Our World Runs On...

    I trust you woke up this morning safe and sound.  As I said, I was vigilant last night and kept watch. However, if you lived in other parts of the world where you read my posting last night and it was at say noon or such you didn't awake safely and soundly but were probably having lunch over my blog.  I hope that it didn't give you indigestion.  Some of you read my blog the day after I posted it because you live on the other side of the International Dateline so I will say that you were safe last night and nothing monumental happened to disturb the peace, at least in my neck of the woods.
     As I was awake last night I got to thinking about what makes this world run. I though about many things such as politics, art, human achievement and really inconsequential writers who think and write too much. All of these came into the thought process but none seemed to be the definitive answer, so I kept at it. Aren't you glad about that?
     After hours of worrying, careful thought and a long night without sleep I looked around the room and it finally hit me, slightly cut me to be accurate.  This world runs on paper. As I looked around my office as I was writing and being generally sleepless in Merced, I couldn't be struck harder than the realization that all that paper that was supposed to be eliminated in the electronic age is still very much with us. I moved one of those pieces of paper and it bit me--one of those wonderful little paper cuts that hurt like the dickens. I thought the computer was supposed to eliminate this sort of thing. It didn't and the paper cut stings.
     My office is filled with all kinds of paper with stuff written on it. There are register receipts, notepads, flyers announcing events, business cards, a few unused cash payout vouchers from slot machines--by the way, what do you do with a slot machine voucher worth four cents--and of course bills and other stuff. All of this is piling up and my paper shredder can't handle the volume.
     The US Post Office is not going to go out of business any time soon.  The volume of mail, yes it is junk mail and bills, far exceeds the amount of email I get. There should be a law.  Oh yes, there was a law and it was called "The Paperwork Reduction Act". President Reagan signed it into law. That brings up another good point. Since it is a law in the US, would they enforce that law in France? The answer is probably not. Stop sending me all this paper France. By the way, do they make paper in France?

Just look at all that paper coming our way.

PS: I'm going into the kitchen now to make my coffee.

Hair Washing and Pollution--Really?

     In this world we have to be very careful in preserving our environment.  Especially here in California where we are having to live under the worst drought conditions ever recorded in weather keeping history.  Our goal should be to protect our water supply. What we do have cannot be polluted, especially by dumping raw sewage into the American River by certain Norther California municipalities who shall remain nameless.  Sometimes I have to restrain from political comment because this blog is meant to entertain and bring a few laughs. It is not intended to comment on politics, so we will leave it at that.
     Here it is folks, I'm going to give it to you between both eyes. Well, maybe I shouldn't have put it that way. You may have taken that comment the wrong way, given the amount of gun violence we have in our country today.  I want to make it clear to you that I don't own a gun.  My daughter does, but I don't. I can't pass the background check having spent some time in a mental institution back in 1996. I am non-violent, I can assure you. What does this have to do with water pollution? OK, I'll get back to what I was going to say.
     How many of you have seen the commercial for a shampoo product where there is a woman taking a bath in a jungle mountain pool underneath a pristine waterfall and she is washing her hair with a commercial shampoo? Admit it, you have seen it. It is done in good taste. It seems as though she is a Mayan or some other jungle tribe, which is of no consequence. What is important here is that she is rinsing her hair in that pure mountain water. What about the people living downstream from where she is washing her hair. They are having to drink water that has been contaminated by the shampoo she was using.  I don't know about you, but I hate to drink water that tastes like shampoo.  Where are the environmentalists on this one? Where is the outrage?

     Please respect my right to drink clean, unpolluted water. DON'T take a bath or wash your hair with a commercial shampoo upstream of where I get my drinking water.  I can take cherry flavored water, but shampoo flavored water just doesn't taste that good.

Sorry, I'm horsing around again. They wash him with recycled water, by the way and no shampoo.