As governments at all levels scramble to generate revenue in the current economic crisis, one sure-fire source of funds to which they always turn is taxes - more specifically, the so-called "sin taxes" imposed on things that are, if not actually sinful, then at least not quite socially acceptable. Taxes on tobacco products, liquor, and gambling winnings are examples of "sin taxes."
Now, you wouldn't think that a government would turn up its nose at a source of potential revenue, even revenue generated from a "sin tax," but it's happened - according to this story from the bucolic rural hamlet of Las Vegas, Nevada, the Taxation Committee of the state legislature has declined to impose a tax on prostitution. Prostitution, as it happens, is legal in Nevada, although it is generally frowned upon by those not engaged in it.
Oddly enough, the proposal to impose a $5.00 per act tax on on sex acts performed in legal brothels was proposed by a prostitutes' lobbying group and supported by Senator Bob Coffin (as senate bill SB369) as a way of helping the state overcome its fiscal woes in the wake of the downturn which has hit Nevada's gambling- and tourism-focused economy very hard.
Speaking of toxic assets...
Most of the state legislators recoiled in horror from the proposed tax, fearing the backlash from the religious right, and maintained that there were other, easier ways available to raise revenue. Those willing to comment said they feared that imposing a tax on prostitution might "...lend legitimacy and respectability to an industry that, while legal, is still heavily criticized" in the state whose motto is "All for our country." Really. Other opponents of the bill said it could encourage more illegal pimps and prostitutes to move to the state, and a psychologist and "prostitution researcher" (now there's an interesting job) called the proposed tax "an act of legislative pimping."
A check of the online survey which ran with the story showed that 872 people had voted thus far, of whom 677 (78%) favored the tax, 150 (17%) opposed it, and 45 (5%) "don't know."
All I know is that it seems like a good way to raise revenue, straighten out the state's finances, and get it out of the hole. So to speak.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
News Flash: Women Smell Better Than Men!
Really! And in more ways than one.
According to this interesting article from LiveScience.com, women are much more attuned to and aware of men's body odor than men are to women's, the theory being that human sweat conveys biological information that is especially important to women when seeking mates.
In a test of the theory, researchers asked women and men to rate the strength of samples of underarm sweat collected from both sexes. When the scent was presented on its own, it smelled equally strong to both women and men; however, when the researchers combined the body odor with other fragrances (perfumes, deodorants, powders, etc), the smell was often masked for men, though women could usually still detect it. The study also tested 32 different fragrances to see how well they could hide body oder. Nineteen of the 32 fragrances successfully hid the smell of the women's sweaty underarms from the male subjects...but among women, only two of the scents were able to overpower the men's odor.
The scientists also tested the reactions of female volunteers to odors from men versus odors from women. They found that even though the female sweat might smell just as strongly as the male sweat did, it was easier to mask with perfumes. About 19 percent of the fragrances tested successfully reduced the strength of male underarm odor, while more than 50 percent decreased the intensity of female underarm odor.
Other studies found that women can tell when a man is interested from the scent of his sweat: their brains respond differently when smelling sweat samples from men who were sexually aroused and men who weren't. The same studies showed that men also use their noses to choose mates, proving that the scent of a woman's body odor is more attractive to men at certain times in her monthly cycle. Female underarm sweat seems to communicate when a woman is fertile, making her more desirable to men.
Sort of makes you want to treat the humble armpit with more respect, doesn't it?
No less a respected sage than the late scholar and science fiction author Isaac Asimov noted this many years ago when he published his delightful parody The Sensuous Dirty Old Man. Asimov noted that old men need to be careful how much they get aroused, because their hearts aren't quite as strong as they used to be. His suggestion: focus on womens' armpits, rather than on other, more traditionally arousing body parts. He wrote that many a dirty old man has ridden a bus long past his proper stop, having been distracted by the sight of a bewitching young lady in a sleeveless blouse holding on to an overhead strap.
I use public transportation every day, and I'm getting older all the time. I may need to look into this.
But I digress...
I can tell you from personal experience that ladies smell better than men, no matter how much they may sweat. The average lady can dance vigorously all evening long and still smell fresh and clean, while unfortunate males like yours truly can generate a staggering stench that would scare a buzzard off a honey wagon.
It's not fair.
But I guess I must clean up well enough, though...Agnes hasn't left me yet.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
According to this interesting article from LiveScience.com, women are much more attuned to and aware of men's body odor than men are to women's, the theory being that human sweat conveys biological information that is especially important to women when seeking mates.
