Chicken Dance

We were talking about names the other day, some friends and I. The consensus seems to be that my parents christened me with a name that would sound already-made-up when, twenty years later, I made them the proudest parents on earth by becoming a country music DJ.

Pause for laughter.

I like my name now, didn't when I was a kid because it rhymed and was thus easy to poke fun at, among people who had yet to hear the 27 replies I had in my quiver concerning their provenance. I sort of wished for a name like "Leon" or a nickname like "Pretty Boy," but was assured that neither seemed appropriate.

BUT if you are about to give birth to a baby in the next few days, try to persuade him or her to remain in utero until Sunday, September 9.
You ask why? Well, the good people over at Kentucky Fried Chicken are offering a jackpot of $11,000 if you name your baby "Harland."



Yep, that Harland. 

"Colonel" Harland Sanders (1890 - 1980 - interesting symmetry!) was no more a Colonel than buffalo wings come from a buffalo, but he did know how to make some mighty fine fried chicken, and started one of America's greatest businesses with his Kentucky Fried Chicken.

September 9 being the ole' Col's birthday, the marketing squad at KFC came up with this: all babies born on 9/9 and named Harland are eligible to have their parents enter them in the drawing for 11 big ones.

The "11" comes from the amount of herbs and spices in the KFC breading recipe.

The word from the KFC henhouse is that the 11G is intended to be college tuition for the little winning Harland, which just goes to show that someone on their marketing team has not taken a good look at college fees of today, let alone what they'll charge in 2036.

Maybe the winning family can devote the 11,000 semolians to getting help for a kid who will have 11,000 people asking him, "Where'd you get that name?"

Red Bull by the horns

Today's lesson is all about remembering to do a favor any time we get the chance to.

Ask Sue Manchester about that.  She's in North Carolina, and a couple of weeks ago, she went out to lunch, and while on her break, she got a text message from a coworker.

"Could you pick up a Red Bull for me?" asked her friend. This all took place on a Friday and her friend needed a little boost to pull the day through and finish the week strong, be my guess.

So Sue slid by the gas station where she usually fills up, but it was packed, so off she went to the Eagles station down in Chapel Hill.  And while she was grabbing the Red Bull, she decided to invest in a
Colossal Cash scratch-off ticket.

"I grabbed the Red Bull and then noticed I had a $20 and a $10 bill," Manchester said. "I decided to get one of the tickets since my coworker has been winning on it recently."

Back at work, while her buddy amped up on caffeine, taurine, B vitamins (B3, B5, B6, B12) and simple sugars (sucrose and glucose) in a buffer solution of carbonated water, baking soda and magnesium carbonate, sending 80 mg of caffeine into his bloodstream*, Sue took her scratcher and found herself one million dollars richer.

"I saw the symbol and was like, 'No. This doesn't happen.'" Manchester said. "I showed the same coworker and he said, 'Sue you just won $1 million.' I still didn't believe it. It's very serendipitous. Especially since I rarely get scratch-off tickets."

She chose to receive her winnings as a $600,000 lump sum, which paid off as $423,010 after taxes. And she wins my respect for the correct usage of "serendipitous" as well!

So, the next time we're running errands and we get a text from Jim Bob back at the office, we know what to do, right?

*contents of one can of Red Bull

Snob story

I'm not going to name the actor involved in this (why spread unnecessary shame?), but last week, a guy who played a fairly important role on what was probably the biggest sitcom of the 1980s - the Cosby show- was spotted working at a Trader Joe's in New Jersey.

I love Trader Joe's, even though they sell hummus.

And some eagle-eyed viewer spotted him there, and took pictures and shared them. And before you knew it, a certain "news" network that I won't name either (but it rhymes with lox) splattered the pictures all over their meretricious channel and its accompanying tawdry website, the purpose being to shame the man.

Now, was he being shamed for having to pay $32 million in a sexual harassment lawsuit for begging to be able to fondle an employee with a loofah (which he mistakenly called a “falafel”)? Because that's what happened to a guy who used to fill the cable with falafel every night for an hour until they tied a can to him.

Or was he being shamed because he had to resign as CEO of a huge firm? Remember, the parent company of that ignoble channel has had to shell out $45 million in settlements related to sexual harassment allegations against their former CEO Roger Ailes, a man now dead?

Or was he being shamed because he went out and got a job to put food on his table?

