What's with these people?

I'll tell you the difference between the politicians of today and the politicians of yesterday,

The Nixon/Ford Administration, still the all-time leader in presidents forced to resign, had an Agriculture Secretary named Earl "Rusty" Butz. Earl was a farmer, born and bred, and was severely lacking in tact and discretion, but he only told his racist jokes to Pat Boone, who was a singer, and Sonny Bono, who certainly wasn't. The press over heard it. The joke he told those two aboard a commercial flight to California after the 1976 Republican National Convention was horribly offensive and racist that Butz was forced to resign and go back to Indiana.

Today, they pack Madison Square Garden and have "comedians" tell disgusting Puerto Rican jokes and I don't know what it takes to show you the complete lack of anything good there.

Whatever happened to respecting our fellow Americans? 

Decided

All the contumacious campaigning and the rowdy rallies and bellicose begging for votes are finished, and I am happy to tell you, the election is over.

No, not that one (yet!) I'm talking about the coveted Best Sandwich in Maryland title, decided by the greatest website I've not heard of before, Love Food. They have three million Facebook followers as they go on and on about "food, recipes and reviews." And based on reviews on line, awards, and "the first hand experience of their (their) team, "the best sandwich in Maryland is.....the the pit beef sandwich from Chaps Pit Beef, with locations in Baltimore,  Aberdeen (Harford County), and Glen Burnie (Anne Arundel County)."

Chaps's sandwich is the real deal, Baltimore style, medium rare and served on rye or a kaiser roll, with available toppings of barbecue sauce, sliced onions, and horseradish.

All over the country, especially in the South, they go on about barbecue, in which they swelter meat for a period of days in a low-heat oven until it gives up and disintegrates. Maryland Pit Beef is cooked over a hot coal fire rapidly and sliced while still hot.  You can really only find it in Maryland (unless other places are copying it) and I hope you get a chance too very soon!

 

 

 

Looky-loo!

Besides the festival of slurs and insults they threw at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, there was something even more fun going on in New York City.

They had a Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest, and guess who showed up?

Timothée Chalamet! He walked right on through the crowd assembled, took off his mask, and revealed himself to be himself, in front of the thrilled throng.

The actor happily posed with the people who tried to look like him, people dressed as the characters he played in movies like "Wonka" and "Dune."

He's sporting upper-lip fuzz now, which is said to be for his role in a movie called "Marty Supreme" that he's making with Gwyneth Paltrow, who named her daughter Apple and was not joking.

One of these people is said to be Chalamet. Congratulations to him for being the best Timothee.

No need

In Howard County, Maryland, a student at Howard High School was arrested recently and charged with the murder of a 26-year-old man who was shot at the local mall. 

This led to a new rule voted on by the Maryland State Board of Education,  mandating that when students accused or convicted of violent crimes transfer to new schools, the school they leave is obliged to the new school to...how about this...LET THEM KNOW!

Up until now, it was optional for the student's old school to tell the new one. Optional!

When the student was arrested, he had a loaded, fully automatic ghost gun in his backpack, and was wearing an ankle monitor. He was under arrest for an attempted murder that has left his victim paralyzed.

I remember getting in trouble for not wearing official white sox in phys ed. I should have told the teacher I had to cover up my ankle monitor, and white would clash.

There is what fancy speakers call a "disconnect" among people whose jobs involve keeping track of people's misbehavior. It reminds me of the case in my Baltimore County, in which a young girl was slowly and systematically beaten to death by the muscleman boyfriend of her mother.  A social worker knew all about this torture, even brought her cases notes to the trial when summoned, but said that it was not part of her job description to notify the police that a child was being murdered slowly.

She said it was a family matter and no one else's business.

It became police business, of course, and court business, but she tended to her own knitting and kept it all in the family for reasons that still elude me. 

Sunday Rerun: Soul Finger! Soul Fingerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

 Got a minute for a little pop/soul music history?

I'm glad you do. More and more I find my mind drifting away from the current times anyway. How about 1967?  

In April of that year, along came a hit record, an instrumental, by a new group called The Bar-Kays.  They were on Volt Records, part of the Stax/Volt company out of Memphis, and this was their first single release, called "Soul Finger."

