Just wash that tech right outta your hair...

because it's making you stupid.

Is there beginning to be a backlash against smart phones?

Possibly.

I popped over the Costco yesterday to grab some milk and a six pack of Moleskine notebooks and had an interesting discussion with one of my former Costco co-workers who is assistant manager of the store.

He was interested in the fact that I was buying those notebooks and wanted to know if I was one of those "pen and paper" kind of people.

"Well, yes.  I never met a scrap of paper, notebook, or pen I didn't feel an urgent need to add to my life."

 He then questioned me about different tech things in my life.  When he asked about my phone, I whipped out my little basic Tracfone and he thought that was hysterical.

" No iPhone", he asked?

"Why in heavens name would I need an iPhone?  I'm home most days and have a perfectly useful PC" (which I spend waaaaaaaaay too much time surfing.)

I did assure him that I wasn't a complete Luddite by informing him that I did own a Kindle Paperwhite.  That seemed to ease his mind a bit.

I've been struggling with the deleterious affects of too much computer use and reliance on "research."  It seems I can no longer do the most basic of activities without copious amounts of research.  I've been making chicken salad for over 50 years and yet yesterday I had to Google chicken salad recipes.  WTHell? And while I'm on the computer I'm constantly flitting about from one tab to another - sometimes while in the middle of an article.  My dog has a longer attention span.

After watching the fine video below (while continuing my flitting as it played on anther tab), I thought back to yesterday at Costco and guess what?  I don't recall seeing one person in that entire warehouse with their nose stuck in a phone.  I perused the peeps sitting in the food court and no phones were in sight there either.  Hmmmmmm.  Even a few months ago you would have witnessed many people ignoring friends and family in favor of their phone.

Two days ago I was at our local grocery store and also do not recall seeing one phone.  I don't even remember seeing anyone with a phone in their hand as they surveyed the cucumbers and thumped the watermelons. Are people starting to wake up?

I have nothing against tech.  It has opened up amazing vistas of knowledge and convenience.  I do object to tech running us instead of us running tech.

So I'm going to re-watch the video (highly recommended) and then go out and do some low tech weed pulling.  





Speaking of tech - Prime Day at Amazon starts at 9:00 pm ET.  I have my eye on a lithium battery operated EGO weed wacker that I'm hoping will be discounted.

And for those who are still in need of an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker it's usually heavily discounted.  I will do my best to keep you informed.  Word is that it will be in the $60.00 to $70.00 range.  That's huge from a top price of $119.00.

If you're not a Prime Member, now is a good time to take advantage of the benefits.  

A bunch of very disturbing stuff...

has my blood pressure spiking.

Let's start with the "little" stuff, shall we?

After a doctor's appointment yesterday, I stopped into a local eatery for breakfast.  I generally have a book with me for such occasions.  While I was reading and sipping my coffee a nice man came up and said, "It's so nice to see someone actually reading a book instead of having their face glued to a phone."

The sight of people sitting at a table with other people and all of them staring at phones is, in my opinion, just plain creepy. It's particularly offensive when the person is young - as in pre-teen.

The headline on Daily Mail today is  The wait is over... Launch of Apple's new waterproof and wireless iPhone 7 with NO headphone jack and a dual camera kicks off.  How many lemmings are going to rush to the store and spend hundreds of dollars for something that most people don't need?

A few articles down is  How long would it take your kids to notice you'd been replaced? Hilarious video shows children oblivious to the imposters in their home (until the wi-fi goes down) 

 It's actually an advert video for the Dolmio Pepper Hacker. It’s a functioning pepper mill with a twist. When you start to grind pepper it shuts off WiFi, TV's and other electronic devices in the home.

In the video we see a cute little pre-teen boy, sitting at the table wearing a wife-beater T-shirt, a big fake diamond earring in one ear, and so glued to his device that he is completely unaware that his family has been switched out for strangers.

The parents are urged to buy a device to shut off the internet access.  Is there any earthly reason the parents can't simply tell the little brat, "Put away your phone and while you're at it, go put on something appropriate for dinner?"

Moving on to the much more distressing stuff:

This article at Breitbart made me livid with fury:

Caterpillar Hires H-1B Foreign Graduates, Fires 300 American Professionals

Caterpillar is firing 300 American employees in Mossville, Illinois, even though it is continuing to recruit and pay foreign “H-1B” guest-workers to do the white-collar jobs sought by American professionals in the United States.

Caterpillar’s combination of white-collars layoffs and H-1B outsourcing matches the much-criticized decision by Carrier, a company in next-door Indiana, to outsource 1,400 blue-collar factory jobs to Mexico. read the rest so I won't be the only one pissed off.

 Over at Zero Hedge we have this:

 

If Donald Trump Wins US Election, Will Hillary Clinton Nullify Results Because Of Vladimir Putin?

Call it “Plan B”…It’s all being laid out, right at our feet . On Google and Facebook, during US late night shows, through CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post and New York Times.

It will be the final death of whatever was left of American democracy.

The test run was accomplished with few casualties during the Democratic primaries, where Hillary Clinton and the DNC assured victory by rigging the entire voting process.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz lost her job as DNC Chair, but found a better job with the Clinton Campaign, and then won her Democratic primary Congressional District in Florida with little difficulty.

Bernie Sanders, who had the election stolen right from under his feet, fell quickly in line with his masters, and pathetically kissed Hillary’s ring in an embarrassing display of beta manhood.