I would not watch that channel to save my own life, but I read that their on-air "anchors" and "reporters" constantly whinge about older, working-class Americans suffering from economic anxiety, and they use this as an explanation for why certain low-grade Americans commit atrocities against people who are not *just like them.*

So this man, who from all reports still works as an actor, gets on with Trader Joe's for salary and benefits, and this abhorrent channel holds him up to ridicule?


“‘(the man in question) still acts occasionally, works at Trader Joe’s, and ministers to others in need, setting a good example for people everywhere. What a great guy,’ That’s what @&#*News should have said,” Texas Congressional candidate Dayna Steele wrote on Twitter.


Chris Rankin, an actor who was in Harry Potter movies, tweeted:

@chrisrankin 
I worked in a Wetherspoons kitchen after being in Harry Potter. I needed a job, no shame in that. And you know what? I really enjoyed it! You do what you need to do and that's nothing to be ashamed of.



Yashar Ali, a freelance journalist, said:

@yashar
 Delete this. The man is trying to put food on the table and you’re trying to humiliate him?

It says here, you can have your opinion about this repulsive channel, and you can feel free to watch it, but no one should ever be criticized or held to ridicule for working an honest job for honest pay. Especially when this network claims to be the voice of the ordinary Joe, crying out against all "them liberal smarty elites."

You know it ain't easy

Many of us studied Spanish back in the day, and learned to point to Madrid as the capital of the nation and how to ask for the check at a restaurant or directions to the train station.

But we never heard a word about the fascist government that ruled the nation with the proverbial iron fist, with an estimated 40,000 people being killed by forces loyal to "His Excellency" Generalísimo Francisco Franco, who suppressed all dissent, sending his opposition to death in concentration camps.

Gee whiz! We didn't hear anything about this, and I'll bet most Americans didn't know who was in charge over there until Franco died in 1975 and Chevy Chase announced the news on SNL's "Weekend Update" and then continued the gag by announcing, week after week, that "Generalísimo Francisco Franco is still dead!"

Richard Nixon, who had just vacated the US presidency 15 months earlier, apparently didn't know much about the old Generalísimo,  because he went on record with this statement: "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States. He earned worldwide respect for Spain through firmness and fairness."

Except for those 40,000 dead people, but whatevs. You would think that Nixon, a naval officer himself during World War II, would have remembered Franco making Spanish ports available to German and Italian naval vessels.

Until his death, Franco employed four censors at the Directorate of Popular Culture in Madrid. They had to listen to all the records that came along (and watch all the movies, and read all the books) to make sure that no Spaniard saw anything with sexual, blasphemous or politically subversive content.  They wound up banning, or at least partially censoring, 4,343 songs.

One of which is one of my favorite Beatle songs!  The Ballad of John and Yoko irritated His Excellency for reasons we'll get into a minute, but let me get all Casey Kasem on you for a minute.

The record label of "The Ballad of John and Yoko" credited it to The Beatles, but only John Lennon and Paul McCartney were involved in cutting the song on April 14, 1969. George was off doing his Maharishi thing, and I believe Ringo was making a Peter Sellers movie, so when Lennon wrote the song about his and Yoko's troubles getting married and demonstrating for peace, he called Paul and they recorded it themselves, with John on guitars and Paul on bass, piano, maracas and drums!

Two lines from the lyrics have always held my interest: "Caught the early plane back to London, fifty acorns tied in a sack" refers to John and Yoko distributing acorns to as many people as they could find, hoping to have them plant trees for the cause of peace. One wonders if any of those trees survived, or if any of the hopes of peace did.

and "Peter Brown called to say, you can make it O.K, you can get married in Gibraltar near Spain..."  Peter Brown was one of the men on the Beatles' business team, and he arranged for the wedding to take place in Gibraltar, which was, at the time, a British protectorate, which Franco bitterly contested.

So he made the record company remove the offensive words "Gibraltar near Spain" from the record.

And now you know the rest of the story. Franco is still dead as a doornail. But one last tidbit:  at the end of "Ballad of John and Yoko," John threw in a little fancy Spanish flamenco guitar hook, a nod to his playing on the Beatles' version of "Lonesome Tears in My Eyes," an old Johnny Burnette song from early Beatle days.

Happy Labor Day! Remember, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!"

Sunday Rerun: You never sausage a dent

I noticed this years ago when we drove to Florida.  To look around at the shops and stores, we could have been in our own neighborhood! There were Walgreens and CVS and Home Depot and Barnes & Noble and of course, McDonald's and Burger King everywhere. There seem to be no more purely local stores, or, at least, not many of them.

