Vote! If you don't vote will you get even worse candidates?

 I'm still here.  But I don't get to see much about the traffic here.  I just haven't figured out just what I have to reset.

 We have settled into senior housing after selling our house.  We are in a location where we can walk to almost all the places that we need to go. 

We have cast our 2020 ballots at city hall.  We were surprised that we had to wait, not long, but it sure beats standing in line on November 3.

We are also happy that we live in a state that honors vote integrity.  We can see this by the way parties keep switching around.  I would like to vote Republican, but I haven't seen any real Republicans since Arne Carlson replaced a child molester on the ballot for Governor.

See also Dave Durenburger's book When Republicans Were Progressive.

As for the title of this article: Hilary Clinton may have won the popular vote, but would she gotten the Electoral College vote if 90% or more had shone up?  The less than 70% vote was not worthy of a democracy.

If you are an American be sure to vote.  Sorry, you don't get to vote twice this year for not voting in 2016.

Essentia Health Center move

See https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/healthcare/4570199-essentia-moving-fitness-center-mall

I posted the following response at https://www.essentiahealth.org/patients-visitors/compliments-complaints/

Fitness center to Younkers
Plus - Free Parking
Minus - Walking from parking spot to building in rain or snow or on ice
Minus - No direct busses for most users
Minus - Can't go to Fitness Center before/after medical appointment

Alternatives:
University for Seniors members can use UMD facilities
Resume work-out at home (this has the advantage of being free of TV advertising fast foods)
If Mt. Royal Pines resident, use Pines equipment.
Walk the halls of Essentia

Trump’s wall will increase boat sales

If Trump’s wall goes up, people-smugglers will buy boats.  Instead of smuggling people over the Rio Grande they will be taking them to isolated beaches in California, Texas. Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Don’t think it can’t happen?  Consider the thousands that smugglers have taken across the Mediterranean, often with fatal consequences.

And if Trump insists on putting walls up on all these beaches, do you think the local boaters and fisherman will be happy?

Sent to Rep. Pete Stauber (MN-8) and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.

Patents, schools, and false equivalency

I posted the following two comments to "Lost Einsteins, the Innovations We Are Missing", David Leonhardt, New York Times, 2017-12-03.

One could also make a correlation between innovation and the type of industries in the area.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul area once drew a lot of people to work in the computer industry.  I was one of them.  Then the medical device industry drew a lot of people.

Rochester MN has been drawing medical talent for generations.  It also once had a large IBM facility.

I wonder what all the patents in NW Minnesota were for.  Snowmobiles, fishing gear?

And then there is politics.  Do the local governments make their places nice places to live, and so many people move there?







Follow-up comment

Well, I looked up several facts about Roseau County, MN, way up north on the Canadian border.  It was where Polaris snowmobiles were invented.  For more seehttp://www.polaris.com/en-us/company.

The Census 2016 estimate of Roseau’s population is 15,629 with 18% of school age 2813 students.  So, it would be quite “easy” for Polaris to have three patents.

The research triangle of North Carolina is another high patent area.  The triangle is University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, and Duke University, all well-known research universities.

I think a more interesting correlation would be how much people were open to new ideas.  I think the willingness to do something different would have a better correlation than number of children.

I Was a Federal Bureaucrat

Originally published in the
Northland Reader
now the
Reader Weekly
July 20, 2000

It is popular to complain about government bureaucrats, either as picky, intrusive inspectors or lazy, can’t-be-bothered office clerks.  I’ve always felt these complaints were overblown because most of my dealings with government employees have been with friendly people trying to provide a service.  After years working for a large corporation and running my own tiny business, I finally went over to the “other side.”  I became a federal bureaucrat.

In December I took the test to become a Census worker.  I didn’t hear anything until March when I was asked if I would like to work part-time in the evening; I declined.  I was called again for part-time evening work and I declined.  The last week in April I was called to be a payroll data entry clerk from 12 to 9.  I thought that I had better accept on the third try or I might never be called again.  I was to start May 1 at $7.50/hour with a night premium of 75 cents for work after 6:00 p.m.

I first filled out a stack of forms on my own behalf including deductions for income tax, an electronic payroll deposit form, and a confidentiality agreement.  Because I signed this last form, I can’t tell you anything about the information that I saw without permission of the legal counsel of the Bureau of the Census.

