Calling Out a Dog Abuser

I don't usually let things on Facebook keep me up too late at night, but there is a post right now on a crazy person named Katie Brown's Facebook page that is starting to pick up steam by being shared by thousands of people.

This lady purposely posted a picture of her dog, duct taped around the mouth. She brags about doing it herself to keep her dog from barking. It's the act of a monster and not a loving dog owner.

Here's the nutball's profile link...
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004883925173

All of us who have owned a dog or a pet of any kind for that manner, have had a moment or two where they had to play parent to their fur baby. This can be tricky since animals don't process thoughts the way we do and obviously don't understand 99% of the things we say. Still, as a loving owner, you should never do anything to inflict permanent harm on a pet, let alone BRAG about it. Katie Brown says she only did it for a minute, but that is one minute too many.

Her actions are that of someone who doesn't deserve the companionship of a pet. Dogs are one of the only animals out there that love their owner more than they love themselves. This dog's trust has to have been betrayed. Looking at her drooping ears, the dog is clearly sad.

This monster's post was brought to my attention by a post on Facebook by comedian Ian Bagg, fellow dog lover. Being the proud puppy parent of two dogs I love and another that my father owns that I love as well, I couldn't ever imagine being anywhere near this nuts in how I treat my pets.

In the little time this Facebook post was brought to my attention, her post went from 50,000 shares to now over 75,000 shares in little more than an hour. Even her own friends are turning on Katie Brown on her own Facebook feed and rightly so.

I'm sorry for letting a "simple" Facebook post spur a blog by me, but this really dug under my skin for the hour after I saw it. Something tells me that this isn't the first time she's done something stupid to her pets, just the first time that she may have posted it on social media, or at least the first time it went viral.

Treat your dogs with love. They love you more than you will ever know.

There is no Baseball in Heaven

Picture taken and edited by Daniel Millhouse

Three out of every four Americans believe in some sort of afterlife according to a poll conducted by CBS in 2014. Most of the people that believe in an afterlife believe that Heaven exist and is the perfect place to spend eternity. Heaven is supposed to be the place that is literally perfect and residents of Heaven are always happy. If this is the case, then it could be argued that in Heaven, competitive sports such as baseball doesn't exist.

Maybe this is the reason that so many ghosts in Field of Dreams wanted to play on Ray Kinsella's baseball field in the middle of an Iowan cornfield.

The reason being, especially in team sports, there are always losers. If Heaven is supposed to be a place of complete and eternal happiness, then how could a batter strike out against a pitcher in a baseball game played in Heaven? How could a fielder misplay a grounder, putting the winning run on base? This would seem that someone, even if for a short amount of time, would be unhappy in Heaven.

Could it be possible that there is no baseball in Heaven? For some of those on Earth, baseball is their favorite sport of all time and for some others, baseball is life. If there is no baseball then in the afterlife then how could they be as happy? Maybe it could be that God or whoever is in charge of the spirits, changes your mind about baseball not being so important, but if this is true, then wouldn't that impinge on free will?

In the opposite end of the spectrum, it doesn't seem possible that baseball would exist in Hell either. There's always a winner which doesn't feel like something that there would be in Hell. Unless every time before a game starts, there's a rainout and everyone is disappointed, but then there still wouldn't technically be baseball in Hell. Just the idea.

If the idea of Heaven in What Dreams May Come starring Robin Williams is the most accurate, then it's possible to play baseball and even have fun (as long as you keep winning) with some sort of creations of ballplayers you mentally create, but they wouldn't be real people/souls then. Playing against some sort of projection of a baseball player, especially one that lets you win in every instance seems empty.

The same can be said of other sports such as football, soccer, basketball, tennis, etc. There's always a loser and if there is, are you really in Heaven?

Rushing Past the Holidays

Picture taken by Daniel Millhouse

Holidays can be fun, they can lead to future heart warming memories, and can offer family an excuse to get together when their everyday life can make that seem impossible. So why do we rush so much to get to holidays that we skip over others or at least forget to cherish the time in between holidays?

