Tomb it may concern

You know the old joke about the guy who was so important at his job, he had several hundred people under him? 
He cut the grass at the cemetery.

Well, the TODAY show introduced us to Haley Hodge, who is fixing to have her fourth child. She has a husband name of Rivers, and the three kids: Finley (10), Crew (3) and Banks, (16 months.)

So where to come up with that crucial fourth name for the soon-to-be new member of the Hodge fund?

Cemeteries. Read the tombstones in the field of stones!

“I know some people might find it creepy, but my mother was a history buff and when we were growing up, she would take us on field trips to cemeteries,” says Mrs Hodge, a physical therapist. “You can learn so much about cultural aspects of the past."

After all, she points out, her sister Cooper got her name from a tombstone. And does she have a daughter named Alice? I guess not, or they would have said.

Mrs Hodge was in Southport, North Carolina, prowling the Smithville Burying Ground, and she came up with two ideas for her daughter-on-the-way...Galloway, and Salem.

Good luck to the Hodges and the new little one. I used to take my turn mowing the lawn at the little cemetery in Providence, and I don't remember any names being particularly inspiring, except for Jehoshaphat, and I don't see that one making a comeback soon.

The burial plot of Jerry Lee Lewis, (there are three names for you seekers!) who said, "Don't put a headstone on my grave. I want a monument!"

Sling Sting

A two-year-old child hurls his dinner plate at the wall and gets hauled away to quiet time and whatever other punishment his parents deem appropriate. He is taught that we must eat the food put before us, unless, of course, someone drops asparagus on my plate, and then you'll see some flying greenery.  There are limits, after all.

Same way when Dennis The Menace, Jr, runs around the neighborhood winging other kids or someone's patio window with his slingshot or pea shooter or whatever. He will learn his lesson when a deputized squad of bigger kids gets ahold of him and his bike and his weapon, and he enters a reeducation program that will likely involve opening a can of whoopass, which might involve the administration of purple nurples.

In this way, young men learn the dangers and consequences of an errant lifestyle, the hope being that by the time they reach 81 years of age, they don't have to be arrested for going around striking residential windows, denting car windshields, and shooting off pellets a bit too close to several neighbors out in Azusa, California.

The search of the Kingdom

But such a felony spree took place over like 10 years, so the Azusa Police Department termed it a  “quality of life issue” victimizing dozens of citizens over the decade.

Warrant in hand, police appeared at the residence of one Prince King. They found the slingshot and ball bearings there.

Lt. Jake Bushey of the APD says no injuries were reported in all this.

“It’s been ongoing for many years because we just didn’t identify who the suspect was,” Bushey says, adding that no one has any idea why the man was doing this juvenile prank as his his 70s turned into his 80s.

“We’re not aware of any kind of motive other than just malicious mischief.” 

If I may hazard a guess, maybe it's the result of a lifetime of confusion over whether he's a Prince or a King.

 

Locked In

Ever notice how one good idea will take years to germinate and spread around to benefit all, while one really bad idea will take off like Marjorie T. Greene at a free hairdye giveaway?

Case in point: at the Grand Canyon, couples are so taken by the impressive romantic view that they a) stand and enjoy it for a good long while, soaking in the majesty of nature and making memories to last a lifetime   or   b) they hook a padlock  - a "love lock" onto the fence and throw the key down to earth below. That pure drippy symbolism means their love is here forever to have and to hold etc etc.

But the National Park Service wants to point out that endangered California condors that live in northern Arizona and southern Utah - home of the Grand Canyon Nat'l Park - love to nibble on shiny objects, such as keys.  And the Park Service also reminds all that this dangerous practice is also a form of graffiti and littering.

Love locks are a problem all over. In Paris, a footbridge known as Pont des Arts (Bridge of the Arts) had so many Master Locks and Abus Locks and antique Slaymakers locked onto it, the structural integrity of the bridge was being compromised, which, if left unchecked, would let to the bridge collapsing, or "c'llapsing," as one of our local news anchors misstates it.