And apparently, the old saying about "people being the same everywhere" is true after all, just like your old Uncle Gustav used to say.

A case in point is this story from Neubrandenburg, Germany, where a man was driving his BMW too fast for a man who was trying to cross a street with his son in tow.  The angry German hollered "Stop!" as the car zoomed by, but the car failed to slow down, so the man threw a foot-long sausage at it.

The story concludes with the news that the sausage dented the back right-hand door of the automobile.

OK...to sum up:  What have we learned?

• Some Germans drive too fast, just like some Americans
• You can dent the door of a BMW with a sausage
• Germans have been known to walk around while carrying foot-long sausages heavy enough to dent steel

I have to admit, the same thing could have happened right here in Baltimore, Bakersfield or Beaumont.  The best idea is to drive slowly...you never know what people are toting around on the sidewalk!

The Saturday Picture Show, September 1, 2018

As you leave the free car wash at Jones Toyota, there's a sign with a
picture of a freshly washed car, and the sign says, "There! Now don't you
feel better?" So don't you feel all fall-ish just seeing this? Hot a-mighty,
so do I!

For our younger readers, we got Green Stamps like this after buying food at the A&P or other lesser grocery stores. It was the job of the youngest child in the family (me!) to glue the stamps into special books, which, when filled with stamps, could be turned in for merchandise at ANOTHER store. For roughly 238,000 books, you got a lawnmower. So you worked to paste the doggone things in the books and then your parents came home with something else to use while working. I always asked for a hammock, and got hedge shears instead.

Every now and then, you might make a "Godfather" reference in your conversation, like when I tell people about the restaurant in New Jersey that's just like where Mike took the corrupt police captain for his last linguine. And then, people say, "Oh. I never saw it."  You NEVER SAW The Godfather? So you don't wake up looking for a horse's head?

I remember reading this wonderful story about the Emperor's new clothes, and how people were afraid to tell their ruler that he was making a royal patootie of himself. That could never happen today.

Apple-picking time! Time for apple pie, apple fritters, apple sauce, apple cider, apple dumplings, baked apples, caramel apples, apple crisp, apple cobbler, apple cake, apple turnovers...

"Be happy" makes a whole lot more sense as a slogan than its dull cousin "Be best," which doesn't even make sense to begin with.

Marty Stuart, country music showman and historian, has a museum in Mississippi with a full collection of famous Nudie stage suits worn by greats of the past.

Tonight is the night that the University of Alabama begins the defense of their national football championship. These cheerleaders, backed by hundreds of other cheerleaders, yell teams, dance teams, and the Million Dollar Band, will be there at 8 PM on ABC and you can be sure I will be too! #rolltideroll #outworkyesterday

Life is a buffet

To be quite honest, forced to choose between Jimmy Buffett and Warren Buffett, I would choose an Asian Buffet.  But that's just my choice, and even though making money as a fulltime obsession seems a little graceless to me, someone has started a fake twitter acct. under the name of "Warren Buffet" (one t) and this person has some pretty good thoughts, viz. the following list entitled "What Is Cool."

Who's up for Asian buffet?

With no preamble, "Warren" lists ten things that never lost coolness:

1 saying 'thank you'
2 apologizing when wrong
3 showing up on time
4 being nice to strangers
5 listening without interrupting
6 admitting you were wrong
7 following your dreams
8 being a mentor
9 learning and using people's names
10 holding doors open

What great ideas! Why, I would like everyone on earth to start saying "thank you" - and meaning it! And while we're at it, could the proper response revert to "You're welcome," in place of "No problem!"?

Apologizing when wrong? Just like someone who has played the national anthem twice a day for twenty years, I am in good practice in this category. You never knew anyone with such a predilection for goofing - and saying I am sorry as soon as possible. I really am.

Showing up on time? You must be kidding me. Ten minutes early is late, to me, and to see the way people blithely sashay in for appointments and what-have-you fifteen minutes after they were due just makes me wanna holla. I attribute this to the "proximate spelling" craze currently bedeviling some of our schools.

Being nice to strangers gets all the easier when we remember the times we were the stranger and wished someone could help us find a bus stop or our pants. Or both.

Listening without interrupting gets easier when we remember that we came from the factory with one mouth and two ears.

Admitting you were wrong takes place just before apologizing for it, and that should be followed by acknowledgment of how our actions hurt another, and an earnest promise to do better.