In a test of the theory, researchers asked women and men to rate the strength of samples of underarm sweat collected from both sexes. When the scent was presented on its own, it smelled equally strong to both women and men; however, when the researchers combined the body odor with other fragrances (perfumes, deodorants, powders, etc), the smell was often masked for men, though women could usually still detect it. The study also tested 32 different fragrances to see how well they could hide body oder. Nineteen of the 32 fragrances successfully hid the smell of the women's sweaty underarms from the male subjects...but among women, only two of the scents were able to overpower the men's odor.
The scientists also tested the reactions of female volunteers to odors from men versus odors from women. They found that even though the female sweat might smell just as strongly as the male sweat did, it was easier to mask with perfumes. About 19 percent of the fragrances tested successfully reduced the strength of male underarm odor, while more than 50 percent decreased the intensity of female underarm odor.
Other studies found that women can tell when a man is interested from the scent of his sweat: their brains respond differently when smelling sweat samples from men who were sexually aroused and men who weren't. The same studies showed that men also use their noses to choose mates, proving that the scent of a woman's body odor is more attractive to men at certain times in her monthly cycle. Female underarm sweat seems to communicate when a woman is fertile, making her more desirable to men.
Sort of makes you want to treat the humble armpit with more respect, doesn't it?
No less a respected sage than the late scholar and science fiction author Isaac Asimov noted this many years ago when he published his delightful parody The Sensuous Dirty Old Man. Asimov noted that old men need to be careful how much they get aroused, because their hearts aren't quite as strong as they used to be. His suggestion: focus on womens' armpits, rather than on other, more traditionally arousing body parts. He wrote that many a dirty old man has ridden a bus long past his proper stop, having been distracted by the sight of a bewitching young lady in a sleeveless blouse holding on to an overhead strap.
I use public transportation every day, and I'm getting older all the time. I may need to look into this.
But I digress...
I can tell you from personal experience that ladies smell better than men, no matter how much they may sweat. The average lady can dance vigorously all evening long and still smell fresh and clean, while unfortunate males like yours truly can generate a staggering stench that would scare a buzzard off a honey wagon.
It's not fair.
But I guess I must clean up well enough, though...Agnes hasn't left me yet.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Servicing the Car
Today is one of those days I dread almost above all others.
I have to take Agnes's car in for repair.
You might not think this is such a terrifying event in and of itself, but trust me: it is.
First of all, this isn't just any car. It's a supercharged 1996 Pontiac Bonneville SSEi ("Luxury with attitude," according to the old ad campaign). It goes from zero to jail in about 4.2 seconds, has front leather Recaro seats that recline nearly flat (not so good if you're the one in the back seat), and gets surprisingly good gas mileage for a car with an engine the size of an average Toyota. It's very comfortable on long drives. Agnes loves it.
And almost anything you do to it in the way of maintenance ends up costing about the annual GDP of Botswana.
Agnes, wonderful lady that she is, tends to be profoundly suspicious of automobile service people. Throbbing veins stand out in her forehead when I tell her the estimate for whatever repairs are required. If large chunks of the car haven't fallen off, or flames aren't coming out of places she doesn't expect to see flames, she's convinced the dealer service folks are trying to sell us unneeded repairs. I can always expect a thorough grilling about whether or not the repairs they want to make are legitimate or not. Since my comfort level with transportation technology maxed out with the supercharged oxcart (two oxen), it's not easy for me to convincingly explain to her that we need to do certain things.
Nowadays, of course, with automakers desperate to sell new cars, I have a sneaking suspicion that they perhaps do ratchet up the cost of maintaining older cars to make you think it's more economical to take on a new monthly car payment instead (Dave Barry used to write about repairmen who would send their assistants back to the office to fetch more zeroes for the estimate whenever he came in). And I'm not sure about those manuals they say they use to calculate how long it takes to do a particular repair...who decides on those figures, anyhow? When you're paying $87,694.99 per hour for labor, it's a legitimate question. And there are, of course, all the extra charges...over the years, the average auto repair bill has started to look like the average cell phone bill, loaded with fine-print charges that spring up on each visit ("used tire disposal fee," "expendable shop material charge," "Hugo Chavez Dale Carnegie Institute tuition," "hazardous materials disposal fee," "mechanics' bail bond fund reimbursement," and so on).
And so I sigh deeply and prepare to drive across town to the last surviving Pontiac dealer, who at this moment is probably sending a flunky out to buy the donuts they put out in the customers' waiting room.
I can eat a lot of donuts for $87,694.99 per hour.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
I have to take Agnes's car in for repair.
You might not think this is such a terrifying event in and of itself, but trust me: it is.
