Making the News…Or Is It…Not Making the News?

First Published December 2005

Stop and think with me a moment... Who is in the news? Most often those that we hear about are people, politicians, actors, athletes or such doing bad things...

• Getting drunk and driving.
• Overdosing on drugs.
• Stealing.
• Lying.
• Cheating.
• Taking steroids.
• Sleeping with someone with which they are not supposed to be sleeping.

And so on and so forth.

Usually, if you go about your life doing good things, you don't make headlines. Here is a good example. Below you will find what a famous person we all know has been doing for the last 36 years:

• He explored the North Pole with Sir Edmund Hillary.
• He taught for eight years at the University of Cincinnati as University Professor of aerospace engineering.
• He acted as a spokesperson for Chrysler Corporation, General Time Corporation and the Bankers Association of America. He makes it a practice to only act as a spokesman for United States businesses.
• Along with acting as a spokesperson, he also served on the board of several companies including Marathon Oil, Lear Jet, Cincinnati Gas & Electric Company, Taft Broadcasting, United Airlines, Eaton Corporation, AIL Systems and Thiokol. The last he joined after serving on the Rogers Commission investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster caused by a problem with the Thiokol manufactured solid rocket boosters.
• He co-founded the Institute of Engineering and Medicine at the University of Cincinnati, which has improved heart-transplant surgery using space engineering.
• For two years he was Deputy Associate Administrator for Aeronautics, NASA Headquarters Office of Advanced Research and Technology.
• Usage of his name, image and a famous quote of his caused problems over the years. He sued Hallmark Cards in 1994 after they used his name and his most famous quote in a Christmas tree ornament without permission. The lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money, which he donated to Purdue.
• He is still flying planes at age 75.

If you are like me you have said to yourself at least once in the last 36 years, “What the heck happened to Neil Armstrong since he landed on the moon?”

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: Added 7/20/19

He stayed true to being a private person until even after his end…

https://www.space.com/17615-neil-armstrong-1st-moonwalker-buried-at-sea-photos.html

It Does Not Make Me Feel A Lot Better To Know That Not All of Us Are Nuts

A female juvenile in Texas posted a video of herself grabbing a carton of Blue Bell Tin Roof Ice Cream from a grocery store freezer, licking it and returning it back into the freezer. The video was viewed millions of times and has inspired a rash of copycats in other states.

To see the video click here: Licker Licking Video

Blue Bell said it inspected the store freezer that contained the licked ice cream, found the problematic tub and then removed all Tin Roof half gallons to assure the public that it was safe to buy their ice cream.

Police say the licker faces a charge of Second-Degree Felony Tampering with a Consumer Product, which carries 2 to 20 years behind bars and a possible fine of up to $10,000 (This is Fella: but, because she is a Juvenile, she will probably get a Very Stern Finger Wagged at her during her next Autograph Signing Session).

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I see out there that some of my Dear Readers just asked why she is in demand for her autograph. The answer is obvious. She is signing autographs because she is now a Celebrity.

Her being a Celebrity automatically kicks in several other points of You Gotta Be Kidding!...

Ø Because of her Celebrity Status she will not be punished even if she were an adult.

Ø Celebrities only receive anything akin to a severe punishment when they murder a Celebrity who is more popular than they are.

Ø The people who manage the Hollywood Walk of Fame are in high gear to have the Ice Cream Licker enshrined forever in their famous sidewalk.

Ø Normally Celebrities have to be Celebrities for a few weeks before they are honored with a Sidewalk Enshrinement but worshipers have been clamoring for an Expedited Enshrinement in this case because the Licker had a thing of some kind sticking out of her nose when she performed her Historic Licking Lick.

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Also did you notice what I noticed?

Ø No it was not that the Licker was stupid enough to publish her stupidity to the Internet. (Maybe she was not stupid because she was smart enough to know that, being a juvenile, she was going to get away with the Licking and become famous.)

