Do You Believe In Magic?

 Back in 2007 (seems like only yesterday!) a Boston Red Sox fan named Gino Castignoli thought he could put a hex curse voodoo hoodoo on the New York Yankees by (get this!) burying a #34 David (Big Papi) Red Sox jersey in the concrete foundation of the under-construction New New New Yankee Stadium in the fashionable South Bronx area of New York.

Any spell-caster will tell you, it's best not to babble about the spell you cast, but apparently Gino told everyone he knew, and the Yankees found out about it. So, on April 13, 2008, they had a guy with a jackhammer (they're easy to find in New York) chip his way through two feet of concrete to get the cursed shirt out.

And the Yankees did a beneficent thing. They donated the jersey to the Jimmy Fund, a well-known charity supporting the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  Auctioned off on eBay, the tattered shirt brought in $175,100 for a good cause. 

For the record, the Yankees won the World Series in 2009 and not once since, while the Sox won it all in 2013 and 2018. There is no sure way to determine whether the curse had anything to do with that.

 

Après moi, le déluge*

I don’t like reading negative stories about misbehavior by public servants, let alone writing about it, but here we are. There's a baseball team down in Montgomery County, the Silver Spring-Takoma Thunderbolts. They play in the Cal Ripken Sr. Collegiate Baseball League, a "wood bat" Washington-area summer league (no metal bats!) for college ballplayers hoping to turn pro.

Their field is right next to a fire house parking lot. Over the years, they've had problems with batted balls flying onto firehouse property, and have erected a screen to stop errant baseballs.

And then, on July 17, as the team was having batting practice before a scheduled game against the Metro SoCo Braves, a ball went over the fence and hit a firefighter's personal truck. There's no word about any damage to the truck, if any, but its owner was mad enough to pull a fire engine out onto the lot and direct its hose stream over the fence and onto the field. You understand, this is not like getting the garden hose out to sprinkle the dahlias. 

For eight minutes, this went on, and when the field became swamped, the game had to be canceled.

The team’s founder, Dick O’Connor, said, “It was like Niagara Falls coming down.” 

Max Eckert, an assistant coach for the Thunderbolts, went out to investigate, and asked the firefighter atop the engine what was happening. 

“You just hit my truck, so I am watering your field,” came the reply, per Eckert.

Later, O’Connor went to the firehouse and asked the guy why he did what he did, and, for his trouble, received this answer: 

“I wanted to get your attention,” is what O'Connor said he was told.

Of course, the game had to be cancelled.  Ankle-deep water is unsafe to play on, and you don't want a guy tearing up a knee or ankle.

The next day, the county Fire Department (which is also dealing with a fire engine ruined by being driven into floodwater the next week - in violation of the oft-repeated "turn around, don't drown" mantra, AND some sort of "inappropriate" social media post by another member of the FD) expressed its “sincere apologies to the players, teams, Cal Ripken League, and all fans and families impacted by this disruption. We understand how important this venue is to the community.”

The team also had to move their July 20 to another field - a disruption for peoples' plans, and the ticket and concession revenue.

And O'Connor says his is not the only team that uses the field; so do other teams in other leagues, including one for players aged 60+.

But a firefighter had to get all bent out of shape. O'Connor said that if he had approached the team in a civil fashion, a reimbursement for damages could have been worked out.

“Instead, he just aimed the water cannon at our field,” said O’Connor.

Fire and EMS personnel spend a lot of their time responding to accidents. One would think they could have chalked this up to misfortune, filed a claim, moved along like good neighbors.

But no.

*"After me, the flood." This is the quote attributed to King Louis XV of France, reflecting his indifference about the fate of his nation after his scandal-ridden reign.  

Got the picture?

You remember the movie "Stuart Little," the movie based on a novel by E. B. White?

The movie came out in 1999. Peggy and I enjoyed it, since we had read the book as tots.

Of course, I didn't recognize a lost art treasure in the set of the film. I might have, had they used Wide-Eyed kid paintings, or paintings where dogs are playing poker.

But, ten years after the movie came out, Gergely Barki, a researcher at Hungary’s national gallery in Budapest, was watching it on TV with his daughter and he spotted "Sleeping Lady with Black Vase" by Róbert Berény!

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Bereny’s long-lost masterpiece on the wall behind Hugh Laurie. I nearly dropped Lola from my lap,” said Barki. “A researcher can never take his eyes off the job, even when watching Christmas movies at home.”

Turns out, the film's set designer bought the picture at an antique store for $500.

When it got back to its rightful owners, it was sold at auction for €229,500, which is $269,000 in US semoleons.

