Rant #3,772: STOP

Something has got to be done.

I have been saying it for a long time.

This country's fascination with guns is befuddling, to say the least.

That carnage created by a gun-toting madman shooting at kids who were in prayer is the latest incident of someone having guns who shouldn't have ever been able to purchase this artillery.

And he made the purchases legally.

This coward had no criminal record, so when a background check was made, absolutely nothing came up negative about him.

One problem with that.

The fellow recently changed his name from Robert to Robin--obviously male to a gender-neutral name--and that should have been an obvious red flag to his current composure.

We now know that he was a recently transitioned--five years ago, as a teenager--trans person, so right away, that should have been cause to prohibit him from obtaining the firearms.

Sorry, we are treating horrible mental problems with surgery, rather than treating the mental issue, which is the wrong way to go about it.

This didn't come up in the background check--or at least didn't come up as a red flag--because we kind of look at transgender people as "normal," which sorry, no matter what the LBGTQ community wants us to believe, they are not.

They have incredible mental problems, and sorry, they are unfit to be carrying any weapons, as are others with mental illness.

And yes, it is way too easy to get guns over the counter, and as I have suggested before, a two-year waiting period--at least--should be required, and one should not be able to purchase more than one firearm at a time.

And I am sick and tired of the "guns don't kill people; people kill people" argument.

Guns are getting into peoples' hands who shouldn't have them, so that argument is just so ridiculous.

Sure, the gun doesn't kill people without a human being pulling the trigger, but guns are not completely safe, no matter who owns them or uses them--even responsible people.

My son, when he was younger, knew a kid whose father was a cop. Somehow, the kid got into his father's firearms, which were supposedly safely locked away, pulled the trigger, and accidentally shot himself to death.

Again, this was a police officer's guns.

It is not abridging anyone's rights; guns are never completely safe.

There have to be stronger laws, and red flags must also go up when even something so seemingly miniscule as the change of a person's name is concerned.

Evidence shows that this sick person planned this evil deed, and had espoused hate at Israel, Jews, Catholics and blacks--but looked up to mass murderers, including the person who murdered children at Sandy Hook.

We, as a society, need to take action. You cannot be able to walk into a gun store and purchase a firearm like you were buying groceries at the supermarket.

And we must stop giving free passes to those who are severely mentally ill.

It is not discrimination; it is common sense.

And finally, the fault is on both sides of the aisle, so I blame ALL our legislators for tragedies like this.

They all have blood on their hands, because they have the ability to make things right--

And they don't ... 

And more importantly, won't.

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

Rant #3,771: Old Days

As we lead up to Labor Day, Cracker Barrel has returned to its senses.

It had changed its logo to remove the drawing of a person taking it easy--named "Uncle Herschel" and based on a real human being, an uncle of the chain's founder--and people got really, really upset when they saw the new logo--

Without the man, and pretty much very corporate, and very vanilla, and very woke.

There was an incredible backlash from people across the country, believing that Cracker Barrel caved into woke pressure by removing the figure, who was white, and replacing it with a less personable logo.

The company said they changed its logo to appeal to younger customers--as they had also, within the past few years, changed their menu to include some alcoholic beverages--but people did not accept that explanation.

They saw this as another woke move, totally out of touch with reality, and they made their voices heard.

But then the company's stock dropped precipitously, and again, money talks, so within days of announcing the new logo, it was pulled, and the old logo returned as quickly as it was sent to the scrap heap.

This is what I posted on Facebook a little while after the restaurant's new chief executive officer announced the change:

"I  have been in many Cracker Barrels up and down the East Coast, and the place gets diners of every imaginable background, race and creed. 

"I know she [the CEO] wouid probably say that they were just trying to update the logo, but it just seems that, really, nobody cares about the logo to begin with, they care about what the restaurant offers to customers. 

"Over the past couple of years, they did update the menu to include a variety of alcoholic beverages.

"But honestly, no one cares about the logo, and if she changed it to make it "less white," then the next step is to colorize "The Andy Griffith Show" to make Andy, Opie and Aunt Bea black. 

