Welcome back!  I hope everyone had a great Independence Day!  It is Sunday, July 6 and there are only 172 days until Christmas.  The lovely Elaine says she does not care if the year is half gone, it is still too early to start playing Christmas music.  Today we remember the birthdays of John Paul Jones, Merv Griffin and Jamie Wyeth.  On this day in 1483 England’s King Richard III was crowned, in 1776 the Declaration of Independence was announced on the front page of the “PA Evening Gazette” and in 1958 Alaska became the 49^th state.  In Malawi today is Independence Day/Republic Day, it is Independence Sunday in Iowa and tomorrow is Family Day in Lesotho.

There are a couple of issues that I want to discuss today.  One is that I think the TV show “Cops” should be required viewing for anyone who drives.  While watching this show, people will have the opportunity to see cars pulled over by police for various traffic violations.  They will get to see the state troopers leaning into the car, going to their cruisers to check on registration validity, issuing tickets, questioning people, etc.  Why, you ask, do I feel this is needed?  It is simple.  If people see this enough times on TV they might not feel the need to slow down and look at it while driving on the parkway.

We recently traveled to visit our friend Pat, down the shore.  Yes, we ate M&M’s while there, drank wine, stayed up late and laughed a lot.  But I digress …  

Traveling on the parkway is a chore anytime.  It is more of a hassle when you travel after 3 PM (we did).  What makes it even worse are the traffic jams that are caused by people who have to come to an almost complete stop when they see a police car on the side of the road, with lights flashing, because they have stopped a car for some sort of violation. 

These people are not slowing down because they are afraid the cop may see them speeding and pull them over, too.  They are coming to a halt to ogle a stopped car and a police car with lights flashing.  While I will admit you don’t see it as often as I think you should, you do see it often enough that it should not be a reason to cause bumper to bumper slowdowns.  The first few times I noticed it I thought it was just coincidental that we were sitting in traffic while passing a stopped car.  When traffic would go back up to speed as soon as we passed by, I realized that this was not coincidence, it was … (insert your own word to describe how incensed you are here).  So, perhaps if drivers are required to watch “Cops” they will become inured to the sight and just keep driving.

The other issue I feel deserves attention is the Weather Channel and their need to over-report everything.  For several days leading up to the arrival of Hurricane Arthur (Arthur, really?), all we heard about was the storm getting stronger and where it was going to hit and the damage that could occur and blah, blah, blah.  I thought that it was interesting that they showed us five or six models that showed the projected path of the storm.  All the experts seemed to agree, but as it turned out all the experts were wrong.  Oops!

Then you have the reporters who stand out in the wind and rain to tell us that this is a strong storm and you should stay inside while it is going on.  Well, if you should stay inside, why are they out there endangering themselves and their camera crews?  Wouldn’t it be safer to be inside a shelter, holding the door open and saying it isn’t safe to be outside?  Or you have the people standing on the beaches telling us that the winds, rain, rough surf and higher than normal tides can be a real problem.  Of course they can.  Those are some of the issues that arise with hurricanes.  It will be even more of a problem when rescuers have to go out and save the reporter dummies when the rough surf and higher than normal tides wash them out to sea.

I really think that is why most people watch – they hope to see one of the intrepid reporters hit by a wave and dragged off the beach.  Now take a minute and put yourself in, let’s say, Colorado.  You are trying to make plans for the holiday weekend and want to see what the weather and temperature will be for the evening of the 4^th.  You are hoping to go see your town’s fireworks display and you want to see what you can expect.  You put on the weather channel and there is Jim Cantore standing out in the midst of Hurricane Arthur, the previous evening as the storm went through North Carolina, telling us how bad it was.

You figure that they are just showing a recap and will get back to covering the rest of the nation shortly.  You switch over to another channel and watch an episode of “Cops.”  Some 30 minutes later, you switch back to the weather channel and see some other reporter talking about the effects of the hurricane as it moves northward.  You go to another channel and come back later to have some guy standing in the sunlight on Cape Cod telling you that it is nice there, but they expect the storm to hit them early in the evening (even though all the models showed the path of the storm going out over the ocean as it glanced off North Carolina).

 Finally, in a fit of pique, you decide to just look out the window and see what is happening.  You see your neighbor and ask him if he knows what the weather will be like.  He explains that his bunions are not bothering him and his wife has only slight twinges of pain in her left knee.  That tells him that it will remain clear, there will be no rain and the temperature will be on the cool side.  It turns out he is right, you are prepared and are able to enjoy the fireworks.  You get home in time to put the weather channel on and see Jim recapping his report from the night before about the hurricane.  You switch to another channel and settle in for an evening of “Big Bang Theory” reruns and wonder what Penny had done that makes her look so different now than she did when the series started.

This week our fact tells us that annually, Americans eat 45 million turkeys at Thanksgiving.  That is probably why we don’t usually eat turkey the rest of the year – we run out.