POPCORN

                                                                   By Jim Szantor

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations

about the absurdities of contemporary life

• Three things no one has ever had a craving for: Water chestnuts, bean sprouts and Worcestershire sauce.
• Full disclosure:  I’m reasonably confident there are no classified documents in our apartment.  (Some classified ads, but that’s about it!)
• I’m so obscure, my astrological sign has been taken down.
• I don’t care what Punxsutawney Phil sees or doesn’t see on Feb. 2. Groundhog Day simply means six more months of basketball!
• What’s with the Super Bowl and that Roman numeral affectation?  Did they play one in the Colosseum somewhere along the line? 
• NFL quarterback to sideline reporter after game: “We left it all out on the field, man.  My receivers ran really good routes, man!  Our O line gave me a lot of protection, man!’  The “man” the player was speaking to was . . . Pam Oliver of Fox Sports.  Wonder how she feels about the “man” business?  Gotta love that jock mentality.
• Then a studio analyst praised the winning team in many ways, adding, “This is a really physical football team.”  Ya think?  I don’t think there are too many--if any--touchy-feely teams in the NFL, and certainly none of those would have made it to the playoffs.
• Speaking of football, quarterback given names have taken a distinct turn in recent years, with names like Eli, Peyton, Dak, Tua, Justin, Jalen, Trevor, Kirk, Brock and Skylar.  I guess when Joe Montana retired, they retired his first name as well, and perhaps this is also why Tom Brady has stuck around so long.  He’s afraid he will be replaced by someone named Chauncy or Treontre. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
• Then there is the swing in car names from Mustang, Thunderbird, Firebird, Charger, Impala, Avenger, Comet and Roadmaster to names that sound like alphabet soup or a math equation.  And just what is an Elantra anyway? There’s even a Kia Seltos, whatever that means.
• Fun fact:  The name El Dorado, as in the Cadillac model of yore, isn’t named after anything. It was the brainchild of a secretary to one of the General Motors execs.  (I doubt she got a bonus or a royalty for her efforts.  Just a hunch.)
• It was such a slow news day the other day that Joe Biden called a press conference to announce that he is lactose intolerant!
• A sentiment for Valentine’s Day: “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.--William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”
• If you have any of these 1950s albums ("Cha Cha Cha," by Raul Martinez; "Million Sellers," by Lew Raymond;  "Organ Favorites," by Steve Phillips; "Latin Rhythms," by Miguelito Valdez; "Gigi," by Gordon Fleming; and "Favorites from Italy," by Nestor Amaral), you may have noticed that the same (then-unknown) model graces the covers of all of those LPs.  Her name: Mary Tyler Moore.  (Who else would tell you these things?)
• More Moore:  The first concept of the “Mary Tyler Moore” show had her as a divorcee who was working as a secretary to a gossip columnist, according to Interesting Facts.
• In case you ever wanted to know, the first verse to the national anthem of Guatemala is:
• "Guatemala, blest land, home of the happy race, may thine altars profaned never be, no yoke of slavery weigh on thee ever, nor any tyrants e'er spit in thy face."
• (I'm no anthem expert, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that this is the only national anthem containing the word "spit."  I'm just sayin'.)
• I was half-listening to the TV the other day and heard a guy talking about Alberta Clippers, Manitoba Maulers and Saskatchewan Screamers.  No, it wasn't the sports guy--it was the weatherman.  Turns out those were storm systems, not hockey teams.  Who knew?
• Magazine renewal notices that say "Last Chance" really mean there are five more coming--maybe more. They will start giving up when companies will start cheerfully refunding your money.
• Did you know that Papiamento is the official language of Curacao?  (Good luck finding an English-to-Papiamento and Papiamento-to-English dictionary. Must be sold out!)
• A common Papiamento expression is Hopi skuma, tiki chukulati (A lot of foam, little chocolate): In other words: Too good to be true. (Kind of hard to work into a conversation, but it’s here if you need it.)
• Five Activities I Omitted from my Senior High School Yearbook Listing:

                                                             

• Extra-Strength Clearasil Trials Participant
• Future Insurance Claims-Adjuster Club
• Badger State Bail Bonds Seminar
• Crash-Test Dummy Lookalike Contest
  