"Heck, nobody watches the show because it features an all-white cast, you know.

"Truly absurd ... and I think a lot of these changes are being made by executives who are themselves inwardly racist, and this is their way of 'aplogizing' for their own personal racism and shortcomings."

Idiotic.

I don't think anyone really cared about the logo, until it was going to be "canceled."

People are completely fed up with "cancel culture," and the change forced people to focus on the logo, maybe for the first time--

And the reason why it was being put out to pasture.

But again, it would not have been dumped if the restaurant hadn't almost immediately lost money and value.

And it is important to note that Cracker Barrel's parent company is one that has heralded woke and DEI policies, and you know it looked at this chain and its history, and found it to be too old fashioned to its liking.

So, just cancel it.

In fact, in the 1990s, the company put out an internal edict that its employees should look "more heterosexual," and it actually fired a couple of employees who, I guess, didn't.

This edict was quickly rescinded, and Cracker Barrel now is looked upon very favorably by human rights groups.

You just know that its owners looked at this and were horrified, and well, they blamed poor Uncle Herschel, and he had to go.

Cracker Barrel--and its lean toward traditional values--is extremely popular, especially by those who take long drives on Interstate roads and want to take a pause from their travels.

The food is good. It is reasonably priced, and then there is its Country Store, where you can find old-style candy, records and doo-dads to fulfill any need.

And it is the only restaurant without any New York outlets where you can actually buy gift cards in New York convenience stores, as people buy them before their trips down south and to other places outside the state.

The closest Cracker Barrels to me are on long drives to southern New Jersey or into Connecticut.

I actually met the founder of the chain several years ago while eating at one of his restaurants.

I asked him why there were no New York restaurants, and he told me that the laid-back, country-style concept "didn't work" in New York--

Yet I bet traveling New Yorkers make up a significant portion of Cracker Barrel's clientele.

Maybe that is the true reason why there are none in New York--

Having none locally makes it an extra special place for New Yorkers to visit while traveling, something that New Yorkers cant get while at home.

Whatever the case, with Uncle Herschel beckoning once again, when my family and I travel, you can bet we will heed the call, and stop over to a Cracker Barrel to take a load off our feet and have a great meal at a reasonable price.

You can go back in time in 2025, even for a few moments. 

Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, the Land O'Lakes Indian Princess ... will they be resurrected?

If Uncle Herschel has anything to do about it, you never know.

Rant #3,770: Trip, Stumble and Fall

I had that meeting yesterday, and it has taken up way too much of my time.

I am still involved in putting out a story on it.

So, it is going to have to be a "Reading Wednesday" today.

But I will say that I don't give a hoot about Taylor Swift and her engagement ...

And it just backs up what i have been saying here and elsewhere for many years, that TV's news shows have become more like "Entertainment Tonight" than real news shows.

Here in New York, WCBS not only covered this story just a few minutes after it came on at 5 p.m., but gave it about twice the amount of time and coverage real news stories receive.

idiotic.

And dont get me started on Cracker Barrel.

Well anyway--

Here is the next chapter of my novel.

i will be back in full force tomorrow.

35

Mrs. Panim and her son got to the door of Mr. Panim’s home, and Abraham Abraham Lincoln Panim saw the doorbell and pushed its button, which produced a loud ring.

 

There was an intercom on the door. After a few seconds, a voice came through the intercom.

 

“Who is there?” the voice said.

 

“It is Mrs. Panim and my son.”

 

“We were expecting you. OK, I am going to buzz you in.”

 

The buzz came, and Mrs. Panim turned the doorknob and the door opened. Both stepped into a small foyer, and they almost immediately saw a woman with her back turned. The woman was poring over some papers, and Abraham Lincoln Panim noted that she appeared to be an older woman, short in stature, with her hair tied up in a bun.

 

In an instant, the woman put down the papers and turned toward the mother and son.

 

“Hello, I am Nurse Stottlemeyer, and I have been taking care of Mr. Panim for a few years. He has been very, very sick.”

 

Mrs. Panim gulped, and Abraham Lincoln Panim looked at her and said in a whisper, “It’s Mrs. Stottle!”