Following your dreams? I will tell you, let  John Greenleaf Whittier say it: "For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been.' "   Don't be one of those people who enters dotage wondering how it might have been had they pursued their dream.

Mentoring a young person or a new person to a group is one of the most rewarding feelings, and just like being nice to strangers, it's something you don't have to do, but you're glad when you do. And so is the mentored person.

There is no sweeter sound to a person, with the possible exception of the winner winner winner! noise at a casino, that their own name. And the person is thrilled that you take time to learn and use their handle, so you can't lose. What's more, there is no better way to get the attention of someone named Earl than to go, "Hey Earl!"

I like to hold doors open as a new way to meet new people. People are almost always appreciative, and so I hold the hardware while they come and go. And if they don't say thanks, hand them this list, with item #1 highlighted in yellow.
_____________________________________________________

Now remember, this list was not written by the real Warren Buffett. At least, as far as we know.

Sandwich Man

The good old New York DAILY NEWS - home to countless snappy headlines ("FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD") and grisly pictures of murdered gangsters bleeding all over the sidewalk, reports on the sandwich above, and as they say on TV news, you won't believe how much it costs!

Or maybe you will, if you've ever been in a Noo Yawk hotel and sent your laundry out.

They call it a grilled cheese sandwich, but this tasty morsel also features wagyu, which is Japanese beef so expensive that it's only sold at auction.  You just can't run down to the Tri 'n' Save and get a pound of it.

"The reality is the cattle from the prized Wagyu beef are pampered, they are treated like royalty. They are fed organic grains and are raised all-naturally. So their fat is distributed evenly throughout their body, and it's actually good fat because of what they eat," said Steve Mangione, spokesman for The Old Homestead Steakhouse, which is selling these sandwiches - white cheddar, beer cheese and creamy fontina melted on white bread with some Wagyu - for just $275.

The article doesn't mention whether you get chips and a pickle spear for that, and I'm betting that you don't.

I'm sorry to be bringing you this news as August mercifully drags to a steamy close, but the Steakhouse was featuring this, along with an $89 peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a $150 bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, a $225 pastrami sandwich and a $250 Philly cheesesteak. But it's ending soon, because so is August, and August is National Sandwich Month.  And here I never even got around to sending greeting cards to mark the occasion.

I'll tell you what. If you want to come over for lunch one day, I can fix you a sandwich just as good as this with Taylor Pork Roll - the official tubular meat product of Heaven - and various cheeses that I have lying about, for much less. In fact, for $275, I will wash and wax your car while performing a medley of Broadway showstoppers in the garage.

For a hundred more, I'll send you home with a brownie in a ziploc bag.

Mayo Clinic

There must be a line somewhere between a city's civic pride and a city's dignity.  Or, less subtly, how much will it take for some nationwide company to grease your town's coffers sufficiently to get you to change the name of your burg to something silly, something guaranteed to have the worst thing in the world happen, namely, having Jimmy Fallon poke fun at your town?

Down South in Florida, right about where the Panhandle turns into a peninsula, there's the town of Mayo, Florida.  It's not New York, or even York; there are fewer than 1,500 Mayonites, but the Town Fathers And Mothers, for a fee said to range between $15,000- $25,000, are willing to change temporarily the name of the town to "Miracle Whip."

Miracle Whip is an alternative spread to mayonnaise in much the same way a McDouble is an alternative to a Ruth's Chris 24-oz filet mignon, and it's a product of the good people over at Kraft Heinz, and they're the ones who brought this madcap idea to the Mayo folks, and found they have a deal, the point of which is to get residents of the town to switch to artificial mayonnaise.  But Shhhhh...they want it to be a secret!

Imagine the hijinx on film! The plan is to have film cameras rolling as trained condiment-replacement specialists go door to door to swap out sandwich spreads, by force if necessary.


And they're going to change the name on street signs and the water tower! Oh, the consternation!

At least, the only good thing about all this is that Mayo (located halfway Tallahassee and Gainesville) will use the money for city beautification measures.

"We aren't going to be boring Mayo anymore. We are going to be Miracle Whip!" Ann Murphy, the mayor of Mayo, said. "I definitely think this will put us on the map."

One little problem that arose from all these secret meetings and keeping the public in the dark about it all is that closed sessions of town council are in violation of Florida's Sunshine Law.