• Hair Club for Boys
• Top 10 Things I Overheard at my 50th Class Reunion
• 10. “Being the coolest guy at the Senior Center is a lot like being the tallest midget in the circus!”
• 9. “It’s come to this--believe it or not, I think my legs actually look better in support stockings!”
• 8. “Aside from the bypass, the hip replacement and the foreclosure, everything’s fine!”
• 7. “I swear, Bob, your new rug is almost undetectable!”
• 6. “I hate dialysis, but it sure beats sitting around the house arguing with the old lady!”
• 5. “Yeah, I came stag tonight; the Escort Service doesn’t do reunions.”
• 4. “I just realized that next year all the grandkids will be old enough to be tried as adults!”
• 3. “Thank God, I had a pre-nup the second and third time around!”
• 2. “When the moment is right, I’m not always right for the moment, if you get my drift!”
• 1. “No, I’m NOT still living in my mother’s basement; it’s my BROTHER-IN-LAW’S basement, okay?!”
• He said it: “Not all who wander are lost.”—J.R.R. Tolkien
• She said it: “All experience is great, providing you live through it.”--Alice Neel
• I wonder if any condemned prisoners ever had the chutzpah to send their last meal back to the kitchen.  ("You call this a steak?  I’m never eating here again!")
• jimjustsaying’s Word That Doesn’t Exist But Should of the Month: “Magnagram.” Any sign that takes on a new meaning when a magnetic letter falls off.”--“More Sniglets, Rich Hall and Friends. (Example:  PUB IC LIBRARY)
• “Despite Mrs. Stevenson’s pubic diplomacy, the relationship between her and her husband has not improved.”--Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger, via “Still More Press Boners,” by Earle Tempel.
• Whatever happened to John Davidson?
• A Tale of Two Countries:  In the U.S., we all know about the existence of suicide hotlines.  In Canada, through the MAID program (Medical Assistance In Dying), there are also pro-suicide hotlines.
• According to the London Daily Mail, one doctor who said she has assisted in more than 300 suicides says, “It’s the most rewarding work I’ve ever done.”  Hmmm. One woman whom she recently assisted did have leukemia but was not adjudged critically ill--she was just despondent over her economic realities/pending homelessness.
• The number of MAID deaths has grown from just over 1,000 in 2016, when assisted dying in Canada was formally legalized, to 31,644 in total by the end of 2021. More than 10,000 people died by MAID in 2021 alone. How much Covid played into that was not divulged or maybe even known.
• Redundancy Patrol:  Reflect back, pair them together, forever and ever.
• jimjustsaying’s Party Ice-Breaker of the Month: “Say [actual partygoer’s name here], did you know that the phrase “Wearing your heart on your sleeve” originated in the Middle Ages?  It was the custom of jousting knights to wear some form of insignia on their arm that indicated the ladies for whom they were hoping to triumph, thus proclaiming their love to the world.”
• Speaking of antiquity: Next time you sit down to a square meal, tell your friends that the term comes from 18th Century England, where food was served on square wooden plates. (Makes perfect sense in a country where they drive on the wrong side of the road!)
• Who determines those goofy (but oh-so-important) Model Numbers they put on products?
• ("Hey, J.P., let's make this one . . . um . . . VMT06123EB345IU.  Sound good to you?")
• (I'm sure even the smallest manufacturing company never called something Model No. 1, even though it was the first widget, grommet or hemorrhoid remedy they produced. They always bump the numbers up to make their company appear bigger than it really is. That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking with it.)
• When enemies of the U.S. are discussed, no one ever mentions Switzerland. But if there were no such thing as those fabled "Swiss bank accounts," how much of a game-changer would that be for U.S. coffers? 
• Ditto for countries that house U.S. companies’ headquarters so that said company can dodge taxes or pay at a lower rate.  (Then there’s the equally fabled "underground economy" . . . .  If some of these tactics were to be eliminated, our tax rate might be more than a tad lower . . . and the government would have the money to rebuild infrastructure and finance all the worthy endeavors we shortchange.  Not to mention lowering the astronomical deficit.)
• DRUDGING AROUND:  Robots with consciousness will eclipse reality . . .  Passengers thrown off plane for showing plane crash pics . . . Rats everywhere in Seattle . . . Inside the sky-high world of drug-smuggling flight attendants . . . It’s all gone to hell: Young people turning to Satanism instead of Christianity . . . Man wearing “Jesus Saves” T-shirt at Mall of America ordered to take it off or leave . . . How extinct animals could be brought back from the dead . . . More states make homeless encampments a crime . . . People abandoning pets at airports . . .  Thousands of churches closing every year in U.S. . . . Pig kills butcher at slaughterhouse . . . Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman” blasted by trans activists . . . Vatican investigates lockdown sex party in cathedral. (Thanks as always to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators.)   
• The Columbia Journalism Review's Correction of the Week: “An earlier edition of this story incorrectly stated that ACORN advisers posed as a prostitute and a pimp. In fact, two conservatives who posed as a pimp and a prostitute sought tax tips from ACORN advisers.”--The Washington Post
• Know Your Door County Dept.:  The township of Nasewaupee, named after a Menominee Indian chief in 1859, has a most iconic street name in its southwest sector: Cheesehead Lane.  (Sorry, no Fish Boil Boulevard. More’s the pity!)
• Winter weirdness:  I’m always amused by the apparently universal one-upmanship mode people go into with snowstorm (or rainfall) totals:  "We got 22 inches!" "Oh, yeah, WE got 23!"   People act as if they were personally responsible for the higher numbers . . . that they're taking credit for them, in a way.  Or that they are supposedly made of sterner stuff for having "survived" that extra inch (assuming the totals are accurate, which they may or may not be).
• Product Choice Explosion Tip:  After you find a toothbrush (or similar item) you really like, buy a few more soon because if you wait, the packaging will have changed and you'll never be able to find it again, or a "new and improved" version will be new but not improved.  In fact, it may not be half as good. Or, inexplicably, it will have been discontinued, no matter how popular the product may have been.  (See related story “Your stuff is actually worse now” in The Link Tank in jimjustsaying.com.)
• jimjustsaying’s Newspaper Obituary Headline Nickname of the Month: “Herr Dressler.” As in, Horst Christian “Herr Dressler” Dressler, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan. 15, 2023.  R.I.P., Herr Dressler.
• I wonder what it's like to be a public defender assigned to "represent" a sicko like the accused Idaho killer of four college kids, knowing full well in all likelihood that he's guilty as hell despite all the disingenuous "innocent until proven guilty" posturing? And then living with the guilt of having gotten him off on a technicality only to see him kill again?  (I guess it falls into the “tough job but somebody’s gotta do it” category.)
• Faded Phrases:  "Fill ‘er up and check the oil.” "Give me a carbon copy." "You sound like a broken record." 
• As someone who has been in a Starbucks only once, I'm wondering where this term "barista" came from?  Talk about glorification of the mundane!  Aren't these coffee-mixers/pourers the modern-day equivalent of the so-called drug store soda jerks"?  Just as "Human Rights counselors" used to be "personnel clerks."  (I'm just sayin'.)
• Next time a waiter asks if you want "ground pepper on your salad," tell him, "No, but powdered saffron would be nice, thank you!"
• 99.99 percent of all castles in America are located in fish tanks."--Demetri Martin
• I'll believe in the Ride-Sharing Program when the president's or governor’s limos start participating.
• Did you know that composer Burt Bacharach’s father was a syndicated columnist (Bert Bacharach) who regularly listed the Sandwich Favorites of the Stars?  Red Skelton’s was herring on whole wheat with hollandaise sauce . . . or something like that. 
• (I’m not a star, but one of my favorites—inherited from my father—is tomato and peanut butter on fresh white bread.  With premium farmer’s market tomatoes and a touch of salt, it is very tasty and reasonably nutritious, not to mention economical.  It’s funny, but after you describe your offbeat sandwich favorite, someone will inevitably make a face . . . and then proceed to name and describe their equally or even more cringeworthy fave.  Never fails.)
• Accordingly, herewith Today's Latin Lesson: Quisquis no vestri navis. ("Whatever floats your boat.")

