I've been tied up for some time planning a conference. Now that it is over, I can concentrate on other things and maybe catch up on the news. Reading my favorite magazine The Week for November 6, 2009, and watching a little TV, I found the following news items to be quite interesting:
01. GOLF. There now is an 850 mile long golf course in Australia. Par 71. (Golfers have to be wary of wombat holes.)
02. SPY. Who would have thought that Fidel Castro's sister would have been a spy for the CIA? (Mr. Cheney may not know that she "outed" herself.)
03. RATINGS. FOX News is apparently enjoying being called "a wing of the Republican Party.
04. SEX. The "US Federales" have captured 700 bad people across the country in three days. This included a lot of alleged pimps engaged in child prostitution. Some child prostitutes are as young as ten!
05. SWINE FLU. I read that some "shock" radio persons are spreading rumors that the H1N1 vaccine "is tainted with antifreeze" as part of a plot by the Government to kill Americans.
This is extremely ridiculous and irresponsible. Some people who should get the vaccine, may not get it because of this misinformation. People need to take this situation seriously and make rational decisions about the vaccine. During the Flu Pandemic of many years ago, my Grandfather served his community as a volunteer nurse. In that community, nearly every family lost a member. There was no vaccine against the flu then. (Luckily, none of his 15 children got the flu bad enough to die from it.)
06. RODENT. Once again, a small animal has panicked lots of great big humans. Three hundred people were delayed for three hours while their airplane to London was "de-miced".
07. SUICIDE Epidemic. Palo Alto, California, is having a problem with teen suicides. Four students from the same high school have stepped in front of commuter trains on purpose. Eight more have been prevented from doing so. Is this the result of "ennui" for living in such a wealthy town?
08. FLY-PAPER?. A Florida man wore a "defective" pair of underwear for two weeks and claimed that the fly flap rubbed his genitals like sand-paper. He sued for compensation. Thank goodness the judge threw this one out.
09. WATCH OUT FOR STRANGE VEHICLES. If you travel in Minnesota, watch out for a drunk guy driving a motorized recliner with a built-in stereo set.
10. BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE: If you travel in Dallas, be careful, police are ticketing motorists for being "non-English-speaking drivers." George Bernard Shaw was fond of saying that Americans haven't spoken the English language for years.
11. WHERE'S THE BEEF? The owner of the three McDonald restaurants in Iceland is closing them down because the current cost of importing ingredients would cause him to have to charge the equivalent of $7 for a Big Mac, apparently too many KRONA for folks to pay.
12. ARE YOU A NONE? A study found that 14 million Americans have no religious affiliation.. they are called "nones". Some of them believe in God, some are atheists, some agnostics, and some find labels unimportant.
13. ENDANGERED SPECIES. Several Canadian provinces have banned smoking in both public and private places, even in cars and apartment buildings! However, crackheads, who have a disease called addiction, are exempted and will have medical places where they can legally "inhale"!
14. PIE IN THE FACE. Soupy Sales died last week. He was 83. His claim to fame was that he had had 20,000 shaving cream filled pies hit him in the face over the years. If that is funny, he was a very funny man.
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Showing posts with label flu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flu. Show all posts
Monday, November 02, 2009
Sunday, August 09, 2009
End of week news.
Looking at the Baltimore Sun for Friday, August 7th, 2009:
01. I learned that Justice Sotomayor has had diabetes since childhood. This is an insidious disease and she has had to overcome its terrible effects and still become a success. I also learned that she was a recipient of affirmative action who then graduated with highest honors. There is a lesson there.
02. There was a picture of Snoop Dogg at the Raven's Camp, with the legend: Westminster Dogg Show.
03. A related article was about nicknames used by gang members. It said that some of the toughest guys have silly-sounding monikers. They mentioned that one guy was known as "Brazy" instead of "Crazy" because as a "Blood" he can't use the letter "C" in his name.
04. I was interested in this statement: "Even in a region with nearly double-digit unemployment, the crab companies remain reliant on migrant labor from abroad because so few local residennts are willing to take the messy, repetitive (crab-picking) jobs."
05. A drug suspect tried to swallow a bag of drugs and choked to death. Now his buddies are saying he really died of a police beating.
06. A technically knowledgable teen-ager made more than 80 credit cards with a machine in his home. He was arrested after he used some woman's debit card to pay for a vehicle emissions test and a $650 tab at a nightclub.
