The Bobblehead

When I got up to DC....I made up a list of some significant historical places in the region that I wanted to see.  One of those....was Gettysburg.  So I went.

There's alot of fascinating things that you come to realize about Gettysburg, from the battle itself, to the geography of the region and it's affect on the battle.  One of comical things that I came to realize....was the commercialization of the whole area.

There's t-shirts of Lee facing Grant, Lee sitting on horse with Grant sitting on his horse, Union flags waving against rebel flags, and cannon fire in the distance.  There's coffee mugs, beer mugs, and pewter statues.  There's posters, maps, and fancy drawings of the battle.

There are probably over 50k different gift items in the whole town, and at the national park store.

This week, some reporter for the Hanover Evening Sun came to see this amusing bobblehead doll of John Wilkes Booth at the Gettysburg National Park visitor's center.  It took a few minutes for the clerk to realize the lack of humor in having such a bobblehead doll....and then the whole mess of Booth bobbleheads were removed from display.

I'm guessing they are sitting in some storage room while they try to figure who ordered the bobbleheads and where were they made.

They sell for around $20 online.  While the company doing the merchandise side is from Kansas City....I seriously doubt that they are made there.  My humble guess is that they were manufactured in China, by some kid named Chang.  He made a thousand of these, and didn't really know anything much about the battle at Gettysburg.

So if you make it out to Gettysburg, and you'd like a Booth bobblehead.....don't expect to find any over at the National Park Center.

Simply Observations

From the news....a cop, who shall remain nameless (in this blog), was days away from retirement.  She made a decision at the end of the day, because local policy allows her to take the cop car home....to stop by a mattress shop.  She had the guys toss the mattresses on top of the car, and drove on home.  Someone took the picture....and this south Florida cop is terminated.  My humble guess is that the force will rehire her after three months, and let her finish out the few weeks that she needs to retire.  The amount of stupidity here?  Well....sadly, there are one thousand folks across America every day, who drive home with a mattress on top.  It may not be safe, but the truth is....we all do it.

The Justice Department decided to go against the Texas law which requires an ID....to vote.  Sadly, they wouldn't take on the other various laws that require an ID....like registering a car, buying a weapon, buying smokes, buying booze, buying narcotic-like drugs at the drug store, identifying yourself to a policeman, or cashing a check.   It'd really help a lot in Texas, if they'd remove those ID requirements...so poor people could just randomly cash checks or buy booze throughout the state.

Some law enforcement folks are now admitting there is a underground currency being used in the US.....Tide.  Yes, that detergent.  What the cops say is that it's easy to steal and without any serial numbers.....folks just come and go.....bartering with the stolen Tide.  On the black market, the big bottle goes from $5 to $10 each.  You can imagine some whacked-out drug dude....meeting his connection in north Birmingham on the street, and he's got four bottles of Tide to swap for some drugs.  Then you have some bust at a house in the town....where they find a room with six hundred bottles of Tide.  The Tide gets moved to some police storage room, where they try to figure what to do after the case has closed and the guy gets sent off for two years of prison.

Here locally in DC....the cops finally woke up and asked the magic question....if punks and thugs have been robbing hundreds of folks each week of their laptops and cellphones....where are they dumping them?  The answer?  A big sweep across small private grocery operations in DC occurred yesterday.  Sixteen folks arrested, for operating a resell operation, of stolen cellphones and laptops.  I'm guessing a sudden drop in robberies over the next month....after the punks figure out that they don't have anyplace to sell their wares. As for the cops?  It only took a year or two.....to finally figure this out.  Maybe that's a positive.