POPCORN

                                                         BY JIM SZANTOR

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric 

and whimsical observations about

 the absurdities of contemporary life

*************************************************************************

--I was the first teenage member of the Hair Club for Men.

--Headline: “Anxiety dogs must be allowed in classrooms, parents say.”

jimjustsaying’s comment: This is not going to help alleviate the alarmingly massive teacher shortage.  Just a hunch.

jimjustsaying’s jocular offering on the subject: “The dog ate my homework . . . but he brought it with him!”

--When you boil it all down, we're all dependent on Mom and Dad--Mother Nature and Father Time.

--Memo to all politicians: Enough already with the stentorian, officious, stilted speechifying, the carnival barker-like proclamations and the pretentious hand-and -arm waving!  We’re interested in information, not oratory, so please talk in a normal tone of voice.  Easier on you, easier on us. 

(If past is prologue, I’ll soon have a case of debate fatigue. Enough! Given a choice between viewing a debate or having a root canal, most guys are going to the dentist.  At least there you’ve got the Novocain.  And you can catch the lowlights in the after-debate chatfests!)

Irritant: They don't debate the issues so much as trade insults or sling allegations of past misbehavior at each other in addition to launching into rote recitations of pet talking points. And any candidate who promises to crack down on the widespread abuse of "handicapped parking spaces" has my vote!)

--In our PC-driven world--in which you're not manic-depressive anymore, you're bipolar, and lately, you're not hungry, you're food-deprived--it's time to expand the euphemistic nomenclature:

Serial killers?  Crude, outmoded! Let's call them, um, "prolific demise facilitators."  

So-and-so is a hitman? Downright insulting! Why, he's an "eternal reward concierge"!

Scam artists?  No, they’re "Machiavellian marketplace opportunists."  Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Headline of the Month (via NY Post): “Boozed-up karate master beats up haunted house worker dressed as a ghost.”  This happened in Japan. 

(jimjustsaying’s question: Did he bow before or after the beating?)

--Ever notice that people will agree to do just about anything for you--as long as it’s far enough in the future?

Me: "Hey, Ralph:  How about helping me paint the garage on Saturday?" 

Ralph: "Um, gee, Jim--I think we've got something planned." 

Me:  "Okay, then how about the following Saturday?"

Ralph: "Gee, Jim, I dunno.  I'd better check with the wife."

Me: "OK, how about Oct. 21, 2037?"

Ralph: "Sure, Jim, no problem . . . what time?”

--I knew a couple of “theater majors” in college.  They went on to play the recurring role of 9-5 workers in the menswear department of Sears and Roebuck!  

--Redundancy patrol:  "Free giveaway."  I think there's only one kind of "giveaway" . . . and there's no payment involved.  If it isn't free, it's NOT a giveaway.

--He said it: “What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.”--Leo Tolstoy

--She said it: “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”--Mignon McLaughlin, writer

--I'm going to start a new magazine called GeeQ--Geezer Quarterly.  Don't miss the inaugural Black Socks with Sandals Issue.

--I've found a strange omission in all of Donald Trump's books:  No Chapter 11!

--Which Jackie Gleason character does Donald Trump most resemble?

(a) Ralph Kramden

(b) Reggie Van Gleason

(c) Charlie the Loudmouth 

(d) All of the above!

Trump once bragged about how he "screwed" Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in a real estate deal. 

jimjustsaying’s commentary: That means the guy with the world's worst hair outfoxed the guy with the world's worst hat!

--People who think they’re being chic, clever or high-toned by calling Target “Tarzhay” should be smacked with Donald Trump’s diaper bag!  

--“The owner of the fence drove it back onto the road and removed the keys.”--New York Herald Tribune, via “Still More Press Boners,” by Earle Tempel.

--jimjustsaying’s Word That Doesn’t Exist But Should of the Month: --“Gyroped.”  n. A child who cannot resist spinning around on a diner stool.”–“More Sniglets,” Rich Hall and Friends.

DRUDGING AROUND:  The war for laughs: Streaming services battle for standup comics . . . Google robot beats humans at ping-pong . . . Older adults do not benefit from moderate drinking . . . Brazil nude beaches have problem: Not enough nudists . . . Not just for kids anymore; adults turn to lemonade stands as side hustle . . . People using ChatGPT to dump partners . . . New loneliness cure:  Apps that match with strangers for meals . . “Gay animals more common than you would think” (BBC story) . . . How gay beach oasis flourished in Michigan’s Bible Belt . . . Why scientists are trying to re-engineer the cow’s stomach . . . Your zip code may determine dementia diagnosis, study finds . . . Cops: Doctor doused former office with gallon of urine . . . Memphis murder suspect captured after falling through ceiling. (As always, thanks to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators for this month’s strange but true links.)

--Fun facts of the Month: Edward Kean, head writer for "The Howdy Doody Show," wrote the show's theme song ("It's Howdy Doody Time"), created such characters as Clarabell the Clown and Prof. Phineas T. Bluster and coined the word "cowabunga."  (Talk about your contributions to society!)

(With all due respect, Mr. Kean had degrees from Columbia and Cornell Universities, became a stockbroker after leaving his "Doody" duties and also played "beautiful piano and played in hotels and restaurants," his wife said.)

--This statue of baseball players thing is getting out of hand.  One could well debate whether ANY baseball player deserves one. Is there a statue anywhere of Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine? 

The St. Louis Cardinals, by the way, lead the statue standings with no fewer than 11 honorees! That's a lot of bronze, brother!  On the other hand, the Angels have only one statue-ee . . . and he's not even a player.  That would be former team owner Gene Autry!  (Go ahead, slap forehead here!)

--A lot of major-league baseball players stay in the game in some capacity after their playing days:  Minor-league coaches or managers, scouts, broadcasters, etc.

And then there is a former relief pitcher of fair repute, Brad Lidge (Astros, Phillies, Nationals), who is a practicing archaeologist in the Italian village of Murlo after getting his master’s degree in ancient Roman archaeology. He is now seeking his Ph.D. 

--Book Title of the Week:  "Arrested: What To Do When Your Loved One is in Jail."

--It's 90 degrees and feels like it. It's 25 degrees cooler--at least--in the fast-food place. Yet invariably there's some idiot eating in his vehicle, most likely a pickup truck--usually with the engine running, burning precious fuel and polluting the air so unnecessarily.  Maybe we need an EPA police force to ticket these people--and get those trucks and cars you see spewing billows of noxious blue smoke off the road.

--"There's so much comedy on television.  Does that cause comedy in the streets?"--Dick Cavett

--When Aaron Rodgers finally retires, will ESPN go off the air?

--Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has had more wacky (and apparently true) new stories about him than any former Kennedy clan members had mistresses.  

--TV channel whose popularity escapes me: The Food Network.  Watching other people “cook” and chop vegetables is not my idea of an enjoyable pastime.  Plus, I’ve got enough untried recipes squirreled away already to last me 35 lifetimes.  I don’t need to know how to make more stuff.  (Call me a rube, but white truffle oil will never appear on any of my shopping lists.)

--“I got a pitch in the mail for prepaid cremation.  It said if you die in a fire, you get half your money back.”—Andy Huggins

More Huggins: “I went to the doctor because I thought I had arthritis.  He said I don’t; I just have early-onset rigor mortis.”

--Product that doesn't exist but should:  Andy Warhol Soup.

--“You might be a redneck if you refer to the 5th Grade as ‘my senior year.’ ”--Jeff Foxworthy

TODAY’S LATIN LESSON:  Duplex inimici et indeterminata verisimiliter iudicabunt quis proximus praeses noster erit. (“The double-haters and the undecideds will probably decide who our next president will be.”)

Thanks to Abby Rhodes, this month’s Popcorn intern.

POPCORN

                                    BY JIM SZANTOR

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric 

and whimsical observations about

 the absurdities of contemporary life

*************************************************************************

--I was a teenage Chippendale dancer.

---What if they found out that an endangered animal was eating all the endangered plants?

--August is upon us once again--the only month without a holiday or special commemorative day of any sort.  (Go ahead, check your calendars.)  You won't find anything--no fringe holidays like President's Day, no "Hallmark holidays" like Mother's or Father's Days, no religious holidays, not even a Secretary's Day.

That's why August would be perfect for one of my pet projects--Turnabout Day (as in “turnabout is fair play”).

What would happen on Turnabout Day?  Simply this:  Sometime during the month—and you could pick your own day--your doctor would have to get naked in front of you . . . and your accountant and/or broker would have to show you his or her tax return! 

(The goal here is to correct the power imbalance endemic to those relationships: They know things about you that you don't know about them, hence the undeniably universal need for such an observance.) 

--Fish is the only food that smells spoiled even when it isn’t.

--As if energy drinks weren't enough, now I've spotted (at Walgreens) Rush High-Power Lip Balm.  With "caffeine, taurine and B-12."  What, no steroid deodorant?  No atomic nasal spray?  No nuclear-powered suppositories? Stay tuned.

(And now my wife calls my attention to Skin Renew, "the first 2-in-1 eye roller.  Refreshing eye care with caffeine.")

--Time to redraw some of the rules . . . or add some The Framers forgot?  Such as age limits for running for president (not addressed) and ending lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court? 

(The former is less of an issue now that Mr. Biden is stepping aside, but it could be another cause célèbre sometime in the future.)

--And then there’s voting, especially presidential elections. Find a person who doesn’t think it would be better to do it on a Sunday or make it a national holiday. If Martin Luther King Day and President’s Day are national holidays, why do we have to squeeze the most important quadrennial event into a workday?

All these practical ideas . . . that nobody really opposes . . . yet nothing is done.   Maddening.  And of course we’ll be phasing out the penny any day now—something that has been on the drawing board for at least 30 years.

--There’s no such thing as a “clean bill of health.”  Everybody’s got something. 

 --jimjustsaying’s lament about the migrant issue:  Total tab of the futile war with Afghanistan:  $213.3 BILLION.

 If the U.S. had spent half of that revamping Mexico and Central America, people would be trying to get INTO those countries instead of risking their lives to get out of them and there would be no border issue, no busloads of migrants causing turmoil for everyone from police to merchants to ordinary citizens in urban areas.   Thanks, political decisionmakers and the military/industrial complex!

--For baseball fans only: Tommy John should get a royalty every time "Tommy John surgery" is mentioned or performed.

(You know you're way down on the organizational depth chart when the team has your Tommy John surgery  . . . performed by Tommy John!)

--Please, somebody . . . let’s return the Olympics to what they originally were—sports competition—and weed out what I regard as activities.  Did they have beach volleyball and ice dancing at the Original Games in 5^th Century BC?

 Every time I tuned in—and that wasn’t very often—it looked like I was watching a rerun of “Dancing with the Stars”!

 The original Games consisted of 43 events covering athletics (track and field), cycling, swimming, gymnastics, weightlifting, wrestling, fencing, shooting and tennis.  Nine sports, that’s all. If they want to have an event featuring all of these showbizzy activities, fine and dandy.  Just don’t call it The Olympics.

(And would gymnastics be as popular if the participants had to wear slacks instead of those sequined, skimpy outfits?  No; the lecher demographic—to name one--would be largely absent.)

--Why do people post signs saying "Garage Sale" when they're selling just about everything but the garage?  Ditto "Yard Sale."  The yard is not for sale!  (But I guess "Family Discards Sale" probably wouldn't net much business.)

--The Sexual Revolution evolves:

--2019 was the start of the "hot girl summer," coined by Megan Thee Stallion in her hit single of the same name. Five years later, we’ve entered the era of a "boysober summer." 

Single women have hopped on a new trend of abstaining from any romantic or sexual relationships with men, including dating and casual hookups. Therapists say the emergence of the boysober movement is indicative of a greater trend of young women taking a step back from sex and relationships and puts a new spin on voluntary celibacy. 

--Ever wonder how some of the “classic” TV shows of the past would have fared if remote controls had been around and there had been more than a hundred channel options? 

 (“ ‘Gilligan’s What’? ‘Leave it to Who’? Never heard of ‘em!)

Speaking of television, I’ve been watching a lot of baseball this summer.  (Otherwise, as you probably know by now, I'm usually reading Homer in the original Greek!)

--Baseball should have a Hall of Moments for guys like John Paciorek.  He played just one game in the major leagues (Houston Colt 45s, 1963), but he went 3 for 3, scored 4 runs, drove in 3 runs and also walked twice.  (Other than that, as the late Chicago broadcaster Jack Brickhouse would have said, “He didn't do a thing!”)

Why just a one-game career?  He had a bad back, but his day--literally--in the sun is the envy of all who never got even that far.  That is, the rest of us.

(And always remember, sports fans:  Chances are, the star of today's game could well be the assistant bullpen coach of tomorrow!)

--Redundancy patrol: "Separate out," "blend together," "Sahara desert."

jimjustsaying’s Party Ice-Breaker of the Month: “Say [actual partygoer-s name here], did you know that Kitti’s Hog-Nosed Bat, which lives only in Southeast Asia, is the smallest living mammal--less than three-centimeters long and under two grams?”  (Kind of hard to work into a conversation, but chances are you weren’t going to be the life of the party anyway!)