Special thanks to Rosetta Stone, this month’s Popcorn intern.

 

POPCORN

                                                                          By Jim Szantor

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations

about the absurdities of contemporary life

• The most challenging by far of my New Year’s Resolutions:  To stop ordering Chinese food . . . using a Chinese accent. 
• Turning the tables: If I ever have robotic surgery, the bill may get paid . . . or it may not.  ("Hey, I programmed my robot to write you a check. It’s out of my hands.") 
• Embarrassing Popcorn Pratfall:  I brashly predicted recently that Liz Cheney would be Time magazine’s Person of the Year, so my apologies to Ukraine’s valiant president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy (yes, 2 y’s by his recent edict), Weak-kneed disclosure: I thought he had won it last year, but that honor went to—wait for it—Elon Musk! (A pratfall for Time?)
• Elon Musk and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Now, there’s a pair it takes a full house to beat! 
• Santa Claus was good to me and answered my prayers:  I got a David Gruber Chia Pet!  For my March birthday, I’ve got my bid in for a David Gruber Bobblehead. (What, you were thinking a Hupy & Abraham?) 
• Spendthrift: Anyone who actually buys matches, calendars and self-address labels.
• Language Rant Alert! In the pantheon of loathsome, bordering-on-vulgar phrases, I have a special distain for any one containing the word “sucks.”  As in, “You suck!”  “That sucks.”
• Origin?  One theory ascribes it to a frequent utterance of one Bart Simpson, central character in an “edgy”--and in my view imbecilic and inexplicably popular--cartoon show. 
• Memo to inarticulate barbarians (please forgive the redundancy . . . and not you, Popcorn fans):  If it weren’t for the sucking reflex, you never would have survived infancy, so please find a less unsavory/cringeworthy way to express your displeasure with a person, place of thing. 
• Cold-wave note:  I see that the media is now referring to the homeless seeking refuge in warming shelters as the “unhoused.”  I’m sure this PC/woke-ish promotion makes them feel so much better.  (It doesn’t warm their hearts . . . or anything else, either!)
• jimjustsaying’s contribution to the meteorological lexicon:  Slint:  You know, when it’s “snowing” but it looks more like airborne lint than snowflakes, “slint” is a more accurate description, and it’s not a rare phenomenon. (“Tonight, slint developing, with slightly more slint before daybreak, turning to snowflakes before the evening rush. Chance of slint: 60 percent.”)
• jimjustsaying’s Favorite Shakespearean character:  Hippolyta, of “A Midsummer Night's Dream.”  (If only we’d known about her when we named our first daughter!)
• Role model for feminists? Hippolyta belonged to a skilled group of warriors called the Amazons. And because Ancient Greece was not as male-focused as many modern societies, strong women like Hippolyta were the perfect example that they were not living in a man’s world.  (Obviously, this was an outlier and not a trend that took hold in all societies.)
• NY Post Page One of the Month (for December)