Park Rangers are kept busy removing the locks

Keys can become lodged in a condor's digestive tract

 

California condors nearly went extinct during the 1980s; they are scavengers, feed on a lot of roadkill, and that introduced metals into their bodies, leading to death. There were but 22 of them left in 1982, but 40+ years of careful conservation have brought those numbers back. There are said to be 350 condors in the wild now and another 200 in captivity.

So don't be a dodo and toss metal keys around, and don't fall in with the Love Lock crowd. Instead, grow your hair to luxuriant lengths and donate it to Locks Of Love - a much better way to make a lasting statement.

 

Mixed-up Martial Artist

Let's start the short week off with some remarks by a man who is seemingly short on common sense. Meet American mixed martial artist Bryce Mitchell, who says he feels a need to home-school his infant son for the simple reason that he doesn’t “want him to be gay.”

Mr Mitchell has lived for 29 years now, and still hasn't learned not to say things like “We’re going to have to home-school all our kids or they’re all going to end up turning gay.” His son, Tucker (presumably named after talk show guy Carlson) was just born on March 29, and even he knows better than to say things like  "That’s the reason I’m going to home-school Tucker, because I don’t want him to be a communist. I don’t want him to worship Satan. I don’t want him to be gay.”

They call him "Thug Nasty" on the fighting circuit.  Have you ever seen one of those guys who struts around with clothing and jewelry and weapons that attest to how tough they are? You get the picture. 

This guy  - a cattle farmer besides being a martial artist - also says that people shouldn't have their children vaccinated, and that public schools are wrong for not having students read the Bible.

“They took it out of the schools and replaced it with Edgar Allen Poe," he grumbles. “My son ain’t going to be reading no Edgar Allan Poe, OK? He’s going to be reading the Bible.”

"The eyes are the windows to your soul." - Shakespeare

The article I read does not answer the burning question of who will be a-teachin' readin', writin', an' cipherin' to Tucker. One can only hope that it won't be this man, who also believes Earth is flat.

 Here is a sample of his writing and his abundantly wonderful thoughts:

Funny that a man who makes his living as a fighter can't spell fight. Or know the difference between the Department of Homeland Security and Child Protective Services. 

That's all I'm "gunna" say.

Memorial Day

 Please remember to think a few good thoughts for those who gave their lives in battles to save our nation. 

Sunday Rerun: John F. Kennedy at war

 (Note: this is a Sunday rerun, and today just happens to be the 107th birthday of the man we're writing about!)

 Maybe I should have been a history teacher! I keep finding stories that I feel like sharing.

We talked about Richard Nixon the other day, a US Navy lawyer during World War II. He served as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower, the man who led the D-Day invasion that turned the tide of the war. After serving as president of Columbia University, "Ike" became the president of the US. Little is known of Nixon following his two terms as vice president. Rumor has it that he served a term and a half as president, but it's hard to find verification on that.

Lt. John F. Kennedy

Eisenhower was a true war hero, and I'm sure Nixon's service as a lawyer was appreciated. Fifteen years after the war ended, Nixon ran for president (for the first time) against John F. Kennedy, a war hero on a much smaller scale, but a hero nonetheless, so much so that he was elected president and was the subject of a hit record by sausage king Jimmy Dean.

The record, "P.T. 109" documented Kennedy's valiant service about a patrol torpedo boat in the South Pacific war. The "109" was rammed and split in half by a Japanese destroyer off the Solomon Islands in August 1943. Kennedy, the skipper of the boat, was 25 years of age, and went to heroic measures to save his crew. There was a sailor who was badly injured, and Kennedy had him hold onto a rope, then towed the man three-and-a-half miles through dark ocean waters, to the safety of an island while holding his end of the rope IN HIS TEETH! Kennedy was injured in that battle, and for the rest of his life dealt with back problems. He became famous for using a rocking chair at his desk in the White House to ease the strain.

The "109" is lost forever, but remains of the vessel Kennedy commanded next have recently been found! JFK next served aboard the "PT 59," and in that capacity, torpedoed Japanese barges and rescued ten stranded Marines.

