Biased newspaper

I am a snowbird that arrived back in Naples Florida  on Nov 10th, 2019. I scan the newspaper every day and have yet to find EVEN ONE ARTICLE THAT COMPLIMENTS TRUMP. There have been few to none articles about the roaring economy, the low unemployment rate, good trade deals with Canada, Mexico and China. The soaring stock market has been ignored. Yet you have managed to have an anti-Trump “cartoon” on the opinion page EVERY DAY since November.  The few letters to the editor you print are usually anti-Trump tirades.  Those of us that support Trump and usually write positive letters about politics are just sitting back shaking our heads in disbelief. 

If you are losing circulation, don't blame it on electronic media. Look no further than your crummy newsroom and very radical left-wing political bias.   You just had an article about losing your new printing press just after having moved to new quarters.  If you continue to insult 50% of your subscribers, you will soon lose the new building as well and have to move back to smaller quarters.  There is no excuse for the city of Naples and Collier County not having a decent daily paper.  On a positive note the crossword puzzle has not as yet been politicized but I won’t hold my breath.

Early Contraception

I am in the process of reading a book titled “The Book of Amazing History”.  Most subjects are only a page or two long.  I found that you can skip over some of the things that already stored in one or two brain cells in a forgotten area of your brain.

The most interesting article so far is the one on “early contraception”.  Stick with me and you might find something of value.  (but I doubt it)

In ancient Greece, women not wishing to have children were instructed to jump backwards seven times to avoid pregnancy.  I cannot vouch for the results of such a practice but would think it a bit dangerous if you were having sex on the side of a cliff.

Ancient Roman women were advised to carry a pouch on their left foot that contained a cat’s liver.  An alternative was to spit in the mouth of a frog. This practice could result in a shortage of cats and defiantly would not work in the more arid areas of the empire.

Barrier methods have included pebbles, half a lemon, and dried elephant or crocodile dung.  No information was given on the exact method of (or location of) the use of this practice.

The following is a direct quote. “In 1550 B.C., a suggested concoction of ground dates, Acicia tree bark, and honey (applied locally) was probably fairly effective, since acacia ferments into lactic acid, which disrupts a normal a pH balance”.  I wonder how long this mixture would have to be kept in place before fermentation took effect.   

In eastern Canada one aboriginal group believed that women drinking tea containing beaver testicles prevented Pregnancy.  If the tribe was especially horny this could lead to a shortage of beavers and an increase in the population.  This would directly affect the fur trade.  All beavers beware

As early as the seventh century B.C. a certain fennel plant was found to be extremely effective to prevent pregnancy.  It was a morning after “pill”.  It only grew in a small area in lybia and is now extinct.  Attempts to re-create it have been unsuccessful.

Men have always used a form of condom dating back as far as 1000 B.C.  Animal intestines were a favorite material.  No information was given on the number of times this “condom” could be reused.  It is my belief that men in the middle east found that leaving the goat or sheep alive allowed for a more efficient use of the intestine.  This, in turn, allowed for an increase in goat population and a healthy increase in providing more milk for the general population.   This practice of leaving the goat alive, however, is still in use in some areas of the middle east.  The introduction of the rubber condom in 1844 also helped the goat population to increase.

The introduction of “the pill” in 1960 made things a lot easier for woman.  The “sheath” remains the favorite method used by men.

New carpet in the living room

New carpet for the living room

Connie decided that we needed new carpet for the living room.  After agonizing over the color and design she finally made her decision.  The salesman asked me what I thought about the carpet.  I told him, “I have no dog in this fight”.  I think he understood.

  We scheduled an appointment for a fellow to come and take the carpet measurements. I tried to tell the salesman the room was 12’ X 20”.  He paid no attention to me and scheduled an appointment for the measurement.  The fellow doing the   measurements arrived within 10 minutes of the appointed time of 12:30 and apologized for being late.  What??  My only concern that he did not have a tape measure or clip board.  Silly me.

  The guy had only an I-Pad.  I decided that I had better stick around just in case he needed any consultation or supervision.  The first thing he did was to take a picture of every stick of furniture in the living room.  Of course, I asked why he needed pictures.  I had visions of a gang of robbers breaking in and stealing our expensive Walmart furniture.  He told me that he needed that in order to tell the installer how many people he needed to move the furniture out of the way for the installer.  OH.

  Then he placed the I-pad against the 20’ wall and shot a laser at the other end of the wall.  Then he did the same with the 12’ wall.  Then he shot a beam along the hypotenuse of both corners.  I know from woodworking that if those dimensions are within 1/16” the item is perfectly square.  No, I did not bother to ask.  I had figured out by now that he knew what he was doing.  He even measured the size and location of the AC registers.

  Then he showed me a computer layout of the room.  It had the size and shape of every piece of furniture plus their exact location in the room.  The dimensions of everything in the room were within a few mm of the exact size.  It even had the estimated weight of each item.  By then I figured out that he had the situation under control.

  My last question was how long it would take for the carpet to be cut locally.  He said that they sent the computer file to a company in Michigan where the carpet was cut using the computer layout.  It was cut there and then shipped by truck back to Naples.  He had no control of the lag time.  He told me that the carpet would be rolled in the 12’ direction to minimize the space used in the truck.  The tack strips would be cut to length and rolled up inside the carpet roll.  The threshold strip between the kitchen and living room was cut to the exact length and the difference between the carpet-hardwood floor was determined to get the exact threshold pattern.

  When he left Connie asked him how many floors he had measured today.  He said that he had completed seven and had one more to go and then he would hit his pool.  We live in a pretty advanced world.