China Boy

China is paying the price for their cultural preference for boys as their current imbalance reflects 117 males born for every 100 female births. By year 2020 it is estimated they will have thirty million bachelors - far too many for a TV show. A Chinese university economics professor suggests a remedy by having several males share the same woman i.e. "polyandry" and the idea has gone viral.
tjs
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/china-polyandry-gender-ratio-bachelors/

Woe B Tide

Last night's full moon had seawater running in the streets of South Miami which has become a monthly occurrence much to the chagrin of shop keepers and residents there. The next full moon is set for Wednesday November 25th and any non-believers in climate change can venture down there but don't forget your boots or waders.
tjs

Crowded Skies.

There was a time when a drone was known as a bumble bee or perhaps an idle person. Today the definition is a "quadcopter" or a recreational drone, the type that lands on the White House lawn or disrupts airline operations. But they are also becoming the enemy of wildlife. Last year a red tailed hawk attacked a drone, flipping it in midair.
The FAA estimated that one million drones will be sold in the U.S. this Christmas and
  the government is rushing to try to register these unmanned aerial vehicles. The friendly skies are becoming very crowded.
tjs
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/science/animals-spy-a-new-enemy-drones.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront

Basso Profundos

The NY Times reports on a study of howler monkeys that found that to gain a mating advantage, species evolved either to make very low-frequency sounds, or have much larger testicles, but none had both. It seems to show a clear trade-off. Can't have it both ways! A researcher acknowledged that taking measurements is not the easiest thing to do. Full article referenced below is obviously TMI!
tjs
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/23/science/howler-monkey-species-deep-voice-testicle-size.html?ref=world

Potpourri 2015 X

Political Campaigns: The Brits do it in six weeks. Canada does it in 78 days. But it takes us a year and a half. Even Will Rogers would say there is something wrong with this.

I have been quoted as saying that if Donald Trump got anywhere near the Oval Office I would be on the next flight to Canada. Ain't Trudeau!

We are celebrating the 100 anniversary of the birth of Frank Sinatra in Hoboken, N.J.
To commemorate same Jack Daniels has bottled a special edition - you might call it Black Label for Old Blue Eyes.
tjs

El Nino

It has been seventy-five years since I last heard the term "yellow-bellied sea snake" which was an epithet hurled by the white-hatted cowboy (good guy) at the black-hatted cowboy (bad guy) in those weekly "oater" serials of my youth. Now as everything that goes around comes around these "critters" are showing up on California beaches thanks to El Nino warming up our coastal waters. Their venom is ten times more toxic than a cobra. If you see one give it a wide berth and call your local zoo.
tjs

The Future is Now!

Today, October 21, 2015, is Back to the Future Day being celebrated around the world by aficionados of this movie. That is the date Marty McFly and Doc Brown hopped into their souped up DeLorean to reach back in 1985. Pepsi Cola is marking the date by issuing a limited supply of Pepsi Perfect for $20. per bottle. That's more than I pay for wine! Expect to read all about it on Facebook and elsewhere today.
1985 wasn't a bad year - Reagan was in office but mortgages were fourteen percent!
tjs

The Boys of Summer

The New York Baseball METS are ahead in their current playoffs but their first baseman is suffering the ignominy of thirteen strikeouts to date. This brings to mind the travails of another first baseman, Gil Hodges, who in the 1952 World Series went 0 for 21 at bats for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The sentiment for him ran so deep that priests in all the Brooklyn parishes were exhorting their flocks to pray for him to break the slump. Later in his career Hodges managed the METS to their 1969 World Series title.
tjs

The "Other" Borough.

Staten Island is known as the "outer" borough aka the "other" borough as strange things can happen there. They even have trouble keeping their congressmen in office. It was recently reported that a three foot tall kangaroo was found running and jumping around having escaped from its owner's yard. The ASPCA said it was illegal to own a marsupial in New York City so we can expect the owner to "roo" the day he left his gate unlatched.
tjs

Funny Punny

A friend sends the following to cheer one at the end of the week:
-How does Moses make tea? Hebrews it.
-Venison for dinner again! Oh, deer!
-French pancakes give me the crepes.
-England doesn't have a kidney bank but they do have a Liverpool.
-A cartoonist was found dead - details are sketchy.
-I used to be a banker - then I lost interest.
Have a great weekend!
tjs

The "ayes" have it!

