It is Sunday, September 29 and there are only 87 days until Christmas. Time to
get going on the cards and letters if you haven't already sent them (I warned you
a few weeks ago). Birthday greetings to Michael Servetus, Greer Garson and Erika
Eleniak. Today in 1789 the US War Department established a regular army, in 1907
construction began on the Washington National Cathedral and the first color
telecast of a football game was shown on CBS in 1951. It is Dhimbhulhami Tsechhu
in Bhutan, Constitution Day in Brunei and Gold Star Mother's Day in the
US.
This is one of those weeks when I do not have much to discuss. Now
that the lovely Elaine is back to school,we don't go out as much so I don't get
as many chances to see weird people and things or to get annoyed by the people
who seem to have been put on earth forthe express purpose of being annoying.
Those people, as I am sure you are aware, are quite good at fulfilling their
purpose. They seem to go out of their way to do it. And it appears to
be intentional. There is no way they could be doing it accidentally.
I
would like to point out that, having just had my father's funeral, I have
discovered that there is money in death. Think about it for a few moments.
Everything you do costs money - everything! There is a cost for the use of the
funeral home, the hearse, the church, the priest, the music, even the men who try
to look sad (I suppose the word somber would be better) as they wheel the casket
in and out of the buildings. I wouldn't mind if they actually carried
the casket, but six men are getting paid to wheel it around.
Let's
also reflect on the casket itself. Those things go for thousands of dollars.
I have seen some that were $11,000 and there were some that cost far more. For
what? You put the deceased in it, people come and pay their last respects,
the funeral is held and then the casket is put in the ground and covered with
dirt, never to be seen again. That seems like an awful lot of money for something
that is going into the ground. I think the caskets should be made out of
the cardboard material they make some egg cartons out of. It would be less
expensive and would break down easier in the ground.
Another issue that I
always find interesting is the way people behave at the wake. They all try to
talk quietly and "show respect" during the wake. I will say this now for anyone
who may attend my wake - I do not want people to be quiet and respectful. I am
not, never have been and do not want it at my wake. I have told the lovely Elaine
that I would like to be in a small room, with just enough space for people to
come by the casket and see me. Let's face it, there are always people who come
just to be sure you are actually dead. I want to select a funeral home that is
close to a restaurant so that you come by the body then go to the party that I
want held. I want people to go home thinking, "Damn,that was one fine
wake."
I also requested that when I am being prepared, I want a smile on
my face. If you look at most people when they are in the casket the look on
their face looks like they are try to suppress gas. I don't want that look. On
other thing I wanted was to have a whoopee cushion put in the kneeler they
usually put by the casket, to add some levity to the event. When I mentioned
this to the lovely Elaine I got the look. I'm guessing there will be no whoopee
cushion. Oh well, some people just don't know how to have fun.
This
week's fact tells us that 68% of a Hostess Twinkie is air. That means that 2% is
cake and the rest is a combination of chemicals. These chemicals, if changed
slightly, would form a 1957 Chevy Impala with metal flakepaint. Yum, give me
that polysorbate 80.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Today is
Sunday, September 22 and there are only 94 days until Christmas. If you listen closely, you can hear retailers
raising prices in preparation. Today’s
birthday wishes go to Paul Muni, Henryk Szeryng and Debby Boone. On this day in 1692 the last person was
hanged for witchcraft in the US, President Lincoln made his Emancipation
Proclamation speech in 1863 and in 1973 Henry Kissinger was sworn in as
America’s first Jewish Secretary of State.
It is Independence Day in Mali, Press Sunday in the US and Wheaton,
Illinois is having their Autumn Harvest Festival.
This week is
a sad time for me and my family. My
father passed away this past Thursday.
He was 92. While making the final arrangements for his funeral, my
brothers and I had the opportunity to reminisce about some of the things he
used to say and do that made him unique.
He once told his mother that the reason he stopped playing the violin
was because my mother had cut the strings on his bow. When heading north on the parkway he would
get off at the Bloomfield Ave exit because the toll there was ten cents cheaper
than going the extra mile to Hoover Avenue and paying a quarter. The fact that driving through all the back
streets of Bloomfield to get home probably burned ten cents more in gas never
occurred to him.
He once
drove home from work with the windows open in his car and then another time
with them closed and the AC on to see which would use less gas. As you might guess, he was, in his words,
frugal. In our words he was cheap. I have quoted him in this blog on several
occasions and his comments will appear in future writings, too.
Most
notably, as we have always been proud to say, my father, and my mother by the
way, helped end WW II. My father was
drafted into the Army in 1944. He claims
that if you look, you can still see the fingernail marks in the sidewalk in
front of my grandmother’s house from when they dragged him away. Because of his degree in chemical engineering
and his experience in munitions, he was assigned to the Manhattan Project and
helped develop the atom bomb. My mother followed
him out to Los Alamos from Pennsylvania and also worked on the project, in a
lab. They were married out there.