• News reports: Bankman-Fried faces up to 115 years if convicted of all fraud-related charges.
• POPCORN’S sentence: At least 20 years for the hair!
• True confessions: I made the mistake of starting to smoke e-cigarettes. Now I'm addicted to batteries!
• Overheard: "Next fall my 4-year-old Johnny will be starting preschool."
• No! He! Won’t! He'll be in SCHOOL; there's nothing "pre" about it. He will be in a room with a teacher, desks, other kids, a blackboard and won't be able to leave until the bell rings. That's SCHOOL in my book, whether it's Totland, the Sorbonne or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The only "pre" part of it is when the kid rolls out of bed, wolfs down the Pop-Tart and clambers into the minivan.
• Madonna, your plane is boarding. Your popularity ended about five re-inventions ago.
• DRUDGING AROUND: Fatherhood changes men’s brains . . . Buddhist temple left without monks as all test positive for meth . . . Reckless driver turns out to be dog . . . Hospital patient switched off neighbor’s “noisy” oxygen machine . . . Philly gas station hires heavily armed guards . . . Bodybuilders dying as coaches, judges encourage extreme measures . . . Suit: TGI Friday’s “mozzarella sticks” don’t contain mozzarella . . . Ohio couple married 79 years die hours apart . . . For many, mourning pets harder than grieving people . . . Recruited for Navy Seals, many sailors wind up scraping paint . . . More than half of Christians believe we’re living in End Times . . . Man who posed in bathtub full of cash to plead guilty in bitcoin theft . . . Illegals crawl out of sewer manholes, sneak into TX . . . Parents using baby monitors to track older children—even teens . . . Man with explosives stored in rectum sparks bomb scare. (Thanks as always to Matt Drudge and his intrepid band of aggregators.)
• jimjustsaying’s Party Ice-Breaker of the Month: “Say [actual partygoer’s name here], did you know that ‘Mickey Mouse’ in Spanish is ‘El Raton Miguelito’?” (I’ve also seen it as “Miguel Rodencito”--in other words, Michael Little Rodent!--on a comic book a former colleague purchased while on a media-exchange program trip to Havana.)
• All-Overrated Club: The G Team--Greg Gutfeld, Geraldo Rivera and Gisele Bündchen.
• Fame is Fleeting Dept.: Looks like the day of the “Rodgers’ Rate” has disappeared from State Farm ads. Replacing the GB QB is the new glamor boy, Patrick Mahomes. Could be it’s because the KC Chiefs are a division-leading team and the woebegone Pack probably won’t make the playoffs? Nahhh . . . .
• Demographic dystopia: A number of trends are coming together to give rise to "kinless seniors," the New York Times reports.
• There are nearly a million Americans over 55 living without a spouse or a partner, any children or siblings because boomers have lower marriage rates than their parents and more have remained childless. Also, the divorce rate among couples who have crossed age 50 has risen. Rates of “kinlessness” are projected to grow as generations younger than boomers are even likelier to be aging alone.
• It’s mind-boggling to think that Taylor Swift sold more tickets in 10 minutes than Ella Fitzgerald or Peggy Lee probably did in a lifetime. Still trying to get my head around that.
• Guys who go up on power poles to fix outages during storms should make much more money than they probably do. Much more. But in our warped society we pay star quarterbacks $50 million a year to play about 20 games. Thus Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers make about $650,000 per quarter—or 15 game minutes—which is about 10 times what schoolteachers make in an entire year—if they’re lucky! God Bless America, land of equal opportunity and the level playing field. (And don’t get me started on college coaches making from $15 to $20 million a year. That’s why we have classes taught by teaching assistants (grad students) or “adjunct professors” (translation: poorly paid part-timers). There’s no money left in the budget to foster the kind of quality education that justifies the astronomical tuition.
• Whatever happened to Martin Mull?
• jimjustsaying’s Police Euphemism of the Century: "baton." I guess it sounds better than billy club! (Or whuppin' stick!)
• He said it: "She looks like she was poured into her clothes and forgot to say 'when.' "--P.G. Wodehouse
• She said it: “Never marry a man you wouldn't want to be divorced from."--Nora Ephron
• If life-saving penicillin comes from mold, wouldn't it be great if they found a way to harness flesh-eating bacteria to make the miracle diet drug that millions are praying for? We all know there's a lot of flesh out there that needs to be eaten. (I'm just sayin'. . . ) More than a few great things have been discovered by accident.
• One nice thing about being a busboy: Not a high-paying job, absolutely no status--but not one you're likely to take home with you, either!
• I recently ridiculed the practice of newspapers reporting what the defendant was wearing. I’m also amused by the fetish of the media for photographing a defendant on his/her (usually his) daily walk to and from the courtroom. They never say anything except “No comment”; nothing ever happens. But there they are--the phalanx of shabbily dressed lensmen (cargo pants seem to be de rigueur) and lenswomen, shooting away without letup as if they're recording the Second Coming. It's the "In case something happens" rationale, lame though it is.
• And then there are all those little gnome-like creatures you see scurrying around on their hands and knees at press conferences or presidential debates to get those precious and oh-so-rare photos of preening, overexposed politicians standing at a podium.
• Make no mistake; I was a media member for 30 years and know the value of a free press in a free society. But some of profession’s practices need revision or scuttling--such as the misguided and wrongminded “tradition” of doing Year in Review stories in early December! That sweeps about 25 days of December news under the rug, whether it’s a major scandal, a killer storm (such as the historic pre-Christmas Snowmageddon) or an assassination. As if there is no space to fill after Jan. 1! My hat will be off to the first media outlet that breaks that mold and employs rational thought. Not optimistic.)
• jimjustsaying’s Dine-out Tip o’ the Week: Never order "Salmon served on a Cedar Plank." Why pay $6 more for something you can't eat? Can I get a doggy bag for the plank . . . or order, say, Catfish on a Cedar Plank? Does the plank do that much?
• What do Telly Savalas, Dyan Cannon, Peter Falk, Cloris Leachman, James Caan, Robert Redford and Rip Torn have in common--besides being actors? Answer: All of them played supporting roles in their salad days in various episodes of TV’s "The Untouchables" (1959-1963). (My, ahem, Robert Stack-as-Eliot Ness impression is impeccable, and I will do it on demand!)
• jimjustsaying’s Faded Word of the Week: Reprobate.
• News item:  "An Army investigation has found that potentially hundreds of remains at Arlington National Cemetery have been misidentified or misplaced."
• Sweet Jesus, meek and mild! First, we send people overseas to die in wars of questionable justification, then we botch the burials of the hapless but valiant victims. Amazing and appalling. (The Tomb of the Unknown Unknown?)
• Businesses or landlords that don’t clear away snow and ice should have their property taxes doubled. Make that quadrupled!
• jimjustsaying’s Newspaper Obituary Headline Nickname of the Month: “Disco Debbie.” As in, Deborah Lynn “Disco Debbie” Steffen, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Dec. 4, 2022. R.I.P., Disco Debbie.
• The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again: Potheads everywhere saluted progressive Oregon for legalizing “weed” in 2014.
• Upshot: The indoor and outdoor growing uses massive amounts of water in drought-stricken areas, contaminates the environment and employs migrant laborers who live in squalid conditions.
• But there’s more! Police say foreign criminal gangs have become involved, from Mexico, Russia, China and other countries. Oh, what a joy it must be to live in such an enlightened state!
• Has anyone ever seen Beyonce, Rihanna, Mariah Carey and Cardi B in the same room? It’s the same woman, I submit, rotating four different names. (Could anyone over 40 pick any of those women out of a police lineup if their life depended on it? Or name even one of their hit songs?)
• Speaking of show business, you may have seen that Gallagher, the watermelon-smashing “comedian,” died recently, leading me to instantly recall what acid-tongued Gore Vidal said when informed that archrival and former best friend Truman Capote, had died: “Good career move.” As Capote himself often said, “Oh, that Gore!”
• Redundancy Patrol, P Division: Price point, preplan, postpone until later.
• “Eight candidates, including all four incompetents, are seeking the four City Council positions this year.”--Cheney (Wash.) Free Press."--“Still More Press Boners,” by Earle Tempel.
• jimjustsaying’s Word That Doesn’t Exist But Should of the Month: Carpetpetuation. n. The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.—"More Sniglets,” Rich Hall and Friends
• Memo to people who are always kicking off their shoes at every opportunity (even at the office): Umm, you’ve got some bad shoes there, my friend. (I don’t take mine off until bedtime most days. Good shoes pay you back—and you don’t even know you have them on.)
• How maddening it is—and it happens often—when you go online for a computer fix of some sort, find what you’re looking for, and you’re directed to links or tabs that no longer exist. These technocrat “geekgurus” never keep up with nomenclature changes you would think would be of utmost importance and not overlooked (and why they keep making seemingly arbitrary and unnecessary changes is a mystery to me, unless the goal of these geeks is to confuse us and elevate their importance, which I suspect is the case.).
• Same with commercial locations. We once decided to visit a store that, according to the internet, was open and thriving. When we couldn’t find it, a clerk at a nearby establishment informed us, “Oh, that place closed years ago.” Similarly, a MapQuest guide was out of date and didn’t know about a road closure outside of Madison, the state capital, making the recommended route impossible to follow. Moral: The internet is often helpful but far from infallible--very far. I now call first or check multiple sources! (Once something gets onto the ‘net, it’s apparently there forever.)
• Today’s Latin Lesson: Est is melior ut redonum quam ut resuscipio? ("Is it better to re-gift than to re-receive?")

