People use their cell phones to do all sorts of things – a few have even been known to use them to place phone calls. But mostly, people use their cell phones to text thought-provoking comments like Hey.

Studies indicate that the dangers of cell phone texting extend far beyond texting while driving. Health experts have recently argued that texting should be avoided during any of the following “high-risk” activities:

• During skydiving lessons – particularly the part having to do with opening the chute
• Any time you are using farm threshing equipment or are engaged in iron ore smelting
• While performing a circumcision (with a special warning to rabbis over age 75)
• During any scientific experiment in which you are tethered to the exterior of the International Space Station
• While performing open heart surgery – unless the patient is Rush Limbaugh, in which case, texting is actually encouraged, along with the ingestion of large quantities of vodka

Experts also discourage texting while swimming – although in full disclosure, they point out that unless you’re bleeding in shark-infested waters, the danger is probably greater to the cell phone than to the texter.

Now, add one more high-risk activity to the list: Texting while walking. For many people, walking is a challenging feat all by itself – just ask my daughter  when she was 17 months old or my neighbor Bert Zablinski after his weekly Friday night game of Tequila Shot Twister. Apparently, walking, when combined with texting, can have embarrassing results – and may even be deadly.

Last year, a woman was caught on a video surveillance camera texting while walking through the concourse of a shopping mall. She stumbled right into the mall fountain, gracefully entering the water with a half twist in the pike position, scoring all 9’s except for a 6.5 from the Russian judge.

Earlier this year, a Michigan woman walking along a pier was so distracted from texting that she tripped and fell into Lake Michigan. It could have been much worse, however; it could have been Lake Erie. Her final text before she nosedived into the frigid waters of Lake Michigan was reportedly Did U C the Ellen sho- … Thankfully, no fish were harmed by her plunge.

Even my own sister recently was texting and got so distracted she ran into a door in her own home, breaking her toe (true). She is suing Verizon Wireless for $2 million for bodily pain and emotional suffering caused by their negligent unlimited text messaging plan.

Texting and walking almost turned deadly this past April when a California man who was texting almost walked right into a bear. The bear was wandering in a suburban neighborhood – apparently looking for a healthy snack such as a high-fiber Labradoodle. The man, distracted by texting, walked up to within a few feet of the bear before noticing the 300-pound carnivore in his path. Upon seeing the bear right in front of him, he took decisive action, texting, WTF!! OMG!! IT’S A BEAR!!  It took two tranquilizer darts to take down the bear – and two more to get the man to stop texting. There are no reports as to what the bear may have been texting at the time of the incident.

These latest incidents have led concerned AT&T Wireless operators to expand their ever-growing list of proscribed activities while texting to include:

• Texting in close proximity to a 300-pound bear
• Texting during sex – unless done very discreetly (good luck with that)
• Texting during a job interview – unless the person you’re texting is the interviewer and they’re into emoticons
• Texting an ex-girlfriend while in the presence of your soon-to-be-next-ex-girlfriend
• Texting an ex-girlfriend if you’re in close proximity to a 300-pound bear, while engaging in sex during a job interview – this is dangerous – and wrong – on so many levels.

There is increasing evidence that in addition to posing a serious health risk, texting may also be hazardous to long-term friendships for people over age 19. Experts studying the causal relation between incessantly using mobile technology and being an annoying, self-absorbed jerk, point out that many people who have lives are irritated by cell phone users who can’t resist the urge to send text burps in inappropriate settings, such as weddings, funerals, or while batting cleanup for the Seattle Mariners.

These same experts discourage managers from texting in delicate professional situations like termination interviews or annual employee performance reviews unless it’s deemed absolutely necessary to communicate that what the employee just did was so hilariously lame that it caused you to text ROTFLMAO (rolling on the floor laughing my ass off).

I must confess, in writing this week’s column, I found myself repeatedly distracted by a barrage of text messages from my daughters, my wife, my golfing buddies, and some guy wanting to know if I’d like to save 15% or more on my car insurance. As a result, I apologize if this post is not up to my usual third-grade writing standards. Perhaps they should add texting while humor writing to the list of high-risk activities.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base. TTYL.

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2012

In what appears to be a historic epidemic of tolerance, a growing fringe of America-haters is promoting the rights of gays to marry. Fortunately, this wildly unpopular viewpoint is shared by less than 54% of Americans. An overwhelming 47% of Americans still think marriage should only be between a man and a woman, while 52% believe Obama is a Muslim (according to a recent poll of Republicans in Mississippi).

Christian conservatives now believe that the President’s coming out of the closet in support of gay marriage is conclusive proof that Obama is the Antichrist. There is plenty of support for this contention, including Reverend Pat Naromynde, pastor of the Shepherd of the Valley Pentecostal Church in Turtle Hollow, Tennessee. “What is this world comin’ to?”, said Naromynde. “First they let blacks marry our white women. Then they let ‘em become president. Now we learn this black fella likes gays. For sure, the Lord is a comin’ to smite us all.”

Many conservative pundits have studied the implications of allowing gays to marry. Their conclusions paint a dire picture for the future of mankind. According to a Tea Party spokesperson, Jeb McCoy, allowing gays to marry will trigger an irreversible chain reaction which will lead to humans marrying farm animals, household pets, or worse yet, liberals from California.

“I have absolutely nothin’ against hobos” said McCoy, an unemployed auto mechanic from Slippery Creek, West Virginia, “just so long as they stick to ridin’ them boxcars.” When the question was clarified, McCoy went on to say, “Hell, some of my best friends are people who’ve spoken to homo sapiens on occasion. What in the Hell do they want? Ain’t it enough they can now openly git killed in Iraq? I thought that would shut ‘em up. Guess not.”