Next movie I watch, I will be on the lookout for lost art treasures. I wouldn't know one if it were hanging on my wall, but I will keep an eye out.

An order of boneless wings in the court!

It started when a court ruled that a "foot-long" Subway sub need not measure 12".

Now, the Ohio Supreme Court has reaffirmed its ruling that said "boneless" chicken wings can have bones.

They ruled earlier that since bones are a natural part of a chicken, chicken eaters (and there are a lot of us!) need to be on guard when munchin' on a bucket o' wings - even a bucket purportedly containing boneless wings.

It all started when one Michael Berkheimer got a bone stuck in his throat while gnawing on a “boneless wing.” Berkheimer tried to sue the restaurant, but this insane ruling prevented him from putting in the papers and having a jury trial..

Berkheimer went back to the court to ask them to reconsider, but the same Republican majority voted him down, 4-3. Justice Patrick Fischer wrote for the majority that Berkheimer’s “straightforward” motion did not identify new points to be addressed. Fischer said he would vote to deny any motion for reconsideration that “merely reargues a case” because if there's one thing judges and lawyers hate to do, it's to fight the same fights over and over and over and over and over again.

This all goes back to 2016, when Berkheimer went to an eatery called Wings on Brookwood and ordered boneless wings. He cut up the wings he was served, and while swallowing one of the morsels, he felt like something went down the wrong pipe.

This was no small deal. He soon ran a fever and was unable to keep food down. Emergency room doctors found a five-centimeter chicken bone lodged in his esophagus. After multiple surgeries, weeks in the hospital and the prolonged use of an oxygen tank, Berkheimer was left with lasting heart and lung damage and a partially paralyzed diaphragm, according to court filings. 

He was weeks in the hospital and needed several surgeries, wound up on oxygen. Now he has lasting heart and lung damage and a partially paralyzed diaphragm, according to his suit.

He sued the restaurant owners and the chicken suppliers and processors. A lower court ruled that consumers should expect bone fragments in chicken dishes, and the 12th District Court of Appeals agreed, even though the meat was supposed to be boneless.

If it please the court, and even if it doesn't, I'm going to anger my friends in the legal community and say that I think everyday normal working-class citizens should get to sit in courtrooms and holler, "You must be out of your mind!" when a verdict this stupid is handed down. This would serve the same purpose as a red challenge flag in a football game, i.e. prompting a booth review of a poorly-called play. I'm free most afternoons if the local bar association is ready to seat me.

Sunday Rerun: I Stashed The Bill In My Shirt

 She was never gonna be an actress and he was never going to learn to fly, since her father had an airline and didn't want him hanging around his pride and joy.

He never drove a cab, but he came very close, close enough to turn a broken heart into a hit record, and what better way to mend a broken heart than to write a song called "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"

But we're not talking about the Bee Gees.  We're talking about that looooooooong song "Taxi" by Harry Chapin, the one about the guy who is pushing a cab around town and picks up his ex, a rich girl who lives at "16 Parkside Lane."  You can tell she lives in Swankytown, just from that address.  Otherwise, Harry would have written that she lives at 16 Woetown Avenue.

In the song, the couple recognize each other and ruminate on what might have been. But they're star-crossed lovers, see, and it's just not going to work out.  Click on the song and listen, if you don't remember it or never heard it or want to hear it again since the last time you heard it was on WLPL in 1972, sandwiched between The DeFranco Family and The Chi-Lites.

The lady's name in real life was Clare Alden MacIntyre-Ross, out of Scarsdale, N.Y.  She died March 9 of complications from a stroke at age 73, having spent her final years in Falls Church, Va.

Harry Chapin was a folkie singer/songwriter from Brooklyn.  The two met as summer camp counselors in the 60s.  Her dad was Malcolm MacIntyre, a big shot lawyer who ran Eastern Airlines from 1959 to 1963.  Much to her father's dismay, Miss Clare, daughter of privilege, took up with a wrinkled, denim-clad troubadour.

And you know how those things go.

During one of their breakups, Harry's musical fortunes were taking a dip in Lake Unemployed, and so he got a hack license in New York and was to start driving on a certain Monday.  The weekend before, he fretted over whether Clare would be outside some tony bistro and hail a cab he was driving.

But, as life works out, over that weekend he picked up two music jobs and never sat behind the wheel of a cab for real.  But he still wrote the song, based on his feelings about seeing Clare, or "Susan," as he called her in the song.

Harry Chapin's career in the spotlight began when "Taxi" hit the charts in 1972 and came to an end in 1981 when he was killed in a highway wreck on the Long Island Expressway.

