Rant #3,975: Ain't No Stoppin' US Now

It is Friday!

Tomorrow is Saturday!

It is another summer weekend of 2026, and let's all take advantage of this and have a good weekend!

And this weekend includes, on Saturday, July 4, our nation's birthday!

This year's Independence Day is going to be somewhat different from other July 4 holidays because we will be celebrating our country's 250th anniversary--

Its 250th anniversary as the greatest country in the world.

Funny, back in 1976, when we celebrated our 200th anniversary, I seem to think that there were simply more things happening to honor our country on that day than there will be on the upcoming July 4.

Maybe that has to do with the fact that that was the 200th anniversary--

The Bicentennial.

This is only the 250th anniversary--

The Semiquincentennial, also called the Bisesquicentennial, the Sestercentennial, or the Quarter Millennium.

Too many names, not enough focus on what is happening during the celebration.

There will be baseball games, barbecues, parades, and lots of other events, but I think there was much more hoopla surrounding the 200th anniversary.

Maybe I feel that way because I was younger when we had the Bicentennial--19 years of age-- and maybe my eyes were more wide open then than now.

I have seen some mentions of the upcoming 250th, but a lot of them are on snacks and soda packaging, sporting American flags and bald eagles and a lot of other symbols of our culture.

But nothing to the extent of the 200th anniversary.

Whatever the case, there should be plenty going on during the 250th celebration, and while I most likely won't be around for the 300th celebration--the Tricentennial--this is going to be a day that is significant for myself and all Baby Boomers.

Me, I will most probably have a barbecue for myself and my family.

My son has to work, so he will make some money on this special day, but it will force my wife and I to stay close to home on the holiday.

That is OK with me.

July 4th has almost always signified not only our country's birthday, but also one of the major family days of the year, so we will be together in a funny sort of way.

And then on Monday, July 6, I have to again go to the doctor after a respite of a few weeks.

Nothing to worry about, but another doctor's visit keeps me shivering in my own skin, as I just hope that nothing else--or nothing new--is found to be ailing me.

I have had enough of that, but if you gotta go, you gotta go.

So tomorrow, we will be celebrating a major anniversary of our country, and as I said, through everything, this is the greatest country in the world, bar none.

And at 250 years, we are still relatively young--in a country's anniversary years, at least--and there is still no stopping us now, or in the future.

Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Ain't no stoppin' US now!

Rant #3,974: Money Changes Everything

Well, nothing new to report on any front today.

I guess we area all gearing up for the Fourth of July festivities, so everything was pretty calm in my neck of the woods.

And yes, I am still working, still toiling away--

And yes, I just want to be fully retired.

Another friend of mine told me that right after his birthday on June 29, he was retiring the very next day on June 30.

He put in his time, and now his time is his own.

Me ...

I will be working, and working. myself into the grave.

I feel bad on harping on this so much, but with so many people around me retiring, I guess it makes myself somewhat jealous that I can't do the same.

I am beyond help, but I am trying to make it better for my son.

My son is 30 going on 31, and I have told his job coach that I want him to look into the possibility of my son getting a 401k plan from his place of work.

I was fouled up by the places that I worked at over 40-plus years.

None of them were a union shop, and none of them offered a 401k plan--

Until the last stop in my full-time work career, and they didn't offer it until I had worked there for years and I was in my 50s.

That was great, I paid into it at the highest rate that I could, and everything was fine and dandy--

Until the company teetered, and then several years into the plan, they stopped it.

So I poured everything into IRAs--don't get me started on telling you how my work gave me nothing but trouble about transferring the money over the right way--and then, when the company folded in October 2019, I put it all into the stock market, where it resides today.

And it has been a bumpy ride.

Having Medicare means that you really have to be as healthy as you can, because the plans we have had have pretty much been good.

But once your health falters, like mine did, you are really up the creek without a paddle, because Medicare pays for some things, but others ...

Fuggedaboudit!

So I have had to go into my money twice to cover those costs, and I would not be at all surprised if I have to go into that money again--

And again.

I have nowhere else to turn.

So my thinking is that if I can start my son off in his early 30s with a 401K plan, then maybe, when he gets to my age, he won't have to suffer like I am, and he can retire when he wants to retire.

