A Serious Legal Question

Some might argue that there is too much law in the US; too many lawyers, too many lawsuits, too much litigation in every area of life, and especially in medicine.

I have an exhibit that might prove the above assertion to be true, or not true.

Which is it?

Enter Exhibit A:

What a deal!

Yes, Exhibit A is an application form for a Speedway Rewards Card. Speedway (formerly Hess) is a gas station chain in this area, and I’ve been in their stores many times. They now have .69 cent drinks – any size – so that’s quite a deal. You can get 54 oz of Raspberry Iced tea for only .69 cents. Not bad. They have hot dogs, slushies, all the average American snacks (cheese doodles, peanuts, HoHos) etc. It’s a stop and go joint, with of course gas to be had, and on top of all this you can get a Speedway Rewards Card.

What could be better?

Eat and drink enough, and buy enough gas and your ship comes in: you get a reward, like a free Freeze for 1,000 point or a free pizza for 1,350 points: like that. It’s great, and it’s America!

The most interesting thing about the Speedway Rewards Card is actually on the back of the application. Yes, the back. Here is a picture of the back:

Legalese on the back;  please read!

The entire back, as you see, is devoted to legalize, such as:

• The Speedy Rewards program is protected by copyright as a collective work and/or compilation, pursuant to U.S. copyright laws, international conventions and other copyright laws.

• Company may change, suspend or discontinue any aspect of the Speedy Rewards program at any time, including but not limited to rewards and point accrual/redemption methods. 

• You hereby agree to indemnify, defend and hold Company, and all its officers, directors, owners, agents, employees, information providers, licensors and licensees (collectively, the “Indemnified Parties”) harmless from and against any and all liabilities and costs incurred by the Indemnified Parties in connection with any claim arising out of any breach by You of the Agreement or the foregoing representations, warranties and covenants, including, without limitation, attorneys fees and costs.

…and lots more.

Let’s get this straight. To get a free bag of cheese doodles, I am under obligation to an entire multi-paragraph litany of legalese informing me of my rights and obligations in this said Speedway Club and what their rights and obligations are toward me. This is obviously serious business, as you can imagine. Imagine entering into an arrangement with Speedway blind, or them with me, without either of us fully understanding the legal quicksand we might be entering into. No, no, no. Not I, nor them.

A less astute mind might comment that, “Hey, what the heck! It’s only a Speedway Rewards Club!” Such small minds enter into contracts lightly and reap a pleforia of misunderstandings between parties that only end up requiring further legal redress. Such a case might even lead right up to the Supreme Court, where these distinguished justices would have to adjudicate between the mighty Speedway chain and a small-time hick, wanting only a free bag of Cool Ranch Doritos when the contract stipulated the original kind. No, we mustn’t have that! Thus the enlightened legalize on the back of the Speedway Rewards Card application.

So, I’m submitting my application fully appreciating what I am getting into. I do not take getting a HoHo for free lightly. Nor should you. Who says there’s too much legalize in America? And too many lawyers? Who knows: without them, I could inadvertently trigger a breach of contract and do irreparable harm to the Speedway chain. No, no, no. It shall not be.

Oh, please excuse me; I have to go. I need to finish reading my contract.

More Thoughts on this Crazy Election

It is difficult to know what to think about this election, the candidates, the debates or any of it. It’s all just very odd. It’s as if we have as a society fallen through the rabbit hole and…

Source: More Thoughts on this Crazy Election

More Thoughts on this Crazy Election

It is difficult to know what to think about this election, the candidates, the debates or any of it. It’s all just very odd. It’s as if we have as a society fallen through the rabbit hole and we now living in a post-rabbit hole world, where nothing really makes sense.

The American Voter, Getting Ready for the Fall

There was a time in the political discourse of this county where candidates were supposed to embody something vaguely defined as “character.” Of course politicians lie and have always lied, and sex scandals have never been out of the question, but when they surfaced, the candidate in question was toast. It happened in 1987 to Gary Hart, who was accused of being a “womanizer,” and with others over the years. Even being remarried was an issue at one time, and our public officials had to uphold at least some standard.

But no more. In this election we have a candidate who completely and utterly mishandled state secrets – an offense that resulted in charges against David Petraeus – but who somehow got off scot-free. No charges, no indictment. Nothing. The other candidate is blatantly vulgar (even before the 2005 video), lies profoundly and has been married three times.

So much for character.

Regarding the policies of the candidates, we find the same rabbit-hole world. Hilary’s policies tamer than Trump’s, but on Obamacare, the economy and Syria, she tightropes between supporting Obama’s policies and being against them – or both. This is normal political triangulation (or perhaps cognitive dissonance on steroids). But her support of a no fly zone over Syria is crazy. As soon as we shoot down a Russian jet fighter, this is what we would have: World War III!  Putin is not exactly in the mood for such American shenanigans.

And some of Trump’s policies are just as nutty. One can make a case for a tighter border, but are we really going to build a 1,500 mile wall? That’s like building a wall from Upstate, New York, (where I live) to Florida. I don’t think so. And yet it is floated as a possibility and makes as much sense as a no-fly zone in Syria.