Special thanks to Sue Falls, this month’s Popcorn intern.

POPCORN

                                                                  By Jim Szantor

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric and whimsical observations

about the absurdities of contemporary life

• jimjustsaying’s holly jolly jocular gift suggestion for that hard-to-shop-for person on your Christmas shopping list: A David Grube* Chia Pet.  “One gift, that’s all!”

1. 

(A Gag Gift for the Ages!  . . . "Ch-ch-ch-chia!")

• Speaking of Christmas, I can’t wait to watch my favorite holiday special: “Christmas with the Gingriches.”  Comes on right before “Joey Buttafuoco’s First Incarcerated Christmas.” (That one falls into the “guilty pleasure” category.)
• jimjustsaying’s “Just Shoot Me Now!” Headline of the Month: “Weed-infused seltzer catches on.”  Be the first person to give me a valid reason why the world needs this and win valuable prizes! 
• jimjustsaying’s second “Just Shoot Me Now!” Headline of the Month: “Buzz over hemp-fed cows.”  Cows, too?  Is nothing sacred?
• Remember when you had to go to a carnival sideshow and pay an extra quarter to see the tattooed lady?  Now? She’s your grandson’s 3rd Grade teacher!
• Now that the baseball season is over, I’ll have more time to resume my other favorite pastime: Reading Homer in the original Greek. 
• Remember our being told how so-called “modern conveniences” were going to simplify our lives?
• Now it turns out that the so-called "toggling tax" is putting a damper on the benefits of remote work, Axios reports.  The smorgasbord of software needed to do any given task can make it feel as if people are working multiple jobs at once.
• A Harvard Business Review study suggests workers are switching from app to app, website to website, nearly 1,200 times a day.
• For example, a salesperson switches among as many as eight applications just to meet with a client: Email, calendar, enterprise chat software, a customer relationship management platform, a videoconference system, maybe a conference room system too, a note-taking application, and a presentation maker.
• I queried my older daughter, an account executive at American Express, and she said she can attest to the accuracy of the foregoing because she is steeped in it daily. (Whew!  Makes one nostalgic for the bad old inconvenient days.)
• I don’t know about you, but I tend to re-evaluate a person after I find out he (or she) has a pit bull, a Doberman, a python or a boa constrictor as a “pet.” 
• Another perennial Christmas TV special I can’t wait to revisit: “Winnie the Pooh’s Holiday Pot Party.”  (And I try not to miss a somewhat darker holiday staple”: “Police Navidad.”)
• Some have suggested that the poor performance of NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers is being blamed on his consumption of ayahuasca, some sort of psychedelic potion.  Rodgers, as you may know, plays for the Green Bay Packers.  You know, the team that represents the toilet-papermaking capital of the Free World. 
• The team really should be renamed, seeing as how the Acme meatpacking company it was named for closed in—wait for it—1943.  Ditto for the Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee being as much a major-brand brewing capital these days as Riyadh!  Suggestion:  The Green Bay Cheeseheads (they could reshape their helmets!) and the Milwaukee Brats.  Much more appropriate factually and culturally.
• Redundancy Patrol:  Postpone till later, written down, blend together.
• Why our democracy is safe, despite all the MAGA-related rage and discontent now being observed and covered to a fare-thee-well by the media:  Too many distractions! 
• The Original Colonists didn’t have 300 TV channels, DVDs, video games, You Tube, Facebook, Tik Tok and myriad other pastimes and diversions.  How can people get seriously involved in anything time-consuming and revolutionary when it might mean missing “Dancing with the Stars”?
• jimjustsaying’s Law of Urban Survival:  All neighborhoods are safe at 6 o’clock in the morning.  (The late-night thugs have crashed, and the daytime hoodlums aren’t awake yet.  You could call it the sweet spot for safe walking--virtually anywhere.)
• “She sounds like someone giving a book report on a book she hasn’t read!”—a critic of Kamala Harris on the vice president’s bizarre and meandering speech at an international conference--via George Will, Washington Post.
• Speaking of politics, one strategist has quipped that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker would be an especially fascinating adversary for Donald Trump if he indeed did run again in 2024--“a real billionaire against a fake billionaire.”
• Why do they keep naming hurricanes and tropical storms after perfectly innocent everyday people?  I knew a waitress in Door County named Katrina who had to use a fake name tag to put an end to the lame jokes in 2005.
• Solution: Dip into our ample inventory of historical villains; there surely are enough to go around.  (“This just in: Tropical Storm Dracula is gathering steam in the North Atlantic; meanwhile, residents of the Louisiana Gulf Coast are still reeling from the ravages of last week’s Hurricane Hitler. And forecasters are keeping a close eye on Subtropical Storm Dahmer.”)
• The New York Post has long been one of the most flamboyant/sensationalistic and irreverent tabloids, making absolutely no pretense of objectivity. 
• So it was a major revelation when this right-leaning paper threw one of its sacred cows under the bus with this classic cover:
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• Piers Morgan, a Post columnist, even went as far as to say that Trump has “a toxic stranglehold on the GOP.”  The Post, oddly, did not endorse Trump in 2016 but did in 2020.
• Fast-forwarding through commercials has always been one of the best features of the high-tech era, but never more so than now, when many TV ads leave one wondering what the actual product is as you try to decipher the cryptic off-the-wall dialogue, bizarre graphics and noxious background music.
• Then there are others, like this wordless one, set in what appears to be a liquor or convenience store, where the product (a brand of low-cal beer) is patently obvious but the two actors and their actions (nods and seductive-looking winks) leave one to wonder:  Who exactly is the target audience here? Ex-cons on the proverbial down low?  If you watch any sports on TV, you probably have seen it—many times.
• Advertisers seem to be like generals fighting the proverbial last war:  They appear to be gearing their commercials to the demographic that used to be the big spenders but no longer are--the generation that isn’t getting married, is having far fewer children, isn’t buying houses and furniture and second cars, etc.  They’re also cord-cutters who are streaming movies and such (and sharing them) that are devoid of commercials. 
• Madison Avenue:  You’re out of touch.  Luckily, we older folks can fast-forward through the pitches that have little or no interest to us.
• Whatever happened to Dennis Miller?
• Perhaps Miller has done what most of the people who lost their TV shows have done:  Gotten a podcast. Wouldn’t be surprised if a prisoner or two at San Quentin has a podcast. 
• If Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had never gotten married, and the Royal Family was a collection of model citizens, the National Enquirer would go out of business. (Especially now that Naomi Judd and Jerry Lee Lewis are dead.)
• Headline: “Rush to cash fastest since pandemic.”
• In my humble opinion, whatever rash actions “everybody” is rushing to do (sell holdings, buy crypto or hoard toilet paper, fill up gas tanks) in times of crisis is inevitably wrongminded and counterproductive.  As H.L. Mencken famously said, “For every problem there is a solution that is neat, simple . . . and wrong.”
• jimjustsaying’s Word That Doesn’t Exist But Should of the Month: “Kawashock.” n. Starting to pull into a parking spot only to discover a motorcycle already there.—“More Sniglets,” Rich Hall and Friends.
• He said it: “Every great cause starts as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket.”--Eric Hoffer
• She said it: “History is what people are trying to hide from you, not what they’re trying to show you.”--Molly Ivins
• Heads up, nose-pickers! Researchers at an Australian university say nose-picking can cause bacteria to travel through the nose and into the brain, where it creates markers that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
• The study, published in the journal Scientific Report, found that bacteria could travel through the olfactory nerve, which joins the nasal cavity and the brain, and that damage to the nasal epithelium (the thin tissue along the roof of the nasal cavity), made nerve infections even worse. (Kind of hard to work into a conversation, but it’s here if you need it!)
• jimjustsaying's Media Word of the Week (a word you see only in print and never hear an actual person use in real life):  Plethora.  As in, "2022 has seen a plethora of mass shootings."
• Each year, approximately 8,000 Americans are treated for toothpick-related injuries.  No figures yet on dental floss, Q-tips or collar stays.
• jimjustsaying’s Favorite Edward Hopper Painting of the Month: 
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• “New York Movie” depicts a few scattered moviegoers and a pensive usherette lost in her thoughts. Praised for its brilliant portrayal of multiple light sources, “New York Movie” is one of Hopper's well-regarded works.  The moment, says Natasha Gural in Forbes, is both time-stamped and timeless, revealing the immortality of a certain kind of urban scene or experience.  We’re transported back to the grandeur and solitude of watching a film in plush red velvet seats in a nearly empty theater.

