Florida Man
12/22/2024
Florida Man drove up to Frostproof, FL on Saturday to see what was going on in the orange grove game. It’s about 170 miles north but easy driving
I picked Frostproof because of the name which I think is fun. It was named in the late 1890s because the area was thought to be safe from freezes which destroy orange groves.
Interestingly enough, the groves were nearly destroyed by the Great Freeze of 1895 when temps reached the low 30s. Oranges were frozen and ruined and trees were killed throughout the state. Since then there have been no frosts.
I expected to see long lines of hard working, red-blooded real Americans ready to go to work and fill the 76,000 Orange Grove jobs that are going to be vacant because of mass deportations. Mind you, these are jobs that were being stolen by illegals anyway.
The first grove I came to was Lake Streety, a 90-acre property growing Valencia oranges.
I found a guy wearing a ball cap that said Boss, a good hint.
I said, “Hi, boss, I’m from south of here and I’m writing a blog about employment and immigration.”
He said, in a loud snarly way,“Get outta here before I call the cops you commie pig.”
As I was was leaving I yelled, “I am not a pig.” I don’t have press ID anymore, like for 30 years, and even if I did he still would have kicked me out.
At any rate, there were no lines of men and women eager for the chance to work on ladders in the heat and humidity picking oranges.
Maybe they just don’t want to work for the low pay, in unsafe working conditions with dangerous concentrations of pesticides and the seasonal nature of the job. Or maybe, the have better jobs.
Frostproof Groves, a packinghouse that processes thousands of acres of citrus was my next stop.
No lines there either but one of the bosses was more friendly. He offered just to kick me off the property rather than calling the cops.
"But I’m Florida Man and I just have a few questions for you,” I said earnestly. He said, “I don’t care if you’re Aqua Man, get the hell out of here you commie pig.”
“But I’m 80-years-old and I’m not a pig,” I yelled as they hustled me to my car, a rented Lamborghini Huracan Spider that only cost me $1,595 per day plus gas. I thought it was a deal and pretty sexy but they threw oranges at me as I drove away spraying gravel in their direction.
I stopped to take stock a few miles down U.S. 27. I decided this adventure was getting me nowhere so I Yelped the nearest barbecue joint and had a slab, a mess of fries, a loaf of King’s Hawaiian bread and a large bottle of Belgian-style ale that cost a modest $235.
As I sat back rubbing my belly, I ordered another bottle of ale and tried to figure out where the droves of workers were. Lucky I still had my old Sun-Sentinel credit card.
On the drive back, for company I picked up a masked hitchhiker carrying a chain saw and a big axe. He was talkative and told me he had been looking for work. He said he got thrown out of five groves because he wouldn’t take off his mask. I gave him a high five, pushed down on the gas pedal and got up to 125 mph in six seconds.
Florida Man
12/21/2024
Florida Man was going to go lite today but then something came up at Bagels and Bible this morning.
It started with a discussion of the hatred of Joseph in the torah reading and evolved into a discussion what is hate, what causes it and how to stop it.
To me, hate is a fraught word, a powerful word that is thrown around with the casualness of damn or hell. Often, if not most of the time it’s meaningless.
You can define it but even the definition is ambiguous to me. The dictionary says it’s a strong emotional dislike for something or someone. Despise also means hate, for whatever that’s worth.
I don’t think dislike is the same as hatred. You can dislike anything from spicy food to your neighbor next door but that isn’t hate.
I can think my boss is a bastard and lunch in the cafeteria stinks and the subway is too crowded but I don’t really hate those things though I can use the word with ease.
To find real hate you just have to look at the faces of parents protesting school integration in the South in the 50s. How did it get there. That’s the question.
Most Southerners didn’t hate slaves because they were essential and some were treated like family. Some, if not all, slaves hated their owners but they were powerless to do anything about it.
Hate was in the faces of the Jan. 6 criminals but this same people don’t hate their veterans’s benefits or the people who write their checks or the docs at the VA hospital.
Did all Germans hate Jews? I don’t think so. But they did learn to hate and hate to hate because Hitler told them to and then their families taught them to hate.
To get personal, I remember my parents using the word schwarz and I don’t think it was negative in their minds, but they wouldn’t allow me or my brother to use it because it was a distasteful word.
I didn’t hate my brother when I threw a wrench at him a hundred years ago for doing nothing. I was just mad that I had scraped my knuckles and he was around.
Real hate, whether of Jews or gays or blacks or browns is taught at home or squashed at home. It’s when it get out of the house that it’s dangerous. Still, hate Is mostly a word and not an action.
And if you hate, do you have to kill. No.
The torah got lost in here somewhere. I hate that.
Florida Man
12/20/2024
Florida Man is old enough, as you are, to remember Richard Nixon’s enemies list. It went public during John Dean’s testimony at the Watergate Hearings in 1973.
It included senators, black congressmen, other politicos, members of the media, business people, academics and celebrities. Dean told the committee the plan was to“use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”
Some targets: Edward Kennedy, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Eugene McCarthy, James Reston, the Black Panthers, Common Cause, Daniel Ellsberg, Carol Channing, Joe Namath and dozens more. Quite a distinguished bunch.
The revelation was so egregious that it caused Nixon supporter William F. Buckley Jr. to use the f-word in print. Buckley said of the enemies list, “ It is altogether ruthless in its dismissal of human rights. It is fascist in its reliance on the state as the instrument of harassment.”
Well, well. Here we are again.
Liz Cheney, former congresswoman and member of the Jan. 6 committee, is in trouble with the new rapi. st and enemies list compiler headed for the White House.
What the freaking hell. Trump hates her because she thinks he’s a criminal ergo she has committed an unspecified crime. Of course, he’s a convicted felon.
Trump has doubled down and doubled down again in his comments that Cheney should be prosecuted. She “could be in a lot of trouble,” he said.
A House GOP subcommittee on Tuesday called for a criminal investigation into her work on the Jan. 6 panel.
Cheney was quick to answer accusing Trump “of waging a malicious and cowardly” attack on the truth to coverup his role in the Jan. 6 violence.
She’s not alone because the cretin believes everybody on the committee should go to jail and his new FBI guy Patel already has a list that he calls a “cabal of unelected tyrants.” Some more examples: Bill Barr, Robert Robert Mueller, John Podesta, Merrick Garland, Eric Holder and many more.
It looks like we’re reached the point where free speech is in danger, where any opposition to the orange freak is a crime. If that turns out to be the case, Florida Man will be in trouble. They know where to find me because the computer chip in the covid vaccine shot I got has a GPS locater in it.
I won’t reveal my list of readers even under torture so don’t worry. Besides, I’m thinking of putting lead shielding on the walls of the apartment. Then even Superman can’t find me.
Florida Man
12/6/2024
What happened in 1933 Germany, we all know, was that Jews weren’t convinced they had a real problem until it was too late.
After all, many families had lived in Germany for hundreds of years and they had strong economic, social and patriotic ties. Many fought and died in World War I.
They underestimated the Nazis intentions because they seemed gradual and didn’t effect everyone.
It wasn’t until Kristallnacht in 1938 that Jews saw that the threat to their lives was real. By then immigration was hard and the fate of millions of European and Russian Jews was sealed.
Look, I know I’ve been saying this but here it is again. The threat of “the greatest mass deportation in the history of the universe” is coming.
The say it will start slowly with rounding up illegals who are criminals. That number is around 660,000 people, according to government statistics. Of that number only about 15,000 are in custody and easy to find. The rest, 645,000 are awaiting a court ruling or out on bail. That’s more than three times the population of Fort Lauderdale.
Should be no problemo finding them, eh?
But I can see the appetite, the blood lust, of Trump’s mobsters being whetted by the initial success they probably will have. I can see the brown shirted thugs knocking down doors and dragging people out of their homes and businesses.
The clouds are gathering.
Among them, book banning, a favorite of the Nazis, is in full swing. Right now authors writing about racial and sexual equality are the targets. Liberal writers, many of them Jews, will be next.
After the criminals, or smattering of them, are sent somewhere, they will move on to Haitians who are here legally but are eating pets so they will have to go. Moving down the line they will reach the transsexuals and then the Jews, Muslims, even Catholics, gypsies and bearded ladies in the traveling carnivals.
Trump will declare himself president for life, which is only a Big Mac away from ending, and then Vance, the cretin’s twin brother separated at birth, will be the supreme leader.
Am I being too pessimistic? I sure hope so.
Note: Florida Man will be taking the weekend off. Family members are coming to visit.
Florida Man
12/5/2024
Florida Man as you all know is not a conspiracy theorist though I believe we never landed a man on the moon and that Jewish lasers from space are causing forest fires in the northwest. That kind of stuff is obvious.
And I’m beginning to wonder, too, about the assassination attempt on Trump.