PT-59 during World War II

After the war, the Navy sold the "59." It was used as a fishing vessel/charter boat, eventually falling into the hands of Redmond Burke, who bought it for $1,000 and used it as a houseboat. Realizing the significance of the boat, he attempted to sell it to Kennedy memorializers, but, finding no takers, he let it sink to the bottom of the Harlem River in the 1970s.
Now, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)  of New York is trying to prevent a recurrence of the flooding they experienced from Superstorm Sandy in 2012, so they are building a seawall along the riverfront near the 207th Street train yard. They have recovered a hatch door frame, a rudder and a  generator from the "59," and the MTA is working with museums, such as the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, and the Battleship Cove maritime museum in Fall River, Massachusetts, to see about displaying the relics.

It's wonderful when history comes back to us. Mr Kennedy, rest in peace, sir.

The Saturday Picture Show, May 25, 2024

 

So you bought a bag of Cheetos and it looks like Chester Cheetah left you a little surprise in there...

Hey, don't throw away that used leather sofa! Be like this guy and make a pair of gloves out of it!

This is the lovely garden in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada. Abbotsford was the baronial home of author Sir Walter Scott, whose books and other paper products fill our homes even today.

This is the section of Brooklyn, New York that is called DUMBO for its exact location being Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. It's described in tourist media as being one of Gotham's greatest "glow-ups," meaning it's not as horrible as it used to be. I guess every city has a dumbo neighborhood and I think I'll just leave that right here,

I've hauled our laundry to the Fluf-n-Fold when our machines were down, and it was fun to engage in communal sudsing with others. But it would be so creepy at night to be sitting there alone, it would put me in a spin.

Sure, you've been hungry. But have you ever been hungry enough to eat licorice yogurt? Didn't think so.

This was the week in Annapolis, MD, home of the US Naval Academy. Commencement and commissioning exercises and the ritual Blue Angels flyovers are all part of the pageantry.

This is an observation tower in Lithuania, built to make it easier to observe Lithuanians.

See? This is why we sticklers insist on careful punctuation. The missing hyphen between "crab" and "walked" makes all the difference here, my friends.

The man on the left is my old-time baseball hero, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, shown here attending an exhibition game in 1942 with Washington POST sportswriter Shirley Povich, father of Maury Povich, who made his fortune identifying the fathers of other people while thousands howled. 

Best Foot Forward

Words matter. I am particular about spelling, grammar, punctuation, and syntax, because scrambled sentences scramble meanings.

Take the words of former government official Don Trump, who claimed that because the FBI was allowed to carry weapons while performing the duties of their job, he "nearly escaped death."

Think about what that means. Think about when two airplanes almost collide and people call it a "near miss." Nope. That's a near non-miss, a/k/a a collision. The former president did not nearly escape death. He escaped death. Big difference.

I was reminded the other day of an expression I haven't heard since my working days. In talking about some tasty food, someone said the cook "really put his foot in it." 

That's a Southern vernacular expression, far removed from the colloquial "you really put your foot in your mouth" that people will say when you just talked about some school being a real dump...to the father of a current student there. (I've seen it happen and it was not pretty.)

But the thing about tasty food...some say it came about to build upon the saying "dip a toe in the water," meaning to make a trial effort at something. I guess they're saying that if you put your whole foot in, you are committing to the work.

Some say that great cooking is a great feat, and then conflate "feet" with "feat."

Some say that to cook a great dish is to really kick that dish's @$$, so there goes your foot....

Some say the expression came from standing over a hot oven for so long that your feet began to hurt.

The French have an expression advising against putting your feet in the dish ("Mettre les pieds dans le plat") but that means not talking about a delicate topic, so that can't be it.

We can't go back in history to find out who said it first, and why, so it's up to anyone who uses the expression to let it mean what they wish it to. 

Enjoy your dinner, and put your feet in it! I just thought of something else....maybe this is about stomping grapes to make homemade wine!

Will travel for bacon

It will take a trip of 91.18 miles if we drive, or 81.23 miles if we just sprout wings and fly, but one way or another, the bride and I are going to get to Philadelphia soon to check out a restaurant with the delightful name of Bake N' Bacon.

