That day when your e-book reader no longer fits in your pocket

On Christmas Day 2011, I opened two gifts from my wife. One was a first generation Kindle – the little gray electronic book reader that allows you to magically carry around hundreds of books wherever you go. It’s only 4 1/2 inches wide and will fit in your front pants pocket. Using my Amazon Kindle device, I can browse, borrow or buy and download one of several million electronic e-books, plus newspapers, magazines and other digital media through a wireless connection to Amazon’s Kindle store.

So far, I have bought 317 books. I have read most of them, and the others, well, let’s say I read far enough to know it was time to stop. Most e-books cost anywhere from 99 cents to $15 or more. Some of them were actually free, but even at that price weren’t worth the time it took to download them. I mean, hey, you can’t win ‘em all.

The other gift I got that year was a first generation Kindle Fire, which took the device to a whole new level of audio and video possibilities. With the Fire, I can still read my books, but I can also download a Netflix app and watch movies and TV shows on a 7-inch screen that I can hold in one hand. I can get apps for TV networks; visit news, sports and weather sites; download internet music; and play all kinds of games. I can sit in a doctor’s office and play Yahtzee or Hearts while waiting to be called, or read Facebook and Twitter posts, among other things.

“I didn’t know which one to get you,” my wife confessed that Christmas morning six years ago, “so I bought them both.”

It’s good that she did, as it turns out, because the Kindle Fire with its glass face is impossible to view in the sunlight. When I look at it on a sunny day, all I see is me looking down at me. The original Kindle, meanwhile, has a matte finish on its face that is sunshine friendly, so I use it to read outside if reading is all I want to do.

Both devices are rechargeable, but I discovered after a couple of years that the recharging cable for the Fire no longer fits snugly into the port, so it’s very difficult to recharge. You have to jiggle it around and get it aligned just right or it won’t charge at all. It reminds me of the old days when we had to manipulate the rabbit ears on our TV set to get the Pittsburgh channels. For that reason, I bought a new Fire tablet last year. (It’s called Amazon Fire now. They’ve dropped the Kindle name entirely, although I’m not sure why.)

Anyway, moving right along, when I opened Christmas gifts from my wife this year, I got another surprise. What to my wondering eyes should appear but another new Amazon Fire – this one being the next generation of the device with a 10-inch screen that streams movies and TV shows in glorious HD and has stereo sound so good that when I’m watching a show, I think people are talking in the next room…but it’s only the background voices coming from the Fire.

This one is really what I’d call a tablet. It’s not quite as large as an iPad but the screen is three inches larger than the old Fire. It’s almost like carrying a small TV set around and I can no longer operate it with one hand. It has new features, too, including 2 GB RAM, Dolby Audio, 10-hour battery life and something called “hands-free Alexa.” (Given today’s environment of sexual misconduct, I’m not touching that one with, well, I’m just not touching it.) There’s other stuff that I haven’t figured out yet...and it no longer fits in my pants pocket.

So now I have four “Kindle-type” devices in varying colors and sizes and, of course, they all have slightly different charging cords (I mean, why should I expect Amazon to make things easy for me?) I like the new one a lot, which confirms my wife’s theory that I didn’t know I needed it until I got it. Like the microwave oven, the digital camera and the smart phone, I suppose.

The Fire Family

Odds and ends in the week before Christmas

Fairmont bridgework

My wife and I took our dog for a car ride last night to see the Christmas lights around town. Lucy seemed suitably impressed, at least for a dog. While we were out, we decided to cross the new Third Street Bridge that just opened this week, and honestly, I haven’t seen so many “S” curves since the last time I wrote my initials.

It reminded me of that old kids’ song. You know the one. “Did you ever see a lassie go this way and that way? Did you ever see a lassie go this way and that?”

For those of you not from Fairmont, we used to have a bridge on Fourth Street that connected our two major north-south streets – Fairmont and Locust avenues. It was pretty straight for the most part from start to finish. Unfortunately, large pieces of it started falling off and it was torn down a few years ago.