“It is a widely known fact that homosexuals can’t reproduce so they must recruit our young kids and turn them gay in order to keep their cult alive,” said renowned conservative commentator, Pastor Antonio Scapagotti of St. Mattress of the Springs Baptist Church of Possum Trot, Kentucky. He went on to say, “Now that our Kenyan-born Muslim-in-Chief has proclaimed that gays should be allowed to marry anybody they want to, they’ll no doubt be going after us normal folk, trying to brainwash us to become their bride – or is it their groom? It’s disgusting.”

Representative Buford Feebilthowtz of Spartanburg, South Carolina expressed the concern of millions of Americans when he said this past week, “Now that Obama has gone on record endorsing the right of gays to marry our children, where will they stop? Next thing you know, their kind will demand the right to marry La-Z-Boy recliners or stop signs. Ain’t no way I’m ever letting one of them near my Ford F-150 pickup truck. They’re liable to elope with it.”

Most God-fearing values voters are understandably apprehensive that letting gays marry will undermine the institution of marriage. They argue that if gays are allowed to marry, before you know it, there won’t be any more babies being born, and America will die off – and then the Chinese will cross the Pacific and steal all our stuff.

Supporters of gay marriage have attempted to distort the issue by citing a complete lack of any scientific evidence that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, that being gay is in any way a mental illness or a condition you can simply “pray away”. But opponents of gay marriage are quick to point out that scientists are often wrong, as they were when they argued that global warming was real or the earth was round.

A large percentage of Americans believe allowing gays to marry is the first step in the eventual collapse of our society’s moral foundation. “It goes against everything the Bible teaches,” said Abby Pearahnoyd, President of the Errant Mission, Oklahoma PTA, who when asked to point out where in the Bible it talks about homosexuality being a choice, responded by saying, “I don’t know precisely, but I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. Are you calling God a liar?”

Reverend Earl Matehonger, pastor of the Divine Missionary Position Lutheran Church of Hickory, North Carolina, spoke bluntly in his Sunday sermon about the dangerous path our nation is headed down. “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and treat others the way we wanna be treated. But it wasn’t never talkin’ about their kind. Just how to treat us regular people.”

Millions of America-loving Americans fear that once married, gays may want to go even further and demand the opportunity to raise families too. Some experts, like Congressman Billy Ray Fradogaze of Moonshine, Louisiana, worry that thousands of happily abandoned children may get scooped up by self-serving gay couples intent on preying on unsuspecting orphans in order to take them home, provide for their healthcare and pay for their college education, all for gays’ own selfish amusement. “It’s enough to make ya sick” said a finger-wagging Fradogaze.

Despite the President’s recent admission that he wants all Americans to turn gay like him, there is hope for millions of brave heterosexual Americans who were raised with values of patriotism, self-reliance, and a morbid fear of homosexuality. Defenders of family values are standing firm against this gay onslaught, in an effort to restore America to its previous greatness – back to a more civilized era, when the thought of gays marrying was inconceivable – and the idea of allowing blacks and women to vote was just a whimsical passing notion.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base.

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2011

[Author’s note to the satire-impaired: In this week’s post, my point was to highlight the antiquated, bigoted, intolerant attitude of millions of homophobic people towards gays. There is no defensible reason why gays should not have the same marital rights as heterosexuals. Besides, why should gays be denied the joys of sacrificing their freedom to raise ungrateful teenagers who insist you drop everything and drive them to the mall?]

According to humanitarian relief agencies’ longitudinal studies dating back to the 19^th century, the number of known cases of KIDS is at its highest level in human history. Alarmingly, it shows no signs of reversing its upward trend. For millions of couples facing the long-term ordeal of KIDS, there is no relief in sight.

Scientists have been unable to unlock the mysterious inner workings of KIDS. But they do know that contracting the condition has been conclusively linked to unprotected sexual contact, often during bouts of excessive alcohol consumption. Warning signs that you may have contracted KIDS include an inability to maintain an orderly household, often accompanied by a disregard for clutter and chaos. Another warning sign is a sudden indifference to the presence of vomit, nasal mucous, fecal or urinary discharge on one’s clothes or person.

What makes this epidemic of KIDS so debilitating is that there is very little anyone can do to combat it. Once contracted, in the vast majority of cases, the condition, while not usually fatal, typically lasts the rest of their lives. People coping with even the mildest form of KIDS often report that the condition gets progressively more difficult to manage over time, as the virus mutates in appearance, continually grows in size, and in later stages becomes increasingly resistant to attempts to control it. As people struggle to adapt to living with KIDS, they report that close friends they’ve known for years but who have not contracted KIDS often avoid them like the plague.

Early stage KIDS is often associated with significant sleep deprivation lasting up to eight months. During this “incubator” period, common side effects include a significant decline in the victim’s range of vocabulary, typically accompanied by an uncontrollable urge to speak in a high-pitched chirpy voice about successful bowel movements.

Scientists have identified an alarming phenomenon in people suffering with KIDS – a noticeable deterioration in their mental faculties. They speculate that this intellectual impairment may be caused by prolonged exposure to vacuous television programming dedicated to letters of the alphabet or possibly due to being subjected to endless recitations of drippy songs about Baby Belugas or beautiful days in the neighborhood.

