You deny Dino Flintstone?

Is it the heat in Arizona that makes people do goofy things? The latest is, some people are trying to make a McDonald's get rid of a fiberglass dinosaur statue because.....you won't believe why.

Well, there is a group called Christians Against Dinosaurs. 'Twas they who denounced a fun statue of T.Rex. On their Facebook page they rallied their followers to bunch up and do something about getting rid of that statue because

a) dinosaurs were known to be racist

b) dinosaurs often drove drunk past kindergartens while tossing fireworks out of their car window and firing revolvers

c) dinosaurs never picked up a dinner check after a night out with friends, claiming that their short little arms couldn't reach any further

d) 23,000 people think they never existed.

At least, that's how many people have "liked" the Facebook page Christians Against Dinosaurs, which states that its purpose is to let us all see the "truth" about the "dinosaur lie." They say that dinosaurs never roamed the earth, but were a scam that scientists cooked up in order to "thwart religion."

[Take ten seconds right now and say the word "thwart" three times slowly. Like the word "ointment," it gets sillier every time you say it.]

Their cry for help was printed in the Arizona Daily Star. "Please help! This McDonald's has this dinosaur and refuse (sic) to remove it! This is in Tucson, Arizona. Call the manager and demand the removal of this blasphemy!"

And then they give the name of the local franchisee so their nuts  adherents could hassle whoever answered the phone there.

Meanwhile, this T. Rex has been hanging around the McD's on Grant Road and Tanque Verde Road since 1994, bothering no one, amusing millions.

Some people think these people are just kidding, but then again, some think that of the Flat Earth believers, and where did that get us? The guy who spoke to the Daily Star said this ain't no joke, no sir:

"Yes, the dinosaur should go unless they're willing to compromise with a plaque of some kind stating that it's a fictional character," Josh Brown told the outlet.

Not this T Rex!

The Patch news site contacted CAD and were told that it's not a joke to deny T. Rex. "We're fed up with everybody acting like the people of Tucson are imbeciles and we want to help," a spokesperson for the dino-deniers told the Patch. "Having a big dinosaur outside a cultural hub like McDonald's makes Tucsonians look like they're mentally deficient and that isn't right."

The group also told Patch that they are not science deniers; they merely deny the science of dinosaurs.

The group also took issue with claims that its page is satirical, saying that they are not science-deniers. They just don't believe in dinosaurs. "We simply recognize that dinosaurs are not supported by anything scientific," the group wrote. "They're a parlor game that got out of hand."

No. Uno is a parlor game that got out of hand. Paleontology is for real.

It is funny, though, that the members of this group keep driving past McD's to fret about the T. Rex, forgetting that without the real T. Rex and other dinosaurs, there would be no oil to power their Buicks.

It's a gamble

I've been telling you for years and years, persistence pays off!  

And once again, someone who is not you nor I took at that advice to the $50,000 payoff window.

If you've been around here for a while, you remember when the Maryland Lottery used the slogan "You Gotta Play To Win." Meaning, you have to take some money out of your wallet to ever have the chance to win some to stuff back into it.

Someone took that advice, and right now, his Buxton is bulging with the loot that you and/or I could have had, but WE didn't play, so WE didn't win.

The man is unidentified, but he lives down in Churchton, Anne Arundel County, and for many years he has used the same batch of numbers to play the Bonus Match 5 game, and now he has won a $50,000 jackpot.

In the past, he has won smaller prizes, as much as $840 one time, but this is the big enchilada.

He buys his lotteries from a store that is likely the most Maryland thing you ever heard of  -  Parks Drive-in Liquors in Deale.

The lucky winner told the lottery commission, "I looked at it, saw a few matching numbers and figured I had won $15. When I saw the rest of the numbers, I knew it had happened."

His plans include paying off his wife's car, buying himself a better fishing boat and a nice truck to haul it around.

There's a nice Mexican restaurant near us - El Trovador - that sells steak, chicken, or cheese enchiladas for $12.50 a plate. For those of you homeschooling, how many $12.50 enchiladas can one buy for $50,000?

Sunday Rerun: Meet the Measles

On February 9th, 1964, I was among the 4 billion, give or take, who watched The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and felt the earth shifting. Bobby Vinton, Ricky Nelson, Andy Williams, and yes, Elvis Presley were going to have to step aside for at least a while.

I was 12, about to turn 13 that summer, and a world that had seemed so bleak just months before, with the assassination of John F Kennedy, was about to start seeming hopeful again. It's been said a thousand ways better than I can, but The Beatles were just what we needed at that time. It's difficult to explain to those not yet alive just how it felt when John, Ringo, George and Paul threw the switch to light up our lives again.

Two weeks and a day later, I put a smile on, along with a button-down Oxford shirt, khakis, and Jack Purcells and prepared to leave for another day of 7th grade, only to be met by mother at the door. She wanted to know what I had done to my face in the time between finishing my sausage and hominy breakfast and brushing many of the same teeth I still use to eat sausage and hominy.

There were red spots all over my face that had just popped up. The golden ticket - the measles! I ran to change back into pjs and begin getting sick. These things must be handled just ever so. I probably had more hominy for lunch and maybe some rhubarb. The measles were gone in a few days.