The band had been noodling in the studio, rehearsing to "But It's Alright," the song by J.J. Jackson.  As instrumentals often do, the band started with a melody (this time, it was the eight notes of "Mary Had A Little Lamb") and built the tune from there.

And in the studio that afternoon so long ago was none other than Isaac Hayes, about whom I could write three blogs, about his careers as a musician, producer, and actor. Isaac was an idea man, and he came up with a beauty for this record. First, he said, let's call the song "Soul Finger" (which must have been a tribute to James Bond, the double-naught spy from "Goldfinger").

And then, Isaac said, let's get some kids to help us out here by having them holler the title! David Porter, Hayes's production partner, knew whom to ask, when he saw kids out in the street in front of the Stax studios in Memphis, playing hopscotch, tag, chasing each other around on bikes...the usual kid stuff.

Porter went out and asked the group of kids if they wanted to help make a record...and he sweetened the deal by offering Coca-Cola for everyone! In came the kids, down went the soda, and the next thing you know, the kids are screeching "Soul Finger!" right on cue!

And the record was an instant hit, reaching # 3 on the U.S. Billboard R&B singles chart and # 17 on the Billboard Hot 100, with the B-side "Knucklehead" also getting some airplay.

As joyous as the sound of this record is, 1967 ended horribly for the Bar-Kays. Chosen by Otis Redding to go tour as his backup band, four of the band - guitarist Jimmie King, organist Ronnie Caldwell, saxophonist Phalon Jones, and the great drummer Carl Cunningham - died along with Redding and one other man when the star's airplane crashed into Lake Monona, near Madison, Wisconsin.

Other musicians continued playing as the Bar-Kays, notably on Isaac Hayes's "Hot Buttered Soul" album, but "Soul Finger" remains their essential legacy, and it's all due to some kids in Memphis, all sugar-rushed on Coca-Cola and hollering their hearts out! 

The Saturday Picture Show, October 26, 2024

 

There is a poem called "Fallow Fields" by H.E. Alexander. It starts off, 

The fallow fields of empty dreams

engulf my mind with barren schemes,

drying my thoughts like arid streams.

I look at fall quite differently. All spring and summer, the fields and forests gave us their bounty, and now it's their time to rest. It's also the best time to visit the fields!

How old am I? Old enough that this dental setup looks just the operatory of my boyhood dentist, Dr. Pullem, down on Plymouth Av. But for real, someone found this office abandoned in an old house in which the dentist, now presumably drilling in heaven, also had a homemade radio station. I guess that's where someone got the idea to play dentist office music....Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Christopher Cross. No Spooky Tooth, though.

We leaf-peepers wait all year for this!

If anyone was ever wondering, fingernail art shows up like this on an x-ray. Go ahead and make a costume out of this!

 She's Keiko Fukuda, she is 97, and she is now the first woman ever to earn a 10th degree black belt in Judo. I feel challenged, but not that much.

This woman, Sable Sky Atelier. of Fargo, N.D. has been asking people to send her their DVDs of the movie "Wedding Crashers." When she has collected 1,000, she is going to watch the movie, which she has never seen. She can't have my copy - the first ten minutes are too good to say goodbye to! I wonder if she's seen "Fargo."

The Ritter family continues to entertain. It all started with Tex, on the left, star of 459 Western movies and a few dozen singing cowboy hit country records. His son, John, lower right, was so beloved in "Three's Company, " and John's son, Jason, is on the new CBS version of "Matlock" which is so good that I can't even tell you why, but check it out. Starting with the pilot...

True facts, cool cats.

Great myths and fairy tales often told to mislead the working class, # 1.

Everything about this picture says "1973" - her glasses, she's smoking a cigarette, she's barefoot at an Allman Bros concert. Good times! You should have been there.

Mum's the word

 Scrolling through Instragram and I saw a video (screenshot here) of a woman stealing a  potted chrysanthemum from a neighbor's yard.

I didn't go further into the story; I don't know if the perpetrator was identified. or what-all else happened. I'm sure that lots of people had stories to share about similar incidents in neighborhood all over the nation.

Here's my question. Even disregarding the fact that this theft took place during the daytime, with no cover of darkness, what is it about people that makes them think they are entitled to rip off their neighbors, or anyone else?