• Web site you probably haven't heard of:  Nailthatfungus.com.
• jimjustsaying’s Insider Movie Line Info of the Month: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat!”-- Roy Scheider in "Jaws," 1975.
• Scheider’s famously improvised line was actually an inside joke among the crew, who had been given a tugboat too small for the shoot and used the line among themselves, totally unaware that it would become part of cinematic history. (Kind of hard to work into a conversation, but again, it’s here if you need it.)
• Why don't bottlecaps have that little piece of cork inside them anymore?
• Interesting that newspaper astrology columnists will tell you that the day is unfavorable for travel but never unfavorable for reading about astrology or buying astrology-related books or merchandise. 
• Is there German fast food in our future?  It would be perfect for Milwaukee. Suggestions: Schnitzel Hut.  Best Wurst. Special Spaetzle. Das Dumpling Den.
• jimjustsaying’s Sign of the Year (seen in a Chicago store window on Irving Park Road): ''Smell coming from garbage. Garbage not from this store.''
• Nov. 12 Headline: “Planes collide over Wings Over Dallas air show as spectators watch in horror.” 
• Popcorn followers may remember my recent item about the idiocy of these displays and the many deaths they have caused (21 Little Leaguers in a celebrated Minnesota tragedy).  But these bravado exercises continue. Oh, and at least six were killed in the latest incident. 
• jimjustsaying’s Second in a Series of Excerpts from Mad Magazine’s “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” book:
• Woman entering coffee shop: “Is this a Starbucks?”
• Worker: “You mean there’s more than one?”
• T-shirt message spotted: “I don’t need Google; my wife knows everything!”
• DRUDGING AROUND: King Charles says he was related to real-life Dracula . . . Doughnut shop hit with Molotov cocktail after drag-queen art show . . . Russian troops eat zoo animals to stay alive . . . Average person hits peak health at 34 . . . Feral chickens taking over Honolulu . . . “I’m selling my blood!”  Millions can’t make ends meet . . . Traveler tries to smuggle gun onto plane inside raw chicken .  . . Study: Rats move to musical beats like humans . . . Air Force to train new pilots without planes . . . Lab-grown meat cleared for human consumption . . . Man guilty of tattooing minor in McDonald’s dining room . . . Target blames shoplifting for lost profits; locks up toothpaste . . . Amazon driver steals previously delivered packages.  (Thanks as always to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators.) 
• jimjustsaying’s Newspaper Obituary Headline Nickname of the Month: “Big Boy.”  As in, Mark A. “Big Boy” Koch, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Nov. 27, 2022.  R.I.P., Big Boy.
• Our modern world: Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post writes of the jobs that the offspring of Boomers hold that mystify their parents as to what they really mean. Such as: Chief Inspiration Officer.  Executive Vice President for Executive Visibility.  Change Manager.   
• As one woman put it, “[My son] is very busy and he works long hours, but I can’t tell you what he does.”
• What do Irpin (Ukraine), Galway (Ireland), Zadar (Croatia), Daegu (South Korea), Tarime District (Tanzania) and Bomet County (Kenya) have in common?  All of them are “sister cities” of Milwaukee.
• (What?  No sister city in Germany?  That honor goes to nearby Oconomowoc, which claims sisterhood with Dietzenbach, don’t-cha-know.)
• A sister city (and as long as we’ve gone this far, I might as well tell you!) is a form of legal or social agreement between two geographically and politically distinct localities for the purpose of promoting cultural and commercial ties. Watch this space next month for a list of Milwaukee’s brother cities--if such a relationship can be found. 
• Today’s Latin Lesson: I wreszcie, parafrazując nieżyjącego już Karla Wallendę ze słynnej trupy powietrznej The Flying Wallendas: "Życie jst kolumną popcornu.  Reszta tylko czeka". (And finally, to paraphrase the late Karl Wallenda of the famed aerial troupe The Flying Wallendas, "Life is the Popcorn column.  The rest is just waiting."­)
  
  
  A quick shout-out to Myrtle Beach, this month’s Popcorn intern.
  