Now we are all being prepared for the ultimate con. The Ocean’s Eleven of heists. The Presidency of the United States of America. The preparation is well underway. read the rest and ponder it.

The Pope Videos:

 

Pope Francis, in an effort to stay relevant and hip, has been putting out little useless videos every month.  Mostly they're just stupid.  But this month he published one that is scary.

To quote Restore DC Catholicism:

At the 1:00 mark we see the main thrust in the words flashing up: "For everyone to contribute to the common good and to build a society that puts the human person at its center."  Can the humanism be any more explicit?   It is God who should be at the center of society, not man.  But in this thing produced by the Vatican, we don't hear the Name of God or Jesus mentioned once.  This is the idolatry known as humanism, plain as day for all to see (provided no one is wearing rose-colored glasses).

Is it not enough for him to claim that not caring for the planet is some sort of sin?  Or that not using plastic is more important than the millions upon millions of babies being aborted every year?

Unfortunately, the majority of Catholics today know so little about their faith that they'll fall for this crap. Fortunately, the majority of Catholics are not watching these silly videos.



Those same un-catechized Catholics will part with their hard-earned money to help the "less fortunate" through the yearly collections for the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.)

I've cautioned for years to never give your money to these scam collections. 

Which brings us to:

The Money Trail: Why Catholic Bishops Are Silent on Hillary

Crickets.......

The silence about Hillary Clinton is deafening. One hears nothing but crickets from the U.S. Bishops and Cardinals about the democratic presidential candidate’s radical pro-abortion stance, but for the banished Cardinal Raymond Burke.

Why are they sitting mute on the sidelines? How could they be conflicted between an abortion laden democratic platform and the most prolife republican platform ever? Seems like an obvious choice for Catholics. After all, St. John Paul II described life as “the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights.” What’s going on?

When in doubt, follow the money. This ecclesial trail is flush with cash. read the rest and witness the astonishing amount of money the feds give the USCCB.  

Now that your blood pressure is spiking, allow me to close with something guaranteed to calm you down:
 

Transcript of Donald Trump Military Policy/Objectives Speech…

Posted on September 7, 2016 by sundance

 

Donald Trump delivered a policy speech today in Philadelphia outlining his military  perspectives and vision for U.S. military engagement moving forward.  You can find the transcript HERE and below.

However, something a little different.  Along with the transcript below we are going to present pictures of recent military and foreign policy events which Donald Trump seemed to specifically refer to.  read the rest

Let's just throw out a bunch of stuff and clean up my tabs...

should we?

First up:

I guess there's some woman who's turning her back on technology, although she has an iPhone.  The fact that it has a cracked screen and is taped up is supposed to be testimony to her creds.  Ah, no.

I have nothing against technology.  However, I think the people who walk around clutching a phone in their hand, or seeing every event through the pinhole of a phone are very sad creatures. 

Supposedly, a man died after walking off a cliff in San Diego while, according to reports, looking at a hand held device. If it was a "smart phone" what he did was not very smart. 

Fran Porretto puts it well with his post Family, Proximity, And The Smartphone Plague: A Sunday Rumination - and we thank him.

Secondly:

After a busy day on Saturday having our car hauled out a snow bank in our driveway again (we've become a legend and a joke at the towing company), I was able to finally get someone out to plow our driveway.  I actually called one person who said he didn't want to do it because he "might break his plow."  I kid you not. The tow truck driver recommended someone because he felt my pain and probably figured our Allstate towing bennies may be running low.  I called, and this wonderful man, who works with his little fur ball of  happiness Pomeranian doggie, Wendy, showed up in 30 minutes and cleared our driveway.  He charged $35.00.  I gave him $60.00, and a big stack of fresh out of the oven sugar cookies.

He also does landscape work, and if our regular tree guy can't come out this spring, he promised to help.  Our broken and felled trees from the heavy snow fall are legion.

On to Sunday:

Sunday was spent clearing out a bunch of old papers and notes that were stacked everywhere in my office.  In one of the stacks was a copy of an email someone sent with recommendations of things to read. Unfortunately, I copied and pasted the info into Word and can't remember who sent it. 

One of the recommendations was Richard Mitchell (1929-2002), the Underground Grammarian.  All of his books are online and free.  I started reading Less than Words Can Say, and he had me smiling broadly before I even finished the forward.

The first thing he makes fun of is the use of the word "basically."  Listen to any talk show or anyone being interviewed today and their language will be liberally sprinkled with the word "basically."  When I hear it, I'm driven to basically what could be considered basic violence - sort of, basically.

Also recommended was The War Against Grammar by David Mulroy, which proves that the war on grammar is an intentional war, not an accidental one.

John Taylor Gatto also made the list.  I've already read his Underground History of American Education, available online.  

It's also available at Amazon The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling

Mr. Gatto and I agree 100% on education:




 And here he expounds on boredom, zombies, and economic collapse.  What I wouldn't give to have a long dinner date with him.

Did any of you ever dare to say to your mother you were bored?  I sure didn't.  Actually, I can't ever remember being bored. 





Thirdly:

American Thinker has a raft of pretty good articles today with all of them garnering many comments.  The comments are usually my favorite part of articles.

Fourthly:

My Dick Blick order of the last remaining art supplies I needed to begin painting again came Saturday.  On Wednesday I will commence with my painting career again, because man doesn't live by politics alone.

Yes, I know this post is long, but tomorrow is haircut day, along with Costco, and some other errands, so I will be absent.

Let's wrap up with some Donald Trump.