The town, the county seat of Lafayette County, Florida's second-least populous county, is named for a confederate colonel, James Mayo, and its biggest employer is a state prison.

Maybe they needed to do this just to lighten the place up a bit.

By the way, there's a town in New Mexico that used to be called Hot Springs, but in 1950 (when radio was still king) a national radio show offered prizes for any city willing to change its name to the name of the radio show.

And that's how Hot Springs, N.M. became Truth Or Consequences, N.M.

What the shell

Ask any stranger you might meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, or Auckland, New Zealand, or Albuquerque, New Mexico "what is Baltimore famous for?" and after they mention Johns Hopkins Hospital and University and rampant street crime, they will know us for our crabmeat.

Even in a summer when a dozen steamed crabs will put a $90 dent in your wallet, we throng to crabhouses to crack 'em or enjoy 'em in crabcakes, fried hard crabs, or crab fluffs (remember them?)

So you have to hand it to the PETA people, the people for the ethical treatment of animals, people clad in rubber shoes and hemp belts, eating watercress sandwiches on 37-grain bread for lunch with plant-based mayonnaise.

These are the people who shut down the circus because of the elephants, and got Nabisco to get new paintings for their animal cracker boxes, showing uncaged beasts roaming the earth in search of humans to eat.

Turn about is fair play, right? We eat animals, they eat us, but in the animal kingdom there exists no AETH - Animals for the Ethical Treatment of Humans - movement. Any creature from mosquito to crocodile sees us as lunch, dinner, or a post-prandial snack.

I bring all this up because PETA has now launched a billboard advertising campaign near some of the best crabhouses in town. It's near the Inner Harbor, and it is not getting many thumbs up on social media.


“Just like humans, crabs feel pain and fear, have unique personalities, and value their own lives,” PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said, without explaining how many crabs have ever told her so. “PETA’s billboard aims to give Charm City residents some food for thought about sparing sensitive marine animals the agony of being boiled alive or crushed to death in fishing nets simply by going vegan.”

A local tv station interviewed Nick Lentis, owner of the Silver Moon II restaurant, and he says the billboard is hurting his business.

“I don’t have nothing to do with this. I sell crab meat,” Lentis said. “I think they have to remove it.”

In September, Baltimore will celebrate their annual seafood festival, and PETA plans to keep the billboard up through that time.

They say crabs are sensitive...Some years ago, on the fishing pier in Ocean City, a crab attached himself to me by grabbing the sole of my Sperry TopSider with his pincer. I found this insensitive of him, and I mentioned this to his cousin that night over dinner, if he could hear me with all that Old Bay on him.

Oysters in a stew

For some time, many of us have yearned to vacation on Île de Ré, a French Island named in honor of Ray Romano. but one nagging problem held us back from plopping down our francs and booking passage on the good ship Le Barge Qui Fuit to spend a happy fortnight on the Bay of Biscay.

And that one hitch was, what if you want a fresh oyster at 3 AM?  What will you do? What WILL you do?

Relax and book that passage right now, because our problem has been solved, our fears allayed, our brows unknit. The world is quite literally our oyster, because Tony Berthelot, an oyster farmer, has devised a means of dispensing ice-cold oysters at any time to anyone who has the price in his or her pocket. (Actually, it only takes credit cards.)

M. Berthelot created the world's first oyster vending machine!  He raises them, harvests them, cleans them and puts them in boxes inside refrigerated (I should hope so!) compartments inside his Oysterama machine.

Then, when you're jonesing for a bivalve in the middle of the night, just report to Berthelot's machine for a variety of oysters, ranging from about €15 ($18) to €34 ($40).


Berthelot says he invested just about the same loot in the machine that he would have spent in salary for an employee, and of course, this "employee," once plugged in, will work 24-7 all around the calendar.

And he recognizes that the younger generation of oyster slurpers is more content to deal with a machine than with a real live person.

"We can come at midnight if we want, if we have a craving for oysters. It's excellent; they're really fresh," said Christel Petinon, a 45-year-old client holidaying on the island.

"We felt as though we were losing lots of sales when we are closed," Berthelot points out.

"There was a cost involved when buying this machine, of course, but we're paying it back in installments ... And today, in theory, we can say that the calculations are correct and it's working."

The big gamble in all this was, would consumers throw caution to the wind and "shell out" money for oysters, knowing full well that they were trusting Berthelot to keep them cold all along. Live mollusks not kept cool enough, or too long out of seawater, can cause food poisoning when opened.