  *For the benefit of non-Milwaukee-area residents: David Gruber heads a local law firm that advertises heavily (very heavily) on local television with the slogan, "One call, that's all!"  

POPCORN

                                                                    By Jim Szantor

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric 
and whimsical observations 
about the absurdities of contemporary life        

• I was a teenage forensic blood-splatter expert.
• My day often begins with some Greek yogurt.  (Incidentally, the Greek word for yogurt is γιαούρτι, but I couldn’t find out if that means regular yogurt or Greek γιαούρτι, if in fact there’s a difference in that country.  Research continues.)
• Speaking of breakfast time, why is French toast so-called?  One theory credits the name to an innkeeper in Albany, N.Y., named Joseph French, who in 1724 invented what we know today as French toast and named it after himself.
• Aren’t you glad it wasn’t invented by, say, Joseph Shlabotnik?  (“I think I’ll have two eggs over easy, an order of hash browns . . . and some Shlabotnik!”)  
• He said it: “If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”—Mark Twain
• She said it: “I’ve met many irresponsible people in my life but never an irresponsible cat.”—Rita Mae Brown, author
• I hate it when I see an empty lot after a demolition in my hometown and can’t remember or visualize what used to be there.
• Four things you can say with confidence about the weather: (1) Somebody else always has it worse.  (2) If the farmers are happy, the tourists are crying. (3) If the tourists are happy, the farmers are crying, and (4) The merchants?  They’re always crying, good weather or bad. (“Who wants to be in a store on a beautiful day like this.” Or: “Who wants to go out in rotten weather like this?”)
• Two words you’ll be hearing a lot as your friends start buying and driving electric vehicles:  Range anxiety.
• And for good reason: There are only about 6,000 fast-charging public EV charging stations in the U.S., according to MIT Technology Review, plus 48,000 slower charging stations--a third of the number of gas stations. 
• EV stations generally have no attendants and thus are more susceptible to breakage and vandalism (not to mention often being in isolated, poorly lit areas, where many people, especially women alone, will feel vulnerable and jittery). A recent study of EV stations around San Francisco found more than a quarter of them were out of service at any given time. 
• But don’t lose hope--there were growing pains with the Model T Ford also, and we recovered!  Breakdowns and flat tires were more the rule than the exception (and “filling stations” didn’t double as liquor stores).
• Headline: “Dahmer’ becomes Netflix’s second-biggest series ever.” This despite almost no promotional effort by Netflix.  Such is America’s insatiable appetite for true-crime shows.
• What a proud moment for Milwaukee--where white policemen were the psychopathic cannibal’s best friend.  The evidence shows how complicit they were (due to dereliction of duty or, more likely, racism) in the total body count.  Public record, folks!
•  Eww! Factor Alert:  Dahmer is shown eating one of the organs of aspiring (and deaf) gay model Tony Hughes in the final scene.  Not “must-see-TV”!
• Milwaukee was really “on a roll” in the early ‘90s, wasn’t it?  Under a dark star is more like it.  Shortly after the Dahmer story broke, there was this:
• “The 1993 Milwaukee Cryptosporidiosis outbreak was a significant distribution of the Cryptosporidium protozoan in Milwaukee, and the largest waterborne disease outbreak in documented United States history.
• “The initial study estimated that 403,000 residents of the five-county area around Milwaukee had watery diarrhea attributed to the outbreak. Subsequent studies suggested this was an underestimation.”—Wikipedia 
• Now? The city is breaking all homicide records and has become the carjacking capital of the Free World.  No hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes yet, so things could be worse.
• Redundancy Patrolling the Airwaves: “The car burst into a fireball of flame” (CBS-58, Milwaukee newsreader), and “We had to employ canine dogs . . . ” (Ft. Worth, Tex., detective on NBC’s “Dateline”). 
• Redundancy Patrolling the Airwaves, Baseball Division: “Young rookie,” and “The ball took a high bounce off the artificial carpet . . . .”
• Do people still “tie a string around their finger” to help them remember something?  Has anyone ever done that?
• It has come to this: Not long ago I gave a young store clerk a 50-cent piece, and she said, “We don’t accept foreign coins.”
•  If Sam’s Club or Costco sold cars, chances are you’d have to buy the Toyota or Honda 2-Pack.  You can’t buy one of anything at those stores, unless it’s one box-car-size crate of something or other! 
• Were we “childing” while our parents were “parenting?”
• Do you like ratatouille? I love the “rata” but could do without the “touille.”
• Why do they always report what the defendant was wearing?  It has no bearing on anything.  (Judge: “I was going to give you the death penalty, but since you’re wearing a very nice suit and tie, you’re released from custody.  Have a nice day!”)
• How many athlete’s feet are in the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
• Wise words on the distressing state of the body politic: “[Today’s’] voters don’t expect much. They’ve had their own imperfect lives, and they long ago lost any assumption that political leaders were more upstanding than they are.
•  “We are in the post-heroic era of American politics. What voters want is someone who sees the major issues as they do. Conservatives especially see America’s deep cultural sickness and wonder if the country is cratering before our eyes. In such circumstances, personal histories don’t count as once they did.--Wall St. Journal’s Peggy Noonan on the sordid saga of “pro-life” Georgia GOP candidate Herschel Walker after revelations that he urged his girlfriend(s) to get abortions and paid for them (for which there is proof).
• From one of Walker’s sons: “He has four kids--four different women--wasn’t in the house raising one of them. He was out having sex with other women. You have no idea what me and my mom have survived.” 
•  No wonder the former footballer is on a GOP ticket--he fits right in!  He’s an Eagle Scout compared to some of the other Republican scoundrels.