As kids, we
got to go on a number of vacations to places like Nova Scotia, the Rocky
Mountains, Pike’s Peak, the Grand Canyon, Texas, Louisiana and other
places. We have great memories of those
trips, like the time we had to stop and go pick up my brand new cowboy hat
after I let it blow out the window in Arizona.
Another time my brother let our map fly out a window and we had to go
looking for it along the road in a Florida swamp. We got to throw snowballs at each other in
July while in the Rockies. We saw the
Alamo and were disappointed to find out that Davy Crocket looked nothing like
Fess Parker.
Until a few
years ago, my parents’ wills had us kids going to live with my Uncle Fred if
both of them had died. Fortunately for
Uncle Fred, the wills were updated and we are on our own now. I think if he and Aunt Joan thought we were
on our way to Austin, Texas to move in with them, they would have moved and
left no forwarding address.
During the
past couple years Dad’s health had declined and he had to be admitted into a
nursing home in April. He developed
additional problems and his overall condition went steadily downhill. One of the last conversations my brother had
with Dad was when he asked when Halloween was.
We are not really sure why that was a concern. Fortunately we waited to buy his costume.
When his time came he went quietly and did not suffer. I guess, in the end, that is all any of us can ask for. He had a good life, he had three grandsons and two great grandsons. He left behind a family that will miss him and a number of memories that will help keep him with us.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
It is
Sunday, September 15 and there are only 101 days until Christmas. K-Mart has already started the commercials
for their lay-away program so that you can have “more Christmas.” Today celebrates the natal anniversary of
James Fenimore Cooper, Dame Agatha Christie and Henry Dreyfus Brant. On this day in 1620 the Mayflower departed
from Plymouth, England with 102 pilgrims, in 1830 William Huskisson of England
was the first person to be run-over by a railroad train and in 1970 Decca Records
awarded Bing Crosby a second platinum disc for selling 300 million
records. It is Respect for the Aged Day
in Japan, Mexico is celebrating Independence Day and the United Kingdom is
observing Battle of Britain Day.
I don’t know
about you, but I have been curious about all the gluten-free products lately
and wonder what all the fuss is about.
Gluten is the major protein found in some grains. It is present in all forms of wheat as well
as barley and rye. The kicker is that
only about 1% of the population have a condition known as celiac disease. This disease is triggered by gluten. The rest of us are worried about it for no
apparent reason.
This is the
type of thing you see all the time.
Someone has a problem (or in this case 1% of the population) and
suddenly it is an issue for everybody.
After all, if it wasn’t a big issue why would all the food producers
start advertising that they are gluten-free?
I sometimes think that these issues are manufactured by the TV news
people so that they have filler when the real news is slow. Then they run promos like, “Are you consuming
gluten? Do you know the dangers? See our report at 11.” But I digress …
If you
check, you will find that many gluten-free products are more expensive than
regular ones so I guess we know one reason why there is a big push to go in
that direction. What most people do not
realize is that living gluten-free can make you fat. That’s because they consume gluten-free
packaged products that are often just as high in saturated fat, sugar and
sodium as other junk food. These
products often contain high-glycemic refined ingredients that can affect your
blood sugar and trigger cravings.
So if you
are a manufacturer of snack foods, you want to be sure that your product does
not have gluten. That way people will
eat your stuff and then develop a craving and end up eating more of your
stuff. As a food manufacturer you should
also have something for weight watchers, since they are going to need it at
some point. You want to get really rich? Make a product for weight watchers that is
also gluten-free. That will keep the
cycle going forever!
Another
issue that has puzzled me for some time is the big hubbub about high fructose
corn syrup (hfcs). I saw a commercial
once that said sugar is sugar and there is no difference between sugar and
hfcs. Other commercials claim that hfcs
is bad for you and it is blamed for everything from obesity to ingrown toenails. I decided to look into this to find out what
the story is. I hope you all appreciate
the lengths I go to make this blog informative and entertaining.
Anyway, I
found that hfcs and sugar are basically the same both in terms of composition
and the calories they contain. It seems
that there is no scientific evidence that hfcs is to blame for obesity and
diabetes. It is a natural sweetener that
contains nothing artificial or synthetic and has almost the same level of
sweetness as sugar. Both sugar and hfcs
are bad for your health when used in excessive amounts.
Hfcs is produced from corn
starch and is used in food because it is less expensive. White sugar is produced from sugar beets and
sugar cane. Am I the only one who thinks
this whole controversy was created by the beet and cane farmers? Were they losing out to the corn
growers? Our trip to Iowa back in August
showed us that corn is an abundant crop.
That was just there. I am sure
other states grow corn, too. Probably
more than the states that grow sugar beets and sugar cane.