Ø No it was not that the video was viewed 11 Million Times (more millions by now).

Ø No it was not that the Stupid Licker could go to jail for 20 Years. (See above about being a juvenile and getting away with the Licking.)

Don’t feel badly. You are not The Noticer. I am. The Big Notice for me was that people all over the Good Ole USofA started doing the same uncaring, unsanitary and stupid thing.

Instead of seeing the video and thinking to their collective selves, “I’m never going to do that!”

They see the Licking and say, “Hey, dude, that’s far out! I can’t wait to get in my licks!”

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In the Old Days (where I come from) this was not done!

Maybe I should expand the above sentence to…

In the old days this was not done because we were not that stupid and, even if we were that stupid, the Internet was yet to be invented. The Internet spread this Foolishness across the Good Ole USofA. Without the Internet, the Stupids out in the World Wide Out There would never have become Copycats because they never would have heard about the ignorance of their fellow Americans.

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Here is the kind of things that used to happen in the Old Days (where I come from)…

4 Minute Mile

Track athletes in the 1950s labored under the belief that no human being could run a mile faster than 4 minutes…

Ø On 6th May 1954, Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4-minute mile (3:59.4) in England.

Ø He held his world record for just six weeks before, John Landy of Australia, broke it by more than a second with a time of 3:57.9.

Mountain Climbing

Ø Someone climbed Mount Everest in record time.

Ø Immediately other climbers started planning how they could get up and down even faster.

The First Wheel Is Invented

Ø Within weeks someone invents the 2nd Wheel.

Ø Shortly after the 2nd Wheel someone invents the 3rd Wheel.

Ø I’ll bet you know what happens next. That’s right! The 4^th Wheel comes off the drawing board.

All of this Invention Progress was necessary because, if it had not come to fruition, Henry Ford would have been a laughing stock as he was seen standing in his garage with all the components of the Automobile (engine, transmission, steering wheel, ash trays, 8 Track Player, horn, coon tail, little plastic Jesus Statue, etc. all around him without knowing what he was going to do next.

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Fast Forward past the Good Old Days to the Not So Good New Days of Today…

Let’s think again about the fact that all across the Fruited Plain people are imitating the Licking.

Instead of the youth of today trying to Run the 3 Minute Mile or running up and down Mount Everest in Track Shoes or working day and night to invent the World’s First Hover Craft Automobile, they are headed into the Ice Cream Aisles of their local grocery store and licking Ice Cream Cartons and sending their ignorance out to the World so that the World will know how stupid they are.

The saddest part is this is not the end of it. Other Social Media Stupids are now desperately trying to come up with more outlandish stupid things to do so they can send their ignorance out across the World Wide Web.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Sad Lagniappes:

Ø Wichita Falls police banned a woman from Walmart after she reportedly ate half a cake and refused to pay for the other half.

Ø Odessa police arrested a 15-year-old boy for spitting in an Arizona Tea bottle and putting it back on the shelf.

Ø Twitter user posted a video of himself this week at what appears to be a CVS with the caption, “I love ice cream.” The video shows him scooping ice cream out of a container with his bare hands before putting the carton back in the freezer and quickly walking away.
>>Hours later, he posted a video showing a police officer speaking to him, followed by another tweet which reads, “Just left the police station. Too much clout to care.”

Ø A Louisiana man was arrested after he was seen in a video licking a container of Blue Bell ice cream and then returning it to the freezer. The 36-year-old shared the video on Facebook, prompting concerned residents to call the police.

Ø A Wal-Mart Shopper was recorded opening up a bottle of Listerine, gargling with it, depositing the used mouthwash back into the container, and then putting it all back on the shelf. Some claim that this was staged because the gargling spitter did not appear to break any safety seal.

There are more but this is enough…More than enough.

Don’t Ever Say Never

Back in the old days where I come from we used to wallow in our old day “ignorance” and say perfectly logical old fashioned things like, “Boys Will Be Boys” and “That Will Never Happen!”

