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My sister and her family like avocados. A lot. The problem is that they live in central Minnesota. Not that living in Minnesota is a problem. It’s the combination of living in Minnesota and wanting fresh avocados that’s the problem. If you’ve ever tried to buy avocados in Minnesota, you’ll know what I mean. It is nearly impossible to get decent ones.
I know. I’ve tried. I have a kick-ass guacamole recipe. Whenever I go back home, my job is to bring “guaca-Mikey” to our family gatherings. Typically, I have to buy twice as many avocados as I need with the expectation that I’ll have to throw away about half of what I buy.
But we found a solution for my sister and her family’s avocado woes. I just send them some. I live in California and can get all the just-off-the-tree berries I want for free (yes, avocados are classified as berries).
So every once in a while, I box up a few dozen of these huge green berries and send them via UPS to Minnesota. If I ship on a Monday, they can have them by Thursday. Usually.
Today is Thursday. I shipped the latest box on Monday. I received an email from UPS today telling me that my shipment had been delayed because, “severe weather conditions have delayed delivery”.
Now I admit, I don’t pay much attention to the news. But there are some things that I can’t help but knowing. These include hurricanes, floods, blizzards and pretty much anything large enough to impact shipping across at least parts of the United States.
So, imagine my surprise when I heard that there was weather severe enough to delay my box of avocados but not severe enough for me to have heard about it. At first, I thought maybe it was the fire burning just north of here. But the fire is only 6,000 acres, which might seem big by the standards of many states, but out here in California, a six-thousand-acre fire is barely worth a mention.
Besides, my shipment flies from here to there so they’d just fly around the fire.
Then it hit me. Well, to be honest, the idea came to my wife. Apparently, I can’t put two and two together until after breakfast.
What we’re dealing with is a euphemism.
According to Google, a euphemism is:
“a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing”
Here are some examples:
Saying someone “passed away” instead of died.
Letting someone go instead of firing an employee.
Calling someone thrifty instead of cheap.
Breaking wind instead of farting.
And now, apparently, “severe weather conditions have delayed delivery” has become a euphemism for “the pilots are on strike to protest mandatory vacksinations”.
There was no severe weather between here and Minnesota this week. There wasn’t even any mildly irritating weather. I checked.
Last weekend, Southwest Airlines had to cancel thousands of flights in Florida. Southwest claimed the cancellations and delays were caused by “bad weather”. In Florida. In October. The real reason was that many Southwest pilots walked off the job to protest the company’s policy on mandatory vacksinations.
Like UPS, Southwest is using the “bad weather” euphemism to explain away the fact that a good number of their pilots don’t want to be forced to be injected with what is still an experimental drug.
Rather than suffer the embarrassment of admitting that the people running the companies made a boneheaded decision, they blame the delays and cancellations on severe weather.
And, instead of keeping companies like Southwest and UPS honest, Big Media is complicit in the ongoing effort to bamboozle the public.
I actually saw an article that said, “Many Southwest pilots didn’t show up for their scheduled departure. But it is still unclear what caused Southwest to cancel the flights”.
Really? Still unclear is it? Now I guess we know just how stupid they think we are.
What’s amazing isn’t that the press thinks we’re that stupid. They’ve thought that for a long time. What is amazing is that the euphemism is catching on so fast.
First Southwest, then UPS. The next thing they’ll want us to believe is that the reason there are hundreds of container ships parked off the shore of southern California is because the smooth-as-glass Pacific Ocean is stopping them from pulling up to the dock.
Come on man!
Let me tell you something. If anyone can stop these silly COVID-related mandates, it’s the unions. If the Longshoremen unions wanted to, they could completely shut down every U.S. port. And that would be the beginning of the end for the mandates.
Because shutting down the ports would, in some way or another, affect nearly every single person in the country. Forcing everyone to be vacksinated to save grandma sounds like a good idea. But if doing so is going to delay the launch of the latest iPhone, then by God something has to change.
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