Clare

Life took Clare to Argentina with her first husband.  By the late 70s she was a securities sales executive at Drexel Burnham Lambert, becoming one of the first women in such a position. She married a Washington lawyer, David Ross, and was forced into early retirement by rheumatoid arthritis and other ailments.  

Harry

Friends said that Harry never got over his first love, nor did he ever write a better song than "Taxi."  He did have a bigger hit in 1974 when "Cat's In The Cradle" went to #1, but that will have to be a story for another day, because my cab is here

The Saturday Picture Show, July 26, 2025

 

We took a floral turn this week, and we kick it off with a look at a bee gathering pollen. He didn't say where he was going with it.

Here we are, approaching August, and by the end of the month, we'll be flocking to farm fields hither and yon and looking at Sunflowers. 

A very detailed look at Coreopsis. That's something we all need.

How much you wanna bet, after they cinched the ropes to hold these two Levitz sofas to the roof of the Ford, someone said, "They ain't goin' nowhere!"

People in a certain small town have made it their goal to cut into the county coffers and reduce how much is raked in on expired meter tickets.

Watching Billy Mays do his informercials for cleaning products was always a sure sign that the remote was broken. Still, someone honors his memory, and keeps his gravestone highly polished!

I've seen gates without fences in yards, but I guess the owners figured the dog wouldn't get past the barriers. But this, at a rail crossing? Not gonna keep 'em out!

Imagine being around this fire lookout station in 1956! That's what Jack Kerouac spent the summer on Desolation Peak in the North Cascades of Washington, looking out for fires and for literary inspiration.

¡Quelle surprise! They have Old Bay in Canada, with bilingual instructions for seasoning your Crevettes!

You'll think I'm joking, but this is a real prototype of a spacesuit NASA tried out long ago. I don't think the number was like a uniform # - it was just to tell one model from another. I do like the 360° view in the helmet, though.

Scratch me back

OK, for my Maryland readers- here's a chance to make a new friend and maybe share her luck.

I just can't tell you who she is, only that she lives in Frederick.

Maybe her real name is Lucille and they call her "Lucky," because a few years ago she won $100,000 in the lottery, and she just scored another $50,000 - and she wants it to be a secret this time. 

She had gone to the Washingtonian Express convenience store in Frederick and purchased three $50,000 tickets.  But she only meant to buy two.

"This whole thing was an accident. I wanted to buy two $50,000 CASH tickets but hit the quantity button an extra time by accident," she recalled.

It's like at the WaWa when you're ordering a hoagie and accidentally hit the "extra meat" and "extra cheese" buttons, and you're too shy to ask the kid behind the counter for help. Yeah, that's my story.

Well, you know doggone well, that third ticket turned out to be a $50,000 winner, just half as much as when she hit for $100,000 on a bingo-themed scratcher.

"That this could happen to me again, it's just mind-boggling," she said. "The store was crowded so I fought back the urge to shout it out, to tell everyone what had just happened."

It's good that she fought that urge, because another urge was telling her to button her lip. She is staying quiet, so if you can find her and get her to split the swag, please let me know! We'll get some beer and pizza and a couple of dozen scratchers.

 

Taken and shaken

 News from up Philadelphia way:

Last week a woman from the town known as King of Prussia was rooked out of $6,000+ in a recurring scam. The woman wanted to share her story to warn others.

Yes, it's a real town.

Last week, she got a call from a number that SEEMED to be from the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. As we all know by now, phone scammers are at a level of sophistication that would allow them to SEEM to be calling from Melania Trump's closet, if they had a mind to do so.

But, the woman thought she was doing the right thing, and called the official-seeming number back, only to be told that she had "missed federal jury duty and there was an outstanding warrant" for her arrest.

Crimefighters' note: Your county sheriff is not concerned with federal jury duty.

But these scammers told the woman not to hang up until she paid a fine of $15,000.

She stayed on the line for almost three hours, and was told to withdraw money from her bank and wire it through a machine at a nearby gas station.

Does any of this sound legitimate to you? Of course not, but this lady told the news that the people used authoritative, commanding language, and she felt scared, traumatized, and angry. She could have added "bamboozled," but no. 

They made her feel like this was a big issue and she could have gone to jail, so she started shelling out. 

"I stopped myself 6 times in the whole process thinking this is totally a scam. And every single time I got to that point they became more authoritative," she added,  "Threatening to the point you will be in trouble you will be arrested."

They got her for $6,340 before she figured out she was on the hook, and she called her local police. The people were using the sheriff's name and real badge numbers, so she fell for it, although this information is readily available to all.