Listen. If the New Town school shooting was a false flag that involved unemployed actors and 9/11, the JFK shooting, World War II and the holocaust never happened
why couldn’t the Trump shooting have been faked?
This whole false flag thing is troubling.
It’s a term used by the conspiracists, not me, to suggest that events such as terrorist attacks and mass shootings are actually orchestrated by governments or sinister forces to push a political or social goal, such as gun control. The blame is on an opponent for it, often as a pretext for going to war.
I.e., the sinking of the Maine in Havana as an excuse for the Spanish-American war, or the Tonkin Gulf incident that led to our serious involvement in Viet Nam. Both false flags.
So anyway, the whole plot was as easy as pumpkin pie. Trump was speaking and he looks away as shots are fired. He was all ready to pop the blood capsule in his ear and raise his fist in brave defiance. Those moves were clearly planned.
The Secret Service was certainly in on it, rushing to help him even though they knew he wasn’t really hurt and allowing him to do his Nazi salute.
And where is the body of the alleged shooter? Buried at sea without his parent’s knowledge? Did we ever see a picture? How was he killed and by whom? Was there an autopsy? And why was the spot where the shots came from the only one not checked by all the cops around?
The man in the crowd who was killed was shot by the man next to him who was in on the plan. Did they ever match up the bullets? And the victim’s burial was staged so Trump could show up at the scene for the photo ops.
If you noticed, the crowd wasn’t even surprised at the gunfire because they were all in on the fake.
It’s fairly obvious to me now that I’ve gone through it in my fertile mind that the whole thing was a massive charade, a great word, carried out by thousands of unemployed actors who were paid $25 and transportation for their roles as extras.
There are so many unanswered questions that this version could easily be true. Besides, for some mysterious reason, the real conspiracy theorists have never looked into this.
So what's next on the agenda for those of us who don’t believe in conspiracies? Could it be that Jurassic park is a real place? Or that Democratic voters were secretly paid not to vote? After all, ten bucks goes a long way to buying a cup of coffee.
Whatever it is it won’t fool me.
Florida Man
10/25/2024
afriedberg1@gmail.com
Florida Man went back to the lurch today to talk with the old timer again and was surprised to see John Wayne and Gary Cooper gabbing with the duffer. They were all sitting on orange crates.
“Hello pilgrim,” Wayne said. “This old fella was just talking about you. Said you were kind of nosy.”
“I am kinda nosy,” I said. “I like to find things out with my nose. What brings you two here?”
“For me, It’s high noon,” said Cooper. “This here election’s got me hornswogagled. I just know a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”
“What’s that,” I asked.
“How the hell do I know. I didn’t write that script,” he said rankled.
Wayne chortled, “A man deserves a second chance but keep an eye on him. A big mouth don’t make a big man.”
“You’re right John. All famous people aren’t big people,” Cooper said.
To me he said, “A man fights for what he believes in, Fernando.”
I said, “My names not Fernando, it’s Florida Man. But that doesn’t matter right now. Just don’t call me Shirley. You can call me Ishmael if you want to.”
The old timer popped up and did a silly dance and said, “Don’t I get a break.”
We all turned to him.
“He’s a killer of the worst kind,” he says. “Stands five foot tall, over 70, white hair and wears a little bonnet on top of it. No wait a minute. That’s someone else. It must be this rotgut whiskey.”
We were all surprised to see Cary Grant walk up.
“Howdy Pilgrim,” Wayne said. “Grab an orange crate.”
Grant pulled up a crate that said, “Florida Orange Groves Winery.” A nice brand.
“Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant,” he said by way of introduction.
“What the hell are you talking about,” Cooper said.
“I don’t know. Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops,” Grant said.
Everyone rolled their eyes.
“Well, I’ve got to go,” Wayne said. “My horse needs me. Just remember you guys, and that includes you Florida Man, if that’s your real name which I doubt. Men should be tough, fair and courageous, never petty, never looking for a fight.”
Cooper stood up to leave too.
“I ain’t proud of what I've done over there. What we done in France is something we had to do. Some fellows done it ain't a-comin' back. So, the way I figure things like that ain't for buyin' and sellin’. I reckon I'll have to refuse them. Also, a free people can beat the world at anything, from war to tiddlywinks, if we all pull in the same direction.”
We nodded again not knowing what he meant.
Grant and I stood up together but the old timer said to wait a second.
“I’m staying’ here til’ it’s all over,” he said.
“You fellers probably don’t know this but I read it when I was studying the theory of relativity. It’s something Al Einstein said. ’Two things are infinite, the universe and stupidity and I’m not certain about stupidity.’”
“See you next election,” I said, waving goodby.
Florida Man
10/24/2024
Two corrections on yesterday’s Florida Man.
Sherry points out that the song “War” was sung by Edwin Starr, though The Temptations were the original vocalists.
Buddy corrects the voting numbers at the library. There are more Repubs than Dems. My readers are sharp.
After a four-year election campaign, I defy you to tell me how a single voter, ok maybe one, could be undecided. The lines at the early voting sites sure look like the decides are out in force.
Can anybody honestly say they’ve been left in the lurch about voting this year, that they don’t have enough information, that they haven’t seen enough commercials or gotten enough emails and flyers to make a decision?
Well, I went over to the lurch yesterday afternoon to see who was still there. I’ve never been in the lurch but I’ve always wondered what it’s like.
If you’ve never heard of the phrase to “leave in the lurch" it means to abandon someone in a difficult situation without help. It implies that the person left behind needs assistance but isn’t getting il.
The origin of the word “lurch” comes from a 16th-century French dice game called “lourche.” If you incurred a “lourche it meant you fell far behind the other players.
At any rate, South Florida lurch, in a run-down part of town, was empty when I got there. The door was locked. The lights were out. The curtains were drawn. No one was there and no one had been there for a least a week.
A lurch.
But being an intrepid reporter, I went around behind the lurch and found an old geezer, even older that me, with a pint of rotgut in his hand and a cherroot in his mouth.
He was sitting on an empty orange crate and was muttering to himself.
“Hey old timer,” I said, “how ya’ doin’,” I said in my usual friendly way.
Example of an old timer.
“Don’t call me an old timer you young whipper snapper,” he said grumpily. “What do you want around these parts anyway?”
“Just some info, some skinny, the low down, some deets about this here lurch you’re sitting behind,” I said genially.
“Well take out that notebook you’ve got in you back pocket and that felt tip pen and focus that
Speed Graphic on me young feller,” he said and took a slug of his whiskey.
“Let’s hear it,” I said and took some quick pix with my Brownie, I didn’t have a Speed Graphic.
“Well,” he said, striking a snappy pose, “about two years ago this was a busy place. There were hundreds of people here every day. I was making a good living selling Fanta and Dad’s Root Beer. People were lost, didn’t know what to believe about politics.”
“Explain yourself you old coot,” I said.
He didn’t take offense because he was an old coot. “All people were hearing was this one old guy was calling the other old guy old and vice versa and they were both running for president. The one guy was orange and the other guy was pale as a ghost,” he said.
“People weren’t happy with two old goats. Then a few months ago, the pale old guy quit and a young woman took his place. That really confused people but they kept buying soda so I was happy.
“Well, things got nasty. The orange guy turned out to be a raving maniac in my opinion and I got lots of opinions because I’m a senior citizen and we think we know a lot.”
Typical senior citizen.
And the woman, she’s sayin’ stuff like keep social security and so forth and I like that.“ Well, the lurch started to empty because everybody had made up their mind. Some wanted crazy and some wanted social security. I myself want social security.”
“Well, that was yesterday or some day and then today I heard the orange guy say, ‘It’s a big advantage when you believe in God.’ Can you believe that crap. So I bought me some whiskey and seegars and I’m gitttin’ drunk. i already sent in my ballot for what’s her name.“
“Thanks old feller you’ve been very helpful,” I said, handing him a Guantanamera and a $3,500 bottle of a 1945 Chateau Cheval Blanc Saint Emilion Grand Cru.
Not a Guntanamera
The wine
I liked the old fogey and I had my story and my pictures but I would have still liked to see the lurch in its heyday. It must have been something.
Florida Man
10/23/2025
afriedberg1@gmail.com
Florida Man did some shoe-leather (OK sneakers) reporting yesterday to see how early voting was going in Broward County.
The Northwest Regional Library is the site nearest me and I’ve voted there many times after wading through a gauntlet of candidates and their friends outside the doors.
The mob would thrust flyers into your hands and your pockets and under your hat as you tried to get to the library door. They shouted, “Vote for Jones for county judge. He’s got a nice haircut and finally passed the bar last month.” Or, “Vote for me and I’ll clean your house every Wednesday. I promise.”
The way it was.
Anyway, I was surprised to see there was no gauntlet, none. The mob had been moved 150 feet away from the doors for security reasons and it wasn’t even a scene anymore.
The way it is.
