Friday Odds 'n Ends

According to the local paper, today's high temp is forecast to be 76 degrees. Is this really February in Ohio? I can already hear endorsers of climate change screaming from the rooftops. For those people, I have one question: when the massive glaciers that covered North America melted away thousands of years ago, was that climate change also? Did mankind cause that event?

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Geico, the mega-insurance provider, is at it again. Their newest entry in the television advertising arena shows three thieves exiting an art museum with stolen loot; their getaway ride is an Uber vehicle which is late in arriving and, of course, they're apprehended by police. The rub?

All three of the criminals are portrayed by Caucasian males.

Geico joins ADT, Lifelock and a handful of other companies whose portrayal of criminals in ad spots are white dudes. Every time. No Hispanics, Chinese or African Americans....not even a female. As a retired police officer, I can assure you that not every single criminal is a white male. Another instance of political-correctness-gone-wild? Mind you, I'm not complaining...I just find it funny/ridiculous.

Then there's the commercial featuring a guy named Nick Bolton, dressed in a tan fatigue t-shirt and camo pants, endorsing a multi-function, high-intensity mini flashlight. In this entry, he even runs over the light in a Hummer and says that it is very similar to those lights that are used in 'tactical' situations. Here's a fact: even though his manner of dress and use of military/police jargon leads the average viewer to think so, Bolton never served in the military; he's a firefighter-turned-fitness model.

Then there's the commercial's allegation that the light will scare the beejeebies out of a burglar stealing your wife's jewelry or a guy lurking on a dark porch as if preparing to break in when the light is used in a rapidly-flashing strobe mode. Particularly ridiculous in this ad is the scene where the man of the house is awakened by his spouse, presumptively after hearing a noise in the darkened home. The guy sits up, grabs his Tac Lite and confronts the burglar, holding the light next to his head, staring sternly as if to say ( in his best Kurt Russell 'Tombstone' voice ) "YOU CALLED DOWN THE THUNDER, YOU GOT IT!!" Myself, I'd prefer to respond with the flashlight and my Smith & Wesson .40 cal ...you know, just in case the criminals aren't actually intimidated by the flashlight itself.

Both 'criminals' in the Tac Lite ad are, of course, white guys.


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I have discovered smooth jazz.

Particularly, smooth jazz bassists. Being a former bass player, I've always been attentive to bass tracks in any music I listen to, and find that the instrument is featured in a lot of jazz entries. Guys like Marcus Miller, Andre Berry, Frank Itt, Remco Hendrix ( absolutely no relation to Jimi )...these guys are in another bass-talent universe. If you want to sample some of their work, just enter those names in a YouTube search, then sit back and enjoy.

...and search Candy Dulfer, too. She's not a bassist, she's an amazing saxophonist.

And extremely gorgeous.

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Have a great weekend and MAKE TODAY COUNT!

What Difference, At This Point, Will It Make?

....and how much did it cost the American taxpayer? Inquiring minds want to know.

Yesterday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced to the world that it had discovered seven new 'Earth-like' planets revolving around a small star, some of which may be sustaining some form of life.

Great. Wonderful. Let's start planning a mission to go there, maybe set up a colony.

Hold on a minute. How far away are those planets?

Oh, only a mere 40 light-years.

Wrap your mind around this: a beam of light would circle the Earth four times in one second. There are 31,536,000 seconds in a year. A light year measures distance in space, or how far a beam of light travels in a year. Now, multiply that distance by a factor of 40....and you'll have a rough idea how far away those new discoveries are.

I have several questions for NASA concerning their grand proclamation: how much did this discovery cost the taxpayers and, furthermore, what does it mean right now, this very second? NASA's estimated budget for fiscal year 2016 was 19.3 billion dollars, an increase of $1.3 billion over the year before. BILLIONS of dollars, a portion of which was used to find these seven planets that are so far away you can't even see them from Sarah Palin's house.

HOW does their discovery affect those of us right here in Mainstream USA? NASA spends money on Mars missions, the International Space Station and a plethora of other projects, yet we have citizens in these United States that can't even get clean drinking water unless it comes out of a plastic bottle; we have homeless military veterans existing from day to day, hungry children from single-parent families in our schools, elderly citizens surviving on cat food...and we're supposed to be excited about the money NASA invested in finding these irrelevant planets?