Long ago I worked with a woman who lived in an apartment with her teenaged daughter. One Monday morning, the coworker was talking about their weekend. She said this right out loud: "Sunday morning, we wanted to read the paper, but we didn't feel like going out to buy one, so I just told (daughter's name) to go upstairs and take it from someone's doorstep."

The other day, I saw on Instagram a video appearing to show the mother of a Kansas City Chiefs player (not that one) (or the other one, either) taking an Amazon box from a neighbor's doorway. The comments that followed all went down the same lines: "Her son makes millions playing a game and she has to steal?"

Not, "No matter what kind of money her son makes, she shouldn't steal things."

In the case of the coworker years ago, I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought it was a rotten thing to do, but, surprise, surprise, I was the only one in the room of 10 or so of us who pointed out that it was a rotten thing to do, and reflected a lack of respect for herself, her daughter, and the neighbor. Theft is not a victimless crime; when you take things, you are taking them from someone.

That happened decades ago, and I am still the kind of person who tells people they are wrong to steal. Maybe this honesty has caused me to lose friends over the years, but who wants to be friends with people who shrug about breaking a Commandment?

Number 8, if you're scoring at home.

A quick one

The flower people of the 1960s were fond of the anti-war slogan "Suppose they gave a war and nobody came?"

That never happened. Wars tend to go on for a long time, because people have their philosophical differences, and for real, there is big money to be made in war, selling guns and ammunition and vehicles and aircraft and uniforms and so forth. Another slogan of the 60s was, "War is good business. Invest your son."

Let me tell you about a war that was over before anyone was killed and no one had a chance to sell anything. It was the Anglo-Zanzibar War, which took place on  August 27, 1896. That was it. Just one day, and it only took 38 minutes to settle everything.

The whole deal was over who would be the next Sultan in Zanzibar. The British won.

On August 25, 1896, the pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini died under suspicious circumstances. People of Zanzibar, an island nation off the coast of Tanganyika in the Indian Ocean (today it is part of Tanzania*) tried to install Sultan Khalid bin Barghash. However, British authorities sought to rule the world in those days, and they wanted the job to have Hamoud bin Mohammed placed as sultan. There was an agreement in place that made sure anyone proposed as sultan would get the nod from the British consul. Khalid had not gained this favor and was ordered to step down.

Instead, Khalid got his palace guard to stand back and stand by. In response, the British rounded up two cruisers, three gunboats, 150 marines and sailors, and 900 Zanzibari troops. The palace was set ablaze at 9:02 AM on August 27 after a 9 AM ultimatim was ignored, the British sank three Zanzibari naval vessels, and the whole thing was over at 9:46, just in time for an early lunch.

The palace after the brief war.

We could learn from history, but first, we'd have to read some of it.

*That's pronounced Tan-zan-EE-ah, unless you're Donald Trump, who said "TanZAYNeeah, because he doesn't know better.

Local mystery

Local news from over the past weekend included the sad story about a human skull being found in the woods around the Pleasant Rest Cemetery in Towson, which is a historic Black burial grounds owned by Mt. Olive Baptist Church at Kenilworth Drive and Bosley Avenue.

The police said that someone was walking around the area and found the skull, which has been verified as that of a human, and appears to have been at the location "for decades." There were no signs of trauma.

It's very sad to me that somehow, someone interrupted the pleasant rest of someone at the Pleasant Rest Cemetery. 

And the church itself, the Mt Olive Baptist, it has been for years and years a symbol of the originally Black community of Sandy Bottom.  A great deal of that area, near where York Rd and Fairmount Avenue meet, was owned, bought and settled by the families of freed once-enslaved people. It was the home of Carver High School, the secondary school for African-American students in our shameful days of school segregation.  Once Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) ruled that state-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional, the county enlarged that building and it became Towsontown Junior High School (I'm a proud alumnus!) which closed in 1979, and was used as county offices. Eventually, the George Washington Carver Center For Arts and Technology was built there as a vocational high school where the name  Carver lives on.

It's a meaningful area and I hope someone can look into this mystery.

 

Trouble

Words you don't want to see preceding your name: "Troubled rocker" (as in "troubled rocker Tommy Lee") or "frequent Oprah show guest" as in most anyone.