Pretty smart for Floriduh. The few die-hards were spread out and reduced to sitting under tents and waving signs mostly with print too small to read.
Soliciting votes
A 2024 Florida statute says in typical statute language, “No person, political committee, or other group or organization may solicit voters inside the polling place or within 150 feet of a secure ballot intake station or the entrance to any polling place . . . Before the opening of a secure ballot intake station location, a polling place, or an early voting site, the clerk or supervisor shall designate the no-solicitation zone and mark the boundaries.”
Marked boundary
I talked with a man wearing a baseball cap that said Vote Deputy who was watching over a drive-thru ballot drop off. There was a line of cars. He said voting has been heavy especially from 7 to 9 a.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. since the polls opened on Monday.
I asked if there had been any problems. He said all was quiet as he took a laundry basket full of
ballots from a pickup driver wearing a mask.
I think I know that guy.
It It was followed by a semi full of voters.
It was okay because they all had IDs. The Vote Deputy let me check some of them and they looked a little iffy, but what the hey.
Looks pretty good.
But for real, it was 1:30 in the afternoon and I could see the line from where I was standing, 151 feet away. It was long and orderly. Broward votes Dem so there should’t be any fights in line.
To check my research I went to another library today and saw the same picture. No gauntlet, no yelling. All quiet on all fronts.
Tranquility in Spanish
So, while I’m taking about the polls I’m going to talk voter fraud.
The whole idea brings to mind the song “War” originally by The Temptations. The lyrics say it all. “War, huh, yeah. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.”
That’s what voter fraud is, absolutely nothing.
How do you falsify a ballot or a thousand ballots. You fill in a little circle with a black pen and you feed it into a machine and the machine reads the dot. If you filled in the wrong little circle, your vote will be recorded right just wrong for you.
Sure, you might be able to cast a vote for your dead uncle who got a mailin ballot, but that probably won’t sway the election.
The next step is to organize six million of your closest friends to vote your way but thats a hell of an effort and would probably crash your email. And besides, people talk.
The best way is to get your cousin Joe, or his 7-year-old son, to hack the voting machines across the country to change the votes your way.
The problem with that is Joe’s kid is too busy playing video games, and Joe is an idiot if he thinks he can do it. The machine is smart enough to record the dots on the ballot but it doesn’t have a real brain. It can’t change anything.
The screamers are just that. If they lose it was rigged. If they win it wasn’t.
So far in Broward County the predicted chaos hasn’t materialized, the globe is still spinning and all was well.
Florida Man
10/22/2024
afriedberg1@mac.com
Yesterday afternoon I went to a lecture at the Jewish Community Center in Boca Raton as the guest of my friend Sandy.
There were a hundred or so people there, mostly women, and a whole lot of walkers and canes. But they were an attentive bunch ready to learn something new.
More on the lecture later, but I was sitting next to an older man (look who’s calling who older) and we started talking.
As a conversation starter he said, “I’ve never seen anything like this political campaign in all my 102 years. It’s unbelievable the nastiness that’s out there.” That’s 21 prezes since he was old enough to know what a president was.
While absorbing the fact that he was 102 and seen a lot of campaigns as well as a lot of life, I eagerly agreed. We chatted about the gutter aspect of the campaign on one side and concluded we would be glad when it was over.
We moved on and I asked was a veteran. The hint was his ball cap that said “WWII.”
He said yes and he had been to the 80th anniversary of D-Day at Normandy in June and was planning to go back to the 85th.
He wasn’t moving too well so that might be an ambitious plan but who knows.
He said he landed at Normandy six days after the invasion in June 1944 and fought across France and Europe.
A brief review: The number of Americans who served in WWII was 16.4 million. The number still living is 66,000 or about1% according to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.
The number of survivors is falling by about 130 a day. He thought the number was about 1,000 so maybe he’ll be reassured if he looks up the real number.
I wish I’d had more time to talk with him but the lecture started.
Thomas Watson, a history prof at Lynn University in Boca was the speaker. He described himself as non-religious man who is a Democrat and that’s the way the 2-hour lecture went.
Watson is a very informative, entertaining and self-deprecating guy who like me and a lot of you think that the imbecile, a convicted felon and sex offender with 23 accusers, bigot, misogynist, gay-hating, anti-semite, fruadster and a failed business man, isn’t fit to wear anything but an orange jumpsuit.
Watson reviewed how the Electoral College works but mainly doesn’t work in a country of 330 million. It was conceived when the population was 2.5 million in 13 colonies. The founders were pretty smart but they couldn’t imagine a country this big with this many AR15s.
He was concerned that men, when they get into the voting booth, will decide at the last minute that they can’t vote for a woman. He may be right because men are pretty stupid. I’m not going to think about that possibility.
I don’t know what kind of a teacher Watson is but he reminded me of one of my college history profs named Jim Bugg. Watson is funnier, but has the same informal, semi-rambling manner that full of facts if you can catch them. I was taking notes like a reporter but couldn’t keep up and can’t read my writing anymore anyway.
I haven’t been to a lecture in decades but this one brought back memories of sitting in the back of a lecture hall with 300 people taking notes on a legal pad while wishing I had an MacBook Air or at least a smartphone.
The best part is Watson, who studies the polls like Steve Kornacki, thinks Harris will win in a very tight race. I think she’ll win by a lot.
I hope we’re right. I’m looking forward to taking a deep breath of clean fresh air on Nov. 6 so I’ll forget the stink of the last nine years.
Florida Man
10/18/2024
afriedber1@mac.com
Yesterday Florida Man went to pick up some meds at Publix. The pharmacist asked if I’d had my flu and covid shots. I didn’t know so she checked and said no. I said, “Let’s do it.”
Five minutes later I walked out with a flu hole in my left arm and a covid hole in my right. No charge but a bit or soreness on the covid side.
Later in the afternoon, I was cutting a lime for my pitcher of pain killers. The lime had gotten hard and was really worthless because they have no juice when they get hard. The knife slipped and I cut the tip of the middle finger on my left hand.
With a bloody paper towel over the finger I looked for bandaids but couldn’t find any so I went across the hall to my neighbor Karen’s and asked if she could loan me a cup of bandaids and a cup of mezcal. She didn’t have any mezcal but I got some bandaids and she also bandaged the finger for me.
I quickly found out how much you use the middle finger for stuff besides giving people the bird.
All of this got me thinking about stuff and that’s dangerous. I think, therefore I am, popped into my head. I prefer cogito ergo sum though I don’t know why because my experience in Latin class in high school was so embarrassing I still remember clearly. It was only 70 years ago. Who says oldies don’t have good memories?
Anyway, cogito was Rene Descarte’s first principle of philosophy. He was apparently looking for something to be famous for and stumbled on the fact that he existed because he was the one doing the doubting. Is that philosophy?
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to clear this up for us during the View Nam war when he said there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. He and Descartes might have become friends.
Let’s accept the fact that we exist in a world of unknowns and to try and think if anything else that can’t be doubted besides existence. It doesn’t seem like much.
The political scene is constantly volatile, there is a lot of war going on, the climate is in deep trouble and the county is supposedly on the way to the trash heap to join the other shit-hole countries.
There do seem to be some absolutes that are self-evident but probably irrelevant. There is up and down, left and right, hot and cold, top and bottom, good and evil and a lot more I thought of early this morning but can’t remember right now.
But each one is not an absolute either. Each has variations. Left and right have a center. So do up and down, hot and cold have tepid and good and evil have a wide range of meanings.
Good and evil are critical since they are always with us, it seems especially now.
I think I know what good is and I sure as hell know what evil is because I see it every day.
But, is there a middle ground like sorta good or tepid? Or not too evil, just bad. Or does it make any difference? Would it be better if evil was tempered and people would only maim you instead of cut you in pieces? If they would only put you in jail and not torture you?
I think we’ll find out a lot more about evil on Nov. 5.
Personally, I still think therefore I am, so I think I’m out of my depth here. Philosophy, like Latin, wasn’t my best subject.
Florida Man
10/17/2024
afriedberg1@gmaill.com
Florida Man flew out to Salinas, CA, this week to check the job market. The crazies are all over the myth that migrants are taking their jobs and I wanted to do my own research.
First, some facts about Salinas, population is 160,000, 57 percent non-white. Unemployment is 6.2 percent, the average household income is $87,000.
The town is known as “The Salad Bowl of the World” because they grow 70 percent of the nation’s lettuce. The also grow broccoli, spinach, carrots, cabbage and a lot of orchids and chardonnay grapes.
It’s obviously an agricultural area.
Salinas was familiar to me because I was in the army at Fort Ord during the Civil War and the town was only a rifle shot away. We went there often because they had cheap beer in those days. A six-pack, yes, they had six-packs, was $.50 , a glass was$.03.
My purpose was to find out how many Merican jobs were being taken from the whites by the browns.
