as none exist, or say they provide protection for “up to 24 hours.”

Got it!

Meanwhile, I'm good at the moment. If you want to see the list of the must avoids, here  you go.  

That schwein is a real lausbube

Let's ignore for a sec all the dead, the dying, and the really, really sick. And their loved ones. Because, of course, what people who've caught the bad version of COVID are going through is a lot worse than the rest of us not being able to do "stuff". And let's ignore for a sec all the economic damage that's been wrought, all these lost jobs, all those out-of-business companies.

Admittedly, those are pretty big things to ignore.

But still, there's no ignoring that here are a lot of things that we're missing out of - all pretty much filed under normalcy - thanks to the disastrous national non-response to the pandemic.

And it rankles even more because the countries that actually did something about the pandemic are a little closer to getting back to normalcy than we are.

Like the volks in Germany who are able to get out there and go skinny dipping. And the volks who just hang out at the skinny dipping beaches and get to witness some truly out-there fun.

In case you missed it, a German fellow:

... was sunbathing naked at the Teufelssee in west Berlin, a popular and perfectly legal practice in the German capital as part of what is known as FKK, or Freikörperkultur (free body culture). (Source: The Guardian) Not that I miss nude sunbathing. I don't, so I don't. But if I were a naturist, living in Berlin, it would be kind of tempting to let it all hang out on the shores of Lake Devil.

The wild boar, sightings of which have become increasingly common, had apparently spotted a pizza being eaten by other bathers. It seized a yellow bag containing the man’s laptop, probably believing it to contain food, and was chased by the man into the undergrowth.

As my late, liebchen mutter might say, Ach du lieber strohsack. (Which translates to "oh you dear mattress." Or straw sack. Perhaps you had to be there.)

I love the onlookers, a combo of nude and unnude, just kind of sitting there, looking on. No one seems unduly alarmed by a big old boar charging by. Maybe she didn't seem all that threatening, given that she had a couple of piglets in tow. Or maybe it was the bag she was making off with.

As for laptop at the beach? While nude? I wonder if this is the Berliner version of working from home without having any pants on.

The guy giving chase clapped his hands, then - having chased the boar into the forest abutting the lake - found a stick that he hit the ground with. This startled the boar into dropping the laptop, which the naturist was then able to recover.

I will note that the woman who took the pictures just didn't go ahead and post them on Facebook in hopes of going viral at someone else's expense. No, Adele Landauer, not wanting to embarrass the somewhat zaftig schwein-chaser, actually asked if it was okay:

“I showed the man the photos, he laughed heartily and gave me permission to make them public.”

Hard to imagine either end of that happening in the States.

Other than the envy that the Germans can live their best lives, clothed or nude, while we're stuck at home wearing our masks, pretty much everything about this story makes me smile. The pot-belly middle-aged guy who's not embarrassed to be seen in public looking like that. The kindly photographer. The audience rooting the man in hot pursuit on. (He got quite an ovation when he caught up with his laptop.)

And, of course, the schwein herself. She's what my mother might have called a lausbube - a little rascal.

I do wonder what the guy would have done if the boar had gotten away with his laptop. Especially if it had been a work device. Imagine explaining to your boss, "Well, I was nude bathing at Lake Devil, and a wild boar - thinking it was pizza - grabbed the bag holding my laptop." Talk about the dog ate my lunch.

Anyway, not that this story is exactly normalcy, but we're missing out on so much normalcy this summer, it's good to have a fun story to read.

------------------------------------------------------------
Danke to my sister Kath who first spotted this pig tale.

Oh How Well the Mighty Have Fallen

In my much, much younger days, I was a close observer of the rise of the televangelist. Jimmy Swaggart. Jimmy and Tammy Faye Bakker (rhymes with faker). Oral Roberts. Pat Robertson. Robert Schuller. As cradle Catholic atheists, my husband and I were completely fascinated by these pious frauds, with their phony smiles, their crocodile tears, their outstretched hands. Always the outstretched hands.

Sometimes we'd turn on the spooky George Vandeman, a Seventh Day Adventists who preached the gospel of vegetarianism. (His descriptions of the slaughter of animals, especially - as I recall from a distance of over 40 years - calves for veal were quite something. Old George almost but not quite turned us off of meat. All these years later I still pause at veal on the menu, and generally skip to chicken.)

Anyway, on Sunday mornings, we'd often catch a couple of acts.

