A Dark Day At the Symphony

Yesterday I saw first-hand the blind ignorance of Mainers. Sure, there are smart Mainers, notably my dermatologist, my hip surgeon, my dentist and a few of my friends, so I'm not trying to imply that all people born and bred in Maine are dummies. Just a lot of them.

My husband and I had gone to downtown's Merrill Auditorium to attend a performance by the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Arriving early, we stayed outside for a while to enjoy the afternoon sunshine before entering the darkened concert hall. On a street corner nearby, a young man was hawking something. Curious, we approached to see what he was pitching. It turned out he was collecting signatures to assure Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a spot on the November presidential ballot. Naturally we signed, thinking that A, it didn't mean we had to vote for the man and B, the more the merrier. How could it hurt for voters to have other choices besides a senile old coot and a much-maligned bigmouth?

To our surprise, amazement and finally disgust, not one other person would sign. We watched as the young man politely approached the parade of dignified-looking, well-dressed, white-haired, mostly elderly concert-goers on their way to an afternoon of delightful music. Each one in turn pulled away in literal horror and all but spit at him: "No, no, no, no, no, never, absolutely not, no, no, no!" Following are some of their responses:

"He's an anti-vaxxer!"

"I would sign to keep him off the ballot!"

"He's a kook!"

"No, never, anyone but him!"

"Even his own family doesn't support him!"

"He's a total nut!"

"I would rather sign to put Trump in jail!"

"No, oh my God, you should be ashamed!"

I was stunned at the lack of intelligence prevalent in such a supposedly intelligent crowd. After all, they liked Classical music, usually a sign of good breeding. Yet every last one of them parroted the same worn-out platitudes they had been fed by the liberal media. (What a coincidence!) Doubtless every one of them would have signed a petition to allow transgenders to use whatever bathrooms they choose in the public schools, or to allow women to abort their babies right up until their due dates. 

The thought that someone who is against government-mandated vaccinations is considered insane but someone who takes puberty blockers and surgically removes their breasts or penis and then declares themselves a member of the opposite sex is seen as perfectly sane just blows my mind.

Eventually we went inside to hear the concert but the whole time I was disturbed to be sitting among a crowd of such unthinking, uncaring, illogical lemmings who had no grasp of how our political system is supposed to work.

How to Live Longer (If You Want To)

Fernando Botero painted fat people.

It's common knowledge that exercise leads to better health and ultimately a longer life. Yeah, yeah, famous runner and author Jim Fixx died of a heart attack while out jogging at the age of 52. Okay, there are exceptions (more about those later). But that's not the norm, and according to a Washington, DC privately-funded organization called Trust for America's Health, obesity is on the rise here. They published the following report last September: 

" Over the past two decades obesity rates have climbed for all population groups with certain populations of color experiencing the highest rates, often due to structural barriers to healthy eating and a lack of opportunities and places to be physically active. Nationally, 41.9 percent of adults have obesity. Black and Latino adults have the highest obesity rates at 49.9 percent and 45.6 percent respectively.  People living in rural communities have higher rates of obesity than people living in urban and suburban areas."

I am scratching my head wondering what could possibly be a "structural barrier to healthy eating" that causes certain populations of color to have the highest rates of obesity, a.k.a. to be big fatties. Are there steel fences, possibly electrified, erected in front of the produce departments of grocery stores in black and Latino neighborhoods? What constitutes a "lack of opportunity and places to be physically active" in these same communities? And why are people living in rural areas fatter than those in the suburbs and cities?

"Physical activity reduces many major mortality risk factors including arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus type 2, dyslipidemia, coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer. All-cause mortality is decreased by about 30% to 35% in physically active as compared to inactive subjects." --National Institute of Health

About those exceptions: If you are confined to a wheelchair or a bed, first off let me say how sorry I am that you have to bear such a burden in life. My heart breaks for you, literally, I can hardly stand to think about it. Naturally, you people will likely not get any exercise, or not much. But beyond that, if you can walk you can exercise. In fact, walking in rural areas has often been cited as the best way to exercise, especially in the woods which the Japanese call "forest bathing' and which offers other benefits to both the body and spirit. Many motivated urbanites get in their cars and drive to rural areas specifically for that purpose. 

And unless you live in a cage like a baby calf that will someday become some carnivorous meathead's veal piccata entree in an Italian restaurant, you can even exercise inside your home. All you need is a floor and a chair, and if you don't have those then exercise is not your biggest problem. So get off your big fat butt and get moving. No excuses.