Then, two weeks later, I was glad for any hope, because on that Sunday, March 1, 1964, I woke up up unable to move my arms and legs. I had spiked a fever the night before and woke up all sweaty and having spasms. Not good. An ambulance took me to Church Home and Hospital down on Broadway (no hospitals in Towson then) and things began looking dire as doctor after doctor came in and presented their diagnoses. Polio, encephalitis and epilepsy were leading the pack for most of the day as I lay in bed, my only company being the transistor radio that I took along on the ambulance ride downtown. I heard a lot of Beatles songs that day.

My parents were conferring with doctors most of the day, and so, were not around when a kindly old priest came in with oils and other impedimenta. He talked to me in a very soothing manner about how there is a brighter world awaiting the righteous and how sometimes God calls us home before we would want to leave what we're doing here and how heaven is said to be a land with no illness, no pain, no suffering and somehow in the middle of this, it dawned on me that he was telling that the odds on me being around to watch "The Andy Griffith Show" at 9 the next night were not all that great.

"So, I've come to administer to you the last rites..."

I have relived this a million times in my mind and I always see myself as much pluckier than I really was when I said, "Father, I'm...I'm not Catholic."

And he put aside his oils and sacramental gear before I even had a chance to say penance for breaking my sister's baton ten years before (a transgression that still is discussed at family gatherings.) And he said, "Son, it can't hurt."

I know it sounds like something out of a Dead End Kids movie, but it happened. As many of you know, I lived, and find myself now fifty years older and still penitent.

As all of you know, The Beatles went on to have a long and prosperous career.

The doctors never found out what was wrong with me. That May 3rd, I wound up in Mercy Hospital with the same symptoms. My radio came along again and I listened to the Orioles lose to the Indians, 3-0. There was still still no determination of the problem after another week in the hospital. But ever since, people have wondered just what is it about me.

But all those early Beatles songs bring me back to places I remember...

There are places I remember

All my life though some have changed

Some forever not for better

Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments

With lovers and friends I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life I've loved them all.

The Saturday Picture Show, October 17, 2020

 

A lot of people ask about the photos and where they come from for the weekly picture show, if 2 anonymous messages and a slightly pithy text constitute "a lot." But I will tell you, since you didn't ask, I just clip and save pictures that I've found over the week as I surf the net looking for photos of Spiro Agnew wearing a propellor beanie, hamburger coupons, and new methods for getting egg nog stains out of a priceless heirloom table runner. I really don't go looking for pictures that fit a theme or pattern, but more often than not, it seems like I did. This week, we feature colors from all shades and stripes. Let's get the unpleasant one out of the way first. This fellow citizen of ours has taken it upon herself to be the volunteer ICE lady for her neighborhood. Notice that she has taken her homemade sign, asking for something that is absolutely none of her business, and placed it in one of those plastic sheet protectors so she can harass people at a moment's notice on her way home from bingo or bowling or wherever she was instead of doing something nice. 

Now to some nice memories and colorful things! Tie dyeing is back! Everyone say, "Farrrrrr out, maannnnn!" How Woodstock!

I should write a book about the third grade at Hampton Elementary School. We had a teacher named Ms Van Breemen, who would cross paths again later on with us, but she had some interesting notions, one of which is that we should sing every day, sometimes completely inappropriate tunes like "Short'nin' Bread" (in the old minstrel dialect), and sometimes it was "Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree," the Australian song that made me wish for my own kookaburra, or at least a photograph of one.

This is "Autumn Leaves," (1856) by the English painter John Everett Millais. It's always a wonder to me that people back then would get all dressed up in their finery to go out and rake up the leaves, but formality meant a lot.

There was a time when show business folk dressed up special! And no finer example exists than the original Jackson 5ive lineup. Tito, Jermaine, Michael, Marlon, and Jackie show what the rainbow wishes it looked like.

At the height of the Depression in the 1930s, American commerce did something good for itself and for the cash-strapped public. Realizing that women were taking old flour and feed sacks to make dresses and curtains and whatever else around the house, manufacturers of those goods started putting them in cloth sacks that could be used for sewing. Whatever labeling had to go on the bag was printed with a vegetable dye that would wash off, leaving perfectly good yard goods for the handy seamstress at home. You can be sure these young ladies were proud of their dresses and their brother like the sweater that mom knitted for him!

Who wouldn't like a view like this for the fall?

And yes, he's not colorful like a parrot or anything, but this little panda cub is still cute as all-get-out. I guess it's time for me to get out.

Alaska 4-9

Do you like those Hallmark movies where the whole town pulls together to work a miracle? Sure, we all do. They make us happy, and somehow they harken back to a sweeter time in this country, when people really did things like this...

You probably can infer from the town's name that Igiugig, Alaska, is a very remote part of the world. But when the life of a child is hanging in the balance, it doesn't matter if you're in London, New York, Keokuk, or Igiugig. Something has to be done, and it take a village...even a remote village.

Here's the story. One Friday evening in September, a child from Igiugig (population 70) needed a medevac flight to Anchorage. LifeMed, the company that does these flights, sent a plane to the little town airport, right at the mouth of the Kvichak River on the south end of Iliamna Lake. It's a 30-minute flight usually, no problem.

But this year, the village’s state-owned airport has had some problems with the runway lights. It all started when a snow removal contractor knocked something offline with a plow.  Whatever the reason, the lights weren't on when they needed to be, and the plane kept buzzing around, unable to land.

