That's no bull!

All of my life, I have been intrigued by cows.  In fact, there is no time that I can remember when I have not opened the car window and called "MOO!" to my friends grazing in a farmer's field.  However, did you know that cows speak foreign languages?  That's right.. in France, cows say: "MOI!" and in Poland, they say: "OOM!" 

Once, my daughter Diane mentioned that she liked cows too, and from that point on, whenever anyone tried to think of a gift for her.. they got her some form of a cow.

Diane worked for a large purveyor of foodstuffs, including milk, and had a role to play each year in their massive display of available wholesale items.  She elicited my help one year.. and I was allowed to draw white lines on the mustache areas of good-natured attendees and take pictures for the famous "Got Milk?" program.  Lots of fun.

I've always thought there was something mystical about cows, and recently I found out that I was right. In reading an eye-opening book titled "Beef" by Andrew Rimas and Evan D. G. Fraser, I came across the following quote from The Prose Edda (Norse Creation Myth):

"Then said Gangleri: 'Where dwelt Ymir, or wherein did he find sustenance?'  Haerr answered: 'Straightway after the rime dripped, there sprang from it the cow called Audumla;  four streams of milk
ran from her udders, and she nourished Ymir.'

Then asked Gangleri: 'Wherewithal was the cow nourished?' And Haerr made answer: 'She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening a man's hair;  the second day, a man's head;  the third day, the whole man was there.'"

Cows are considered sacred in India.  To quote an interesting excerpt from "God's Lunatics" by Michael Largo: 

"From ancient times, Indians considered cows as a symbol of wealth and providers of life-sustaining milk.  In Hinduism, the cow's sacred status is tied to the religion's story of creation: Lord Krishna, an important figure in Hindu mythology was reincarnated five thousand years ago as a cowherd.  Coming back through reincarnation as a cow in India would be a positive turn, since the animals are treated with the rank of the highest Brahmin priests.

Feeding a cow in India is considered good luck, but injuring or killing one is still a criminal offense.  The cow remains a representation of generosity and motherhood; in 2008, a population of more than 200 million Indian holy bovine roamed the countryside and city streets.  If you step in cow dung it's still thought of as a blessed omen, and Indian cowpies are believed to have antiseptic qualities as effective as any industrial-strength disinfectant."

Cows are helping out in lots of other ways.  For instance, if it wasn't for the aorta from a friendly cow, Robin Williams would not be making jokes today.

Sadly though, I've been informed that "house licking" is not covered by some insurance policies.

Ah.. oh yes, it will be Valentine's Day shortly, and there is a great website that combines love items and items of our love (namely: cows).  Take a look:

http://www.simplybovine.com/Valentinesday.php

At that site, you can also find some "cow jokes," such as:

Q. What do you call a cow with no legs?
A.  Ground beef.

Q. What do you call a cow that has just given birth?
A.  Decalfinated.

If you GOOGLE "cow jokes" you will discover that there are a number of sites devoted to such. Meanwhile, to close out, here are a few classics from my files:

Q. Why do cows wear bells?
A. Because their horns don't work.

Q. Why did the cow jump over the moon?
A.  Because the farmer had cold hands.

Two cows were browsing in a farmer's field.  One says: "MOO!"
The other says: "Hey! I was just going to say the same thing!"

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Bieber Fever, etc.

01. Bieber Fever: Mr. Bieber came to the Maryland State Fair yesterday and you would have though they were giving out free fifty dollar bills. This 16 year old guy has all the eleven year old girls yelling and screaming like the Bobby Soxers did for Frank Sinatra in the 1940's (yes, I was alive then!)

One interviewer asked a Bieber fan how she liked his singing. She said: "He's cute!"

Frank Sinatra's voice lasted almost to the day he died at age around 80, I think. Let's see what Bieber's voice does in the next few years. He seems like a nice clean-cut kid, and his popularity will probably just grow..

I hope everyone also gets a chance to listen to the 10 year old female finalist on America's Got Talent. This is a kid with a Diva's voice range. She should be a spectacular super star someday.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38667257


02. Car stuff: I'm typing some of this while waiting for Toyota mechanics to do the 10,000 mile maintenance on my Rav4. I love that car. I bought the 100 year maintenance offering, so I should not get charged anything for my 5,000 visits until the year 2109.... at least that what the fine print on my contract says.. maybe.. I guess I need to buy a magnifying glass to make sure.

03. Tolerance: In my last blog entry, I wrote about a Florida pastor scheduling a Koran burning session. I just read in Time magazine that this will take place on 9/11. The pastor argues that Jesus would burn the Koran because "it's not holy." Now, everybody in Afghanistan is cursing the US and Obama.. why do they think that our President is condoning the burning?

04. Jokes: As some of you know, I started a new blog that will contain jokes and puns and humorous items that I have been collecting for many many years. I've already had some comments on my first issuance. "Cheesy.", "Fun to read.", "Childish", "Funny." ,"Go for it."

