Category Archives: Random Access

Random Access, the op-ed.

Dead Sea Salt Scrub

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“Last year I got talked into purchasing a jar of authentic Dead Sea salt scrub,” my friend Liz Arden confessed at a potluck dinner the other night.

Greta Bruhl was entranced. “I read that Dead Sea salt outperforms Alba Botanica [a bath emollient] as a sunscreen,” she said. Greta is the daughter of my good friend, retired newspaper editor Lee Bruhl.

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
–Mark Twain

Ashley Proctor brought a special new salt to the potluck. “It’s organic!” she said, happily.

Paul “Buster” Door, a former North Puffin car dealer and Democratic party official, says he can taste the difference.

<sigh>

Morton Salt GirlOrganic? Health benefits?

While it is true that a nice mineral coating on your skin does reflect sunlight, I couldn’t find any minerals in Alba Botanica Mineral Sunscreen. None. Alba Botanica proudly offers “100% vegetarian personal care products” that contain isopropyl palmitate, glyceryl stearate SE, steareth-2, dimethicone, trimethylsiloxysilicate, glyceryl stearate, stearic acid, methyl glyceth-20, cetyl phosphate, allantoin, phenoxyethanol, benzyl alcohol, and potassium sorbate. Not a mineral in sight. Potassium sorbate is the potassium salt of sorbic acid but it and allantoin are in there in minute quantities, probably to inhibit mold or repel mosquitoes.

A mineral is a “naturally occurring, homogeneous inorganic solid substance having a characteristic crystalline structure, color, and hardness.” Inorganic elements such as calcium, iron, potassium, sodium, and zinc are well known examples.

Organic and inorganic compounds form the basis for chemistry and it’s fairly easy to tell them apart. The primary difference between them is that organic compounds always contain carbon; most inorganic compounds don’t. Table sugar, ethanol, and cholesterol with its linked hydrocarbon rings are all organic. Salts, metals, salts, the battery in your smartphone, salts, and all substances except diamonds made from single elements are inorganic.

Maybe she meant it’s organic food! Organic foods are produced without the usual pesticides and fertilizers used in farming. Typically, organic food processing also doesn’t use radiation, industrial solvents, or synthetic food additives.

Organic Chemistry? Nupe. Common table or sea salt is Sodium Chloride with the chemical symbol NaCl. No carbon.

Organic Food? Nupe. It’s been a while since I was in a salt mine, so maybe things have changed but I’m pretty sure they don’t need pesticides, fertilizers, radiation, solvents, or food additives to pull rocks out of the ground or out of sea water.

People are sooooooooooooo gullible.

 

Memorial Day

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Today is Memorial Day in the United States. The holiday once known as Decoration Day commemorates the men and women who perished under the flag of this country, fighting for what sets our America apart: the freedom to live as we please.

Holiday is a contraction of holy and day; the word originally referred only to special religious days. Here in the U.S. of A. “holiday” means any special day off work or school instead of a normal day off work or school.

The Uniform Holidays Bill which gave us some 38 or 50 Monday shopaholidays moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. Today is May 30. Salute. Proudly.

Honoring Americans in Uniform
Lest we forget, the Americans we honor did not “give their lives.” They did not merely perish. They did not just cease living, check out, croak, depart, drop, expire, kick off. kick the bucket, pass away or pass on, pop off, or bite the dust. Their lives were taken from them by force on battlefields around the world. They were killed. Whether you believe they died with honor, whether you believe our cause just, died they did.

Today is not a “free” day off work or school. Today is not the big sale day at the Dollar Store. Today is a day of Honor.

2,499 U.S. men and women have died in Afghanistan since 2008. 593 U.S. men and women have died in Iraq. And more have died as the U.S. has introduced “small numbers” of special-operators in the fight against ISIS. Navy SEAL Charles Keating IV was killed in fighting near Irbil this month. They died for thee and for me.

Rolling Stone reports that the U.S. has been at war for 2,687 days under this Administration. That’s more days at war than under Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Lyndon Johnson, George W. Bush or any other president. (I was unable to confirm the number since today is the 3,053th day since January 20, 2008.)

