Tag Sale

Here in the US of A, many people are willing to plop down extra money for the thrill of having a special vanity license tag on their car. Selling these tags to people who have money burning holes in their pockets has brought in tons of moolah for the states that participate, and at least the money goes for good causes such as education, wildlife conservation, and bridges and highways.

Now,  my dream has always been to have a vanity tag reading "VNITY TAG" because I am such a literalist, but if you really want to look rich, just get the tag "P7" on your dusty old Duster, because one like that, sold to someone in Dubai, is now the most expensive license tag in the world.

That white license plate sold at auction for 55 million dirhams - 15 million American clams. The identity of the lucky purchaser has not been revealed, probably because people would be lining up to sell him a light saber, a time machine, Chicago Cubs World Series tickets, or other things that will probably never exist. 

In 2008, someone from the United Arab Emirates shelled out 52 million dirhams ($14 million) for the number "1" tag. That buyer was businessman Saeed Abdul Ghafour Khouri, and if anyone out there has his phone number, I would like to call him and ask how he came to have so many dirhams.

Dubai, a city with lots of oil money and no income tax, has lots of people with oil money to burn, so to speak. Lisa Fleisher and Low De Wei write in  Bloomberg News that dropping large sums of money on vanity plates is a way for the “ultra-rich to show off their status and wealth.”

The most money any American was willing to pay for a tag is like $400,000 for someone in Delaware, and no, I checked, it does not read I M BIDEN. 

And the good part of this shindig in Dubai was, it raised $27 million for the One Billion Meals Endowment, an initiative that fights food insecurity across the globe.

 

 

The Lure of Local Lore

We like to drive up Philadelphia Rd (which will eventually take you to Philadelphia if you let it) to the Cracker Barrel up in Abingdon, Harford County, and along the way, we pass this sign every time. In fact, I had Peggy take this picture of the sign from our moving car just to prove I'm not making it all up.

The Ha Ha Branch is just a little stream, a tributary of the Bush River, on land once owned by the descendants of John Hall of Cranberry, who owned 1500 riverside acres as of 1673.

The local legend has it that a headless horseman (not the same one written of in Washington Irving's "Legend Of Sleepy Hollow") (we hope) would appear when horseback riders would attempt to ford the stream we're speaking of...and the ghostly headless horseman would "issue blood-curdling taunts of "Ha Ha!" according to the local history book "Our Harford Heritage" by C. Milton Wright.

C. Milton Wright has a high school named after him, so he must have known a lot. He had no idea, of course, that a man named Ha'Sean Treshon "Ha Ha" Clinton-Dix would leave his native Orlando to play for the Crimson Tide of Alabama and then seven years in the National Football League as a safety, but there is no apparent connection between the athlete and the stream. 

Another interesting fact I just made up is that the headless horseman had a daughter, a modest young lady who was very popular in the community. In fact, all the horsemen knew her.

Please say that last part out loud again.

 

Sunday Rerun: Holding Back The Truth

 There is a local angle to this story, but the focus of it should be worldwide.

Henrietta Pleasant Lacks was an African American woman from Virginia who moved to Turner Station, an African American section in southeast Baltimore County, in 1941. She came up here with her husband, who relocated after finding work at the Bethlehem Steel plant in Sparrows Point. Ten years later, she died at Johns Hopkins Hospital after fighting cervical cancer for many months.

While she was undergoing radiation treatments, doctors removed cell samples from her cervix - from the healthy part and from the cancerous section. I don't even pretend to know how this worked, but these cells became the "HeLa (named for her) immortal cell line," and were used in biomedical research - research that medicine used to develop the polio vaccine, in vitro fertilization, HIV/AIDs research, and other major scientific breakthroughs. Here is an article to help clarify what the cells were used for; suffice it to say they have been amazingly helpful in many ways for many years.

However, and this is a BIG however, the cells were taken from Mrs Lacks without her knowledge and consent, and it was not until just a few years ago that her family became aware of all that, and they are now being given some say in the matter of who gets to use the cells' DNA code, and for what. They also now receive acknowledgement in research papers.

Ms Sims

The latest wrinkle is that Jackie Sims, a mother in Knoxville, TN, whose 15-year old son was assigned to read the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks feels that the book is pornographic.

That's right. She went there. Ms Sims says that the sections in the book that describe the gynecological problems that led Mrs Lacks to seek medical attention are pornography.

"I consider the book pornographic," she told WBIR-Knoxville. "There's so many ways to say things without being graphic in nature, and that's the problem I have with the book."