I think not.

45 Years Later, Murders Still Unsolved

Twelve-year-old Chicago-area resident Mary Kellerman complained to her parents that she had a headache, and her parents gave her an over-the-counter pain reliever. Hours later the girl was dead.

Later the same day, postal worker Adam Janus inexplicably died in a Chicago-land hospital; his brother Stanley, along with wife Theresa, died that evening after gathering with family members to mourn Adam's death, theirs too having no explanation. In the coming days four more Chicago region citizens would die and the link soon became evident.

Extra-strength Tylenol capsules, laced with potassium cyanide.

Fear and apprehension gripped the entire nation as law enforcement, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, scrambled to find the serial killer. Psychologists specializing in the profiling of mass murderers had no answers, claiming that the person(s) responsible just didn't fit within any of their parameters. Johnson and Johnson, makers of Tylenol, spent millions of dollars recalling the pain reliever. Food and drug manufacturers made sweeping packaging changes, instituting tamper-proof containers in consumer-line products.

New York resident James William Lewis, a tax consultant, was later arrested for extortion after sending a letter to Johnson & Johnson, demanding one million dollars to stop the poisonings; he was never connected to the murders, but spent fifteen years in a federal penitentiary for sending the letter. In addition, over 270 'copycat' incidents were reported across the nation after the mass publicity generated by the Tylenol murders bloomed in national media.

Law enforcement still possesses some of the poison-laced capsules, hopeful that, some day, DNA testing will produce a culprit. The legacy still lives with us on a daily basis, however, whenever we open any medication. Improvements in consumer packaging security have kept us safe over the last forty-five years, thanks to a heinous crime committed in September of 1982.

Killing the Procrastination Instinct

"Honey, could you ( insert task here ) ?"

I get up and get at it.

"Well, I didn't mean you had to do it right now..."

This has become a common theme the last few months; deciding to do something, pleasant or unpleasant, as soon as possible. Work it until it's done. Don't wait.

Kill it. Now.

Finish it. Take that first step and don't stop until the end. Using that tactic instills two other traits: discipline and freedom.

Discipline comes from making yourself finish, making yourself do. Freedom comes from finishing a task, giving you more time during your day; in effect, extending it.

It starts when your day does, this discipline. It starts when you force yourself out of bed, when feet hit the floor. We all have a finite number of years, months, weeks, days; yes, even seconds. Every sunrise is an opportunity, a chance to accomplish and learn, a chance to do. Extend that day, that hour or minute. Get after what needs to be done, attack it, overwhelm and finish it.

Right now.

The President's Travel Ban Issue

If you have a problem with President Trump's travel ban, you might want to watch this video, filmed by a retired Marine-turned-contractor working in Iraq.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMeMbGQTaMs

Saturday Morning Musings, the Baseball Edition

Today is February 11, 2017. Tomorrow, the Cleveland Indians' pitchers and catchers report for the start of spring training in Goodyear, Arizona.

I wish I could be there to watch and lounge in the 75-degree sunshine.

I start getting excited about major league baseball when the Tribe's equipment truck leaves for AZ, a sure sign that spring will arrive for us all...eventually. Although we here in north central Ohio can't complain about our winter ( so far ) this year, I still hate December through March. I hate the snow, the cold weather, crappy driving conditions, the sound of the township's snow plows thundering/scraping along the streets around Ram Field Ranch...I hate it all. The only thing that keeps me going during the frigid, depressing darkness that is winter is the National Hockey League and my Pittsburgh Penguins.

Baseball gives me hope, visions of sunny days and the sound of horsehide meeting wood, of baseballs THWACK!-ing into gloves. Warm temps evolving into downright hot weather, much easier for my arthritic thumbs, shoulders and hips to take instead of cold, damp conditions. And, eventually, that shout which is music to my ears....

"PLAY BALL!!"

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Speaking of MLB, I heard a couple of days ago that they're considering a rules change for extra-inning games: each team starts their half of an inning with a runner on second base.

That has to be a joke. It just has to.

