1433 Salt Water

(Mount St. Nittany, PA) -- Worthy water supply is a problem in much of the world.  Countries are ever looking for ways to desalinate their seawater.

Here at the Wessays™ Secret Mini Mountain Laboratory, we are going in the opposite direction. We add salt.

Explanation: The water here is so hard you can make hammers out of it. There’s so much calcium in it, the deed to your house comes with a guarantee that if you drink 16 ounces a day, you will never get osteoporosis.

The calcium clogs pipes, laundry machines, coffee makers, shower heads, faucets, and taps for the garden hose.  It destroys hot water tanks, leaves blotches on pots made of freight train- grade steel.

It turns the outdoor plants white if you water them.  White roses are attractive.  But only if they’re born that way.  White powdered ferns, ewe bushes and red maple trees are not.

Calcium vaccinates bath soap, shampoo, dish washing liquid and laundry detergent against sudsing.

So we knuckled under to science and had installed a softening machine.  It looks something like a nuke plant scaled down to 5% actual size.  Tanks. Meters. Plumbing. More plumbing.

And it eats salt. Not sea salt, not kosher salt, not iodized salt, not flavored salt. Just… salt. The Water Softening for Dummies website isn’t clear about what it does but is clear as smooth water that the salt and the water never touch.

The salt tank holds about 200 pounds worth and needs replenishing now and then.

But all of a sudden, the soap is soapier, the pots don’t stain and the water tastes like, well, water. (As opposed to well-water.)

Salt is cheap.  It doesn’t have a “use by” or “expires” date.  The only difference between the “official” salt for softeners and the stuff you buy in the supermarket is it’s chunkier and dirtier.

Also, Waldbaum’s and ShopRite don’t have 50 pound bags on the shelf.

And we’re on the lookout to make sure all that salt doesn’t increase the softening machine’s blood pressure.  

Shrapnel:

--Groundhog day approaches, and in New York, mayor Bill de Blasio has wriggled out of another opportunity to cradle a creature in a photo op, since last year’s rat, Charlotte, turned her back on him, fell and later died. Staten Island’s Groundhogs won’t be tamed like those in Punxsutawney. In 2009, a predecessor hog bit then- mayor Mike Bloomberg who has since recovered.

--Congratulations to 25 year NBC veteran and whipping target Ann Curry who’s forming a new media start up.  When they lopped Curry off the Today Show they gave her a big contract which is near expiration. So they’re lopping her off once again.

Grapeshot

-Question for Mike Huckabee:  We know you’re a professional preacher but do you really think it’s your place to tell the Obama daughters not to listen to Beyonce’s music because it might lead them astray while you try to lead everyone else … who knows where?

-Question for Woody Allen: what makes you think your Hollywood experience has gotten you ready to do a movie for Amazon com?

Question for Google Drive: When will you allow macros so I don’t have to type...

...I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2015 … 156 times a year?

1414 The News Bar

This corner of the room has long said that no news organization can be excellent unless it’s in staggering distance from at least one decent saloon.

But that’s not what this is about.  Wine lovers have their fancy restaurants.  Sports lovers have a wide selection of sports bars.

But news junkies are out in the cold.

Think about it.  You want to watch baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, tennis, even chess… you have your choice of places to get sloshed.

And it’s all on TV. ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN342, Fox Sports, Fox Sports Regional.  MLB network, HBO, NHL Network, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, ABC Sports, Bleacher Report, and on and on.

But news junkies have their networks, too. CNN, HLN, MSNBC, Faux, CNBC, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, the Weather Channel, Russia Today and CCTV in English from China.   And for thoroughly modern news watchers, there’s E!

So while we’re outnumbered, we’re not outgunned.

But where are the specialty bars?

You want to see the Jets or the Penguins, you go to Biff’s Bar or Tug’s House of Sports or something named for some washed up ex player for the Atlanta Braves or the Washington Redskins.  (Attention PC police, note the example teams.)

Where is the Murrow Lounge?  Or Huntley & Brinkley’s Steak House and News Tavern? Or Farley’s House of Jameson and Stout? (No ice or we’ll throw you out.)

Just imagine what any of this would look like.  Dark wood, low lights.  A dozen big screen TVs scattered around, all with the sound up just as they are in a gazillion saloons called “The Dugout” or “The Gridiron.”

Come on in and cheer your team.  The Republicans. The Democrats.  The Military Industrial Complex.   The cops, the robbers, the snowstorm, the heatwave, the bus or plane or train accident.  No matter where you live, you could stop in and get into the bag while you watch Jodi Arias claim she didn’t kill her lover and wasn’t even there.  Or she was there but it was two people in Ninja costumes who did it.  Or she was there and she did it but it was self defense.

It’s much better to watch that kind of thing in the company of similar fans and while numbing yourself with Jim Beam.

Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel, OPEC, global warming, riots, epidemics, vanishing airliners and kidnapped kids all become less depressing when viewed through the haze of 100 proof vodka.

Then, there’s the picking up and hooking up aspect.  If you’re wearing a Yankee jersey in The Play Ball Lounge, and she’s wearing a Red Sox hat, you know better than to approach.

Team clothing is optional in The Newsroom Cafe.  So you have to be brave and take your chances.

Or just keep your eye on the big screen.