The book is scientific in nature, written by a science writer named Rebecca Skloot, and is not on the level of the average Danielle Steel potboiler.  But Sims feels that the story should be told in a "different way."

Ms Skloot took to Facebook to say, "Just in time for ‪#‎BannedBooksWeek‬, a parent in Tennessee has confused gynecology with pornography and is trying to get my book banned from the Knoxville high school system...I hope the students of Knoxville will be able to continue to learn about Henrietta and the important lessons her story can teach them. Because my book is many things: It's a story of race and medicine, bioethics, science illiteracy, the importance of education and equality and science and so much more. But it is not anything resembling pornography."

Just so we're clear, here, pornography is generally defined as the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purpose of sexual arousal.  The simple mention of one's nether regions is not pornography.

Ms Sims is entitled to feel the way she does, although she is probably considered foolish by those who understand a) education and b) the normal reading and viewing material of 15-year-old boys.

But it seems wryly sad to me that the Lacks family was treated so shabbily by the doctors and researchers in the days before biomedical ethics and racial discrimination became more than passing thoughts to most in the majority, and now, here is a woman trying to hold back the truth all over again.

The Saturday Picture Show, April 15, 2023

 

I guess not many of us have seen this view - it's the underside of a swimming duck!

Here's a perfect example of allowing nature to blend with our habitat. I can't figure if the tree was there first, or the house.

This is an abandoned mining town in California. I thought this was an interesting vanity tag (DO NOT CLIMB ON) but then I realized it's a warning to one and all that this battered old Ford will likely crumble into a rusty pile if one more person jumps on it.

Summer is coming, and with it will come the traveling carnivals and more funnel cakes than we can even dream of.

\

Quoting from "Rapper's Delight" here..."Have you ever went over a friend's house to eat,  And the food just ain't no good? I mean the macaroni's soggy, the peas are mushed,  And the chicken tastes like wood..." How about if the chicken tastes like cardboard?

At least the thought was good.

More song lyrics! This one from "You're From Texas": "You've got a smile like an acre of sunflowers, and your eyes are a bluebonnet blue..." That's a pretty shade of blue!

I lost before I even started.

Baltimore is home to many people who mistake the gas pedal for the brake, leading to signs like this, and huge profits for door and window glass firms.

One thing I will never miss about work is that dreadful command, "Could you work something up for us on Excel?" I will always miss Lotus 1-2-3!

Military Madness

Here's a scene you've seen a thousand times: Someone is sleeping soundly when suddenly, the door bursts open and a dozen beefy cops or soldiers burst in and there is a mass clicking sound as rifles are readied for action and the object of the sudden interrogation appears from beneath the sheets....

And in the movies, they always have the right guy and he is taken into custody and charged with violations of Title15 U.S. Code § 1825.

But sometimes in real life, which is different from the movies because no one really looks like Ben Affleck or Jennifer Lopez out here, sometimes, they get the wrong guy.

This is what happened in Boston last week: the FBI and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command were doing a training exercise at a hotel. In their play-acting scenario, soldiers and agents were supposed to bust into a room at 10 PM one night to take someone into custody for interrogation. A volunteer was in place in a room, all set to play the part of The Suspect.

As far as I know, that volunteer is still sitting in room 1425, watching The View and enjoying the view. Because, the Army people and the FBI people barged through the wrong door, taking the wrong person into custody, and subjecting that wrong person to 45 minutes of relentless questioning before finally deciding to check out his claim that he was a pilot for Delta Airlines.

Whoops!

At least no one was injured in the incident, except for the pride of the Army and the FBI. The pilot is lucky they didn't waterboard him, one supposes. 

"First and foremost, we'd like to extend our deepest apologies to the individual who was affected by the training exercise," said Lt. Col. Mike Burns, spokesperson for U.S. Army Special Operations Command, who went on to mansplain that this was "essential military training" that was "meant to enhance soldiers' skills to operate in realistic and unfamiliar environments.The training team, unfortunately, entered the wrong room and detained an individual unaffiliated with the exercise."

The FBI-Boston Division said personnel were "mistakenly sent" to the wrong room "based on inaccurate information" and that the pilot who was the guest of honor at this pajama party was "not the intended role player." I guess not; he was sound asleep in a room at the Revere Hotel at the time while these other guys were playing army.

Burns described the incident as "serious," adding that "The safety of civilians in [the] vicinity of our training is always our number one concern."

Yes sir!

 

"It will take forever to move on"

There was a marvelous episode ("The Judge", season 6, episode 9) of the police comedy "Barney Miller" a few years ago in which Sgt. Dietrich investigates a complaint made by a lonely befuddled woman about abductions, murders, and other crimes she is seeing through her window.

