Author: Fandango

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — May 1st

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This was originally posted on May 1, 2019.

The Best Laid Plans

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Joyce was very pleased with herself, nodding her head in approval. She looked at the smoked salmon pieces laid atop of the cream cheese on the crackers that she had carefully prepared and arranged. “Good job,” she said to herself.

Maxwell, Joyce’s latest boyfriend, was coming over for afternoon tea and would be bringing his young son and daughter from his previous marriage. It would be her first time meeting his children since her whirlwind romance with Maxwell began two months earlier.

Joyce was excited when she heard the doorbell ring, and ran to the door and flung it open. “Welcome,” she said in a singsong voice. She looked at the eight year old boy and the five year old girl, and was surprised to see the little girl holding a kitten.

Maxwell, noticing the look of shock on Joyce’s face, leaned in, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Vicky wouldn’t come over if I didn’t let her bring Mr. Paws. They’re inseparable. I hope it’s okay.”

“Of course it is,” Joyce said, not meaning it. “It’s so nice to meet you and Mr. Paws, Vicky.” And then she turned to the boy and said, “You must be Brian. Please won’t you all come in?”

“Where are the cupcakes?” Brian demanded to know. “Dad said we were coming over for tea and cupcakes.”

Joyce gave Maxwell a questioning look. “I said we were coming here for tea and snacks,” Maxwell tried to explain. “I guess he assumed that meant cupcakes, since that is what his mother used to serve with afternoon tea.”

Joyce looked at Brian and said, “We’re having smoked salmon bites. I’m sure you’ll love them.”

Brian ran into the dining room just ahead of Vicky, who was still clutching Mr. Paws. Brian started to reach for one of the smoked salmon crackers, when Vicky objected. “Hey,” she yelled, “I saw that first.”

“Did not,” Brian said, pushing his sister away from the table, causing Vicky to drop Mr. Paws.

Suddenly Joyce and Maxwell heard the sound of something crashing to the floor and breaking coming from the dining room. They exchanged glances and ran into the dining room to find that Mr. Paws was feasting upon the smoked salmon bites.

Joyce screamed and tears started streaming down her from her eyes. “This is total chaos,” she shouted as she batted Mr. Paws off the table and tried to salvage what the cat hadn’t already eaten.

Vicky kicked Joyce in the shin, started to howl, and went running after the cat. Brian then began complaining, once again, that there were no cupcakes. Joyce was not the type who did well in face of mayhem. She told Maxwell to take his kids and the cat and to leave.

Once Maxwell, his children, and the cat were gone, and she had calmed down, Joyce picked up her phone and called her best friend, Anita. When Anita asked her how the afternoon tea with Maxwell and his kids went, Joyce said, “You’ve heard about best laid plans, right?”

Written for Paula Light’s Three Things Challenge, where the three things are “cupcake,” “kitten,” and “romance.” And for Teresa’s Prompts using the photo and the line, “I saw that first.” And for Your Daily Word Prompt (mayhem).
Photo credit: PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay.

FOWC With Fandango — Introduce

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Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “introduce.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.

When Enough is Already Too Much

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The U.S. has about 120.5 civilian guns per 100 people (i.e., “per capita”) — roughly 1.2 guns per person — which is by far the highest among developed countries in the main global dataset used for comparisons.

Note that “per capita” is a rate per 100 people based upon how many people own guns. But in the U.S., gun ownership his highly concentrated. As a result, a smaller share of people own guns, but owners tend to own multiple firearms, which drives up the per-capita number.

And the U.S. is the only country where civilian guns outnumber the population!

With this proliferation of guns, it’s no surprise that the U.S. has a much higher gun death rate than other developed countries, both overall and for homicides and suicides involving firearms.

In 2023, the U.S. gun‑death rate was about 13.2 deaths per 100,000 people, which ranked the U.S. near the top globally and far above most of its peers. Analyses comparing the U.S. only with other high‑income countries find that the overall U.S. firearm death rate is about 10–11 times higher than the average of those countries. Among developed countries, the U.S. gun‑death rate is roughly 5–6 times higher than the next‑highest wealthy nations (for example, France and Switzerland are around 2.1–2.2 per 100,000), even though those countries have relatively high gun ownership for Europe. The U.S. gun‑homicide rate is also about 25–26 times higher than the average of other high‑income countries, and the gun‑suicide rate is the highest among wealthy nations.

Women, children, and international percentiles show the U.S. ranks in the 90th+ percentile globally for firearm deaths overall, and even higher for women and children and teens, meaning gun deaths per capita are higher in the U.S. than in the vast majority of other countries. A large share of children and women killed by guns in high‑income countries are in the United States, again driven mainly by firearm homicides and suicides.

While the U.S. makes up only about 4% of the global population, its civilians own roughly 40% to 46% of the world’s civilian-held firearms. But that is apparently not enough for some.

Trump and the Republicans Want Even More Guns in America

I read in this morning’s newspaper that, pushed by Second Amendment supporters in Trump’s base, Trump’s Justice Department moved yesterday to roll back and modity a slate of gun regulations in a dramatic shift in firearm policy.

