Hello again!

 Randomly Selected Items from my Files:

Readers Digest:  RD

The Week: TW

Standard Times:  ST

Anonymous:  AN

Soggy Thumb

The next time you repot a thirsty plant, place a kitchen sponge at the bottom of the pot.  The sponge will act as a reservoir, absorbing and holding any excessive water to feed back to your plant the next time the roots are a bit parched. (RD)

HI!

A Deerfield, Florida city employee was reprimanded for not saying "Hello" to the town mayor, as they passed in the hall. (TW)

(Hitler also demanded to be saluted whenever encountered.)                                                                

Breathe Deeply

A nurse came into my uncle's hospital room and asked him: "Do you use oxygen?"

My uncle looked quizzically and asked: "Doesn't everybody?" (RD)

Guess

Bill and Manny met at the cross roads and Manny was holding a big sack. Since it was almost Thanksgiving, Bill suspected, correctly, that Manny's sack contained turkeys.

Bill said, "If I guess correctly about the number of turkeys that are in your sack, will you let me have one?"

Manny said, "Sure!  And if you guess correctly, you can have both of them." (ST)

Seating Arrangement

I got sick the other day when my seat on the train faced backwards.

Why didn't you ask to switch seats with the person sitting across from you?

I couldn't, the seat was empty.  (AN)

   

                                  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

 In June of 1984, I had been working with computers for 20 years and was about to turn 50 years old.  To celebrate, I published a piece of fluff called: "Computer Quotes -- plagiarized by Joe Vaughan."

Some other folks added in their favorite computer-related quotes, so they are guilty as well.

The document was liked by a few people at the Social Security Administration where I worked, and disliked by some others, who shall be nameless.

 (You know who you are!)

Here we go:

001 Queen to Alice in Through the Looking Glass:  It's a queer sort of memory that only works backward." 

 How to Feel Better

Yesterday, I somehow sprained my right thigh and was in 8-level pain. But suddenly, I became to feel a little better because of what the mailperson delivered to me.

01.  Some special crosswords from Francine. to keep my mind off of the pain.

02.  The latest issue of the Readers' Digest RD, large print, of course.

I'm going to list some things that I learned from this RD issue: If you have already read a copy, you could skip all this.  I won't get mad!

a.  Baby, Baby

Taylor A. Humphrey is a professional baby namer. For a starting fee of $1,500. Taylor will find an appropriate name for your little darling. 

b.  Facts (according to Rd)

(1)  Frankenstein is not the name of the monster.

I thought everybody knew that:  Frankenstein's Monster.

(2) You do not swallow four spiders in your sleep each year, regardless of what your friends tell you.

(3)  Green Space in New York City is very expensive to buy.  Imagine the worth of Central Park, which is larger than the Country of Monaco.

(4)  Jimmy Carter and Elvis have won the same number of Grammys.    (HUH?!)

(5)  Columbus died the day he learned he hadn't found a new route to Asia.

(Can you believe it?) 

(6)  When you google "askew," your screen appears tilted.

(Didn't work for me.)

..............................................................

 Old Stuff from my Basement Files:

Probably not True

It was reported that an 18-year old girl was married to a 50-year-old Saudi man.  

But this is true!

I've just finished watching a BBC documentary about the LDSF (Latter Day Saints Fundamentalists.)

When the main LDS (Mormon) elders voted to drop polygamy, a fundamentalist group was formed to preserve the custom.  It moved away from Salt Lake City and formed an independent community.

The community was governed by a "bishop" who talked directly to God and ruled with "an iron hand."

The Bishop could:

Tell his flock who they could marry.

Keep females from going to school or getting a job.

Pass out wives for male members who have done him favors.

Give a Bible lesson every day at 7 am.  Everybody had to listen.

Take a wife for himself from the female flock or away from their husbands if they were married.

The Bishop's goal was for all females to adhere to one task:  Please your man, and do what he wants (or what the bishop wants) no matter what he asks you to do.

The higher you get to Eden-like Paradice was to have a lot of wives.  The bishop had 78.  

The local LDSF temple had a hidden room where the bishop would consecrate his marriages on a long ivory table.

Yes, he did get caught and is serving time; but he still controls his flock from his cell.

.........................................................................

 I'm back.

Thanks to my marvelous son, Chris, my doctor was persuaded to give me a magic pill, and I feel good again.

Loo-King

It has been reported that newly-crowned King Charles the third always has his own personal toilet seat with him whenever he travels.