So, I guess I will continue it. If interested and a glutton for punishment, visit

http://joevaughansjokes.blogspot.com/

05. Species: Today, my SNAPPLE diet tea cap had the following message:


"Manhattan Island was once home to as many different species as Yellowstone National Park."

I showed the message to Elaine, and she had the very same response as I had, namely:

"It still is."


06. New Jersey Perps: Did I mention the one-legged thief who broke into a New Jersey shoe store and left some boxes on the floor with just right shoes? He was easy to catch.



Or the bicycle-riding crook who wore a Nixon mask? Another easy catch for Trenton cops.



07. Birther: By now, you must have heard of that "bright light" Army Officer who refused deployment to Afghanistan because he said that President Obama is not legally his Commanding Officer, because he wasn't born in the United States. He says he wants to see the "real" birth certificate. (A judge threw out his defence as idiotic.) I wonder how he got to be an officer?


08. Ugh! Disgusting sign seen in a men's rest room:


"Please do not drop paper towels in the urinals. They turn yellow when we dry them out, and some people do not like to use them."


09. Savage breast? An English headmaster punishes his students in detention by forcing them to listen to classical music!



Today, a radio announcer mentioned that there are people who die every day who have never heard the beautiful music of Beethoven. Or Mozart!!!!! I wonder if they teach classical music in school these days. My 7th grade teacher taught us how to read music and how to enjoy classical music. My mother had already instilled in me a love for the light classics, but listening to the masterworks opened my mind to a wonderful new world. So, I learned to like Bach and Beethoven. And then, later in life.. Mozart and Mahler!

10. Toot! We missed it! July was National Baked Beans Month.

11. SuZee TV: Did I mention that our cat watches TV with us. The other night, we watched two Netflix movies and she didn't move from her perch on a table between us and the TV. She watches TV very intently. She likes a lot of action and conversation. The news bores her and she doesn't like some of the cop shows that Elaine likes (even though they have lots of action).


12. Spice: Some of my Toastmasters friends sent me lists of things to do to make life more interesting. I thought that you might like to learn some of them.


Put your garbage can on your desk and label it "IN".


Everytime anybody asks you do do something, ask if they want fries with that.


In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors."


Instead of walking, skip.


Married men, everytime you see a broom, yell: "Honey, your mother is here."



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10.

Odds and Ends

We'll be heading to Ocean City on Sunday, and I need to purge myself of some news comments that I have been saving up. You don't need to read this. I won't get mad.



01. Lester Young, "the President of Jazz" would have been 100 years old last week, if he had lived. He blew a very sweet sax. He died at age 49. (The army discharged him for using marijuana.. its just as well, because he refused to fire a gun and kill anyone.)



02. Somebody named "the great Zucchini" performed in DC last Saturday. What he did, I haven't the faintest idea.. but with a name like that it was probably wonderful.



03. Shoppers grocery shops in Maryland will no longer supply paper towels in their rest rooms. They feel this will help the environment. Instead, mechanical air blowers will dry your hands. Hey.. I've got news for you.. if you have ever been in a Men's Room you would know that men who don't see paper towels do not wash their hands. So, what would you rather have? A paperless environment or germ-infested hand shakes?

04. A company in Spain is making laptop holding bags that show front pages of newspapers as disguise. Urban camouflage!

05. An 87-year old is accused of killing a 91-year old fellow resident in a Columbia, Maryland senior citizen residence. The 87-year old beat the other to death with his fists. He was a former boxer.


My grandfather was forced to go into a nursing home when he was 86 years old, for his own protection. His children thought that he would burn his home down when he lit his pipe. The nursing home just happened to be in the house in which he was born.. in fact, his room was the room in which he was born. He liked to control TV in "his" common room in the building and another octogenarian resident didn't always like what he watched. He and my grandfather used to stand there arguing about TV, punching each other, like they used to do, 60 years earlier. Luckily, they were always stopped before they beat each other to death.


06. The Discovery Channel is starting a 5-year series called "Curiosity". Some of the episodes will be called: "Are we alone in the Universe?", "What is a virus?", "What is consciousness?", and other titles designed to bend our minds.


07. Cal Ripken, Jr's Number 8 is back at Camden Yards. Four guys had kidnapped it for a while.


08. Nicolas Sarkozy is getting ready to talk about a proposed carbon tax that would raise the cost of driving a car or heating a home in France. Will the French stand for more taxes? "Let them eat gas!"

09. A proposed tower building as tall as the Empire State Building has been circumcised in New York City. The City Planning Department ruled that 200 feet would have to be lopped off of the top of the building so that it would not upstage the city's long-reigning tallest building.


10. Bose has come out with the QuietComfort 15. It is a noise-cancellation headphone. Supposedly, for $300, you no longer have to hear "the rumble of the subway train, the rattle of the taxis..." as Stephen Williams of the New York Times reports.


