Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Primary Results; Iraq; Nigeria; Growth Hacking; Lawyers; Heaven; Bible; Porgy and Bess; Mr. Bubbles; Chopin Whiskers

A nice sunny windy Summer day after the Maryland primary elections.  I batted only 33% in my predictions on winners and losers.  The three Tea Party guys got selected to fight it out with three incumbents in November.. I was hoping they would lose because education is important and we can do without a loss in funding.  DeLeonardo beat Jerry Barnes for Carroll County States Attorney.  Jerry had been in his position for over 20 years, and I guess the voters wanted a change.


Robin Frazier was defeated as I thought she would be.. acting as crazy as she usually does (in my opinion).  However, her partner in such antics, Mr. "Conservative"  Rothschild survived.  And it looks like Susan Krebs might survive the Gerrymandering. 


So, some positions are already taken through this election... a few will have to wait until November.  This gives them time to do more crazy stuff while still in office.


IRAQ


Tom Zirpoli said it right in his column today:  "These folks have been fighting each other for hundreds of  years, and no outside force, including American advisors, troops or drones can solve this problem for the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites.


Nigeria


"Extremists"  have kidnapped 91 more people, including babies."   No hope for this country in terms of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  However, if the United States could just make some kind of deal with Nigeria to tax the money their people take in from gullible Americans, we probably would be able to cancel the outstanding National Debt.  In return, we would send English majors to teach them to write emails like Americans do and let them have a little of the tax money mentioned above.


New Geek Scam


"Growth Hacking" is what happens when APPs go beyond their usage and go viral by sending misleading notices to all of  your email friends about how wonderful the product is.  Hopefully, someone is making a list of APPs like that.


Lawyers


Did you hear about the terrorists who took a courthouse full of lawyers hostage?  They threatened to release one lawyer every hour unless their demands were met.


It Ain't Necessarily So


At Hopkins, an ordinary looking guy handed me a brochure with the title: Am I Going to Heaven?  The brochure lists all of the things that one would think head you in that directions.. for instance: Obeying God's laws and commandments.. or Living a good life.. or Going to church regularly.
The authors of the brochure say: No!  These are members of the Sowers of Seed, Inc. out of Fort Worth, Texas and they have their own idea on how to get to Heaven. .


The Seed guys quote John 3:18.. "He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God."  This confusing passage sounds like it might be something believed by a Moslem, maybe a Christian, but certainly not a Deist.   But, what do I know?


Remember the song from Porgy and Bess... "The things that you're liable to read in the Bible.. It ain't necessarily so!"


Mr. Bubbles


That reminds me of the Harlem hoofer who played "Sporting Life" in the original production of Porgy and Bess.. the marvelous Mr. Bubbles..  I think his first name was John.  I met him once in Garmisch Germany when he put on a great USO performance for the soldiers and airmen who were vacationing there.  Man, could that man dance!  He had a partner.. his brother, I think.


Back in 2000, my wife died during a heart by-pass operation at the Washington Hospital Center.  That facility had a 99.98% survival rate for such procedures... However, on Bastille Day, my wife was unlucky, and another patient was also not lucky on that day.. Mr. Bubbles.


No Chopin' Whiskers?


Another story from the Victor Book of Musical Fun:


"At one time Chopin shaved off the whiskers on the left side of his face.   He explained this by saying that although they grew very well on his left cheek, there was really no occasion to have them there because he always sat with his right toward the audience."


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