Among the more than 30 changes announced yesterday is the proposed repeal of a 2024 Biden administration rule that sought to force thousands more firearms dealers across the U.S. to run background checks on buyers at gun shows or other places outside brick-and-mortar stores.

That rule aimed to close what is sometimes called the “gun show loophole,” which allowed guns to be sold by unlicensed dealers who do not perform background checks to ensure the potential buyer is not legally prohibited from having a firearm due to a criminal record or mental health issues.

Gun rights groups and Republican-led states had challenged the rule in court, arguing it violated the Second Amendment and that Biden didn’t have the authority to implement it.

Is this really what Americans want? Greater availability of guns on the street when, among first-world democracies, the U.S.already stands out not just for gun ownership, but also already for gun-related deaths, which occur at dramatically higher rates than in peer countries?

Is this what you want?

Z is for Zero Sum Game

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Are you a sports fan? Did you know that most sporting events are zero sum games. In order for one team to win, the other team has to lose.

Let’s say you and your spouse are trying to decide where to go out for dinner one night. She says that she is in the mood for sushi but you want to get baby back ribs. You say, “Let’s flip a coin. Heads, I win and you lose. Tails, you win and I lose.” Flipping a coin and Rock, Paper, Scissors are zero sum games.

Politics is a zero sum game. In order for a candidate to win an election, his or her opponent must lose the election.

In its essence, a zero-sum game is any situation in which one person or group can win something only by causing another person or group to lose it. They’re often negatively perceived because they frame life as pure competition rather than possible cooperation. That mindset can make people assume resources are fixed, which encourages distrust, conflict, and “win-lose” thinking even in situations that could produce mutual benefit.

What are some examples of zero sum games and non-zero sum games have you experienced in your life?

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FOWC With Fandango — Upload

Fandango9 Comments

Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “upload.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.

Esther’s Weekly Writing Prompt/MFFFF — The Essential Galápagos

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Written for Esther Chilton’s Writing Prompt this week, where the word is capture. And for Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge for the image below from Magda Ehlers.

Alex loved to take snapshots with his iPhone, but he never really thought of himself as a photographer, at least not like some of his very talented friends, some of whom actually had their photos published in magazines or hanging in galleries. But they all had very expensive, state-of-the-art cameras and spent hours post-processing the photos they took.

But Alex couldn’t afford to spend a lot of money on cameras and lenses, or to devote hours to post-processing. So he would stick with his three-year-old iPhone, which he thought took some very good pictures, pictures that his friends would remark were quite good “for snaps taken with a phone camera.”

Alex did save enough money, though, to enable him to take a four day trip to the The Galápagos Islands, an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, when a local travel agency was advertising great deals on Galápagos tours.

Alex was excited that the tour company and the hotel he was staying at were sponsoring a photography contest called “Essential Galápagos.” He noted that there were several categories in the contest, including one for cellphone photos.

By his third and last day of the tour, Alex had taken hundreds of photos, but he didn’t think any were contest-worthy. And then he spotted this giant Galápagos tortoise in a wet grassy area less than ten feet from where he was standing. It was staring at Alex, as if daring him to take its picture.

Alex obliged. He aimed his iPhone at the huge tortoise, zoomed in just enough to capture the expression on the turtle’s face — calmly unimpressed, with a kind of ancient, knowing neutrality. Alex felt as it the creature was quietly judging the situation but was too patient to react. There was a hint of curiosity in the way it faced forward, balanced with a serene, almost meditative stillness. Alex pressed the shutter on his iPhone an instant before the tortoise turned and started to walk away.

When he got back to the hotel that afternoon, he sent the contest sponsor a JPEG of the tortoise photo. “Here is my entry for the ‘Essential Galápagos’ photo contest,” he wrote.

About a month later, Alex received a package from the Travel Agency. He opened it up and saw that it contained a blue ribbon labeled “Alex Ramsey — Best in Category: Cellphone Photography.” There was also a small, gold loving cup, with the inscription, “Alex Ramsey — Best Photograph — 2026 Essential Galápagos Photo Contest.” The box also contained a $1,000 check and a $500 check and a letter announcing that that Alex had not only won the best cellphone prize, but the overall best photo in the contest prize. There was also a photo showing a blowup of his tortoise photograph framed and prominently displayed in the lobby of the hotel.

The ribbon, loving cup, checks, and letter brought tears to Alex’s eyes. All Alex could think about at that point was how his photos were quite good “for snaps taken with a phone camera.”

Y is for YOLO

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YOLO. Do you love it or hate it? Most people have a reaction when they hear someone say, “YOLO.” Of course, if you don’t know what YOLO is, you might not have a reaction at all, other than scratching your head and saying, “What?”

For those of you who may not be familiar with the term, “YOLO” comes from the much older phrase, “you only live once.” The underlying idea is basically a modern echo of “carpe diem,” or “seize the day,” older expressions about making the most of life, dating back to the 19th century, long before it became slang.

The acronym itself appeared in use by the 1990s and early 2000s, and was later popularized in public culture by reality TV and then by Drake’s 2011 song “The Motto.”

