Category Archives: Society

Sex on the Beach

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Titillating.

According to Wikipedia, there are two general types of the cocktail: one made from vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice, and cranberry juice and one made from vodka, Chambord, Midori Melon Liqueur, pineapple juice, and cranberry juice. The former is an International Bartenders Association official cocktail but the latter is listed in the Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide.

Both come with the warning that “this drink is not the for the faint of heart.”

A Google search for “sex on the beach” turned up about 313,000,000 results in 0.27 seconds.

Sex on the Beach
Apparently, that’s not for the faint of heart, either.

A Florida couple convicted in May of having sex on the beach up in Manatee County faced up to 15 years behind bars and must register as sex offenders for “illicit public sexcapades.”

The jury deliberated for about 15 minutes after watching sex-on-the-beach video during the 2-day trial.

A grandmother on Cortez Beach in Bradenton filmed the couple in what we once called “in flagrante delicto.” The prosecutor showed the video in court. The Associated Press reported that the video “showed [a 20-year old woman] moving on top of the 40-year-old caballero] in a sexual manner in broad daylight. Witnesses testified that a 3-year-old girl saw them.”

Illicit public sexcapades?

The couple declined the prosecutor’s plea deal offer. “We gave them a reasonable offer, what we felt was reasonable, and they decided it wasn’t something they wanted to accept responsibility for,” the prosecutor told The Miami Herald. “Despite the video, despite all the witnesses.”

A Google search for “sex on the beach video” returned only about 213,000,000 results in 0.25 seconds although none of them were the Bradenton grandmother’s production.

Ya gotta wonder about that granny, shooting a bad porn video on the beach. Why wasn’t she prosecuted?

A different bad guy attacked and stabbed a person he had followed home from the Wells Fargo in Sarasota. Cops believe the suspect is a white male in his twenties with short dark hair who drives a mid-nineties 4-door Mercedes Benz.

Not caught. Not prosecuted.

On the other hand, a Manatee County couple will spend time behind bars animal cruelty at their Manatee County shelter. The couple was charged last year after sheriff’s deputies raided the Napier Log Cabin Horse and Animal Sanctuary and confiscated some 300 animals. Convicted in February, she was sentenced to 270 days in county jail followed by three years of probation. he got 36 months followed by four years on probation. Both are also prohibited from owning or possessing animals.

Ya gotta wonder about a prosecutor spending a couple of days at trial and pushing for 15 year sentences on a couple making love. I guess they were the low hanging fruit, far more important than stabbings or abusing 300 animals.

I’ve never figured that sand was particularly lubricious, but if SWMBO or Caitlin, or Fanny, or Liz, or Missy wants to try geezer sex on the beach, I’m sure we can find a spot where Bradenton Granny isn’t around to shoot porn with her video cam.

 

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 not May 30 but perhaps we can shut up and salute anyway.

Editorial cartoon from Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

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.

2,312 U.S. men and women have died in Afghanistan since 2001.

More than 665,000 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.

150 Years since the Civil War Ended
The National Moment of Remembrance, established by the 106th Congress in 2000, “asks” Americans, wherever they are on Memorial Day, to pause in an act of national unity for a duration of one minute. Public Law 106-579 states that “the National Moment of Remembrance is to be practiced by all Americans throughout the nation at 3 p.m. local time.”

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.

 

65 Cents Lost

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I found 65 cents on the road this morning. Since that’s a nickle more than I made in an hour on my first job, I was aghast.

Marlboro Reds
This poor, abandoned pack of smokes fell out of someone’s pocket to be run over by at least one small truck.

I always hated it when the pack fell out of my shirt pocket but I hated it even more when it was my Zippo lighter and I was on the boat. If you find a 40-year old Zippo in the grassy bottom at the bend of the Chester River at Devils Reach off what used to be a corn field, it’s mine. It will probably still work.

Regular readers may recall that I quit smoking for my birthday in 1976, in large part because it had gotten so expensive. I smoked Between the Acts, a little cigarette-shaped nicotine delivery device (NDD) made with cigar tobacco. It was a convenient package because one could smoke an entire “cigar” during a short intermission. I liked the taste and the fact that they cost only 35 cents per pack because cigars weren’t subject to the same taxes as cigarettes.

Minimum wage was $2.30/hour in 1976 except for farm workers. Farmers reached parity with nonfarm workers in 1977 but anyone “working for tips” such as restaurant staff and theater ushers remain uncovered by minimum wage laws.