07. Senator Mikulski says that her rehab for ankle surgery at Mercy Hospital was like "boot camp". Nice play on words.
08. Flu shots later this year will probably consist of three shots: one for regular flu and two for Swine flu. (My shingles shot is still hurting my arm.)
09. China is investigating the death of a teen-ager who was allegedly beaten to death in (get this) a camp designed to treat Internet addiction.
10. Ronnie Biggs was released from jail.. look up: The Great Train Robbery!
11. Twitter suffered a "distributed denial of service (DDOS)" which is a disruptive tactic where outsiders attempt to overload a web site with huge numbers of computer-generated requests. They will have to learn how to handle these like Facebook has.
12. There was a nice long letter by two ladies who have lived together for 30 years, 5 of those as a married couple... although the marriage is not recognised by Maryland. It should be read by everyone.
13. There was a notice of the passing of family friend, Evelyn. Also a notice of the passing of the father of Mike, who graduated from high school with Elaine.
14. The Iraqi parliament is trying to ban smoking in government buildings and public indoor area.
(Watch out... remember the man who opened fire in a restaurant when he was asked to put out his cigarette.. I wonder if this has occured in the U.S......yet.)
...............................................
01. I learned that Justice Sotomayor has had diabetes since childhood. This is an insidious disease and she has had to overcome its terrible effects and still become a success. I also learned that she was a recipient of affirmative action who then graduated with highest honors. There is a lesson there.
02. There was a picture of Snoop Dogg at the Raven's Camp, with the legend: Westminster Dogg Show.
03. A related article was about nicknames used by gang members. It said that some of the toughest guys have silly-sounding monikers. They mentioned that one guy was known as "Brazy" instead of "Crazy" because as a "Blood" he can't use the letter "C" in his name.
04. I was interested in this statement: "Even in a region with nearly double-digit unemployment, the crab companies remain reliant on migrant labor from abroad because so few local residennts are willing to take the messy, repetitive (crab-picking) jobs."
05. A drug suspect tried to swallow a bag of drugs and choked to death. Now his buddies are saying he really died of a police beating.
06. A technically knowledgable teen-ager made more than 80 credit cards with a machine in his home. He was arrested after he used some woman's debit card to pay for a vehicle emissions test and a $650 tab at a nightclub.
07. Senator Mikulski says that her rehab for ankle surgery at Mercy Hospital was like "boot camp". Nice play on words.
08. Flu shots later this year will probably consist of three shots: one for regular flu and two for Swine flu. (My shingles shot is still hurting my arm.)
09. China is investigating the death of a teen-ager who was allegedly beaten to death in (get this) a camp designed to treat Internet addiction.
10. Ronnie Biggs was released from jail.. look up: The Great Train Robbery!
11. Twitter suffered a "distributed denial of service (DDOS)" which is a disruptive tactic where outsiders attempt to overload a web site with huge numbers of computer-generated requests. They will have to learn how to handle these like Facebook has.
12. There was a nice long letter by two ladies who have lived together for 30 years, 5 of those as a married couple... although the marriage is not recognised by Maryland. It should be read by everyone.
13. There was a notice of the passing of family friend, Evelyn. Also a notice of the passing of the father of Mike, who graduated from high school with Elaine.
14. The Iraqi parliament is trying to ban smoking in government buildings and public indoor area.
(Watch out... remember the man who opened fire in a restaurant when he was asked to put out his cigarette.. I wonder if this has occured in the U.S......yet.)
...............................................
Sunday, May 03, 2009
The Curse of Learning to Read
I learned to read at a very young age and enjoy reading every day of my life. Without something to read before bed, I cannot sleep. I'm a lot like Felix in the Odd Couple TV series. In one episode, Felix finds himself in a hotel room with no reading material. He is in agony looking for something to read. Finally he finds a toothpaste tube with writing on it... after he reads those words, he is able to go to sleep.
Elaine is also an avid reader. The reading material does add up. Magazines, catalogs, newspapers, etc. Years ago I taught myself to speed read, but even with that, it piles up. A year ago, I set myself a task to read at least three magazines each day. I was able to do that for a whole year; however, it seems as though there are even more magazines to read than when I started. I wonder if I could do ten a day? Probably, the solution would be to throw all of the piles of magazines into the recycling bin and start over.