Since the TV news always goes to the local diner, I went to the Farmers Union Pour House a bar at 217 Main St. at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday.
I sidled up to the bar, you always sidle up to a bar, and sat down next to a husky, 40-year-old guy and introduced myself.
“I’m Nash Rivers and I’m a stranger in these parts.” He said, “Hi, I’m Joe Jones.“ I don’t think thet was his real name because he was hispanic.
We chatted for a bit in Spanish, mine is not perfect, but I think he said he owned a Mercedes and a Corvette, a McMansion and picked lettuce for a living. His wife was a school teacher. He makes $18 an hour.
He wasn’t the guy I needed to talk to so I excused myself and sidled up to a husky 40-year-old white guy. I and introduced myself as Cleo Memphis. He said he name was Joe Jones. It’s possible.
I bought him a Corona and we talked. He said he could have four jobs if he wanted to because the market is hot. He said he didn’t want to pick lettuce because that’s what the browns do. Besides, he said, it’s hard work.
He works for a packaging company and makes $16 dollars and hour. “Not bad for a guy with a masters degree in history, eh?, ” he said. I agreed.
US News also agrees with Joe.
They said farming is big but there’s no stopping other industry in the area. Business is growing and there are plenty of jobs in locally owned shops and restaurants.
I found out what I needed to know and as I was leaving the bar, a nice place by the way and the beer was only $9, Joe said, “if you want a job my lawn needs cutting.”
I waved a thanks and headed for the airport.The crazies need to do their own research but I doubt they will because it’s much easier to have an influencer or Fox News tell you what to do.
Florida Man
10/16/2024
afriedberg1@gmail.com
Florida Man isn’t sick, just a sicko, but I do go to the doctor from time to time.
I’ve been told that my ears are wax collectors like my teeth are plaque collectors and I get checkups every six months.
So, I went to my ENT (why in the world do I have one) three weeks ago with clogs.
He uses an industrial size water gun that shoots water completely through one ear and out the other. Bang bang and I’m out.
But a week later the ears were clogged again so I went back. He said I had a mild infection and gave me a script for drops, 0,17 ounces for $47.
Not a big bottle
The doc, a man in his 80s but on the ball, told me the insurance will be billed $250 for a mostly-water bottle of stuff that wouldn’t fill a teaspoon.He said in Canada the whole thing would cost about $10 dollars.
“it’s a real ripoff,” he said. I agreed.
Regardless of the price, the water drops didn’t work so I went back yesterday and told him to fix it.
I said, “Doc, you’r a nice fellow but I’m seeing you more often than my friends.” He said OK then used his ancient gun again and gave me another script.
I know ears have a lot to do with balance, mine stinks, and I asked about it. He said about 50% is the inner ear, 35% in your eyes and the rest in the upper body. Legs don’t matter much apparently.
One other slightly less boring thing.
While I was waiting in the exam room I read some certificates on the wall that gave his middle name as Hayes, an odd spelling I thought.
He had some time so we chatted about Hayes for a few minutes. The doc said it’s an English-Scottish name and he had traced his ancestors back as far as 1617. Now that’s a name with a history.
The Google says Hayes is a surname, not a middle name, thought to be a place somewhere in England. It’s derived from the Old English 'haes' ( meaning brushwood or hedge), given to those who lived at or near that kind of land feature.
Brushwood
Hedge
In Scotland, most Hayes' are believed to descend from the Anglo-Norman 'de la Haye and a knight named 'William II de la Haye' is known to have arrived in the country at the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066. Being named after a knight is pretty special.
A knight
MyName Stats.com says Hayes is the 125th most popular name in the U.S., found about 220,000 times.
Just so you know, Smith is the most popular name. There are 2.4 million Smiths or 828 per 100,000. Even so, I don’t remember knowing anyone named Smith.
Well, that’s the news from the medical, historical and ancestral worlds and thanks for stopping by. l’ll have an update and film at 11:00. Hope you haven’t dozed off.
Florida Man
10/15/2024
afriedberg1@mac.com
Florida Man is in full rant today. I know I’ve said a lot of this before but this thing won’t die unless beaten to death.
How does anyone believe the garbage that comes out of Trump’s mouth? How does anyone cheer him on as he preens and prances around the stage at his Nazi-themed rallies.
Apparently, 50 million or so eat it up.
Recently in Wisconsin Trump laid this on the table for his ignorant cult to gorge on.
“They (immigrants) will walk into your kitchen.They’ll cut your throat.”
I follow the news fairly closely and I haven’t seen more than 20 stories of throat cutting in kitchens by illegals.
He recently told the Detroit Economic Club that, “We allowed them to come in and raid and rape our country. That’s right, I used the word rape. They raped our country.”
He has called immigrants “animals” and savages,” and said, “They are poisoning our blood” and “It’s in their genes.” He probably meant their blue jeans since his knowledge of medicine is pretty limited.
On “The View” he called co-host Whoopi Goldberg, who just happens to be black, “demented, “filthy, dirty, disgusting.” ”We got a lot of bad genes in our country right now,” he burbled.
On Fox News he said, “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants.”
Illegals are so involved in robbing and murdering you wouldn’t think they’d have time to hunt your house pets.
You can see the criminal intent in the faces of the women and children who have walked 1,000 miles to reach our border. It’s written on their foreheads. That is unless it was washed off wading across the Rio Grande.
Any sane person is screaming in their pillow about the lies. They are lies, not falsehoods as the media is so fond of saying. Isn’t a falsehood and lie? I think so.
All of this nonsense is about crime when there are government statistics that show new arrivals, legal and illegal, commit fewer crimes than our homegrown real Merican criminals.
The Carnegie Corporation has a list of myths related to immigrants.
One myth they debunk is that immigrants are a major source of crime, one of Trump’s favorite lies. Carnegie says, “Immigrants, including illegal immigrants, are less likely to be in jail, convicted of crimes, or arrested than us native-borns.
It’s even worse than that for the haters. The dreaded undocumented immigrants are the least likely to be criminals.
The National Institute of Justice put together this chart.
Trump is knowingly prodding his cult to load their AR-15s and start hunting. His demented plan is turn us against each other and it’s working.
One reason is that he loves to attack the others, to make fun of the physically and mentally disable. But the main purpose for his lying is that he doesn’t want to go to jail.
I really try not to watch him on TV or look at pictures of him in the paper. He has created hate in me and I don’t like to hate anything. His face is filled with it, his finger pointing is a gun aimed at us, his mouth is a cauldron of loathing.
And he hates his supporters as much as he hates us.
I think I’m through ranting for this fiscal year. I’m going to try to calm down but it won’t be easy. I’ll need more alcohol and some serious drugs.
Florida Man
10/14/2024
afriedberg1@mac.com
This brief story in the New York Times caught my eye.
This image is of a piece of minimalist art by Alexandre Lavet.
It was exhibited at Lam, a museum in Lisse, Netherlands devoted to food and eating. Sounds like my kind of museum.
Anyway, the point of the story is that the pictured beer cans, a legitimate exhibit, were thought to be trash by a workman and tossed out.
And why not.
The artist described his work as “mixing minimalism, contextual and conceptual art legacies.” I say “wha’” to his description.
The museum said these were not just empty cans but hand painted art. They added that the artist put a lot of time and effort into the work.
The museum says the placement of the cans might have been the reason they were thrown out. They were displayed like they had been left behind during construction.
Other Lavet art:
Other museum pieces.
While I was going to say “meh” to the whole thing I looked at the museum’s website. It is pretty nifty as is their approach to art.
They say they are “special, down-to-earth people who don’t like fuss.”
All the art has a connection to food, drink and shopping and they have “the largest food art collection in the world.” I don’t doubt that.
In conclusion they say you will leave the museum “energized and overflowing with new ideas.”
And the building is very nice.
So, in the spirit of the museum’s dedication to food and eating I have submitted the following for their consideration.
By the way, the beer cans were found in the trash and put in a safer location.
I haven’t heard from the museum yet.
Florida Man
10/13/2024
afriedberg1@mac.com
Florida Man woke up this morning wondering what ever happened to “woke,” you know the concept that treating people like you would like to be treated, was going to destroy America.
I didn’t really think of woke the first thing, that’s just a little trick writing.
Anyway, only a few months ago politicians on the right were braying that the streets would be running red with woke, the schools would have to be closed because woke was trying to get in past the metal detector, the armed cop and the book banners.
You may not even remember being woke and I barely remember wokeieness so I’ll review briefly.
Broadly speaking it’s an awareness of social injustice, particularly related to race, gender, and other forms of discrimination.
According to Google, the idea can be traced to the 1930s and the song "Scottsboro Boys" by Lead Belly.
Woke isn’t in the lyrics but they deal with injustice. Try this sample:
“Go to Alabama and ya’ better watch out
The landlord'll get ya’, gonna jump and shout
Scottsboro Scottsboro Scottsboro boys
Gon' tell ya all about it. I’m gonna tell all the colored people Livin' in Harlem swing
Don't ya ever go to Alabama just try to sing.”