But now, you see the preamble "Former NFL quarterback" and you look for trouble, because most former NFL quarterbacks take their money and go home in peace. If they make the news, it's for being stupid like Former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler, who is accused of attempting to leave the scene of a Tennessee car wreck. Police say (those are two more words you don't want to see in a story about yourself) that the driver he rear-ended turned down his $2,000 bribe.

It was just a little crunchy bumper thing, but now Cutler, drafted out of Vanderbilt, and late of the Broncos (2006–2008), Bears (2009–2016), and Dolphins (2017) and a marriage to "reality star" (two more words to keep away from!) Kristin Cavallari, stands accused of DUI, possession of a handgun under the influence, failure to exercise due care to avoid a collision, and implied consent. He bonded out for $5,000.

The arrest report say Cutler rammed his Ram (that one was too easy) into another vehicle and ALLEGEDLY offered the other guy a couple thousand semoleons to keep it on the QT, but the guy called police, who soon arrived to find Cutler’s eyes all bloodshot as he “slurred and mumbled” his words.

The cops described him as “thick-tongued” in their report. Again, not a descriptor he will proudly tell his kids (sons Camden, 11, Jaxon, 9, and daughter Saylor, 8) about.  At first, the one-time athlete denied imbibing alcohol, but then amended his statement to say he had a "little bit" of the hooch.

Speaking of things he had, how about the rifle in the back seat as he careered through the streets, and the Glock handgun in the center console? 

Jay "Rambo" Cutler, on the prowl, ladies and gentlemen.

 

His mugshot, featuring a greying beard, is evidence that he should know better. The whole incident is evidence that parents should look elsewhere before telling their sons that they should model themselves after professional athletes.

 

Leavin', with a jet plane...

Stealing cars happens all the time, but this???

A Boeing 727-223 airliner, registered as N844AA (in case you see it flying by), was stolen from its parking spot at Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Angola on May 25, 2003. People have been looking for it ever since with nary a trace turned up.

The plane was operated by American Airlines from 1975 - 2000 (just think, you might have flown on that very machine one time, on the way to Tom and Becky's wedding) and after that service, it became the property of Miami-based Aerospace Sales & Leasing. But they weren't using it; it had sat gathering dust for fourteen months and owed over $4 million in airport fees by 2003.

And you thought it was expensive to park to pick up Tom and Becky and their kids at the airport!

The missing plane was one of two that were being processed for use by Nigerian IRS Airlines. 

The FBI describes the plane as "...unpainted silver in color with a stripe of blue, white, and blue... formerly in the air fleet of a major airline, but all of the passenger seats have been removed. It is outfitted to carry diesel fuel." 

In case you see it.

On that day in 2003, two men were seen boarding the plane, one a pilot from the US and the other, a mechanic from the Congo. Neither of them were certified to fly a 727, but the plane took off anyway without clearance. The plane was last seen heading southwest over the Atlantic Ocean but that's the last anyone saw of it. It had enough fuel aboard to fly 1,500 miles.

Not one clue about the plane's whereabouts or the fates of the two men on it was known. Today, as you read this, no one knows a thing about any of all this, but a Boeing 727 is awfully hard to hide.

  

 

Sunday Rerun (from 2012): Oh, THAT Wib Davenport!

 Down in Virginia, if you want to drive away from a certain Chevrolet dealer, you should know this: they really drive a hard bargain!

Danny Sawyer, 40, bought a black Chevy Traverse from Priority Chevrolet back in May, but woke up the next day wishing he had bought a blue one.  He drove back to the dealership and found a blue one that caught his fancy, and that's where things go crazy.

The blue one must have had some optional equipment that the black SUV lacked, because after Sawyer swapped cars, went on vacation and came home, he came home to many frantic messages from the car lot and its sales manager, whose name is Wib Davenport.  We've all known someone named "Wib," haven't we?  The car Sawyer wound up with cost $5,600 more than the original one, and how would he like to pay for that, was the point of all the messages.

All this turmoil over this?

He wouldn't like to pay for that.  Sawyer says no one told him that the blue car cost more, and even though the dealership says they told him that it did, there still seems to be a matter of him not signing anything additional to attest to the switcheroo.