Surprisingly, after a few years, some KIDS sufferers have reported brief intervals of partially regained lucidity and brief episodes where the worst aspects of KIDS appear to go into in remission. They can sometimes regain normal sleep cycles and are able to enjoy more adult-themed TV programming. There have even been reported instances in which people living with KIDS have experienced momentary fits of laughter at birthday parties, zoos, and little league games – but these anecdotal stories have yet to be substantiated with empirical evidence.

One of the most common ailments afflicting people with KIDS is a perceived loss of control, independence and spontaneity. They often report feeling chained to endless cycles of vehicular transport to soccer games, piano recitals, and doctor’s appointments, taking the place of time previously used for hiking with friends, playing tennis, and working out at the gym. As a result of this hard-to-break cycle, another common side effect of KIDS is unsightly weight gain and a marked decline in concern for personal appearance.

It is common for people with advanced stages of KIDS to experience wild swings of emotion and increased levels of stress. If you encounter an otherwise rational adult barking out phrases like who do you think paid for that? or would it kill you to say ‘thank you’? or because I said so!, the chances are high the person is battling KIDS. Adults exposed to KIDS for long periods of time often suffer a dramatic depletion of their long-term savings. Some studies suggest this steep decline in personal net worth intensifies around the 18^th through 22^nd year of living with KIDS.

The good news is that there are glimmers of hope. For some people facing an uphill struggle with KIDS, symptoms of frustration and exhaustion tend to fade about the time when the financial strain of managing KIDS has passed its peak. There are dozens of documented cases where victims of KIDS can resume relatively normal lives somewhere around 18 years from the onset of the condition, engaging in conversations about politics or professional sports teams, or taking long drives that no longer require emergency pit stops to eliminate bodily fluids.

While there are several effective methods for the prevention of KIDS, currently there is no cure. The unsettling reality is that the existence of KIDS has become a global epidemic. Ever since my wife and I first received the shocking diagnosis 18 years ago that we had both become exposed to KIDS, our lives have been consumed just trying to manage this condition.

But here is the oddest part about this crisis. Even though coming down with KIDS has radically turned my life upside down, drained my life savings and caused me endless worry, I can’t help but wonder what my life would have been like if I had never gotten KIDS. For me, KIDS is one lifelong condition for which I don’t want to find a cure.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base. 

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2012

Having somehow endured this traumatic experience with two daughters, I’m happy to say there is a reasonable chance you and your teenager will get through this period unscathed, and by reasonable chance I mean less than 15%. Let’s face it, being a parent is hard enough without having to experience the harrowing adventure of teaching your precious offspring how to drive. But there comes a day when your teenager might utter the phrase every parent dreads: Hey, Dad. I got into Princeton. But even before that day, there is another phrase that terrifies every loving parent: I want to get my driver’s license.

There is no way to avoid it. Sooner or later, it’s going to happen. The sooner you can con, I mean convince, your spouse to sign up for the thankless task of teaching them, the better. In our family, I was the sucker, er, volunteer. As a result of my anguishing experience teaching our daughters how to drive, I’ve learned several valuable tips to pass on to you.

Tip #1: Don’t have children. I can’t stress this enough. Oh sure, you may miss out on a few fun things like teaching an impressionable young child how to throw a baseball. But consider the alternative: Never having to pay thousands of dollars in car repair bills and jacked-up insurance premiums because there would be no daughter of yours who might be jabbering on their cell phone, thereby accidentally backing your Toyota minivan into your neighbor’s mint-condition 1967 Porsche 911 roadster – just hypothetically speaking, of course.

Tip #2: Bribe your child. If you did not react in time to apply Tip #1, then do whatever you can to persuade them not to drive until they turn 35. You could make a thoughtful, cogent slide presentation showing the cost-savings of getting a bus pass and the reduced carbon footprint from not driving.  Of course you’ll have a greater shot of becoming the next winner of American Idol than convincing your teenager to delay their desire to drive. So when your slide presentation crashes and burns, proceed directly to Tip #2: bribery. For starters, you might offer to buy them the latest 5G iPhone if they promise never to drive over 30 mph and only in sunny weather on country roads, with the radio off and no friends in the car.

Tip #3: Point out the important safety features. If the first two strategies fail, face it. Your kid is going to start driving. Point out the location of the emergency brake, turn signal, warning lights and air bags. Point out important items under the hood, such as the intake valve, flywheel, carburetor, crankshaft, cylinder block, piston rings, gudgeon ring, gasket, fuel pump, connecting rod, timing belt, fuel injector, and engine manifold.

It does not matter that you could not possibly locate any of these yourself. Just point at random things and say, and remember [insert child’s name here], never manually adjust the air intake defibrillator unless the battery’s alternator valve is disengaged. Sure it makes no sense. But they won’t know. This sort of crap particularly impresses teenage boys.

Tip #4: Model safe driving habits. This means don’t crank up the radio full volume or read a map while driving. And never drive 15 mph over the speed limit in a 30 mph zone, failing to come to a complete stop at the stop sign at the intersection of Buford and 27^th Place, while talking on your cell phone to your wife about dinner. That driving infraction will cost you a tidy $250. Not that I would have any personal knowledge of such a thing, mind you.

Tip 5: Remain calm and let ‘em drive. There is only so long you can stall by reviewing the location of the warning lights for the 11^th time. It’s time to let them get behind the wheel. No matter what happens, it is critical for their confidence that you remain calm. So what if your child just barely missed hitting a jogger pushing a baby stroller. Stay calm. Nobody was hurt. So they took that left-hand turn way too tight and almost clipped a Mercedes-Benz. Please remain calm.