If you are a regular Dear Reader of my Blog, you will recall that I have written about the State of Connecticut’s Financial Trials and Tribulations. Now I am reading in my newspaper that Connecticut can be Silly in other areas of insanity.

Connecticut allows athletes to compete based solely on their Expressed Gender Identity. To put it a different way, Boys Will Be Girls If They Think They Are Girls Or If They Want To Win A Bunch Of Girls Foot Races.

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I could now enter into a brilliantly worded presentation about why allowing boys to run against girls is Foolishness but I will let my newspaper’s words reporting what happened in a Connecticut Foot Race cut off all discussion, prove my case and I can then wrap up this Blog Posting and get back to solving the Mid-East Situation.

My Newspaper's Words... “As she and the other young women were two-thirds into the 100-meter race, two male competitors had “already finished and were doing the chest bump—the thing that the boys do when they do well.” (I did the underlining.)

I wonder, if 2 19 year old boys who were born as boys but who have now identified as 10 year old girls had just come in first and second in the 10 year old girls who identify as 10 year old girls foot race, would they still be doing Chest Bumps?

What is that I hear? Did you say, “Yea but…” and then started arguing with me? I can’t believe you are shouting at me! I going to hold my hands over my ears and hold my breath until you stop shouting at me. Why won’t you stop shouting at me? I don’t think you are going to ever stop shouting at me! I’m turning blue!...😰

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Where will this stop? As a regular reader of my blog, you already know I can see into the future with surprising accuracy. Here is what I am seeing at this moment.

I can see a bunch of Identifies As Female Used To Be Male Protestors walking up and down in front of a Connecticut Hospital with signs that read, “Unfair! This hospital will not allow us to come in and have our babies!”

I apologize for the above paragraph because we all know That Will Never Happen…Or will it?

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: Maybe I have been too harsh on Connecticut because there are 18 other States that are as Gender Identity Savvy as it is. Does that make you feel better?

Taxpayer to Congressman: Where Will We Get the Money? Congressman to Taxpayer: I Have No Idea Where The Money Will Come From. It’s Not My Job to Get the Money! My Job Is To Spend The Money!

All of a sudden many of the candidates for the Presidency of the Good Ole USofA are in a bidding war over Student Loan Debt Forgiveness…

Ø One candidate wants to forgive 75% of all student debt.

Ø Another candidate heard about the 75% and raised the forgiveness to 100%.

The way Washington, D.C. works don’t be surprised if the next bidder proposes 110% and calls the extra 10% a Bit of Lagniappe or Walking Around Money.

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No one doubts that student debt, which amounts to some $1.6 Trillion in total, is a burden. (Remember that’s 1 Thousand 6 Hundred Billion Dollars.)

Debt Forgiveness wouldn’t make that Debt Disappear. The Debt would still have to be paid. It will simply be transferred from Student Debt to the Federal Debt (which is already more than $22 Trillion and growing every minute).

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Wise Guy Questioner to Congressman: Which taxpayers will get stuck with the tab?

Congressman to Wise Guy Questioner: Are you really going to make me get specific about which Taxpayers? Alright, wise guy, I’ll tell you which Taxpayers will pay. All Taxpayers will pay.

Wise Guy Questioner to Congressman: Huh? You can’t be serious! (The Wise Guy Questioner is a cousin to John McEnroe.) Do you think that’s fair!

Congressman to Wise Guy Questioner: I can’t believe you will not accept “All Taxpayers” as a sufficient answer. OK, Mr. Wise Guy Smarty Pants, you tell me which Taxpayers you think I am being unfair to.

Wise Guy Questioner to Congressman: No need to get snippy. OK, I will give you a list of those Taxpayers Who Would Be Unfairly Taxed If They Were Saddled With Student Loan Forgiveness…

Ø How about taxpayers who don’t have Student Debt of their own?
>>Why should the 98.5 Million who did not go to college have to pay for those that did go to college?
>>Why should the 106 Million who did go to college but didn’t take out Student Loans have to pay for those who did take out Student Loans?