“Stay woke,” became a watchword in the black community after the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. Whatever the origin “stay woke” has come to mean be watchful, be aware of police injustice and injustice in general.
The haters immediately said woke was a threat to traditional values and societal norms, which are of course, white.
Woke may be somewhere in the political campaigns but I don’t remember seeing it where it would be, on the slobbering lips of the repubs.
Here in Florida, where the governor said woke was coming to die, I find it alive and well.
Just yesterday, the young man who lives upstairs, a body builder, helped me with some heavy lifting.
And now that I’m hobbling, people are asking me if they can help me along. I usually refuse because I’m too proud and too stupid.
Even hobbling, I’m still able enough to help people who are hobblier than me.
So, I still want t know what happened to woke as a perjorative term. I’d also like to know why I was thinking about it at all.
Florida Man
10/11/2024
afriedberg1@gmail.com
There are a lot of ignorant people spinning around in the republican maelstrom Trump has created so it’s hard to pick out the dumbest.
But my candidate is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Yeah, she’s dumbo. She is conspiracy central.
In her interminable years on the edge of the spotlight (always trying for center stage but falling off) she has promoted the following conspiracies.
* The shootings at Sandy Hook, Parkland and Las Vegas were staged.
* 9/11 was an inside job.
* Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim.
* The Clintons are murderers.
* California wildfires were started by Jewish space lasers funded by the Rothschilds.
* Trump is fighting an international cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.
No hint of proof is presented for any of this garbage.
And most recently, she claimed Hurricane Helene was a controlled weather event.
“Yes, they can control the weather,” she said. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
Of course, Greene didn’t say exactly who “they” are, but we know it’s one of two groups, the Dems or the Jews. Perhaps both.
In short, she’s saying that the Dems (or the Jews) have the power to control the weather and they are using it to destroy the homes of Repubs so they can’t vote in November.
The storm must have spared the homes of the Dems. Maybe they marked their doors with lambs blood as the Jews did in Egypt so God would know which houses to pass over.
It’s odd that God, who is supposed to know all, needed a sign.
But I digress.
A few months ago, Greene was asked by a British journalist to talk about her theories.
“Well let me tell you, you’re a conspiracy theorist and the left and the media spreads more conspiracy theories,” she answered. “We like the truth. We like supporting our constitution, our freedoms and America first.”
Stupefying ignorant and unhinged as she may be, millions of people buy into this drivel . Criticism from her own party, Dems and the media apparently has no impact on her supporters.
And now we have Milton. No word yet and who caused it but it did hit Florida, a state that is pretty darnn red.
So while more than 3 million Floridians have no power, they also have to worry about sending in their mail in ballots before the election.
I’m surprised that Greene hasn’t yet used her massive brain power to make sure those votes are mailed and counted at least once.
Florida Man
10/8/2024
afriedberg1@gmail.com
Florida Man says voter fraud is rarer than a white rhinoceros.
Please, freaking please. What a pile of smoking, stinking crap.
If voter fraud was a snail darter it would be nearly extinct and you could hold all the fake ballots in the palm of one hand.
Yes, there are a few cases here and there but organized, large scale fraud is a fever dream of the right wing crazies.
I’ll give you some numbers and you’ll see how rare and how hard it is to commit voter fraud. So if you want to organize a thousand of your closest friends and stuff a ballot box good luck.
This is from the Brennan Center for Justice; brennancenter.org. It’s a venerable organization.
“We must be careful not to undermine free and fair access to the ballot in the name of preventing phantom voter fraud,” they said.
And, “Politicians at all levels of government have repeatedly, and falsely, claimed the 2016, 2018, and 2020 elections were marred by large numbers of people voting illegally. However, extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare, and many instances of alleged fraud are, in fact, mistakes by voters or administrators. The same is true for mail ballots which are secure and essential to holding a safe election.”
They also say that noncitizens voting in state and federal elections is “vanishingly rare.” How rare is that?
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has been monitoring election fraud cases state by state. They have found 1,465 proven cases of election fraud which they find terribly alarming.
But the number is so misleading as to be meaningless. It’s the number of cases found in the past 18 years. A frightening total of 81 cases a year out of the hundreds of millions of votes cast in that time. They represent .000096% of the votes cast. I don’t even know how to say that as a percent.
Eric and I just mailed in our Florida ballots.
It’s a three step process to file a mail in ballot. First, it comes addressed with your name on it so no one else has access. The directions are clear. You fill in the bubbles by the name of the people you’re voting for with black ink. You have to fold the ballot and put it in a protective sleeve. You have to sign and seal the envelope and put it in the mail, postage free.
How would yet get more mail in ballots if you wanted to vote many times? Good question. You can’t. Therefore zero chance of voting more than once.
Try stealing your neighbors ballots from their mailboxes. Not a chance.
You’re free to try and influence your friends and neighbors to vote your way but that ain’t easy either.
Also note that fraud is found only in states the repubs lose, mostly swing states. Doesn’t that seem a bit strange?
Conclusion: Voter fraud is a giant myth.
For fun, here are some other giant myths.
Napoleon was short.
Vikings wore horns on their helmets.
Medieval people thought the earth was flat.
Jesus was born on Dec. 25.
Myths are largely created by nutsos and pushed by the losers. We know they are nuts. They need to stay losers.
Florida Man
10/7/2024
An admission: I feel inadequate writing about this war. I don’t have the personal experience or enough knowledge but like a fool I’m doing it anyway.
For days, I’ve been trying to figure out how to approach today’s anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.
October 7 was Israel’s Pearl Harbor which resulted from the same kind of intelligence failure the U.S. had in 1941. Israel’s vaunted Mossad, the country’s elite spy agency, didn’t have knowledge of an impending attack.
The U.S. didn’t even have an organized intelligence service before WWII. In 1941 intelligence gathering, such as it was, was done by various government departments and military branches in a decentralized manner.
The OSS was quickly formed after the war started and eventually turned into the CIA. We were less prepared for an enemy attack than Israel. But that history doesn’t matter now.
The tragedy that this war is bringing to the Israelis and the Gazan’s and now the Lebanese is tragic and getting worse. The pictures from the battle zones are hard to look at. Non-combatants are suffering and dying by the hundreds.Thousands of others have little food.
The hostages and the hundreds of family members and friends of those being held are also hostages.
I can’t imagine the fear, anxiety, heartache and sense of helplessness they are going through minute by minute. Sleep must be the only escape from the constant dread of the next phone call or letter or knock on the door.
And no one knows if their loved ones are alive and if they are how they are being treated. The survivors and all those connected to them will never be the same.
In many ways we will never be the same either. Jews are always under fire, literally and figuratively. I’m very secular in my views but I’m a Jew and I fear the future in this country and everywhere on the planet.
That’s it. I’m out of the proper words.
Florida Man
9/29/2024
Florida Man had dinner last night with a colleague who now is Director of Media Relations for the Broward County State Attorney.
We ate at a Salvadoran dive in Fort Lauderdale. The food was good, pork chunks for her and smothered steak for me. Not great but everything doesn’t have to be great. Conversation was great.
I asked her what was new in her world and she told me of a case they are working on that is so grim I will only outline it for you.
As background, I was a police reporter for 15 years. I covered tragedies big and small all over the country.
There were countless shootings, stabbings, suicides, car and airplane crashes, kidnappings, fires, hurricanes , floods, the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center disasters and the one that hastened my retirement.
A father and daughter, riding in a fund raising event were hit by a car. The little girl died. The family was generous with their time and information. Covering that story was too hard. I quit within a month.
This is also the kind of story that will make you quit. Thanks to Paula for the information.
On Christmas Day, 2023, a 7-year-old boy was found dead in his home. He starved to death the autopsy showed. Doctors said he appeared to have been dead for some time.
The child had many medical problems and had 24 hour nursing care but apparently wasn’t getting it. Investigators found 264 unopened bottles of his feeding formula. Medicaid fraud was also involved.
Five people have been arrested and are being held in Broward County Jail. They include his mother, a brother, his maternal grandfather, the owner of the service providing health care and a nurse. Four of them are being held without bond.
The charges include first degree murder, child neglect, manslaughter and Medicaid fraud.
The penalties range from five years to life in prison or the death penalty.
How could such a thing happen in a civilized society? A detective once told me that anyone can do anything to anyone else at any time. He is so right.
As a young reporter I would have covered this case without question. I wouldn’t have been able to cover it at the end of my career.
Florida Man
9/25/2024
The other day, a friend and I were discussing how so many people can be so unhappy with the county and who runs it.
Who are the 40, 50, 60 million people who are angry and why are they angry. Let’s examine what the majority have to be angry about.