First of all, this isn't just any car. It's a supercharged 1996 Pontiac Bonneville SSEi ("Luxury with attitude," according to the old ad campaign). It goes from zero to jail in about 4.2 seconds, has front leather Recaro seats that recline nearly flat (not so good if you're the one in the back seat), and gets surprisingly good gas mileage for a car with an engine the size of an average Toyota. It's very comfortable on long drives. Agnes loves it.
And almost anything you do to it in the way of maintenance ends up costing about the annual GDP of Botswana.
Agnes, wonderful lady that she is, tends to be profoundly suspicious of automobile service people. Throbbing veins stand out in her forehead when I tell her the estimate for whatever repairs are required. If large chunks of the car haven't fallen off, or flames aren't coming out of places she doesn't expect to see flames, she's convinced the dealer service folks are trying to sell us unneeded repairs. I can always expect a thorough grilling about whether or not the repairs they want to make are legitimate or not. Since my comfort level with transportation technology maxed out with the supercharged oxcart (two oxen), it's not easy for me to convincingly explain to her that we need to do certain things.
Nowadays, of course, with automakers desperate to sell new cars, I have a sneaking suspicion that they perhaps do ratchet up the cost of maintaining older cars to make you think it's more economical to take on a new monthly car payment instead (Dave Barry used to write about repairmen who would send their assistants back to the office to fetch more zeroes for the estimate whenever he came in). And I'm not sure about those manuals they say they use to calculate how long it takes to do a particular repair...who decides on those figures, anyhow? When you're paying $87,694.99 per hour for labor, it's a legitimate question. And there are, of course, all the extra charges...over the years, the average auto repair bill has started to look like the average cell phone bill, loaded with fine-print charges that spring up on each visit ("used tire disposal fee," "expendable shop material charge," "Hugo Chavez Dale Carnegie Institute tuition," "hazardous materials disposal fee," "mechanics' bail bond fund reimbursement," and so on).
And so I sigh deeply and prepare to drive across town to the last surviving Pontiac dealer, who at this moment is probably sending a flunky out to buy the donuts they put out in the customers' waiting room.
I can eat a lot of donuts for $87,694.99 per hour.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
Monday, April 06, 2009
This Never Happens to James Bond...
Last Friday I ran a post titled "All My Soap Operas," in which I took off on the coming demise of the long-running soap "The Guiding Light" to talk about my past infatuation with the show "All My Children." My friend Katherine wrote a comment to that post in which she told the story of being detained at the French/Spanish border by a pair of bored French immigration officers who wouldn't return her passport until she told them who shot J.R. (Ewing, from the prime-time soap opera "Dallas").
Those pesky French.
As it happens, I have my own story about adventures crossing the French border...
When we last lived in Germany, we rented a house in the beautiful city of Wiesbaden, which was only about a two-hour drive from the Alsace region of Germany. Oops, no, actually the Alsace region of France. My mistake...the two countries have traded it back and forth so many times, I lost count. Anyhow, we often would drive down into the Alsace on weekends and find country restaurants and hotels where we'd have a nice multi-course French dinner and a good night's sleep, along with some shopping and sightseeing.
On one trip, we were travelling with our German friends Martina and Horst, and we had visited a crystal factory near the city of Bitche (no, I'm not kidding), where we bought a few nice things at the factory's outlet shop.
That was on Saturday. Fast forward to Sunday, and we're driving home to Wiesbaden. As a military person stationed in Europe, I was eligible to get the value-added tax we'd paid at the crystal factory (a not-insignificant sum) reimbursed...but in order to do that, I had to fill out the proper paperwork at a customs office at the border.
This is Sunday, remember. We visited four or five border crossings back to Germany before finding one (at Wissembourg, if memory serves) that was actually manned, and I duly gathered up our receipts and marched into the office to face two bored, middle-aged French customs officers...who thought that an American looking for their assistance was a gift from God to relive their boredom.
For the next hour or so, I went through the most amazing display of bureaucratic obstinancy I've ever seen. One man went out to carefully walk around our van and inspect it minutely. The other searched his office high and low for just the right form ... and then for a pen that would write. He then had to locate a sheet of scratch paper to try out the pen to make sure it would make just the right line of the proper color. Then he had to carefully transfer every detail of my military ID card, letter-by-letter, into the correct blocks on his form. Then he minutely scrutinized each receipt, front and back, to make sure that I wasn't trying to cheat the Government of the French Republic with some bogus paper. Once the form was completely filled out (and the carbon copies carefully inspected to ensure they were properly illegible), he announced in French (which we'd already established that I didn't speak) that it would be necessary to inspect the articles we'd purchased!
