Today, I am going to talk about some news items, but also some other things that my ancient brain thinks about a lot.
01. SNAP,CRACKLE,POP: This is the fiftieth anniversary of bubble wrap. What did we do without it before?
02. MARMITE: I have always heard that British people love to spread marmite on their bread. However, I have also heard that it is nasty. I had to try it myself. This morning I did. YES! It is nasty! I am trying everything I can think of to get rid of the taste in my mouth.
As a yeast product, I'm sure this product is good for you.. but apparently it requires a lot of getting used to. I'm sorry.. I'm too old to take the time to aquire a taste for it. I will stick to jam or jelly on my toast in the morning.
03. FEBRUARY 2ND: Animal rights folks feel that Punxatawny Phil should be replaced by a fake groundhog.
04. SPECIAL LICENSE PLATES FOR REPEAT DRUNK DRIVERS: A Maryland State Delegate has proposed a special plate for repeat drunk drivers. It would be bright yellow and would have the first three letters of the plate showing DUI. Some other states have the procedure in place already; for instance, Ohio and Minnesota, where cars with such special plates are avoided by other drivers. Begging some questions:
Why not expand this to include convicted felons, child molesters, and deadbeats?
What about innocent family members who have to ride in cars with such tags?
Have the delegates read The Scarlet Letter?
05. UNCONSUMATED DIVORCE: Under current Maryland law, a couple must live apart for one year before an uncontested divorce can be granted. A Maryland lawmaker wants to change that to require that a couple not have sex for one year instead. (What would Governor Marvin Mandel say about that?)
06. STRIP-SEARCHING: Last year, Maryland Senators held a hearing where women who said that they had been victimized by strip-searching were to testify. None of them showed up because of embarassment. Senators still passed an anti-strip-search bill, but it was killed in a House committee. A similar bill will be pushed again this year and it is expected that at least one woman will testify. Questions:
Will the bill address the following situation? A while ago, a judge found that Baltimore County police acted unreasonably when they searched the buttock cheeks of a suspected drug dealer in a car wash.
Should the police be given "see-through" equipment like they now have at airports?
07. ART NEWS: Somebody tripped and put a hand through a painting by Picasso. Curators are now in a quandary about how to tell what is damage and what is art.
I visited a Picasso exhibition in 1955 in Cologne, Germany, where I could have bought Picasso prints for a very cheap price. Unfortunately, I could only afford to pay for a colorful book outlining all of the works on display.. which probably still would be worth a lot on EBAY (why would I want to put a price on art?)
Also, in London, an artist's modernistic work consisting of filled ashtrays, bottles and plastic cups was swept up and disposed of by a custodian. (In this case, I think he did the right thing.)
08. IPAD: Steve Jobs introduced the new IPAD with the unfortunate name, and the catch phrase: Hold the Internet in your hands. Someone said that the IPAD looks like an IPHONE for the elderly.
I visited the local Verizon store and told a salesman that I was thinking of switching to an IPHONE and could he persuade me to buy a DROID instead. He told me that under the terms of my current agreement, if I purchase the DROID right now, it will cost me $600, but if I wait until May, I will be able to pay only $150. Now, what would you do?
09. YOUNG HUNTERS: Recently, newspapers have been publishing pictures of young hunters standing next to their "kills", some as young as nine years old.
Question:
Would you want to be walking through woods where a nine-year-old is busy stalking Bambi?
I can see a need to cull deer populations, and I think that the meat that is not needed should be donated to the poor. However, I think that the hunters of such deer should be at least 25 years old, when their medula oblongatas have matured enough so that they can tell the difference between a young child in a bright red coat and an 8-point buck.
When I was 16 years old, two of my buddies asked me to accompany them on a raccoon hunting trip. I did not own a rifle and wasn't sure I wanted to hunt anyway, so I declined. During the hunting trip, one of my 16 year-old friends accidently shot and killed my other 16 year-old friend. That cinched it for me. No hunting.
I understand that the city of Fairfield, Connecticut has opened all of their parks to hunters. Watch your children, mama.
I've mentioned before that my brother-in-law is a bear hunter. Each year, he travels from Massachusetts to Maine to take care of his bear bait trap near the bottom of the tree where he has erected a platform from which to shoot a bear. After he feels that bears have gotten used to eating the bait, he climbs up the tree with his rifle, and waits for a good shot.
I asked him: But aren't bears good tree climbers? Suppose you miss your shot.
He replied: If you miss, it might be the last shot you will ever make, because that bear can make it up that tree to your spot in just a few seconds.
So, this "bears" out the old phrase: Sometimes you get the bear; sometimes the bear gets you.
10. BIBLICAL REFERENCE: Speaking of hunting, those who do cryptic-type crossword puzzles might enjoy this clue in a 1963 puzzle by Frank W. Lewis in The Nation magazine:
Salome wasn't the type Hemingway might have hired!