Local resident Ida Nelson heard the plane circling and knew that something was wrong. “When they first flew over, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that sounds like a weird vehicle. I’ve never heard that truck before,'” she said. “And it wasn’t a truck, it was an airplane. Anytime there’s any type of planes flying after dark, you always assume it’s going to be something urgent and an emergency,” she said. 

Nelson can see the airport from her house (no word on whether she can see Russia) and so she could tell the runway lights were off. This being a community airport, any citizen can go throw a switch and light up the airfield, but no go this time.

A lot of people would have shrugged and said, "Huh. How about that?"

But Ida Nelson is not a lot of people. She got on her four-wheeler and raced to the runway, taking a neighbor along. 

“She started calling other people and waking them up. Like, ‘Get up, get out of bed, come line up the runway,’” Ida said. 

Ida's neighbor called 32 households. That's pretty much everyone in the village, and what do you think?

Pretty much everyone in the village drove on down to the airport and used their headlights to illuminate the landing zone. A pilot got on the radio of one of the planes parked there and communicated with the LifeMed pilot.

The child and family boarded the plane, and once it taxied and took off, everyone went home, having been part of a good community effort.

Next day, the LifeMed people posted a picture on Facebook - a dark area with some lights off in the distance.

The company wrote: “What appears to be a blurry, dark photo is actually a view of what an amazing community can do with a lot of determination.” 

Nelson is happy that people were willing to come running when the need was there, and she's thankful for the patience of the pilot who was willing to wait.

“I’m just truly happy and proud to be from here,” she said. 

  

Wrap it up

You do know why the kids love fast food, right? Just talking about the food here, not the toys or the playrooms or the cartoon characters. There's a little something in the food...

And they don't take these things lightly in Ireland. The Supreme Court over there in the Emerald Isle made an important ruling the other day.

No, it wasn't about abortion rights or health insurance or states' rights or anything like that. The Irish Supremes ruled that the bread on Subway subs has more in common with a Dunkin' Donut.

In a judgment published on Tuesday, the court ruled that the bread served at Subway, the sandwich chain that started here in the US and has now snaked its way around the world, could not in fact be defined as "bread" because of its high sugar content.

"I'll have a Deluxe BMT on Angelfood, please."

I love these.

I have no idea if the bread in foreign subs is of the same recipe as we get here. This whole thing started when Bookfinders Ltd, the people who hold the Subway franchise in Ireland, appealed a ruling, asking that their food be considered a staple.

"And for dessert, children, how about a Footlong Chicken & Bacon Ranch Melt?"

Over in Britain, they have something called a VAT - Value Added Tax - which draws a clear line between staples such as bread, tea, coffee, cocoa, milk and “preparations or extracts of meat or eggs” – and what they call “more discretionary indulgences”  -  ice-cream, chocolate, pastries, snack chips, popcorn and roasted nuts.

And the fine print of the law says the amount of sugar in bread “shall not exceed 2% of the weight of flour included in the dough”.

The Supreme Court ordered up a bunch of subs, one supposes, and analyzed the roll on the average Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki or Meatball Marinara. Those rolls had 5 times the permissible amount of sugar, or, as the court put it, “In this case, there is no dispute that the bread supplied by Subway in its heated sandwiches has a sugar content of 10% of the weight of the flour included in the dough.”

I tell you, my sandwich-loving friends, only a Supreme Court can get this serious about a Footlong Italian BMT:

“The argument depends on the acceptance of the prior contention that the Subway heated sandwich contains ‘bread’ as defined, and therefore can be said to be food for the purposes of the second schedule rather than confectionery,” Justice O'Donnell ruled. “Since that argument has been rejected, this subsidiary argument must fail.”

Subway replied to a query from the Guardian newspaper with this terse statement: “Subway’s bread is, of course, bread.”

You might also recall the commotion raised when some sharpie with a ruler found out that the footlong subs are 11" at most, or the 2014 imbroglio when Subway responded to a petition drive by removing a flour whitener known as azodicarbonamide from its baked goods. People didn't seem to worry about getting their adult minimum daily requirement of azodicarbonamide until they found out it was also used in yoga mats and carpet underlays.

So. Where do you wanna go for lunch?

Hang it up

Last week, the board of trustees at the Baltimore Museum of Art voted to let the Sotheby Auction people sell three of their famous pieces of art. The idea is a good one; they will take the loot and "expand diversity initiatives," which is the swanky way of saying they will get some paintings etc by people who are not all the same type. Some art from people who are of different races, ethnicities, backgrounds, persuasions, and lunch choices will make for a more inclusive collection.  After all, who wants to look at the same art by the same people all the time? Mix it up a little.

The pieces to hit the auction block are Andy Warhol’s “The Last Supper”, "3" by Brice Marden, and “1957-G” by Clyfford Still, an artist who lived in Westminster, Carroll County, for a number of years.

Christopher Bedford, the director of the museum, figures that these three pieces will rake in more than 65 million simoleons.

The plan is to set up an endowment to arrange for permanent future care of the museum's collection, and the interest from the $54.5 million fun will make for raises for staffers, free admissions for special exhibits, and open the place up in the evening so that people who have to work all day can come around and enjoy the art.  All commendable plans!