We marched out to the van where, under the careful observation of both officials, I opened the rear hatch, took out all the stuff on top of our packages, carried the packages back into the office, and unwrapped each one so that Inspector Clouseau could compare everything to the receipts.
This done, I was allowed to repackage all our purchases and return them to the van (again under the observation of the second officer) while our stalwart official embarked on a thorough search of his office for the correct stamp to apply to the documents. This took about ten minutes. He then needed to find an inkpad with just the right amount of ink. Another ten minutes or so. Now another sheet of scratch paper needed to be found so that several test stamps could be made to ensure that the stamp was properly inked and aligned.
Finally, he applied the stamp to the correct (thankfully!) block on his form (and each copy), and then had to once again find his pen so that he could sign each copy with an original, illegible flourish.
After one last thorough review of each copy to ensure accuracy, our hero carefully filed each carbon copy in its proper folder before putting on a happy smile and handing me the original form with an officious, "Voila!"
I thought that people only said "voila!" in cartoons.
I thanked him (I know how to say "merci") and rushed with unceremonious speed back to the van so that I could drive away before he could think of anything he'd missed. Agnes, Martina, and Horst, of course, thought all this was grand fun.
To this day, the crystal decanters and glasses we bought that day sit in pride of place on a shelf in the living room...
And I have yet another story to tell of how I have developed my love-hate relationship with the French.
The moral of the story: don't try to get anything past a minor functionary at a French border post on a Sunday if you're in a hurry.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
Those pesky French.
As it happens, I have my own story about adventures crossing the French border...
When we last lived in Germany, we rented a house in the beautiful city of Wiesbaden, which was only about a two-hour drive from the Alsace region of Germany. Oops, no, actually the Alsace region of France. My mistake...the two countries have traded it back and forth so many times, I lost count. Anyhow, we often would drive down into the Alsace on weekends and find country restaurants and hotels where we'd have a nice multi-course French dinner and a good night's sleep, along with some shopping and sightseeing.
On one trip, we were travelling with our German friends Martina and Horst, and we had visited a crystal factory near the city of Bitche (no, I'm not kidding), where we bought a few nice things at the factory's outlet shop.
That was on Saturday. Fast forward to Sunday, and we're driving home to Wiesbaden. As a military person stationed in Europe, I was eligible to get the value-added tax we'd paid at the crystal factory (a not-insignificant sum) reimbursed...but in order to do that, I had to fill out the proper paperwork at a customs office at the border.
This is Sunday, remember. We visited four or five border crossings back to Germany before finding one (at Wissembourg, if memory serves) that was actually manned, and I duly gathered up our receipts and marched into the office to face two bored, middle-aged French customs officers...who thought that an American looking for their assistance was a gift from God to relive their boredom.
For the next hour or so, I went through the most amazing display of bureaucratic obstinancy I've ever seen. One man went out to carefully walk around our van and inspect it minutely. The other searched his office high and low for just the right form ... and then for a pen that would write. He then had to locate a sheet of scratch paper to try out the pen to make sure it would make just the right line of the proper color. Then he had to carefully transfer every detail of my military ID card, letter-by-letter, into the correct blocks on his form. Then he minutely scrutinized each receipt, front and back, to make sure that I wasn't trying to cheat the Government of the French Republic with some bogus paper. Once the form was completely filled out (and the carbon copies carefully inspected to ensure they were properly illegible), he announced in French (which we'd already established that I didn't speak) that it would be necessary to inspect the articles we'd purchased!
We marched out to the van where, under the careful observation of both officials, I opened the rear hatch, took out all the stuff on top of our packages, carried the packages back into the office, and unwrapped each one so that Inspector Clouseau could compare everything to the receipts.
This done, I was allowed to repackage all our purchases and return them to the van (again under the observation of the second officer) while our stalwart official embarked on a thorough search of his office for the correct stamp to apply to the documents. This took about ten minutes. He then needed to find an inkpad with just the right amount of ink. Another ten minutes or so. Now another sheet of scratch paper needed to be found so that several test stamps could be made to ensure that the stamp was properly inked and aligned.
Finally, he applied the stamp to the correct (thankfully!) block on his form (and each copy), and then had to once again find his pen so that he could sign each copy with an original, illegible flourish.
After one last thorough review of each copy to ensure accuracy, our hero carefully filed each carbon copy in its proper folder before putting on a happy smile and handing me the original form with an officious, "Voila!"
I thought that people only said "voila!" in cartoons.
I thanked him (I know how to say "merci") and rushed with unceremonious speed back to the van so that I could drive away before he could think of anything he'd missed. Agnes, Martina, and Horst, of course, thought all this was grand fun.