To replace it, the city built this new bridge a block northward on Third Street. The idea was to link the new connector road from I-79 into town with the existing Third Street Bridge to give people a “straight shot” from the interstate to Fairmont State University. That would be a straight shot if any part of it was anything close to straight, but even the original Third Street Bridge has a big sweeping curve in it.

The new bridge also forced the relocation of a number of residents whose houses were torn down to make room for this curve and that curve and…well, you get the idea…and it remains to be seen how many people actually use the bridge, considering it has been years since they closed Fourth Street and civilization as we know it did not come to an end.  

It also begs this question: If the Fourth Street Bridge was straight (it was) and adequately connected the two sides of town for decades (it did), why didn’t they just replace it with a new bridge? No houses would have been torn down and no people would have been displaced, and I’m sure it would have cost less since the roads tying the bridge into other streets were already in place.

Oh, sure, coming in from Third Street you would have to turn left and then right to get to Fourth, but that’s no different from what you have to do anyway, what with the “S” curve to the left and the “S” curve to the right on the new road.

So let’s recap. If you’re traveling from I-79 to Fairmont State University, you get off the interstate and drive down the connector road, which, by the way, has two “roundabouts” you have to drive around, then turn left to access the old Third Street Bridge, which swings you back around to the right before you cross over Fairmont Avenue to access the new Third Street Bridge, which features a giant “S” curve before it finally finds its way to Locust Avenue, where you still must turn left one more time and drive a mile or so further to complete your “straight shot” into Fairmont State.

It that clear? There will be a quiz on this on Friday.

Finally, as my wife pointed out last night, there are now two bridges on Third Street in Fairmont, so if someone offers to meet you at noon on the Third Street Bridge, you’ll have to ask, “Which one?” I’m guessing that before long, someone will nickname the new bridge “The Long and Winding Road.” Oh, wait…I already have.

Tax scam 2017

I don’t have much to say about the massive tax scam the Republican Party just pulled that hasn’t already been said. I just have a few thoughts:

* It saddens me to know that at least 218 representatives and 51 senators can so blatantly disregard the will of their constituents – not to mention facts, evidence to the contrary and all logic – to support an agenda pushed by wealthy donors simply so they can get themselves re-elected.

* Pundits are saying the Republicans are in trouble for 2018 because of this bill, but I’m not so sure. With gerrymandering and voter suppression and foreign influence and big donor money (now assured) and Fox News conspiracy theories and all of the lies spewing out of Washington, a lot can happen between now and next November. I’m not counting any chickens…or eggs, for that matter.

* Susan Collins got played and she should have known better. The House will never pass the health care bill she wants, which means the promise Mitch McConnell made to her for her "yes" vote on taxes isn’t worth the amount of air he displaced in making it.

Be careful what you wish for

When I was younger, maybe college age or a little before that, I used to say half-jokingly that people should be able to retire at 50 and spend a few years doing the things they wanted to do before they were too old to do them. I didn’t want to do what my father did, which was work, retire and die. I didn’t know then that I would actually “retire” at age 53 through the miracle of Allegheny Energy’s early retirement option.

To be fair, I did get another job after that and worked three more years, then spent 10 additional years doing freelance work from my home on my own time and at my own pace, meaning it was almost like retirement but with a hobby that paid cash. I gave it up for good in 2016 because I really didn’t want to work any longer and because for our simple lifestyle we really didn’t need the money. Our lives – if not exactly exciting – were pretty good.     

I remember waking up on November 8, 2016, thinking that I might never see another Republican president in my lifetime, and that maybe before I died we’d have universal health care and an all-inclusive government with a Democratic legislature and a liberal Supreme Court. As I said, things were pretty good.

Then the unthinkable happened, and starting on November 9, I’ve had to worry every single day about whether my wife would have health insurance and whether either one of us will have Medicare and Social Security and whether this country is truly turning into a dictatorship or an oligarchy or a plutocracy and whether we can ever get it back the way it’s supposed to be and a million other things that I shouldn’t have to worry about in my declining years.