And so what if they drove a bit too fast as they entered the garage, screeching to a halt only after they ran over… MY BRAND NEW TAYLORMADE GOLF CLUBS???!!!??? What the F**k?!!? Don’t you tell me to remain calm!! Those were TaylorMade clubs, for God’s sake. I swear the only vehicle she’ll be driving for the next century is a Hello Kitty tricycle with training wheels. Ahem, not that my daughter ever did anything like this, mind you. Just talking hypothetically.

Tip #6: Help them find a safe car. Young drivers tend to be careless drivers. They make mistakes behind the wheel. So it’s important to help them pick out a vehicle that scores well in crash tests and comes loaded with safety features. That’s why I strongly recommend purchasing your child a Type 10 MBT Battle Tank, or if you’re looking for a bit better gas mileage, perhaps the Alvis FV103 Spartan Armored Personnel Carrier. Choose between two new colors for spring: desert sand and camouflage green. You will sleep soundly knowing your child will never get hurt in a car accident – although I can’t rule out the possibility of being taken out by a drone strike.

Good luck as you merge onto the dangerous highway of teenage driving. It can be an anxious time for any parent. That’s why I urge you to seriously consider Tip #1. It makes the process so much simpler.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base. 

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2012

I’m also talking about that lime green Nehru jacket you bought in 1972, which never was in style to begin with. Or that model train set that your kids last played with during the Reagan administration. Or your late ‘60s-era lava lamp that always leaked pink ooze. Why on earth are you still holding onto all this crap? Remember the Latin saying, Crape Diem (“seize the crap”). Time for a yard sale.

When planning your yard sale, scour your house for things you no longer use. While I know it might be difficult, it may be time to sell your Big Mouth Billy Bass singing plastic fish. Let some other family enjoy the hours of entertainment it has provided to you and your drinking buddies at 3am.

A yard sale is a great opportunity to reduce the clutter and make a profit in the process – and by profit, I mean finally unloading that universal gym taking up two-thirds of your garage, which you bought seven years ago for $1,295, used precisely five times and finally offered up for sale for $499 before marking it down to $249, then $149, then $49.95, before finally settling on a $25 Starbucks gift card and a free car wash coupon. (Remind me later to talk to you about your negotiating skills.)

In preparing for your yard sale, there are a few things you need to do. Enlist the kids to help out. Teach them a few things about sales and negotiations. On second thought, given your universal gym fiasco, never mind.

Step 1: Give your sixteen year-old daughter Monica a $20 bill to go to the store to buy 15 yellow signs to post around the neighborhood.

Step 2: When Monica comes back from the store with a pack of 3-inch post-it notes and a tube of Elmer’s glue, apologize for not providing clearer instructions.

Step 3: Return to the store to buy 15 large yellow signs.

Step 4: Have your fourth grader Albert write in LARGE LETTERS “YARD SALE – SAT & SUN” on every sign.

Step 5: Compliment Albert on his excellent penmanship on all 15 signs, each of which now very legibly announces YARN SAIL – SIT ‘n SIN.

Step 6: Return to the store and buy 15 new pink signs (they’re out of yellow).

Step 7: Write the 15 signs yourself.

Step 8: Put the signs up all around the neighborhood two days before the sale to generate awareness.

Step 9: While driving home the night before the yard sale, look in astonishment at the freak hail storm which, it turns out, has obliterated every one of your signs.

Step 10: Repeat steps 1 through 8 in the dark, with a flashlight.

Step 11: Collect all the items you wish to get rid of. Invite the kids to bring to the garage those things they no longer want.

Step 12: Affix price labels to all the yard sale items. Might I suggest $50 is a bit steep for your leaky pink heirloom lava lamp?

Step 13: Explain to Albert that while you appreciate his help, you’re not selling his pet turtle Sheldon for $1 million or best offer.

Some things sell like hotcakes at yard sales and others don’t. Great things to put up for sale: Furniture, electronics, health and fitness equipment, bicycles, power tools, toys, and lawn & garden equipment. These will all go quickly.

Things you probably should not try to sell: Pictures of your family’s 1992 vacation to Yellowstone, anything with the words “8-Track”, “Atari”, or “Commodore 64”, anything with a Hello Kitty graphic emblazoned on it, your middle child Frederick (unless you are certain he would go to a loving home), any record album by Jim Nabors, Pat Boone or the Bay City Rollers, your 9-foot tall sculpture of Pamela Anderson you made in college with LEGOs, and finally, your 16-year-old family cat Patches (unless he no longer remembers how to use the litter box, then by all means, get whatever you can for him).

Before you open your lawn for business, be careful to clearly label anything that’s not for sale. One time, while I stepped away to make change, my teenager was in the process of signing over the title of our Toyota minivan for $3,500 to a guy who had come by looking for hedge clippers. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t intervened. He actually offered a very fair price, given the transmission was about to go out.

Make a commitment to reduce the clutter in your house. After all, when was the last time you actually used that do-it-yourself dog-neutering kit you bought at someone else’s yard sale in 1994?

Well, I must be off. It’s a nice spring day out. I see the Wilsons are setting up a yard sale down the street. I drove by earlier and I couldn’t believe my eyes. They actually have the complete collection of LIFE-SIZE inflatable action figures from Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace, 25 figures in all, including Jar Jar Binks and Queen Padmé Amidala. (She’s so hot.) They will look awesome in our family room. I’m going to buy the whole set – for the kids. It’s all about the kids.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base. 