I was shown how to check enumerators’ and clerks’ daily time sheets and then batch them for data entry.  My job was a control to make sure people were not paid too much but also not too little and that they were reimbursed for any expenses that they incurred.  When I had no time sheets to check, I filed just about every piece of paper an employee signed.  The time sheets were the highest priority so that employees would be paid on schedule.

After a week I was transferred to “Field” where another group of clerks audited the census returns.  Our job was to check that the number of people on the front was the same as number of people named inside and the same as number of people on the back.  If no people were at the residence, we were to check that other appropriate information was given such as the enumerator couldn’t find the address or that it was a vacation residence.  We also had to check that a minimum number of questions were answered.

This work was far more interesting, almost too interesting.  It was hard not to read the forms for the variety of information people gave.  I soon developed a soft focus that allowed me to just check if sufficient information was given.

On the other hand this work was sporadic.  We would sit around reading or chatting because we had processed all the returns.  Then a courier or a crew leader would come in with a small stack or a cartload of forms, and away we would go.  Some nights we would complete everything by quitting time; other nights we would leave some to the day staff.

But far more interesting than the information on the census returns were the people who worked for the Census.  Not only were we diverse in the political sense of black, white, and Indian, but the real sense of a wide range of backgrounds, interests, and hopes.  We had veterans who had been all over the world and people who never left the region.  We had people who never went to college and a Ph.D.  We had school teachers, choral singers, and political activists.  Each of them had interesting stories and I’m sorry that I don’t have space for more.

Will, not his real name, was an air traffic controller.  Will was a “gypsy”, meaning that he would be assigned to various airports on an as needed basis.  His most harrowing experience was when he had just plugged in his microphone and headset when a DC-10 lost an engine at O’Hare.  He was at Oshkosh handling the big fly-in when President Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers.  The Experimental Aircraft Association, an organizer of the Oshkosh flyin, returned his application and check.

Carla Bayerl was with the Air Force for 22 years.  She started as an Integrated Avionics Components Specialist (electronics technician).  She spent the last 14 years on a mobility team.  The team was on call for search and recovery after a crash.  At the same time, she also managed base residences, food services, and a recreation and fitness center..  She had assignments in Arizona, Alaska, California, Germany, Italy, and Greece.  She is a country music fan and is now developing a business booking country and other bands.

Cade Raukar is a recent graduate of University of North Dakota in Criminal Justice.  He took some additional courses in his field this spring.  He is also in the National Guard as a tanker, his current position is as a gunner.  He is now working as corrections officer in the St. Louis County Jail.

Jerry Hess was a newspaper and magazine editor.  He had worked for the Austin (MN) Daily Herald , the Ft. Wayne (IN) Journal-Gazette, and the Star Tribune.  He was the editor for many years of Snack Food Magazine, a trade journal, when the publisher decided to move it to another state.

Chuck Thompson was a country and pop DJ and talk show host in Litchfield and Willmar for five years.  He was dropped from one station when his ratings dropped.  He jokes that his successor lasted two weeks.  One of his highlights was interviewing Kevin McHale, general manager of the Timberwolves.  He is now a freshman basketball coach at Esko.  He plans to start next fall at University of Wisconsin at Superior to finish his degree in elementary education.

So, the next time that someone complains about government bureaucrats, remind that person that the bureaucrats are employees like most of the rest of us.  They have a wide range of hopes and concerns, needs and interests.  And like the rest of us, they are doing the best they can in a situation in which somebody else made the rules.

©2000, 2007 Melvyn D. Magree

Would you rather pay low taxes or be happy?

The AARP latest news page has a list of the five happiest states.  Minnesota is number one.  Minnesota is also among the higher taxed states.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes supposedly said, “I like taxes; they buy me civilization.”

The other four states are Utah, Hawaii California, and Nebraska.  The full list is at https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-states/6959/.  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the rankings.  This site also has the best and worst rankings for a few more categories; taxes were not among them.

Bus driving, long hours but interesting times

Bus driving, long hours but interesting times
Melvyn D. Magree
Originally published as
Oh, the bus driver's lot is not a happy one
in the
Nortland Reader
now the
Reader Weekly
August 31, 2000

Would you like a job that may pay over $18,000 per year that requires a moderate skill level, has some variety, and let’s you meet lots of people?  Try bus driving.  You have several opportunities in the Northland area from driving a mini-coach to a school bus to a city bus to an over-the-road coach.