So, yeah, I did retire in my early 50s and things worked out okay for a while and then the wheels starting falling off. Back when I was 20, it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of my friends. If you live here or you’re in town visiting, give us a ring. We’re almost always here and sometimes we even have beer.

Tips for looking after your husband in the Trump/Moore America

My wife recently posted on Facebook an excerpt from a 1950s home economics textbook headlined, “Tips to look after your husband.” This column of advice dates back to the time, presumably, when The Deplorables believed that America was still great. I suggest you read it for a good laugh.

Well, I’m old enough to remember the end of the 1950s, so I remember the “I Like Ike” buttons when Eisenhower was in the White House; June Cleaver doing housework wearing dresses, high heels and pearls; Paul Drake always greeting Della Street with “hi beautiful” and a lot of other TV shows that entertained us with stories about straight white people. Now that I have also lived through the Judge Roy Moore era, I have taken the liberty to update my wife’s article to bring it more in line with today’s culture… and especially tailored to those people who supported Moore and faux-president Donald Trump.

I call it, “You’d damn well better look after your husband – or else.” To that end, here are my amended suggestions:

Have dinner ready

You must always have a hot, nutritious dinner ready for your husband the minute he comes home from work, otherwise he’s liable to slap you around a little and then go out drinking with “the boys.” Never mind that you just got home from work yourself (or Middle School in the case of Roy Moore) or that you have to work two jobs just to help Goober make ends meet. You must learn the fine art of planning ahead.

Prepare yourself, too

Take off that greasy waitress uniform and grandma underwear the minute you enter the house and go commando with skin-tight yoga pants and a sweatshirt cut open deep down the front. Your husband, in all likelihood, has been sexually harassing women at work all day long and is ready for some serious action when he gets home. Make sure you are clean and smell good, like, say, gun oil or beer shampoo. If you have one, a French maid’s uniform will work nicely, as well.

Clear away the clutter

Make sure your house is free of clutter. That means putting away your husband’s (or live-in lover’s) boots, socks, dirty underwear and oil-stained jeans that he left lying on the floor, as well as the empty beer bottles, fishing gear, car parts and pizza boxes that are littering the house. Dump all the overflowing ash trays and put the half-full boxes of .223 Remington ammo back in the gun safe. God forbid you two have been allowed to procreate, but if you have, clean up after the children, too, and send them to a neighbor’s house for the evening.   

Minimize unwanted noise

Turn off the dishwasher, washing machine, vacuum cleaner and other appliances to minimize noise. You can’t expect hubby to fully enjoy his Toby Keith CD with all that outside noise going on.

Some Don’ts

Never greet him with your problems. Anything that happened to you – like losing a job, getting a foreclosure letter in the mail or being raped and sodomized by the mailman who delivered it – are minor distractions compared to the pressures he must endure during his day…like having to deal with a married gay couple, sharing a lunch counter with black people or meeting with his Jew lawyer.

Don’t talk. Just listen. As a woman, know that in his mind you have nothing valuable to say. If it was up to him, you couldn’t even vote.

Some Dos

Be receptive to his crude sexual advances like ambush kissing or pussy grabbing. He’s entitled to do these things because Donald Trump does them and besides, Bill Clinton did much worse and Hillary allowed it.

Practice your fake orgasm sounds until you can moan, pant and scream “oh god oh god oh god” virtually on command.

The goal

Remember, your goal in life is to please your man no matter what it takes, which includes attending Trump rallies and voting for the faux-president if he survives impeachment long enough to run for re-election. In that way, you’ll help your man lead a marginally satisfying life that includes drinking, sports, drinking, fishing, more drinking and sex while doing your part to make America great again.

Rebel yell!!

There is no moral high ground where there is no truth

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the “moral high ground.” A lot of people like to claim it and many others try to apply it to everything in their lives. I may get in trouble for saying this, but that kind of thinking simply doesn’t work. At least it doesn’t always apply.