Completely disregarding the basic tenet of good customer service (Never have your customers thrown in jail, since it's hard to buy a car from there) the dealership called the local cops, who mistook a civil matter for a crime, and ushered Sawyer into a cell for four hours.

Dennis Ellmer, president of Priority Chevrolet, has decided to be adorable about the whole thing and says Sawyer can keep the blue car for the price of the black one, and hey!  How about a free tire rotation, buddy boy?

Ironically enough, Sawyer rotated those tires himself, driving over to the office of a lawyer, upon whose sage advice he has filed two lawsuits against the dealer, accusing the business of malicious prosecution, slander, defamation and abuse of process. He'll need a total of $2.2 million in damages, plus attorney fees before he feels better about the whole doggone thing.

We used to have a Chevy dealer in Baltimore who advertised that his dealership, at the corner of York and Bellona, was "the best place to become a Chevrolet ownah!" 

Priority Chevrolet can now claim proudly that they offer a car buyer the chance to "come on down and get a Chevy on sale - and if we don't like you, we'll throw you in jail!"

The Saturday Picture Show, October 19, 2024

 

There just is not a prettier time of year for me. While cherry blossoms dance in spring, I'm already imagining falling leaves!

You remember the song "Winchester Cathedral" by the New Vaudeville Band? It was all over the radio, winter '66-'67, and we who love that era of music thought we were in for a long run of nostalgia. And then, nothing! But...this is what the cathedral looks like, anyway.

I know, this looks like Asian watercolor art, but it's a photograph from a blizzard one fine day.

Early fall snow in the Adirondacks landing on the changing trees. They call it "snowliage," and why not?

What a great idea for those of us who don't have 14" long skinny fingers. In Europe, your Pringles family of snacks is served in little trays.

What's sadder than an abandoned diner? Someone, somewhere, make some rice pudding and lemon meringue pie, order some bacon and eggs and pancake mix, and get this place open, please!

The person who posted this said they are really making those mazes a lot easier to solve now, and I don't know if they were kidding or not.

Someone mentioned tube socks the other day. (I get into the most wonderful conversations!) And the greatest example I could think of, even better than Mr T wearing two mismatched socks to show he came up from hard times, is the album cover photo from Skynyrd's "Street Survivors" album, showing drummer Artimus Pyle wearing the most 1977 socks of all time with his cutoff cargo denims. Good times! You should have been there!

This building in Belarus used to have a far more official purpose than its current incarnation for slinging $5 Tender Boxes, but progress is progress,

I saw this picture, I cannot tell you anything about it other than it shows a lot of red, like a map of Florida.

Dr Fermento

Ladies and gentlemen, we are here this morning before breakfast to talk about the gut-brain axis.

How about that? What affects your head also affects your stomach. So your eyes see something vile (I will not mention his name!) and your tummy does that Tullahoma Twist. Every time!

So a bad belly can mess you up! Let's ask Katherine Brooking, M.S., RD, who is a registered dietitian:  “Substances produced in the gut by bacteria can travel or send signals up large nerves, such as the vagus nerve, directly to the brain—triggering different brain activities that can alter mood, behavior, memory and cognition.”

There you have it. You thought all along it was all those Big Macs putting you in a bad way, when all along it was the thought of those Big Macs that did you in.

Well, I want you to know that fermented food are here to help. They have the good bacteria for your healthy belly and your proper mind. I found a list of the six best fermented foods for your brain health. 

1. Yogurt 

Yogurt is fine by itself or whipped up in a smoothie or as a dip. It contains probiotics - the good bacteria. It also reduces inflammation and enhances brain function.

2. Kimchi 

The traditional Korean Kimchi is made from fermented vegetables (cabbage and carrots) and ginger and garlic. Its probiotics are said to help improve cognitive function (make you smarter!) and it may help reduce the risk of neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer's disease, dementia.)

And it has vitamin K, (keeps your noodle tuned up) and antioxidants for your immune system. 

3. Kombucha

Kombucha is currently very trendy, like Sydney Sweenie, but fizzier. It's tea, but not your grandmother's tea, because this one supports gut health, with probiotics to reduce inflammation and promote mental well-being. Again, it can help manage anxiety and depression, unless you are anxious and depressed over having to drink something called "kombucha."