The minimum requirements are being 18 or over (21 for some employers), having a valid driver’s license, passing a physical and a background check, and having a willingness to learn.  The larger employers will train you and pay you at least minimum wage for your training time.  Training varies from one to two weeks for school bus to five weeks with DTA.

If you like kids the best place to start is with a school district or a school bus company.  The Duluth Public Schools are not currently hiring but Ken Willms, manager of transportation, says that could change anytime.  Voyageur Bus Company is hiring according to Josh Penshak, the trainer at Voyageur.

Your starting pay at Voyageur would be $8.75 per hour; after several years experience you might get about $12.50.  Your usual schedule would be about 6:30 to 9:00 and 2:00 to 4:30.  Your actual schedule would vary according to the route you picked at the beginning of the school year.

Note: most of what follows is based on my own experience with Medicine Lake Lines and Ryder in the Twin Cities.  Medicine Lake Lines/Ryder operated school buses, mini-coaches, and transit buses.  It may not be exactly the same as you would find in Duluth.

You might find your training a piece of cake or you might wonder if you’ll ever do it right.  Persistence really helps.  It took me seven days before my school bus trainer would let me be tested.  Even then I took one left turn on the test too wide and had to back up in the intersection.  Would you believe that three years later I was training others in transit buses?

After you finish your training and have your Class B commercial driver’s license (CDL) in hand, you will be assigned a route.  For the first few days you will be accompanied by an experienced driver as you learn the route.  I don’t know why but in my car I could generally find my way around but with a school bus it took three days to learn my first route.  Three years later, I was often handed a route copy and asked to substitute on a route in ten minutes or less.  Duluth with its grid pattern of streets should be easier than the labyrinths of Twin Cities suburbs.

One of the jobs of a growing child is to test limits.  School bus riders are no exception.  Fortunately, on most routes you’ll find those who get obnoxious are the exception.  A word from you will suffice to get many kids to sit facing forward and talking quietly.  But if you have some seemingly incorrigible kids, you have many tools that are covered under “student management” in your training. 

You can find a safe place to pull the bus over and have a chat with the miscreant.  Or, you can write the student up and let the school deal with him or her.  One of my most satisfying experiences was, after a particularly obnoxious sixth grader returned from a two-day bus suspension, he apologized and was very helpful thereafter.

You might be able to get more work hours with charters.  I can’t say what kind of charter work you would get in Duluth.  I know I had a wide variety in the Twin Cities from school outings to ferrying the cast and crew of “West Side Story”, the latter charter being a story in itself.  You might also be a minor hero just by keeping your cool when a student breaks her arm on an outing.

Your success as a bus driver depends more on your attitude than anything else.  If you have a positive, problem-solving attitude, you will be a successful bus driver.  The bus drivers who didn’t succeed were often their own worst enemies.  One driver who I had trained got mad at another driver and didn’t show up.  I was disappointed because she had showed such great promise.  Another driver deliberately rammed the bus in front of him; fortunately no students were in either bus but the other driver was out for at least three weeks.  I know the ramming driver was immediately fired; I don’t know if any charges were made.

On the other hand, I knew many drivers who had been driving ten to twenty years and came to work every morning with a smile on their face.  I know if we hadn’t moved to Duluth I would probably still be driving from the terminal now owned by the British company First Group.

Do I miss bus driving?  Yes and no.

Although I normally get up at six, I don’t miss getting up at five or even earlier.  I also don’t miss the split shift, spending 15-20 minutes to drive home, spending an hour or two on a task, and then driving back, and getting home finally at 6:30 or a later in the evening.  I don’t miss the rowdy kids.  And I don’t miss the routes where I barely met the schedule and wondered when I’d get my next break.

But I do miss the easy charters where I nap, eat lunch, or read.  I do miss being in control of a big machine.  Every morning when I pulled out of the garage I felt a sense of pride: hey!  I can do this!  And of course I miss the people.  The chats and chess games in the drivers’ room.  The passengers who always had a friendly greeting.  The seniors who appreciated help with their groceries.  And of course, I miss getting paid to drive to interesting places.

But although the pay isn’t as great, I’d rather write about bus driving than do it.

©2000, 2007 Melvyn D. Magree

Modern medical care precludes a “free market”

One of the latest to call for a free market in health care is Bert Stephens, one of the New York Times “conservative” columnists.  His latest column, “A Price for the G.O.P.’s Health Care Insanity”. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/opinion/congress-health-savings-accounts.html  He takes on Obama for creating the mess and the Republicans for making matters worse with their “fixes”.