DRUDGING AROUND: AA flight makes emergency landing after passenger exposes self, urinates in aisle . . . Poisons in paradise: How Mexicans target Hawaii with meth, fentanyl . . . AI-powered vending machines selling bullets . . . Middle-schoolers create fake Tiktok accounts impersonating teachers! . . . AI to decode what dog barks mean . . . New Abraham Lincoln documentary suggests ex-president had secret, gay sex life . . . Extreme eater dies during livestream after 10-hour food binge . . . America running out of generic drugmakers . . . Heat waves make mental problems worse . . . Transplant breakthrough as human receives titanium heart for first time . . . Lost dog survived in the woods for two months: “She defied the odds!” . . . Research makes frightening find about women who don’t have sex often . . . Tech’s grip on modern life pushing us down a rabbit hole . . . SHOCK STUDY:  Young-onset dementia far more common than realized . . . Brides having brunch weddings, midweek nuptials and selling tickets to save money . . . EVs may be extinct sooner than you think . . . Antarctic temps soar 50 degrees above normal in long-lasting heatwave . . . Forget snubbing sugar: New tech makes it healthier instead . . . Why are Americans suddenly snubbing McDonald’s and Starbucks?  . . . Taco Bell to roll out AI drive-thru.  (Thanks as always to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators.)

--There will never be a James Carville Lookalike Contest.

--"There are many more Italian-American CPAs than hit men, not that I want to watch a cable TV series about accountants."—Author Bill Tonelli to Tom Santopietro, author of "The Godfather Effect," in the Wall Street Journal.

--Work Ethic Shocker:

If you're wondering why America is losing jobs, consider this from a New York Times article about why Apple does so much of its manufacturing in China:

1.   "Apple redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly-line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the [Chinese] plant near midnight. 

2.    "A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames.

3.   "Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. ‘The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,’ the executive said. "There’s no American plant that can match that." 

Exactly.  America has become the land OF "DEBBIE HAS TO GO ON HER BREAK NOW" (after putting in a grueling two hours at the checkout counter).  China is the land of people working 12-hour shifts at a moment's notice.  (Two ends of a ludicrous extreme, methinks.)

--"99.99 percent of all castles in America are located in fish tanks."--Demetri Martin

--More Demetri: “I used to play sports.  Then I realized that you can actually buy trophies.  Now I’m good at everything.”

--I love it when foodies and restaurant critics call an establishment "a destination restaurant."  As opposed to--what?--the company lunchroom?  A place you were taken to at gunpoint?  A place you know is lousy but go to anyway because it's nearby?

--I'll believe in Ride-Sharing Programs when the governor’s or the president's limos start participating.

--When did everybody start saying, "Having said that . . ." or "That being said . . . "?  Those are what are known as "verbal tics." (Does Raid make a Verbal Tic Spray? Some people  would go through several cans a day!)

--Attention Wisconsin hunters: Sept. 18 marks the start of Ruffed Grouse hunting season in Zone A (wherever that is).  (Ruffed, not ruffled!)  According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the ruffed grouse population appears to be on the downward side of its 10-year cycle.  (I wish I could say I saw that coming, but I'd be lying. I can’t stay on top of everything!)

Today's Latin lesson: Ut res orator. ("That being said . . .")

And lastly:

ENOUGH ALREADY WITH THIS TIRED RHETORICAL DEVICE! 

"That sound you heard? That was a nation exhaling . . . . "--New York Post

  "That sound you heard around the Chicago area late Sunday was probably people . . . ." --Chicago Tribune 

"That thud you heard Thursday night was the rating for Game 1 of the NBA Finals hitting bottom, at least locally.”-- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"That sound you heard was a few thousand reporters - - - -ting bricks . . . ."--Village Voice

"That sound you heard off in the distance Sunday night was the Cardinals blowing another late lead.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“That sound you just heard was Balloon Boy's dad smacking his head and saying, ‘Why didn't I think of this?!’ "--Chicago Sun-Times

“That noise you hear is a drum roll emanating from New York . . . .”--Chicago Tribune

 "That sound you heard over the weekend was the Lions’ alarm clock going off in Corpus Christi . . . .  "--Hammond (La.) Star

"That sound you heard was the Suns sucking against the Boston Celtics . . . ."--Phoenix New Times

"That sound you heard was the lovely yet formidable Marcia rolling her eyes . . . ."--Flint (Mich.) Journal

"That sound you heard falling and crashing Friday night at Columbus State was the sound of  . . . ."--Albany (Ga.) Herald

"That sound you heard is the Dolphins fans' collective testicles retracting into their bodies . . . ."--Miami New Times

"That sound you heard last Monday morning was . . . ."--Boston SportsMedia.com

(DID YOU HEAR ANYTHING?  NEITHER DID I! BUT CHANCES ARE YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS PIECE OF HACKNEYED VERBIAGE FOR THE LAST TIME.  A HERD MENTALITY IN THE MEDIA?  NAHHHH.) 

POPCORN

   BY JIM SZANTOR

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric 

and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life 

--I was a teenage bounty hunter.

(Just as grocery checkout clerks and stockboys are now known as “associates” or “team members,” bounty hunters are now known as "bail enforcement agents" or "fugitive recovery agents.” But not in my day!)

--Planned obsolescence will never go out of style.

--He said it: “It’s not what people say about you, it’s what they whisper.”--Errol Flynn

--She said it: “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”--Anaïs Nin

--Present Shock: Microsoft was forced to delay the release of an artificial intelligence tool called Recall following a wave of backlash. The feature was introduced last month, billed as "your everyday AI companion."

It takes screen captures of your device every few seconds to create a library of searchable content. This includes passwords, conversations, and private photos. (Slap forehead HERE!)

Its release was delayed indefinitely following an outpouring of criticism from data privacy experts, including the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK.

--jimjustsaying’s Word That Doesn’t Exist But Should of the Month: “Tupperwarp.” n. The condition of Tupperware left in the dishwasher too long.—Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe,” Rich Hall and Friends

--My favorite T-shirt messages from the new “What on Earth” catalog:

Another day gone by, and I didn’t use algebra once!

90 percent of being married is yelling “What?” from other rooms.

My favorite childhood memory is my back not hurting.

I only do what the voices in my wife's head tell her to tell me to do.

--Sometimes I feel like a Polaroid in the Instagram of Life. 