To this day, the crystal decanters and glasses we bought that day sit in pride of place on a shelf in the living room...
And I have yet another story to tell of how I have developed my love-hate relationship with the French.The moral of the story: don't try to get anything past a minor functionary at a French border post on a Sunday if you're in a hurry.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
Sunday, April 05, 2009
The 2009 Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile Run
This morning I took my life in my hands and hauled Agnes out of bed at the unheard-of (for her) hour of 4:00 AM. She, along with a large group of fellow workers from her credit union, had volunteered to work at the 2009 Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile Run, held in conjunction with the annual Cherry Blossom Festival here in Washington, DC. We met the others at our local metro station at 5:00 AM and rode into town to the volunteers' staging area on the National Mall.
The sun was just thinking about coming up over the Capitol as we arrived at the staging area...
The runners were all properly welcomed with a photo opportunity in front of the Washington Monument ...
Which, as the sun came up, turned a beautiful golden color ...
After checking in and receiving our color-coded volunteer identification shirts, we had about an hour and a half before we had to do anything, so we decided to walk down to the Tidal Basin and look at the famous cherry blossoms ...
This is a view across the basin toward the Jefferson Memorial ...
And this is a view across the basin toward the Jefferson Memorial with me in the way ...
We weren't the only volunteers who didn't have too much to do before most of the participants arrived ...
We walked back to our assigned area, which was the assembly area for the runners in the "blue wave." There were six color-coded assembly areas for the "waves" of runners: the fastest and most experienced runners started in the first wave, followed by the next-fastest, and so on down to the last wave, the walkers. Each wave contained as many as 2,000 runners. It was quite chilly early in the morning, and people had all sorts of ways of trying to stay warm before the race ...
The first group of runners, the elite women, started at 7:30, and the rest of the waves of runners started ten minutes later, with the waves launching at three-minute intervals.
By shortly after 8:00, all the runners were underway, and the volunteers whose assignments were at the starting point helped pick up some of the debris from the roadway to avoid injury to the runners as they returned to cross the finish line.
And then we were done.
It turned out to be a beautiful, sunny, warm day, perfect for the race. The cherry blossoms were near their peak of beauty, and a good time was had by all.
Except for that part about getting up at 4:00 AM on a Sunday, for crying out loud.
Hope you have a good Sunday, too.
More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
The sun was just thinking about coming up over the Capitol as we arrived at the staging area...
The runners were all properly welcomed with a photo opportunity in front of the Washington Monument ...
Which, as the sun came up, turned a beautiful golden color ...
After checking in and receiving our color-coded volunteer identification shirts, we had about an hour and a half before we had to do anything, so we decided to walk down to the Tidal Basin and look at the famous cherry blossoms ...
This is a view across the basin toward the Jefferson Memorial ...
And this is a view across the basin toward the Jefferson Memorial with me in the way ...
We weren't the only volunteers who didn't have too much to do before most of the participants arrived ...
We walked back to our assigned area, which was the assembly area for the runners in the "blue wave." There were six color-coded assembly areas for the "waves" of runners: the fastest and most experienced runners started in the first wave, followed by the next-fastest, and so on down to the last wave, the walkers. Each wave contained as many as 2,000 runners. It was quite chilly early in the morning, and people had all sorts of ways of trying to stay warm before the race ...
The first group of runners, the elite women, started at 7:30, and the rest of the waves of runners started ten minutes later, with the waves launching at three-minute intervals.
By shortly after 8:00, all the runners were underway, and the volunteers whose assignments were at the starting point helped pick up some of the debris from the roadway to avoid injury to the runners as they returned to cross the finish line.And then we were done.
It turned out to be a beautiful, sunny, warm day, perfect for the race. The cherry blossoms were near their peak of beauty, and a good time was had by all.
Except for that part about getting up at 4:00 AM on a Sunday, for crying out loud.
Hope you have a good Sunday, too.
More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Oops...
So far today, two alert readers have taken me to task for making an error in the introduction to my Cartoon Saturday post.
For the record, the place where a gunman murdered 13 people at an immigration services center was Binghamton, New York - not Birmingham, New York as I wrote.
Sorry for the mistake.
Bilbo
For the record, the place where a gunman murdered 13 people at an immigration services center was Binghamton, New York - not Birmingham, New York as I wrote.
Sorry for the mistake.
