I know it has been a long time since I wrote a snippets article; a few things prevent me from finding the time to write an article or even a review for anything. In the summer is when I usually barely find any time to write anything, but as the fall season approach and then the winter is when I find the time to write more often, which is why if you take a good look at all of my articles or reviews written on here you would see that I write more often from fall to spring then slow down a lot in the summer. During the summer, there are always conflicts in my schedules for anything, not just my media company/blog but also other works such as photography since I own a photography business and my time for anything such as spending time with family or friends. I always struggle with trying to find any time that has no conflict with others in the summer. Still, from fall to spring, especially in the winter, it becomes easier on me, so this year should not be any different than many years in a row, so I should be back writing more articles or reviews as the fall approach or more so when the winter is nearing. Before I start writing a snippets article, I apologize for keeping some of you in the dark waiting for new articles or reviews. I hope that all of you are doing good especially since that COVID-19 pandemic continues.
I have no idea how long this snippets article will be because I have a few topics on my list that I’d like to write on; a few of them are outdated, and a few of them are recent, but I might add more topics as I write here because sometimes new topics come to my mind when I write. Here is the list of the topics that will be written about or on below; click the “show topics list” to open the list, and from there, you can see what topics will be for these snippets. Suppose you do not want to read all of them. In that case, you can click any of the topics in that list below to be taken to a specific topic that you might be more interested in reading. Still, you might miss out on some interesting things about other topics, but in the case you prefer to just read one or two topics instead of all, then you have the option to do so!
10-29-2021 Snippets Topics
I expect that the list of topics for this snippets article will be several, which means that this article will be extended. So, if you want to read the entire snippets article but only have a little time, you can always just read a few topics, then remember the last topic that you read and come back later to read the next topic by clicking the topic below where you were left at to continue reading!
Being A Photographer In Rural Is Tough
Suppose you are thinking about setting up a photography business and living in a rural area or a place with a small population. In that case, you should expect that it will be somewhat hard to get a business in your area, especially if there is already another photographer or photography business running in your area. I have been a photographer since 2013, ran a photography business but only for a short time and then closed it down about a year later because, at that time, I did not have all the resources or equipment that I needed to be a professional photographer. Then fast-forward to this year in 2021, I decided to relaunch a photography business with the same name since I already own it. Still, it was not just up and running because now I have all the resources and equipment that I need to be a professional photographer. Not only that, all of these years, I have been learning through many places such as online classes, signing up a few photography associations as members because they also offer different photography courses on their platforms. I also used the search engine to learn everything that I needed about photography, then how to work with a professional camera since I have a new one that is a top-line professional camera because when I started back in 2013, I only had an entry-level DSLR camera. Since I decided to shut down my photography business, I needed the time and the experience, so now that I got them. Hence, I felt it was time to relaunch my photography business since I am more prepared than ever to be a professional photographer.
Before I did that, I knew that there are already a few photographers around here, and some of them are good, along with having a large clients base which I tip my hat to them. When I relaunched my photography business, becoming a professional photographer, I did so within the mind that they are not to be my competitors and that they are to be seen as colleagues, which I hope they do the same for me. After I relaunched mine, I entered a small group of ready photographers in the local and then a few more people becoming new photographers, which in my opinion is something more for us to look forward to because regardless of how big or small clients base that we have we should look at each other as the photographers who would help each other since all of us are locals. We don’t only serve our small community but also expand our photography services to outside of our local such as different cities in one or two other counties in a state or more if in both states, especially if we live on the border of two states like I do which is on the border of Kentucky and West Virginia.
I noticed that the more local photographers, the more complex the other photographers get their business. Let me rephrase this, remember I talked about seeing the local photographers as colleagues or respecting each other? They don’t see that way, which is unfortunate, especially not giving the new photographers a chance. I am speaking about other new photographers, which I empathize with them that. Yes, I know that they may feel threatened that they have some more professional photographers in front of them or their backyard. Still, if they genuinely care about their photography business or clients, they should partner with other photographers instead of against them. For example, on social media, I offered another local photographer to be my backup photographer. If, for some reason, I could hand it to another local photographer on the day, I would not make it, which means more business to them. I will not be taking any credit because it is all about supporting the local photographers. To my surprise, semi-surprised that no one took up that offer because they wanted it all, but the problem is that they did not realize that this was a golden opportunity that they just swatted. The proposal I had for them was not to “work” for me but rather to steal it from me, except that it would be a more respectful way because I would be the one to hand it over to keep the client happy. After all, I am also all about making sure that my clients are satisfied, even if I hand over my opportunity to someone else for nothing. Still, I would hope that these other local photographers would do the same for me because if they did not make it, I would take their photoshoot to keep their clients happy.
Too bad that these local photographers only care about their business, how big their pockets can get, and not their clients. So, being in a rural area or a tiny town and planning on being a photographer, I think that you need to expect that they will not help you even if you give them something such as offering them to be your backup photographer without you taking the credit, or that the photographer would represent their own photography business instead of your own they don’t care because they want it all. It would also mean they would have to continue working hard to get some clients because of their stubbornness and refusal to work or team up with other local photographers. The photographers in the big city do this way, working with many different photographers such as being their backup photographers, trading their clients, coming on in as a backup photographer in the photoshoot to assist another photographer, and whatnot. But when it comes to rural photographers, it does not work that way, and that is no wonder why many other photographers, including myself, struggle. If you are becoming a photographer in your area with a small population, ended up teaming up with other local photographers, and being willing to do photography works with you, you are fortunate. It is a saddening thing for me to witness here in my area, especially that I look at them as colleagues, I was willing to be ready to help them out, but they expect it to be one street way only instead of two ways street, which means it is going to be even harder on the new photographers in the area. I hope these new photographers who started doing photography more recently read this and know that I am here for them when they want to network with another photographer. Professional photographers like to network with others, and I thought I would do the same here, but it does not happen because we are rural with a small population.
Nonetheless, I have enjoyed doing some photography. I hope to continue growing because I love to capture something knowing that we will preserve these moments for many generations to look back. You can check my photography business by visiting JoshiesPhotography.com.
New Strict Abortion Law In Texas
I am aware that the new stricter abortion law in Texas just went into effect a few days ago, although the bill was signed a few months ago but went into effect a few days ago. My thought on that is that it is so wrong on many levels. This abortion law in Texas is a near-absolute ban for abortion; the reason why I say near is that they only allow six weeks or earlier for anyone to get an abortion. What many do not realize is that six weeks pregnant is unrecognizable; they would not know that they are pregnant at six or fewer weeks, so by the time they find out that they are pregnant and then it would be too late for them to get an abortion due to whatever reason they may have. Even worse, this abortion law in Texas made no exception for rape or incest, and in case if you don’t understand what incest is, then it is where a woman gets pregnant by a brother or a male in the immediate family members such as a father, grandfather or uncle. We know that incest is often done through rape by a family member, and it usually happens during early age children before becoming a teenager. I was not surprised when they put in an unreasonable timeline before having an abortion but not making incest or rape an exception surprised me a bit. However, it should not, especially that it is typical of Republicans/conservatives/Trump supporters.
People confuse themselves when it comes to pro-life when they are really pro-birther. Pro-life is for people who care about everyone’s life, ensuring that they have education, a good life, financial stability, and whatnot, while pro-birther is for anyone against abortion. Still, after they are born, it does not matter what their outcome is in their future. Suppose you want to cut all or some entitlement programs such as social security, medical/Medicaid programs, food stamps, WIC, public education, free-tuition colleges, and whatnot but firmly against abortion. In that case, you are simply a pro-birther, not pro-life, so get it right.
Now, I think it is even funny that these people, especially those who are republicans, conservative, or deplorable trump supporters, scream freedom and try to scare other people into thinking that they would take the guns from them is hypocrisy! Why? Anti-abortion restricts freedom, but only the difference is that it is one of the women’s rights you are trying to limit this time! If you truly want to scream freedom, you should be a big supporter of abortion because it would mean one less limitation on women’s rights! By banning abortion or restricting abortion is just one of many rights for women that the Republicans, Conservatives, or trump supporters are trying so hard to strip or limit. It seems that all of these people have no common sense or intelligence to recognize the meaning of the word “pro-life” while supporting republicans to repeal people’s healthcare or entitlement programs such as social security, food stamps, and WIC, or others.