Ø How about taxpayers who went to college but, because of their own sacrifices or the sacrifices of their relatives, were able to come out of college Student Loan Debt Free?
>>Because their parents financed their education by working longer.
>>Because their parents took the tuition out of their own savings.
>>Because their grandparents took the tuition out of their retirement savings.
>>Because the students themselves generated their own tuition payments by working their way through college.
>>Because the students themselves generated their own tuition payments by deferring consumption and saving their money before they went to college and during their college years.

Ø Think about this point. On average, Americans who complete only high school earn $1 Million less over their lifetimes when compared to college graduates.
>>Is it fair that these people who are going to earn substantially less throughout their working lives will have to pay for those that are going to earn substantially more throughout their working lives?

Mr. Congressman, I know you are really smart otherwise you would not be in Congress but don’t you see that Tuition Debt Forgiveness punishes those who did the right thing by making sacrifices, those who had relatives who made sacrifices, those who acted wisely and frugally, as well as those who simply didn’t have the opportunity to go to college and That’s Just Not Fair!

My Dear Readers please raise your hand if you do not agree with the above paragraph.

My heavens! A bunch of you actually raised your hands! L

Are you kidding me even though I’m not kidding you?

Smartfella

Lagniappe:

Ø Back in the old days where I come from we had... Pay As You Go.

Ø Here in the new days we are about to have... You Go I Pay.

That’s Progress…Or is it?

The Slippery Slope Is In Overdrive

Euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, Holland and Belgium, as well as a growing number of U.S. states, including California, Colorado and most recently Maine, whose governor recently signed the Death with Dignity Act.

Death with Dignity is a Catchy Name for a law. Be afraid. Be very afraid of catchy names. Remember the Peacekeeper Missile? The implication was, if we blow them all up, they will stop shooting at us and we will have peace.

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New medical guidance in Canada, where the practice has been legal for three years for terminally ill patients, hints at the monstrous ways Assisted Suicide might be expanded in the coming years.

Did you just say, “Huh? Again I don’t know what Fella is talking about!” Here come the clarification bullets…

Ø We are standing with scalpel in hand ready to pounce on people who have agreed to be euthanized as soon as they are actually dead.

Ø We have always waited for the dying to die before we removed their organs but now more thought is being given to taking the organs from living, about to die, moaning and moving people.

Ø It is a medical fact that organs are better if they come from actual alive bodies (i.e.: kidney transplants).

Ø There are more and more people who are saying death can be caused by the removal of organs from those who have given up for the benefit of those that are viable (except for the organ that is failing).

In the bullets above I have used words that seem to say we are thinking about, considering, arguing about, planning for, etc. The truth is this kind of thing is actually happening where local laws permit such things to happen.

All of these happenings were unthinkable in the recent past but the Slippery Slope is Alive and Well and getting Slipperier.

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Let your mind wander with me for a bit…

Ø It is the finals or the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament in the not too distant future.

Ø Actually it is about to be the Final Point of the Finals.

Ø Pierre Wonderful is charging the net to put away the Final Point because his hapless opponent has just framed a shot that is now floating into perfect position to be the Final Point of the Finals.

Ø The set up is so perfect that the tennis ball looks as big as a basketball.

Ø As he reaches back to slam the tennis ball he is tackled by 2 Nerdy Guys in white coats.

The following conversation takes place as the Nerdy Guys scramble to put a tourniquet on Pierre’s serving arm…

Pierre Wonderful (PW)… “What the heck are you 2 Nerdy Guys doing?”

Nerdy Guys (NGs)… “Lay still. You have been selected.”

PW… “Selected by whom?”

NGs… “By the U.S. Department of Organ Removal and Re-Implantation.”

PW… “Selected for what?”