A commonly cited early public use of the acronym was Adam Mesh on the reality show Average Joe in 2004, where he used YOLO in branding and conversation. After that, the term spread through internet culture, merchandise, and social media, and Drake’s 2011 track made it mainstream almost overnight.

YOLO stuck because it’s short, catchy, and flexible enough to fit both serious and reckless situations. That adaptability helped it move from a slogan into a meme, which is also why it quickly became both popular and mocked.

Those who mock YOLO do so because people use it as an excuse for reckless or irresponsible choices rather than a reminder to value life. It can sound like “ignore consequences,” especially when used to justify drinking, spending, or dangerous stunts. It also gets mocked because the phrase has been overused, feels juvenile to some, and is associated with risky behavior.

Others, though, think of YOLO in a positive sense: take a meaningful chance, do something memorable, or stop procrastinating. It is less about recklessness and more about making the most of life.

So the controversy is mostly about how people use and interpret it. It can be inspirational to some or an excuse for bad judgment to others.

Now that you know all about YOLO, what do you think? When you see or hear it, do you hate it? Love it? Or do you not care one way or the other?

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FOWC With Fandango — Basics

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Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “basic.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.

WDYS — At Last the Light

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This post was written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt.

Seventy-eight-year-old Millie sat in her chair next to the window most days, just watching and waiting. She had outlived everyone else in her group and knew she didn’t have much longer to go.

Her caretaker, Louisa, stopped by once a week with groceries and household goods, and she would put fresh flowers in a vase on the windowsill in the room where Millie sat all day. Today, Louisa brought fresh white roses cut from the garden behind Millie’s house.

“If you don’t mind my asking, Miss Millie, what do you sit and look at all day long?” Louisa asked. “Are you expecting company?”

“I am waiting for them to show up to take me home,” Millie responded.

Louisa started to ask a follow-up question, but Millie raised her hand flat to signal Louisa not to ask any more questions. Millie was a private person and was never good at conversation.

There were no religious artifacts in Millie’s home — no crosses, no images of Jesus — so Louisa didn’t know what religious beliefs Millie had, but she guessed Millie might have been talking about angels coming to escort her to heaven and to be with Jesus. “I’ll be back next week, same time, hon,” Louisa said as she left.

Millie kept her vigil, watching the fields beside her home, only breaking to eat, use the bathroom, and get a few hours of sleep. Day and night, she sat by the window until sleep finally overtook her long after midnight.

Then one night, shortly after Millie went to bed, she awoke to a soft humming that slowly grew louder. She got up, looked out the window, and saw it — a bright, pure white light on the horizon. She also saw that the humming and the bright light had attracted a large — and growing larger — gathering in her field.

She hadn’t received any warning or notice about this event. No dreams or premonitions. But she knew what it was, what it meant. She knew it was her time. She was being called back.

Millie put on her slippers, slipped her housecoat on over her nightgown, and walked out the front door. She headed toward the white light and the crowd of people. “Excuse me,” she said to the crowd as she weaved through them. “That’s here for me. It’s my ride home. At long last.”

Some people in the crowd laughed at the old lady. A few tried to stop her, thinking she needed help. But with unexpected strength and determination, she kept going toward the light. Then she disappeared.

A few minutes later, the hum grew louder, and the light lifted off the ground and shot straight up, racing up toward the stars and planets until it vanished.

Top image credit: Jay Sadangi @ Unsplash. Second image credit: Rafael Garcin @ Unsplash.

X is for Xerox

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You remember Xerox, right? Xerox was the brand that for decades dominated the photocopying hardware market. No respectable office in the U.S. didn’t have at least one Xerox machine and many businesses depended upon Xerox copiers to help them manage their enormous flow of documents. The name Xerox eventually became a synonym for photocopy. So ubiquitous were Xerox machines that the brand name became a verb, as in, “Will you Xerox this for me?”

Xerox dominated the copy machine market in the 1960s and well into the seventies until Japanese copy machines from Canon, Konica, Sharp, and Toshiba become stronger rivals.

One of my earliest jobs was working at a facility that fulfilled requests for scientific and technical document published by NASA. I worked the 4 pm to midnight shift, since I was going to college full-time during the day. My title was “reprographer” and my job was to stand in front of a Xerox machine making copies of lengthy NASA documents by photocopying them one page at a time. What fun, right?

With today’s technologies, the need to make physical, paper copies of documents has almost disappeared. In those cases where a printed document is required, you just print off a paper version of an electronic document by sending it to your printer. And if you need multiple copies, you print as many as you need. So there is very little need these days for standalone copiers.

Xerox Corporation still exists today as a public company headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut. It continues to operate in print and digital workplace solutions. However, today Xerox’s current market position is that of a much smaller, mature office technology and print-services company rather than a broad tech leader like it was in its heyday.

The New York Times, noted that Xerox fell into something called a “competency trap.” It got so good at copy machines and printers that it eventually fell short on its efforts to do anything else.

According to a paper from the Harvard Business School, Xerox is the poster child for monopoly technology businesses that cannot make the transition to a new generation of technology.”

Sorry about that, Xerox.

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