It is so sad to see some women who support these people who want to restrict their freedoms. Having freedom means no control whatsoever; banning an abortion means controlling the women’s right to decide whether they want to have a child or not and whatnot. Abortion is not there just for the women to have an abortion just because they feel like it or want to. Often, it is due to a medical reason, sexual assault reason such as rape or even incest which is also a sin in the Bible, but it has no exception in that Texas law for abortion. I hope that the justice department will somehow overturn the law because it is barbarous and still allows women freedom.
Understanding The Difference In Freedom of Speech and Privilege
It seems that not many people, especially those who like to exercise their freedom of speech everywhere, including online, forget the difference between freedom of speech and privilege. Freedom of speech does not work around; only it works is if they are owned by the public, meaning the government, but once you are on a private or business property, including online such as their website, you only have the privilege to be on it. Still, you cannot exercise your freedom of speech there. For example, being on Facebook or anywhere on social media, if you look at their terms of service or policy, you will see that by creating an account and using their service (hence terms of service) that it is a privilege meaning that you are privileged to use the service but follow their rules that they have set. To make this easier for you to understand, when you have someone coming over to your house, you put some rules that they have to comply with on your property. Such as they cannot steal anything from you, they cannot make a ruckus in there such as damaging your property, and anyone cannot just enter your house whatever they please whether you are at home or not home right? That goes the same way with social media because they are owned by someone else. Mark Zuckerberg owns the Facebook company (including Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.), so essentially, you are in his house, so you got to comply with his rules, and if you don’t like it, you only have one option, which is to leave. Still, you cannot scream that you are being censored or say that they are violating your freedom of speech when they are not because it is their property in the first place, so you being on there is just merely a privilege.
If you do not believe me, I dare you to read their terms of service or policy, which you can often find at the bottom of their website or in their help/faq section.
You can only use that freedom of speech if you are on public property or your property. Why do you think I own the JoshiesWorld website? It is my property, and I have the freedom of press and freedom of speech, so I can say anything I please. But when I am on social media that I do not own, I have to follow their rules/policies because it is their property, and by being on, there is a privilege that they can revoke at any time they please. If you don’t like it, then go and complain on public property or scream out of your lungs on your property.
What Is Climate Change, And Why Is It Important?
In the simplest: The climate change is where there is a shift in the weather in average conditions. Such as global warming temperatures are rising, meaning a rise in the temperature of the earth itself every year, whether it be binary or decimal in the temperature’s degree. There is a continual rise in the temperature annually; it becomes warm in the north, so the north is now the south. It used to be colder in the north than in the south, but now it is the opposite. The ice in the arctic ocean gets smaller than the ice in the southern ocean, where Antarctica is bigger. So, the more ice melts, the warmer the earth is; think of them as our earth’s freezers, so when we open them, we feel the chill air, but the longer we keep the lids on these freezers open, the ice starts to melt, and it gets warmer. That would mean the earth gets hotter, which it has every year thanks to global warming, and if we don’t do anything about that, it will continue getting warmer. When it gets warmer, the domino effect starts as it already has started, and we may be too late because some politicians keep denying them, which is unfortunate. It means that it gets too hot for our plants which means foods to be able to grow, and also not only that the warmer it gets, the water in the ocean or anywhere evaporates quicker. So, that would result in food and water-scarce because how can we grow our foods (vegetables, fruits, etc.) when we have no water because they are evaporated? That is not good, and that is what is happening right now, which is why scientists or politicians are starting to panic a little bit.
The shift in weather, if you notice that we would maybe get big hurricane every five to ten years but now we see the repeat of category two to four hurricanes in a very short period of the time such as within a year. Having a hurricane was rare, but now it is becoming common, which is something to be alarmed about.
Now, what makes the temperature rise? Gas emissions, pollutions, cutting down our trees, and others. Our trees are a carrier of pollutions in the air; this is why when you shake the trees, you see many clouds of dust coming out of these trees. The more trees we cut equals more pollutions that go into our atmosphere. Our atmosphere has different levels; they make them thinner and thinner because they react negatively, slowly thins out our atmosphere. Our atmosphere acts as our protection against the sun, so when we slowly thin them out due to adverse reactions from pollutions, gas emissions, and others, it allows more sun rays to come through the levels of the atmosphere, so the earth gets warmer. Melts our ice, which is where our winter comes from; the smaller ice gets, the less winter we have, so cold chill air from the ice becomes less and warmer gets by. That equals more evaporation in water, some plants do not tolerate such high temperatures, and that goes our foods along with our water. Now with that goes, what do we have? How can we survive with no water and food? Animals? They are gone too, because they need water to survive, just like us. So, how? Scary thought, isn’t it? That is why it is so important that we do something about climate change and hope that we can delay what is inevitable. Our current generation is fine; I am sure our next generation would be as well, but what about our future generations? We don’t want to be the ones who say we do nothing to fight for their survival.
The solutions? Regulate, regulate and regulate! Significantly reduce our gas emission (o2 emission) and add more solar panels to run our electricity. But, what about night times? How can we have electricity during nighttime since the solar panels require sun? That is the purpose of the wind turbines (these big fans). During the daytime, we get our electricity from the sun through solar panels, and then during the nighttime, we get our electricity from wind turbines. No, there will not be a disruption between them thanks to their energy conservators (remaining energy from the sun that day) long enough for automatic switching to the wind turbine to have our electricity during nighttime. No, it would not be any different than now because the only difference is the equipment that would feed our electricity. There was an article that you can find on a search engine that says that if you put solar panels and wind turbines in a few states in the center of the United States such as North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and maybe Wyoming on any properties that do not get in the way of any populations (people) it could power the entire United States. Right now, for us to get electricity, we get them through natural gasoline mostly. A smaller percentage of coal, which is barely any as most of them is now through natural gasoline we need the power plants in every region, every state, every few counties in each state and whatnot, so that is a lot which that also give you the picture of how much gas emission we get from that alone.
Secondly, climate change is more than the weather. The effect of negligence in climate change harms the populations meaning the people on this earth. I mean, health-wise and as well medical-wise. For instance, the thawing of ice in the north or south can push out bacteria that we humans have never experienced, and that in turn could be very deadly. This ice held different unknown bacteria long before humans were put on this earth; they practically got frozen when humans started growing everywhere. Hence, human beings never had the chance to learn these bacteria in their system. If we keep the earth’s negligence by polluting it, which goes into the atmosphere, it cracks the shield in that atmosphere.
As I said, it has different layers that protect the entire energy of sun rays from beaming the earth directly. Think of the atmosphere like an earth’s sunglass, if you will. Still, if we don’t do anything to protect them, the hotter the planet will get, and the ice will start being thawed out, which means these unknown bacteria come to life which can be very dangerous to our humanity. It is never a good thing when it comes to a human being experiencing a new bacteria for the first time; this is one of many reasons that we keep on sending our scientists there to try to figure out what they are and how to prevent them from being thawed out or figuring out what these bacteria can do so that they can create some antidote for our body to fight them off. But you have to remember that this ice in the north and south is very deep, so scientists are unlikely to find them in time because as soon as they are thawed out, it is going to hit us, and it might be too late for anyone to come up with medicine to counterattack them. These are a few of countless reasons we must try to control our climate change; however, it will have to take more than the United States alone to do so, but the United States is the top five country that put our mother’s nature in danger. So, if the United States does something about this, it would be a big help considering how much the United States of America produce gas emission, pollutions, and whatnot since the United States of America is a large country. Still, if other countries, such as China which is also in the top five list countries, join the United States of America to fight climate change, that would be significant.
So, when you hear about climate change or global warming, don’t be so quick to dismiss them. It does not matter if you are a conservative or a liberal; this is more important than that – it’s about the survival of our future generations.
Go Get The Vaccine!
What are you waiting for? Many of you made an excuse when you refused to take the COVID vaccine, such as that FDA did not approve these COVID-19 vaccines. Many of you don’t truly understand how emergency authorization for such vaccine is; the emergency authorization happened because former President Donald Trump made it an operation to be “operation warp speed vaccine.” Rushing to create a vaccine for COVID-19 and ensure that it is safe for at least an emergency such as a pandemic. If you are republicans or trump supporters, then that was your President who did this to get it emergency authorized instead of waiting for them to be approved by the FDA. The only difference between emergency authorization and approving them for the COVID-19 vaccine was that it skipped a phase rather than going through all phases to be approved by the FDA. A phase that they cut (if any) was a quicker study on animals before the human trial. So, it was in a hurry, and it has gotten emergency authorization instead of taking the time to ask for approval from the FDA.
