A Lot To Do About A Lot

AS SOME OF YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTICED – I TOOK A FEW DAYS OFF:

As I Rested From Writing, It Didn’t Stop Me From Listening, Watching & Reading.

I WONDERED – WHY DO OUR GOVERNMENTS WANT US SO ADDICTED?

This Is An Issue That Has Bothered Me For Quite Some Time.

Even Though The Bulk Of Everything We Do Has To Do With Politics, it Doesn’t Necessarily Have to Do with Geopolitics. In Other Words, even Though Laws are Basically Conceived, Contrived & Made through the Political Process . . . These Laws Are Not Necessarily Global, National, Regional, And Very Often Local. But they are Laws & Have an Enormous Influence on all of our Lives.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING & WE ARE JUST NOW BEGINNING TO NOTICE:

I Am Going To Start With Flock Cameras Along With Other Invasive Devices.

While Most of us, if Not all of us were Celebrating our Entry into the 21st Century of High-Tech Access Including the Speed of Light of the Internet, Smartphones, Virtual Unlimited Access to Information, and Online Streaming, Big Tech Was Invading The Very Sanctity Of Our Privacy.

You Know What I’m Writing About . . . Talk About Kadiddles on your Smart Phone or Type Kadiddles on the Internet, and all of a Sudden . . . Here Comes A Flurry Of Ads For Kadiddles.

Do you think Alexa Isn’t Listening to Everything Said in its Presence, or that your Smart TV isn’t Paying Attention?

And Now There Are Flock Cameras, and Competitors to Flock, which Do the Same thing, Monitoring your Every Move & Aspect of your Life while Inside, Outside or Close Enough to your Car. Even My 2021 F-250, which I Bought Brand New from Ford is in Control by Ford, which Means it is Also in Control of Various Government Agencies. That Doesn’t Make Me Feel Good.

I Own The F-250 Completely, but Ford still Has the Wherewithal to Read the Computer Data on my Truck from Anywhere. Ford can Start & Stop my Truck from Miles Away & Know Where the Truck is Located at Any Time.

I’m Not Ragging On Ford. I Love my F-250, and I would be Willing to Bet Dollars to Doughnuts that Ford is just One of all the Other Car & Truck Manufacturers with this Type of Access. Just Imagine The Information Gleaned By Cars & Trucks Imported From China.

LEGALIZED BETTING . . . ON-LINE GAMBLING – RIGHT DOWN TO LOTTERIES:

I Don’t Bet. I Don’t Gamble. And I Don’t Buy Lottery Tickets – Unless the Jackpot is Over $1-Billion – and even then . . . It Is With No Expectation Of Winning.

I’ve Been To Las Vegas Several Times. I Even Tried my Hand at the Blackjack Tables & Pissed-Away a Few Coins in the One Arm Bandits. The Last Time I was in Las Vegas with Anne, we Toured the Red Rock Canyon, Went to the Bottom of the Hoover Dam, Fed some Wild Burros in the Desert, and Marveled at the Dry Gulches. But We Didn’t Gamble A Dime.

There Has Always Been Gambling . . . There Will Always Be Gambling.

It’s Not That Anne And I Are Against The Right For People To Gamble. We Just Think that it’s kind of Dumb to Piss-Away Hard-Earned Money Chasing a Fantasy where the House always Wins . . . And The Gambler Eventually Always Loses.

I Never Gambled Big . . . Always Under $20 – But I Hated the Rush of Anticipating my Win or Loss as the Cards were Turned-Over. And I Hated Losing – So Why Would I Want To Continuously Put Myself Through That?

I Don’t Buy Lottery Tickets, because when the Statistics Show that my Chance of Winning is Somewhere Between Zero & One in a Million Gazillion – Why Bother?

Anne & I Used To Go To The Racetrack To See & Bet On The Horses, Mostly Because it was a Friday or Saturday Night-Out, and We Loved Watching the Horses.

We Set a Strict Limit on How Much we Gambled for the Night (10-Races – $2 Per Race), with the Understanding that if We “Won Big” (More Than We Started With), We Would Take our Winings & Have Supper at a Really Nice Restaurant. We Almost Always Wound-Up Eating At McDonalds.

I HAVE PERSONAL DEEP KNOWLEDGE TO THE COST OF GAMBLING:

Thank God, I Have Never Had an Addiction Problem – But I Had Some Family Members Outside of my Direct Family (Parents & Sisters) who Lost Everything Gambling . . . Their Homes, Marriages, Families & Livelihoods.

I Had a Friend whose Brother Stole a Fortune from his Best Friend & Business Partner, who as a Result Wound-Up in Jail because of his Gambling Addiction.

Perhaps The Most Painful Gambling Tragedy To Me, was the Twenty-Something Year-Old Son of our Biggest Advertising Client & Friend, who Took His Life because Gambling Drove Him to Suicide in the Closed Garage of his Family’s Home, with his Car Motor Running on Canada Day, when the Entire Family was Celebrating at their Country Home,  while Waiting for Him to Join Them.

And Now . . . It’s Not Just Lottery Tickets – It’s College Sports, It’s On-Line Gambling & Bets over the Most Banal Outcomes.

WHILE GROWING-UP . . . MANY OF MY FRIENDS MESSED AROUND WITH POT:

I Tried It Twice . . . I Really Liked It Twice – And Never Touched-It Again.

Pot In The 60’s & 70’s Wasn’t Like Weed Is Today, even though Marijuana was Always Somewhat Mentally Addictive, it Never Had the Potency of the Drugs Consumed Today by Young & Old . . . But Today – Pot in Itself Doesn’t Need to Be a Gateway to Stronger & More Addictive Drugs (Which It Is), Since Weed Is Plenty Strong & Addictive All On Its Own.

PERSONAL DRIVE & COMPETENCY IS AT A VERY LOW EBB:

It Isn’t Even Speculation . . . The Consumption of Drugs Today – Highlighting Marijuana . . . Is At A Precarious Level, Starting in Grade Schools to Post Graduation . . . Among the Unemployed, the Never to be Employed, in the Workplaces, at the Professions & Within those Professions that are Critical to our Every-Day Living.

Forget the Fact that the Consumption of Drugs including Marijuana is a Health Risk Physically, Mentally & Socially . . . And Is Growing Exponentially In Use Every Day . . . its Use is Crippling our National Future Aspirations.

HERE IS THE BIG QUESTION . . .

We Know that we are Under the Surveillance & Influence by Multiple Big Brothers from Tech-Firms to our Own Governments . . . From Flock Cameras to our Computers, from Smart Phones to our Alexa Listening Devices, And Probably More Than We Even Know.

We Know that Gambling is a Disease that Destroys Not just the Addicted People, but all the People Associated with the Gamblers.

We Know that Drugs are Destroying the Nuclear Family and the Future Development of our Countries  . . . So Here’s The Big Question:

Why Have Our Governments Legalized . . . All That Will Destroy-Us?

Best Regards . . . Howard Galganov