Yeah, so... That Happened.

Yeah, so... That happened. 

And everyone was shocked and surprised and caught unaware and.... whatever. 

And today his very own team are all "Well...uh... gosh, we've got a steep learning curve ahead of us."  Because that's what we, as a people, deserve. 

We voted for the guy that doesn't actually know what he's doing, and has showed little interest thus far in learning.   

A lot of folks voted against the other candidate, riding a wave of false equivalencies and lack of critical thinking.  
Because we've been told for decades that she's bad and a liar and evil and murders people and eats babies and.... some of us just kept lapping that nonsense up, mmm....this is so good....yum yum yum yum

Top notch!     

Facts have become partisan, and fact checkers are just liberals trying to trick all of you into believing their spin.     Even when the facts are supported, and notated.   They're not to be trusted.

Two words.
Critical Thinking.  
A lot of us stopped doing this, and we've not benefited as a people.   Many are no longer are able to distinguish lies and hypocrites any longer, without being told.  Usually by a media company that spends lots of air time reporting on the shortcomings of... media.  But not them.  Everyone else.

mmm....this is so good...yum yum yum.......

Hopefully we'll all be alive and solvent in four years, and some of the geniuses who decided "shaking up the foundation of our society is the way to go! " will have realized that this plan was a titch hasty and short-sighted.

Like the millions of people in England who voted for Brexit, and AFTERWARDS went on-line to find out what, exactly, they just voted for.   This is a fact, by the way.   



Know what else is top notch?    finding the person with the very worst reputation, and the super high "untrustworthy" and "unlikable" scores, and saying "This is the one!  And we'll make sure she's going to be the one!  We'll make history!" 

Yep, you surely did make history.  Way to go!  


For the last 18 months, you keep hearing about how hate was underestimated.   Jeb Bush's failure in the primaries?  "We underestimated the hate." 

Like that.   

I read someone's defense of the new pres. elect this morning, and she started with "I don't hate _____" and then there was a but, there's always a but... and then she showed how much she hated.  And everyone was all "Uh...that sounded kinda hateful" and I'm sure she was deeply offended by their response.   Because she SAID she didn't hate, so....

You know what would be a really awesome, spectacular thing?   

If we overestimated hate, and were pleasantly surprised.  It's been awhile since we've been pleasantly surprised. 

That would be awesome.   

But since hate's been empowered and legitimized... I will remain ever hopeful, while not holding my breath.    

out of pocket

So, I was on-line checking out hotels in Mackinaw City.


For those that don't know, The proximity to the Mackinaw Bridge, numerous historical sites, and Mackinaw Island makes this small, rather boring town a very popular vacation destination.  
You don't really go there just to hang out in town, in other words.  Not a foodies paradise (jesus no), not a golf and fishing destination.

A jumping off place....
While camping nearby, was there for the day a couple weeks back, at several of the afore-mentioned historical sites, and I had noticed a hotel, which was right next door to one of them.

On the water. 

It had the most spectacular views of the bridge and the straits, better than any other lodging option (there are dozens and dozens) in town. 

it caught my eye, in part, because it was not a chain.  It looked kinda quaint, hearkening back to hotel stays I enjoyed as a kid.  it looked, in my always-thinking-in-terms-of-story, like the kind of place you'd stay after the season's over,  going to sleep with the bridge lit up outside your window, getting up in the morning, stepping outside with a hot cup of coffee on a cool morning, to walk the beach, barefoot with your jeans rolled up a bit. 

I could, in that moment, taste it, smell it, hear it....... 


Anyhow, being the glass-is-half-empty kinda guy that I am, I was checking out the very few negative YELP reviews of the place, when I came across one that really stuck with me. 

Whomever this person was, gave the hotel a one star rating.  Not because service was bad, room was unclean, air conditioning / heat was not exactly what they wanted it to be. 
Nope.   

Main complaint was the fact that this family run hotel did not offer in-room WIFI.   Not even for an upcharge, let alone for free. 

"So much for getting any work done during my trip." 

I don't know this person, nor her situation.   Which makes it easy to take her complaint and run with it anyway I choose. 

Woot! 

So many questions, and thoughts, just by that one sentence. 

Ultimately I end up with this. 

You don't drive from wherever you are, to Mackinaw City, to GET WORK DONE!


You may THINK it's a compromise, you going off for the weekend with your loved one(s), but still being able to get work done, but... it's not.   You're not fully engaged. 

You short those that you are with, and your heart's not in the work.  Everyone loses!

yay!!!!
You go there to jump off to other wonderful adventures, OUTSIDE, walking, biking, hiking swimming, boating... 


Another, positive review nails it.  "Who goes to Mackinaw City to spend their time in a hotel room?" 

Review's 4 years old, old enough to have been posted before every single one of us carry a computer in our pocket. 
I would hope that the reviewer's life and priorities have changed to the point where they're no longer worrying about getting work done when they should be worrying about quality time spent with those who are important. 
if not, they're somewhere right now, holding their Iphone up above their head, bee-yatching about not getting a signal, with their husband / boyfriend/girlfriend/ children standing around, not getting the best of them.

To quote Bill Maher, there's a reason why Fred Flinstone yells "yabba dabba doo" when the workday whistle blows.     

Work day ENDS, rest of life is enjoyed.   
Balance, people. 

I've got no big complaints at the moment, with that balance, though I've certainly struggled with it more in previous positions.   
I do struggle with the electronics, though.     