It started out as a food truck, but that has been parked, and brick-and-mortar Bake - N - Bacon has opened at 11th & Ellsworth St in South Philadelphia.

South Philadelphia is an American cultural mecca, having given us such luminaries as Fabian, Kevin Hart, Joey Bishop, Frankie Avalon, Chubby Checker, Larry Fine, Eddie Fisher, mobster Max "Boo Boo" Hoff, DJ Hy Lit, Meek Mill, and...Kevin Bacon!  

The business was created by Justin Coleman and his business partner Kelvin Anderson, and my gratitude is boundless for their menu, which includes bacon brisket burgers, smoked brisket, and pound cake with bacon caramel sauce.

And some people say there's no heaven on earth.

And maybe Kevin Bacon will be there having his supper!

There she goes

First off, any time I hear about Miss USA or Miss Something Or Other, I immediately check the calendar to make sure it's still 2024 and not 1954, a time when beauty pageants were important to people, before we all had our consciousness raised about what makes people great. 

Hint: It's not beauty.

But they still have these pageants, and maybe their time is coming to a merciful end, because recently, Miss USA 2023, Noelia Voigt, resigned her post, tossing away her tiara because of differences with pageant management.

Ms Voigt

Then, two days later, Miss Teen USA UmaSofia Srivastava gave up her title as well, and people are paying attention to all this.  Voigt made a statement about her mental health being adversely affected by the way the business is run. 

It seems that turmoil is the order of the day in that business, and maybe it's because the women involved feel like mannequins being told to look pretty and stay quiet about things that matter to them, such as their mental health.

It will be interesting to see if these extravaganzas even exist in a few more years. You certainly don't see them on TV like you used to, and can you even name a Miss America like you could back in the day? 

Here's a sign that things are wrong: Laylah Rose, who is both CEO and president of the Miss USA Organization put out a statement that said her goal is "to inspire women to always create new dreams, have the courage to explore it all, and continue to preserve integrity along the way."

Now there's a statement that really states nothing. Pure air.

But people who really follow this game caught something interesting about Ms Voigt's letter of resignation: If you take the first letter of each sentence, that spells out the words "I am silenced." 

I am honored to see this tradition continue. It was, oh, about 1996 that my supervisor forced me to write a letter of apology to someone we dealt with, to atone for an honest mistake made by a person I supervised. I thought it was unnecessary, but she still made me write the letter. So I did, and I sent it. And was it my fault that the first letter of each of the fourteen words spelled out a novel method of self-gratification?

It felt good.

 

Table For Two, please

It's been the Trial Of The Year in legal circles, and a breathless public steals every chance to check in on the goin's-on in the packed courtroom.

For reasons of national security, live television coverage is not available, and no cameras are permitted after a brief morning interlude when still cameras, and only still cameras, are permitted to snap a photo or two of the scowling participant, as outside the courtroom, his adherents clamor in support.

I have the scoop for you now. The judge has ruled that tacos and burritos are sandwiches.

Huh?

We are, of course, talking about the epic case in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in which Martin Quintana, a developer and restaurateur out that way, has been trying to open The Famous Taco Mexican Grill in the famous Quintana Plaza strip mall.

Quintana had agreed to avoid putting a traditional fast-food joint in his plaza, and it fell upon noted jurist Superior Judge Craig J. Bobay to delineate the subtle difference between, say, a Whopper, and a Shrimp Taco.

He pointed out that the FTMG "...falls within the scope of the general use approved in the original Written Commitment. The proposed Famous Taco restaurant would serve made-to-order tacos, burritos, and other Mexican-style food, and would not have outdoor seating, drive through service, or serve alcohol. The Court agrees with Quintana that tacos and burritos are Mexican style sandwiches, and the original Written Commitment does not restrict potential restaurants to only American cuisine-style sandwiches.”

Note: He had to go to law school to figure that out. Salud y felicidad to the new taco stand!

Oh Sammy No!