The answer: head bearer.
If you want to know more about cryptic puzzles or this clue in particular, let me know.
11. REPUBLICAN MATCHMAKERS?: The new Republican Senator for Massachusetts has daughters and the new Republican Governor of Virginia has twin sons. Both mentioned their progeny in recent speeches.
12. REPTILE INTELLIGENCE: London zookeepers say that they have taught some crocodiles to recognize their names. (Remember the song: Never smile at a crocodile...")
Bonus:
Important things to think about: TEETH AND JAIL:
Prisoners in certain jails will no longer be able to play "Dungeons and Dragons" in their cells and Massachusetts daycare providers will be required to brush their charges' teeth each day.
Suppose that jailers had to brush the teeth of their prisoners each day. This may seem silly, but there is a big problem with the cost of caring for prisoners' teeth..
probably most prisoners are the type of people who don't take care of their teeth and then when the damn things rot, the State has to pay a lot of money to a dentist to pull them..
I have it on good authority that dentists have to triple-glove to avoid getting HIV from mouth blood...and that means that not many dentists are willing to get involved with prisons.
On that note, I will bid you adieu, mes amis.
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Showing posts with label Arthur C. Clarke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arthur C. Clarke. Show all posts
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Thursday, October 22, 2009
More Old News
Things are a bit hectic right now, so, to relax, I'm looking through my 1962 scrapbook again. Take a look over my shoulder, read the articles and enjoy the pictures.. let your mind wander back to that year.
01. A nice aerial view of Ocean City at the height of its flooding by a terrific northeaster in March. It was termed worse than the famous 1933 hurricane. The city is completely covered by the ocean; however, it looks like there is not much damage, except to a luxury apartment hotel on the beach at 39th street.
An expensive, at the time, $80,000 home survived the storm by being on steel pilings.
02. The Russians claim to be planning a 160 mile tunnel under the Caspian Sea, linking Baku with Krasnovodsk. They want to use atomic blasts to dig it out... but Western countries think that this is just a ploy for the USSR to get moving on secret weapons testing.
03. Frank Lloyd Wright made some sketches for a planetarium to be built on Sugarloaf Mountain south of Frederick, Maryland. The planetarium was never built.
04. University of California scientists have discovered that the chloroplast, like the gene and the virus, contains genetic material and controls its own reproduction within the living cell.
05. J. Robert Moskin, Look Magazine Senior Editor wrote: "In the next 25 years (1987!) it is likely that man will create life in a test tube. He will transform chemicals into living material that can grow and reproduce itself. He will perform an act of God."
Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate, foresees the day when scientists will be able to make artificial genes and put them into living bodies.
06. A cartoon of JFK sitting in an ambulance labeled Old Age Health. Running after him, hoping for a ride are three men, labeled: Health Insurance Companies, GOP Plan, and Rep Miller. (So, you see, even back in 1962 people were fighting over Health Insurance.. at that time it was for the elderly and was pushed through Congress as Medicare by Lyndon Johnson.. if Obama studies what Johnson did and he uses the resources that he already has, he should be able to push through universal health insurance.)
07. Mrs Leila Mae Simhof writes the Baltimore Sun that after paying their monthly rents, old people are left with the magnificent balance of from six to ten dollars for their month's food, clothing and insurance. (The time is right for Medicare.)
08. The Social Security Administration building in Woodlawn, Maryland, receives hundred of foreign visitors each week. It also sends out major press releases in 22 languages. They also publish pamphlets in Spanish, for distribution in New York City and in areas along the Mexican border and in southern California.
09. A woman in a coma delivers a baby. She had been injured in an automobile accident.
10. Robert M. Ball becomes Commissioner of Social Security and its 34,661 employees.
11. Maurice, the book man of Greenwich Village is having a problem with the subway locker people. Even though he stores hundreds of books in 49 lockers, and even though he pays for them with dimes every time he thinks of it.. the "Locker Nazi" wants him to get his books out of the lockers so people can use them for personal items. Maurice says that each subway station has lots of unused lockers and he really is a good customer for the company.
12. The Smith College Club of Baltimore is getting ready for their 4th annual used book sale. (As my daughter, Elizabeth, was being born in 1961, I was not allowed anywhere near the Delivery Room, so I went outside on the street to wait. Next to the hospital was an empty store and inside the 3rd annual Smith College Book Sale was going on. I bought a lot of books before I went back in to see my new daughter. To celebrate Elizabeth's birth, I visited all of the Smith College Book Sales for the next 40 years! Changes in location and prices has made the sale quite different than it was.. but it still is fun... if you want to get that book that you always wanted to read.. you will find it there.
13. Arthur C. Clarke quotes K. E. Tsiolkovski (1857-1935) : "Earth is the cradle of the mind: but one cannot live in the cradle forever." Clarke says: "... as we reach out into space, sooner or later we will discover that we are not alone. It may well be that our civilization is one of the most primitive now existing..."