Once I read that foreign dignitaries would not use toilets in other countries, because of fear of poisoning. (Putin was one of the dignitaries.)

How they got around that problem, I can only guess.

WOKE

"alert to injustice in society, especially racism."

I believe that the concept is fine, but the sound of the word grates on my ear.  It's just not nice-sounding English.  Surely someone can come up with a less obnoxious sounding word.

Politics

I hope that all of the losers will apologize to the winners for the nasty things they said about them prior to the election.  (I know ... fat chance.)

Ambrose Bierce wrote:  

"Politics - A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.  The conduct of public affairs for private advantage."

Besame mucho!

John Winokur quotes humorist Joey Adams:

"Never let a fool kiss you - or a kiss fool you!"

Ambrose Bierce has something to say about this too:

"Kiss - a word invented by the poets as a rhyme for 'bliss.'  

Mystery Man

I mentioned this a long time ago and was thinking about it today and I thought I would bore you with it again.

Back in the 1950's, I was seated on a bench in Boston's South Station, waiting for a train that would take me to Basic Air Force training in upstate New York. I was seated next to a new acquaintance going to the same place.

A tall bearded gentleman holding a long carved cane stick approached and asked to sit next to us.  He asked me where I was from and began to talk about some of my relatives.

Next, he did the same for my companion.  We did not live anywhere near each other.  He knew all of my companion's relatives too.

At one point, he said, "You're Doris Vaughan's son Joe, right?"  

I asked him how he knew all of this information about us.  He side-stepped the question and reached into his long coat with deep pockets. He pulled out a packet of 8 x 11 inch glossy black and white photographs.

One photo showed him with tall Masai natives; 

 one showed him near an igloo with Eskimos;

one showed him in the midst of Alpine skiiers.

Some photos looked like he was talking to famous people, like Presidents.

Who was this guy anyway?  Did he know about everybody waiting for a train?  

He waved "goodbye" as our train pulled away from the station.

......................................................................

 This Blogger has to take some time off to handle a medical problem.  See you again soon.

Please don't forget to vote!

 More Musings

Searching for the Mother Lode

Jack London wrote that the best gold seekers in 1848, netted around $4 per day.  They could have earned more than that amount in private industry, if they were so inclined.   

But where is the thrill about that?  All boy-like men like to dig in the sand and mud. It's in our genes.

 Panning for gold was like playing the Lottery.  That lump of shiny material on the bottom of the pan might just be useless iron pyrite, or it could be a ticket to all the fine things in 19th Century civilization.  

"Accursed thirst for gold! what dost thou not compel mortals to do?" Vergil  Aeneid

Saying:  "All that glitters is not gold."

This was derived from a 16th century line by Shakespeare "All that glisters is not gold."

                                                               

"non omne quod nitet aurum est" (not all that shines is gold.)

I just finished watching a marvelous movie called "The Two Popes."  a lot of Vatican art and decoration was shown ... with lots and lots of gold!

I remember the cover of one issue of Simplissmus magazine.  It showed a disheveled Christ-like figure looking into a cathedral and asking: "What kind of religion is practiced here?"

    Genug, meine Freunden.

...........................................................................           

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Ramblings

01.  Oratory

Rachel Maddow has developed an interesting 8-part podcast titled: Ultra.  Five sessions have been aired so far.  It is about Hitler's spies duping lots of high-level Congressmen into disseminating Nazi literature during the 1930's using those Congressmen's Franking privileges.

Nazi spies would also write speeches for Congressmen to give when in session. Listening to these speeches is very irritating, not just about the content, but also the way those orators in the 1930's thought was the right way to speak.

Sing-song and nasal intonation.  Yelling and spouting off in a phony way, designed to put guys like me immediately asleep.

But they all did it.  Listen to Drew Peardon, Franklin D. Roosevelt and others.

Everybody said that Hitler was a great orator.  No way!  He would yell and bluster and repeat tired false platitudes.  If you were near him when he spoke, you might even get bathed in der fuehrer's spital.

 02.  Ads

Honda is back.  Some podcasts devote more time to Honda's ads than to the desired content of the podcast.

I read somewhere that a single Super Bowl advertisement lasting 10 seconds, costs $10,000.

 

Anonymous says: " When business is good it pays to advertise; when business is bad you've got to advertise."

So, is Honda doing well or not?  They do one hell of a lot of advertising.

Douglas of South Wind says: "You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements."

...................................................................