If you still have even a shred of respect for the Highest Court In The Land, good for you. Maybe you could share some of it with me, because I am fresh out, having learned that Sammy "The Bull" Alito had an upside-down American flag flying over his house, telegraphing his support for the silly "The election was like sooooo unfair" movement that led to deaths and disfigurement and a permanent blot on our national prestige.  Never mind that flying the flag as a distress symbol violates the court's ethics codes by creating an appearance of bias. Six of the current benchwarmers are beneath contempt for their disdain toward our nation, and we're supposed to respect them?

But the worst part? Alito telling the New York Times, "I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

These are the same kind of people who believe that a woman should be in the house, raisin' them young-'uns and stirring up brownie batter, so where does Martha-Ann get the gumption to hoist Old Glory upside down? Swinging Sammy says Martha-Ann was upset because a neighbor posted an anti-trump sign, but, according to the placekicker for the World Champion Kansas City Kelces, the wives are supposed to be in the kitchen, not outside hoisting the flag.

I thought it was legal for citizens to do that, but Martha-Ann Alito is the authority on that now, it would seem.

Judges are supposed to be impartial and hold themselves to the highest standard. Mr and Mrs Sammy Baker Davis Alito Jr. are aligning themselves with the lowest.

And you think they respect the nation they serve?

 

Sunday Rerun: Tell The Teacher We're Surfing

 I always thought that no day at work should go by without at least one laugh. And I used to love leaving gag messages for other people in other offices, such as "Just tell her I have arrived in Venice to find the streets flooded. What to do?"  

I only steal from the best. That one was from Robert Benchley. 

Now, about the real things going on in Venice: the mayor over there got up a search to for two unidentified miscreants who were using motorized surfboards to zip around the canals over there. These two jokers turned out to be Australian tourists who left a lot of commotion in their wake. And now the mayor wants them to be assessed big fines.

Mayor Luigi Brugnaro called them "imbeciles"  and said they were making a mockery of Venice.

Hizzoner had a great way to round up these surfin' dudes: he offered a free Italian dinner to anyone who could help bring the pair to justice.

"Venice is NOT Disneyland," the mayor wrote on a post showing video of the No Beach Boys hanging ten under an arched bridge in the city's serenely beautiful Grand Canal.

It didn't take long for the two to be arrested, their boards seized, and trials looming.

According to the local newspaper, La Nuova di Venezia e Mestre, the two Popeyes received fines of 1,500 euros (about $1,509), and still the mayor wants them tried for the crime of harming Venice's image.

Four years ago, Venice passed a new law forbidding personal watercraft such as paddleboards and kayaks from its municipal waterways. The gondolas and vaporetti (water buses) could hardly make their way around for all the tiny crafts afloat.

In our country, any time there is flooding or high tides due to hurricanes and whatnot, a large contingent of people with kayaks, surfboards, rafts, and canoes just about break their necks to get out on that extra water. 

Why they do this, we may never know. 

Sunday Rerun: Sit Right Down And Write Yourself A Letter

 In this hustle-bustle world of email and text messages and shouts and grunts, the fine art of letter writing is a thing of the past, along with wearing a tie to dinner and wearing a tie anywhere. When was the last time you received a handwritten letter from someone?

Same here. And so, the folks at www.ohlife.com have come up with a way for you to get a letter.  Not handwritten and sealed in a fragrant envelope with X's and O's and other snappy codewords, as in the past, but it's a way to write yourself a letter today and have it emailed to you on October 27, 2045 if you plan to be around then.  The website is here if you want to try it.  If I were forty years younger, I would write a letter to Future Me advising myself to buy Apple stock.  As it is, I have to write a note to remind myself to buy apple juice.



And all this reminded me of a song.  Country music oddball David Allan Coe, a man with talent and skill who decided to fritter both of them away by making racist and salacious music, recorded "X's and O's" early in his career, and for those of you under 80, this sort of thing actually happened.  Men and women would write love letters to each other, and then write cute codes on the envelope, presumably for the amusement of the letter carrier (who gets mentioned in the song this way: "p.m.p.m.d.s.o.f. 's not hard at all -  -
please mr. post man don't stumble or fall").

One thing about emails and texts: you can't write on the envelope.

