Holiday Cards

I've already mailed on big batch of holiday cards and hand delivered a few more. Today, I worked on the photo mailers (we get photos of the kids and nice prints earlier in the year, and I send them out to siblings, cousins, etc.). I _ran out of holiday cards_. That is, of the Snapfish cards. I foolishly ordered 100, when clearly, I should have gotten the usual 125 or whatever that I've done previous years. *sigh* I re-ordered and made sure to order the return address on the envelope this time, because the first order came without and I had to hand write them all (which I am not complaining about, altho it is kind of a lot after a while). Turns out that I ordered the first batch with pre-printed return address. Snapfish just failed to fulfill that part of the order.

We'll see what happens with round two. I upgraded the shipping to 2 days; hopefully I'll get it before the 24th. Altho they aren't explicitly Christmas cards, so late is okay.

Sam's Club CEO is super cool. Some other people are jerks.

http://www.businessinsider.com/sams-club-ceo-accused-of-racism-after-cnn-interview-2015-12

Basically, CEO makes a pretty obvious observation about the makeup of upper management/c-suite at other companies and how she decided to tackle the problem in a particular case. Cue Internet Outrage machine, which (surprise) has completely misunderstood, once again, what racism is.

We all have choices about where to spend our money during this holiday season and throughout the year. If Sam's Club is a place where you might consider spending your money (it doesn't make sense for a lot of people, for a wide variety of reasons), and you like women in upper levels of management (and a bit less homogenity in other ways as well), consider spending your money there. This is not the easiest topic to tackle in public, and I think she did a good job. But she's gonna need some backup.

Setting Public Policy by body count, overdose edition

I have a theory about how public policy works in this country (and possibly elsewhere -- I don't really know). Basically, we focus on whatever is currently producing the most bodies annually.

To that end, I've been noticing that we seem to be focusing more and more on heroin, and prescription drug abuse has been sliding a bit in public awareness. I think these graphs help show the trends underlying this change in focus.

http://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

Prescription drug overdose deaths are still the biggest number. The trend lines, however, suggest that by the time we get the 2015 numbers, that might have changed, and unless we do something effective -- and soon -- the ramp on heroin looks absolutely horrifying.

Clinton has already said that as she travels around the country listening to the concerns of voters, worries about friends and family members who have serious substance abuse problems are very high on the list. And while legalization might assuage some concerns about those friends and family members getting locked up, it does less to address the real possibility of a quick death. Sure, we should make sure all first responders have Narcan and know how to use it. But that is definitely not enough for the problem we appear to currently have.

I have little affection for Zoning Boards

So here, for your delectation, please find the opportunity to punch up:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/shell-company-bel-air-mansion.html

Or, if that's too rarefied for you, pick on poor, Southern white folk, whose views may just possibly have been misrepresented, but whose dog-in-the-mangerish ways are surely representative of zoning boards the world 'round:

http://www.roanoke-chowannewsherald.com/2015/12/08/woodland-rejects-solar-farm/

Good clean fun can be hard to come by. Please enjoy!