Day: August 29, 2019

An “Aha” Moment

Fandango13 Comments

D2E61842-4604-4422-AEEA-3319624FB92CIt finally clicked in Maryanne’s head. The bush-league leader of the free world is making a wreck of things. His behavior is so abnormal that Maryanne was sure that the President has totally lost his mind.

This marked a poignant “aha” moment for Maryanne. She voted for Trump in 2016 and was a devoted fan of the President. She appreciated the huge tax cuts for the wealthy, and her family is very wealthy, that he pushed through Congress. She supported his promise to build a wall along America’s southern border in order to keep out the vermin with brown skin from shithole countries from invading our country. As a pro-life Christian, she loved his actions to pack the courts with ultra conservative judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

But Maryanne was, above everything else, a caring, loving mother. And with some of Trump’s recent moves with respect to the environment, Maryanne began to feel concerned about the future health and well-being of her children.

Within the same week, Trump instructed his Secretary of Agriculture to remove protections for the Tongass National Forest in Alaska in order to open it up for logging and mining projects. He also directed his Environmental Protection Agency to relax restrictions on methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that is a major contributor to global warming. But the last straw, in Maryanne’s eyes, was Trump’s asinine proposal to drop nuclear bombs on Atlantic hurricanes in order to break them up in the ocean before they made landfall.

“He has gone mad,” Maryanne told her best friend. “I cannot support a man who’s actions are putting the lives of my children in jeopardy. I know this is heresy, but I may actually have to vote for the Democrat in 2020.”

Maryanne’s best friend reached over and gave Maryanne a hug. “It’s about time you saw the light, Maryanne. I’m so proud of you.”

Written for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (click), Ragtag Daily Prompt (bush), Daily Addictions (wreck), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (abnormal), Word of the Day Challenge (lost), and Your Daily Word Prompt (poignant).

#writephoto — Nuclear Winter

Fandango28 Comments

175B1F15-AE11-4B2A-A14E-84EF4BA680A5Back then, almost everyone was concerned about climate change and global warming. Scientists around the world had warned about the potentially catastrophic effects of rising temperatures. Summers were getting hotter, storms stronger. Fires were ravaging the planet’s critical ancient forests, while glaciers were rapidly melting, causing sea levels to rise precipitously.

But world leaders and politicians didn’t listen to the scientists. It was too inconvenient, too burdensome, too expensive to address the threat to our existence that climate change posed. And so we continued to burn fossil fuels and to deforest the planet for development and mining.

As a result of inaction on the part of those in a position to address and reverse the impact of climate change, more frequently and significantly stronger hurricanes and typhoons, propelled by warmer ocean waters, began to pummel islands and coastal regions around the globe. When the President of the United States proposed nuking these massive, devastating storms while they were still out to sea, everyone thought he was making a joke. But he wasn’t. He was deadly serious.

Having effectively taken full control of the American government, Trump, against the advice of the world’s scientific community, unilaterally implemented his insane plan and ordered the military to drop nuclear bombs in the middle of hurricanes, secure in his belief that doing so would break up these storms and save the lands and property in their paths.

Instead, these nuclear explosions churned up and heated up the ocean waters significantly. They also spewed high levels of lethal radiation into the Earth’s atmosphere and polluted most of the planet’s potable water, resulting in the painful deaths of billions of people and of many animals. Fires consumed forests across the globe, and between the smoke from the fires and the atomic clouds that resulted from dozens of nuclear blasts, the planet ultimately was engulfed by thick, gray clouds that choked out the sun, creating what scientists warned would be a nuclear winter.

Dozens of years later, one of the sentries of a small band of human survivors went to the surface to take atmospheric and temperature readings. Amazed by what he saw, he descended quickly down the deep chute and excitedly reported to the elders. “The clouds have parted,” he shouted. “The sun is rising on the horizon.”

This dystopian post was written for this week’s Thursday Photo Prompt from Sue Vincent.

Abby Normal

Fandango19 Comments

I was going to write a post this morning about how abnormal the current President of the United States is and the abnormal times we are living in as a result of Donald Trump holding that office.

But instead I decided to show a clip from one of my all-time favorite movies, “Young Frankenstein.”

We could all use a little comic relief, right?

Padiddle!

Fandango9 Comments

100FC382-878C-4FBD-876C-64840342A500You know what a padiddle is, don’t you? It’s a game, actually. We all used to play it from our late teens probably into and maybe even through our twenties.

Padiddle is a term that refers to a car with only one working headlight, as is the case in the photo above of an old VW Beetle. The way the padiddle game worked was that if you were out for a drive with your girlfriend and you saw a car with only one working headlight, the first one of you to shout out “Padiddle!” was the winner. If the guy was the first to shout the word, he got to kiss the girl. If the girl said it first, she could either slap or kiss the guy.

The game was a played a little differently if your driving companion happened to be another guy. In that case, the first one to shout “Padiddle!” got to punch the other guy in the upper arm. Fun, huh?

Anyway, I thought about padiddle the other night when I was walking my dog. I noticed that I hardly ever see cars at night with only one working headlight and I wondered why. And then the answer came to me: sealed beam headlights.4F4BC02F-DEDA-44A6-8E77-2506D29A9CE4These days, nearly all cars have composite headlight assemblies, uniquely designed for each specific make and model car. If a light within the assembly burns out, which is relatively rare, you simply replace just the bulb.

But back in the day, all U.S. cars were required by law to use “sealed beam headlights,” and they were pretty much standardized in size (i.e., not vehicle specific). The headlight consisted of an enclosure with a bulb in front of a lens, completely made of glass. The entire unit is sealed (hence the name) and none of the parts can be replaced separately. If the headlight stopped functioning or broke, you’d have to replace the entire sealed beam light.

These sealed beam headlight bulbs used to burn out every few years. Hence, there were more cars on the road with only one working headlight. Which meant a lot more opportunities for the padiddle game and a legitimate excuse to kiss your sweetie (or to arm-punch your buddy.)

But then in the mid 80s, U.S. laws changed to allow composite headlight assemblies with replaceable bulbs for the first time. And these bulbs were brighter and lasted a lot longer than those sealed beam headlights.

When was the last time you saw a padiddle? In fact, when was the last time you saw a car (other than at old time car shows or fairs) with sealed beam headlights?

For what it’s worth, I came across this picture of a ‘56 Chevy Bel Air on Pinterest. Notice its sealed beam headlights. Sexy, right?872B120F-6CD9-410D-8D55-32B5BEB8D4DB