Another thing about them is, they are free.  As soon as you pay for a computer, a phone, a text service and internet access.

Be a lot cheaper to buy some stamps, but anyway...

The Saturday Picture Show, May 18, 2024

 

There's that place you drive by when you're coming home with a bag of crabs. It's called "Pop's" or "Pete's" or "Pop 'n' Pete's" and while you'd never dare park and stop in for a cold one, you wonder a little what goes on inside that door with the big "All Who Enter Must Be 21 This Means YOU" sign. This is what goes on there. Go on home.

There is something interesting about an abandoned house. Meals were cooked and eaten. homework was done, people had their hearts broken and then filled with joy, and the parade of life continued until they all moved out. If those walls could talk...

The Aurora Borealis did not appear over the sky in Baltimore this time; it was cloudy and rainy, and so we got to see and share photos from those who did see it live and in color.

This purple lake in Iraq would be a perfect place for Ravens fans to celebrate winning the Super Bowl this coming season, except for the part about it being in Iraq.

A field in the early evening. Might be a good screen saver, no?

Proving that commerce knows no boundaries, a Chinese man has set up a mountainside supply store 100 meters in the air for climbers to buy what climbers need to buy.

Baltimore took a big step this week toward reopening the shipping channel that leads to our harbor. Since the crash of the great container vessel Dali that knocked down our bridge on March 26, we've gotten love and support from all over. The other evening, explosives were set off, breaking the bridge into manageable pieces, allowing salvors to raise and remove the damaged ship. By the end of the month, shipping activities should be back to normal. Replacing the bridge will take years, and billions of dollars. 

When the city of Seaside California pulled a zoning regulation and ordered local resident Etienne Constable to conceal the boat in his driveway, he built a fence and showed them all how to park their regulations!

This is either a) a fur coat from South Siberia from the 3rd or 4th century, or the latest in the fall line from Urban Outfitters. Answer is a) but we could believe b).

We call Maryland "America in Miniature" because we have everything except a desert. But looking at a flat map, we don't envision the topography of our wonderful state. It's flat down by the ocean and the bay, and then the farther west you go, it's rather mountainous out where the Steeler fans live.

Cheers to you!

I know, the news will get you down, and so will the weather and the sports if you pay close attention. So we have to find ways to cheer ourselves up.

And we can't always count on YouTube to show us videos of people missing the entire pool when they swandive off the back porch, so, in need of cheer, we turn to food for a cheer-me-up.

I read that too much sugar in our blood (and vice-versa) can make us sluggish and tired, so let's get advice from dietitians. What foods are healthy AND life our spirits? They list six. Shall we?

Pumpkin seeds oh yeah, I love pumpkin seeds. You can gobble an ounce a couple of times a week just by a handful, or you can throw them on a salad or in yogurt or what-have-you. They are a terrific source of tryptophan, which regulates moods by making your body produce more serotonin. I think we all know that. But yes, pumpkin seeds are pretty doggone tasty, and good for you!

And some say they help reduce the risk of heart disease, hypertension, arthritis, autoimmune-related disorders, and cancer. Plus, they grow pumpkins, so there you go!

Fatty fish The American Heart Association says we should have two helpings of fish every week, and fatty fish are the best. Fatty fish are swimmers like anchovies, herring, mackerel, black cod, salmon, sardines, bluefin tuna, whitefish, striped bass, and cobia.  All these are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for your heart because they lower blood pressure, reduce the risk of irregular heartbeats, and decrease the amount of triglycerides in the blood. 

 

Avocados are good because they lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease. Being packed with heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, notably oleic acid, vital for brain health and linked to a lower risk of depression, they are just great all around! They also have tryptophan.

But since their appearance, taste, and texture repulse me to my very core, I avoid them like falling anvils. I'll get my tryptophan elsewhere, thanks.  

Oranges are full of vitamin C, which is good for the human noggin. If you come across a depressed person, the chances are, they have a vitamin C deficiency.

 It's the flavonoids that gives oranges antioxidant properties that might help reduce inflammation in the brain. I can say with certainty, my mood is much better when my melon is not inflamed. 

