Flash Alert

I have just read that due to drought conditions in Texas there is a shortage of mistletoe this holiday season. Sorry to be the grinch who stole a kiss away. But they say mistletoe was just a type of parasite anyway.  Perhaps holly will do just fine - check overhead before you pucker up and let auld acquaintances be forgotten this New Year's Eve.
tjs

Christmas Greetings

On Christmas Eve we will be flying north to land in daylight before the FAA closes the north/south corridors to give Santa and sleigh and reindeer a wide berth. I hope he visits your home. I will be out of pocket until after the New Year. Here's wishing you and yours a blessed Christmas - look for me in January - and if you happen to be in Philadelphia on New Year's day don't miss the Mummers Parade.
tjs

The decline of political humor

Brian Lamb led a discussion on CSPAN regarding political speakers and their ability to inject humor into their campaigns. Back in 2008 the old Mitt Romney was running for the GOP nomination and stopped in at a St. Patrick's Day dinner in South Boston. The Massachusetts legislature had just recently enacted a bill on marriage and while Romney wanted to avoid a discussion on the subject, he could not. So he addressed this group of Southies "Well, I'm a Mormon and I believe that marriage is a union between a man and a woman -and a woman - and a woman." The Romney of today would never tell that story - and they blame it on the consultants. While Gov. Perry can joke about his gaffes the rest of them are dry.
When Abe Lincoln was confronted by a woman who called him "two-faced" he replied "Madam, if you think I had another face would I be wearing this one?" That's what is missing and they blame it on  the consultants.
tjs
P.S. Today December 22nd is the Winter Solstice when the pagans celebrate the shortest day and that the sun is now on its way north again.
Next - Christmas Greetings

Censored - or uncensored?

Is it time for a Rooney rant? Humor is getting edgier hand in hand with the loss of civility. I do not get HBO so I am spared the brunt of it. But on the networks I lose count of the bleeps from Jon Stewart and Bill Maher prides himself on being the first to utter "sucks" on TV. It is spawned in the "comedy" clubs where even the female "stand ups" are injecting rape into their acts in a frivolous way. It wasn't always this way. You had to be squeaky clean to get on Ed Sullivan's show. Even Sophie Tucker had to modify her blue material. Young talent like Cosby, Newhart and Allen were entertaining without shocking. Danny Thomas and Myron Cohen were story tellers and Sam Levenson the school teacher was homespun. Earlier, we thought Lenny Bruce was outrageous but his material was more anti-establishment than vulgar. And my earliest recollection of censorship was when NBC bleeped Jack Paar for using the term "W.C." i.e. water closet! Paar walked off the set that night in protest and it took NBC weeks to lure him back. We have come a long way - I wish I could say forward.
tjs
Next - The decline of political humor

Word-Smith

NPR recently had a discussion with a language reporter for the Boston Globe. His opinion of the most used word in 2011 was "occupy" - as in Occupy Wall Street or any other city having protests - which goes hand in hand with TIME's cover as the protester being person of the year. Some runner-up words or phrases being newly coined or used might include:
"humblebrag" or false humility - from England you have "hacking" as in wire tapping your phone. And thanks to Signor Berlusconi in Italy we learn that "bunga bunga" refers to partying. Egypt gave us "Arab spring". Perhaps if I spent more time "tweeting" I would learn more about what words are on the cutting edge. But back home we are still plagued by that verbal comma, that nervous tic known as "y'know" which has edged out "like" in our lexicon. Too bad.
tjs
Next - Censored - or uncensored?

Science Times

Last Tuesday's New York Times Science Section posted an article titled "The Future of Computing" where a group of experts and some non-experts predicted the road ahead. For instance:

Year 2019 - Universal Medical Database
Year 2023 - Curing Cancer
Year 2024 - Practical Robot Cars

"By 2018 freeway car pool lanes will be opened to robot-driven cars." So you will no longer have to place that stuffed dummy in the passenger seat to fool the cops - the dummy will be driving the car! And you in the passenger seat texting and tweeting to your heart's content. But me with my EZ pass stuck behind Robo who is maintaining the speed limit. Heaven forbid we have a fender bender with "it" - State Farm will never believe me. I was thinking, "What if all the taxis in Times Square were robot driven?"
No horn blowing - no lane changing - no finger waving - no swearing in several languages. (The last three drivers I had were Haitian - Nigerian and Belarusian.) And it might cut down on immigration. As Paul Simon wrote -  "The Sound of Silence." But wait - the experts also predict by year 2040 we will have flying cars! Fasten your seat belts.
tjs
Next - Word-smith

Funny? or Punny? V

1 - A prisoner's favorite punctuation mark is the period. It marks the end of his sentence.