 

“No, it can’t be,” his mother replied. “She died several years ago. She just looks like her. Her last name is different.”

 

“She said Stottlemeyer. Didn’t she tell you that she was ‘Miss Meyer’ before she got married?”

 

“Hrrumph!” said the nurse, trying to get the full attention of Mrs. Panim and her son. “Are you ready to see Mr. Panim now?”

 

The mother and son quieted down, both shaking their heads affirmatively.

 

“Mr. Panim has requested to see you each individually. He can only see you each for a few minutes. He simply does not have the strength for any time more. Mrs. Panim, would you like to go in first?”

 

“Yes,” Mrs. Panim said, still kind of staring at the nurse as she was led to a room by her. The nurse, who had something of a limp, opened the door and let her in to speak with her husband alone.

 

Abraham Lincoln Panim sat down on a couch in a corner of the foyer, nervously put his hand in his hair, pushing it up in place, and when the nurse came back into the room, he continued to stare at her.

 

“Can I help you with anything?” the nurse asked, aware that she was being stared at.

 

“No … no … you just look like someone that my mom and I used to know,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said, staring at the woman’s thick legs. “No, it can’t be.”

 

“What can’t be?” the nurse asked.

 

“Umm … nothing … umm … how do I look?

 

The nurse hesitated, then said, “You look like an average person your age,” as she went back looking at her papers.

 

“No, how do I really look?” Abraham Lincoln Panim asked again, a little more forceful this time.

 

The nurse looked up from her papers. “Look, you appear to be fine to me. You look good enough to see your father, if that is what you are asking me.”

 

Abraham Lincoln Panim, looking for a different answer than he was getting, sat back on the couch, and continued to play with his hair. He looked around the small room, which was pretty barely furnished, but across the room, he saw a plaque on the wall. It appeared to have some writing on it, and not being able to clearly see what the plaque said, he got up from his seat and walked over to wall where the plaque was.

 

The nurse looked up from her papers, saw that Abraham Lincoln Panim had become interested in the plaque, and said, “Yes, I put that up a year or so ago. It is something I believe in fully, and I hope that everyone believes in it, to tell you the truth.”

 

Abraham Lincoln Panim got to the plaque, and read its inscription to himself:

 

“Do unto others as you would have the do unto you … treat other people the way you would like to be treated yourself.”

Rant #3,769: Computer Games

This past weekend was a whirlwind of good things and bad things all smashed together...

But I am very happy to say that the good things, for once, won out.

My son's birthday was on Saturday, so we took him out to eat dinner at a local eatery of his choice.

That outing made things all the more better for me, as on Friday afternoon, my iMac computer kind of went on a permanent vacation.

Oh, it still worked, but it wasn't doing certain things that I wanted it to do, as it has been doing for the past nine years.

Yes, there were warning signs, but these signs lasted for years, and I was able to surmount the problems, somehow.

But in Friday afternoon, it kind of went "Sayonara" on me, and I frantically tried to work on it, to no avail.

I was confounded, but I had planned for the inevitable.

My old work computer--another iMac--was offered to me when my company went out of business, and I grabbed it as quickly as it was offered to me.

I used the computer sparingly for the past nearly six years, and it pretty much was dormant since late 2020 or so.

When I transported the computer to my house from my old work, I had a lot of stuff from work all over the back seat, including the computer, and I seem to remember that it either fell off the back seat or something fell on it, and whatever happened, I took it out of my car with a slight crack in the screen.

Well, it since has been moved from the old house to our first apartment in the development we now live in, and from that first apartment to the apartment we are in now.

The screen crack spread, and now, a good part of the screen is slightly cracked ... but the cracks are so hairline that you can't see them unless you are right on top of the screen and the background allows for it.

Anyway, on Saturday, on my son's birthday, I worked on it off and on, getting this new/old computer up to snuff.

Let me tell you, it was very, very difficult.

On Friday night, I tried to launch a program, which I had used before, to transfer all my files over, but to no avail--it simply wouldn't work.