Bilbo
Cartoon Saturday
A gunman murdered 14 people at an immigration services center in Birmingham, NY; international spoiled brat North Korea is getting ready to launch an "experimental communications satellite" over the heads of its nervous neighbors and threatening war if anyone watches; an ice shelf the size of Connecticut is ready to break off the continent of Antarctica; the US economy shed 663,000 jobs in March, for an overall unemployment rate of 8.5% and a total of over 5 million jobs lost since the start of the recession; and a company that recalled millions of pounds of possibly-tainted pistachios has accused another company of detecting salmonella in its nuts six months ago, but not admitting the fact until last week.
Cartoon Saturday rides over the horizon to your rescue!
Many newspapers are dropping features, reducing their size, or simply moving to an all-online format as readership declines and advertising revenues shrink. An online paper just isn't for everyone, though ...
There are those who find it easier to express themselves in writing ...
It's been one of those weeks at work ...
Agnes and I both love to cook. It can be frustrating (and embarrassing), though, when you misread the recipe and realize that dinner won't be ready quite when you thought it would ...
Part of my life at work revolves around getting the opinion of the international law community on various things. International law - you know - that thing we tend to worry about a lot more since last January. Anyhow, this cartoon offers an interesting twist on getting "lawyered up."
And finally, as the cost of prescription drugs soars and our medical benefits shrink, it's nice to know that you sometimes have an option ...
I hope you all have a good and relaxing weekend. Agnes and I will be up at a ghastly hour tomorrow since she's volunteered to work at the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile Run. I didn't volunteer ... I'm going along to make sure she gets off the Metro at the right stop, and to take pictures. At my age, the only things I run for any more are the bathroom and the last donut in the box. Maybe we'll see you there.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
Cartoon Saturday rides over the horizon to your rescue!
Many newspapers are dropping features, reducing their size, or simply moving to an all-online format as readership declines and advertising revenues shrink. An online paper just isn't for everyone, though ...
There are those who find it easier to express themselves in writing ...
It's been one of those weeks at work ...
Agnes and I both love to cook. It can be frustrating (and embarrassing), though, when you misread the recipe and realize that dinner won't be ready quite when you thought it would ...
Part of my life at work revolves around getting the opinion of the international law community on various things. International law - you know - that thing we tend to worry about a lot more since last January. Anyhow, this cartoon offers an interesting twist on getting "lawyered up."
And finally, as the cost of prescription drugs soars and our medical benefits shrink, it's nice to know that you sometimes have an option ...
I hope you all have a good and relaxing weekend. Agnes and I will be up at a ghastly hour tomorrow since she's volunteered to work at the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile Run. I didn't volunteer ... I'm going along to make sure she gets off the Metro at the right stop, and to take pictures. At my age, the only things I run for any more are the bathroom and the last donut in the box. Maybe we'll see you there.Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
Friday, April 03, 2009
All My Soap Operas
After a staggering 72 year run , the classic soap opera The Guiding Light is being cancelled.
Soap fans everywhere are devastated.
Some of you, especially those reading this outside the United States, may not be familiar with the concept of the soap opera. Wikipedia defines a soap opera as "...an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on television or radio." They're called soap operas because they usually ran in the afternoons when, because many stay-at-home housewives were assumed to be watching (or listening, in the case of radio), many of the sponsors were companies manufacturing laundry soap or other household supplies.
Not all of the fans were traditional housewives, though.
Many years ago, when I was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in the teeming megalopolis of Bossier City, Louisiana, I joined virtually the entire base in being hooked on the soap opera All My Children. I timed my lunch hour so I could go home and watch the show every day. Across the base, work stopped for an hour. In the alert facility, where the crews of B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers waited for the raucous klaxon call to fly away to war, all training and other activity shut down while everyone crowded into the recreation room to watch the adventures of the twisted inhabitants of Pine Valley. We wondered who would be the next to fall victim to a rare and deadly disease, what man the scheming Erica Kane would target next, what over-the-top evil plot Phoebe Wallingford would hatch, and what utterly unbelieveable but breathlessly-awaited plot twist would come next. Handsome young doctor falls in love with amnesiac prostitute and fights off the pimp who comes looking for her? Done that. Pregnancy threatened by a deadly disease with a polysyllabic Latin name brought on by eating steak tartare? Done that, too. Married 150 times (more or less), but still pursued by men thinking with organs other than their brains? Yep, paging Erica Kane.
Yes, the national defense of the United States of America stopped for an hour every day while we all watched All My Children.
I never watched The Guiding Light or any other daytime soap. I watched Dallas for a while, and Knots Landing once or twice, but no other soap opera, daytime or evening, could match "AMC." I stopped watching it when I left Louisiana and went overseas, and somehow never got back into it when I returned five years later. I did watch a Venezuelan telenovella called El Desprecio for a while, even though I never understood a word anyone said...it was just always fascinating to try to figure out what was going on, and why that old guy was chained up in the basement.
