As you will notice, I have posted another encore post.  Again from 2013.  I just got back from Myrtle Beach after a 12 hour drive and was too tired to be creative.  I hope you can enjoy this five year old post.  I promise that next week will be new.

Today is Sunday, August 18 and many parents are already anticipating the day when their kids go back to school.  Kids, on the other hand are now wondering how many days until next summer’s vacation starts.  Birthday greetings go out to Flavius Ricimer, Max Factor and Robert Redford.  On this day in 1587 Virginia Dare became the first English child born in the New World, in 1834 Mt. Vesuvius erupted and in 1962 Peter, Paul & Mary released their first hit “If I Had a Hammer.”  There are no special holidays today, but this past Friday was Admission Day in Hawaii and Montrose-Blueberry Festival in Michigan.  I say everybody into the Way Back Machine and we go to Michigan for blueberry pancakes.

States all have nicknames.  New York is the Empire State, Pennsylvania is the Keystone State, Florida is the Sunshine State and so on.  I think New Jersey needs to change its nickname from the Garden State to the State of Redundancy State.  We have become a little ridiculous with some of the laws we pass here.

 

The state recently passed a law that makes it illegal to “hang out” in the left lane all the time when driving.  I have a couple problems with this bill.  The first is that the only reason that I can see for this is to make it easier for people to exceed the speed limits.  This means that we have enacted a law that allows people to break a different law.  The other problem is that we already had a law that states that you need to “keep right except to pass.”  There are signs along the roads that remind us of that.  If we had to pass this law stating the same basic idea, only in a different way, that means that no one was enforcing the first law.  What makes anyone think that the same people who do not enforce the first law will be any better with the newer one?

More recently, a law was enacted saying that you cannot text while driving.  Really!!!  I know some people who cannot text while sitting still, but that’s a discussion for another day.  The law was created after an accident believed to have been caused by texting resulted in the death of a young girl.  

Here is my problem – why was this law necessary when we already have a law stating that it is illegal to use your cell phone when driving.  What makes anyone think that the same people who do not enforce the first law will be any better with the newer one?  This comment, repeated from two paragraphs ago, is brought to you by the State of Redundancy State where if it was good enough to ignore once it’s good enough to ignore again.

I know that many of these laws are done by politicians who are pandering to different groups just to get attention.  When one of these laws is passed, the sponsors are always quoted saying how important it is to the well-being of the people, blah, blah, blah.  You want to impress us, pass a law that is truly important and then just let it go without the posturing in the papers.   Interestingly, these important issues always manage to come up only in election years.  We are lucky that our problems only show up every four years – far more often than cicadas and much more annoying.

On a totally different subject, I wanted to address the issue of smoking.  As some of you may know, I quit smoking two and a half years ago.  I did it with the aid of hypnosis.  I don’t think anyone was more amazed than I was that it worked.  I was a smoker for about 45 years when I decided it was time to quit.  I felt that I had pushed my luck far enough.  I walked in, sat with the hypnosis therapist and walked out two hours later a non-smoker.  It was absolutely amazing!  I am just glad I did not use one of the products they have been advertising on TV.

The product causes hallucinations!  A typical commercial shows people sitting in a bar and one guy says he is going for a smoke and asks if one of the other guys wants to join him.  The second guy says no he is okay and then shows his patch.  As the smoker leaves, the non-smoker sees a little band singing “I Just Want To Celebrate.”  The question is does he see this hallucination all the time or only when he decides not to smoke?  One of those things that makes you go h-m-m-m-m.

The fact for this week shows that 35% of people using personal ads for dating are already married.  The question is if you are already married and now looking for a date, there must be a problem, so  why, then, would you want to make the same mistake again?  Dating is what got you where you are now!  You must live in New Jersey, the State of Redundancy State.