Don't know if she will get her money back, or if the people will be caught, but remember, be skeptical about suspicious calls like this, especially from people demanding immediate payment. And for the love of Pete, do not give your banking information to anyone like this.

Hang up, call the police, turn around, don't drown.

Oh wait. That's for flooding.

Just be wise!

Maybe it's the mangoes

An amazing fact about Fauja Singh was that he didn't start running until he was 89. And he showed up for his first training session in a three-piece suit.

His teacher had to tell him that, dressed like that, he would have police asking him what he was running from.

Fauja was a Sikh farmer from Punjab, an Indian state, and he moved to London to be with one of his sons. Seeing him lose his daughter, wife, and a younger son in the previous years, his family worried that he would sink into depression.

And so, he ran, completing nine full marathons and several shorter ones, literally running in cities all over the world, usually in his bright yellow turban. A lifetime of farm labor had made him strong enough to defeat younger people handily. 

And this was at the age of 100, remember.

He retired from running and moved back to his three-story farmhouse in Beas Pind village, Punjab, surrounded by family, medals, and souvenirs. 

Then, on July 14, just a couple of weeks ago, Mr Fauja was out checking on his rice fields when he was hit by an SUV. His death came at age 114, and how ironic that it was not jogging that proved fatal.

Some 150,000 people die annually on India's roads, and the number keeps rising. The police soon arrested a young man from a neighboring village for the hit-and-run. 

That young man's aunt had a curious reaction to her nephew's arrest: "The media picked up the issue because he [Fauja] was a celebrity. Otherwise, accidents happen all the time."

How kind of her, sort of blaming everyone else. 

Mr Singh took no medicine, ate three meals daily, and ate a lot of the mangoes he grew. He was old and bent over but got around without a cane of any sort, and if not for the actions of a foolish driver, he might still be with us.

Because, you never know. Enjoy everything as often as you can! And drive carefully.

 

Rock me baby

Yesterday, we talked about the moon, and today, let's talk about Mars, and then, I promise never to take up space again.

You know what I mean.

One day, while you and I were down here on Earth learning to dance Gangnam style, a large rock broke off Mars’s surface, when an asteroid hit that distant planet. A 54-pound chunk came flying through space and landed 140 million miles away, here on good old Earth. It landed on a desert in northwest Africa, narrowly missing Mar-A-Lago.

Somebody put that old rock in their truck, got it to a New York City auction house, and walked away with almost $5.3 million.

It looks like a beef roast done up in the Popeil oven! Just set it and forget it!

 

This is the largest piece of Mars on Earth and the most expensive meteorite ever.

“You get close to it, you can feel like you’re looking at the planet,” Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman for science and natural history at Sotheby’s auctions, told The Washington Post. “There’s a lot of texture and ripples and ridges and such.”

Those ripples and ridges were all tested, you can be sure, to make certain this wasn't some rock from the state park being passed off as Mars. 

And the auction house will not reveal the name of the buyer, because he or she does not want everyone showing up at their house asking to see the paperweight they just bought.

Catching a Buzz on the moon

It happens every year around this time, July 20 being the anniversary of the moon landing in 1969...deniers get up off their sofas and onto their flimsy soapboxes to claim that man never set foot on the moon.

This nonsense started while the original moon landers were on their way back from the moon. I guess it they hadn't stopped off at a Stuckey's on the way for gas and a pecan log, it wouldn't have taken such effect among the unenlightened, who always fall for falsehoods.

Or, maybe it was when Fox News, always a paragon of undisputable truth, had a "special" in 2001 to explain the side of the non-believers, without a shred of evidence from the science community. Nice facts, Fox.

I was just one of the 530 million people watching the whole thing on TV with Walter Cronkite describing the action as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took a lunar stroll. I remember coverage later as Armstrong and Aldrin, along with third crew member Michael Collins returned to Earth and "landed" in the Pacific Ocean.

Would it not be ok to say they "watered" in the Ocean?

And then, here come the "it's a fake" claims, long the refuge of people who don't or can't or won't accept science as fact. They said we staged a simulated landing because we were in a space race with the Soviet Union and we just had to get to that big green cheese before those dirty Commies.

Yes, it happened, despite what your uncle said.

Here's a fact: 400,000 people worked on the Apollo program. We can show you pay stubs and everything.

Now, do you really believe that you could get 400,000 Americans to keep their lips zipped and tell the same lie for all these years? 

"Yeah, well, the flag is flapping and there is no wind on the moon," cry the skeptics.

