This week's MICKnuggets: 08.20-24.18

08.20.18- Star Trek Wisdom

Under the heading of: “All I Need to Know I Learned from Star Trek” is a text I received last Friday from Representative Randy Fine.

It said this: In case I die in a few minutes when I go under general anesthesia, I wanted to leave you with these final words:  He then texted a photo of an anti-Curt Smith mailer he funded.

The mailer was funny with a “Creature from the Black Lagoon” aura to it and it was creative in its made up assertions about the county commission “releasing” waste into the lagoon.

My first thought was that Randy Fine has indeed been depicted in Star Trek in Ricardo Montalban’s Kahn character.  Kahn’s words rang in my head after reading Fine’s text.

“To the last, I will grapple with thee…from hell’s heart, I stab at thee!  For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee!”  (Yes, I know it’s Melville, but Kahn said it best)

My second thought is that we made a big mistake in the last Florida House election.

08.21.18- Maybe ESPN has this right

I’m not a fan of the political leanings of ESPN, but I am not beyond recognizing when they may just have an issue right.

The issue: NFL National Anthem protests.

ESPN’s answer: Not televising the anthem on Monday Night Football.

Why do I like it?  Because it’s an unnecessary tradition in the game, it’s come to be used as a platform for protest by players and the NFL used to require America’s military to pay for those “patriotic” displays on the field.

This move takes away the largest part of the protesting players’ audience leaving them only the people in the stands to see them.  Lose the audience and lose the motivation to protest.

It gets a couple of minutes of commercials out of the way and we can get to football, which is supposed to be the idea anyway.

And it shows the NFL that if they aren’t going to handle this, the public will find a way to do so.

08.22.18- PETA should be proud

Call me nostalgic, but I believe change should require a reason, a good reason.  What have we all learned in earlier days?  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

To the rescue is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.  And apparently the animals don’t have to be animals at all.  PETA has saved the creatures on the Animals Crackers box!

You see the docile, almost tame looking animals on the design in use for most of the last 100 plus years were in cartoon cages.  It makes sense, they were cartoon animals.

The new box has these creatures in the wild and not caged.  And these animals look vicious.  Like they are about to eat you instead of the other way around!  The new animals need cages!

But PETA says circuses, even cartoon ones, are cruel and change needed to be made.

Here’s one for you, PETA, this was NEVER about animals, it was about marketing cookies.  Now go chew on that before the freed animals eat you!

08.23.18- Publix- Episode IV: A New Hope

Long ago (like a couple of weeks) in a bakery not so far away (like on Wickham Road) a grocery chain renowned for its customer service emphasis was pulled to the dark side of political correctness.

My last name was banned from the automated ordering system for the store and from being used as a cake decoration by the dark side.

The wounded cried for help from the invasive darkness of political correctness usurping the former excellent customer service of the stores.

Customer Service Jedi Dwaine Stevens, Publix regional media and community relations manager, took on the task and the results are amazing.

The name has been removed from the do not use list and this employee owned organization is turning back to the light of outstanding customer service and reviewing its policies that allowed the problem to occur.

I could not have asked for more and am happy that Publix is again where shopping is indeed a pleasure.

08.24.18- Do we want our bosses policing us at home?

We are in the #metoo era.  We are rightly critical of abuse of women in any way.  That in and of itself, is a good thing.  What’s not good is the mob mentality that everyone is responsible and everyone is guilty upon initial report of an incident.

It’s possible Urban Meyer deserves some counseling at Ohio State on the proper handling of complaints of his staff’s behavior at their homes.  It’s odd to me that he is in any way being held accountable for this at all.

How many of us have bosses looking into our home lives?  How many of us (outside law enforcement or the military) have repercussions at work for conduct between us and our spouses?  Absent criminal behavior, we don’t.

But Urban Meyer, who in some form reported suspected abuse by an assistant coach, is now suspended for not reporting it correctly.

It sounds to me like the Title IX or Human Resources people failed in their training of management staff.

Maybe it’s them that need discipline.