He had a 401K plan at his previous job, but he had to put it into an IRA when he was hired at his current job--

I won't go into the whys and wherefores of that, as I have done that previously here at the Blog, and how he really go screwed for having to do so.

Anyway, start him now--even though he is a part-timer--and see where it takes him.

You have to learn from your mistakes, although with me, personally, I really didn't make any regarding this subject--

I guess you could say that I picked the wrong places to work, but beggars can't be choosers, and yes, being out of work a few times in my life kind of makes you into something of a beggar.

So I can at least give my son some wisdom from what I have gone through, and see if we can make things right for him 30 or more years away when he is going to have to contemplate retirement.

It's the least I can do for him.

Let's see what the job coach tells me.

I am hoping it all makes dollars and cents.

Rant #3,973: You Better, You Bet

I have found that in this turgid world we live in today, you have to open your mouth and speak your mind when it is warranted ...

And it is especially important that you do this when you are ready to get ripped off, moneywise.

To prove my point, let me tell you what happened to me yesterday morning.

As you know, I am putting in alphabetical order all of my CDs, which number in the hundreds, if not even more.

I have been looking for storage receptacles for these CDs, and on the weekend, just toodling around on the Internet, I found just what I think I need to store these safely and to where I can get to them and find what I want when I want them.

I could have easily ordered these bins online, but these storage devices seemed to only come in multiple orders--like four at a time--and while I might need that amount--or more--in the future, without actually seeing the bins, I don't really know if they would work for me.

So I was only looking for one to start, and as I said, like Lay's Potato Chips, you can't eat--or with these bins, buy--just one at a time.

So I decided to go to two local department stores to find what I wanted.

I went to one, and they didn't have the exact bin that I wanted, so I went to another store, down the road from the first one.

I arrived, and found exactly what I wanted.

Shelved at the back of the store, I happily found what I wanted, looked at the bin, and decided that this was going to be the solution to my problem.

There were two of them, so I took both, each priced at $12 via a sticker just below where the bins were stored, a price which was less expensive, per bin, than I found on the Internet.

I brought the bins to the checkout, the cashier rang up my purchase, and it came to $43 and change.

I protested.

"It says $12 each on the shelf I got these from," I said.

The cashier called over another associate, who I presume went to the back of the store to see how the items were priced.

After a few minutes, she came back to where I was waiting.

"The bins are $20 apiece," she said. "Someone put them in the wrong area on the shelf, so the $12 price was incorrect.

"But since they were the last ones on the shelf, I am going to give them to you for $12 each."

EUREKA!

Finally, someone listened to what I said and agreed with me, that it was the store's fault for mislabeling the price of thus item.

I paid--with cash--exited the store, and I was a happy camper.

You absolutely have to open up your mouth in similar situations.

You cannot let the store's imbecility get you to pay more than you should on a wrongly priced item.

I have to say, I learned this from my maternal grandmother, who would say what she had to say in similar circumstances.

In today's world, where things are just so expensive and you count every penny, you better bet that I wouldn't just pay what they said and let the whole thing pass.

No, not me.

No way, no how.

So now, I have two starter bins to go on, I probably will need a few more, but at least I can start doing what I need to do to get these things in order.

(A)erosmith to the (Z)ombies and everything in between ...

I wish I could open my mouth, a magic genie would appear--

And one of the three wishes that the genie would grant me would be that all of this mess would be taken care of for me.

No, there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for me when it comes to this job I have before me.

So let me get started on making this mess into the treasure it actually is.

Rant #3,972: And When I Die

Hopefully, with my most recent health woes supposedly behind me, I don't have to worry about this possibility just yet, but did you notice that satellite radio was all over this song last week--

And its lyrics were all over social media during the same time, because the song was just so fitting for the passing of a singer who made the song his own--

Although he didn't write it.

Laura Nyro's "And When I Die" seemed just so perfect, so fitting, and so natural for the occasion, as we all learned that David Clayton-Thomas left us late last week.

He was the heart and soul and lead voice of Blood, Sweat and Tears--fashioned after a Winston Churchill saying--who, for about two or maybe three  years, were on top of the musical world, then faded as fast as they ascended.