No, there isn't. They took a special flag that was unfurled like that and propped with a metal rod to stay in waving position. If that wasn't done, the flag would have hung as lifeless as the Orioles' chances of winning the pennant this year. 

"Can't see no stars! Must be fake!"

Of course there were stars that night, tonight, and for all of your many tomorrows. They didn't register on the film because the astronauts used daylight exposures, the lunar surface was brightly lit by the sun, and the astronauts' space suits were white and reflective. Stars are dimmer and did not register on the film, just like when these deniers went to their cousin's wedding and no one remembers seeing them. They were there, just not bright enough to be seen. 

"Stanley Kubrick filmed it."  Yes, for a movie. Deniers often confuse their lives for movies, and see themselves as celluloid heroes when in fact they are more likely paranoid zeroes.

And don't get the idea that Buzz Aldrin being 95 years of age now will stop him from punching you if you get in his face about all this foolishness.  

 

 

Sunday Rerun from 2020: The Most Baltimore Thing

 The Most Baltimore Thing In The World is not the unrest and contumacious behavior we see in the streets and on the news sometimes.

The Most Baltimore Thing In The World showed up the other day when a gas explosion blew up three houses on Labyrinth Avenue in the city's northwest corridor.

It happened just before 10 in the morning, and the news stations had live coverage all day and into the night.  By the time the noon news came on, they were showing people showing up with needed supplies.  It was fortunate, at least, that the scene of the explosion was a few steps away from the Reisterstown Road Plaza, which afforded the helpers plenty of room to set up.

Meanwhile, at the scene, people living nearby had run out of their homes - often without socks or shoes - to start the rescue effort. Seven people were injured, and two lost their lives. Families and friends came together as people emerged from the detritus, with their possessions scattered to the four winds, but, with those exceptions above, their bodies and souls still among the quick.

Baltimore City police were there along with the Fire Departments from the city and Baltimore and Howard Counties. The Jewish community group known as the Chesed Fund was passing out water to neighbors and the many fire, police, utilities and other agencies on site.  The temperature was 90°, with oppressive humidity, so water was a must.  And because of the uncertainty of the source of the gas leak, power had to be shut off in the neighborhood for safety, leaving more people in need of a cool drink and shade.

One of the people rescued was barefoot, according to the article in the Baltimore SUN. Na-Shaé Carter, 20, went to her house and came back with a pair of her mother's pink socks for the lady.

“I got 10,000 socks,” said her mother. “One pair ain’t gonna hurt. To give it to somebody in their time of need, I don’t even care. I was out here giving out water. … I wasn’t worried about me. I was worried about my neighbors.”

Meanwhile, the American Red Cross was on the job to find temporary housing for those left without a home, and they were supplying water and food on the lot near the Applebee’s. 

But here is the most Baltimore thing on an awful Baltimore day: a man was on the news, no bigshot he, just a working class salt of the earth guy. He said, "I had $500. I took $300 and bought 30 pizzas at Papa John's, and $200 worth of water at Giant's*."

And he delivered all that to people he didn't know, just people he wanted to help. That's Baltimore.
___________________________________________________________
*Something else that's pure Baltimore - we make the names of all grocery stores and hardware outlets possesive. I can meet you at Safeway's or Home Depot's if you want to hear more.

The Saturday Picture Show, July 19, 2025

 

I just today read that the giant Ferris Wheel on the amusement pier at Ocean City, MD, is being dismantled for re-assembly at some state fair. I did not know this, but I am reliably told that even amusement rides travel out of town for work.  Anyway. they say the big wheel will be back and they will have a guy check all the bolts and nuts before they let you on it.

Ask your friend the personal injury attorney why table fans don't look like this anymore. Given people's propensity for sticking their fingers in things, it's a wonder fans ever did.

When the USS Missouri visited Pearl Harbor after World War II, that was the time that the place our involvement began in that war came face to face with where it ended. The armistice ending the war was signed on this deck on September 2, 1945 - not four years after the Japanese bombed Pearl.

How nice it would be to visit this old stone house and barn in Scotland!

At first glance, it looks as if the only thing on our bed is the spread and the blanket. But the discerning eye knows Eddie The Cat has secreted herself under her favorite blanket (formerly my favorite blanket.) Don't be fooled by the innocent-looking lump.

All right. Don't park there or they will toe, and then you'll have to foot the bill!

The complainant says his NO SOLICITING sign was defaced. He suspects solicitors.

Some of our greatest philosophers are to be found working in the mug and t-shirt industry. No two ways about that!

This was the mural on the wall of a Chinese restaurant. When a man bought the building and turned it into a Mexican eatery, he didn't have the money to replace the mural, so he added sombreros to the pandas...and no one complained!