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2012

We now have over 2 million Americans living in prison (several million more if you include New Jersey). The cause of the explosion in our inmate population over the past thirty years is primarily thanks to the incredible success of our War on Drugs, and only secondarily because of the many cast members of Jersey Shore who have served time.

A thoughtful examination of America’s War on Drugs leads to only one obvious conclusion: By any standard (other than reducing the level of our nation’s rampant drug abuse problem), this war has been an overwhelming success. The only thing left to do is hang a Mission Accomplished banner atop the fence along the U.S. – Mexican border.

Thanks to our impressive victory in the war on drugs, we have corralled thousands of our nation’s most dangerous habitually stoned South Park viewers and thrown them into the Graybar Hotel. Law-abiding Americans can now sleep safely, knowing they no longer have to fear that a deranged pothead might break into their home during a late night Harold and Kumar movie marathon in search of Doritos or other snack foods with dangerously unhealthy levels of high-fructose corn syrup.

The War on Drugs has garnered enormous benefits for our country: It has created thousands of rewarding jobs as prison guards, prison laundry personnel and prison snitches. In addition, by locking up tens of thousands of dangerous weed-lovers, it has reduced the number of stoners competing for my job, thus reducing my unemployment rate.

Which got me to thinking…. Perhaps the solution to our nation’s intractable high unemployment problem is to take our War on Drugs to the logical next level: A War on Idiots. Think how many fewer marginally employable people we would have looking for work if we expanded our anti-drug crusade to include criminalizing a long list of other social nuisances beyond pot, specifically the thousands of random acts of stupidity committed daily by people like my neighbor Bert Zablinski and most of his drinking buddies.

How will this help our economy? Currently, there are more than 13 million unemployed Americans looking for work. Included in this daunting number is my neighbor, Bert Zablinski. Bert, well – how do I put this gently – makes the Village Idiot look like a Jeopardy Grand Champion. Bert recently got fired from his job as a school crossing guard when he got busted for trying to run a string of lemonade stands selling Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Tequila Poppers to the middle schoolers, and attempting to launder the profits in his washing machine, never quite grasping the concept of laundering money. Disastrously stupid scheme on so many levels.

America is overrun with Bert Zablinskis who find new ways every day to invite the rest of us to ponder, “How did that guy ever survive past age seven?” That’s why, if we really want to solve our unemployment problem, I’m urging members of Congress to weed out millions of idiots by making it a criminal offense punishable by prison time to behave like Bert (or a member of Congress).

If my proposal gets passed into law, the following acts would all become criminal offenses:

• Attempting to show off in front of your buddies by skate boarding down a railing blindfolded and doing serious injury to your family jewels
• Driving a golf cart way too fast – with just your feet, losing control and plunging it into the pond on the 11^th hole
• Leaping from a height of ten feet or more, failing to clear the windshield of your car, resulting in serious damage to your arms and legs – and the windshield of your car
• Performing a juggling stunt involving a chain saw just because you saw someone do it on TV, resulting in a trip to the ER for 278 stitches and a trip to Home Depot for a new chain saw
• Attempting to get close enough to pat the hippo at the zoo, whereupon you fall in and find yourself, well, actually close enough to pat the hippo at the zoo
• Any get-rich business scheme my brother-in-law Tony has ever hatched since 1987

By criminalizing these and thousands of other imbecilic stunts, I’m confident within months we’ll reduce the number of out-of-work male job seekers by at least two million and create thousands of new construction jobs building more prisons to house all these brain-impaired thrill-seekers.

Before you know it, our unemployment problem will be history. In fact, there is a remote chance my plan could work too well, and we could end up with a shortage of workers. That’s why I am also pushing Congress to consider my other proposal: Lowering the legal age for carrying concealed weapons to seven. Now, before you start worrying that kids will end up injuring themselves and others by mishandling dangerous firearms, I have that covered. My plan requires any child under 13 playing with firearms to be supervised by an adult NRA member packing heat.

I know just where to find all these NRA helpers. I’m pretty sure there’ll be plenty of job applicants as soon as our prisons early-release all the drug dealers, arsonists, and larcenists due to severe prison overcrowding, thanks to the new arrival of all those idiots now being carted off to jail for behaving like my neighbor Bert.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base. 

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2012

That’s why our cherished Constitution forbids socialism to flourish anywhere within our borders – with the very narrow exceptions of our public schools, postal system, fire and police departments, interstate highway system, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, federal prisons, all state universities, most community colleges, Social Security Administration, National Guard, Coast Guard, public libraries, most local garbage collection services, the National Weather Service, and a few thousand other minor social service programs.

My point is, with a few isolated exceptions, the USA simply does not tolerate the tyranny of socializing our civil services (if you don’t count the folks at the Civil Service Administration). The mere mention of the word socialism stirs a visceral fear in the hair-trigger psyche of our proud democracy.

Socialism enslaves people through intrusive government over-regulation. Case in point: Canada’s socialized healthcare system. Ask any Canadian how they feel about their healthcare compared to ours. An astonishing 98%* of Canadians surveyed said they would gladly swap their healthcare system for ours (* if it was necessary to do so in order to get their child back from kidnappers).

Until Obamacare (known by liberal America-haters as the Affordable Care Act)  was enacted, America was the proud supplier of one of the world’s elite healthcare systems – and by elite I mean #37, right behind Costa Rica, and several places ahead of Pakistan.