So literally on Friday night through Sunday afternoon, I was transferring files from one computer to another using a thumb drive, transfers which often crashed while I transferred over these files 

While I was doing this, I was trying to load various programs that I use on the computer, and some worked, some didn't, and on Saturday, I stayed up to 1:30 a m. trying to get everything right.

On Sunday, we had my son's 30th birthday party, and in between everything I had to do related to this get-together--we had more than 20 attendees--I was transferring files over and trying to get programs to run.

I managed to get 95 percent of it done by early Sunday afternoon as our guests arrived--

In between getting the birthday cake and picking up my aunt from the Long Island Rairoad station.

I smartly put everything on hold as our guests poured in, but the problems were still there 

There were still a few devices I could not, for the life of me, get to work, including my printer and scanner.

After my son blew out the candles on his birthday cake and our guests were enjoying their dessert, I asked my nephew--who pretty much oversees Geek Squad for most of New York City and New Jersey--for help, because the printer simply would not work.

I knew what had to be done, but I simply could not do it myself.

It took him about a minute, and the printer was fixed and working properly.

On Monday morning, I figured out the scanner, and a little later, my turntable was up and running, and I was able to digitize an album late in the afternoon after I did my work fir the day.

There are still some problems with this computer--including that it is a bit slow, I think having to do with its nearly six years of inactivity--and some new ways of doing things, but it works, and it will certainly do for now--

But I did have some trouble shutting it down yesterday evening, but again, for now, it will do 

The party went even better than I could have hoped, and this little bit/lotta bit of agita is done, so I am looking forward to the rest of the week--

Except for today, when I have to cover a conference on the West Coast.

Keeping this computer was a smart idea, even if it looks like it has been through hell.

It is fun to digitize my records, but let's be honest about it--

I desperately need this computer for work, so I don't care what it looks like ...

If it works, it works.

I almost feel like Dr. Frankenstein, who put together, piece by piece, The Monster, and got him going with the electricity produced by a thunderstorm, which shot through the creature via the nodes on his neck.

Me, I took a computer from the scrap heat, warts and all, and resuscitated it by putting its plug in the elextric socket in the wall.

Whether this computer will act like "The Monster" or "Herman Munster" is anyone's guess.

Rant #3,768: Celebrate

This will be my shortest Rant ever.

It is pretty much self explanatory.

Nothing more needs to be said.

Enjoy!

Rant #3,767: Happy Birthday!

This Rant is a pretty easy one to write.

This coming weekend, on Saturday, my son will turn the big 3-0.

My wife and I simply cannot believe it. But yes, he turns 30 years of age on August 23.

Our lives changed forever the moment that he was born--

And for the better, of course.

He was my second child, my wife's first, and I just remember everything so clearly about his birth, just like I do about my daughter's birth seven years earlier..

With my son, I remember cutting the umbilical cord, and bringing him home from the hospital, being extra careful when I drove him and my wife home.

I remember feeding him at night, and the two of us dozing off with "Gomer Pyle, USMC"  on the TV.

And I also remember that once he reached school age, being told that he would not amount to anything much.

I would like to forget that remembrance, but I can't.

And that diagnosis was just soooooo wrong.

He is a special needs person, and the general public's perception of him is actually his biggest handicap.

Otherwise, he can do just about anything you or I can do.

But that public perception is something that, I  am afraid, will haunt him during his entire life.

And it is something that is just so very unfair.

He is a fighter, and in his own subtle way, he has been proving people wrong since day one.

And we know that that will continue into the future.

We are taking him out for dinner on Saturday, and on Sunday, we are having a party for him with family and friends.

It should be a lot of fun!

Again, my wife and I cannot believe that he has hit this milestone year, but he will tomorrow.

This has been a tough year for him, but he will survive--

And he will learn from it, and he will be a better person having experienced it.

Good luck to him, happy birthday, and may he celebrate many, many more birthdays proving the so-called experts wrong.

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

Now I have two kids in their 30s--

That doesn't make me feel old, it actually keeps me young.

Rant #3,766: Dreamtime

How can a supposedly retired person be sooooooo busy?

Let me count the ways ...

I am being inundated by my work with things to do.

