5/30/2023 Parent Trap
I was in town the other day, volunteering at a food pantry, mopping the floor, when I overheard two of the other volunteers swapping stories about their kids. One story started off with the 11 year old kid asking for a banana, and I didn't hear most of the story, other than the kid telling the mom, "You need to calm down," and the mom, in relaying the story saying, "I'm always saying that to her: 'You need to calm down.'" So I have no idea what that was about, but I'd bet that, aside from just mimicking the mom, the kid had solid grounds for saying what she said.
The other volunteer's story about their kid involved his 15 year old daughter getting a henna tattoo (a type of temporary tattoo that is applied to the skin as a paste, and wherever the paste touches the skin, the skin becomes temporarily stained), texting him a picture of it, and then not replying for an hour when he asked if it was permanent. I could tell pretty much right away that the daughter knew exactly what she was doing, hates her dad, and wanted to jab him, so she purposely got the henna tattoo, knowing he wouldn't appreciate her not "discussing" it with him first, and left him hanging for an hour so that he'd sweat over it. If the children have ire toward the parents, here in the early 21st century, I'm going to go ahead and conclude that it's not without good reason, and the plot certainly thickened when I chimed in. I usually tend to stay out of these things and let the chimpanzees have their way with each other, but I guess I couldn't help myself this time. The conversation became pretty thick and steered toward the bible somehow. Apparently some people believe that the line about not changing your temple refers specifically to not getting tattoos. I shared my views about how I believe the bible was written by people in power so they could make all these laws to benefit themselves and people would have to follow them because "God said so." In relaying this story to Adam later, he offered that it wasn't about power, rather they were just liars. The bible was written by liars. I said this, in essence, to the other volunteers when one of them stated that the bible was transcribed by people to whom god was speaking. I replied that they only said god was speaking to them, but they were lying. They made it all up so that everyone else would have to do whatever they said. People also use their interpretations of the bible--rather the interpretations that are handed down to them by other liars--still to force others to bend to their will. So the example here, "Don't change your temple." Your temple could be anything. For people who don't want their kids getting tattoos, your temple is now suddenly your body. When pressed about what's wrong with getting a tattoo, other than their belief that the bible says it's wrong to get tattoos, which it doesn't, the answer then changed to, "Well there are legal ramifications for her." Her being the 15 year old girl as it is illegal to get a tattoo under a certain age without parental consent, and the age varies from state to state. He believes that in this state, it is age 16. I didn't get around to saying this, but saying that there are legal ramifications for her implies that he plans on turning her in if she gets a tattoo without his consent before she's 16. There are only legal ramifications if someone turns her in and presses charges. Not to mention the legal ramifications for the tattoo artist. No tattoo artist is going to risk their job for that. He then went on about the legal ramifications for himself because of how a parent is legally responsible for anything their child does until they are 18. Later on, I was revisiting the conversation in my mind, and it occurred to me that this is the exact argument my mother gave when she said she didn't want me to smoke marijuana. As a youngster, I remember being involved in a conversation about marijuana where she said flatly that it's illegal, she tried it a couple times, it burned like hell in her lungs, and she just didn't care for it. And supposedly, it being illegal and her dislike for it were supposed to be reason enough for me to not smoke it. I got news: I don't care for mushrooms on my pizza, but I don't try to convince other people that it's wrong to have mushrooms on their pizza because I don't like them, that's for goddamn sure. I'll even go a step further. The social factor. In many circles, smoking marijuana, or having tattoos, or both, whichever example you want to take, is considered taboo. Doing so or associating with others who do so would lower your social standing within that group. If there's one thing I know about people, one of their greatest fears is to be ostracized from their social group. Circling back to the parents: yes, I acknowledge that most people believe in and abide by laws that put the parents under pressure to keep their children from breaking the law due to the threat of their own imprisonment. However, I don't think it's the imprisonment that really scares them. It's the loss of their social status as a result of their imprisonment that scares them. They'll swear up and down that their sole concern is for the child's well-being: "I don't want her to get something permanent applied to her skin that she'll regret in 20 years." Trust me. At 15, as a child of normal mental development (I've met her a couple times), she's aware of the permanence of tattoos. In reality, it's not at all about the child's well-being. It's about the parent's social status, but no parent is ever going to admit this. Why, when it comes to Law, I have nothing to say, for laws were never meant to be understood, and it is foolish to make the attempt. 5/30/2023 bleeding out
All the time you spend tryin' to get back what's been took from you, there's more goin' out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it. 5/30/2023 breakin'da rools
Let me ask you something. If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule? 5/22/2023 Gun Show
In reading about gunshot wounds, I came across some interesting information.
From the wikipedia article on gunshot wounds: Firearms, globally in 2016, resulted in 251,000 deaths up from 209,000 in 1990.[5] Of these deaths 161,000 (64%) were the result of assault, 67,500 (27%) were the result of suicide, and 23,000 were accidents.
The article then lists 8 countries whose firearm induced deaths make up about half of the global total. The united states, is surprisingly not first but second behind brazil, although I suppose it's possible the countries are not listed in any particular order. I'm pretty sure they're excluding intergovernmental wars here and talking only about interpersonal shootings.
Then it says this: In the United States in 2015, about half of the 44,000 people who died by suicide did so with a gun.
Did you catch that? In 2015, 44,000 people died by suicide in the US alone, and 22,000 of them used a gun.