He blames it as the “third party problem”; the consumer of health care does not shop around for the best deal but depends on an insurance company to pay the bills.

There may still be a free market in dentistry, but there cannot be a free market in health care.  Why?  What is one of the criteria for a “free market”: many sellers.  We have long ago lost many of our independent doctors: they are mostly in large clinic/hospital complexes.

In Duluth, Minnesota, we have two choices: Essentia Health or St. Luke’s.  It may still be that if you have company-provided health insurance, then your only choice may be a given clinic.  I know that we have switched clinics when we switched jobs.

Oh, sure, if we can’t get into one of these clinics or decide an out-of-town clinic is a better choice, we can drive a few hours or stay overnight to visit other clinics.  My wife couldn’t get into a dermatologist in Duluth and so drove to the Twin Cities.  We have had several friends who have stayed in Rochester to use the services of the Mayo Clinic.

There are certain specialties that are available outside the clinics, such as eye care.

A clinic may give you a choice of doctors, but you are often limited to those who have current openings in their schedule.  If your doctor leaves the clinic, the clinic may assign you to the next available doctor  I don’t remember if I chose my first cardiologist, but I know I was assigned to another when my then current cardiologist went elsewhere.  When my cardiologist decided that I needed heart surgery, I was assigned all the subsequent surgeons.

Another consideration is our knowledge of the available doctors.  Do we know who is available?  Do we know their credentials and reputations?  A free market includes having all the information to make a decision.  Very few of us will take the time to get the information, or, if we get it, have enough knowledge to make a decision.

It’s around here someplace

This was a saying in my wife’s family about lost objects, and we still use it.

In April I went to our cabin by myself.  I unlocked the cable across the drive and hung the lock from my pants pocket.  I forgot all about it until I was ready to leave.  I couldn’t find it.

I looked every where I had been.  In the the car, in the cabin, in the grass on all the paths I had been on.  Nada!  So, I used a lock from one of the sheds.

Each time I’ve visited since then I’ve taken another look.

I had resigned my self to buying another lock, but just hadn’t been to my favorite hardware store.  When I did, I would have to send a new key to the guy that plows our drive.

I was mowing the grass near the road yesterday and a neighbor stopped to chat.  After several minutes my wife came to investigate why she didn’t hear the trimmer.  As she came near the cable post she exclaimed “Mel!”  I wondered if she had fallen.

No, she had found the missing lock.  It was partially buried where I had run over it after it had fallen off my pocket.  Several passes over it with the car had buried even more.  She was attracted to it because the hasp did not look like any natural object.

The lock was full  of soil and sand.  We had to soak it and swish it in water several times.  By the time we were ready to leave, we could open and close the lock without a problem.

Sometimes he who hesitates finds stuff, around here someplace.

I’m back!

I had an angiogram about two weeks ago to map out the blockages in my heart.  A week later I had open-heart surgery for a bypass and valve replacement.  I stayed in the hospital for about a week and came home earlier this week.

I met lots of interesting and helpful staff.  They stuck by me even when I had some paranoid delusions.

I can’t drive for a month after the surgery and then have limited activities for another month.

My wife has been a great help despite some of my bursts of impatience.

One of those impatiences seems to be that the print on the screen seems to be smaller.

I hope to soon write a blog post "Modern medicine and Let them eat cake politicians”.

Another example of well-functioning goverment

Often when spring comes, many of the pipes on sidewalks for water-shut-off start rising up, providing an annoyance to runners and walkers.

At 8:49 this morning I sent the following message through the Duluth water and gas service website.

Spring has sprung, the ground heaves, and the water-turn-off pipes rise to trip the unwary walker.
Please add my address to your long list of tasks.

At 14:20 I sent the following message.

Thanks for the fast service on tamping down the water-shut-off pipe.  Another fine example of good government service.

If we really stop to think about it, there is a long list of government services at all levels that are provided efficiently and courtesy: Post Office, fire departments, Social Security, snowplowing, parks, and on and on.

I think the government bashing is mostly from those who don't want to pay taxes for any of the many services they receive.  They would rather provide these services themselves and make a profit from them.  How well, does the private sector perform?  Just consider all the problems you have with the device that you are using to read this.  How many help desks have provided prompt and correct answers?  Yes, you can find many corporations that provide quality products and services, but it often depends on management.  Good management is found in the public and private sectors.  Bad management is found in the public and private sectors.