But I have many more ways of wasting time now, such as blogging and Facebook, where I can follow the ongoing soap operas of characters like Fiona and Mike. But perhaps those wouldn't be soap operas...Fiona is probably sponsored by United Whiskey and Haggis, Inc., and Mike would be sponsored by some cell phone service that drives its customers nuts with proprietary cables.
I'm just guessing here. See what you think.
That's all for now. Time to get ready to head off to my own soap opera: All My Commuting Problems. It'll go on for years.
Have a good day. Cartoon Saturday is coming.
Bilbo
Soap fans everywhere are devastated.
Some of you, especially those reading this outside the United States, may not be familiar with the concept of the soap opera. Wikipedia defines a soap opera as "...an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on television or radio." They're called soap operas because they usually ran in the afternoons when, because many stay-at-home housewives were assumed to be watching (or listening, in the case of radio), many of the sponsors were companies manufacturing laundry soap or other household supplies.
Not all of the fans were traditional housewives, though.
Many years ago, when I was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in the teeming megalopolis of Bossier City, Louisiana, I joined virtually the entire base in being hooked on the soap opera All My Children. I timed my lunch hour so I could go home and watch the show every day. Across the base, work stopped for an hour. In the alert facility, where the crews of B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers waited for the raucous klaxon call to fly away to war, all training and other activity shut down while everyone crowded into the recreation room to watch the adventures of the twisted inhabitants of Pine Valley. We wondered who would be the next to fall victim to a rare and deadly disease, what man the scheming Erica Kane would target next, what over-the-top evil plot Phoebe Wallingford would hatch, and what utterly unbelieveable but breathlessly-awaited plot twist would come next. Handsome young doctor falls in love with amnesiac prostitute and fights off the pimp who comes looking for her? Done that. Pregnancy threatened by a deadly disease with a polysyllabic Latin name brought on by eating steak tartare? Done that, too. Married 150 times (more or less), but still pursued by men thinking with organs other than their brains? Yep, paging Erica Kane.
Yes, the national defense of the United States of America stopped for an hour every day while we all watched All My Children.
I never watched The Guiding Light or any other daytime soap. I watched Dallas for a while, and Knots Landing once or twice, but no other soap opera, daytime or evening, could match "AMC." I stopped watching it when I left Louisiana and went overseas, and somehow never got back into it when I returned five years later. I did watch a Venezuelan telenovella called El Desprecio for a while, even though I never understood a word anyone said...it was just always fascinating to try to figure out what was going on, and why that old guy was chained up in the basement.
But I have many more ways of wasting time now, such as blogging and Facebook, where I can follow the ongoing soap operas of characters like Fiona and Mike. But perhaps those wouldn't be soap operas...Fiona is probably sponsored by United Whiskey and Haggis, Inc., and Mike would be sponsored by some cell phone service that drives its customers nuts with proprietary cables.
I'm just guessing here. See what you think.
That's all for now. Time to get ready to head off to my own soap opera: All My Commuting Problems. It'll go on for years.
Have a good day. Cartoon Saturday is coming.
Bilbo
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Going Down...
In her recent letter, Amanda wrote about the effects of the economic crisis that she sees from her unique perspective in Indonesia. In my reply that's on the way, I wrote to her about how I see it here in Northern Virginia. The bottom line of both our observations, I think, is that the crisis is real, but that it affects various levels of society very differently: the poor people in Palembang don't notice it quite the same way, since they didn't have much to start with; in Virginia, where people are used to a higher standard of living, the effects are more pronounced.
With that as an introduction, I would refer you to this fascinating (and pun-filled) article by Dana Milbank I found in yesterday's Washington Post: Funeral Business Feeling Six Feet Under.
Yes, even the funeral industry is having a rough time in the current economic doldrums. You'd think that this would be the ultimate recession-proof industry...after all, people are always going to keep dying. Nevertheless, funeral directors around the country are suffering because people are economizing on everything - even funerals.
Patrick Lynch, a funeral director from Michigan, noted some of the ways people are cutting back on their funeral-related purchases: "People, rather than selecting a copper or a bronze casket, may choose a 20-gauge steel casket painted in a copper color," he said. "Instead of choosing a mahogany casket made of real mahogany, they may choose a poplar casket stained with a mahogany stain, which to most observers looks the same. Perhaps they would chose a crepe interior as opposed to a velvet interior in a casket. Perhaps they would choose a sheet-metal urn as opposed to a solid-bronze urn."