It turned out that the "window" through which she was seeing this crime spree was her television screen, and all the things she was "seeing" were crimes committed on the soap operas that she was watching instead of actually interacting with real people and events in her life.

To tell you the truth, in a day when one can't so much as go to the mall without running the risk of getting shot by a member of some non-well-regulated militia, maybe she had a better idea, just staying home.

But that episode came to mind the other morning while I was watching "Good Morning America," which had a report about Taylor Swift breaking up with some guy she had been going around with for six years. I'm sorry for the both of them; I like it when people find a match and always hope it works out,

BUT...(and you know there is one!)...Janai Norman, telling the story, showed some tweets and other social media messages posted by Swift fans in response. One of those tweets really caught my eye, from a person who said, "I have officially accepted this news..."

Huh? How is it up to us to accept or not accept the news of any other person's relationship foundering? It would be one thing if that writer happened to be a friend of Ms Swift or her erstwhile love interest, whose name I don't know because I don't keep up with show biz gossip. Yes, if you are her friend, you are personally invested in her happiness or sudden lack thereof, and so you would have something to say to her.

But, assuming this fan is not in the entertainer's inner circle, what is it about celebrity in 2023 that endows upon us in the audience a feeling that we should or could "officially accept" bad news about them?

There was a time when the stars had publicity agents and press relations people to groom their public images through staged photographs, arranged dates, and orchestrated goodwill campaigns. Today, as soon as a person gains the slightest bit of traction in the race for public attention, he or she sets up an Instagram account and immediately posts pictures of their every mundane activity all day long.

"Here I am looking sweaty - just left the gym - see you soon St Louis!" 

"I had no idea that it would be so hard to find real fresh-squeezed orange juice in Tampa - better try Whole Foods next..."

And of course, "Kid" "Rock" and Travis Trite have to come on and slam a beer company for acknowledging the LGBTQ+ community, in an effort to seem like"real guys." 

I don't blame the famous for wanting to remain famous. They are adroit users of social media, sharing their lives. That's fine.

Where we make a mistake is in thinking that we are a part of those lives. 

Now, let's get back to paying attention to matters of real importance, such as whether or not Prince George will behave at his grandfather's coronation. 

Mind Me Platypus Duck, Bill

Attention Samuel L. Jackson! Someone re-did your beloved thriller "Snakes on a Plane", but it means trouble for an Australian man who cleverly decided to take a platypus on a train.

He's 26 and has kept his name out of the papers so far, wise move for someone who swaddled a wild platypus in a towel and got on a train, accompanied by a woman.

The authorities are taking him to court, alleging animal protection offenses. For reasons best known to himself, the man stands accused of taking the creature from his natural home (a waterway in northern Queensland) and taking it by train to a shopping center.

 "It will be further alleged the pair were observed showing the animal to members of the public at the shopping centre," Queensland police said in a statement.

It was the railway police who put the grab on the guy. The police also talked to the woman who was with him, and have not said what happened to the little animal.

"Police were advised the animal was released into the Caboolture River and has not yet been located by authorities," police said. "Its condition is unknown."

Camera footage shows the man wearing flip-flops carrying the kitten-sized platypus along a train platform, and wrapping it up in a towel. Then they proudly displayed their new friend to other passengers.

But, this is illegal under Queensland's conservation laws. The maximum fine could be Aus$430,000 (US$288,000).

"Taking a platypus from the wild is not only illegal, but it can be dangerous for both the displaced animal and the person involved if the platypus is male, as they have venomous spurs," police said.

The police add, in words that I would think hardly need be said: "If you are lucky enough to see a platypus in the wild, keep your distance."

The first British scientists who saw these critters, with their stubby beaver-like tails and duck-like bills, thought they were some sort of 18th Century hoax.

 

I'll tell you what else the platypuses (the plural is not "platypi," because it's not a Latin word.  The word derives from the Greek words platys, which means flat, and pous, which means foot) have going for them: they are part of the very rare group of mammals, called monotremes, that lay eggs.

And now you have something to talk about over dinner!

 

Laugh, I thought I'd cry

It happens every year, without fail: Someone pulls an April Fool prank, and no one thinks it's funny at all, and all hell breaks loose, when all along, it would have been better to leave the "joke" undone.

This year's Big Fool Of The Year is Akis Tselentis.  Akis is a well-known Greek scientist. As I'm sure you know, an adroit sense of humor is a prerequisite for achieving prominence in science, and what Akis thought would provoke gales of laughter was posting on Facebook a warning that a sizable "funnel" might form underneath Santorini Island.

