Michelle Bachmann is evil. She must think she’s somehow saving the kids’ souls (that’s the most generous interpretation), but she’s not. She’s torturing them with fear. I have 3 and 6 year old grandkids, so I know what I’m talking about. This is straight-up child abuse.

A slow motion version of this happened to me and my brothers, week after week in Baptist church, where we heard how all sinners burn in hell, and we’re all sinners. Scared the shit out of me when I was young. This Bachmann story just disgusts me.

***

This sounds like a lower-stakes version of Jurrasic Park. I hope the barriers work, but as Jeff Goldblum said, “Life finds a way.”

***

Our commercial truck on the street problem may be over. Enough neighbors have complained that the police have put a citation on the trucks and told them to park elsewhere. Law and order prevails.

***

There’s a lot of news about tipping lately. And I have to concur – tipping culture has gotten messy and uncomfortable. I don’t like the turn-around screen at every transaction, asking me to tip with the recipient staring me in the face. It’s passive-aggressive. And tip for what, exactly? In many cases (takeout food) it’s for the service of taking my money. At one sit-down place recently, I ordered at the counter, paid up front including a 25% tip on the turn-around screen (I’m a good tipper, I think, but I’m reconsidering that). Then I sat down and waited forever for my food, then when it arrived it was cold and the order was wrong. The waitress was too busy helping the cook and other customers to be bothered with my order. So I tipped large-ish for bad service and a bad meal.

It used to be a simple equation. Good service, good tip at the end of service. Now, not so much. And we’re all getting guilted by hearing that servers/cashiers make no money and tips are their lifeline. That may be true, but there’s got to be a better, less passive-aggressive way to deal with that.