Category Archives: Death Of Common Sense

December 28, 2016 · 23:58

This Is My Surprised Face – December 28th

In my Twitter feed I follow the New York Times. (Big surprise!) Not only do I see news articles there, but also links to their travel, movie reviews, health, sports, and other articles.

Just now I saw a tweet with the headline, “Being a couch potato is worse for your health than you may have thought.” In short, the article from earlier this month says that a study indicates that if you sit around on your butt all day and then exercise, you get far fewer benefits from the exercise than if you’re moderately active during the day before you exercise.

That’s not so surprising, but I guess it’s good to actually do the study. They’ll be following up with different groups of people to see if the same applies to the 85% of the planet’s population which isn’t young, male, and white. (Before anyone gets all snarky, besides me of course, I understand the reason to start with a group that’s got as little variety as possible. It eliminates or at least reduces some of the variables that could be affecting the results. Once you have that baseline, then you can start doing studies to change one variable at a time.)

What caught my attention though was that headline in the tweet. “Being a couch potato is worse for your health than you may have thought.” Maybe it’s me, but I pretty much thought that being a couch potato put you on the fast track to an early death, so I’m not sure how much worse it could get.

I’m sure there are people who sit on the couch (or the bed, or the chair, or the floor, or whatever) all day AND smoke two packs a day AND pound back a six-pack of brewskies every day AND gorge themselves on a half-gallon of ice cream every day. Yes, that would be worse than just being a couch potato. Statistically I’m sure those people die forty years earlier than the rest of us, but that’s not what the headline is pointing to.

No, I’m wondering about the implied, “Sure, I’m a couch potatoe (sorry, channeling Dan Quayle there!) potato for fourteen hours a day, but that walk around the block with the dog every other day is going to keep me right up there with the Olympic decathlete who lives next door!”

I didn’t think about it for long. The New York Times’ tweets then went on to mention people and events from our current political and social malaise, where everyone’s not just allowed to believe in their own separate reality and facts, but they’re expected to.

To that extent, the findings of this report might help a few people, those who are still thinking on their own instead of gobbling up every bit of BS from every clickbait site out there on the internet. To the rest of us, well, the thing about having your own reality is that the Universe doesn’t care. Enjoy your couch and your early grave!

Me, I think I’ll make sure I get up and walk every time my watch barks at me tomorrow.

 

 

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December 19, 2016 · 22:32

Reality Check

This image from Saturn was released by NASA and JPL today. It shows the moon Mimas 28,000 miles beyond the outer rings of Saturn and 114,000 miles from the Cassini spacecraft.

pia20510-1041b

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

You can read more at the JPL/NASA website here.

This image is spectacular, to say the least, and it has made its round on various websites today. On many of the sites I visited, the comments very quickly were spotted with (or deluged with) ignorant rantings about how the image was “obviously” fake.

Imagine that. A significant percentage of the population, and a particularly vocal percentage at that, consider this image and those like it to be “fake news.”

Meanwhile, a significant percentage of the population is absolutely convinced that articles about things like “pizzagate” are 100% factual, accurate, and true.

Imagine that. A significant percentage of the population, and a particularly vocal percentage at that, think it’s been proven to be true that Hillary Clinton and some secret international cabal are running a pedophilia and child smuggling ring out of the basement of a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have the stomach to do it, but I wonder if anyone has waded through the ignorance, hatred, filth, and outright freakin’ stupidity on these people’s web pages, Facebook posts, and Twitter rants to see how much cross correlation there is between the two groups. Maybe someone far smarter than me could write a ‘bot or app that could do the searching based on certain keywords so that no rational human would have to be exposed to that possibly fatal level of batshit crazy.

My gut feeling is that the correlation is disturbingly high.

This could be one of reasons we’ve got the problems we have.

Just guessing.

 

 

 

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Filed under Astronomy, Death Of Common Sense, Freakin' Idiots!, Space

December 5, 2016 · 23:32

They Crossed A Line

The Long-Suffering Wife is addicted to Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. She watches the Valentine’s Day love stories (which start about January 2nd) and the June wedding love stories (which start about February 15th) and the Halloween love stories (which start July 1st)… You get the picture. But while she watches those, she’s addicted to the Christmas movies.

This is no doubt better than being addicted to crack cocaine or heroin (I guess it’s sort of being addicted to heroine?) but some of these movies can make me question just how much better.

