‘We Don’t Have a Mobile Phone’ (2018)

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We don’t have a cell phone. I admit there are times that it would come in handy. But the thing is, you put yourself on 24-hour call with people who have nothing to offer but annoyance. (I say “people,” but half of them are only robots so you can’t even yell at them.)

We Haven’t Got a Mobile Phone

“Hello! Mr. Du-du-gaaan, this is David–” yeah, sure it is: David freakin’ Copperfield–“with Healthcare Healthy Systems…”

No, I don’t need that.

You go into the pizza parlor and there’s a group of half a dozen kids sitting together around a table, all of them glued to their cell phones. Why don’t they talk to each other? There’s something wrong with this picture.

My Horrible Day So Far

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“We have encountered a technical problem,” simpers the evil computer. “Please try again later.” And again, and again, and again…

I knocked myself out yesterday to write a Newswithviews column, and then the unspeakable devil of a computer refused to send it. This morning we tried for going on 90 minutes to get the thing to work. I even typed the freakin’ column all over again so I could send it on the other machine—with exactly the same result!

I admit I screamed and pounded on the floor.

And of course we couldn’t buy all our regular groceries yesterday, although I was in the store for twice as long as normally, so we had to go back out today and try Whole Foods. It’s not my kind of store. I want regular working-class food, not this hoity-toity past lives stuff. Well, at least I was able to get wax paper, lettuce, and eggs.

I don’t know about you, but for both Patty and me, this Chinese Death Monster Virus scare has begun to take on an air of unreality. Like, are we stuck in some stupid movie somewhere? Is Kevin Kostner going to turn up in our parking lot?

And it’s kind of like being poor, only you have money… but what good is money if there’s nothing you can buy with it? I am too old to take up a whole new way of life, that of being poverty-stricken.

And still I can’t send the flippin’ email. The computer says no, not allowed.

I hate technology.

Are They Kidding?

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We sometimes have occasion to visit the new Whole Foods store in our town.

One of the first things we see is a whole bunch of signs reserving parking space for “high occupancy vehicles only.” Defined as a car with four people in it.

Oh, please. How often do you see a car with four people in it? Yeah, okay–if you watch The Beverly Hillbillies reruns, with the four Clampetts in their old jalopy. Maybe the Clampetts are on their way to shop at Whole Foods.

How do they know, by looking at an empty parked car, how many people came to the store in it? They don’t seem to have any sentries. Nobody skulking around to make sure there weren’t only two people in the car.

What they are doing here, of course, is virtue signalling. We’re gonna *Save The Planet* by stuffing extra people into cars! I mean, if we can’t get them to come here on their bikes or trikes or skateboards. That would be even better.

Somebody out there wants us to live like the people in The Hunger Games, who don’t have cars, it’s not allowed, and can’t go anywhere.

The thing about the car is that it gives us independence. We go where we want to go, when we want to go. For some reason the elitists just can’t stand that. Independence and mobility should only be for The Best People. Not us peasants.

Hey, if they enforced their silly rule, we’d never go there at all. How about a store with no customers? That’ll work.

 

My Poor Car [wail and gnash teeth]

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Wahoo! The repair bill for my car will be at least $1,000, probably more–something about rusted-out brake line tubing, I dunno.

Options: 1) Do the repairs; 2) go without a car for the rest of my life; 3) buy a used car, with no idea, really, of what I’m getting; 4) buy a new car, costing a mountain of money, with computers in it that spy on you.

Hot dog. I guess I’ll take Door No. 1, Monty.

No, I am not ready to pedal my bike to Whole Foods every time we need something to eat and buy really healthy foods in small amounts. I am too old to enjoy riding my bike in inclement weather, with idiots creeping up behind me and beeping their horns.

 

‘Banality of Evil du Jour: another Bogus Hate Crime’ (2016)

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How come so many “hate crimes” turn out to be hoaxes? Here’s one from 2016: a “gay minister” from Texas–so much for that Red State stuff–tried to extort money from Whole Food on account of “anti-gay slur” on a wedding cake: which, it turned out, he put there himself.

https://leeduigon.com/2016/05/17/banality-of-evil-du-jour-another-phony-hate-crime/

As Mark Steyn so insightfully observed at the time, now the cherished minorities are upset because “the haters” aren’t hating them enough.

May the tide soon turn, O Lord…