I'll wait until your paroxysms of laughter have subsided before going on to tell you that Tselentis is the head of Greece’s Geodynamic Institute and Tsunami Center. Just after April Fools Day, he put a picture of himself on Facebook that simulated a mugshot with a sign that said, “guilty of April Fool’s hoax.”

“We live in a country where humor is persecuted,” he added.

This is the post on Facebook that got him in hot water in the first place:

“Unfortunately we are not doing well as far as Santorini is concerned. Since October we have been monitoring the island with 20 additional seismographs and we have noticed that since January we have had a gradual disappearance of the magma under the volcano. At the same time, on the opposite of the Earth, another volcano, the well-known Tripanteco, presents the opposite phenomenon according to the Japanese Institute of Volcanology. In other words, magma is rising.

“Recent measurements made by a team of Japanese volcanologists show that there is a high probability that all the magma that was under Santorini is moving towards the Tripanteko volcano in Pinokistan creating a huge funnel under Santorini.

 

“If this happens we will have the absorption of the waters of the Aegean which will turn into a lagoon with what this entails for tourism. Of course, this has its advantages because we will now be able to go to many islands by road! The probability of this happening is not at all negligible and exceeds 30%,”  

Now, a prosecutor has ordered a preliminary investigation to determine whether the false news Tselentis spread actually qualifies as being false news that he spread. 

I think so.

 

And he didn't help his case an iota (Greek word!) by claiming to be "selectively targeted." 

“Should I laugh or cry? I should probably laugh. We are in a country where jokes are criminalized,” he said.

Then he went on to say that no one is doing anything about other scientists who were seriously predicting earthquakes.

And this challenge to prosecutors everywhere:  “I wish I will be prosecuted, it will be great publicity for me.”

But he said he is sure that the prosecutor will come to understand how funny a gag this was, perfectly fit for April Fools Day.

I have known and worked with my share of prosecutors over the years, and I can't tell you how many of them loved to recount the myriad tales of prank calls and April Tomfoolery that they laughed at and decided not to prosecute.

April Fools! That doesn't happen.

 

 

Fast Times At New Brunswick High

I can't help it. I am still living in what the late humorist Doug Kenney called "a homeroom of the mind." I love everything about high school culture - the easy availability of ice cream sandwiches, having a stash bin locker for my stuff, lots of friends to talk to, exercise in fresh air, and, occasionally, learning something. 

I will readily admit that I would be spotted as an outlier, were I to try to blend in and fake being a high school student again. Gray hair and an unsteady gait would give me away at once. But hats off to Hyejeong Shin! She's 29 and faked them out for a whole week, posing as a new student at New Brunswick High School in New Jersey before the school administrators got wise to her fake birth certificate.

It's not as if Ms Shin was trying to make up for missed education. She is a graduate of Rutgers University, for crying out loud. Her attorney says she knows she goofed, but it was all out of her longing to have the kind of friendships she had in high school that made her do it

See what I mean?

Shin is a South Korean citizen who was sent here at 16 to attend a private boarding school, and she just missed that atmosphere.  The pep rallies! The smoke-filled lavatories! The Geometry quizzes! The morning announcements! 

Her attorney, Darren Gelber, said, "At no time was anyone or any student in danger and this entire case is more about my client wanting to return to a place of safety and welcoming and an environment that she looks back on fondly and nothing more." 

Maybe he gets paid by the word.

I think this is a serious case of hyperprosecution, but she has been indicted by a grand jury and been charged with issuing false documents and hindering her own prosecution in the third degree. Through her attorney, Shin says she is hoping to be accepted into a  pre-trial intervention program and serve no time.

Gallantly, the New Brunswick Police released a statement, saying their investigation found nothing to indicate her enrollment was part of a plan to bring harm or violence to anyone. 

Gelber says as soon as this is over, Shin wants to return to South Korea, after 13 years in the US.

Maybe if I dye my hair and buy the cool clothes that kids today wear, I could pull it off...

 

 

Sunday Rerun: Let's Do Lunch

 I remember seeing a sign that said "She who dies with the most fabric, wins." Meaning that the goal of life is to collect enough chintz, corduroy, cotton, denim and flannel to make Christmas pajamas for all the grandkids and still leave a big pile of swatches for your family, none of whom have any idea how to work that Singer sewing machine, and will deposit it, along with all that fabric, at the Goodwill, which will eventually have to talk a sewing machine museum into taking it, because no one sews anymore.

But at least, for those who sew, collecting fabric is fun, and a good hobby.