Why do I need to know everything that is written? Its an impossible task. Maybe I should just stick with the books that I read and the puzzles that I do. No.. I couldn't do that.. I might miss something.
This morning I sat down with the Sunday edition of the Baltimore Sun. I recently renewed my subscription (the price was right.) I started on page one and read for one hour. This is what I learned:
01. Mine That Bird won the Kentucky Derby. This was a 50-1 shot payoff! When I go to the track, I usually bet on the long shots. Why bet on the probable winners when the odds are not high enough to make you rich?
2. Preakness sales are very slow. (No wonder. No balloon festival. No BYOB to the Infield. No Mardi-Gras like fun anymore.) Will Pimlico be sold? Is this the last year for the Preakness. (Will the Baltimore area throw away another tourist bonanza, like Hausner's?)
3. The front page headline story is about the Lehigh Heidelberg Cement Company that is planning a 4 1/2 mile long conveyer to carry limestone from New Windsor to Union Bridge. The Lehigh Plant in Union Bridge, Maryland, is an amazing place with a sky-scraper tall building. My Men's Club spent some time there touring the facility. Its well worth a trip to find out what is going on in the cement business.
I've never been able to understand why Union Bridge, with all of its cement dust in the air, isn't a major home of people with lung cancer. I guess the company takes good precautions.
4. Colleges are luring students with all kinds of perks.. such as: climbing walls, swimming pools, Internet access, etc. It looks like the average college tuition in the Baltimore area is about $40,00 per year. Its quite a bit lower in outlying areas.
5. The Orioles lost again. But, I guess its still very early in the season for fans to get too worried.
6. There are now 4 or 5 cases of Swine Flu in Maryland. Four schools have closed down for 14 days because a student is suspected of having the flu. (Another source of news says that Mexico is saying that the flu epidemic is slowing down there.)
7. Representative Jack Kemp passed away. He served 9 terms in Congress and was Bob Dole's mate in a run for the White House.
8. Baltimore mayor, Shiela Dixon is planning a 60 mile bike ride today.
9. Governor O'Malley babysits his own children.
10. In 1789, Louis XVI called a meeting in Versailles. In attendance were the Etats General: 1st Estate: 300 members of the clergy; 2nd Estate: 300 nobles; 3rd Estate: 600 commoners. Years later, Edmund Burke referred to the Press Gallery of the House of Commons as the 4th Estate.. and the press has retained that name to this day.
11. Next week's temperatures will be in a range from 50 degrees to 73 degrees. Now that is more like Spring.
12. There will be a full moon on May 9th. BELLA LUNA! (Last nite I watched the movie Moonstruck for the hundredth time. I think that it is the best movie ever made. A LA FAMILIA!)
13. Humidity is around 75% today. (We have a weather indicator: a wind sock. We know that when it flaps, it is windy. When it hangs limp, it is calm. When it is wet, it is raining. When it is standing stiff, it is below freezing. When we can't see it, it is foggy. When it is covered in white, it is snowing. When it is warm to the touch, we are having a heat wave. When it has blown away, we are having a hurricane.)
14. Today, Ocean City, Maryland waves will be 3 feet high. (We got a call today that the condo we rent in OC is available for the three weeks we want in September and October. It is ocean front and we can sit on the balcony and watch those waves roll in... that is, if smokers don't rent the condo next door.. since they can't smoke in the condos now, they smoke on the balconies and the smoke is pushed towards us by the ocean breeze. For years, smokers could poison their lungs inside and we did not have that problem.)
15. Today, sunset is at 8:02 pm. (We had early Daylight Savings this year and some clocks are still screwed up. When I "save" this blog, the time is shown as one hour earlier than it is. Some clocks in Government buildings that adjust automatically, still have not switched over. Is this similar to the Year 2000 situation?)
16. Today, it will be 91 degrees in Las Vegas. (I swallowed a toothpick in LV back in 1958. It was buried in a sandwich and luckily I "burped" it up. If that happened in 2009, I would be able to sue the restaurant for millions.)