4. Miso

You take some fermented soybeans (check the pantry) and make a thick paste of them. That's miso, used in soups, condiments, or as a glaze for salmon. It's said to be packed with flavor and full of brain-boosting probiotics. 

Say that three times. Now have some miso and say it again.

Miso contains folate, niacin and choline, all of which are supposed to improve brains, all the while reducing inflammation of the brain and the body.

Not milkshakes, but kefir-berry smoothies! 

5. Tempeh 

Net chance you get, ferment some whole soybeans, and you'll have Tempeh, chock-full of protein for a plant-based source. Tempeh is said to be good at improving your memory, so remember, "Tempeh fugit"!

6. Kefir 

Not to be confused with Kiefer Sutherland, Kefir is a "fermented drinkable beverage product that is made with milk or water" that you are supposed to think tastes a lot like a milkshake. And you'll think so, if you also believe that eating mud is like eating chocolate pudding.

Because it's so full of Lactobacillus, kefir improves your memory to a point where you will usually forget to buy some and reach for ice cream instead.

Say what?

Somehow, this woman named Marjorie Taylor Greene became a U.S. Representative from Georgia, and she is up to her chit again, this time suggesting that  “they” control the weather. This nonsense was doled out as many Southern states, Republican-leaners all (including her Georgia), deal with the double wallops of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. 

What she said was: “Yes, they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

I limit my political content to snarky Facebook remarks and Instagram photos meant to embarrass a certain family, but I have to comment on this lunacy from MTG, because if there's one thing we of a certain age heard about all the time, it was the parental ban on nonspecific pronouns. For example:

"SHE won't let me to Towson Plaza to hang around the carnival."

The reply: "SHE has a name! Don't call people 'she'."

"We all had to write 'I will not talk in class" a thousand times because of HIM!"

In this landmark case from junior high, "HIM" referred to a martinet who taught social studies.

So, don't be afraid to name the people to whom you refer, unless you are speaking of an unschooled woman such as Greene, who once claimed that our government was trying to force us to eat fake meat grown by Bill Gates in a petri dish, although she called that glass dish seen in every school science lab a "peach tree dish," and once got mixed up and called the Nazi secret police of WWII Germany the "Gazpacho," instead of Gestapo, proving that it's foolish to serve a complete meal, soup to nuts.

Order up!

I happen to like waffles, so I support the people at Waffle House as they seek to serve our nation with pockmarked pancakes, bacon and eggs. You can't beat that for a morning chow-down.

And they are open 24/7/365, not just to sling the eats but also to operate a disaster preparedness center. That's right! The company is proud to tell you, they operate a storm center in “a real conference room converted for our crisis response” at their headquarters in Georgia.

“We have responded to hurricanes and the like for more than 30 years,” said Njeri Boss, vice president and Boss of food safety and public relations at Waffle House.

It was Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that led WH to augment their crisis management processes. They lost seven restaurants in that horrible storm, and another hundred were damaged enough to be shut down for some time, but as things got back on track down south, people flocked to Waffle House because they were open!

Katrina taught the company to prepare for disastrous storms. They developed disaster prep manuals for all their locations, and added portable generators and mobile command centers to keep their restaurants open when bad storms struck.

And people noticed! The public, and government emergency agencies, started keeping an eye on WH operations. To make it all easy for all to understand, management set up a color-coded system - and made the status of all restaurants available online - through the “Waffle House Index.”

There are three color-coded levels on the index:

🟩 Green means a full menu is available, lights are on, and any damage in the area is limited.

🟨  Yellow indicates a limited menu, what power the restaurant has is from a generator, and food supplies are not optimum.

🟥 Red means the restaurant is closed, there being severe damage or unsafe conditions in the area.

Government agencies have come to regard this index as an accurate gauge of how things are in any county or municipality.

I tell you, there is nothing like American commerce and cuisine! 

I'll have a classic waffle, a slice of country ham, eggs over easy, and hominy* grits, please!

*at least three or four hundred

 

Look up!

For the first time in a long time, what everyone around our town was talking about watching last Thursday night was not The Voice or the Golden Bachelorette or even the news. 