I spent 45 years NOT plugged in, NOT having the world at my fingertips, in my pocket, wherever I go, and I likely did not suffer from it.   
It's hard to be truly "out of pocket", with your phone and computer IN your pocket.   

We used to have to provide the name and phone# of hotel where we were staying, if we wanted phone calls.   

I find myself amused to find hotel rooms still have phones in them.   

Perhaps the way to go would be for a hotel to offer a phone lock up service when you go to stay.  

I started writing this a week ago, and was prompted to finish it just now, as I fell further down the electronics rabbit hole.  Was looking at alternatives to the crappy, restrictive hot spot contract I have for my house, that just completed.    Hey, I can get a portable one, better than the one bolted to my house, and carry it with me wherever I go. in addition to my iPhone.... 
Geezus..

Because smartphone's not enough!!!    

Might still get it, as it sounds like a decent option for home wifi use, but won't take it with me.  Gotta draw the line somewhere...

Enough.

So, the area around Fiji was hit with the strongest cyclonic event ever to be measured in the southern hemisphere last weekend.

Let me repeat that.   The STRONGEST STORM EVER RECORDED IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE  laid waste to the Fiji region last weekend.

And... how many of you knew about it?  

The only headline I found about it?    Tsunami not a Threat to Hawaii.

So... bad things happen... somewhere else and all we get is that the bad thing is not a threat to us.  Nothing to see here.  Move on.
The fact that these events happen with increasing frequency and severity is not, in and of itself, newsworthy, apparently.   From what I've seen over the last week on-line, stories of this disaster would just elicit a bunch of barely literate references to Al Gore profiteering or some crap.     Because... people.

Is it because violent weather events are so commonplace now?  Imagine if televised benefit concerts continued to be held for every one of them.   That shit had to stop!   Noone would be able to go on tour or into the studio!    
How many MORE versions of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah would we have heard by now?  
Someone decided, ENOUGH with the concerts and the benefits, because they would have lost their emotional impact, viability and significance by the 42nd time......

Or is it an issue of bad timing?   Something far juicier, and far closer (can't get any closer this time) to home happened at roughly the same time.

Somebody, for-as-of-yet-unknown reasons, shot up my hometown a week ago.   15 minutes from my driveway, he driving around, picking up UBER fares.  And in between times, he'd stop his car, get out, shoot random people, get back in his car, and drive off.  Six people, so far, have died.

By the time most of us woke up sunday morning, it was all over the news and social media.  

It's the 42nd mass shooting so far this calendar year.    For those who like math, 42 mass shootings in the United States in the first 51 days of the year.     Anyone got a problem with this?

The usual responses were also immediate.  Because...people.

Why, if everyone carried a gun, this guy wouldn't have been able to...
f there was more gun control and stronger background checks, this guy wouldn't have been able to....

That's ENOUGH.

I expect I'm a tad simple-minded on the subject, but I've news for all of you.
Guns DO kill people.
With speed, efficiency, from a safe distance, and with very little exertion of physical effort.  If this were not the case, a 3 year old would not have been able to accidentally take out grandpa a couple weeks back.

Killing so easy, a three year can do it.  

That's why the bad people use this tool to carry out their bad people intentions.  That's why you don't hear about nearly 4 dozen mass... knifings, slingshottings, clubbing or stranglings so far this calendar year.

You buy them, so you say, to protect yourself from bad people with bad intentions.   And how would you use it, in that situation?  Would you use it to club at the other person.   You would not.
Shoot.   To.    Kill.        See how that works?  Be HONEST.

Any tired-ass argument you want to put forth to negate this, cars kill people, alcohol kills people...
Enough.
That's ENOUGH.

And the good guy with the gun saving us from the bad guy with the gun... Still waiting for that to happen.

Enough.

Lest you think I'm simply on an anti-gun rant.....


And THIS time, it was it some guy with no history of mental illness nor a police record.  So those who use these tragedies to pontificate about the need for more gun control....
Enough.
That's ENOUGH.

The surprising thing that happened this time?  It seems our elected officials have finally gotten the message that we, as a people, are tired of their meaningless thoughts and prayers.
Apparently, some wise PR person whispered in their collective ears, that their thoughts and prayers combined with absolutely no effort to keep it from continuing to happen, seems less than genuine.

Finally, someone decided.. ENOUGH.  Your words will have lost emotional impact, viability and significance, the 42nd time...

And it's a good thing, because there've been at least two more mass shootings since what happened in Kalamazoo last weekend.  

Ironically, until I woke up last sunday, I was going to write a nice column about weekend getaways; reintroducing myself to the awesomeness that is To Kill A Mockingbird; and then slip in something snarky about parents who take their kids to the playground, but stay in the car on the phone the whole time.
(I've pushed a lot of other people's kids on the swings in the last 8 years, while they sit in their cars and watch.  I'm cool with that.  I like kids....)

Then I started this article, and it just got longer and longer and longer and I've edited the hell out of it just to get to what you see here.

I don't know the answers.  I just know that as a nation, we've veered off into some dark, paranoid hate-filled place.    Turn on the news any day of the week, and you'll immediately see this.  

And I'm tired.    Tired of people dying, tired of hearing politicians gain in popularity for saying they're going to build walls or keep refugees out, or just for saying they'd like to punch someone who's protesting their hate-filled message.    

Tired of friends and family members throwing out blatant untruths they heard someone say on the news, as support for their own opinion.  

Tired of the goddamn echo chamber that is what passes for polite discourse.

So I ask you, my friends - what are we to do?   What can we do to fix this?   To be constructive instead of destructive?