Our favorites soon emerged: Leroy Jenkins and Jerry Falwell.

Leroy Jenkins was a faith healer who was something of an Elvis lookalike, and his shows always featured him singing a few gospel tunes, Elvis-style. And, of course, selling his "miracle water" drawn from his well in Delaware, Ohio, and at one point found to contain coliform bacteria. (What doesn't cure you will kill you?) He was such an obvious conman, but a fascinating one. 

Jim and I once scheduled a weekend in New York to coincide with a Jenkins' revival meeting at Madison Square Garden that featured an appearance of none other than Dale Evans, cowgirl wife of Roy Rogers. The main draw was Jenkins' "healing" powers. Oh, boy. What we thought would be amusing to watch turned out to be astoundingly depressing. The shills and those looking for a cure who were mobile and had no obvious sign of affliction were seated in a roped off area - the only area Jenkins got anywhere near to. He'd pull folks out of this section, lay hands on, shout "be thou made whole" and, voila, a miracle! 

Those in real need of a miracle were ignored, even though they were threaded throughout the audience, the people with then waving their arms and hollering, trying to get Jenkins attention, trying to get closer to the man, only to be pushed back by security thugs. A woman near us was standing in the aisles, her blind husband hanging on to her, while she desperately called Jenkins' name.

We didn't last long after that. 

(By no means alone among the Elmer Gantry crowd, Jenkins did some time in prison for fraud. He had several marriages, and the last one was a lulu. In 2001 he married an elderly woman - widowed just three weeks prior to the blessed nuptials - who had recently won $6M in the Ohio lottery. The marriage (not surprisingly) was annulled.)

And then there was Jerry Falwell, smug and overstuffed. Moral Majoritarian. Soul winner. (His term.) Founder of Liberty Baptist College.

When I first knew of Jerry Falwell, the school was just being founded as Liberty Baptist College, and was pretty rinky-dink. Now it's all grown up and now it's Liberty University, a school that's highly regarded in conservative circles. Falwell the elder was definitely on to something. Today, LU has 100,000 students (albeit the vast majority of them are online - pre-COVID online).

It almost goes without saying that, when Falwell came to Boston, Jim and I went to hear him speak. Very right wing - twice, I began typing "white wing" - and suffocating. But interesting. One of the giveaways was something called the Bicentennial Bible. (Actually, you had to make a small pledge to get one, so we put down a pledge in the name of a friend, which was the kind of thing I thought was funny back then. It remained funny for a couple of years - at least to us - as they kept sending notices to him asking for the money.) 

I can't remember all the details of the Bicentennial Bible, but it was a pretty extreme combo of religion and American history. Not quite as bad as having the Founding Fathers, in knee britches and powdered wigs, at the Last Supper. But almost.

Whatever else Falwell believed, he was a solid believer in nepotism. He bequeathed the pulpit at his mega-church to one son, and to his namesake - Jerry Falwell, Jr. - he left the presidency of Liberty University.

Unlike his father - however repugnant I found Jerry Sr. personally, he did appear to be a pillar of rectitude - Jerry Jr. is a bit of a libertine, leading a life that doesn't quite jibe with the Liberty University rep. Among the scandals he's been involved with are noise about him engaging in inappropriate sexual banter, sharing shall we say unwholesome pics of his wife, nightclubbing in Florida, and something to do with him, his wife, and a pool boy. 

There's also a rumor that he was blackmailed into lending his name to the Trump campaign in 2016. With Falwell's backing, permission was more or less given to evangelists to vote for man with such a disreputable past and with zero to do with (and zero understanding of) Christianity. This was supposedly in exchange for Trump's then-fixer, Michael Cohen, making some bad news about Junior disappear.

To me, Jerry Falwell Jr. is a creepy, hypocritical sleaze, inauthentic. A conman. 

But with his latest hi-jinks, the con is up at least for now, as he's has been forced out of his post as Liberty University's president. 

The wrongful act straw that broke the Liberty U back was a picture he posted on social media. The picture, taken on a yacht, showed him with a drink - he claims it was "black water" meant to look like a rum coke - in hand, and his arm around a younger woman who is not his wife. Bad enough. But in the picture, both he and his gal-pal have their pants unzipped and partially pulled down (below the belly button). It's not a dick pic, but it does show the top of his underwear. (Looks to be a brief not boxer kind of guy. He may even wear hip huggers.)