Bedford told the Baltimore SUN, "A light bulb went off inside my head during the lockdown. I realized that it’s impossible to stand behind a diversity, justice and inclusion agenda as an art museum unless you’re living those ideals within your own walls. We can’t say we’re an equitable institution just because we buy a painting by Kerry James Marshall and hang it on a wall," he said.

Kerry James Marshall is an African American multimedia artist.

“What’s more important is to create and model the world of inclusion he depicts in his paintings," Bedford continued.

In the world you and I live in, this practice is called "having a yard sale to raise mortgage and grocery money," but in the world of cake-eaters, they use the term "Deaccessioning." The BMA did it before. In 2018, they auctioned off a lot including Warhol's "Hearts" and brought in $16.2 million, and the world continued to go on and on.

As a patron of the arts - I'm a regular at gallery openings and salons all across my neighborhood - I would like to suggest the sale of several works from my personal collection to raise a buck or two for my personal charities.

The works of Thomas Kinkade illuminate homes from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon.

Many of us feel that art is not art if it doesn't look like it was raining.

This is the ne plus ultra - the pinnacle - of the art category known as Aesthetique Du Schlock. Dogs playing cards make a statement that none can deny making.

 

My favorite Tyler, besides Steven and Aisha

Today, let's tie up a couple of loose ends from stories we shared previously. In June, we talked about the death of the last person in America still receiving a Civil War pension. 

Now comes news that John Tyler's grandson has left us as well.

John Tyler! You know, the 10th POTUS, known as "His Accidency," a loving nickname he won by being the first VicePOTUS to ascend to the top job when the top guy kicked off.

William Henry Harrison was president #9. Shortly after his inauguration in 1841, he was caught in a sudden rainstorm and died of pneumonia three weeks later, which then became a lesson handed down by every single mother in history about not "catching your death of pneumonia." Enter John Tyler, who conducted the affairs of state in a lackluster manner for the rest of the term. He did not run for a second; the Whig Party to which he belonged folded because they had a silly name.

But John Tyler was the Big Daddy of American presidents, marrying twice and fathering fifteen children, none of whom had to walk around being named "Barron." 

One of his progeny, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, was born in 1853 when John was 63 and clearly old enough to know better. But the president passed along the idea of late-life fatherhood to Lyon, who, in his 70s became father to bouncing babies Lyon Gardiner Jr. and Harrison Ruffin.

Lyon Tyler had a distinguished life before dying on September 26 at age 95. He was a naval officer in the Pacific during World War II, returning home to serve with the Naval Intelligence Reserves, after which he had a law practice, was Charles City County’s commonwealth’s attorney, and taught at the Virginia Military Institute. 

Now he is gone, and how many people who pass away this year can say that their grandfather died in 1862? 

Not only that, but Lyon's kid brother Harrison Ruffin Tyler—born in 1928—is still living.

The whole thing just fascinates me, and to think that we wouldn't even have HAD a President Tyler if President Wm. Henry Harrison had a decent overcoat.

New Celebration

 

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: Knit Wits

 I've heard Bill Murray (as John Winger) say this line so many times in "Stripes" that I can repeat it verbatim: "Chicks dig me, because I rarely wear underwear, and when I do, it's usually something unusual."

Well, how about, "Chickens dig me, because I make sweaters for them"?

Here's the deal: Some ladies at Fuller Village, a retirement home in Milton, Massachusetts, got the word that wintertime is tough on chickens.

Not as tough as Colonel Sanders is on them, but still.

Some kinds of chickens lose their plumage and molt new feathers in the cold months, and some chickens who just moved here from the tropics get the chilblains something awful between Autumn and Spring.   

Nearby the senior home is an estate called the Mary M.B. Wakefield Charitable Trust, and there's quite the coopful there. Nursing home resident and knitter supreme Nancy Kearns said that once her squad heard about the chilly chickens, they needled each other into action (think about it.)

"I don't think in my wildest dreams I ever thought anybody made sweaters for chickens," said Barbara Widmayer, 76, who's been knitting since the age of 15. She knitted a sweater for "Prince Peep," a rooster from Malaysia.

"There's so much going on these days that's kind of contentious in the world," Ms Widmayer said. "It was actually very calming to me to work on this."

Libby Kaplan, also 76, said she used to be afraid of birds, but making sweaters for them put those fears to rest. 

"One person I heard say there were more important things to do in this world. 'Make things for people that need it.' I think animals need to be warm, too, and I'm so glad we did it," Ms Kaplan said.

There must be something to this Chicken Cardigan Craze: Erica Max, a spokesperson for the estate, says the chickens are laying more eggs since they started bundling up.  

Doing this has helped some of the formerly hard-boiled ladies at the Village come out of their shells, and now they are scrambling to outfit every hen with a pullover they can pull over easy. And I hear they recently welcomed the first male member of their knitting circle: General Tso!

Did anyone consider just going to LL Bean and getting the chickens those vests lined with duck down?

The Saturday Picture Show, October 10, 2020

 

Some things just go together perfectly...Hall and Oates...shower and shave...bagel with cream cheese and lox.

Nature gave this guy the ability to stick his nose into places and get the food he needs, and then named him the Kingfisher to make it clear to all...

This is almost as sad as it gets...advising motorists to allow room for people on bicycles by putting up a sign that takes away room for bicyclists.