The majority have a job, a house, at least one car and in many cases a pickup truck and a boat. They have a 75” TV and at least two other TVs, (hell, I have 3 TVs) they have food on the table, a BBQ grill on the patio, kids getting a free education, two weeks vacation, health insurance and social security on the horizon.
So are they angry at government institutions, colleges, the 1 percent who have two or more houses, fancier cars and a yacht at the dock. What is there really to be angry about.
If they break a leg they call 911 and government employees come to help them. If they get really sick they have Obamacare to pay the bill. If they get burgled, the government employed cops come and help them. The city government keeps clean water running in their faucets, the sewers functioning, the electricity popping and the roads repaired.
Yes, they are angry that immigrants are taking the jobs of real Americans. But real Americans don’t want to cut up meat in packing plants, stoop over to pick lettuce, climb ladders to pick fruit, make the bed in their motel room or work in the heat and rain taking care of their grass.
So, in the words of an old commercial, “Where’s the beef?’
The worst of it is, they think that the ignorant cretin will somehow make their lives better, make them elites, when he wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.
Florida Man
9/24/2024
I had a problem with the rear door on my SUV. I tried to close it yesterday after taking out some stuff I picked up at the market, a dragon fruit, some rambutans, plumquats, and some kiwi.
I’m in a quest for new tastes. You may ask how I knew how to cut the dragon fruit. There were at least 10 You Tube sites to teach me.
At any rate, the back door wouldn’t lock. Not good in the parking lot of an apartment complex.
So early this morning I took the car into my reliable mechanic about a half a mile away with the back door swinging open. He fixed the lock in about two minutes. No charge.
He said, “I wish everything was that easy.”
He is so right. Just think about the things you have to do over the course of a week or two that are not only not easy, but damn hard and frustrating.
Take the lovely trip to DMV to get a license or and ID. Once you get in the door you see there are at least 50 people ahead of you. When you finally get to window Q7, you don’t have all the documents you need. I don’t have to go further on this one. Not easy doesn’t quite do it justice.
Then there is the early morning doctors appointment that you made six months ago and forgot all about. The alert in your calendar forgot too. A quick phone call to cancel. Sorry you have to pay for the visit because you cancelled too late. It’s not easy because your back hurts and you need some meds.
Try to cut the TV cable and move into the world of streaming television. I’m serious about it and think I can do it but I’m hesitant. I’ve talked with Comcast a couple of times and they are no help. And I don’t know a 7-year-old in the neighborhood who can help me. It’s not easy.
How about trying to make sense of the news. There is a civil war in Sudan, there is famine in parts of Africa, the Houthis, a military group in Yemen, are attacking ships in the Red Sea, after destroying Gaza in a search for Hamas fighters, Israel is now bombing the Hezbollah in Lebanon and killing people who have no connection to Hezbollah, and the U.S. election is up for grabs.
Bringing peace to the world, even parts of the world, and bringing food to the hungry are hard things to accomplish.
Ancient History
9/19/2024
Back in the days when Florida Man was a young teenager, 100 million years ago, my family had a pet dinosaur. We would have had a dog but dogs and cats hadn’t been invented yet by the great inventor.
I didn’t like that dino, our name for him for him was Rockie,, and he didn’t like me either. He was always swinging his big tail at me and it hurt when it hit. But as much as I disliked that animal I never thought of eating him until the drought when we really got hungry.
The problem was he was too damn big to get into our biggest pot.
We got him when he was just a pup but as you can see he grew up.
So what do you do with an animal that big when you can’t stand him and you can’t wrestle him into the pot.
Well, obviously we looked for smaller animals and bigger pots because we were carnivores. Dad said forget it, too much trouble and we may run into problems with the authorities. Yes, there were authorities. But Mom, said we need meat not just veggies so let’s steal the small animals from our neighbors. Remember, this was a long time so even the smaller beasts, especially these gliding things that flew from tree to tree were hard to catch.
So if the neighbors, and they were neanderthals after all and not too smart, had some meat we could steal it.
Though we never did it, it was too ugly even for us, the idea got out and things quickly got political. The cro-magnon guy and his friend Skull, running for president and helper of the flat-earth heard about it. The drums got started and the news spread quickly.
Incited, the neighboring cros and neands started throwing bones into our cave at night and posting nasty things on the drums. There was nothing we could do to set things straight. The patriots started shaking clubs at our school and threatening our fall festival with fire. I think we had fire but my memory isn’t too clear on that because it was a long time ago.
The news outlets got hold of the story and, well, you know the rest. We had to give up our jobs cutting up chickens and picking lettuce, jobs the cros and neands desperately wanted, and go back home to Haiti where despite the coconuts burning in the streets and the roaming gangs It was safer and they had bigger pots.
Who's Right?
9/18/2024
Florida Man was invited recently to a Current Events discussion group in the club house of a senior citizen condominium complex.
There were about 20 people there, mostly women, who had been coming at 10 a.m. on Tuesday for years. They all knew each other and over the years had divided the room into Democrats on one side and Republicans on the other. The Dems were at least a 3-1 majority.
As the microphone was passed around the tables, everyone who wanted to got a chance to speak for three minutes about anything.
A lot of things came up, many political, but I want to focus on one: Taylor Swift and her endorsement of Kamala Harris.
A women on the Republican side said she had heard of Swift but didn’t think anyone cared what she did and said. Her comments deprecated the whole idea of celebrity endorsements. She may be right but she isn’t right about Taylor Swift and her Swifties.
Here’s the skinny, as we used to say, from various reliable online sources.
Swift has 280 million followers on the social media site Instagram. An estimated 100 million of them, almost one third of the U.S. population, are followers.
A 2023 survey by Morning Consult, a 10-year-old online polling company, found that 55 percent of American adults said they were Swifties. Fifty-two percent were women and 48 percent men. Fifty-five percent were Democrats and 23 percent Republican.
Swift has established an intimate connection with her Swifties by prioritizing her fans an engaging with them, various sources, including Wikipedia, say.
Here endorsement of Harris is expected to have an impact especially on her younger audience. Her fans already have had significant influence on popular culture and have exerted that influence on various laws effecting the music industry.
Forty-five percent of Swift’s base are millennials, born between 1981 and 1996. There are 72 million of them and they could influence the outcome of the election if they follow her endorsement.
The theme of In 1931 movie musical was that 50 million Frenchmen can’t be wrong. It’s possible that 100 million American who are dedicated Swifties can’t be wrong either.
A Question
9/17/2024
I don’t know how far I’m going with this because it isn’t my usual territor so read at your own risk. The question of the day: Is a person with a gun or a knife an assassin if he or she doesn’t fire a shot or stab someone?
You might say of course. But the common definition of an assassin is a person who kills someone famous or important usually for political reasons. Or, simply a person who assassinates someone.
Under that definition this guy Ryan Routh didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t even see an intended victim and didn’t fire a shot. Is intent to assassinate and not do it a crime?
It seems to me it qualifies as a thought crime which isn’t punishable under U.S. law. According to the Journal of Free Speech Law, the state can’t punish people for their mere thoughts. Neither beliefs or intentions are subject to criminal punishment.
Conspiracy is another thing. It’s an agreement among two or more people to commit a crime. But still, at least one conspirator has to take an act that furthers the crime even though the crime is never committed.
I’m not at all excited to have someone walk around with a rifle because anything can happen but in this case it didn’t.
If today’s society was what it was in George Orwell’s novel “1984” Ryan Routh would be guilty of a crime. In the novel, which was scary in it’s time, the character Winston was guilty of a crime because he had thoughts that were not approved. So when he writes “Down with Big Brother” he is guilty. In “1984” you could be guilty of a crime if you said the wrong thing in your sleep and the punishment was severe.
If now was then we’d all be guilty.
Of course, the repubs want to call it an assassination attempt and Routh an assassin because it sounds bad and accures in their favor.
But face it, if it was Biden being shot at or not shot at as in this case, the crazies would be in conspiracy heaven. It would be a setup, an inside job, a false flag with an actor and then a fake investigation.
And though the repubs are trying to say the Dems anti-Trump talk is the cause of violence but it is Trump who constantly beats the drums of violence as an answer to most of the country’s supposed ills who is guilty.
Florida Man
9/17/2024
I don’t know how far I’m going with this because it isn’t my usual territor so read at your own risk. The question of the day: Is a person with a gun or a knife an assassin if he or she doesn’t fire a shot or stab someone?
You might say of course. But the common definition of an assassin is a person who kills someone famous or important usually for political reasons. Or, simply a person who assassinates someone.
Under that definition this guy Ryan Routh didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t even see an intended victim and didn’t fire a shot. Is intent to assassinate and not do it a crime?
It seems to me it qualifies as a thought crime which isn’t punishable under U.S. law. According to the Journal of Free Speech Law, the state can’t punish people for their mere thoughts. Neither beliefs or intentions are subject to criminal punishment.