Sure, 32 of the world’s 33 most highly developed nations all have universal healthcare. But Americans have never followed the herd. We forge our own path, dig our own grave. Who invented the Snuggie? The Clapper? The TV show Ice Road Truckers? One word: Pioneering Americans. (Okay, so we don’t rank very high in global word count rankings.)

So what if prior to Obamacare, the average American had been paying on average 40 to 50% more per year than countries with universal healthcare? Those other 32 countries include backwards, oppressive socialist-leaning regimes like Denmark, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Canada and (gasp) France. And do we really want to look to France as a model for anything? (Okay, France, I’ll give you points for inventing crêpes. They’re yummy.) If you don’t agree that Obamacare means an end to our freedom, just look at some of its core provisions. It denies freedom-loving Americans….

• the right not to carry health insurance because we know we will never get sick and need it
• the right to be denied health insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions, and
• the right to have our coverage unilaterally dropped when our policy is no longer profitable to our health insurance provider

Oh sure, I might decide to buy health insurance eventually – maybe when I’m 85 and eying a hip replacement or a heart transplant. But until then, no meddling government bureaucrat has the right to make me buy health insurance, not when I can make far better use of that money buying Power Ball lottery tickets.

Just over a week ago, the U.S. Supreme Court listened to arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare. Obama wants to force every American to purchase health insurance, much the way we’re required by law to buy car insurance. Does Obama think the American people are cars? What an insult. If so, my body would be a broken-down 1982 Chevy Citation with the radio missing, but I digress.

I believe it was Patrick Henry who once tweeted Give me liberty and give me death! – or something like that. Our fore fathers – five if you include Alexander Hamilton –  founded a Christian nation (Jews are allowed in limited quantities if they behave) based on the fundamental principle that all white, male, Christian, educated, landowning Americans with slaves were endowed with certain inalienable freedoms:

• Freedom of speech
• Freedom of assembly
• Freedom to carry a concealed weapon to a house of worship of their choice (so long as it was Christian)
• Freedom to have insurance providers raise everybody else’s rates and let others pick up the tab for your emergency room surgery because you didn’t bother to buy health insurance

When it comes to our cherished freedom to decide how to manage our own health – listen to Patrick Henry. Give us liberty and give us death. Say Hell-No to Obamacare and Hel-lo to undetected stage-four lymphoma.

Who among the top 1% would benefit from Obamacare? No one. Oh, sure a small number of people might be better off – and by small number I mean barely 32 million previously uninsured Americans – none of whom are Facebook friends of mine. And who is President Obama to tell me I must spend a portion of my hard-earned paycheck on health insurance premiums instead of investing it wisely as I see fit, by placing it all on Daddy’s Overdraft in the third race at Pimlico? (He’s excellent on a muddy track.)

If all goes well, come June, the Supreme Court will hand down its decision to overturn this nefarious threat to our liberty. We’ll all happily return to the wonderful way things were, safe from the threat of a hostile government takeover of healthcare, comforted knowing that our civically-minded health insurance companies will do their darndest to resist shareholder demands to raise our premiums for years to come.

But if the Supreme Court upholds Obamacare, you can kiss all your cherished personal liberties goodbye forever. Before you know it, the government will start regulating local libraries, public schools and national parks – someday maybe even Medicare. Oh what a hellish nightmare!

Please join me in praying that God will direct the Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare and return our great nation to a simpler time when healthcare decisions were private matters, and the government stayed out of it entirely – the 13^th century.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base. 

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2012

For the 15% of you still reading, let me explain. Thanks to texting, people now spell the words U and B4 because they don’t have the patience anymore to take the extra two seconds required to spell out you and before. God forbid the word might contain more than two syllables, such as a word like, well, syllables. People simply can’t be bothered – too many keystrokes. And when was the last time you wrote a personal handwritten letter? Let me guess. President Clinton was still dating Monica, right?

Thanks to Facebook, we have all become conditioned to posting micro comments on people’s “walls” which according to the Facebook Code of  Condensed Communication Conduct (FCCCC) must not exceed 24 characters. Say your family dog passed away after 18 years, and you decided to express your grief with a message to your friends. Here is the response you would likely receive from one of your friends….

1)     In 1970: Hey, I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your dear Golden Retriever Buster. I know that he was a family member to you. I hope you can be heartened in your time of grief knowing that he lived a good life. I hope you don’t mind but I baked you my homemade apple pie. I am always here for you. (This note would of course have been handwritten.)

2)     In 1990: Hey, so sorry to hear about the loss of your dog. What was his name? Anyway, imagine you’re pretty bummed. Would love to talk more, but gotta go – Monica’s soccer match. Can’t be late. (Sent by email.)

3)     In 2012: Hey,(Sent by iPhone.)

When people noticed recently that it was my birthday, I received two printed birthday cards (one of them from my mom), nine e-greeting cards, and 37 Facebook posts saying “Happy Birthday!”  I was deeply moved by the outpouring of acknowledgements these 37 people showered me with in the 3.1 seconds it took them to type those 13 characters – 14 if you include the exclamation mark!

The world’s attention span is shrinking at an alarming rate. People no longer have the patience to sit through the nightly news. Why should they when they can have a seven-word text alert sent to their cell phone that says Greece economy implodes. Dow down 400 points. What more do you need to know?

People today simply don’t have the attention span to read say, The New York Times or sit through a sixty-minute documentary about violence in Africa – not when they can watch a 47-second You Tube video about Lady Gaga’s latest haute couture costume featuring a bacon brassiere – you know, the important news.

