by John

ENERGY---FROM WHERE

Details: Published: Monday, January 13, 2020 15:46; by John Campbell; Hits: 2076

I have always been “energy aware” because it costs money. Last year I bought a Tesla automobile and have not bought a gallon of gas since. My electric bill increased about $30 per month while I used to spend about $150 per month on gasoline. The electric car really saves money on the energy expended to travel. Many people whom I know think I was trying to save the planet, but they did not realize that to charge my car I use electricity that is produced by burning coal. Trading gasoline carbon for coal carbon is not really doing anything to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. I am helping my pocketbook but not the planet. I will never save enough to recover the cost of the car, but then the real reason I bought the car was my love of technology, and the car is a marvel of technology.

WHAT IF

Details: Published: Wednesday, January 01, 2020 12:56; by John Campbell; Hits: 1302

What if things were different three years ago? What would our country be today? Have you ever asked yourself that question? Just after Trump took office, a friend who happens to be a college professor and liberal, asked me what I thought of Trump and why. I told him that when I started college at Syracuse University I had a new group of friends. As I was from upstate New York and grew up in a farming region, I was shocked to meet and live with young men from the New York City area. They were rude and crude next to the way I was raised and expected to behave. I had forgotten about this first encounter until Trump started to campaign. I was meeting my college friends all over again. So I told my friend this and explained that most of Trump’s language was the same as I had experienced as a freshman in college—in your face, rude and crude. I added that as I got to know my new friends I found them to also be sincere and trusting and became close to many of them. So, what if Trump had come from upstate and had been a politician who owed his rise to the top to other politicians and lobbyists as most of those running for the highest office are? Would he have been more acceptable to his political foes and many in his own party? You will have to answer this as you read because it is hard to imagine.

IMPEACHMENT

Details: Published: Sunday, December 15, 2019 12:50; by John Campbell; Hits: 1143

Last week an item on a Pittsburgh TV station news broadcast reported a school superintendent who was fired because of a DUI. I didn’t know the details, but he may have lost his job because he had a second glass of wine at dinner or maybe he just drank way too much before driving. Drinking and driving will be the subject of another blog, but that a person lost his job due to a single infraction where other remedies could have been made is the point that I want to make. Locally we have seen a police chief and a mayor lose their jobs due to minor infractions that many would not believe rose to the level of being fired. Some time ago, a friend of mine was fired from a local factory for not following a procedure correctly. He added a step that had been in the procedure before it was revised to speed up production. There was no harm to the product, the machinery or fellow workers. His supervisor did not like him, so he lost his job. The company lost twenty years of experience when they could have given him a written warning and retrained him. He made somebody irate and gave them a chance to get even for past grievances.

COFFEE CLUB

Details: Published: Friday, December 13, 2019 12:55; by John Campbell; Hits: 1411

When I retired over 15 years ago, my wife was still working. I had plenty to do with a golf membership, a woodworking shop in my basement and a motorcycle. It was the early mornings that were a little hard for me to get started. A gym membership took care of part of the morning, but still a lonely house was not very inviting so I started to go to the new Panera Bread store for coffee and sometimes a bagel. After a few trips there, it was noticeable that many of the people I saw were the same ones and they were doing what I was doing except many were doing it before going to work. I met an elderly lady (older than me) and she seemed to know me. After introductions she told me that she had worked with my sister-in-law at the university for many years. My sister-in-law was in a nursing home at the time, but this lady I had just met was still working at the age of over 80. From that day on, my coffee time was with her.

ANARCHY

Details: Published: Tuesday, December 03, 2019 11:27; by John Campbell; Hits: 1216

A few years ago the “far right” was considered a group that believed that they did not have to obey US law. I had a friend who did not file income tax returns because he said the US did not have the right to an income tax. We heard of the militant groups that lived by themselves in the wilderness of the Northwest, and there were a few confrontations with the FBI and other authorities. Today we think of these groups as neo-Nazis who spread hate and societal disruption. The anarchists have disappeared it seems…or have they?

Commentary by John Campbell

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ENERGY---FROM WHERE

WHAT IF

IMPEACHMENT

COFFEE CLUB

ANARCHY

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