Noise Levels

Well everyone, today I called my favorite restaurant to ask them if they play their music from a playlist and the guy told me that people play music from their Ipods and they have a jukebox.  I told him the reason I was wondering was because last night when I was one of just a few customers there, the music started off great and then turned into the song "I wanna sex you up," and I suspected deliberate harassment.  The manager was not happy to hear a legal word like that but really I am doing him a favor because they could get sued for stuff like that even though people who do that stuff think that people don't realize that they are humiliating people on purpose.  But some of us do know because we get treated that way all the time.  I don't think that case is as clear as when I was in a junk and antique store in Brooklyn and I was the only customer and there was just one piece-of-garbage male employee who immediately put in a C.D. that started with the song "I just want to m. l. to you." Oh, it's a classic alright, and as mad as I was, I didn't realize until later that what it really is is classic sexual harassment.  Another store in my neighborhood cranked up some nasty music past 100 decibels one day when I walked in but I stayed and bought some shoes and the store people were just young teens or twenty-somethings who I suspected had experienced more racism even than the blatant racial and sexual harassment they were treating me with right then so I did not even call their corporate office to complain.  But it is interesting to me that all these people think their offense and the deliberate nature of it is undetectable, because really it is pretty obvious, even amid all the offensive canned playlists from corporate offices that are meant to speed up their store traffic or build a brand that is officially too cool for people with morals or decency.  In the end, people will say it is free speech, but I don't think that's what they would so quickly defend if they heard me say my free speech that I usually say in those situations, which is "Death and Shame to you In The Name of Jesus Christ." I am sad, because all I really wanted was peace of mind, or in some cases, to have nice background music, which is also what I would rather hear than the agonized shrieking and wailing that all of humanity will hear and rejoice over when all those people and other rapists like them are burning in hell some day in a future that actually isn't that far away.

The Worst Policies

   Sometimes I wonder what kind of jokes comedians are making and have been saying for the past twenty years because to me sometimes it seems like nothing is funny. It just seems like this whole country and world is a tragedy.

   I mean are they making jokes about how Subway's mayonnaise isn't really mayonnaise?  Because I looked it up online after tasting a horrible mysterious white plastic-like goop and sure enough, there are no eggs in the "recipe," or should I say "chemical formula." And at the store in my neighborhood, if you say you want Cheddar Cheese, they give you a shredded mix that has a few specks of cheddar and they don't even say anything like "We don't have Cheddar, we have this little mysterious mix that we know isn't what you want or what you asked for."  And hmm I mean I hope the turkey is turkey but we don't really know anymore, do we?

   And then okay, maybe it is just the fast food industry, except that iphones seem engineered to be a disposable product now because the charging ports wear out in a year ever since Apple started using the chargers that have that tiny little port instead of the wider port that was more dependable.  And when I try to access my library of music there is this other button that tries to get you to sign up for their apple music program.  And then it is hard to access my old library of music in the first place, so I think, hmm, do I have to rebuy music?  I know I am not the only one.  I've heard many rumors that Apple tries to make their products become obsolete fast on purpose, but is "obsolete" really the same as "defective?" I don' t think it is, honestly.

   That was funny when I just said the word "honestly," wasn't it?"

Trials and Errors

Well everyone, it is a Thursday morning in October and I am starting my day mad at Pope Francis. It is not really anything personal except he told everyone that the death penalty is wrong and contrary to  the gospel and Christianity. I think he is the one who is wrong this time, not the death penalty, and people who do what they are supposed to and are morally secure have no problem sending murderers, child abusers, and rapists onward to Judgement Day for God to decide what is next for them. And one of those reasons is that there might not be a bad enough punishment possible for them on earth. As much as people want to seem compassionate by saying it is no one's right to take another life, the fact is that the humane thing to do is to rid our streets of rapists and murderers and to trust that there can be more justice and mercy beyond this world. So really the thing that is not Christian is thinking that all we see is all there is and everything is up to us in such a way that we have to be too careful to do what is right and err on the side of letting traffickers and heroin dealers ruin everyone's lives. There are horrible things happening in our country, and I think the real question before us these days is not whether the death penalty is moral, but whether the murderers and rapists should still get a trial beforehand.