2 - Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.

3 - A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

4 - What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead giveaway.)

5 - If you don't pay your exorcist you get repossessed.

6 - Two peanuts were walking in a tough neighborhood and one of them was a-salted.
tjs
Next - Science Times (Mon.)

The Big "U" revisited

We will be flying north soon for the holidays and each year flying into Philadelphia we pass right over the faded hull of the great ocean liner S.S. UNITED STATES still moored at her idle berth on the Delaware River. But in her glory days - 1952/1969 - she made over 300 plus North Atlantic round trips - under four masters - all without a casualty. But she also made a few Caribbean cruises and one took her to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The port of Charlotte Amalie is a lovely crescent shaped harbor but not deep enough to enable this size liner to berth. Accordingly, the vessel dropped anchor and passengers were ferried ashore via tenders. While many were ashore a storm kicked up causing the seas to surge and the captain fearing that the ship might touch bottom, hoisted anchor and moved further out to deeper water. When the shoreside passengers returned to the dock with their duty free merchandise there were no tenders to take them back to the ship and several hundred - including some staffers - spent the night in a school gymnasium. There was much gnashing of teeth and upon their eventual return some of the passengers hanged the captain in effigy. But he kept the vessel safe and her spotless record intact.
tjs
(above excerpted from Eagleblue No. 6 - Feb. 13, 2006)
Next - Funny or punny.

Poverty

Recently, I was "panhandled" at a mini-mall in Jacksonville, Florida. The young woman caught me off guard in such a venue as I would have expected such an approach in a more urban area. She did not appear to be a druggie or a street walker - said she was down on her luck - and had a look of sadness on her face. I came face to face with poverty - outside my gated community walls. Then the mail arrived with the Rescue Mission stating they could feed a homeless person for two dollars. With Christmas approaching the Salvation Army bell ringers were out in force. (I really miss their trombones and tubas)
It has been a difficult year for many of our friends and neighbors. Let's keep them in mind.
tjs
Next - The Big "U" revisited.

Caroling

When I was young one of the prevalent holiday practices was the Christmas office party. But not the type portrayed in "Mad Men". Ours was more sedate where we exchanged gifts with each other. Then one year a colleague's wife who was a nurse suggested instead that we visit the local hospital and bring our gifts and good wishes to the children's ward. But we learned that the kiddies were booked up and we were placed on the wait list behind the firemen and Kiwanis. So we wandered over to the geriatric ward and found a piano player and did our caroling and gift giving to the old folks where there was no waiting and some of these smiling seniors sang along with us. What a marvelous experience - we had found our niche! I hope you do too.
tjs
Next - Poverty.

Poor Little Rhode Island

A little "dust up" occurred last week when Governor Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island erected a "holiday" tree in the State Capitol. It looked and smelled like a Christmas tree but officially it was described as a "holiday" tree. Naturally, this offended many members of the Christian faiths who deemed this one more effort to remove Christ from Christmas. It reminded me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry Stiller complained that whereas the Christians had their Christmas, the Jewish folk had their Hanukuh and the African Americans had Kwanza - there was nothing to celebrate for the "rest" of us so he created a new holiday and called it the "Festivus for the rest of us" and erected an aluminum pole with appendages and called it a "festivus" tree - not quite a "holiday" tree. But be it fir or spruce I have always enjoyed the sweet fragrance of a real Christmas tree.
tjs
P.S. - The title comes from an OLD song whose opening line was "Poor little Rhode Island, smallest of the forty-eight" - so you can see just how OLD it was.
Next - Caroling

Word Games

I am indebted to a friend for this exercise in anagrams which might also appeal to you scrabble players out there:
presbyterian = best in prayer.
astronomer = moon starer.
desperation = a rope ends it.
The eyes = they see.
George Bush = He bugs Gore.
The Morse Code = Here come dots.
Slot Machines = Cash lost in me.
Animosity = is no amity.
Election results = Lies - let's recount.
Snooze alarms = Alas, no more Zs.
A decimal point = I'm a dot in place.
The earth quakes = That queer shake.
Eleven plus two = twelve plus one.
tjs
Next - Poor Little Rhode Island.