•  I’m not a fan of HGTV, but I never cease to be amused by the theme and variations they can put in their program titles, seeing as how it’s all basically all about buying/selling/renovating houses. 
• Talk about spin! Their web site lists such titles as “A Sale of Two Cities,” “Blog Cabin,” “Equity Angels,” “Fix My Flip,” “He Sells, She Sells,” “Hot Mess House,” “Property Virgins,” “Ugliest House in America” and, not last but most likely least, “ I Bought a Dump . . . Now What?” Who watches this stuff?  (Adults who are too old for Tik Tok . . . or haven’t discovered it yet?)
• jimjustsaying’s Little-Known Medical Fact of the Month:  Doctors aren’t the only health-care professionals who carry malpractice insurance.  Nurses have it, too.  See www.nso.com for more information.
• Another little-known medical fact:  Still used today in this country as the most effective way ever found to clean and debride wounds: Maggots!  (That’s not a gag, it’s the truth.)
• And now comes word that lowering your cholesterol raises your chances of experiencing depression, committing suicide or dying prematurely due to any number of conditions.  So maybe that triple cheeseburger isn’t “a heart attack on a plate” after all! 
• jimjustsaying’s First in a Series of Excerpts from Mad Magazine’s “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” book:
• Neighbor, walking by with his dog: “Washing your car?” Car washer: “No, I’m washing my driveway.  My car just happens to be in the way.”
• My favorite fall/winter (and sometime spring) weather forecast word here in the Midwest:  “Raw.”  We’ve all heard it. “Tonight: Windy, turning partially raw by morning, then mostly raw by midday.” 
• Worst part of having a doctor’s appointment: Having your intelligence insulted after checking in.
• “Now you can have a seat in the waiting room.”
• “Gee, so THAT’S what those chairs are for?  Who knew? Here all along I thought I was supposed to stand on my head in the basement next to the water heater!  Thanks, dingbat receptionist!”
•   (And what’s the first thing they ask for when you get there?  Your health problem?  No, your insurance card.  They don’t really care, if they’re honest, how you’re feeling. They just want to make sure they get their money.  Everything else? Secondary.) 
• It’s a most unusual day if I don’t get at least three emails from AARP.  And they help fill up my postal mailbox also.  You, too?
• Oops!  It turns out that Apple’s new iPhone 14, which alerts 911 if the user has been in a car crash, has trouble distinguishing crashes from roller-coaster rides, resulting in at least six coaster-triggered false 911 alarms in one Ohio county alone.  Technology marches on!
• jimjustsaying’s Loser of the Month:  Zyeama Johnson, 27, who applied for a job with a New Jersey law-enforcement agency despite being wanted in Pennsylvania for fraud charges and 10 missed court appointments.  (He was arrested at the job interview.)
• DRUDGING AROUND: Study: “Love hormone” could heal damaged heart after attack . . . Electric vehicles exploding from water damage after Hurricane Ian . . . Self-driving cars going nowhere despite $100 billion investment . . . What recession? Superyacht business booming . . . Shower thoughts explained! Scientists reveal why best ideas come while bathing . . . Town employee quietly lowered fluoride in water for years . . . Killer nurse in England injected babies with air; murdered 7, tried to kill another 10 . . . New Zealand proposes taxing cow burps and urine to tackle climate change . . . FBI monitored Aretha Franklin for years, file shows . . . Depraved horror movies causes viewers to vomit, faint in theater . . . Mother arrested for letting 10-year-old get large tattoo . . . Meth-filled condoms found in pumpkins at TX border . . . World’s oldest practicing doctor, 100, has no plans to retire . . . Homeless woman robs dead man . . . Why so many millennials in sexless marriages? . . . Halloween horror: Fentanyl pills disguised in candy bags seized at LAX . . . Man plays sax during brain surgery . . . Sigourney Weaver, 73, plays 14-year-old . . . (Thanks as always to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators.)  
•  jimjustsaying’s Word That Doesn’t Exist But Should of the Month: “Slowverture.”  n.  The distorted music that began any educational movie you had to watch in school.--“Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe,” Rich Hall and Friends
•   jimjustsaying’s Heartbreaking Photo of the Year: 
• A young girl pauses in the basement of her apartment block in Lyman, Ukraine, where she now lives with her mother amid ongoing fighting.
• Two things struck me:  the juxtaposition of the wide-eyed innocence of youth, replete with stuffed animal, along with the realization of the horrific existence she and her mother must be sharing, along with the harrowing future that probably awaits them and their fellow countrymen.  My heart and prayers will go out to them forever.
• All Overrated Club:  Art Linkletter, Jack Paar and Totie Fields
• Pretty soon the mid-term elections will be history, and we will be spared the endless sparring between the “candidits.”  Speaking of politalk, why, when senatorial hopefuls run in senatorial races and congressional hopefuls run in congressional races, do candidates for governor run in a “gubernatorial” race? 
• Do you like our current gubernator?  That, of course, is not Tony Evers but Keith Kern.  Who’s he?  President of the Tavern League of Wisconsin.  If Evers really ran the state, we would have sobriety checkpoints on the highway (which Evers favors), as do Illinois and many other states.  But we don’t, and it doesn’t take a genius to know the reason.  
• “The dress fell just below her knees and showed off her shapely halves.”--Mansfield (Ohio) Tribune--from “Still More Press Boners,” by Earle Tempel.
• jimjustsaying’s Obituary Headline Nickname of the Month--Female: “Gaga.” As in, Lorelei “Gaga” Bourbon, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct. 16, 2022.  R.I.P., Gaga!
• jimjustsaying’s Obituary Headline Nickname of the Month--Male: “Fast Eddie.” As in, Edward F. “Fast Eddie” Dunn Jr., Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oct. 23, 2022.  R.I.P., Fast Eddie.
• Today’s Latin Lesson: Suus ' non cadunt, sed subito desinis! (“It's not the fall, it's the sudden stop!”)
• And please remember, I don’t always agree with everything I say. 

Special thanks to Kenny Bunkport, this month’s Popcorn intern.