I think it's slightly odd that some people, who have enough money stashed away to buy Christmas pajamas for the entire universe, still get a thrill out of amassing more more more moolah moolah moolah!

I mean, this Warren Buffett guy, whose current net worth is about 63.3 Billion-with-a-B US Dollars, has yet to retire, and he certainly could scale things back a little if he wanted, maybe get a little condo down at the beach and ride to WaWa in a little golf cart to get his morning dark Colombian coffee and a donut and the paper.

But no, he keeps on working every day, and now comes news that someone who wisely chose to remain anonymous is shelling out $3,456,789 to eat lunch with Buffett.  It's for charity, a San Francisco outfit called Glide, which puts out food, health care and services for needy people - the homeless, the financially challenged, those fighting substance abuse.  So, it's for a good cause.  Over 17 years of this event, which was started by Buffett's late first wife Susan, $23.6 million has been raised.  All good.

So if your bid wins next year's Buffet With Buffett (I offer that name for free!), you will be able to bring up to seven friends to lunch at the Smith & Wollensky steak house in Manhattan. You can ask the aging zillionaire about anything EXCEPT what he plans to invest in next, which would be about the only thing anyone wants to hear about anyway.   

It's 50¢ extra if you want bleu cheese dressing.

The Saturday Picture Show, April 8, 2023

 

Someone gave someone on the grounds crew a reflective vest and broom and then, hilarity ensued.

Baltimore has a free circulator bus that takes one and all around downtown. One of the drivers is April Harrington, and she treats her passengers by singing popular songs as they scoot around the streets. A famous English singer, born Terence Parsons, did the same in postwar days, singing as he drove, until someone talked him into changing his name and making a record...and he sold millions of records under the name Matt Monro.

I don't know just where this trash can is, probably somewhere where bicycle riding is much more prevalent than it is here. The can is angled so that bike riders can drop their trash in it as they roll on by.

This guy (it has to be a guy!) loves his truck so much he carries a painting of it on the tailgate.

These strawberries are so big, they wouldn't do for shortcake...you'd have to have longcake.

These are egret nestlings in Florida. I give them a week before the governor down there finds something objectionable about them.

A formerly popular performer, whom I once held in high regard for his versatility and showmanship, has now decided to be one of those jerks who hates everything that's "woke." He was recently all worked up about the inclusivity slogans on a can of light beer. So, in the time honored fashion of American gunslingers, he bought two cases of Bud Light and shot at them. Since his career is in sad decline, let's just call him "Skid Rock."

As long as you had a job, I don't see what business it was of Wm. B. Wilson, who was the Secretary of Labor from 1913 to 1921, if you changed jobs. I know that used to be looked down upon, and people who went for better jobs or more pay were thought of as "flighty" and "unsettled" by people who seethed with jealousy as they sat and rued the chances they had let slip away. 

Lieutenant Broccoli, say hello to Sergeant Pepper, Corporal Punishment, and Major Disappointment.

I believe most nutritionists would recommend a well-balanced diet to get you through the day, rather than gobbling an Almond Joy for a quick lift. But dang, those Almond Joys are tasty, where butternut squash is not.

Tales of Brave Ulysses

Much was made this week of the fact that, up until this week, no American president in history had ever been indicted for a crime, but there's an asterisk to that.

*

President Ulysses S. Grant was still in office when he got in trouble with the law. 

Now, Ulysses was a war hero, having been the leader of the Union troops in the American Civil War (1861 - 1865) who sent the Confederate running home, no longer able to own other human beings. (They're still mad about it.)

Grant was a brilliant military tactician, outfoxing Confederate General Robert E. Lee time after time, but he did like to hit the sauce now and then.

And then, he would get behind the reins of his horse and buggy and haul ass around the streets of Washington. It was on M Street, to be precise, where Grant was stopped several times in 1872 by Officer William H. West. West, a formerly enslaved person, was one of two Black police officers on the DC force at the time when he saw Grant speeding around. 

The first time, West allowed Grant to pay a fine and walk home to the White House, but the very next day, West (like Grant, a Civil War veteran) caught the president breaking the law again and took action.

"I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it, for you are the chief of the nation and I am nothing but a policeman, but duty is duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest," West said, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. 

Grant was released on $20 bond ($430 in 2023 money). 

The Washington Evening Star newspaper wrote about the arrest in 1908. West retired in 1901 and lived another 14 years, telling the Star, "The General's Love for Horses and His Pleasure in Driving Were the Cause of His Trouble."

Things change, but not too much.