Not the sort of picture you want going out on social media when you head up an ultra-conservative institution that has strict dress codes and forbids things like drinking, dancing, and kissing. There was a quasi-apology, excuse-a-rama from Falwell. The picture was taken out of context. (The context: costume party making fun of some Canadian TV show about trailer trash.) The woman was his wife's assistant. It was all in fun. He's sorry he embarrassed the young woman. Yadayadayada. 

Not good enough for the University's board of trustees, and Jerry Junior was forced to go on indefinite leave. (Interesting that Oral Roberts had anointed his son Richard to succeed him as president of the eponymous Oral Roberts University. Richard was forced out due to allegations of financial improprieties.)

Oh, I'm sure Jerry Falwell Jr. will take a bit of time off - maybe hang out with the pool boy on that yacht - and then come back a new man. Contrite, right with the Lord. Etc. Maybe he'll wind up somewhere doing time in what we can only hope and pray are the waning days of the Trump administration.

Jerry Falwell Senior must be rolling over in his grave...

There's a pandemic on, so I thought I'd do a bit of my bit

I just hopped off of Etsy, where I ordered a few more facemasks for myself. I figure the wearin' o' the mask will continue well into next year, and by then my store of masks will be looking pretty shabby. I go out for a walk every day, so I'm going through seven masks a week that I have to hand launder. The same drag we used to experience back in the day when we all wore pantyhose.

There are, of course, something like 42 billion facemask choices out there, but I decided to focus my search on masks for holidays. Coming my way will be a couple of Halloween masks (for covid, not trick or treat costumes) and a few Christmas ones. Come October, I'll have a candy corn mask and a spider web one. In December, I'll be sporting my new snowflake and holly masks, and this retro look one that's particularly cute:

Then there's the nice summery-looking mask I saw on a store window on Charles Street. I may stop by later today to pick it up.

I have a few fancy (i.e., not black or white) masks already - a Red Sox mask and a couple (butterflies, plaid) that my sister Trish made for me when we were just starting to mask up, and we were all beginning to panic. That was in the just after before time, and I was ratcheting back and forth between an old bandanna and something I managed to craft up for myself using a linen napkin and rubber bands.

Mostly this summer I've been wearing white cotton masks that look kind of like the bras I wore in high school. Before that, I was mostly doing the black mask thing. I've also got a couple of gaiters, and a package of disposable masks. 

There's a pandemic on, don't you know, and I'm doing my bit for the common health and the economy by making sure I've got enough masks.

Admittedly, before I hopped on Etsy just now, I already had a decent number. But I've been getting sick and tired of the same old, same old, mask-wise, and I'll be happy to refresh my stockpile. Plus spread a bit of holiday comfort and joy, come the fall, come the winter. 

Mask production, as it turns out, is one of the few economic bright spots of the pandemic economy.

There's a company in Chelsea, just outside of Boston, that was making those canvas-over-steel-frame carts used for storage in warehouses and on factory floors, and for shuttling things around on trade-show floors (which is where I've used them). Business slowing down, Steele Canvas retooled and began producing face masks. Because of this, they've been able to keep their entire staff on. They've even brought on a few new employees. Their masks are sold by Crate and Barrel, among others. 

Steele Canvas is not alone.

With about half of U.S. states now requiring that masks be worn in public and most large retailers and grocery stores mandating them in their stores, masks are not just helping keep coronavirus at bay — they are providing a financial lifeline to many small businesses that might otherwise be looking into the abyss.

Companies are stitching them on repurposed manufacturing lines in New England and 3-D-printing them at workshops in California. Hundreds of Etsy entrepreneurs have stopped sewing bags and table linens and switched to full-time mask production. (Source: WaPo)

Etsy is, not surprisingly, a treasure trove, a garden of earthly delights, for mask seekers. 

When I was in mask panic mode in late March/early April - before masks were recommended, let alone required, but when the handwriting was on the wall and it said MASKS! - Etsy was everyone's go-to, but most of the masks on offer were utilitarian. Now there is seemingly infinite choice. (I've already gone back to look at the Christmas masks and - damn - except for the 1960's retro mask, I could have done better.)

You name it, you can probably find the mask of your dreams out there. Penguins (generic)? Check! Penguins (Pittsburgh)? Check! Hydrangeas? Check! Hot dogs? Check! Superman? Check! Super Mario? Check!

