I've Got Some Stuff

Seller on American Pickers: You can't sell memories; you can only sell stuff.

True. Memories are until you lose them. Stuff is convertible- to cash.

Joy to the World!

In the spirit of the season of "peace and goodwill," I won't be offended if you wish me "Happy Holidays!" Please don't be offended when I wish you a "Merry Christmas!" Thank you.

The Lie Every Man Should Tell...

...if he wishes to maintain amity within the home.
"I was wrong."
He should say those words, too, when they are not a lie. "Sorry" wouldn't hurt, either.

Kansas Wisdom

While Mr. Obama was in Kansas yesterday, someone should have reminded him that "fair" is where the 4-H kids go to show their pigs.

Teehee

News reader: President Obama will speak in Ossa-wuh-tom'-ee, Kansas tomorrow.
(That would be Osawatomie, I assume.)
No reason an East-Coast type should know it is Ossa-wah'-ta-mee, but don't they have a gazetteer, or dictionary, or something?

[No reason I should know, either, except that a)I have lived in Kansas; and b)I have a good friend who was from Osawatomie.]

Really?

Trip to Marion, 35 miles.
Light rain; stoplight on 37 at 22. Light turns to green. Hit gas. Whirrrrr! Back off gas.
Big light on dash
LOW TRACTION
Duh. I've been driving sixty years. I need a light to tell me the wheels were spinning.

And people wonder why cars cost a left arm and a right leg.

Verizon Wireless makes major marketing, airwave deal with cable firms

...and for whom is this good news?

Bodes ill for the consumer, I daresay.

Flashback

5:40 P.M. First Saturday in December. Driving through town, stopped for light at Main and Jeff, "Busy Corner." Town in near-darkness, Christmas decorations, such as they are, providing little light. In four blocks through town center, exactly two cars parked.

The flashback: In my mind's eye, I saw this same corner, first Saturday in December forty years ago. It was a hoppin' place. Christmas lights forming an archway crossing the street the entire four blocks I had just driven through! Santa's house ablaze with lighted toys and candy canes on the courthouse lawn. Business establishments, for they did exist, open and doing business with the hundreds of folks downtown, probably ten percent of the town's population of five thousand.

2011. Drab, dull, lifeless, all five thousand inhabitants either home or in some other town?
Progress? Are things better now than they were forty years ago? I think not. And I do not believe that that is nostalgia talking.

The Pot and the Kettle

Mitt Romney lashes out at Gingrich; charges he is a “professional politician.”

Let me get this straight. Romney ran for US Senate in 1994; was President Winter Olympics, 2002; ran for governor of Massachusetts, 2002; served as governor 2003-2007; ran for President of US, 2008; currently campaigning for President of US.

What exactly, Mitt, does it take to earn the designation “professional politician”?

What Do You Think?

My footnote comment on the last post occupied some of my waking hours in the middle of the night. Dad used to say, "The only thing in the newspaper you can believe is Alley Oop."

If he could see what passes for "news" on today's TV I don't know what he'd say; but it would not be complimentary.

It seems to me, and I suppose I could be wrong, that news media, both print and air, have two aims, or missions, if you will. a) to titillate, and b) to indoctinate, not necessarily in that order.

objectivity: word, the meaning of which is totally unknown to "news reporter" types.