It was The Northern Lights, which put on quite a show visible to everyone in town except on our court, where we are seemingly hemmed in by too-tall trees or something. Peggy went out to look for the NLs and saw nothing in the sky except for a passing police helicopter (which is usually the #1 cause of excitement around here.)

Facebook and Instagram filled up with northern lights pictures, so I looked into the matter of what they are. It took a while to get a response, because the search engines were full of people trying to find a way to work a sponsorship deal, projecting advertising for car dealers, bariatric weight loss, and same-day floor covering services into the sky.

So here is what I found: It's all because of a solar storm, and believe me, you won't want to be outside when chunks of the sun come raining down. The sun is not doing that (yet) but it is releasing solar flares and coronal mass ejections, and these are showing up much farther south than usual in an effort to reach that vital mid-Atlantic market.

Look back in your diary for this past May. We had another solar storm then, but no one paid much attention to it because spring was springing and it was so nice out. That May storm was much more intense than the one last week. 

When the sun gets busy (!), that causes these auroras.  Auroras dance around the earth's poles, causing Northern Lights (aurora borealis) in this hemisphere, and southern lights (aurora australis) which shine brightly in the southern hemisphere. This is not to be confused with Aurora, Colorado, which shines brightly in the shadow of Denver.

And what's with all these vivid colors? They occur because energized particles from coronal mass ejections (expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun's corona) come to Earth’s magnetic field and want to show off a little, so they come in contact with atmospheric gases and presto! Different colored lights in the sky!

 

What's today?

  

Indigenous Peoples' Day is a holiday celebrating and honoring Native American peoples by commemorating their histories and cultures. After all, they were here first! It's time to recognize and pay them respect; this is a holiday in Baltimore City and all across the nation this second Monday in October. It is an official city and state holiday in various localities.

Sunday rerun: What fore?

 I remember playing golf a few times with some friends back in my carefree teens. I usually did pretty well, although a couple of times, I couldn't get the doggone ball past the little windmill and through to the hole.

Kidding. I did play 18 holes of golf, and only fell asleep once or twice.  

I get a lot of looks for saying this, but I think golf is deadly boring. In fact, any smart detective who wants to pin some sort of crime spree on me needs only to lock me in a room with a TV and a broken remote that's stuck on the Golf Channel. I'll confess to whatever I'm falsely accused of, and also help clear up cases that have baffled the local gendarmes for decades, just to get out of watching Bubba and his pants smacking a little ball around while a rapt crowd stands, well, rapt, and silent.  Until the guy sinks a two-foot putt, and a wave of polite applause ripples through the crowd.

If you play baseball, a sweaty man 60' 6" away is going to throw a small white ball toward you at 90-some miles per hour. Football players have to tackle a man the approximate size of Delaware as he lumbers down the field toting a ball, and basketball players get thrown around like toothpicks battling for rebounds.

And all of that is happening while tens of thousands of people hoot and ululate and holler.  

Have you ever heard a ballplayer say, "I was going to catch that fly ball, but a rude fan in the left field bleachers said something derogatory about my parentage and I lost concentration, so upset was I"?

No, and you haven't heard of a football player asking that the crowd sit on their hands while he tries to make a 47-yard field goal.  "You pays your money and you speaks your mind" is the law of the ballpark.

But oh no! Golf, and tennis, another game requiring funny pants, require total stillness while play goes on. In fact, they probably ask that you be totally silent while you're driving to the match, just to get quiet enough.  I don't get this, and since I wouldn't pay to attend a game during which I could not boo or cheer or razz someone, I turned to the good old internet to find out why the ban on volubility exists at The Snootington Tennis Club or Morning Wood Country Club.

"Etiquette," said United States Golf Association historian Robert Williams in the Florida Times-Union. "Golf has been a gentleman's game from the very beginning and players treated each other with respect. During the early tournaments such as the British Open and U.S. Open, the spectators were almost 100 percent golfers themselves so they all practiced etiquette and the tradition has carried on ever since."

"You know, despite what happened, I-I'm still convinced you have many fine qualities and I... I think you can still become a gentleman some day if you understand and abide by the rules of decent society."  - - The words of Judge Smails to Danny Noonan in "Caddyshack."