Okay. There's not one for everything imaginable. I came up short on Casablanca. But if you're a Sopranos fan, and you're willing to wear a mask with a cartoon of a naked woman on it - make that near-naked: she's wearing pasties - you can order the Bada Bing!

One vendor is even selling masks that she dyes with home-grown lavender and indigo.  

The WaPo article also talked about Ministry of Supply, a way-cool techie clothing company that's based in Boston. I've walked by their store on Newbury Street hundreds of times, but I've never been in. Too techie. Too millennial. Too skinny girl. But they do sell hi-tech masks. I was thinking of dropping in and buying one, but I checked online and their masks go for $50/per. 

Hmmm. I can get a handful of Etsy masks for that amount. Maybe I'll go back and look for something Thanksgiving-related.

I'm guessing we'll be wearing masks well into 2021, if not well beyond. 

So, masks.

And buying those facemasks, I'm at least doing a bit of my bit to save the people, save myself, and save the economy. Looking so forward to my new stock of Etsy masks arriving. 

75 Years Later

Sometimes I just don't get why atom bombs - and later nuclear weapons - were considered worse than conventional means of warfare.

Yes, tens of thousands of (largely civilian) Japanese civilians died as the result of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

But thousands of civilians were killed in the Dresden fire bombing six months earlier. Even more died during the course of the Blitz. It's estimated that nearly 4 million civilians in China were killed by Japanese operations during World War II. Overall, 80 million souls were killed during that war, 50 million+ were civilians. 

War is always hell. Twentieth century war was even heller due in no small part to the ability to use bombs to kill masses of people without having to look them in the eye. They're all weapons of mass destruction.

But the A-Bomb...

All those people killed in a fell swoop. Their cities leveled. Survivors suffering hideous aftermath effects from radiation exposure. A weapon of truly massive destruction.

I'm on the side of believing that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki hastened the end of the war, and prevented a tremendous number of American casualties. (One of them could have been my father. He was in the Navy, and if the war had lasted long enough, his understanding was that he would have deployed to the Pacific. As things turned out, he ended out the war at Navy Pier in Chicago, doing Navy paperwork and dating my mother.)

Most believe that, without the demonstration of Allied power and will, the Japanese people would have suicidally fought to a very bitter end. Throughout my childhood, there were occasional stories of Japanese soldiers surfacing in the Pacific 10, 15, 20 years after the war had ended. Even well into the 1970's. There was even a story of two soldiers emerging from the jungle in 2005, 60 years after the war had ended. Surrender unthinkable, they'd soldiered-on in solitary non-battle on remote Pacific islands, eventually emerging, shaggy and a bit crazy. 

It was reasonable to fear that the Japanese military would never give up, and that they'd drag the cultish elements of the population down with them.

Still, the stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are horrific, the images haunting. Even after these 75 years. (Hiroshima was August 6th, Nagasaki, August 9th.) 

The stuff of history.

Little Boy. Fat Man. 

The bombs had names. Amusing ones. 

The plane used to bomb Hiroshima, had a name, too. Pretty and feminine, Enola Gay. Named for the pilot's mother. Awww...

I had to look up the other plane. Bockscar. (Bock's Car.) Named for the plane's original pilot. Witty. A play on his name, a play on train names (Box Car).

The Hiroshima bombing took place 75 years ago today. Nagasaki, 75 years ago this coming Sunday.

We haven't learned much. War is still hell. 

But I'll say this about those bombings: except for testing, no one's set off a nuclear bomb since...

 

Don't let no pandemic stop ya! As planned, The Wild Ones are coming to Sturgis, SD. (And Laconia, NH.)

If you're not doing anything, this weekend, it's not too late for you to hop on your bike and gun down I-90 for 30 hours or so - a straight shot - until you get to Sturgis, South Dakota. Where, from August 7th through the 16th, the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is being held. Pandemic, be damned!

While they're not expecting the 750,000 souls who vroomed into town in 2015 for the 75th anniversary event - and I've forgotten: is 75th anniversary leather, rubber, or tailpipe? - they are anticipating a quarter of a million attendees.

The city of Sturgis had considered canceling the Rally, but they figured that the riders would show up anyway. So they voted to hold it in hopes that they could at least keep some control. A couple of events have been canceled, including the opening ceremony when, I believe, everyone rides into town (which must be something to behold, if not to actually have to listen to), and a B1 bomber flyover. 

