Mr. Wilson’s truck

Posted on 20June2012 by

I feel a combination of sorrow and joy. Isn’t this so often the way? Super Romney supporter Mr. Jim Wilson, whose white Romney truck was emblematic of the whiteness of the Romney campaign, was hit by catastrophe today. It happened like a bolt from the blue as he was driving along the Pennsylvania Turnpike late this afternoon. Fire. Burnt the Romney truck right down to the pavement. Through the pavement, truth be told, but not too deep. Troopers closed the Turnpike for a time. Mr. Wilson, en route to a friend’s funeral, is OK. What a relief.

He needs a new white truck though. Pure white. Nothing tan. Or coffee colored. Or red. Or green. Or, needless to say, black. He doesn’t like political connotations vis-a-vis his vehicles and I salute him for that. Go Mr. Wilson! Get Ann Romney to buy you a new truck! She’s a real nice lady and I know she will.

Campaign officials said they spoke briefly with Mr. Wilson before his cellphone died. Ryan Williams, a spokesman for Mr. Romney, said that Mr. Wilson “let us know he made it out of the truck safely and was able to rescue the American flags from the fire.”

“He said only one was slightly singed.”

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do you know there are no photos of dinosaurs?

Posted on 20June2012 by

I have a little pal who enjoys a good solid picture of a dinosaur. I can see the attraction. So earlier today I scoured the internet for photos and found none. Lots of dinosaur skeletons, but when you’re two and a half a photo of the skeleton of your favorite animal is not that much fun. After awhile . . .  I hate to admit quite awhile, I remembered that dinosaurs lived before Mr. Eastman Kodak. And not just before, but a long long time before. Like hundreds of millions of years. So that’s why we only have photographs of bones now. sigh. Life is full of misfortunes, but how can you tell that to a small person for whom hundreds of millions of years is just an excuse for disappointment?

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just because it’s Wednesday and the air conditioner is running. . .

Posted on 20June2012 by

Hi,

A personal note. This afternoon while I was reading a six or so page article in the NYTimes  about Kenneth Lonergan’s Thwarted Masterpiece, my right eye kept glancing at a photo of three smiling men. They looked like well-scrubbed cheerful sorts so I left Mr. Lonergan and hooked up (figuratively) with the Triad. One click and I was on a website titled 200 Slices of Wealth. I haven’t had so much fun skating through the ups and downs of folks since the last edition of the Forbes 400.

Trust me. I will never spoil an opportunity for your happiness, so I won’t blah blah about it, I’ll just include the link.   http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/08/business/executive-compensation.html?WT.mc_id=BU-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M258-ROS-0612-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_c=189405

ooxx, sharon

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Feeling droopy about Randall

Posted on 20June2012 by

I kind of know Randall Stephenson. I haven’t met him face to face, but I’ve talked to several of the people in the same organization where he works. Some of whom I have met face to face. It hasn’t always been fun , but what is?

Actually, I haven’t thought of Randall for quite a while. Not since I filed a complaint against his company with the FCC. (Well, me and 66,347 other folks.) At the time, all I wanted was for his world’s largest telecommunications corporation to respond to an 8 month old complaint. He did, by disconnecting my long distance service. Well, first he disconnected the service, but that was only for a couple of days. And then the FCC must have let him know he had an unhappy customer on his hands, so he reconnected my service and credited my account $150. Did I ask him to do that? No. It was all out of the kindness and generosity of his heart and I’ve been meaning to call him and tell him how much it has meant to me. I haven’t gotten around to it, but that’s where my head has been for several weeks now.

Alas, today I was jolted into some sort of depressing awareness that my actions had consequences. I’m feeling droopy because I might well be responsible for his drop in pay. Eight percent drop —>  -8%   <—- in only one year! Who else could be at fault? And if that’s not bad enough, his company’s profit ranking fell 79%. This isn’t chickenfeed people!

So, naturally, I’m droopy and wondering how he is coping. He is a youngish guy with kids and a mortgage and, just like so many others in this beleaguered country, he needs that paycheck. Maybe I should do the right thing and return the $150. It might bring a little smile to his face.

I hope this isn’t true, but maybe you’re one of those Me First people who just takes takes takes and never gives gives gives. Makes me sad to think about it. Put yourself in his shoes: his 8% loss rounds up to $2.03 million dollars. Imagine you’re poor Randall! You have your AT&T U-verse bill coming due! (Well, perhaps being AT&T’s CEO brings discounts on your utilities unless you’ve subscribed to Comcast on the sly.) Whatever. I’m not here to judge. Just please, while you’re rolling in the bucks, remember not everyone is as fortunate as you. Maybe, to show a fellow human being your sense of brotherhood, you could send him 8% of your pay. To even things out a little bit. You know. Just to be nice.

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Do you know and love Mark Bittman?