Just this year, Target stores across the country were already setting up their Christmas sections of their stores as far back as the first week of September. What happened to Halloween? What about Thanksgiving? There's no harm in shopping for Christmas presents early when you're working with a tight budget, but do we really need to push aside the Halloween costumes in favor of tree decorations that shouldn't be displayed before November? Are we really in that much of a rush?

Family Dollar stores in California, in the year 2013, actually placed their Halloween product and candy decorated in Halloween themed packaging on clearance sale the week BEFORE Halloween to make room for Christmas toys.

The holidays in their current form are already creations of the retail industry as it is. Days like Valentine's Day carry importance because of push made by the candy, flower, and greeting card industries. Independence Day in America thrives because of the fireworks, food (barbeque specific), and alcohol industries.

Consumers shouldn't be barraged with holiday décor and festive items that deal with a particular holiday until that holiday is next in line. It steals the valuable moments that belong to the next holiday coming up. How can you truly enjoy Halloween when you're worried about what color lights you're going to dangle across the tree?

The holidays already pass by too quickly and don't need help passing us by. Enjoy them the and savor those moments that hopefully you'll remember for years to come and can reminisce through pictures and home video.

Middle Class America is Dying

The middle class in America is the next endangered species. Drastic as it may sound, this isn't too far off.

When people look back to the past many times they will cite a time in the 1950's as being the "good ole days". In the terms of the American economy, this argument could actually be made when it comes to the class system.

In 1950, the ratio gap between a CEO and his average paid employee was 20 to 1. By 1980, the number jumped to 42-1. This gap is now up to 350-1 on average. To put that into terms, the average employee would have to work nearly nine weeks to equal what his CEO made in only one hour of work.

When a company doesn't perform, it is often people at the lowest levels that are blamed for poor performance, but could some of it be the cost of the CEO to the company? J.C. Penney's former CEO Ron Johnson oversaw the decline of his company when in turn he was making 1,795 times more than his average employee. While a single pay cut for a CEO might not be enough in his case, the culmination of the board could have made a dent in the right direction. Johnson was ousted for J.C. Penney's drop in financial performance, but much of the board is still there.

One company, considered golden in the United States, Apple, not only has paid their CEO's a ton of cash, but has enough in the bank to not sell a single product for seven years and still be able to pay every single one of their employees. A company should keep money stored away for a rainy day, but how much is enough. At least while Steve Jobs was CEO, the company saw its level of innovation increase substantially, but not many CEO's can say they matched Jobs' rate of innovation for their company.

Another company, considered beloved by Americans, Disney, awarded their second-in-charge, Michael Ovitz, $38 million and $100 million in stock when Michael Eisner dismissed him from his position in 1997. This was after Ovitz only worked for Disney for less than 16 months and doesn't actually include his pay while he was employed. Was he worth at least $138 million to Disney? Probably not, but imagine what Disney could do payroll wise with $138 million. Shareholders tried to sue the company over the $100 million in stock given to Ovitz, but Disney claimed that the $100 million was his incentive to leave Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and join Disney. The courts upheld Disney's severance package decision.

What makes the gap worse is that many Americans aren't even aware of the difference. A study done by Harvard Business School produced research that Americans believe that the average CEO makes only around 30 times more than the average worker. "Americans drastically underestimated the gap in actual incomes between CEOs and unskilled workers," the study says.

The second largest CEO to average worker gap in the civilized countries of the world is in Switzerland and that is less than half of the gap in America, at 148-1. Denmark is at 48-1, Japan 67-1, and Israel 76-1.

CEO's should make more than anyone else in their company, especially if they are the company founder or at least the one who created the product that put their company on the map. But when the gap is significant, it could break America's back.

The unfortunate view in America is that often it is the average person who becomes demonized. As protests around America happen, people can't stand the idea of a fast food worker making a minimum wage of $15 an hour. Often memes online demonize fast food employees when they are compared to emergency responders or American soldiers and their rate of pay. The reality is that soldiers and first aid responders are also grossly underpaid, and if a fast food employee makes $15 an hour, in no way does it mean their work means more to than a soldier. Another reason $15 an hour isn't as high as it sounds because the buying power of a minimum wage worker in 1968 is nothing close to it is today. Compared to a minimum wage worker today, a worker today would have to make over $21 an hour to have that same purchasing power as someone did in 1968. Instead, the federal minimum wage is $7.25.