The city will be taking precautions, setting up dispensers for hand-washing, and will be scouring the downtown each evening. (The Rally website itself has little by way of COVID info, other than a link to the South Dakota state tracker, so attendees can figure out just what they're riding into.)

But it looks like most of the show will go on. Including the entertainment, from groups like Hairball, Saliva, and Flaw. 

Not that I would ever in a billion years have been drawn to an event that involved 250,000 bikers sharing porta-potties, but I'm sure for those who go every year it's an absolute blast. Hairball! Saliva! Flaw! 

And it would have been truly awful for the small businesses of Sturgis who count on the Rally for a good portion of their income to have the week canceled. Still, the idea of 250,000 folks converging on this small town - most of who I suspect (with my coastal elite snobbery) think masks are for pansies - and then shooting back home to all 50 states... Ugh... All those leather-clad disease vectors, heading down the highway, lookin' for adventure.

Closer to home, Laconia, NH will also be hosting their annual Motorcyle Week from August 22nd through August 30th. It's even older than Sturgis. This year will be it's 97th edition. 

It doesn't seem like it would have been his thing, but I'm wondering whether my father ever went up their in the 1930's when he was a young single guy with an Indian Motorcyle.

He's not in this picture, but motorcycling racing wouldn't have been outside of his wheelhouse at all. Too bad there's no one left to ask!

Anyway, this year's Laconia was postponed to an August date, but it's going happen. (Didn't get a list of all the bands that are coming, other than Bad Marriage...) There are, of course, COVID caveats in place:

“The emphasis on this year’s Laconia Motorcycle Week will be on safety,” says Deputy Director, Jennifer Anderson. “While we recognize that New Hampshire is faring remarkably better than most in this pandemic, many riders will be coming from out of state and we want to ensure the public we are taking every precaution to protect their safety, such as promoting the use of face masks when not riding, regular sanitization of public surfaces through sanitization experts, Nano Coating Technologies, LLC (NCT NH), and purposely planning for a toned down version of our rally to minimize large gatherings. Expect lots of fun, food and, of course, riding but in a safe environment.”

"A toned down version" of a motorcycle rally is likely to still be fairly raucous. And keep in mind that New Hampshire is the Live Free or Die state. Hope a lot of the bikers don't decide to head into Boston unmasked, unhelmeted, on their way home. 

And whether they're heading to Sturgis or Laconia, I hope they remember that final lyric of Steppenwolf's Born to be Wild. 

Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die

Me neither. At least not now and from COVID that rides into town on the back of a Harley. 

Anyway, with America's failure to suck it at all up and do what's needed to do to flatten the curve, it's no wonder that, pandemic-wise, we've achieved third world status. 

I, for one, am looking forward to hearing his side of the story

On my daily walks, I'm seeing regular signs that there are plenty of small, local businesses that are going out of. The nice little candy and nut store. The restaurant I didn't go to that often, but liked when I did. Etc. And that's just the ones that are in storefronts that are in walking distance of my home. I can only imagine what's happening beyond my walking distance, let alone with the non-storefront businesses. Sure, things will pick up. Eventually. And businesses (even if they're different ones entirely) will come back to fill in the blanks. Eventually. But mostly it's pretty devastating to see. And no doubt devastating to experience for the folks who own(ed) these businesses. 

Enraging, too. Especially when we know that the botched national response to the pandemic has created so much of the devastation. And especially since we've gotten confirmation that what we thought had happened with respect to the non-national response was not a figment of a collective blue state conspiracy theory. That, in fact, the major reason there was no national strategy to combat the pandemic was a calculation that only blue states would be hit, so there was no political benefit to be had from coming up with a strategy. And no political loss. (Win-Win in Drumpf terms.) In fact, the political benefit that Kushner & Co. were counting on was that they could blame Democratic blue state governors for whatever awfulness took place in their state. Swell!

What's also enraging is when I read about rotters who conned money out of the Paycheck Protection Program without protecting anyone's paycheck but their own.

Case in point is a Florida man:

David Tyler Hines, 29, not only filed fraudulent PPP applications, but also spent the money on a $318,497.53 Lamborghini Huracán EVO and other "luxury and personal items," including nearly $5,000 at Saks Fifth Ave, more than $11,000 at two Miami-area hotels and a $8,530 purchase at Graff Diamonds, investigators say.