I personally saw them in concert probably about a half-dozen times--with and without Clayton-Thomas--and they dominated radio airplay in the late 1960s into the cusp of the early 1970s--

And then PFHHT--that was it--even though they continued to produce LPs and were a pretty big concert draw on the oldies circuit.

Clayton-Thomas was a wayward youth in Canada, a petty criminal whose love of music kept him from being just another statistic.

The story goes that during another episode, he found a guitar, learned to play it by himself, and somehow, the burly Clayton-Thomas engaged himself to the burgeoning Canadian music scene in the years prior to acts like the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive making themselves known internationally.

He gravitated to the States, and when Al Kooper left the original Blood, Sweat and Tears over creative matters--Kooper formed the band to meld rock and jazz and horns, but he was not happy with their first album and split--and Clayton-Thomas became the act's lead singer and sometimes songwriter.

And those hits--"Spinning Wheel," "You've Made Me So Very Happy," and yes, "And When I Die"--made the band a very commercial one, but they were one of the headliners of Woodstock and were in heavy rotation on both AM and FM stations.

As the 1960s ended, the bubble burst, and by the early 1970s, Blood, Sweat and Tears were still touring, still putting out records, but the magic had clearly left.

Clayton-Thomas was in and out of the band, he put out numerous solo LPs, but Blood, Sweat and Tears--based on a couple of AM radio hits and about four classic albums--became staples on the oldies circuit, which is where I saw them numerous times.

Yes, their music did meld jazz and rock and pop, but by the time I saw them, it wasn't such a revolutionary thing anymore.

But they persevered, and now their lead singer is gone.

And here is his epitaph, the Laura Nyro song that was one of Blood, Sweat and Tears' biggest hits, with lyrics from the Genius website (https://genius.com/Blood-sweat-and-tears-and-when-i-die-lyrics):

[Verse 1]
I'm not scared of dying
And I don't really care
If it's peace you find in dying
Well then, let the time be near

If it's peace you find in dying
Well, then dying time is near
Just bundle up my coffin
'Cause it's cold way down there
I hear that it's cold way down there, yeah
Crazy cold, way down there

[Chorus]

And when I die, and when I'm gone
There'll be, one child born in this world
To carry on, to carry on

{​Instrumental}​

[Verse 2]
Now troubles are many
They're as deep as a well
I can swear there ain't no Heaven
But I pray there ain't no Hell
Swear there ain't no Heaven
And I'll pray there ain't no Hell
But I'll never know by livin'
Only my dyin' will tell
Yes, only my dyin' will tell, oh yeah
Only my dyin' will tell

[Chorus]
And when I die, and when I'm gone
There'll be, one child born in this world
To carry on, to carry on, yeah yeah

{​Instrumental}​
Yee-ha

[Verse 3]
Give me my freedom
For as long as I be
All I ask of livin'
Is to have no chains on me
All I ask of livin'
Is to have no chains on me
And all I ask of dyin' is to
Go naturally
Only wanna go naturally

[Bridge]
Here I go, hah!
Hey hey
Here come the devil
Right behind
Look out, children, here he come
Here he come, hey

Don't wanna go by the devil
Don't wanna go by demon
Don't wanna go by Satan
Don't wanna die uneasy
Just let me go naturally

And when I die
And when I'm dead, dead and gone
There'll be one child born in our world
To carry on, to carry on

{​Outro}​

Rant #3,971: Gone, Gone, Gone

A funny thing happened on the way to the local supermarket ...

I went to a local supermarket the other day, because I needed seltzer, which I drink much more than I drink plain water ...

My doctors say that after what I went through, I have to drink plenty of water, and since they said seltzer is OK, too, I went for that drink as my go-to beverage for what ails me.

So I decided to take a short drive to this local supermarket, which I only shop in when I don't want to drive farther away for one or two grocery items.

They are very, very expensive, and when the pandemic started, it was the only place we could get a 24-pack of water ...

Driven up by about double for what it sold for a week before, so yes, they are a price gouger, too.

Anyway, I went to this supermarket for my eight-pack of seltzer, found it, noticed that it was priced at a dollar more than anywhere else, but for convenience sake, I went with it.

Since I had only one item, I went to the self-service area, took out my cash, and was ready to go--

But then I found that none of the self-checkouts took cash anymore.