The American Heart Association wants you to have 4½ cups of fruit every day, not including blueberry pie.

Dark leafy greens! Now you're talking my lingo. Try for a cup and a half of greens every week, great stuff like kale, collard greens, spinach, swiss chard, arugula, and bok choy. You whomp up a mess of greens with some ham in it, and you're getting folate and magnesium into you! They say folate prevents depression by keeping serotonin going around.

I can tell you, you sit down to nice bowl of collard greens and ham and a biscuit, and there is no way you're feeling sad!

Dark chocolate puts you in a better mood, according to a study in South Korea, which found that people who ate 10 grams of dark chocolate three times a day were in a better mood! It had to be the 85% cocoa, though. 70% would not do, which many teachers told me over the years.

Researcher sat this is all because chocolate seems to change the microbes in our intestines, which improve our mood via "the gut-brain axis," and I never knew there was such a thing.

SO there you have it, six ways to perk yourself up while spooning food down your neck. Enjoy!

 

 

"Joey, have you ever been in a cockpit before?"

I really want to give a big hand to those of you who choose to travel by airplane. If you're not getting bumped off a flight you hold a ticket for, you're flying on the plane and the door flies off midair, or another plane flies two feet above you because an air traffic controller was playing with his Gameboy...

Or, you could be flying on the charter plane carrying the hapless Colorado Rockies ballclub from Denver to Toronto when the Rockies hitting coach Hensley Meulens climbed into the pilot's seat and began playing like he was flying the doggone plane.

It is against federal regulations for unauthorized people to be on the flight deck, but there they were last month, flying to Canada at 35,000 feet with this Meulens joking around at the controls.

There is a video floating around showing him saying to a person in uniform in the next seat, “Flying the plane, here to Toronto.” 

 “I’m going to land the plane tonight. So relax,” he says. He then reaches toward the flight controls and pretends to take hold, saying, “I just press this button ... and it goes down.”

Meulens played baseball, not particularly well, for a few years, here in the Major Leagues and the minors, and abroad. He speaks five languages, but is not able to say, "I am an a trained and qualified airplane pilot" in any of them. Whatever the people in charge of the flight that night last month were thinking is wrong. 

The bad part of that sort of wrongness is that it can lead to awful consequences for other people through no fault of their own. 

There is a line that separates funny movies from stupid things real people really do. Jet airliners are not a good place to cross that line.

 

How does it feel?

Up in Cape May, New Jersey, movie producers are asking that wonderful little beachside town to play the part of Newport, Rhode Island in the film "A Complete Unknown." 

Anyone with anything on Dylan will remember that in 1965, the sage of Hibbing, Minnesota was just blossoming into wide public fame, and his legend really blew up that summer after he appeared at the Newport Folk Festival playing an electric guitar.

Folk music purists objected to having their music amplified to the point of being heard, as Mike Bloomfield (lead guitar) and Al Kooper (organ) plugged in and gave birth to what came to be called "Folk-Rock."

Chalamet as Dylan

And that's the scenario that will be re-enacted in dear old Cape May this week, with Timothée Chalamet, fresh off his success in the big blockbuster sequel "Dune: Part Two" playing Dylan. Supporting roles are being filled by Elle Fanning (so memorable as a girl from Plainville in "The Girl from Plainville"), Edward Norton (he's from around here and is a major Orioles fan), Benedict Cumberbatch (I believe there is some sort of law that requires him to have a role in every movie these days), and Nick Offerman (he seems cranky). 

The picture does not have a release date as of yet, but I will skip right over "Dune: Part Two" and get in line to see it.

Not THIS Ed Norton!

 

Hands up

 Back in 1901, which seems a lot longer ago than it really was, telephones were new, and cell phones that fit into one's pocket were not even dreamed of! Heck, pockets didn't come on most pairs of pants, and everyone wound up carrying all their keys, smokes, matches, pens, handkerchiefs, wallet and change in a tote sack. Very inconvenient.

But in that golden year of '01, there came a time when one Clifford Blakley of New Jersey had run afoul of the law in his town of Vineland, New Jersey, Did the chief of the local police send a prowl car around to round up poor Clifford for the charge of disorderly conduct? He did not, probably because cars were brand new then, unlike disorderly conduct.