I mean, there is no brain surgery work here, but it is constant, and doesn't give me any time to breathe.

I now have a meeting to attend later this morning, added to another meeting that was already set up for Friday morning.

My place of business is putting together an online publication covering military resale--military stores--and there is just so much to do to get it ready for publication.

I remember getting the print publication I last worked for ready to go--

But I was working full-time then, so it came with the territory.

Now, as a remote and supposedly retired worker ... well, let's just politely say that I guess at this point in time, nearly six years removed from that last full-time position, I guess I am "out of shape" for all of this.

Again, I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but--

I will stop there. I will let you figure it all out.

So, with all of that in mind--and with everything else going on with myself and my family--I am pooped--

Tired, worn out, and i just need some time to breathe.

I certainly can't do it right now, but maybe you can help me out here.

I have the latest chapter of my novel in this Rant, and please take a few minutes to read it.

It is a short chapter, and I hope you will enjoy it.

In the meantime, let me rest.

34

The day came quickly.

Abraham Lincoln Panim woke up, looked in the bathroom mirror several times before he went into the shower. When he was done, he shaved, and put on a special aftershave that Mrs. Stottle bought him years ago that he had never used.

He then got dressed, and decided to really get dressed to the hilt, picking out his best suit and tie to wear to meet his father for the first time.

“My real ‘Sunday Best’ to make me look even better than I already do,” he thought to himself, admiring himself in his hand mirror numerous times before he was done.

He finally emerged from his room, and went into the living room, waiting for his mother to be ready to go.

In a few minutes time, she was done, and she was dressed in business attire, but nothing out of the ordinary.

“Abraham Lincoln Panim, why are you dressed like that?” his mother asked him. “You are dressed like you are going out on a big date. And that smell … why did you dunk yourself in aftershave like that?

“We are going to see your father. We aren’t going to a wedding, or a bar mitzvah—“

“I wanted to dress my best to ‘impress.’ I want my father to see how good I look.”

“Don’t you think it is more important for your father to find out who you are, your accomplishments, how you have matured, rather than what you look like?”

“It is all in the wrapping. If the outside wrapping is so attractive, it just makes everything else … well, not second best … but it helps to have a good wrapping. First impressions are very important—“

“Your father said he is dying. Your father just wants to meet you. He doesn’t care if you looked like you once did. He doesn’t care at all. He just wants you to be there—“

“Yes, but I want him to see what he has missed when he skipped out of here. He missed you and he missed me—“

“No, Abraham Lincoln Panim, he missed the old you, the boy who did what he had to do to get by, who wasn’t so stuck up with his appearance that nothing else mattered.”

“Mom, I was stuck up on my appearance back then, but just the opposite way. I hated the way I looked, with that rat face. People made fun of me, I couldn’t even barely go outside without people looking at me.

“Now, I can go outside and do whatever I want because people admire me. They look at me and think, ‘That is the way I want to look.’ But they know they can’t look this good. I give them hope … and don’t forget, I always wear my scarf to remind me where I was, and where I am now.”

“You have become … I don’t know … you have become more vain about your looks then you were before. What would Mrs. Stottle say about all of this?”

“Mrs. Stottle … Mrs. Stottle would admire me too.”

After that remark, Mrs. Panim gave her son a long glare. Her son saw her eyes, and they seemed to be red and tearing.

“Enough about that,” she said through the tears. “Let’s go and see your father. And please, for me, please just act like you really are, not like you are acting today or during the last several weeks.

“Please, if not for yourself, please do it for me.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim got his jacket and wrapped his scarf around his neck. He then helped his mother on with her coat.

“Son,” Mrs. Panim said as the looked at the envelope of the letter her husband sent her, “I think we will walk there, It doesn’t seem to be too far away.”

The mother and son left their home to take a walk together, something they had not done in a while. She thought that the walk would do them good, clear out both of their heads and make them focus on what they were going to be doing.

Abraham Lincoln Panim had other thoughts.

“OK, so we are going to walk. That is great. It is a nice day out, people will be around, and I know that they will look at me … and think I look great!”