Whenever I see a yellow flag with the image of a coiled snake and the phrase, “Don’t Tread on Me,” I think, “Hmmm, I would imaging the person flying this flag has never been trod on. If you live in America, how trod upon could you have been?

We live better than most of all the kings in all of history. What king could ask a question and get an automatic answer on their smartphone? Or have an interest and start watching either a recorded video(s) or a live feed, or a live webcam view?

And now with AI, I can use that tool either from my laptop or my smartphone and carry on a dialogue that I never could with my mother. “OK Google. Here is a photo of a written recipe card. Please read it and tell me how to make this ‘more diabetic friendly.’ And, it will. Use ‘plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream’ or make a smaller serving. I can even ask it to reduce the recipe so that I only make enough for two servings, instead of the original 8 servings. And all this “on the fly.”

I’ve followed a small cargo ship as it traveled around the World. Literally around the World, in both directions and in just a year’s time. I’ve used Google Street View to “get a feel” for the various ports it visited. What an education!

Our digital TVs are gigantic with super high resolution. I have a remote, but I can even say, “Alexa, turn on YouTube,” and it will. “Alexa, what’s the current temperature?”

Not too long ago I was traveling from Greensboro, North Carolina back home, but I was taking “the scenic route.” I got up, showered, dressed, ate some of a Continental breakfast in the motel dining area, packed up and then went out to my car. Sitting there, the AI was “being a dumb ass,” and trying to give me directions from somewhere in Missouri to where I wanted to go. I was in Greensboro remember. Well that morning began to warm up and what I was wearing, long sleeves, became uncomfortably hot. I googled for the nearest Walmart and headed there. I go into Walmart and meander about finally finding the thin short sleeve T-Shirts that I like to wear, and surprise. Instead of being the $8 I usually pay in Fayetteville, they were only about $4. I bought one. I may have bought more than one. I paid for it at the self-service register and took my bag into the bathroom. I changed shirts in the bathroom and walked out with my bag wearing a comfortable T-Shirt that I had just bought, comfortable for the rest of the day. *A few days ago I bought 4 T-Shirts at Penny’s for $20 +tax, total, not each.

I can interact online with the President, or my U.S. Senators, or many of the State representatives or senators.

I can get in my comfortable car, with delicious air conditioning, fill it up with gas and drive for hours. I can search for the cheapest gas locally, or around a location to which I am traveling.

I can say, “OK Google. Give me the shortest route back home,” and it will speak back to me via my smartphone and show me a map with the route drawn in.

I can stop for a meal, or find a grocery that has a BBQ wing and salad bar and make my own healthy lunch. I can pull up, on my phone, in my car menus from various local restaurants. Most of us are not dying of starvation but are speeding to our demise by our gluttony. By our choice we are stuffing down flavorful quick calories with little nutritional value and tons of sugar & salt. If we feel terrible after doing this, is it really someone else’s fault? I don’t think so. Trod on? I think not.

“Don’t Tread on Me” is akin to the phrase, “And I chose the road ‘less traveled.'” It makes ME more important, or special than I actually am.

This morning, early, I had turned on a TV channel “euro news” that I had never watched before. At some point they had a blurb on the Palestinian war and they showed an emaciated man on a hospital bed. They showed different views of this man. As they did an awareness came to me that “this man looks just like all those emaciated dead Jewish prisoners from the WWII “death camps.” I know the argument will be that the Nazi’s had a different reason back then than Israel does currently.