In Order To...We’re Going To

Here is what the Hilton’s Hampton Inns is doing in order to make you More Comfortable when you stay with them...

Notice they said, “For your comfort...”. That’s Slick Wording. Don’t be tricked by Slick Wording. Slick Wording is when they (whomever they are) tell you they are looking out for you as they take something you want, something you need and/or something you normally would expect is due you.

Here are 3 more examples of Slick Wording I made up...Or did I?

Ø In order that you are more likely to enjoy your dining experience, we have stopped cooking your food.

Ø In order to keep you from having too much gasoline sloshing around in your gas tank, we have recalibrated our gas pumps to read a gallon pumped when only one half of a gallon has been pumped into your tank.

Ø In order to keep you from having to hear all that jingling in your pocket, we have discontinued giving you your change when you purchase anything from any of our 3,257 stores.

Where do I get these ideas? They come to me from all directions and I Notice Them because I am The Noticer.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Why Were We The Way We Were?

 

The COVID-19 Pandemic was an awful time. Being awful was one thing but Fella thinks it was responsible for a Massive Outbreak of Awfully Stupid the likes of which we ought to pray will never happen again.

Here are many examples of Dumb Run Amuck...

The Worst Offenders

• Vermont Governor Phil Scott announced that no one may gather with anyone from another household—even outdoors. He justified the ban because “you don’t know what your neighbor has done.” (He later amended the order to allow socially distanced walks with one other person.)
• Villages in New York banned the use of leaf-blowers. According to the mayor of Sleepy Hollow, because of the COVID pandemic, blowing dust into the air “creates a HAZMAT situation.” And in Croton-on-Hudson, the Village manager expressed “concern that the use of leaf blowers may be contributing to the spread of the virus although there is no scientific proof of this.”
• Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker imposed a “no exceptions” mask mandate requiring everyone age 5 and older to wear masks in public, even when outdoors and socially distanced (or, presumably, alone).
• Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti banned all travel other than for essential activities, including “travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit.” In other words, no unnecessary walking.
• The mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, banned drive-in church services for Easter. Fortunately, a federal judge put a stop to the ban, writing that the mayor’s order was something “this court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion.”

But it wasn’t just the measures themselves that were troublesome. The enforcement of these new laws was also overzealous and absurd.

• Police in Encinitas, California, cited 22 people for “watching the sunset” and “having picnics near the beach.” Violations carry fines of up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail.
• A 19-year-old woman in Pennsylvania was stopped by police and given a $200 ticket when she went for a drive—alone—“just to get out of the house.”
• In California, police chased down and arrested paddleboarders and surfers who went out in the ocean socially distanced from anyone.
• A man in Brighton, Colorado, was arrested for playing catch with his 6-year-old daughter on a near-empty softball field.

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Fella Made This One Up...Or did he?

The Mayor of Palooka, Illinois personally arrested a man in the Palooka’s City Park who was throwing a football to no one. The Mayor was cruising the park while he was Masked, Gloved and Wearing Plastic Wrap Covered Galoshes when he observed the offending offender throwing the ball and running to pick it up only to throw it again and running to pick it up to throw it again over and over. When the mayor questioned the Thrower to Nobody Football Thrower as to why he was throwing the ball to nobody the Thrower to Nobody Football Thrower said he wanted to get some exercise but everyone else was afraid to come out of their houses for fear that COVID-19 might be outside their houses. The Mayor said he had to act because the Thrower to Nobody Football Thrower might have encouraged another exercise seeker to come out of his house to seek exercise and the Mayor feared that the two of them might have caused a crescendo of other Thrower to Nobody Football Throwers to come out of their COVID Safe houses to seek exercise. The Mayor said he was further concerned because he knew his entire police force was unavailable to make the arrest in his stead because they were afraid to come out of their houses because the Mayor had told them not to come out of their houses.

I’m going to stop now because I am beginning to sound Foolish and you know I never want to sound Foolish...Or do I never want to?

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

It's Awful Down There

I do not take any solace in what’s happening to my country at present.

The nation I Love, have always Admired and have always been Proud Of is being Fundamentally Changed. The people who ought to be saving it do not seem to be worried about all the Awful that is reported every day on our never-ending news shows.

Actually, our public officials often appear to be orchestrating and cheering on the Awful.

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I’ve just stopped writing this blog because I am now into Fella’s Copy and Paste Mode. There are still lots of reasons why we should be glad that we live in the Good Ole USofA instead of Mexico but there appears to be less of those reasons with each passing day.

If we lived in Mexico below is a sample of what the nightly news would be reporting to us each night...

June 1, 2024

Crispín Mendoza bounded up the stairs to the roof of his house earlier this spring and shot back at the gunmen who were peppering his home with automatic-rifle fire. It was election season in the rugged mountains of lawless Guerrero state, Mexico’s deadliest place to run for municipal office.

Since January, when he began campaigning for mayor of the town of Alcozauca, Mendoza said he has endured dozens of telephone death threats. A local criminal kingpin, known as “El Señor,” left a message written on a sheet warning Mendoza to stay out of politics.

A short, stocky man with a neatly trimmed beard, Mendoza said he was asleep in the middle of the night in March when two gunmen started shooting up his home. As his wife and three children screamed and hid under a bed, Mendoza grabbed his Taurus 380 revolver.

“I started firing back,” he said. “I scared them away.”

Since the shooting, his neighbors have rallied to his defense, bringing their rifles and sleeping in his home, three at a time. Mendoza now has a detail of seven National Guardsmen, who protect him around the clock.

A wave of political violence has become a threat across Mexico ahead of the country’s national elections Sunday. More than 200 government officials, candidates and political party activists have been gunned down since Mexico’s electoral process got under way in September, according to Integralia Consultores, a Mexico City consulting firm.

While the presidency and both houses of Congress are up for grabs, organized-crime groups are particularly focused on thousands of local elections. Mexico’s electoral agency, INE, has requested federal protection for more than 550 candidates for public office because of threats or attacks.

“This election is going to be the most violent in history,” said Luis Carlos Ugalde, Integralia’s general director and former chief of Mexico’s electoral agency. “If you want to be a candidate in a region controlled by gangs, you need to ask for permission so they don’t kill you.”

Mendoza didn’t. He said he was drawn into politics to make a better life for his neighbors, many of whom live hardscrabble lives in homes that have dirt floors and no running water. The town is plagued by corruption, with criminal organizations stealing a good chunk of the money that should go to public works.

The tempo of violence has quickened ahead of Sunday’s election. Between May 15 and 17, three candidates running for municipal office in three states were killed. The bodies of a candidate for City Council in another Guerrero town and his wife were found in the back of a pickup truck. During the same period, the body of a candidate for a town in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa was found in a field, and a candidate for mayor in a town in the southern Chiapas state was gunned down.

On Wednesday evening in the town of Coyuca in Guerrero state, near the once-glitzy beach resort of Acapulco, the opposition candidate for mayor, José Alfredo Cabrera, was gunned down as hundreds of his supporters watched in horror. He was shot twice in the head as he arrived to give his final speech at the closing rally of his campaign. The gunman, who had approached the candidate in a wheelchair, was immediately killed by Cabrera’s security guards, authorities said.

The wave of political violence has exposed the cracks in Mexico’s democracy. Polls show that security is a top concern for Mexican voters. Security experts have said that the six cities with the highest homicide rates in the world are in Mexico.

“Now a lot of people get by with a tortilla with sauce and salt,” an official said.

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I underlined what I thought stood out as Awful. I could have underlined the entire article.

Would I kid u?

The bad guys in Mexico are not kidding either!

Smartfella