--My dietitian is extremely knowledgeable.  She graduated Phi Beta Carotene!

--The National Pastime meets the real national pastime: advertising. Because I have seen baseball progress from commercials between innings to commercials between batters and now—wait for it—commercials between pitches!

There is no angle too minute or obscure to occasion a tie-in. Heard recently during a Cubs game on the Marquee Network. After a batter got a second chance when he barely made contact with a 3-2 pitch and hit a foul tip, I heard, “You, too, can get a second chance at life with an exam at Northwestern Hospital.”

--I understand that Walloon was a Romance language spoken in a region of Belgium.  Unfortunately for me, the bookstore was out of English to Walloon/Walloon to English dictionaries. (On “back order,” no doubt.)

--You're an old-timer if you remember Powerhouse candy bars, Herbert Tareyton cigarettes and Old Dutch Cleanser.

--Consumer Imponderable No. 538: Toothbrushes keep getting bigger and bigger . . . and plastic toothbrush travel holders keep staying the same size!  Who will be the first to act on this discrepancy?  Is there a Nobel Prize for Overdue Product Improvement?

--Headline: “7-foot-9 player to make college basketball history.” 

Somebody please explain to me why the hoop is still at 10 feet, the same height it was when Dr. James Naismith invented the game in 1891, when a 6-footer was almost considered “tall”?

--Headline II: “Southwest Boeing 737 inexplicably dives, flies below 500 feet over neighborhood: ‘Thought it was gonna hit my house.’ “  (June 20 news story.)

Herewith a story I posted a year or so on the Link Tank section of jimjustsaying.com:

"Near misses, fires, severe turbulence . . . What’s happening to flying?"

 A recent scientific study in the journal Thorax made headlines after finding that cabin pressure at cruising altitude appears to lower blood pressure and increase heart rate, even among young, healthy passengers. This is particularly exacerbated by in-flight alcohol consumption.

Humans never evolved to be transported through the skies in a long metal tube at more than 500 miles per hour, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that air travel has some pretty unusual effects on our body.

DRUDGING AROUND:  Cops:  Funeral home worker planned to smuggle sex doll from dead man’s home in body bag . . . Idaho bar celebrating “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” creates stir . . . Nursing home ruled her dead. Two hours later she was found breathing . . . Gen Z’ers bringing parents to job interviews . . . Republican lawmaker arrested after chasing adult dancer down road while waving gun at 2:45 a.m. . . . Cockroach interrupts State Dept. briefing . . . Heat day is the new snow day . . . Abe Lincoln wax sculpture melts In brutal  DC heat . . . Why pet’s death can hurt worse than losing a human . . . Mexico may legalize magic mushrooms . . . Gamer accused of flying cross country to try to kill online rival. (Thanks, as always to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators.)

--Pampered pooches (etc.): Pet ownership as well as love for pets surged during the pandemic, Axios reports. Vet prices have jumped 60% in the last decade, The New York Times reports. Modern vet clinics look like human hospitals, equipped with state-of-the-art MRI machines and ICUs and staffed by oncology and cardiology specialists. If this isn’t nutty enough, people are picking homes based on their proximity to parks and vets, and some are even designing bedrooms for their animals. And owners are opting for highly specialized--and pricey--fresh, human-grade food options from a slew of startups, Barron's reports. There’s more: And some owners are trading in kennels for luxury dog hotels when they need to travel without their pets. These facilities are expensive, but they offer perks like bedtime tuck-ins, swimming pools, blueberry facials and queen-size beds for dogs, the Times says.

--What price progress? Today's car may be safer for drivers, but they pose tough challenges for first responders, such as trying to avoid cutting a high-voltage cable in a hybrid-electric vehicle or being able to slice through strong steel, according to news reports

There's more: Air bags mean more explosive propellant tanks and fewer safe places to cut, and even usual practices like disconnecting the battery and removing the key upon arrival are made more complicated by things like keyless ignitions and plugged-in electronic devices that can contain enough stored power to trigger an air bag deployment.

--Redundancy patrol:  "Sudden urge,'' "soothing balm," "specific example."

--I'm trying to get rid of most of the superfluous, "bloatware" apps on my iPhone.   In other words, I've got app-oplexy.

--Who invented podcasts?  You know something is of marginal value when no one has ever taken credit for it.

--Why do people always badmouth neighboring states?  Are the people in them really that different?  Don't people make exceptions for friends or relatives living there?  You'd think there were ambushes, bombings and beheadings at the state lines the way some people talk.

--Faded phrases:  When was the last time you put on your best bib and tucker, cut a mean rug and then peeled out in your jalopy?

--You've probably heard about a dating service called It's Just Lunch. Well, in today's hyperactive, short-attention-span world, even lunch is too long an encounter or commitment for some people.

So herewith jimjustsaying's new dating service:  It's Just Water Cooler. Because, let's face it, you can usually tell in the first minute or two if you want to spend a third minute with that person.

--The Brave New World of Cheating, Thai division:  A top medical school voided the results of an entrance exam after prospective students were caught cheating with hidden cameras and smartwatches, The Week reported. 

The rector of Rangsit University said three students used glasses with cameras embedded in the frames to send test questions to people outside the exam room, who then transmitted answers to the students’ smartwatches. 

The reaction?  On social media, some Thais expressed admiration for the cheaters’ ingenuity. “Like Hollywood or Mission Impossible,” wrote one.   

(Is anyone surprised by that reaction, given that the cheating is pretty tame compared to the sex slavery that Thailand is infamous for?)

--Overheard: "I'm sure wherever my dad is, he's looking down on us.  He's not dead.  Just very condescending."--Jack Whitehall

Today’s Latin Lesson: Estne haec optima haec terra facere potest pro candidatis praesidis?  (“Is this the best this country can do for presidential candidates?”)

 Many thanks to Vernon Hills, this month’s Popcorn intern.

POPCORN

  By Jim Szantor

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric 

and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life 

--I was a teenage acupuncturist.

--I wish TV stations would tighten up their definition of BREAKING NEWS and restrict it to explosions, plane crashes, terrorist attacks, earthquakes and other cataclysmic acts of God, assassinations of key political figures, etc.  "Donald Trump is about to take the stage at the VFW in Numnutz, Nebraska" does not, in my estimation, qualify in any sense of the term.

--Overheard:  "He was dressed to the fives!"

--I keep hearing about all these "surrogates" campaigning for their favored candidates.  Yet another example of politics going off the rails. Did FDR, Ike or Barack Obama have to rely on stand-ins to get their message across?

--Gardeners, don't be distressed if your yield doesn't look like the stuff in the seed catalogs.  Those pictures were posed by professional vegetables!