So the chief called Blakley on the phone at the factory where Cliff worked,  and said, "Blakley, I have a warrant here for you. You are to consider yourself my prisoner."

And don't you know, Blakley showed up at police headquarters and made arrangements for his bail. 

Probably wouldn't happen that way today.

Never

It's never too late to make the same mistake again.

Dateline Shenandoah County,  Virginia, where the local school board has restored the names of two schools.

Restored them back to their Confederate glory, yes sir!

They had them a little meetin' down there the other night...started Thursday evening and went plum into Friday morning...and by a vote of 5-1, the board decided to bring back the names Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby Lee Elementary School. 

Y'all see...four years ago, in the wake of the nation coming to some sort of sense about race relations around here, the same board (under different members) removed those Dixiefied names from public schools where members of the public - children of all races - are educated. Only now, they will again learn their lessons at schools that honor (honor!) rebel leaders Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby.

America started coming to its senses following the wanton murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota cop, but now, four years later, some people are losing all their senses and welcoming back what they call the good old days of an un-Civil War and all the segregation they fought for.

George Floyd. Derek Chauvin. Nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds...

Don't you ever let yourself forget that. Down in Shenandoah County, they're counting on you forgetting, so don't.

 

Sunday Rerun (from 2013): Roomy

 Well, I was all set to write about the idiot DJs down in Atlanta who thought it would be funny to do a bit poking fun at a former player for the Saints  - a fellow who has ALS.

But thinking about that sort of person, or three such persons, makes me sick to my stomach.

Wondering about what else was on my mind, I started playing with a photo app called Snapfeed.  Snapfeed allows you to take a picture and do all sorts of filters and color changes.  I wanted to take a new picture on the tablet to test it out, and I thought, for once, let's get up off the recliner.  I don't need another picture of my feet, taken as I lie supine watching Frasier reruns.

So I got up, left the family room and wandered into the formal living room.  I took this picture of the one corner...and aged it so it would look like something passed down from Aunt Maude from the time they brought electric to town.

Right in front of that window, in a planter that sits on the porch, a family of wrens has built a nest and are in the process of moving in.  The male wren is trying to get his brother in law to help move stuff, but you know how that goes.

And then I almost got lost leaving the living room, which we call the formal living room because the "good" sofa and "good" love seat are in there, along with the grandfather clock my father made for us and some other niceties.  I don't go in that room, except if someone comes over to discuss something of earth-shattering importance and Peggy doesn't want me to a) turn the television on (there is no tv in this room) or b) fall asleep while talking.  No one can fall asleep on the sofa in there; the upholstery is still tight and firm, so the sink-in factor is nil.

And with no tv or other form of entertainment, the room might as well be sealed off.  Stop over some time and I'll show it to you, but we won't be there long!

The Saturday Picture Show, May 11, 2024

 

Just to show you that size is a matter of perspective...that's the world's smallest working computer on the right.  And a grain of rice on the left.

This past Wednesday marked the end of the European campaign in World War II (5/8/45). Celebrations of V-E (Victory in Europe) Day erupted all over the free world. During the war, families with members in the service displayed a blue star in their front window. Sadly, they were replaced by gold stars if that family member was lost in the war. 

Bad taste and lousy humor reached their apogee the other day when noted wits Kim Kardashian and "Gronk" Gronkowski roasted Brady. What a laff-fest. 

Good health news this week for those of us who splash olive oil all over everything they eat. Research indicates that EVOO helps prevent dementia! Good.

Except for the "playing outside for 20 minutes" rule, I can use my electronics every day.

There is no better happiness than being happy in one's own home, be it ever so...

Here's a balustrade that will send your guests home talking about your balustrade.

They call it re-purposing...no one needs a pay phone when they carry their phone in their pocket...but the phone might need a little jolt...

Stray Cats on the streets of London. They look like they know how to get along in life.

An amused motorist found that his squirrels were using the space under his hood as a storage depot for Black Walnuts.