14. A review of African Genesis by Robert Ardrey. "This book is presented as a personal investigation into the animal origins and nature of man." Ardrey's basic argument is that man is instinctively an aggressive and ruthless animal .. an innate killer. This is a very provocative and controversial book.
15. A Long Island supermarket has worked out a plan whereby customers turn cash register slips in to any local church. The store pledges to pay churches one percent of amounts shown on slips.
16. A beautiful picture of snow-capped Mount Fujiyama in Japan.
17. Some beautiful prints by Japanese artist Harunobu from around 1720.
18. An interesting article about Tokyo, titled: On Ginza, Glitter, Gastronomy and Girlie Shows.. and Geishas.
................................................................................................................................
01. A nice aerial view of Ocean City at the height of its flooding by a terrific northeaster in March. It was termed worse than the famous 1933 hurricane. The city is completely covered by the ocean; however, it looks like there is not much damage, except to a luxury apartment hotel on the beach at 39th street.
An expensive, at the time, $80,000 home survived the storm by being on steel pilings.
02. The Russians claim to be planning a 160 mile tunnel under the Caspian Sea, linking Baku with Krasnovodsk. They want to use atomic blasts to dig it out... but Western countries think that this is just a ploy for the USSR to get moving on secret weapons testing.
03. Frank Lloyd Wright made some sketches for a planetarium to be built on Sugarloaf Mountain south of Frederick, Maryland. The planetarium was never built.
04. University of California scientists have discovered that the chloroplast, like the gene and the virus, contains genetic material and controls its own reproduction within the living cell.
05. J. Robert Moskin, Look Magazine Senior Editor wrote: "In the next 25 years (1987!) it is likely that man will create life in a test tube. He will transform chemicals into living material that can grow and reproduce itself. He will perform an act of God."
Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate, foresees the day when scientists will be able to make artificial genes and put them into living bodies.
06. A cartoon of JFK sitting in an ambulance labeled Old Age Health. Running after him, hoping for a ride are three men, labeled: Health Insurance Companies, GOP Plan, and Rep Miller. (So, you see, even back in 1962 people were fighting over Health Insurance.. at that time it was for the elderly and was pushed through Congress as Medicare by Lyndon Johnson.. if Obama studies what Johnson did and he uses the resources that he already has, he should be able to push through universal health insurance.)
07. Mrs Leila Mae Simhof writes the Baltimore Sun that after paying their monthly rents, old people are left with the magnificent balance of from six to ten dollars for their month's food, clothing and insurance. (The time is right for Medicare.)
08. The Social Security Administration building in Woodlawn, Maryland, receives hundred of foreign visitors each week. It also sends out major press releases in 22 languages. They also publish pamphlets in Spanish, for distribution in New York City and in areas along the Mexican border and in southern California.
09. A woman in a coma delivers a baby. She had been injured in an automobile accident.
10. Robert M. Ball becomes Commissioner of Social Security and its 34,661 employees.
11. Maurice, the book man of Greenwich Village is having a problem with the subway locker people. Even though he stores hundreds of books in 49 lockers, and even though he pays for them with dimes every time he thinks of it.. the "Locker Nazi" wants him to get his books out of the lockers so people can use them for personal items. Maurice says that each subway station has lots of unused lockers and he really is a good customer for the company.
12. The Smith College Club of Baltimore is getting ready for their 4th annual used book sale. (As my daughter, Elizabeth, was being born in 1961, I was not allowed anywhere near the Delivery Room, so I went outside on the street to wait. Next to the hospital was an empty store and inside the 3rd annual Smith College Book Sale was going on. I bought a lot of books before I went back in to see my new daughter. To celebrate Elizabeth's birth, I visited all of the Smith College Book Sales for the next 40 years! Changes in location and prices has made the sale quite different than it was.. but it still is fun... if you want to get that book that you always wanted to read.. you will find it there.
13. Arthur C. Clarke quotes K. E. Tsiolkovski (1857-1935) : "Earth is the cradle of the mind: but one cannot live in the cradle forever." Clarke says: "... as we reach out into space, sooner or later we will discover that we are not alone. It may well be that our civilization is one of the most primitive now existing..."
14. A review of African Genesis by Robert Ardrey. "This book is presented as a personal investigation into the animal origins and nature of man." Ardrey's basic argument is that man is instinctively an aggressive and ruthless animal .. an innate killer. This is a very provocative and controversial book.
15. A Long Island supermarket has worked out a plan whereby customers turn cash register slips in to any local church. The store pledges to pay churches one percent of amounts shown on slips.
16. A beautiful picture of snow-capped Mount Fujiyama in Japan.
17. Some beautiful prints by Japanese artist Harunobu from around 1720.
18. An interesting article about Tokyo, titled: On Ginza, Glitter, Gastronomy and Girlie Shows.. and Geishas.
................................................................................................................................
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