17. Today, Boston, Massachusetts is cooler than Anchorage, Alaska. (Perhaps "cooler" in many senses.)
18. It was 96 degrees in Frederick and Cumberland, Maryland last week. (How did I miss that?)
19. The City of Baltimore has found $40 Million dollars that had been in a file forgotten for a decade. (This also happened in Carroll County Maryland a couple of years ago, while I was on the Commission on Aging. I forget the actual amount, but it made a lot of people happy.)
20. Members of several Baltimore area communities had fun at the 2nd annual Boundary Block Party. (Baltimore's Butcher's Hill residents have block parties too.)
21. The Baltimore Sun has begun a newsroom restructuring.
22. Nicholas D'Adamo will not seek reelection in 2011, after 7 terms on the Baltimore City Council. He has ties to Highland Town. (New to Baltimore, I asked our landlords how to get to the famous Hausner's Restaurant. They told me to go to Hollandtown. We never found it that night because Hollandtown is how Highland Town is pronounced in Baltimorese. Luckily, we found it later and it became our favorite restaurant for many years.)
23. Crosswalk painting has faded away at one intersection and a student was struck by a car there. (Another case of the lack of maintenance because of a lack of money or motivation. When William Donald Schaefer was mayor of Baltimore and people would call him to complain about a pothole, the mayor would tell his maintenance people: "There is a pothole out there, find it and fix it." He would not tell them where it was. A lot of potholes got fixed that way. Maybe Shiela should say the same thing.
24. Four new trial judges have been appointed by Governor O'Malley.
25. I see the winning lottery numbers for Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and DC. Also the Megamillion numbers.
26. I see an ad for a very low rate of interest for a home equity line of credit.
27. I see an ad for a paving company that does demolitions.
28. I see an ad for the auction of upscale condos and homes in Baltimore.
29. I see an ad for a free seminar about dental implants. The ad shows Linda and Howard, "actual patients" with amazingly white and straight teeth.
OK... enough! This has been a recap of what I learned in one concentrated hour of reading the Baltimore Sunday Sun. I only got through 4 pages of the first section... so now you understand about my reading curse.
I should "Go and SUN no more!" But I can't.. as I said, I'm afraid I will miss something.
Elaine is also an avid reader. The reading material does add up. Magazines, catalogs, newspapers, etc. Years ago I taught myself to speed read, but even with that, it piles up. A year ago, I set myself a task to read at least three magazines each day. I was able to do that for a whole year; however, it seems as though there are even more magazines to read than when I started. I wonder if I could do ten a day? Probably, the solution would be to throw all of the piles of magazines into the recycling bin and start over.
Why do I need to know everything that is written? Its an impossible task. Maybe I should just stick with the books that I read and the puzzles that I do. No.. I couldn't do that.. I might miss something.
This morning I sat down with the Sunday edition of the Baltimore Sun. I recently renewed my subscription (the price was right.) I started on page one and read for one hour. This is what I learned:
01. Mine That Bird won the Kentucky Derby. This was a 50-1 shot payoff! When I go to the track, I usually bet on the long shots. Why bet on the probable winners when the odds are not high enough to make you rich?
2. Preakness sales are very slow. (No wonder. No balloon festival. No BYOB to the Infield. No Mardi-Gras like fun anymore.) Will Pimlico be sold? Is this the last year for the Preakness. (Will the Baltimore area throw away another tourist bonanza, like Hausner's?)
3. The front page headline story is about the Lehigh Heidelberg Cement Company that is planning a 4 1/2 mile long conveyer to carry limestone from New Windsor to Union Bridge. The Lehigh Plant in Union Bridge, Maryland, is an amazing place with a sky-scraper tall building. My Men's Club spent some time there touring the facility. Its well worth a trip to find out what is going on in the cement business.
I've never been able to understand why Union Bridge, with all of its cement dust in the air, isn't a major home of people with lung cancer. I guess the company takes good precautions.
4. Colleges are luring students with all kinds of perks.. such as: climbing walls, swimming pools, Internet access, etc. It looks like the average college tuition in the Baltimore area is about $40,00 per year. Its quite a bit lower in outlying areas.
5. The Orioles lost again. But, I guess its still very early in the season for fans to get too worried.
6. There are now 4 or 5 cases of Swine Flu in Maryland. Four schools have closed down for 14 days because a student is suspected of having the flu. (Another source of news says that Mexico is saying that the flu epidemic is slowing down there.)
7. Representative Jack Kemp passed away. He served 9 terms in Congress and was Bob Dole's mate in a run for the White House.