I’m
just saying …
I hope this has helped you
come to terms with the issues of gluten and high fructose corn syrup. I am sure many of you have stayed awake at
night trying to deal with these weighty issues.
You have probably had dreams where corn stalks and sugar cane fight each
other in fields trying for domination of the sugar industry. Or not.
I do hope this has at least shed some light onto these issues for you.
This week
our fact tells us that 15% of Americans bite their toes. The rest either cannot even see their toes
because they have been eating too much gluten-free food or we simply cannot get
to a point where we can get our foot to our mouth because our joints won’t let
us. Keep in mind that this is not the
same as putting your foot in your mouth.
Putting your
foot in your mouth is when you say something that is stupid or
embarrassing. I have heard this referred
to as odontopodology. A possible point
of origin for the phrase traces back to the 18th century. Irish Parliamentarian Sir Boyle Roche once
said, “Half the lies our opponents tell about me are not true.” Someone remarked of Roche, “Every time he
opens his mouth he puts his foot in it.”
I am not sure why his foot as opposed to anything else, but there it
is.
So, I have digressed enough for now. Have a nice week and keep your
feet out of your mouth, literally and figuratively.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Today is
Sunday, September 8 and there are only 108 days until Christmas. Time to get the Christmas movies out and
start getting into the spirit. This is
the birthday of Richard the Lion Hearted, Peter Sellers and Cristy Thom. St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent
settlement in the US was formed in 1565, “The Pledge of Allegiance” made its
first appearance in Youth’s Companion in 1892 and in 1966 “Star Trek” premiered
on NBC-TV. It is National Day in
Andorra, Sheriff’s Ride Ceremony in Lichfield, England and Thanksgiving Day in
South Korea.
In an effort
to try not to be entirely self serving, I will on occasion give information
that you may or may not find interesting, but to paraphrase our governor, “I
don’t care what you want.” Today I would
like to give you some information on the anniversary of the Pledge of
Allegiance. The pledge was written in
August, 1892 by socialist minister Francis Bellamy and was first published on
September 8, 1892. In its original form
it read, “I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands,
one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
In 1923 the
words, “the flag of the United States of America” were added. In 1954, in response to the communist threat
of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under
God” creating the 31 word pledge we say today:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
of America,
and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
So here we
are at the beginning of another school year.
If you talk to most teachers, they will tell you that the year does not
begin on January first. Whenever they
speak of the beginning of the year they are referring to September. Their mental calendar always runs from
September to August. Even retired
teachers adhere to that idea. I never
quite got that, but I am not in education.
Here is another issue I have with education. Why do we tell children that they have to
read books during the summer. I thought
summer vacation was an opportunity for children to unwind, not to develop an
intense dislike for reading books. I
always thought the goal was to get them to read, not to hate doing it.
Let’s face
it – how would teachers feel if they were told that one day a week throughout
the summer they had to take a group of children and teach them something. They would probably be as unhappy as the kids
are about having to read while on vacation.
What is the purpose? If it is to
get them to read something they will hate reading and will forget as soon as
they can, then the goal is achieved on a yearly basis. Good Job!
Personally, I think that is something that should be rethought.
Moving on to
another issue totally unrelated to education, I wanted to discuss how you can
look at signs and come up with different meanings. I recently went into the mens room in a
diner. When I came out, I explained to
my wife that I did not wash my hands.
When she asked me why I said there was a sign in there that said
“Employees must wash hands.” Since I am
retired, I am not an employee and do not have to wash them(before you all go
“UGH!” I did actually wash them). She
gave me the look and said, “I don’t think that was what they meant.”
Another
time, we were driving and I told her to quick throw some garbage out the
window. She asked me why. I explained that we had just passed a sign
that said “No Litter. $200 Fine.” I was
not going to pay $200 just because we did not throw something away. At this point imagine the hand gestures of my
younger grandson as he patiently explains what he just said and says, “Get
it? No litter, $200 fine?” He usually goes through this with us because
he assumes that we need additional help because we are grandparents and;
therefore, incapable of understanding things the first time through ... but I digress
When my son
was a young boy and we would be out in the car, I used to try and help him
understand what the various traffic signs meant. There was the sign that warned of black deer
standing on their hind legs, the sign that warned of cars driving on black
spaghetti and the sign that warned of break dancers (deer area, slippery road,
pedestrians). I am pretty sure he did
not believe me, but I always thought it was amusing to interpret them
differently. Again this was generally
something that only I thought was funny.
This is the problem that we creative people often have. No one gets us. Oh well.
And yet - life goes on.
This week’s
fact tells us that 160 cars can drive side by side on the Monumental Axis in
Brazil, the world’s widest road. Some
drivers try to make this happen when you come out of the toll plaza on the parkway in Union,
too.
Well, have a
nice week and please obey the signs.
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