NGs… “To have several of your vital organs removed and given to a person who can make better use of them.”

PW… “But I’m not dead yet!”

NGs… “It won’t be long before you are dead because we are about to remove several of your vital organs.”

PW… “You can’t do this!”

NGs… “Yes we can. We have been given the authority to do this by Section 2, Sub-Section k of the Organ Removal for the Betterment of Society Law which was passed in 2,045. It plainly says that Society has a right to your organs and can take such organs as needed when needed.”

PW… “But I am important! I am a great tennis player and, if you hadn’t tackled me, I would have been the first player to win the Grand Slam since Rod What’s His Name back in 1969!”

NGs… “That’s not the kind of great that’s important to society as a whole. The person needing your living organs is a Renowned Scientist in the field of Scientific Stuff who is doing important research on issues that can benefit all of mankind and who has paid a lot of money to be at the top of the Highly Recognized and Important People of the World List.”

PW… “Wait! Wait! I object! I am impo r t a…”.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: This lagniappe is added on to show you that I did not make this up. If you read on, think about this as you do…

Isn’t it amazing how darn near anything can be made to sound logical on the Slippery Slope to You Can’t Be Serious!  

WSJ Article … Euthanasia and Organ Harvesting

About 30 euthanasia patients in Canada have donated their organs after death since 2016. On June 3 the Canadian Medical Association issued guidelines for how the process should work. The grim document describes how the organ donation and euthanasia decisions might be disentangled, but allows doctors to raise the possibility of organ donation with assisted-suicide patients. It also clarifies that organ removal should not begin until the patient is medically deceased and the heart has stopped beating.

But some experts quarrel with this restriction. Last year in a New England Journal of Medicine article, two Canadian medical researchers and a Harvard bioethicist argued that it could reduce the quality of donated organs. A superior model, they suggest, could be to kill the patient by removing his organs. After all, the best organs come from live people, like those who donate one of their kidneys.

Organs can be “compromised” if doctors have to wait until death—meaning minutes after the pulse has stopped. Even a gap of a few minutes between removal and transfer makes a difference. Organs would be in better shape if they were removed while the heart is still beating. Death by organ removal would be a more efficient method of organ harvesting for assisted-suicide patients.

This is more than a little ghoulish, and the New England Journal of Medicine authors admit some patients won’t want the organ harvesting to begin until they are dead. Others, they note hopefully, “may want not only a rapid, peaceful, and painless death, but also the option of donating as many organs as possible and in the best condition possible.”

Teen Love Letters to America

I seem to be getting less Foolish lately. 

Maybe that’s because the Foolishness in the world around me is getting so Crazy that it’s no longer Funny.

I hope not because we need to laugh as much today as we ever have.

I’ll get back to Foolishness as soon as I can but, in the meantime, please read this article.

Teen Love Letters to America

Students at a Queens middle school for immigrants pour out their appreciation.

By 

Bob Brody

July 4, 2019 2:20 pm ET

Migrant children play soccer at a shelter in Homestead, Fla., April 19. PHOTO: WILFREDO LEE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

“I came to the United States two years ago,” wrote Sara, because of “the civil war which made it unsafe for us to stay” in Yemen. “We had to leave to save our lives.” Sara, 13, plans to become a physician.

“A lot of fighting, robbery, murder and political problems” forced Taslima and her family to come to America from Bangladesh three years ago. The eighth-grader intends to be a cardiologist or neurologist. “I will study hard,” she promises.

“The situation in our country is horrible,” wrote Milagros, also 13, about Venezuela. Her family arrived here three years ago “looking for a better place to live.” Milagros dreams of becoming the first Latina to start a company valued at $1 billion. 

So go three letters from teenagers I recently received. In December the Journal published “Requiem for a Doorman,” my essay about Carlos Nino, who’d worked in my apartment building. I knew him for 40 years and called him a friend.

