Travel is educational - essay

Don't forget to buy and read The Cham Stones! Indeed, buy dozens of copies and give them to your friends.

Hardly anyone ever comments on this blog except for an occasional spammer. I assume this is because:
1. No one reads this blog.
2. Everyone who does read it recognizes my complete infallibility.
3. Readers think it would be beneath their dignity.

I absolutely cannot understand this so-called controversy over evolution vs utter nonsense. The only thing I can think of that even remotely hints at intelligent design is the banana. I repeat: there is no way any intelligent designer could have designed human beings as we know them. Of course he/she/it could have designed them better and they have simply degenerated because of sex and age. But if that were true they couldn't have been very well designed in the first place. What a total waste of time and effort.

But back to travel as educational:


Having just returned from a long automobile trip I want to report that I learned quite a lot. For example, did you know that the usual fine in the state of Idaho for driving without your seat belt is $10. However, if you are caught without the belt, and you have children under 18 in the car, the fine is $51.50. If you are caught driving with a child who is not safely buckled into a car seat the fine is $69. I just received these figures from our local Sheriff’s office. Why did I want to know this? Because I think the fines for seat belt violations are just plain weird. In the state of Washington the fine for driving without your seat belt is $101. Not $100, but precisely $101. In Oregon the fine is $94, precisely. In California the fine ranges from $80 to $91. I don’t know what circumstances make up the difference.
I’m not a big fan of state’s rights, believing as I do that if we push state’s rights too far we’d still be hanging black people, prohibiting abortions no matter what, jailing homosexuals, and even permitting death with dignity, legal marihuana and who knows what all else. I confess to not having strong feelings about states being able to enforce their own seat belt regulations. But why do they have to be so weird? How, for example, did the state of Washington decide the fine should be $101 instead of the much simpler $100? It would probably be more in the tradition of American culture if the fine was $99.99. How did they arrive at the figure of $101? Does anything over $100 make it a felony rather than merely a misdemeanor? Do you lose your right to drive or vote for a year if it’s more than $100? I confess this is beyond my comprehension. And the same thing is true for Oregon. Why $94? Why not $90 or $100 or even $95? How could they have arrived at precisely $94? Of course we all know how weird the state of California is, $80 to $91 indeed. Who makes up these rules? What kind of deliberations go into these momentous decisions? What is the process whereby these rules are invented? I have no doubt I could find out all about this but, frankly, I don’t think it would be worth the effort.
Here is one more example that probably won’t help a bit. Somewhere near San Jose there are signs that say violating the rules of the diamond lane, that is, driving with only yourself in the car and no others, the fine is $271. Wow! There’s that extra dollar again. Why on earth would they tack on an extra dollar to a fine like $270? And what is the reason or logic behind that figure in the first place? I can only imagine that after several days of serious deliberation they narrowed things down to somewhere around $270. But one of the officials involved probably wanted $270.50 and another $271.50, although why either of them would want these figures is not clear to me. Anyway, I assume that after each of them pontificated sufficiently to satisfy their egos they agreed to compromise at $271. It’s the democratic way. However, recently a man was caught with a dummy sitting in the passenger seat, not a very good dummy. He was fined $371 and no doubt deserved it. He seemed not too upset about the fine but, rather, that other motorists were laughing at him. Trying to understand the Idaho rules is far beyond my expertise but I do think $10 is quite enough, except, of course, for the $51.50 and $69 which mystifies me no end. I guess at least in the state of Idaho there is a kind of underlying logic. If you are merely risking your own life $10 is probably reasonable. If you are risking the lives of children it should cost more. But $51.50? Apparently these states have secret formulas for determining these things. I am afraid to even ask.