Avid poker players know the phrase "One eyed jacks are wild." But since I do not subscribe to that declaration I recently underwent successful cataract surgery which explains why I have missed recent posting deadlines. The techniques today are remarkable and a far cry from my mother's sand bags! So as the Big Bad Wolf said to Little Red Riding Hood "The better to see you with, my dear."
tjs

The Cover Up

After sixty plus years Playboy has announced a "cover up" - no more nudity! At its peak in the 1970s it sold seven million copies. Its influence then was such that a judge once ruled that denying blind people a braille version violated their first amendment rights. Its inaugural copy in 1953 was undated as they weren't sure there would be a second edition. Gloria Steinem once went under cover as a "bunny" so as to write an expose later. Avid readers have been assured that "Playboy will continue its tradition of investigative journalism, in-depth interviews, etc...." Well, that's a relief!
tjs

To Market, To Market.

An enterprising group in South Africa has stacked 27 shipping containers and converted them into a Lego style mosaic colored retail center. They call it somewhere between a market and a mall. While there have been known to be multiple uses for used containers the surprising thing about this news item is that a prominent world shipping line has set up a sales team just to sell these "boxes" - not the space on the ship - and to date have disposed of 1200 units at prices rivaling their freight rates. Just the latest news from Legoland.
tjs

Only in New York

The NYTimes writes about the new Chick-fil-A fast food site recently opened in Manhattan. It attracted long lines of patrons plus an assortment of protesters. The latter included animal-rights activists who began warning the press about certain manufacturers of coconut water who were using monkeys to pick coconuts.

There is a senior in Great Neck, N.Y. who retired from the police force thirty years ago now living on a pension that he has calculated has earned him $1.8 million just for breathing. He told his wife "when my time's up, leave me on the ventilator and just let the checks keep coming in."
tjs

Gender Equality

Where have all the statesmen/women gone? It seems no one wants to be Speaker of the House. And there is Nancy Pelosi standing in the wings.

Harry Reid, age 75,  is suing the company makers of the exercise band he was using which snapped causing his injuries. His lawsuit also seeks damages for his spouse for the "loss of marital consortium." Check that out all you Philadelphia lawyers.

ESPN has replaced a baseball analyst with a talented female to rave reviews. She was quoted "It's important to be a positive female role model in a world with a lot of Kardashians." Here's to gender equality!
tjs

Currency Exchange

A friend is traveling to Germany for the Frankfurt Book Fair next week. The Euro is currently at $1.12 but it wasn't always so. Years ago the German Deutschmark was the strongest currency in Europe (except for the Swiss Franc). It was a time when a certain Japanese businessman made quarterly visits passing thru the Frankfurt Airport and each time he was given fewer DMarks in exchange for his Yen. When protesting he was told "fluctuations!" After his third visit when the man behind the window said "fluctuations!" our visitor rose up and shouted "fluct- u - Germans!"
tjs

Les Champignons

I just read where the recent rains have been a boon to mushroom growers. Kennett Square,  Pennsylvania is known as the mushroom capital of the world for its fertile soil. Some years ago a disgruntled employee said this of his employer: "They give you the mushroom treatment. First they keep you in the dark, then they cover you with manure and then they "can" you.
tjs

The Ubiquitous @

Sam Borden in the NYTimes riffs from France how various European countries apply a description to the ever present hashtag @:
Poles = monkey. Dutch = monkey's tail.
Czechs = rolled up fish fillet. Greeks = duckling. Hungarians = worm. Italians = snail. Ukrainians = dog. Taiwanese = mouse. While in the U.S.A. it's technically known as the "commercial at".  Sam's two year old calls it a "tubby". But we haven't asked that prodigious Twitterer, Donald Trump, what he calls it.
tjs

The Caffiene fix

The NY Times reports that yesterday was International Coffee Day. The bean was first discovered by a ninth century Ethiopian goat herder who noticed that his flock were acting strangely after eating the berries off a tree which berries contained the coffee bean. It brought to mind the tale of the flock of birds eating the berries off a different type of tree and "not a tern was left unstoned." Ouch!
tjs

A Generational Thing

As I grow older I try to keep up with the younger generation as they sometimes speak in tongues. As the Irish say "A speech the stranger does not know." In a restaurant in Cape May the waitress had a prominent tattoo on her forearm reading YOLO. When I asked for a translation she said "You only live once!" Well, with the Congress in gridlock, climate change a reality, the sea rising, Dow Jones volatility and the MidEast in chaos - who would want to try it a second time? There is no second act!
tjs