--Book Title of the Week (spotted in a pet tore): "Dachshunds for Dummies."  (There Is order in the universe after all!)

--Someone asked me the other day if something I had done was on my "bucket list."  I was somewhat taken aback, because I don't really have one.  What I do have, however, is a reverse bucket list, a word that rhymes with "bucket" but is, in fact, another word and refers to an activity I conceivably might consider for a nanosecond but would immediately reject.  

(“Jim, wanna ride from Chicago to New York and back in a hot-air balloon?”  “Ah, I suppose I could, but  . . . ah,  ---- it.”)

--Judging from the media these days--print, electronic, digital or whatever--the suffixes "ageddon" and "pocalypse" have replaced "gate" as the new, trendy rhetorical crutches to describe any crisis, scandal or weather woe that tries our communal souls.   (I know "media" isn't the root of the word "mediocrity," but at times it seems that way.)

--jimjustsaying's Word That Don't Exist But Should of the Month: Malibugaloo: n. A dance that affects barefoot beachgoers on hot summer days.--"More Sniglets" by Rich Hall & Friends

--She said it: “You look ridiculous if you dance. You look ridiculous if you don't dance. So you might as well dance.”—Gertrude Stein in “Three Lives.”

--He said it: “I’m not afraid of dying.  I just don’t want to be there when it happens!”--Woody Allen

--jimjustsaying’s Newspaper Obituary Headline Nickname of the Month: “Spike.” As in, Dr. Richard “Spike” Herz, Kenosha (Wis.) News, May 12, 2024.

--"What a nice day" some folks said to me recently when it reached 75.  My reply: "Not really."  (The wind, you see, was blowing at about 35 mph, with an air-quality alert to boot!)

Weather, to me, is like a pizza.  You wouldn't eat raw pizza dough, no matter what else was on it, so why does one factor--a balmy temperature--automatically make it "a nice day"? 

If you have a nice temperature (the dough) along with a gentle breeze, low humidity, bearable barometric pressure and decent air quality (the cheese, the sauce, the toppings, if you will), then you have a nice day.  But damp air, high winds and an ozone alert can make for a dismal day--whatever the temperature.  But for some folks, temperature is the whole ballgame.

--Overheard: “I was married by a judge.  I should have asked for a jury.”

--Closed Caption Gaffe of the Week, courtesy of CNN: “New Finland” (instead of Newfoundland).

--Why do auctioneers have to talk that fast?  Are they double parked? That's one reason I don’t go to auctions--I can’t hear that fast.

--I thought that "No Outlet" and "Dead End" were two ways of saying the same thing.  But according to Snopes.com: "No Outlet can mean that though other streets may branch off of the road ahead, they don't lead anywhere either." 

--People who say "asterick" instead of "asterisk" should be jabbed repeatedly with colored hors d'oeuvre toothpicks.  (And what’s so hard about the word “ask” that leads to you hearing it as “axe” by certain people?  I’mjustsayin’.)

--Why is the badger the Wisconsin state animal?  No one I know has ever seen one; 90-year-old hunters and game wardens have never seen one. These beasts could be extinct for all we know!

(Wisconsin--the Extinct Animal State should replace America’s Dairyland on the state’s license plates; unfortunately, it wouldn’t fit. And most notably, California, not Wisconsin, is the leading product of said products.)

--Product-choice explosion: I counted 10 different varieties of Crest Toothpaste at a Target store the other day.

--I wonder what the demise (or scarcity) of phone books has done to the printing industry?  Or the cellphone for the phone booth manufacturers? Therefore, jimjustsaying’s Law of Progress:  Every new product or practice sounds the death knell for someone or someplace else.  (One man’s invention is another man’s insolvency?)

It’s biblical.  There are probably IT people who think they are in the hot new profession . . . but may find out otherwise sooner than they expected.

--“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”—Plato

--Three “s” words that sound exactly like their meaning:  Suave, smut and spoof.

--Last year my car had a recall for the thingamajig, and this year my wife’s car has a recall for the whatchamacallit!  Who do I blame, what’shisname?

--Redundancy patrol:  "Arson fire," "enter into," "inner core."

--You know you have a serious problem if your cholesterol count has a comma in it.

--Rite of passage for Saudi Arabia teenagers” “Hey, Dad, can I have the camel tonight?”

--Wise words from Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times:

"Whenever I hear that America has never been such a mess or so divided, I think not just of the Civil War but of my own childhood: the assassinations of the 1960s; the riots; the murders of civil rights workers; the curses directed at returning Vietnam veterans; the families torn apart at generational seams; the shooting of students at Kent State; the leftists in America and abroad who quoted Mao and turned to violence because they thought society could never evolve.

"If we got through that, we can get through this."

DRUDGING AROUND: Demise of Red Lobster case study in how to kill business . . . Supercomputer predicts humans will face “triple-whammy” extinction event . . . VEGAS SHOCK: “Possessed” murder suspect ate man’s face, eyeball and ear . . . Rising number of men DON’T want jobs . . .  LA’s dirtiest cop: Mild-mannered traffic officer who moonlighted as hit man . . . NYPD to use drones as “first responders” on 911 calls . . . Celeb therapist accused of abusing client with “laser beam” penis . . . Homes of billionaires in Nantucket falling into ocean at alarming rate . . . World’s most busted  man dies at 74; had more than 1,500 arrests . . . San Diego cop resigns after alleged backseat sex with suspect . . . Denver cops say drones will respond to 911 calls instead of cops . . . Judge stunned as man with suspended license joins Zoom meeting while driving.  (Thanks, as always, to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators.)

jimjustsaying’s favorite baseball oddities:

Eye guy: Pitcher Max Scherzer (Texas Rangers) has one blue and one brown, a condition called heterochromia.

"Ship outta luck": The great-grandmother of Dodgers backup catcher A.J. Ellis had a ticket to travel from Hungary to England on the Titanic but was late and missed the boat..

Smoke 'em inside: The press box in Cincinnati was evacuated on Opening Day when mop heads caught fire in a dryer.

Strategy Gaffe of the Year:  The Yankees throw the first pitch of an intentional walk to Kendrys Morales of the Angels, change their mind and pitch to him and suffer the consequences—a three-run homer.

Good break, bad break:  The same Kendrys Morales has his season ended by a fractured leg suffered during the mob celebration at home plate following his walk-off grand slam.

Time Out:  Rockies catcher Miguel Olivo passes a kidney stone while batting in the 8th inning against Arizona, then returns in the ninth to line a single.