8. Baltimore mayor, Shiela Dixon is planning a 60 mile bike ride today.
9. Governor O'Malley babysits his own children.
10. In 1789, Louis XVI called a meeting in Versailles. In attendance were the Etats General: 1st Estate: 300 members of the clergy; 2nd Estate: 300 nobles; 3rd Estate: 600 commoners. Years later, Edmund Burke referred to the Press Gallery of the House of Commons as the 4th Estate.. and the press has retained that name to this day.
11. Next week's temperatures will be in a range from 50 degrees to 73 degrees. Now that is more like Spring.
12. There will be a full moon on May 9th. BELLA LUNA! (Last nite I watched the movie Moonstruck for the hundredth time. I think that it is the best movie ever made. A LA FAMILIA!)
13. Humidity is around 75% today. (We have a weather indicator: a wind sock. We know that when it flaps, it is windy. When it hangs limp, it is calm. When it is wet, it is raining. When it is standing stiff, it is below freezing. When we can't see it, it is foggy. When it is covered in white, it is snowing. When it is warm to the touch, we are having a heat wave. When it has blown away, we are having a hurricane.)
14. Today, Ocean City, Maryland waves will be 3 feet high. (We got a call today that the condo we rent in OC is available for the three weeks we want in September and October. It is ocean front and we can sit on the balcony and watch those waves roll in... that is, if smokers don't rent the condo next door.. since they can't smoke in the condos now, they smoke on the balconies and the smoke is pushed towards us by the ocean breeze. For years, smokers could poison their lungs inside and we did not have that problem.)
15. Today, sunset is at 8:02 pm. (We had early Daylight Savings this year and some clocks are still screwed up. When I "save" this blog, the time is shown as one hour earlier than it is. Some clocks in Government buildings that adjust automatically, still have not switched over. Is this similar to the Year 2000 situation?)
16. Today, it will be 91 degrees in Las Vegas. (I swallowed a toothpick in LV back in 1958. It was buried in a sandwich and luckily I "burped" it up. If that happened in 2009, I would be able to sue the restaurant for millions.)
17. Today, Boston, Massachusetts is cooler than Anchorage, Alaska. (Perhaps "cooler" in many senses.)
18. It was 96 degrees in Frederick and Cumberland, Maryland last week. (How did I miss that?)
19. The City of Baltimore has found $40 Million dollars that had been in a file forgotten for a decade. (This also happened in Carroll County Maryland a couple of years ago, while I was on the Commission on Aging. I forget the actual amount, but it made a lot of people happy.)
20. Members of several Baltimore area communities had fun at the 2nd annual Boundary Block Party. (Baltimore's Butcher's Hill residents have block parties too.)
21. The Baltimore Sun has begun a newsroom restructuring.
22. Nicholas D'Adamo will not seek reelection in 2011, after 7 terms on the Baltimore City Council. He has ties to Highland Town. (New to Baltimore, I asked our landlords how to get to the famous Hausner's Restaurant. They told me to go to Hollandtown. We never found it that night because Hollandtown is how Highland Town is pronounced in Baltimorese. Luckily, we found it later and it became our favorite restaurant for many years.)
23. Crosswalk painting has faded away at one intersection and a student was struck by a car there. (Another case of the lack of maintenance because of a lack of money or motivation. When William Donald Schaefer was mayor of Baltimore and people would call him to complain about a pothole, the mayor would tell his maintenance people: "There is a pothole out there, find it and fix it." He would not tell them where it was. A lot of potholes got fixed that way. Maybe Shiela should say the same thing.
24. Four new trial judges have been appointed by Governor O'Malley.
25. I see the winning lottery numbers for Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and DC. Also the Megamillion numbers.
26. I see an ad for a very low rate of interest for a home equity line of credit.
27. I see an ad for a paving company that does demolitions.
28. I see an ad for the auction of upscale condos and homes in Baltimore.
29. I see an ad for a free seminar about dental implants. The ad shows Linda and Howard, "actual patients" with amazingly white and straight teeth.
OK... enough! This has been a recap of what I learned in one concentrated hour of reading the Baltimore Sunday Sun. I only got through 4 pages of the first section... so now you understand about my reading curse.
I should "Go and SUN no more!" But I can't.. as I said, I'm afraid I will miss something.
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