More than 666,000 Battle Deaths have occurred since the U.S. was founded.

“All persons present in uniform should render the military salute. Members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute. All other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, or if applicable, remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Citizens of other countries present should stand at attention. All such conduct toward the flag in a moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes.”

The American flag today should first be raised to the top of the flagpole for a moment, then lowered to the half-staff position where it will remain until Noon. The flag should be raised to the peak at Noon for the remainder of Memorial Day.

There are those in this country who would use today to legislate the man out of the fight. They can do that but the men and women we honor today knew you cannot legislate the fight out of the man. They have fought and they have died to protect us from those who would kill us. And perhaps to protect us from those who would sell out our birthright.

There is no end to the mutts who would kill our men and women in uniform even faster than they would kill their own. If I had but one wish granted on this day, I wish not another soldier dies. Ever. But die they did around the world again this year and die they will. For us. For me.

Because those men and women died, I get to write these words again this year. And you get to read them. You get to rail about Islam or Presbyterianism or Frisbeeism without fear of the government. And I get to read it. Please pause and reflect as you go to a concert, stop at an artist’s studio, grill a burger, or simply read a book in the sunshine the price we pay to keep our right to do those things. Remember a soldier who died in combat today. Thank a living soldier today. And then do it again tomorrow.

Editor’s Note: This column is slightly updated from one that first appeared in 2008.

 

Working Vacation

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The first year I had a cellphone, I was sitting down on the beach when my friend called.

“I lost all my files,” she said, crying. “Everything is gone. My customer database. Everything.”

With the little bitty surf soothing in the background, I talked her off the ledge.

She reminds me of that every once in a while, that I was down here on vacation, working.

I have since moved to South Puffin here in the middle of the Florida Keys and I still work about as much as I ever did, so I’m likely to do it wherever I like the view. I can get away with it because I live here but I’m always sorry to see visitors not getting “Keysey.”

My inch of beach (actually, I own 5.33 inches of sand on the ocean) is just far enough from the front door that I have to leave the house and go there on purpose. That’s good.

I was late getting away from the house yesterday. Still, our lot was pretty full of cars when I got there but few people were around. I think the sand critter got the rest. Maybe ate some cars too. One young couple was snuzzling with a radio playing softly. I swam and read and swam but didn’t nap. And watched a visitor pacing the beach, back and forth, talking on his phablet. He’s a lawyer by appearance and context and he seems to work that phone pretty much all the time. Sometimes he walks the sand. Sometimes he wades.

“I wish people didn’t have to work on their vacations here,” I said to him as I passed him on my way into the water, “but you seem to have the best of both worlds.”

He agreed as his phone rang and he answered again.

That said, I don’t encourage people to work when they are here on vacation, unless they come here to do just that.

“Voluntourism” is more and more popular. “A vacation isn’t just for relaxation. It’s also a chance to pass along values to your kids,” says USAToday.

I want my kids to learn to relax but a number of Keys destinations need volunteers including the Coral Restoration Foundation, Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center, Habitat For Humanity of Key West, the Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden, Key West Wildlife Center, Marathon Wild Bird Center, Pigeon Key, and the Reef Environmental Education Foundation.

The Coral Restoration Foundation creates offshore nurseries and restoration programs for threatened coral species. Their programs and techniques are implemented in new nursery and restoration projects worldwide.

They're So SoftFlorida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center rescues, rehabilitates, and releases native and migratory birds and provides or locates a humane shelter for those birds that cannot be released. They have very good intern programs. It was at a visit to the Laura Quinn Sanctuary that I learned that pelicans are soft.

Habitat for Humanity of Key West treats its volunteers as their most valuable resource as visitors work alongside staff, homeowners, and other volunteers. They build and repair houses using volunteer labor and donations. Families purchase the houses through no-profit, no-interest mortgage loans or innovative financing methods.

Pigeon Key hosts day and overnight marine science field trips for educational groups as well as special events and summer camps but they are also open for individual visitors. They need interns and junior counselors.