Some People Did Something

This morning being Sunday, and we being Jews, my husband and I splurged and had bagels with lox and cream cheese (and onions, tomatoes and capers) for breakfast. I say "splurged" because lox is pretty damn expensive so it's a once-in-a-while thing. Anyway, you can thank the Jews in Krakow, Poland for inventing bagels in 1610, which have since become a diet staple enjoyed by people the world over, maybe even people who wear hijabs.

Besides bagels, Jews have invented or are responsible for the existence of so many things we all need, love and/or use. As Ilhan Omar might put it, "Some people did something." A few of the somethings are listed below:

Blue Jeans, Lipstick, Ballpoint Pens, Contraceptives, Instant Coffee, the TV Remote Control, Traffic Lights, Scotchguard, Flexistraws, Genetic Engineering, Virtual Reality, Hollywood movies, the Sit-Com, Comic Books, the Long-Playing Record, Woodstock Music Festival, Videotape, Color TV, Instant Photography, Holography, Psychoanalysis, Cheesecake, Cafeterias, Discount Stores, Pawn Shops, Shopping Carts, Prozac, Valium, the Polio Vaccine, Radiation, Chemotherapy, the Artificial Kidney Dialysis machine, the Defibrillator, the Cardiac Pacemaker, Vaccination against “Hepatitis B” virus, the Vaccinating Needle, Laser Technology, Google, FAX machines, the Microphone, the Gramophone, the Microprocessing Chip, Optical Fiber Cable, Cellular Technology, the Videotape Recorder, Facebook, Scale Model Electric Trains, the Pager, the Walkie-talkie, Refrigerated Railroad Cars (likely inspired by the stiflingly hot trains carrying Jews to death camps during the Holocaust), High-vacuum Electron Tubes, the Incandescent Lamp, Kodachrome Film, the Blimp, the Adding Machine and Stainless Steel, to name but a few. 

To be fair, the Arabs have also given us some good stuff: Where would we be without the harp, lyre, zither, drum, tambourine, flute, oboe and reed instruments? I hate to even think about it.

I Believe In Yesterday

This morning I spent some time reading my old blog posts. Much to my amazement, they were much funnier than the ones I have been writing recently, and by recently I mean since Biden and his pet monkey took office, and by "pet monkey" I mean Kamala because she's an idiot with not an idea in her head and not because she is "of color," so not disrespecting black people by comparing them to monkeys. 

In years past I wrote funny stories about personal experiences. Lately I write depressing stories about real life horror, including delay pandemics and wars and political discord and illegal immigration and mass murderers and rampant crime in our major cities. 

This has got to stop. So starting today I will return to my roots and write about my nutty childhood and growing up kosher except for eating bacon and more stuff like that. Not today, just giving you a heads-up of what's coming. I promise, tomorrows' post will be hysterical.

Nuke Gaza (or at Least Ilhan Omar)

If they can say "From the river to the sea," I can say "Nuke Gaza." That's extreme, I know, but hey, do you remember the Holocaust? That was pretty extreme, and based on what I saw yesterday at Columbia University, that's what Ilhan Omar and her daughter, arrested in the vile NYC protest, have in mind.

Hell In New York City

Jew-hater.

The fat, ugly woman pictured above -- and yes she is fat and yes she is ugly -- is also an ignorant, Jew-hating racist. She was suspended from NYU for tearing down posters showing photos of Israeli hostages who are being held by the ruthless, sociopathic Hamas gangs in Gaza. Now she's "worried" that her suspension will threaten her two scholarships. (Duh.) 

She doesn't quite understand that if she committed a comparable act of aggression in Hamas territory, her arms would be chopped off and she would be raped so many times that her pelvic bones would shatter. Oh well, details, details.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away a group of similarly misguided student protesters defaced a subway station close to the NYU campus on a day the school was holding a fundraising event. (Photo shown below.)

Kids today, huh? In my generation, our parents were upset because the boys wore their hair long and smoked pot. These days the boys still have long hair, but they also shave off their Adam's apples and lop off their penises so they can be girls who wear makeup and high heels and win all the swim meets. And instead of smoking pot they take puberty blockers.

Surely Hell cannot be any worse than New York City circa 2024.

My Challenge to Katie Couric

Perky though she may be, or may have been in her younger days when she was paid to be, Katie Couric is no brainiac. Calling half of America a bunch of dummies on a recent podcast with Bill Maher makes her dumber than any dumb person I know, and believe me, I know a lot of them.

What I would like to do is challenge Katie to a crossword-off. Both of us get the Sunday Times Magazine crossword and start at the same time. I'd bet all my earthly belongings, my first-born and my Maine Coon cat that I would finish first and she wouldn't finish at all. Come on Katie, let's go!

“And the question is how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump.”  -- Katie Couric