Now before you curse me and stop reading, listen to this:

* If your abusive neighbor complains about your barking dog, you could yell back at him that his son’s music is too loud, his wife is so ugly she burns your eyes and he needs a muffler on his car, but that would place you on the same moral ground that he’s on. In that case, you can claim the moral high ground by apologizing and taking the dog inside.

* If a strange man sits next to you at a basketball game and starts making racist remarks about the players, you could call him a white supremacist and a bigot and a scum bag and tell him to go back to Mississippi, or you could take the moral high ground and say, “Sorry but I don’t think that way.”

* And if the cashier at the supermarket accidentally gives you too much change, you can call it a financial windfall and go get a couple of beers, or you can take the moral high ground and give the money back.

But if you’re a politician who wants to be elected to office and you think you can do it strictly by claiming the moral high ground, you need to think again. While Party #1 is gerrymandering voting districts to favor its own candidates, passing state laws to suppress the vote from candidates of Party #2, accepting billions of dollars in contributions from wealthy donors to advance their pro-authoritarian agenda, nominating replacement candidates with low or zero morals to speak of and then soliciting and coaching alleged “victims” to plaster your own representatives with lies and distortions, then you can’t afford to sit back and watch from your perch atop the moral high ground, because it’s only going to get worse if you do.

Look, it’s 2017 and the president of the United States is a mentally damaged, intellectually challenged pathological liar with no code of ethics, no true beliefs, no empathy for anyone but himself and no moral compass, and now he’s got the Congress to swim along in his wake as he bashes his way through everything good about America.

Remember Michelle Obama saying “when they go low, we go high?” Well I love Michelle but I beg to disagree. Her platitude might work as the caption on a Norman Rockwell painting but it’s not true in politics today. The Republican Party is protecting Donald Trump and supporting Roy Moore while demanding punishment for Al Franken. They couldn’t possibly go any lower, and yet the best the Democrats can do to “go high” is to force Franken to resign.  

It’s 2017 and the moral high ground is what you teach your grandchildren when they’re still very young and sitting on your lap. It’s something they teach in Vacation Bible School or youth church camp, unless of course you’re a Trump-supporting, Moore-endorsing anti-LGBTQ evangelical Christian whose idea of moral high ground is bigger and bigger houses, more and better private jets and tax breaks for rich white people. It is NOT the way to win elections.

I’m sorry to break the news, but there can be no moral high ground where there is no truth. If you don’t believe me, try this on:

* Donald Trump is accused by at least 16 women of various degrees of sexual harassment, abuse and assault. He even admitted to some of it on tape. His defense? “They’re all liars. It didn’t happen.” So what is the truth?

* Roy Moore is accused of sexually assaulting young girls including a 14-year-old. His defense? “I don’t know these women. I didn’t do it. It didn’t happen.” So what is the truth?

* At last count, Al Franken is accused by eight women of kissing them or some other similar behavior, but it comes out that the one in the infamous photo had been groomed for the role, manipulated by friends of Trump and coached for weeks before leveling her charges at the Democratic senator. So what is the truth?

It seems to me the Republicans got exactly what they needed this week, and it was handed to them on a silver platter by Democrats riding the moral high ground. In this corner you have Al Franken accused of sexual misconduct. If he admits it, he has to resign. If he says it didn’t happen, Republicans can say, “See, that’s exactly what Trump says, and what Moore says, so it’s like we’ve been saying all along. The alleged victims are lying.”

Meanwhile, Trump is in the White House, Moore is probably headed for the Senate and Al Franken has to resign. How’s that moral high ground working out for you?

Charles Manson may have checked out too soon

The outgoing chairman of the West Virginia Republican Party said this week that former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship will have the party’s full support if he’s nominated for the U.S. Senate in next year’s May primary election.

“We welcome the candidacy of anyone who is anxious to beat Joe Manchin,” said Conrad Lucas on Thursday’s MetroNews Talkline. “That is the top priority in West Virginia for 2018 and I think that we’re going to do it.”