I end up watching bits and pieces of many (most?) of them because, while they certainly wouldn’t be my first choice for viewing, I like spending some time every night with my wife (go figure!) and I can get some work done on my phone, tablet, or laptop while relegating the movie to background noise where possible.

My issue is usually that they’re just so predictable and formulaic. I can come in during the middle of one I’ve never seen and in 30 seconds or less say, “That’s the heroine who’s engaged to the successful but stuck up rich boy toy who doesn’t stand a chance against the flannel-wearing goofy funny good ol’ boy in the small town where she’s going to amazingly find a way to find the true meaning and save Christmas while also ending up under the mistletoe with flannel boy.”

There are occasionally mitigating factors that make the viewing less stressful for me. Alicia Witt. Lacey Chabert. Danica McKellar.

On the other hand, the other night there was “Journey Back To Christmas.”

I can ignore the really lame time travel story. I’ve been reading science fiction for well over fifty years. Sometimes time travel is done really well, sometimes it’s an excuse to take a really boring story and try to make it different, and everything in between. No matter, time travel? Meh.

No, it’s the incredibly bad depiction of a comet, a key plot point, that had me ready to throw things at the screen.

Folks, you don’t have to be an astronomer to know that comets don’t streak across the sky like fireworks for two minutes and then vanish. People don’t stand out in the village square at just the right moment and “there it is!” so cue the oohs, the aahs, the awe, the magic and there it goes!

Comets are typically seen months, if not years before they’re at their brightest. Look back and see how many months I tried to get decent pictures of Comet Lovejoy. They start out dim, way out in the far reaches of the solar system, gradually brighten as they get closer to the sun and start to boil off gasses, then dim again as they move back out into the depths of the solar system or interstellar space, frozen snowballs.

If they happen to get close enough to Earth at just the right time, which can happen a couple of times a century, a comet can be big, bright, and close to Earth. It will be news. It will be front page news for about two months beforehand and for months and months afterward.

These guys stumbled across a reference to it in an old diary or newspaper…

So, to recap:

  • Huge
  • Bright
  • Flashes across sky in a handful of minutes
  • Has a tail that stretches from horizon to horizon
  • They’re the only ones who know about it
  • They only know about it because they got lucky
  • One minute it’s not there, the next it is, then it’s gone again

What utter bullshit!

Friends, if a comet comes by that catches us that off-guard, it’s only doing so because it’s doing 0.9c, traveling just in front of its light wave. Let me tell you, if something that big is coming that close to Earth at 0.9c, it had better have Bruce Willis sitting on it with a nuke (or Robert Duvall – a better movie by far) or our ass is grass.

But if it’s passing by at 0.9c, it’s going from horizon to horizon in well under a second. There’s no way it has a tail – it never lingered near the sun close enough to start melting. And there’s most certainly no way that it’s periodic and coming back in 71 years. That sucker’s going to be fifty light-years past Alpha Centauri and outbound in 71 years.

Sappy story? No worries.

Stupid plot? Okay.

Half-drawn caricatures for characters? As expected.

Actors we recognize who really, really should be getting better roles? Hey, it’s a paycheck.

Time travel? It’s different for a Hallmark Christmas movie, but hey, isn’t “A Christmas Carol” sort of a time travel Christmas story as well?

But have a huge, key, major plot point revolve around getting 3rd grade astronomy so very, very wrong that there are ten-year olds watching and yelling, “What the hell is wrong with these freakin’ idiots??!!”

That’s when they crossed a line.

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Filed under Astronomy, Death Of Common Sense, Entertainment, Movies

April 26, 2016 · 23:15

Poor, Poor Apple Computers

And by “poor” I mean that they ONLY made $50.56 BILLION dollars in the first quarter of the year. To be clear, we’re not talking “millions” and we’re not not talking an entire year. That’s not a typo.

$50.56 billion dollars in revenue in three months.

Yet it’s looked upon as a disaster because the pundits and analysts on Wall Street were expecting $51.97 billion.

You can’t even comprehend those kinds of numbers. It’s Monopoly money.

So I want all of you, every single one, to get out there tomorrow and buy a new iPhone or a new iPad. Maybe a new MacBook Air. Or better yet, one of each!

