Cell phones and driving

In response to a recent posting on texting while driving, an alert reader from Belgium sent me a link to a video entitled “Eyes on the Road.”  Here’s the link: <https://www.youtube.com/embed/JHixeIr_6BM?rel=0&autoplay=1&iv_load_policy=>.  I’m pretty sure you can open it just by clicking the address.  I think you’ll like it as much as I did.  

And to that same reader in Belgium, I hope you like the larger font.

Yard Sale

On Saturday, Aug. 2, we are holding a massive yard sale at our house at 6495 Pohopoco Drive, Lehighton, located about 4 miles east of the entrance to Beltzville State Park.  Eight families contributed materials, and we have at least a thousand books, a horse-drawn cultivator, a wet suit, jewelry, old tools, dishes, a boogie board, a gas powered grill, rocks and minerals, maps, antiques, ephemera, a heater, and hundreds of items, many of which you will never see at any other yard sale this year.

The problem is that we had planned to set up tomorrow and start the sale at 8 a.m. on Saturday, and showers are predicted for both days.  Our rain date was Sunday, but even more rain is predicted then.  As of now, we plan to go ahead with the sale, but we do have a large number of tarps at the ready.

All the money we raise will go to keeping the Democratic Information Center up and running.

Women's Health

“Advocates Shun ‘Pro-Choice’ to Expand Message” was the headline in an article by Jackie Calmes in today’s Times.  Ms. Calmes explained that “pro-choice” refers to abortion, but that the issues facing women today are much greater.  

Since 2010 Republicans have attempted to defund Planned Parenthood.  They are still talking about repealing the Affordable Care Act, which mandates coverage for contraception, mammograms, and annual gynecological exams without co-payments.  The Act also ended insurance companies’ rating systems that charged women more then men.

Republicans used the cover of “religious freedom” to deny the birth control benefit.  Many Republicans are proposing a “personhood” amendment, that would define life as starting at conception, which would criminalize some fertility treatments.  They would, in effect, insert legislators in the examination room to tell doctors and their patients what procedures are legal or illegal.

Finally, Republicans are blocking a rise in the minimum wage which would benefit millions of women at the lower end of the pay scale.  

It’s a lot more than abortion that is at issue here.  Women’s rights are under attack across the board. 

Texting While Driving

The Center for Rural Pennsylvania recently published a county map listing the number of violations for texting while driving issued per 100,000 licensed drivers.  Five counties had no citations whatsoever—Forest, Clinton, Sullivan, Huntingdon, and Fulton.  Then came Crawford with 1.6 citations per 100,000, followed by Carbon County, with 2.  Potter County was first, with 69.3.  

Why was Carbon so low?  I can think of a number of reasons:

1.  Residents of Carbon are law abiding.  Actually, I don’t buy that one.  Just tonight the Times News reported on a woman in Mahoning Township who attacked her neighbor with a weed whacker.  While that crime may not be typical, Carbon has quite a few people who end up in court for all kinds of offenses.

2.  Carbon residents don’t have cell phones.  Again, I don’t buy that one.  While it’s true that I don’t have a cell phone, everyone else I know does.

3.  Carbon drivers are old and don’t text much.  That one makes some sense.  I don’t know what the median age of the Carbon population is, but there are a heck of a lot of old people in Carbon.  

4.  Carbon County police officers are lax about enforcing the law against texting while driving.  I have no comment on that one.

In any case, I’ll bet we are doing better in weed whacker attacks per 100,000.

Inversions

Now there’s a word I didn’t know until recently.  That’s what it is called when American companies acquire overseas companies and relocate their headquarters to lower their taxes.

President Obama has called upon Congress to act to stop the rush to inversions, and some Republicans in Congress do seem to be concerned.  The less taxes corporations pay, the higher the tax burden on the rest of us.

Of course, if companies think legislation is possible, they may try to make these deals even sooner.  Tax legislation is often made retroactive, but it is doubtful that Republicans will go for any retroactive bill.

Actually, to be honest, it is unlikely that the present Congress will pass any bill, including one to support motherhood and apple pie.

And so the rich get richer and the rest of us will pay and pay and pay.

Lentz Trail Canvass

Today Linda and I canvassed a little community called Hacklebarnie and Lentz Trail, which is an extension of Broadway in Jim Thorpe.  We also canvassed Chipmunk Trail, a very nice quiet neighborhood.   This was the toughest “turf” we have worked this summer, with long driveways and little room to park.  We stopped about 2/3rds of the way through for lunch at Gaetano’s Pizza in East Jim Thorpe, which I recommend.

Once again, every person we talked to was polite. Most were Wolf supporters.  

I do want to note that Lentz Trail, which runs past Mauch Chunk Lake, is a difficult road with fast-moving cars.  If I am ever run over canvassing, and you are at my funeral, I don’t want you to say, “He died doing what he loved.”  I don’t like canvassing that much, and I can think of many things I’d rather be doing.

What you should say is, “He died doing what he was driven to do to make Pennsylvania better.”

Wild Creek Bee Farm

Chris Maxwell, the owner of Wild Creek Bee Farm, spoke to an audience of 30 people at a program at Kibler School this evening.  Mr. Maxwell, who raises queen bees and sells honey and honey-based cosmetics, explained the problems beekeepers are experiencing because of the widespread use of Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” corn and soybean seeds.

Bees need flowers, but wildflowers are less available.  Few farmers in this area grow hay or have meadows full of flowers.  Mr. Maxwell also noted how vulnerable milkweed plants were to herbicides, and he explained how monarch butterflies need milkweed plants to reproduce.

I would guess that most members of the audience were Republicans, but these are Republicans who live in the country.  They knows that butterflies have become scarce, that you can no longer hear whippoorwills in the evening, that bumblebees are starting to outnumber honey bees, that bats have been dying out, that barn swallows no longer swoop down to eat insects scared up by the mower.

They are also very cynical.  They believe that the big chemical companies have bought off our legislators, and small organic farmers are overwhelmed by lobbyists and campaign contributors.  They are correct.