Thanks to my Reader Weekly readers

Every so often I get either a question or an observation:

Are you still writing for the Reader?

I haven’t seen you in the Reader for some time.

To the first I get rather snide: Are you still not reading the Reader?

To the second I thank for noticing I have not written for the Reader for some time.

I wish I could get either of them to regularly visit this blog.  I certainly had more readers in the Reader than I have for this little obscure blog.

As to why I stopped writing for the Reader Weekly, I was bumped one too many times.  Why should I write 800-1200 words each week, submit them before the deadline, and then open the next edition without seeing what I wrote.

I could say more, but I don’t want to mention names.

So, although I get far fewer readers for this blog, I get to write as little as much as I want.  I don’t have to wait until Thursday to see my latest tirade about Donald Trump:)

Thanks, Dave, for asking.  And thanks for your own letter writing to the Duluth News Tribune.  I just read your “Local View” from over a year ago.

Oh, and thanks to those readers of this blog that pass the link on to others.

What I Like in a City

Originally published in the Northland Reader now the Reader Weekly, March 16, 2000

As a newcomer to Duluth, I’m not quite familiar with all the plans for changes to Duluth, for example Vision 2001, but I appreciate many of the things Duluth offers and hope to see these features improved.

Duluth offers some transportation choices that makes a city great and to human scale.  Namely, if one is so inclined, one can easily choose to go by foot, bus, or car, in that order.

These choices are not easy everywhere in Duluth, but in Chester Park where I live, I have used all three choices to reach UMD, Mt. Royal, Kenwood, the lake, and even downtown.  I much prefer to walk unless time is a factor.

Walking not only provides exercise and fresh air, but it gives me time to observe and experience an area.  Walking by parks, houses, and shops, there is much to see that is only a blur when seen from a vehicle.

Taking the bus is a second choice if time is short or the weather is bad.  Walking downtown is good exercise but only if I want to spend an hour or more doing so.  With a bus, I can be downtown in one-quarter that time.  Taking the bus provides conveniences that many don’t consider.  First of all, I don’t need to worry about parking.  Secondly, even if parking is easily available, a bus may get me closer to the door.

Taking a car is a third choice if time is important, if I have a lot to carry, or if the bus doesn’t go to my destination.  Time can be important in two ways.  It can take longer to do an errand or the buses aren’t running at that time of day.  I often drive downtown for evening events because they might run past the last bus or because I might just miss an hourly bus.  I take a bus to church downtown but my wife has to drive; choir practice starts before the buses do.

I do have a historical bias for this opinion.  I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio (not one of its suburbs).  I walked to school until I was in high school, then I took three buses.  The buses were frequent enough that I never had to worry about how late practice lasted.  Even when I started college I took a bus and a rapid transit train.  We did most of our shopping in walking distance of our home; otherwise we hopped a streetcar to go downtown.

Since then I have lived in Minneapolis, Rome, Stockholm, exurban Philadelphia, and exurban Minneapolis, I have had extended stays in New York, London, Paris, Helsinki, and Basel, and I have visited many other cities from Leningrad to Los Angeles to Osaka.  (What’s “exurban”?  So far out from the center that there are no sidewalks.)  Many of them offered both walking and public transportation opportunities.  In fact, those I enjoyed the most were those that had vibrant centers where people walked, shopped, wined, and dined until late in the evening.  New York, Rome, Paris, Stockholm, Osaka, and Tokyo are full of lights and activity well past a Midwesterner’s bedtime.  Their centers are accessible until midnight or beyond.  But my favorite was Basel, Switzerland.

Most of the time that I was in Basel I worked evenings.  I could either walk or take a streetcar from my hotel to the customer site and back.  Streetcars ran until one in the morning.  If I walked, it was not past monolithic buildings and parking lots but past parks and shops with interesting displays in their windows.  Within walking distance of the hotel were dozens of restaurants, a couple of grocery stores, many, many shops, an outdoor swimming pool, several parks, and the zoo.

I don’t think Basel was designed; too many of the streets intersect at other than a right angle.  I think Swiss efficiency made the best of the situation over the centuries.

Duluth will never be like Basel for a variety of reasons and many of us would not want that.  But in our vision for Duluth, we can adapt some of the elements that made Basel interesting.