Bibliophile to the end, I love the very notion of libraries, where one can borrow all the education one needs, for free! And in the days when we "signed out" books by writing our names on the card, we left stories behind. Why, in the spring of 1945, did Sheila Slaughter need to borrow this book twice? Was she working on a term paper about James Russell Lowell's Biglow Papers, a 19th-century satire by the author of Tom Brown's School Days? Sheila, if you're still out there reading, let me tell you, that book is available free, online, at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/22680/22680-h/22680-h.htm

The Environmental Studies majors are probably studying what effect all these discarded plastic bottles will have on the environment.

This warehouse wall is in Wheeling, West Virginia, where chewing tobacco was popular back in the day. The Mail Pouch people would paint a farmer's barn for free! The only hitch was, the paint had this ad on it. Still, a good deal.

Fall comes to Williamsburg, Virginia, and we can walk back in history in a cheery atmosphere. We honeymooned there a hundred years ago and still go back every five years!

Do you remember when people still drove around in gas-powered tank-sized cars like this? I guess this guy was the counterman at White Tower. Look at that car! It's hardly much smaller than the burger joint.

You might get two chances. Rarely, a third.

Life is a series of challenges, and sometimes, when you have climbed down a hill and crossed a stream and then climbed back up the other side to a peak, that's when you get to look back and appreciate how far you've come.

I hope there is a moment like that - many of them, in fact - for this country singer Morgan Wallen, who this week stood on the precipice of fame and acclaim and took a spectacular swan dive into an empty pool.

The metaphors just pour out of me some mornings, and I'm sorry. 

Wallen is a 27-year-old rising country star. You can tell that he is, because he dresses as if he were here to clean out the garage and haul bags of leaves to the dump. But that's the way they dress now, I understand. 

Last weekend, the east Tennessee native was lucky enough to see Alabama whomp Texas A&M, and he hung around for parties with Tuscaloosans...parties that included guzzling hooch and sucking face and grabbing butt with 19-year-olds, all while failing to wear a mask or practice social distancing.

For the record, he is not the first man, nor will he be the last, to indulge in such pursuits.  But he will long be remembered as the man who was set to perform in one week on Saturday Night Live performing the tender ballad "7 Summers," which has propelled him to the top of the Billboard charts, until...

He WAS set to do that, until Instagram video of his Alabama antics hit social media, and then he got the call from SNL bigshot Lorne Michaels, disinviting him.

Fancy clothes for the ACM Convention

With a certain unintended irony, Wallen went on Instagram to share his sad news.

"I'm not positive for COVID," he said. "But my actions this past weekend were pretty short sighted, and they've obviously affected my long term goals and my dreams. I respect the show's decision, because I know that I put them in jeopardy."

After a long layoff, SNL went back on live last weekend with countless protocols in place. All performers, staff and audience members undergo COVID-19 testing, and non-performers are wearing masks at all times.

While last week's headliner Chris Rock was shown preparing for the show in a mask and keeping proper distance, Wallen was partying it up, and chirping, "Hey, I’m sitting out here in Tuscaloosa, hanging out with my new friend" in a video widely seen.

In May, Wallen was arrested and charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct outside of Kid Rock's downtown Nashville bar. 

After getting the call from Michaels, Wallen said, "I take ownership for this. I’d like to apologize to ‘SNL,’ to my fans, to my team for bringing me these opportunities, and I let them down."

“And on a more personal note, I think I have some growing up to do,” he added. “I think I lost myself a little bit. I tried to find joy in the wrong places and, I don’t know, it’s left me with less joy, so I’m going to try to work on that. I’m going to take a step back from the spotlight for a little while and go work on myself. I wish I could have made country music and my fans proud this Saturday, but I respect the decision once again.”

Of course, to look at the comments on his Instagram, his like-minded fans seem to think that he should be awarded a Nobel Prize in the field of dissolute behavior. But they are young, too, and don't realize yet that there are two words in the term "Show business."  Wallen might be able to pick and grin and sing like nobody's business, but he's in business to do shows, and reckless behavior like this has now cost him a chance to be seen and heard by millions of people around the world.

He stands at that valley we spoke of earlier.  All is not lost; he can certainly climb back up the hill and make something good out of this. Heck, there are now more people who know his name than there were two days ago. And it's noteworthy that he recognizes his need to grow up, instead of blaming the world for his predicament.

Wallen says Lorne Michaels said he would try to give him another shot down the road, and let's hope that works out. It's up to Wallen to decide if he wants to be a professional, or someone whose name will pop up in the "Whatever Happened To...? column in five years.

Oh, and to his fans who say "COVID is a hoax"...the president got it.

Stubborn Town

Up in the scenic, mountainous Adirondack Mountains (not to be redundant) of upstate New York state (again), they have some towns with those quaint old Early American-type names such as Cheektowaga, Coxsackie, Schenevus, Niskayuna, Oswegatchie, Swastika, Poughkeepsie, and Rensselaer.

Uh, excuse me? There's a town called "Swastika"???

For real. It's just an unincorporated hamlet, not even a full town of its own. Not far away is the town of Black Brook (population 1,500) which, in the manner of small-town America, has jurisdiction over Swastika.