But Mon Dieu, how convenient!

Sunday Rerun: About Sam Levenson

Sam Levenson (1911-1980)  began life as a Jewish immigrant in New York's tough tenement district, and became a Spanish teacher after graduation from college. To supplement his income during summer breaks, he began performing at Catskills nightclubs, and soon became a well-known figure in comedy in clubs, radio and TV. He told stories of his upbringing, always crediting his parents with raising children in a tough setting with dignity, and while he never became as well-known as many other comics, he did leave a legacy of warm humor and wise advice. He did a lecture tour in 1966 to support his first memoir, "Everything But Money," and we saw him speak at a local college. I was impressed and began following his career (and as much of his advice as I could.)
This little compendium of advice is often attributed to Audrey Hepburn, but Sam wrote it for his granddaughter. Audrey used to quote it all the time, often to people who thought she was Katharine Hepburn.

Time Tested Beauty Tips

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Never throw out anybody.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.
The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's the essence of Sam...modest, understated and wise.

The Saturday Picture Show, August 25, 2018

 Let's just say they do things differently out in California.
"They do things a little differently out in California."

How many of us can go home at the end of a workday and feel good about what we did that day? These people can!

An imaginative New York artist saw the crumbling remains of a bridge support and turned it into giant "street art."

I like this. These good people chose to let the tree live and adjust their building's dimensions around it.

The late Aretha Franklin left this behind - her notes on spiritual discipline. The last one was cut off, but it said, "Always be kind, and never turn to hate."

Future generations visiting the Smithsonian Museum in Washington can see this baseball glove, donated by a collector. It's Brooks Robinson's mitt from 1974. It might as well have had a sticker on it saying, "Magic done here."

I haven't had a soda for years and years but I was an avid Coke guzzler back in the day, and these old jingles are still in my ear.

Yes, of course, this is an alligator in Florida lolling about on a pool noodle.

Strip Poker

It's happened again. The police - Baltimore County and Maryland State -worked together to stop this scourge of illegal (obviously) street racing. Last weekend, there was a very large crowd gathered to watch a drag race involving some cars.

Understand: the crowd was gathered on I-70, which is a very large highway sort of thing that will take you Hagerstown if you wish to go there, as long as the people standing ON THE ROAD will get out of the way and let you through.

Working together, the county police and state troopers stopped 65 cars last Friday and Saturday night, resulting in three arrests for impaired driving, and issued 97 citations, 33 warnings and 23 safety equipment repair orders.

Police say that 50 to 60 people were standing on I-70, blocking westbound traffic for 15 minutes. So they positioned themselves down the "race track" a bit, and were all set to catch violators as they fled, having caught wind of the police presence.



 This is a picture from another state that shows what we're up against here - people taking over a highway for their own unsafe, ridiculous, pleasures.

 Listen, I have nothing against people having the hobby of making their cars go faster and faster! There is nothing wrong with that, and in fact, I know people who take their cars to dragstrips and oval racetracks for drag races and distance races. 

But there is a difference between Cecil County Dragway and Route 70. Contestants high-tailing it down the quarter-mile strip in Rising Sun do not have to worry about a family in a Buick coming home from a vacation being on the track ahead.

I think it's symptomatic of The New American Selfishness that some of us are so solipsistic as to think they are entitled to take over a portion of a public roadway this way. 

Try shutting down a major road in your town to hold a Book Fair and see what kind of response you get.

Washed up

There's a lot to love about kids, especially their honesty and lack of guile. Just hand a 6-year-old a sandwich and ask them later how they liked it. They won't couch their answer based on what they think you want to hear: if they like the combination of peanut butter and pickle, they will tell you so, and if not, they will tell you that as well.

But a 16-year-old, now that might be different. Because you add teenaged insecurity to the urge to speak one's mind, and you hear things that would have better been left unsaid.

And teens are acutely aware of each other's sensitive points, since they have them themselves, and they can lob rocks right where it will hurt the most.

Which brings us to this:

Akbar Cook is the principal of West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey, and you don't have to do much digging to find out that is one tough high school, in a crime-ridden urban area.  Students there don't tend to have all the comforts of home, and often show up at school hungry and in dirty clothes.

Or they don't show up at school, and that's even worse.

Instead of commissioning studies about the ill effects of wearing unwashed clothing, Principal Cook took the proverbial bull by the proverbial horns and did something about it!