Today's free wallpaper for you is so bleak and dreary, you should have a friend with you if you want to copy it.

A choice

A hot, humid day in Georgia. Six prison inmates doing yard maintenance at a cemetery, and the lone deputy guarding them passes out from the heat.

In this situation in the movies, of course, the prisoners swiftly relieve the guard of his keys, guns, and pants, taking off for the state line, leaving him bound and gagged until someone finds him hours later, sputtering, "What in tarnation...?

But that's not what happened in Polk County GA that day last month. Sheriff Johnny Moats was surprised, all right, when the prisoners used the deputy's cell phone to call 911 for help. By the time an ambulance arrived (and plenty of police, you can be sure) the men had taken off the stricken deputy's bulletproof vest to make it easier for the medic crew to treat him, and to cool the man off. 

The inmates performing work detail.

"When that happened, in my opinion, it wasn't about who is in jail and who wasn't," Greg Williams, one of the inmates, told WXIA TV. "It was about a man going down, and we had to help him."

It turns out that the deputy had complications from brain surgery years ago, and that made him more susceptible to heat stroke. But he is fully recovered now, and the Polk County Sheriff's Office is showing their gratitude to the work gang that did the right thing,

There was a pizza picnic in the park where it all took place, with homemade desserts from the family of the deputy who got help when he needed it.  

And even more important, Sheriff Moats is putting in for reduced sentences for the six, all nonviolent offenders.  And some may even be going home soon, with penalties reduced for time served.

Many times, as we weave our way through life, we come upon crossroads where decisions we make will have lasting impact.  All six of these men made decisions earlier that led them to being sentenced to prison, and on a hot muggy day in June, they all made a better choice.

Let's hope they choose a different road for good now.

 

 

 

A special day

You know what I think this old world needs? It needs a big ol' helping of firgun.

Uh, what, now? Firgun is a modern Hebrew term for experiencing true happiness for someone else's positive experiences or achievements. 

Don't get it confused with Fahrvergnügen, the term used in Volkswagen ads in the 1990s to express the joy of driving a VW. 

Think of it as the opposite of “Schadenfreude” – pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.  That's when you see your lifelong enemy slip on the ice and land on his asterisk* as he was getting in line to buy a lotto ticket.

Super Schadenfreude is when you find out that the guy who got ahead of your nemesis as he picked himself up got the ticket that was supposed to go to your scourge, so he won and your bum got the square root of sweet nada.

Today is National Firgun Day. I found this out by checking the day's events. I like to do that so that I don't miss National Hot Fudge Sundae Day. That's coming up on Friday the 25th of this month. Another favorite is the birthday celebration of Dennis Day, the great Irish tenor from the old Jack Benny Show. Dennis was born on May 21, which we mark annually as Dennis Day Day.

Being happy about Dennis's life and happy career and big family is an example of Firgun. We have firgun when we are happy for someone else, without looking for a personal gain from it, and without resentment or jealousy.

According to Wikipedia, "Firgun is a deeply ingrained concept in Israeli culture, often described as a generosity of spirit. 

July 17 is celebrated as International Firgun Day, encouraging people to spread positivity by offering compliments and expressions of genuine pride in others.

I also learned that the word traces its lineage back to the Yiddish word "farginen," which came into use in the 1970s. There seems to be no exact English translation, but they use the word in Israel all the time.

With one exception, I celebrate the achievements and progress of all Americans, and for this very special Firgun Day, I hope you will join me. 

 

Uno Dos Tres

I can't learn card games. It's that simple. While others are breaking out the 52s to play poker and whist and 500 Rummy and Bridge and I don't know what-all else, I sit and wonder why I can't. It's not that I haven't tried to learn, but my mind wanders all over the rules and I start thinking about everything else.

Except for Crazy Eights! I love Crazy Eights! That and pinochle were always going on at the fire house, and I figured I should learn one of them to avoid being the station pariah, and Eights is easier. Been playing it for years. One night during a really bad November storm, Peggy and I played for a couple of hours by candlelight and listened to Casey Kasem's American Top 40 on a transistor radio.

Ah, the memories.

And then came the day that people started touting a whole new game called Uno. After about ten seconds of hearing about the Wonders Of Uno, I realized it was just Crazy Eights with a nice new suit of clothes. I played a time or two, but I prefer the real thing, just like when they came out with New Coke.

BUT! If you are an Uno wizard, it might pay off in Las Vegas! You can actually win big bucks with your mastery of the game over at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. They are putting up a luxury suite based on the game as they launch UNO Social Clubs all across the US of A.