A man who passed through the foul-named burg lodged a foul with the commissioners of Black Brook. They put the matter on their agenda for the monthly meeting in September, discussed the matter for five minutes, and held a vote about renaming S-Town.

The four commissioners voted unanimously. AGAINST the proposal.

"Swastika was named by the founders of the area who settled there," said Jon Douglass, Black Brook's town supervisor. Douglass attended the meeting but has no vote.

I mean, he's only the supervisor, for crying out loud.

Douglass does say that the name was given the town long before Hitler and World War II came along and befouled the earth. He goes on to say that the word itself is Sanskrit for "well-being," (you have to like the irony) and the swastika symbol, which you will not see here, is used in Indian religions as a good-luck sign.

Douglass says that the issue has been raised before, not long after the war, and some of the local veterans who had fought against the fascists (ANTIFA, ya dig?) said they would not stand for their town's name being besmirched that way just because Hitler did what he did.

So even though a) very few people in the town speak or write Sanskrit, and b) India is far, far away, the council saw no good reason to abandon the name just because it is now associated with hateful white supremacists.

"I think that's probably, maybe some viewpoint that it's associated with hate. But then I believe there are others that do not associate it with hate," Douglass said. "Did the Hindus and the [Buddhists] and all them, did they erase it from their religious history because of the Germans?"

Predictably, some of the locals are bristling about "some out-of-towner" trying to meddle in their beeswax.

But it seems so incongruous that a town blessed with such natural beauty would want to be reminded of the most evil empire in world history every time the town's name is mentioned.

Would you name a baby "Cancer" or "Depravity"?

Boxing

 Back in the days of Nixon and all those people, Americans actually had to go to their local polling places to vote. We would often stand in line for hours, and the only benefit, besides the utter joy of feeling that our vote made a difference, was that we got to stand in the hallway of the elementary school or the church vestry and see what was going on the in the worlds of education and religion while we waited our chance to get in the booth and pull the handle and do our thing.

Of course, now there are other ways to vote. Sure, you can still go to the polling place on election day if you wish, but there are going to be far fewer of them this year due to the you-know, and the lines might be long.  

The alternative is to vote on paper, either by mailing it in or dropping it off at a secure box at one of the election sites. We dropped ours off the other day at the Honeygo Run Regional Park, which is not only a magnificent park featuring two lighted ball diamonds, three athletic fields (one artificial, two lighted), a 13,000 square foot indoor rec center (where the voting machines will be), a lighted roller hockey court, an ADA-accessible playground, two picnic pavilions with space for 60, a pedestrian bridge to make for safe access for the neighbors across Honeygo Boulevard, plenty of parking, and a beautiful path and trail system to take hikers through the park's wooded areas.

(I always like to enumerate the great things at the park for those who bellyache and say they "don't git nothin'" for their tax money.)

Oh, and there's also the Perry Paw Dog Park, where for a nominal annual fee, one gains access to a fenced in area, one for big pooches and one for anklebiters, where Marmaduke and Daisy can run to their heart's content.

Anyway, the collection box is there now, the place will be open for early voting as the election draws closer, and of course they're there all day on Nov 3. 

Meanwhile, down in Anne Arundel County, election officials report that person or persons unknown are going door to door, claiming to be from the election office, and offering the kind service of collecting your ballot and taking it to the drop box.

Of course, this is totally bogus, and while I have to wonder about the gullibility of someone who would hand over their precious franchise to some random door-to-door salesman like that guy on Pee Wee's Playhouse.

Nowhere in the instructions for your vote-by-mail does it say that an official will be coming to your house to collect your ballot. Take it to the correct location. Vote for whomever you please, but vote!

Curses!

A guy I know fairly well (because he was I) used to make a point to talk a walk during lunch hour in fashionable downtown Towson, Maryland. There was a bar there called The Crease, and in front of the bar, on the sidewalk, in a cage, lived a vociferous parrot.

I've always been interested in animals, especially those that can do more than one thing. For instance, yes it's great that chickens lay eggs, but you show me a Rhode Island Red who can serve up two over easy, and you have my interest.  Or take a meerkat. Sure, they're cute and interesting to watch in their community-building sociology, but you show me a meerkat who can write a coherent plan for reviving an aging building in a seedy neighborhood, and I will support that little critter's efforts.

Parakeets, macaws, cockatoos, and parrots have for years demonstrated the ability not only to speak, but to do so with great diction, pronunciation, and very few errors in grammar. I mean, how much effort would it take to say "Polly wants a cracker" instead of "Polly want a cracker"?

For sheer ability to talk, you can't top the African Grey Parrot, and I believe that was the species of the parrot who worked for The Crease. So easily suggestible was he/she that just having a raffish wag come by every day squawking "Reagan lied! Reagan lied!" was all it took to get him/her to repeat it without prompting, to the immense satisfaction of that doggone wag. At the height of the Iran-Contra Scandal, we foolishly believed that was as bad as things could ever get. Ha ha ha.

Facts about African Grey Parrots

Anyway, over in a wildlife park in Jolly Olde Britain, they had to give the boot to five parrots who could not stop swearing at customers.

This happened at Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in eastern England. The five winged warblers were tossing out expletives and personal descriptions at both visitors to the park and to the very staff charged with bringing them their *@!(!~ dinner. And they had only been there for a few days! Talk about a break-in period.