11. Lang Lang, a 27-year old Chinese pianist is being called "Bang Bang" for his noisy rendition of one of Chopin's etudes.

12. A Republican candidate for governor of Idaho, Rex Rammell, heard someone talk about tags bought by hunters to allow them to shoot wolves. When that person also mentioned there should be tags for killing the President, Rammell said: "Obama tags? We'd buy some of those." He later told people that this was a joke.. and "besides, Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue tags in DC." Big joke, eh, Rex? What a jerk!

13. Along the same lines, the head of the Carroll County Republican Party has made it known that she is very upset that the name for September 11 was changed through Democratic efforts from Patriot's Day to A Day of Remembrance and Service. Huh?!

I am now an Independent and can look objectively at the utterances of both parties... but utterances like this one and the one before cause me to wonder what the devil is going on with the current members of the Party of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was a uniter and not a divider.

14. Katharine Q. Seelye wrote about some statements that independents believe and disbelieve about Health Care Reform:

Independents believe these.. says Katharine:

The Federal Government will become directly in involved in making personal health care decisions for the public. (MYTH)

Health care will be rationed. (DEBATABLE)

Taxpayers will be required to pay for abortions. (MYTH)

Independents do not believe these.. says Katharine:

The Government will make the elderly decide how and when to die. (MYTH)

A public option will put private insurance companies out of business. (MYTH)

Illegal immigrants will be covered. (MYTH)

Regardless of the comments made by Rep. Wilson of South Carolina and FOX news, the items labeled MYTH above, remain MYTHS.

15. After all this, I will finish with what is supposed to be a joke.. but is probably a real situation, experienced by many husbands:

One day, a mild-mannered man decides that he is tired of his wife always bossing him around, so he decides to put his foot down and let his wife know, once and for all, who is in charge.

When he comes home from work that night he tells her:

"From now on, I'm the man of this home, and my word is law! When I come home from work, I want my supper on the table. Also, I want you to press a shirt and pants for me to wear tonight, because I am going out drinking with the boys. After that, I want you to draw me a hot bath. And after my bath, guess who is going to dress me and comb my hair?"

His wife replies: "The Undertaker!"

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Laptop, jokes, birds and other stuff..

I had a nice long 2 hour talk with some Indian guys working for Dell. They had me take my laptop apart a bit and do some tests. Unfortunately, nothing was determined, so they have arranged for FED EX to pick up my laptop and send it to DELL for fixing. At least I now know that the problem is not with the hard drive. Luckily, I am still within the warranty period.

This is the first PC that I have had that I could not fix myself.

Elaine and I were telling jokes this morning. I remembered my first joke: Question: Why does a cat walk across the street with its tail up in the air? Answer: So the cars can see its license plate.

(I know, its not great, but what do you expect from an eight-year old?)

Elaine made up a new joke: Question: "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Answer: " She forgot her cell phone."

Uggg!

Elaine and I like to watch the birds outside of our bowed window, here in Maryland. Once a week, I fill five bird feeders and one finch feeder, and a suet holder. Usually, it takes a complete week for the birds to empty the feeders. However, this week, everything has gone in four days! Why?

We like to watch yellow finches eat thistle seed. I had thought that yellow finches were only here for two weeks and then went on to Maine. Apparently I was wrong because they have lingered here for a couple of months. Beautiful birds that are a delight to watch.

Other birds we have seen this week: Red wing blackbirds.. which we thought only populated marsh lands. Well, here they are.

Also, mocking birds, sparrows, starlings, woodpeckers, crows, house finches, mourning doves, etc. Apparenty, next to the side of the house, under some bushes, baby sparrows have come into existence. It is fun to watch them take their first flights, prodded by their mama. If their flights are not as long as she feels necessary, she butts them in the rear end to get them to take off again.

The heavy rains of a month ago washed away the mulch along the sides of our house. In this environment, residents are not supposed to move mulch or do weeding. We are supposed to write up "pink slips" to trigger maintenance to work. However, in our bad economy, some maintenance activity has been curtailed. But.. since our monthly fee has gone up this month, I feel that we should not be losing out on our perks. The Village has a large surplus held for "a Rainy Day".. hey! Isn't this a rainy day??

The Market had been going up for a few weeks, but now it has taken a down-turn again. Who knows what tomorrow may bring. Let's hope that the recession has bottomed out.

It looks like medical problems will keep us from visiting New Bedford this year. It took years for my leg wounds to heal, and now Elaine has foot wounds that are not healing properly. We will be visiting doctors every day this week.

Our garden is going well.. in fact, one of the zucchinis seems to grow a few inches every day. We also have about 30 green tomatoes growing on the vines. Every morning I deliver 5 gallons of water to the plants!

Am I a great farmer or not?!