First, we should make existing sidewalks more user friendly.  We could encourage homeowners to cut back overhanging branches and keep sidewalks clear of snow and ice.  We could ticket cars that are parked across crosswalks or even in drives but over the sidewalk.

Second, we should have a more aggressive program for sidewalk replacement or repair.  We should also examine funding; is it fair to make a homeowner pay for a sidewalk?

Third, we should keep streets drier by repairing potholes and low spots.  Why should a pedestrian have to run past a puddle, like on Woodland south of Mt. Royal?

Fourth, we should have more frequent buses and more coverage.  Should our only ways to get to the DECC be by driving, walking over a freeway bridge, or walking a long, monochromatic skyway?  We should have shuttle buses from DECC to downtown at event times, including Omnimax.  We have no skyway to Canal Park but bus service is limited to daylight hours.  We should be able to go by bus on a Saturday night to a downtown restaurant or theater.

Fifth, we should plan new development based on how people will get there.  Should people have to walk across a windy, dusty parking lot dodging drivers more concerned about looking for a parking space?  Should buses have to go in and out of parking lots so that passengers need not walk across said parking lots?

Sixth, we should consider more mixed use like that which some people would like to see on Fourth St. E. between Fifth and Sixth Avenues;  that is, shops at street level, residences and professional offices above.

In other words, let’s remember that cars are only a means, not an end.  Let’s design for people, not just one of their means.

Corporate hyperbole: "Strike Anywhere Matches"

“Diamond Strike Anywhere Matches”
“Lights Quickly and Easily”

Hah! in our just finished box of matches the tips scrape off, the sticks break, and often it takes two or more matches before one lights.  And forget striking anywhere; nothing happens when I scrape one on our fireplace rim.

They may be made from “responsibly managed forests” but using three matches when one should need only one doesn’t seem responsible.  Granted two extra matches isn’t going to decimate any forest, but it certainly decimates my patience.

Seeing the corporate layers listed on the box (see labels below), I can easily imagine those who wrote the slogans for the box rarely if ever use the matches to light a fire.

Hey!  On the plus side they have firelogs made from recycled coffee grounds.  Ah, but that takes all the fun and exercise out of cutting one’s own trees, cutting them to lengths, and splitting the lengths.

Mining and Adam Smith

If you think mining is good for northern Minnesota or anywhere else, read
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/opinion/appalachias-sacrifice.html.

Also consider what Adam Smith wrote about those who live for profit.  And consider that a true free market has no externalities, like pollution that is not in the cost of a transaction.

Gun rights vs. property rights, a conundrum for "conservatives"

'Tis hunting season in Minnesota.  Right now it is deer season and we can hear gunshots now and then.  I hope they were all on federal land to the south of us.

Technically, we are supposed to post "No Hunting" signs all around our property, but it is a real pain to post signs around 80 acres (half-mile along the road and a quarter-mile deep).  Besides, there always seem to be some jerks that will go right by a "No hunting/no trespassing sign.

Given that in St. Louis County, one can access the Online Land Explorer to find out ownership of every parcel of land, and so there is no excuse for trespassing.  In some other counties one can buy land maps.  Given all the other costs of hunting, I would think the maps are small change.

Now the conundrum, if a gun owner in a residential area is entitled to shoot and kill a "trespasser", should not a rural resident be entitled to shoot a trespassing hunter?

Case in point, several years ago a bird hunter shot down our driveway with a red pickup clearly visible in the driveway.  Would I have been entitled to shoot and kill that hunter in self-defense?

This particular hunter had a "right" to have a shot gun, but I have a right to my property without worrying about an irresponsible gun owner.

I have many friends who are responsible hunters, but shouldn't there be some restrictions on irresponsible people even owning guns.

Hunting with the wrong license

My wife left our cabin early today to visit a friend.  Before she had gone ten miles a buck jumped out in front of her in a well-shaded place.  Her car hit it in the hindquarters.  Once she came to a stop she looked for the deer for some time but never found it.

Did it survive?  If not, will a hunter find it before the wolves or carrion eaters such as crows and eagles?

The damage to her car seems minimal, only a cracked headlight, one we just had replaced.

I told her to call our insurance company as soon as possible.  Also when the adjuster comes to make sure he checks for frame damage.  When I hit a bear in 2014, the adjuster only looked at body damage.  A few years later a mechanic found significant mechanical damage.