So let's just assume that the global number of suicides by gun between 2015 and 2016 were pretty similar. Those 22,000 in the US alone represent approximately 32.6% of the global suicides by gun. That's just by guns. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the romans lead the world in suicide rate. Another interesting tidbit I came across in my research is that Switzerland surprised me with their 27.6 to 41.2 guns per 100 inhabitants. Comparatively, the romans obviously blow everyone else out of the water with 120 guns per 100 inhabitants. After that, the next highest numbers from a good handful of countries all hover around 30 guns per 100 inhabitants, so behind the us switzerland is right there at the top. I guess after a neutral government, a neutral populace doesn't necessarily follow, although I hear switzerland is planning to de-neutralize themselves. Anyway, Singapore and Japan were the most gunless countries on the list with .5 and .6 guns per 100 inhabitants respectively. Even Italy, original home of one of the world's most widespread gangster networks lands at a surprisingly low 11.9 guns per 100 inhabitants, right along with Columbia which you'd think with their reputation for drugs and cartels would be higher than their 10.10 guns per 100 inhabitants, but there it is. Little landlocked, coo-coo clock switzerland outguns colombia and italy combined. The list did not look at every country worldwide, and the information ranged from being gathered in 2009 to 2019, so it's not quite an apples to apples comparison but still interesting nonetheless. 5/22/2023 Shots Fired
They came by shooting today. Being that we have generally been occupying remote areas of forest, hearing gunshots is not uncommon. Typically, best practice is to avoid areas that are clearly shooting ranges. Signs of a shooting range will be various appliances and/or furniture with bullet holes in them. Broken glass is also a good indicator that you might want to steer clear of that area, or at least not setup right there. These are general rules of thumb that we have followed.
We've been here for about a week now, and everyday, I've heard shots to the north. My figuring is there's an area over there that locals have claimed as their own personal shooting range. This is not uncommon and doesn't bother me in the slightest, and I know to avoid the area, at least for camping. Today, however, for the first time, I heard shots from the east-southeast where I recently saw a couple cars setup for camping. The main road in and out of the area is in that direction, so I find it unlikely that anyone would choose that area to go shooting, given the likelihood of hitting someone. Immediately after the shots from the east-southeast, they began coming from the east and sounded very nearby. Then I started hearing ricocheting bullets flying directly over the tent. I stood up and walked cautiously around to see if I could see someone with the intention that if they saw a human walking around in the area, maybe they would move to a different location. I did not see anyone, but the whizzing bullets continued for about 30-40 minutes. I heard a few smacking through the trees overhead before hearing them land about 50-60 feet behind me. Today they were fairly high overhead, but it did occur to me that if you were trying to murder someone and make it look like an accident, a ricocheting bullet in the woods would convince quite a few people unless, of course, the target was on to you and was very publicly vocal about it which would make it increasingly difficult to perform your task. In this case, the best you can do is intimidate and try to scare them into uprooting their lives. Nevertheless, I stopped what I was doing and looked up how to treat gunshot wounds. Not long after they stopped shooting at us, a very large, earth-shaking booming began to the north. Those shots were deep blasts that sounded like explosions. They occurred in two's. There would be a shot, a pause, another shot, then maybe a few minutes of pause before beginning the whole process again. The blasts continued for another 20-30 minutes. At this time, it occurred to me that if you wanted to murder someone and make it look like an accident, but you knew they were on to you which made it increasingly difficult to perform your task, you might want to intimidate them, to scare them, to make yourself appear and sound bigger, stronger, and more capable than you are. 5/20/2023 PSA
When you see someone who is obviously carrying all their possessions, it is, in my opinion, in poor taste, rude, and quite unoriginal to comment on the size and scale of their load. For example, even in a cheerful tone, "wow, you've got a....wide load there," is intrusive, judgemental, and downright not true. Unless you're also carrying all your possessions and have obviously less than the person you are calling attention to with ridicule, it is you, not he, who has the wide load.
Compared to his body, yes, his load might be wider, but that observation has the intelligence level of a 3 year old remarking, "it's daytime!" when the sun is out. No one's impressed that you can compare the size of a backpack to the size of a human. Ever try carrying your mattress, everything from the kitchen, living room, dining room, bathroom, along with the walls, roof and floor all at once? No? Then it's best to keep your "wide load" comments to yourself. It's not a complement. It's showing off to everyone else within earshot how much better of a person you think you are because of your quantity of possessions so great you couldn't possibly carry it all at once. You might as well be kicking dirt in their face. 5/17/2023 singin' in the rain
Remember how I talked about the government doing some cloud-seeding when Adam went to pick up our new battery banks?
I thought I would provide some photographic evidence of the peculiarity this time. We've been talking about ordering a new solar panel for some time now. I suppose they just weren't sure when we'd order it, so they decided to modify the forecast so they could seed clouds at their whim without looking suspicious. I certainly find it strange that so far, May is proving to be pretty rainy. Don't believe me and my 5 years' experience living outdoors in this area? Just look at the weather data.
Today, it didn't just sprinkle a little then move on. As I write this, it is currently 15:39, and it has been raining steadily since about 11:45. Adam left to pick up our new solar panel well before then. The hail was steady for about an hour and reached about 1/2" (1 cm) across.
The package was delivered at 15:23. What's odd about this is that it was delivered to a business...one of those pack & ship places that charge you a flat rate per package to use their street address. Business deliveries, both from my understanding and our past experience using this service, generally arrive in the morning, by 11:15. Even the delivery carrier estimated that the package would be delivered between 11:00 and 15:00. At 15:01, with it not being delivered, that estimate disappeared from the tracking page. Update: The rain paused for about an hour around 15:49 and has picked up to a sprinkle now around 16:50. Update: 18:07, and it's still sprinkling.
Now that we have our package, of course, it wouldn't surprise me either way if they kept it up and called it an unusually rainy May or if they stopped the act and let nature take the reins.
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