Now, that excuse is out of the window. FDA has approved it, so your reason for not being approved is moot, and that means it is time for you to back your talk about once being approved instead of emergency authorization to get the vaccine. Wait, another excuse already? Stop that! There is iron-clad evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine by both PFIZER and Moderna works because over 90% are hospitalized or dying are unvaccinated, meaning they have not been vaccinated. At the same time, vaccinated people get by when they are exposed to COVID-19. Get a vaccine; it cost nothing, and don’t even bother to start telling me that you don’t trust them because it is under our government. New flash, so is foods, beverages, cigarettes, any other drugs, all woods that you built your house with, the water you drink, alcohol you drink, and many others have to go through the government just like COVID-19 vaccines did. So, if you have been eating any foods, drinking any beverages or alcohol, smoking cigarettes or e-cigarettes, own a gun, have a house, have a car, and many more others, then taking the vaccine would not make any difference since all of them came through the government before to the public. That is how every country works, everything has to go through them first for safety reasons (duh) before allowing them to the public, and the United States in America is no different.
Click here to read to get a better idea of how emergency use authorization goes for the COVID-19 vaccines. You are out of excuses, get the vaccine, and the quicker we go back to normal, but we cannot because some of your reasons are stalling. If you don’t know where to start, click here, and it will take you to a page that will show you locations where you can get the vaccine at; then from there, you make an appointment, or some of them allow walk-in without the need to make an appointment.
In fact, because of the hesitation to get us back to normal, I greatly support the forced vaccine for COVID-19 like we were with the Polio vaccine. The Polio vaccine was forced by the government, that everyone had to take it, resulting in seeing no polio in the United States. The United States has been polio-free since 1979, so that means it works; if we do the same with COVID-19, then we would be COVID-19 free quickly. Even a few people, including my conservative stepfather, said they would be up for forced COVID-19 because it would stop more dying, restart our economy, and bring us back to normalcy. It is just a shame that their political party leaders (republicans/GOPs) does not have the same thinking or at least have a capacity to realize to bring back the normalcy or restart the economy it would be by a forced COVID-19 vaccine unless they have an idea how they can get their supporters to get the vaccine in unity which I doubt that would ever happen. Hence, it leaves us one option – the forced COVID-19 vaccine.
Vaccinated And Still Got To Mask Up, Why?!
Some people complain on social media about the CDC changing their mind on vaccinated people do not need or need to mask up. What many people do not realize that back then when CDC said that people who were vaccinated did not have to wear a mask, was that back then they did not have a study that would tell them if it was safe for vaccinated people not to wear masks and if so what is the ramification for vaccinated people not wearing a mask. A few months since that happened, when vaccinated people stopped wearing masks, that means CDC now have study on what impact for vaccinated people not masking and have new finds so they reverse their stance to say that the vaccinated people should wear a mask. Why do vaccinated people need to wear a mask even though it is said that it would not impact them since they are protected from the COVID-19 virus? Because it is for the vaccinated people to protect the unvaccinated people by wearing a mask. Even though vaccinated people can still carry the virus, it has little to no impact on them.
Only a bit of good news is that the COVID-19 Delta is starting to dwindle as many states have hit their plateau, although a few states are on the rise with the number of cases. However, it means that there are also several deaths are on the rise as well thanks to primarily unvaccinated people who were exposed to Delta COVID-19 a few weeks ago or so because where people were exposed, then takes a few days for the virus to take over their body then they become hospitalized and then from there they would either recover or die which unfortunately most died. That being said, the overall numbers of Delta COVID-19 are dwindling a little bit. There is also another variant on the horizon that has CDC and the health/medical officials concerned. It’s a variant called lambda because they said that it seems there is a chance that the vaccine for COVID-19 has no protection against that variant, so that is why you are seeing news talking about a booster. News also says that there might be a variant is coming that is even worse than Delta and lambda, so if that does happen, then it would be more likely that the vaccine has no protection against the upcoming variant, so we would need a booster to have a chance to curb them. As some health/medical officials say that since that we are getting ready to hit the winter, which means more holidays such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year Eve, so more people would be exposed to COVID-19, which can mutate even more dangerous COVID-19 variant than what we have right now such as DELTA or lambda.
Nonetheless, the bottom line is that vaccinated people are being recommended to wear a mask to protect the unvaccinated people who either are so stubborn or think that it would not impact them in any way. Unfortunately, many articles have proved it was their mistake to think like that or because people do not have access to the vaccine. This is why we need more unvaccinated people to get vaccinated because by doing so, it means that for once of all, we defeat the COVID-19 so that there would be no need for us to wear a mask – so go and be vaccinated seriously!
Great! I Am Now Immobilized Once Again!
If you recall my last snippets article, I was being immobilized because my electric wheelchair broke down due to the right side motor? It was a bit over a couple of months ago when I wrote the last snippets article stating that my electric wheelchair broke down. Well, just a few days ago, my wheelchair broke down even with two replaced motors in them. They came and replaced the broken motor with two new motors but ended up with one of the motors being a defective motor. We had to call them once again to have them come back and take a look at them which they found out that one of them is defective, so they had to call the manufacturer to put in a request for another replacement for the motors since these two new motors that they just replaced are under warranty. Although they had my chair working, even with one defective motor, it has a jerking only reverse when being steered left but said that it should be working well long enough until they get a replacement motor for them again. We waited for about two months for them to call us back to schedule us for a replacement again because they said that when they got another motor replacement, they would call to make a schedule for a visit to replace the new defective motor. But the problem was that it was supposed to be about a month but ended up being around two months for some reason. A few days ago, we finally got a call from them to schedule a visit for this week. My chair broke down just two weeks before the planned visit this week, so I have been immobilized for about two weeks now. I was surprised to be broken down because even these two new motors should still be going, even with one of them being defective. Still, it wasn’t a significant issue as they said it is a minor one, but at the same time, I am sure glad that they had scheduled in for a visit because just three or four days after they called to schedule for a visit, my wheelchair broke down. If they hadn’t, we had to do it ourselves, then that probably ended up being another month or around that, but it is not because they have already scheduled to come in, so they are coming in at the right time. However, I wish my electric wheelchair was still working until they visit because I hate being unable to get around for even a half-day let alone two weeks now!
What happened was that I was helping my mother carry groceries from her vehicle into the house; my wheelchair suddenly stopped in the middle of a ramp going up onto the porch at my home while carrying heavy loads to make it easier for my mother. My guts tell me that it has something to do with the wirings, because usually if it’s something wrong with the motor, it would start to act up before it stopped working, but this time it erupts stopped as if there was no power going through this chair. We looked through the wirings and found no loose connection anywhere; then we tried to reset the chair but no luck. We even changed to a new, unused joystick, but that did not work either. We started speculating that it had to do something with that defective motor until today. I started thinking that it might have to do something with a fuse inside the wiring connections from the batteries to the chair, but that is way out of our knowledge or skill. Hence, we decided to leave it be because we know that we have a technician coming in this week anyway to have my electric wheelchair hopefully working.
Although now I am not exactly immobilized, thanks to mine and my mother’s friend Lisa and her mother for letting me borrow one of their electric wheelchairs until they come here to work on mine. Only that I am more comfortable in mine because it was fitted for me, because of my wheelchair broke down I cannot be as productive as usual because the wheelchair I borrow is more suited for Lisa’s father than me but most important that I am still independent by being able to get around just until I have mine working so I can get back to being productive such as doing some photography work. I hope that by the time I publish this article, my wheelchair will be working again, which I am sure will be since the technician is on their way this week. The only biggest concern I have is that will they show up? Because if you read in my previous snippets article, you would see that they have not shown up and rescheduled about three times before finally showing up.
I Am Mobile Again!