Go buy them on a credit card with 24% interest. That will make those guys (and it’s always guys) on Wall Street happy again, and we all know how important that is. If they can’t buy a second or third tropical island or small third-world country, how will they keep up with the Koch Brothers?

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April 16, 2016 · 23:20

Our Duty As Citizens

Yesterday I was agitated and pissed off with the state of what passes for news coverage these days, as well as the collective train wreck in an asylum that is our current political circus. I was frustrated, discouraged, having a crisis of faith.

I still am, but then I read this:

Stonekettle Station – Two Wolves

If you’ve read it also, continue on. If not, go read it now. It’s long-ish but worth every second.

Seriously. This means you. I’ll wait right here for you to get back.

Okay?

I have nothing but admiration for Jim Wright. The man has a wonderful way with words, he puts up with no bullshit, and he has the background and experience to back up what he says when he shuts down the dimwitted, clueless, and often only semi-literate trolls who seem to infect every corner of the internet these days.

There is no “but…” to follow that. I want to thank Mr. Wright for writing and posting this, not just because I needed to read it and be reminded of what he says, but because I really needed it at this particular time.

Last night I wondered if we shouldn’t just look the other way, let ignorance be bliss, and hope that the good guys won. Tonight I have been reminded that it doesn’t work like that.

I also absolutely loved Tomorrowland. Its deeper message wasn’t lost on me and while it was fun on a surface level, there were plenty of parts that I found to be quite moving and powerful. Mr. Wright absolutely nailed the reason why it hit me that way.

Of all of the great lines in the Stonekettle Station piece, the one that hit me the most in re-reading it was, “…it is our duty as citizens to be optimists.” I hadn’t looked at it that way, but he’s absolutely right. That’s my big takeaway.

So go buy a Tesla and get tickets to Mars. If you can’t do that, get solar panels or a windmill. If you can’t do that, at least go buy a DVD of Tomorrowland and watch it, both for fun and maybe for a little bit of badly needed inspiration. Whatever you do, go vote, and demand leaders who are optimists and actual leaders, not hucksters who are using fear and hatred to find a lowest common denominator.

Most of all, don’t ever forget that the real Tomorrowland is actually out there waiting for us to build it. Do your best to be a good citizen, do your duty, and be optimistic. I’ll do my damnedest to do the same.

The old line says, “The meek will inherit the Earth – the rest of us will go to the stars!” Maybe it won’t be meekness that keeps them here, but fear, anger, hatred, and ignorance. Whatever it is, we can’t leave them behind if we don’t go.

I’ll meet you in Low Earth Orbit. Or at Clavius. Or the Valles Marineris overlook resort.

 

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Moral Outrage, Politics

April 15, 2016 · 23:34

Forget The Comments – Don’t Read The News!

Certain prominent factors in my far distant past have conspired over the years to turn me into something of a news junkie. In the old days (i.e., pre-Internet) I needed my daily newspaper and a whole collection of weekly and monthly magazines.

In the current era, I can go hours and hours and hours without checking the headlines. Really, I can! Any time I want!

That’s turning into a curse instead of the blessing I thought that it once was.

Occasionally, like tonight, desperate for some inspiration at 23:00+, I will go read the headlines on news.google.com or the LA Times. More and more that’s becoming detrimental to my health.

I really have tried to remain calm and not go off on too many political rants on this site. I like to keep it reasonably sane and lighthearted where possible. Thus, aside from the occasional snarky comments, often aimed at either side of the aisle, I’ve kept my peace.

But even reading the headlines these days can raise my blood pressure, raise my bile, threaten to re-raise my dinner, and generally put me right off of my fresh fried lobster. I start composing a screed in my head filled with incredulity that certain people are allowed to walk the streets without a keeper, let alone be considered “leaders.” I want to rant and scream logic and scientific facts at morons with a big social media following who are functionally illiterate in any scientific field whatsoever, but insist that they’re experts in climate change, disease prevention, or whatever other batshit crazy cult bait they’re pushing today.

I want to weep for our future.

I fear that if I (and everyone else who’s as fed up as I am) just stop paying attention to the headlines that we’ll wake up one of these days and find that the inmates have not only taken over the asylum, but they’ll be jailing or killing anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size. But if I do keep having this ignorance, stupidity, and hatred shoved down my throat there may not be enough bleach in the world to ever cleanse my eyes after being exposed to it.