Posted on 20June2012 by

Mark Bittman is a food writer for the New York Times who is a very dear pal. (I haven’t actually met him, but I still hold him close to my heart.) For several years he’s done weekly videos on cooking good stuff easily, effortlessly, and enjoyably. Recently, he’s traded the videos for articles on food subjects that interest him. This one was published today, with highlights below.

My take on food is this: It is the sworn obligation of the US government to insure that the general foodstuffs of an unseen nature are not harmful to the populace. Anti-biotics,”subtherapeutic” and otherwise, for poor sick animals too mistreated to be healthy is a cheap fix that causes more problems than it solves. AND. The FDA not banning BPA in infant food containers like yesterday? They’re not doing their job. Bad FDA.

But, when I read the other points I have to think it’s all common sense, isn’t it? And all things we have control over. As parents, we stand between our children and Walt Disney, Subway, General Foods, McDonalds, Burger King, sugary drinks and high-fructose syrup. Also, as sentient beings we have to understand that when we watch the Subway clerk spray our sandwich with salt from a one gallon shaker, that maybe we might want to speak up.

1. The Walt Disney Co. announced a curb on junk food marketing aimed at kids, to be implemented by 2015.

2. McDonald’s is also helping to set new norms, by establishing a 10-year timeline to phase out pork gestation crates from its U.S.

3. Subway has announced not one, not two, but three new vegan sandwiches

4. Speaking of Subway, in 2011 the chain said it cut salt by 15 percent across the board. This might be good news, but only if you believe that salt is harmful. The real good news is in this Gary Taubes piece (see bottom of page)  which essentially maintains that everything you thought you knew about salt was wrong. Pass the shaker.

5. A court ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must reconsider two petitions urging the agency to restrict the subtherapeutic use of antibiotics on livestock.

6. We need the F.D.A., and we need it to do its job well. It’s good that it’s also considering placing a ban on BPA in infant formula containers (although one could easily say “just do it”)

7. It denied the Corn Refiners Association’s petition to change the name of high-fructose corn syrup to “corn sugar.”

8. Then Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, introduced an amendment mandating that the government study the link between sugary beverages and obesity.

9. An Ohio judge has ruled that a state law limiting the ability of local governments to regulate restaurants in order to improve public health is not constitutional.

And why are we still talking about the harmful effects of boxed breakfast cereals? Good grief. I’ve known cocoa puffs aren’t good for kids since I raised my two 20 + years ago. I did not need a pubic service announcement to tell me any product with sugar as its second ingredient wasn’t the best thing for little, or big, bodies. Why can’t people just use their heads? Hamburgers for 99 cents might just be made from cattle raised on factory farms. OMG. Who can’t figure that one out?

Problem is, it’s not that people don’t know the difference between sugar cereals and oatmeal, they don’t want to bother. If their children have been whining for the junk they learned about by watching (too many) commercials, they roll over and buy it just to shut them up. (Spend 10 minutes in the cereal section of your local market for examples.) It’s just lazy parenting and totally uneconomical as well.

And now the article about salt by Gary Taubes, NYTimes 3 June 2012

Salt, We Misjudged You

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/opinion/sunday/we-only-think-we-know-the-truth-about-salt.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me

From the article:

“The evidence from studies published over the past two years actually suggests that restricting how much salt we eat can increase our likelihood of dying prematurely. Put simply, the possibility has been raised that if we were to eat as little salt as the U.S.D.A. and the C.D.C. recommend, we’d be harming rather than helping ourselves.”

 

 

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Lawrence of Arabia on your ‘Droid? Really?

Posted on 20June2012 by

       Read this morning: “Sweden’s University of Gothenburg: Findings reveal extreme use of cell phones and computers may be linked to stress, sleep disorders and depressive symptoms.” Uh, didn’t we know this?

It comes at an interesting moment because I was about to pay my AT&T wireless bill and see that, once again, neither my husband nor myself ever use more than 2mb of the 200mb ‘minimum’ plan for which we shell out over $100 every month. Worse, and probably owing to our age (or that we have lives), we don’t know how to use more. I mean, we’re paying for it, right? We should use it, right? Waste not, want not, right?

So my husband started texting his daughter on occasion, but no dice. Still under 2mb. Obviously, there was a mystery involved because AT&T’s site discusses how to manage ‘overages’. Like, over 2+ gigabytes a month!  Holiminoli. Then, going to the other end of the AT&T site I examined the Buy a New Phone page and viola! The PLAN page has a questionnaire re How Much Data do You Use? I thought, OK. I’m going to amp up my usage a bit and see where it gets me. Still under 2mb. But, I learned how to exceed my data plan. Watch movies! Stream music! And that’s just for starters. I mean, who watches movies on a 2 inch screen? Hold the phone 12 inches from your face for two hours? Whaaaatttt?

I may have Pleistocene tendencies, but it ain’t all bad.

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Emma Goldman has a few words to say (pre-4th of July fireworks and military bands and flyovers)

Posted on 10June2012 by
“We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. Such is the logic of patriotism.”  – Emma Goldman.
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