Matchup throwback:  Brian Bannister, son of ex-White Sox hurler Floyd Bannister, wins a Gavin Floyd-Brian Bannister starting pitcher duel.

Footloose:  Cardinals rookie David Freese, on the Disabled List with a sprained right ankle, then drops a weight that fractures his left big toe.

Food fluke:  Garrett Jones of the Pirates misses a game when a piece of meat lodged in his esophagus must be surgically removed.

Food Fluke II:  A player suffers a major injury during a postgame celebration for the second time in the season as Florida's Chris Coghlan tears a meniscus delivering a shaving-cream pie to the face of Wes Helms.

So close but so far:  After 1,571 minor-league games, 33-year-old John Lindsey makes his Major League debut by pinch-hitting for the Dodgers, but when a pitching change is made, is removed for another pinch hitter before he sees a single pitch.

Payroll Schmayroll:  Javier Vazquez, at $11.4 million, is the highest-salaried healthy player ever to be left off his team's post-season roster.

Last Man Standing:  With the team out of options, Phillies ace pitcher Roy Oswalt plays two innings in left field (the team's first pitcher in 39 years to play another position), catches a flyball and then makes the last out of the game as a batter in a 16-inning loss to Houston, his former team.

(Thanks to Athlon Sports.Com.)

--And finally, as if being a minor-league baseball player isn’t bad enough (low pay, long rides on crummy buses), some now must suffer the indignity of playing for teams with goofy, demeaning names, the New York Times reports:  Such as (and these are NOT made up), the Danville Dairy Daddies.

Former rookie-league teams like the Burlington (N.C.) Royals and Pulaski (Va.) Yankees in the Appalachian League re-emerged as the Sock Puppets and River Turtles.

Teams that maintained their MLB affiliations have also jumped on the funky name train with hopes of invigorating their brands. Pick nearly any league, at any level, and there’s a nickname or logo that will make you stop and gawk. The Carolina Disco Turkeys. The Montgomery (Ala.) Biscuits (formerly the Orlando Rays). The Minot (N.D.) Hot Tots. The Rocket City (Ala.) Trash Pandas (formerly the Mobile Bay Bears). The Wichita Chili Buns (an alternate identity of the Wichita Wind Surge). And there’s also a Double A affiliate of the San Diego Padres called the Amarillo Sod Poodles.

Today’s Latin Lesson: Quomodo dicturus sum nepotibus meis olim
lusi Sock automata? (“How am I going to tell my grandchildren
I once played for a team called the Sock Puppets?”) 

Many thanks to Joe Hannesberg, this month’s Popcorn intern.

POPCORN

                                                              By Jim Szantor

Rhetorical questions, questionable rhetoric 

and whimsical observations about the absurdities of contemporary life 

--I was a teenage paleontologist.

--I’m trying to trace my family’s roots, but I’m a bit puzzled.  I mean, where is Caucasia anyway?

--Overheard: "People call Americans lazy. We're NOT lazy, We've only been in this country for 300 years, but we built nuclear weapons plants, malls, factories, fast food, the iPhone . . .  We're not lazy--we're done." 

--Politicians talk and talk and posture and promise, but when the smoke clears, the dirty dishes are still in the sink.

--Zadra's Law of Biomechanics:  The severity of the itch is inversely proportional to the location.

--jimjustsaying's Term That Doesn't Exist But Should of the Month: “Sudsorian Calendar.”  n. The calendar used on soap operas that allows one day's events to be stretched over a three-week period.--"Unexplained Sniglets of the Universe," Rich Hall and Friends

--Morning in America:  Church attendance is way down, the prison population is way up  . . . and people are still sneaking into the Express Lane with more than 12 items. (Which of these problems is easiest to fix? Not so sure it would be the third one.)

--jimjustsaying's Product of the Month (from the Make Life Easier catalog):  Birdbath Protector, which uses "natural plant enzymes to break down organic contaminants. . . . Birds will love it . . . and so will you. So go green and keep your birdbath clean!"  (Just the thing for that hard-to-shop-for person on everyone's Christmas gift list.)

--Redundancy patrol: “Collaborate together,” "continue on,"

"see what happens in the future."

--What's the difference between a proverb, an axiom and an adage?

--What do butterflies get when they're nervous?  Gorillas?

--Why do we keep naming sports teams after the same animals--lions, tigers, wolves, eagles, bears . . . .? Show me a team that calls itself the Rhesus Monkeys or the Gaboon Vipers and they've got themselves a season ticketholder for life!

--If you've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all."--College dorm graffito.

--"I'm sorry my karma ran over your dogma."--Pizza parlor graffito, Berkeley, Cal.

--Never trust a man with a pocket watch, an ascot or a manicure.  Especially if he's carrying a "man bag."

--So it turned out some of Subway's foot-longs aren't really a foot long.   I guess someone outed them to the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Sandwiches

--Art-ifacts:  In the early 20th Century, the "Mona Lisa" was receiving so much fan mail that it had its own mailbox at the Louvre.

--If a cow could laugh, would milk come out its nose?  (Probably not--unless it was a horse laugh.)

--Remember when you went to buy orange juice and didn’t have 37 choices confronting you?  Lots of Pulp, Some Pulp, No Pulp, From Concentrate, Not From Concentrate, Fortified with Calcium, Fortified with Vitamins D and E, Low Acid and more. (Not labeled just yet: Toxic and Non-Toxic!)

--Do they sell Quilted Southern toilet paper in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi . . .?

--"Wanting to meet an author because you like his books is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pate."--Margaret Atwood, quoted in NYTimes.com.

--Cultural note:  I did a double-take when I skimmed the concert listings in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and saw The Milwaukee Symphony was going to play the music of Led Zeppelin.  What's next: "The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Plays Rachmaninov . . . "?

--Musical note:  Tennessee has eight--count 'em--Official State Songs.  New Jersey?  None.  (Kind of hard to work into a conversation, but there you have it.)

--She said it: "I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin deep.  That's deep enough.  What do you want, an adorable pancreas?--Author Jean Kerr to the Columbia, Mo., Daily Tribune

--He said it: “It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear."--Dick Cavett

--“The motorcycle driver was transferred to Hartford Hospital because of the need for brain specialists. Authorities said he had a severed head injury.”—Hartford (Conn.) Courant via “Still More Press Boners,” by Earle Tempel

--Another sign of Profit First, Customers Last:  Parking lots that are about five years overdue for re-striping of boundary lines. 

--Faded Words: "riffraff," "skedaddle" and "shindig."

--Waiter: "Ground pepper on your salad?"  Me: "No, but I wouldn't mind a little more rata in my touille."