Steve Nichols is the head man over there, and he reports, "It just went ballistic, they were all swearing. We were a little concerned about the children."

And he got right to the point: "I get called a fat t**t every time I walk past," Nichols complained.

I need someone English to tell me what a t**t is.

These African greys  — Eric, Jade, Elsie, Tyson, and Billy by name — came to the park from five different families, and spent a few days in quarantine together, honing their act before going out in the front of the public. It's hard to imagine someone named "Tyson" breaking bad like that.

But, instead of flying, all they did was fly off the handle, dropping F-bombs along with other stuff. Nichols says the F word was easy for them to learn, but they soon mastered the entire lexicon of the average eighth-grader.

And, let's hear it for the English! The park visitors were tossing invective right back at the birds! "The visitors were giving them as much back as what they were giving to them," Nichols said.

He has to keep the kids in mind, of course, so the park split the five up. They're all in separate quarantine now, in the hopes that they will be more decorous as solo acts.

This is nothing new for the experienced zookeeper: "To take in a swearing parrot isn't an unusual thing; it's something that happens probably three or four times a year," Nichols told CNN.

I should write to Mr Nichols to ask if he heard about the guy whose wife calls him at work to say she had brought home a parrot that used to live in a brothel. The guy gets home, and walks in the kitchen, and the parrot goes, "Oh, hi Frank!"

It will go on and on

How would you like to cruise on the New Titanic? People are still planning to build a replica of the ill-fated ocean liner, and if you aren't superstitious, there's a cabin with your name on it, or there will be, at least.

Someone first floated this idea (note the irony) in 2012, but there was a financial dispute with the Chinese government in 2015, so the whole deal was put on the back burner. But Australian businessman and politician Clive Palmer, who is currently at the helm of this voyage-to-be says now that shipbuilders are back to work on the big ship.

Word has it that the new Titanic will be an exact copy of the original except for the huge gash amidships because, why not? It worked so well the first time around.

But this time around, there will be enough life boats for all who wish to avoid drowning, and they are making this hull by welding it, not riveting it. And of course, there will be modern navigational tools. And Radar.

Allegedly the new ship will be an identical copy of the infamous liner, which sank in 1912 following a collision with an iceberg.

"The ship will follow the original journey, carrying passengers from Southampton to New York, but she will also circumnavigate the globe, inspiring and enchanting people while attracting unrivaled attention, intrigue and mystery in every port she visits," said Palmer in a statement.

For the maiden voyage, the plan is to sail from Dubai to New York sometime in 2022.

Ther will be nine decks, 835 cabins, room for 2,435 passengers holding first-, second- and third-class tickets -- just like the first Titanic. And this one will have all the swanky fittings, like that grand staircase that starred in the movie by James Cameron.

For those who are really into history more than sailing vacations, just put up $105,129, and the American company OceanGate will take you on a dive trip to the site of the wreck of the 1912 ship. 

Just as a reminder, for those of us who believe in hexes, over 1,500 died on the Titanic in 1912. Many of them were just ordinary folks, but some of them were super wealthy. The sea did not respect that as they sank.

It's what's known as an Astor risk*.

* No, there are no limits to how horrible my puns become. Like the people on the Titanic who enjoyed the music because there was ABandOnShip.

Sunday Rerun: One from column A, one from column B

 Stop me if you've heard this one before...

An elephant walks into a Chinese inn.

That's it! That's the joke, folks. I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing. What is this, an audience or an oil painting?

But, what happened was real, and here are the facts. A wild elephant did indeed wander into a Chinese inn, and he spent about four hours feasting on corn and oranges.

Xu Hongwei is the owner of the place.  It's in Yunnan Province. Xu said he told guests at the inn to remain on the second floor at about 4:30 the other morning, on the grounds that there was a wild elephant on the first floor. And what's more, Mr Xu is a member of the local elephant patrol team.

I have to say that again: the local elephant patrol team. There are such things, I guess, and I'll bet they have really cool hats and jackets. Maybe even a basketball team!


I'm going to call him "Jumbo."  Jumbo tied on the feedbag for four hours, chowing down on corn, oranges and other food stored inside.

According to Xu, this elephant was known to the locals from the previous times when he wandered into the eateries in town. Rather than trying to cajole Jumbo to leave, they gave him some time to stroll and gobble, while they held up traffic outside. 

There were no injuries to anyone, either with two legs or four really really big legs, during Jumbo's time out. but he did leave behind a big mess, according to Xu.

Turning to the horticultural news, residents of Yunnan Province are reporting larger-than-everrrrrrr tomatoes and corn this autumn.

The Saturday Picture Show, October 3, 2020

 

Ah, for the world of Nancy, back in the days when newspaper comics were great. Nancy lived with her Aunt Fritzi Ritz (and probably, Fritzi's bf Phil Fumble) and she had a friend named Sluggo who, against all odds, lived alone in a house, even though he was just a kid himself. I don't think he had electricity in the house, because he burned candles in old bottles as lamps. His sofa had springs popping out, and the wallpaper was peeling off, showing the lath and plaster wall beneath. But Fritzi was always getting on Nancy for whatever infractions, and I can hardly imagine what she did to get in THIS much of a jam.

Her spirit will live on, wherever justice reigns.

Here's our weekly pretty fall scene. Be careful on those wet leaves, though...