I don’t have a solution. I just know that I’m getting pretty sick of having the clowns run the circus.

If someone wants me to believe in a kind, intelligent, benevolent, and beneficent god watching over us all, they could start with a whole slew of ignorant buffoons coming down with convulsions or festering boils on live television. Or some grim, painful, and 100% fatal disease. Or they could get hit by lightning – that’s always been popular with vengeful gods.

Let’s see something at least! Some sort of sign.

Otherwise, I think we might be totally screwed.

Perhaps ignorance is bliss. We’ve known since about five minutes after the Internet was born that you’re nuts to read the comments – it’s where all of the wingnuts and whack jobs hang out. It might soon be time to stop reading the news, for the exact same reasons.

(See, I did find inspiration for tonight by reading the headlines!)

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March 2, 2016 · 21:05

Robocaller Defense – The Final Solution

I’ve ranted a couple times about spammers, scammers, con artists, robocallers, and political campaign calls (which often fall under the category of “spammers, scammers, and con artists – but I digress) and how annoying I find them. It’s not nearly so bad since I went back to work, mainly because I’m just not here to be bothered by the phone going off. I go through the voice mailbox once a week or so and clear out the dozens of junk calls and verify that there’s nothing legit in there, then move on.

It has occurred to us that since only about one out of twenty or thirty calls is actually legitimate, where “legitimate” is defined as “not outright bullshit,” there are reasonable questions regarding the utility of the landline. Even of the “legitimate” calls, probably 99% are those which could easily go to either my cell phone or The Long-Suffering Wife’s cell phone.

The phone bill has crept up and up, mainly through neglect on our part I expect, and today I finally reached the breaking point. I bit the bullet and dove into the septic quagmire which is AT&T “Customer Service.”

I cut the cord. I turned off our landline.

AT&T doesn’t make this easy.

You can’t do it online.

You must have strong Google-foo to find a phone number to call to terminate service.

When you call it and spend nearly five minutes fighting your way through the Byzantine maze of menu choices, there’s a message that says, “We’re sorry, but due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, customer service is unavailable at this time. Please go to att.com/BlahBlahBlah to take care of any of your customer service needs.”

Which, of course, you can’t. See above.

So you try again in an hour. Same result.

And again in an hour. Same result.

Finally giving up on that course, you go back to the website, where a little chat box opens up. Someone wants to help me!

(The following is an approximate version of my journey through hell this morning.)

Can you help me terminate my local home landline service?

Of course I can!

Answer dozens of questions to prove I’m me.

Am I moving?

Nope.

Why do I want to end the service?

$75 a month for nothing but robocallers is nuts. I’m tired of being insane.

Would I like to downgrade to a package for $50 a month that doesn’t include voicemail and this and that?

Does it include a way to block the robocallers? No? Then please terminate my service.

Would I like to downgrade to a minimal package for $25 a month that doesn’t include long distance?

Does it include a way to block the robocallers? No? Then please terminate my service.

Would I like to switch to a U-Verse and VOIP and high-speed internet package? That’s available in my area.

First of all, no, it’s not available in my area. That’s a different nightmare that AT&T put us through for years. But, speaking hypothetically about this U-Verse and VOIP and internet package – does it include a way to block the robocallers? No? Then please terminate my service.

Maybe we could…

Stop. Please terminate my service.

I just want to make sure…

TERMINATE. MY. SERVICE. NOW.

Okay, let me see who I can transfer you to who might be able to do that.

Stop. You told me ten minutes ago that you could help me terminate my local home landline service. It’s right here in the chat transcript.

I am helping. I’m going to give you a phone number to call.

Is it 800-288-2020?

Yes.

I’ve already done that. Three times. They’re having a bad case of circumstances beyond their control.

That’s impossible.

That’s what I said, but that’s why I’m here. They’re not there.

Try calling again…

HOW ABOUT I SIMPLY STOP PAYING MY BILL EVER, EVER AGAIN?

I’m trying to connect you to someone who can help you.

You said you were the person who could help me and you’ve now wasted fifteen minutes of my time and are currently trying to shuffle me off to another department where they’ve already failed three times this morning. Do you have a supervisor there I can yell at?

One moment please.

(Nearly five minutes later, when I had pretty much figured that he had simply gone away…)

How can I help you?