This all got me to thinking. Perhaps I am too old-school – out of touch with the way today’s world takes in information. Perhaps I need to rethink my approach to this humor blog. After all, my typical post is about 900 words – or 830 words longer than the attention span of the typical American under 35.

In researching my humor blog’s readership demographics, the findings shocked me. My typical reader is 57 years old, a male, a baseball fan, lives in a house he can no longer afford and goes by the name of Tim. I had a serious readership problem.

I need to find a way to attract a much younger audience, preferably one not suffering from male pattern baldness. So I recently hired a marketing consultant to improve my blog’s appeal to this younger demographic. My consultant, Tiffany McCloskey, a freshman at Evergreen College majoring in the History of Plants with a minor in Northern European Twitter Studies, had three recommendations – she originally had ten, but she got distracted after suggestion #3 and texted her roommate Morgan about our meeting, typing some indecipherable character string: ROTFLMAO? I have no idea.

Tiffany’s three recommendations were:

1)     Keep my posts less than 100 words – If I could tighten it to fewer than 50 words, even better. People are like totally busy this century, ya’ know?

2)     Abbreviate wherever possible.  Use lots of exclamation marks and emoticons to enhance the gravitas of my message.

3)     Try incorporating humor into my posts occasionally.

That last suggestion was particularly helpful. Why hadn’t I thought of that!!

So I’ve reworked this week’s post, incorporating Tiffany’s sage advice. Hope you like the slimmed down version below:

Headline: America’s worsening attention span probl – Hey look, Pam just sent me a text…

Noticng a neg trend – ARGH!! Attn spns gttn shrtr n shrtr. If U R 85% of USA, U lost int by now.  :  (   Thnx 2 txtg we cant spll wrdsU n B4. Thnx 2 FB, we R uzd 2 pstg cmmts < 24 chrctrz. Yur dog dies. EX’s:

1970: Hey,  so srry 4 yur loss. Hug!

1990: Hey, srry!

2012: :  v  (

Hey, check out this You Tube video. Funny HA HA! Bride flls n2 pool. AWSUM. LOL!

Hmmm. I am just not sure about this new more youthful style of writing. This may take some time getting used to. But wait. What’s this? Perhaps my consultant Tiffany is onto something.  I just posted the above abbreviated version on Facebook. I’ve already received 73’s, 11 LOLs, and two’s. Talk about gratifying feedback. Well, I must say, I’ve learned a valuable lesson about the import – Oh, almost forgot. I need to text Pam back. It could be very – Wha? – is that a dime? This  must be my lucky day.

TTVFTB. PIOB! 

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2012

I have frequently been approached by executives from Microsoft to Amazon.com to Ninja Ned’s Car Stereo & Hot Tub Emporium on South Aurora Avenue – all asking me the same question: How did you get past security? But as soon as they discover who I am, they are often surprised to learn about my out-of-the-box business strategies (usually as they are escorting me out-of-the-premises).

In this installment, I share the thought-provoking conclusions of a recent Dutch study published in the scholarly journal, Psychological Science. The study tested people’s decision-making ability when their bladders were full and found that people with full bladders tended to make better decisions and were better able to control and hold off making impulsive, costly decisions, leading to better judgment. (I swear I’m not making this up.) Other findings included that Dutch researchers appear to have way too much time on their hands.

The business implications are at once profound and game-changing: Fill your employees’ bladders until they’re about to explode, and they’ll pay dividends through better, less impulsive decisions. That’s why smart companies will follow my advice and start ripping out all employee restrooms immediately. Before you know it, your employees will be unleashing a pent-up surging tide of better decisions.

Oh sure, initially some employees might whine about the minor inconvenience of no longer having a place to syphon their python. But think about it. What exactly do most employees do in restrooms anyway – other than making their bladder gladder?

Research shows that in addition to the time it takes to sprinkle their tinkle, the average employee spends an additional 12 minutes in the restroom each workday doing non-work related activities. Over the course of a year for the average company this amounts to more than 74,000 man-hours of lost productivity (not to mention 127 woman-hours of lost productivity). Let’s not quibble over the fact that I just made up these statistics. The point is, time spent in restrooms is a huge drain on the vein of employee productivity.

Smart business executives understand the inherent power of trickle-down economics. Savvy CEO’s will relieve themselves of this lost productivity and eliminate this waste once and for all. That’s why I’m telling my clients to remove all restrooms and replace them with juice bars and a bank of refrigerators offering employees free refills on soft drinks and beer. Just imagine how much decision making will improve when every member of your sales team loads up on a six-pack of Heineken before lunch time. They’ll be bursting at the seams with brilliant ideas to open up new golden revenue streams.

Think how the decision-making skills of your IT developers will sky rocket with a Diet Pepsi dispenser conveniently built into their cubicles. (Consider offering Mountain Dew as a perk for your high-performing programmers.) A few forward-thinking business leaders are already conducting pilot studies on the feasibility of equipping employees with IV hookups to ensure a steady inflow of bladder-bursting liquids throughout the day. For these pioneers, I guess IV stands for Imaginative Visionary.

The same Dutch study went on to conclude that merely thinking about words related to urination triggered the same positive effect on decision making (true). That’s why I recommend placing posters in high-traffic locations throughout your office with images of lawn sprinklers or firemen hosing down a fire, or perhaps some youngsters playing with squirt guns. I might suggest a lovely framed photo of Old Faithful geyser for each person’s desk. Think of other ways to subtly remind workers about the importance of bladder control with motivational posters featuring messages like Remember, customers are your NUMBER ONE priority.