What can we say? Some say Rome fell because of degeneracy, and I wonder if we are witnessing this here. A democracy is only as good as the integrity and uprightness of its citizens. Old Ben Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” True. If the people are “virtuous,” the candidates will at least try to exhibit that; if not, you end up with Hillary and Trump.

I will say it again: May God help us!

The Choice

We have no water.

Zero. We are now using paper plates and plastic bowls, taking showers at our Church’s conference center, flushing toilets with water from the Cato Village tap, dragging clothes out to a nearby laundromat and spending a ton of money doing them – like that. We looked in our dug well recently and saw something horrifying: the well had no water for 11 feet, and the water we did have was just above our jet pump. Usually the water is about 3 foot from the top. So we are missing eight feet of water, and our neighbor’s pond is down six to eight feet. (The dock now hangs up there in the air – quite strange!)

This is the Village Tap whee we get water;  all the jugs shown are our own

Totally unrelated, I should mention this: I’ve tried hard to turn off the internet in our house between 4 pm and 7 pm on weekdays; sometimes I miss or forget, and sometimes I’m out, but when I remember or return, off it goes. One press of the button and – presto! – no more internet. They wander around like animals put into a new cage, not knowing what to do; disoriented. We suggest books. Books? There’s always homework, and what about chores? What could be worse!? Tonight we pulled them out of their funk and played a rousing game of Uno. It was fun. Really.

The point of this blog is to marry these two discordant instances together with a simple question that I asked each and every one of my children: If you had to choose between having running water or having the internet, which would you choose?

Some might think this question a slam-dunk. Obviously, running water. To be sure. Well, if not a slam dunk – and if there is a few seconds of pause – of course the answer would still be running water. There can be no other answer. Really. You would agree, right?

Not if you’re a teenager in 2016. There is a three millisecond period of choice when I ask, a flash in the eye and out comes the obvious answer for these publicly educated souls: The Internet. All say The Internet. Everyone of them. Yes, The Internet.

Perhaps we can take this apart and analyze it more fully. On one hand we can barely wash out a toothbrush after using it, and on the other we have YouTube videos of a gorilla flying a hang glider, or something stupid like that. Is there really any choice? On one hand we have the blessed and always welcome flush, and on the other we have Amazon Echo and some jivy dance music and four teens dancing in the kitchen with boom-boom-boom vibrating throughout the house.

Do we even have a question?

You would think not. But we do.

These young minds perhaps don’t fully understand life, and the real world has not yet become fully real to them. They’ll get there, someday, I’m sure. Someday they will understand. And someday they’ll be asking their kids the same question; then they’ll be rolling their eyes, and wondering how their children could pick pure unadulterated fun over a living necessity. It’s the cycle of life, to be sure. But let’s be clear: at 56 years of age and with more than half a century under my belt, I pick running water.

Reflections on the Eve of the Second Presidential Debate

I have one searing question about the first presidential debate: how much more can the American people endure of this sort of thing?

We have one candidate who is a big liar and the other who is an even bigger liar; one who is as inauthentic as cheese doodles is to cheese and another who is so authentic that every thought that crosses his head is verbalized, to the point of incoherence; one who is a boring policy wonk with a fingernails-on-the-blackboard voice and another with charisma but no policy or changing policies or policies conceptualized and verbalized in nano-seconds – like the birth of an unstable heavy element: born and disappearing (or denied) within the nano news cycle.

Is this what the founders wanted?

I think not.

But this is what democracy has wrought, like the cat coughing up a hairball, but only this time its times two: one cough and out comes Hillary, and another cough and out comes Trump. Of these two, the American voter must pick.

May God help us!

100th Blog

You may not know it, but this is my 100^th blog. That’s 100 blogs – yes, 100 – since about a year ago, or to be exact: October 14, 2015.

It’s amazing how life changes in just a year. A year ago I was dealing with a second recurrence of esophageal cancer and undergoing Cyberknife treatments (Part I, Part II and Part III) for it. Back then I didn’t know where it would all lead, only that the doctors had something for me, but the question was: would it work?

It turned out that it did work, by God’s tremendous grace, and I am still here. Talking later to my doctor at my third successful scan about some of my woes, he became thoughtful and said something quite un-doctorial: I was a “miracle” – plain and simple.

Some people call me the “miracle man” but I know the big miracle is that God heard the prayers of the Saints and all the other good people who prayed for me. My wife even told me that our orthodontist’s children still pray for me at supper.  I said, “That could very well be the exact reason I am still here.”

So, here I am!

My fatigue has lessened so, to a greater and greater degree, I am able to live life. Living life: it’s great. Nothing like it. But who really cares if you live a few more years longer but continue to be as stupid as a tree trunk? Maybe we should not just want more years but to use the years that are given to us wisely. And what is wisdom, but to seek and find salvation?

I do have to make more time for my blog, but that’s just another plate I have spinning up in the air these days, so I’ll just add that to my list. Maybe I’ll make it to 200 blogs! I wonder how life will have changed – if at all – when I get to that number! I’ll let you know.