Conspiracy is another thing. It’s an agreement among two or more people to commit a crime. But still, at least one conspirator has to take an act that furthers the crime even though the crime is never committed.
I’m not at all excited to have someone walk around with a rifle because anything can happen but in this case it didn’t.
If today’s society was what it was in George Orwell’s novel “1984” Ryan Routh would be guilty of a crime. In the novel, which was scary in it’s time, the character Winston was guilty of a crime because he had thoughts that were not approved. So when he writes “Down with Big Brother” he is guilty. In “1984” you could be guilty of a crime if you said the wrong thing in your sleep and the punishment was severe.
If now was then we’d all be guilty.
Of course, the repubs want to call it an assassination attempt and Routh an assassin because it sounds bad and accures in their favor.
But face it, if it was Biden being shot at or not shot at as in this case, the crazies would be in conspiracy heaven. It would be a setup, an inside job, a false flag with an actor and then a fake investigation.
And though the repubs are trying to say the Dems anti-Trump talk is the cause of violence but it is Trump who constantly beats the drums of violence as an answer to most of the country’s supposed ills who is guilty.
Florida Man
9/16/2024
Recently I wrote about the enormous talent we have in our little cadre.
Add to that the fact combined we have lived in dozens of places big and small in the country and travelled all over the world.
What a huge trove of knowledge we have.
I had a fever dream that we can build an entire community. Not a real one but a virtual one.
Our architects can create a building that will house our various offices.
There will be a dental office, a doctor’s office, a lawyer’s office, a well-staffed school, a newspaper, a sculpture and painting gallery, a publishing company, a public relations office, a yoga studio, a radio and television production studio and a soup kitchen for our cooks to feed us and the homeless.
The building will be close enough to our assisted living facility for us to use our walkers and canes to get home. Uber service will also be available.
Specifically, the newspaper, called “Fogeyville Times,” has nine reporters and editors who will cover breaking news mostly broken bones, our city government, crime which will be very low, courts that don’t have much to do, and travel which will be extensive. Of course, we’ll write our musings as feature stories.
Our medical researcher can office with our doctor and together they will provide us with a guaranteed long life. The yoga teacher will keep us limber and in good health.
Our lawyer will take care of our wills and any other private matters.
The publisher will encourage us to write our memoirs. And the cooks will prepare comfort food like noodle kugel and corned beef brisket to feed us and the homeless.
Our publicist will promote all of us into internet celebrities.
Of course we’ll need some immigrants to pick our vegetables and fruits and harvest our corn and wheat, but we will pay they $15 and hour and provide housing and noodle kugel.
Our lawyer will take care of their citizenship applications.
We don’t have a butcher, baker or candle stick maker or an Indian chief but we’ll recruit them.
Florida Man
9/13/2024
Florida Man is all in on free speech no matter how scurrilous, defamatory, derogatory, demented, or pure evil it is.
As long as you don’t slander me or endanger me or others by shouting fire in a crowded theatre (the Supreme Courts ruling on free speech in 1919) I can despise it and you but I can live with it.
Still there is protected free speech that is so abhorrent, loathsome and execrable that it should be put into the “fire in a crowded theatre” category.
The impetus for these comments is the statements by a woman named Laura Loomer, an erstwhile Republican candidate for congress from my district in Florida who was defeated twice.
In case you don’t know she is now a consultant to Trump.
She, is in a word, nuts. Laura Looney would be a better name.
Here are some examples that her bigoted mind has produced. They need no explanation.
“No, we won’t accept the results of another stolen election.”
“Kamala is already plotting on how she can murder as many Trump supporters as possible after she steals the election.”
The Harris campaign is using “psychological warfare and election interference to manipulate her campaign photos and videos.”
“The United States is a giant third world shithole.”
“Jewish Democrats might as well put yourself in a gas chamber. You’re an enemy of this country if you do not vote for Donald Trump.”
Of Biden, “His administration plotted the assassination of Donald Trump and missed.”
Of Harris, “She is a brain dead bimbo who sucked so much c..k to get to the political position she’s in today.”
No need to go on. If you can stand it there
is much more on the Media Matters web site.
Loomer is clearly a lunatic who has the ear of the other lunatic.
That’s plenty scary.
Florida Man
9/5/24
A headline in The Washington Post today proclaims almost wistfully, “Georgia Students and Teachers killed in deadliest school shooting this year.”
Am I the only one who thinks this is a sad commentary on gunship America? It’s almost like we’re falling behind. It’s like “Aaron Judge fails to hit 70 homers.”
Since the Columbine shooting in Denver in 1999, which I covered for the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Post says there have been 416 school shootings in the U.S. That’s 16 a year or more than one a month.
This year, so far, there have been 23, according to USA Today.The record year was 2022 with 46. Some record, and certainly something to aspire to.
By comparison, Russia has had 1, Canada 2, Brazil 2 and China 1. Total population, almost 1.8 billion. Pop .of U.S. 333 million. Of course those foreigners have sensible private gun ownership laws.
The NRA is fond of saying the only way to stop bad people from shooting other people is to have a good guy with a gun nearby. Apparently there aren’t enough good guys around.
There is clearly no way this country can get a grip on the gun problem.
Of course mental illness is the go-to cause but if that were true there would be a lot more of it. Statistics show that the “mentally ill” people with depression or anxiety pose no greater threat than the “sane.”
The World Population Review cites bullying and desire for recognition as causes of school shooting but gaming and entertainment have minimal influence.
So, what to do other than collect all the guns and melt them down and that isn’t going to happen?
If I could answer that question I wouldn’t just be Florida Man I’d be United States Man.
Florida Man
9/4/24
You all know by now that Floman is an avid sports fan who will watch almost anything sports related on TV.
So, last night, unable to find Poirot or rock skipping (yes, it is a sport of sorts), I clicked on the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament.
Now, I played tennis fairly well in the past so I know the game but I was amazed and thrilled by the athleticism, power, strategic skills and speed of the guys playing. Even at the top of my game, which wasn’t very high, I wouldn’t have able to lay a racket on one of their shots.
It was the writer Malcolm Gladwell who said that mastery is made not born and that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become masterful. That’s three hours a day for 3,333 days or about nine years. That rule applies to any skill, writing, cooking, dentistry, shop lifting, etc. It sounds about right to me.
High level tennis players have the eye-hand coordination of a hockey goalie, the speed of a sprinter, the endurance of a marathoner. I also admire their mental toughness, the ability to maintain focus sometimes for three and four hours or longer on the court.
Compare them to other athletes.
Golfers for example, walk four or five miles during a round have and have excellent concentration but only hit the ball about 70 times in 18 holes.
Race car drivers sit for hours in hot machines going 200 miles an hour two inches from another car going just as fast. They have excellent focus and conditioning but not much movement.
Soccer players are on the field for two hours but aren’t always running. Hockey players are on the ice for maybe two minutes at a time. Basketball players run a lot for 30 or 40 minutes.
Baseball players are sloths. Most of their time on the field is spent standing around. Swimmers, except in the long distance races, are in the water for just a few minutes.
The conclusion from this more than casual observer is that tennis is the most all-around demanding of sports.
And that’s today’s report from Floman Sports Central.
Florida Man
9/3/24
I cook and I think I’m pretty good until I create a clunker that I’ll eat but no one else will. An example: Sunday night I made enchiladas which I often do. Only this time they were way too saucy, soggy and in the oven too long. They were edible, but just. Fortunately there was some good rice on the side.
But that’s not what I want to talk about. It’s cooking for one. I think it’s important for me to sit down at the table every night, at least most nights, and eat dinner no matter how simple. It signifies to me that I’m a completely functioning human being. And wine helps a lot.
It also gets me out into the world to do the shopping, usually at more than one store. I’ve got a bunch of good cookbooks but I’m still on the internet looking for something a little exotic. There are some fascinating recipes out there. Shrimp Mozambique, Nigerian Beef Suya, Lebanese Malfouf, Lung Fung Soup and so on.
The real problem with preparing these exotics is not the cooking, it’s finding the ingredients and then buying the right amount so there isn’t much left over, or deciding to make enough to serve the neighborhood or at least your neighbors.
Things like lungs, for example, that turn up in a lot of Asian recipes are hard to find. In 1971, the USDA banned the sale of lungs for human consumption. The reason given was that lungs contain dust, pollen and spores that animals, and humans, inhale. No mention was made of infectious diseases or serious illnesses resulting from eating lungs. It’s too bad, some doctors say, because lungs like liver and kidneys are rich in vitamins, protein and minerals. They can be used for pet food if you can find them.
I don’t want to put too much emphasis on lungs, but they are available at ethnic food stores in Florida, imported from South America.
If there is a point here, it’s that cooking for one is much harder and less fun than cooking for two or more. It requires paring most recipes down by half or more. I’m still learning so if you want to stop by for leftovers there are usually plenty.