Leave your smartphone home and drink plenty of water if you come. Summer may start this weekend up north but it is already summer here and I guarantee you’ll sweat.

 

Because They Can

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Tales from the northernmost and the southernmost puffins.

Miami-Dade County commissioner Pepe Diaz beat a DUI at trial in Key West the other day after he was pulled over for speeding on his motorcycle there. A police officer clocked him driving his Harley-Davidson at 74 mph along South Roosevelt Boulevard next to Higgs Beach. The speed limit is 30 mph. He was there participating in Key West’s annual Poker Run bike party.

More than 10,000 motorcycles and riders from across the country rumbled down our Overseas Highway from mainland Florida to Key West during the Key West Poker Run last fall. The event began in 1972 with 46 riders and has grown into a major fundraiser for South Florida charities.

Mr. Diaz refused to take a breath test; he said he doesn’t trust the breath-analysis machines.

(As an aside, in both Vermont and Florida, under the implied consent law, refusal triggers a license suspension for the first offence and the refusal is used to underpin the DUI prosecution. One can also be arrested for a DUI in either state even if he or she is not driving.)

His defense countered with witnesses who testified that he didn’t appear drunk when he went out on the Harley and explained that an inner-ear condition and other physical limitations caused him to lose his balance during the field sobriety check. “LeBron James could not do these exercises today in this court,” Mr. Diaz’s attorney said during closing arguments. “It’s a kangaroo court designed for failure to justify an arrest.”

I watched the 27-minute arrest video and, truth, I agree. I absolutely do not want a cop who is determined to prove I’m drunk administering a test that practically guarantees I’ll look drunk on camera.

It took just 20 minutes for the Key West jury to clear Mr. Diaz of the drunk-driving charge.

I sold our old truck and bought a new truck last month (here’s the story in case you missed it) and mailed in the paperwork to transfer the tags from one to the other.

Time passed.

Vermont didn’t cash the check. A plate check showed that number still registered to the old truck. Nothing was happening.

Anne called Vermont’s DMV. The clerk suggested she check with her bank to see if her check had been cashed yet. Lordy™.

Anne finally got the clerk to look up the filing only to discover they had sent it back to her. “It should be in your mailbox now,” the clerk said.

Well, no.

The clerk told her it had been returned because Vermont needs the VIN verification verified. “The officer needs to include his business card,” she said.

South Puffin is a very small city but we do have a police department. Our sergeant had come in off patrol to do the VIN Verification when I first got the truck.

I chased the sergeant down again. He stopped by and gave me his business card.

I was walking out the door to mail it to Anne when she called me. “Their letter states that they need a letter on department letterhead from the officer who did the VIN verification along with him stating the mileage is what was stated on the registration.”

I chased down the sergeant. Again. Told him about the letterhead.

“We don’t do that,” he said. “I’ve done VIN verifications for about 18 states. None of them do that.” He called them muttonheads. Actually, he used a different word. “What kind of muttonheads are they? They have my badge number on their form. They have my agency ID on their form. We don’t do that.”

He wrote the mileage on his business card. I mailed it to Anne.

Muttonheaded bureaucrats. These are the same people who proved that Vermont Don’t Know Dick.

Vermont accepts credentials from the Universal Life Church (better known as “the Church of the lowest price ordination) and probably from Church of Bob for wedding officiants, but they don’t accept a sworn officer’s badge for a car sale.

“No taxes on weddings,” Rufus said.

That’s part of it.

“Bureaucrats spend their days coming up with novel ways to screw with you,” Liz Arden replied. And that’s it.

As of this writing, Mr. Diaz’ license is still suspended but he received a waiver that allows him to continue driving to work, for his commission duties, and other day-to-day errands. And the plate check now comes back to my new truck but we have no actual registration certificate.

 

Just the Facts

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My friends Jon and Pamela Friar were holding forth over dinner about how much safer we would be if we didn’t have “automatic assault weapons.”

