Things I Want (or Need) to Know

Now that Spring is finally here, and grass is being mowed, wouldn’t it be nice if they made lawn-mower handles more adjustable, so tall people could use them whithout bending over, thereby not develop back pain in the process of tidying up the yard?

How cold has Spring been where I live this year?  Well I have some pictures of my lilacs from six years ago when they were in full bloom on April 20th.  On May 3rd this year, they haven’t bloomed yet.

Does anyone reading this know of a good way to get rid of English ivy, or how to destroy wild onions?  I’d like to kill the ivy without annoying my lilacs.  My onion problem is so bad this year, I’m thinking of renaming my family home “Vidalia Acres.”

What can I get Saint Karen (who must be a saint to put up with me) for her birthday, and Mother’s Day?  They’re always close together and sometimes fall on the same day.  I usually get her separate presents.  Twice before, I’ve gotten her one big, combined present for the two events.  Once, I bought her an iPad, and the other time, a 60” tv for the living room.  Unless someone has a better idea, and even if they do, this year, I’m getting another combined present:  I’m taking her to California to visit our son.

I was telling one of my doctors about all the muscle pain I’ve been experiencing.  He started complaining to me that he’s sore all over too.  Do you know what that means?  I think it means I need to find a younger doctor.

Things I Know

I spent part of my life in government and in media.  Consequently, I’ve met a lot of important and/or famous people.  Today, I received one of those Facebook friend suggestions, based on knowing someone who is also connected to that person—Markus Elliot Zuckerberg.  First, I don’t know Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook.  I can’t see why he’d have a personal interest in me.  I doubt I know anyone who does know him.  And, since the Markus Elliot Zuckerberg who was suggested as a friend to me had only 60 followers on Facebook at the time, I’m not convinced that it’s THE MARK ZUCKERBERG.

The African nation of Tanzania has just required internet content-providers to register and pay a fee equal to $920 American dollars.  That’s roughly an entire year’s income for the average person in Tanzania.  The government is cracking down on information it considers obscene, and information critical to its strongman-President John Magufuli.  The law seems designed to allow the government to prosecute anything on the internet it doesn’t like.  Obviously, the Tanzanian government can’t enforce this against anyone outside the country.  With VPN and other such technology to allow people on line to mask their location, I wonder if they can even enforce it inside Tanzania.

I read somewhere that the visitors to the website of the NY Daily News have dropped by close to fifty percent since the paper put the website behind a paywall.  I’m sure that’s a factor, but the paywall at the NY Daily News, like the paywall for many other newspaper websites, is very easy to circumvent.

Another factor must be how annoying nydailynews.com is to use.  The only thing most people hate that isn’t included on the website is a portal page.  There are popups that block content, distracting videos in the middle of articles, auto-playing audio and video, banners that cover articles or parts of articles.  You get the idea.  I’m sure there are worse websites, but frankly I can’t think of one.

If you search for the cheapest places tourists can visit, one thing that will strike you is nobody agrees on their entire list or on which one is least expensive.  I can’t find it again, but one of the lists I found earlier this year said the least expensive tourist spot in the world was Damascus, Syria.  Even if that’s true, it’s true for a reason and I know I won’t be visiting war