DRUDGING AROUND:  Scientists accidentally created a six-legged mouse with no genitals . . . Futuristic car where drivers SLEEP while driving . . . Farmers dump sheep killed by wolves in front of Swiss government building . . . Chipotle worker shot in guacamole dispute . . . New Yorkers turn to self-defense classes as punching attacks continue . . . Six-legged gazelle spotted in Holy Land . . . Teen girls confront deepfake nudes in schools . . . Man commits suicide by snake after having his deadly cobra bite him . . . Apple Vision users suffer black eyes, headaches and neck pain . . . Priest jailed after man collapses after too many erectile drugs at cleric’s sex party . . . Flight diverted after dog poops in first-class aisle . . . With pets becoming family, bereavement leave gains steam . . . Why Ozempic could change whole personality:  “May warp brain” . . . Woman calls 911 over buying bad batch of meth . . . Feminism has left middle-aged women single, childless and  depressed . . . Why lesbians women die younger than straight women.  (Thanks as always to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators.)

--Is it just me or are magazines getting more and more impossible to read?  You've seen it--microscopic, light-shaded type--often on pale/pastel backgrounds, surrounded by oceans of white space that could be better utilized to enlarge the type and enhance readability.  And who needs full-page head shots of people we've seen dozens of times?  Why not use that space to make the words you're so proud of actually readable?

--Adage updated: It's the gift that counts.

--Three fruits most people have never eaten:  Persimmons, guavas and kumquats.

--Is there low-fructose corn syrup?  If not, the world is waiting.

--The illiterate of the 21^st Century will not be those who cannot read and write.  It will be those who cannot learn, unlearn and re-learn.”--Alvin Toffler in “Future Shock.”

--It’s a tossup as to who gets lied to the most—doctors or policemen.  (“Yeah, doc, I have a drink once in a while before dinner, but that’s about it.” “No, officer, there’s nothing in the car you need to be concerned about.”)

--Nature can be cruel (or Life Isn't Fair, Exhibit No. 292):  People can eat dog food and live to tell about it; chocolate can be fatal to dogs. 

--Speaking of Man’s Best Friend:: TV news reporter gaffe (Lifetime Achievement Award):  "At that point, police decided to bring in canine dogs to help locate the suspect . . . ."

--Health term of the week: We’ve all heard of GERD, but now there’s NERD (Non-erosive reflux disease): Chronic heartburn with no evidence of acid damage in the esophagus.

--Snack food product that doesn't exist but some day probably will:  Dorachos.

RHETORICAL SPRING CLEANING

I thought I would try to exorcise all of the demonic cliches, vogue phrases and shopworn metaphors, etc., that somehow lie deep within me or are virtually unavoidable on- or offline or wherever and get them out of my system with the following three paragraphs in hopes that my literary house will be blessedly in order for the rest of the year.

Let’s talk turkey and get down to brass tacks--it’s a jungle out there, and it’s time to grab the bull by the horns. We’ve got a lot on our plates because the movers and shakers keep moving the goal posts instead of leveling the playing field, while the rest of us are forced to employ a multitasking mind-set while fighting a never-ending learning curve, no matter how much we ramp things up to the next level. So all we can do going forward is hit the ground running, play hardball when we have to step up to the plate, and at the end of the day, pick all the low-hanging fruit—even if it isn’t apples to apples.

Before we try reinventing the wheel, we’ve got to eyeball our optics to see where the rubber meets the road, no matter what the price point is—assuming we’re all on the same page. We’ve got to build a better mousetrap, or we’ll be behind the 8-ball. If we think Plan A is actionable, we can run it up the flagpole and see if the target demographic salutes—if it really moves the needle. If it does, we can put a pin in it. It could be a paradigm shift, and it’s definitelyin our wheelhouse.

Let's face it, the fat cats have us on a market-driven roller-coaster, no matter how much they try to downsize the elephant in the room. So let’s cut to the chase, push the envelope, peel back the layers of the onion, and before the whole ball of wax reaches critical mass, take stock of all the benchmarks, the Big Picture, the whole enchilada and come to the realization that we might have to go back to the drawing board, get granular and think outside the box. But if we play our cards right, burn our candles at both ends and avoid drinking the Kool-Aid, we can get all our ducks in a row. The bottom line? It is what it is!

There, I feel better already. I promise I’ll do my best to keep my prose nose clean, which is not easy, because--after all--the devil is in the details.

--Today's Latin lesson:  Is dico may exsisto recorded pro palaestra voluntas.  ("This call may be recorded for training purposes.")

Special thanks to Joy DeVive, this month’s Popcorn intern.

 

POPCORN

 By Jim Szantor

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

--I was a teenage Notary Public.

--I wonder if Donald Trump’s hotels have bibles in all of their rooms? If they didn’t before, they probably do now!  (Check your statement CAREFULLY before you check out.)

--You're an old-timer if you can remember having to wait one week instead of one second to see how your pictures turned out.

--Attention, True Crime buffs:  There three more entries into this proliferating genre: “Bail Jumpers,” “Good Cop Bad Cop” (both self-explanatory) and “Evil Eye,” devoted to nogoodniks who owe their capture to those all-seeing, all-knowing surveillance cameras. Look for the ID Discovery Channel on your TV channel grid and laugh along and gasp along with the losers and the lawmen (and lawwomen) who populate these gripping, formularized dramas.

And this just in--yet another entry!  “Lethally Blonde,” which, according to the promo, “explores the power and the perils of being a beauty in our society.”

--He said it: "Show business is not so much a 'dog eat dog' world as it is a 'Your dog won't return my dog's phone calls' world. "--Woody Allen

OPENING DAY BASEBALL MUSINGS:

--Some people love to point out that even the best baseball players--those who hit about .300--succeed only 3 times out of 10.  Meaning, they always love to add, that they fail 7 times out of 10.  (As if that makes the fandom’s failures in life more acceptable, apparently.)

--A good thing, don't you think?  YOU THINK THE GAMES ARE LONG NOW? Think how long they'd last if they succeeded 7 times out of 10! 

--(Wife:  "Jim, do you think we can go pretty soon--it's the 43rd inning!" Jim:  "Aw--let's stay just two more times through the batting order.  I wanna see if they can score 30 runs this inning. Could be a record!")

--Speaking of baseball, I really had self-esteem problems growing up.  Serious problems. I mean, I used to fantasize about striking out with the bases loaded.  In the ninth inning.  Of the seventh game.  Of the World Series.