Florida Man
9/2/24
Florida Man is old and I know it because waitresses, store clerks and even strangers are calling me honey and sweetheart and offering to help me with whatever I’m carrying.
Since I don’t feel like I’m old it’s hard to accept that the way I look or walk or hold my body is obvious to many people.
At least they don’t yet say, “Do you need help with that old man.”
With that in mind, I put together a list of terms people use for us olders.
Stodgy is one. It doesn’t really mean old, it means dull, uninteresting and boring. A lot of people, including some of us, can be dreary under that definition, but not necessarily old.
Spry is one of my favorites. “Hey, you’re pretty spry for your age old man.” I guess it’s supposed to be a complement but misses the mark. It also could be used to describe anyone who is active and energetic.
How about “old fart.” There is really nothing to be said about it except that it can be rather endearingly self deprecating.
I won’t go on in detail but there are more words: senior, grumpy, oldster, geezer, golden ager, pensioner, old bag, dinosaur and old timer.
My favorite among those is “old timer.”
Every western movie and TV show has an “old timer.” He always has scraggly grey beard and wears a floppy hat with holes in it and bib overalls.
Ah, but the old timers are wise. They help the hero with their deep knowledge of the old west. They’ll lead you to the local water hole, to Doc Holiday’s dental office and the saloon where they hit you up for a shot of rotgut and then they cook you up a mess of beans
In short, old timers are us. We are wise, we know the best water hole, the best whiskey and we can still cook up a mess of anything.
Florida Man
9/1/24
Some critical questions today from Florida Man.
I think you’ll find all of these valuable and informative even though they are not consequential. Many of them are sports related and will be of no interest to some of you but they are still questions that require serious consideration.
Here they are along with some possible answers.
Q. Why do men with Methuselah length beards and shoulder length hair think it’s a good look?
A. Because they want to fit in with those tourists who invaded the capitol on Jan. 6.
Q. Why do women with long hair constantly futz with it?
A. Because they are bored and it is good exercise for the arms.
Q. Why do baseball players spit all the time and basketball players and golfers don’t spit at all?
A. Because they are chewing a lot of bubble gum (used to be tobacco) and gnawing on sunflower seeds. If you can’t put a handful of sunflower seeds in your mouth and spit out the shells one at a time you can’t play big time baseball.
As for bball players and golfers not spitting, they are just more civilized.
Q. Why do sports announcers wear coats and ties even when they’re on the field.
A. Network execs, who wear coats and ties to work and everywhere else including to bed, think that’s the way everybody should dress.
Q. Now that college athletes are being paid, do they still have to go to classes.
A. Yes, just like they did before they were employees of the college. That is, rarely.
Q. When Trump raises his fist is it really a Nazi salute.
A. Yes.
Q. Another sports question. Why is the third reporter on the field nearly always a women who, even in the snow, wear sleeveless blouses and short skirts.
A. Because TV producers think men will still tuned and they’re building the case for naked reporters; women of course.
One more.
Q. Why do winning tennis players always collapse on the grass or clay at the end of a match?
A. Perhaps because they’re tired but probably because they just want to attract attention.
I understand your answers may differ and that you have your own vital unanswered questions.
Feel free to share.
Florida Man
8/31/24
Florida Man was going to go light today but my focus has changed.
I hope I’m nort breaking any of the 650 commandments or some rabbinical code with this musing. I’m not afraid.
Be advised though that my interpretation could easily be all wrong.
This comes from today’s Kol Tikvah synagogue “Bagels and Bible” session, though mostly bagels for me, since my knowledge of the Bible and Torah is severely limited. Still, it provided food for thought.
First, as the rabbi said, there is the dichotomy of Jews being the chosen people and also being choosers.
Jews being the chosen has always troubled me as arrogant and self-important. We are 15.7 million, or 0.2% of the world’s 8 billion people, a minuscule, yet highly visible minority. It also seems strange that the lord’s favorites are so unappealing to so many people and religions.
Being the choosers is better. Freedom of choice of the degree of Jew you want to be is a good thing and freedom to choose also offers great opportunity in the wider world.
Then there was the idea that following rules (I’m not sure if it’s God’s rules or societies) benefits the rule follower. I think this essentially means in the eyes of God and your fellow humans.
The opposite, violating the rules, results in trouble in the form of retribution by God or society. Sure, robbers and violent criminals are usually punished by the law but many people get great rewards by violating the rules. Example One is the former guy.
Of course, if violating the rules means going off in an unknown direction to create or discover, that’s a different story.
I’m going long again today and I’ll quit with this: The idea that Jews who get tattooed can’t get a Jewish burial is a myth.That’s certainly good news.
Your comments are welcome.
Florida Man
8/30/2024
Florida Man is sociological today. I need to know if you guys know more about the backgrounds of your grandparents and even your parents than I do.
I think most of the grandparents of our generation came from England, France, Spain and for Jews from Eastern Europe, e.g., Poland, the Ukraine and Russia.
Most of our parents, I assume, were born in the U.S.
At any rate, I confess I know little about my dad’s parents and it’s my fault.
I remember as a young teenager being dragged to my grandparents for breakfast on Sunday mornings. It was painful. My grandmother, Sarah, made bagels that were hard as rocks while my grandfather, Sam, was on the phone taking orders for produce that he’d deliver with his old Chevy truck on Monday.
I can still remember, and this was 75 years ago (scary) him saying, “Crate lettuce, half crate carrots,” and on and on. He still had a Russian accent after being the country for 50 years. I couldn’t wait to get home to play ball, any kind of ball.
I asked no questions. Thinking back, would it have been fun to ride with him on his deliveries one day? Of course it would.
What I might have learned about growing up in rural Russia or Poland, about how they learned about America and how they had the guts to somehow get to a port in some country and come here with nothing but a tattered suitcase and then find there way to the Midwest. What a wonderful story I missed.
It was much the same with my parents. I know they grew up during the Great Depression and I was born in the middle of that. I know they graduated high school and wanted to go to college but couldn’t afford it. I know about my dad’s jobs and even worked for him at the jewelry store during a couple of summers.
I have good memories of them having parties with a tight group of friends. But what they were thinking about things, why they got married, why they had kids, important stuff like that. Nada.
I could have learned so much but I was too smart to ask. So what was up with me and maybe you?
On my part, it wasn’t a lack curiosity because I was a pretty curious kid. Maybe I just didn’t know what questions to ask. I was certainly more focused on me at 13 than learning about the pasts of those old people with accents or my folks.
Maybe with grandparents it was the cultural difference of them being from a far away and unknown place. I don’t know how much my folks knew about their parents because I never asked. But with my folks, there is no excuse.
And now there is no way to fill in those deep gaps. I feel sorry for myself because I missed out on a lot of stuff about their valuable lives.
This got long. I hope you stuck with it and want to add your own experiences.
Florida Man
8/29/1935 (opps that’s my dob)
It’s really 8/29/2024
Well, the national and local TV news outlets are all over the hottest heatiest heatwave in August in the midwest since, oh, let me think, last year.
Temps are forecast to be in the high 90s, which is only a threat if you’re in Death Valley or an illegal immigrant taking the job of a real Joe six-pack who is begging to do stoop labor picking lettuce and digging potatoes.
I hear that 52 million people are under the Dome of Doom, which doesn’t compare to the 81 million people under the Dome of Total Destruction.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember the days before central air or even window air conditioners. In the 1950s we turned on the swamp cooler, opened the windows all the way and sweated our brains out waiting for a waft of a breeze.
I also remember playing baseball all summer in the heatiest heat in Kansas City. There were no working water fountains at the field and no such thing as plastic water bottles. We just didn’t know any better because there was no social media to warn us of the danger of dehydration. But, we only played six or eight hours a day so it wasn’t that dangerous.
In rainless August the dust was six inches deep on the diamond and I know because I used to practice my hook slide and the dust came up over my Keds. At the end of the day my blue jeans were caked with dust and I had it in my shoes and socks. I have no idea how my mother got everything clean including me.
It was so hot (sounds like the beginning of a joke) that people slept in their yards, on fire escapes and in the parks. And it was safe because there were no marauding bands of illegals selling drugs and raping the women and little girls.
P.S. I asked AI to draw me a picture of a 12-year-old boy sliding in the dust on a baseball diamond. Here’s what ChatGPT said.
“I can’t draw pictures, but I can help you visualize it! Imagine a 12-year-old boy in a baseball uniform, sliding into second base. He’s got a determined look on his face, his jersey and pants dusty from the game. His body is low to the ground, legs extended, and one hand is reaching out towards the base. Dust is flying up around him, creating a dramatic, action-packed scene. The second baseman might be catching the ball, and the umpire could be in the background, ready to make the call. How’s that for a vidid picture.”
I say that’s not bad at all for a non-human.
Hope you enjoy this little look back.
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