The guy came here to work on my wheelchair and replaced the new motors with other motors because one of these motors was defective, and when he completed putting them on, he discovered that my wheelchair was not still working. So, for a while, he was going through everything by looking through the wiring, batteries, and whatnot, then used some computer trying to pinpoint the problem. He said it should be working because there was nothing wrong with this chair, as he used a computer and said that the batteries were good after putting it on a charge. Still not working; he said something was stopping it from powering up, so it had something to do with the battery or its connection, so he used another device and found out that one of the two batteries was utterly dead. Because of that, he cannot do anything but go back to his workplace and have the battery ordered, then come back here within two weeks, so this will be a total of a month.
After he left here, an hour later, I realized that the batteries I had in my older wheelchair that had been broken down a few years ago are just sitting there because I wanted to keep my older one for parts in case if anything happens to this wheelchair should work with this wheelchair. But I was afraid that the batteries wouldn’t be good because, as I said, it has been sitting there for a couple of years now. Still, I remembered that the batteries in there are almost new because I just had new batteries installed when one of my older’s wheelchair motors stopped working, so my theory is that it should still be good. Sure enough, it works thanks to the batteries I kept from my older wheelchair, and now my wheelchair is back up running with no issue, although the battery that I took from my older wheelchair is just temporary until I get a new one in two weeks. Even though this battery is good and should work for a long while, I am safe than sorry. I look at this battery I took from my older wheelchair in this wheelchair as a backup battery for any time that in the future my wheelchair batteries dies again.
So, yay, I am mobile again!
The Rise in Gas Price
I see the gas price rapidly rising everywhere, including here in the United States of America. Some blame our President of the United States, Joe Biden, or his administration for the gas price rise. After reading and hearing from some people who say that gas price is high now because the President is a democrat or because we have a Democratic majority in the Congress of the United States. It made me realize that they don’t do their research or only watch/listen to conservative biased news, which often is fictional rather than factual. Also, people keep on pointing out that the former President before Donald Trump was a democrat, and there was a rise in the gas price.
I must correct you on this before I get into talking about the gas price rise. If you want to be technical, which political party affiliation has the lowest and highest gas prices? It is even on both sides, but if we are going to be technical, then the lowest price for gas goes to the democratic party. There is around 10 cents difference between both, with democrats having 10 cents lower than the republicans as gas price average. So, before you start complaining that when a president is a democrat or when the majority of the Congress is under democrats’ control, the gas price raise or even that goes the same way for the republicans (just being fair), you should do your research. You need to widen your scope of who and what to blame for the gas price or a rise in the price of anything else. Below is simple data on the cost of gas from 1913 to 2020 with different presidents and the average.
The biggest puppeteer of the gas price is supply and demand. A president does not have the power to stop or change the gas price from going up or down. However, the laws through Congress can only influence a change in them but only for a short time, such as negotiating with the oil suppliers for a deal or finding a way to comprise for something. But again, the price of gas heavily relies on supply and demand. It is why you see every winter the gas price goes up, then in the spring it goes back down, and then in the summer, it goes back up because it balances the inflation. Why do you think that some politicians are heavily pushing for solar and wind turbines? Because it is something that they can at least control because the sun and the wind are practically unlimited while the oil is not. If we take too much oil from the earth, we for sure will end up running out sooner than we wish. The oil that they can convert to gas will run out long before the sun and wind do.
When we cannot supply the demand, there is no choice but to raise the price in anything that we are having a hard time providing anyone anything. In balancing the inflation, to slow down from running out of anything, they raise the price to manufacture more products, whether gas, food, or anything else; once they have manufactured enough supply, they lower their cost. You know that we have been in pandemic for more than a year now, this puts a strain on all of the company to be able to find a way to manufacture more products or anything while at the same time keeping the people that manufacture them safe. This means workers work slower; workers have their schedule changed to minimize the exposure of the virus and whatnot, so the flow of the products coming in couldn’t meet the demand, so many companies decided to raise the price to slow that down. Raising the price so that people buy them at a slower pace, buy them in smaller amounts, and what not to give the suppliers the time to manufacture whatever it is to meet demand. If we keep the price the same while in the pandemic or while there is a crisis or a problem globally, then we will run out of them quicker, and this means that we will barely see any products that we want because they struggle to manufacture as many as the people needs them. A great example I can give is – toilet paper. Supply and demand are what control the pricing. Yes, that means it is on the company who manages the pricing, so if it goes up or down, they set them as it mostly depends on if they can meet the demand. When you see a big storm hit here, some of us lose our power; we often see gas stations raise the gas a bit because people demand more gas than they can supply. You know, you see them coming up at the gas stations with many jars? Because they need gas for their vehicle and a lot of gas for their power generators, the demand for the gas suddenly becomes higher, and the supply starts depleting quicker. Hence, they raise the gas to slow that so that everyone else can have the chance to get them if they can afford them. If not, then that is almost the point so that they can get more supply to where they have enough, then they can go back to regular price or lower their price knowing that they will not run out. I know I am repeating the whole thing about supply and demand, but I do this in the hope that it gives the readers a better way of understanding how supply and demand works or why there is a rise in price for anything.
To make things even worse, to raise the gas price, we have an oil spillage on the west coast of the United States, and then there are many fires going on in different states in the west of the United States thanks to climate change. That does not stop there; in fact, the United States has it better in dealing with the gas price rise because, in Europe and Asia, they are struggling even more with gas and oil.
Natural gas prices are skyrocketing around the world. Here’s why the U.S. may not suffer as much – Pippa Stevens at CNBC.
So, if you combine all of these problems, such as a pandemic, shortage, climate change, oil spillage, and gas crisis in both Europe and Asia, then it makes sense for the rise in the gas cost. One of the suppliers, such as Russia, is known for using oil and gas as a weapon to force any country, including the United States, to give Russia something more significant in return for them. Although you should be grateful that we are handling it better than other countries because we could either have a gas shortage or coming close to having none.
The HeArt of West Virginia Has No Heart For Disabled People And Senior Citizens
The title of this topic above pretty much says it all without needing me to write anything more. Before I start writing about the topic above, The HeArt of West Virginia is a community service that hosts different events in the seat city of Mingo County in West Virginia, which is Williamson. These events hosted by The HeArt of West Virginia are for the people interested in the arts and health, hence the name The He”Art” of West Virginia, which is a bit clever. The arts events they host are for people who have in all kinds of arts such as drawing, photography, sculpture, music, videography, crafts, and many more, so you get the idea. They call themselves a community service, but they seem to be becoming an organization because they are working on getting 501(c)(3) to start getting funding from different places, including the grants and whatnot. The purpose of them doing this is to attempt to grow Williamson more and more because right now Williamson is starting to thrive thanks to Hatfield and McCoy Trails System, so it is becoming a bit of a tourist place, especially for people who like riding ATV, Side by Side or Dirt Bike.
What The HeArt of West Virginia is doing sounds good, right? It sounds like they are helping people who are creative to grow and to succeed, right? Not only that, but they also like to host different events at different places to help their business in Williamson. They are hosting an event to bring the people to a new business place so that more people know about that business and hope to help the business owners who let them host an event there to gain customers.
Now that is out of the way, you get little idea of the HeArt of West Virginia. Unfortunately, if you take a closer look at them, you would realize that The HeArt of West Virginia indeed does not have a heart which is irony hence it is the name of the events organizer. Why is that, you wonder? Again, if you take a closer look, especially the places they host the events at, who they work closely with, and who they genuinely host these events for, you would see that it looks not good on them. Many of the events they hosted were not accessible for any disabled people or senior citizens at all. Like a very recent event that they hosted called Creative Callouts, taken at a business place called Downtown Yoga which Heather Wolford owns, it was not the only time they hosted the place as they do for other different events. I called out The HeArt of West Virginia the other night; one of the people who manage The HeArt of West Virginia named Jim Pajarillo responded, saying that he chose many of their events at downtown yoga because he wanted to encourage people to support the business and the space. I can understand that they want to do that but at the expense of barring the disabled or senior citizens people? I told him that it looked really bad on them.