Rotterdam

My friend George M. was Chief Engineer on the S.S. AMERICAN JURIST on an eastbound transatlantic voyage circa late 1960s. He and the Captain were on the bridge together when they noticed another vessel on a parallel course - both heading for the Rotterdam pilot station. Our captain wanted to beat the other fellow to the pilot so he asked the Chief to turn up a few revolutions and they successfully arrived at the pilot station first and docked at the berth before the competitor. Our captain was pleased with his achievement and expressed same to the harbor pilot. The pilot said it was too bad that you beat him in as the other vessel was the 5000th arrival at the port of Rotterdam and their ship was feted and all the crew were given wrist watches. Our captain was chagrined and said "Don't tell my crew!" The moral here might be "Be careful what you wish for!"
tjs
(I have taken some literary license with George's story but you get the essence)
Next - Word Games

Balance of Nature

The New York Times informs us that there will be a lean acorn crop in the Northeast this year. Now, this may mean nothing to you, but it will affect the forest ecosystem. There are 1000 Red Oak trees in Central Park and in their best year they can produce 250 pounds of acorns but the forecast this year is only for one half pound. It usually takes 18 months to grow an acorn. This scarcity will cause a culling of the squirrel and field mice populations. And with field mice down - (not like pork bellies) - the ticks with lyme disease will seek other hosts - perhaps you and me. Officials think 2012 will be a worst year for lyme disease. There will also be more deer on the road and more road kill. And hawks and owls will threaten ground nesting birds. All this because of the tiny acorn! As the New York Times motto says "All the news that's fit to print!"
tjs
PS - Today, December 7th is the day that FDR said would "live in infamy." It is the 70th anniversary
of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Along with 9/11 it is a date we should never forget.
Next - Rotterdam

Campaigning

Cain suspending - debates unending!

Newt is gaining - Perry explaining!

Paul is ranting - Romney recanting!

What is one to do?

Wait! - Donald Trump to the rescue!

Moderating - or fulminating?

What on earth? - a Birther!

Make my day - New Year's in I -O- WAY!
tjs
Next - Balance of Nature

Manhattan

While up north we had occasion to visit our journalist son in Lower Manhattan and we visited Zuccotti Park the site of the Occupy Wall Street protests. The tents had been removed the previous week and the place was cleaned up and the crowd smaller but orderly - chanting their chants and displaying their posters - some clever - others vulgar. The police presence was minimal but their vans were tactically at the ready. Street vendors hawking their wares and at this site on lower Broadway it was far removed from the Wall Street business area. I worked in this area in the late 1970s and had not been back in ten years. We stopped in to Sardi's restaurant to view the celebrity sketches on the wall. The late Vincent Sardi used to come to your table to greet you and the place still displays his influence. And for a touch of nostalgia we stopped in to the Algonquin Hotel where the lobby was already decorated for Christmas.
 Matilda the cat is no longer there and the tiny bells on the tables - for summoning the waiter - have been removed but the lobby was filled with after theater goers and the tradition goes on. It is nice to see that some things don't change. New York is a great town to lift your spirits and drain your wallet and I was jolted to find a cash only restaurant down in the East Village that must have trusted their waiters. But the tree in Rockefeller Center was lit last week and if any of you can get there during the holidays you won't be disappointed.
tjs
Next - Campaigning

Anthropormorphic Nouns

If you have ever wondered about certain groupings, here are a few:

A gaggle of geese - an exhaltation of doves - a flock of chickens - a herd of cows - a murder of crows - a parliament of owls - a pride of lions - a school of fish - an intrusion of cockroaches - a cete of badgers - a shoal of bass - a sloth of bears - a colony of ants - a congregation of jackals - a pace of asses - a chain of lynx (pun?) - a shrewdness of apes - a peck of birds - and lastly, a congress of baboons.......and we only just got thru the zoo front gate.
tjs
Next - Manhattan (Mon.)

USLines Reunion

I attended a reunion in New Jersey commemorating - but not celebrating - the 25th anniversary of the USLines declaration of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 1986. I had not seen some of the attendees in twenty-five years. There was much camaraderie and many reminiscences  among the group of seventy. Coincidentally, our European organization held a reunion the same week in Rotterdam and many of those folks are now scattered around the globe. The moral is there is life after bankruptcy but if you can avoid it, please try to do so.
tjs
Next - "A" Nouns