Occupation of Independence

 I did a double-take when I saw the sign at the grocery cart corral: Was the grocery store bragging about not charging you for a grocery cart?  What the heck was going on? Next to this line of grocery carts was another: Now they are bragging about not needing an app to go grocery shopping?  Wait a minute: they had tablets built into the dashboard of the grocery cart! And fancy charging stations for the grocery cart tablets.  Can someone please explain how this lowers the price of groceries ? What is the purpose of the tablets, anyway?  Was it to encourage you to use digital coupons, something that I never use in stores?  Actually I never understood the purpose of coupons of any kind. Ahh, but wait.  The real purpose of electronic tablets attached to the grocery carts must be to force advertisements and obnoxious music on the shopper, like those damn videos and music at the gas pump. Recall that funny dialog in " The Mirror Has Two Faces ," when t...

 What's the official inflation rate these days?  2.9%?  And they wonder why ordinary people don't believe the government anymore.  I looked twice because I was so shocked.  The washer was a large one; it should have cost $5 or so. There weren't any customers there.  And I left too.  There was an old-fashioned laundromat a few blocks anyway that had good machines and reasonable prices. A long-suffering reader probably thinks, "Why should we listen to you?  You are just an old cheap-skate." But actually, I happily spend a little more at laundromats that have an attendant who keeps things clean and orderly.  I don't mind spending a little more if it is going to a real person. But the laundromat with the $11 washer had been redesigned to look like a Starbucks or something.  Let me guess: some giant Wall Street firm like Blackrock is buying up small, modestly priced, old-fashioned laundromats across American, and then "upscaling" them.  ...

 Most people born before 1980 have memories of the demise of the Soviet Union around 1990 and 1991.  Do you remember how unreal and sudden it seemed?  It seemed too good to be true.  At the time, I wondered most about how nuclear weapons were going to be divided up amongst the constituent parts of the old Soviet Union. Much to everyone's relief, the world made it through those times without any mushroom clouds.  Then Wall Street went to work on the Soviet carcass.  And NATO began expanding.  The military-security industry shifted its justification from the Cold War to the Global War on Terror . And now many Baby Boomers have lived to see another extraordinary political earthquake: the sudden dissolution of Zionist support in the USA.  Of course, I am only talking about public opinion.  How exactly will this trickle up to the institutions?  It is hard to imagine a tangible path.  The political elites in Europe and America have...

 It can take so many years to become a good walker , but it is worth the thought and effort.  I was camped in such a nice place and with such good weather that I fell easily into a slow, leisurely sauntering.  Perhaps the slowness helped me spot a pretty and rare orange flower , at the beginning of November.  At this time of year?  Flowers seemed completely out of place, here. A couple days later, the small handful of such flowers was gone. I have always appreciated autumn flowers .  They are, to the more voluptuous flowers of early summer, what a sturdy, dependable 35 year old wife is to a beautiful 19 year old girl. Having a good role model certainly helps one become a good walker, and you know who mine is: If you think I praise dogs too much, the photo above shows that humans can add something positive to the world.  What care somebody had gone to, in building this emergency shelter !  Still, dogs really do have the right attitude to being good...