Note to all of us: this revolutionary response - taking action instead of taking six years to discuss a problem - should be followed in many places, especially schools, before it's too late to educate.

Cook found out why the kids whose families did not have or use laundry facilities were skipping school by asking those kids what the matter was. “They were choosing to stay home rather than coming to school to be bullied or ridiculed,” he told NJ.com. “We didn’t know until we started making calls.”

He found out that the students affected were the object of harsh barbs in school, and the 21st Century version of e-cruelty: other students cruelly took photos of the disadvantaged ones and posted them on social media.

Nice, huh?


Principal Cook contacted PSE&G, New Jersey’s utility supplier, and obtained from them $20,000 to be used to set up five washers and dryers in an old football locker room.




What's more, people are donating detergent to help out. 

“I refuse to let a kid come to school smelling or dirty and I’m sitting on a shirt that says ‘West Side on it,” Cook said.

All the studies and hand-wringing in the world can't take the place of some worthwhile practical action.

“We take things for granted that are easy for us. [Cook] doesn’t,” says Ellen Lambert, retired president of the PSEG Foundation. “You want everyone to succeed, especially young people. He finds those places where success doesn’t happen and he figures out why and he goes after it.”

If this makes a difference for only one student, it would be great.  But you have to figure it will help many, and that's the greatest!

Making a scene

You know that quiet reading room at the Perry Hall library we've talked about here before, the one with the magazines and easy chairs and a fireplace for when it gets cold? A great place for people to while away an afternoon, or for students to get some work done at a table without a lot of rabble, or for this one guy who is always in there taking pictures of newspaper articles...hmmmm

Anyway, the silence in the room was broken harshly the other afternoon. I missed most of the contumacity, having filled my ears with Oriole baseball via earbuds (it doesn't matter that they lose the lion's share of their games; the call of the game by radio guys Joe Angel and Jim Hunter is terrific, no matter the score) but apparently a teenaged (maybe 15, 16) girl was having trouble with her laptop, or her words, or both.

Peggy was hearing the whole thing, and it was not pleasant. I saw others in the room craning around to see what was the matter, and it sure wasn't that Santa was outside causing a clatter.  Something on the screen had upset this young woman, and she reacted by cursing a blue streak, hurling f-bombs, slamming her laptop on the desktop, and violently dragging her stylus across the screen, vowing to "erase all of you *$(#)#@*ers forever."

A poem from Nipsey Russell:
Spring has sprung,
Fall has fell,
Now winter's here.
And it's colder than usual.

Yes, all this was out loud, in a room with other people in it, and she cared not one whit about that. At length she gathered her belongings and stormed out, leaving furrowed brows and shaking heads and a snicker or two from the people her age remaining. I felt sorry for her, because she hasn't learned to keep her equilibrium in bad times, and if she doesn't develop that ability, she will face a tough life, because as sure as God made little green apples, there will be more bad times for her.

She appeared not to be from a deprived background, but it made me wonder.  Was this a case of parental neglect, where one or both parents or guardians never stepped up to show her how a reasonable adult deals with it when they grab the, uh, dirty end of the stick?  Or was it one of those deals where her folks have always stepped up to pave the way for her to walk along merrily, as they turned a gray sky blue for her? 

I don't know what's worse, an adolescent who has nothing done for them, or one who has everything done for them. I know it's hard to strike that balance, and maybe she was just one girl having one bad day, but somehow I doubt that. 

I do hope she gets the guidance she needs, and a sense of perspective. If she likes, I can quote relevant lyrics from classic country music songs, and recite endless bromides and limericks.  So if you know this troubled young person, please talk to her, so she doesn't have to hear my corny advice.

Ruffled

If you've heard this once, you've heard it a thousand times:

"Don't go in the water for half an hour after eating or you will get a cramp and drown right away."

and...

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse."

To paraphrase Will Rogers, we're all ignorant, only in different subjects. So there's no use asking the judge for mercy by claiming that you didn't know it was illegal to break the glass on the vending machine and reach in to walk away with a treasure trove of Mr Goodbars, Goobers, and Gobstoppers.

It's no good to say you didn't know the law, but I'll bet you dollars to donuts (whatever that means) that you didn't know it's against the law to possess eagle feathers if you are not Native American.

So what brings all this up, anyway, in a world in which Stuttering John, radio comic, can get through to Muttering Don, television comic, on a secure line on the most-protected airplane in the world?