Ever since then, I found out that the owner of Downtown Yoga had unfriended me as she had me on her friend’s list for more than a year now. We were actually on good terms; every chance we responded in comments, we seemed to agree on many things, which is why this puzzled me a little bit. When I found out, I took a look at her Facebook profile and discovered that she is a director at The HeArt of West Virginia, which makes sense. Although, I initially did not call her out or blame her for anything because I knew that the building already existed long before Heather bought or leased the place for her Downtown Yoga business. I did not fault her or even have a thought in my mind of anything that is her fault; this was why I called out The HeArt of West Virginia because they hosted the event at Downtown Yoga when they could have picked a different venue for their events to be accessible for disabled people and senior citizens. As for their reason that they chose Downtown Yoga is because they want to encourage people to support the business but what he and the rest of the people over at The HeArt of West Virginia do not realize is that there are people who need their help with promoting their business more than Downtown Yoga or other company because they already have good networking with the elitist people in Williamson. They have plenty of money that can last them for a good while. People like me who have a business that is struggling, who is not an elitist like they are, so no networking connection there, and I just happened to be a disabled person, so that is even worse as I have to work three or four times harder than non-disabled people do. Their priority is wrong on many levels; they need to encourage the grassroots business owners such as people who are disabled, senior citizens, and people who have no money to their name but do everything they can to get their business going.
But again, until today, I realized that the owner of Downtown Yoga is the director of The HeArt of West Virginia, and she is herself using the organization to grow her business. That is even worse than I thought, as I called The HeArt of West Virginia out for breaking every law in the Americans with Disabilities Act by not picking the places that are accessible for the people in wheelchairs and making it easier for them the senior citizen’s people. When I did, I did not realize that the director is Downtown Yoga’s owner, now because of that, it means one thing. Downtown Yoga is also in the spotlight along with The HeArt of West Virginia who is on the purpose of only helping non-disabled people, elitist people who have connections and money to grow their businesses while suppressing the ordinary people whether they are disabled, senior citizens, people of color and other minority groups with little or no money from growing their business by not providing them the place to share their business or to form a connection with these people if any of you locals continue supporting the like of The HeArt of West Virginia and Downtown Yoga you are considered enablers who enable them to continue suppressing the ordinary people whether they are non-disabled, disabled, senior citizens, people of color. Why in the heck would you want to support an community service/organization with a director of a business that is using them to help the only elitist people or people with money while suppressing the ordinary people, whether they are able or disabled, to have their chance? I know that is bad, especially since that is going on in the very town of Williamson, Wv, and that is a genuinely heartbreaking thing for me to witness.
Now, the HeArt of West Virginia has become one of the community services/organizations in Williamson, Wv, who only care about the elitist people and well-known people who have money. Wait, other? Yeah, the other one I am referring to is Williamson Forward. We seriously need an organization that does not limit only elitist people or well-known people (has good networking connections) and truly serves everyone to help their business grow in the good yet corrupted town in Williamson, Wv. Now we know, not ever support these two organizations and that we need an organization that truly serves to promote the business of everyone regardless of who they are in the town of Williamson, Wv. An organization that does not have someone using it to grow their own business only like Heather Wolford with Downtown Yoga.
The HeArt of West Virginia: https://www.facebook.com/HeArtOfWV
Downtown Yoga: https://www.facebook.com/downtownyogawilliamsonwv
When an owner of a business uses the events organizer/community service to promote its own business, it is fishy and wrong. Now, suppose the owner wants to host the events for anything. In that case, they are free to do because it would be the business owner who does the hosting at its business place, but when it comes to using an events organizer/community service/organization to host an event at one of their business to promote them is wrong especially when their mission goal is to host events to help “others” is the keyword here. So, because of that, we need to form another community service/events organizer that can genuinely do some hosting to promote others rather than hosting the events at their business just because their director happens to own it. You cannot run a community service/events organizer for the town then host an event at your business with the mind of promoting your own business. An events organizer who wants to host events for the town should know the importance of inclusivity, which means ensuring that whatever event they host will accommodate everyone instead of only non-disabled people. It is not just me; there are good numbers of disabled people around there. For example, 25.2% of Mingo County, Wv is disabled, and 22.9% of Pike County, Ky since both counties visit Williamson, Wv often.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/pikecountykentucky,mingocountywestvirginia/PST120219
Visit The HeArt of West Virginia’s social media such as Facebook. You will see that most of the posts they have made promote that business while a few other businesses (such as starters) are already in good shape financially. Now, do you see any of their posts promoting grassroots businesses or businesses owned by ordinary people? None, and that says something! If you Google map most places they host for events, you will see that they are not accessible.
The HeArt of West Virginia now has another label other than elitist. Ableist, which goes the same for Williamson Forward. Stop enabling them by not supporting them.
Ableism:
Ableism By Merriam-Webster
Discrimination or prejudice against individuals with disabilities.
Elitism:
Elitism By Merriam-Webster
1: Leadership or rule by an elite.
2: The selectivity of the elite
especially : SNOBBERY
// elitism in choosing new members
3: Consciousness of being or belonging to an elite.
Company Has The Right To Fire Anyone Who Refuse Vaccination
Some people think it is wrong for some companies to fire their employees because they refuse to be vaccinated for many reasons, including religious exempts. Some people do not realize that the company has the right to do so, and I do not blame them for firing their employees because they refused to be vaccinated. These employees were hired to do the bidding for the company; they have to obey the policies and orders of the employers. If they refuse to get vaccinated, it is considered that they disobey an order from the company, so they have the reason to fire them. It is no different from refusing to work for a company; what do they need you for if you refuse to work for a company? One of the topics I mentioned above is about privilege; to work for a company is a privilege, and to hold onto that, you have to do their bidding, including taking the vaccine. If you refuse to be vaccinated, they do not need you, so it is time for you to leave. If you go to your workplace dirty, what would they do? Tell me, please. Yes, they would kick you out and make you go home because you are too dirty to work on their products. Refusing vaccines is no different; you are being exposed to COVID-19. It looks as if you are willing to spread COVID-19 onto their products or their other employees, so they want you to be vaccinated to keep the workplace clean, which means their products continue to be clean.
I am with any company that would fire anyone because they refused to get the vaccine. However, many of these companies have said they would take anyone back as soon as they are vaccinated, so if they want to continue working for such a company, get vaccinated to keep others safe. It is all about safety and the company’s responsibility to ensure that not just you but everyone else is well taken care of, including being vaccinated for COVID-19 or FLU. You are paid to do what they ask of you, this includes being asked to get the vaccine, and if you refuse, then they have you fired it is because you were asking to be fired by refusing to do what you were paid to do, which is to do what a company ask of you. Plus, with many states, thanks to Republicans, they have laws called at-will, which mean anyone can be fired at their will without being given a reason.
Are You A Democrat Or Republican First?
The other day, I was chatting with Chad about the dividedness of politics, he is a moderate Republican, and I am a moderate Democrat. When I shared what a political party that we both are affiliated with is, that is becoming common, and that is not good because it is why these two major political parties divide even further than ever in the modern era. I was saying that I remembered more than a decade ago, we would look at people running for a political office based on their personality, attitude, and what they are known for. For instance, where are they from? What school did they go to? Are they good people? What is their background? We would be getting to know these candidates based on their behavior and what they can bring to the table.
Back then, many of us did not care what political party was for former President Bill Clinton, same for George W. H. Bush and Ronald Reagan. We barely questioned who the majority of Congress was during that time; all we cared about was whether they were good and what they could bring to the table as politicians in these offices. It is different because we as people now question if they are a democrat or republican before asking them personally and professionally along with their background. It is. Are you a democrat or a republican? First, before we can even start questioning them for anything, if we discovered that they are affiliated with a political party that we dislike, we would not even spend another second of our time questioning them based on their personality and background. We started talking about how it got here to this point. Being a moderate Republican, he, without hesitation, said that it was Donald Trump who ripped the picture of the unity of anything.
Being a moderate democrat, I acknowledged that the picture of unity started tearing when Barack Obama was President because there were so many Republicans who disliked the idea of a person who is people of color becoming a president of the United States. It was Republicans who started tearing that picture of the unity but only by a little, and then when former president Donald Trump came into the office; he ripped that picture almost overnight. It is sad to see because now, even myself, we question people based on their political party affiliation before asking themselves based on their background, whether their personality or professional level.