Some lucky someone met Stephen Root, the actor who played Milton Waddams in "Office Space." If you've seen the movie, you know the legend of the red Swingline stapler. If you haven't, I'm sorry that you haven't.

This is a bit of an oddball Halloween display...a little bit of NASA in your yard...

This person has a lot to answer for. He/she said "a lizard was on a dusty shelf and fell down onto the wireless charger, leaving his prints."  Why not dust that shelf to make the house a little nicer for your squamate reptile housemate?

I like it when people are able to blend some art in with their work. Big heart to this gentleman!

I plan to print this picture out, frame it, and hang it in a prominent place, where I will see it often and be reminded of how fortunate anyone is who can turn a spigot and have clean running water on demand. I believe all such people should show gratitude every day. 

Heave Ho Me Hearties!

I find the most interesting things on this internet thing. Like this, that I found the other day on the site called Gastro Obscura, which has bits about food from all over.  And often, when I eat at a barbecue, I have bits of food all over me, so it all fits.

The island known as Hispaniola, which is where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are found, was where Christopher Columbus landed on December 5, 1492. He called it La Isla Española ("The Spanish Island"), which was soon Anglicized to Hispaniola.  We can thank the Hispanics for many wonderful parts of our lives, and here is one of them: 

By the 17th century, Hispaniola had feral animals running around everywhere. Pigs, boars, cattle, you name it. Hunters came to take what they could, and many Spanish ships, docked in the harbor, had hungry Spanish sailors to feed. The answer for both the hunters and the sailors was to gather, and cook, the bounteous offerings of the island.

Mr Weber had not invented the Bar-B-Q grill by then and what they used was a frame made of wood called a "boucan." The Tupi people of Brazil invented the grill, you might say.  And all that they had to work with was wood, which meant you had to replace your grill often.

Explorers roaming South America and the West Indies brought the boucans to Hispaniola, and the French hunters on the island really took to it, and soon were being called "boucaniers."

They really went for it, and I guess this was before "French cuisine" meant tiny portions with sauce all over it. They boucanned pork, and another favorite was turtle in the shell, which would be popular at University of Maryland Terrapin Club events, if you think about it. The French called this boucan de tortue.

Boucaniers came up with the idea to add marinating the main course prior to throwing it on the grill. A book called "The Sea Rover’s Practice: Pirate Tactics and Techniques, 1630-1730" survives, and from it we learn that these guys were adding salt, pepper, lime juice and crushed pimento to the meat. Salting helped preserve the meat, and that was good because sailors would cook lunch well in advance long before sailing off.  By boucanning the meat, it could be packed away in the days before Frigidaires, and in those days before RadaRanges, they would reconstitute the meat by soaking it in warm water.

BUT! Everything good always comes to an end, just like when they shut down the Old Country Buffet near us. The Spanish officials wanted the French hunters to hit the road, or, more properly, the sea, so they undertook a rather violent campaign to make them leave Hispaniola. The boucaniers, miffed, sailed off, no longer hunters. Some became farmers elsewhere, and many boucaniers took to the seas as pirates, so soon enough, boucaniers became pirates, and "boucanier" became "buccaneer."

But they still had to eat, so as they landed on islands such as as Martinique, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. Jamaicans added the boucan to their "jerking" cooking method, which is why we can get jerk chicken at TGIFriday's if we want.

Backyard grillmasters owe a lot to these long-pirates, who taught us to smoke and season meat and cook it on a grill.

I hope this helps out all of us who, until just now, thought "buccaneer" was a high price to pay for corn.

Turning on the despot's heel

This will probably irritate the irritable, but sometimes, it's good to get rid of something that's been around since Hector was a pup, especially if Hector has turned into a mean old racist cur.

Of course, I'm talking about the official state song for our state. “Maryland, My Maryland” would seem to be on its way out, and no one will be performing it before the Preakness next month because the lyrics are thought by some to be racist.

Over at Pimlico Race Course, where they will run the Preakness before a crowd estimated at 00,000, they're saying the October 3 race day will come and go, and no one will have to hear lyrics that describe Abraham Lincoln as a "despot"  and Northerner as "scum." Written as a poem by James Ryder Randall in 1861, the foul ditty opens with “The despot’s heel is on thy shore,” a reference to Lincoln, and goes on with the charming couplet “Avenge the patriotic gore… That flecked the streets of Baltimore....” 

Speaker of the Maryland House, Del. Adrienne Jones is behind the long-overdue move to abolish “Maryland, My Maryland” as the state song. As she points out, the song has its roots in the Confederacy. 

And the Maryland Jockey Club put out this statement on June 25 in response to Del. Jones:

“The Maryland Jockey Club is respectful and supportive of Speaker Jones’ move to remove “Maryland My Maryland” as the state song, and we look forward to starting a new tradition for Preakness 145.” 

Ms Jones told the SUNpaper, "It’s extremely offensive. People just hear the words, ‘Maryland, My Maryland.’ But if you look at the words, it’s not something you want to hail as the song for the state.”

What fools some people is that the Ryder poem was put to the music of "O Tannenbaum," the Christmas song of German origin. We sing "O Christmas tree, O Christmas Tree," and the melody sounds so benign.

I'm sure we can find a state song that doesn't salute a failed revolution against the United States. 

Not a such a great heritage.