Diving into summer doldrums.

 

Today's Tids Issue 5,305

Nothing is good:

 

I feel I am sliding into the silkiness of summer nonchalance. While festivities rage, the quietude of summer’s wrath is oddly like holding hands by a woodland stream. The gurgling ripples like anesthetics of the soul. I am contented in my nothing days.

 

What is annoying is the constant manipulation of college sports conferences. If there is anything that tells us that what we knew is no longer there, it is college sports being transformed from love of game to monetary fame. Do or die for the ole’ red, green or blue or being manipulated in the economic zoo.

 

Being a coach at midsized school must be terrifying now.

 

One tectonic plate bumped into another and said, “Whoops, my fault.”

 

The Question:

Name the two countries that started WWI? Bonus: What is “Phubbing”?

 

The Headlines:

--Markets Jump; Key Fed Inflation Gage Falls to Lowest Level in Two Years.

--New Charges of Obstruction Added to Existing Charges in Mara Lago Docs Investigation; Prez and Henchman Alleged to Have Attempted to Alter a Video.

--Ukraine Second Offensive Effort Faltering.

--Militant Groups In Darfur Sudan are Redefining the Word Atrocity, Raising Pure Horror Against Fellow Humans to New Levels.

--Americans Complain About heat.

 

The newest surreptitious encroachment on our happiness is an attempt by EV manufacturers ot eliminate AM radio from their cars planet. There is a technological explanation as electromagnet interference from EV cars disrupts AM but they can fix it with shielding technology too. I will not but a car without AM, my mainstay listening choice. I don’t look towards the homogenization of America where we are forced to endure impersonal national radio. (The good news is that there is a bill in congress that will require AM. They are using a national security angle to push it through but for me it is just about the radio programming I enjoy most.)

 

An interesting paradox: Noses run but feet smell.

 

Here’s what I really don’t like about sports: Why would any baseball club think about trading Shohei Ohtani. Yesterday, 71 minutes after pitching a one hit shout our in game one of a double header he helped win game two by hitting two home runs. It bothers me that stability is so fragile. It bothers me that teams even think that fans don’t care when their heroes are gone. Uh-Oh… red faced… my beloved Red Sox traded away Babe Ruth to those Ya, Ya, Ya… (YKWIM).

 

If you think that the Fed control of education doesn’t get in the way of local objectives, note that Biden just stopped funding key programs for schools that had archery programs. (BTW, 1.3 million students in 9000 schools across the country are enrolled in archery classes.) This is not about whether or not you like archery, its about the national government money manipulating local education in general. Once you take, the handcuffs are firmly clasped.

 

I thought it ironic and I laughed out loud reading the newspaper this morning about a well-known business bully and former head of the state GOP here suing the same organization and several levels of GOP leadership for, “Great emotional distress, pain and suffering…” I would guess that many an intimidated RI’er will take joy in the man’s suffering.

 

Nothing is ever really that bad.

 

While the inflation is easing we are still faced with that higher cost of living from the 20-25% increase of goods and services over the past several years. And the national Mortgage rate is now at around 7%. Sticker shock is alive and well.

 

Did you hear about the research biologist who began his presentation at an international conference by saying, “This truth we hold as being self-evident: Life is a sexually transmitted disease.”

 

I firmly believe that that the proverbial heat of summer isn’t so bad if you don’t sit around and complain about it continuously.

 

The Answer:

Austria/Hungry attacked Serbia and WWI was on! There’s a lot more interesting stuff to this. But, that is the answer to the question. Bonus: Phubbing is the combination of Phone and snubbing and it is a cause of growing pains in all levels of relationships according to social scientists. Interestingly the solution is moderately easy. It is called fo all things, communicating with each other. Couples, say counselors, have to talk to each other about establishing rules of understanding governing the use of phones (And other devices) when together. In fact in todays personal universe there should be rules for all of the increasingly pervasive technology potentially entangling lives. Or you could just go out and tend your garden in the summer and chop wood for fires in the winter.  

 

Oh well, Id rather be submersed in a pool of salt water, feeling the currents rippling by.

 

Find a comfortable place to be this weekend, E-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y!!