Shrapnel:

--OPEC is about to meet.  They’re going to “decide” on prices as oil continues to tumble.”  And they choose Vienna because it’s far away from every oil producing country… a little bit of show off to show how they can be petroleum spendthrifts and you can’t.

--Happy Thanksgiving, y’all. Don’t overeat.  It’ll slow you when you battle the crowds on Black Friday.

--Because of the nature of the radio/TV beast, I’ve worked Thanksgiving and every other holiday you can name.  But others shouldn’t have to. Please stay home on Thanksgiving Day.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

1412 Cosby

Even in his mega-star years there was one thing Bill Cosby never had to worry about.  He need never have feared he’d awaken, open his bedroom door and be overrun by a stampede of women eager to push him back onto the bed.

If true, all the dirt that has surfaced about him -- sometimes resurfaced --  makes you wonder what goes on in his head.

But a mega star he was.  Rich, famous and beloved.  Now, it turns out, rich, famous, beloved family man, Cliff Huxtable -- Dr. Huxtable -- was prescribing and dosing patients with more than “two aspirins and call me in the morning.”

Nothing like a couple of roofies to knock a doc off the pedestal.  If he actually did it.

If it was one woman one time and the case was settled and everyone is keeping silent, it still would be terrible. But it still would be one thing.  Now,  there are too many charges to just ignore.

Yes, innocent until proven guilty.  But.

Cosby is 77, and his career is still in high gear.  Or at least it was getting back there until recently.

Netflix was planning a comedy special for him.  NBC was developing a series.  Those have been scrapped.  TV Land has stopped showing reruns of “The Cosby Show.” He backed out of a booking on Letterman.  Circling the wagons.

What he didn’t back out of was an interview with NPR’s Scott Simon.  When Simon questioned him about the allegations, Cosby clammed up.

There was no comment, not even a throw away “no comment.”  Just silence.  Long silences are capital crimes in radio.  But Simon -- a decent and professional interviewer -- couldn’t even force a grunt out of Cosby, let alone an answer or defense.

The comment not heard around the world.

Back to that lack of a lineup outside the bedroom door:  If Bill Cosby felt he needed sex from a stranger, it couldn’t have been all that difficult to come by.  After all, star, rich, famous.

But to impose himself -- if that’s what he did -- on unconscious women in his hotel rooms or rental cottages is a career ender.  Maybe even if he didn’t.

Silent screen star Fatty Arbuckle was tried three times for rape and manslaughter after a woman died following a party he threw in 1921.

The first two juries hung.  The third acquitted.  Arbuckle was a pioneer comic, one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood.  He coached Charlie Chaplin, discovered Bob Hope and Buster Keaton.  But after the acquittal, his star died.

Cosby is heading in the same direction no matter what happens in a courtroom or behind the locked doors of a settlement conference in the carpeted mahogany paneled office of a Hollywood lawyer.

And whatever he did or didn’t do, his actions now show contempt for his audience, the same audience who made him rich, famous and beloved.  In show business, no court ruling is necessary and no recovery is possible.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2014

821 Let There Be Light

821 Let There Be Light

Bill the radio engineer liked to buy his equipment on the cheap. Not like it was his money, but it made him look good to the bean-counting boss. Sometimes, cheap was okay, sometimes not.

One of the nots was this tape recorder that reproduced voice and music and made it sound like fish gargling. We brought that to his attention and he showed us the specs. Perfect this, perfect that. Everything perfect. And then he hooked up his test equipment and showed us that the spec sheet was accurate.

But it still sounded like fish gargling.

You can’t always believe the specs.

This brings us to those corkscrew light bulbs with the mercury poison inside waiting to escape. If you break the bulb, you have to call a Hazmat team. But what doesn’t escape from these bulbs is... light.

You can make measurements from hell to breakfast, and read all the stats and even check them out. But like engineer bill’s tape recorder, the bulbs are the sight equivalent of gargling fish.

Never mind that they kind of have to warm up before they even gargle. Never mind that they (allegedly) last forever and a day. Never mind that they save all kinds of electricity. Try to read beneath one of them.

The day is fast approaching that we won’t be able to buy “regular” light bulbs. So, there goes the literacy rate. But we’ve saved the planet... those of us who haven’t contaminated it with mercury.

A planet of illiterates. Why? Because they can’t see to read.

Wait until they start using these things in hospital operating rooms, dental offices and baseball stadiums.

Dr. Billybob puts down his scalpel and takes off his mask. “I’m sorry. We couldn’t save him.” But doc, it was only a tonsillectomy. “Tonsillectomy? Then why did you let me amputate his leg?”

Bottom of the ninth. Three men on. Corkscrew lights giving the stadium a romantic glow. Here’s the pitch. He swings and misses. The umpire: “Ball three.” Here’s the pitch, he swings and hits it out of the park. “Ball four!”

The other extreme, of course, is Halogen. Plenty bright. And so hot your desk lamp can double as a cook stove or an instrument of arson.


Shrapnel:

--The unofficial but authorized NBC Alumni/Retiree Association, calls itself “Peacock North.” Wonder if they have to change 51% of the name what with the new majority ownership of the company. It’s hard to figure out why they call it “North” instead of “Peacock South,” since it seems like most of the members live in Florida and Arizona.

--Ever notice that there are some people at work and you don’t really know what they do but when they’re out nothing gets done? It’s important to identify these people and befriend them if you’re not one of them. And it’s equally important not to be one of them.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011