Judge Smails to Al Czervik: "You're no gentleman!"
Al Czervik to Judge Smails (as he dances away): "I'm no doorknob, either!"  (op. cit.)

You know what?  I'm with Al!

"It looks good on you, though!"

The Saturday Picture Show, October 12, 2024

 

If I may translate..."Juan Carlos, you cheated on me. Now all of Rosario (a city in Argentina) is going to see your nudes." The women in Rosario do not mess around! Run for it, Juan. Pronto!

Is this intentional, or just a happy accident, that the Aldi cow is happy to offer you some tasty nut-sweet Swiss Cheese?

Sunrise in Maine, where the blueberries and the mosquitoes grow large and juicy every summer.

The next time you're down at the State Fair in a state other than Maryland, where the state inspectors are notably fastidious about making sure amusement rides don't wind up putting funseekers in emergency rooms, make sure the Crazy Mouse is not propped on 6 x 6's.

This Mandarin Duck is preening for you at home in Cornwall, England, and he wants you to know that the American singer and entertainer known as Bobby Darin was born Walden Robert Cassotto, but took his stage name from the name of a Chinese restaurant called the Mandarin House. Your Picture Show staff spans the globe to bring you timely information.

Storm prep for Milton involved boarding up windows and saluting Milton Waddams and his Red Swingline Stapler, both stars of "Office Space."

I haven't seen such unalloyed bliss on anyone's face since they came and told me that there would be a "Jackass Forever." Musk looks like he's in a bliss frenzy over there, and even the guy on the left looks less dyspeptic than usual. We simply must get to Butler, PA, and see what's in the water up there.

There are words that just sound...yuck. "Phlegm", "moist", "mucus", "ointment", "ooze", and "seepage" lead my list, and let's not forget "membrane." Still, I like pumpkin seeds.

This shot has become a popular one for directors of live sports broadcasts - hands on head, stunned expression. This Tennessee fan modeled it for me last Saturday as his team lost to Arkansas (the team with a hog on its helmets) and so I was ready to wear this look later that evening when Vanderbilt beat Alabama (no photo available).

I might as well come out and admit to being a Gilmorean. Mark Consuelos said he streamed all 153 episodes of Gilmore Girls last summer, and every day when I go downstairs and ride my exercycle, the darn thing takes me right to Stars Hollow, a magical land of enchantment. I'm about 1/2 way through now. I love the GGs and I am proud to tell you so!

Ars Gratia Artis

I see videos from a mythical place called Katz's Delicatessen where sandwich makers make great pastrami and corned beef sandwiches. Say what you will about these sandwiches - they are big, they are expensive, they are not diet-friendly...but you will admit, they are works of art, however temporary they are.

Art is funny like that. It's all in the eye of the beholder. If you like corned beef sandwiches, these sandwiches are at the top of the heap - and what a heap that would be!

Speaking of art...someone threw some art in the trash at a Dutch museum. The "art" in question here was a pair of abandoned beer cans. Or, more accurately, homemade fake beer cans.

"All The Good Times We Spent Together," a 1988 artwork by French artist Alexandre Lavet, sure does look like a couple of empty suds cans, but no!

 "However, a closer look reveals that these dented cans were meticulously hand-painted with acrylics, with each detail painstakingly replicated," the LAM museum in Lisse said in a news release.

So the museum displayed this art in their elevator shaft. And someone - the elevator technician - thought they were real empty cans, and threw them out.

"The theme of our collection is food and consumption," said Sietske van Zanten, the museum's director. "Our art encourages visitors to see everyday objects in a new light. By displaying artworks in unexpected places, we amplify this experience and keep visitors on their toes."

This, my friends, is art. OK?

Alert museum staffers saw the cans were missing, and rummaged through the nearest trash bin, finding the art just in time. Mr  Van Zanten said the tech on duty that day was filling in for the regular elevator tech, a man with a greater appreciation for the treasures displayed there.

"He was just doing his job in good faith," he said. "In a way, it's a testament to the effectiveness of Alexandre Lavet's art."

I would like to invite Mr Van Zanten to my house on any Sunday evening. That's the night I take the recycling bin out to the curb for Monday morning's pickup. He can root through my old beer cans, seltzer bottles, newspapers and junk mail, and who knows? He just might find himself a winner!