In a twist on the research study’s findings, pioneering retailers are applying the study’s findings in reverse in an effort to improve sales. If people with full bladders make good decisions, then the theory goes that customers with depleted bladders should make bad, impulsive decisions. That’s why my sources tell me that Costco is now planning to install convenient urinals at every cashier’s checkout station – tentatively to be called pee pods – to give customers an opportunity to empty their bladders right before they check out.

Customers will be encouraged to make a deposit into a self-service pee pod to earn 5% off any last-second purchases they place at the checkout counter. Costco’s marketing department is already hard at work developing creative in-store promotions like this: Trickle your pickle and save 20% – on our jumbo jar of kosher pickles! 

If you’re a business owner looking for ways to improve your employees’ decision-making, don’t let your under-performing slackers piss you off any more. Fill up their bladders and shut down those restrooms. Soon they’ll be producing raging rivers of output, flooding your business with startling decisions you never imagined possible.

Take my advice and before you know it, your entire team will be sharing stories about their incredible whiz of a boss.

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base. 

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2012

I simply can’t hold this secret in any longer. I hope I won’t ruin my marriage. This is really hard to talk about. I am searching for the right words. Okay, here it comes……

I am ………… a lifelong……… slooooooow reeeeeeader.

I confess. My slow reading problem started in first grade. I would read a passage like this: See Dick. See Jane. See Spot. See Dick throw the ball. See Jane catch the ball. See Jane through the ball. See Spot catch the ball… and I’d think, Golly! (What do you want – I was in first grade.) This is going to take forever! Couldn’t they have shaved off five pages simply by stipulating in one concisely-worded sentence that the three of them were playing with the ball? Little did I know then that Dick and Jane were just the first chapter of my slow reading saga.

In seventh grade, our teacher at my all-boys school, Mr. Alanson, made us read Marjori Kinnan Rawling’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1938 novel The Yearling, about a young deer named Flag that becomes a family pet, then eventually dies, and everybody cries. Scientists should have stopped searching then and there for a cure for insomnia. I had discovered it. Took me forever to wade through this award-winningly boring book. [Suggestion to the author: Marjori, next time, spend a little more time on plot development and little less time describing a tattered leaf’s meandering journey down a gurgling creek.]

In ninth grade, our teacher, Mr. McClintock, made us read James Michener’s classic, The Source – all 1,088 pages of it. I believe the teacher chose this literary classic primarily because he secretly despised obnoxious, testosterone-laced 15-year old prep school boys and figured that forcing us to read this book would ensure his students were as miserable as he was. But 1,088 pages? Seriously, teach’?!

I doubt when Michener wrote this book, which covered the 4,000-year history of a Middle Eastern settlement, that he was consciously trying to ruin my life. In this book, he would take five pages to explain in mind-numbing detail the process by which the text on a stone slab was inscribed by a primitive chisel and then four more pages devoted to how the chisel was made. I finally finished this book in my junior year – of college. I’ve seen glaciers make more progress in a year than I made reading this tome.

In college, I unwittingly signed up for an ancient Greek history course which required us to read seven dauntingly thick books. At my reading speed, I estimated I’d finish the reading list shortly before retirement. Typical of the reading list was the coma-inducing treatise by the Athenian general Thucydides called The History of the Peloponnesian War. It consisted entirely of passages like this:

Corinth, exasperated by the war with the Corcyraeans, spent the whole of the year building ships, to form an efficient fleet; rowers being drawn from Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas. The Corcyraeans, having not enrolled themselves either in the Athenian or in the Lacedaemonian confederacy, decided to … .zzzzzzzzz.”   

Jesus, take me now! It was excruciating. I never actually finished it. I jumped ship somewhere between the sea battle off the Lacedeaemonian coast and the 18-month siege of Argos, so I never actually found out who won. But I’m pretty sure France surrendered.

In law school, my reading challenges only got worse. My very first homework assignment was the famous Supreme Court case, Hawkins V. McGee. This ten-page case about damages for a badly performed hand surgery took me four hours to read. In my defense, that’s in part because every word that was not a preposition was in Latin. Here was a typical passage:

In the case of Hawkins, the plaintiff requests damages against Dr. McGee. Before this court is the following question: Quo usque of tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? Quam diu in etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet, quem ad finem in sese effrenata iactabit audacia. Nihilne te nocturnum vigiliae HAWKINS, nihil timor of populi, Quo MCGEE nihil concursus bonorum omnium in haec intellegit. Therefore, the court awards the plaintiff punitive damages.

At least, that’s how I remember it.

I was so discouraged I decided to take an Evelyn Wood Speed Reading course. That’s where you rapidly zigzag your index finger down the page, skimming two pages in approximately the time it takes to blink. Well, I must say, the results were amazing.

Take the previous paragraph you just read above. Before my speed reading course, it would have taken me ten seconds to read. After this eight-week course, I was able to read the same paragraph in less than half a second, while suffering only a marginal drop in comprehension. Here is what I retained from the previous paragraph after speed reading:

I was so blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Reading blah blah blah blah blah blah zigzag blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blink blah blah blah blah blah blah blah amazing.

Impressive, eh? And it only cost me $500. So there you go – the deep dark secret I’ve been hiding all these years. I hope someday you might be able to accept me the way I am. In the meantime, I’m thinking about asking $10,000 to share my deep dark secret on an upcoming Barbara Walters special. (Don’t tell anybody, but I’d even take half that amount.)

That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base. 

© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2012