Carlos came to the U.S. from Colombia at 18 with little education or money. A model citizen, he worked two jobs and put both his sons through college. He retired prematurely to care for his ailing wife, only to die of heart failure months after her cancer went into remission.

Soon after my essay appeared, I got a letter from Evelyn Gomez, a veteran social-studies teacher at IS 235, the Academy for New Americans, a public middle school in Astoria, Queens, that serves newly arrived immigrants from grades six through eight. She had read the piece to her 20 students. Those students then sent me letters, too.

They explained why they had migrated—from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and elsewhere—to the U.S. Some had fled hardship. Most acknowledged pursuing educational and economic opportunities all but unavailable back home. They plan to be computer scientists, lawyers, dentists and mechanical engineers.

I was invited to speak at the school, among the few in New York City that specialize in educating immigrant children. In mid-May I gave my talk to some 150 students, teachers and parents. I told why I had honored Carlos in my essay. I revealed my own immigrant history, with both my grandfathers coming here in the early 20th century and eventually starting families and successful businesses. I explained, too, why my essays so often pay tribute to Queens, the most ethnically diverse place on the planet. Finally, I urged the students to write about themselves to benefit generations to come.

Afterward, a student handed me a packet containing handmade cards with personal messages inside from 81 of his schoolmates. Card after card spoke of families coming to our country to seek better lives and better futures.

I could write back to wish these kids luck. But that would feel redundant. Living here now, they’re already getting all the luck they’ll likely ever need.

Mr. Brody, an executive and essayist in New York City, is author of the memoir “Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age.”

After The Bomb

Only Two of Us Are Left … One Is a Conservative and the Other Is a Liberal

This Blog Idea was originally published in Foolishness...Or is it? in February 2009 but I know you forgot all about it, so I have updated it and published it again. I bet you are excited…Or are u?

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The big war the Kingston Trio sang about in the 1960s has just come to an end. As it turns out the only two survivors happen to be in the United States. It is fortunate they are staggering around in close proximity to each other and, within a very few days, they find each other.

Somehow they know that they are the only two left on all of Planet Earth. They do the only logical thing. They set up housekeeping. They tell each other that the return of the human race depends on them and only them. They even start calling each other Adam & Eve.

One afternoon they get into discussing politics. A heated argument ensues and they become really angry at each other.

After dinner, still angry about the other's political beliefs, they go to sleep in separate bedrooms.

About 3 am the male gets out of his separate bed and sneaks into the female's separate bedroom and stabs her to death while she is asleep.

Within minutes he dies of the poison she had put in his dinnertime meatloaf.

Are you wondering which one was the Conservative and which one was the Liberal? Does it make any difference?

I will leave you with this thought … There are a lot of things in our world more important than politics.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: In case you have forgotten what the Kingston Trio sang about so long ago, here are their lyrics…

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off
 And we will all be blown away

The actual music is much better. Click below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z26XJbnpeA

Strange Numbers of World War I

Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia were assassinated on June 28, 1914.

World War I started exactly one month later on July 28, 1914 when Austria declared war on Serbia .

The war ended at 11am on 11/11/18 (the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month).

The Versailles Treaty officially ending the war was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly 5 years after the Assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand.

Here are the strangest numbers of them all…The License Plate of the car the Arch Duke Ferdinand was riding in when he was assassinated was A111-118. It does not take that much of a stretch to read that plate as 11/11/18.

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: World War I was an awful thing. The deaths were astounding. Don’t ask me to explain how the total deaths attributed to such a great long lasting war comes out to be An Exact Number but Total Deaths are recorded as 17 Million!

We had to wait all the way to World War II to surpass World War I for making people dead…Or did we?

Actually the world did not have to wait any time at all because while the war was still going on in 1918 the H1N1 Worldwide Flu Pandemic had already started. Between the Spring of 1918 and into 1919 and 1920 50 Million would die worldwide. 

Does not seem fair does it?

My Wife’s Grandfather was 1 of the 50 Million... 

Cornelius O'Brien