Thoughts on police violence

See https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/07/11/is-philando-castile-the-ultimate-casualty-of-driving-while-black.

See “Minnesota Police Officer’s ‘Bulletproof Warrior’ Training Is Questioned”. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/us/minnesota-police-officers-bulletproof-warrior-training-is-questioned.

I do know personally that expectations of what someone might say can lead to a gross misunderstanding of what a person actually said.

Between my junior and senior years in college, I took a job at Ohio Oil in Findlay, Ohio.  My intention was to learn more about computers.

Unfortunately, I had a difficult time finding a room for the whole summer.  I stayed in two or three private houses before I found an apartment above the bank that owned the whole building.  About a week or so after occupying the apartment the bank asked me if I would swap my apartment for a smaller one occupied by a couple.

I left word at the bank president’s office that I had moved enough for the summer and would stay put until school started.

A day or two later, the bank president knocked on my door.  He was somewhat of a curmudgeon and I expected a bit of chewing out.  The first words I heard from him were “How’s the bastard doing?”  This from a pillar of his church!  I said, “Excuse me?” and I heard him say again, “How’s the bastard doing?”  I said “Excuse me?" again.  This time I clearly heard him say, “How’s the bachelor doing?”

Now we had a friendly discussion about my staying put and he accepted my wish.

How often do people in tense situations completely misunderstand what another person is saying?

I speculate that Philandro Castile simply said in a normal voice, “I have a gun.”  He was stating a fact to avoid conflict.  Officer Jeronimo Yanez, pumped up from his “Bulletproof Warrior” class, heard, “I HAVE A GUN!”

I do hope many police departments are seriously thinking about paying for their officers’ training at for-profit classes that have no accountability to either the government or the general public.

Every killing diminishes all of us, whether it is terrorists who think a whole class of people should be killed, whether it is a government that drops bombs the kill innocents, whether it is madmen that shoot indiscriminately into crowded venues, or whether it is a hyped-up police officer with an itchy finger..

See also “Quote on violence” http://magree.blogspot.com/2016/07/quote-on-violence.html.

“Seamless" came apart at the seams

At about three last night, I was woken by constant thunder and lightning.  It was continuous, more continuous than I have ever heard in my life.  Then strong winds and heavy rain were added.

Fortunately, we only had one set of windows open and I was able to close them before much rain came in.

Then the lighted clock went dark.

I tried to sleep, but the light of every lightning bolt went right through my eyelids.  I laid on my stomach and hid my face in the pillow.

I don’t know how long it took the storm to pass, but it did.

At about seven, I woke up and checked Duluth news on my iPhone.  It was quite a wide ranging storm causing outages and deaths.  Trees were toppled blocking roads and damaging houses.  No travel was advised.

All day our cell phone service has been erratic.  Sometimes our phones work, sometimes we can’t even get a signal.

I can see a cell phone pole from our house, but I can’t remember if it had visible equipment at the top or not.

My wife couldn’t even call on her phone.  The call could not be completed.

The strength of signal was one bar most of the day; my phone is now up to four.  But instead of 4G or LTE service, it only shows E, whatever that means.

I was able to get websites, now loading some of them gets stuck.  I wonder how much local data there is.  Just now I could not load Yahoo! Finance, but I could get most of the New York Times.  But going to a different article is going very slow, but maybe that is because convention news is so popular.  On the other hand, the online banking page of my bank is not making any progress loading on my iPhone.  Meanwhile, I started and finished reading a convention article.

So much for the seamless, at-our-fingertips operation of our gadgets we rely so much on.  We are retired and it is only a nuisance.  But there are many people who depend on these gadgets to do their work.

Now, how long will this take to post?  Essentially, quite a while.  As soon as I typed the first sentence, I tried loading blogger.com.  Firefox could not find the page!

Finally!  At 4:30 pm the web seems back to normal.  I have five dots and LTE on my cellphone and Yahoo! Finance came right up!

Can our electricity be far behind?

Quote on voting

"And those not planning to vote, heed the lyrics of the old Rush song: 'If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.'”
Dale Harris, Judge in 6th Judicial District of Minnesota, Duluth News Tribune, 2016-07-11

Judge Harris was writing about not ignoring the judicial candidates in the August primaries, but his words apply to any election: from president to city councilor.

I hope you will pass on my voting mantra:

The only way
You throw your vote away
Is to stay away.