READ. THE. TRANSCRIPT.

Okay, I will put you in direct touch with the department you need. You won’t have to wait in a long queue or re-enter all of your information. Please wait for a moment and I will call you.

(Phone rings)

Imagine my surprise when it turns out that “Patrick G” has an accent much more like Rajesh Ramayan Koothrappali, Ph.D. than Patrick McGoohan. He connects me to someone with a US Southern drawl. Who promptly asks me to start over explaining who I am, what I want, and verifying that I’m me.

After five minutes, he finally figures out that I live in California! He’s in South Carolina and he can’t access my information from there. (So much for interstate commerce or AT&T’s ability to link any of those pesky computer-thingies together.) I get transferred.

Next is a “dude.” You can practically hear him waxing his surfboard in the background. At least he’s in this area. And yet again I get to explain and verify.

Am I moving? Am I sure I want to turn the phone off? What if…

CAN. YOU. DO. THIS. OR. NOT?

Yes, but…

TERMINATE. MY. PHONE. SERVICE. ***NOW***

Well, alright, if you’re going to be like that. Would you like to have your calls forwarded to another number for the next thirty days?

Would the robocalls get forwarded also?

Of course.

NO.

Okay, it’s done. Do you have any other questions?

Yes, I do. How about, “Why did this take over forty-five minutes once I actually was able to contact someone?” Or maybe, “With this pathetic excuse for customer service, why in hell do you think that I would conceivably want to ADD more services instead of getting rid of the one I have?”

I’m hoping for a customer satisfaction survey where I can express myself in more depth.

In the meantime, if you need one of us, call our cell phone, or send a text message, or send an email, or post a comment here, or use Skype or FaceTime, or tie a note to the back of a messenger lizard.

Just don’t call the house.

Unless you’re a robocaller. Then you can call all day long.

“Doo-dooo-DOO! We’re sorry, the number you have called is no longer in service or has been disconnected.”

Bite me, robocallers.

And the AT&T you rode in on.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Death Of Common Sense, Freakin' Idiots!

February 20, 2016 · 23:17

Thanks, CalTrans!!

I’ve written about the kind of disaster a 30-minute drive from home to the CAF hangars in Camarillo can turn into when there’s a major accident on the one main freeway that goes in that direction. Today my 30-minute drive got turned into a 65-minute drive by a different type of disaster – CalTrans.

CalTrans – the California Department of Transportation. Or, in this case, the California Department of Pissing Off Tens Of Thousands Of Travelers & Burning Millions of Gallons of Gasoline for No Damn Good Reason. (I guess it doesn’t just roll off the tongue that way.)

In brief, I tried to get on the freeway. Blocks from the onramp, the main street I was on was gridlocked. I assumed there was some problem between me and the onramp, so I doubled back a mile to the previous onramp. More gridlock as I approached the onramp. Double back another two miles to the previous previous onramp. More gridlock, and I can see that traffic on the freeway is almost completely stopped. I manage to at least get onto the freeway and start crawling back to the west, which is at least better than sitting on the streets a half mile from the onramp and going absolutely nowhere.

Is there a major accident on the freeway like there was in November? A brush fire? A bridge collapse or some other catastrophe?

A half hour later, the problem is obvious. Some genius at CalTrans decided that 9:00 on Saturday morning was a good time to close three of the four lanes for a couple miles to do routine maintenance.

Nope, couldn’t make this shit up.

Wouldn’t you think that this sort of thing would normally be done at night or some other time when the freeway wasn’t being used by a couple hundred thousand cars? Even if you had to do it at night, wouldn’t you be warning people for days and weeks in advance with signs on the freeways and onramps?

Well, you might think that, but the brainiacs at CalTrans apparently missed that small bit of common sense.

This weekend out in Riverside County, sixty or seventy miles away, the 91 Freeway is closed in both directions for two days for some major construction. They’ve got a cute name for it (“Coronapocalypse,” since it’s in the Corona area) and they’ve been on the news, in the papers, freeway signs even out here, two counties away.

Last weekend they had a similar thing through downtown LA to demolish a bridge passing over the freeway, and again we got bombarded with warnings to avoid the area and maps of detours for those who couldn’t avoid it. They had a cute name which I can’t remember.