We also agreed that the current President Joe Biden can start working on unity but that it is going to take more than Joe Biden as a term to do so. We think it will take a few more presidents who can finally start getting us back in unity. Still, it would have to be a moderate president instead of far-left or far-right, and that if we were to elect someone that is far-right or far-left in between them, we risk putting us back to square one in how to get us back in unity. I think that we need to stop doing that; it will take even more from Republicans to stop asking the candidates or anyone about their political party affiliation first before getting to know who they are. I think that is a perfect example of what had happened with Rod Varney, who ran as a democrat here in Pike County, Ky, which was in my eyes a betrayal from the people who knew Rod Varney just because of the political party that he is affiliated with when he ran for 93rd seat representative of Kentucky.
Do any of you remember in the back days when we question the candidates that run for some offices instead of asking what is their political party affiliation first? If we see that they are affiliated with a political party that we dislike, they don’t care about anything else? Can we stop doing that? Can we just vote for people who are indeed for everyone without suppressing other groups such as minority groups? Donald Trump was the perfect example of who heavily oppressed the minorities community. We need someone who is for every one of us, including all of the minority groups. This is just something that I started pondering on for a few days now, about the dividedness in the United States of America despite its name of the country because we are no longer united.
Millicent Simmonds Steals Deaf-Blind Character Role From Deaf-Blind Community
Millicent Simmonds, aka Millie, is an actress known for portraying a character of a Deaf Girl in a movie franchise named A Quiet Place. It was a no-brainer for Millicent “Millie” Simmonds to take the role of Deaf girl in the movie franchise called A Quiet Place starring Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, who portrayed the parents of a Deaf girl named Regan Abbott. Thanks to the success of the movie franchise “A Quiet Place,” Millicent “Millie” Simmonds is now on Hollywood’s radar for some Deaf characters, and now that they got one movie that they want to produce that they have picked Millicent Simmonds for the role in that movie they want to produce. However, the problem is that the film they want to create is titled Helen Keller. If you know who Helen Keller is, she was a well-known Deaf-Blind woman, an educator, disability rights advocate, political activist, American author, and lecturer.
Here is a short biography video on Helen Keller if you want to know a bit about her to get an idea of who I am talking about. Unfortunately, the video does not have closed captions which is baffling in my opinion. Still, it does have auto-generated closed captions, which are not entirely accurate, but it is better than no closed captions at all.
I am going to assume that you know who Helen Keller is by now. The producers in Hollywood are planning to produce a movie based on a woman who is Deaf-Blind named Helen Keller. They picked Millicent Simmonds to portray her, which Millicent Simmonds has already accepted the offer for the role of Helen Keller. However, there is a problem with that, and that is because Millicent Simmonds herself is not Deaf-Blind. Millicent Simmonds is only Deaf, not Deaf-Blind, and she has herself witnessed how hard it was to get a role in Hollywood being that she is Deaf, so she should already know that it is even more challenging for a person who is Deaf-Blind to be able to get a role in Hollywood. This is where many people in the Deaf community are dumbfounded, especially some of them are Deaf-blind as they deservedly felt that Millicent Simmonds stole the opportunity from the Deaf-Blind community because the role should be given to Deaf-Blind women instead so that it would be more authentic. This is where I am surprised; Millicent Simmonds not only quickly accepted the role for Helen Keller’s character she also removed many comments left by Deaf-Blind people from her social media where they expressed their feelings about Millicent Simmonds stealing the part from them, which is more valid than ever.
Millicent Simmonds herself knows this, as she has said it herself about the importance of authenticity when it comes to who takes the role in the movies and TV shows industry. Yet, she accepted the role and publicly said that she is so honored to portray Helen Keller, knowing that she is not Deaf-Blind herself. She then used an excuse that Helen Keller is her distant cousin, which in my opinion, is a cringe-worthy thing to hear. Millicent Simmonds has her success in the Hollywood in the A Quiet Place movie franchise, so it should be enough for her not to be selfish and let someone who is genuinely Deaf-Blind take the role of Helen Keller who knows what it is to be Deaf-Blind because Millicent Simmonds does not know what it is as she only understands what it is to be Deaf which is the bottom line here. She prefers to be selfish since she has taken the role for Helen Keller and her removing the comments made by Deaf-Blind people confirmed her being selfish – she even went further by limiting the comments section!
It is saddening to see, especially that someone who is Deaf knows how challenging it is for the Deaf community to get a role in Hollywood. Because of that, they know it is even more difficult for the Deaf-Blind community to get a role in Hollywood, but they went ahead to cross that line to grab the role from them. That does not look good on her part, especially that she took the role as a Deaf person in A Quiet Place to represent for Deaf community in Hollywood because she is one of them but went even further and took the role from the Deaf-Blind community, which she is NOT a part of therefore she would misrepresent the community. She knows this, she knows the whole thing about how Hollywood treats the Deaf community and, even worse, the Deaf-Blind community, but when there is an opportunity for her, she then acts as if the problem does not exist when she knows that it is the elephant in the room. I think it is a selfish act by her, I was rooting for her to become the next famous actress as a Deaf person next to Marlee Matlin, but now I am not so sure because how can I root for someone who does something like that.
I am not Deaf-Blind myself; I am Deaf, though, but when I see something like this happens knowing the history of the Deaf community struggling to get a role in Hollywood but even more struggling for the Deaf-Blind, that disappoints me. What do you think about Millicent Simmonds selfishly taking the role of a Deaf-Blind character from the Deaf-Blind community? Leave a comment below. I would love to hear your opinion, and if you are Deaf-Blind, then even better!
The Old Farmer’s Almanac 2021-2022 Winter Prediction For East Ky
Every year The Old Farmer’s Almanac has different titles for their winter predictions; for this 2021-2022 winter prediction, they have decided to call it “A Season of Shivers.” After here, I will leave a link for you to look at, but I will talk about my area, which is eastern Kentucky. Past winters, they usually predicted that here would be wet, warm, below average, and whatnot which is nothing exciting in my opinion. We barely get any snow here; by now, if you read a few of my snippets articles, you would know I am a big fan of winter, and I love snow. Of course, as long as we are not snowed on specific dates that we need to be on the road for some reason, such as a doctor appointment or something important, but other than that on these days that we don’t need to go anywhere, I would love to see a bunch of snow because it is always a beautiful sight for me. As I said, we barely got any snow here in past winters, and it has been disappointing for me, thanks to climate change. Now, this new prediction for 2021-2022 winter by The Old Farmer’s Almanac has me excited for once in a long time, although I have to remember that they are not always accurate; hence it is a prediction. For this 2021-2022 winter, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac here in eastern Ky, it said that we would see cold and snowy. On the map, New York City always has that and the northeast of the United States but nothing past Pennsylvania. But this time, it goes past PA, past Ohio, Past West Virginia, then the entirety of Kentucky, which is my commonwealth, same for Tennessee, but it stops at Tennessee, and it goes all the way to almost where Kansas is. It is white, while the rest of the states have blue, purple, and lighter blue such as mild, wet, cold, dry, mild dry, mild snowy, and whatnot. Also, they said that this is going to be a more prolonged winter than previous winters. I am hopeful that they are accurate. If they are correct for this winter prediction, I will be a bit happy, man, because I love cold and snow, but only as long as they fall on the days that we don’t need to be driving on the roads for necessary appointments or meetings.
Here’s a link for you to take a look at The Old Farmer’s Almanac 2021-2022 Winter Forecast: https://www.almanac.com/winter-extended-forecast-farmers-almanac
Leave a comment below if you are looking forward to whatever the old farmer’s almanac predicted for your area? Let me know and also let me know what your favorite season and weather are.
Favorite Foods and Drinks
Many of us have our favorite foods and drinks. The foods and beverages that we cannot go without for a very long time, foods and drinks that we always get excited over or always crave without ever getting burned out of them. There is a saying like if you are given a choice of what foods you want on your last day on this earth, what would they be? I wonder what are yours?! Be sure to leave a comment below and let me know! For me, it is foods that I never will get tired of; this food I know that is the (keyword is “the”) best that has ever laid upon my tongue and in my mouth since my birth. It is homemade gravy with homemade biscuits only made by my dearest mom, I have eaten plenty of them from many people or restaurants that have cooked them, but they can never even come close to being as good as my mother. My mom’s homemade gravy and homemade biscuits make all of the gravy and biscuits on this earth cooked by anyone else or restaurant very bad – yes, that good! I would eat homemade gravy and biscuits cooked explicitly by my mom only every day for the rest of my life if I could. As for my favorite drinks, there is no day I can ever go without original monster energy. Before energy drinks hit the marketplace, my favorite drink was diet mountain dew. Still, I haven’t drunk them for several years because all I drink every day is a few cans of Monster Energy and about one or two Pepsi or Coca-Cola cans, especially a few hours before bedtime.