Marlboros (we didn’t have to call them “Reds” in 1976), jumped to $5/carton that year on state taxes and the state legislature planned to add the taxes to cigars like mine.

Minimum wage smokers then had to work about two-and-a-half hours, after deductions for Social Security and a dime of income tax, to buy a whole carton of cigs.

I called the local drug store this morning. That single pack of Marlboros cost $6.03 plus state and local sales taxes for a total price of $6.48 here today. Embedded in the price (and therefore doubly taxed) is $1.339 per pack in excise taxes. In 2013, the same pack of smokes cost $6.00 here in Florida, down 5% from $6.29 in 2012. Last summer, Florida prices came back up 5% to $6.30. We won’t even talk about New York where that same pack would cost you $12.85 or more.

All told, that’s $65 per carton here today.

Every year, the Awl “checks the prices of cigarettes in all fifty legally recognized states of this fair Union.” Founded in 2009, the Awl publishes “the curios and oddities” of the Internet.

The 2015 minimum wage in Florida is $8.05 per hour, with a minimum of at least $5.03 per hour for tipped employees. Plus tips.

Minimum wage smokers today need to work about ten hours or a quarter of a work week, after an 89 cent deduction for Social Security and Medicare and another half a buck of income tax, to buy a carton of cigs.

So I have to wonder, How does anyone afford to smoke, let alone to lose, cigarettes?

 

Transmogrifying

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Yawn. Last night, a former Olympian revealed a secret that we’ve all known for decades.

I just can’t see that it’s news. I mean, I understand that Bruce Jenner likes being in the spotlight but does it have any impact on you or me? How about the fact that Gwyneth Paltrow has filed for divorce?

I reckon the question of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance or the fact that !@#$%^Comcast and Time Warner Cable have abandoned their deal (for now) (until regulator and congressional scrutiny returns to Bruce Jenner) is a lot more important.

Bottom line? If Dave Pfaff of West Underwear, Pennsylvania, tried to get to Diane Sawyer with his lifelong struggle over gender, do you think Ms. Sawyer or we would give him the time of day?

So why should we do so for Bruce Jenner?

Spreading the Word, North Puffin Style

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There exists a photograph of me in a manure spreader, waving to the crowd.

Yeah, there’s a story behind that.

Vermont has a biennial election cycle so politicians show up in force at events like Franklin County Field Days every other year. Vermont politicians also (usually) had a pretty good sense of humor.

That particular photo-op likely came in about 1988 when I chaired one of North Puffin’s two political committees. Every other year, we had a booth at Field Days (the booth lived at the telephone company for a number of years, and then in my barn for a decade, and then on to another good home). That year was Lt. Gov. Peter Smith‘s first run for Congress.

Yes, Mr. Smith went to Washington.

Anyway, Peter was at Field Days, trying to go to Washington, and I spent part of the day introducing him around. That always took a while. He and I both like to talk to people. One fellow told him all about his apple orchard and the little roadside stand his dad ran each fall. In great and glowing detail.

As we walked on, Peter turned to me with that “Why did we spend so much time?” look.

“Oh, Steve is also the president of the bank.”

Field Days has a tractor parade and there isn’t a politician born who can resist a parade. The Field Days committee didn’t want to politicize their event but they weren’t above making a political statement.

John Deere Spreader“Dick, if you can find someone with a trailer, you can tow all the politicians around together.” I think there was some hope that someone, somewhere at Field Days, was exhibiting tomatoes.

Always ready to rise to the challenge, I found a beautifully restored John Deere ground-drive spreader. OK, it had been swamped out with a fire hose, anyway. We crammed the whole load of politicians of every persuasion and party in there and everyone had a good time.

That’s just common sense.

Common sense seems to have been in short supply since then.

Shades of Chicago, Vermont
This story is from a Town about 75 miles south of North Puffin. A newcomer to politics had hoped to make a difference by running for the Selectboard in his adopted hometown this year. Sadly, he died one day before Town Meeting. That didn’t stop voters from electing him to a 3-year term; no one told them that he collapsed at his home and died.

The Town Clerk said state election laws prohibit campaigning or discussion of candidates within a polling place. An announcement about the man’s death might be interpreted as urging voters to cast their ballots in a certain way, she said.

Ya think? Like maybe that they should vote for someone who was, well, alive?

Politics, the art of the possible? Nah. Politics, now the art of the weird.

Fortunately, I was unable to unearth a copy of the photo of us spreading the word.