Hodge Podge for Saturday September 5th, 2009

While on my train ride to Massachusetts last week, I read quite a few newspapers and a few things caught my interest. I want to share them with you.

01. The ratio of civilian contractors to military personnel is higher now in Afghanistan than it has been anywhere else, in any other war. Check out the following approximate percentages:

World War I: 5%
World War II: 10%
Korea: 25%
VietNam: 15%
Balkans: 50%
Iraq: 50%
Afghanistan: 70%

Source: Congressional Research Service.. by the New York Times.

Well, at least our soldiers don't have to pull KP anymore or clean latrines.

Although it might anger some of my contractor friends, I would like to say that even though my experience with contractors in the Federal Government was cordial, I did feel that what they were doing could probably be much cheaper done with Government employees. For example, one project that my Branch was responsible for concerned 10,000 elderly people. I felt that one programmer in my Branch could do the job on a PC and complete it in a couple of years.

I was overruled. The job was contracted out as a large-scale computer job and when I last checked, years later, the job is still in existence, not quite completed.

02. Dr. Mark B. McClellan, former Medicare administrator under George W. Bush, has proposed promoting personal health by taxing sugary soft drinks.

Right now, I am trying to buy a Toyota Rav4. This is a small car, but is considered a "mini SUV". Being an SUV, it has giant cup holders like all SUV's. I read somewhere that SUV's that do not have giant cup holders do not get sold. People need a place to put their "supersized" calorie-loaded cokes and pepsi's. (The Toyota Rav4 has added inserts to put into the giant holders, so that us guys who drink "undersized" fluids won't have our drinks rattling around as we drive. They have also added water bottle holders in the side doors. Nice touch!)

A few years ago, I sold my Coke stock... bad move. However, I did keep my Pepsi stock. In spite of the Recession, Pepsi has continued to send me small quarterly dividends. I do not drink sugary soft drinks myself, and neither does Elaine, unless she needs a swift caffeine "fix".

03. I see where a one-story 3,100 square foot building in the Clinton area of Manhattan (10th Ave at 52nd St) is on the market for $3.8 million. It offers a potential income of $75,000. from billboards and has 18,912 square feet in "air rights". (What does that mean? Can't airplanes fly over it? Can the building be built into a skyscraper? Not a very high one I would guess. If they just relied on the billboard income, it would take about 50 years to break even.)

04. Two of the three largest U.S. tobacco companies have filed suit to block marketing restrictions in a law that gives the Food and Drug Administration authority over tobacco. The tobacco makers of Camels, Newport, and others claim that the law (The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act) severely restricts the few remaining channels open for them to communicate with adult tobacco consumers. They claim that they won't even be able to use color lettering in their ads.

Too bad, guys! I think that the ads should be outlawed completely. Most ads that I have seen (like the suggestive Joe Camel and others) are made to appeal directly to those of our population, namely the young, whose medula oblongatas have not yet matured and who cannot see far enough into the future to visualize their painful throat and lung cancer deaths.

05. The Chicago-based Mercy for Animals organization has issued an undercover video shot at an Iowa chicken hatchery. The video shows unwanted male chicks being tossed alive into a grinder. Apparently, this is common industry practice. (Where is Sinclair Lewis when we need him?)

06. If you have a spare $8.75 million, you can buy Bernie Madoff's Long Island beach home. The ocean-front location is spectacular, but the house is kind of small for a millionaire. Also, there is no garage and no walk-in closets. The home was seized by the U.S. Marshals Service and they have put the property on the market to pay back some investors. Go to www.nytimes.com/business for a slide show of the house.

07. A giant identity theft ring, run by a man from Waldorf, Maryland, has been broken up. There were hundreds of victims, including the wife of Ben Bernanke. The gang of ten people would obtain bank information from stolen wallets and purses and a "bewigged" member of the gang would go to the banks and clean them out.

08. There was a recent cartoon by Horsey in the Providence Journal that showed a Fox Newsman interviewing a middle-aged gentleman carrying a sub-machine gun, and wearing two pistols in holsters. The interviewer asks: "What message are you trying to send by bringing guns to a Presidential event?" The armed man replies: "Guns are chick magnets."
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A True Comedian

This afternoon I finished a book that my son, Chris, had lent me. The title is: I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This! (and Other Things That Strike Me as Funny) by Bob Newhart. Bob is my age, and has been doing stand-up, TV Sit-Coms, movies and Voice-Overs since the 1960's.

Bob's first album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, became the first comedy album to go to #1 on the Bilboard charts. In all, he had a total of eight comedy albums.

I was surprised to learn that he hosted The Tonight Show 87 times!

My family watched every episode of The Bob Newhart Show on TV from 1972 to 1978 and then Newhart from 1982 to 1990. One of the most remarkable TV moments I've ever seen was the final show of Newhart, when Bob wakes up in bed with Emily from The Bob Newhart Show and says that he has had a dream (the Newhart show). I thought that was a classic touch. The idea came from Bob's real wife, Ginnie, in a moment of true genius.

Bob's routines are being resurrected on XM Radio Channel 151 (Laugh USA) and are wonderful to hear again. Especially the one about the discovery of tobacco. Bob says in his book that when he did that bit he was actually a chain smoker. A short time later he quit cold turkey.

Remember some of the characters on Bob's shows?

"Hi, my name is Larry. This is my brother, Darrell. And this is my other brother, Darrell."

Neurotic Mr. Carlin? "I only had one problem this week. Yesterday I was possessed by the devil." Dr. Hartley says: "Okay, go with that, Mr. Carlin."

Wife Emily, who was one of the most beautiful actresses in television, Suzanne Pleshette.

Bob has lots of stories to tell about his friend, Don Rickles. (I didn't know that Don Rickles had any friends. )

Bob talks about other comedians that I want to do more research on:

Joe Frisco, who did the "Jewish Charleston" and is famous for his comedic stutter.

Jimmy Edmundson, who was called Professor Backwards, who was supposed to be a famous tightwad.

W.C. Fields, one of my all-time favorites. His routine as a memory expert is a classic.

Laurel and Hardy, who I have followed for years. When I was in Cologne, Germany, I spent a lot of time in the movie theaters watching Dick und Duenne (Fat and Skinny) do their schtick. The Germans loved them and laughed and laughed at their antics, even though the dialogue was in English.

Peter Sellers.. you know, Doctor Strangelove and The Pink Panther. Nobody.. I mean nobody.. could take his place as Inspector Clouseau.. not even Steve Martin! XM Radio's Laugh USA is playing some of Sellers' routines from the Goon Show of many years ago. One routine that I like has him playing an Indian Doctor singing with his Nurse.. if you can hear it, you will love both the melody and the words.

All in all... Bob Newhart's book is a fast and pleasant read that will cause you to have many belly laughs and put a constant smile on your face.