"There does not appear to be any business purpose for most, if not all, of these expenses," the criminal complaint reads. (Source: CNN)

Hines was the beneficiary of $4M in PPP loans - he'd been looking fr $13.5M - low interest and forgivable. That is, forgivable if Hines was actually paying employees. 

"Those purported employees either did not exist or earned a fraction of what Hines claimed," US Postal Inspector Bryan Masmela wrote in the complaint.

He did disburse $30K of his PPP funds to "Mom", and another $19K to himself. Plus spent money on dating sites, and for food delivery. 

Is a payment to Mom forgivable? Not that you can't have a family member in your business, but what was Mom doing to earn a payment of $15K on May 13th, and another $15k on May 27th?

 

And, of course, that Lamborghini was no way going to be forgivable, unless Hines could convince someone that he needed a company car.

How this bum and his four moving-related "businesses" passed the screen is beyond me. 

According to the Justice Department, investigators did not find any operating websites for any of the four companies. The complaint noted that Promaster and We-Pack Moving were both listed as F-rated businesses by the Better Business Bureau. (Source: Heavy)

Hines, not surprisingly, sees things differently. And he's rather prudently using some of his PPP to lawyer up. (Although, seriously, if you were accused of fraud, would you hire a lawyer named Chad???)

"David is a legitimate business owner who, like millions of Americans, suffered financially during the pandemic," Hines attorney Chad Piotrowski told CNN in a statement. "While the allegations appear very serious, especially in light of the pandemic, David is anxious to tell his side of the story when the time comes." (Source: CNN)

And I for one am looking forward to hearing this legitimate business owner's side.

Meanwhile, I don't suppose anyone will be surprised to learn that, a week before Hines was busted for PPP fraud, he got a $100 ticket in Miami for not wearing a mask...

Workin' in a coal mine. Goin' down, down, down.

Between song and film, there's always been a ton - make that 16 tons - of romanticism around coal mining. Sure, plenty of the content is around disaster (How Green Was My Valley) and/or violence (The Molly Maguires). But, oh those songs: Coal Miner's Daughter, 16 Tons, Schooldays Over, and Workin' in a Coal Mine, Going Down, Down, Down). 

Sure, there's You Are My Sunshine, Here Comes the Sun, and Good Day Sunshine (among 62 billion songs about the sun), and They Call the Wind Mariah, but I don't believe that quite the same cultural markers will grow up around solar panels or wind turbines (let alone fracking).

But the rich cultural and economic history and mythology surrounding coal mining doesn't make up by just how god-awful coal is both for the environment and for the health and well-being of miners (even if it did make for a relatively decent living for those okay with the trade-off between black lung/cave ins and a paycheck). 

The reality is that the coal industry, like the song says, is going down, down, down. 

The United States mined 706 million tons of coal in 2019 — the lowest total since 1978.

That's a 7 percent drop from the previous year, continuing a decade-long decline in overall output since the coal-mining sector's peak production in 2008.

Wyoming, the top coal-producing state, saw a 9 percent drop in 2019. Arizona stopped mining coal altogether after the Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal-fired facility in the western United States, and the adjacent mine both closed. (Source: Washington Post)

And this year -  between the Corona Depression and the acceleration of the market forces that, despite Trump's fool's gold promises to keep it alive, and his roll-back of EPA regulations (clean air? who needs it?), have been driving the coal industry into the ground for years now - promises to be even worse.

The country is projected this year to get more power from renewable energy than from coal for the first time, according to the Energy Information Administration. 

Here's hoping the, coal-wise, 2020 lives up to this promise. (At least there's one benefit to a recession.)

Good riddance. 

Coal is not entirely going away. Not just yet, anyway.

Despite the decline domestically, coal is still the leading fuel for power generation worldwide.

Which is why, even without a pandemic, you see all those pictures of folks in Beijing wearing masks as they bicycle around in the city's fetid brown air.  

Few would argue that coal is anything other than tremendously bad for the environment and we need to keep moving all of our power plants off of it, and find alternative fuels for steel making. I'd say that at this point in time, the only thing coal is good for is making a snowman. And, yes, I am old enough to have lived in a home fueled by cold, and to have made plenty of snowmen that used coal for face and buttons. 

Of course, I never produced a snowman quite this good looking. Sure, my mother might have spotted us an old rag to use for a scarf, but one of my father's old hats? Forget about that.

And, of course, given the state o' the environment, it's not clear that we'll ever again have enough snow to roll out a respectable snowman...

Sigh.