The store wasn't busy, thank goodness, so I took the seltzer to an open register, where a young cashier was evidently being trained.

I made my cash purchase, received my change, and since a regular cashier was there training this new recruit, I decided to ask a pertinent question:

"Why don't the self-service checkouts take cash anymore? I have used them in the past, they took cash, so why don't they anymore?"

The veteran cashier replied, "It has to do with pennies. We can't get pennies from our bank, so we can't stock the self-checkouts with pennies, so the machines can't give you exact change."

(As you probably know, the federal government has stopped producing new pennies, supposedly because it costs more to produce a penny that it is worth, but the real reason they can get away with this is that a majority of consumers are using debit and credit cards, not cash, to pay for their purchases, large and small.)

I heard this reply, and I said, "Look, that is a poor excuse. Self-checkouts are for customer convenience, so we don't have to wait on lines that are out the door for one item during busier times than this ...

"Further, other supermarkets like X and XX still offer cash self-checkouts, so that really is a poor excuse. You are supposed to be serving your customers, and your aren't doing that with this new policy."

(And yes X and XX still do offer cash self-checkouts--I just used one the other day--but I am not naming them here, as I am not naming the store I was in where I was having this discussion.)

The store manager came over, and reiterated that they cannot get pennies from their bank, so they can't have cash self-checkouts ...

And I reiterated, again, that that was a poor excuse, and that they should switch their bank, because by not having cash self-checkouts, in particular during busy times, the store is forcing people who want to pay cash for one or two items to wait on long lines.

"Switch banks," I said, as I looked at the change the new cashier gave me. "You are not providing convenience to customers with one or two items, forcing them to wait on long lines."

I looked at my hand, where my change was, and I was astonished--

The new cashier shorted me in my change.

"You shorted me in my change," I told him, shaking my head in disgust, as the discussion about the self-checkouts kind of played into what I was saying.

He apologized, gave me my correct change--a situation, of course, that would not have happened if I could have used the self-checkouts to pay cash for my one item, as the machine would have given me exact change, proving my point--and I left, telling the manager--

"Because of your new policy, you have lost me as a customer."

And that was that.

Having reported on this industry for 30 years--the military end of it--I can tell you that supermarkets live--and die--on being convenient for customers.

If you remove one of those conveniences, you are ticking off customers like me, and you are losing customers too.

And while I don't regularly shop this supermarket anyway, I will certainly think twice about going there again if I am forced to either wait on a long line to check out one item or use my debit card at the self-checkout to get out of there with one item in a timely manner.

And I am sure I am not the only one, so whether it is a few of us or a number of us, this supermarket is not going to come off smelling like roses with its new policy.

More like dead fish in its appetizing department, if you ask me.

Rant #3,970: Got To Be Real

I hate to write a Blog entry that is a downer for the final entry of the week, but I feel that I must, based on recent events.

The political events that happened this week in New York City pretty much forced me to say something, anything, about what is going on in this country.

I put many of these thoughts up on Facebook, but it is worth putting them up again here, because it bears worth repeating--

Over, and over, and over again.

If you are a civilized person, a smart person, a Jew or non-Jew, but somebody with convictions, I have to tell you, I honestly don't know how you can vote for anyone running on the Democratic Party line.

These are not the Democrats of JFK and RFK and even the early Chuck Schumer.

This is a party that has been hijacked by so-called Socialists, who look to upend not only their party, but the country too.

These are evil people, and they are doing their dirty work on the backs of admittedly a very ignorant, and at times, a very stupid, electorate.

Certainly that is the case in New York City, and it will be the case all over the country--from sea to shining sea--if it is not nipped in the bud right now.

I spoke about this years ago, people chastised me for saying what I said, but boy--and this is quite unfortunate--I knew exactly what I was talking about.

How anyone can vote Democrat right now is beyond me, and how any Jew can vote Democrat is even more perplexing.

That is not to say that the Republicans are so wonderful, either, but they appear to base their plank on American values, and that is better than what these so-called Democrats are doing.

So here is what I wrote on Facebook. I firmly believe every word of it.

"About the supposed "Democratic" Party ...

I think if the party would just drop the "Democrat" from their name, and simply rename themselves what they are, the Socialist Party, perhaps more people would see what is going on in this country.