Such things clearly cut into the ... uh ... urnings of the funeral industry, and there was talk at a recent conference of funeral professionals about seeking - of course - a federal bailout. Mr John Fitch, Jr, a lobbyist for the National Funeral Directors Association, said, "We had some preliminary discussions about providing some stimulus payments to the states" for funerals. It didn't work, though, because funding funerals wasn't seen as an engine to drive economic growth.
Benjamin Franklin once said that in this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. Our federal taxes are going down, at least temporarily. But - at least here in Virginia - our local taxes are shooting up while county services are being slashed. So in the current economic climate, Mr Franklin, the only thing certain is ... death.
But the undertaker may need a federal bailout to help you on your way.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
P.S. - for more information on the funeral industry - without the puns - you can read Jessica Mitford's classic muckraking expose, The American Way of Death. It can't depress you any more than you probably are already.
B.
With that as an introduction, I would refer you to this fascinating (and pun-filled) article by Dana Milbank I found in yesterday's Washington Post: Funeral Business Feeling Six Feet Under.
Yes, even the funeral industry is having a rough time in the current economic doldrums. You'd think that this would be the ultimate recession-proof industry...after all, people are always going to keep dying. Nevertheless, funeral directors around the country are suffering because people are economizing on everything - even funerals.
Patrick Lynch, a funeral director from Michigan, noted some of the ways people are cutting back on their funeral-related purchases: "People, rather than selecting a copper or a bronze casket, may choose a 20-gauge steel casket painted in a copper color," he said. "Instead of choosing a mahogany casket made of real mahogany, they may choose a poplar casket stained with a mahogany stain, which to most observers looks the same. Perhaps they would chose a crepe interior as opposed to a velvet interior in a casket. Perhaps they would choose a sheet-metal urn as opposed to a solid-bronze urn."
Such things clearly cut into the ... uh ... urnings of the funeral industry, and there was talk at a recent conference of funeral professionals about seeking - of course - a federal bailout. Mr John Fitch, Jr, a lobbyist for the National Funeral Directors Association, said, "We had some preliminary discussions about providing some stimulus payments to the states" for funerals. It didn't work, though, because funding funerals wasn't seen as an engine to drive economic growth.
Benjamin Franklin once said that in this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes. Our federal taxes are going down, at least temporarily. But - at least here in Virginia - our local taxes are shooting up while county services are being slashed. So in the current economic climate, Mr Franklin, the only thing certain is ... death.
But the undertaker may need a federal bailout to help you on your way.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
P.S. - for more information on the funeral industry - without the puns - you can read Jessica Mitford's classic muckraking expose, The American Way of Death. It can't depress you any more than you probably are already.
B.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
April Fool's Day Thoughts
There being no shortage of fools running around unsupervised, I thought today might offer a good opportunity to look at what people smarter than I have said about foolishness and related topics. You may have seen some of these before if you are also one of my Facebook friends...
"During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk, today we have small men enjoying big talk." (Fred Allen, 1894-1956)
"Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head." (Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914)
"For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency." (Eric Ambler, 1909-1998)
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." (Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970)
"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." (Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915)
"A man properly must pay the fiddler. In my case it so happened that a whole symphony orchestra had to be subsidized." (John Barrymore, 1882-1942)
"I am convinced that the best service a retired general can perform is to turn in his tongue along with his suit and to mothball his opinions." (General Omar Bradley, 1893-1981)
"No one can earn a million dollars honestly." (William Jennings Bryan, 1860-1925)
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." (Adolf Hitler, 1880-1945)
"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." (Hubert Humphrey, 1911-1978)
Isn't it grand that so many people have said so many quotable things over the years...especially when you're hard up for a topic for your blog?
Have a good day. Watch out for the April Fools. And the May ones. And keep an eye out during the other months, too.
More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo (1951 - )
"During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk, today we have small men enjoying big talk." (Fred Allen, 1894-1956)
"Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head." (Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914)
"For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency." (Eric Ambler, 1909-1998)
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." (Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970)
"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." (Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915)
"A man properly must pay the fiddler. In my case it so happened that a whole symphony orchestra had to be subsidized." (John Barrymore, 1882-1942)
"I am convinced that the best service a retired general can perform is to turn in his tongue along with his suit and to mothball his opinions." (General Omar Bradley, 1893-1981)
"No one can earn a million dollars honestly." (William Jennings Bryan, 1860-1925)
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." (Adolf Hitler, 1880-1945)
"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." (Hubert Humphrey, 1911-1978)
Isn't it grand that so many people have said so many quotable things over the years...especially when you're hard up for a topic for your blog?
Have a good day. Watch out for the April Fools. And the May ones. And keep an eye out during the other months, too.
More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo (1951 - )
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