--Do they have Casual Friday at the U.S. Supreme Court?  Well, they eventually moved on from the powdered wigs so . . . why not?  (“Hey, Sonia, gonna wear that T-shirt and cutoffs again next week!”) 

--Maybe we should start looking at people's names with an environmentalist's eyes, as in:  "Hey, there goes Clarence.  Not many of those left, you know.  Two in the U.S. and four in England, at last count."   (Not to mention Bruno, Hortense and Mortimer. . . .)

--jimjustsaying’s Party Ice-Breaker of the Month: “Say [actual partygoer’s name here], did you know that the president of Indonesia is a former cabinet maker named Joko Widodo?  His friends call him Jokowi."  (Extremely difficult to work into a conversation, but that’s what I’m here for!)

--Why do people tailgate only at sports events?  Why not a bratwurst and a beer in the school parking lot before the PTA meeting?  A cheeseburger after church services on Sunday?  Just might boost attendance at both! (jimjustsaying.com: Your New Home for Outside-The-Box Thinking.)

--You're not a celebrity until you've been on the cover of People magazine, been a clue or an answer in the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle or been mentioned in at least one edition of Popcorn.

--Doesn't it strike you as a bit odd, if not off-putting, that people who are running for political office have to have three days of intense "debate prep" before the so-called "debates" (a.k.a. extended stump speeches with opponents present)?

The issues are known, the problems are known, and the opponents’ "talking points" and criticisms are known, so shouldn't these people be able to speak extemporaneously and knowledgeably about all this without having to cram like frat boys who have loafed away the semester?  Downright demoralizing to this voter.

Note to protesters and politicians:  "You cannot shake hands with a closed fist."--Indira Gandhi (1917-1984).

--Best health-related news of the year:  Flossing doesn't do much good, if any.  I’m thinking that entists will now have to lecture us about--what?--earwax, perhaps.  Nose hair? Bad breath? (Don't worry--they'll find something.)

--I'm firmly against the death penalty . . . with these exceptions:  fraudulent users of handicapped parking spaces, wealthy defaulters on student loans and people who leave huge puddles of water in front of their gym lockers.

--jimjustsaying’s Fun Fact of the Month:  Winnie the Pooh was named after Winnipeg, a female black bear cub that lived at London Zoo from 1915 until her death in 1934. 

Mark my words, someday "Winnie the Pooh" will be on Broadway.  (They've done just about everything else, from "Peter Pan" to "Spiderman.")

--Why do they call them "polo shirts"?  At the one polo match I attended (at the Chicago Avenue Armory), no one was wearing anything of the sort.

--Another of jimjustsaying’s Media Words (a word you see or hear only in news reports and never hear a normal person use in real life):  "Inveigle."

--Redundancy of the Week (from a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel news story):  "verbal argument."  As opposed to what?  All arguments are verbal; if a disagreement gets physical, it’s a fight, not an argument.

More Journal Sentinel, and a Newspaper Correction for the Ages candidate (from the Jan. 19, 2016, edition of the paper):

"A caption accompanying a photo Sunday in Travel about reservations to make for the summer and fall incorrectly stated the HMS Bounty ship will appear at the Tall Ships Festival in Green Bay. The ship will not appear at the festival as it sank during Hurricane Sandy in 2012."

--Faded phrases: “Hang up the phone, “roll down the window” and “flip through the channels.”

--Home decorator’s white palette, gleaned from a recent piece of junk mail: Simply white, all white, pure white, Chantilly lace, white dove and the ever-popular alabaster!  (I guess off-white didn’t make the cut.  Or are they all off-white?)

--I have no problem with Walmart greeters, but they should call them what they mostly resemble: Cardboard cutouts.  

--Hundreds of police officers have been accused of sexually abusing children. (Slap forehead here!) We serve and protect . . . and do whatever we can get away with?

One disturbing case: In 2020, a New Orleans officer took a 14-year-old girl to get a rape kit after she reported a sexual assault. Then the officer assaulted her, too. (Slap forehead again!)

--jimjustsaying’s Word That Doesn’t Exist But Should of the Month: “XIIDIGITATION.” n. The practice of trying to determine the year a movie was made by deciphering the Roman numerals at the end of the credits.--"Sniglets," Rich Hall and Friends --Thinking outside the box:  What if "they" ultimately discovered that radiation is good for us!  It took the so-called experts eons to reverse course on the egg and determine that it "isn't the cholesterol villain we once thought it was.  Eat all you want."  (To name but one example of FDA flip-flopping.) I think the egg has been around much longer than nuclear radiation, so there's still time. --Along with our crumbling roads and bridges comes another atrocity, the continuing butchering of our language. Latest example: “asks” as a noun! (Press secretary to reporters: “If there are no more asks, that’s it for today.”) Good Lord! Generation X, meet Generation S—as in Subliterate. And there is also the jargon-esque “get” as a noun, as in, “Diane Sawyer’s interview with Toby Twoface was a good get.” Yeech. --Books that didn't quite make it: "A Farewell to Weapons," "For Whom the Bell Rings," "To Kill a Hummingbird," "The Catcher in the Wheat” and "Nurse Zhivago."

DRUDGING AROUND: Study: Female psychopaths surprisingly common . . . Women turning to robot manicurists so they don’t have to tip . . . Shock report:  EVs release more toxic emissions than gas cars . . . Cops:  Women propped up dead man in car, withdrew his money at drive-through teller . . . Let them eat snake:  Python farmers could offer one of the most sustainable sources of meat . . . Experts claim leprosy NOT ancient history as cases surge in USA (especially Florida) . . . Sophisticated “burglary tourists” fly from South America to rob wealthy, LA police say . . . They came to Florida for sun and sand.  They got soaring costs and culture war . . . “Yoga burglar” seen stretching before break-in. (Thanks, as always, to Matt Drudge and his merry band of aggregators.)

Vinpocetine, oscillococcinum and bladderswack leaves. Three nutritional (?) supplements I didn't know existed until I opened a Swanson Health Products catalog.  (Kind of hard to work into a conversation, but there you have it.)

--I had a dream that the Family Dollar company started a budget burger franchise:  One Guy!

--jimjustsaying's Snack Food Find of the Month:  Buffalo wing-flavored sunflower seeds.  Who knew?

--Three things I've never done:  Put something in mothballs, put all my eggs in one basket, put on the dog.

--Redundancy Patrol: "Close proximity," "join together," "serious crisis."  

--A true friend is one who likes you despite your accomplishments.—Novelist Arnold Bennett

Today’s Latin Lesson: Pila ludere. (“Play ball!”) 

Special thanks to Ann Arbor, this month’s Popcorn intern.