Weekly Dozen 02/27/10

Here are some new items mixed in with old items:

01. 2010: Solution to the monetary crisis: Even though the State of Missouri is having so many financial problems, they feel good that they have figured a way out of the situation. They will deduct $1 every week from their Governor's salary to invest in PowerBall, or whatever that Lottery is called. All money won will be used to pay down Missouri's debt.

02. 1998: Diabetes: CBS reports that an insulin inhaler is being developed. (Was it developed? I think that they already had the "pump" at that time.

03. 2010: Carotid clearance: A study has reported that a stent procedure to clear a clogged carotid artery works just as well as an operation. (Why didn't they tell me that two years ago!)

04. 2010: "Chips": In Britain, they are trying to develop a "chip" made out of meat. (Would that be a "potato chip" or a "chip" as in Britain's famous "fish and chips"?)

I wish I could find a place to eat true English fish and chips! You can get it back in New Bedford, Massachusetts, but I have not found the same thing anywhere in the Mid-Atlantic. The closest was at Arthur Treacher's Restaurant, but they closed down all of those places anywhere near where I live. I think there might be one left in Maryland somewhere, but I haven't found it yet.

05. 1998: WOW Chips: Speaking of "chips", in 1998 the FDA gave a "thumbs up" to Olestra. Products using it were supposed to be still high calorie, but have no fat grams. I tried some of them at the time and found that they did not like my digestion and haven't tried them since, knowingly. I guess you can still get Olestra products in the Super Market.

06. 2010: Mr. Toyoda: I have wondered why the head of the family-based car company doesn't have the same name as the car. I heard today, somewhere, that it is because the stroke for "T" is not as lucky as the stroke for "D" in Japanese ideograms, so it was changed.. (maybe they should have changed the stroke for the car name also, and they might not be having so many problems.)

Incidentally, I took my RAV4 in to the Toyota dealer for my 5,000 maintenance, and while I was there, they did the recall fix for the accelerator.

By the way, to graduate from a Japanese grammar school, a student must know 881 characters (ideograms). To graduate from High School, a student must know 1,850, and to read at a college level, a student must know 3,000.

All of these characters are built up from less than 300 elements or pictures. These pictures were drawn by the Chinese similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Japanese borrowed these characters from the Chinese over 2,000 years ago.

07. 1998: Leo Buscaglia: One of my favorite people passed away on June 12, 1998. Leo Buscaglia was a California professor who taught a class in LOVE. In addition to his class, he gave televised lectures on the subject and wrote a number of books about love.

Luckily, I taped his presentations whenever I found them on TV. His whole life was built around letting people know what love was all about. At his lectures, everyone was hugged by him before they left. His death was a great loss to the world, in my opinion.

My cousin, Charlie, and his family live in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and attend a Baptist church there. The preacher, until a few years ago, was from Baltimore and had a Bethlehem Steel background. I visited the church a few times and the preacher always had a line waiting for him after the services. They were waiting to get a hug from him. What a great idea! I don't see or experience many hugs any more. Perhaps it is because of a fear of the flu. I have read that hugs are good medicine and buttress our immune systems.. maybe after the flu goes away, we can get back to hugging.

08. 2010: Cartalk definitions:

Lymph: To walk with a lisp.

MacAdam: The first Scotsman.

09. 1998: Airline crashes: Tom Snyder (Remember him? The 6'8" Late Late Show host .. replaced by 6'8" Conan O'Brien!) said that statistics showed that more people are killed by donkeys each year than are killed in airline crashes. (Let that be a lesson to you!)

10. 2010: Healthy flies: A college professor has developed a method for exercising fruit flies so they will be healthier for use in experiments.

Time flies like the wind,
Fruit flies like bananas.

11. 2010: Accident: It had to happen. Two police segways crashed into each other. (By the way, did you know that the first automobile accident in the U. S. occured in Baltimore?)

12. 2010: Vital statistics:

The most dangerous food in the U.S. is the hot dog. (Apparently, children choke on them, and scientists are trying to change their shape to make them safer.)

The laziest people in the world live in the United States. (Maybe that fruit fly professor should come up with an innovative way for everyone to exercise.)

Bonus

1998 and 2010: Words: Back in 1998, I read where no word rhymes with month, purple or orange. I have been trying since then to find words that did complete those rhymes. No luck, yet. Perhaps my long-lost brother Joe (if he is reading this) may have found some already since he is a noted word expert.

Can you find rhyming words for month, purple or orange?