Pedro wanted a hippopotamus for Christmas, only a hippopotamus would do

I know the name "Pablo Escobar" sounds like something from a "Miami Vice" rerun, but Pablo was the prototypical South American drug kingpin in his day, which ended in 1993 when he was killed by the Colombian National Police. Before that, he amassed a fortune estimated at around $70 Billion with a B, and so naturally, he had enough loose change from the sale of drugs to entertain himself with a private menagerie of hippopotami.

The current head count is 70 hippos needing to be moved out, because who is about to stop the herd from procreating? Actually, they tried to stop them from reproducing. Methods employed included castrations, shooting them with contraceptive darts, and forcing them to watch Julia Roberts movies. 

It's going to cost approximately $3.5 million to farm them out to other sanctuaries, with 10 of them destined for the Ostok Sanctuary in Mexico; the other 60 will find a home in India. There's no way to take them to Africa, where the herd originated; that would upset the local ecosystem. 

 

 

Escobar originally imported one male and three females, and now look. They are spreading all over Colombia from their original home at Escobar’s former ranch of Hacienda Napoles, which is now some sort of theme park in the country where he is still regarded as sort of a Robin Hood for his habit of providing basic needs to the poor with a fortune derived from selling enough cocaine around the world to alter and/or end millions of lives.

Not to get all gross, but the Colombians need these beasts removed because, with no natural predators, they are running rampant on the countryside, and their waste is having deleterious effects on oxygen levels in the waters, reducing water quality and killing many fish in the Magdalena River basin.

Say it with me now: ewwwwwwwwww. 

Fool me Once

To paraphrase an old saying, the Lord must have loved foolish people, because he made so many of them.

Now comes evidence that strongly suggests that believing COVID-19 was a hoax is a "gateway drug" that leads to believing in other conspiracy theories, in which we are all awash, sad to say.

The journal PLOS One contains the research that found that among those who cling to the belief that the number of  COVID-19 deaths was a wild exaggeration, or that someone in China developed the virus for evil purposes and sent it out into the world, a substantial number also tend to believe that UFOs create crop circles and moon landings were Disney productions. 

"The widespread damage created by the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened people's anxiety, uncertainty, feelings of powerlessness, and has created friction between members of different social groups," said the research group. "Such conditions represent a near perfect recipe for the proliferation of conspiracy theories."

The team looked at two surveys: one from June 2020, and one in the early part of 2021, surveys in which people were asked about their beliefs in conspiracy in general and and their notions about COVID in particular. 

No surprise to me, but those who think that "COVID-19 was intentionally brought into the world for dark purposes" or that "the severity of COVID-19 was exaggerated" also nod vigorously when asked about the 2020 presidential election being rigged more than any election in history, very bigly, or that  “some UFO sightings and rumors are planned or staged in order to distract the public from real alien contact.”

In time, it was found that the more people bought into the "COVID is fake" myth, the more likely they were to believe that John Kennedy Senior and Junior are alive and running a shrimping operation in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and mass shootings of school children are produced by cable TV as fodder for the mainstream media. 

Try as you might, you cannot get adherents to these nutty notions to explain why the people they dismiss as incompetent government or military personnel are at once so stupid as to allow these horrible things, and also so brilliant as to pull off these gigantic mass deceptions.

 

Goodbye to a good guy

A story about a friend of mine...whose funeral viewing I attended on Sunday.

His name was Jack McClean. He served not only my fire company, the Providence Volunteers, for around sixty years, as an active firefighter and financial administrator, but also, he gave of his considerable expertise in money matters to the Baltimore County Volunteer Firemen's Association, and if you know anything about volunteer fire companies, you surely know they have to make every dollar do the work of five.

Jack knew about money. He was graduated from the University of Maryland and worked for many years in the banking industry. In fact, I called on him any time I had a question about a mortgage structure, or anything that was beyond my ken in wallet and checkbook matters (I was able to make change for a twenty and that was about it as far as doing things without expert advice.)

The viewing was packed with people, and that tells you a lot about the amount of people Jack reached with his friendly personality and helpful ways. 

Volunteers from Lutherville filled in
for the funeral and viewing.

And here is the story I promised: In my first summer as a firefighter, I told the other guys that my family and I were going to Salisbury, MD, the next day. Jack said, off handedly, "Hey, stop in at our First National office on the downtown mall and tell Mr Fitzgerald I said hello."

I did that. I like to meet new people. Skinny Mark in t-shirt and cutoffs was ushered into Mr Fitzgerald's office as soon as I mentioned "Jack sent me." I had a nice chat with Mr Fitzgerald about Salisbury and what a great town it is and how great the fried chicken is down there and whatever else can get discussed in fifteen minutes, and I left him with a promise to say hey to Jack when I got back home.