Why in the world would the Rules Committee give thought to such a thing? Why dabble in a game that is perfection as it now stands? Baseball purists such as myself scorn anything that changes our game, but I think I have an idea of the reasoning behind the thought of such a change:

Millennials. The 'everything right this second' generation. You know, those people who grew up on video games, social media and 'participation' trophies. The Generation Without Patience.

Baseball is unlike most other sports in that it doesn't play by a ticking clock, unless you're counting the rule about time-between-pitches ( which I think is ridiculous ). The game goes at its own pace. Granted, regulation ( 9-inning ) games can be four hours long at times, but that's the beauty of no clock. Extra inning games are like an extra helping of dessert for us throwbacks. Younger fans, however, are bored by the game's rules and periods of inaction, and MLB wants to keep the attention of those fans. Thus, starting each half of an extended game with a man on 2nd base may bring about a quicker ending.

Quicker endings mean millennials will have more time with a game controller in their hands when they get home.

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Hey, if you've been following the military veteran profiles that appear every Monday in the News Journal ( mansfieldnewsjournal.com ) and you know of a World War II or Korean War vet that deserves to be featured, please let me know about them. You can submit their names and contact info to me by email at oldcop135@gmail.com.

Have a great Saturday and make today count!

Max McClellan: The Rest Of The Story

Max McClellan is a pretty amazing man. A WW II veteran, Max tried to join the Marines in 1943 at age 15 but his mother prevented it.

She didn't, however, keep him from the US Army in 1945.

McClellan wanted to go to war; he wanted to go so badly that he swapped urine samples with another man during his Army physical after failing the first three times because of sugar in his sample.

That's all in the News Journal article; what I couldn't fit in due to space restrictions is this:

Max didn't have the best home life and often preferred to be off by himself on an assortment of adventures. One occurred in April of his seventh-grade year. He hated junior high school...a lot. So, one morning the thirteen-year-old left home at his regular time on his bicycle, as if he were going to school. Max had other plans, though; he just kept riding his bike.

And riding.

Max McClellan didn't stop until he reached a truck stop....in Toledo. At midnight.

"I was cold and tired. I didn't have any money, so I just stepped inside the door to get warm. I didn't know what I was gonna do, but I was headed for my older sister's house just north of Detroit. This truck driver came over to me and said, 'You're a runaway, aren't you?' He just knew."

Being a 13 year old in a truck stop at midnight had been a dead giveaway.

"The owner came over and asked if I was hungry. I told him I didn't have any money," McClellan recalled. "He fed me and gave me a place to sleep, at the top of a stairway where there was a little landing, a blanket and a pillow. In the morning, he fed me again and got me a ride with a truck driver headed to Detroit."

But what about his bicycle?

"The owner said he'd keep it for me, for when I came back through."

Max made it to his sister's house. She gave him a place to stay and he got a job.

"I started working at a bowling alley as a pin-setter. They didn't have those automatic jobs like the alleys have now."

McClellan had been working there about a week when a policeman approached him.

"You're a runaway." Max thought he'd be going to the juvenile house.

"But he didn't arrest me; he made a deal with me: if I promised to head back home in the morning, he wouldn't run me in."

Max hitched a ride the next morning with another trucker. He ended up back in Toledo at the same truck stop.

"But I discovered that my bike had a flat tire. The owner, he'd kept his word, and he fixed that tire for me."

Max started back to Mansfield.

"I was going through Fostoria and it started pouring rain. That was miserable," he said. "I was wet and cold and still had quite a ways to go."

Max got hungry, too.

"I was going through Ganges and saw this little stand where they were selling vegetable plants. I was pretty hungry by then. They had tomato plants, and I thought 'well, if you can eat tomatoes you ought to be able to eat the plants, too.' " Max grabbed a couple of plants and started eating them.

"Then my face and lips started to swell up."

He got on his bike and started peddling again, not stopping until he eventually got home. I asked Max what his parents had to say.

"Nothing. I think my sister must've called them or got word to them where I was, so they knew I was coming home. I walked in like nothing had happened, boiled some water and drank a cup of tea. That took the swelling right out of my mouth", he recalled.

...and he never went back to school again, either.

Max McClellan points to himself in a group photo of his unit in Formosa, now called Taiwan, where he was stationed in the 1950s.