Dancing around sensitive issues

Blogging is a visual and photograph intensive medium.

It feels like my hands are tied since I am between cameras at the moment.

There are things I WOULD blog about but my hands are tied in various ways.

African-American in Grand Rapids shot by White policeman

Yesterday or the day before a recent immigrant from Africa (Congo?) had an encounter with a policeman which ended up with the recent immigrant dead.

This is a good time to let the wheels-of-justice turn slowly and grind finely.

Nothing will bring the young man back to life.

I find it irksome that the press invariably refers to the young man as "unarmed". Depending on how you study the various video records of the event, there seems to be a good chance that the young man had wrestled the policeman's TASER away from him.

It is worth paying attention to which hand the cop pulls the TASER with and then which hand does not have the TASER in it later in the video.

Under Michigan law it is virtually impossible to purchase a TASER because they are considered weapons. The cop no longer has his dominant hand on the TASER. Ergo, it is likely to be under the control of the young man who refused to relinquish it. Michigan law defines a TASER as a weapon.

Most people already made their minds up. It will be tough to find an impartial jury. Never-the-less, this is what the legal system defined by the US Constitution is designed to resolve.

I will make no further comment, trusting the resolution to the system devised by the framers of the Constitution.

Firewood

Michigan has a significant fruit growing industry.

Fruit crops are vulnerable to pests and virus.

Consequently, there are requirements that "nursery stock" be inspected by the State of Michigan's Department of Agriculture. The last time I looked, a person moving "nursery stock" from his property to another property without being inspected was potentially liable for a $500-per-stem fine.

For example, I could dig up ten raspberry bushes that were growing 6" inside my property line and move them so they were 6" inside of Sprite's side and I could potentially be fined $5000 dollars for moving them 12 inches.

I am a law-abiding citizen. You will never read about my violating that law.

I once donated 120 grafted pear trees to a charity. I had the inspector come out and inspect them. She was extremely apologetic and gave me that absolute, bare, rock-bottom price of $85 dollars for the inspection (mileage plus time).

I visited the "nursery" where the charity had parked them for the winter. I went at the end of February and I doubt that more than 5% had not been totally girdled by rabbits.

From the standpoint of the charity it was a huge win. They had 6 pear trees for free.

For the record, current retail prices for pear trees from boutique nurseries run about $45 each. Shipping can easily run another $30. So the 114 dead pear trees wasn't just $85 out of Joe's pocket. It was the trashing of $5000 of merchandise.

The bottom line is that I no longer donate nursery stock to charities or individuals.

Although I have been known to donate firewood to a few select individuals. I think of myself as a very frugal person. Sometimes the firewood I donate includes roots. Once the property has been transferred, the disposition of said property is no longer my responsibility.

Musk and Twitter

If I managed a business and my sales force, as a matter of policy, ridiculed and mocked 1/3 of the potential customers who walked through the door, I would have a problem.

If I, as management, did not address that sales force then the owners should fire me. I am not doing my job which is to provide goods and services to any customer who walks through the door, to combine resources in such a way that the end product is more valued than the combination of resources.

Musk said "I can unlock the profitability of Twitter".

I believe him.

A huge amount of Twitter stock is managed by people with "fiduciary responsibility" and they are on the horns of dilemma. Musk is calling "Bullshit!!!" on the Alice in Wonderland reality the Wokesters are promoting.

Stay tuned. This is likely to become very interesting.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Apparently, we are in the midst of an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases.

For the last two years we were not able to entertain ourselves by going anyplace or engaging in social activities. Nor could we visit our doctors. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Folks found a way to pass the time.

Talking heads from the CDC informed us that the reason for the surging rates in certain communities is due to "lack of access to healthcare".

It took about five minutes to determine that 35% of Hispanics are uninsured while only 22% of "certain communities" are uninsured. Furthermore, Hispanics are often handicapped in their attempts to get access to health care by a language barrier. But "certain communities" have Gonorrhea rates that are 470% of the rates seen in Hispanics and Chlamydia rates that are 300% that of Hispanics.

How can that be?

I don't mean to say anything radical, but maybe a culture that glorifies unprotected sex with multiple partners is more of an issue than access to treatment after being infected. Just saying, if you want to solve the problem you have to address the actual causes.

And I thought Obama's "Affordable" Care Act solved all of the issues of access to healthcare.

Am I missing something here?