Five years later, I moved to Salisbury to work at WICO AM-FM and, not knowing anyone at any banks where I could safely deposit my $90 weekly pay, I wandered into the same bank and asked for Mr Fitzgerald. He bounded out of his office with a grip and grin and said, "Did Jack send you again?"

So now Jack is straightening out checkbooks at a whole new location and he takes a lot of great memories with him. As someone said, he was one of the last of the breed of people who work so hard for so many people...for nothing but the satisfaction of having helped.

Don't Heckle the Magpies

It happens here, too, England, so don't feel like you're all alone here. American fans are often victims of premature etattoolation, and it's always embarrassing.

English soccer fan Kris Cook follows the Newcastle United team, so he thought that the time was right to get a four-inch tattoo to salute his squad's victory in the Carabao Cup.

And that would have been great, except that the Newcs lost 2-0 to Manchester United.  

Two goals in a soccer game is the ultimate, one supposes, for a game where people can spend hours aimlessly kicking a ball around.

 

His team is called the Magpies. He doesn't regret rooting for them, or getting the leg tattoo too early. His family does not think much of the ink, but his friends find it hilarious.

Newcastle was trying to end a championship drought that dates back to 1969. That was the year I was graduated from high school, and now I'm celebrating graduation from physical therapy for the 37th time, so...

Kris Cook is from the most English-named town I've seen in some time:  Cramlington, Northumberland. He says, "I was going in for a day session at the tattoo place anyway to get a sleeve done and then decided last minute to get the Newcastle tattoo on my leg too."

"It was all for a laugh and I had mentioned to my mates that I might get it done, but they were shocked when I went through with it."

"One of them said,'(blasphemy deleted) what have you had done'."

"It took about 10 minutes to do and was thrown in with the £400 (that's $495.75 American) cost of booking the tattooist out for the day to have my arm sleeve done. The tattoo says, 'tell me ma me ma' which is a NUFC chant from the 90s and one we sing at St James' Park. I don't regret getting it done at all. I might when I'm older but for now, I just think it's funny."

So he is cool with the tat, but his grandma does not like it, or to quote him directly, "My eight-year-old daughter Honey thinks it's funny and my mum is not fussed but my gran hates it."

"She has always been anti-tattoos and I am covered in them. I think the Newcastle United one was just a step too far for her."

"The girl who does my tattoos is from Sunderland so she probably enjoyed it that little bit more."

I think we're all aware of the legendary Sunderland/Newcastle enmity.

Anyway, Kris and his friends made the 280-mile trip to see the game, but, "I can't remember much of the match if I'm honest as me and my friends had been drinking all day and celebrating so the initial defeat didn't hit me. I am disappointed that we didn't win but I am so proud of the team for getting to Wembley and we will be back. Give Newcastle a few years and we will start winning lots of things. I am still very proud of my team despite the outcome."

Trade "New York" for "Newcastle" and this is the most American English story ever! 

Sunday Rerun: No No No, It Ain't Me, Babe

 I've been following Bob Dylan since forever, and if there's one thing that always stands out about the folky balladeer, it's that he is consistently inconsistent. This goes way back to when he was a pure acoustic performer, before he plugged in a band at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. It's the hallmark of a good performer, and a good way to become legendary like Bob - always keep the audience wondering what's next. 

Show business is part show and all business. Just ask anyone who is shelling out $700 for one ticket to see "The Music Man" on Broadway. You get the experience of seeing a true legend as Hugh Jackman struts across the stage as Professor Harold Hill. If that's what you want to do with $700, fine. We all saw on "CBS Sunday Morning" that there are people willing to pony up $250,000 to get in a mini submarine and drop in on the wreckage of the Titanic. Those who go will see the unmistakable bow of the great ship at rest on the Atlantic floor and know it's for real, and not some old sunken garbage scow.

We can't take it away from Bob Dylan that he has written and performed hundreds of great songs, too many even to think of listing here. But I'm throwing a penalty flag and walking off five yards against the wire-haired boy from Hibbing, not that he would even care what I think, but because he recently tried to cheat his fans, only to be caught and turn red.

Through his book publisher, Simon & Schuster, Dylan hawked 900 "personally hand-signed" copies of his new book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song.” Each copy set the purchaser back $599, but again, for a true believer, that's not too much to exchange for a true totem - the actual autograph of the author on a book he wrote.

The books sold out and were shipped a week or so ago, and it took two days of people proudly Instragramming pictures of their treasures before people started saying, "These signatures all look alike...."