Palms Casino says the plan is to start a nationwide campaign that turns "casual game nights into full-blown entertainment events." They're going to have "vibrant card-game-inspired decor with gaming tables, private dealers, various UNO games and expansions, and multiple other amenities," according to the casino.

“We created UNO Social Clubs to reimagine what game night can be — bringing people together for real-world fun, connection, and a bit of friendly competition,” said Ray Adler, vice president and global head of games at Mattel, according to Business Wire. “The UNO Social Club in Las Vegas is just the beginning, and we’re excited to see how these new experiences inspire players to show up, play hard and make unforgettable memories.”

Cool, Ray.  You're in Las Vegas doing all this glitz and here I am in Baltimore, wondering what it's like when someone asks what you do for a living and you get to say, "Why, I am vice president and global head of games at Mattel. Nice to meet you!"

Can they not think of better names?

I was slowly making my way across a parking lot the other day. I wanted to be stepping faster, for fear that my shoes would sink into melting asphalt and render me immobile in this heat, but I stopped to puzzle at the name of a car I saw parked.

A "Kia Niro." And when I got home, I looked it up and found that Korean car manufacturer Kia also has a car for sale called the "Seltos."

An authentic Niro. Oh, the excitement.

Now, my Korean might be a little rusty, but what is a Seltos?  "Niro" makes me think of Laura Nyro, the great songwriter who gave us "Blowing Away", "Wedding Bell Blues", "Stoned Soul Picnic", "Sweet Blindness", "Save the Country", "And When I Die", "Eli's Comin'", and "Stoney End".

But Nyro was not Laura Nigro's real name, so no.

Volkswagen will sell you a Touareg or a Tiguan.

Renault used to sell a LeCar, but it sucé (sucked, to you and me.)

How about a nice AMC Gremlin or a Dodge Demon to make you not sleep so well? A Chevrolet Citation? That's a parking ticket with wheels! A Ford Probe? They could have called it the DRE - that's the popular Digital Rectal Exam, fellas.

And if you want a real dog of a car, try a Kia K9!

Gone are the days when cars had cool names - Impala! Thunderbird! Mustang! Monte Carlo! 

I was going to wait for the driver of the Niro to come out so I could interrogate him or her, but I had to get in the Rav 4 and get my groceries home.

Bastille Day

Today is Bastille Day in France, their big national holiday, saluting this day in 1789 when a crowd stormed the Bastille in Paris.

Today, historians are drawing a connection between that day and January 6, 2021, when an angry crowd, unwilling to accept the results of the previous fall's presidential election, stormed the U.S. Capitol, the plan being to scare Congress out of certifying that vote and awarding the presidency to the loser of that plebiscite.

The French, way back then, did what no other people had done in our modern history. They overturned a malign monarchy and helped create a democratic government with a constitution.

  

For years and years, France was led by a hereditary monarchy, with the credo being that common people should just zip it and let the king run things.

You will remember from 7th grade that the American Revolution over here led to the creation of that form of government as well.

So let's keep it that way! 

Sunday Rerun: In the frozen isle

 Many people will say, "Oh I could live there!" when talking about some remote outpost on a barren desert or an ice floe somewhere cold. 

And maybe they could, but would they be happy enough to stay? The reason I say, here's a job opportunity for that person you know who says they are tired of the heat and the crowds around here.

It's a position at a post office in Antarctica. Duties include sorting mail, selling stamps, "and other duties as assigned," as job spec sheets always says (that's a sneaky way to avoid telling you that you have to empty the trashcans). Oh! Almost forgot. One of those other duties is counting penguins.

This is the post office at Port Lockroy, which is a popular tourist spot off the west side of Antarctica. Goudier Island, they call it, and 18,000 tourists throng the place every tourist season, which is about how many people are in any pool in Cancún, México at any time, but they lack penguins in México.

Port Lockroy is a British Antarctic territory.  "Base A", where the post office is, was set up in 1944 as a research station. I don't know if they still do much research down there, but they do have the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust running a museum and gift shop. The money they make from the gift shop goes toward renovations of other historic sites in Antarctica.

Now, about that penguin counting...the people at the UKAHT are studying how much impact tourists have on the penguin population, so someone has to get out there and count the number of penguins — and penguin chicks — on the island. With the results of the impact study in hand, officials can determine just how many visitors to allow on the island while striving to "to ensure the environment is properly cared for," according to the territory's website.

Sound good? Well, here's the scoop. Pack your woolies, because it gets down to minus 23° F there, not to mention the wind chill. So we won't.