The rate of pay for lower paid workers never keep up with the rate of inflation, but a CEO's rate of pay went up over 1,000 percent during the same period. This is despite that the regular employee is the one demonized by much of America, instead of the CEO, especially with a Fortune 500 company.

Henry Ford in 1914 made a bold decision that kick started the growth of the American middle class in the 20th Century. He paid double the price of what the average factory worker made elsewhere. Paying double amount to an employee sounds like it could be the main ingredient toward bankruptcy for some, but in fact his turnover was lower than any other company, his profits doubled in less than two years, and Ford called it the best cost cutting procedure he ever did.

"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business," Ford was quoted as saying.

This move by Ford not only gave his employees more money in their pockets, but it gave them more money to spend. He believed that his average employee should be able to afford to buy one of the very cars they made.

When the people at the middle class levels and lower receive more pay, studies have shown that more money is actually injected into the economy and businesses benefit as a whole. The poor would most likely spend almost every penny they make on consumer goods from clothing, food, transportation, and entertainment. The middle class is a little more likely to save a little more, but would still have more money on hand to spend. The tourism industry would get a boost, their children would find paying for college a lot easier, and even the money saved would eventually be spent in the elder years of the middle class.

The gap needs to shrink back to levels it was in the middle of the 20th century for America to be "great again".

EMP Pulse a Real Threat to Life

Picture source: NASA website

Many doomsday theorists in the twentieth century believed that if we destroy ourselves as a species, the cause would most likely be by nuclear war. By the time the twenty-first century rolled around, Global Warming/Climate Change became one of the more leading possibilities. Another possibility, although maybe not as pressing as Earth's changing weather, a possibility that doesn't often get discussed is an electromagnetic pulse.

The two most likely ways that Earth can be hit on a large scale is by a massive solar flare from the sun and by nuclear detonation twenty-five to five hundred miles in altitude over the central United States according to the Commission to Assess the Threat to the U.S. from EMP Attack, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in July 2008.

A nuclear attack even on this scale would affect a continent and would leave America with the ability to still retaliate against their attacker via nuclear submarines located in the seas.

The sun poses the greater risk of the two. Experts generally believe that electromagnetic surges from the sun on this large of a scale tend to happen on an average of once every one hundred years. An event on this scale hit Earth in 1859, but electronics were just on the verge of being used for wide-scale communications and did not inflict the damage it could do today. Known as the Carrington Event, it caused severe disruption to telegraph communications, shocking some telegraph operators and even starting fires when the sparks jumped and burned the paper used by these operators.

A less strong, but still damaging event occurred in March of 1989 when Canada took the brunt of a solar flare. Six million Canadians went without power for nine hours when power transmission from the Hydro Quebec station had been disrupted. Even power transformers in the United States had felt some of the effects of the flare. Despite all this damage, this event was nowhere near the scale of the Carrington Event.

In July of 2012, a similar event to Carrington occurred and had just missed Earth's trajectory by one week. If it had hit Earth directly, the results could have sent us a few hundred years in the past from a technological standpoint. Computers, televisions, transportation, communications...everything would have been knocked out.

So what happens if Earth is hit directly by a solar flare on the scale of the Carrington Event? The real possibility of millions of deaths all over the world would be almost definite. For all those who are in life and death situations in hospitals or depend on electronics of some form to keep them alive, their lives would be at jeopardy. Those in extremely warm regions, the lack of air conditioning could pose a real problem, especially when clean and safe water might not be able to be properly distributed to them, let alone to people in less intense climates around the world.

For those who do survive, the world would most likely go back to a city-state type of government system to get by until things could be rebuilt. Until then, even though we have the luxury of doing so much by computer, it would be best for the world to make sure that everything has a hard copy. Medical texts/records, historical records, and even things as simple as photographs.