Those are my favorite foods and drinks. What about yours? Let me know by leaving a comment below; I am curious!
Dear Deaf Onno Jansen
Deaf Onno Jansen is known as an international Deaf comedian, he is more well known in Europe, and everyone seems to like him, which I can never understand why. The other day, I called Deaf Onno out on Facebook and Twitter for being a stupid person in a vlog where he played with different women’s lingerie. Even worse, he was smelling them and then putting them on his head; he continued to rub them all over his face. I wonder how that store will feel about that, or worse, how customers think about that lingerie store where they allow someone like him who goes in their store and rubs their lingerie all over on his face. How can you be so low, Deaf Onno? By doing something like that, do you think it would be a good vlog to be shared on social media for everyone in the world to see? But again, I am glad that you did because now these people can see how disgusting a person you are for doing things like that! Here is a screenshot that I called him out for his appalling behavior in his vlog titled discussion 002, I think. If you look at their comments, I am astonished to see many people are enjoying and laughing over his video. It dumbfounded me seriously; by now, it is 2021; I thought people knew better than to do something like that or make others laugh because that is not something a mature person would do.
Heather McDonald. What A Shame!
Heather McDonald dares to mock the Deaf and Hard of Hearing people and their language on Instagram with her so-called “Juicy Scoop” video, which I will share below.
Feel better since now that you have mocked the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community and their language? I bet since you dared to do so in an attempt to make you feel better by doing so. I mean, look at yourself, please! Now, I will be mature here because I am acting my age while you weren’t. Why did you think it is funny to mock the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community and their language, I wonder? Guerrilla’s/Gorilla’s sign? Fake Sign Language? I even wonder if you did your research, but apparently, you did not, which I ponder why you call your show “juicy scoop.” That “fake sign language” is an actual language; it is called American Sign Language, which you already mentioned in your video, but that is only one as there are several sign languages as each country have their sign language just as here in the United States/Canada is American Sign Language. In the United Kingdom, it is called British Sign Language (BSL); in France, it is called French Sign Language (LSF); in Mexico, it is called Lengua de señas Mexicana (LSM), and many more. Each country has its sign language, which studies have already discovered that they are actual languages because they have the same linguistic properties as spoken languages, including grammar. More and more countries are making them recognize their sign language after discovering that they are indeed a language!
Link: Which Countries Recognize Sign Language As An Official Language?
Now that is out of the way, we Deaf and Hard of Hearing community are so tired of this mockery and mocking our language. Different sign language in other countries is their native language; it is the language that they are raised with and uses their language to communicate with anyone. We are tired of people like you who go around mocking our languages by signing gibberish (fake signing as you call it), calling them “monkey language,” which is so audist of you (if you don’t understand the word audist, then look “audism” up because then maybe at least you finally scoop something for once). It is no different from someone going around and mocking people’s other spoken languages in different countries. If you try to go to a Mexican person, speaking make-up words to pass them as if they are Spanish, they will feel insulted and disgusted. How about you speak make-up words in French around French people? Yeah, I didn’t think so, and that goes the same with our sign languages Heather McDonald! Even worse, your fans think it is cool and is willing to defend you when we Deaf people try to criticize you because it is our language that you are making up some words in sign language. Many social media people exploit our language for-profits, take our language, and sell it as class courses. I mean, that sounds farfetched, but that is happening and has been happening for decades. Think of it as teaching incorrect Spanish words to the people who want to learn Spanish, which would mean disrespect to the Mexican community, right? Same thing with us Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. No matter that it is the fact that you are a comedian (suck one at that), you can insult people all you want but think about how stupid it looks on you and anyone for even thinking about making fun of people’s language or especially their community – after all sign language belongs to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community just as these spoken languages belongs to the hearing “hearie” people like you or others. So, grow up and act your age, such as 85, 90, or later not that I care but grow up and show some respect.
That is all I will say because I have written several articles; many Deaf and Hard of Hearing people have written articles trying to educate stupid people like you that it is shameful to mock them and their languages.
In addition, I would like to embed Cheyenna Clearbrook’s Instagram video on this topic.
Audism –
Definition of Audism by Merriam-Webster
Discrimination or prejudice against individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Shut Up Trains!
Where we live now before we moved here, we had a train rail in front of our house literally, but thankfully they no longer drive through here, and we removed the rails from our property since they no longer use them. The trains used to come through here delivering coal alongside the Tug Valley river, so it is hard to imagine that people who lived before us had to tolerate the trains choo-ing by here. Our house was built in 1953, so it was around at that time; I imagine that some people who lived here before us or whoever lived here around that time would be standing in the living room looking out of a large window in the living room watching the train coming by. They were driving right onto every one of our lands in this area, and if we sat on a porch in front of the house spitting, it would hit the top of the train, so that was how close they used to be. Although they no longer do that, thankfully, we still deal with the train because there is another train rail, but it is just across the river from where we live. They used to drive through here on many of our lands, then there is a street then there is the tug valley river and over that tug valley river is another train rail. The train rail on our lands here in this area is no longer active, as I mention, but the train rail across the river is still active more than ever, and they are very busy every day. Because of that, we get to hear a thunderous noise coming from them and have our house shakes so often. That is why I just cannot imagine how people who used to live here tolerate them when the train rail on our lands was active because I am sure that is even worse, but the one across the river does not make much difference because it is maybe 1/2 mile difference. People who lived around here before us saw them basically right up at our face, but now we see them just across from the river, which is not far from our lands still, so we still get to deal with them.
Again, they used to drive by right on our lands, but now it is just the opposite side across the river since many of us live on the coast of the tug valley river; anyway, back to the topic. Shut up, trains! We have been living here for more than a decade now, we have been tolerating them for so long, and I am starting to get tired of them. Being Deaf myself, I get to feel intense vibrations around the house and the property every day. So much that I am often confused to the point of wondering if something is happening in the mountain behind us because we had a mudslide a few years ago which invaded our basement but not our house, thankfully. As we live in the mountain, we are surrounded by trees, so being Deaf and gets me some time. Every time the house shakes, I would often start to be sharp-focus trying to decide if that is coming from the train across the river from here, or is it something coming from the mountain behind us, are we having an earthquake, or we are crumbling? So, imagine being Deaf; you have to constantly figure out where that intense vibration comes from to make sure that the vibration is not a sign of danger. We love this house, or more so this massive slice of the mountain that we now own, and we are too invested here. So, I often wish that because of coals going out of business, thankfully, the trains would too. Still, it is not that case because it did not affect them in any way as they are the trains that mostly carry coal since we are in two coal counties in two states Kentucky and West Virginia. I would often find myself wanting to go out on the porch, which is pretty much right in front of a river, and from that river on the other side is where the active train rails are to tell them to shut the heck up!
Even though several people who live down the coastline of Tug Valley River, including us, are stuck with them and will have to be for pretty much ever unless they go out of business which I very much doubt would happen because when the coals got hit real bad here the trains still going nonetheless as if it did not affect them in any way. I forgot to mention that across the river in front of many of our houses also has a train station but only for commercial, especially coal, as they don’t do passenger transportation, which I always puzzled with. By now, they should do that, which would be a massive help for many of us around here to use them as transportation service, especially if we want to go somewhere far. I always want to ride something like Amtrak, but none of them or like them anywhere around here, so it is all coal trains.
If any of you lives so close to a train, basically 1/2 or even less within’ the distance, I wonder if they bother you as it does me? Imagine trying to sleep in bed, trying to ignore the intense vibrations feeling and thunderous noise. The train rail we have here is plentiful, as it can go a very long distance which is why I am puzzled as to why they don’t do passengers train like Amtrak. That would bring a good economy here, in my opinion. Anyway, if any of you live so close to train, leave a comment below and let me know how you tolerate them! Talking about one of the cons, list many of ours when it comes to living around here. It is not just this area; many areas deal with them, but we are incredibly close to them in this area, as I said about 1/2 mile or even less. I am not good at math, so I say 1/2 mile to be safe, but it is less than 1/2 mile.