All the staffers share one bedroom with no flushing toilet, just a camp toilet that, one supposes, the new guy or girl has to empty daily.

Running water? There is none. Sometimes a visiting ship will allow staffers to climb aboard for a shower, but you might wait two weeks between showers.

There are no cell phones or internet access, so there is very little communication with home. Some might see this as a bonus; I don't know.

And don't get sick; it might take up to a week to get you to a hospital.

 "Antarctica is a physically and mentally challenging place to work," advises the information available to job seekers. 

I think I'd rather be the towel boy in Cancún.

The Saturday Picture Show, July 12, 2025

 

It's either an ocean sunrise over an Atlantic Beach such as Ocean City, Maryland, or an ocean sunset, as on the West Coast. Either way, it will be back tomorrow!

Someone posted this picture of a movie theater pretzel. All I can think of is, the word pretzel comes from the Latin "pretiola," meaning a little reward. Way, way back, priests would bake breadsticks in the shape of praying hands for the kids in the church who had learned their prayers as assigned, dividing the little snack into three parts for the Holy Trinity. If I sat and tried to eat this dough monster, I would be praying not to die of terminal indigestion before the movie ended.

This is a place to let your wetsuit dry, and there's a contradiction I ever I heard one!

This Kansas couple is about to embark on a whirlwind engagement. I hope her name is Dorothy.

Pose your tea kettle near your snow-capped Alps for an interesting view!

Law enforcement has changed over the years. Gone are the days when the cop would clop you over the head for littering, and holler, "Go pick it up, ya bum, ya!" at the guilty.  But now, they make you take a multiple choice test and try to lay on the guilt.

W. L. Bacon will fix your plumbing, warm your home, and fix you a nice breakfast.

Tonight on "See? There Was A Time When We Could Stand Elon Musk," we fondly remember his appearance in the kitchen in their Thanksgiving episode (season 9, episode 9).

We decided long ago, we want no part of the metric system in the US, so don't go sneaking in the distance to Knoxville on a really poorly-lettered highway sign.

It's Christmas in July, so you better scoot on over to Costco and get your Christmas ribbons. Before you know it, it'll be Labor Day! 

You're like out!

If you read the 1956 novel "The Last Angry Man, " by Gerald Green, you may recall a passage in which Woody Thrasher, the main character, tells a young man about how he, Woody, came from South Dakota to the big city and tried to fit in...but his cover was blown by a tailor.

In an effort to blend in with the Right People, Woody went to the tailor favorited by the upper crust, got a couple of suits, and thought he had the right clothes - until a co-worker saw his suit jacket and told him he was a "wide-stitch phony."

The co-worker was kind enough to let Woody in on a secret - if the purchaser of a suit was in with the right crowd, the tailor sewed the label onto his inner breast pocket with a nice tight stitch...but for auslanders like Thrasher, they used a wide, loose stitch, to tell one and all of his diminished status.

I thought about old Woody when I read this story about Livvy Dunne. I wouldn't know Livvy from Thin Lizzy, were she not the girlfriend of Pirate pitcher Paul Skenes. She is apparently a big deal among followers of college gymnastics (she competed for Louisiana State) and is now busy being an "influencer," meaning that people look at her posts and videos and decide that what she wears, says, eats, drives, thinks, smells like, and I don't know what-all else is the cool way to go.

It turns out, Livvy is not the last word in who says what. She tried to buy Babe Ruth's old apartment in New York, offering $1.6 million in American money, and the co-op board, the people who decide who gets to live in these high-time NY apartments, said nuh-uh.

Dunne said she was all set to close on 345 W. 88th St., Apartment 7B, when she found out she wasn't set after all.

So she told her 8 million TikTok devotees, "Guys, I'm so upset. So a few months ago, I decided I was going to make my first real estate purchase, which is so exciting. And I was going to get an apartment in New York City. But the gag was, it was Babe Ruth's apartment."

She and Skenes were so excited to buy the place, she even hired an interior decorator so she wouldn't have to use her old college furniture because, "That would be, like, criminal."

"Then the week that I'm supposed to get my keys to my brand new apartment, I get a call: The co-op board denied me, " she said. "So pretty much the people in the building voted to not have me live there, which is fine. Like, honestly, it wasn't financial. "

But she was philosophical about the rejection, probably the first of her life: "It could have been, for all I know, they could have been Alabama fans and I went to LSU. Like, I have no clue. Maybe they didn't want a public figure living there."

It's a long way from Louisiana to Manhattan. But I'm sure she'll find a nice apartment somewhere, maybe near Central Perk?