Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Riverboating, Road Raging, Footballing, Stadium Cleaning and Cell Phoning your Internet (or Internet-ing Your Cell Phone).

The Schloss-Blog is keeping an eye on what's left of the Mississippi River as well as road fatalities, football rankings, cleaning futbol stadiums and figuring out whether your cellular company is your internet carrier or you internet carrier is your cell company.

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Been by the Mississippi River lately? That "Ol' Man River" is showing its bones.

Apparently, parts of the river are so tried up that the traditional barge traffic that carries so much freight, about $17 billion annually, is no longer or is barely passable for those barges. That would be like about 92 percent of that kind of traffic. Yes, prices will go up if this is not resolved (it won't be anytime soon and the cost of alternate transport will be a burden).

That threatens farm and ranch products that travel by barge, all the way to New Orleans.

If you don't believe in climate change and its impact, believe it now. Check out this story (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/14/mississippi-river-boats-barges-water-levels).

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Road fatalities are up.

After two years of not hitting the road, we are back out there and killing each other and ourselves.

On-the-road fatalities are at their highest levels in some 20 years.

If you're driving someplace, be careful.

Please.

The life you save may be mine.

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In Arizona, where I cover high school football as a freelance contractor, school assignments are not necessarily by enrollment.

But by level of success.

If you've been kicking ass in your class, good luck, because you're likely going to get kicked up a class and have to compete against perhaps schools of larger enrollment but definitely some schools that have established and maintained a level of success that is hard to buck.

In Illinois, where I covered high school football for more than 30 years, most class assignments were by enrollment. With 32 teams qualifying in eight different classes, there were often lopsided, first-round games between teams with 5-4 (even 4-5) records and 9-0 records.

Arizona has a special class for schools that have won too many times in their respective classes. In the "Open" division, schools that have conquered the field, primarily in the three largest classes, get a special invite to compete against each other come playoff time. It is both an honor and a curse, especially for newcomers in that class, to be invited there and know, perhaps, they're not going to win a state title this year.

No, someone who never has, perhaps, will now. It's both fair and unfair at the same time.

As an example, I covered a regular-season finale in 2021 where one of the schools, with a win, likely would've been bumped into the Open Division, against the No. 1 seed and championship contender.

They lost and instead went on to win the championship in their class.

Which one would you prefer - the elite status of Open Division with no hope of winning further or the opportunity to win it all in your class?

I'll wait for your answer, but I agree with you.

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One of the most-amazing things at the World Cup, besides Christian Pulisic, has been watching Japanese fans at their country's games literally cleaning up after themselves as they leave the stadium after each game.

I mean the whole stadium.

Apparently it is a rich part of Japanese culture to be neat, clean and leave a place just as you found it upon entering (apparently, they've never ridden New York City subways but they're hired at MLB and NFL stadiums everywhere).

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Finally, I've noticed and you probably have too that your cell-phone company is trying to be your internet company and your internet company is trying to be your cellular carrier.

They all claim they can do the other's job better than the other.

Me, I say stay in your lane.

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Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Katie Hobbs.

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.


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