The Schloss-Blog is watching everything blow up.
Prices. Of everything.
Groceries.
What's the old commercial - for what I used to pay for three bags of groceries I now get two?
Yeah, that's what it is at the grocery store today.
And the Consumer Price Index is in - the price of everything is up 8.6 percent.
Gas, especially, is up more than 8 percent from a year ago. Groceries, 10 percent!
The average price of a gallon of gas is more than $5.
Is that the magic number? Is that what it will take to get you to change your driving habits? Fewer trips anywhere, especially leisure activities?
What will you give up - period - in the name of inflation? What can you do without, or will you just keep on keeping on?
The guys I play golf with regularly, who live all over, rotate the courses we play. Sometimes it's within 5-10 miles of my house. Sometimes it's 50 miles.
The 50-miles-away courses may get a pass from me. The price to drive there is more than the greens fee.
And flying?
Airline ticket prices have - pardon the pun - skyrocketed,
For what I paid to fly Phoenix-Chicago one way recently I could find a round-trip ticket a year ago.
On top of it all, President Biden says his hands are pretty much tied on inflation and it will probably get worse before it gets better.
How come? War in Ukraine impacting agricultural products. The still backed-up shipping lanes at U.S. ports thanks to COVID's legacy.
And COVID's presence still lingering over China, the second-largest economy in the world.
By the way, nah, I'll still play golf. Anywhere.
***
Seeing a lot on social media about gun control.
What I see - and I'll say it again - is the same people who say they want to protect life by banning abortion are the same people who won't protect life by instituting universal background checks and red flag laws for gun purchases.
They also won't mandate nor even consider recommending masks and vaccines to save lives from COVID (almost 400 people a day still die from COVID).
Not even having their own get shot - Gabby Giffords of Arizona and Steve Scalise of Louisiana - is enough to get them to act.
Maybe when one of them loses a child in a mass shooting at a public school - at the next Sandy Hook or Robb Elementary - maybe then they'll change their minds.
But they'll more likely instead call for more people with more guns to protect the schools.
Including the teachers. Yeah, great idea, Ted Cruz.
***
This is the 50th anniversary of Watergate.
It still lingers.
So does Trump, a living memorial thereto.
***
Two moving things on TV this past week and neither was a NY Rangers loss or a Boston Celtics win (hate the Celtics).
The little girl who testified that she covered herself with a schoolmate's blood to make the Robb Elementary shooter think she was dead brought tears.
Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) of the January 6 committee saying to her Republican conspiracy believers: "...there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain."
Amen.
***
Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Liz Cheney.
More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.
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