It took two more days before Simon & Schuster acknowledged that complaints about the autographs actually being mechanical duplicates were true and legitimate.

The book's cover shows Little Richard, Alis Lesley (one of the several hundred "female Elvises"), and Eddie Cochran.

“To those who purchased the ‘Philosophy of Modern Song’ limited edition, we want to apologize,” said a tweet from Simon & Schuster.  “As it turns out, the limited edition books do contain Bob’s original signature, but in a penned replica form. We are addressing this information by providing each purchaser with an immediate refund.”

Such double-speak! Yes, it's Bob's autograph, but it isn't. The books were all signed by an autopen, a machine used by people who have to sign their names many times. (In high school, I looked into getting one for my father so he wouldn't get writer's cramp from signing so many letters from the school, but anyway...)

The people at Simon & Schuster have not learned much about crisis management, it would seem; their first response was to stonewall the criticism, saying, “We certainly understand any concerns you may have, however – Each individual copy of the limited signed edition of Bob Dylan’s THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG was personally signed by the author and is accompanied by a letter of authenticity from the publisher of Simon & Schuster.”

Each book had been mailed with a letter signed (?) by Jonathan Karp, president and CEO of the publishing house, saying, “You hold in your hands something very special, one of just 900 copies available in the U.S.  This letter is confirmation that the copy of the book you hold in your hand has been hand-signed by Bob Dylan.”

Within two days, the company buckled, with Karp emailing each purchaser to say, "We apologize for the mistake that was made and are offering a full refund of your purchase. Please keep your copy of ‘The Philosophy of Modern Song’ at no cost. We hope you will enjoy reading it.”

We who try to understand Dylan understand that confounding us is the basis of his game, as when he refused to accept a Nobel Prize or attend the ceremony involved, only to say later he was sorry about all that. But explaining is something he doesn't do...until now. From his Facebook:

“I’ve been made aware that there’s some controversy about signatures on some of my recent artwork prints and on a limited-edition of Philosophy Of Modern Song. I’ve hand-signed each and every art print over the years, and there’s never been a problem. However, in 2019 I had a bad case of vertigo and it continued into the pandemic years. It takes a crew of five working in close quarters with me to help enable these signing sessions, and we could not find a safe and workable way to complete what I needed to do while the virus was raging. So, during the pandemic, it was impossible to sign anything and the vertigo didn’t help. With contractual deadlines looming, the idea of using an auto-pen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done ‘all the time’ in the art and literary worlds.

“Using a machine was an error in judgment and I want to rectify it immediately. I’m working with Simon & Schuster and my gallery partners to do just that,” he concluded.

It does not take a "crew of five" to get books signed. Just deliver 900 books, and a handful of Sharpies to his house, and tell him you'll be back to pick them up when he's finished scrawling his signature on the inside cover. 

It's disappointing to me that he did not write and record his 1/2-assed apology in the form of a song and release it as a special edition Holiday Gift To You on vinyl, cassette, CD or MP3, but I guess he can't think of every scam.

The Saturday Picture Show, April 1, 2023

 

As Mr Hilton said to Mrs Hilton, "We'll always have Paris." 

One of the "Nine Stories" in the great collection by that name from J. D. Salinger was "A Perfect Day For Bananafish." And here are two of them!

So when you run out of clothespins, try chip clips!

The wheatfields are hard at work, getting ready to bring you bowlsful of Shredded Wheat.

Who hasn't wanted to do this, timing themselves on the radar gun?

I don't know where this flag hangs, or for what reason. I guess I could look it up, but that would be....easy.

Many was the time, during my radio DJ days, that I sat while playing some dirge like "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" or Morris Albert's sleep-inducing "Feelings" and thought how great it would be to play nothing but songs that made people feel good, not songs about sunken ships in Lake Superior or gooey laments like "Feelings." Anything by Jan And Dean would fit that format, most of the early Beatles, and of course, the Beach Boys before they got all self-conscious and ponderous. You can bet my iPod has no sob to it.

The chairs at BIC headquarters are made to resemble parts of the legendary ballpoints we all fiddled with in school. No kidding!

The planets lined up this past week and if you were outside around dinnertime and had a clear view westward, you could see the sky show. 

In his heyday with the San Francisco Giants, Sergio Romo was a pretty good relief pitcher with a nasty slider that helped his teams win three World Series. As often happens, he finished his career with other teams, and came back to the Giants this spring to retire as a member of the team where he got his start. Throughout spring training, every time a kid asked him for an autograph, he had the kid sign his hat as well, and now he takes with him to his leisure time an estimated $12.5 million in savings, and one very cool hat.