Ah, as I type this, here comes the train. SHUT UP!
Gave Williamson Daily News A Chance
A few years ago, I tried to become a journalist for Williamson Daily News, an old newspaper in the city of Williamson in West Virginia. They used to have a huge building; they used to have everything there, such as many journalists, linotypes, newspaper printers, newspapers delivery team, and whatnot. They were a very well-known newspaper back in the days that would have a large base of readers ranging from Pikeville, Kentucky to Logan, West Virginia, and even some outside, such as people who used to live here but moved far away but still subscribed to them for the newspaper. As time goes, they started to get smaller and smaller to the point that they could not hold onto that large building they used to own and operate at, so they relocated to a tiny building. The building that they relocated to now looks like almost a home building with two-story. That is significant because they came from a massive structure with many ports for trucks to pull in to get the newspaper from them to deliver to people’s homes or businesses. Still, now they no longer have that as Williamson Daily News relocated them to only a tiny building with a window and a door. It is sad to think about that because I grew up looking at them where I would want to work if I were to be a journalist. Again, that building was so large that it was almost a mini-Walmart if you will after watching them go from the place to be for journalists to a two-story home-sized business building with so few journalists now.
I became a journalist and blogger more than a decade ago, but I also operated my own news media company, which is none other than JoshiesWorld here. So, since I have been writing for more than a decade (a bit over 14 years, to be exact), I have gained the titles of journalist, blogger, editor, columnist, and news operator under my belt. Hence, I have enough that I should be able to get a journalist job in a small business, especially the one that has been drastically downsized and struggling. That is Williamson Daily News; I decided to talk with one of them who runs Williamson Daily News; I offered them myself as a journalist to help them because they are constantly getting worse. After all, they went from many journalists with a large building with everything to only a couple of journalists with a building that can quickly be passed off as a home building. I gave them everything they would look for a journalist; as soon as they discovered that I am disabled, they outright rejected me by saying that they do not hire freelance journalists, and I am like, seriously? That is their excuse? Okay, I told them how about this that I am willing to work them as a journalist especially that they desperately need some even to this day (more desperate each day) and that I would volunteer for it for a while because I firmly believe that I can at least pull them out of the hole a little bit with my experience. So, with me, they pretty much get a free journalist at least for a while who already has the experience, so it would be better than having to pay to hire someone who has zero experience in journalism, right? Nope, they said, “we do not want freelance journalists.” I again told them that they are in the hole, struggling, getting fewer and fewer with journalists and that a freelance journalist is a journalist nonetheless. They again said they would not like to have a freelance journalist, which made no sense, and they work for a newspaper? Okay!
I told them that I am here for them as a journalist if they need me because they are sentimental. Said that they will not want or need me in the future because they empathize that they do not hire freelance journalists. They are a newspaper company; how seriously do they not employ freelance journalists? It is unheard of because much other newspaper company they are actively looking for freelance journalists. I am a freelance journalist because I am running it, which means I know the process! Ever since then, they are barely getting by, and they are trying so hard to get people to buy ads for their newspaper instead of actively doing journalism work such as investigating something to write news. What a shame and sad thing to see that they are not what they were in the back of the day. I can only suspect that it is because I am disabled or because they are afraid of something, they had a chance to get an experienced journalist who volunteered (meaning no pay) for a while and also one who has sentimental with Williamson Daily News, so I would have to do anything to get them off the ground once again.
Williamson Daily News had a chance, and they blew it.
Review Products Or Places
As some of you already know, JoshiesWorld has reviewed many different products and places for many years. Articles are the number one that brings the most views and the second reviews. Many people know me as a very strong, opinionated person who will not be afraid to point out the errors of things. This person will tell you if they are good when they are good or if they are bad when they are bad and that I am very picky, which is why when it comes to reviewing something, I am 110% focused on anything to find anything good or bad about them. I paid for many reviews I have already published, almost all of them out of my pocket, and many of these products or places I already reviewed were not cheap. After reading my reviews, I want to say that my reviews are beneficial for readers who look for some reviews on the products or places that they might be interested in or have an interest in them. My goal in doing reviews is to make sure that the readers know what they are getting or what places they are visiting and expect them to be what I wrote in reviews. I enjoy writing reviews on many things, and I will continue doing that because reviews are a big part of JoshiesWorld.
However, as I said, most of the things or places I went to were paid for, and many of them did not come cheap. I want to continue delivering honest reviews for JoshiesWorld readers and, at the same time to give the company some ideas on what to improve in their next products or what to do for the next generation of their products, or what to improve the place. I want to review more; I want to get more products or places to attend to review but do more reviews instead of a review now, and then I will need something to review them. I will love it if you are a company that manufactures products or a company with a place such as a restaurant or a hotel or something would be happy to help me out with that problem. So, if you have products that you would like an honest and authentic review on them, please get in touch with me to get these products of yours to come to me via shipping or pick up if they are local. If you have a restaurant, a hotel, a service of something and would like them to be reviewed, please get in touch with me to extend an invitation to visit them so I can check them out to review them. Many influencers are getting a lot of products or extending an invitation to them for a visit to a place to view them on their social media. If you are willing, you would have your products or places promoted with an honest review to all of JoshiesWorld’s audience. Through me, you with your business (whether it be business with products or a service business such as a restaurant or hotel) influence my disabled community. So, with that, you as a business would be reaching a general audience and an audience of the disabled community, so you would get such a large, inclusive audience.
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John Yarmuth of Kentucky
John Yarmuth has been a United States representative for Kentucky’s 3rd congressional district since 2007, and he has been the lone Democrat that represents a congressional district in Kentucky. Thanks to Lexington being a liberal city, John Yarmuth has been serving as a Democrat in Kentucky’s Congress and has done good things for the people here in Kentucky. His work cannot be ignored, especially who has been alone democrat battling through a thick wall of republicans in a bloody red state. Although we have just recently elected a Democrat governor, the state is still red as it can be. Unfortunately, John Yarmuth has announced that he is retiring; many republicans want to leave the third congressional district alone when it comes to redistricting in respect to John Yarmuth and that the third congressional district will continue to be liberal, hopefully even after he retired. He has stated that he will serve the remaining of his term, but after his term, which is in 2023, he will be retiring and not seeking a re-election bid. It is somewhat a blow for Democrats, especially in Washington D.C., because now the people in Lexington will have to find a candidate to take over John Yarmuth’s seat. I sure hope that the seat continues to belong to a democrat because we have so many republicans controlling Kentucky as it is now since the last election gave the republicans a uber-super majority except Kentucky’s governorship since Andy Beshear is a Democrat who is a son of the former governor of Kentucky Steve Beshear.
Here is a link you can read about John Yarmuth’s retirement announcement: John Yarmuth, powerful liberal from Kentucky, announces he’ll retire from Congress at the end of his term.
We here in Kentucky must keep the seat in Kentucky’s third congressional district a democrat because all of the districts except the third are republicans. Talking about the non-existence balance in Kentucky’s government is why it is crucial that we at least keep that seat to democrat!
Salute John Yarmuth, and thank you for your work.
/The End
I have written plenty of topics for you to read for this snippets article since I haven’t written one in about two months. I know that is a somewhat long time; I have been swamped trying to manage everything while at the same time dealing with issues at hand here at home, like my electric wheelchair breaking down. Usually, when the winter approaches, I get more time on my hands, and that is when I start writing more articles or reviews on here or for other news media. Because in winter, the photography business slows down a bit, but I am hoping that I can do a few photoshoots here and there in the winter, especially when there is some snow out, which is going to be a challenge for me especially trying to navigate in the snow to take some pictures! Unless many predictions from weather publications are wrong about having some snow here in the middle east, especially in Appalachia Mountain, which is one of my favorite mountains as I live right on it. As always, if you have any idea for topics or have something that you would like to share with me for my next snippets article or a solo article, then please feel free to contact me via the contact page here or message me on social media, which you can find my social media here. Be sure to share this new snippets article with your family or friends by using the social share below. Until the next time, I bid you all a good night and stay safe!
Joshua “Joshie” Sullivan.
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