Up in New York, the governor, Andre Cuomo, recently wove a wistful tale involving a trip by canoe on a lake in the Adirondacks. A bald eagle swooped down just above the canoe where the governor and his daughter Michaela were paddlin' away the afternoon.

“One of the highlight moments was on Saranac Lake when we were in a canoe, and we were taking a canoe trip and out of nowhere, from one of the islands, an eagle came out and like swooped down right next to us with this beautiful, graceful glide,” Cuomo said at the Hotel Saranac.

“And when the eagle was just about at front of the canoe, one feather fell out. And we picked up that feather, and I have it on my fireplace to this day.”

Busted. Cue "Dragnet" theme.

The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act of 1940 prohibits the possession of eagle feathers by non-Native Americans.

Anyone convicted of violating the law could face a fine of up to $100,000 and a year in jail.

The Associated Press asked the gov's office about this illegal feather, and a Cuomo spokesman said the governor will either return it to the lake or give it to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife repository.

You just can't even pick up a feather anymore without facing a year in the hoosegow.

It is still legal to pick up A) a cold B) the kids from soccer practice and C) weight, but you never know.

Donkey Kong

Sometimes we fake it until we make it, and buy that knockoff "Rolex" watch from a guy on the street to impress one and all with our expensive tastes.

And some people, desperate to overcome their stubby-fingeredness and vulgar roots, claim to have a Renoir, knowing all along that it's a copy.

We feel sorry for these people, and now we have more people to shake our heads about.

Claims are being made that a zoo in Egypt is showing off a fake donkey.

I mean, is there any end to this chicanery?

It all started when 18-year-old student Mahmoud Sarhan, a student, was visiting the International Garden in Nasr City, Cairo. He saw what the zoo purported to be a zebra, but Mahmoud knows a donkey when he sees one, and in a hugely ironic role reversal, became the one to throw a penalty flag at someone in a striped outfit.


Sarhan got a selfie with the bogus zebra. The picture clearly shows black smudges on the face of the poor beast.

He told Sky News: "From the first sight I knew that it was a donkey, not a zebra, as I'm an artist. I know the shape of a donkey and I know the shape of zebras, so it was easy to know."

The photo below shows what a real self-respecting zebra looks like. He has clear-cut stripes and a darker mouth and snout than the imitation.

As soon as Mr Sarhan shared his picture on social media, the race was on to find out what was up. The zoo's director, Mohamed Sultan, told radio station Nogoumfm.net that his zebra was for real and not a sham.

Meanwhile, a local veterinarian who only wishes to be identified as "Dr N" told Egyptian news site Extranews.tv that this animal lacked the black nose and mouth common to zebras.



You can look at the two pictures and compare for yourself. As of now, the whole matter is he said-he said, and who knows where it will go.

I can only hope that no charges are brought, so no one will have to wear the stripes of shame.

Sunday Rerun: Things You Have To Say

R, T, R.

Everyone who loves football and the football team from the University of Alabama - the "Crimson Tide" -  knows that the cheering cry for the team is, "Roll Tide Roll!"

Sometimes you can add in a couple of extra intensifying words, but as long as the Roll and the Tide are in there, you get the point across.

Well, whenever I wear an Alabama hat or Tshirt or jacket, I get comments from people I meet.  Sometimes, they say, "That's no way to dress for a wedding!" but what do I care?  And many give me a raised palm and a hearty greeting.

This is serious business.  My physical therapist told me she met a man who, every time he mentions the U of Alabama, croons out a "Roll Tide!"  As in, "I had the best waffles ever down in Tuscaloosa one time; we were down there to see the game - Roll Tide! - and we stopped off at a place where they pile on the grits and gravy! Hot a-mighty!"

It made me think about certain expressions or things you just have to say when you say anything.  Another thing from down South is the habit of saying "Bless his heart" or "your" heart or "whoever's" heart, as in "We met the new people down the street, I was talking to the husband, and he's an Auburn fan, bless his heart!" The blessing invoked might be very faint, but it's there.

It's always a giveaway when people do the Seinfeld thing and add "Not that there's anything WRONG with that," when referring to someone else who dares to live their own lives as they see fit. Closely related, following on the heels of some biased comment: "Some of my best friends are _____"  Insert minority, and foot in mouth.

I like to hear people who add "May (he) (she) (they) rest in peace," when mentioning those who have gone on to their rewards.  I happen to think that it helps us to remember there's a peace ahead for all of us, some sweet morning.

Bless our hearts!