Don Blankenship for the U.S. Senate? Are you serious? I guess Charlie Manson was not available to run, seeing as how he just died.

I’d like to congratulate the Republican Party for sinking as low as it’s possible to sink this year with their campaign to deconstruct America, rape the poor and the elderly, empower criminals, collude with foreign governments and vote into high government office a slate of candidates who aren’t fit to be president of the PTA.

First, there was Roy Moore, the alleged child abuser from Alabama, running to fill a Senate seat in that state, and now Don Blankenship, straight from a 12-month engagement in a California federal prison, wants to join him in the Washington swamp.

In case you've forgotten, Blankenship, 67, was released in May after serving one year for misdemeanor conspiracy to violate safety regulations at the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, Raleigh County, where 29 coal miners died in an April 2010 explosion. In its final report on the accident, the Mine Safety and Health Administration said flagrant safety violations contributed to the explosion, for which it issued 369 citations assessing $10.8 million in penalties.

Blankenship’s conviction was based in part on testimony from a former mine superintendent, who confessed to conspiring to impede the MSHA's safety enforcement efforts. A jury found that Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy at the time of the disaster, was guilty of conspiring to willfully violate safety standards, meaning they found him complicit in the 29 miners’ deaths.

That didn’t stop him from announcing this week that he will run against Congressman Evan Jenkins and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey in the May 8 Republican primary in an attempt to unseat Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. With Blankenship’s entry in the race, the GOP is building a very interesting slate of candidates for Manchin’s job.

There’s Morrisey, a Brooklyn native who moved to New Jersey, worked as a lobbyist and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives before he was planted here in 2012 by the Republican machine to run against (and defeat) Darrell McGraw to become attorney general.

As AG, Morrisey inherited and continued a lawsuit against eleven major drug distributors, and filed a new suit against the nation's top drug wholesaler, McKesson, for flooding the state with 100 million pain pills in a five year period. However, as a lobbyist, Morrisey was paid $250,000 to represent a pharmaceutical trade group funded by some of the same drug distributors the state has sued. Records show he also took more than $8,000 in political contributions from Cardinal Health, a defendant in one of the state's lawsuits.

Not enough for you? Try this: Morrisey's wife is also a lobbyist, so see if you can guess who is one of her biggest clients? If you said Cardinal Health, you win the prize. While Morrisey has been in office, his wife's firm has made roughly a million and a half dollars lobbying for Cardinal, according to a report by CBS News.

Still not enough? Morrisey has been endorsed by Steve Bannon, the white nationalist executive chairman of Breitbart News and former chief strategist for President Donald Trump.

As for Evan Hollin Jenkins, about the only thing I can say about him is that he was a Republican before he was a Democrat before he became a Republican again as West Virginia was turning red in 2013. Apparently, any party will do for Jenkins as long as it leads to votes. Too bad the Whigs disbanded. Jenkins is currently our 3rd District congressman, taking the seat once held for 38 years by Nick Joe Rahall.

So let’s recap:

* In 2018, the Republican Party’s top priority in West Virginia is to defeat Joe Manchin, even if it has to drive a candidate home from federal prison to do it.

* In 2008, nationally, the top priority was to make Barack Obama a one-term president by stonewalling everything the president tried to do – even things Republicans tended to support.

* In 2017, the top priorities have been to take away our health care, which failed; rebuild our infrastructure, which never got started; and to keep their donors happy with massive tax breaks for the wealthy -- at the expense of the poor, the sick and the elderly -- which are now awaiting a vote in the Senate.

(Oh, and to allow Donald Trump to win something – as in anything – during his first year in office.)

It’s clear that the party’s top priority – back then and now – was and is not the welfare of the people of West Virginia or the best interests of the United States of America. Looking at their current candidates and legislative tactics, some have argued that it’s not even in the best interests of the Republican Party.

Time will tell but I, for one, am hoping that is true.