A couple years ago they had complete freeway closures in both directions for three days for the first time, in this case on the 405 Freeway through Sepulveda Pass, one of the busiest freeways in the country. It was “Carmageddon!” and for two months beforehand we couldn’t go ten minutes without hearing about how bad it was going to be and how far away we needed to be to avoid getting cooties.

When they’re going to be working on an offramp – a simple, one-lane, out of the normal flow of traffic freakin’ offramp! – for a few hours, there are warning signs up for days and weeks in advance.

But close three of four lanes on Saturday morning and cause a backup that goes close to ten miles – SURPRISE! Gotcha!!

Freakin’ ididots!!!

And then they dare to be bewildered when the average person holds them in utter contempt.

As for the (presumably) “major repairs” that necessitated this disaster? They were working on a long strip, maybe two feet wide, in the middle of the #4 lane, all the way up the hill there. Rather, they had a long, long strip marked off with spray paint markers. They had two, maybe three crews of four or five guys digging out patches of that strip. Was the pavement torn up there and in need of repair? Nope. It looked like nothing more than them laying some sort of pipe or cable down the middle of the lane, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Look on their website – no mention, no explanation. Look for news reports or warnings I might have missed – nothing found.

“Hey, it’s Saturday morning – let’s see how many random strangers we can infuriate and make an hour or more late for no reason other than we can! We’re CalTrans, we’re here to help!(*)”

(*) – only for very bizarre and inaccurate definitions of the word “help”

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December 8, 2015 · 22:45

Parking Lot At Night

New job = long hours + December = dark when leaving. (Remember, all GOOD things!)

New job = new office = new parking lot + dark when leaving = interesting new things to take “artsy” pictures of.

File Dec 08, 22 03 02 small

Who ever looks off of the back side of a parking structure that abuts a freeway? Well, I do. (Big surprise!) What I see is not just the 101 Freeway with stop & stop traffic during rush hour, but the big Kaiser Permanente hospital complex directly on the other side.

Hey, I know someone who works there! Will she see me waving from here?

File Dec 08, 22 04 32 small

A decent enough view for a cell phone picture. That’s my office window, right…there!

File Dec 08, 22 04 59 small

I realized as I was standing there taking the first picture of the building that these parking lot lights are everything that’s wrong with our urban lighting, particularly in respect to how they’re destroying our ability to see the night sky.

Look at the blindingly bright lights, putting thousands of lumens into space – while a shield on the bottom of the light casts a dark shadow around the base of the light tower.

Hey, nameless and unknown brainiac architect, maybe if you put the shield ON TOP OF THE LIGHT instead of below it, you could light up the parking lot where someone could get mugged or back into another car, instead of lighting up the rings of Saturn! And probably cut the power in half or more with better illumination, and half of the expense for electricity.

Not. Rocket. Science.

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Photography

October 3, 2015 · 22:46

Is It Moral? A Pop Quiz For October 3rd

I observed something today germane to pretty much nothing in the big scheme of things, but it did get me to wondering, so I figured I would throw it out there and see if anyone else had a comment.

The Post Office. A woman pulls into one of the handicapped parking spaces right in front of the door. She immediately hangs her handicapped parking placard on the rear-view mirror. No problem.

But she never gets out of the car. Her twenty-something passenger (assumed to be a daughter, maybe) gets out of the passenger side and runs into the post office to stand in line for whatever business there is.

The driver appears to be in her sixties, if not older. From what I can see she appears frail. The passenger looks like she runs marathons.

There are a number of assumptions here, I’ll admit right up front. Above all, I’m assuming that the handicapped placard is for the driver and that the passenger is perfectly healthy.

Given that, is it moral for this lady to park in the handicapped space when she’s not going to be the one getting out of the car?

I’m sure it’s legal. She has a placard. I’m assuming that she has it for a reason and she’s not one of the people (there are a LOT of them in Los Angeles) who has a fake placard or got a real one by buying it.

But the prime rationale for the existence of handicapped parking spaces is to make it easier for those with physical limitations to get into the building without having to walk a longer distance across the parking lot. Forget all of the legal and bureaucratic nonsense. They exist because society wants to help “even the playing field” for those with physical handicaps.

Considering why these parking spaces exist, plus the fact that in this case the person who actually was getting out of the car and going into the building was not the handicapped person, was parking here moral?

Your comments and observations are eagerly awaited. (Show your work.)

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Los Angeles