“I don’t know much about guns,” Jon said, “but we need to control automatic weapons better.” Jon is a science guy, pro-choice, and very data driven in the rest of his life, so I wondered why he isn’t fact driven in this discussion.

“Oh, but we are. Everything I’ve ever read shows how dangerous the choices we’ve made are.”

Huh.

And yet, with everything they’ve read, they don’t know any facts.

“I don’t know much about guns,” he said.

AR-15 and AK-47 RiflesThe AR-15 was designed by Armalite to meet the US Army requirement for a new rifle, chambered for a new intermediate cartridge. It was adopted by the US Army as the M16 and became a standard issue infantry weapon. It cycles by “direct gas impingement” that it differs from earlier gas systems and initially fired a .223 Remington/5.56×45mm slug. AR-15 offerings for the civilian market are different. The civilian AR-15 started with Colt’s original semi-automatic “Sporter” rifles, manufactured since 1963. All the current clones are still simply semi-automatic rifles that look like the original AR-15. Semi-automatic rifles are not select fire / burst or full automatic capable.

The legendary AK-47 is also a selective-fire, military rifle. It was developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the last year of World War II. It is gas-operated and fires a 7.62×39mm slug. The Kalashnikov and its variants are the most widely used military rifles in the world. Civilian models are available from China, (East) Germany, Egypt, Hungary, Iraq, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, and even Russia in semiauto only. Century International Arms, founded in St. Albans, Vermont, is a major importer and remanufacturer AK-style rifles for the civilian market.

Unless those rifles are illegally altered, they are not full automatics. Full auto weapons have been regulated since the National Firearms Act of 1934, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the Hughes Amendment in 1986.

Jon and Pam don’t know that a 5.56mm NATO round (or the similar .223 Remington) for the AR-15 has a muzzle velocity around 3,200 fps, and energy of 1,282 ft-lbs at the muzzle but only half that at 200 yards. The AK-47’s 7.62mm is a more powerful slug with a lower muzzle velocity around 2,300 fps, and energy of 1,507 ft-lbs at the muzzle with a drop to half that at 200 yards.

They don’t know the .223 is one of the most common cartridges in use here for varmint rifles as well as semi-automatic rifles such as Ruger Mini-14/5P.

They don’t know the popular 30-30 hunting rifle is very similar to the AK-47 with a muzzle velocity around 2,389 fps, and energy of 1,901 ft-lbs at the muzzle.

They don’t know the .308 tops that with a muzzle velocity of 2,820 fps, and energy of 2,648 ft-lbs. Likewise, the .30-06 hunting rifle has a muzzle velocity around 2,800 fps, and energy of 2,872 ft-lbs at the muzzle. It keeps most of that at 200 yards with muzzle velocity still at 2,403 fps, and energy of 2,115 ft-lbs at that distance, more powerful at that distance than the AK-47 up close.

Every one of those rifles has plenty of killing power. The “assault rifles” just look fiercer. So do modern pickup trucks (which kill more people).

The real question here is this: since the “assault weapon” you abhor is similar (and in many ways less capable than many popular hunting-style rifles, don’t you really just want to ban all American citizens from owning all guns?

Jon and Pam spent most of his working in the middle east where ISIS is now a government. I’m not sure how they feel about taking away the weapons from “rebels” in Syria, Iraq, and other countries there who are fighting that “government” for their freedom and very lives.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
–Thomas Jefferson in a 1787 letter to William Stephens Smith

Jon and Pam believe a few citizens cannot defeat a modern army or secret police force. They didn’t know that the history of rebellions against tyranny has always featured a ragtag bunch of citizens going up against a superior government force. The British host, f’rex, was undefeated until they met the fighting farmers of the Colonies and we know how that turned out. The ragtag rebels may not always win but, if they didn’t try, we surely lose.

I wonder how Jon and Pam figure it’s good for the citizens there with sticks and stones to go up against the well-armed, well trained ISIS fighters but bad to take that right away from citizens here.

Oh. I understand. They know our government will protect us from … oh wait.


Doing #1 and #2