These are Socialists, not Democrats, and the term "Democratic Socialist" means nothing, because they are Socialists.

They are out to destroy this country and our values, and they are, unfortunately, succeeding.

Look at New York City. What a cesspool that has become, but that cesspool started to form more than 50 years ago, when the mere mention of "Socialists" would have sent shivers up anyone's spine.

Now, like the anti-Semitism it helps to spread, it has been normalized, and people vote for these individuals without even thinking twice.

If you vote "Democrat," you are actually voting "Socialist," and you are voting for the party of Mamdani, Sanders, Lander, OSC and everyone that would throw you under the bus in an instant.

You are also voting "Thumb's Up" for anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

And don't tell me the Republicans are no better. They might not be wonderful, but they are way better than this.

Deplorable, to say the least."

So there you have it.

Americans have a right to pick and choose their candidates for elected office, and they can vote for whoever they want.

They can vote Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative or for any candidate on the ballot in whatever party they are running in.

But I firmly believe that if you vote Democrat, you are actually voting Socialist, whether you think you are or not.

And Socialism--and Communism--don't wash in the United States.

These are not the days of Gus Hall, who ran for president as a Communist a number of times in the past, and we all laughed at him.

Times are different today, and these Socialist and Communist and anti-American candidates must be taken seriously.

They are looking to uproot our country in just about every way possible, and because of the stupidity of the electorate, they are succeeding.

We cannot let that happen.

Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #3,969: Mixed Up Guy

Now that I am feeling a little bit better about my health, I am doing things that I wouldn't have even attempted a few weeks ago ... 

Although I did start these things, I didn't get too deep into them.

One of the things that I have started to do is to put my massive CD collection in some type of order.

Since we moved a couple of years ago, the CDs that I have--probably several hundred, if not more--have been in a total mess.

We had a lot of them in storage, which ended up compounding the matter, and when we moved to a larger apartment, we could move those CDs back to where they should be, along with the records, the cassettes, the DVDs and tapes, and all of that kind of stuff.

Anyway, we moved them all back, but I concentrated on getting the records--LPs and 45s--in order before I even attempted to get the CDs in some type of order.

So they sat, in a closet in the room where I have the records and computers, and I would look at them on occasion, take one or the other out to listen to, sometimes even add to the collection, but generally, they just sat there in boxes.

With all the records in order, I decided several weeks ago that it was time to get the CDs in some type of order, too.

My wife--who also has a substantial collection of CDs--told me that she had no need for them anymore, so the first thing I had to do was separate her stuff from mine.

We do have many of the same likes, but she enjoys other music that I don't--disco, Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, that type of thing--so those had to be separated from my stuff--rock, Beatles, Monkees, etc.

That was a massive task in itself, as I had to go through each and every CD to make sure that I would be able to separate this type of stuff.

When that was done, then came my stuff--

And I have to tell you, I had many, many more CDs than I ever could imagine.

And that total doesn't even include the box sets I have, many of which we took with us when we first moved and are kept in cubby holes in our living room furniture.

So I had all of these CDs ...

Now, what to do with them?

I decided to try to use the same holders that I am using for my 45s, those heavy plastic holders with three draws each.

I can get two rows of CDs in each drawer, but I have to store the CDs on their sides to do it.

It is not ideal, and not an easy task.

I have two of these holders full of CDs, and the way I am going, I am going to need many more to fulfill my goal of putting these things in the proper order.

And I still don't know if this is the right way to go--

Or to just keep them in shoeboxes that are properly marked so I know what is where in an A-Z fashion.

Right now, I have the two holders full to the brim, and I have about six shoeboxes full of other CDs--

And I also have a large plastic crate with several hundred CDs ready to go be filed away in proper order.

What am I to do?

I just don't know at this point.

If the holders were just a bit wider, it would be easier to store the CDs, but they simply aren't.

We don't have the room for those old vertical CD holders that were popular in the 1990s, and they are difficult to find anymore anyway.

So if you have a suggestion--less throwing the whole collection kit and kaboodle into the dumpster--please let me know, as I am quite perplexed by all of this.

I really want to get everything in order ASAP, but I simply do not know what to do.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

What a revolting development this is!

Question Mark and the Mysterians indeed!